The importance of a homemade curry.

I’m an incredibly selfish girl when it comes to ‘me time.’

For someone that likes to surround herself with the loud noises, bright lights and social intimacies, most people would not think that I crave time in total solitude. But I enjoy my music against the stilling of my thoughts, and I get this mostly on the train; the limbo states between work.

It was a particularly packed train, filled with brightly coloured backpacks and crayons – I realised it was half term. I sat. As usual. With my face tilted and resting on the glass of the window, watching the world as my music played out and drowned the constant argument between adult and child.

I didn’t want anyone to sit next to me. But they did.

An offensively coloured mac covered a short body, curled at the shoulders with age. She fell into the seat, and let out a sigh. I was irritated. I smiled, and looked back out the window. She started talking. Her grey hair, tracing paper skin and the tea-stain brown spots that covered it. The ever-young blue eyes. I took my earphones out to give her the time of day (which I selfishly hoped would be a few seconds).

“It’s busy today, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

A pause. I went to find my dangling earpiece.

“I have to get home before the ambulance comes, you see. They said they’d look after him.” She let out a nervous giggle.

I stopped the music altogether. She continued.

“Will it take more than 2 hours? This journey?”

“Where do you need to go?”

“To my husband. In Warminster. He’s been in hospital but he’s discharged now so I’ve got to go home. I need to put the heating on before he gets there. I’ve made a curry for tea, it’s all done.”

“Okay. The next stop is Warminster, it’s not going to take long.”

She continued talking to me about the homemade curry. I found out that he liked spice so she would always make it that way, and have a small pot of yoghurt next to hers to cool it down. She had cooked it, and left it to chill in the fridge – I was told repeatedly that all she needed was to get home before him, put the heating on and pop the curry on the stove.

“He collapsed at the bus stop last Monday. People piled around him. I wasn’t there. I was at singing, and then Zumba! He was sick before I left the house and I didn’t want to leave him then, but he said I must ‘do my thing’.”

In my ignorant youth where compromise isn’t much of a thing, I decided I should spread some wisdom (why I think I have any compared to a 78-year-old woman who’s been married 50 years, I have no idea.) I learnt quickly that I was there to listen.

I squawked:

“You know he’s right, you should do your own thing. You weren’t to know he was going to collapse!”

She laughed. “No I shouldn’t. We’ve had a great life. He’s been good to me. And perhaps it’s coming to the end. So, I need to be there for him, and he needs to be there for me.”

From there, I realised I was a teacher-turned-pupil.

She asked what I did and whether I was in love. She asked if I was getting married soon, and why I was on this train. Then followed silence.

I saw her clutch her tickets. The woman stared for a while into the back of the headrest in front of her, mind elsewhere. She sunk her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. Covering her eyes with delicate hands. Sometimes ‘me time’ isn’t the best time when anxious, I know the feeling all too well. Clutching at straws, I looked out between the raindrops to the rolling hills & grey sky.

“Isn’t it lovely to watch the countryside pass by?”

“Yes,” she smiled back.

Fuck this, I thought. Small talk hasn’t gotten me anywhere before - try again, HJ.

“How did you meet your husband?”

She lifted her head. Smiled. “I met him at a dancehall.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, er, 26. I was left on the shelf you see. My sister, she’d gone out with a Sailor from 18. All the girls liked the sailor’s, I had no idea why…”

Now was not the time to say that I was 27 and only just starting a new relationship with a man in the Navy.

“…My husband was a plasterer. A simple man. But he was good to me. My sister’s sailor man left her. I remember the phone call. The telephone and the tears – so sad. I was working at the chocolate factory at the time, then I worked at the glass factory where I made medicine bottles - of course they’re all plastic now! I then had our first son, then we had 2 more and as the children grew up I did spots of cleaning for people, you know. We had a good life. We’ve been married 50 years now!”

We spoke the entire way. Well, she did. I could only listen at the memories. As the train was pulling up to her stop I managed, “This is a real love story. And you’re still making him curry after 50 years!”

And in a world now where dating is so hard, where we’re told we have trust issues whilst slipping copy & paste messages into everyone else’s inbox hoping to feed egos and grasp some self-validation, where  you’re clearly not cool if you have emotions, where we’re only ever allowed to have a ‘fantastic day thank you, how was yours?’, where admitting pain or averageness is a modern day synonym for weakness or failure, where your exes never leave you and you never leave them because viewing their happiness without you is at a click of a button, where love is masked by the word ‘like’, and where we take each other on a date but we might as well be taking our smartphones out for dinner. In a world now where all that vanity pains me – this woman reassured me what love was, and how to do it.

…And it was in a homemade curry.

It was in 50 years of resilience, of tears, laughter and of trying. For mending the broken things, not throwing them away for a new model. For being loyal to one another, and understanding the grass is never greener. For talking. For making memories, constantly doing new things together, and never losing sight of the small things.

As she got out of her chair, she smiled once more and said, “It’s been so nice to talk with you.” I replied with the most modest “likewise”.

“Good luck with everything you do” she said walking away, “and remember to enjoy it all!”

I told her to enjoy her dinner - and not to forget her yoghurt.

Understanding the importance of a homemade curry - it’s a thing.