Sâl, marw
Whenever my Taid (grandfather) was asked how he was, he would always reply “Sâl, marw.”
It’s pronounced “Sarl Márroo,” but no simple ordering of characters on a screen can convey the hollow despair and resignation that moaned through those three simple syllables.
I’m afraid we children laughed at him, and repeatedly asked him how he was so we could hear him say it again.
Now I know how he felt. I’ve been sâl marw over this weekend. Oh, I forgot — it means “sick and dying.”
I’m NEVER ill, if you don’t count the polio as a child, the ulcer in 1987 and the ‘flu in 1988. The ‘flu was probably the worst.
Occasionally I get a cold, but otherwise fleas envy my fitness.
On Friday evening I sat down with a beer to enjoy a Heineken Cup match on telly. Within 15 minutes I got very cold. It was strange, because I was aware the room was warm, but I wasn’t. I put on a jacket and jumper but still shivered. We had a lovely salami supper planned, and all of a sudden it didn’t seem so appealing. I had to struggle to finish my beer.
At half time I thought sod this, I’m going to bed to try and warm up. So I put on my thick, heavy towelling dressing gown and my binge walking socks and crawled into bed. I lay there shivering, not reading, not watching TV. I was coughing hard and regularly.
An hour later I just made it to the loo in time to throw up. This happened six more times between 10pm and 3am. I heard each hour strike, and felt more and more despairing and miserable. I was coughing so much my ribs hurt. Head was pressurized from inside like a balloon; no actual headache.
On Saturday morning Von called NHS Direct. They said it probably wasn’t fatal. What did they know? Rest and lots of liquid, they said. But we were going to Hampshire to a Siblings and Spouses reunion, which I was really looking forward to — Richard and Brenda, Jo and Paul, Andrew and Shân, me and Yvonne.
I felt as if I’d been beaten up. The thought of food repelled me.
For the rest of Saturday I lay in bed and got up intermittently. I didn’t have enough concentration to read or do anything. I had a bath in the late afternoon but didn’t feel any better for it. I didn’t have any supper, so apart from tea and orange juice Saturday was a Nil By Mouth day. I may have lost a pound. I could be on to something here, peddling infectious diseases that make you lose your appetite, for weak-willed dieters.
I had a quiet Sunday and a modest food intake (for me). Two lightly boiled eggs, two pieces of toast and marmite, a slice of bread with smoked salmon and cream cheese, a wafer thin slice of Parma ham, 1 1/2 slices of salami Milano, one slice of salami Finocchiona, a slice of ciabatta, two cherry tomatoes and a sliver of Bufala mozzarella. When you write it down it looks like a huge amount, but it was nothing at all, really.
Dizzy Monday morning. I went in to work, but I’d better not sign any contracts, do any deals or launch any new initiatives today. I feel groggy.
Today’s intake: a cantuccini with coffee, two slices of caws pobi.
Taid was right all along. He was indeed sâl, marw. He died at the age of 94, still smoking 30 Player’s Navy Cut a day. What a strange man he was. He worked as a labourer to earn enough money to put himself through university at Cambridge (Fitzwilliam College); was ordained; then was appointed to a succession of unimaginably remote rural livings in North Wales. None of his villages had a population of more the 200 souls and one, Dylife, where my father was born, had just 10. Including the entire Headley family.
I read one of his diaries, for 1928. Beautiful handwriting and absolutely nothing to say. No thoughts, no opinions, no dreams, just a log of the domestic and clerical events of the day.
I feel a kinship with him.
