magical encounters - Elizabeth

Small, but not frail, slightly wobbly lady, neatly dressed in a light blue shirt and a long dark blue skirt.

 

Marks of love are very visible on her face. She is someone who has clearly been loved very well, and who has loved very well herself. 

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Freddie is the name of her husband who passed away last year.

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Her hair used to be ginger when she was young and then it turned auburn when she turned 35, then slowly blonde, although she never acknowledged that. “No ginger would ever want to be a blonde”, she said. Then it turned silvery white. It was her hair that first caught my attention when she was walking rounds around the square I was sitting in. I was determined to say hi, introduce myself and importantly to compliment her hair. Her hair is impeccably done and very shiny. It had character but it was not unruly. 

 

She had wanted to read history at Oxford, and she wanted to do at Magdalen, because that is where her father and brothers went, but it was 1955, and in 1955 women weren’t accepted at Magdalen. She had to go to a women’s college. She went to St.Anne’s to read Law in 1955 and went on to become a barrister. She was one of the 6 girls out of a total 350 law pupils. Here at Oxford she met Freddie. Who is dark and handsome and tall, and who, according to Elizabeth, others had often found intimidating because of that. He was a gentleman who was not only interesting himself also someone who was interested, in the world, in life, and in other people. 

 

Our conversation started with names, with me explaining why I didn’t like mine, and how I had come to accept gladly and not begrudgingly. She said she loved her name and was determined to sit down with me so that we can find another name for me (if I wanted to). “One must like one’s own name because it represents your identity and one must love one’s identity” she said. 

 

She cried whenever she mentioned Freddie, because mentioning Freddie entails mentioning that he is gone, because mentioning him means talking about him in the past tense and not the present. Sometimes I wished people were less educated in grammar. Perhaps school ought to not bang on about it too hard. Sometimes it is a blessing to not have to be so clear about the tenses, about what belongs to the past, present and future. Some things belong to them all at once or to none of them at all.

 

She said “Where have you gone? I always ask”. This was the only time it felt like she was not entirely present with me, but I don’t blame her. “Oh” she said, sounding a little dazed, “he’s not here anymore”. She sounded confused, like someone who had very suddenly woken up from a dream, or perhaps someone who had suddenly found themselves trapped in what they hope to be a nightmare. Im not sure whether the “oh” sounded more like a question or exclaimation. It certainly sounded like both. He had died, but their love hasn’t.

 

Our conversation took us to love, to grief, to her and my days at Durham. We talked about how I had met Johannes. She looked at me and asked, “tell me about him, how did you meet, are you going to marry him” such personal questions yet nothing felt out of bounds with this stranger who is not in the least bit strange. Everything about her is familiar, in an endearing and not at all repetitive and boring way. Girls cannot resist the urge to divulge, to process, to feel with and be concerned, to live vicariously through the words that tell the life of another. This, I have come to believe with pride, is a primordially girl thing. 

 

Talking to her felt like talking to a girlfriend of my age, a girlfriend with a new knee and who will soon get a new hip. Who is a little wobbly but not in the slightest unclear. Women stay sharp until the very end. We must do. Just like we must stay presentable. 

 

The magic of female friendships never ceases to amaze me.

 

I want to be like her when I am older. I want to be like her when I am old. I want to be that sort of 80 year old who invites strange young girls into the middle of a square for random but not at all shallow chats. I want to ask them questions and I want to know all about their love, life, and everything that matters to them. I want to be as interested as their other young girlfriends. I want to spend the entire day walking around the same square and talk to all sort of people. I want to repeat what i care about many many many times to different people who care to listen, simply because I want and can afford to.