Olga

For various reasons I'm not on Medical Aid. This means having to make use of the public health facilities here in Durban. Whilst much of my minor medical maintenance matters are dealt with by my GP there are times when I have to slot into the system in a government hospital. For me this is usually Albert Luthuli just along Bellair Road.

Now this is very modern and top rate facility with state-of-the-art systems on the technical side. The people processing aspect is however.......well........government-like as is the world over. Veterans of the long shuffle to health go equipped with something to read to pass the time. Although I do this I seldom do much reading because people-watching and trying to assess their state of health and guess what afflicts them is very diverting.

My morning last week was in the plastic surgery, maxilla, cranial clinic. To save you pondering my condition let me tell you up front that it is to have a basal cell carcinoma removed from the side of my nose in a way that I won't have to wear a nose stud for the rest of my life. Not a serious matter.

Selecting a seat I tried to sum up those gathering around me. One chap had his head in a frame contraption with wire stays to keep various bits from returning to the their accustomed lifetime positions. Not quite in the elephant-man league but the poor chap did have a rather odd shaped bonce. One or two others looked as though they were also having the symmetry of their facial bits and pieces arranged in the more acceptable pattern.

The balance were in my category; here to have bits of our original body parts snipped away because they had deteriorated with time, tide, wind, sun and gravity. Then Olga arrived in a wheel-chair and was manoeuvred into a space next to me. A very elderly lady trim of figure; dressed in well cut slacks, a nice top, groovy waist coat over, funky chunky rings and all topped with a scarlet knitted floppy beret pulled down to the side. Hair tinted slightly auburn and her well shaped face carefully made-up to her best advantage.

She carefully reached into her handbag and produced a tiny bottle of water. Screwing off the lid she turned to me and said 'A regmaker!' and took a careful swig. 'I would rather it were gin' she continued 'because I'm 92 and all you can do when you're my age is read and drink' She took another sip and carefully replaced the lid.

'I come from a long line of drinkers you know' she confided 'my mother drank all our property away. But she did it in style....only the best French brandies and wines for her.'

I learned that Olga had been born in the Midlands of England in 1915. Her father had been killed in the Great War but had come home briefly on leave just prior to his death 'to make me' said Olga with a twinkle.

'I started life with Kaiser Bill close at hand. Then it was Hitler on the doorstep and in the sky over me. After all this I had an idyllic spell in Bulawayo in Rhodesia (her emphasis) but then that fool Bob (Mugabe) came along and ruined it all. Now we have this lot!' she added with an all-encompassing all-damming sweep of the hand. 'and our President has a small-man syndrome but does have a good tailor' Olga continued and reached for her bottle again 'but he's such a little prick!'

Ah the licence of extreme age.

I began to wonder what she really had in that bottle but before I could ask for a drop myself her name was called and off she went to have her stitches removed. Very late that Thursday night I raised a glass to Olga with a pang of regret that I would possibly never see her again. I also mused that in a cold clinic where I didn't want to be I found myself in the company of someone whose warmth and spirit overcame the restraints and concepts of time, age and place.