Little Girl Lost

Everyone has a moment in their life when they realise they have to move on…

- Anne Goring

I noticed the girl a week ago. I was coming back up the hill after my daily constitutional. I always stop and catch my breath when I get to the row of old cottages. Number 6 is the house where I was born so I take a particular interest in who lives there.

She seemed a forlorn little figure as she peered round droopy net curtains at the patch of weedy lawn that was the front garden. The rest of the cottages in the row are smart holiday lets now but Number 6 belongs to a housing association that helps people in need.

Tenants come and go. Single mums, mostly. I hadn’t seen anything of this family until I saw the daughter, home from school, waiting in the window of the house.

I felt a pang when I saw her again, yesterday. I had a mind to wave and smile at her, but I didn’t quite like to. Might not be what they call “politically correct”.

When I was young I knew all the neighbours. I ran errands for everybody. I don’t suppose this poor child knows a single soul. People keep to themselves these days.

This was once a plain fishing town, small and friendly. Twenty years ago they built a marina and now it’s all fancy hotels and shops full of expensive clothes. And strangers.

It saddens me, though Bill used to josh me out of it.

“You don’t like change, Marion, but it’s inevitable, like the tide. You can’t hold it back. Each generation has different ideas, wants different things.”

“But is it change for the better?” I’d sigh. “I don’t think so. People have so much these days. But they don’t seem to be content.”

I’m a creature of habit. I like things tidy and ordered and predictable. Boring, some people would say. Comfortable, I think.