Learn to Whistle
The notebook is brown and thirty years old. Winifred bought it in 1996, in a shop in Hull that isn't there now, and she has kept one list in it ever since.
Every year she starts a new page and copies the list over. The old things go across with a line through them. Pass the driving test — done, 1999. Paint the hall — done, twice. See the sea in winter — done. Learn to make bread — done, and now she makes it every Friday.
Last month her granddaughter sat on the floor with the notebook and read all thirty pages. The lists got shorter. The handwriting changed. But one line was on every single page, and on none of them did it have a line through it.
Learn to whistle.
“That's the smallest thing on here,” the girl said. “You learned to drive. You make bread every week.”
“I know.”
“So why—”
“I've no idea,” Winifred said. “I write it out every time.”
Her granddaughter put two fingers in her mouth and blew. Nothing came out at all.
“Your mother can't do it either,” Winifred said.