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Waiting for change always seems to take longer than expected, thought Lucy, as she gazed into the pond. The evening sun was warm on her back, a comforting feeling, like the arm of a friend. Her shadow stretched across the pond and in the darkened water she watched a tadpole browse on the elodea.
It had been five months since the frogspawn had hatched and, although the tadpole and its brothers had grown big and fat, they still had no legs, no shrinking of the tail, no sign that they would one day be frogs.
Lucy's focus changed and she stared at her reflection in the water. The rippled mirror hid her wrinkles and the greyness of her hair. She could have been a young woman. But at sixty-three she was still young, she told herself. Sixty was the new fifty, seventy the new sixty, ninety the new eighty. She sighed at the thought of the years stretching ahead of her like the sands of a desert.
Ralph had dug the pond last year, when they had moved into the bungalow. She had wanted to put fish into it, but he said "No." He wanted a wild-life pond, where frogs and newts and dragonflies would have somewhere to lay their eggs. How pleased he would have been to see the speed with which the pond had been colonised. She watched the tadpole browsing and knew that Ralph had been right. He had always been right. And now he had left her.
A dragonfly flew, zig-zagging across the shimmering water and rested on her skirt. She stood still, scarcely daring to breath. Did it not realise that she was a living being? Did it think she had turned to stone?
"Why don't you go for some therapy?" her daughter had said.
Lucy refused. If asked about her emotions what could she say? That she felt angry, yes. Angry at Ralph for having left her, angry at the doctors for not noticing his heart problem, angry at God for having taken her husband away. And guilt, of course. Guilt for not having noticed the symptoms, the occasional breathlessness, the fleeting pains. Guilt at having stood and watched and brought him cups of tea, while he strained his heart by digging the pond. Guilt at not feeling the grief she ought to feel.
The dragonfly rose into the air, its wings fluttering with such speed that they were almost invisible. It looked like a needle, a hovering needle, poised above her heart.
They were going to spend such happy times together, she and Ralph. They were going to go on cruises, treat their grandchildren, do all the things that their busy working lives had prevented them doing. She felt a stab of self pity at the life that had been denied her. He left her alone and lonely and she would never forgive him.
The dragonfly flew away, skimming low over the pond, and she stared into the water once more. She felt as if she was living underwater in a blue-grey world. The weight of the water crushed her and made it difficult to breath. It robbed her of joy, of energy, of everything that made life worth living. She was deep in the depths and sinking all the time.
Her eyes followed the tadpole as it finished its meal and swam down into the roots of the lilies, wiggling its tail like a whip.
"It's time you got rid of Dad's stuff," her daughter had said.
She had obediently folded up a couple of his suits and took them to the charity shop: but not his shoes, not his old jersey that still smelt of him. He would never forgive her if she got rid of that old jersey. But he wasn't coming back. Why should he know or care what happened to his things? Her mind shied away from that terrible truth. He had left her. Somewhere, somehow he was still in the world.
Lucy drew a hand across her eyes. She felt tired, she was becoming frail, she didn't sleep well and had no interest in food. How could he leave her? How could he condemn her to the cold, crushing, watery world that threatened to consume her?
Deep down within the pond there was a glint of gold. She plunged in her arm, up to the shoulder, and reached into the mud. Her fingers felt something small and hard - it was Ralph's ring. Her husband had lost his wedding ring when planting the lilies. They had looked for it in vain, and in the end she had kissed him and promised him a new one for his birthday. But he never lived to see his birthday.
She held it up and it seemed to glow in the last rays of the sun. Suddenly, she felt tears well up into her eyes. Clutching the ring to her heart she wept as if the pent-up grief in which her soul was drowning was suddenly released in a great flood.
He was dead, she must say goodbye. Wordlessly her lips moved, telling him how much she missed him. Tears poured down her cheeks and the taste of salt was in her mouth.
As she sobbed she felt the weight of her anguish rise from her. Just as the tadpoles would eventually emerge from the pond, so she would crawl from water into sunshine. Perhaps, after all, she would find a way to carry on without him and create a new and meaningful life for herself.
Waiting for change takes a long time, but at last it will come.
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