{"id":871,"date":"2021-06-21T15:25:58","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=871"},"modified":"2021-06-21T15:26:05","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:26:05","slug":"you-do-what-you-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/you-do-what-you-can\/871\/","title":{"rendered":"You Do What You Can"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Morgan Ratcliffe locked the car door, opened the allotment gate wearily, and crept like a snail on Mogadon up the rise. Long Covid wasn\u2019t going to beat him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Alice Rees had lent him a small part of her allotment plot to assist his recovery. She\u2019d also lent her neighbour – he lived several doors down from her – a few long-handled tools. Ratcliffe came daily in all weathers, scratched at weeds with a rake, turned a few inches of earth with a hoe, and half an hour later limped back to his car. Occasionally Alice discreetly removed clumps of weeds and sowed a few seeds on the strip. Otherwise Ratcliffe\u2019s labours would\u2019ve been wholly in vain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Three months after starting, Ratcliffe\u2019s health was unchanged. His walk was still laboured, his actions and thought as if made in slow motion. \u2018I do what I can,\u2019 he muttered. He was a tall, elderly man, his rugged features putting Alice in mind of a rocky steep. His cheekbones were hollowed out, his shoulders sunken, his expression as bleak as hard snow in the Brecon Beacons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

            That was when Alice dug up a handful of carrots from her large plot, replanted them in the strip and, when Ratcliffe arrived, pointed them out to him. \u2018First fruits of your labours. Want me to dig them up for you?\u2019 \u2018I\u2019ll do it,\u2019 came the gruff reply. Fifteen minutes later she saw Ratcliffe trudging back to his car, expression grim as always, thick silver hair on his head like frost on a grave. The carrots were in his hand.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He continued to show up late mornings, exhausted, stripped of life, and Alice still tilled and planted for him when he\u2019d gone. \u2018Wife\u2019s told me what I bring home won\u2019t feed a sparrow,\u2019 he said. \u2018Next year,\u2019 Alice said, \u2018when, you\u2019ve your strength back, you\u2019ll be more productive.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allotment winters were quiet so Alice didn\u2019t notice of Ratcliffe\u2019s absence until she met Mrs Ratcliffe in the local shop. Morgan had declined. \u2018He can\u2019t shake it off. I think he\u2019s giving up.\u2019 Alice went to her plot, dug up some sprouts, and gave them to Mrs Ratcliffe. \u2018From Morgan\u2019s patch. This morning. Fertile that strip. He\u2019s worked very hard on it.\u2019 The next day she brought cavolo nero, and was told Morgan had roused slightly. Thereafter cabbage, chard, and winter cauliflowers were presented, and she learnt he was no longer at death\u2019s door.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spring Ratcliffe returned, still tired but willing, saying, \u2018I think I\u2019ll be able to manage the strip now.\u2019 His frosty demeanour briefly vanished, causing Alice to think of yellow sun in February, flickering atop the snowy Beacons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was all that was said on the subject. His toiling was still painfully slow, but she no longer gave circumspect assistance. Perhaps he\u2019d been telling her that her concern had helped him revive; perhaps he hadn\u2019t. It wasn\u2019t important. You do what you can. She began hoeing a trench in the soil for broad beans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morgan Ratcliffe locked the car door, opened the allotment gate wearily, and crept like a snail on Mogadon up the rise. Long Covid wasn\u2019t going to beat him.             Alice Rees had lent him a small part of her allotment plot to assist his recovery. She\u2019d also lent her neighbour – he lived several doors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A superb new #flashfiction from #swanseawriters - \n\n\"You Do What You Can\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[379,490],"tags":[124,159],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-379","category-june-2021-afterwards","tag-do","tag-what"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-e3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":873,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}