Watering can

Friday Fragment #41

The green plastic watering can. I had jammed its lightweight form behind the back wheel of the bike, underneath the tarred canvas roof of the shelter at the top of the garden many weeks ago, in preparation for the storm winds. In the grounds behind the room where Mum sleeps, there is a different green watering can, perched on top of a stone garden urn decorated with volutes, encrusted with moss and lichen. Frost bites the grass and clings to the mesh metal fence behind this modern-day work of art. That’s when I’m reminded that there is something out of place, something I’d forgotten about, many miles away at my own home. My coat hangs in the hallway and a rope of lavender-coloured polythene bags spills from the right-hand pocket. It has been several days since I was last able to walk the dog: forty minutes that we share each morning, between ten or twenty every evening of every day. She’ll be missing me, I know, for something else is not where it should be. Later that evening, the night carer asks me to walk outside with her, to the main entrance of the care home, and points to a car with its back and driver-side windows smashed in. A half-brick on the floor nearby. ‘They came, three of them, at 8pm. We should have them on the cameras. We’ve called the police, but we don’t know when they will come.’ She’s visibly worried, and I remind her that I’ll be staying in the guest room overnight so as to be with Mum tomorrow. She takes my number and calls it from her phone. Mine illuminates, and I narrate as I switch it from its mute setting: a reciprocal trade of anxiety and reassurance, an exchange based on a courage that I don’t possess, but which seems to diminish a little of her fear. I return to the room, and Mum is asleep. I turn off the light in the hallway and tidy the table next to her bed, and draw the blanket up over her arm. My hand is next to her hand, but useless, always useless, unable to hold, stroke or find its place within hers. As if aware, she opens an eye, finds me there above her and asks if I can stay a while longer. ‘Of course, I’ll stay here until you want me to leave.’ She is asleep almost immediately. I return to the chair, see the watering can once more through a breach in the curtains. Outside is bright with frost and moonlight. I push myself into the chair, into all of what will offer comfort, bring the throw over the top of me and know that I won’t make it up to the guest room tonight. One more thing not where it’s expected to be, and yet sometimes there are other spaces that can offer security and belonging, spaces where others will wake to remember and find you – exactly where they needed you to be. When I am back home, I will retrieve and return the can to its rightful place: beside the coil of yellow hose that hangs from the pipe of the outdoor tap.

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