BENEATH THE BENCH
Beneath the bench, there is a foxglove.
It certainly doesn’t belong there. Far too late in the season. But there it is. Violet and defiant.
He doesn’t disturb it as he sits down on the bench with her name on it. ‘Geraldine Ann Johnson. Beloved wife of Gerald. 1941 – 2019’ People never failed to be amused by their names. Husband and wife. Geraldine and Gerald. She would always laugh along, too.
Gerald’s pencil ( he never writes a first draft in ink) hovers above the two lines on his notepad: ‘come sit beside me, my old friend/there is so much to say.’
But he can’t find the next line. All he can think to say is that he barely recognises the grumpy old man he’s become since she started hiding. He likes hiding, prefers it to dead.
Because she is hiding. With him and yet not. Here, but tucked out of sight. Always just beyond the next corner.
Gerald writes another line and then crosses it out. Rubbish. He closes his eyes. And then into the quiet corner of the graveyard comes a small voice. The tiniest meow. A cat.
Small, dirty, white with black patches, appears in the hedgerow beside the bench.
“Hello,” Gerald says. “Who do we have we here?” The cat stares at him. Gerald knows nothing about cats, or any animal, really. He was always against them, no matter how many times Geraldine asked. Didn’t want them tracking dirt inside.
The cat speaks another tiny meow. All Gerald has in his bag is a ham sandwich, wrapped in cling film, crusts cut off, just like Geraldine used to make. So, he takes the ham from between the bread and holds it out to the cat. The cat sniffs the air, but doesn’t move. “Come on, lad,” Gerald says, holding very still. Slowly, the cat approaches and takes a little bite.
And as he eats, he begins to purr.
The next day, when Gerald returns to Geraldine’s bench, the cat is waiting for him, sitting with his front paws neatly together. He gives another of his tiny meows when Gerald comes into view.
So, Gerald and the cat now have a standing engagement. And each morning, Gerald has something to look forward to: his little monochromatic friend who is so very fond of ham.
The vet clearly finds Gerald adorable, which Gerald does not enjoy. Having grey hair, using a walking stick and taking your flat cap off when you come inside, do not make one adorable. It is all just time and good manners.
“Such a sweet marking on his leg,” the vet says as she checks the cat for a microchip. “Looks like half a love-heart.”
Foxglove (nickname ‘Foxy’) moves into Gerald’s house the following day. When Foxy tires of his toys, Gerald looks for something to entertain him. The string he seeks is in the messy drawer (as it should be) but something else catches his eye. At the bottom of the drawer, under the spent batteries and unmarked keys to old garages and sheds unremembered, is an envelope. On the front, in her neat writing, are the words ‘for Gerald, on the occasion of my passing.’
And inside, Geraldine has written on a small sheet of writing paper: ‘Do you remember when my mother was dying and she said that she would send a dove when she was gone, to let me know she was OK? Well, a few weeks after her funeral, when I went to her house to begin packing up her things, I took a break in the garden and on the bench beside me, there settled a mourning dove. And I knew it was my mother’s way of saying “hello.” Now, I know you don’t like pets, but I’ve always thought you’d suit one.
So, darling Gerald, when I am gone, I shall send a cat.’
Marianne Cronin is a lecturer in Higher Education, performs improv comedy with Box of Frogs and is the author of The One Hundred
Years of Lenni and Margot (Doubleday). Her simple thing is:
“to be cosy indoors, reading a book, while it’s raining outside.”