Fast Fiction: Appreciations
Did the man in the sunhat really have a love affair with Ida, the matron? Richard Mallinson allows his readers to decide whether a man who reads Walter Pater’s Appreciations is telling the truth.
He is dozing in a deckchair on the lawn in the mid-morning sun. His sunhat is tilted over his face. A voice asks, 'And how are we today?'
He raises his head and pushes his sunhat back. 'We are very well, thank you, Nurse Porlock.' He opens the book which he has with him.
'And what are we reading today?' asks Nurse Porlock.
'We are rereading Appreciations, by Walter Pater.'
'Oh, highly intellectual, no doubt.'
He trembles.
'Well, yes and no to that,' he says.
'What do you mean, yes and no?'
He trembles again. Silence.
'We must try not to excite ourselves,' says Nurse Porlock, taking the book.
Suddenly: 'You remind me of someone,' he says, no longer trembling.
'Is that meant to be a compliment?'
She sits down on the grass at his side, stretching her legs, patting her uniform. She holds the book in her lap.
'Well, yes and no to that,' he replies.
There you go again,' she says. Then, 'Well, who do I remind you of?'
'Ah,' he begins - and describes his long-ago love affair with a dark-haired girl who had lovely legs.
That's a happy and a sad story,' she says.' What was her name?'
'It was ... Ida ... Clarat, the matron - but she was different then.'
Nurse Porlock admires her own legs but does not speak for a few, moments.
'I'm very glad to hear it,' she says at last.
Watching them from a second floor window the matron hopes that the fool isn't telling Nurse Porlock about their non-existent affair, as he's told several other nurses in the past.
She takes a sip of her mid-morning gin.
