She stirs in her sleep. Something disturbs her deep slumber, which is usually aided by the low dose of sleeping pills her GP insists she takes.
‘It’s time to go,’ whispers this breezy unknown voice. ‘Come on, wake up, it’s time to go’.
‘Who’s there?’ she calls out, scrambling to switch her bedside lamp on. ‘Who is it?’
Fearing the worst, she sits up in bed. Only last month, Mrs Linn in flat 2G, had had a break-in and still talks about the horror of it. Her sleepy eyes soon adjust to the light in the room, and for a moment she thinks she is still asleep, dreaming. For there, sitting in her rocking chair, is the strangest man she has ever seen. No one she knows, and she knows most of the people in the Asian community in Glasgow. Why, she is a regular every Sunday at the Hindu temple at Charing Cross, and never misses any of the local Indian functions.
This person is a stranger, in the most peculiar costume she has ever seen. Silken robes with gold embroidery and curly-toed slippers, more suited to characters of The Arabian Nights. She ought to be scared, she finds herself thinking. He could be a drug-taking lunatic, the sort you read about all the time in the newspapers. But he has such a kind smile, underneath his fearsome Viking hat, she cannot resist smiling back, albeit tentatively.
‘How did you get in?’ she asks. ‘Did I leave the front door open again?’
‘I’ve come to get you,’ he answers, in a surprisingly high-pitched sing-song voice. ‘Your time has come. You need to come with me.’
‘My time?’ she asks this fearsome, yet gentle looking creature. ‘Who are you?’
‘You don’t recognise me? I am Yama Raja, the God of Death, and it is your time to travel back to Heaven with me. It’s written in your destiny chart,’ he adds. ‘Here, look,’ he says, thrusting a rolled-up scroll in her direction.
‘I’m going nowhere, Mr Raj,’ she says, waving away his offering. ‘There is nothing wrong with me. If you are a God, you should know that I am the most able member of my Yoga group. Even women in their sixties and seventies are not as good as I am. And I have never used the wheelchair service at airports, even though my sons want me to.’
She gets out of bed, puts on her robe and slippers, and goes into the sitting room, beckoning him to follow.
‘Young man,’ she says, as she exits her room, ‘it is rude to enter a lady’s bedroom like this, don’t you know?’
‘Young?’ he mutters. ‘I’m only a few thousand years old,’ he adds, but does as he is told. He follows her into the lounge and sits meekly on the sofa she points him to.
‘Now, that you have woken me up, I’m going to have some tea. Would you like some?’
Without waiting for his reply, she goes into her kitchen, and fusses about with the tea things, emerging a few minutes later with a tray laid out for two. Mint tea for herself, and a strong Assam brew for her visitor. She also offers a plate of biscuits, and two slices of birthday cake.
It is her birthday today, well, it was yesterday, she now realises, as it is well past midnight. And her entire family were to have come to celebrate. Both her sons, their wives, and her three grandchildren. Even her daughter was going to fly in from Oxford, to help Ma turn eighty. But, as usual, something has cropped up in each of their lives. A broken wrist in one home, a last-minute client meeting in another and a cancelled flight in Rita’s case. She is used to it. Used to their lives being more important than hers. She knows they will all come and visit sooner or later. Her family loves her, they all really do. They just don’t realise she needs them as much as she does.
But for now, there is all this food she has cooked, everybody’s favourite dishes. Indian cuisine for her sons, with low calories and low carb side dishes for Rita and the daughters-in-law. Plus, a big shepherd’s pie for the children, who were so very Scottish in their eating habits, and couldn’t handle a bit of spice at all. It would be a shame to have it all go to waste. Watching this nice Mr Raj gobble down both slices of cake, an idea comes into her head. She thinks she knows how she can delay her travels with him.
‘I know it’s quite late, but would you like something to eat? I can organise something for you quite easily,’ she says. ‘Do you prefer lamb or chicken?’
His shocked pleasure was all the answer she needed.
‘In my line of business, in all the years I have been doing this job, nobody has ever offered me anything. Not even a glass of water,’ he says. ‘Either they are in too much of a hurry to come with me, or I have to drag them away, kicking and screaming.’
‘Well, you just put your feet up and relax, I’ll heat something up soon. Would you like to watch some television in the meanwhile,’ she asks him?
‘No, thank you,’ he says, ‘I get more than my fair share of drama to watch in my daily line of duty.’
She leaves him, delighted to have someone to fuss over after such a long time. As she puts the Biryani into the microwave, he comes to the kitchen with his Viking helmet in his hands. Like a small errant schoolboy wanting permission from the teacher to go to the toilet.
‘May I invite my friend GR to come too? I know he’s in the area tonight, and he would love a plate of Indian food.’
‘Who’s GR?’ she asks, going over the list of Hindu mythological gods in her head.
‘He’s my local friend, old Grimmy, we work together all the time,’ he answers. ‘You might know him referred to as the Grim Reaper. He’s doing the hospital rounds tonight, and we were going to meet up later.’
‘Sure,’ she says, ‘the more the merrier.’ ‘But in return I want a favour too. I want to stay on till my favourite grand-daughter graduates from St Andrews next month. I’ve already decided what to wear and really don’t want to miss that.’
He agrees reluctantly to return six months later for her and goes away to call his friend.
When she lays out dinner, at the dining table which has not been used in a long while, she uses her good dinner service, cutlery, and linen. She finds herself humming. It has been so long since she hosted a dinner party. Usually her sons just take her cooking home in Tupperware containers, which their wives never return. And the grandkids, well, she just orders pizzas for them which they tend to eat directly out of the cardboard boxes at the kitchen table. As for her own friends, they prefer casual lunches these days to elaborate dinner parties. It’s not so easy to drive at night any more at their age, you see.
Looking up from her thoughts, she sees Mr Raj already seated at the table. Across him is this very old man in a white toga like outfit, carrying an instrument she seen had farmers use to cut crops, as a child in India.
‘Welcome to my home Mr Reaper,’ she says, after introductions have been made. ‘Hope you like Indian food.’
He doesn’t look at her, or reply, but attacks his plate with the same gusto that her old Labrador used to attack her meals.
After a very pleasant few hours over dinner, more cake, sherry, and green tea, it is time for the men to leave. ‘We’ll be back in exactly six months,’ YamaRaj says.
‘I’ll be waiting, with a nice meal ready,’ she replies with a wink.
‘What’s your favourite food?’