Letters to a Friend by Diana Athill

Author:Diana Athill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

10 DECEMBER 1999

Darling Edward,

I’m just coming to the end of a tedious week. Barbara jaunted off to France with our Norfolk neighbours, and Barry went to stay with Sally and Henry in Somerset, so there I was faced with a week closeted with Hannah, when a) my car broke down twice in two days, and b) poor old André broke his hip. He has come through the pinning operation; and doesn’t seem to be suffering any pain, but my god, he looks frightful – a tiny bag of sparrowbones, his poor little claws dark purple from where they’ve stuck tubes into him. When he can haul himself out of doziness, which isn’t often, he’s in his right mind (though his speech has gone so mumbly that it’s hard to discern as much). He looks as though he couldn’t possibly live another day, but the hospital says brightly that he’s doing very well and will be going home next week . . . His heart must be amazingly strong to withstand all his illness and now this. Luckily, some time ago, he was canny enough to attach to himself a young man called Paulo who was a decorator working on his house. I think Paulo asked him if he had any odd jobs going, and André recognized a benign and willing nature, took him on to do driving and occasional shopping and so on, and gradually, as André has become more helpless, Paulo has become more helpful. I guess that André has done something major for him – helped him buy a house, or something of that kind – because P says ‘Well, I owe him so much . . .’ – but basically I think it’s that Paulo is one of the world’s natural carers. He is now administering André’s life in almost every way, as far as I can see out of genuine loving kindness (tho’ he does get a bit bossy at times). Although Paulo can go there every day, he can’t be there at night, or at weekends . . . So I was beginning to worry that André must be becoming too much for his girlfriend’s carers, but then Paulo told me yesterday that he has decided he must over-ride André’s instructions and ring up an agency and order a night-nurse for him. He says he’ll be able to get the money for it out of A once it is a fait accompli. So – thank god for Paulo!

I never did remember to show you my La Fontaine’s Fables. I now send you one of them.

Love and love

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

Might is right: if you don’t know it

allow me with this tale to show it.

At a sparkling stream

a little lamb was drinking.

Out of the shadowy wood

a wolf came slinking.

‘Lamb,’ snarled the wolf, ‘you’re mucking up my

water

and I intend to lead you to the slaughter.’

‘My lord . . . Your Majesty,’ stammered the lamb,

‘Kindly observe that as I sip I am

downstream – a long way down, I truly think

from that transparent pool where you will drink.

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