Haywards Heath

The youth at the car-hire desk must have turned on the radio when he brought the car round. The new generation could not tolerate the sound of silence.

He wore a Malcolm X goatee and a suit to attend lectures. This made her feel sorry for him, she said.

Now he knew how his patients felt. He analysed his own behaviour. Prevarication. He drove steadily for ten minutes following the voice’s orders.

The air was overheated, filled with static and the smells of cooked food and talcum powder.

The last time they saw each other she had not wanted him to leave. He told her it was a condition of his scholarship. They’d argued for weeks, months. ‘What about us?’ she’d pleaded. But he went back to his country anyway, full of ideas of himself, of the future. Which one of them had been naïve?

Through a porthole in a door he saw the young African helper spooning food into the mouth of an elderly woman. Something about the scene stopped Attila: the hand at her back, which prevented her from slumping, the infinite care in the way the young man wiped her slackened mouth with a napkin. At one point the careworker looked up, straight at Attila. Their eyes met. The young man said nothing but bent once more to his task. Attila turned away.

She held on to his arm, seemingly awash with the wonder of it all. She reached out to touch the drops of rain on the leaves, tilted her head, gazed at the sky and closed her eyes. He waited and watched her. She stretched out her arms. He had a memory of a photograph of her in the exact same pose. Where was it now?

Behind them the old woman sat staring into the middle distance, her hands curled limply around the box of sweets. Attila could hear the daughter finish her call.

Around the room elders dozed and snored, made soporific as flies by music and heat.

He bent to pick up the box of sweets, heard Rosie say his name and looked up. The smile was already on his face.

But she was not looking his way, seemed not to be aware of his presence in the room. Rather she was looking up at the young careworker, who still held her in his arms. ‘Shall we do another turn, Attila? Another turn. What do you say?’

And the young man replied, ‘Whatever makes you happy, Rosie.’

Rosie nodded. The music began again. Attila replaced the box of Newbury Fruits on the table. He sat down and watched.