a man needs some fresh air.’
TC nodded.
‘That is OK. But sometimes the weather does not agree. Now, my friend at the shop tells me he has made too many chips. Perhaps you could help us out by eating some?’ He knew better than to hold out a hand, or to cajole. The boy studied him for a moment and then got up.
On the high road the night buses and scooters and minicabs and stolen motors, the squad cars and couriers and pizza boys and company cars all halted for the big Pole and the little boy as together they crossed the road.
7
Plough Monday
Outside the grocer’s the fruit was stacked in bright tiers, their colours improbable in the grey January light. A man in a grubby apron chased pigeons away from them with a broom; they lifted from him like flakes of dull sky, whirled once, and streamed up the high road to where the lady from the bakery fed them dustpanfuls of crumbs.
The offices were open again after Christmas, and the morning buses were full of blank white faces staring out at Sophia where she sat on one of the benches in the little park, the drizzle a soft bloom on her face and hands. The bus windows were steaming up, full of damp coats and breath, and Sophia was very glad not to be on one. Growing old had its compensations, being allowed to please yourself all day being one of them. It was the first whole day she had had to herself since Christmas, and once she had got her doctor’s appointment out of the way she intended to do very little.
She gripped the handle of her stick and got up. The trees were bare and still, even the ivy’s vigour held in temporary abeyance, and only the robin spoke from a sweet chestnut, his song somehow reedier and more subdued than in spring. She paused and looked again at the park, as though committing it to memory, then crossed the grass to the high road and headed slowly north, past the second-hand furniture shop where Denny stood in the doorway with arms crossed, past the chicken takeaway and the betting shop and the post office, its door set between towers of multicoloured buckets and stacking stools and cheap plastic crates.
The pavement – scarred with tarmac, a patchwork of slabs and wounds and make-dos – was a palimpsest, a downtrodden witness to the hardware feeding the street and all its faults and secret requirements. As she walked Sophia pictured the pipes and wires down there beneath her feet, none the less actual for being invisible, like the locket with its tiny diamond chip she had lost in the park twenty years ago and which must have worked its way down into the soil by now, treasure for some future city dweller to find. Perhaps at death she would know what had become of it; perhaps every mystery, every last thing she had ever wondered about or tried to imagine, would be revealed to her. Perhaps that was what heaven was, or would be for her: a lifetime’s curiosity about the world finally sated.
Outside the mobile phone shop was tethered a street cleaner’s cart, and Sophia had to edge around it, trespassing dizzily into the roaring bus lane. ‘Nuisance,’ she muttered, but equably enough; she rather admired the little carts, with their neat, no-nonsense practicality, their place for the broom, litter picker and bin bag. They were iconic, in a way; a perfect solution to a problem, and she could recall when the issue of dirty, grimy streets wasn’t even addressed. These days they even sent a little ride-on machine at night to steam the chewing gum off. It had whirling brushes at the front, and a mahout to direct it. She had told Daisy about it on one of her visits to the house on Leasow Road, and Daisy had been properly sceptical. ‘Who is it that’s chewing all the chewing gum, anyway?’ she had asked. ‘I don’t even know one single person that does it.’
Sophia had spent Christmas at Linda’s, and it had been very pleasant. She had to admit that the house was lovely, although to her mind it could have done with more books. Linda’s
TC nodded.
‘That is OK. But sometimes the weather does not agree. Now, my friend at the shop tells me he has made too many chips. Perhaps you could help us out by eating some?’ He knew better than to hold out a hand, or to cajole. The boy studied him for a moment and then got up.
On the high road the night buses and scooters and minicabs and stolen motors, the squad cars and couriers and pizza boys and company cars all halted for the big Pole and the little boy as together they crossed the road.
7
Plough Monday
Outside the grocer’s the fruit was stacked in bright tiers, their colours improbable in the grey January light. A man in a grubby apron chased pigeons away from them with a broom; they lifted from him like flakes of dull sky, whirled once, and streamed up the high road to where the lady from the bakery fed them dustpanfuls of crumbs.
The offices were open again after Christmas, and the morning buses were full of blank white faces staring out at Sophia where she sat on one of the benches in the little park, the drizzle a soft bloom on her face and hands. The bus windows were steaming up, full of damp coats and breath, and Sophia was very glad not to be on one. Growing old had its compensations, being allowed to please yourself all day being one of them. It was the first whole day she had had to herself since Christmas, and once she had got her doctor’s appointment out of the way she intended to do very little.
She gripped the handle of her stick and got up. The trees were bare and still, even the ivy’s vigour held in temporary abeyance, and only the robin spoke from a sweet chestnut, his song somehow reedier and more subdued than in spring. She paused and looked again at the park, as though committing it to memory, then crossed the grass to the high road and headed slowly north, past the second-hand furniture shop where Denny stood in the doorway with arms crossed, past the chicken takeaway and the betting shop and the post office, its door set between towers of multicoloured buckets and stacking stools and cheap plastic crates.
The pavement – scarred with tarmac, a patchwork of slabs and wounds and make-dos – was a palimpsest, a downtrodden witness to the hardware feeding the street and all its faults and secret requirements. As she walked Sophia pictured the pipes and wires down there beneath her feet, none the less actual for being invisible, like the locket with its tiny diamond chip she had lost in the park twenty years ago and which must have worked its way down into the soil by now, treasure for some future city dweller to find. Perhaps at death she would know what had become of it; perhaps every mystery, every last thing she had ever wondered about or tried to imagine, would be revealed to her. Perhaps that was what heaven was, or would be for her: a lifetime’s curiosity about the world finally sated.
Outside the mobile phone shop was tethered a street cleaner’s cart, and Sophia had to edge around it, trespassing dizzily into the roaring bus lane. ‘Nuisance,’ she muttered, but equably enough; she rather admired the little carts, with their neat, no-nonsense practicality, their place for the broom, litter picker and bin bag. They were iconic, in a way; a perfect solution to a problem, and she could recall when the issue of dirty, grimy streets wasn’t even addressed. These days they even sent a little ride-on machine at night to steam the chewing gum off. It had whirling brushes at the front, and a mahout to direct it. She had told Daisy about it on one of her visits to the house on Leasow Road, and Daisy had been properly sceptical. ‘Who is it that’s chewing all the chewing gum, anyway?’ she had asked. ‘I don’t even know one single person that does it.’
Sophia had spent Christmas at Linda’s, and it had been very pleasant. She had to admit that the house was lovely, although to her mind it could have done with more books. Linda’s
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