This in an example of Relative Pronoun in Article : )
RELATIVELY
There are those members of the family whom you regard as part
of the family and it never occurs to you that the chap whom you call Dave is also someone to whom you could give the
title "uncle". You know him so well that it never occurs to you that
he is in fact a relative. Then there are those that you only see on special occasions, which don't take place
very often like weddings and funerals. In the former you're usually enjoying
yourself so much that you don't take much notice of them and in the latter you
hardly talk to anyone because it's a time when you don't talk much to anyone
and a place where you
don't normally go out of your way to be sociable.
Then there is that special category of
relatives which you
hardly ever consider and whose
names you only vaguely remember because they did something terrible or left the
country in a hurry or who
have funny ways which most of us can't accept.
I had one like that, an aunt whose name was Enid. In
fact whenever I hear the name spoken or read it in a book, I always conjure up
in my mind that aunt who
must have been the strangest member that my family has produced. As a child I
had heard stories about her that may or may not have been true. The best one I
remember was when she
ended up in hospital with a broken leg. Apparently she was very proud of her
house, which she kept
in an immaculate condition, and in this particular incident that illustrates her
eccentricity, she had seen a mess on one of the rugs she kept in her sitting
room. As she was expecting a visitor, who
was due any minute, she opened the door to the garden and threw out the rug that was causing the
trouble and whose
stain was upsetting her.
Unfortunately she forgot to get off the
rug first and threw herself out into the garden as well. That was how she ended up in the
hospital with a broken leg. There were endless stories like those, which were probably
exaggerated and that
had been added to over the years. Nobody really knew what was true and what was complete fabrication. The one thing that nobody could
understand or explain was why she had gone to live in another country where she had stayed for
more than twenty years. Everybody had something to say on the matter: she had
had an unhappy love affair with a man who
was married, she wanted to make a fresh start in a place where no-one knew her, she wanted to get away from
her family whom she couldn't put up with. Such stories, which grew in number as the years went by, fascinated
me.
The strange thing was that not one of
these stories fitted with the generally accepted belief that Aunt Enid was supposed to be a very shy person, who wouldn't have the
courage to say boo to a goose. This was an enigma that I wanted to resolve and when I heard that she
was returning to the place where she was born, I hoped I might have the
opportunity to meet this living legend and get to the bottom of these stories.
My
parents had decided to meet her at the port where her ship was due to arrive and I was allowed to
go with them. I can still remember the excitement and anticipation I felt as a
child waiting for the ship to arrive. My father, who was always making fun of Aunt Enid, made some
remark to the effect that
she had probably missed the boat and taken the wrong one to another destination
that was probably the
other side of the world. We waited and then slowly through the mist we saw the
ship whose right side
bore the name "Voyager", which
I thought was very romantic since it aptly described what my aunt had been
doing for the last twenty years. I even imagined that the small dot visible on
the deck was Aunt Enid waving to us. But my father pointed out that what I thought was
Aunt Enid was in fact one of the anchors.
Eventually
the "Voyager" docked and as was to be expected the last person to
disembark was my celebrated Aunt. I must admit that she was a bit of an
anti-climax because she was small, frail, gray-haired, spoke with a tiny
crackling voice, which
sounded like a tiny mouse, and was to all intents and purposes a very ordinary
old lady.
It
was several weeks before Aunt Enid and I were alone together. In fact it was
the afternoon on which
she was preparing to go back to her home abroad. I had not had enough courage
to put the question to her, which
I had promised myself I would. In a sudden rush of confidence I burst out:
"Why did you go and live abroad all those years ago, Aunt Enid?" She
smiled that smile for which
old people are famous, that
combines compassion with wisdom. "I'll tell you on one condition",
she replied "and that
is that you don't tell a living soul". I promised. As all the "living
souls" to whom
she was referring are now no longer alive, I think it's reasonable to reveal
Aunt Enid's secret.
Apparently
the day on which she
left home for the last time she had taken a train to visit a friend, who didn't live far away
but unfortunately she had fallen asleep, missed the station she wanted and
didn't wake up until the train came to the end of the line, which happened to be the
very port where we had
met her some weeks before. She decided there and then that she would not put up
with any more of the jokes which
had haunted her all her life and booked a passage on the next ship never
finding the courage with which
to explain the reason for her departure. What
you might call a RELATIVELY simple explanation.
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