Second Love

It's hard when you lose a partner after more than thirty five years of marriage, especially when those years had been as good as those that Doris and I had shared. I'd even taken early retirement when I got to sixty and we'd planned to buy a four-wheel drive and camper van and travel around the country.

We'd bought the vehicle and camper and were just a week away from beginning our travels when worst blow in my life fell upon me.

I'd been out buying a few more things for our trip and came home to find Doris lying on the kitchen floor. She had also been out shopping and her purchases were on the kitchen table. She must have come home and simply collapsed.

I rang for the ambulance and travelled with her in it to the hospital. The paramedics in the ambulance kept doing things to her but said nothing. It wasn't until we got to the emergency department in the hospital that I was told that Doris was dead.

"Dead on arrival," was the official verdict, but for me, dead from my life was the real conclusion. It was an undiagnosed heart problem that brought her and, so I thought, my life to an end. That's how I saw and felt it to be at that time.

Without Doris in my life I was in what I thought of as "The Valley of the Shadow." It was as if half of my self had been torn away, and there was a great gaping emotional wound.

For almost a year I shut my self away from the world, only sallying out of the house to buy food and other essentials. We had no children and as for the rest of the family and friends, I didn't want to see or speak to anyone. I was living almost like a hermit with only my cat Arthur for company; a hermit who was angry with the world and God for depriving me of Doris.

After a year had passed I started to recover and began socialising again. Part of that socialising included a return to attending church. One morning during the service the minister announced that the church was setting up computer classes for over sixties.

He pointed out that older people now wanted to use computers, even if only to try and keep up with their grandchildren, but that most of the classes available were expensive and not designed to cater for older people.

The main point was that volunteer teachers were being sought and if there was anyone in the congregation who could help out, etc. etc.

Having been computer literate for some time I decided I would volunteer.

An old church hall was to be used for one day a week as the classroom, and computers appeared from I knew not where as if by some new version of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Teaching was on a one to one basis so that instruction could be given at a rate adapted to the learner's pace. The cost to the learner was very small indeed.

On the day the classes were held each teacher had four students, each student receiving one hour per week of instruction over a period of ten weeks.

The ages of the students ranged from sixty upward, one student I can recall was ninety three. I was specialising in Microsoft Word and Publisher and for the first ten week term I had two students doing Word and two Publisher.

One thing that became obvious fairly quickly was that some of the students were not particularly concerned to learn computer; what they really wanted and needed was the one hour of someone's undivided attention.

This pointed to the loneliness and isolation of some elderly people. I seemed to spend a great deal of time listening to my students talking about their ailments, neglectful children and their feelings of being superfluous to mainstream life.

During the first of those ten week terms my last student of the day was a tiny little woman called Jessica. Coming originally from Malaysia she was chocolate in colour, and her hair, despite the fact that she must have been over sixty, was jet black without a trace of grey. Her eyes were dark brown and brilliantly alive, and I was particularly taken by her wide mouth with its frequent smile displaying near perfect white teeth. I thought she must be an indigenous Malaysian, rather than one of the later arrivals from China.

Along with her tiny stature, everything about her seemed so delicate, and me being six feet two inches tall she made me feel like a clumsy brute.

She displayed a quick intelligence, listening carefully and asking pertinent questions in a voice that seemed to sing rather than simply speak.

For the first three sessions she progressed well, but during the third session she said, "My computer not do what this one do, why that?"

I had to admit that she had me stumped until she said, "It not have all those things that this one have." By "those things" she meant the various shortcut icons.

I decided that she lacked "those things" because they had not been put there from Tools on the Menu Bar, and set about instructing her how to do this.

The following week Jessica said rather plaintively, "I try to do what you say, but there nothing."

Being a bit of a sucker for a damsel in distress, and I suppose because I'd taken a particular liking to Jessica, I asked her where she lived. It happened her house was not too far from where we held our classes, so I said, "Suppose when we finish here I come to your house and have a look at your computer?"

She smiled and said, "You do that...you do that? I pay you."

I returned her smile – in fact it was hard not to smile when Jessica smiled – and said, "There's no need to pay me, I shall be pleased to do it."

"You very kind," she said softly, "you kind man, I like you."

I don't think I'm easily embarrassed, but I must admit her response made me blush.

At the end of the lesson I followed her car in mine. When we arrived at her house I was struck by the neatness of the garden, and it seemed to fit in so well with Jessica's trim tidy figure.

The inside her small house was just the same, neat and orderly, yet exceedingly colourful, with curtains, upholstery, cushions and rugs a riot of reds, green, and blues. I was taken to what must have once been a bedroom, but was now apparently a study, with well filled bookshelves. I could see that some of the books were in English, but others were in what I took to be Malaysian.

On a desk stood the computer and settling down in front of it and booting it up I quickly saw the problem. Jessica had been a first time computer buyer, and like many first time buyers she hadn't really known what she was looking for. The machine had been sold to her with a very cheap programme installed, and it was impossible for her to carry out the functions of the more expensive but flexible programmes we used for teaching purposes.

I pointed this out to her, stressing the limitations of her programme and she asked, "What must I do?"

"Well, I replied, you can live with what you've got or install another programme. If you decide to install another programme like the one at our classes, it'll cost you a bit."

"Ah, yes, I have money, I would like."

"You mean you do want to install a new programme?"

"Yes, that I would like; but how I do it?"

"Would you like me to do it for you?" I asked. "I can buy what is necessary and come and install it."

"You would do that, David?"

"Yes, no problem."

"Then I must pay you."

That began a bit of a verbal tussle but I finally got it through to her I did not want paying. This led on to further cross purpose talk since Jessica insisted she must reward me, the reward offered being that me and my wife have dinner with her one evening. I had to point out that I was a widower, and she said it was because I was still wearing a wedding ring she thought I must have a wife.

Jessica went on to say that, "I too have been alone for two years."

I jokingly pointed out that she was also wearing a wedding ring.

"Ah yes, but what must I do. Put in drawer and forget past years, no I not forget, and you too I think."

No I don't forget those years," I replied. This led on to talk of our late partners; the grief we experienced at their loss, and the loneliness that came with that grief.

She said, "I hear that many men not eat properly when they lose wife; you cook?"

I grinned and said, "Well, after a fashion. In fact I'd better be going because I've got to get my evening meal ready."

With considerable enthusiasm Jessica said, "Aha, you not let me pay so I know what I do. This evening you stay here and I cook for you. I cook well; before I retire I work in Malaysian restaurant preparing meals. You stay; you like?"

The idea of someone else cooking for me had a strong appeal, but I said, "Yes, I like, but I have to feed Arthur."

"Arthur; you have son or friend live with you?"

"No," I laughed, "Arthur is my cat, we didn't have any children, but Doris really loved Arthur."

Jessica looked sad and said, "I too have no children. My husband Meng, he sad that we have no children and it would be good now, but..." She shrugged her slender shoulders expressively."

I said somewhat negatively, "From what I hear from people at the computer classes we might be better off without them. They only seem to turn up when they're in trouble and want something."

Jessica thought about this for a moment, and then as if dismissing it said brightly, "You go, feed Arthur and come back and I have meal ready; you like?"

"You don't have to go to all that trouble, Jessica," I protested.

"No trouble, I like if you like."

I grinned and said, "Then yes, I like, thank you."

Jessica seemed to be one of those people who could find joy in almost any circumstances, and as she accompanied me to my car she seemed to hop and skip with pleasure. It occurred to me that she looked like a little sparrow, and thereafter that's was how I thought of her.

At the car she said, "You come back, I have food ready, then perhaps we talk?"

"Yes, I'll come back and we'll talk," I assured her.

I went home and fed Arthur and promised him that I wouldn't be home late. Engaged as he was in eating I don't think he took any notice of my assurance.

When I got back to Jessica's house she was still putting the final touches to the meal, and I sat at the kitchen table watching her as she hopped and skipped around apparently bubbling over with pleasure.

"I like cooking," she said, "but it nice when you cook for someone else as well. I not be long."

I felt rather moved by her rather sweet and unaffected cheerfulness, and the charm of her singing speech. The meal she prepared had rice as its base, but it was laced with vegetables, and small pieces of chicken.

"You like?" she asked.

"Yes, I like very much," I said.

"You let me cook for you again?" she asked ingenuously.

Her enthusiasm and artlessness pulled me along with her and so I said, "If it's not too much trouble I'd..."

"Trouble, is trouble for you to teach computer? Is trouble for you to help me with my computer? If no trouble; why cooking for you sometimes a trouble to me?"

"Well, I just thought..."

"No trouble, I like; you nice man and your wife very lucky, yes?"

That had me blushing again but I managed a smile and said, "You'd have to ask Doris, but you can't do that."

"I very lucky," she said with for her unusual solemnity, "I marry when sixteen and Meng much older than me, but he kind and love me. You love Doris?"

"Yes, very much," I said.

"That good, very good." Then suddenly changing the topic she asked, "What work you do before you retire?"

"Oh, I was a research chemist."

"Ah, that very clever, is it not?"

I grinned and said, "Some people might think so; what did your husband do?"

"Ah, we have Malaysian restaurant, he manage I cook. I sold after he die."

The evening seemed to drift by unnoticed as she spoke about her life and work and she occasionally asked me questions about myself. Around eleven o'clock I remembered my promise to Arthur, so reluctantly I rose to leave saying, "If it's okay I'll get the new programme tomorrow and come and install it."

"Yes...yes...it okay. You come in afternoon and I cook for you again."

"Oh, I can't intrude like that, I mean..."

"Intrude...intrude, how you intrude? I like you; you say you like my cooking....you not like me?"

"Yes, I like you, yes, but I just feel..."

"Then you not feel intrude and tomorrow we eat and talk again, or we not talk and just be with each other, that nice."

That ended the matter, and as I drove home that night I knew that like me Jessica wanted company. It seemed so long since I had sat with someone and just talked - just enjoyed being with them.

I got the new programme and installed it and spent another evening with Jessica. She was a very infectiously happy person and she could, like the little sparrow I pictured her as, hop from one subject to the next with bewildering speed.

During that evening I learned that I had been wrong about Jessica being indigenous Malay. Her family had first arrived in the peninsular in the nineteenth century, and were from south India. I was curious about her name since it sounded so Western. When I asked her about it she laugh and said, "British stay a long time in Malaysia; they want rubber and tin. Many people use British names. My sister Joanne and brother Melvyn; my mother named Florence."

"Are they here?" I asked.

"No, they in Malaysia. Me and Meng come to have restaurant here, it only Malaysian restaurant in city."

"Yes, I've seen it," I replied, "but I've never been there."

"Ah yes, it good when Meng and me had, but after I sold, not so good. You want Malaysian food, I cook for you."

It was clear that a friendship was forming and I suppose I hung back a bit because the memory of Doris was still deeply embedded in me. Jessica was obviously inviting me to spend time with her and irrationally I felt as if I was being unfaithful to Doris.

I hope it doesn't sound ungallant, but it was Jessica who was pushing the relationship and me who was reticent.

It was the time of year for our city to hold its annual Arts Festival, and Jessica was clearly determined not to let things rest. During our next computer class she said, "Malaysian dancers come to Festival, I like you to come with me to see. I pay, you enjoy."

That was too much. "No Jessica," I said firmly, you don't pay. I'm not poor so I pay."

She gave a gurgling sort of laugh and said, "Aha, then you come with me."

I'd walked right into that one without thinking about it. An extended but friendly argument now followed at the conclusion of which it was agreed that we would go to see the dancers, and we would both pay for our tickets.

Having never seen Malaysian dancers the evening proved to be a revelation; what to my ears was strange percussive music; the wonderful grace and beauty of the dancers, even though I didn't understand the meaning of it, I found quite overwhelming, and felt oddly deprived when it came to an end.

One amusing feature of the evening lay in my being with Jessica. She looked so tiny and fragile that I felt as if I was not so much accompanied by a mature woman, but a child. Her openness and wonderful exuberance added to that feeling.

Really she was quite irresistible and it seemed that there was no way she was going to let go of the hold she had on me, and growingly I didn't want her to let go.

I suppose with some shame I have to admit that inhibited occidental that I am I was content to let her make the running. That "running" started to include evenings out to see films or go to the theatre. Jessica was very eclectic in her tastes and seemed to be able to find what was best in every kind of entertainment and recreational activity.

The first ten week term came to an end and Jessica, who had been learning Word signed up for the next term to learn Publisher. She had the choice of two other teachers who taught Publisher, but insisted she had me.

We were now seeing each other and going our together regularly, and Jessica frequently cooked for me. Poor Arthur was seeing far less of me than he did during my hermit year, but being a cat he didn't seem to mind, just as long as I was there to feed him.

It was all going very well. I'd come out of my shell, was doing something useful, and had very delightful companionship, plus delicious and free meals. To be quite truthful I hadn't considered that my relationship with Jessica would go beyond this, but that was without taking into account Jessica's high-spirited personality.

It was after yet another meal cooked by her that matters came unexpectedly to a head.

We were sitting in her lounge; me in an armchair and she reclining on a heap of cushions – cushions seemed to abound in her house – in her favourite position when we were just talking or, on the odd occasions when we bothered, watching television.

In what for her was an unusually solemn voice she said, "I speak seriously, David."

"Oh?"

"You not laugh."

"All right, I won't laugh."

She suddenly sat upright and looking at me with a stern expression, went on, "And you not think me bad woman. There was only ever Meng."

"All right Jessica," I replied, wondering where this was leading, "I know you're not a bad woman, you very nice."

"Nice? Yes, I cook, we talk, and we go out together, you teach, yes?"

"Yes."

"You do not like me?"

I was stunned and after managing to collect my thoughts I replied, "What are you talking about Jessica, of course I like you, why else would I spend so much time with you?"

She laid a finger on her cheek and said, "You not like my skin...my colour; you think is ugly?"

"No...no...of course I don't, I think your colour is beautiful."

"Then you think all of me ugly?"

"This is ridiculous Jessica, you're and attractive woman." I almost added, "For your age," but stopped myself just in time.

"That true?"

"Yes, it's true."

"Then what you not like about me." She sounded a trifle tearful as she went on, "I cook for you, make myself look nice and wear nice clothes so you pleased to be with me, so what you not like?"

"Jessica, I don't know what this is all about. Of course I like you and think you're a very attractive lady, there isn't anything I don't like about you and I enjoy being with you so what are you..."

The next words came like a dagger striking home; "Then why you never touch me?"

"T-t-touch you?"

"Not even hold hand. You think I give you something bad?"

"N-n-no."

"Then why you make me ask you like this, you not like women?"

"Of course I like women, Doris and me were married for..."

"You love Doris but Doris not here. I love Meng, but Meng not here."

"I know but..."

She looked at me keenly for a few moments and then went on, "Perhaps you not able to...to...I don't know words; Meng and me we always talk another language when we speak of these things; what you say in English when men cannot touch woman?"

I'd started to get her drift so I said hesitantly, "Are talking about sexual impotence?"

What she did next amazed me. She went to a bookshelf and took down a dictionary, and handing it to me said, "You find word for me."

I found "impotent' and went to hand her the book, but she said, "You read for me."

I read, "Powerless; helpless, decrepit; wholly lacking in sexual power."

"Yes...yes...that what I mean; you im-pot–ent?" She made it sound rather like "Him hot tent."

That touched me on a raw nerve because although I didn't have the sexual vigour of youth, I'd prided myself that despite the passing years I still retained a high degree of potency.

"Certainly not," I said somewhat haughtily, "I'm quite capable of...of...well I'm not impotent."

"Then tell what you not like about me that you not touch me like man touches woman."

I was groping for words as I tried to cope with this rather one sided exchange.

"Well, I suppose..."

"You not suppose David... that what people say when they not tell what they truly think, you speak what you think."