Art by Jen Watt
The Snail Lady
by Alex Jewell
If you have ever wandered around East Croydon on a weekday morning, perhaps on the way to work, you may have spotted the Snail Lady during your commute. I don’t drive anymore so I take the 312 bus from my home in South Croydon right up to East Croydon station. I prefer South Croydon’s quieter pace of life but it is necessary to visit East Croydon for shopping. In the early morning, the sky is pale and it filters a desaturated, blue light over everything. That strange, alien glow makes the tired, morning commuters look wan and waxy. I like that time of day. It is quiet and tranquil and I love to walk dreamily through the streets, enjoying the peace of shuttered shops and cool air.
Every town has its quirks and characters and Croydon is no different. I often see the same folk passing through. The old rastafarian man who lugs around a big boombox, blaring out dancehall tunes. The young girl who rollerblades along in the morning with her dog running beside her. And the Snail Lady.
Don’t judge me, I didn’t come up with the name. I’m not actually sure who was responsible but you can ask anybody in the area and they will all know who you’re talking about if you use that name. It is not a nice nickname and I wish they would call her something else but people are cruel and they fear what they don’t understand. Whenever I pass her, I always nod or smile in her direction. It’s important to be kind to people.
I considered bringing her fresh clothes. Maybe some of Amy’s old things. She’s grown so much (in both directions) and I still have her old clothes in a box in the loft. Yes, I should bring them down, sort through them and wash, dry and iron them. I can give her some of the items, maybe the thick, warm jumpers and jogging bottoms and the rest can be donated to charity shops. George will probably be thrilled for me to free up some space in the loft. He can fill it with models of aeroplanes and submarines. A grown man, playing with children’s toys. Honestly!
I saw her again on Friday. She was hobbling down Teevan road in Addiscombe. That’s a little further than her normal route. I wondered why she was there. I had popped into my favourite hair salon to get my roots touched up and I walked out, still holding my purse and I saw her.
I stood and watched her for a few seconds, frozen in place. I should have walked on. It’s terribly rude to stare. Unfortunately, she is such an odd spectacle that people frequently gawk at her.
I think she is only a little older than me. In her eighties, I reckon. If I had to guess, I would say she is average height for a woman but I know our bodies shrink in their decline and besides, she never stands up straight. People call her the Snail Lady for two reasons. The first is that she always carries a big, blue wad of fabric with straps that sit over her shoulders, giving her profile a hunched back. Amy wondered if it was a small pop-up tent but George said that was ridiculous, it looked far too small and it must be a bedroll, a sleeping bag like campers use. She is clearly homeless. Her long, silver hair hangs in greasy ropes, knotted together like dreadlocks. She wears several layers of clothing, a gilet made of a crinkly material over a black jumper but I have never seen her wear a coat. Her face is always dirty and the haggard planes of her cheeks and the grim look in her eyes makes me shiver. I feel sorry for her but she carries herself with a hard-faced determination that makes me feel a little uneasy. I have never seen her smile. While I do feel sorry for the Snail Lady and the circumstances that led her to this position, I do feel that she must have some kind of learned helplessness and a refusal to accept her situation and do something about it. My Amy has had her fair share of struggles over the years with bad boyfriends and lost jobs but she always picks herself back up and dusts herself off. It’s called being an adult, that’s what I always say to her.
The second reason that people refer to her as the Snail Lady sadly relates to her disability. The Snail Lady cannot walk. People have many theories for what incident rendered her infirm. I have heard them all. It was due to an infection that ate through the musculature in both legs, she was born like that, she got drunk and fell off a table and broke her legs, she’s faking it to get disability benefits. All those theories are ridiculous. The only explanation that makes sense is the truth: that she was the victim of a hit and run accident.
She hauls herself along on the pavement, pulling her body forward with her knuckles. I know she’s called a snail but I consider that lumbering movement to be more in line with how a gorilla moves. Her legs are mangled. They stick out behind her like the train of a dress, parallel to the ground, dragging on the pavement. Her legs are incredibly thin and lack the rigidity of your legs or mine. Although I know they cannot be, they look like they are entirely boneless. If you have ever seen the elasticity that a cat displays when stretching, perhaps you will understand how formless and malleable her legs seem to be. My husband once said she looks like a tube of toothpaste that has been squeezed from the bottom. I gave him a slap on the arm for that. I am positive she cannot stand nor walk. If the sleeping bag is anything to go by, she has no fixed abode and I doubt she is receiving any benefits at all, poor thing. Perhaps I should speak to her and ask her if she would like any help signing up. I couldn’t take her to my home to use my computer — I shudder to think what my neighbours would say if they saw her — but we could navigate the library computers together or find an internet cafe. I think they still have those around. I’m very good with computers which surprises people! Most people my age are not IT literate but my husband has always been interested in technology and when he first bought a computer for our home, he trained me on how to use it.
One morning, we drove to East Croydon instead of taking the bus because we were taking a day trip, as we often do, because George can’t abide taking the bus, even for short journeys. I do feel bad for him having to ferry us everywhere in his car but he never complains. He has always been an excellent driver, I was never as skilled as him in that regard. George parked the car and I waited for him to gather his phone and keys. I suddenly caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was her. I recognised the long silver hair, gleaming with grease. I excused myself to my husband’s bafflement and exited the car, making a beeline for her.
“Excuse me, miss,” I said, waving and she turned. She looked up at me but didn’t smile. That made me hesitate but I was determined to speak to her.
When I got nearer, I saw she was sitting on her withered legs, right by a parked car. I did not believe for one second that it was her car and I worried that perhaps she had become so destitute she felt the need to resort to theft.
“Can I help you?” I said, unable to mask the desperation in my voice.
She frowned. “Don’t need ‘elp,” she said. She knocked the ‘h’ off help. ‘Elp.
“Let me give you something…” And I thrust my hand in my shoulder bag and pulled out a few pound coins. It was then that I noticed something in her hands. A little spiral notebook and a blunt, stubby pencil. She had been jotting something down in that book and I had disturbed her. She disturbed me, with her gnarled fingers topped with yellow talons and the black fingerless gloves she wore. She held out one hand and I deposited the coins into her palm.
“Fanks,” she grunted. I left her to it.
I asked around later and somebody confirmed what I had already suspected from the moment I saw that notebook. She was trying to find the car that had hit her all those years ago. She wanted justice. She’s been patrolling the car parks for years apparently, examining the cars and jotting down their registration plates. I could hardly blame her. One freak accident and she had been robbed of her mobility. I would want revenge too.
I felt awful, though. It couldn’t be healthy to pull your legs around the rough pavement. I spoke to George and sweet-talked him into finally putting a good use to those stupid wooden pallets he has been hoarding in the shed. He chose one and sanded and varnished it so it was nice and smooth and she wouldn’t get any splinters. He added four small wheels and it was ready. It looked like the vegetable crates they have at the market. We kept it in the boot of his car for a few days, keeping an eye out for her. She didn’t appear to keep to a strict schedule so it was impossible to predict where we would find her.
I finally caught sight of a blue sleeping bag by the old subway entrance to the shopping centre. She was camped out there, sitting in her bed, reading a paperback novel. A romance. That surprised me. I assumed her to be too cynical to be interested in romances.
I am quite physically frail these days (although my mind is as sharp as ever) so George was responsible for lugging the board out of the car. I approached her. I wanted to be the one to present her with it. It had been my idea, after all. George would never have come up with it on his own although he is very handy and gifted with wood-working. He did a decent job with it.
I beamed down at her and she grimaced up at me. Perhaps I could coax her into visiting the salon with me, it can’t be easy to squint through all that hair. I wondered if she had had a job before the accident.
“Hello, dear,” I began. “I noticed you pulling yourself along the street and I thought…well. It didn’t look very comfortable so my husband — he’s very good with his hands and he…we…made you…this.”
I blushed, finishing my speech. I should have practised first. She eyed me distrustfully and when I showed her the board, her face didn’t change but she sat forward in her little bedroll.
I explained what it was for and she said “Yes, I know,” or “Yes, I can see.” I forget which one.
I asked her if she wanted it and she said yes. I said “Well?” and she finally remembered to thank me.
I must say, she took to it like a duck to water. I often see her around town now, gliding speedily through the streets on her board, her blue sleeping bag on her back, pushing her way past the crowds with her knuckles. In the morning light, she is blue all over, bedroll and hair and that cold stare. Not much I can do about her poor hands dragging on the ground but at least she won’t hurt her legs any further. I still see her sometimes in the car parks, when George finds a spot and we leave for the station. We like to take a train down to Brighton for the day. She still navigates the maze of cars, checking every vehicle she encounters, armed with her notebook. She is still searching for the 2010 silver BMW that hit her that night. She’ll never find it. I sold it to a scrap company years ago.
About the author:
Alex Jewell is an emerging author, living in London. When not writing, she's usually studying for her degree or wondering how she would fare in a zombie apocalypse.
