a short story by S.Froyse
"It's a pity about poor Shirley," Ada observes. "What an awful way to go. One minute you're walking down the High Street. Next minute you're up and away."
�"You told me yesterday that she was run over by the tram?" Enid inquires timidly.
�Ada elaborates, "Yes, well that is what happened in the end. Darren phoned last night. You remember my grandson? He came to visit last August"
Enid tries to recall the last person under the age of 40 brave enough to cross the tea room threshold."Was he the one with his hair painted blue and the pair of scissors through his nostrils?"
Ada corrects Enid's error, " No that's Andrew. Darren's become a Sikh. He wears one of those sari things. What do they call them?"
Enid's education in Sikh culture leaves her poorly prepared to meet this challenging question. However, she can at least score some points with an accurate memory of Ada's nephew.
"I think I remember him. He wanted to tell me about this transanluscent meditation."
"That's right." Ada acknowledges. "Well anyway, he called me to say they just issued the coroner's report on his mother. Now you know Shirley was ever so thin, like a matchstick. So there was this freak gust of wind that blew right down the High Street and caught her umbrella."
Enid, who finds it difficult to go more than 45 seconds without hearing her own voice, interrupts, "I think I lent her an umbrella once and I've not seen it since"
�"There's not much chance you?ll get it back now," Ada continues. "Well, you know how she was always so careful with her money. She wouldn't let go of that umbrella for anything! There she was then, carried away up into the air until her umbrella caught on the overhead wires and she was still holding onto it for dear life! What a shock she got. I read in the paper it was 4,000 volts of electricity! Knocked her right down onto the tracks and if that wasn't enough, the tram ran her over. There's no blaming the driver. He wasn't expecting anyone to fall from the sky right in front of him. It was a tragedy. Darren is heartbroken."
"You are going back to England for the funeral?" Enid inquires. Although she finds it difficult to conceal her feelings at her old friend's sad demise, in the back of her mind she is wondering if there will be anything for her in the will, at least her old umbrella.
Ada answers her, "No, there's no need to go back. The family is making the funeral here. You remember that a very nice Rabbi, Sylvia Bates? Well she is conducting the whole service for them right by the Kinneret."
"What a pretty place to be buried" Enid ruminates.
Ada feels the need to elaborate further. "It's not going to be one of those orthodox burials you know. I mean, there wasn't so much left of Shirley to bury when they finally picked her up off the tracks. You know they had to hold the trams up two hours with all those police and ambulances."
"Typical of Shirley to keep people waiting" Enid comments. "I never used to like it when I was stuck behind her in the supermarket."
�Ignoring this slur on the character of the deceased, Ada continues to excitedly relate the funeral arrangements. "They're sending the ashes to Israel by Federal Express and then they'll be scattered over the Kinneret. Darren tells me they're going to play Tom Jones's "Dancing Through the Tulips". It's a lovely way to send her off. I'm sure Doris is going to come, and Brenda will probably be there as well. Maybe you'll be able to come?"
�All this time, while Ada has been preoccupied in recounting the gory details of Shirley's demise, Enid's mind has been working overtime. With a quite uncharacteristic degree of mind and body co-ordination, she has managed to snip off at least half a dozen geraniums blooms from the plant pot to her side. Now she holds out the geranium blooms up to Ada, and makes a most generous offer.
"I can't travel all that way with these varicose veins. I think I'll send these flowers instead."
A gentle smile warms the creases of Ada's face. "It is also very hard for me to go since I've started having my dizzy spells". She raises her left hand, and combines Enid?s geranium blooms with the flowers she's so dexterously removed herself just a few minutes beforehand, from the pot on the other side of the sofa!