The Holiday Monday was dark and cold. I went out, looking for a quiet
place to write, and encountered N - . She's 40, a writer, from my part of the world,
and she was sitting in a puddle of her own shit and piss on the steps
of an abandoned magistrate's court, shaking and unable to stand. She
has MS, can barely walk and is doubly incontinent. Her bag was
scattered around her. She had left her flat, without her coat,
ostensibly to shop, but I suspect to escape a sense of entrapment;
she had just got a restraining order against an ex-boyfriend.
All this came out as we sat on the nearest bench. Over the next hour
we walked slowly from seat to seat along the road, stopping to rest,
and smoke, and talk. Shoppers looked askance. Not hostile, just
troubled. A Big Issue seller - South American refugee - ran up and
gave her a big hug. They chattered for a few minutes about their
disabilities before parting.
N - didn't want to go home, and I had a train to catch, so in the end
I left her outside a pub, drinking soda water and smoking. She had a
taxi-card, to call for a disabled taxi home, and cash to pay, so it
wasn't strictly an abandonment. I just couldn't stay any longer,
because I'm a coward.
Just a reminder to grab every minute, experience, encounter that one can, while one can.
