Andrina comes to see me every afternoon in winter before its get dark. she lights my lamp, gets the fire burning brightly, checks that there is enough water in my bucket that stands in the hole in the wall. if i have a cold (which isn't often, i'm a tough old seaman), she worries a little, put and extra peat or two on the fire, fills a stone hot water bottle, put an old trick coat around my shoulder.
That good Andrina as soon as she has gone, i throw the hot water and sugar. The hot water bottle in the bed will be cold long before i climb into it, after l've read my few chapters of a Joseph Conrad novel.
Towards the end of February last year i did get a very bad cold, the worst of years. I woke up, shaking one morning, and was almost too weak to get to the cupboard to find my breakfast. But i wasn't hungry. There was a stone inside my chest, that made it hard to breathe.
I made myself eat a little, and drank hot ugly tea. There was nothing to do after that except get back to bed with my book. But i found i couldn't read my eyes were burning and my head was beating like a drum.
'Well, i thought, 'andrina will be here in five or six hours' times. She won't be able to do much for me, but it will cheer me to see the girl.'
Andrina did not come that afternoon. I expected her with the first shadows of evening: the slow opening of the door, the soft spoken 'good evening', the gentle shaking of her head as she saw the things that needed doing. But i had that strange feeling that often comes with a fever, when you feel that your head does not belong to your body.
When the window was blackness at last with the first stars shining, i accepted at last that for some reason or another Andrina couldn't come. I fell asleep again.
I woke up. A grey light at the window. My mouth was dry, there was a fire in my face, my head was breathing worse than ever. I got up, my feet in cold pain on the stone floor, drank a cup of water, and climbed back into bed. I was shaking with cold, my teeth banging together for severals minutes sometime i had only read about before.
I slept again, and woke up just as the winter sun was disappearing into the blueness of sea and sky. It was, again, Andrina's time. Today there were things that she could do for me: get aspirin from the shop, put three or four very hot bottles around me, mix the strongest toddy in the world. A few words from her would be like a bell to a sailor lost in fog. She did not come.
She did not come again on the third afternoon.
I woke, shakily, like a ghost. It was black night. Wind sang in the chimney. There was, from time to time, the beating of rain against the window. It was the longest night of my life. I lived, over and over again, through the time in my life of which i am most ashamed; the worst was repeated endlessly, like the same piece of music playing again and again and again. It was a shameful time, but at last sleep shut it out. Love was dead, killed long ago, but the ghosts of that time were now awake.
When i woke up, i heard for the first time in four days the sound of the voice. It was Stanley the postman speaking to Ben, the dog at Big House.
'There now, isn't that a lost of noise so early in the morning? It's just a letter for Minnie, a letter from a shop, Be a good boy, go and tell Minnie i have love letter for her ... Is that you, Minnie? I thought old Ben was going to bite my leg off then. Yes, Minnie, a fine morning, it is that ...'
I have never liked that postman - he is only interested in people that he thinks are important in the island - but that morning he came past my window like a messenger of light. He opened the door without knocking (i am not an important person). He said, 'Letter from far away, Captain.' He put the letter on the chair nearest the door.
I was opening my mouth to say, 'I'm not very well'. I wonder ... ' but if any words came out , they were only ghostly whispers.
Stanley looked at the dead fire and the closed windows. He said, 'Phew! It's airless in here, Captain. You want to get some fresh air ...' Then he went, closing the door behind him. (No message would go to Andrina, then, or to the doctor in village.)
I thought, until i slept again, about the last letter people write before drying ...
In a day or two, of course, i was all right again; a tough old sailor like me isn't killed off that easily.
But there was a sadness, a loneliness around me. I had been ill, alone, helpless. Why had my friend left me in my bad time?
Then I became sensible again. 'Torvald, you old fool,' I said to myself. 'Why should a pretty twenty-year-old spend her time with you? Look at it this way, man-you've had a winter of her kindness and care. She brought lamp into your dark time; ever since the harvest Home party when (like a fool) you had too much whisky. And she helped you home and put you into bed ... Well, for some reason or another Andrina hasn't been able to come these last few days. I'll find our, today, the reason.'
It was time for me to get to the village. There was not a piece of bread or a gram of butter in the cupboard. The shop was also the post office-I had to collect two weeks' pension. I promised myself a beer or two in the pub, to wash the last of that sickness out of me.
I realized, as I slowly