A DISORDERLY TIME

I visit my friend Molly once a week, that's when I hear about all her friends. Unfortunately, she has friends who drive her mad with all the demands they place on her, demands that Molly says, are too much. And as she also says 'I ask nothing of them, nothing of anyone! I want to be completely independent of anyone or anything.  I work on myself night and day, to break myself!  she demonstrates with force, over a raised left knee, the breaking of, what seems,  a very stout branch. 'I want' she gasps 'to be a completely free person.'

This visit is very like the last one, and the one before that, and so on. 'Can you imagine' Molly fumes, 'She called me disloyal!' At this point, Molly clutches the front of her finely pleated linen blouse and crushes it again and again, in her fists, as she acts out an event, that took place, since my last visit. The front of the pleated blouse, appears in danger of being torn apart, as Molly, in her frustration, continually, crushes, wrenches, and stretches the delicate cotton material.  'Me disloyal!,  I thought she was my friend! but now she  treats me as an enemy! I asked her again and again, why, have you turned against me like this? I beg of you, tell me what I have done, that earns you the right to call me disloyal?'

 When I'd first entered Molly's impeccably cared for home, I felt quite pleased with the world. However, now as I sat in the spartan surrounds of her impeccable world,  I felt myself  about to automatically slip up? or maybe slip down? into, another gear. I'd  developed, this gear, almost unconsciously over the years, for protection from, the outburst of Molly's wrath.  I  prepared myself to absorb all of Molly's frustrations. Prepared myself to become a great sea sponge, so that she could feel better, and go on until I visited her next week.

As I feel weaker, I see her grow stronger. I strive to find the right words that will stem the flow of hysteria, that has built up in her quicker than usual  today, and that now, in my imagination, threatens to flood over me to wash me down the hallway out onto the street into the path of fast moving cars, that will then squish and squash me flat forever.

But wait! I had decided that today, I would not get caught up in Molly's world of drama. I casually rise from the soft padded armchair and stroll to the long narrow windows. I say 'Oh Molly, how lovely these curtains are , they look as if they've been crocheted.'

As a younger woman, a school drama teacher had told Molly her voice showed great dramatic performance quality.When she eventually replies to my casual comment, Molly's voice is that of a very stylized actress, resonant and dramatic.  'An old woman gave them to me when I visited her last year' she booms loudly. 'Poor old thing. She lives with her daughter-in-law in a tiny cold  room at the back of her own house.  Ha! lives? More like exists!. Her daughter-in-law has taken over the whole place.'  To my dismay, my friend now becomes even more excited. 'Sit down please!' she commands me, 'I have a lot I want to get out of my head, then I will be alright.' No longer am I a great sea sponge, now I'm a great '??!!' with legs. I return to the armchair, fold myself into it and wait.

I soak up a world of rage, insanity, injustice, frustration, all of which pours itself out in a love of Christ, in service of the church, in adoration of priests, in deep devotion to Sister Christina, in! in! But wait, wait! Again,  I feel a little strength growing inside my crumpled spine. A deep breath straightens the shrunken vertebrae. 'Molly'  I say with my usual caution, 'perhaps you could tell them, they are asking too much of you, tell them'. At this point, my friend cuts across my words and collapses into the matching arm chair opposite me, buries her face in her hands and is silent. I'm not sure what to do, and so I too am silent. It must be just right, because on the occasions when it wasn't, it wasn't good.

The buried face is slowly raised, it is now blood red. 'Do you know' Molly fumes, 'Mrs Lester forced me to take one of her nerve tablets,! she pushed it into my mouth!' There is a furious demonstration of  the tablet being pushed between Molly's even white teeth. She continues to talk, as she continues to demonstrate,the nerve tablet episode. 'No, no!' she gasps, as she presses, wriggles and taps her finger tips hard against her own clenched teeth, taps as if her teeth were notes on a piano.

Behind Molly is a wooden bookcase, and on one shelf are two small pot plants. They are sickly looking  things, with stems that can barely hold up the tiny wilting leaves that bravely dare to sprout in this emotion packed place. Each visit, I ask for permission to give the plants a little water. In the hope of distracting Molly, I suggest I water the wilting plants ' Water them! water them! I have no time' Molly says, 'Let them die! I'm too tired to care, too tired even to live.'

Once, long ago,I used to feel I was being hard hearted to leave Molly, in such a state. But I eventually learned, all will be well. 'I must go now Molly.' I say. A beautiful unearthly smile starts in Molly's green eyes and spreads over her broad features and down to her well shaped mouth. 'I feel so much better' she says in that dramatic actress voice. I say,  'See you again next week Molly, thank you for a lovely day.'

Outside, the sun is shining. In a nearby park, children play and laugh. Something in my goodbye to Molly had a strange and prophetic ring about it. As I walk, I think back over the afternoon. once again I hear the sound of laughter from the park, and it's then I realize, I never laugh when I'm with Molly, she doesn't like laughter, and she gets angry when I laugh. I don't think I'm going to visit Molly next week, or even the week after, I know the next visit will be very like this one, and the one before that, and so on.

Tushie 1987