No Right Answer

There are certain things we take for granted in this age of technology. Here in Britain at least, surely everyone who has a roof over their head has the basics? Nope.
Bridie lives in the most idyllic spot. Her house nestles in a natural bend in the road, it's old stone walls seem to grow out of the hillside behind it and it's cobbled yard slopes gently down to a stream draped with Willow trees that dance a silent swooping ballet in the wind. Bridie is, as her name suggests, Irish. Her husband died a few years back and she lives alone except for a roiling flea ridden semi feral congregation of cats. She is an amazing figure, wrapped in shawls with a woolly hat that she pulls down over long grey hair and a pair of man's hob nailed boots that she wears without laces. She lives about five miles from the biggest town in our county and well over a century away in terms of lifestyle. She refuses to use electricity and her house does not have a good enough supply to use appliances anyway and, unbelievably, she has no running water. Every morning the girls bring water from the well which is situated a good hundred yards from the house and believe me you have no idea how much controversy this has caused over the months we have been doing the call. Inside the house is dark and stained black from the smoke from her open fire and the fat cheap candles she uses. There are huge dark oil paintings on the walls but I could not tell you what they depict. They are covered with the biggest, thickest, blackest cobwebs I have ever seen, each as thick as my finger and hairy with years of accumulated dust and smoke. She sleeps upstairs but we have yet to make it beyond the downstairs rooms, Bridie is up when we arrive and she will not countenance letting us into the upper storey.
Bridie is deeply suspicious of everybody. Dates and times have slipped from her grasp, if they were ever within it, but she knows that at some point a couple befriended her and made off with a substantial amount of her savings - ah yes, her savings. Bridie gives us a paw full of crumpled notes spirited from who-knows-where each week to do her shopping and we are allowed to cash her pension once a month, money which she secretes within her shawl immediately we return. Bridie trusts nobody. Her neighbour, a Welsh farmer of few words, used to look after her before we were contracted to visit twice a day. He told me it took him months to get inside the house, she would open the door an inch or two, take the food his wife had made and shut the door in his face. It is a credit to the man that he persevered and that he went over her head to get her more help last winter when she was wracked with bronchitis. Even now, she is part of his checking rounds, he peers through the window soon after dawn each morning and makes sure she is already up and getting her fire going.
Earlier this week, Penny (yes, Penny again!) rang me in some distress. It seemed Bridie had thrown her out, screaming Gaelic curses foretelling what would befall her if she ever darkened the door again. "What happened?" I asked. It seemed Pen had found a tiny newborn kitten outside the back door in a cardboard box. It was a filthy morning, the kind where the rain comes down Bridie's valley horizontally, and Pen had asked why the kitten was out there. Bridie had responded that the kitten had been abandoned, she had put it there to see if it's mother would return. Penny protested it would die and Bridie said that yes, it would if it was not reclaimed, but that it's mother knew best and if that was the case "The Lord would take it quicker out there" My lovely daffy teenage Pen had decided this was the height of cruelty and had taken the kitten, box and all, to her car to rescue it.
"Put the kitten back, Pen" I said - cue wailing and crying from the other end of the phone. "You cannot steal her kitten and anyway, she is right, sometimes a cat isolates one kitten, they sense there is something wrong with it" "I didn't steal it" she said hotly - in what sense does removing it to your car not constitute stealing it? I explained again gently that the kitten was not ours, that it was, at least nominally, Bridie's and we had no right to interfere and I was not about to summon the RSPCA and lose any chance of access to Bridie in future. Pen was not pacified "You have to do something, I thought you were lovely, you cant let it die!" her voice rose to a shriek. "Pen, I have the files of six human beings on my desk and I can't fix THEIR problems - I cannot fix this - PUT THE BLOODY CAT BACK!!" Pen agreed through loud sobs and I put the phone down shaking my head and wondering why it seems I have been appointed person responsible for the whole Universe. The thing is - I know I was right, I know a relationship with Bridie is my priority and that she was probably right about the kitten anyway - so why do I still feel guilty?