[19] False dreams cling without number

When Paul is near, I always know who I am and what I’m doing and what’s happening around me. Before he was in my life and when he’s not in it now, I learned to keep steady with practical things. I pay the bills, I deposit the draughts, I keep myself pretty, I bargain with shopkeepers – all the things he’s no good at. Today while he was in the hills, more later, I Johnny-walked as far as the Post Office Bank three blocks away – the farthest I’ve been since we returned from our hill. (Our hill – everyone who loves someone finds one place their own together.) It took half an hour to wheel the lad out the carriage gate and when I got there … steps. All right. What would Paul do? What would a mother do lad, you? A thought occurred. I stood like post with the pram in front of me at the base of the steps and sure, within half a minute some man in a homberg and an ankle-long grey tweed coat stopped and click-bowed his eyebrows, and a second man in the same hat and coat stopped to help him. This is so kind of you sirs, it pleased me very much. Three little bows and snarl from down there when we reached the top, and I wheeled us both into the bank just like a mother. Is this what we are?