Eighty-eight. It’s a pleasing number to say. Has a certain symmetry to it. Two fat ladies, they call it in bingo, not that there’s anywhere they call bingo numbers round here anymore. When you get up this high the numbers don’t mean as much as they used to. I remember when I turned 30; back then, reaching that age unmarried was significant. It meant you’d officially missed a turning and were irrevocably bound down the road to spinsterhood. At least that’s what they said, codswallop as it turned out. But 88 has no significance. Eighty-eight is like 87 is like 89. People commend you on still being alive, but nothing more is expected. There are no birthday cards at 88. Not unless you’ve children or grandchildren who feel obliged to mark the passing of time as if it’s an achievement—which I don’t. But that’s okay, I could never get on with cards anyway. Is it really so impressive to have survived another 52 weeks? Parties I can fathom, parties I am partial to.

It’s a shuffle to get outside these days: coat hook to handrail to doorknob, each move premeditated with the diligence of a mountaineer. In the porch I collect my stick and traverse the tiled floor, taking care to avoid the glossy takeaway menus—the black ice of junk mail—which keep flooding in despite the notice on the letterbox. Eighty-eight today, but don’t bother sifting through the post looking for cards, or, cherish the thought, party invitations. This particular morning my progress to the bus stop is hindered even more than usual by the presence of a bag hung over my left shoulder containing a towel, my bathing costume, and a warm jumper. I haven’t had cause to use my bathing costume this century and I’m a bit worried it might have fallen out of fashion, although there’s always a chance it’s come full circle and everyone will be wearing one. I guess you could say I’m not a regular swimmer—though I used to enjoy it greatly. Indeed, for a time in the ’70s swimming became something of a birthday tradition. Despite having the misfortune to be born in the autumn, when both the air and water carry a chill, Fred and I would celebrate by getting the train to Hampstead Heath or trekking down to Brighton and immersing ourselves: me inch by inch, him in one gasp-inducing plunge. We’d wait until our bodies had learned to love the cold, then we’d swim side by side, teeth chattering in our smiles, wincing every now and then as we passed through a pocket of even colder water, until one of us called time and we’d retreat to dry land, knitwear and a flask of hot, sugary tea.

The bus pulls in at precisely the time the electronic board says it will, announcing its arrival with a hydraulic hiss. Contrary to what people say most things seem to run on time these days, I don’t however view that as progress. I’m not a big one for nostalgia but the world today is more inpatient than it used to be. Everything seems designed to get things done as fast as possible. The days of counting out change and handing it over to another human being are finished. Nowadays people pay for things with a tap of a card; they scan their own shopping at the supermarket, walk from A to B as if it’s a blood sport. Interacting with another human has become an unwanted delay, dawdling a modern-day sin, which makes my generation positively hell-bound. But despite our transgressions, we’re only shunned gently. People still hold doors for us, but not conversation. My record is four and a half days without speaking to another person. I hope it won’t be beaten.

The bus is quiet at this time of day. There’s a harried-looking mum with a pushchair, an Asian man with an impossibly overloaded trolley, and a woman of my age cocooned in a duffle coat, hat, and scarf. I walk past them towards the back where two young black men, the bus’s only other occupants, are lounging. One is wearing headphones that cover half his head, the other plays music directly from his phone. I like sitting at the back of the bus. Upstairs is my favorite though, scanning the street below for those landmarks that remain, but these days I no longer fancy my chances making the climb. The front of the bus holds no interest for me, least of all the seats they delegate as “priority” for the infirm. I’m old enough to remember when segregation on busses was the cause of outrage and yet it still happens today. Grey-haireds corralled together near the driver lest we try to speak to anyone else.

Why is it that people think as soon as you hit 70 you don’t want to lay eyes on another young person ever again? There’s a well-meaning young woman who lives a few doors down from me. I often see her on my way back from the shops. She always smiles and says hello, sometimes she stops for a bit of a chat, during which her ruddy-faced toddler hides round the back of her legs. It’s mainly pleasantries—complaining about the weather, complaining about the council. I long to talk to her about something more substantial but I’m grateful for whatever I can get. We bumped into each other one day and I was looking forward to complaining about the Water Company, who’d been digging up the road, when she gave me a leaflet. “Age UK Coffee Mornings” it said. “I thought it might be nice for you to meet some people.” I didn’t want to seem rude so I took it and binned it at the first opportunity. I thought about that encounter for weeks after. She must have recognized I was lonely, read the desire for connection in the furrows on my brow. So hopeless a figure must I have cut that she’d thought of me when she had seen this leaflet, taken one, and carried it round with her to ensure she had it when we next bumped into each other. Some may say that’s nice, neighborly even. Perhaps it is, but that’s not what I think. Being given that leaflet felt more like a handoff than a hug. It didn’t seem to have crossed this woman’s mind that the person I might want to get to know better was her, or, if it did, she’d dismissed that idea straight off the bat as impractical. Handing me the leaflet was another card for her to tap to avoid talking to someone. A quick transaction to save her precious time. I began to wonder if she dreaded our chance encounters as much as I looked forward to them. If her heart fell when she saw me approaching, just as mine started to flutter.

I knew full well she had never been to the kind of place she was suggesting I take my loneliness. A place of threadbare carpets, uncomfortable chairs, and perpetual draft. Where they charge you £1 for all the tea and coffee you can drink and people you have nothing in common with but your age babble on about a time that never existed while well-meaning volunteers nod politely and pretend not to be eyeing the oh-so-slow-moving clock. No. Not for me. Not for all the tea in China. The only thing worse than being old is being surrounded by the elderly; and so, I head on up to the back of the bus.

It’s loud at the back. The engine’s rumble combines with the tinny reverberations of music to create a white noise that blocks out all distractions and sets one’s mind to thinking. It was on this same bus, in this very seat, that I read about my impending demise in the free newspaper. Wendys are dying out, it said. It’s not felt a suitable name for babies anymore, you see, and those of us already in the club are getting older and older with no prospect of new blood to replace us. If that’s not a sign that I’m getting past my sell-by date, I’m not sure what is. Still, it could be worse. I could have been called Elsie like my cousin was, or Betty like my best friend from school, and be constantly turning my head in expectation every time a doting parent frets over their baby. It’s funny the things the younger generations take from their elders and what they cast aside, it’s not always what you expect.

At the old hospital stop, the hospital I was born at—long since turned into flats—I begin the process of getting up. Partway to the doors the driver presses the brakes and I lose my footing and lurch into the back of the man with the large headphones. I apologize profusely but he doesn’t turn round, I’m not sure he even notices. We get off at the same stop, him with one giant bounding step that takes him onto the street and away, me with the indignity of waiting for the bus to lower itself to the pavement. It’s only here that the butterflies come, stirring up a cocktail of self-doubt and excitement inside me. This trip has been a long time in the planning. Twice I’ve made this same journey. Once to memorize the route and another time to pay my entrance money to the lido just to sit and watch the swimmers from the side of the pool. I’ve phoned ahead to check what change the lockers take and, having little confidence in the surly attendant’s answers, brought one of every coin in circulation to be safe. The only thing I haven’t done is actually swim, and I’m plagued by a worry that I’ll have forgotten how and will have to be hauled out by one of the lifeguards—or worse, I’ll sink to the bottom unnoticed. I rummage in my bag for the Fisherman’s Friends and crunch two of the mints to steel myself.

The lido is at the bottom of Swan Lane. At the top of the road straddling the corner is the Swan, the pub where Fred and I celebrated with a drink after visiting the registry office. Only it isn’t a pub anymore but an estate agent’s office. They’ve painted the interior a ghastly yellow and flooded the room with more light than any public house has ever seen. From the outside enough of the original building remains to hint at a different past—one more ghost in a neighborhood that’s become increasingly haunted. I used to pride myself on knowing everything about this area: who lived where, what time the grocers got their deliveries and the bakers discounted their bread, how to direct someone the quick way to the post office so they wouldn’t miss the last post. Now there are times when I feel like a stranger in the city where I was born. I know it’s going to change, has to, always has, but somewhere along the way the changes came too thick and fast for me to keep up with. And all that hard-won knowledge became about as much use as speaking Latin. Still, sic vita est, as they say.

Within this state of flux, the paint-chipped exterior of the lido has been a comforting presence. A North Star that’s never dulled. Unlike other landmarks from my younger years, the times that I’ve passed the lido have not been plagued by a worry that the inside has been gutted and turned into a coffee shop or a pop-up something or other. The outdoor changing cubicles have, in the face of all pressure, steadfastly resisted the urge to transform into studio flats. Only now, in the three-person-long queue, I feel the rumble of a new doubt. Maybe they’ve put an upper age limit on actually using the pool. Seventy-five, perhaps, or even 70. Maybe there’s been a spate of old codgers like me coming down here and drowning or keeling over with hypothermia and they’ve decided that it’s too disruptive for the regular swimmers to have paramedics in here once a week and the pool closed each time while they fish one of us out. They probably turned a blind eye when they knew I was only here to watch, but with a bag over my shoulder containing my bathing suit that’s unlikely to wash this time.

I wonder how old I should say I am if they ask. Seventy-five? Could I pass for 75? Is 75 even young enough? And what year would that make me born in in case they check? I heard on the radio that they’re making old fogies take eye tests to keep their driving licenses. If they’re doing that for driving, surely they must be doing something for swimming. The girl on the counter must be new though because she takes my money without a second look and when I push the barrier to get in it clicks open just like it does for everyone else.

I fill my lungs greedily on chlorinated air. The urge to turn and go—to write swimming off as another thing I used to do—is still strong. But, now that I’m inside, excitement is in the ascendency over fear. I fumble for another Fishermen’s Friend, hoping to fuel this pleasant feeling further. The inside is newer than the exterior, and yet despite the changes still recognizable. For a good five or so years, Fred used to swim in one of the senior teams here, every Tuesday and Thursday night. They used to hold a gala each summer. A few races and a barbeque smoking away in the corner. Fred swam butterfly, God knows how, or why, such an ungainly stroke. They’d announce the names of the swimmers at the start of each race over the tannoy. It became a bit of a running joke—whose family could cheer the loudest for their dad, or uncle, or grandad. Fred only had me—but knowing that, all and sundry (or so it seemed to me) would lend their efforts to a rousing hurrah.

It was in one of these races that we first discovered a problem with Fred’s shoulder. He was swimming as normal—not leading if I remember correctly, but not trailing by too far either—when all of a sudden, he stopped, or at least stopped doing something recognizable as the butterfly stroke. He made it to the side after the rest of the field had finished and was given a conciliatory clap. Pulled muscles weren’t too uncommon among the senior swimmers, so nobody thought much of Fred’s “twinge,” least of all him. Except it turned out not to be a pulled muscle, but rather the innocuous first sign of a slow, inexorable decline. That was the last gala we came too.

I must cut the perfect caricature of a reticent swimmer, taking two steps down the ladder into the water and then involuntarily one step back up. Eventually I get in and remember what I always knew, the water temperature is deceptive: prohibitively cold at first, but very soon insulating against the outside air. Once acclimatized, I get my bearings. I appear to be the only person who’s spent 10 minutes wrestling with a swimming hat—or at least the only person who succeeded in doing so. I ponder my sartorial choices and wonder if the water resistance lost on my head will offset the drag caused by the wrinkles elsewhere. This reverie is interrupted when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice that somebody else is approaching the ladder. Fearing a holdup, I swallow my trepidation and push off. A second or two later I am overtaken by a young woman wearing a bikini. I check again to make certain I’m in the slow lane and, reassured, conclude that this must be a relative concept.

There’s a brief moment of panic as I realize the side of the pool is no longer an arm’s reach away and I make eye contact with the lifeguard to communicate that now would not be a good time to start dozing on the job. A length is all I muster and even that feels like an overexertion. Have they somehow extended the pool? Made it longer at the request of younger clientele who can’t bear the minor inconvenience of turning around? Certainly the wooden-slat benches lining the perimeter wall remain the same. As I sit my eye is drawn to a man in the fast lane. He’s swimming butterfly. Raking the water with two piston-like arms, disappearing at the end of each stroke, only to emerge a second later gasping and bulging, ready to attack the water with renewed vigor.

Is that what Fred looked like when he swam? To be honest, I can’t remember. I do remember being here, often wrapped in a towel against the unseasonal cold, but it pains me to say, Fred only held my attention fleetingly. I was more interested in the children scurrying beneath the benches, vacillating between best friends and sworn enemies in the blink of an eye. Or the older men manning the barbecue, plagued by a constant stream of unwanted cookery advice offered without invitation from every passerby. Compared to these curiosities how could ever-present, familiar Fred compete? His company was always available, something I could dip in and out of any time I wanted. Until I couldn’t.

A mother and daughter enter the slow lane. The girl looks to be about eight and wears a flamingo-speckled costume. Already she can swim well on her own. Her mother initially follows behind but soon moves ahead, waiting at the end of each length for the child to catch her up. There they pause briefly before setting off again. It’s these poolside rests that interest me the most. I’m captivated by the easy fluency of their back and forth. Mum sweeps a stray hair out of her daughter’s face; the girl tries to squirt water through her hands over the lane divider. During one interval the child appears to be sulking about something, refusing to make eye contact with her mum and mimicking her behind her back, at the next break all is forgiven. By the time they get out of the pool, sufficiently invigorated to face the rest of the day, I too feel satisfied enough to go home and effectively end mine.

This afternoon, a day in which I’d actually been swimming, the bus ride, usually the highlight of the day, seems comparatively pedestrian. I break one of my rules and sit at the front because my legs feel tired and even though I’ve been reunited with my stick I don’t trust myself to get to the back. Out of the window the world shows no such signs of fatigue. A workman drills with a jackhammer; women wrangle shopping bags with one hand and tap on their phones with the other, narrowly avoiding youths swarming towards shops selling fried chicken and sunken-eyed men strolling home from the bookmakers. I wonder which of them also have their birthdays today. I look hard for a hidden glow on their faces and try to imagine how they’ll celebrate in the evening. My empty home suddenly is appealing as a sanctuary from all this. A refuge from the hustle and bustle, a place of solitude, yes, but also of peace. What business do I have in this melee, really? What good can come of me joining the fray, rather than watching from the sidelines like those of 88 ought to?

A heavy rain shower begins to fall as I make the turn onto my road. Rain makes me wary. I’ve slipped once in the wet and had a few close calls. It’s not just that I bruise easily these days, but that once acquired, these blemishes take up a semipermanent residence on my body. All the more reason to get inside. I plod on, head down, concentrating hard on each step. I can tell how far up the road I am by the color of the paving slabs. When raspberry gives way to sandstone, I know I’m almost home. But before I make it that far, I encounter a group of legs blocking my way. Two of the legs are big and two of them are small. “Are you all right?” I look up to see the lady from down the road and her little boy decked out in matching cagoules. They look as if they’ve just come ashore from a trawler. I haven’t spoken to the woman since she gave me the leaflet and I’m initially minded to ignore her now, but something about the weather and the day I’ve had and the look of concern on her face relaxes my position. She continues to eye me warily. Her toddler looks bored. “Me? Oh, I’m fine, just taking care in the rain.” This seems to reassure her and she softens. “Isn’t it frightful. Oscar and I only went round the corner to get fish and chips and we almost got washed away, didn’t we love?” She doesn’t bother to ask where I’ve been.

It’s only then I notice the blue-and-white striped carrier bag the woman holds. My mind is suddenly transported back to cold winter nights when Fred would come home from the pool with fish, chips and mushy peas, which we’d eat off the table straight out of the wrapper: him ravenous from lengths and lengths of butterfly, me overwhelmed with contentment for the simple life we’d managed to carve out for ourselves.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The worried look is back in the woman’s face as she resists the efforts of her hungry toddler to drag her homewards. “Yes, I’m fine, sorry, just a little distracted.” The woman pats me on the arm gently, breaking the absence of physical contact with another human being that has gone on for God knows how long. “Probably best to get inside and out of this,” she gestures around her vaguely, either to the rain, or the wider world. “Get yourself a nice hot drink.” She employs the same sing-song tone previously reserved for Oscar. I smile. “Yes, I suppose so,” and carry on plodding up the road to my front door and then as an afterthought I shout back: “It’s been a busy day swimming.” “What?” I hear the woman say. “It’s been a busy day what?” But I don’t bother to turn around. I keep on walking until I reach my front door, only when I get there, I decide I don’t feel like going in just yet, so I push on round the corner, in search of fish and chips. After all, you’re only 88 once.

Mike Bonnet is a UK-based social worker and short-story writer, previously published by the likes of Structo magazine and Dead Ink Press in Britain.

Header image by Marilyn Hallett Granzyk