Tête-à-Tête by Virginia Hainsworth

Oh, there you are!  I have been waiting for you.  I thought you’d never return. But, at last, you are here again and I am pleased.

When you are gone, I cannot answer their questions.  I don’t know where I am.  I hardly know what to do. You bring me to life.   I miss you when you’re not here. 

 Have you brought everything back with you?

 All of the scenes, the images and the colours.  All of the sounds, of voices and music and laughter.  Yes, the sounds of laughter.  Have you brought all of the feelings back?  The good ones, I mean.  You can leave the bad feelings behind, if you want to – leave them in the place you go to when you’re not here.  But I hope you have brought the warm, happy, contented feelings back.  Please say you have.

Let me look at what you have brought to me. Let me see those summer holidays, way back.  The walks with my dad along the sea front to fetch the morning paper, listening to his “Good Morning”s to everyone along the way.  How many today?  I used to count them.  Look – there are my new white sandals.  My holiday spending money. My mum’s new hairstyle.

Show me the day I got the keys to my first house.  Let me walk around it again, reliving the excitement of owning my own special corner of the world.  Dancing around the empty rooms, deciding where to put the furniture I could barely afford.  Planning what colour to paint the walls.

Let me take in once again my first view of the African savannah at dawn.  The last few stars fading from a translucent sky.  Yes, I can hear the distant throaty roar of a lion, feel the deep rumble of elephant voices reverberating through the soles of my feet. I feel time slip away.  I am back with the first humans who ever walked the earth.

 Allow me to observe the faces of everyone I love, those who are here and those who have passed.  Let me recall their favourite expressions and hear their voices.  Thank you.  They are within my grasp once more.

Show me yesterday.  And the day before.  And the day before that. Allow me to hold on to the days. Because I know that one time when you return from your wanderings, you will forget to bring all of the days back.  You will forget, won’t you?   I shall not chide you if you do, as long as you bring some of them back.  As long as you reappear, at least in part.

But let’s not dwell on that.  For now, you are here with me and we have business to attend to.  Let’s show them that we are together again.  I am myself once more.  For now.