Ebb Tide

Jean Renew

Six a.m. Switch on the radio. Although the pale light through the eastern window is not quite morning, six a.m. to seven a.m. gives us time to wake, savour the familiar warmth of being together, and perhaps dream for a little while that we are still as we once were. We pretend that we are listening to the news, but he is dozing again and I am searching for the bone of a storey, the core idea for a poem. Seven a.m. It's very important to get out of bed now. To delay is to invite further collapse of our illusion, which in it's own time will collapse anyhow.

So: dress quickly, whisk yesterday's cloth3ese into the basket, and arrange his clean ones in the correct order. "Breakfast is ready in fifteen minutes!" I call cheerfully but first I do a quick scribble in the workroom to record that elusive early morning idea. I open the veranda door and golden sunlight streams in with a fragrance of moist garden. A strange bird is calling from the mangroves, what is it? And my orchid has a new flower, deep dark velvety purple against pale green leaves, did God who made him blind, make thee? A jet plane, a silver speck leaves a curve of white in a cloudless sky. He used to handle his Kittyhawk so well, he was flight captain.

I measure cereal, slice banana, make toast, make tea, count tablets, spread toast, pour teas. Put everything exactly in its right place. No sounds yet from the bedroom. I'll sneak another short chapter of my Library book. He feels "out of it" if I read in his company but of course he is "out of it" most of the time. How can he be involved, when most sight is gone and incentive has been sapped and sapped again but a series of cruel strokes? Why did it happen to him? I'm almost the same age whit if it happens to me? I pull down the shutter on that thought, blot it out quickly.

Today is my day and nothing must spoil it. My writer's club meets today and god forgive me, I can be myself for two hours. I can communicate, argue, laugh, listen, and be in contact with others. But before leaving home I arrange on the kitchen bench a cup, tea bag, sugar. I fill the electric jug, plug it into the socket and leave the biscuit tin nearby.

Home again, I ask did he make a cup of tea for himself. "Well no." He points.
The teabag string is twirled and knotted around the spoon handle. Because the breakfast cereal is in carton similar to a milk carton, there is spilt cereal all over the bench and in the cup. I clean up and make sandwiches for lunch. He puts a cassette into his Talking Book machine. It's an Agatha Christie crime story. We sit and hear it together, commenting on the action and the plot. The phone rings, the grandchildren are coming to stay the weekend. "This", he says "will either kill me or cure me." Mentally I thank heavens for us having two shower rooms and two toilets. A certain amount of privacy can be maintained.

We take the children fishing on the beach below the rock wall. He wont come to the beach but sits in the car above, while the kids and stiff old me clamour down the rock wall. He participates by hearing the shrieks, shouts and violent arguments, proof that his grandchildren are enjoying themselves. A miracle! Nine years old has caught a fish. Shouts, "I'll take it up and show Grandpa!" and with the fish swinging wildly in one hand he speeds up the rock wall, stones cutting skinny knees and sharp burrs sticking to the soles of bare feet. Backing down again a few moments later: "I showed it to Grandpa and he's coming down by the steps to have a go."

Here he comes, cautiously along the beach with paralysed left foot dragging a furrow in the sand, homing in on the noise of his family confronting the elementary facts of nature. They are conducting a detailed autopsy plus funeral service on the fish. "In the midst of life, it is in death", intones doctor 10 year old, holding up a fistful on entrails. The victorious angler will have two tiny fish fillets tonight, if he still wants them.

On Mondays we have a job, we go to work every Monday. Our RSL has a small War Museum and we ensure it is open to the public one morning a week. Tending the museum has been rated as a boring job that no one else wanted, but it is a job that we can handle. Sometimes a coach load of tourists spend and hours with us. They are not trouble. He either sits by the door to welcome them or if he feels too wobbly for that he sits at a table leafing through some old papers he cant read and hoping to pass as just another visitor.

Driving home together I notice the sea beside the road looks like liquid silver with each island standing distinctly alone before a backdrop of intense blue sky. A moment of perfect to hold and to remember, Like other memories. Memories of taking the boat on the water between the islands, the boat suddenly rocking and jerking with the convulsive actions of the large mackerel we hooked, pulled on board, killed, bled and threw into the ice box all within a few minutes. Strength, decision, coordination, the beauty of perfect muscular action. Where are they now? The mackerel had them until second before death but we have lost them and never be that way again, our life tides are ebbing slowly. Do we regret that we had those skills, we used them as we did? No. We as much as the fish are part of the great web of life. We are born, we struggle to do the best we can and when the end comes we hope it comes quickly and we made sure ti did to the mackerel. Who will do this for us?

THE END