Lost Souls

"I'm Molly," she said.

Ever since I'd turned the corner - a little side street in Lambeth - to go to my meeting, she'd been standing still, facing me, her bag on the ground in front of her feet, waiting for me to reach her.

She was shorter than me, slight in that way elderly people are. In her mid-eighties, I'd guess. Well spoken, a touch of lipstick and rouge. Quite well dressed for an old lady, in woollen jacket that was too thick for the afternoon's unexpected sunshine. As I came closer I could see she had tiny beads of perspiration on her forehead, and she looked a little tearful.

"Hello Molly", I smiled. "Where are you heading?"

"I think I must have got lost. I have been invited to a luncheon club but I can't seem to find it".

She showed me a printed flyer with the address of a church at the top.

"I've got a little A-Z in my handbag, so I expect it'll be in there," I replied reassuringly. "Let's have a look".

I consulted my A-Z but it only covers the centre, and we were right at the bottom of the final page, beyond Lambeth North tube station. The world would have ended further north than there, I bet, if it weren't for the Imperial War Museum.

"Is it somewhere round here, then?" I asked.

"Well......." Molly was hesitant. "I'm not sure. I set off at twelve, what time is it now?" It was after two.

"Do you live around here, Molly?"

"I live just along from London Bridge station".

She was way off course. Two pages further across in the A-Z. I had another look at the lunch club flyer. Hmmm.

"It says that the Lunch Club is open on Mondays. Is there something else on today?"

She looked confused. "It's not Monday then? Oh. I must have got mixed up on my days".

I was late for the meeting with my client at 2pm, and it was a few doors along, so I took her in with me, thought we could decide from there.

I phoned the church: no clubs on today. It was too far, and too complicated, for Molly to walk home again. And she had a big hessian bag with her that appeared to be heavy. We made her a cuppa, and wondered what to do next.

"What's in your bag there, Molly?"

She looked inside and pulled out a large and heavy china pot. She turned it over in her hands in bafflement. Long pause. Then, "I recognise this!" she announced, triumphantly. "I keep my keys and my sunglasses in here. And it's a lovely sunny day so I wanted to bring my sunglasses. And when I take them off at the lunch club, I can put them back in the pot so I don't lose them".

There were a number of things wrong with that plan but the receptionist and I did not point them out.

"I keep my ComCab card in there too. I can ring up for a taxi if I need to go somewhere, and I can put it on my account. Boris Johnson pays for it. He's very kind, I don't even know him". Bingo! She gives me the card, and I make the call to get them to pick her up and take her home.

I speak to the operator, give the code number on the card. What's the name of the passenger? I ask Molly for her surname. She rifles in her bag, and pulls out a piece of paper with various notes on it. At the top is her name. Molly Barker-Smith. She read it out carefully, as if it were a foreign word she had never seen before.

"Barker...." she mused. "I wonder if that's a middle name, or a part of a surname?"

And the destination address? I asked Molly where she lived. She rooted in the bag again, looked upset. I took the piece of paper from the chair beside her. One of the notes was an address. I read it out to her. Is that where you live? "It must be, if it's on my sheet". I checked both sides of the sheet carefully to make sure it was the only address. And I knew she had her keys: they were in the flowerpot.

Once I'd made certain the cab was on its way, I went into my meeting. Before she left, Molly came in to the glass meeting room, and gave me a hug. "Do enjoy the rest of your holiday, dear", she said. "Safe trip back across the waves". Clever, that. Now I was nearly as confused as she was. We said our goodbyes.

I thought about the older people we know, have known. Worrying-about-Molly has its own little corner in my head now. I hope other people are worrying about her too.