CC 114: Automatic Hearts

A woman, out for an early morning run, was coming towards us.  Mount Avenue gave a good morning jog to those with the boldness and good sense to do such a thing.  This woman had the boldness and the good sense.  She looked to be in her fifties and extremely athletic and fabulous-looking like Jane Fonda if you could imagine Jane Fonda emerging from the wet grey of an Irish morning.

‘Good morning,’ said the woman, jogging past.

‘Morning,’ I replied.

‘Grrd mmmmng,’ mumbled Emer, turning to face me and working hard to hide her embarrassment; I didn’t feel it was called for, as the woman showed a knowing smile as she passed us by, which suggested she’d been in our position before, lost on a country road in the early hours, with a head full of drink along with God knows what else. 

The keeping-up-appearances side of Emer had irritated me in the past as it increased in our lives and ate away at our automatic hearts.  But now I found it was something that could be reasonably adored.  That side I used to consider uppity and contrived, I now saw for its ruling passion.  She turned and looked enviously at the lady jogger, and said, ‘That’s what I want to look like at her age at this time in the morning.’

‘No problem for you,’ I said.

‘Not at the rate I’m going.’

‘Do you still go to the gym?’

‘Nah, not lately.  No time.’

‘Well, I’m sure you’ll get back to it.’

‘I hope so.’

‘It goes without saying.  You’re no idler like me.  Naturally athletic.  You always have been.  That woman looks great, she does, but I can see you being far fitter when you get to her age.’

‘Judging by the state I’m in now, it’s not looking good.’ 

‘Nah, nah – I swear to you, I know these things.’

I became aware of some falsehood in these silky laurels, a desperate swing on my part to keep myself in her good books.  She knew me well.  She knew I didn’t give two fucks about whether she went to the gym or not, having listened to me complain about her going many times way back when for reasons I might have tried to justify back then.  How could I convince her I had changed?  Had I in fact changed?  I don’t know.  Sometimes it takes the freedom of a country road to give you time to step back a bit, see how far you’ve come, and where you might head to next.