The Apple

When faced with a bowl of fruit, I never choose the apple.  It's not that I don't like them, I actually love them especially when paired with cheese.  The thing is I have porcelain veneers on my four front teeth so biting into a crunchy apple is simply out of the question- too risky.  I have lost count of the number of times one of those pearly beauties has flicked off after an ill-judged nibble on a piece of french bread,  And each time it has resulted in an excrutiatingly expensive visit to the dentist.  An apple is absolutely the forbitten fruit. Unless I am absolutely desperate can  I justify the rigmarole of having to core it and chop it up into slices like some little Lord Fauntleroy.

But the other night, hunger pangs had me rooting through the kitchen cupboards and as luck would have it, I was down to a choice between a leathery piece of chicken or an apple.  I opted for the apple.  I had resigned myself to the fact I'd have to take a plate out, go to the cutlery draw and hope to god there was a clean sharp knife in there (there wasn't - there is no greater annoyance) and finally fish out the chopping board.  Using a butter knife I set about hacking the apple up (I was past washing the sharp knife at this point).  I threw in a few slices of cheese - well I'd gone to this much trouble, I might as well go the full monty, and I sat down to enjoy the delicious creamy tartiness of this perfect food match.

And as I sat munching through the slices I was suddenly put in mind of an apple I once gave my mum. It's a memory that has lain undisturbed for many, many years.  My mum had been taking to hospital after hemorrhaging for an operation to put it right.  I must have been about 10 or 11.  I went to see her post-op after school and was very relieved to see her looking well.  I pulled out an apple - these were in the days when all my teeth my mine, so apples were an easy fruit.  Immediately my mother's face lit up with Jack Nicholson mischief.  She asked if she could have the apple but told me to carefully just slip in into the top draw of the little side table by her bed.  I didn't realise it at the time, but she was still "Nil by Mouth". I was happy to give her something for her troubles.

The following day I went to see her again and this time the lady in the bed next to my mum's piped up:  "You're not smuggling more apples in today are you?  Your mum certainly enjoyed it last night." Then she turned to my mum and said with a wink" Did you think I didn't hear you?"

My mum had waited for the still and darkness of the early hours to enjoy the apple under the bed covers.  The jig was up.  My mum let out a raucous cackle - a cackle she was famous for.  It was infectious.  I was happy to have been of service.

It's an odd memory.  One I haven't thought about in years and now of course, every time I see an apple I find myself thinking of her.  It is a sweet memory which inevitably ends in sadness as I think about all the things I didn't get a chance to give her.  And then I think about the feeling of confused displacement at realising my mum was mortal - that she might not be around one day - that in fact it had been a close call. 

I spend those few nights my mum was hospitalised at a neighbour's house.  Don't get me wrong, she wasn't just any old neighbour, she was my mother's best friend and a person I have sadly fallen out with for reasons too stupid to try to justify here.  And I can't help thinking this memory is in some way a sign that it's time to get back in touch.  Afterall, she took me in without question and cared for me as if I were her own and let's face it, she's the closest thing to a mother figure I have left.

So if you were to ask me how I like them apples?  I'd have to say: I like them apples fine.