On bravery

The word ‘bravery’ conjures up different images for all of us, no doubt. Those lacking imagination, patience or erotic content in their lives might gravitate towards a knight on a horse with a massive lance. 

My ex was brave. Well, is. He escaped from communist Albania by swimming to Corfu and risked his life in the so-doing. Not just in the act of a by-necessity underwater swim in calm and cold January waters, but by trying to save two of his friends, by splashing around so that patrol boats with rotating knives underneath would come for him, giving them more time to swim away. His efforts were unsuccessful. 

On arriving, freezing, in Corfu, he stole some girls’ clothes from a washing line as he had nothing on him except speedos, and his passport wrapped in a plastic bag and tied around his waist. As I recall, wearing those trunks was also an act of relative bravery, but I digress. His story, not mine. And, incidentally, one I don’t think he’s told our sons.

A couple of weeks before the work on my roof started, I contacted the surveyor who had come round to assess the house ahead of my proceeding with the job. As someone whose recurring nightmare of adult years is her house falling down around her (‘Mum, you do realise this is about more than your house, don’t you?’, said my oh-so-wise eldest on one recent walk round the cemetery), I had some questions to put to him:

1) Might my house fall down?

2) Who pays if my house falls down? Only my dad’s latest wife lived in Tenerife and was completely done over by a cowboy builder and her story made the front page of the Sun. 

3) How badly can I f**k up, picking a bathroom suite for the en-suite?

He replied thus:

1) No

2) We are fully insured, as are you. (My Phoenix made ‘told you so’ noises at this.)

3) I wish I could come with you and hold your hand while you pick one. I like you. I liked you when I met you. And I still like you now. Would you let me take you out to lunch?

I mumbled something ungracious about my priority being the toilet. I was so taken aback. My Phoenix was pecking my head in fury but I swatted her away. Now was not the time.

But, that was brave, wasn’t it? Putting himself on the line like that. Saying how he felt, and not holding back. I don’t have much of that in my life. 

Note: I added in those inverted commas around ‘bravery’ just before hitting ‘publish’. Despite having used editorial skills in most of the jobs I’ve had, I find myself losing track of what is correct and what is stylistically optional, these days. A subject for another blog post, perhaps.