Open Writing

It only took a minute for someone to realise that the coach park was filling up, and then they’d switch it on.

Bagpipe music.

Piped bagpipe music.

Jim couldn’t say which was worse. Just tinnitus. Tinnitus with bagpipe music, or tinnitus with Hilda talking all the time.

It was rare for him to have only the one to contend with. Tinnitus with Hilda was the norm, and he had no way of stopping it. If you haven’t got tinnitus you can have no idea of what it is like. Hilda had been talking for fifty years and was not likely to stop.

Four times a year Jim, Hilda and their friends Carrie and Tom, went off on coach trips. They were the same coach trips, over and over. That way, you got the same comfy hotels, the same bar staff, and the same shopping outlets. Oh, how Hilda and Carrie loved the shopping outlets. North Wales was a good one, so was Scarborough, Jim couldn’t remember number three off hand, but the one on the way down from Scotland was the best. It had the biggest coach park, the best selection of all the things they’d seen in all the smaller shops anyway, and lovely toilets.

The only snag was the bagpipe music.

It was only when they had all got off the coach and were ambling towards the toilets that Jim recalled what he was in for. The ladies pushed on ahead, sure that there would be something other than shortbread and humbugs among the kilts and key-rings, and Jim and Tom brought up the rear. They just wanted a good cup of tea and a scone, but the musak outlet was right on the ceiling of the entrance to the café.

“Can’t be helped.” thought Jim, remembering the last time they came, and the time before. He bought his drink and sat with Tom, cocooned by the awful sound. He had nothing against the bagpipes from a distance: piping in the haggis was fine, accompanying a reel was fine, marching with a band was fine, but here at close quarters, with his ears ringing, it was not to be borne.

The coach stop was for an hour. The ladies returned, clucking with delight over small items bought for grandchildren, and the men saw them settled with cups of tea and teacakes and went for a wander round. There must have been a score of coaches outside, at least; that’s an awful lot of pensioners and other retirees. Every corner of the place was a maelstrom of choosing, paying, and escaping from the mêlée.

Near the men’s toilets Jim could see a small closed-off area with a tartan screen and a cardboard notice: “No entry, employees only.” He peeped in, and saw a little storeroom with shelves and great rolls of tartan for kilts: lambswool rugs and cushions, and racks of coats and jackets were there, and in the far corner was a little brown bentwood chair. There was no-one to see him: no-one else came out of the toilet. Jim edged sideways through the screen, and walked over to the chair. Before he sat down, he pushed it a bit further back so that it would be quite invisible to anyone passing the screen.

With a sigh of exhaustion, Jim sat. He leaned gently against the back. Nothing creaked. All was still, and within a minute, Jim was sound asleep.

The coach was within five minutes of leaving and the other three of the quartet were hurrying back to their seats, chattering away to Sid and Mim, George, Alice and anyone else who had purchases to show off. Mim had bought a lime-green dyed sheepskin rug for beside her bed, but it was proving to be a rather bulky package.

“Everyone on board?” called the driver, who should have counted his passengers but sometimes didn’t because they were almost a full load. He had counted them every time for a whole week, but today they were going home and he wanted to be on his way down the motorway.

“Right, off we go,” he shouted. “We’ll have a comfort stop when we get to the Oxford Services, ladies.”

He always assured the ladies about the comfort stops. Nobody mentioned that the men might need to stop too.

Jumpers and jackets were edged out of their bags to little sounds of approval, and “Oh, that’s nice”, and “What a lovely mauve. I do like a nice mauve.” Toffee papers were scrunched and someone’s loose change clattered on to the floor. Hilda and Carrie had been sitting together looking at each other’s purchases, and Tom was enjoying the extra elbow room where Jim should have been. They were both quite big, bulky men.

Hilda’s neck came round to ask Jim if he was the clumsy one who’d dropped his money: she often called him clumsy for one reason or another, or none at all.

“Jim,” she said. Then “Jim?”, this time with a question mark in her voice.

“Where’s he gone?” She looked crossly at Tom. Tom was fast asleep by then, relaxed into the extra space he didn’t usually have.

“I expect he’s gone down the back,” said Carrie. “He said he likes sitting at the back, he’s got more room for his legs. Look Hilda, I got this scarf pin for our Sheila, do you think she’ll like it?”

“Of course she will,” said Hilda, giving it a quick look.

* * *

Someone was gently shaking Jim’s shoulder. He came to, and opened his eyes and saw a middle-aged lady with a kind face looking at him.

“I’m afraid it’s closing time,” she said. “I don’t know how long you’ve been there, but all the coaches have gone, you know. Did you come on a coach?”

She put a hand under his elbow and helped him out of the chair. Jim thought of the times he’d woken up as a boy after a dream, and not known who or where he was for a while. It felt exactly the same now.

He thanked the lady for waking him and walked slowly through the tartan screen and the darkened shop to the outside world. It was quiet, peaceful. The crowds had gone, and it was a minute before he remembered that there had been bagpipe music when he went in.

Jim felt completely at peace; into his consciousness came the sounds of a blackbird singing from a tree on the other side of the carpark. He hadn’t heard a blackbird sing in years. It was another minute or two before he realised that all was quiet in his head. He was listening for the tinnitus and it wasn’t there. He was listening for Hilda talking, and she wasn’t there. It was wonderful, just wonderful.

He walked slowly over the tarmac to the footpath. As the sun went down the blackbird sang on from the top of the tree, and Jim steadily walked out of sight.

* * *

It was a good hour before Hilda and Carrie ran out of conversation. Tom was still sleeping, and Hilda looked round to see if Jim was as well.

“Jim?” she said to the empty seat. “Jim, where are you ... ? ”

It had been a long day and there were a lot of sleeping figures and lolling heads. Nobody answered.

“He must be down the back,” said Carrie, and again, “he likes it down the back, there’s room for his legs.”

It was left like that. Hilda assumed that Jim was ‘down the back, stretching his legs’.

They were nearly at the Oxford Services when Hilda told the coach driver that her husband wasn’t on board. It took a lot of peering under seats to convince him that Jim was, indeed, not there.

They didn’t go back to look for him, of course, they were too near home. A report would be made on the appropriate form, when they got back, that one of the party had gone missing somewhere, probably at one of the comfort stops. After that, it would be someone else’s problem.

Tom and Carrie gave Hilda a lift back to her front door, and she left the big suitcase in the hall for Jim to deal with in the morning. (Jim? Where is Jim?)

The next day was pension collecting day, something Hilda did normally for the two of them while Jim pottered in the greenhouse. She got up and dressed, made a pot of tea and some toast, enough for two, of course, and laid out the do’s and don’t’s for the day, giving reminders and orders to a husband who wasn’t there. It had been like this for many years. Hilda ran on automatic pilot for a lot of the time, assuming that Jim was listening and taking in her words of useless wisdom.

She’d just got her coat on when the police arrived. There were two if them coming up the path, and Jim was in the middle.

“Mrs Warren?” said one. “We’ve brought your husband back.”

Hilda thought she should say thank you, so she did: not very graciously as she was running late for her bus.

“Jim Warren,” she said, shutting the door quickly, “where do you think you’ve been? You know it’s pension day. Now get yourself a pot of tea and a biscuit and that’ll have to do until I get back.” Then she was gone.

Jim put the kettle on and watched through the kitchen window as his wife hurried through the little gate and flagged down the local bus as it came round the corner. The kettle began to whistle, and he turned down the gas and listened to the soft, plaintive sound rising on the steam, and he remembered, oh how he remembered the song of the blackbird, clear and sweet as the sun went down.