Spinster of this Parish

There’s a lesson in there somewhere. One that begins “Never trust…” Never trust the artist; trust the tale. Never trust a man who doesn’t drink. Never trust a woman who tells you her real age.

The wind is getting up and Annie rushes down the street. She has lots to get in today and she curses the lack of speed in her legs. There’s a young woman in front of her, with a baby in a pushchair. Annie is moving faster than them; she’ll probably overtake them before the Post Office.

The wind whips her hair around her face and makes her mad. She spits hairs out of her mouth, angrily pulling away the ones that won’t go of their own accord. She’s anxious today; there’s a sense of urgency about everything she does. It’s as though she’s being drawn along by something else, something external controlling her movements.

Annie passes the woman and her child. She doesn’t look into the pushchair. Annie isn’t interested in children. She never has been. She smells sour milk whenever she thinks of children.

His message to her today was peremptory. It makes her angry too, like the wind. It set her on her course today. Her anger is such that she’s prepared to walk all the way, if a bus isn’t at the stop at the same time as her. Never trust the artist, the man who doesn’t drink. Never trust the man who says he cares.

Annie crosses the main road and walks up through the next suburb, past the big houses, away from the terraces and the council houses. She wants to tell him how dare he. Tell him. Not ask him.

The sky above her is high and a pale but harsh blue. The sun is hot, but the wind keeps the day cool. In her skirt and t-shirt, with her legs and arms bare, Annie doesn’t need to add heat to her list of causes for her anger. Just him, and the wind.

She has been walking for fifteen minutes and still hasn’t seen a bus. She has passed three bus stops. She stops at the traffic lights opposite the KFC and waits until it is safe to cross. The bus stop is just behind her, and she hears a bus approach, but the rules of her game say that the bus must be there when she is. She can’t turn back. Retracing your steps is not allowed in this game.

Across the road stands a man with a dog. He is looking at Annie, as if he knows her. Annie has her sunglasses on and stares back at him, safe behind the smoky lenses. She doesn’t recognise him, and she keeps her eyes harsh. The green man appears on the panel and they pass in the middle of the road. He glances at her as he walks past, and it seems like he might smile, but then the moment is gone. He is behind her, pulled forward by his dog; she is walking on, pulled forward by her anger.

It is like a dream, Annie thinks, as she walks. All of it, every conversation they have ever had, every moment they have spent together. None of it has been real. That’s how it feels to Annie now. She wants to tell him so; she wants to say to his face that he is a fraud. Another burst of anger speeds her progress, but still she curses that lack of true speed in her legs.

The bus has been held at the traffic lights, the ones that allowed her to cross the road. Now she has reached another bus stop and the bus is still behind her. She cannot stop, though. Annie needs to discharge this energy through her legs, pounding it down into the pavement through her feet. She walks on past the bus stop, and at the pelican crossing the bus whizzes past her.

She stops at the next junction with a side road and wonders what she is doing. Why is she so angry when she knew all along that it would end like this? Why is she wasting so much energy on something that will not, cannot change?

The wind gusts, and almost blows her backwards. She has to take a step back to steady herself. As she does, she sees a cat sitting on the wall of one of the houses. Annie moves closer to the wall and puts out a hand to stroke the cat. The cat arches its back and rubs itself against Annie’s hand. She doesn’t even need to move it. The cat does all the work, purring and quivering, standing on its tiptoes. Then it flops down onto its side, inviting her hand to rub its belly, but Annie knows better than to do that. Annie knows that such behaviour is one step away from a sharp nip being dealt out, so she declines the offer.

She continues on her way, but half-heartedly now. She is still angry, but the impetus has gone. She’s tired. Battling against a wind that is trying to force her back; battling against indifference, against bad desire. Annie walks, but at a normal pace. At the next stop, outside an antiques shop, a bus is waiting, and Annie boards it. She states her destination and pays, then makes her way up the stairs. She takes a seat at the front so that she can look down at the world through the large window.

Her phone rings. He asks Annie where she is. She tells him; she’s on the bus; she’s going into town. He asks if she’s still angry. No, she says, and it isn’t a lie. Annie doesn’t feel angry now, she just feels tired. Her energy is seeping out of her with every word that he says and every word she speaks in response.

They agree to meet in a bar, and Annie feels sick. She doesn’t look out of the window, down at the world going about its business. She looks instead at the ends of her hair, at its gloss. She sniffs the smell of stale cigarettes from the pub last night, holding her hair under her nose like it’s a false moustache.

The bus seems to take an age to complete the rest of its journey. Annie alights with her fellow passengers in the centre of town. The end of the ride, in more ways than one. She stumbles over the wheels of an old lady’s shopping trolley. Classic tartan bag on wheels. You don’t see many of them any more. The old woman turns round and Annie apologises. The woman turns back and carries on along her way, her tartan shopper filled with god knows what.

Annie walks up through the back streets, past the fancy shops that nestle in this supposed cultural quarter of the city. She makes her way along the poetry strewn pavements to the agreed meeting place. Not to the jazz club this time. Not to the tiny bar with its corduroy adornments either. To its sister bar, where the corners are larger and she can look out while he looks in.

She is first there and she buys herself a drink at the bar. Something long and cool. She goes downstairs, where it is darker. She sits on a sofa and waits, that same gun cradled in the darkness of her bag. Spinster of this Parish, with nothing left to lose.

© J R Hargreaves July 2006