Some weeks ago I escaped the dreary confines of the Taylorian basement for a walk. My essay could wait; I had some urgent errands to complete. If I didn’t collect my parcel that very hour, the post office, busy as they always were at noon on a working day, would simply bin it. And I’d had lunch a mere hour ago, so a digestive aid was in order. All this, alongside the cruel and absurd expectation that I would transition from meal to work time without any dessert, made this walk unquestionably urgent. I had already whiled two weeks away in lieu of writing my essay.
What was another few hours?
The air was fresh but cool. Trinity term is always colder than anyone expects, and Michaelmas term, warmer. ‘How did we manage such long walks in October?’ a friend asked me one clear, cold night as we trekked home from the bus stop at Queen’s Lane. The answer is this collective hallucination we all seem to experience regarding the weather – that this year, the weather will defy our lived experience of reality, and re-align itself with our disproven expectations. I wonder what it is that gives this hallucination rise.
Perhaps the only discernible benefit to this annual gap between expectation and reality is that it somewhat simulates the less temperate seasonal cycle to which I was accustomed growing up in Ontario. Each of life’s seasons feels endless to a child. The beating pulse of summer was, then, endless; so too the crunch of leaves heralding the autumn, its end. Come each new term, my purse feels similarly endless. In an effort to avoid the classic start-of-term over-spend, I substituted one bad habit for another. This time it was out with trips to cafés and in with ordering clothes.
On that day some weeks ago I decided that I deserved both, and my milkshake melted slowly into my hand as I stood, tapping one heel against the linoleum floor in time with the ticking of an invisible clock. I had neglected to put this into words just yet, not wanting to make any genre whatsoever of commitment to returning to work, but I was rather hoping to wait no longer than ten minutes for my parcel, maybe fifteen.
Ticket 627 was called and I pocketed a crushed number 663. Twenty-five minutes, if I was lucky. Did I feel lucky? The spill-over desk sometimes opened as compensation was closed. The room and its occupants sweltered. I wondered if a shift behind the mailroom counter serving less than ten customers in however many hours felt all that different to a never-ending slog like this one. Much later I put this thought into words, and realised how out of touch I must sound. Obviously, more work feels like more, and less like less. I decided that, some weeks ago, I must have felt lucky. Not quite enough to stick around in the mailroom – I ambled out not five minutes later, shifting my cup into my other hand and shaking the chill off my fingers, deciding the rest of my break was best spent on the commute back. But lucky enough, once I’d assessed my options, and realised that unlike the people behind the counter, I was free to leave.
I considered briefly handing my ticket to someone entering the post office on my way out, but everyone within speaking distance had had the same idea as me, and I was surrounded on all sides by people exiting. I found myself just behind an older woman. She was somewhere between older than me, and older than most; not at all middle-aged, but not really elderly. Not yet. I measured each step just so, not wanting to edge past her but too hesitant to offer help lest it be unwanted. I was so focused on the length of my own footsteps that I didn’t notice her turn toward me until she spoke.
I can’t faithfully repeat our conversation to the word, so I won’t make an attempt to do that. I can’t, either, in good faith, repeat her name; I’ve been back to the post office since, of course, to retrieve my package at last, but not long enough to verify if the floor really is made of linoleum, and never, certainly, long enough to ask around for her so I can be sure that she wouldn’t mind her name in my self-absorbed print. The older woman wore a magenta cardigan, I think, and a multi-coloured scarf, and she descended the stairs so slowly that I thought she would benefit from a walker or a cane.
She peered at me through oval rims and asked my name. I gave it. She told me her name in return, and then took a breath, peering at me all the while. Someone edged past us, an elbow, a pram. I held my free arm out to the side to stop the edge of the pram hitting either of us in the side. The world moved, its invisible clock ticking steadily on. I felt a familiar, bemused tilt to the corner of my mouth – the sort that comes from an unusual or unexpected interaction, that description earned in this case by its prolonged nature. What did she want from me that was taking so long to formulate?
At long last, she asked me for the time, as warmly as such an unremarkable inquiry can be made. My watch strap broke two winters ago, and instead of a strap to replace it, my mother bought me a new watch. Predictably, last winter, I broke the second. Buying a third would have been excessive, so instead I checked my phone. Someone else pushed past us, followed by a third. I told her that it was thirteen minutes past two o’ clock. She would want the exact time, I thought. She probably has to catch a bus. I could not imagine she was walking home, wherever that might be.
The older woman beamed and placed a hand on my arm. Thank you. Condensation dripped from my fist onto the tops of her shoes. She examined me again, but not for long. And thank you for protecting me. She gestured to my arm, held out to steady myself. You are a very beautiful girl. I was taken aback, but not for long. Having now the benefit of hindsight, I see that it was this comment above all else which made the interaction remarkable – I began to think that I would certainly recount this story to friends. It was only then that I took care to observe her face in return.
I do not know what to write about her. I was too focused on looking for the similarities between us, and therefore I missed entirely the things which made her unique. She smiled warmly at me and I, distracted by the exact shade of her cardigan and the precise words which she had used to describe me, tried to return it. Then she thanked me again, turned, and walked in the opposite direction. She passed the bus stop. I felt I was running late – two o’ clock comes but twice a day, and can only be made use of once. My drink had become inedible. I did not stay to watch her go.