The child was crying again
By M.T.L. Ebell
The child was crying again. Alan sighed. He needed rest. “What do you want for Christmas, Grandpa? Uncle? Daddy?” The questions were endless. All a part of “cheering” him up. He would growl back. Didn’t they know all he wanted was to get Winnie back?

Well, that was out of the question. He was grateful his grandchildren and two nieces had come from Canada to be with him; he was grateful that his unmarried daughter had moved in with him to keep house, “for a while, until you settle down again”. Yet, he wouldn’t settle down, all he wanted to do was to act up. Why should she have died first? He was older, he had always led. He should have died first then he could have had peace. Peace from this eternal ‘goodwill’ and trying to smile when all he wanted to do was curse.

In the next room, decorating the den, they were playing carols again. Couldn’t they take the child? His great-nephew was pottering about looking for his mother. She had gone for a bath. It was a looong bath.

Winnie would have loved the child. She would have insisted on his aunts or cousins taking care of him or she would have gathered him up and read him a story or something. She would have admired him, too, walking so steadily at eleven and a half months. She had been good with children, grandchildren. Very patient. Very loving. That’s what had drawn him to her first. She had brought him a slice of bread and butter at a party while he sulked outside having lost his temper with his father.

This was a story oft-repeated and in the telling, embellished. “I decided from that day, I would marry this sweet little girl.” Children and grandchildren had listened, entranced. In reality, Alan, being eight years older had grown up and fallen in and out of love many times before Cupid (in the form of an interested aunt) had brought them together again. Well, no regrets from then on. Not unending bliss but a happy marriage. Forever. Well, forty-six years. And now this.

The child was trying to open the door. He pointed saying over and over, “Mama”.
Alan shook his head. His niece had taken a towel from the clothesline in the back garden and come back. “Mama there,” Alan mumbled, pointing to the room. “Mama, Mama,” Ravin was whining now. Alan wondered, should he ring for his attendant? The man was taking his afternoon rest. Caring for Alan in his wheelchair, lifting his bulk on and off the bed wasn’t easy and the man usually took a short break before tea.

This was the time Winnie and he would have sat together reading. At least he could still read. The last thing Alan and Winnie had read together was a forecast of the budget and how it was going to help the low-income earners and pensioners. Her eyes had sparkled. “We might be able to tell Rupa to stop sending us money after this.” That hope had to be shelved when parliament was prorogued. Then, one morning, when she should have woken up, she didn’t. She just didn’t. Alan couldn’t
remember if he had read the papers after that day.

He heard snippets of news but he didn’t know exactly what was happening in the country. His relatives had got seats on the plane because of the many cancellations by overseas visitors. That much his daughter told him. Couldn’t these children come and take the child? He gestured and his grandson came over. He fussed over Ravin for a bit and then said, “He wants to stay here.” Alan suggested, miming, “He wants to sleep.”
“He sleeps only when his mother rocks him,” Neil said and went back to hanging streamers in the den.

“Mama, mama?” Ravin came up to the wheelchair. He asked Alan, “Mama?” Unshed tears and a trembling lower lip. Oh, what harm in trying? Alan thought. He patted his knee, “Up!” he said. Ravin understood the gesture. He grasped Alan’s leg and started hoisting himself up. Alan helped him with his right, his “good” hand. Poking his great uncle in all sorts of places, Ravin knelt and stared hard at Alan. Then he gave a little nod, satisfied at something. He relaxed.

When Ravin’s mother came out, refreshed, she found a circle of cousins round the chair. There were rumbling sounds.

“What is that?”
“Grandpa’s snoring,” Neil whispered.

Snuggled on the old man’s chest, Ravin slept, smiling. He was dreaming of a teddy bear growling in a funny way;
“...Round yon virgin mother and child,
Sleep in heavenly peace...”
The bear was trying to sing.

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