Life’s A Tin Of Peaches by Leanne Simmons

Frank likes motorbikes and works nights. He’s in bed when I get up for school in the mornings, but I know he’s made it home because there’s a grimy ring around the sink and rust-coloured wee in the toilet. His sandwich box, with a crumpled crisp packet and eggy clingfilm inside, is always by the kettle for Mum to clean out.  

Mum works in Foxgrove Care Home. She pushes a trolley clinking with cups and saucers and watches over the ones who can wobble spoonfuls of mushy meat and veg to their mouths. She wipes their chins and hoicks them in and out of stale chairs. In summer, she wheels them around the garden so they can smell the stocks and watch the blue tits beak the tangerine-coloured fat blocks hanging from the branches. Mum is strong. Frank says he doesn’t know how she does it. 

Frank gets up in the afternoons and fills the kitchen with bits of motorbike. Mum does an extra shift on Wednesdays and is out until late, so if Frank has to go anywhere, I go with him. Today it’s the auto parts store on the parade of shops on the main road. We walk. It’s between the hardware place and the bookies. Frank likes a flutter. I go in sometimes, perch on a high stool, watch the horses prance around the parade ring on the little screens while men scrawl on scraps of paper with pencils they keep tucked behind their ears. Frank disappears out the back with the lady from the counter who lines her eyes the colour of the flimsy dishcloths he uses to rub his oily fingers clean.

“I’ve had a tip on a longshot,” he says, leaning open the door of the bookies.

“Chippy for tea?” I ask. Hot fat and vinegar sharpen the air and I think of Mum. 

I wait outside. The window display shouts spot the ball and free cash. Two men ruffle newspapers, talking odds. Another emerges from the gloom pasty-faced, eyes folded, slipping a wallet into his back pocket. A concertinaed ticket between his lips. A teenager passing chumps a chip gritted with salt and dumps the wrapper. Sirens swirl in the distance.

The hardware shop is edged with queasy yellow paint. It sells all sorts. Outside, there’s a rack of doormats and stacks of plastic buckets and basins. Brooms are propped upside down, bristles in the air, just asking to be touched and bags of nuts and seeds for the birds are piled in a bin. Net bags bursting with logs and bundles of kindling wrapped in polythene sit on the pavement with the fag ends. A bell chings from inside and an old lady eases through the door, dragging one of those two-wheeled shopping trollies. She’s struggling to keep the trolley bag open and put a bag of bird food in it, so I go over and help.

“What a precious pearl you are,” she says and waddles off, taking tiny steps, close together, like a grey pigeon. I look up at the deepening blue, feel the hum of the traffic. The weight of early evening. 

A rush of feet. A cry. A man in work boots and a hi-vis vest drops his Pot Noodle and dives in to help the old lady who is in a heap on the ground. People gather. Her little trolley is on its side and shopping is spilling out. A tin of peaches begins to roll away. It’s gathering speed so I chase it. I’m crouching and running and trying to reach it. It plops down the curb and rolls into the road and I am going so fast I can’t stop. Sirens.

It’s quiet in here. Just the slow drone of grey sky through the window. The seconds drip by.

Mum visits when she can but her friend Donna’s had a breakdown, so Mum’s picked up her shifts. Frank says it’s a good job because the car park here costs an arm and a leg. He comes with her sometimes. Doesn’t say much, just stands about at the bottom of the bed, jingling change in his pockets. The man in charge of my legs has a summery face. He perches on the end of the bed and chats while he examines me with his cheerful, clean hands. He said I might get out of bed next week if he can get his hands on a natty wheelchair. He’ll have to grease the wheels. He’s not a doctor, but he has a clipboard and now they know my head will get better. He’s going to teach me to walk. They’ve had a good rest while I was asleep and are healing up nicely.

The other thing that happened while I was asleep was the pigeon lady came out of hospital and went into a home. Not Foxgrove, but Mum goes to visit her too. No one says much about what happened at the shops that day, apart from Frank, who’d like to get hold of the moron who was driving. The other day, Penny, the nurse, came in when Mum and Frank were there. She breezes in and out, smoothing sheets and clicking her pen with sharp fingers. We’re quiet and can hear the soft scoring sound her light strokes make as she scribbles on my chart. When she asked why I hadn’t been holding Frank’s hand, Mum’s gaze drifted out of the window. Coins chinkle. I didn’t say anything about the bookies or the lady behind the counter. Or the tin of peaches. Neither did Frank.

That was the day Mum forgot to bring me clean pyjamas. I wasn’t surprised. Between Foxgrove, visiting the pigeon lady and running around after me, Frank says he doesn’t know how she does it.

Leanne Simmons

Image by Rubén Méndez from Pixabay – squashed and damaged tin can lying on gravel.