It is unrecogniseable from the last time I came to visit Truus and this trip feels more gruelling even than the time I shot up through Belgium, non-stop from Paris, on my Kawasaki GT750. That was a much longer trip, actually. I've got pictures of my bike on a canal bridge in Amsterdam, another three hours north, but I was a lot younger then with no one in tow and less on my mind.
Now I'm getting on and my Auntie Truus more so. She's at the end of the road and she knows it. She told me so as I sat by her bedside staring out at the blizzard raging in the woods behind her residence. It was hard to see this typically fastidious, well-dressed, straight-talking Dutch woman reduced to a skinny waistrel with a fluffy crown of white hair. But if I can manage half the dignity on my deathbed, i'll be more than satisfied. Death is after all, a bit of a performance.
"I can't find anyone to help me." says Truus. "I lie awake by night and by day thinking about it but what can I do? I am dying, I know it, but dying takes such a long time."
Her expression is without self-pity and my eyes well up as I tell her we love her, even though we hardly ever came to visit.
"Do not cry. Edgar and I never came to the UK either." She says in absolution. "Now it would be best for you to go as I am tired."
I lean over to kiss her goodbye, an opportunity for human warmth not missed by her. Perhaps I'm being unkind, I don't mean to be, but she really seemed to need a hug and a kiss and I'm only too pleased to be able to deliver this.
"How old are you now?" She asks out of the blue, holding onto my arms.
"Er, forty-seven," I stammer.
"Ha, ha, ha," she laughs with unexpected gusto, before trailing off into coughing.
"Go now and thank you for coming all this way to see me."
We stand silently in the lift, call Dolph from reception and wait for him to bring up his taxi. As we wait and the only sounds are the howling of the wind outside and the gentle admonishment of Poz who is scattering clay beads from the lobby planters.
It's another juddery, traction-controlled ride back to the Terminus Hotel.
Photo: Frozen Holland
