A GOOD WAY TO GO

A GOOD WAY TO GO © Mollie Kay Smith

Despite good manners being high on her list of desirable qualities the old lady elbowed her way through the crowd of London shoppers like a ruffian at a football match. Today, she decided, her need was infinitely more important than their complaints. Even at the cost of appearing unladylike she must keep pace with the glint of gold twisting and tumbling alongside her in a gutter already over laden by the monsoon-like rain which had fallen since early morning.
'Look. Oh, do look. It's a fish like those we used to see in India.' She cried out loud laughing joyfully and clapping her hands like an infant whenever the strand of yellow ribbon made a particularly convoluted manoeuvre. Inevitably the ribbon became trapped in a grating where it writhed and wriggled and looked so much like a real fish that Chrissie, for that was the old lady's name, shrieked in horror.
'Save it. Please. Don't let it be swept away. We must at least try.'
Too late she knelt beside the gutter and stretched out her hand. The scrap of ribbon disappeared down into the sewers beneath the pavement along with the dead leaves, cigarette buts, sweet wrappings and other debris.
Nobody seemed to notice Chrissie - or the ribbon. With heads bent and umbrellas hoisted like shields against the elements they squelched through the puddles and saw nothing whatsoever to wonder at.
She might as well have been invisible for nobody commented when she winced and pressed her hand hard against her chest as she struggled painfully upright again.
'What a pity.' Being alone she spoke to herself. 'The fish was so beautiful, wasn't it?'
She continued to reflect aloud on the qualities of 'the fish' as she reassembled her collection of shopping bags which had momentarily been abandoned during her quest to save the ribbon. Then she moved to find shelter beneath the convenient overhang of a nearby store where she set about reorganising herself.
With shaking fingers she drew out the huge pearl-headed pin from her hat and then, stabbing it back into place with practiced ease, she re-anchored the confection more firmly on to her copious grey hair.
Even ignoring the rest of her appearance the hat gave the game away. An enormous pink peony topped its crown. Once sumptuous and velvety it now squelched like a jelly fish amongst net limp as seaweed. Nobody with even an ounce of sense would have worn it on a day like today.
Nevertheless the hat and the mangy fox tails dangling from the fur slung around her shoulders in the fashion of a neolithic man seemed in some strange way to support her look of autocractic gentility. A still confident upper class demeanour, reinforced by high cheek bones and smooth almost translucent skin, continued to confirm to the world that this was a lady despite the fact that she now looked like an actress dressed to play the part. An Eliza Doolittle caught on set in a rainstorm, totally out of place in late-spring-up-to-the-minute-Knightsbridge.
'I'll just rest here for a minute,' she told herself as she arranged her clutch of bags around her feet. On many the plastic was ripped and torn, but still their green and gold created a cheerful island around which the tide of unseeing shoppers flowed.
'Too much to do,' she said to nobody in particular, 'there always is.'
She turned to look at the brilliantly lit window display behind her and expressed an appreciative 'Oh!' The centrepiece was a full length mirror with an Arabian shawl draped artistically around one of its corners The shawl's identifying label informed prospective buyers that it was pure silk and priced at £850.
'Mm. A bit on the top side, I'd say. It's lovely, mind you. But Bertie could never afford it.'
She spoke this time to an old woman with bird-bright eyes looking at her out of the mirror. Her fingers, knobbed at the knuckles and curved with arthritis into claws, rubbed contemplatively across cheeks gleaming damp and pale beneath the sodden confection of hat.
'You look as if you know me,' she said to the image, 'though I'm sure we've never met. Who are you?'
Not waiting for a reply her glance flickered away, darting amongst the other objects on display, settling finally on a peacock blue umbrella with a long shimmering fringe. It stood open on its elegant ivory handle.
'Now that is something. That's the most beautiful thing I ever saw.' Her eyes widened in admiration. 'It's exactly the blue of the Mediterranean sky in August. It reminds me of the trips I made with Bertie just after we were married. When he was just a junior diplomat.'
A young man who had come to shelter alongside her deliberately turned his head away and looked in the opposite direction. 'Silly, old bat.' he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke and shaking his head. His facial expression showed disgust rather than sympathy. 'Mad as a hatter. Shouldn't be let out on her own.'
In the window an unseen current of air caught the umbrella's fringe causing it to undulate gently. Chrissie matched its rhythm with her head and started to hum a tune popular in the early thirties.
'I can smell the scent of cedar wood,' she confided, adding further uninvited details of newly stimulated memories.
She spoke of the sunshine reflecting on the golden temples of Delhi, of elegant dinner parties and glittering balls, of tea-parties and shopping trips.
'When I look at that umbrella I can actually feel the movement of the rickshaw and hear the plat, plat, plat of the walla's feet on the baked earth of the road.'
She was silent for a while seemingly lost in memories. Her voice when she spoke again was so loud it startled a woman standing nearby.
'Those were the days. It was lovely and warm then. Now I'm so cold. Whatever time is it?'
'Just after six.' The woman made no eye contact with Chrissie and her body language sent out obvious signals that she really did not want to talk.
'Thank you.' Chrissie replied politely. 'I thought my husband would have been here by now. It's getting colder, isn't it?'
'Yes.' The word sounded as if it had been dragged unwillingly from the woman. But this time she did look at Chrissie. 'You should take more care at your age. You should at least have an umbrella in this weather.'
She turned away, but Chrissie caught her forearm to forestall her departure.
'You're absolutely right. That's why Bertie is going to buy me that one for my birthday. It'll be a birthday present and a wedding anniversary present. I was a spring bride you see.'
'Interesting I'm sure. But I have to go. Here's my cab.'
The doorman from the store arrived, important under a large umbrella. Ignoring Chrissie he spoke to the other woman.
'You really should have waited inside madam. You ought not to be standing out in all this rain. Has this person been bothering you?'
'No..er..that is to say. Is this my car?'
'Yes Madam. Let me take your packages.'
Chrissie watched as the woman got into the car then saw her slide a note into the hand of the doorman. As the taxi drove away the man now came towards her still under his umbrella.
'Come on love,' he said, gently pushing her forwards by her shoulder. 'You ought to be making tracks. The shop is shutting. Besides the hostel will get full early tonight with the weather being so rotten.' He looked around helplessly, then tried a wheeling tone. 'There might be a singsong. You'd like that wouldn't you?'
'Maybe' Chrissie's voice lacked conviction. 'But I'll wait a little longer. Bertie might still come. I'll just sit here and wait for him.'
The doorman tried for a while longer to get her to leave, but then he finally gave in. What more could he do?
'Well, it is up to you, me old china. I'm off home. We're having a knees up tonight. All the family will be there and I'm late already.'
Chrissie sank down amongst her bags. She talked to herself. 'Course he'll come. They were lying when they told me he was dead. He wouldn't commit suicide. It wasn't his fault we were left penniless. And he didn't gamble like some said, or steal ...and I didn't go mad either. Just a spell in hospital for something or other.'
Her head shook from side to side like that of a caged tiger. It was a rhythmic futile movement and caused drops to fall from the bedraggled hat to run like tears down her cheeks.
'It was so long ago I can't remember. Anyway when they sent me out they said I was fit to be integrated into society again. And being in society means being back with Bertie.'
Hours later, if anyone had been passing, they might have heard her talking to herself again.
'Oh, there you are Bertie. Late as usual. I'm pleased you got the umbrella, it's exactly what I wanted. Come along dear, here's our rickshaw. Get in.'
Later still an anonymous phone call brought a police van to Knightsbridge.
'There's a pile of old plastic bags on the pavement. Might be cover for a bomb', the caller said.
One of the investigating constables loaded most of the bags into the van whilst he waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Finally only one remained, black and larger than the others and zipped.
His partner stood before the open door of the police vehicle reporting in to HQ.
'It's Chrissie. That's right. The old lady with the hat. No sign of foul play. Looks as if she just went to sleep. Good way to go if you have to, I suppose.'
He signed off and bent down to pick up a strand of yellow ribbon which was wriggling down the gutter looking like a golden fish, a duplicate of one which had passed that way earlier in the day.
'Yes, a good way to go if you have to. Pity though that nobody noticed her earlier. We just might have been in time to get her into a hospital bed before she went.'