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Like Souls

Derrick Sherwin

    It was a Sunday morning when Arthur and Annie met, Sunday morning in the vast town cemetery holding the thousands of dead souls who had been long forgotten with their deceased date together with a pathetically sad epithet embossed in place of a lost memory or feeble emotion.
    “In loving memory of Dora, loving wife of Arthur who passed away...” The cold slab of granite read. The pretty bunch of daffodils carefully arranged in a glass vase which was replenished every Sunday when he visited adorned the mound of earth as witness of his apparent love, devotion and sadness at his loss.
    “Married long was you?” the slight little woman asked as she stood next to his carefully tended plot looking at her newly filled mound of fresh earth.
    “Ten years – just ten years.” He nodded to her as she placed the small posy of Spring flowers at the head of the fresh earth. “Don’t seem long when you say it like that, does it? Ten years...I’ll remember those tears.”
    “I know what you mean –he only died only a week ago and I still can’t believe he’s gone. I suppose I’ll have to get him a nice granite stone like the one you’ve got for your wife.”
    “Yes – it helps - helps you remember.”
    They chatted on for an hour or so reminiscing in their own ways. Her Husband had died of a fateful accident which she obviously blamed herself for. He had been wheelchair bound for several years having crashed his car driving home from is usual Friday night out with his men friends at the local pub.
    “Had to do everything for him,” she said reproachfully picking at the head of one of the Primroses in the bunch of spring flowers. “Three years of every minute looking after his every need and did I get any thanks for it...?” She left the question floating in the air, her lip quivering with emotion,
    “Know what you mean,” he answered nodding sagely. “They don’t realize you got a life of your own to live do they? There was nothing really wrong with mine so the Doctors said – she just took to here bed and stayed there. Had to do everything for her and run my shop at the same time. Up and down, up and down those stairs I don’t know how many times. Something the matter with her insides, she’d complain but the Doctor said he could find nothing. He gave me every kind of prescription for stomach ache and believe me as a chemist I know most of ‘em. Even had her up to the hospital for one of those new-fangled MRI scans. Nothing! In the end it killed her – whatever it was.”
    “A relief for you I suppose and her after all that suffering.”
    “Oh she didn’t suffer. I know my analgesics. Yes painkillers I know. Been a chemist since I was a lad of fourteen – learned it from my father and he had a specialist business – he was very experienced in Chinese Herbs. Becoming very popular now you know.”
    Really?” she said, “In London?
    “Be surprised how many Chinese in London and they prefer their own cures. Even the English turn to Chinese herbs when the chemical stuff they get from the doctor doesn’t do the job.”
    “I’ll remember that next time I get one of my headaches.”
    “Be happy to help,” he smiled at her sensing the definite bond building between them
    Every Sunday for several weeks afterwards they met and eventually they began to meet outside their Sunday devotions and without a doubt their relationship blossomed into a permanent arrangement.
    He learned of the not so happy relationship she had experienced with her very demanding husband. “More fond of his beer with his mates than with me. First week after our marriage he spent more time out with his mates in the pub than at home. And he wasn’t nice with it either – you know? Some people are better when they’ve had a drink or two but him? No, a rough man he was. More than once I wished he would crash his car driving home drunk and end it all. Well, he did, but it only made him worse. I had to fetch and carry for him every minute of the day!”
    “Sounds awful,” he commiserated. “I know what you must have gone through. People don’t realize what looking after a loved one means. It soon becomes a burden particularly if it isn’t appreciated. I know I felt like I was my wife’s slave she was so demanding. I soon found I was hoping that what was causing he pain in her insides would complete the job and...” He waived his arms around indicating the graves. “You know,” he said, “It would have been a blessed relief.”
    “A blessed relief,” she nodded agreeing with him,” Indeed it was when he went down to the pub for the last time. “I had to push his wheelchair and sit in that awful smoky Pub and listen to him and his stupid mates until he wanted to come home. Then he was in a filthy temper and blamed me for every little bump in the pavement so he insisted on wheeling his wheelchair himself - I told him not to go too fast but...” Her tears welled up and she had to pause before she could continue until finally she said, “Didn’t stop at the Main Road crossing – the Bus driver didn’t have a chance.” She clapped her hands as if to illustrate the impact. “Dead as a squashed cat!”
    “How awful for you” he sympathized.
    “I couldn’t help it – he went so fast in that wheelchair!”
    “Awful but in a way I suppose a welcome relief,’ he offered.
    ‘Yes – welcome indeed. Some people was cruel though – said I should have been able to stop him. Others said I probably pushed him.”
    “Amazing how cruel some people can be! It was the same for me – they said that being a chemist I could’ve saved my wife in her suffering but as I said, I’m not the Doctor I’m just a poor chemist and a Chinese medicine chemist at that! Some even said I poisoned her. The police ordered a post mortem but they found no poisons only Chinese herbs which I’d mixed for her as an analgesic to take away her pain. Herbal preparations are harmless. Aconite is a Chinese herb I use as an analgesic and I used it to ease her stomach pains but they said that Aconites chief effects are on the cardiovascular and central nervous systems and it could have been that which gave her the heart attack. It was never proved but you can imagine how I felt – I was being blamed while all I was trying to do was to ease her pain. My Chinese customers understood but the English – nasty minds some people!”
    Their relationship blossomed even further and they gave up meeting at the cemetery every Sunday preferring to bury their painful thoughts with their spouses. They married secretly but the gossips who knew them both never stopped their tongues wagging and wondering which one would arrange for the other’s end. After all, they were both murderers weren’t they?

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