‘Can I sit down?’ I ask.
She nods. There’s plenty of room for two, but it always feels strangely intimate, sharing a bench with a stranger. I sit right at the other end from her. Some dogs are good icebreakers in situations like this, but not mine. He lies down at my feet and proceeds to fall asleep.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ I say. ‘For the other day, for not saying anything. I don’t usually do that kind of thing. It’s not a habit. It was a strange impulse, and I gave in to it, and I don’t know why.’
She shrugs. ‘I’d never report someone for stealing food.’
I think about that. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, because it’s not like they’re stealing something decadent or luxurious, is it? Or something expensive. If someone is stealing food, chances are they need food, and that’s none of my business, and I’m not about to try to make things harder for them.’
It’s a compassionate response, and clearly one she’s thought through. I’m a bit shocked, because all I know of teenagers is what you see in the papers about them feeling entitled and being selfish. I’ve been na?ve, making an assumption based on what the press wants me to believe. Arthur always used to say, ‘Use your eyes and your ears, make your own judgement.’ And he was right.
‘Do you get a lot of it? Shoplifting?’
‘Now and again, not that much. Not usually piccalilli.’
I dip my head, and shame floods me. It’s not even something I like, particularly. Arthur liked it. It was a Christmas staple. I’m not quite out of the habit of stocking up on his favourites as well as mine. In some cases, I’ve forgotten who it was that liked things in the first place. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened, about why I did it, and I think I have some kind of an idea.
‘When you’re young and you’re a woman,’ I say, ‘everyone’s interested in you. In what you look like and what you’ve got to say. And then there’s a point in your life, around fifty or so, when it all stops and you become invisible. And it’s stupid, really, because by then you have much more interesting things to contribute to the conversation, but no one wants to hear them. I’ve come to terms with it, it happened to me a long time ago, but since my husband died, some days I don’t speak to anyone, and I feel like no one can see me, and I think I wanted to test that.’
She stares at me, and I think I’ve gone too far. ‘Huh,’ she says. ‘Invisible.’
We sit, both facing forwards, but I steal odd glances at her. She isn’t the most beautiful girl, but she’s golden in that way that only the very young are. The trouble is, they don’t know it. And you can’t tell them. All her life, a part of her will be trying to recapture the way she is right now.
‘It’s Erin, isn’t it?’ I remember the name badge.
‘It is.’
‘Mabel,’ I say.
And she does something strange, then. She reaches out a small hand and we shake, like businessmen, like allies, like partners. Her hand is small and very cold. We are quiet, and I notice the birdsong all around.
She gestures to the war memorial beyond the graves. ‘Do you remember it?’
‘The war? Just about. Bits and pieces.’
‘They brought us here from primary school once. We had to walk in pairs, holding hands. I got in trouble for talking too much. My teacher said it was disrespectful to the dead. But I couldn’t connect this stone monument to people fighting, and dying. I was ten years old. It didn’t make any sense.’
I understand what she’s saying. If you didn’t live through it, and you’re a child, it must all seem so alien.
‘My father fought. He came back, but everyone said he was never quite the same. There were a lot of casualties like that, that didn’t necessarily involve bullets or being buried overseas.’
She looks at me hard, not embarrassed. How did she learn that? To face difficult things head on? She is so young.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
‘Do you still have both of your parents?’
She nods.
‘You should think yourself lucky.’
She shakes her head, slowly.
‘You don’t agree?’
‘It’s just… I mean, I’m glad my dad hasn’t had to fight in a war, of course I am, but my parents and I don’t exactly see eye to eye about a few things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Well, about me liking girls for a start.’
I’m not sure what she means at first. Liking girls? And then when it hits me, my face flushes. I’m not used to talking about this kind of thing, about people’s preferences. Because sex is lurking under the surface of those conversations, and sex was such a secret when I was her age that my mother never once alluded to it, other than to tell me there might be some pain on my wedding night.
‘I see.’
‘My mum’s religious, says it isn’t God’s way. And I mean, I haven’t actually told her, about me, but I’ve listened to the things she’s said over the years and…’ She mimes a shudder.
I don’t say anything, don’t know what to say.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I have to get to work.’
I smile at her, but I don’t know what she makes of it. She walks away, pulling headphones out of her bright red rucksack and putting them on. It’s a different world, the one she’s growing up in. The one she’ll inherit. She’s got options I didn’t even know to want. An education, a career. And it should be easier, shouldn’t it, but I’m not sure it is. Perhaps there’s no easy way through that transition to adulthood, no matter when you live it.
‘Hello Dad, hello Mother, hello Bill,’ I say, standing and going over to the fence.
Olly sniffs around a bit, nosing cigarette ends out of the way.
‘I thought I’d be lonely without Arthur but he’s set up this carer to come in for me every day. Julie, her name is. I might get her to walk up here with me sometime, because I’m not feeling so steady on my feet, and the last thing I need is to fall over and break my hip. That happened to my friend Enid and she never got out of her chair again. It’s a fool’s game, getting old. You missed all that, didn’t you? Not one of you made it past sixty-six, and I’ve got twenty years on that. I wake up in the morning these days and I have to do an assessment of my whole body, try to work out what hurts and how much and whether it was hurting the day before. And then it takes me ten minutes to get up and going.
‘I think Olly’s pretty fed up with me. I’m not taking proper care of him. It’s too much for me, really. I think I’ll need to see if someone can take him off my hands…’
Olly is sitting by my feet, good as gold, and he lets out a little whimper at that point, as if he understands.