Sadie Takes the Window Seat

He must have died because I saw her waiting at the bus stop. Baby-pink raincoat and flowery bag-for-life looped on her wrist. She didn’t spot me, ambling on the other side of the road, doing my daily loop — Doctor Johal’s idea.

“Sadie,” he’d said, “At this point in your journey through grief, the best thing I can prescribe is walking. A thirty-minute circuit. Every day.”

The gloom of afternoon filled the consulting room, and I knew I was getting nowhere. So I nodded, half-listened to his spiel about the benefits of regular exercise — especially for someone in my situation — and angled my gaze towards the Virginia creeper outside, flaming against the fence in the car park, ready to shed its leaves. Something of early autumn about him, too, when he stood to usher me out and tackle his next patient. His tired eyes and shaggy suit. Peaty breath on my neck as he shuffled me through the doorway.

She couldn’t have clocked me, because I’m sure she would have at least called out hello, since we do know one another to see, having lived on the same street all these years. She had a mobile phone in one hand and her glasses in the other, and looked as though she could make neither head nor tail of the bus timetable. Not surprising, he drove her everywhere. Would pass me in their dark blue Volvo, which was always gleaming. He struck me as a careful driver, both hands landed on the wheel at ten to two and eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead, even though it’s only twenty miles per hour down here since the school mums got their way with the sleeping policemen. She’d catch my eye, though. A gentle nod, or a tentative wave. She’s a skinny woman. Elegant hands. I’d go as far as almost regal, but she will insist on that anorak. I think he was in the forces—something orderly about him. And I could tell he liked to take charge in the garden, patrolling the hedge with ruthless shears, keeping the evergreens in rank and file. I’d often see him. But she was out there yesterday — I watched her from the window seat in the front room — hacking at the photinia for over an hour. Chopped all the glow out of it. She’ll have another job on her hands, clearing up all the leaves. The driveway has been covered in them, where the magnolia has started to drop. Grubby, sodden leaves all banked up in clumps around the wheels of the Volvo where it’s been left parked under the carport. Treacherous if they get slippery.

I saw her again at the surgery. Turns out her name is Margaret. I heard her confirming her details to the receptionist. Made me smile – same name as Mother. There were two people behind her, then me, so she wouldn’t have seen me. It’s a disgrace, the lack of privacy in our doctor’s surgery. Queueing in the foyer to speak to one of the receptionists through a Perspex screen. And they don’t want you there. It’s all NHS App this and E-Consultation that. I don’t bother trying to get through on the telephone anymore; I turn up in person to make my appointments with Doctor Johal.

Technically, he’s not my family doctor — no such thing anymore, apparently. Several doctors are working in the practice now, and a couple of the young females even work part-time. It’s a bit of a lottery, but Doctor Johal was there through all the business with Mother, so I prefer to see him. Have to get past Natalie, though, the ‘Reception Team Leader’. That’s what she calls herself anyway. There’s a portrait of her smug face on the wall in the waiting room above her minions. She wears her hair in loose, shaggy waves drenched in Elnett. I can smell it though the Perspex and it takes me back to the girls in school who hung around the lavs at breaktime sharing ciggies out the high window and mashing tacky gloss into their lips. I’d prefer to deal with someone with a bit more empathy. A bit more poise. Perhaps with a sophisticated updo.

“May I ask what the appointment is about?” she always says, as if she didn’t know. I never mind waiting until the end of his scheduled appointments. Doctor Johal often manages to squeeze me in.

The day I saw Margaret there, I had a long wait. When I finally went in, his lunchbox was on the desk, but I couldn’t see what was in it. He looked as sleepy as ever, tapping at his keyboard as I relayed my symptoms.

“What would most benefit you, Sadie,” he said, “At this stage, is connection. Social connection.”

His suit jacket hung slack on the back of his chair, and his tie was skewwhiff. He’d probably endured a morning full of time-wasters. Same peaty breath, and his shirt could have done with an iron.

“Dr Beckmann,” I said.

His eyes met mine for the first time since I’d sat down. “I’m sorry?”

“Whitening powder,” I said. “Dr Beckmann’s is the best. For your shirts. It brightens dull whites.”

“Right. Thanks,” he said, looking down at the fabric and pinching at it as if to examine it more closely. I was ready to tell him more, should he have asked, but he obviously wasn’t one to take his own advice. “What about interests? Hobbies?” His eyes were back on the screen. “Any groups you could join? Many patients in your predicament tell me a lot’s going on at the library. Or the community centre?” He faced me then, brought each fingertip on his left hand to meet those on his right and pressed them together. “We’re fortunate to have these facilities on our doorstep, Sadie. Make the most of them. Consider trying something new.”

He rose from the desk, so I knew it was time up.

I took the long way home, along the river. Wondered if I might dust off some of Mother’s old china and ask Margaret around for a coffee. Problem is, people get the wrong idea. I watched as ducks rippled the silver surface of the water as they paddled along. No need to rush home to an empty house. Plenty of tins of soup in the cupboard, so no need to fuss about what to eat.

I had gotten into the habit of venturing to the library when Mother was still with us. Eileen, her oldest friend, who, thankfully, had finally accepted that I was no longer going to address her as ‘auntie’, visited on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and, quite frankly, couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Mother’s second husband, Cyril, had been gone a few years by then, and in the afternoons Mother grew tired and, with it, crabby.

“Get out and do something for yourself, Sadie,” Elieen said, “It’s not good for you to be cooped up here all the while.”

I didn’t fancy the community centre with its sticky parquet floor and stale cups and saucers and chairs stacked in fours, so instead, while Eileen stayed with Mother and dug out the dominoes or the snakes and ladders, I visited the library. It wasn’t long before I found myself cooped up there with a bunch of women who were, I would wager, all older than me, for ‘knit and natter.’ I had been quite content mooching around the Romance section and flicking through the array of magazines they had on display for loan, but after a few weeks, Penny, a plump, owl-faced woman, all pleated skirts and Yardley scent — used to be a school teacher, in fact, like me, but I didn’t let on as there was no sense raking over all that business — took pity on me and insisted I join her little group in one of the airless meeting rooms upstairs. I was rusty — what with Cyril’s illness and all the business with Mother — I had not had the time nor the inclination to click the needles. Audrey, the one who organised the whole thing, including managing the rota for who brought what type of biscuit and when, set me straight and in no time I was back up to speed.

We knitted hats for premature babies and donated them to the special unit at the local hospital. It was a cause close to Audrey’s heart, her granddaughter having been born prematurely, and one of the other ladies, Susan, was a retired midwife who, in the latter part of her career, had specialised in neonatal care. We begged, borrowed and stole wool from wherever we could and shared it out. I even dragged Mother’s scrap basket out from under her bed, had a rummage through and came up with some powder-blue merino to throw into the ring. There was an old, tattered pattern for bootees daubed in her scrawl, which I left for fear of stepping on Audrey’s toes.

I would have thought white, pink, and blue most appropriate, perhaps even lemon-yellow, but those knit and natterers meant business, and we made little hats in all the colours of the rainbow, in whatever wool was available, to keep those babies’ heads warm.

Often, walking home along the river, as leaves on the weeping willows leaning out of the bank skimmed the water, I’d imagine gently easing one of my creations onto a tiny head and eking it down slowly over the forehead to sit above a pair of closed eyes. I couldn’t recall ever having held a baby. I wish I had kept one now.

I’ve never been a fan of the coffee in M&S. And the café is upstairs, right beside the loos, whose stale, acid smell seeps into the air and spreads amongst the tables and chairs. I suppose the proximity to the loos was handy when Mother was around, and she was partial to their carrot and walnut cake, but I had no desire to go back there. I didn’t say any of this to Penny, of course, when I ran into her by chance, outside the pharmacy. With all the business with Mother and so on, I’d gotten out of routine and hadn’t been to knit and natter. Just as well, as Penny said they’d been evicted from the little airless room on the first floor of the library in favour of a group of old boys who wanted somewhere to play Whist. The ladies had decamped to the café in M&S on Thursday mornings, and I must join them, Penny said. She also said I’d have to buy a coffee — it was only fair, as we were taking up seats in the café  — but no one minded, she insisted. Probably because she provided the lion’s share of the wool.

It was one of the first wintry days —brisk, bright — and I’d opted for my heavy coat. But after my daily loop, jostling for a seat on the bus, then hot-footing it up the high street, by the time I reached out for the handrail on the escalator, I was sweltering and couldn’t catch my breath. The familiar jitter in my diaphragm set in, and my senses swam adrift in a wave of panic. Avoidance is not a long-term solution, I know, and I also know Doctor Johal would not approve, but I had been playing it safe since Mother died, staving off the unreality of anxiety by avoiding certain places and spending much of my time at home, as there was certainly enough to be getting on with there. I knew I couldn’t face them, upstairs, waiting for me in the café, so I dashed outside into the melee that was the high street at lunchtime.

With fresh air finding my lungs, I slowed right down. One foot in front of the other. A step at a time, pausing at the top of my inbreath and elongating my outbreath. Like Doctor Johal had shown me.

My limbs felt heavy, my brain drained. The panic had subsided, but left me feeling like a rag that had been steeped in water and tightly wrung out. It was par for the course, and that flood of adrenaline, followed by relief, left me in dire need of sustenance.

Macari’s didn’t look too busy. I took a tray and stood in the queue, casting my eyes over the plates of sandwiches and salads adorned with leggy cress and covered in clingfilm, sitting in the chilled display cabinet left over from the lunchtime rush. I opted for a limp-looking tuna and cucumber on white and waited to order my coffee from the frazzled-looking girl who also manned the till. Natalie’s daughter. I recognised her immediately from her stint of work experience at the surgery. She had sat up close to her mother behind the Perspex and faffed about with the notice board in the waiting room. I thought about turning around, leaving, but a young mother with an antsy toddler and a pram had joined the queue behind me, and I would have created a nuisance trying to get past. It looked as though she had enough on her hands. 

I took a window seat, took off my coat and arranged it on the chair opposite. I stirred an extra sugar lump into my coffee, peeled back the plate’s clingfilm plate and screwed it into a squidgy ball. The woman who’d been behind me in the queue was weaving her way through the tables, steering the pram with one hand and trying not to spill whatever was in the mug in the other. She was preceded by the toddler, who carried a cling-filmed plate in two hands, solemn and concentrated, as if offering a sacrifice to a god.

“That’s it, Ben, well done,” she said. “Keep going. We’re heading for the table by the high chairs.”

I watched as she reached the table, put the brake on the pram and wrestled the toddler out of his coat. She hoicked a high chair off the stack, at which the toddler scowled and stamped a defiant foot, then climbed onto one of the chairs and rested his chin on the table. Fortunately, it was clean. She didn’t pull him up on his attitude — just sighed and clunked the high chair back, delved into an enormous bag and pulled out a tin of coloured pencils and a colouring book while Ben poked at the clingfilm until she peeled it back for him, broke the half sandwich into a quarter and handed it to him. He settled, nibbling at the morsel as if it provided some great source of fuel to his imagination and scribbled in his book. As the woman raised the cup to her lips and sipped, the baby stirred in the pram, its wriggling discernible beneath the cosy cover that enveloped all but its small, woolly-hatted head. She took a glug, checked her watch, then peered into the pram, slowly unzipping the coverlet. She hauled the baby out, put her hand up inside her sweatshirt and undid what I imagine was a nursing bra, and let the baby nuzzle in. Seconds later, its sharp protestations turned into satisfied grunts and swallows, but Ben had lost interest in his sandwich.

“Come on, Ben,” she said, handing him the untouched quarter. “I’ve got some raisins in my bag. You can have some if you munch a bit more.”

“Yuck, raisins.”

She didn’t call him out on this rude declaration, just lifted the cup to her lips and swallowed with a grimace. I wondered how she coped with not even managing to have her drink hot, and if she had help, or if this was always the way. The baby broke off and immediately howled and pedalled its legs. She gently manoeuvred it to the other side, and the baby’s legs settled, twitching now and again in its own quiet rhythm.

“Mummy, poop-poop,” said Ben, throwing his pencil down and rising from his seat.

“What?”

“Poop-poop Mummy. It’s a mergency!”

The toilets in Macari’s were all the way at the back of the shop. One time, I had to steer Mother through the maze of tables and chairs in a hurry when she found herself in a similar situation to Ben. The baby was still feeding, and the woman kept looking from the baby to the toilets and to Ben, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot. Tentatively, she let the baby come away from her and smiled at its watery burp.

“OK, Ben,” she said. “Good boy for holding on, we’ll get you to the toilet now.”

She laid the baby back in the pram.

“Mummy!”

She was about to gather Ben’s colouring things, and I realised she planned to take the baby and the pram to the toilets with her. She’d never manage.

“I’ll keep an eye on the pram,” I said.

“Sorry?” she said, as if noticing me for the first time.

“Take him,” I said, nodding in the direction of Ben’s reddening face. I’ll watch the pram.”

“Well, if you’re sure. Thank—come on, Ben, quickly, let’s go.”

And her took her hand. 

In the fresh air, the crying stopped. Glassy teardrops wobbled in the well of its eyes, whose lids shuttered softly now and then with the breeze. Its cheeks, which moments ago were scarlet and shiny, cooled. I stroked them with my little finger, in time with my footsteps, and wiped beneath its nose. It settled into me. I held it close under the lapel of my coat. Cradled it to me.

I never meant to frighten anyone. And I never would have hurt him. People get the wrong idea.

I stopped and closed my eyes, felt the dark pull of the sky, all the power of past sorrow and such a precious thing in my arms, and the moment passing. He had settled into tender snores when I jerked at the clatter of disconsolate footsteps, like rain against a window pane, on the pavement behind me.

“I know her! I know her!” It was Natalie’s daughter, shouting and pointing, breathless, above the baby’s renewed cries.

Spread like wildfire around the surgery, of course. The other customers in Macari’s that day said I’d done a good job of posing as the doting grandmother, so no one raised the alarm straight away. But Natalie’s daughter couldn’t wait. I only wanted to stop it from crying.

“Who that lady, Mummy?” Ben was saying, over and over, as the woman finally finished her tirade, laid the baby in the pram, zipped up the coverlet and blustered off, Ben like a yapping dog at her hip. It wasn’t quite a crowd, but people had slowed to see the commotion. Understand what all the shouting was about. The worst of it was that its little hat had fallen from its head and landed in the remains of a murky puddle, littered with a patchwork of tawny leaves. I bent down to pick it up, and as I straightened, the soft wool grasped in my fingers, she passed me — Margaret — baby-pink raincoat and flowery bag-for-life looped over her wrist. I remember thinking, good for her, she must have worked out the buses. She didn’t say hello, which is a pity, because I think we could have been friends.  

And she’s done a top-notch job of gathering up those leaves.

 Leanne Simmons is from Berkshire, where she lives with her husband and three teenage sons. She gained an English Literature degree in the 1990s and enjoyed careers in Human Resources and Teaching. She recently returned to studying and graduated with an MA in Creative Writing with distinction in 2023. Leanne loves long walks, pottering on her allotment and writing short fiction.