Bridges

Snapshot

“I’m not an activities person,” she says. “I like my own company.” But she reluctantly accepts me. As a volunteer I join her once a week for conversation in “The Home”.

“Hello, my dear. Sit down.”

Despite the educated voice, the salon-perfect hair, the tasteful attire, she is not aloof. Nor is she precious. She is down to earth.

Voicing opinions, she searches for the right word, the right phrase, as writers do. Silence ensues as she tries to remember what she wants. In earlier days she’d write letters to newspapers in perfect English giving her view on controversial issues. They were published.

Current affairs set her alight. Depending on media and hearsay, she does not always know facts and complexities. I ride with whatever she says, swept by her charm and conviction.

“We treat terrorists with kid gloves,” she says. “What do you think of Donald Trump?” she asks with an incredulous look on her face. Same-sex marriage appals her but she insists that the inequality of inheritance laws for gay relationships is their real issue.

We travel comfortably through news of the week: unemployment, elections, corruption, the suffering of refugees and most menacing of all, North Korea. After “events” we talk “values”, referring to political correctness, bullying, exploitation of the elderly in nursing homes, the power of the dollar.

She has that look in her eye as she says, “Do you see? Do you understand what I am saying?”

In confirming our conservative views, we find solidarity. I do not expect such liveliness, candour and entertainment from an eighty-five-year-old.

I am here now for my own sake, no longer a dutiful volunteer.

She tells me personal stories, slowly so I take them in. The menu at “The Home” is fair game for her scepticism. “The salmon,” she says of the salmon patties, “are still swimming.” She can never find a kidney in the steak-and-kidney pie. Mashed potato masquerades as fish cakes to save money. She writes frequent notes to the chef, who pays court. I suspect they are friends.

Captivated by her two small great-grandsons, she is nevertheless alive to the persistence of children in getting what they want. Fighting over her multi-featured walking stick, the older boy holds it high. Distracting his brother, the younger boy snatches it. Despite their mother’s impassioned order—“Say you’re sorry, both of you!”—the smaller boy manages to keep it—and not be sorry.

Her grandson and small great-grandson visit a friend in a block of high-rise flats. The father tells his son to “stay right here” while he quickly goes to the toilet. As soon as he disappears, the lift arrives in the lobby and opens its doors. The little boy, who’s never seen so many buttons, wanders in to push them.

“I never move in bed,” she says, “except to breathe and open my eyes.” Is this because of multiple hip and knee replacements? Her point is to dramatise the trauma of being taken from a warm, immobile state to the frenetic bustle of being showered, dressed, groomed and planted in a chair so early in the morning.

As she and I become friends, I ask myself why I like her. I don’t really know her. She is not as conventional as I expected. Though she is frank she is still a private person. I like this too. I like the way she scrutinises people and will not be fooled. Her sense of humour slowly leads to, then pervades the conversation. But also I admire the way she manages her chair-bound life. She survives pettiness and monotony with her interest in others. She is truly engaged in living.

If my present to her is company and shared experience, her present to me is a snapshot of herself.

For the Uninitiated

Four poker faces form a circle at the card table. So poker, they do not move or smile. In silence they bid clockwise on paper and once the contract is declared, four pairs of hands do their ritualistic dance. But when the round is finished:

“You should have taken the finesse and run your diamonds—they were all good!”

“Why raise me with only five points?”

“Your lead cost you at least two tricks!”

Contract bridge lovers are serious players. For many their performance is their identity. They are proud of their skills. A careless or stupid partner drags them down.

Because of the game’s possibilities and complexities, they become willingly possessed.

Enjoyable bridge can be played at different levels if partners are matched. The game expands or contracts depending on the experience and ability of the players.

Derived from whist, rules and conventions still evolve. Directors resolve disputes. Small computers deliver results and compare all the teams.

Bridge is like life. Players bid for contracts (goals) based on their cards (resources). Through a language of signals partners add their points together and decide if they have enough to make their bid. It’s risky. It doesn’t always work. Or it makes more than expected. They need to be optimistic. The winners are the ones who invest. Success depends on their opposition’s ability, luck and the positioning of cards. As well as their frame of mind that day.

Cheating can happen with a wink, a cough or a glance. Pedantic protocol attempts to prevent this.

For beginners bridge is confusing. A bid of four clubs has nothing to do with clubs. Two hearts can really mean spades. A “double” has three different meanings.

Bridge is hierarchical. In a suit contract of four spades an Ace takes a King takes a Queen takes a Jack, takes a ten. In a no-trump contract a two can knock dead the Ace, King, Queen, Jack of another suit. Major and minor suits have different values. Bridge is strewn with ladders of priority.

The game is exciting and satisfying entertainment for all ages but a saving grace for older people. And the sedentary. It can highlight precociousness in the young.

Two pairs of women combine bridge and wine at a Sunshine Coast bridge club Christmas party. Soon gales of laughter erupt from their table. Bidding finds new dimensions. Before long no one gives two hoots for making the contract. They are helpless with merriment.

They tell jokes they would not normally tell. Disapproval ripples through nearby tables but the gaiety is contagious.

A few tired players escape finally from too much concentration. They think of the King in his counting house counting out his money, the Queen in the parlour eating bread and honey. Or Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland when, frustrated by the Queen of Hearts, Alice scatters fifty-two cards into the air and says firmly in her no-nonsense way: “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!”