Them
by Eleanor Cullen
[this is the third in the three part series–
read Razz from the beginning.]
Them
They were made for each other. That’s the kind of cliche crap I used to berate my sister for saying. She’d swoon over her best friend and her fifth husband, showing me the photographs they’d uploaded online and expecting me to ‘ooh and ‘ahh’ in the right places. I had a tendency to roll my eyes instead.
She still says things like that now, during our fortnightly video calls. Her from the villa in Australia she’s spending retirement in, me from my living room with its faded curtains and armchair. My nephew took the settee last time he visited, said I wouldn’t have much use for it now his mum was out of the country. I should’ve told him to eff off, really, but I didn’t.
Whilst my sister couldn’t have been more wrong about her friend and husband number five, I do think that maybe she has a point. Maybe people are made for each other. Those two at least.
One of them had known me for years. She joined the support group when her hearing first deteriorated and never left. She’d returned my ‘are they taking the mick’ looks across the room whenever certain group members said ridiculous things, shared my disgust at the men who took two donuts off the snack table without checking that everybody else had already had one. She was the only person who’d ever called me Razz, saying Ruth wasn’t quite a fabulous enough name for someone like me. She’d been right, of course.
She never opened up much. Never gave more details than was necessary, not aloud. She kept her signs simple, concise. She thought about everything she said. I liked that about her, because I knew she noticed far more than she let on. I don’t think she ever noticed that I’d orchestrated it though.
It was me who sent the other one in. She was in my GP surgery, signing with a fury I’d never seen before at the front desk. Her interpreter, having to translate for the poor receptionist, was red in the face and mumbling, clearly uncomfortable with the abundance of curse words he was having to say.
It was still going on when I left for my appointment and returned to book my next one. I had to stand behind them. The translator tried to tell the girl that they should leave, or at least ‘let the old woman’ behind them go first. Perhaps he didn’t realise I knew sign language. He certainly learned that I did when, just before I left the surgery, I corrected his translation of ‘daft old bint’.
We met twice after that, and maybe it was my sister’s habitual romanticising. Maybe it was knowing that my support group numbers were dwindling. But I got her to come along and, as those annoying twee types say, the rest is history. They took the sessions as chances to get to know each other until they decided to face the outside world.
There are only four people in the group now. Two elderly men, a teenager and a mother. It’s hard to find the motivation. The others leaving was expected, a blessing in some ways. But the two girls broke my heart.
It was just one session when, out of the blue, their seats were empty. There was no greeting of ‘Morning, Razz!’, no ‘Thank you Razz’, just boring old Ruth from everybody. My sister told me I should be glad, that it was a horrid nickname and I should be happy to be rid of the two of them. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be forgotten. To have the people who made you feel young again realise what a boring old cow you are and drop off the face of the earth. There’s every chance they broke up, I suppose, and that they simply avoid the group now in case they bump into each other.
There’ll be no need soon enough; they’re upping the rent and we can’t keep up. Soon the group will be gone just like them, like my sister, like my nephew.
There was post for me this morning. Actual, real, post, not just the flyers that get shoved through the letterbox every few days. This was an envelope. A creamy beige envelope, sealed with one of those stickers that looks like a wax seal. I couldn’t bend to grab it; my knees were playing up. But I grabbed the litter picker I keep in the hall for that purpose.
One arm against the wall, I maneuvered the stick so I could pick the letter up. A wedding invitation, judging by the church bells stamped in one corner and the illustration of lovebirds along the bottom. For a moment, I considered who might be getting married. Any grandchildren of cousins, any children of friends, but nobody came to mind. Nobody who would invite creaky old Ruth to a wedding.
I muttered under my breath. Next door’s post was always getting delivered to me, just because the postman couldn’t open their letterbox. I think they jammed it shut on purpose to stop getting all the takeaway leaflets; everyone on the street knows they’ve been on those weight loss jabs. They probably couldn’t bear the temptation of cheap pizza and thinking they’d lost all the money spent on needles.
The two of them came round every week or so, picking up the post that I got lumbered with. Never a thanks or an apology. Always in their ridiculous ‘activewear’ as if anybody believed that they dropped half their body weight going to a gym. For their insufferableness, I was tempted to torch the invitation; there was no point in them going to any such ceremony anyway when they can’t even try the cake. Taking the letter out of the picker’s grip, I brought it closer, squinting so I could read it properly.
Right there, in curly cursive, the letters as elegantly drawn as if they’d been printed, was the name Razz.
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