Chapter 3: Under Way

As the ancient minibus literally rattles away down the narrow country lane leading away from the Songlebridge Community Village and Care Home and out onto the main trunk road leading north towards their first stop, the Irchester Country Park, George Bryant’s head is full of his late wife Molly talking to him loud and clear, in fact so loud he fears that there was a chance everyone in the bus would hear her.

‘WHO DOES THIS DRIVER THINK HE BLOODY WELL IS?!’ Molly shouts in George’s metaphorical ear, before adding, ‘Don’t answer that George, of course I know who the hell that stupid man is, I do know why he is driving this bus and also know why he keeps muttering about keeping his speed down.’

‘Well, Molly dear,’ George addresses her quietly via thoughts alone in his head, ‘I really don’t have a clue what’s going on, so if you know everything then please explain it all to me, only keep the volume down, it’s like that “Spinal Tap” dial and you’ve turned the volume knob up to 11.’

‘Sorry, George,’ Molly replies at a more reasonable volume, ‘when I get mad I get mad and when I get really mad I get LOUD! Oh, and I don’t know every-single-thing, but what I do know is that Monty here was about to get a long driving ban for excessive speeding tickets but his wife managed to use her influence to get him off with community service instead and roped him into this trip in order to leave her weekend free to do exactly what she wants to do.’

‘And what is so important to Mrs Smythe’s weekend?’ George asks.

‘You don’t want to know, George, trust me on this, you do not want to know, because once you know you won’t be able to unknow it and you’d definitely want to rewind and unknow it if you could.’

‘So you can’t actually rewind my life for me then?’

‘No, George, nobody can,’ Molly says with a chuckle, then adds, ‘why would you want to change anything anyway?’

‘If I could go back and change things, like getting you to go the doctors for a check-up early enough, I’d still have you here with me, for a start,’ George replies.

‘Ahhh, that’s nice, but you never lost me, Sweetie, I’m still around and not going anywhere anytime soon.’

It isn’t any longer than three or four minutes before Monty sees the signs for the Irchester Country Park and another big sign for the Quarryman’s Rest Cafe, where the passengers could relieve themselves at least for a while. The driveway to the cafe was a little basic and bumpy, littered with puddles from the rain yesterday but he felt a sense of achievement getting there as he helped two of the more desperate looking ladies off the bus, who Sofija referred to as OS12 and YP19.

She smiles at Monty’s shaking head and bumps his shoulder with hers, adding in a whisper, “Rosemary and Ada to you.”

“So why is it that you give the passengers numbers, yet you also know their names?” Monty asks.

“Zey are not just passengers, but zey are also patients. I haff been a nurse in five care homes since I moved here to England and vun ozzer place in Scotland, because my nursing qualifications in ... er ... Latvia, didn’t mean anyzing here and I vould haff had to be an employee as an auxiliary only in a hospital or become a student nurse, und I am too old und too poor to be a student again. But, ze private care homes are more relaxed about ze qualifications zan ze NHS, so I can still look after ze patients. But...” and Sofija took a deep breath before continuing, “at hospital you are vorking tovards helping patients get better so zat ven they leave you zey are happy und you can be happy wiv zem but in ze care homes zey only leave ven zey are dead patients, vhich makes me very sad, so I try not to get too close to ze patients, to protect my self from being too sad. I tell myself zat by just referring to zem as numbers zey are not real living people who are going to die soon. Silly but, vell, zat’s me.”

“I suppose one has one’s reasons for everything that we do,” Monty agreeing with Sofia’s sentiments over her well-being, “I only wanted to get into politics because I hated my career in business and corporate law. Been doing it so long now I wouldn’t know how to do anything else. I’m definitely too old to be a student!”

“So, Meester Monty, you not going to be our permanent volunteer driver, zen huh?”

“Not on your Nelly, Sofija, I’ll stick to politics, at least for now.”

Not everyone needed the toilet, just Rosemary and Ada who were desperate, Oscar only went because Doreen insisted, and she asked George if he would mind accompanying him into the Gents, rather than queue up for the disabled toilets.

George only left the bus to keep Sally company at her request. She insisted to George that although she wasn’t desperate to go, she thought it was prudent to try at every opportunity to do so, “just in case we break down on the high road and have to wait hours for a recovery”.

George thought she had a point and Molly soon got on his case, ‘You should take a leaf from her book, George, go when you can. Think of it like a sort of stitch in time, or in your case a drop in the ocean.’

So George did help Oscar with his task at hand, not actually physically, but at least ensured that Oscar was put into position and hoped that the old man’s natural instincts came into action at the appropriate time and, very much to George’s relief, and also clearly to Oscar’s, the whole incident went off better than he thought and George even managed to shake out enough drips of his own to satisfy Molly’s gentle persuasion from within his own head.

The group of passengers were counted back on board by Sofija and they set out on the road towards the next stop. Monty took the quickest route, skirting Northampton and joined the M1 going north, estimating the journey to be about an hour in the bus. He actually consulted Sofija during the toilet break and she nodded that an hour on the road would be fine, and a half-hour stop for a mid-morning cuppa between 10.30 and 11 am would be about right for all concerned.

As they drove along, Sally decided to introduce herself to George sitting next to her. “I don’t think we’ve really been properly introduced, George. Do you mind if I tell you a little about myself and maybe we can exchange the same sort of information about yourself?” She chewed her lip a little unsure of herself.

George chuckles in reply, especially as Molly was saying his ear, ‘See, George I told you that Sally fancies you. She may be a bit on the young side but you don’t need to consider it “cradle snatching” as she is at least over 55 and retired and she’s certainly nicer than all the other old biddies that we’ve had to shake off chasing your tail over the years!’

“No, I don’t mind, Sally. It would help pass the time,” George replied with his accompanying chuckle. “It’s better than just sitting here in adjacent seats in embarrassed silence. You go first and I’ll follow up because I know my story is so boring you’ll be ready for a quick snooze by then.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not the case. I’ve not really done very much with my life. First off, the introduction anyway, I’m Sally Benstead and I’m 67. I’m a widow, who lost my husband a long long time ago when the children were teenagers and within a year or two of having only one parent the last of the girls were off to Uni and living their own independent lives.”

“What happened to your husband?”

“Oh, nothing dramatic, he wasn’t much of a husband really, if truth be told, as he was quite selfish: he ate, drank and smoked to excess and, unsurprisingly, he died of cancer in his late forties, and went so quickly that it caused me minimal heartache and, as he was absent enjoying himself most of the time, it took no time for me to adjust to his no longer being around. His life was adequately insured so the mortgage was paid off early leaving me a small investment income and I was able to get by working part-time in a corner shop and I spent the rest of the time happily pottering about in my garden.”

“My wife was a victim of cancer, too. Molly went very quickly, it was bone cancer and wasn’t discovered until, well, until it was far too late for any meaningful action to save her. She didn’t suffer much, I think she just surrendered to it so that I didn’t suffer too much.”

“I wish I’d known her.”

“She ... I know that she would have liked you, I know that for a fact,” George smiles as he says so.

“Oh that’s a nice thought, I really do wish I’d known her even more now. As you have gathered I’ve not been in the care home for long, just renting one of the small one-bed flats on my GP’s recommendation, because I live alone and don’t have any nearby family. I have been quite fit but after a fall at home, stupidly trying to fix up some curtains and Dan’s rotten old step ladder gave way under me.”

“So no family nearby?” George asks.

“No, I have two daughters but one emigrated to Australia, the other lives in Berlin. I must confess, although I am chatting to you like I’ve known you for years, I am usually quite shy and my only friends are those that I meet casually at the corner shop, so no real what I could call best friends.”

“Your daughters do live a long way away, do you see them much?” Geogre asked.

“I have been to Western Australia twice for long stays, but not been back for five years or so and Julie has only been back here once, about ten years ago; she’s pretty settled down there, even picked up the accent, so she sounds more like a native! She’s my eldest daughter at 43, Julie Tosvik is a housewife and lives in Perth with her electrician husband Gordon and their two children Mikey who is 9 and Gracie who’s 7. My youngest daughter is Yvonne, ‘Vonnie’, and she lives with her husband Graham Short, in Berlin. They are both computer IT specialists and they work together in the banking field. Yvonne is 39 and long ago she decided not to have children but then she went and fell pregnant this spring and is expecting twins at Christmas. I am hoping to be fit enough to go out to Berlin in the New Year and see the babies.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” George smiled. “I’ve never been as far as Australia but I spent a little time, about nine months or so, in Berlin during the Cold War when I was on National Service. Horrible, depressing place it was in the early 1960s, I bet it’s a lot nicer now.”

“Yes, they live in a nice suburb outside the city. So, did you travel much during your National Service?”

“Not really,” George replies, “I was in REME, the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Regiment, so we were based all over the place and moved around quite a bit, six months here, six months there, mostly in Germany, England and Scotland. I did my two years of National Service and signed up for four more years. It gave me a lot of experience in servicing trucks of various sizes and set me up nicely for my career as a mechanical engineer.”

“So, if you were doing National Service in the 1960s, I was 15 at the end of the 1960s, exactly how old are you?” Sally asked.

“I’m 84, born just before the war.”

“Wow, you look really good for i4, I’d have guessed maybe early 70s,” Sally says with a laugh, “you look really fit.”

“You should see me first thing in the morning,” George laughs, “I’m so stiff I look like one of those comical robotic dancers. That’s why I need my early morning walk around to the paper shop, to loosen up my stiff joints.”

“Olive oil,” Sally says, “My family swear by it. My grandmother brought me and my older sister up because both our parents died while I was a little girl. My grandmother was Italian and cooked lots of pasta. She always used olive oil and she was as supple as a ballet dancer right to the end. Perhaps one of these days you’ll let me cook you a proper Italian meal, I’m sure it will do you a world of good.”

“I might take you up on that, Molly used to grow lots of tomatoes in our little patch behind the bungalow, although she always used the cheapest vegetable oil to cook with.”

‘Hey, George, that’s a damned cheek,’ Molly chirped in George’s head, ‘that vegetable oil was never cheap, we were led to believe it was healthier at the time, besides, olive oil is definitely an acquired taste and so we never used it at home when we were growing up, and I carried on not using it when I got married and did all the cooking. Take Sally up on her offer of a meal, though, I reckon you do need a bit of pasta on your bones, you’re so thin!’

“I will definitely take you up on that meal, Sally,” George smiled, “Although I do like to be on my own, it can get to be too much sometimes and, having a dinner companion to converse with, would be a welcome change. I’ll happily supply some of the ingredients and the wine too if you drink it. I confess that I am a teetotaller, I’m afraid and couldn’t tell a good wine from vinegar.”

“Don’t be afraid of being sober, George, my late husband was the drinker in our family and he would drink anything that had a punch. I do like the odd half a lager in the summer and I must say that the odd German beer is quite acceptable, but I never drink wine. Anyway, carry on, do tell me about Molly.”

“Oh well, she was mad at me when I extended my military service by four years without telling her,” George laughs, “After basic training I was sent to a REME unit on National Service, working on Army lorries, and I heard that if I signed on for another four years, which was the minimum time I could sign on for at the time, I would be considered for an Army trade apprenticeship and become a fully qualified motor vehicle mechanic, so that’s what I did. Molly and I were childhood sweethearts, I was 14 and she was 13 when we first met outside school. The schools were segregated, boys one side of a playground with a solid fence down the middle, with the girls on the other side, to keep us apart. But at going home time, we both walked home together, as we found that we lived quite close to one another and we got to know each other and very soon became best friends, which turned into love.”

“Are, that’s really nice. So she was upset when you stayed on in the service?”

“Yes, but only with me for a short while. We got married as soon as I’d finished my service, I was 23 and she was 22. I worked in various local garages doing vehicle maintenance and in my early 30s was able to go into business for myself, Bryants’ Motors in Phoenix Drive.”

“I know Bryants Motors,” Sally says, “My late husband Dan used to get our car serviced and MOT’d there. I even went with him a couple of times and I used the convenience store there reasonably regularly.”

“Molly worked with me as soon as we started the business from scratch. She was receptionist, bookkeeper, company secretary and fellow director as well as managed the convenience store. That store was a resounding success and soon outgrew our front room, until it occupied the whole prefab bungalow and we had to build another bungalow for ourselves in the back garden. Unfortunately we never had children so managing the convenience store became a large part of her life.”

“Oh, so you don’t have any children, that’s a shame, I really miss not having my children near me and I would be ... well, I’d be pretty bereft if I never had any children at all. How did Molly take not having children, or was it a conscious choice, like my Vonnie?”

“No, we both wanted children from the outset and tried hard for a baby for a while but nothing happened, so we weren’t really sure if it was my fault or hers. When she was 35 she checked with a fertility clinic that her GP had referred her to and the results came back that she did have a problem with her ovaries, so much of a problem that she had to have them removed there and then. Still, it meant she never had to go though the change, because she was on tablets that kept her pretty stable. And, as we never had kids of our own, I suppose we never really missed them.”

“That is a blessing I suppose.”

“We were busy all the time, both of us building up our respective sides of the business. Now that I have outlived all my siblings and friends and, as a consequence, I suppose I have become used to my own company and l don’t have any people I need to visit or wish to visit me here. I have a few nephews and nieces but we only exchange Christmas cards.”