A VERY PRIVATE MAN

Cyril Underwood couldn't face up to it when he became ill, and ignored the symptoms...

Cyril Underwood was a private man. He lived in a modest private house with a wife who had put up with his eccentricities for above forty years because she loved him. Everyone who knew Cyril Underwood knew what a good sort he was �" eccentric, yes, but jolly and kind. Faultless, they might have called him, faultless, but in a quiet sort of way. He'd worked all his life, quite hard in truth, and when he retired from work he was ready for a life of peaceful adventure and love.

Then came, out of the blue, a series of niggling aches and pains, and after suffering for a week or two he thought of going to his doctor to see if something was wrong, and told himself not to be stupid, it was just him growing older.

But the pains persisted and when Cyril Underwood suspected he might be dying he didn't want to tell anyone because telling someone else would involve telling himself, and that was the one thing he couldn't face up to. So what follows is what might have happened in his world, and not what did happen.

What might have happened involved surgery of a relatively minor nature, and he would have resided quite comfortably in a light and airy hospital ward for a few days before returning to his beloved wife and getting on with his life minus an annoying and diseased something-or-other that might have threatened his life if left to fester..

Then, what might have happened could well have been interesting. After a few days recuperation at home he may well have gone to the local supermarket with his “better” half, and dug around in freezer compartments for just the right tray of frozen fish, teased the girl at the delicatessen when she asked him where he'd been all her short life like she did most weeks, and finally bought a lottery ticket at the check-out because that's also what he usually did.

Then (and though it might seem improbable it is actually reasonably possible) he might have checked the numbers on his lottery ticket against the winning number on the television and discovered (heart-pounding) that he was suddenly much wealthier than he'd ever been before.

“Would you believe it! And if I hadn't gone to hospital and been put under the knife I would never have lived to see all this money!” he exclaimed to his lovely wife, who smiled back at him.

“But you did, dearest Cyril,” she cooed in the way she had, and he smiled and they shared a bottle of bubbly wine like they had in the good old days before age afflicted him and illness started creeping in, and started reminiscing in words.

And he would probably have gone to the local tour company and booked them a holiday in Italy, where he loved going. They would most likely have enjoyed the warmth and jollity (and the crowds) of Sorrento, have visited the ancient sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum and resisted (for age reasons) the temptation to climb to the peak of the volcanic Vesuvius, which was being ridiculously dormant. Or there were other places he might have opted to take her, cities near the sea, places of quiet and contemplation under wonderful sunny skies at home or abroad, beaches where few people trod... all places he had always wanted to go to, but had never quite managed it.

Then he might well have wandered on through life for several more years, seeing more grandchildren being born, even great grandchildren, watching from his ageing distance as the family line of which he was merely a part grew into the future and he happily retreated into the past.

He might have done all those things.

But he didn't.

Cyril Underwood couldn't face explaining to anyone that he feared he might have something serious wrong with him because it meant telling himself (and that just wasn't going to happen).

Therefore Cyril Underwood told nobody, kept away from doctors who might have helped him see sense, actually did nothing to help himself except worry, and became bristly and a little lacking in both temper and jollity. People noticed and shook their heads and passed him by because they didn't understand.

Then, and here's the sad bit, Cyril Underwood died. He died in pain and he died poor and his wife, who mourned him briefly, knowing that her own years could stretch on forever, married a childhood sweetheart who escorted her on extravagant holidays because he actually loved her, and it took her nearly no time at all to relocate Cyril and her years with him to an attic at the back-most part of her brain, and get on with the here and now.

Cyril became little more than a fading shadow at the edge of her memory.

But then, Cyril had always been a very private man.

Reviews

[Robert Parlange]

Very good narrative. Sort of like, the road less traveled. I liked the moralistic ending and the way the beginning and ending sort of “book-ends” the story.

Keep writing.