Just another day

Back home, Leonora and the little crutches settled into their quiet and uneventful routine. Leonora was feeling quite a bit better and was wondering when she should start hobbling to the shops rather than using the internet.

"Would you like to go to the supermarket?" she said to the little crutches one day.

They beamed happily and chirruped together, "Oh, yes please Leonora."

Leonora wasn't quite sure how she was going to manage two little crutches and a basket or a trolley but she thought she would worry about that later. It was time for an excursion.

.............................

She'd heard briefly from Leonard, in his usual fashion. Leonard seemed to think a few terse emails were appropriate communication. Leonora invariably puzzled over the cryptic one-liners and nearly always misunderstood them.

But she had no energy for arguing with him, or trying to get him to be more communicative so she decided to reply to him in similar fashion.

Leonard was puzzled to receive her abrupt replies. Clearly something was wrong. Leonora always wrote loads.

It was pretty obvious that when he wrote 'Morning' or 'How are you?" that she was expected to reply with the usual sort of ramble about what she was up to, or planning, or sometimes something totally unrelated. That was one of the good things about emailing Leonora, she could usually be relied upon to write something silly that would distract him for at least a few minutes at work.

So when she replied "Morning" and "OK" he realised that he must have upset her. He had sighed, and written asking if she was all right.

He received another one-word response. "Meaning?"

What a nuisance she was. He asked her if there was a problem.

Apparently Leonora did not understand that. He wondered if she was being deliberately obtuse.

Leonard made a supreme effort and wrote two sentences. He pointed out that she was being unusually abrupt and asked if he had said something wrong.

He was proud of himself. That was very conciliatory of him. He could just as easily have written "Leonora, stop doing the spoiled brat routine, and just write normally." But he hadn't.

It made no difference though. All she did was accuse him of being abrupt, and said there was nothing wrong and she had nothing to write about.

Leonora had considered Leonard's emails to be a cheek. Only Leonard, who never wrote more than a few sentences, and used one word when ten would be more explanatory, would criticise her for being abrupt.

Their email exchange didn't improve over the next week or so, with each accusing the other of being bad-tempered and irritable.

Leonard considered ringing her, but that didn't seem too good an idea either.

So they had reached a stalemate, with an infrequent email exchange still continuing, but which said very little either way.

........................

Leonora was brooding about this as she set off for the supermarket. The little crutches were unusally quiet, sensing that she was thinking about something. They also wondered how she was going to manage a basket or a trolley but as neither of them wanted to be left behind they had not mentioned this.

In the end Leonora hooked a basket round her arm in a most uncomfortable position. It was clear she wouldn't be able to put much in it, or it would fall out as she couldn't carry the basket level. She wandered up and down the aisles. But her head was full of Leonard. She gazed at the items and had no idea what to buy. Nothing took her fancy.

When she got to the check-out she stood patiently in-line. And then looked in her basket. It was totally empty. She looked at the little crutches and smiled. They smiled back although wondering if Leonora always came to the supermarket and wandered around without buying anything.

She put the basket down with some difficulty and limped out with the little crutches to go home and place an order over the internet.

When she got home, she sorted the shopping order first, and then decided to get on with transferring her medical records from the hospital near Leonard's where she had originally gone, to the nearest one to her. This took some time, and she was pretty fed up with the whole bureaucratic system, but she was determined not to visit Leonard's again.

She had been there too long, too often and it had run its course. Then she decided it was time she planned a trip. Lara's trip to south east Asia had inspired her, although she didn't feel like hiking off to China just yet. As soon as she was reasonably mobile, a few weeks or months in Europe would be very nice. And she could spend the next couple of months planning it.

Then Leonora wrote a nice email to Leonard. Well, she thought it was nice anyway, or nice-ish.

She told him that she had organised the transfer of her records so she wouldn't need to come down for any follow-up appointments, thanked him and Mrs Leonard and Tata (yet again) for their very generous hospitality, and then said that as soon as she was reasonably mobile she would be clearing off for a while.

........................

Leonard received her email when he got in from work that day. He felt pretty ropey anyway, but Leonora's dismissive email just about finished him off. He had a cup of tea but felt sick. He had eaten nothing since lunch time, and he knew he should have eaten a pack of jaffa cakes or a large bar of chocolate during the afternoon to sustain himself.

Tata had taken up all his sofa so he was forced to sit in the chair which he rarely used. She was glaring at him, and had no intention of moving from her sofa. She had not forgotten being pushed off the sofa the other evening and was determined to get her revenge.

He put down the lap top, and thought about what he needed to do next. Then his eyes shut.