By JENNI DAICHES.
Evelyn Adams fell down the stairs. She lay sprawled awkwardly across the floor and the two bottom steps. For a few moments it was hard to breathe. When she tried to move there was a stabbing pain just below her left breast. So she kept still, taking quick, shallow gulps of air. Can’t lie here all day, she said silently. Cautiously, she lifted her right arm. There’ll be bruises, she said, silently again. She moved first one leg, then the other. Can’t be broken. She raised her head from the hall carpet, very slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Bloody hell. She reached for the banister. Pain burned her chest. Gripped the banister. Slowly, slowly pulled herself to her feet. Christ almighty. She started to shiver. Shock. Her eyes refused to focus. But she didn’t need to see to make her way to the kitchen, one hand sliding along the wall. Hot sweet tea. Don’t like sugar in my tea but hot sweet tea is the thing. Kettle. Oh my god, this is sore. Leant on the counter while the kettle came to the boil. Mug, tea bag, milk in the neat little jug she’d bought in Oxfam. Matching bowl with sachets of sugar she’d filched from cafés. Well, not filched. You pay for them, don’t you?
Evelyn Adams sat down on a kitchen chair and drank hot sweet tea, holding the mug (a present from one of her daughters, a room of your own, it said) with both hands, not sure she could rely on one. She put the mug down on the table. Then, carefully, she ran two fingers over her left ribs. Not broken, surely. But how can you tell? Her friend Julie had broken an ankle tripping over her Border terrier but waited three days before she hobbled to accident and emergency. Maybe it is broken. What do I do? Phone for an ambulance? No point. Have to wait hours. It’s not a stroke or a heart attack. I’m not bleeding. It’s just a broken rib, or maybe not a broken rib.
She finished the tea, stood up tentatively, made her way to the front room, placing one foot reluctantly in front of the other. The flowering cherry trees along the street were just coming into blossom. She lowered herself onto the sofa, holding her left side with her right hand. Reached the age of 67 without ever breaking a bone. Until now maybe. Old bones getting brittle.
She put a hand to her head. I didn’t hit my head, did I? No concussion. It was not yet two years since Bill slipped on stone steps, greasy after rain, hit his head and lay unconscious in a hospital bed for three weeks and two days, at which point he died. Evelyn had been married to Bill Adams for nearly 40 years. Such a cheery soul, her neighbour said after the funeral. I always felt better after a chat with Bill. Such a gift, that talent for making people feel better about life. Yes, Bill had always been one for looking on the bright side. It used to annoy her sometimes. His determination to be upbeat could weigh heavily when she was in one of her dark places, when she resisted the letting in of even a faint glimmer of light. But she and their two daughters had chosen Ewan McCall’s ‘The joy of living’ to be played at his funeral. Lovely choice, her neighbour said. Not a dry eye. Thank you, Evelyn said (why?), a damp tissue crushed in her hand.
Three sparrows and a blue tit were quarrelling over the bird feeder. Here she was, still alive, bloody awful pain but no blood. How old Adam in paradise managed to donate a rib was hard to imagine. Why a rib? What was so special about a rib? Was it just that we’ve all got a rib to spare? Spare Rib. She and her college friend Sarah used to read it avidly. But then she married Bill. Lovely man, Sarah conceded, but old school, isn’t he? Evelyn couldn’t disagree. Not much use domestically, her lovely, cheery Bill. Marvelled at his daughters when they arrived, so beautiful in their fresh fragility, their delicate eyelids, their tiny curved fingers, but clueless when it came to the practicalities.
Must have hurt like hell to have a rib removed. Not exactly a transplant, more a re-creation. An improved model? Maybe that’s why so many men (not Bill) seem resentful when women do well. Maybe they’re thinking, we sacrificed a rib – for this? And anyway what’s the big deal with childbirth? What’s that compared with parting with a rib?
Of course, it could have been the other way. Maybe it was Eve who gifted a rib. More likely if you think about it. And just like men – it was all men, wasn’t it, who wrote down the words? – just like men to reverse the story.
She missed Bill. Forty years nearly. We were good companions, Bill and I, she said aloud with no one listening, gazing out of the window at the quarrelling birds and the cherry blossom. The clock in the hall struck one. Lunchtime, but she felt queasy, didn’t want to eat. I could phone a daughter, but they’re working, busy lives, families to look after, and too far away to rush to her aid.
I’ll just sit for a bit, close my eyes, she said silently. Bill’s dead but I’m alive. The joy of living. Thank you, Bill. Nothing you can do for a broken rib, anyway, read that somewhere. Just have to let it heal. It will pass, he’d say, taking her hand, and you will feel better.
♦
JENNI DAICHES is the author of three novels: Letters from the Great Wall and Forgive (both Luath Press 2006 and 2015), Borrowed Time (Vagabond Voices 2016). And two collections of poetry: Mediterranean (Scottish Cultural Press 1995) and Smoke (Kettilonia 2005). As Jenni Calder she has written extensively on literary and historical topics, most recently Essence of Edinburgh: An Eccentric Odyssey (Luath Press 2018) and The Burning Glass: The Life of Naomi Mitchison (Sandstone Press 2019). She lives near the Forth Bridge.
