Two people have had a strong impact on me today. First Sid, the lugubrious, kind mole catcher. He came to check up on me, and to remove a trap he'd left behind. How are you? he asked me, still in my dressing gown at 9.10. I'm fine, I told him, having a bit of a slow start today. How are you? Not doing too well, he told me, voice heavy with pathos, lips and massive tombstone teeth in a constant struggle with each other for supremacy and both usually losing out. Having a bit of a bad time. Oh, what's the matter? I asked him, concerned. Hernia, he said sadly. It's painful alright, but I can't do nothing about it. I'd need to be off work for about eight weeks if they did the operation, but I can't stay away from the job that long. Get no money see. Oh dear, I replied. Can't they do anything else for you? I was thinking of T S Eliot with his truss, and an essay I once wrote at university about how his hernia had an impact on The Wasteland. It earned a First, but Sid wouldn't have been interested in my fascinating theory. He told me a few years ago that he was giving up his house and moving in with his sister. It made financial sense for both of them. He's never married, and he always seems a bit lost, following his solitary and unsavoury career of pest controller. The doctor had told him to rest, he said, but he couldn't do that either, and his job requires much painful bending. Oh Sid, I wish I could help.
The other encounter was with Sylvia who lives at the far end of the village. Walking past her cottage I stopped to chat with her and admire her flowers. She's a large lady, very disabled and walks with the aid of sticks. By her side was the most revolting dog, a Neapolitan Mastiff apparently, massive, solid, drooling from fat slobbering chops. "Beware of Mad Dog" the notice on the fence said, and I needed no prodding. But looking past Sylvia for a moment I could see what looked like a lake just beyond the house. "Is that a pond?" I asked, and she invited me in to see it. She said the dog would be OK if I stayed near her, but she didn't sound too confident. Legs wobbling, mouth suddenly dry, I reluctantly opened the gate, my interest greater than my fear. And there was this huge expanse of water taking up nearly all the garden. I asked if it was natural or man made. And she told me that her cottage, a pretty brick and flint one, had once been two cottages of many owned by a local bigwig. He'd had the pond dug out to supply water to the villagers not just here but Badingham, Bruisyard, and Sweffling too. The pond was at least as deep as the house, she said, and it never ran dry. Sylvia had moved there as a four-year-old to be fostered, but the couple who took her in took a shine to her and she stayed. When they died they left her the house, and she's been there ever since, some seventy years. The house had no electricity or water supplies in those days, she told me. It was dark, damp, cold and miserable, but to her it was paradise.
Ah, people. They tug at your heart strings, especially the ones who open up to you spontaneously and reveal themselves to you. Sylvia and Sid. I wonder if they would like each other?
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