Tea or Cocoa - A Short Story of Elderly and Enduring Love

I close the bedroom door behind me to keep the warmth in for Rose; she feels the cold something terrible these days. I go into the kitchen and fill the kettle. It’s a dreich kind of day, and when I fetch in peats there’s something about the touch of fall in the air that reminds me of the day I met Rose.

Funny how it sticks in my mind. I had been home in Shetland since the summer of ’46, having been demobbed early on account of working in the building trade - they needed all hands they could get to repair bombed out buildings. By that time, in the fall of ’48, I was earning a good wage, and I suppose I was ready to settle down.

I shared digs in Lerwick with Bill Peterson. He was a fine enough bloke, but we both worked for the same firm and sometimes you can have enough of a person – and I’d shared a bed with him that week. The whole jing-bang of us had been working out at Weisdale, and some had been three to a bed. In them days we thought nothing of it, but like I say, sometimes Bill could get a bit much. When we got back into Lerwick about two on that Saturday afternoon Bill and his friend Alec went off to get their half bottles, and went back to the digs for a wash.

I spruced myself up, then wrote a letter to my mother. I liked to write her every week, to let her know I was okay, after what happened with my sister Avril. I was licking the stamp when I heard Bill and Alec laughing outside. I had a fair idea they’d opened a half-bottle already. Two sets of boots clumped up the stairs, so I guessed they were in for a session.

I was getting my coat on as they came in.

‘Du’s surely not going oot,’ says Bill, taking a step backwards. The whisky slopped around in his bottle; it was less than half full.

‘I’m wanting tae buy a new shirt,’ says I. ‘My good ane is getting worn.’

‘Hae a dram first,’ Alec says.

‘Da landlady wasna very happy last time.’

Bill laughed. ‘Aye da worrier Jimmy. She’ll never mind if Alec gives her a dose o his charm. Eh Alec?’

I picked up the letter and left.

That was the night I first saw Rose at the Town Hall dance. I might never have noticed her if I hadn’t bought a shirt off her that afternoon. There was none of this self service malarkey back then, and the shirts were all in drawers behind the counter.

‘I’m needing a new dress shirt, fifteen and a half collar,’ says I, and she headed for a drawer.

She laid half a dozen shirts on the counter. They all looked much the same to me. ‘This ane has a self stripe,’ she says, picking it up. Her hair was in the style of the day, in a wave up over her brow, and then coming down near her eye. But she wasn’t like most of the lasses, there wasn’t a scrap of lipstick or powder on her face. Her cheeks were pink - like her name though I didn’t know it then. Years after she told me she’d had her eye on me for a while, but at the time it never dawned on me that she was blushing.

I asked her what a self stripe was – it meant nothing to me.

‘It’s all white,’ she says, ‘but because of the way it’s woven it looks like it has a stripe. See.’

I looked.

‘It’s very smart,’ she says. I never was much of a hand with clothes, so I took her word for it, and bought it.

‘Will you be wearing it tae da dance da night?’ she asks when I was at the door.

‘Likely,’ says I.

‘I’ll maybe see you,’ she says. Sure enough when I managed to get Bill woken up and down the road, she was the first person I noticed, sitting with a couple of chums, backs against the wall. You would never have guessed she sold clothes for a living. The other two wore fancy outfits, their skirts held out with layers of lace petticoats, but not Rose. Plain face, plain cotton frocks; no scarlet lips, no artificial silks. That was my Rose. She could have had the fancy stuff at cost, but she used to say all that finery made her feel like a china doll. She was an ordinary looking lass, the kind nobody would look at twice. Except me. I’d had too much of the other.

I remember it fine, the night I met Rose.

What is it about getting old that makes everything back to front? I can remember fine the night I met her, but I can’t remember if it’s tea or cocoa she wants.

So I tramp back along the corridor.

She opens her eyes as I push back the door. These days she struggles to manage a smile. She used have a deep belly-laugh. One time, it must be forty years ago now, I heard her laughing. You could have heard her a mile away. I went to see what was so funny. The baby had thrown food all around the kitchen, and his three year old sister was refusing to eat her food. I couldn’t see anything to laugh at.

‘Janie says da cheese sauce smells like Daddy’s old socks,’ Rose says, tears streaming down her face.

That was Rose; in the middle of what would have driven another person mad she saw something to laugh about. So after she’d been ill for months, and the doctor tried to say it was depression, I knew he was havering.

‘The tests for arthritis and thyroid came back negative,’ he says. ‘There’s no evidence of a physical cause.’

‘Rose is no the kind of woman tae get depressed,’ says I. ‘She’s aye been full of life.’

‘Depression makes folk lethargic, and this dizziness she keeps complaining of would suggest anxiety,’ he says. ‘She’s probably feeling lost now your family have all gone.’

‘I’m still here,’ says I. Or to be honest I snapped.

‘I know that, and I’m sure you do your best for her, but maybe she needs some new interests - something you could do together perhaps - or take a holiday. Why don’t you visit Janie in Aberdeen?’

‘Because she lives in Edinburgh.’

He had the grace to look embarrassed, and so he should. We’ve been going to him for forty years, his lass went out with our Peter when they were teenagers, before they went off to college and separated. Mind you, now she’s in New Zealand and he’s in Canada, so I doubt if they’ll get together again.

‘I could give Rose some anti-depressants,’ says the doctor, and my blood boiled. ‘But I’d like you to try the holiday first. At this stage I think we’ll keep our suspicions to ourselves till we see if she comes out of it. Depression is fairly common in women her age, and they’re not always willing to admit the problem. If the holiday doesn’t do the trick we’ll have another think.’

Well, I knew what the doctor really thought it was, and that this holiday idea was just filling in time, but I rang Janie anyway.

‘I’m worried it will be too much for your Mam, she’s not very well,’ I says.

‘If you get the plane she should manage,’ Janie says. ‘The bairns will soon cheer her up.’

So it seemed to me Janie thought the doctor was right. ‘Your Mam’s no depressed, lass.’

‘But I thought that was what the doctor said?’

‘The doctor doesna know whit he’s speaking aboot. It’s high time the old fool retired.’

She laughed. Just like her mother she is - never wants to believe one bad word against anybody. She saw soon enough that the doctor was speaking rubbish. That’s another thing comes easily back to my mind - the look on Janie’s face when she saw Rose being helped into the airport. ‘I’m just a bit run doon,’ says Rose, patting Janie’s arm. ‘Dinna worry, when I’m had all da iron tablets da doctor gave me I’ll be fine.’

The first week in Edinburgh all Rose was fit for was her bed. ‘Why is Granny still sleeping?’ the bairns asked. ‘Doesn’t she know it’s morning?’

‘She’s tired,’ Janie says. When they are out of the room she whispers, ‘What is it?’

God help me, I felt like an old fool, but I started to blubber.

‘It’s okay Dad,’ she says, cuddling me, ‘Mum’s going to be fine.’

It reminded me of the way Rose cuddled Janie years ago, saying, ‘It’s okay pet, Grampy’s going to be fine.’ Well, that time we already knew what was wrong and that it wasn’t going to be fine, and for all I knew this was the same thing.

Just before we left Edinburgh, Janie says, ‘You know you can come here if anything happens to Mum.’

‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ I says, old fool that I am.

‘I know what a worrier you are,’ she says. ‘Just remember it’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.’

She means well, but what the hell would I find to do in Edinburgh all day? Janie would soon get sick of a doddery old bugger under her feet, and Graham’s all right as son-in-laws go, but he has about as much interest in carpentry as I do in accounting.

It’s just like somebody stuck a knife through my heart and twisted it, watching Rose lying there, hardly able to open her eyes.

‘Wis it tea or cocoa du wanted?’ Then I burst out crying.

While I’m wiping the tears away, she struggles to push herself up.

‘Let me help. Du has to take it easy. The doctors have said.’

‘To take it any easier I’ll have to give up breathing.’

I just can’t help it, I start blubbering again. I catch sight of something in the mirror, and wonder who this old man is that’s gauping at me. I keep forgetting I’m past eighty, and get a shock at how old I look. The pair of us are long past our prime, and one of us has to go first. I had just always imagined it would be me.

Us Taits have never been good at being alone. My father went over the bows of his ship when I was nine, and my mother wore black the rest of her days. She found a kind of comfort in her Bible but she wouldn’t go near anything that smacked of pleasure, ‘Your father widna like it,’ she’d say if we tried to cajole her into coming with us to the Sunday School picnics. Our grandmother took us instead. When the war started Ma wanted me to get work on a farm to dodge being called up. I was a boy of fifteen then, and an apprentice joiner; I would have lied about my age to get into the army if I could have got away with it. I stood five feet five then and I’m the same height now, the inch I gained has disappeared with age. So neither Ma nor myself got our way, and I went to war at eighteen like the other young men.

I was glad to get away, to escape from the endless rows. Things were never good between Ma and Avril, but when the soldiers arrived in Shetland things got worse. Avril was a pretty girl, the image of Rita Hayworth, and she reckoned with her looks she could go far. She had been courting Bill Peterson, that’s how I came to know him. When he was called up, she began going with the soldiers. Ordinary ones at first, but it wasn’t long till she was going with the officers.

Ma didn’t like it. Not a bit of it. Avril would be layering on the war-paint – powder, rouge and lipstick – and Ma would be yelling.

‘Du’s like some kind of harlot. I would be ashamed to be seen like yon. What about poor Bill? And whatever would poor father say?’

Avril would stamp her foot and yell, ‘Don’t bring my father into it you auld hypocrite. All you ever did when he was alive was bicker and nag at him. He could never do anything right. So don’t go pretending now that you loved him.’ She had a temper that could match anything my mother threw at her.

‘And what would du know about love, du selfish trollop?’

‘Hah!’ says Avril, baring her teeth like a snarling dog. ‘More than you’ll ever know. My Albert is an officer, and when we get married after the war, we’re going to live in Surrey.’

‘A decent man widna wait till the war is over to marry his lass.’

‘He wants me to have a proper wedding. Anyway, he’s going to Holland next week, so we have to wait.’

I was glad to get away to the war for some peace. Aye, Rose was as far from that two as I could get. I don’t know what I would do without her.

Edinburgh didn’t make much difference, and when we got back Rose was laid up in bed again so I sent for the doctor. ‘You promised to send her for tests.’ He opened his mouth to silence me, but I had worked myself up for this. ‘And don’t you give me any more of this depression rubbish,’ says I. ‘If you couldna get out of bed for weeks on end would you no be a bit doon in the dumps?’ I’ve never liked shouting at folk, comes of seeing too much of it, and I had to sit down when I’d finished.

I expected him to look shocked, but he just stood with his hand under his chin, concentrating. ‘When did it start?’ he asks. He turned to Rose and he says, ‘Can you remember when you first felt this weakness?’

She looked confused, so he says, ‘You had a bad bout of flu at the start of the year didn’t you?’

She nodded. ‘I’ve never been right since.’

‘I think that might be the key,’ he says.

Well, I thought that was him saying it was the flu. I was livid. ‘You don’t have the flu for six months, man.’

‘I think it could be M.E..’

‘M.E.? Dat’s yon yuppie flu is it no? Rose is nearly eighty – she canna have yuppie flu.’

But after what seemed like endless tests, three weeks ago they finally decided there’s a good chance it’s M.E. A good chance – they give nothing away these doctors. If it wasn’t my Rose, I’d never have believed it; I always thought this yuppie flu was an excuse for laziness. Once we knew what it was she kept questioning the doctor: ‘How did I get it? When will I be better?’ Always the optimist, Rose, thinking about when she might get better. Getting a name for it perked her up, some days she even managed to go for a walk, telling folk she met, ‘I’ve had dis M.E. for eight months, but I think I could be bettering noo.’

When I asked the doctor, he said there’s some never get better. That’s the way it is with some folk. They never get over what ails them, folk like wir Avril. She’s been waiting sixty years for her soldier, and she’s still waiting. Last week Rose sent me into Lerwick to buy a book about M.E., and I stopped along the home on my way back.

‘Oh Jimmy, it is dat fine to see de,’ Avril says. ‘I’m dat pleased du’s got back from Germany okay. Has du brought Albert with de?’

Some days I try to get her to speak sense, but that day I couldn’t face it. God help me, I just turned about and left her. The irony of it is Bill Peterson is in the same home. He had a stroke a few years back, and never got back on form. He never married. There’s plenty would have had him, but he didn’t ask. I heard a tale he had a girl in Belguim who got killed, but I never liked to ask him. They could have been companions, Avril and him, but neither of them has a clue.

Still, Rose was fair pleased with her book. She wanted me to get her other ones, saying this devil wasn’t going to get the better of her, she would find a way to beat it. It’s nearly worn me out, trekking into Lerwick for books. Sometimes I worry that all this reading will put a strain on her eyes and set her back, but she says as long as she has rests it’s okay.

And she says she’s had her rest for this morning, so I prop her up with some pillows. I pass her the latest book - Alternative Therapies for M.E.. When I go out to make the drinks Rose is sitting up with her head in the book. I’m getting the cups out when I realise I never found out what she wants. She’s still sitting up when I go back into the room, but she’s got her feet out over the bed.

‘This book says aromatherapy can help,’ she says. ‘After we’ve had something to eat, I thought du could take me into Lerwick to yon Complementary Health Clinic.’ She slides her feet onto the floor. ‘Could du give me a hand with my clothes?’

I take clothes out of the drawers: underwear, tights, socks, trousers, jumper, cardigan. We need to keep her warm. I help her with her bra, fastening the hooks at the back. The trousers have an elastic waist, so she manages them herself, but the effort leaves her exhausted. I help her with her blouse.

‘It says aromatherapy stimulates da nervous system and encourages da body to heal itself,’ she says. ‘It’ll have me right as rain in no time.’

I’m just not sure what to say, how to tell her she might never get better, so I say nothing and pull the jumper over her head. When her face reappears she points. ‘See, da book says I should drink herbal teas so I winna be putting any more poisons into my body to interfere with da healing process. I thought we could maybe get some of dem when we’re in Lerwick.’

We’ve got her dressed now, and I help her to stand up. We shuffle into the sitting room and she sits by the fire getting her breath back.

‘We’ll better have something before we go,’ I say. ‘Was it tea or cocoa du wanted?’

This story was originally published in New Writing Scotland 21, an anthology produced by The Association for Scottish Literary Studies.