Right or Happy?

14th December 2011 Wednesday

Tonight when I get back from seeing my father, who is vague and distracted and sleepy, I find the pussy cat has been sick on the bedroom carpet. Later he’s sick on the bed. We have a cream coloured counterpane. It’s the sort of sick that stains. It has seeped through to the duvet. I strip off the cover and the sheets. When I hang the duvet over the towel rail in the bedroom to dry it’s too thick and heavy and the rawl plug comes away from the wall. The pussy cat watches me calmly. It hasn’t stopped him eating again. But later he throws up his tuna on the welcome mat in the hall. I’ve been thinking we need a new mat.

When it’s dark. And cold. And late. And I’m tired. And sad about my father - all this ordinary stuff takes on silly upsetting proportions. My sweet husband offers to cook supper so I can write more Christmas cards. I lay a selection of allotment veggies on the counter. He says the beetroot will only take twenty minutes to cook. I say it’ll take much longer. When he says supper is ready and a I spear a knife into the beetroot it’s raw hard but the squash is mushy. So he pours another glass of wine and cooks it some more. Much later we pile our plates high and watch Masterchef on the TV. All this time I have a phrase running through my head - a quote from a wise book -

Would you rather be right or happy?

I was right about the beetroot. But so what? I was even more grateful that my husband cooked the supper. And screwed the towel rail back into the wall. And now we have clean sheets on the bed. Which is supposed to be the number one thing that makes people happy. Thank you, pussy cat.