The odd bench

It’s Thursday. At least I think it’s Thursday. Edna’s bingo night in the main hall isn’t until tomorrow. It must be Thursday. We’re out late. It’s nearly 5pm, and Roxana is still sitting next to me on this musty odd bench, crocheting away. Lord knows where all these scarves and ear warmers go. She’s showing no sign of getting up and walking me back to my room. I’d like to go back to my room now, but the words won’t come. 

This isn’t our usual bench. We always sit on the third bench. You enter the park from the main gate, walk about fifty steps to the oak tree, and there’s our bench, on the right - overlooking the river. It’s where we always sit - Roxana and I - every afternoon (unless it’s raining) when she comes to take me out for my walk and some fresh air. I always run my finger over the cold plaque that reads “In memory of Wendy and John Lamont, who loved to sit by the river.” I never met Wendy and John Lamont, but I like to sit by the river too. I like to smell the green grass and think about what Wendy and John used to do here. Would they sit in silence? Talk about their children? Did they even have any? They must have been loved, for someone to dedicate a whole bench to them. Patrick and I would have loved children. We were never blessed with any.

I don’t like sitting here, on this musty odd bench in the shade. I can’t lose myself in the soothing rhythm of the water - transported to a better place. A place where thoughts aren’t muddled, memories aren’t slippery, and shadows aren't scary. This isn’t the river. I’m staring at the metal fence that separates the park from the side road, full of buzzing cars and rushing people. My head is spinning with the movement, but the metal fence stands still, with straight lines like orderly little soldiers topped by curvy lines that remind me of a string of mellow hills holding hands. This isn’t the river, and I can’t smell the green grass.

It’s then that I see him - Patrick. My Patrick. He’s standing there, across the street, with his crooked smile - the result of an emergency forceps delivery, as his mum always used to say. He’s standing there, staring at me with his kind eyes, wearing his dark brown trilby hat with the grosgrain ribbon. The one we bought from that boutique shop in Sennen during the summer holidays of 1984 when we drove to Cornwall to celebrate him getting the job at the bank he'd studied so hard for. He’s standing there, but I thought he was dead. 

I fidget on my seat, my legs twitching and itching to reach him - to go and tell him to button his shirt up properly. He’s standing too far away - past the still metal fence and across the busy road full of buzzing cars and rushing people. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. He's blurry, but I can still tell. He’s missed the top three buttons again. I keep warning him to do them all the way to the top, but he says that after so many years wearing a tie, he wants to let his neck breathe. Enjoy a little freedom. 

“You look scruffy,” I say out loud, knowing he won’t hear me from a distance.   

“It’s called enjoying my retirement, darling,” he says.

“Are you alright there, Doris?” asks Roxana, peeling her eyes away from her latest creation. 

“I was talking to Patrick. He’s over there - look!” I point towards my Patrick. “He looks scruffy, doesn’t he? Tell him.”

Roxana isn’t looking though. Her attention is on me, hooks and scarf abandoned on her lap.

“Shall we go back in, Doris? It’s getting chillier and a bit late actually,” she offers after checking the time on her phone.  

It is getting chillier. What is Patrick doing, out in a shirt in this weather? He’ll catch his death out there. What is he thinking? But that’s the problem with Patrick - always making the most of his spare time, whether it’s an evening at the ballroom, dancing and laughing with me, or a beer with the boys on a Sunday afternoon in the pub. That’s the problem with Patrick. He didn’t enjoy his retirement. 

Patrick died. I remember his funeral. 

I tear my eyes away from the busy road with buzzing cars and rushing people and glance down at my shaky hands. My bent knuckles become sore in the cold weather, and all I’ve been doing for the last hour is sitting here. Staring. Not moving. The pain in my hands brings me back to this musty odd bench - this bench in the shade that’s not where we normally sit, Roxana and I. It’s not the third bench. The one under the oak tree overlooking the river. The one where Wendy and John Lamont used to sit and smell the green grass.

Patrick died. I remember his funeral.

It was a Saturday afternoon in November - the sun was shining, and the air was filled with gentle birdsong. The minister said a few words at the cemetery, and everyone came - Patrick’s colleagues from the bank and our closest friends and neighbours. Even Patrick’s sister made an appearance, with her pallid cheeks and her greying hair blowing in the autumn wind. She’d said we’d see her at Christmas to celebrate Patrick’s retirement at the end of that summer. But she never came that Christmas. Patrick died in November, his party never happened, and his sister never came back. 

“Come on, Doris dear. Time to go,” says Roxana with her warm voice. She’s packed her things away in her totes bag, and she’s grabbing my arm with reassuring force to help me stand up. The light is falling now, and as the air fills with the flavoursome aromas from nearby kitchens, birds fly high above us.

I lean on my other arm to part from this musty odd bench - the long shadows making my legs unsteady. I look one last time over the still metal fence and across the busy road with buzzing cars and rushing people. My Patrick is still standing there, with his crooked smile, his dark brown trilby hat with the grosgrain ribbon, and his shirt buttoned up wrong. 

“See you soon, darling. Maybe I can take you dancing tomorrow?”  

“Patrick’s going to take me dancing tomorrow,” I say to Roxana with my feet rooted to the spot, here, by this musty odd bench in the shade, eyes still firmly on Patrick. 

“Let’s walk back now, Doris. Your tea will be served soon.” She doesn’t follow my gaze. “It’s Edna’s bingo night in the main hall tomorrow. Maybe you and Patrick can go dancing another night - what do you think?”

“Yes, maybe.”

On the way back, we walk past the third bench - the one where we normally sit, Roxana and I. Patrick would have loved his retirement. He would have loved sitting on the third bench together, under the oak tree overlooking the river smelling the green grass, like Wendy and John Lamont did.  

But Patrick died. I remember his funeral.