The Bench - Part 1

The Bench

The rain had finally stopped.

For most of the previous week, London had seemed permanently wet. Water ran from roofs, gathered along kerbs and left the paths of Postman's Park dark and shining. But on that Monday morning the clouds had broken apart just enough for a weak spring sun to appear.

It was still cold.

Not the sharp cold of winter, but the lingering chill of a season reluctant to let go. The air smelled of damp earth and wet leaves. Beneath the trees, small green shoots were beginning to push through the soil, and a handful of daffodils had appeared among the greys and browns.

Near the centre of the park stood an old wooden bench.

There was nothing particularly special about it.

The wood had faded after years of rain and sunlight. Some of the slats were slightly warped. Drops of water still clung underneath the seat from yesterday's downpour. Above it, a large plane tree stretched bare branches across the pale morning sky.

Most people probably never noticed it.

It wasn't a memorial.

There was no plaque.

Nobody had left flowers there.

It was simply somewhere to sit.

Every day people passed by without giving it a second thought. Office workers crossed the park on their way to work. Tourists wandered through during the summer. Dog walkers stopped for a rest. Sometimes somebody ate lunch there. Sometimes somebody waited for a friend.

Mostly it stood empty.

Beyond the gates, London was beginning another working week.

Buses moved through the traffic. Delivery vans pulled up outside offices and shops. People emerged from Underground stations carrying coffees, checking phones and glancing at watches. Everywhere there seemed to be somewhere to go and something that couldn't wait.

Inside Postman's Park, things moved a little more slowly.

People still hurried through it.

But now and then somebody stopped.

And over the course of that Monday, several people would stop at the old wooden bench.

They would not know one another.

Their lives would never meet.

If they passed on the street, they would walk straight by without exchanging so much as a glance.

Yet for a few minutes each of them would sit in exactly the same place.

Each would arrive carrying something unseen.

A memory.

A worry.

A decision still waiting to be made.

The sort of things everyone carries and rarely talks about.

The bench knew none of this, of course.

It was only a bench.

Weathered wood beneath a tree.

A place to pause between one part of the day and the next.

And on that cold March morning, the first person approaching it was a seventy-nine-year-old retired teacher named Margaret Robertson, with an ageing collie trotting several steps ahead of her.

Margaret

It was not quite eight o'clock when Margaret Robertson and Alfie entered Postman's Park.

At seventy-nine, Margaret was still an early riser.

For most of her life there had always been a reason to get up. School bells. Staff meetings. Lessons to prepare. Exercise books waiting to be marked. Even now, with nowhere she particularly needed to be, she rarely slept beyond six.

Alfie was already several paces ahead.

He was an ageing collie with a greying muzzle and stiffening joints, though he seemed entirely unaware of either fact. Whenever he spotted a bird, squirrel or anything remotely capable of being chased, he transformed instantly into a much younger dog.

"Not so fast," Margaret called.

Alfie ignored her.

"You're getting as bad as Roger."

The words slipped out before she thought about them.

That still happened.

Roger had been gone for nearly a year, but she found herself speaking to him every day. Sometimes it was something she'd heard on the radio. Sometimes a comment about the weather. Sometimes she simply turned towards his chair before remembering there was nobody sitting in it.

Forty years of marriage had left habits that grief couldn't quite erase.

Ahead of her, Alfie splashed directly through a puddle.

Margaret sighed.

"Wonderful. Guess who's cleaning that up later?"

The dog carried on happily.

Roger would have laughed.

The thought carried her backwards, as thoughts often did these days.

Margaret had grown up in Wales.

When she arrived in London during the 1960s, she never intended to stay. Schools needed teachers and she wanted experience before eventually finding a post closer to home. She arrived with a suitcase, a teaching position and a plan.

Stay a few years.

Gain experience.

Save some money.

Go home.

It seemed straightforward enough.

Then she met Roger.

Even now she could picture him clearly.

Tall.

Dark-haired.

A little awkward at times.

The sort of man who believed almost any problem could be solved with enough patience and the proper tool.

Roger had come from Devon.

He was an engineer and approached life the way he approached machinery. If something wasn't working properly, he preferred to understand it rather than complain about it.

He fixed things.

Boilers.

Bicycles.

Leaking taps.

Broken shelves.

Occasionally other people's problems.

The one thing he never mastered was remembering birthdays.

"For an engineer," Margaret often told him, "your understanding of dates is remarkably poor."

Roger's answer never changed.

"That's why I married a teacher."

Even now, the memory made her smile.

Looking back, she couldn't identify the exact moment London stopped feeling temporary.

Perhaps it was after they married.

Perhaps when they bought their first flat.

Perhaps when conversations about going home gradually disappeared and were replaced by plans for the future.

The years simply rolled forward.

Neither of them wanted children.

It was never a decision they regretted or one they felt obliged to explain. Their lives were already full.

Margaret devoted herself to teaching.

Roger built his career.

They worked hard, saved what they could and gradually created a comfortable life together.

The cramped flat they once considered luxurious eventually gave way to a larger house.

They talked about moving again one day.

One day never arrived.

The house became theirs in a way that had nothing to do with paperwork or ownership.

Photographs filled shelves.

Marks appeared on walls.

Drawers accumulated things neither could quite bring themselves to throw away.

One armchair became permanently Roger's despite overwhelming evidence that it was deeply uncomfortable.

Every room absorbed part of their shared history.

Roger retired first.

Margaret never really understood how.

Teaching had become too much a part of who she was.

She loved classrooms.

Loved the mixture of routine and chaos.

Loved watching confidence appear where uncertainty had once been.

Every September brought a new class.

Every July brought another farewell.

Roger thought she was slightly mad.

Margaret suspected exactly the same thing about retirement.

After leaving work, Roger spent several months wandering around the house inventing jobs that didn't need doing.

Eventually he found something better.

That was when Alfie arrived.

The collie had been sitting in a rescue centre kennel with too much energy and absolutely no intention of behaving himself.

Roger fell in love immediately.

Alfie appeared to make the same decision.

Before long they were inseparable.

Roger walked him every morning and joined the local bowls club.

To everyone's surprise, including his own, he turned out to be rather good.

A few years later he became captain.

Margaret occasionally went to watch.

She never quite understood how a game that looked so peaceful could generate quite so many arguments.

Eventually she retired too.

Really retired.

Not the version where she quietly adjusted her age and carried on for another year.

Actual retirement.

She remembered standing in the kitchen one morning, looking across the table at Roger.

"What am I supposed to do all day?"

He smiled over his tea.

"Anything you like."

For a while, that was exactly what they did.

That summer they packed the car and drove to Scotland.

The three of them.

Margaret.

Roger.

Alfie.

For the first time in decades there was no timetable.

No lessons.

No school term waiting on the horizon.

They stayed where they wanted and left when they felt ready. Sometimes they remained somewhere an extra night simply because they liked it.

Margaret remembered how strange that freedom felt.

And how wonderful.

What she didn't know was that Roger was hiding something.

He was ill.

Doctors knew.

Members of the bowls club knew.

Roger knew.

Margaret did not.

He attended appointments without saying much about them. When he seemed tired, she accepted his explanations.

After all those years together, trust had become automatic.

Why wouldn't she trust him?

Then, towards the end of the previous year, he died.

To Margaret it still felt impossible to describe exactly when life changed.

One moment they had been discussing dinner, arguing about whose turn it was to make tea and complaining about the weather.

The next there was only Margaret.

Only afterwards did she discover how much he had hidden.

Sometimes she felt angry.

Not because he was gone.

Because he had chosen to carry the burden alone.

Then guilt would follow immediately afterwards.

Grief, she had discovered, rarely behaved sensibly.

The months that followed blurred together.

Telephone calls.

Forms.

Paperwork.

Cards.

Visitors.

The funeral.

She remembered looking around the crowded church and being surprised by how many people had come.

Everyone seemed to have a story about Roger.

Something he had repaired.

Something kind he had done.

A favour he had performed years earlier and never thought important enough to mention.

For a few hours she discovered parts of her husband's life she had never known.

Afterwards people promised to stay in touch.

And for a while they did.

There were visits.

Phone calls.

Offers of help.

But life moved on.

The calls became less frequent.

The visits stopped.

People returned to their own routines.

Gradually, without her quite noticing, the world became quieter.

Until eventually there were only two of them.

Margaret and Alfie.

Perhaps that was why these walks had become so important.

The house wasn't empty.

It was still full of furniture.

Full of photographs.

Full of memories.

What it lacked was Roger.

That was different.

She reached the old wooden bench and ran a gloved hand across the damp wood.

Still wet.

Close enough.

She sat down.

Across the grass, Alfie was already searching for trouble.

Margaret watched him for a moment.

There were things she missed that surprised her.

Not anniversaries.

Not birthdays.

Not holidays.

The ordinary things.

Roger making tea.

Roger arguing with the newspaper.

Roger searching for his glasses while they sat on top of his head.

Roger loading the dishwasher in ways that somehow defied engineering logic.

Those were the memories that arrived most often.

Those were the ones that hurt.

Because it wasn't simply a husband she missed.

It was Roger.

Around her, people crossed the park on their way to work.

Coffee cups in hand.

Phones pressed to their ears.

Always hurrying somewhere.

Margaret watched them pass and wondered whether any of them realised how quickly those years disappeared.

Across the grass, Alfie wandered off to investigate something of enormous importance known only to himself.

Margaret leaned back against the bench.

That was when she became aware of someone sitting down at the other end.

She hadn't noticed him approach.

A young man, perhaps in his early thirties.

He appeared to be of Indian heritage. He wore a dark business suit beneath a smart overcoat and carried a leather briefcase, which he placed carefully between his feet. His shoes were polished. His tie was perfectly straight.

"Hope you don't mind," he said.

Margaret glanced at the significant amount of empty bench separating them.

"Not at all."

"Thank you."

For a while neither spoke.

The young man checked his watch.

A minute later he checked it again.

Margaret pretended not to notice.

Teaching had taught her many things over the years.

One of them was how to recognise nerves.

Children weren't the only people who displayed them.

His leg moved restlessly.

He looked towards the office buildings beyond the park gates.

Then back at his watch.

Then towards his phone.

Whatever awaited him that morning, he clearly wasn't looking forward to it.

Margaret considered saying something.

Asking whether he was all right.

She decided against it.

People were entitled to their private troubles.

After all, nobody sitting beside her would guess she still found herself speaking to a husband who had been dead for nearly a year.

The young man checked the time once more.

Then abruptly stood.

"I'd better get going."

Margaret nodded.

"Don't want to be late."

"No."

For a moment he looked as though he might say something more.

Instead he smiled politely.

"Have a good day."

"You too."

He picked up his briefcase and walked away towards the park gates.

Margaret watched him disappear into the morning crowd.

Something was troubling him.

She was fairly certain of it.

Then again, she reflected, most people were troubled by something.

The difference was that few of them showed it.

For a few minutes, an old widow remembering her husband and a young professional worrying about whatever lay ahead had shared the same bench beneath the same tree.

Neither knew anything about the other's life.

Then life carried them in separate directions once more.

Across the grass, Alfie suddenly spotted a group of birds.

Margaret sighed.

She knew what was coming.

"Alfie. Don't you dare..."

Too late.

The collie charged.

The birds scattered instantly into the air.

Alfie stared after them in disbelief.

Margaret laughed.

And for the briefest moment, sitting beneath the bare branches in the weak March sunlight, she could almost hear Roger laughing beside her.