Ghandi and the Dictionary

7th December 2011 Wednesday

Although it’s too cold for salad we are having it for lunch. We are talking about arrangements for next year. My husband says,

I’ve bought a dictionary for 2012.

Do you mean a diary?

Yes, what’s a dictionary then?

It’s what you look up words in for scrabble.

Oh yes, but it does start with the same number.... I mean the same letter.

We both laugh but he hits his forehead with the heel of his hand. As if that would jolt the the words back into order like unsticking the wheels of a stopped clock.

Tonight driving home from the cinema I say that the actor Ben Kingsley,( who we have just seen in a film called Hugo, which neither if us enjoyed ) played the part of Ghandi in the film of the same name.

But I know before he says it, and his face goes blank, that he doesn’t recall who Ghandi is. I’m tired now and it takes a few minutes while I try and jog his memory of everything I can think of to explain who Ghandi is and realise how hopeless I am at facts and dates - how shallow my knowledge really is.

And how much I used to rely on my husband to know stuff that I don’t. And how that loss used to feel like a knife twisting in my gut every time, but now it's a thorn, buried in my thumb, always throbbing. Better to snuggle up close on the sofa, my cheek against his heart beating under the rough wool of his jumper.

And not talk too much about things that could cause inflammation.