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‘Tell me something about yourself, then,’ said Jack, ‘and I’ll prove to you that I can actually be interested in other people.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I replied, putting one of my earbuds in. ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’
‘Well, what’s your job?’ he asked, obviously feeling bad. ‘That’s a good place to start.’
‘I work for a marketing company,’ I said. ‘In the city. See? Bet you wished you hadn’t asked.’
He made a big show of looking impressed. ‘No, not at all. I’ve always thought that world sounds very glamorous. Are you always out wining and dining clients over boozy lunches at The Chiltern Firehouse?’
‘I think those days are long gone, sadly,’ I replied. ‘Although there is this bar downstairs from work where we sometimes take clients. It’s not at all fancy, but it can be boozy.’
‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘See, you get to do normal things like spend your lunch hours drinking and your afternoons gossiping with people by the water cooler. Now I’m insanely jealous of you.’
‘Yeah, but you’re doing something you love, so there’s that.’
He shrugged. ‘Swings and roundabouts, eh?’
I smiled at him, thinking I might have been wrong about him. He didn’t appear to be quite as full of himself as I’d thought. ‘Well. Better get going,’ I said, ‘or else I’m going to talk myself out of this run.’
‘You don’t go out on the heath too late, do you?’ he asked, looking worried. ‘Only it’s getting dark already.’
‘I stick to the residential streets in the evenings, mainly. Might go up to Highgate Village, do a bit of a circuit through Archway, come back up by the Royal Free.’
‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘You’re well into your exercise, aren’t you?’
Dan had said the same thing. It annoyed him, he said once; accused me of being obsessed with running. It wasn’t that I was a health freak or anything. It was just that when my heart was pumping, when sweat was pouring down my back, I felt alive and I felt in control and I felt as though I could achieve anything I wanted to achieve. I didn’t often feel those things when I was just on my own doing nothing. Those were the worst times; when it was quiet and I’d do the same old replaying of stuff in my head.
‘That wasn’t a criticism, by the way,’ Jack added quickly, as though he could read my mind. ‘I meant it as a compliment.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, not sure how to take it.
‘I appreciate you dropping this in,’ he said, tapping his fingers on the package.
I nodded and turned to jog down the stairs, not looking back, although I guessed Jack was still standing there because I hadn’t heard his door shut. Between the first and second floors, I bumped into Clive, who was struggling up the stairs with a shopping bag in each hand.
I whipped my earpods out. ‘Are you OK there, Clive?’ I asked.
He looked up, out of breath. ‘That bloody lift is out of service again,’ he said. I detected a wheeze in his voice.
‘Here. Let me take these bags up for you,’ I said.
‘You can’t manage them,’ he said.
‘Course I can. Come on, hand them over.’
Once his hands were free, he grabbed hold of the banister, hauling himself up the stairs behind me. I walked slowly so as not to make him feel as though he had to rush to keep up with me, and also because the bags were actually really heavy – I had no idea how he’d made it down from the village with them.
‘You should get your groceries delivered, you know,’ I suggested. ‘I can set it up for you if you like? Have you got a PC or a laptop?’
‘No, but I have got a smartphone,’ he said, his voice still strained. ‘Will that do?’
I waited for him on his floor. ‘Yes, that’s perfect. Shall I pop in later this week, show you how to do it?’
He smiled at me, rubbing my arm. ‘I’d like that, thank you, Rebecca.’
‘Want me to take these inside for you?’ I asked, pointing at the shopping.
‘No, no, you leave them here on the doorstep. I can see you’re on your way out, I don’t want to keep you.’
I hesitated. ‘You’re sure you can manage?’
He waved me off. ‘I’ll be fine. You go and enjoy yourself now.’
‘I’m going for a run, Clive. Hardly riveting. But thanks,’ I said, starting off down the stairs again.
I looked up to see him bending down, hooking the handle of a bag over one frail wrist, bracing himself on the door frame just so that he could straighten up again. I had a mixture of emotions when I saw elderly people. I used to feel resentful sometimes, that they’d lived to be eighty or ninety and other people hadn’t. But the older I got myself, the less I felt like that. In fact, I looked up to these people who had survived a whole lifetime and had lived through events that we could only imagine and continued on in spite of it all.
Outside, it had started raining, but not badly enough to give me an excuse not to go. I pulled up my hood and set off at a slow jog, warming up my limbs. I couldn’t stop thinking about Clive, hoping he was managing on his own, wondering whether I should have helped him unpack his bags. Next time I was at Greenhill Lodge, I’d pick him up a brochure. I knew the older generation found it hard to have to give up their independence, their homes, but he might like it there, hosting poker nights in the games room, or whatever. Getting involved with all the activities. And Nan would love him.
