Writing for Fun
February 2018
Last Summer - Anne Wilson
She could sense the simmering resentment in him at being left with her. An agoraphobic woman in her early eighties was hardly a suitable childminder for a boy of eight and her neighbours must have been desperate to have asked her. She was grateful, though, for the small payment as it contributed towards her alcoholic outlay for the week.
Twice a week for five weeks he had been coming to her now. He was a strange, uncommunicative boy by any standards; even making allowances for his tender age. Was he autistic, she wondered? In her day you were a difficult child, or a rebellious teenager; there were no labels to explain deviations from supposedly normal patterns of behaviour. She imagined that he would find it difficult to make friends. His mother explained that, whilst she had been able to twist the arm of her sister to have him for three days each week during the yawning few weeks known as the school summer holidays, the balance of two days remained a problem and she would be eternally grateful for the help.
His lack of conversation made her feel uneasy. Occasionally, necessity prompted him to speak in order to ask for, a drink or a biscuit and every now and again his curiosity would get the better of him and he would ask her a question about an expression he had heard, or something he had read. He was a voracious reader and he brought books with him which he pored over avidly. She knew enough about young people to realise other boys would have been continually texting or playing games on their phone. He was a slightly-built little boy, looking much like a little boy of that age would, but behaving like one much older.
‘What’s a last resort?’ he had once asked her.
‘Why do you ask?’ she said taken aback.
‘My mother was arguing with my father about you looking after me,’ he responded evenly. ‘And she said you were a last resort.’
Several times he had asked her if he could go out and each time she had refused. His mother had expressly instructed her not to allow it and she could see the wisdom of that instruction. She would never have forgiven herself if anything had happened to him.
‘Can I go out if you come with me, then?’ he had asked.
Her lips would tighten. ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t,’ she would reply, and he would resume his reading.
The week before, he had asked her why and she had felt the bile rise in her throat.
‘I don’t like open spaces,’ she had flushed.
She thought she saw a small smile of triumph cross his lips.
‘Do you mean they make you frightened?’ he said, with a wisdom beyond his years.
The agoraphobia had happened without warning. There was no one, defining moment that day two years ago that had caused her heart to beat loudly and rapidly one morning when she turned the front door handle; her legs buckling beneath her. No particular incident in the supermarket that had prompted her to run out into the street a few days afterwards without taking her goods with her and no one traumatic experience that had then chipped away at her attendance at the clubs and societies she had once so enjoyed. The third had been an inevitable by-product of the first two; she realised that. The interaction she used to have with other people had ground to a gradual halt as a result and she realised she had lost the ability to make conversation. Her small companion had not made her inability to do so any easier.
Her world had shrivelled and the internet had become her one, true friend. She was an expert at on-line banking and all food (and, more importantly, drink) was ordered by the same means; orders rotated amongst three major supermarkets every few days. This exercise was put into effect in order that she would not feel embarrassed by the copious bottles of sherry and whiskey delivered each week. It was an illogical emotion, given that she felt sure that no-one at Tesco’s, Asda’s or Sainsbury’s would be monitoring her consumption and could care less even if they were. Still, she had her pride.
She was on the home stretch now. One week more to go and the following week he would be back at school. In one sense, it was a relief but she had to confess that she would miss the extra few bottles of sherry the ordeal paid for. Thinking of the drink made her lick her lips. She looked at the clock. It was half past ten and the silence between her and her charge was, as usual, making her uneasy. A drink would put that right and calm her nerves in a way that her medication never did, Taking great care that her surreptitious imbibing would never be noticed, there was always a bottle hidden out of eye line but within her easy reach at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards. She had ordered a consignment to be delivered the next day and knew she was down to the one remaining bottle. Not much; but it would have to last her. She opened the cupboard door discreetly, feeling his eyes bore into her back as she did so. The bottle wasn’t there.
Panic engulfed her. Had she run out? Surely it couldn’t be. She could not go the rest of the day or the evening without a drink. She felt her palms sweat and her heart start to beat faster. Quickly, she reached for her laptop and logged into the on-line delivery services of all three supermarkets she used. None had an available slot for that day. She then logged into several others; her arms tingling in that old familiar way that heralded a panic attack. None could deliver to her until tomorrow.
‘Anything the matter?’ said her impassively-faced charge sitting opposite her.
‘I’m missing something,’ she replied weakly, realising that in another adult the ambiguity of that remark would have elicited a humorous reply.
‘Is it a bottle of something?’ came the response and the remark made her jump because of its uncanny perception. Was he goading her?
‘No. No, of course not,’ she lied unconvincingly, sounding flustered. He smiled, but it was not a warm one.
‘Is it something we can both go out and get?’
She tried valiantly to calm herself.
‘I can’t go out,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you I can’t.’
‘Can I go and get it?’ he asked. ‘If I can get it from the shop around the corner then I won’t be out of the house for more than a few minutes.’ A sly look crossed his face, which unnerved her. He knew. ‘They can’t serve it to you,’ she muttered. ‘You’re not old enough.’
He smiled knowingly and looked back at his book.
The minutes ticked by; the silence between them unbearable to her and the panic within her not subsiding. ‘Can I have something to drink, please?’ he asked after a time.
She stared at him. The expression on his face was impenetrable but she felt he had asked her for something liquid deliberately, in order to exacerbate her own craving.
She stood up suddenly and wiped her sweaty palms on the side of her skirt. It was a hot day and her unease was making her increasingly uncomfortable. Her lips felt parched, but she knew no glass of water would ever quench her thirst.
‘If I go out to the corner shop, will you come with me?’ she said suddenly.
‘Can’t I stay here whilst you’re gone?’ he asked. Again, that impenetrable little smile.
‘I need you with me,’ she half whispered. When he didn’t appear to hear her, she repeated the remark - only more loudly. ‘It’s a long time since I . . .’ her voice trailed off.
‘Since what?’ he asked with a bland expression.
‘Since I’ve been out of the house,’ she replied, trying to steady her voice.
He put his book down, his expression unchanging.
She gathered up her handbag – an accessory that had been of little use to her in recent years. The amount of cash in her purse was the remainder from her childminding assignments - the majority of her day to day transactions undertaken by card, on-line. There was £25.00 still in there. Just enough for two bottles of sherry; even, perhaps, a can of drink for him. Her legs wobbled; both with fear and from general lack of use.
‘Can you watch out for me?’ she asked him, feeling nauseous as she walked towards the front door.
He didn’t reply but scampered down the two deep steps that lay ahead of her, standing there almost defiantly at the bottom and giving her no encouragement or gesture of support.
She breathed in deeply, as she had been taught when feeling panicky, but it didn’t help and her legs refused to move. As she stood on the top step, she tried to avert her gaze from what lay beneath and glanced up at the sky. It swayed around her until its blueness engulfed her and she succumbed to its embrace. She crumpled and lost her bearing, tumbling down the steps and falling onto the stone paving below, where she lay immobile.
A kind passer-by comforted the strangely self-possessed little boy standing over a stricken old lady and phoned for an ambulance on his mobile phone. Then he phoned the boy’s mother.
The ambulance came quickly, with the boy’s mother in hot pursuit from work not long afterwards. One of the ambulance men shook his head sadly as he carried the prostrate figure out on a stretcher with his colleague. It did not look hopeful.
‘I just need to finish my book,’ said the boy calmly to his mother as the ambulance left and she was about to take him back home. She put the reaction down to shock and gathered him in her arms, hugging him tightly. He remained rigid.
As she went to the front door to take him home, she turned her back on him and he quickly picked up something from the window ledge, hidden behind a volume of books. Moved from its usual resting place, its glass was glistening in the sun and he reached out and put it back on the second shelf in the kitchen cupboard.
In a voice so low it was barely audible, he muttered behind her as she turned the door handle.
‘That’s the last summer you’ll ever leave me here.’