by Emma
a Labrador and a ginger tom, so we started hunting round the
house agents and the streets of Nottingham for a flat.
First, however, I had to break the idea to my mother. She
worried about me anyway, so I did not anticipate an overenthusiastic
reaction. Yet I hoped she would approve because
one of her great principles was that blind people should be
part of the sighted world as far as they could. She was washing
up when I explained the plan to her, and, partly because she
was hard of hearing, and partly because of the noise of suds
and crockery, I thought at first she hadn't heard me. Then
she said, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'
'Yes mum, quite sure.'
'Well, I mean, are you certain you'll be able to manage
It's a big break.'
'Yes, I'm certain I can do it. And it really is a chance to be
independent.'
She was silent again, and I sensed that she was torn between
natural maternal anxiety, and wanting me to put into practice
what she had always taught me. Finally she said, 'Well, you
know best what you can do, Sheila, and if you want any help
or things don't work out, then you can always have a bed
here in the back room.'
Actually finding a flat wasn't so easy. The difficulties mainly
arose not because ofa shortage ofaccommodation, but because
I was blind. So many times we turned up for an appointment,
and, as Anita told me afterwards, the face of the prospective
landlord or landlady dropped when they realized I could not
see. What kind of liability, I wonder, did they expect me to
be? Would I blunder round and smash the furniture, overflow
the bath and bring the plaster down, or simply cause the
entire house to go up in flames? Those that did not mind me
took exception to Emma or Tiss, or both. It seemed hopeless.
~~i I
6I EMMA AND I ANITA 65
Then, after nearly three months, and countless disappointments,
we finally found a small self-contained flat. It was in
Peel Street, a row of large nineteenth-century country houses,
rather decayed, near the old Nottingham Victoria station
which has now been pulled down to make way for a shopping
precinct. It was a three-roomed flat which smelled ratherneeded
musty, and was furnished with a minimum of creaky chairs
and rickety tables. There was a kitchen converted from what
may well have been a boot-cupboard in better days, and weand
were grateful for the hand-basin and a cooker which Anita
described to me as a genuine relic from the galley of the ark.
Anita was the practical one of the household. As soon as
we moved into the flat she said, 'We've got to be absolutely
fair and straight down the line with expenses. I think we ought
to have a kitty, particularly for the food. I'll get a tin and you
put three pounds in, and I'll do the same.'
There were other flats in the house, and we were soon on
speaking terms with our neighbours, but for a variety of
reasons never managed to hit it off with the member of the
Fire Brigade who lived immediately below us in the basement
flat. It was partly my fault. Anita used to go away a lot at
weekends to stay with her parents and see her boyfriend in
Hull, and she left me in charge. This made me nervous at first,
but
I soon got used to running the place on my own, with some
help from Emma. It seemed an enormous step towards
becoming more independent. One of the first weekends that
Anita went away, before I had become absolutely used to the
place, I decided to take the small kitchen waste-bin down to
the dustbins outside. These were reached through the front
garden, down a little passageway, through a gate, and were
ranged in a row next to the rockery kept by the fireman.
Emma came with me, although she was not on her harness.
She might have saved me if she had been; but there seemed no
point, since we were not going for a proper outing. Somehow,
a brick had been left in the middle of the passageway. On
harness, Emma would immediately have taken me round it.
As it was, she merely stood by and watched. I tripped over the
brick and let go of the rubbish all over the
fireman, who had
just emerged from his flat, covering him with cigarette ends,
banana skins and other assorted oddments.
Our relationship did not improve the following Saturday.
Anita was once again away. I had decided that the kitchen
a good clean, particularly the waste-bin that had
figured so prominently in the previous week's episode. I
boiled two kettles, filled the bin with water and disinfectant,
left it for an hour below the wash-basin. When I went to
empty it, it felt ominously light. I put my hand in it. No water.
How was I to know that there had been a hole in the plastic?
Or that the water would seep through the floor and into the
fireman's kitchen? Things were never the same again.
The most bizarre mistake I made occurred one weekend
after we had been at the flat for a few months, and I had
become quite used to running it. In addition to Emma and
Tiss, the animal population of the household had recently
been increased by Anita's purchase of a pair of pet mice,
called Ilk and Moke. I suppose they were sold as tame mice,
although I would have sued the pet shop under the Trades
Descriptions Act. It was impossible to put a hand in their
cage and bring it out unscratched. Tiss loathed them. When
Anita went away I used to have to feed these
small sharp
clawed monsters.
One weekend I had them in their cage on the kitchen table,
and had piled books on top so that Tiss could not leap on to
their roof and stare and hiss down at them. On the Sunday
morning I got up and went with Emma into the kitchen to
make a cup of tea. I knew I had left the matches on the table,
and felt round for them. But then I heard something move near
my hand. I almost had heart failure. I put out my hand for the
match-box, and there was the sound again: small claws. I
was petrified. It had to be a mouse.
I went hot and cold. I thought I must have let one of them
out when I was feeding them the previous day. What would
Anita think? What if it escaped? Anita would be bound to
think Tiss had caught it. How could I get it back? I stood
there in my dressing gown dithering, and then had a brainwave.
Much as I loathed the idea, I had to catch it, and I
knew there was
a tin handy. I felt for this empty tin, anct
brought it up to the edge of the table. There I waited, quite
still, for minutes on end: it must have been a weird sight.
Suddenly I heard a movement. Then, sure enough, I felt the
mouse-was it Ilk? Or was it Moke? I didn't care. Anyway,
I felt him on the tin, and quickly got him in and clapped my
hand over the top, at the same time opening the cage. Before
he could scratch or bite I had him back inside and crashed
the cage
door to. r +- r~rnx7er But at least I could
It took me severai cups 0 late that
face Anita on her return. When she did come back,
evening, one of the first things she did was to go and inspect
her mice.
'Sheila,' she said, 'my mice.'
'Yes,' I said haplessly, my heart turning over (had I let
them both out when I opened the cage?).
'Sheila, what happened? There are three!'
'Three?'
'Yes, three, my white ones and a grey one.'
Grey one! I immediately knew what had happened.
Covered in confusion I explained. We collapsed with laughter.
It occurred to me that it was quite the reverse of Three Blind
Mice!
Normally, however, things went reasonably smoothly,
particularly when Anita was there. She was great fun to live
with, and I was well aware how lucky I was to have my own
flat, which is more than many sighted people have. We used
to laugh a lot, and I was often amused by some of the Yorkshire
expressions she came out with. One cold November day I had
chosen a rather flimsy dress to wear.
'You can't wear that,' Anita said.
'Why not?'
'You'll catch King Cough if you go out in that.'
'King Cough? What's that?'
'Didn't your mother ever tell you? I don't knowl King
ANITA
67
Cough's three times worse than any other cough, and you
catch your death of it.'
Impressed by the idea and possible power of King Cough, I
changed into something warmer.
I imagine that when Anita first asked me if I would share
with her, it must have occurred to her that there would be
disadvantages in living with me. For my part it was difficult
to admit that I could not do everything a sighted person could,
yet I was determined to show that the handicap was not as
bad as might have been imagined. In fact, I think I may
possibly have surprised Anita by how much I could do, even
though I was blind. It meant a great deal of hard work and
concentration. Still, we persevered. I would do the hoovering,
while Anita dusted. Sometimes, above the noise of the vacuum
cleaner ' I would hear her laughing. I'd switch off and say,
'Now what are you laughing at?'And she would giggle.'Well,
you've been over that bit of carpet about six times-and
there's a huge bit that still needs doing only two inches away.'
So off I would go again, and wait for the next correction, until
finally I would have the entire carpet clean.
The food cupboard in the flat was a source of amusement
after shopping expeditions. If I was in charge I would buy
only the food I wanted for the next twenty-four hours,
because too many tins and packets would be confusing. Each
evening I would buy the supplies we wanted for supper,
breakfast and tea, and I would try to keep various foodstuffs
separatein thecupboard: a shelf for vegetables, part of another
one for tins of fruit, another part for tins of dog meat, and so
on. Sometimes my planning did not work out. Emma, I think,
very much enjoyed best tinned casserole steak one night, and I
did not pursue what happened to the tin of petfood she should
have had. With packets and jars, one way of identifying the
contents was of course by smell. So if I wanted marmalade,
I had to take each jar out of the cupboard, unscrew the top,
and sniff what was inside. With jam, pickles and so on this
was fairly easy, if laborious; it also developed my sense of
smell. But with things such as salt or sugar, I just had to wet
I
68
my finger and taste-and sometimes got quite a surprise.
One of the activities that really fascinated Anita was my
cooking. 'I just don't understand,' she would say, 'how )-ou
can cook.' In fact, it is not as difficult as it may sound. I tried
to explain to her that whether you have sight or not, a great
deal of cooking is actually done by touch. If you are boiling
potatoes, you put a fork in them to test if they are done. If
you are roasting a joint of meat, you put a skewer in it from
time to time. Admittedly, people with sight do not rely on this
entirely, but it may explain why cooking was not impossible
for me. I could use the cooker itself by feel, and in addition I
had a braille regulo fitted to the oven. The only thing I really
disliked was frying, because the fat tended to spit, and,
obviously, I could not take a skewer to test whether a fried
egg was done or not. The other sense I used was smell, which
was possibly of more value in preventing over-cooking than in
cooking itself. After we had been at the flat a little time I think
I convinced Anita that I was capable of pulling my weight.
I had to rely on Anita a great deal for dress sense. We were
a similar shape and size and I sometimes borrowed her clothes.
She helped me a lot. It is very difficult to pick the right clothes
if you can't see the colours, and can only touch the garments
to get an idea of the material and style. When I went into a
shop in the days before I shared with Anita it was very often a
case of 'Never mind the quality, feel the width'. But with her
advice it was marvellous to be able to wear clothes that I knew
were fashionable. She would come along with me to the shops,
or, if I went with Emma, I would take the outfit on approval,
try it on back at the flat, and ask Anita's honest opinion. 'No,
it's just not you,' she migdht say, or, 'No, I don't think so. It
makes you look about mnety.' So back to the shop the clothes
would go. I suppose I was really
EMMA AND I
wearing clothes that Anita
herself liked, rather than those that I might like if I could have
seen, but I still found it all very liberating. Anita, after all, was
my age and kept up with the fashion magazines, and for the
first time in my life, I felt I too was a reasonably decorative
part of the fashion scene.
I
i ~~
ANITA
69
As well as helping with my clothes, Anita was also able to
tell me if my hair looked right. She was my looking-glass. But,
over and above that, the best thing about her was the feeling
that she was treating me as a paid-up member of the hurnan
race. She had a great sense of honesty, and there was never
any suggestion of making embarrassing allowances for the
fact that I could not see.
That said, there was one thing I had to be wary of with her,
and that was when we used to do our shopping together. It
was pleasant for Emma to have Anita take over guiding me
when we went into town. It meant Emma did not have her
harness on, and off-duty could go on a lead Eke any other dog
going for a walk. But it was not always so good for me, because
I would occasionally trip or collide painfully with a lamp post,
and Anita would say, 'Oh, Sheila, I'm so sorry, I was looking
in a shop-window, I didn't see that.' In the end, I am afraid,
I went back
to relying entirely on Emma, even when we all
went out together.
It was while I was at the flat I came to realize how close a
bond had grown up between Emma and me, and not only on
my side. When I first had Emma, she was never less than
splendid in her work, despite her independence in choosing
her own routes and so on. But I got the impression that,
although I needed her, she did not really need me. She would
look after me when we were going along the street, but indoors
at the house where we first lived she would never bark when
there was a knock on the door. She had no protective instinct
towards me. Once we had settled in at the flat, when, after
the upheaval of moving and despite the change of surroundings,
she knew we were still together, her attitude gradually
changed. We began to spend a great deal of time on our own,
and of course Emma was with me twenty-four hours a
day. She would follow me about, which she had not done
before, and never let me out of her sight-even in the
bathroom. Moreover, not only did we begin to walk with
the same pace and kind of step, but we seemed to develop
an instinct for knowing one another's thoughts-a sort of
EMMA AND I
telepathy. It may sound incredible, but it was perfectly true.
Industrial Pumps had moved their premises to Colwick and
I used to do the shopping for the weekend at lunch-time on
Fridays in a little area called Netherfield. Emma always knew
it was Friday, and I never had to say anything; she would
simply take me to Netherfield, whereas on every other day we
went for our usual walk. One Monday, however, I wanted to
take my watch to be repaired, and the nearest jeweller was
in Netherfield. I had never been to the jeweller's before, and
as I did not know where it was exactly, I got full directions
from Carol. Since it was a Monday, I assumed Emma would
think we were going for our usual outing, and for some reason
I did not tell her that the plan had changed. We went out of
the office as usual and to the main road. But instead of our
customary Monday route, she unhesitatingly carried on over
the bridge, turned right into the shopping centre at Netherfield,
