Grinning and Singing

21st May 2011 Saturday Night

While my husband is rehearsing for the concert tonight in the town hall in Ashburton our friends and I sit in a small conservatory cafe looking over a beautiful secluded cottage garden, and drink hot chocolate, waiting for the show to start. They say they don’t notice much change in my husband - except when we talk about old mutual friends and times we spent together in the past - those faces and places are lost to him till we can find a trigger to remind him, pull a thread in his memory. They say his sense of humour is still bright and quick. Which it is. I’m so touched by their kindness and hugs when I cry into my hot chocolate, feeling sorry for myself and our imagined future, especially as they have deep troubles of their own.

I cry some more, and hope no-one sees, while we sit in hard chairs and listen to the beautiful voices of the choir and a soft beating drum, while they sing songs of Africa - and Eric Clapton - to raise money for a charity of orphaned children in Zambia. My husband stands tall at the very back, the only male tenor among a crowd of women and he winks at me in the audience while he sings his heart out - grinning like a bird of paradise in his red striped jumper.