Remarkable

I went to see a friend today, probably for the last time. I wasn’t the only one. Three more people arrived as I was leaving. “They’re all coming to say goodbye, you see,” explained his remarkable and remarkably calm wife. So had I.

Just over a year ago my friend, whom I’ll call Fred, was on the golf course, his favourite haunt, that and the pub. He bent down to pick up his ball and had a funny turn. Fearing a stroke, his golf buddies phoned his wife, known as Sheila for this blog. Between them they got him to the local stroke unit. After some tests, he was sent to a more worrisome hospital for more tests.

If only it had been a stroke.

Today he was tired, full of pills, but joie de vivre, as ever. When I arrived he said, “Here’s my girl!” Well, more like a right-hand woman, really. He’d been Chairman of a local community action group for donkeys’ years, and I’d been variously his vice chair, secretary, membership secretary, and I might even have been treasurer for a short stint. But all that was just labels. We muddled through together. Taking it in turns to drive down the M1 to meetings. Intending to swap thoughts on the agenda papers on the way there, proceedings on the way back. Invariably lapsing into wine, gossip, families and holidays.

Today he remembered those days, and various personalities he might easily have forgotten. Nope. He knew them all still. Sheila reminisced about her days as a young professional, until she moved to London and met Fred. “That was the luckiest day of your life, when you met Sheila,” I reminded him. “And it was the unluckiest day of hers,” he fired back.

He still has his Sid James laugh. It was at its loudest the day I saw a photo of him when he was a young man and I said, “Hells bells, Fred, you looked like Alistair Campbell then.” Well, he had to laugh or he would have cried, being the devout Tory that he is. A proper Tory that is, not a fan of the current shower in government. We disagreed about Brexit, though. Never fell out. A fellow northerner, he knew where I was coming from, even if he didn’t agree with me.

Sheila had the kind heart to ask how Sis was as she knew she’d been ill. I reassured her that she was well on the mend and was already back home in Barnsley. “Only place worse than Barnsley,” mused Fred, “is Whitehaven.” How does he do it?! Once, he was regaling me with stories of his business travels, and he’d had the ‘displeasure’ of driving through "the most awful town in England" – Whitehaven. To be fair, the route he took through town was not the most attractive. He’d have done better to drive past the closed chemical works and abandoned mine shaft. I had great pleasure in announcing that I was born in Whitehaven. “That’s what’s wrong with you,” he laughed, Sid James style, and it was a not-so-private joke ever since.

Apparently, he’d enjoyed a roast dinner earlier that afternoon, and I’m sure that was an empty sherry or small wine glass next to him. Why not. Earlier this year, I’d taken Fred and Sheila out to a pub lunch but he wasn’t drinking then. That had unnerved me more than anything.

One time I’d asked him to meet me in the pub, because I’d received an email from someone I didn’t know saying he’d like to join our campaign and could we meet to chat about it. Not wanting to meet a strange man in a pub (for appearances' sake, you understand), I asked Fred to join us. When I got there, one of those hostelries with numerous snugs and side rooms, I followed Fred’s laugh to the right room and saw him sitting at a table, talking to the most gorgeous-looking chap I had seen in a long while. That must have been the only time I regretted inviting Fred anywhere.

Another time, I got to a meeting and he turned up with alcohol on his breath. I assumed he’d just had a glass of wine with supper. Actually no. He was struggling with caring for an elderly relative, a duty and medication I came to know well myself a few years later. But still he was able to wisecrack about it.

When I left to head home today, I planted two big northern-style smackers on his cheek. He didn’t mind at all, and neither did Sheila. A remarkable woman, for a remarkable man.