Rescuing Sid

Caught myself peeping through the curtains today for suspicious-looking cars. Force of habit, really. When I turned back, I saw Sid watching me. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “They won’t be coming now.”

He was a rescue, my sweet, darling Sid. It’s been five months since I took him on. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having another heartbeat in the house. He was skin and bones when I found him. I soon started to fatten him up. He adores my homecooking: Lancashire Hotpot, Shepherd’s Pie, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; and always a tasty dessert to follow—my apple crumble and custard, his particular favorite.

He was dying in there; the light had gone from his eyes. When he first arrived, he suffered with a terrible fever, which I put down to the drugs they’d had him on. I made up a bed for him in the spare room, to give him his independence, though he caught a nasty chill on his chest so I switched him to my bed and lay next to him at night to keep him warm. The habit has stuck. Now when we fall asleep, it’s always hand in hand.

I had considered a dog or a cat. After all, that is the conventional route for most women in circumstances such as mine. Though I have no regrets over choosing Sid instead. Getting him was surprisingly easy; the opportunity presented itself on a silver platter. I spotted him all alone one morning, sitting in the garden of the Cedars Nursing Home, with an abandoned look about him that moved my heart. I went over, checked no-one was watching, kicked the wheelchair brake off and walked him away.

Care homes? In there he was just another stooped stick-figure with spittle on its chin, waiting for the call to come. With me, he receives all the loving attention he deserves. What’s more, his life is so much fuller: regular jaunts to the countryside in the camper van, visits to garden centres and other places of interest.

I’ve discovered, too, that he’s an avid snooker fan. He’ll sit for hours in his favourite armchair in front of my big-screen TV, mesmerized by those coloured balls zipping across the green baize and the pleasing clicks they make when they collide. Sometimes he turns to me, his mouth half-open, and points a shaky finger at the screen. It’s the closest he comes to conversation.

Our tenderest moments, though, are those we share on our daily promenade along the seafront. After a while, I’ll stop and sit on a bench, and we’ll gaze into each other’s eyes, sometimes for as long as a minute or two, before turning away to stare out to sea.

Then I’ll think of all we have, and I’ll say, “Thank God.”