Buttered Cod and Assorted Cakes
She had had her hair done and fluffed up with pleasure at our effusive, but nonetheless genuine, compliments. Her spirit had returned. Everybody seemed lifted somehow - lighter, happier. On our way out I glanced into the canteen to read the menu for that night's supper - buttered cod, sherry trifle and assorted cakes. The tables were laid with pink tablecloths. Apparently more and more residents are choosing to eat alone in their rooms. Small, warm rooms with a photograph of each inhabitee sellotaped to the door with their name, handwritten on a sticker, beneath. The photographs are snapshots, taken by family or friends, usually at a party or get together and generally feature the person in question wearing a paper hat and smiling, with a raised glass in hand, at the camera.
'The Chase' came on the TV as we sat with her and there was a question about the father of some old testament prophet.
'Adam!', he shouted at the TV.
"Adam and Eve and PinchMe went down to the river to bathe. Adam and Eve were drowned. Who do you think was saved?.." she sang, her little frame shaking with repressed giggles at our answering groans.
The bridge between childhood and adulthood narrows. Outside the entrance to the home are an array of garden ornaments, scattered amidst an assortment of plant pots. Just by the door stand plastic versions of the two old men from the Muppets sitting on a bench and Bill & Ben The Flower Pot men.
A sense of the possiblity of preserving one's own individual aesthetic is eroding, falling away into a world of loud cheerfulness, airless warmness, bed jackets and children's toys. Does it really matter? I just don't know. And sometimes I am made weary of carrying this not knowing.
I think, in the end kindness is enough. I think, it just has to be.
