‘We’ve been here before,’ said a voice Mary was sure she recognised.
With a shrug of her 89 year old shoulders, she put the receiver back and left the phone box to rejoin the outside world.
It was mid-September, when summer was working toward turning to autumn. The sun was taking a sabbatical behind a cluster of angry looking clouds and she shivered involuntarily at the unseasonably icy chill in the air. She picked up her pace, the use of a cane lending her an almost stumbling gait, and snorted as she passed a couple of teenagers dressed in mini skirts and light denim jackets. They hadn’t even bothered with any hosiery; they were blanketed in the warmth of their youth. She tried to cast her mind back to her own youth but it seemed so far away, so long ago. It was strange to think that she could ever have felt so invincible.
She shivered as another icy finger travelled up her spine. It was time to get home to a nice hot cup of tea.
Mary lived in a ground floor flat at the top of the road from where the phone box was. There was a small parade of shops by the phone box too, and the post office. She couldn’t remember why she’d gone down to use the phone. Her phone had been broken for a few months so she used the phone box. She didn’t own a mobile phone because she didn’t understand how they worked – all those buttons and flashy pictures and lights. No, it just wasn’t for her, all that malarkey just to make a simple call. The phone box was just fine, had served her just fine, and she’d gone down there today but…she shook her head. It’d come to her eventually. That’s what old age did to you, fried your brain slowly from the inside out.
She stepped over her coat as she walked into her flat and sighed. No wonder she was feeling so cold, she’d forgotten to put on her coat.
‘You’d leave your head behind if it wasn’t screwed on.’ She made to pick it up but changed her mind as her back twinged in protest.
‘Cup of tea first.’
Once the tea with one sugar and a splash of milk was made, Mary went and sat herself down in her chair in front of the television carefully with her cup in one hand and cane in the other. She didn’t bother putting the telly on. It was only all that afternoon rubbish. Watching telly was what you did in the evening. A good crossword, a read of the paper and maybe a book were the things you did in the daytime. However, Mary did quite like watching Jeremy Kyle in the mornings and Cash In The Attic in the afternoons.
Mary took a sip of her tea and grimaced. It was cold. She could have sworn she’d boiled the kettle. She contemplated making a fresh cup but decided to have a little sit down first. She was exhausted after her little walk. It was only that PG Tips stuff anyway not proper tea brewed in a pot. Tea just wasn’t the same anymore. Pauline at the post office agreed.
‘Not like the old days when tea was tea,’ Pauline would say. ‘Now you’ve got all this herbal nonsense. It’s all tea that smells like bloody perfume!’
Julie, Mary’s eldest, liked all that stuff. Ginger tea, raspberry tea and mint tea. Who wants to drink warmed up mouthwash? And Julie’s husband liked honeyed ale! Honeyed ale! If her George were still here to see all this he’d be horrified that you couldn’t just have a normal pint without having a whole beehive’s output poured into in it as well.
She didn’t see Julie much. Julie lived down in Brighton which wasn’t too far away from Mary’s flat in Essex. But Julie was a busy woman with a house and family to take care of. She visited when she could and phoned every Wednesday and Saturday night or at least she did before the phone got broken. Mary had written to her about that, gone down to the post office to send off the letter done on proper writing paper. Julie hadn’t written back though…had she? She’d check with May, her carer. May would remember.
