The Tuesday Volunteers

Right there in public, I was weeping and sobbing aloud. His arm came round me.

“What is it, Nancy? Tell me.”

“I say such hurtful things to you Bryce and you’re always so loving to me. Why do I hurt you so?”

“Because you’ve been so badly hurt your self, Nancy. I understand that, and I just hope that one day all the hurts will go away, but that won’t happen if I walk away every time you’re in pain. Besides, I still have the hope that one day you’ll come to love and trust me.”

That did it. Down crashed the damned floodgates and I really cut loose. I was sobbing, howling and gushing tears like the river right in front of us.

I was dimly aware of an old gentleman stopping to ask, “Is there anything I can do to help?” Was I the only nasty person in the world?

I didn’t hear what Bryce replied to the man, but the man said, “I hope she feels better soon,” and went on his way.

I was scrunched up against Bryce as if I was trying to hide in him, and he was whispering to me and stroking my hair. I felt two dogs licking my hands. I felt terrible.

“I’ll walk home with you,” he said.

My defences were down. I wanted him to take me home, and what happened, would happen. So for the second time in our acquaintanceship, Bryce escorted a sopping wet me.

Arriving at my house, still heaving gulping sobs, I broke another of my self-imposed regulations. “Come in and have a cup of coffee.”

“I’d prefer tea.”

“I’ve got some,” then, with a flash of incongruous humour, given my sobs, “I didn’t think you’d notice the difference between tea and coffee being in my desirable company.”

“You only add to the flavour, Nancy,” he laughed.

Once inside I set about tea making thinking, “My God, what have you let yourself in for, Nancy? Damsel in distress; handsome rescuer giving solace; he’s just got to have a try.”

Do you know, he didn’t! No passionate appeals, no kissing or embracing, no breast fondling or thigh stroking. “What’s the matter with this guy, he’s not human?” In my head, I’d even worked out how I was going to counter his moves. The main event, was when he said:

“I don’t suppose you’ll feel up to going out tonight now?”

That was too much. “Are you trying to wriggle out of your offer of dinner, now? Had a good look at me and decided I’m too ugly to be seen with? Well, you’re not getting out of it. You’ll take me to dinner or there’ll be hell to pay, darling.”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me darling. Could there be something in it?”

“I’m confusing you with the dog.”

“Ah. What time will you pick me up?”

“Damn you, Bryce. You ask a girl out to dinner and then expect her to collect you…”

“But we always…”

“You can take me to dinner in your clapped out jalopy, and be here at seven sharp.”

We both laughed – me through my still reverberating sobby gulps.

“I shall be here at five minutes to the hour to escort your ladyship. Unless there’s anything special you want me to do, I’d better go. I’ll be late for the hospital.”

It hit me, “My God, I’m going to be late too. Let’s go together, we can use my car.”

“I’ve got to get into my clown’s outfit.”

“We can stop at your place.”

And so together, we went to make our hospital rounds. There was something warm and uniting about that.

That evening we had a pleasant but uneventful dinner together. My emotional storm of the morning had subsided during my work with the children, but down in the depths it was saying, “I’m still here, and you’re going to have to deal with me some time.”

According to my command, Bryce had picked me up in his car, so for once it was he dropping me off at my house.

I toyed with the idea of inviting him in for coffee, or a nightcap or some such cliché. Having decided to do just that, he responded, “Not tonight, Nancy, if you don’t mind, I’ve had heavy week and could do with an early night.”

I said I understood, but was now seriously wondering if he was some neuter from outer space.

He countered this with a peck on the cheek. “Well, that’s something,” I thought. I watched his rear lights dwindle as he drove away, and felt emptiness in my heart. “I wish he had stayed and we…” I cut the thought off.

Bryce now became the centre of all my thoughts. However much I tried to push them away, they always returned with increased force. The first and central issue I had to face was why I could not accept that goodness could exist in a person. I had once, long ago, idealistically thought that it could exist, but my experience had warped that view completely out of shape.

Through the care and help Bryce had given me, and my work with the children, I had partially come to a more positive view of the world. Yet, I seemed to constantly be reverting to my old cynical self.

I could be having the most wonderful time with Bryce, but then say something hard and cutting. Not once had he ever struck back at me. “Good God, the man must really love me, even if he doesn’t seem to want my body.”

Why couldn’t I love like that…why couldn’t I at least love Bryce like…Did I…? Could I…?

I had no further contact with Bryce until our Tuesday meeting. I had battered my brain and my emotions constantly, and now felt strangely uncomfortable in his presence. I don’t mean that I had decided I did not like Bryce after all, it was just that I didn’t know how to conduct myself naturally with him.

We chatted on for some time about neutral things like his work, the hospital, and our dogs. I felt a strain between us, but knew that it was on my side, not his.

Finally, the results of my weeklong cogitation and turmoil had to come out.

He was about to leave for the hospital, and I was also due there, and in this last moment I spoke up:

“Bryce?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you marry me?”

An insolent youth who was passing and heard my proposal called out, “Go on mate, say ‘yes’, or I’ll have her instead.”

Bryce seemed stunned. Perhaps I had misread him after all. He didn’t care fopr me in that way? Finally, he found his voice:

“Yes, when?”

“Soon, very soon. I love you, Mr.Clown.”

“I adore you, pretty lady.”

“Bryce?”

“Yes?”

“You haven’t had a vasectomy, have you.”

“No, of course not, why ever did you ask that?”

“Oh, just something I learned from an old acquaintance.”

Our wedding was a remarkable affair. The church was packed inside and others filled the street outside, and most of them were children we had known in the hospital and their parents, come to see Mr.Clown and Pretty Lady get married.

Incidentally, he isn’t a neuter, and he hadn’t had a vasectomy, because I think it must have been on our wedding night when I got pregnant for the first time. We’ve managed it twice more since then.

I love Mr.Clown!