Bailey

‘Morning, afternoon, evening Bailey’ from anyone passing. It’s not ‘Andrew’ or ‘Andy’.

Mowing the grass with one of those old-fashioned push mowers that you remember as a kid. Dead heading the dahlias with a pair of lethal secateurs. Feeding the flower containers with an ancient, bashed metal watering can.

When his house was cleared the mower ended up in the memory ‘shop’ next to M&S in the Mall. I have the secateurs. The watering can is hanging from a hook in the back garden. You can hear it rattling against the fence when the wind blows in a certain direction. It sounds lost.

Bailey lives on his own. I don’t know if he has been married or has children. Afterwards, standing in his living room – never in all the years that I have known him have I been in the house – conversations never go beyond the front door – I see an old black and white photo. A much younger Bailey, a woman, two boys.

Someone calls an ambulance. Bailey lies on his side on the front lawn. I hurry across. Two paramedics are kneeling. He is lifted on to a trolley. His eyes flicker open. He reaches out to take my hand. I sit with him on the way to the hospital.

The ambulance parks outside A&E.

He is eventually seen by a doctor.

He lies for hours on a trolley in the corridor. I strain to hear his whispered words above the noise and continual crush of passing bodies.

He is admitted to a ward. I say I will see him in the morning.

After breakfast I phone the hospital. ‘He is fine. He had a comfortable night.’

He dies as I am searching for a space in the car park.

In his house I feel like an intruder. In a drawer in the sideboard is a brown envelope. Exactly where he says it is. ‘To be opened in the event of my death’. He has everything arranged. There is no service. His ashes are scattered in the Garden of Remembrance at the crematorium.

A few weeks later I read his obituary in the local newspaper

‘Andrew Edward Bailey. Born Edinburgh 1930. British army. Served in Kenya, Aden, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland. Married in 1950 to Margaret McMullen; she and their children were killed in a car accident in 1960. After leaving the army he retired to West Mains, where he died from a heart attack on the 1^st of May. His entire estate was bequeathed to the local Dog’s Trust. A spokesperson for the Trust said, ‘We never knew Mr Bailey but appreciate the bequest he made.’

There is a family in the house now.

A trampoline sits where the dahlias grew.

There’s a hot tub and a gazebo on a corner of the artificial lawn.

I walk past most days.