WALKING TO THE FUTURE

It's easy to forget what day of the week it is when you're old....

Darby stood, hunch-backed and feeble, by a bus stop, waiting, it seemed forever, for the bus to come.

"Years ago," he thought, "years ago when I was young and sprightly I would never have needed this bus: instead I would have walked down the road and round the corner and got to the shops in less than half an hour! But now I do need the bus and the sodding thing won't come!"

And he did need that bus.

The Post Office was at the end of its route, and the shops: the little corner shop where he bought the ounce of tobacco for his old briar pipe and the off-licence where he bought a few cans of weak beer, all huddled round the little church where he never went any more.

He liked a can of weak beer in the evening, when he was watching Big Brother on the television.

He like it when Big Brother was on the television because it was there in his room, voices and pictures and colours, but it was such dross he didn't have to concentrate on it, except for when Julie, one of the house mates, took too many clothes off for her own good. Then he watched, if he noticed!

But in order to get that can of weak beer he needed to catch this bus and he'd been waiting for ages, and no bus.

His pipe was empty of tobacco, the old briar that he'd had for years and years. His fridge was down to one can of weak beer. And he didn't think he had any milk left, either. He needed to go to the Post Office to get some money (if he could remember that wretched PIN number he had to type into the little number-pad on the counter.)
There had been a time, he remembered as he stood there, when he might even have run to those shops. He'd been fit, hadn't he? His legs had worked better than they did now, and when he'd gone for a wee he hadn't dribbled down his leg afterwards like he always seemed to do these days.

Yes, he'd run!

He'd not even got out of breath as he'd run. He'd been like the wind, weaving his way round little old men and women, zooming past small children on their roller skates, and racing like the wind to the shops.

And what's more, it hadn't been these particular shops. These were little expensive shops, but it was too much trouble making his way via a second bus journey to the big supermarket just outside town.

He looked impatiently down the road and clicked his teeth together impatiently. He hated all this waiting when there was shopping to be done!

Then his heart gave a little bounce inside his chest.

A familiar shape had just wandered into view round the corner fifty yards away, and was walking towards him.

It was Joan and, well, if he was still a bit younger he'd make something of a meeting with Joan, all right.

She was about his age, of course, and as pretty as a picture.

If you looked at her properly you could see quite plainly the younger Joan. The long hair waving past her shoulders and down to her waist, black as midnight and shining with the stars of perfumed shampoo.

He could remember that hair!

Once, a lifetime ago, he'd run his fingers through it on a wild winter's night when they'd both been sheltering in the same pub, and she'd let him! He'd bought her a drink, he could remember it now, a dry sherry, and she'd smiled at him and nervously, as if she was a porcelain doll and might break, he'd run his fingers through her cascades of jet black hair, and she'd moved her head to face him, to look at him through those mysterious brown eyes, and smiled at him.

Now she was little and as old as he was, but he could still quite clearly see the Joan that he remembered, the pretty young Joan, the mini-skirted Joan marching boldly into life down this very street.

There had been the time when he'd kissed her!

It had only been a little kiss, but any kind of kiss with the Joans of this world was something worth remembering. Everyone had wanted to kiss Joan, hadn't they? And he'd been one of those who'd managed the feat, and many times at that! And her mouth, moist and sweet, had tasted every bit as good as it had looked.

He'd even licked her tongue with his own, in the naughtiest way possible! He remembered that moment: it had even given him an erection, though the shadow in his mind wasn't likely to have that same effect. Those days were over, thank goodness! Erections had been embarrassing affairs and best lost in the past!

And here she was walking towards him, towards his bus stop, probably to wait with him, standing close to him, leaning her fragrant head towards him so that he was surrounded by a wave as if from aromatic flowers.

She was a great deal older now, he thought. A great deal older.

And when she walked, her progress was slow. Maybe as slow as his was, or maybe even slower.

And her cascades of raven hair had long since gone and her short white hair was rinsed with blue.

And the smile on her face revealed a crooked row of yellowed teeth.

He remembered those teeth when they'd been white as snow. They'd been widely acknowledged as her very best feature: that and her upright posture and smart appearance.

Now they were yellow. And too big for her mouth. Had they grown, or had that lovely mouth shrunk? It was worth wondering about, was that, while she walked the last few yards towards him.

Those lovely white teeth had sparkled in the summer, and her laugh had been that of angels. And her back had been straight, her clothes always smart.

That mini-kilt she'd worn the day he'd put an arm around her shoulders and she'd flashed her virgin white smile at him, it was there in his head as sharply pleated as it had always been.

They'd been out for the evening, the two of them, to a local pop concert at the old church hall, and on the way home he'd put one arm round her shoulders and eased her towards him and planted a kiss on her angel lips, and she'd smiled back and responded so eagerly that it had also given him an erection. He remembered hiding that erection from her, but she'd discovered it anyway, with her naughty fingers, nervous, fumbling!

Now here she was and the years had passed.

She grinned at him.

There were shades of the young Joan in that grin.

"What you doing here, then, young Darby?" she asked.

He nodded towards the bus stop.

"Still groping women, are you? Still wanting to get your end away?" she teased, and cackled a hoarse unmelodious cackle.

He nodded at the bus stop again, not wanting to trust himself to words.

She grinned at him and shook her head. She shook her lovely head.

He could almost see that long black hair waving its way past her shoulders and down her back, swaying with the movement of her lovely head.

"Ya daft tuppence!" she laughed. "There ain't no bus yet! Din't ya know it's Sunday? They don't start yet!”

He looked at her, shocked.

No, it was Monday, wasn't it? Pension day? Was she losing her marbles?

But he let her take him by one hand with one of hers, and lead him away: one hand in her own glorious hand, interlocking her fingers with his like kids do.

"I'm off to see the clergy," she said, her voice still cracked like it had never been. "Off ta book me place wi' the almighty, an' you can come wi' me, you naughty boy!"

And she led him down the road and round another corner, walking slowly because that's the way they were, hand in hand, hand in precious hand, like it had always been.