I’ve called everyone I can think of and they’re all phoning around too . . . I’m just going to go and grab a coffee, actually.’
Molly locked eyes with her and willed her to concentrate, to understand: ‘Frances, I’ve written a letter to Joe – please see that he gets it!’ Her tears fell as what left her mouth was akin to a growl, with the words ‘igloo’ and ‘paws’ repeated randomly.
Molly felt the rumble in her gut of utter frustration.
I made a promise!
Growing old had not been something she detested, like some did, but neither had she revelled in it in the way she had heard others do – those irritating souls who liked to repeat their age as if it were a badge of honour or an achievement: ‘I’m seventy-four! Can you believe it? I am seventy-four!’ Molly thought particularly of Mrs Ogilvy, her disagreeable neighbour.
For her it had been more of a calm acceptance that this simply was how things were and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it, other than the obvious. Although she did sometimes consider the frail state in which she lived, wondering if it was universal: the dulling of adventure in both palate and music? The desire for soft food, less noise, low light, easy landings and slow movement. Was it the norm: to have taken comfort in her dotage from the familiar, the routine and the predictable? And whatever happened to that thirst for adventure and her curious mind? Spontaneity! When had it all settled?
It would be disingenuous to say that in recent years she hadn’t disliked her physical weakness. In her younger days, she could never have imagined a time when what she considered to be a Herculean task – the climbing of a mountain or the chopping of a log – would be replaced by taking the top off the toothpaste tube or the putting on of tights. All of these, however, had become equally impossible for her. It was not only a lack of strength, but a lack of dexterity too, as everything – everything – became fiddly and so time-consuming! It drove her absolutely crackers. She was not a person used to relying on others, much preferring to be self-sufficient in all matters.
And surely she was not the only one who felt that her life happened in a blink, with time passing so quickly she sometimes wondered if the whole thing had been some ghastly trick.
‘We are all but dust . . .’ This she spoke in her mind.
Molly felt another wave of unexpected emotion and hated the feeling of hot tears crawling over her temple and along her nose. With one hand in plaster and the other trapped under a top sheet, she realised that to reach her face was not easy. Suddenly the thought of dying without giving Joe his letter was almost more than she could bear.
Is this it? she pondered. Is this where I die, in this horribly bland corridor? This was quickly followed by the question: did it really matter? Her life, had, she believed, been an ordinary one and therefore an ordinary death was befitting. This she surmised without the modesty that so many feigned, and with the glorious benefit of being able to stand on the mountain of her years and look back at the path she had trodden. A path littered with pitfalls and rocks into which she had fallen or clambered over, and some of it done with her hand in his, holding her steady, upright, calm. Even after he had gone . . .
Despite her withering body, Molly’s thoughts remained exact and clear, which seemed most cruel. She sometimes wished she did not have such ability for perfect recollection, thinking it might be preferable for her musings to dull a little so the reminder of what she had lost might also be blunted. But there was no such luxury for her. Her memories remained sharp and taunting, jostling her from sleep. Not only the bad memories, but the good too, and for those she felt some small gratitude. She could lie in bed and taste a fresh peach placed on her tongue over seventy years since, still sweet in her mouth, making the slippery, tinned, syrup-soaked variety often spooned in her direction most revolting. An insult! And the memory of her lover’s palm running over her back beneath the winter sunshine on a stolen afternoon, as they lay close together on a tartan blanket among