‘Hopscotch’, ‘Hush’ and ‘The Visit’ by Siobhan McNamara

‘Hopscotch’ 

They say you know when you meet the One.  Everything else stops and there are just the two of you in the world.

I never knew how that could be until I saw him get off the bus and look around. I don’t know if I thought he was all that good-looking, that first time. But there was definitely something about him, something warm, like I knew he could look after me.

And yes, in that moment, there was nobody else in the world. He started walking towards me and the hum of traffic faded. The hard lines of the pavement softened and blurred.

Even the child with the bouncing ponytails who was playing imaginary hopscotch right in front of me ceased to exist.

When he looked my way and smiled I felt as if strong, safe hands were gently lifting us above the rest of the world.

“Daddy!” a voice squealed.

The bouncing ponytails lost their momentum as the hopscotch game came to an end.

The man reached out and grabbed the little girl. He swung her into the air before pulling her close. She snuggled her face into his neck and one of the ponytails came to rest on his shoulder.

A woman who was with the girl nodded at them.

“I’ll see you back here at five o’clock then,” she said, before turning round and walking away.

“Yeah,” the man said.

He set off in the opposite direction with the child’s arms clasped tightly around his neck, stepping over my legs without even noticing.

But that’s nothing new. Not many people notice the skinny kid at the bus-stop though I’m here, sitting on the same few squares of pavement, day after day after day.

Still, who knows, maybe next week ....

Maybe some day ....

‘Hush’ 

He wakes before the sun, dresses silently and slips into the street. 

The town is hushed now but last night it heaved with glammed-up weekend revellers. The solitary figure in the dark overcoat and tweed cap is optimistic.

He kicks through a pile of leaves trapped by a doorstep, eyes peeled in the shadow of the streetlight for a hint of colour. He found a twenty pound note once, but usually if he gets a fiver it’s a good result.

Not this morning though. But after an hour he has picked up enough small change for a cheap bottle of cider and gathered enough stubbed-out butts to roll a day’s worth of fags.

He heads home through a grey dawn, undresses quietly and slides back into bed without waking his wife, who keeps all his money for his own good.

‘The Visit’ 

His daughter is coming to visit today and there are things he must do to prepare. The man puts his wallet in the inside pocket of his jacket and heads for the shops.

After some consideration, he selects a pre-packed steak from the supermarket shelf. He hates buying supermarket meat, but isn’t fit for the walk into the butcher shop on Main Street anymore.

His mouth waters as the house fills with the smell of frying steak and onions. His mouth waters and his eyes water and he opens a window. The cat from next door jumps up and mews pleadingly.

The old man reaches out and strokes her head.

‘Not yet,’ he says softly and closes the window to keep her out of the kitchen.

When his daughter arrives he welcomes her but doesn’t get too soppy or she’ll worry that he’s lonely.

He notices her look of approval as she is hit with smell from his lunchtime cooking, sees her eye rest on the plate and cutlery sitting unwashed in the kitchen sink.

‘Excuse the mess,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get to the washing up yet.’

She smiles, and rinses the plate under the tap while he boils the kettle to make a pot of tea. When the tea is ready he offers her biscuits from an open packet. She refuses, but tells him to have one himself.

‘God no, I’m stuffed,’ he says. ‘I’ll have some later.’

She relaxes, and they spend a while chattering about this and that. When she is leaving she says she will come again on Thursday.

She doesn’t miss much, his daughter, but she hadn’t noticed the cat sitting on the windowsill licking her lips in deep satisfaction. Nor had she looked outside and seen the greasy mark on the back doorstep where the steak had been placed, and the scraps of burnt onions already buzzing with flies.

What she had seen, he knew, and why she travelled so far to see him more often than she was really able to, was that he was so, so weary.

The cupful of tea swells his shrinking stomach, reminding him of the engorged udders of cows on their way home to be milked in the farming days of his youth.