was just pruning it for you.”
The man took a step forward. He was wearing a khaki shirt and there were large damp patches under the armpits. His complexion was florid, his face rather puffed. She thought that he looked as if he had suffered a stroke at some point, perhaps not all that long ago.
“You can’t do that and that,” he said gruffly. “That’s my rose and rose. You can’t break its stems like that. Who do you think you are, are?”
“It was over the pavement. It’s already caught somebody. Look—here’s a piece of cloth I’ve taken off one of the thorns. And it could cause real damage. Somebody could get poked in the eye.”
The man took another step forward. She could hear his breathing now; it was shallow and rather fast. He was not healthy, she thought.
“Rubbish,” he said, his voice rising. “Rubbish and rubbish. You can’t take other people’s and people’s roses and break and break them. You can’t and can’t.”
Isabel said nothing. The curious repetition of words that marked his speech was strangely unsettling.
“So, so just you leave my roses and roses alone,” said the man.
Isabel took a step backwards. She looked at the garden rake in his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Maybe you could prune them just a bit.”
The man frowned. “Prune and prune,” he said. “Yes.”
She walked away. She felt raw after the encounter; he was clearly suffering from a neural condition of some sort, and she should not blame him for remonstrating with her, but it still left her feeling uneasy. The speech difficulties suggested that somewhere in his brain there were lesions or misplaced connections, or perhaps connections that were not there any more. She looked about her, at the stone buildings and the metal shapes of the cars parked along the road. All that was so solid and resilient, while our brains were such soft and living things. A few cells went out of order, forgot their function or died, and that marvellous gift of language went awry. A few more cells might go, and then a blood vessel, and that brought the hammer blows of death. Just a tiny membrane, the sides of a fragile vessel, stood between us and annihilation and disaster.
When she reached the delicatessen, she found Eddie behind the counter. He smiled cheerfully.
“Cat left a note,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
She told him about what had happened on the way in. “There was a rose that had grown across the pavement—sent out one of those long shoots. It was full of thorns, and so I tried to break it off. Its owner got very excited about it. He spoke rather strangely—repeated himself.”
“Oh, I know him,” said Eddie. “He comes in here. He asks for cheese and cheese. And when I give him his change he says, ‘And thank you and thank you and you.’ It’s weird.”
“Who is he?” asked Isabel.
“He told me his name once,” said Eddie. “I just remember the first part. Gerald, I think. Something like that. He told me his life history, but there were people waiting to be served and they started looking impatient. He worked in Amsterdam for many years, he said. He was something to do with the bank.”
“Which bank?” asked Isabel.
Eddie shrugged. “Some bank. His wife is Dutch, he said. But I’ve never seen her.”
“It’s a very strange speech disorder,” said Isabel. “Very curious.”
“It’s like echolalia,” said Eddie.
Isabel looked at him in surprise. “What’s that?”
Eddie wiped some crumbs of cheese off the cutting board. “My grandfather had it. He repeated everything you said to him. If you said, ‘I’ve been to town,’ he would say, ‘To town.’ Or if you said, ‘It’s raining hard,’ he’d say, ‘Raining hard.’ He was like an echo, you see.”
“You see.”
“Yes,” said Eddie. “That’s the idea.”
“Strange,” said Isabel.
“Strange,” echoed Eddie, and then laughed. “He wasn’t unhappy. I don’t think he knew that he was doing it.”
Isabel wondered whether the man with the garden rake was unhappy; she thought that he probably was. But there was no time to speculate about that, as two customers had walked in the door and both, it seemed, wanted attention.
CAT ARRIVED at half past eleven. The early part of the morning had been busy, but it had slackened off and the delicatessen was now quieter. Isabel looked at her niece, hoping to see some sign of how the medical consultation had gone.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, lowering her voice so that Eddie should not hear.
Cat shrugged. “Yes, fine.”
Isabel smiled with relief. “So they were not worried about the spot?”
“I don’t think so,” said Cat. “They sliced it out—it was pretty small. He injected novocaine so I felt nothing.”
“And everything was fine?”
“They’ve sent it off to the pathology lab,” said Cat.
Isabel’s heart gave a lurch. “Oh …”
“It’s standard procedure, Isabel,” said Cat. “You mustn’t worry. They have to do that if they take anything off. Just to be sure. He said that it looked fine to him but they just make sure.”
