Boiled Sweets

The old woman hobbled down the train station platform and into the shelter. Agnes Mayfair forgot about the bruises on her body for a moment and got up to help her onto the bench. She winced in pain as she took the old woman's weight and lowered her into the seat.

The old woman hung on the crook handle of her rosewood walking stick with plump, pink hands, eventually catching her breath. "Thank you, duck," she said. "My back isn't what it used to be. Sixty years ago, I was a pole vaulter, if you can believe that."

Agnes offered a stiff smile, then turned away, hoping the woman hadn't noticed the effort it took.

"This weather we've been having—bloody murder on the bones," the old woman continued. "I don't imagine it's much of a bother to a young lady like yourself, mind, but to this old bird... ah! What I wouldn't give to emigrate to Crete. Or Cyprus. Have you been to the Mediterranean?"

Agnes had honeymooned with her husband in Mykonos last year. "No," she said. "Never."

"Oh, that is a shame," said the old lady. She bowed her head and started rustling around in her pockets. The wind and rain of last night had abated for now, and the sky over the village of Orkaness had turned concrete-grey—the sort of sky that presses down like a hand, trapping the air. Agnes was thankful the rain had stopped; she hadn't taken an umbrella when she left. If she had, it would have felt like a concession to the mundane, as though what she was running from wasn't so egregious that she wouldn't have stopped to check the forecast.

"Would you like a boiled sweet?" asked the old woman.

"No, thank you," said Agnes.

The old woman plucked a sweet from the side pocket of her raincoat and popped it in her mouth. It rattled against her teeth as she tried to trap it with her tongue; the rattling stopped, and she let out a loud, nasal "Unnnnnn!" Agnes, a little bewildered, leaned away from her—slowly, so as not to appear rude.

"Red," said the old woman, smacking her lips. "I love red... I never look at them before I put them in my mouth. They taste better when you don't know what you're getting."

Two tracks ran parallel through Orkaness Train Station. The one whose platform Agnes waited at carried a train once daily at 8:12 a.m. to Exeter, from where she could switch at Reading, then again at Birmingham, and be at her sister's house in Edinburgh by 9:00 p.m. The other track had been discontinued before Agnes and her husband moved to the village; it was almost impossible to make out beneath the unraked track ballast. Wild grass, ragwort, and mullein spikes had bred their own civilizations up and down the county. The shelter on that track's platform was roofless, its walls vandalized with phallic images and four letter words.

Once in Exeter, if you didn't have a car, it would be slow and difficult to get back to Orkaness. It couldn't be done the same day. This is what Agnes ruminated on, and as 8:12 a.m. approached, she felt a freezing wave of hesitation.

"That's quite the suitcase you've got there, duck," said the old woman. "A long trip you're going on, is it?"

"Yes. Permanent, actually," replied Agnes, now humoring her in the hope that idle talk would usher by the next few minutes.

"Emigrating? To warmer horizons, I hope!"

"Scotland."

The old lady chuckled. "Well, at least they have plenty of whisky. Don't let them rope your husband into wearing a kilt, mind—terribly drafty things, they are."

Agnes briefly imagined her husband in a kilt, his pale legs shivering in a Scottish gale. She almost laughed. "Were you really a pole vaulter?"

"Best in the county," said the old woman. She opened her purse and handed Agnes a picture of a young woman sprinting along an athletics track, holding a vaulting pole above her head as though charging into battle. Agnes played the scene in her imagination—the pinpoint pitch and bend of the pole, the woman's body rising up it and rotating helically over the bar, the rapturous applause as the feat was accomplished. But she could imagine no more than that. Not the landing in the sand, not the ceremony of the medals; only that the woman had grown old the very instant the applause had ended.

"Former glory," said the old woman. "That was at the nationals in 1961. I won silver that day. My, what a day it was! But it was the last time I competed."

Agnes handed her back the picture. "Why did you stop?"

"I fell in love," she said with a gentle melancholy.

"I understand," said Agnes. "Did you marry him?"

The old lady chuckled. "I did marry, but not until much later. That was the year I fell in love with painting."

"With painting?"

"Madly in love. I saw a painting of Greece by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes one day in a magazine. I was waiting in the dentist's office and I just happened to pick it up. Well, I was always a scaredy-cat when it came to the dentist, so I visualized the painting I'd just seen as he was poking around and doing his business. I conjured up the colours in my mind—the complete serenity, the other-worldliness—and do you know what? I felt no pain, no pain at all. After that, I couldn't get enough: Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse. And when I finally worked up the courage to try my own hand, for me, there was only one place to start."

"Greece!" cried Agnes, then shrank back in her seat, embarrassed.

"The white cliffs, the crystal shorelines, the Cycladic pathways... there's really nowhere like it. And there's no feeling like the feeling you get painting in the Athenian sun."

Agnes thought back to Mykonos; for the first time, it was not about making love to her husband, or about walking hand in hand on the white beach, or about any of the whispered promises that came each night as resolutely as the island stars. In this instant, she remembered the young waiter in the hotel restaurant who had been gracious when she spilled her orange juice on his sleeve. "It's okay, Mrs. Mayfair," he had said. "No harm done."

"Do have a boiled sweet," said the old woman.

It was 8:12 a.m., and the train rounded the hillock to the south, coming into view.

"Thanks," said Agnes.

"Well, I should be off. Would you mind helping an old woman twice today?"

"You're not getting on the train?"

"Oh, goodness, no. Terribly noisy things, they are. No, no, I just like to stroll this way with my grand walking stick here. Reminds me of the glory days!"

Agnes was still thinking of the waiter as she helped her to her feet. She felt no pain. She didn't even notice that she felt no pain.

"Goodbye, duck," said the old woman. "Good luck in Scotland!"

"Goodbye," said Agnes.

The old lady hobbled down the platform as the train chugged to a halt. Agnes looked down at the boiled sweet in her palm. Orange.

"Don't look at it before you put it in your mouth!" yelled the old lady over her shoulder. "It tastes better!"

Agnes was sure that was true. But it was okay. There was no harm done.