Benches

Comical short story

ONE

Matt was bored. He had gone to The Mitchell to bide his time. Bide his time for what he wasn’t sure. But he felt it was coming, be it a girlfriend, or the apocalypse. Didn’t really matter. He would prefer a girlfriend though. He knew the air conditioning in the library was good. It made it easier to bear the record summer heat… cool lofty ceilings, rather than his sweltering top floor flat.

Having fun was no fun on your own, and he was estranged from life, from the strangeness. He was sick of the twilight zone four flights up, a place that he could pace about in like he was some kind of endangered species. The human race. He was sick of the internet, people watching things that would make Hitchcock vomit, and felt the future of science was one small step into becoming an AI paradise, that the green daleks would save the planet with or without us. A theory. He had some weird ideas. He’d heard a man on the radio say that electrical patterns like thoughts travel faster through a wire than through the human brain and body… We had to get a head start on these droids.

Matt sat on the bench outside the Mitchell Library, eating a sandwich. Trying to reduce the amount of meat in his diet wasn’t easy. Cheese didn’t please some, as the cows still had to roam to produce the milk. And the eggs weren’t guaranteed to be free range in an egg mayonnaise… And the mayonnaise, etc etc. It was a minefield…till

“Hello,” said an oldish man. He had mirrored glasses. So Matt saw himself from an unflattering angle.

“Hello,” replied Matt.

“Wind is picking up. Might mean rain.”

“I haven’t seen the forecast.”

“Weather is a funny bugger. Sometimes the grey clouds drift in, the trees billow a bit, and there’s rain. Sometimes, the exact same thing will happen, and there’s none… Well maybe a spit.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Matt, not that he’d ever thought of this before. “I could check my app, and see…but my phone is switched off.”

“No, no phones please. I only leave the house and come to the library to escape them. To escape her indoors. As I like to call her.”

“Does she like it?”

“Well, if she stopped talking at me for a minute she might form an opinion, one way or t’other, but as it is…” He drifted off, somewhere in his thoughts. Till he returned, to fill the silence, which isn’t really silence, in the city…near the strange motorway built down from the Mitchell library. “You enjoying your sandwich?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” said Matt.

“Is it on the meal deal?”

“Eh, no. I always forget about the meal deal.”

“My lad, you are missing out. The girl at the checkout told me, and pointed me in the direction of fruit for the snack.”

“What fruit did you get?”

“Crisps.” He said with a wry smile creasing his lips, as he looked towards the sky. The wind was still rippling through the summer day. But the hot sun was in a blue bay surrounded by clouds, and both men could feel it on their faces. Matt was 45, and looked a bit like a substitute football pundit. The stranger at the bench was in his late 50s, perhaps. And had the look of a weathered weatherman, from the receding dyed hair, although his eyes were a mystery. He wore a suit, habitually. Matt wore denims, £5 from the charity shop, and a simple black t-shirt.

“Are you a mature student as well?” Asked the man.

“Yeah, yeah I suppose so.” Matt wasn’t a mature student. But he had got a haircut that morning and was sick of people sticking their nose into who he was.

“What are you studying?”

“Eh English.”

“There’s no Eh? In English my lad! We should have taught you Scots better than that by now.”

“Oh, yeah… Whereabouts in England are you from?”

“Yorkshire. I thought it would be obvious. Maybe we take ourselves a bit seriously. That’s why I came up here years ago. I thought it would give me a new perspective on my home, Leeds. And I could come up with the definitive Yorkshire prose. No such luck, as yet.”

“Well, there’s still time.”

“Time is all we have. And you, I see, don’t have a watch. And your phone is switched off. How are you meant to know the time? Are you Crocodile Dundee?”

“Ha! No, eh I have the whole day to study. Got to keep up the, eh, studies.”

“That’s the theory. Not always the practice though.”

“Yeah. What do you study?”

“Now? Well I’ve done more Open University courses than you’ve had ready meals. This year, I’m trying to learn French. Want to read the original Camus.”

“Camoo! So that’s how you pronounce it!” Said Matt, forgetting himself. It had really bugged him. He’d read The Stranger. It was one of the small number of respected fictions he’d got through.

“So you study English, eh?” Said the Yorkshireman. “What’s your name? I’m heading off soon… I want to talk at the Mrs, while she isn’t listening. It’s like a conversation in theory, I get my day off my chest, and she pauses a bit, occasionally her facial expressions will almost indicate that she’s listening.”

“My name is Matt.”

“Ah, like the paint. This bench could use a coat or two…”

“Yeah, like Matt paint. Although I’ve heard that one before.”

“I never claimed to be original. Probably that’s my problem with my great unfinished masterpiece. I’m a practical man really, I’d probably get as much a thrill as Banksy gets, if I went around painting the benches that need doing in Shawlands, under the cover of darkness.”

“Haha! That’s a funny idea.”

“Are you sure you are Scottish?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You talk funny. Not funny, peculiar, or haha. Just a bit English sounding.”

“I’ve heard that before. I think I went to finishing school when I was too young to remember.”

“Oh, the boy can do a joke. I’m proud of you lad. Right, my bus will be departing according to your sun dial at 1700 hours. I will bid you farewell. And remember, you can always tell a Yorkshire man…but you can’t tell him much.”

“Oh, thanks for the chat. Took me out of myself.”

“Don’t you mention it. And even if you aren’t the greatest at English, you seem more English than many a Scot, so you’ll do for me. Tata…”

And with that he walked towards the busy road crossing lights.

While he was mentally running over Camus’s name, Matt realised that he hadn’t asked the man’s name in return. After beating himself up about it for a while, he decided to go back into the library for another spell of reading rock autobiographies, until…

TWO

A goth girl sat down.

“A’right, mind if I sit here.”

“A’right,” replied Matt, a bit of a social chameleon. Not that he blended in with granite or wood or anything like that.

“Ah’m fucking dying, this heat.”

“Yeah me too,” said Matt, although the conversation with the old fella had taken his mind off it, in reality. This girl was upfront, though not in his face.

“I’m suffering for ma lifestyle choices today.”

“Yeah?”

“You know, the black gear, black jumpers, fish nets, doc martens.”

“Couldn’t you give yourself a break from it?”

“Nah, it’s ma persona. Gotta keep it going. Half the people that used to gather ootside the Modern art gallery aren’t true to the music. They might no even like it. I think they just want to meet a skater boy.”

“He was a skater boy, she said see you later boy,” sang Matt, quietly. But with a smile.

“Aye, well, these girls say aye to them. I just come all the ways up here to listen to ma music in peace away from that arty farty building.”

“It’s a long walk in this heat.”

“Aye, it is,” she replied, ruminating on it as if it was one of the major moments in the history of the world.

“I’ve got an unopened bottle of water, if you want it.”

“No thanks. You pay for water! I paid 55p for a bottle of Highland’s finest spring, and I’ve been filling it up oan the tap ever since!”

“Ha, clever.”

“That’s me, I may look like a porcelain china doll, but I’m smart as a cookie. That’s how I make my dough.”

There was a pause where The goth girl was probably fishing for Matt to enquire how she made money, but he never filled it, as it would lead to a reciprocal question. So Matt asked her name instead. Not making the same mistake he’d made before.

“What’s your name? Mine is Matt.”

“Matt eh? Matthew…Biblical. Are you religious? My name is nothing dramatic unfortunately. Siouxise Sue was already taken. So just call me Susan.”

“This is biblical weather, but I’m not really religious. Although…”

“Although what?”

“Nothing.”

“Suit yersel. I’m not religious, although I mean that I never found one I could totally fit with. I think there’s a bit of truth in everything, you’ve just goat tae filter it, with your intelligence.”

“That’s very wise.”

“Aye. The wisest guy I knew was called Matthew. He said somethin’ so poetic I want you tae brace yersel.”

“Head between knees, like on a flight.”

“No that dramatic.”

“Ok, I’m sitting down. Well I was sitting down anyway.”

“Aye, good. He was some kind of preacher, and his mum had said that he was called Matthew because of the Maths of the star formation, and the hue o’ the sky when he wis born.”

“That’s lovely.”

“I fell in love with this Matthew, but he was always taking bits oot o’ the Bible that suited him, and preaching at me. I wondered if he wis looking through me, sometimes.”

“So it never lasted?”

“It hardly began. I just met him at a club a year ago. We were talking in the alley after. I broke free of my friends and went dancing somewhere different for a change. Didnae wear the goth gear. I wasn’t old enough to get in. But he looked after me like a gentleman. Ah don’t mind preachin’ love, like Bob Marley, but this guy…ach. It wisnae meant to be. As my gran would say.”

“That’s a shame.”

“He’ll probably be chapping doors, preaching at anyone who’d listen.”

“Aye, well you can say he was a nice ship that passed in the night.”

“Oh, so you are a poet as well?”

“Nah, it’s just a cliche, Susan.”

“Well ah like it, ships passing in the night. Like me and you, when I vacate this bench.”

“You going?”

“Yeah, gonna head back to the arty farty architecture of GOMA.”

“This Mitchell building isn’t bad either.”

“I prefer it here. It’s quiet, peaceful. The buildings should date, they’d have something in common.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“You know, my pal was saying how the things we see over a day, become like dreams. Unless we record them, or photograph them. They’re dream like in our memory.”

“Well here’s a plectrum of mine, to prove it happened.”

“Really, for me?”

“Yeah, why not. I’ve had the best time sitting on this bench. To be honest I was fighting a secret battle.”

“Oh depression?”

“No, against climate change and robots.”

“Haha, you’re funny.”

“You think I’m funny, you should have spoken to the Yorkshireman I spoke to before you.”

“Aye he wis funny. I was eavesdropping a bit. Us goths blend in with the pale buildings and the clouds.”

“Well, you get yourself home safe.”

“Aww that’s nice. Although I might be younger than you, but ah sense ah’m mair streetwise.”

“You are probably right.”

“Right I’m off oan the long trek in these diving boots. Thanks for the plectrum, I might learn to strum a guitar. Or I’ll just press it into my thumb to keep me awake, when ah’m on the cider.”

“You do that.”

“Bye, and thanks Matt. You’re a diamond.”

THREE

Matt surveyed the land before him. Rolling fields, a sweep of green land down to the terraced houses, which looked like another continent, until an ice cream van played its tune and flew to him louder than the crow flying. It was probably about half a mile away to the house where he grew up. It was a sunny day, and a man in one of the houses with a less spectacular view than the one he was used to was pottering about his more shaded garden. He often remarked to people, when he knew people, that he was lucky to have such a sumptuous view of the glen. The valley. Up here in the countryside, looking down, life hadn’t changed much. But that new town down there had gone through the post war period, and all the fun, trauma, small business start ups, and wedding and graduation pictures that they could print in the somehow still in print local newspaper.

He sat on the bench. Above him, in a tree that provided shade, a rook took the offer of shade and preened quietly. Not bothering with Matt. He remembered walking home from school, when he was very little, and the gust of strong wind literally knocking him off his feet. The races back home with his brother after school. The lollipop lady who knew he was smaller and needed her help in a distracting conversation. It all seemed so long ago, in a galaxy far far away. The past was a foreign country that’s for sure, he wasn’t sure what had happened. But there was the painted building before him. At one point the only one painted. Life moved on. And into his picture lolled one of those cows which never seemed to be for milking, maybe they were being fattened on the land that was turned over once or twice that he remembered in 30 years living there. He remembered the occasional thunder and lightning storm, with the poor beasts not knowing which way to run. Or their plaintive moans in the early dawn. Just loitering on the land, till they became financially useful. Matt remembered being on a train the GNER East coast from Newcastle, and the acres and acres of land with herds moving around, with no visible farmhouse, or some ruins. It was easy to feel nothing was real. And this was a simulated world. But maybe he had watched too many movies. And as much as he wasn’t religious, he would rather they were holy ghosts than holograms that filled the buildings where the lights were on but no one was home. That went for his old house. Cars were outside, but he didn’t recognise any. And his dad always bought the same type of Ford. All the time he came up to West side road, he never saw anyone coming out of his old house. It was like badger watch, and he’d only seen a dead badger at the side of these country roads. The big sky curved far far into the distance, and the land of his youth was small. That’s why he came here, really. To shrink it so he could deal with it, a blot on his memory. Matt laughed, an old joke came into his head. Might have been a Les Dawson one. Man phones the council, asks if he can have a skip outside his house…”You can do cartwheels if you want mate” says the person on the phone.

“What are you laughing at?” Said a faint voice. It was a small boy, of about eight years old.

“Oh sorry I didn’t see you there.”

“I’m not small, you know.”

“I didn’t say you were small.”

“My dad is over 6ft.”

“I’m sure he is…”

A blackbird flew down and drank at a puddle in the country road that had been built many years ago and then left till now.

“What’s your favourite bird?” Asked Matt.

“What’s that one?”

“It’s a black bird.”

“Is that what it’s called? Or just the colour.”

“That’s what it’s called.”

The boy looked at his shoelace that was in danger of becoming untied, but just a glance.

“You should do up that lace.”

“Why?”

“Because you might trip over. There aren’t many cars this way but enough to keep you on your toes.”

“It isn’t cars it’s mostly vans, using it as a short cut.”

“You got me there, I’m not from round these parts.”

“Where are you from then?”

“Down there originally. Then nearer to Glasgow. And I come back here occasionally to sit on this bench I remember playing football on that small patch of grass.”

“I’ve never been to East Kilbride.”

“You are practically in it just now.”

“No, I call this West side. Near High Blantyre.”

“I suppose this bird here doesn’t care what we call it.”

“What?” He decided to tie his lace, and then as he straightened he said, “I live in a house down that road. I don’t see many people my own age anymore.”

“Anymore?”

“Yeah, my friend moved away. My parents and his parents moved here at the same time, but they’ve gone.”

“Where did they go?”

“East Kilbride, though not down there. Further away. I never got to visit. I think they fell out, my parents and his parents. But we didn’t… I go to different schools now.”

“That’s a shame… Beep beep beep.”

“What are you doing?” Asked the boy.

“I’m pretending to be a Lorry reversing. Blackbirds are very clever, they can mimic noises they hear sometimes, if you are lucky, although in all the years I’ve been coming to this bench it only happened once.” Matt was lying. It only happened once, in East Kilbride when he was at the country park with his nieces and family.

“Beep! beep ! Beep!” The wee boy shouted, and the blackbird flew away.

“Ah, it was a good try,” said Matt.

“I think I scared it.”

“No, it had it’s drink and cooled down then probably went to its nest in the shade.”

“I’m going now.” said the wee boy.

“Right, well I hope you find a new friend. And while you are waiting you remember that trick with the blackbirds.”

The boy looked at Matt for a second, picked his nose. Then he was gone… up the road, where Matt used to see car headlights in the dark, searching out the country road, before the road to Hamilton, or the one onto the Hamilton Expressway.

The boy leaving had left the place feeling even more lonely and strange, so Matt picked up his bag and headed off the long journey to High Blantyre, where the bus stop was. He didn’t want to risk seeing anyone he knew at a bus stop near his old school, across the little bridge where sat nav directed hapless unlucky truckers, who would have to reverse all the way up the hill, and have their embarrassment reported in the local newspaper online edition. The sun was shining. But there was a slightly grey bank of cloud across the way, and with the fresh insight the older man near the Mitchell had provided, he thought it might mean rain, and he was only wearing a t-shirt and denims.

FOUR

Matt stepped off the train at Ayr station. The good weather had followed him, sparkling up the coast past the golf courses. When he was feeling like he was down in the dumps the sun warmed his face occasionally at the window. He noticed a couple of ponies in a field, resting one neck on the other, and it was an image that warmed his heart as much as the West coast sunshine. By the time he got to the sea, he felt that emptiness again. All the music he had written usually filled that yearning, that void in him. And last time he came to Ayr he sat on the wall, legs dangling over the sand, playing it on his phone. But he didn’t even bother to bring his phone today. He had visited the seafront via the pub, the West Kirk where there were the pictures of Burns you would expect to see. And a pulpit with a table for drinks and conversation. It was a converted Kirk, hence the name.

When he got to the benches, they were mostly taken. One woman near the end of the promenade sat by herself, knitting. There was only a slight breeze.

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

“No son, you sit there if you want.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What are you knitting?”

“Oh, I just do it to relax, it’ll either be a scarf or some winter socks, I haven’t decided yet, I’ve only just started.”

“Are you knitting for yourself?”

“Yes…it’s just myself here. I’m retired.”

“Good place to be retired, plenty of sea air.”

“Well, if you heard the seagulls up before the milkman you might change your opinion.”

A crow flew on the gentle breeze, looking like it was mimicking a seagull, or trying to join in with their fun.

“That crow, funny.”

“Oh son, I hadn’t noticed the crow. What was funny?”

“Oh, it was just gliding on the breeze, as if it had forgotten who it was.”

“Aye, I’ve noticed that before. My late husband said that those seagulls were God flying his kite, but I never cared for them.”

There was a silence. For a number of minutes. A man with a group of people looked pleased to see another small group of friends. He was most pleased to see their dog, which bounded to jump up on him. The man, who was wearing a beanie hat for shade presumably, did something which Matt had never seen before. He ran away from the dog, at lung busting speed, like he was at the final quarter of a 100 metres dash at the Olympics. The dog chased after him, as fast, and nearly faster than his little legs could carry him. The man turned round and greeted the dog, and both seemed like the happiest two creatures alive.

“Ooft, I never had a dog,” offered the lady to the silence.

“Makes you want one,” said Matt.

“Well, I’m not sure about that,” said the retired woman, in a slightly, “You’ll have had your tea…” accent.

“Have you read any Burns?” asked Matt, although as soon as the words left his lips he wondered if it was the alcohol thinning his blood.

“Oh aye, I’ve read Burns, that’s partly why we came here from Edinburgh. One coast to the other. My husband has a large library. It takes a lot of dusting.”

“I always wondered something,” said Matt.

“What?” asked the lady, whose eyes seemed to be mainly focused on the knitting puzzle.

“Did he write many poems about the sea?”

“…That I don’t know. I know the main ones, and a few others my husband practised on me before Burns suppers. But you have a point. One of the farms he lived at isn’t far from here, you know.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Well, maybe he had enough bother with the water, getting chased by those witches.”

“Maybe.” said Matt. “Of course, I could buy a book of Burns poems, it’s just you’d think he would have a famous one about the sea. Seeing as it’s the main reason people come here, these days.”

“Yes, I think you have a point, son.” Said the lady.

“Does that man have a metal detector on the beach?” asked Matt.

“Aye, that’s Jim. He’s well known. Don’t think too deeply about it though. He’s not looking for whisky galore or sunken treasure.”

Matt thought for a second, then realised the man was looking for rings and coins and jewellery that people had dropped on the beach, before heading home in their trains, cars, motorhomes and such like.

“Wonder how much he makes in a year,” said the old lady, twisting the thread over the needle.

“Dunno, I wouldn’t have the brass neck to ask,” said Matt.

“I wouldn’t have the brass neck to buy a metal detector and take it to the beach.”

“His brass neck might set off the alarm.”

“Aye, you have a point there, son… What do you do, when you’re not enjoying the Ayr seaside?”

“Oh, I work in a call centre in Glasgow. Just now anyway.” It was partly true, it was the last job he had.

“My sister is younger than me. She worked in one of them, no air conditioning at the top of an old office block that had mostly deserted offices. Glass ceiling above her, sun shining in. She said it was awful, and not just the heat. And my sister has been around the world, working is some of the worst conditions.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve got to be suited to it. Like talking to people and being good at figures helps.”

“Well, you are braver than me. Hope a wee trip to Ayr is good for you before you go back to the phones and those horrid people.”

“Ach they’re just people, at the end of the day. I wouldn’t like someone cold calling me either.”

“It’s cold calling?”

“And hot desking!” Matt said, hoping the joke would change the subject.

“That’s a good one. I must remember that.”

Matt decided to go back to the pulpit, not for religious conversion, but for another quiet pint, in the busy West Kirk. Then he’d get the train back, using the free bus pass that he had been given by the state. The idea of life being a dream came back to him, but his day had been pleasant so far, so if it was to be a dream, it would be a pleasant dream.

FIVE

“Fuck man, it’s wavey Davey!”

Matt looked bemused as he approached the Glasgow Necropolis. He wondered if the young Neds were talking about him. He half thought of just walking past and heading to Tennent’s Brewery when the young men scattered like a bunch of starlings and ran up the hill. He looked to his side, instinctually like when you half see something, like a fox, from the corner of your eye and a man was approaching the bench he wanted to sit on. The man waved at Matt, and then Matt knew that he was seeing wavey Davey. He had never seen the man before. He was wearing a baseball cap, was beanpole thin, and underneath a scraggy beard that went down his neck it was hard to tell if he was in his 60s or 70s.

Matt sat down, bracing himself for someone joining him, called Davey.

“Sun’s going down,” said Davey.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Can be relied on, not much else.”

“Yeah.”

The man shouted toward the graves, “It wasn’t me!” Clutching his heart. Then he turned round to Matt and winked.

Matt said nothing. He wasn’t sure if the man had a guilty conscience, or was implying that Matt looked like he had one. A woman walked past, nice legs in a fashionable outfit, and Davey waved at her. She smiled, a little uncertainly. A car drove past, with a dog hanging out the back passenger side window, its tongue streaming like a banner. Davey waved at the dog. If this was post traumatic stress, or mental illness, it was a strange one. Unless he was laughing at the world around him, and the joke was on us.

“What uni are you at?” asked Davey.

“I’m not at uni, anymore.”

“Were you at Strathclyde, up the road.”

“Yeah.”

“I went to university. The school of hard John Knox.”

“John Knox, I’ve heard of him.”

“Boy, you are in Scotland, he’s in you. You are a dream of John Knox, he goes on, you disappear.”

“How’s that?”

“His statue is at the top of the hill. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I just come here to watch the sunsets, and read a few of the inscriptions.”

“One day it’ll be your name?” Davey phrased it as a question.

“I expect I’ll have a pauper’s grave.”

“Pauper’s didn’t get graves.”

“There’s graves in the Gorbals,” said Matt, although he’d never given them much thought.

“Do you think the stonemason would waste his time with that? No, all those people in the Gorbals crammed like sardines, they didn’t get a grave. I’ll never know where they went.”

“Not in a grave then?”

“Oh no, oh no. Not at all.”

Matt changed the subject, “That plane is flying quite low.”

“Bastards! Holidays or Busman’s holidays, it’s all the same. A carbon footprint the size of Coco the clown.”

“Those were big shoes to fill.” Joked Matt.

“What were?” asked Davey stone cold seriously. Then he winked. And then he waved at a man about his age walking a dog. Although on his behaviour so far, it was unlikely that they knew each other.

“Why are you sitting here?” Asked Davey.

“I just like sitting on a bench and seeing what happens,” said Matt, honestly.

“And do people talk to you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

“I don’t know, maybe I look approachable.”

“No, you look miserable, they feel sorry for you,” he said, before waving and smiling at a passing car.

“Oh, I didn’t realise.”

“Well, now you do. Like I said, school of Hard John Knox. Me and John are tight.”

“Tight?” The phrase seemed strange coming from an old man’s lips.

“Aye, tight drunk. It’s the only way. That’s why we come here to orbit the brewery.”

“Right,” said Matt.

“Dead right,” added wavey Davey, waving at the neds who had passed by again, coming down from the hill. They didn’t wave back, looking sheepish.

“Where do you live?” asked Davey.

“Rutherglen.” said Matt.

“I’ve been to Rutherglen many a time. I was a barber there for a while. School — of — hard- John — Knox.”

As a catchphrase it was good, thought Matt, and that Davey was beginning to seem like the saner party was a good reason for Matt to make his excuses and get the bus home. When nothing makes sense, music does, so he let himself drift into the night listening to rock songs to lift his spirits. While drinking a glass of Vodka and Tizer every fifth song. He’d heard someone on Desert Island Discs say that the best way to relax was in a structured way.

SIX

It wasn’t the best start to the morning, Matt’s electric shaver had run out of power when he’d only done half of his face. He liked having a faint hint of stubble — someone had said it made him look better. Not a full on compliment; not worded in a way that was memorable or you could say thank you to, but Matt was short of compliments, and he had filtered one out of some words some years ago. From a woman. An actual woman. When he shaved completely, he looked like someone who had unwittingly found themselves to be Jewish. Without the will to succeed and without the extended family supportive of any need to do well in life. Although maybe these are unhelpful clichés.

Thinking of one incident, but not the latest, of sectarian genocide on a bright morning (often the best part of the day), he decided to visit the war memorial. They were always the memorial to the men, long lists of surnames he recognised. Vera Lynn could sing the phone book, but she would have a hard time singing these without a bit of Scottish burr and flem. The phone book was so thin these days, she could probably tear it in half, even in her nineties. A woman approached, making eye contact. Matt made friendly eye contact with her dog first, before moving up.

“Hello, I like your dog, its floppy ears.”

“Ha, yes.”

“Tony Hart drew a dog with floppy ears once, although I can’t remember what kind. You’re probably too young to remember him.”

“No, I remember Tony Hart. I like drawing…are you waiting here for someone, or paying your respects?”

“I’m paying my respects, although none of my grandparents were at the front line, Dunkirk style. I think. One worked in a munitions factory, the other sent rockets over the channel.”

“Just as well, or we wouldn’t be talking now…”

“I wasn’t expecting things to get philosophical so early.”

“Everything is philosophical. Getting from one day to the next, one moment to another. Especially as people our age, are getting to be… our age.”

“Yeah. Not quite old, not really young. I don’t feel old. When the morning sky looks as good as this, and I read that these men died too young, it’s not so bad to be in the land of the living, even with a burnt mouth. What these men would do to be here.”

“Burnt mouth?”

“Yeah. I eat my pot noodles too quickly.”

“I like a cheeky pot noodle now and again. I’m too often tempted to steal one of Bailey’s vegetarian sausages.”

“You should go to Ayr, I went there the other day, the dogs love it at the beach.”

“Burns country.”

“Yeah, I was talking to an old woman, saying I didn’t know of any poems he wrote about the sea.”

“Till all the seas gang dry my dear…”

“Oops, eh, we forgot about that. My love is like a Red red rose, obviously. I say we, she was probably just humouring me. Her husband even moved there for the Burns suppers.”

There was a silence as Bailey sniffed around the war memorial. It was a pretty impressive one, a statue of a man, forever strong, forever young, with a list of not just the roll call of WW1 and WW2 casualties, but other wars, older wars in the middle east. Bailey looked up and barked at something, another dog at the bench further away. Matt wondered if dogs bark cause they don’t get to exchange doggy pleasantries, like Matt and this lady could.

“Wonder how many women died in the war.”

“What do you mean?” said the woman, sounding a little apprehensive.

“No, nothing sinister, I was just wondering…you never see any memorial to the women who died. Or maybe went a bit loopy when their man didn’t turn up, or their parents got Blitzed or whatever.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I tend to think of the men in the minute’s silence, but everyone suffered.”

“Those poor people. Here, or in camps.”

“Yes, it was terrible.”

“I sometimes think that it’s everybody’s failing, Hitler. That he could divide us, or any war. If people are flawed and divided in themselves, it can be taken advantage of. And then…”

“Yes, I suppose so. I think Ghandi or someone said something similar about partition, or Muslims and Hindus. Half a million died…”

“Are you Indian?”

“Oh, I’ll let you decide. I prefer to let people guess. The DNA is all mixed up anyway. What does a Jew look like? Or a Protestant or a Catholic.”

“I thought I looked like a Jew this morning.”

“What about tomorrow morning?”

“Haha! I’m glad you said that, it was getting a bit deep!”

“Do you sit here a lot, I’ve just moved nearby.”

“Yes,” Matt lied. “It’s a nice spot just to think, when I’m coming back from the shops.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you again. BAILEY!”

The dog was peeing on the memorial.

“It’s probably just leaving a message for another dog. Or one for itself next time it passes.”

“Yes, he doesn’t have much respect.”

“Ha. I suppose not.”

“Bye then, and maybe I’ll see you another morning.”

And with that she walked away, slowly, letting Bailey’s highly sensitive nose ponder over the ground. Matt wanted to see her again. And resolved to sit at the war memorial, not every day, but now and again. And maybe, just maybe he could feel that catharsis you only get from talking. It was better than alcohol.