A STRANGER ON THE STREET

As we get older confusion starts to reign and occasionally the familiar become unfamiliar...

Arnold was on his way to the pub. It was a route he had taken more times than he’d had hot dinners, or so he thought, but somehow something about it was unfamiliar.

He paused by the side of the road to look around, and a bus pulled up next to him.

“Well, old fellow, do you want to get on or not?” called the driver.

“What?” he asked, then realised he had better manners than that, so “Pardon?” he asked.

The driver shook his head and the bus slowly moved on.

“That’s the weirdest thing,” thought Arnold, “buses don’t come down here. They never have.”

He saw Marianne before she saw him. If she noticed him, that is. She didn’t seem to be looking his way.

“Why, Sandra!” he almost exploded, together with a huge half-toothed grin, “what are you doing down here?

“Who are you, and do I know you?” asked a puzzled Marianne.

“Of course you do, Sandra!” he grinned, “don’t you remember? What was it, a year or so back, in the park by the swings, and you wearing no panties!”

“Now just you stop that!” she scowled, “I’m not called Sandra and I wouldn’t be seen dead without underwear!”

“It was a lovely day,” he rambled, smiling his half-toothed smile and wanting to reach out for her, take her by the arm, remind her of a past glory.

It had been a glory, hadn’t it?

“We were on the park,” he sighed, “summer. You know summer, when the sun shines? Just you and me near the swings, and you went to one of the swings and sat on it, and swung!”

“I’ve not done any such thing, not since I was a kid!” she protested, “now leave me alone, old man! I don’t know you, I’ve never met you before and I don’t know anything about swings and the park!”

“ Up and down you swung, your legs like wild things! It’s when I noticed you didn’t have any panties on! I told you and you just said you didn’t care, it was the sixties and anything goes these days!”

“The sixties, old man? What, the seventeen sixties? Eighteen sixties? Nineteen sixties?”

“That last one, Sandra, that last one, nineteen something…”

“I told you, my name is Marianne. I don’t know any Sandra.”

“You were Sandra on the park. You said so. I tell you what, for old time’s sake, I’m going for a drink. Do you want to join me? At the pub? The Red Lion? Just down the road here…”

“I don’t know where you think you are, but there’s no Red Lion down here. It’s a dead end, just round that bend. A cul de sac. It’s where the bus turns round and comes back. But there’s no pub.

He was suddenly confused, and looked around. Everything he thought he knew about where he was suddenly dissolved into a confusion, blurred in his mind like an image out of focus. He stared at her.”

“Sandra,” he said, “who are you?”

She frowned, part of her feeling sorry for him. “I told you, I’m not called Sandra,” she said gently, “and if you were talking to me in the nineteen sixties, well, you can’t have been because I wasn’t even born then! My parents didn’t meet each other until nineteen seventy eight, for goodness’ sake!”

“I was on my way to college. The one in Exton, learning to be a teacher, and I stopped to talk to you on the park. I remember it so clearly. It was the sixties, it had to be, and I was late for college, but that didn’t matter because I liked the look of you. You said you were Sandra. Sandra something … I forget what.”

“Old man, you’re mistaking me for someone else. Now stop talking and I’ll catch that bus when it comes back.” She indicated a big green bus on the other side of the road, going the other way.

“Buses don’t come down here,” he said, “it’s the Red Lion over there. I need a drink! What’s the bus doing anyway? Am I lost, Sandra?”

“I’m Marianne,” she insisted, “not Sandra, “I told you I wasn’t Sandra.”

“Remember what we did next, Sandra? My memory’s not as good as it was, but I can see what we did next clear as daylight! We went down the Bottoms where the river flows and the reeds look lovely in the breeze, and you let me kiss you. You did! How about another one, for old time’s sake?”

She gazed at him in horror. “I told you, I’m not who you think I am. I’m Marianne and I never kiss old men! I’ve got enough young lads keen on me not to have to kiss dirty old men like you! And I always have underwear on. Of course I do. So goodbye!”

Just then the bus arrived, returning from the end of the cul de sac where it had turned to return to town. She gesticulated wildly, and it pulled up.

“I like buses,” he said, grinning, and he followed her onto the bus. The driver was taking fares and he scowled at Arnold. This was an old man, he thought, and old men can be time wasters.

“The Red Lion,” murmured Arnold as if catching this bus for that destination was something he did every day. From his pocket he pulled a two pence piece.

“What Red Lion?” asked the driver, “and you won;t get far if that’s what you want to pay with,” he added.

“This lass, this Sandra, I knew her way back, we talked,” he said, “we’re going for a drink, for old time’s sake. I asked her.”

“He’s nothing to do with me!” protested Marianne, “I’ve never seen him before, but he stopped me and called me Sandra when my name’s Marianne!”

“We walked down the Bottoms, near the river,” muttered Arnold, his mind on an ancient loop.

“You’d best get off, sir,” the driver told him, “this isn’t your bus…”

“I’m dry. I need a drink,” he said, “the breeze might be blowing over the river and the poppies might be out. I love poppies Red ones, like blood but not blood.”

“Just get off the bus, sir,” repeated the driver, “I’m late as it is.”

“I’ll help him,” put in Marianne, “I think he thinks he’s in another place and at another time. We’ll find a policeman to help. Policemen are good at understanding old men with wandering minds.”

She escorted Arnold off the bus and stood with him on the pavement as it drove off.

“I want to help you,” she said, warmly, “where do you live?”

“Live? Me live? I don’t live…” croaked Arnold, suddenly focussing on the moment, “where am I?”

“You said the Red Lion,” coaxed Marianne.

“And I thought you were Sandra for a moment. Fancy that!” he managed a smile.

“You said she wore nothing under her skirt,” smiled Marianne, glad to see that he no longer wanted to call her by the wrong name.

“Sandra’s dead,” he choked, “she grew old and died. She was a good sport, was Sandra. I married her, you know. But it didn’t last. Some thing don’t last, do they?”

“I suppose not,” she replied.

“She maybe died years ago, the poor soul. I loved her, you know.”

“I guess so,” murmured a confused Marianne. I mean, she thought, how can somebody maybe die?

“But she went her own way. I had to do it, you know. I had to put an end to it all.”

Suddenly Marianne felt she might be hearing what should never be said, flickering old memories of something dreadful, a past horror, maybe, a broken life in a shattered love affair. Like an episode of Morse or something like that.

“You did?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking the question.

“But it was all a long time ago,” he sighed, “another time and another place.”

“What did you do?”

There she was: the question was out. But before he could tell her or confess something that might terrify and thrill her in equal measure, a third voice joined the scene.

“So there you are, Arnold!” it said, a brisk voice, yet wavering with the cadence of age. “I hope he hasn’t delayed you, young lady, but he can be dreadfully talkative, when he’s not in a world of his own, that is. I’m his wife, for my sins. You can call me Sandra.”

“My love, at last,” grinned Arnold, sounding delighted, “this young lady was taking me for a drink! I forget her name!”

© Peter Rogerson 26.04.22