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The Bubble

John Farquhar Young

    Gavin, a bachelor in his early sixties and a recently retired accountant, tries to control his reaction to the lady who sits across the aisle of the tour bus. In a minute she will try to chat again, he thinks. A worry? It really shouldn’t be. Even so.... He wrestles with his options. Pretend to sleep? Too weird. He peers at his mobile phone instead.
    Through the loudspeakers the tour guide draws attention to an upcoming statue of a Portuguese industrialist, now deceased. During the second world war he assisted the espionage efforts of Allies and after the war became a prominent philanthropist.
    The large lady, who has revealed that her name is Judith - “But you can call me Judy” - rises from her seat and leans across the aisle as she strains to take in the rapidly passing scene. Gavin is acutely and uncomfortably aware of the woman’s impressively configured, only partially covered bosom now intruding into the outer reaches of his comfort zone.
    The bus passes the statue. The tour guide completes her commentary and resumes her seat adjacent to the driver. Judith withdraws to her own territory. Gavin realizes that he has been holding his breath.
    She is probably a very nice lady, he tells himself. He senses that Judy is glancing in his direction again. He retreats into his “bubble”, that place in his mind where he routinely goes when he wants to escape social intrusion and in particular the attention assertive women.
    “Large women seem to be attracted to me, but I am not attracted to them,” he recalls confessing to one of his few friends. “And sadly, the women I am attracted to are not interested in me.”
    His friend, also elderly, made a passing and unhelpful remark about saucy, sexist postcards at one time for sale in seaside shops, cards which often depicted massive ladies on deckchairs and their very thin husbands.
    Kevin often reviews the history of his troubling problem with large ladies. Once at work, to his horror, he overheard two substantially built female colleagues talking about him. “He’s so sweet,” one said. “You just want to cuddle him.” Gavin wants – and through the years of his adult life has always wanted – to be in control of cuddling. But being encompassed by strong female arms is not at all appealing to him.
    After decades of reflection, he has come to think that his problem may have started just hours after being born. A tale was often told by his mother – delivered with strange relish – is grafted into his life’s story and into the way he sees his relationship with women. “He refused to go to the breast,” she would say looking across the room at her diminutive son. “Then the nurse came along and took him by the nape of the neck and applied him to the nipple, just stuck him on.” She would laugh as she mimed the movement - grabbing an imaginary neck with her large hand and then thrusting it forward in a type of boxing movement. He remembers her as being a passionately caring mother in a dutiful sort of way but grabbing and thrusting was one of her chief ‘mother-movements’. “For your own good I will overcome any resistance by grabbing and thrusting,” he sometimes imagines her thinking. Gentleness is not compatible with grabbing and thrusting, he believes.
    He sometimes wondered how she applied her large hands to her husband - a tall, quiet and unassuming man who suffered a fatal heart attack while Gavin was still in his early twenties.
    Memories from early childhood - stays in hospital, a bossy cousin in kindergarten, large girls who bullied him at school, teachers – and so on, and so on – scene built on scene, layer upon layer reinforcing his wariness of women.
    He has from time to time seriously considered therapy for his anxiety. But what would a therapist make of his problem? His bubble was his way of dealing with the difficulty.
    “My bubble!” Sometimes he smiles when he is struck by the irony of the image - the similarity of his bubble to a self-created womb. But he knows that the boundaries of this mental, tranquil people-free sanctuary are fragile, its walls easily breached by ladies like Judy.
    She is again leaning across the aisle towards him.
    “I hope we stop for lunch soon,” she sighs. “I’m feeling quite peckish.”
    Hunger, appetite, female appetites, you could just cuddle him. Words tumble through his mind. He nods but does not avert his eyes from his phone.
    The coach stops. The tourists disembark and are ushered towards a restaurant. He finds a table.
    “Don’t mind if I join you, do you?” says Judy, seating herself across from him.
    It’s a very small table, Gavin finds himself thinking.
    Bit by bit she winkles out his personal history. “You were an accountant. I retired recently. I could do with some money advice.”
    She has quite a nice voice, he thinks... but even so...She has large hands. He finds that he has lost any desire to eat. Suddenly he is aware of a pain in his chest. Anxiety-related indigestion! he thinks. He fumbles in his pocket for his stomach pills. The pain intensifies.
    “Are you OK?” Judy sounds anxious.
    As Gavin slides towards the floor Judy’s strong arms encompass him.
    Six months later: Gavin sits contentedly in his living room having reentered his bubble several minutes earlier. This is a momentary retreat. He will not stay within its boundaries for long. Beyond the bubble he is dimly aware of Judy bustling about. She is talking again. She often talks but when he is in his bubble her words flow over and around him as a river might flow around a boulder. In his bubble he is unwilling to chat, but this does not seem to bother her or deter her from speaking. She seems to respect his occasional desire not to chat.
    Before she retired Judy was the manager of a care home. Caring was her vocation. Caring for him is somehow filling a gap in her life, he believes. She discovered that her home is only forty minutes’ drive away and now she visits several times every week to deal with his needs - real or imagined.
    He has now more or less recovered from his heart attack but has begun to appreciate her ministrations. Although very strong, she treats him patiently and gently... and true, she has large hands, but she does not grab and thrust.
    “Ok that’s it for today,” she announces cheerfully that afternoon as she prepares to leave. “If you need anything, send me a text.”
    Gavin now emerging from his bubble smiles and shakes his head. The words that follow are his. They emerge from his mouth, but to Kevin it feels as though they are uttered by another person.
    “Would you like some wine?” he asks. “I have a few bottles in the cupboard.”
    Judy gazes at him for a moment, her eyes wide. “I’d love to, but I don’t drink and drive.”
    The entity now controlling Kevin’s voice speaks again. “There IS a spare bedroom,” it says softly.
    Gavin notes the twinkle in Judy’s eyes.

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