Storm in a teacup: memoirs of a tea lady Chapter 15

Our courtship was a brief and happy one.  Teddy and I got to know one another extremely well over endless cups of tea.  Teddy—still in hospital, and still wearing a full head and body  plaster cast— was a man of few words, but a wonderful listener as I told him all about myself and my mother and my hometown of Wattlebird.  I once asked Teddy to tell me a little about himself. He lifted an arm and pointed at the window where the only view was of the sky, which on this particular day was of an unbroken blue.  

Storm in a teacup: memoirs of a tea lady. Chapter 14

I met my future husband-to-be at Royal Perth Hospital where I   had already been working for a number of years, pushing my tea- trolley from ward-to-ward, morning, noon and night. Dishing out endless cups of tea to all those sick people was a huge responsibility that I saw as a privilege.

            Early one morning while doing the breakfast teas on the orthopedics’ ward, I spied a new patient in a hospital bed but the poor man’s entire head and body were encased in a white plaster cast, and his limbs were strung up and pillows were propping up his head.  All I could see were his twinkly eyes, smooth mouth and the pink tips of his fingers and toes.

            “Tea?” I asked.

            “Yes please,’ he uttered as if from far away, which I suppose he was.

            “Sugar?”  

            “Yes.”

            “Milk?”

            I made him a cup of sweet milky tea with a straw which I inserted into the hole where his mouth would be. He slurped up the tea. He wiggled the tips of his fingers as if to say, “Good.”

            As I stood there steadying the straw for him, our eyes met. It was love at first sight.

 I discovered from one of the nurses that he’d been in a terrible accident; that he’d fallen asleep on a mountain path and how a runaway steamroller had rolled straight over the top of him.

Next day, I read his bedside notes.  My plaster-man’s name was Edward— “Teddy”—Oxwell— and he was twenty-five years old.  And his vital signs were” Pulse rate 72, Blood Pressure 110/60, Respirations 18 and he weigh 72 kilograms. How could I resist him?  I loved him. I loved every broken bone in his crushed body.

I knew Mother would adore Teddy, so I asked my plaster-man to marry me and in his own funny plaster-man way, he nodded a slow but definitive yes.