He waited. They came.
He hadn’t always sat there, we were told. But he had sat there as along as us kids could remember. Sat in a ratty armchair protected from the incessant Northern weather by a plastic tarpaulin. Sat in his front yard on the road into the estate. Staring beyond the disintegrating fence that marked his property. Out of the estate, over the main road and the petrol station, out over the dirty river and the ships and ferries that steam in from the Ocean. Gazing, even beyond the great city on the other bank. He was waiting they said.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
Once he had ventured out. After work, we were told, he’d be seen down the Swan, supping milk stout. He wasn’t the life and soul of the party. It wasn’t him that lead the sing-songs by banging Take Me Home Country Roads on the battered old piano. But he would exchange a nod or a few words with acquaintances in the darts team.
As time passed he went there less and less preferring his front yard. In them days he could be seen tending a small vegetable bed. Now and then he would leave off weeding and retreat to the front step and watch the estate go about its business.
As youth turned to middle-age he started to neglect this garden and spent more time sitting on a stool observing the world around him. Our Mams would greet him as we trundled past in our pushchairs to the arcade; Our Nans and Nanas would park tartan trolleys, resting their bunions at his gate and enquire after distant relatives. He is waiting they said.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
Then we were old enough to play out on our own. And he would watch our games from his yard. The vegetable patch was now dust. The stool replaced by a wooden kitchen chair; blanched by sunlight and rotten by rain. Fewer people stopped to talk with him now but if a ball landed in his yard he would slowly rise and return it without a word. This taciturn exchange was better to us than a lecture about respecting other people’s property.
Sometimes when one of us scored a skilful goal, he would catch their eye and tap the peak of his cap in acclaim. If we fell and bloodied a knee on the tarmac, he would watch over until somebody’s Mam scuttled out to administer first aid. But mostly his attention drifted over our heads, beyond the estate and across the water. The old folk said he was waiting.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
One day our Mums and Dads received a letter from the Corporation. The estate was old, it said. The houses had outlived their expected lifetimes and were no longer suitable for people to live in. They were to be knocked down and the families who rented would be relocated to a new estate. Folk who had bought their homes from The Corporation received generous buyback offers.
He refused to leave. It was where he’d been born. He told the Corporation, he’d paid them good money for a house that suited him and he had no intention of finding another.
One by one our Dads went to talk to him. They were afraid his cussedness would scupper the whole scheme. One by one they left frustrated. A home isn’t just somewhere you rest your head, he told them, it is part of you.
In the end the Corporation decided to let him be and street by street, family by family we packed up our belongings and abandoned the estate to him and him to the estate. He watched us go, sat in the first of many of armchairs. As we waved tatty-bye we said quietly to each other he’s still waiting.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
And so he found himself alone. The sole inhabitant of a boarded up estate. The vegetable patch had been replaced by concrete paving. He had begun to decorate the yard with ornaments. Disfigured gnomes, a shop dummy dressed in a black robe, a horned ram’s skull. But this didn’t seem out of place in the decaying estate.
Eventually the bulldozers moved in, levelling everything around him. A surveyor examined the homes on either side. These couldn’t be removed without damage to his. So the Corporation secured them with metal shutters over the doors and windows and left.
We would see him from the bus to college. Still sat in his front garden and we’d point him out to our new friends and tell them he’s waiting.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
In time grass began to grow on the wasteland. Trees began to seed. Foxes and squirrels moved in. At Halloween he would decorate the three houses still standing with ghoulish festoons but no trick or treaters would call. With flags and patriotic bunting he would mark royal celebrations and sporting victories.
At Christmas we’d see his fairy lights, from the Petrol Station. Unblinking and eerily harsh in the empty blackness of our former home. The attendants told us that he sits in the yard all day now. Staring. And we would tell them he’s waiting.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
Then we got jobs. We became posties, milkmen, meter readers. Jobs that from time to time took us to the old estate. And we’d pass on our Mams and Dads regards. He was older now. Without the need to go out to work he would sit in the front all day. A sentinel guarding the scrubland. He’d stare across the main road, past the petrol station, over the dirty river beyond even the great city on the far bank.
In the evenings, in the Swan, our friends would joke and sneer about him. But we didn’t. Not us that grew up on the estate. We stuck up for him. He was all that remained the community we’d grown up in, its only gatekeeper. Our friends asked, what he was doing, sitting there all day. He’s waiting we told them.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
One day a man from the Corporation appeared. A developer had been found. There were to be new homes here. A whole new estate. There’d be a lot of disruption and noise whilst they built around him. Wouldn’t he rather sell up? He declined. It would be nice to have neighbours again.
And so the diggers and the bricklayers; the plasterers and the roofers set to work all around him. Some of us got jobs on the new estate, and would nod at him each morning as we arrived. And in our lunch breaks we’d wander over for a chat. Then in evening we’d nod farewell. How’s he getting on our Mams would ask. He’s still waiting we’d tell them.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
We bought houses in the new estate and moved our families in. Our kids played in front of his house. He no longer had the energy of his youth. So when a ball landed in his yard one of the braver boys would have to retrieve it. He didn’t really pay them any heed. He was too busy watching for something, a long ways outside the estate, beyond the main road and the petrol station, beyond even the dirty river and the great city on the other bank. He’s waiting we told our kids.
Waiting. Waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who never comes.
The milkman found him. Sat in a ratty armchair in the front yard. We all went to the Swan for the wake.
His house stands empty now. The Corporation haven’t decided what to do with it. The armchair has been incinerated and the decorations lobbed in a skip. Metal shutters cover the doors and windows. On the wall someone has daubed the words -
He waited. They came.
This story was written by Declan IOM. Declan writes stories, poems and songs in the Isle of Man. Although this story was written on route to a music festival in Barcelona.
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