Vivien Brown - Lily Alone - A gripping and emotional drama

The noise went away. She peeped cautiously over the top of the covers and, when she was sure there was no wolf, she settled Archie on the pillow beside her and sat up in bed. She’d only had a nap, not an all-night sleep, but her nappy felt heavy, and she was thirsty. She wanted some juice. Bena juice. That was her favourite, except maybe Coke, but she wasn’t allowed that very often. Only on special days. Lily didn’t think this was a special day.

Maybe Archie could have some juice too, as he’d been good. She yawned, and called out for Mummy, fiddling with a black thread that had come loose from Archie’s eye and was hanging down over his nose. Mummy would mend that, with something from her big red sewing tin that used to have biscuits in it, or with the glue that Lily wasn’t allowed to touch. Mummy was good at mending things. It saved buying new, she always said.

Lily waited but Mummy didn’t come, so she called again, louder this time.

Lily climbed out of bed, her foot springing onto the book she’d left open on the rug, flipping the pages over and making the spine snap shut. The baby in the flat upstairs was crying. It did that sometimes. Today it was doing it lots. It sounded sad, like Archie. Maybe it wanted some juice too. She walked over to the door, peered out into the empty hall, and called out again.

‘Mummy …’

But Mummy didn’t come. Nobody came.

*

Agnes Munro looked up from her crossword. There were sirens going off in the street again, the honking of horns, a motorcycle revving its engine and screeching off into the distance, probably bumping up and over the pavement in the process. That’s what they usually did when there was a jam.

That was the trouble with living in London. Even here, on the outskirts, it was too busy, too noisy. There was no real sense of community. Nobody seemed to care about anything much, let alone the state of the roads or trying to preserve a bit of peace and quiet. Always something going on, even at the weekend, and not always something good. What now? A broken-down bus, some impatient driver carelessly thumping his bonnet into somebody else’s boot, or yet another robbery on the high street?

She tried to push the sudden thought of her old home out of her mind and concentrate on the two final clues she’d been puzzling over for the last five minutes. Oh, how she hated leaving a crossword unfinished. In fact, she wouldn’t, couldn’t. If it took all day, she’d make sure she finished it somehow, but crosswords, like just about everything else, seemed to be taking her so much longer these days. Her body certainly wasn’t as fast or efficient as it used to be. The creaking in her knees as she moved told her that. Perhaps her mind was starting to go the same way. And those little empty white squares looked so forlorn, and so untidy.

She wondered if the dictionary might help, but it was in the bookcase under the window, out of reach. Smudge was dozing on her lap, twitching in his sleep, and she didn’t want to disturb him. She leant across, very carefully, to the small lace-covered table beside her, picked up her tea and took a warming sip, tapping her pen idly against the side of the china mug as she struggled with the letters of an anagram in her head.

Life had always been so peaceful before, when she’d lived in the old cottage. The home that they’d told her was too rundown, too big, too isolated now she was getting older. Much better here in town, they said, where they could keep an eye on her, where the shops were just a short walk away, where the buses ran right past the door. And a ground floor flat too. No stairs and so much easier for her to manage, especially with arthritis setting in with a vengeance, giving her painful, knobbly fingers and stiffening knees.

Downsizing. That’s what they had called it when the idea had first been mooted eighteen months ago. Her son William, and his ever-efficient wife. They had made it sound quite exciting back then, like a big adventure, something wonderful to be embraced and thankful for. Downsizing, indeed! Agnes could think of a better word, but she dared not say it out loud. They didn’t like it when she swore. Not that there was a ‘they’ any more. Now her daughter-in-law had gone – good riddance – and there was just William. She chuckled to herself. Just William. Wasn’t that the name of a naughty boy in some old children’s book?

Agnes gave up on the anagram. Her mind was too busy jumping about elsewhere. That was one of the hazards of living alone. Too much time to think, and nothing of any real importance to think about. Well, nothing she could do much about, anyway.

She finished her tea and tried to replace her empty mug on the table without moving Smudge, but the big grey cat woke up, stretched and jumped down, ambled over to his cat flap and let himself out into the communal hall with a clatter of rebounding plastic. He would sit for a while on the coir doormat outside her flat, preening, then wait at the front door of the block, as he always did, until one of the other residents, either coming in or going out, eventually let him through. Sometimes he would walk steadily up the three flights of stairs to the top of the building where he could sit and gaze out from the grimy windowsill on the landing at the birds twittering away, up high in the one and only tree. Agnes had followed him up all those stairs once, just to see where he went, but she’d had to stop and rest after each flight, and had needed some strong tea and a couple of paracetamol as soon as her aching joints had made it safely back down again.

She took off her reading glasses and tried to switch to the other pair she kept for distance, the two pairs dangling side by side from adjacent chains around her neck. The chains were tangled together today and it took her a few moments to unwind them. She muttered to herself and winced as she stood. Her knees were playing up again, as usual.

Going to the window, she lifted the edge of her newly washed nets, popped on the right specs and peered out into the street. Dull, grey, October drizzle, with another winter not far off. Traffic bumper to bumper, wipers swishing across grimy screens, the male drivers drumming their hands on their steering wheels, the women taking the opportunity to peer into mirrors and redo their make-up or neaten their hair. An ambulance was trying to make its way through. Was there really any need for the siren? Sometimes she thought the drivers just did it to make themselves feel important. It’s not as if it couldn’t be seen, what with the blue light and all the cars doing their best to mount the kerb and get out of its way. More cracks in the pavement! It’s a wonder more folk didn’t trip and sue the council for compensation.

From two floors above, she could hear that baby screaming again, probably woken up by the racket going on outside. She thought of going up there to complain, but she couldn’t face the stairs, and what good would it do, anyway? How could she tell a baby to be quiet, or expect its mother to make it? Babies couldn’t help it, could they? Crying came naturally to them. Their way of saying something was wrong. Perhaps she should try a bit of weeping and wailing and see if it helped. See if anyone came running to pander to her every whim, to make things right again. She smiled to herself. She was just being grouchy, that was all. Blame it on the knees. Silly old woman!

Ah, well. She might as well watch some telly now she was up and about. Her favourite antiques programme would be starting soon. The one where they found hidden treasures in people’s lofts. As if! All they’d found in hers when she moved was Donald’s old army pay book, some dressing-up clothes from William’s am-dram days, and a pile of dusty photos, mostly of people she didn’t even recognise, let alone remember.