Time to Let Go (4 page)

“Well, I better go,” sai
d Minnie quickly. “All the best. Bye Biddy, great seeing you!”

“Yes, nice meeting you too.
” 

After Minnie had left them there was an awkward silence. Walter found it difficult having to steer their conversations as much as he had to these days. He had always been the quiet one of the couple and had let his wife talk about what
ever she wanted to. Now that she was less forthcoming he had to rise to the challenge. In awkward moments like this, when he saw that she was struggling to make sense of what had just been said, he had to think quickly to come up with a new topic to distract her. The things he could easily discuss, such as football or sport, were not always suitable as they could easily confuse his wife. It pained him to see her helpless, feeling inadequate and deeply isolated. Yet, chatting away just wasn’t his forte and especially not when he put himself under pressure, as he so often did.

The waitress brought a halt to his dark thoughts
by bringing over their order and Biddy became completely besotted with her flapjack, which took up all of her attention and seemed to reboot her mind.

After they had finished,
Walter went to pay the bill while Biddy went to the ladies’ room. Luckily today she came back out properly dressed and tidy; he was paranoid after she had once locked herself in a cubicle and had a hard time getting back out. He knew that the mundane and mechanical tasks in life were still generally easy to perform for his wife but some days the responsibility for her weighed heavily on him and after what he thought had been an embarrassing interlude with Minnie, he felt it particularly keenly.

The couple went into a small supermarket on the way home and bought some provisions. Biddy had become very quiet and obedient, as if she was sensing that Walter
felt stressed and needed some respite. He thought she looked almost subdued and sad and it made him feel guilty. It was her who was suffering, her who had lost touch with reality and who was isolated, yet even now she seemed to take responsibility for the family and its emotional wellbeing. Her caring attitude was still unbroken, underneath all of the confusion and mindlessness.

Hanna, in the meantime, had worked her way through step, Pilates and yoga classes. It had done her a world of good and the
predicted endorphin rush had certainly helped to make her feel more at ease. The despair of the night had vanished into the back of her mind and she spent several hours window shopping in Carnaby Street and Oxford Street. At least London was a great place for losing oneself in the masses and she enjoyed that nobody cared who she was or what she was doing.

She rang her parents’ house a few times but nobody answered and she decided not to leave a message in case it didn’t sound upbeat enough. She did not want to alarm her father about her own challen
ging state of affairs, only to sound him out if a visit would be helpful or even possible. She was unaware how far her mother’s condition had deteriorated over the last few months and suddenly felt guilty at the realisation of how long she had not been to see them. In light of the death on the plane, life seemed suddenly very fragile to the stewardess and she worried about her mother’s wellbeing.

Most of her London friends were working during the day and would not be able to spare more time for her than a quick hour at lunch – if that. Suburban people commuting into town normally had a schedule for tho
se lunches and did not have the luxury of availability at short notice. Living a life of continuous change and frequent disruption, Hanna was not organised enough to plan meetings far enough ahead and so these lunch dates just didn’t happen anymore. In the big city of millions, where she had plenty of friends, Hanna often felt very lonely.

It was hard to keep a tab on where in the world her flying f
riends were at any given time; schedules rarely coincided favourably and this week was particularly bereft of companions. 

She switched on her phone and browsed through the list of contacts but she could not decide if and whom to call. Without her initiative the phone sprang into action telling her of missed calls, text messages and voicemails but none of them inspired her. A few unknown numbers suggested that this was official business and she was not ready for that just yet. The only people she could think of to call right now were her two brothers, but neither of them answered their phones. She didn’t leave a message for them either. What was there to tell? She had just wanted to hear their voices.

She sat in a vegetarian restaurant run by Hare Krishna monks, an oasis of peace next to bustling and lively Soho Square. The place lacked decorations and was almost as clinical as a canteen, but the few other people here were smiling and happy. Hanna had hoped that their positive spirit might rub off on her and for a while it did, until she saw the pub next door, heaving with people laughing together and chatting away in large groups, seemingly without the slightest care in the world, and Hanna felt completely alone again. She ordered her food and picked up a newspaper but today she did not have the attention span to read anything either. A murder, an accident and a natural disaster in Asia – there was nothing but misery and a sense of doom settled itself over her mind.

In the Korhonen family home Biddy sat down with the same newspaper and read a few articles over and over, out loud, then quiet, then out loud again. While she was obviously enjoying herself, Walter had the opportunity to dedicate a little time to his hobbies. Since it was such a beautiful day he went outside to do some gardening, an activity that always relaxed him. The family had taken such pride in their garden and after he had retired, Walter had planted huge rows of vegetable and flower beds. There was a huge lawn and several fruit trees and bushes. At first he had tried to keep Biddy involved in the gardening, until she mistook weeding for harvesting and pulled out unripe potatoes and carrots instead of grass and other unwelcome plants in the beds. As his wife needed more supervision, he had less time to do the garden work. He now even employed a gardener but deeply resented having to waste so much money and not being able to do things himself.

His knee had been pla
ying up for the last few years and was forcing him to give up some of his favourite sports as well: tennis was out of the question now and of course running, too. In a way it seemed good timing because if he were physically still able to do everything that he used to do, it would have been a bigger loss and much harder for him to care for Biddy in the same way. On the other hand, Biddy had been a distinctively loving and giving friend, mother and wife as long as he had known her, and maybe it would have been easy to sacrifice time and hobbies for her.

Since the signs of her disease had become more apparent
, Walter found it much quieter in the garden than before. He noticed how overgrown the hedges had become and thought he could detect signs of neglect on the other side of it as well. He knew he had been too busy to trim them regularly, but to think that the enthusiastic gardeners next door had not cut back their side of it seemed unusual. Did they deliberately keep it thick like this so it would act as a visual shield? Or was that his paranoia again?

Afte
r half an hour of weeding, he started to get an uneasy feeling and decided to go inside and check up on Biddy. His son Henrik urged him never to leave Biddy alone at all, which Walter felt was far too dramatic. On the other hand, only the other day Biddy had tried to press clothes and had left the iron on top of one of his shirts on the board. It was only by chance that he had come into the room in time and prevented a fire. Better to be safe than sorry he thought and went inside. Reassuringly, Biddy was still reading the paper, peacefully and happy. ‘Well, enough of the gardening in any case’, he thought to himself and got ready to cook lunch.

S
ince Biddy had become ill, preparing food was another challenge for him. Even though she had been a good cook, there was now too much that could go wrong with an inattentive mind like hers: she would forget to stir, leave the gas switched on, walk away from the kitchen and start something entirely different. An accident was just waiting to happen. Walter had taken evening classes to learn the craft but he did so with little success.

Some friends, neighbours and relatives chipped in by bringing food for freezing or delivering fresh food every so often, possibly because they felt unable to help in any other way. Life would be easier
with ready-made meals but he resented that idea. He had set his mind on it that he would repay his wife for all the good she had done in her life by taking responsibility for the feeding of the family himself, regardless of how humble his efforts were.

He had a long way to go
but at least he had stopped burning most of his dishes and seemed to have grasped the basics. He was even able to make soups all by himself. He used a blender for his home grown vegetables and chose whatever needed to be eaten at the time. The ever changing and often unusual combinations of ingredients which he put together always tasted fine to him, even if Biddy often appeared less eager in devouring her portions.

At the beginning of his efforts
, Biddy had taught him a trick or two but she was in the dreadful beginning phase of the disease, where frustration dominated her every day and she had scolded him harshly for every mistake that he made.

“No, Walter!
” she had cried out when he tried to make soup. “All you get is flour clumps if you do it like this. Where are you with your mind, can you tell me that? You have to keep stirring, not dream away and let everything burn. You will never get it, will you?”

The doctors had explained to him that he would have to expect this but it did surprise and hurt him all the same. As long as she was mentally clear enough to notice that she was becoming forgetful and made increasingly more mistakes
, the frustration would eat away at her. He understood, of course, how hard this must be for her, and someone would have to get all her resulting anger: it was usually the people closest to the patient who did.

Biddy had been
an industrious woman and still wanted to lend a hand whenever she saw things that needed to be done, but Walter preferred doing everything by himself now, rather than supervising her. Luckily she was much less argumentative than in earlier phases of her illness and much easier to distract. Today he made her read the paper to him while he was cooking, insisting that he really wanted to know what was going on in the world.

The soup was soon ready
and Walter was just thinking about putting the pasta into the hot water when the phone rang. Biddy got up to answer it for him but that was no good. She often didn’t seem to understand the principle of telephones anymore and put the receiver down or – on her better days - she would tell the caller with the utmost regret that they had the wrong number and then she would hang up on them. Walter rushed to the phone and got to it just before Biddy.

“Yes. Hello?” he said hastily into the cordless handset and returned to the stove.

“Hi Dad, it’s me,” said Hanna.

“Hello
Pumpkin. How are you?” he said absent-mindedly, while trying to put the pasta into the water and holding the handset with his neck at the same time. His chin must have pressed a button by mistake and the reply was drowned in a digital dialling tone.

“Pumpkin?
Are you there?” he asked with panic.

“Yes, as I was saying I am planning on coming home for a couple of days tomorrow. Do you want me to stay with you guys,
or is it not convenient?” she asked.

“No, it would be lovely to see you. Your mother could do with the c
ompany,” he said hopefully.

“Me, too!
I have some time off work this month,” she said casually.

Walter was immediately concerned and
wanted to find out more but suddenly realised that he had forgotten to look at the clock to mark the time he had put the pasta into the boiling water and now would have to guess when it was ready. His judgement in such matters was notoriously bad and all he ever did was get it spectacularly wrong.

“Good. I better go P
umpkin, I am in the middle of cooking,” he said, trying to sound calm and confident.

“Okay
. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow. Give Mum a kiss from me,” Hanna said laughing.

“Will do.
Bye Pumpkin.”

Walter fought the urge to tell his wife
that their daughter was coming to visit them the following day. At this moment, she might not even remember that she had children, and it might only cause her unnecessary confusion. When one of them came to visit, Biddy would often not recognise them as such; however in a room full of friends and family she would seek her children out and choose to speak with them over anybody else. It was quite remarkable. The consistency in her instincts in that regard reassured Walter about her innate character traits and that the disease was still in its earlier stages.

Suddenly he realised that he had left the gas fire on under the soup and now some of it had burnt after all. That had
not happened to him for ages but he wasn’t very angry at himself for letting the phone call distract him. He had only taken the call because Biddy wanted to answer it and because he did not want whoever it was to try and phone again later in the afternoon when it was time for her nap.

As it turned out
, the soup did not taste too bad and there was only a minor hint of burning but he had messed up the pasta though and seriously over cooked it.

“I am sorry, sweetheart. The pasta is a bit mushy.” he apologised.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t mind. That can happen to anyone,” she added graciously but didn’t eat much of it.

Very soon after lunch Biddy was getting sleepy and Walter put her on the sofa in the living room with a blanket, where she blissfully nodded off for a couple of hours, giving him some time to himself. He had dedicated the afternoon to working on his family chronicle but today
, for some reason, he could not get into it. Dissatisfied with his lack of impetus he left his study, prepared the guest room for Hanna and waited for his wife to wake up. Maybe they could go for a walk before dinner. More exercise could only be beneficial; after all, apart from her scattered mind Biddy still had a clean bill of health. She did not even suffer from the same arthritic problems as Walter did. Fresh air had to be good for her brain too.

He was looking forward to Hanna’s visit tomorrow. She had inherited a
zest for life from her mother, and had merciless bouts of energy, which was probably why she packed so much into every day. When the two women got together they usually bounced off each other, which was lovely to see.

Walter worried, however, that his daughter seemed to be searching for something in her life that was still missing. His otherwise so worldly daughter
was easily taken in by spiritual gurus and esoteric habits in the search for meaning and she did not shy away from bombarding Biddy with all that ‘rubbish’, even though her mother could hardly tell what time of the day it was. Yet, for reasons beyond his comprehension, his wife loved those stories and whether or not she understood them she seemed to bathe and rejoice in the excitement they brought.

He heard Biddy stir on the sofa and his thoughts returned to the here and now. Biddy was all love and happiness when he went in to the living room to wake her with a cup of tea.