Betty, youll be held responsible for his death! Whose death, you ask? Of course Toms! Yesexactly you! Ah, nothing surprising about that! And who was that lovely girl sitting on the garden bench yesterday, her bare knees glimmering in the dusk? Could it really have been? Toms delicate soul can only recall naked schoolyard knees from a longago PE lesson, and that was ages ago So what if the street is full of girls in miniskirts? You compared them! Yes! Their knees and yourswhat a difference! To Tom, its all the more special.
A harsh voice crackled from the receiver:
Im not making this up. I can see him now, scribbling a lastminute letter I cant I cant without her, it reads, the words stabbing straight into my heart. You understand me, dont you? He writes, he says, but he never looks at me. I think Ill have a pint I mean, Ill die! Yes, the word die is glaringly clear. How can I not see it? I have my grandfathers field binocularsanything I want, I can see through them!
The line fell silent for a heartbeat, broken only by the frantic breathing of the woman on the other end:
Oh, my wobbly crutch, my dear Were late, Betty, were late. Ive taken a sharp knife, already started poking blood blood You think you can make it in time? Run, run, hurry, save your prince!
Granny Havers, squinting her crafty little eyes, watched with pleasure as plumpcheeked Betty burst into Toms shabby flat, carrying an unspent love, a hunger to feed him borscht, and a dream of a brood of children.
Tom had no chance. The gaunt, daydreaming lad lived alone; six months earlier his mother had remarried and moved to her new husbands house, leaving her beloved son a threebedroom council flat and a stern command to marry quickly and start producing grandchildrenat least one, and without delay.
Tom agreed; a cosy family life appealed to him. Yet finding a girl proved impossible. A wizard of electronics, he was mute in conversation, selfconscious and shy. He could not muster the courage to court, and fled from any assertive maiden faster than a jet plane. Granny Havers was happy to see him rid of a nosy neighbour; she herself would not tolerate a cheeky, brazen flatmate.
Enter Bettya plump, homely, respectable woman. Not a knockout, but pleasant, with a round freckled face that warmed the room. All he needed was a chance to look a little closer, to talk, to get to know a person something youngsters nowadays cannot manage at all!
Their gadgets were useless, offering only snippets of informationphotos, short clipsnothing like the endless TikTok dances of Nina and her ilk, nor the clingy brashness that Tom feared like fire. And the makeup! It was as if witches had gathered for a sabbath. Modern girls were to Betty what a circus clown is to the ticketseller at the box office. No matter how sweet the ticketseller, you remember the clowns odd face, not the sellers. With a clown you never exchange a word; with the seller you at least converse, perhaps even swap a couple of sentences.
Tom would glance at Betty now and then, yet the key to his happiness remained locked away. Granny Havers imagined him dying, adrift, from hunger, cold, and the absence of a womans tenderness. At home he was like a hedgehog lost in fogsurviving on instant noodles and dumplings, occasionally remembering to lift the pot off the stove, and excelling at making sandwiches. He could brew a decent cup of tea, too.
One evening, while attempting to slice a cucumber for a salad, Tom nicked his finger. He scrambled for a bandage and some green antiseptic, when a frantic knocking rattled the front door. Ignoring the bleeding wound, he swung it open. Betty lunged in, eyes huge with alarm, her words and pleas a blur that Granny Havers could not catch; the binoculars transmit no sound, only images.
Soon after, in her own cosy kitchen, Betty fed Tom a steaming bowl of borscht, ladling potatoes, meatballs, a beetroot salad with tangy cabbage, and a jug of homemade compote. He smiled, the loneliness draining from his eyes, his restless spirit easing.
A month later they married. Granny Havers was invited and served a slice of rich Victoria sponge, the largest piece saved for her. As the newlyweds prepared to depart, Betty giggled and asked the old woman:
So he was about to die, wasnt he? You said he started stabbing himself right into his finger! Oh, Granny Havers, you have no idea how embarrassed I felt when I claimed Id save him, and he handed me his bleeding finger! Oh, Granny Havers!
