TROMBONES

From what I can tell, the majority of the residents appear to be female. And of the men, there are only a few with wives, the rest either widowers, or bachelors from the very beginning (as it's said, a bachelor knows a woman better than anyone - that's why he's a bachelor). I meet one of the couples when asked to deliver a repaired kitchen drawer. They're in unit 15. A white haired woman with glasses half the size of her head lets me in, and the moment I step inside I'm struck by heat and a wave of eucalyptus oil mixed with the unmistakable aroma of recently fried eggs and bacon. My eyes are soon stinging and I can only comfortably see when I squint. Across the room, a giant of a man sits in an armchair. A blanket covers his lap. A ventilator sits on the ground beside him. He waves me over with a hand the size of a bear paw. He used to run a winery, he says, almost single handedly. And then he makes me promise that I will look after my knees, in fact he makes me swear that I will look after my knees. Closer, closer, he says, I want to see the whites of your eyes when you swear to me. But I'm not sure there's any white left after the aromatic onslaught, but I lean in closer anyway and look at him, and yes swear that I will look after my knees. His wife reminisces about running their small farm, the children who would be running beneath her feet, the roast chickens, neighbors, friends and family who'd come round for Sunday dinner, their own proudly produced wine freely available, the bottles they'd leave for guests to take home. As she tells me this, he interjects every now and then to provide some names, and with some names would come an associated memory, a particular tractor or axe perhaps, the time they all built that barn together, him and his brother in law, his brother in law's best friend, Jeffery something, he may have just been passing by, passing by, why would someone just be passing by like that, right there and then, it doesn't make sense. The man and woman's sentences often overlap, seem to blend in to one and the same. Or else they simply speak as if the other is not speaking. Then he asks me to help him up, so I take hold of his forearms, gradually lean back, and pull him to his feet. His shoulders are stooped, and yet he's still a head and a half taller than I am. She smiles, speaks as if he's not even in the room with us anymore. He was the strongest man I'd ever known. The absolute strongest. And the kindest man too you'd ever likely come across. I've a photo of him somewhere holding our four children up in the air, one in each arm, one on each shoulder. The strongest. Without a doubt the strongest.