Chapter 11 Dangerously Healthy by Malcolm Birkenshaw

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Chapter 11.

`What a damned stupid thing to do,' I churned in my chair,
still dwelling upon yesterday's cycling catastrophe. Things had
looked a lot better after that sherry but today I mused through the
window, watching a blackbird hopping and hoping, hoping and hopping,
leapfrogging all over our lawn, cocking an eye each time it stopped,
watching for grass movements, signs of worms close to the surface
before striking to whip out a meal for its chicks. A sort of fly-in
Macdonalds, but the worm hung onto the earth - its home as well as
the bird's take-away counter, stretching longer and longer until
market forces made it too thin for its hole and the fat bird grew
fatter, the small guy lost out. The environment? Well, there's
always plenty more where that came from, but its beak was too full
of chopped worm for it to whistle the answer.

`Damn yesterday,' I shuffled again, and an arm fell off the
chair. `Is this my lot, never to run again?... strenuous exercise
forever resulting in physical collapse - perhaps even leave me
permanently crippled?' Not that the pain and discomfort bothered me,
I could endure anything if it was going to help. `But what if I'm
pushing myself, considering my age, running the risk of heart damage
or something?'

`That's all right,' my doctor rested his stethoscope, after
checking circulation and blood pressure, `You're not an athlete,
y'know,' he unwrapped the sphygmomanometer from my arm. `Forget any
ideas about increasing your performance,' he scribbled some notes on
my records. `Whatever you do you must never tire yourself....That
doesn't mean you need stop enjoying life,' he added quickly, putting
down his pen. `Get out with your family, buy each of them a bicycle
so they can look back with pleasure, remembering the days before you
become unable to get around any more.'

Buy them all a bicycle! He must be joking, I'm out of work, no
income, and broke. `His advice must be wrong,' I repeated all the
way home - all my days in hospital, planning a recovery, were not to
be abandoned so lightly. `True, yesterday's ride was a calamity, but
at least it was much further than ever before, and all because of
patience whilst training had led to a gradual improvement - until
that bloody hill. I'll have to be more careful in future, taking
more time developing muscles,' I steered the car into our drive and
the sparrows took to the air to the tree whilst blackbirds scuttled
under the hedge; someone had been throwing out scraps so they were
ready to flit back once I was indoors.

`Hi,' I called out, upon entering the kitchen, my mind musing
busily - for the time being my bike better be locked away, just in
case the doctor was right, although by the way my legs were feeling
he had no need to worry for yesterday I'd had a bike-full of staring
at slow wheels turning for hour after hour.

`Can I have your bike, now that you've finished?' John was
quick to write me off.

`It's too big,' I was just as quick to nip that idea in the
saddle. `Besides......,' but if I said more it would reveal that I
was more ill than he thought.

`Can't I have it for when I get older, then?' Perhaps he
suspected more than his age would suggest for he forced home my
disadvantage, then disappeared.

That's unusual, the lawn needed cutting. He enjoys driving the
mower, starting its engine, provided I let him cut patterns rather
than steer in straight lines, leaving it to run amok on its own,
catching up, just in time, swerving it away from a tree or wall or,
worse still, clip the evergreens standing sentry to Mildew's garden,
the obsession of an old misery who lived at the back. He's made his
point, I suppose - no bicycle, no mower.

`Be like that,' I shrugged off his grass roots revolt, `I'll do
it myself,' being in need of the exercise now that my bike was
garaged away...... Trouble was, the mower proved to be faster than
me, threatening to race away and demolish the boarder then race on
towards Mildew's - we were already in trouble after Claire's rabbit
had eaten her chrysanthemums.

`How about a rotary model, Sir, one to be pushed,' the cycle
man doing a sideline in mowers during summer whilst his bike stand
from Christmas was dormant - in winter his wife sold wellingtons and
raincoats in the shop next door, and knickknacks to tourists
throughout the rest of the year.

He was right, it did solve the problem, and it also provided an
alternative therapy, testing my reflexes by tripping me up with its
cable entwined round my ankles. `Still, better the shock of a fall
than to cut through live wires.... But,' I wondered, `Would a charge
of electricity sent up my nerves wake them and help my condition?'

`Here's a cup of coffee,' Lena signalled, offering a less
spectacular stimulant, unable to make herself heard over the whine
as I grappled against gravity when the mower slid off the lawn and
started to carve into the border.

`A switch in time saves nine,' I thought, twisting the
accelerator to "stop" before whirling blades ploughed on past
Mildew's eighth evergreen, inciting her to chunter mystical
incantations as it endangered the ninth when, like a hydra-headed
cyclops, and hair bristling with rollers, her all-seeing eye watched
all through a parting in the twigs.

`Good idea, your timing's just right,' I rose to my knees,
stretching and standing, rocking a bit, in need of a rest. `Here?' I
queried, pointing towards where Lena had moved two picnic chairs
into the sunshine, and sagged into the one with a history of
collapsing, sinking to a precarious angle, threatening to test my
reflexes again. `It's all right,' I laughed, placing my trust in the
mustard seed, drinking from a beaker before its contents ebbed,...
if Pisa could stay upright so could I. `But why?' I switched muses,
`Why should today's heat leave my feet still numb and cold? Perhaps
it also had something to do with circulation,' I rubbed my legs,
grass falling away from my socks. `Or nerves, or nerves and oxygen,
or ... Oh, what the hell,' having finished my drink I made to get
up.

`Stay a bit longer' Lena spread out a car rug, suggesting that
work enough had been done for the moment.

I hesitated, tempted to take her advice. `But I mustn't,'
suspecting I might fall asleep before having done enough exercise,
`If muscles won't work without nerves, then nerves won't get better
without muscles.'....... But she was deaf to my theories.

When the grass cutting reached our silver birch the job was
half done. `Should I rest, and take the doctor's advice.... or best
do a bit more in case he was wrong?' my reasoning silenced by
concentration as I hung onto the mower's handles, balancing whilst
pushing. `Just a bit more,' I kept urging, though this time
remembering to rest with increasing frequency.

I fell back into my chair, the rough and the smooth having been
mown until all was mediocre, but it finally collapsed, my legs as
dead as the chair, useless, finished. Yet, despite this numbness,
they were beginning to tingle - a healthy kind of tingle. `Anything
worth watching on television tonight?' I looked up, saying the first
thing to tumble out of my mind which might assuage Lena's alarm.

`A film, again,' she picked up the paper, its back page also
sprayed with grass cuttings. `But it's one we missed. Made soon
after Claire was born,' she brightened up, perhaps satisfied that
whilst I remained tumbled onto the lawn I was resting.

A motor horn sounded in the lane. It was the greengrocer's van.
`Get some cabbage, please,' I raised my head to quickly call before
Lena was too far down our drive - just an ordinary drive over a dike
with its thriving hawthorns, not a long and winding one, but the
noise of chattering birds and a perennial tractor would require any
slow call become a shout.

`What kind?' she looked at her list.

`Green.... As green as possible.'

`That's not very imaginative.'

`I read an article, by a research doctor. He said the darker
the pigment the better.' Quite a coincidence, me liking spring
cabbage, lightly cooked. I wondered if it would help? `Chlorophyll,
it's an anti-oxidant, in plants, photosynthesis, and all that...'

By the end of the evening my legs felt rested and cured. But
they only felt cured, things being different when I stood up to
move. Still, they seemed to be recovering more quickly than when I
cycled to Molly's and Seth's. `If that's the case, tomorrow I'll
attack the rest of our lawn,' or "wilderness", as Mildew, her
without chrysanthemums but with rollers, would chunter in
tight-lipped silence whenever she peeped through that strategically-
engineered window which she had parted in her evergreen hedge.

By Thursday even the verge had been mown, plus my legs were
continuing to improve. `But I can't cut grass for ever,' I whinged,
never having been a gardener, not since those days when my brothers
and I were conscripted into weeding Father's rose garden after
school once a week. `Anyway, Lena, this lawn's not big enough if a
disabled man's got to do what a fit man can do.'

`Go for a stroll, then,' she shrugged, turning onto an elbow
from her flat-on-her-back reclining position, wanting to think about
anything other than problems or work during a week when there was a
sun in the sky.

`It's so boring,' I mumbled, chin in hands, face half cocked in
her direction, fed up at not being able to risk walking further than
up and down our lane. `I suppose I might try using the bike again -
only so far as the cricket field, mind you,' I tacked on in haste.
`There'll be somebody there, for cricket practice, every Tuesday
night.'

An ice age advanced across Lena's face as her north-easterly
blew. `What if you're injured, getting too near the ball. Haven't I
got enough on my plate?'.... She was always complaining about having
a husband who did stupid things, despite his incurable disease, but
this was too much.

I agreed, but would be careful, obviously, to please her,..
and pedalled away rather than argue. She would never understand, at
least not until I had proved what I was aiming to prove, and a
chorus of rooks circled and cawed in agreement above the high trees
along Chapel lane that ran in the lee of our village.

They were already training, some men in white, when I arrived.
There was a spare ball, lying frayed and abandoned. `Do you mind if
I join in?' I asked, bracing myself for rejection. They turned,
looked at each other, embarrassed to say what they thought.

`Sure, help yourself,' an older man unlocked the silence, the
only man with a cap, from days when he played in a higher league,
`It's only a practice,' his seniority forestalling any objections.
The last time they had seen me was as a slow bowler, or was it
medium, or fast? What would it be this time - surely not a bloody
under arm? Questions raced over their faces as I limped to the
wicket. I turned sideways, unable to run, and whirled my arm over.
Somehow the ball set off in the right direction, a surprise to me
and a surprise to the batsman. He was mesmerised, waiting for me to
fall over; but I was still tottering at the half fall when the ball
passed his bat, hitting his wickets. His eyes remained mesmerised
that death rattle sound as leather fells wicket - as final as a
hangman's trap - impaled in his ears.

Magic, bloody magic, everything was not gone after all. I
continued to bowl and, just in case being out to me was due to some
kind of transplant, nobody risked trying to hit me out of the
ground. Or were they just being kind, saving me the long totter to
the boundary to search for the ball?

`Get your pads on,' somebody shouted.

`No, thanks. I'm having a rest.'

`Go on, it'll do you good,' encouraged another voice... was it
the man I got out looking for a chance to get his own back?

I wedged myself upright - before each player bowled, with legs
and bat forming a tripod.... all very stable until I lifted the bat
leaving me one tripe short of a tripod, the inevitable result being
there was less than a second for prodding the ball before tripping
over. But the tactic worked, and five minutes later I was still
there with the bowlers feeling progressively less sympathetic
towards the disabled, sending the ball faster and faster until one
flew off my bat to the boundary. That felt good, just like the old
days, apart from me still having to pick myself up.

This time nobody offered to help, in fact the lad whose ball
had been dispatched tried to knock off my head next delivery with a
short one.... `Too good to miss,' my instinctive reaction,
forgetting my problem, taking a luxurious swing which smashed it
into the sunset.... or would have done, had I not missed, my legs
woven into impossible knots whilst heeling over. `Never was any
bloody good at hooking,' I laughed, seeking sanctuary in the funny
side, which was my normal reaction ..... Besides, what else could I
do? A quandary of silence embarrassed the ground for they were
again at a loss for something to say.

`Got to hand it to you, you're not going to be beaten, are
you?' that old timer threw me his cap, despite knowing like me that
it wasn't the sunshine. Pax, we were learning more of each other as
I filled with gratitude and a germ of humility began to mature -
didn't they realise I was enjoying myself?

When my turn was finished I rested, tingling, bubbling with
euphoria, unable to resist another chance of a bowl, yet very soon
ran out of legs like upon that ride to Molly's and Seth's. `You
all right?' they were becoming concerned.

`I'm fine,' I walked leaning against the boundary rail, still
bent upon hiding my incapacity.... otherwise they'd see me crawling
over grass to reach my bike.

Blackbirds were competing as twilight approached. Feeding time
was over, each song rivalling the other's song, one proclaiming from
the highest branch, another perched upon a naked telephone pole,
their territory jealously guarded for tomorrow. `How good that
sounds, still,' I mused, the trees silhouetting into a crystal
brightness as the clear sky's changing light displayed its spectrum,
and felt at ease, having rested sufficiently before freewheeling
home, glowing. My exercises had been in short bursts and, what is
more, I'd been enjoying myself. I should remain eternally grateful
to those players. They had confirmed me upon the field to recovery.

From then on I turned out every practice night and my
improvement continued, even travelling to the Castleford Gilbert and
Sullivan Society on Fridays for training - not at singing, of
course, they were only short of cricketers, but they had feet as
flat as my voice and perhaps I made their worst players look
that bit better.... until we went to the pub afterwards where they
hit the hard stuff whilst I remained on shandies, then we all looked
tarred with M.S. when staggering home.

Day after day my confidence increased as reflexes started to
return. Lena said, `I'm going to start playing tennis, again,'
having got herself invited to a private court belonging to a farmer
in the next village. She felt it was about time she took her share
of nights out.

Its surface was new, with fresh nets to match. `Last year's
bumper harvest paid for this lot,' he chuckled, removing his racket
from an old battered bag.

`Off-set against tax.... the net for catching pigeons eating
your sprouts?'

`Well, you've got to draw the line somewhere, haven't you?' he
hitched up his well-worked corduroys. `Anyway, point is, I need
somebody else to play against,' he winked, `I'm tired of beating my
wife.' With Lena's arrival he could play singles against doubles and
beat two women at the same time.

Yet even this additional crop of victories soon began to lose
its macho appeal. He wanted a fourth person, somebody male, but not
very good. `You'll fit the part,' he called me over when I was
collecting John for his tea. `He's already had it.' Besides, he now
had the foursome he wanted, Lena and I losing against him and his
wife.

Different muscles were awoken as I relearned moving backwards
and sideways, although still being unable to run. Were my nerves
healing, or new muscles developing? `You can think about that
later,' he grumbled, for the first time finding himself losing. He
suggested the "Eden" alternative - playing men against women so he
could win all the apples, persuading them of what fun it would be by
calling them girls, using flattery to suggest they had youth on
their side.

John reckoned it was a great idea, grown-ups' playing tennis
which left him longer to safari deeper into the woods with Richard,
their son. That was until half term arrived when tennis, and
exercise, and his den in the "forest" had to be abandoned whilst we
went to see Claire who was camping near Whitby with Adderton's
guides. `Do I have to go?' he whinged, preferring his new life in
the trees.

`Of course you do,' Lena insisted, it was Guides' Open Day.

`Every family will be going. And Claire will be disappointed if
you don't turn up,' my iron hand coaxed him into the car. Besides,
he was no longer to be trusted in the woods on his own, nor with
Richard, not since they came down from the trees and had excavated a
tunnel which undermined the farm road.

When we arrived at the field above Whitby, high cliffed and
windswept, Lena immediately busied herself, drawn into the commune
of mothers and daughters. Left to rest I quickly became bored, until
dads and lads started playing football. `See if you can get off your
ass and try kicking the ball,' someone's shout suggesting a rustic
non-Freudian therapy.

`OK,' I was glad to join in, but ended up booting divots out
of the field instead of kicking the ball.. Although at least I could
tackle, opponents tripping over my legs as I stumbled and missed.
Wow! it was great, adrenaline flowing, enjoying myself, not being
treated like a cripple. Yet, when exhaustion began to set in, I
retired to the car whilst still able to limp, remembering the
consequences of overexertion at cricket practice and those bloody
awful cycle rides.

`Come on, Martin, you idle sod. Teas up,' shouted one of the
fathers - ignoring Guide Leader's etiquette and regulations on
language - standing, grinning, hands on hips, owning the North Sea
as well as half Yorkshire, and now also in charge of the trestle
table which heaved under sandwiches and children.

`No thanks,' I shook my head, holding up a gluten-free salad
which had been put up by Lena.

`On a bloody diet, eh? Tha ought to speak to our Vera, in
Selby. Her husband upped and left her as soon as she started with
M.S... By hell, she didn't half go downhill quickly when she
discovered he'd buggered off with his secretary. Left her in a right
state, he did. Could hardly move, until she got herself a
specialist who gave her a cracking good diet. Now she walks like a
good 'un.'

Read the following chapters that tell of how Martin "cured" his M.S. and climbed mountains by the following year.

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