Читать книгу The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Peter Godwin - Страница 11

Joanna is behaving very oddly. Suddenly she announces that she’s not pregnant. I hadn’t even realized that she might be. I assume that being unpregnant is the standard template, one that doesn’t require confirmation by way of regular bulletins. In any case I am relieved by the all clear.

Later, on my way to buy groceries at D’Agostino’s on Washington Street, I pass a man unloading boxes from a truck into the twenty-four-hour City Deli at the corner of our building. On the side of the truck is painted the name of the company: ‘Lo Boy Foods’. Underneath it advertises ‘Individual portions of meats and fish’. An entire company devoted to the catering needs of solitary diners? Maybe that is my fate, sitting alone in middle age, eating individual portions of meat and fish from ‘Lo Boy Foods’.

The prospect of Joanna being pregnant suddenly doesn’t seem so unpalatable, well, no less palatable than a future fuelled by ‘Lo Boy Foods’.

On my return from shopping, on the corner of Bank and Hudson, the old folks are sitting in their wheelchairs on the pavement in front of the Village Nursing Home, rolled there by the white-uniformed nursing aides for some ‘fresh air’. Their the worn-out bodies will slowly toast the morning away in their wheelchairs, empty eyes staring out at the traffic.

And I notice, yet again, the smartly dressed middle-aged man sitting on a bench to one side, with his mother. He reads the New York Times intently, while she sits twitching next to him, one leg crossed tightly over the other, bony knuckles clenched over the armrests of her wheelchair. She is unable to talk or even to listen, it seems. I’m sure she wouldn’t notice whether he’s there or not, but that doesn’t dissuade this conscientious son from his daily vigil. His dedication to his uncomprehending mother makes me feel ashamed of myself.

And again a baser thought worms its way into my mind. Maybe it’s just as well to have kids around in case I happen to survive into my own dotage.