The Long View

By Luke James Wilkinson

I had been staring out of the window for as long as I could remember. Not much changed within my little frame, and I would have noticed if it did. I can see all the way down the high street, that means the doctor’s surgery, the corner shop, and the bakery. The day it happened, the husband had settled in his usual spot, as if it were just another day.

 

Outside the surgery, the man’s silver hair was just visible, poking out beneath a rim of tweed that had gathered raindrops like a pretty leaf on a postcard. He had very blue eyes. Certainly a looker in his younger years, I’d have guessed. He lit, then smoked his cigarettes (Winstons – Mum’s brand) in about five minutes, every now and then he would ask one of the other men or women waiting outside for a light; he’d forget his lighter, it seemed, but this would usually spark chats that always looked chirpy and familiar, so I liked to think that sometimes he just did it to have a bit of back and forth while they all waited. They stood around, chatting, each one forward-facing, studying the broad glass doors as they swung open and shut, false-starting occasionally at the presence of a young boy or girl flailing in front of the sensor.

 

When she came out of the sliding doors, a nurse led her out, eventually unlocking her arm and sending her off to him. He’d be over quick as a flash to hold her, one arm round her shoulders, gently crumpling her into him. She would let herself be nuzzled into safety, swallowed whole into the nylon of his anorak.

 

Sometimes she would come out of the hospital and you could see that she’d been crying, and the nurse was extra careful when she was upset, I noticed that. Her arms went further around the shoulders, waiting until the husband was just in reach, and the exchange would be at closer-quarters. The husband would look the nurse in the eye, say thank you, hold his wife against him even tighter than usual, then walk her off down their usual route home up the street.

 

They would shuffle down the street together like emperor penguins en route to nest, stopping only to smile or exchange a few brief words to neighbours or friends. That day though, they wouldn’t make it back home.

 

I saw him fall. I even called the ambulance. I had a special number of my own, you see, in case something happened, like my pressure went up quickly or I felt wheezy, and neither Mum or Debra were about. I was only supposed to ring for my own medical stuff, but I thought that given the urgency, it would be ok. Doctor Ryland told me later on that day that thanks to me the husband had had the best possible chance of surviving, but that, unfortunately, he hadn’t. It had been touch and go for an hour or two, but he’d been unlucky falling where he had because he’d hit his head on the raised speed bump, and in the end that was what had done for him. Just a bit of bad luck.

 

I’d watched the doctors run down and lift her off the ground from where she sat, the skin on her face was like crepe-paper blotted with specks of blood where she’d grazed the floor. Three young paramedics lifted him onto a stretcher and rushed him back into an ambulance, where he shot off down the road towards A&E up in Horsham. In shock, she leant into Doctor Ryland, while he tried to calm her down, but I could see him gesturing to the nurses to get something – maybe another stretcher. It was a horrible scene. In fact, even Doctor Ryland confided in me later that it was one of the worst days of his career, which I could believe.

 

The months that came after, I saw that her shopping was coming from Sainsbury’s in a van, and I was livid. I said to Mum, ‘Where’re the family? Why don’t they bring it round?’. I’ll never understand that. If I could have, I’d have taken the shopping round myself. Mum said, “I’m as needy as her, and no one brings me any bloody shopping!” Mum was needy of course, but not in the way she meant.

 

Mum wasn’t even old, she was 64. People lived into their 90s all the time, she just liked a whinge. I didn’t complain anywhere close to how she did, and I had to relieve myself into a bag four to five times a day. I’d never been able to do anything really, I’d never kicked a football, rung a doorbell, or had sex. I had done an Open University Anthropology degree, and I was mid-way through a distance learning masters, so I wasn’t thick or anything. People have this way of looking at you like you’re thick if you’re bed-ridden, so I set my first-class honours diploma sat pride of place on the wall behind the bed.

 

I go shopping sometimes to buy clothes, I go with Debra, my carer, to the Cash and Carry for the stuff we buy in bulk. The corridors and doors are wide, so I can wheel around quite freely in there. I never know why they buy clothes for me when I spend most of my day in bed. In fact, I more or less only had clothes to wear for when we went clothes shopping. I had a self-fulfilling relationship with H&M. I know it makes mum happy to see me out and about, I know that, but it makes me feel a bit silly. I can’t bear to take it away from her though, so we go, every now and then. I’m not stupid, I know it must have been difficult raising me on her own like she did, so I figure she deserves a bit of happiness wherever we can get it. Fresh air is good for me too, I had to admit.

 

It was another month or so before I saw any signs at the old lady’s house up towards the end of the high street. People turned up in a big old people carrier, with big doors that slid open, and a pram came out. The front door opened and the hunched widow came out, shuffling onto her front patio. Everybody was all smiles, the old lady got a hug from the two adults, and the man left his arm around her, but I knew that this was her son because Debra had mentioned him once before; she’d gone to school with him and said he was a little shit back then, but had grown up to be much more affable bloke and moved down to London with his wife.

 

They left the same day, and I watched her wait for them to disappear into the distance, her wave kept on until eventually it slowed down, bit by bit like a wind-up doll, until she came to stop and turned towards the door.

 

I don’t really know what I was thinking, writing to her like that. I just woke up in one of those moods where I thought I’d just do something. I’d put myself out there in some way and see what happened. She wrote back almost immediately. She wrote to tell me that she was happy to hear from me, and that she had spoken my mum before in the town, but only in passing, and that she would love to have a coffee, or a cup of tea one day, if that interested me. Mum seemed incredibly happy about it.

 

She walked in and sat down in the comfy chair. Debra put a pot of tea on the coffee table in front of her. She squeezed Debra’s forearm and smiled up at her as she turned to walk out of the room.

 

“You’ve got a degree then?”  She nodded at the wall above my head.

 

She was sharper, cleaner spoken than I thought, she had none of the raspiness in her voice that elderly people sometimes had. She sounded like she should have been on the radio.

 

“Yes, it’s in anthropology. I did it long-distance, of course.

 

“Of course.” She spoke calmly and softly, rubbing her palms over tops of her hands. Her skin was almost translucent under the wall light.

 

“Did you study? Did you go to university or anything?”

 

“Or anything, I’m afraid. I wanted to, but we were just so busy raising the boys. I got better marks than David in school. But it was a different time, then. Certain things were expected of me, and it didn’t matter if my husband couldn’t do his times tables and I could. He went to work and I didn’t.”

 

Nothing she said made her upset, at least not visibly. She spoke with a matter-of-factness, without being spiky. That seemed very zen to me. Her arms, back folded neatly in her lap, were completely still.

 

“That’s a shame, maybe you still could?”

 

“Ha, I know I could. I have other things to do now, and I know it’s what all the old people say, but my memory really isn’t what it was.” Her chuckle quickly turned into a cough, which she wheezed down into a handkerchief. I waited for her to finish.

 

“I think sometimes we don’t know what we can do until we try it. Don’t you think?”

 

She slipped the handkerchief back in her pocket. “That may well be true, my love. But my time is more precious than it used to be. The big clock’s ticking.” She rasped the last of her coughing fit, clearing it up with a final heave.

 

“All we have is time, I sometimes think. I sit here watching the sun move across the sky above the high street, every single day, and I think of it as my currency. I have sunset after sunset, and once they’ve gone, they’ve gone. Like coins falling out of my wallet and down some enormous drain.”

 

She had been looking out of the window, but spun her head back to me. I thought she’d switched off.

 

“How many coins did you start with do you think?”

 

I had never thought about it.

 

“I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it. How old are you?”

 

“I’m 87.” She didn’t hesitate.

 

“So,” We both thought, for a second. In silence, then at the exact same time, we blurted out:

“31,776”

 

“And a bit.” She added, cautioning me with her finger.

 

We stared across at each other, grinning. I was amused by the sheer speed of her brain, and she was obviously amused by my amusement. She leant in conspiratorially, towards the bed from behind the coffee table.

 

“I told you I could do my times tables.”

 

I laughed. We both laughed for little while, before settling down and taking a sip from our cups of tea.

 

“You know, I’ve come over like this and I don’t even know your name!” She kept her hands crossed in her lap as she spoke.

 

So I told her my name, and she told me hers.