Just the Job
(continued) I hesitated - unsure of myself. But what was there to lose?
Dropping my bag with a thud by the front door, I followed her down the long
passageway to the back of the house. The dark corridor opened up into a bright
sunlit kitchen.
The kettle was already on the old blackened coal burning hob and
two cups were side by side on their saucers. An earthenware teapot stood close
by on the bare wooden table. Her lavender scent was stronger now and
mingled with the smell of old polished linoleum.
She seemed completely at ease, in charge, unconcerned by the
stranger in her kitchen.
"Why don't you sit down".
It was the first time I had seen her smile. It lit up her face and
made her look very young indeed. It was a youthfulness that somehow seemed a
out of place in that old kitchen.
The chair she offered was of worn wood with a soft green
patterned cushion to make it more comfortable. I did as I was told.
"Lovely view of the garden from here". I needed to make
conversation.
The area I referred to was a hidden garden within a garden. It had
a small lawn at its centre, bounded by a profusion of pink rambling roses and
yellow honeysuckle that scrambled over trellis work all around. Very feminine,
very pretty.
It seemed a place to escape to and perhaps to dream in.
Her back was turned to me as she too gazed out of the kitchen
window and waited for the kettle to boil.
I found myself secretly admiring her figure. It made me feel
guilty.
"It was my husband's favourite place in the world",
she said suddenly.
"He used to say, that on a sunny day, time would seem to
stand still and the lawn seemed to be at the centre of something indefinable
and special.
She turned and looked at me intently.
"Do you believe places have a life of their own. Their own
history and memories?"
I was surprised at such a direct and philosophical question -
unusual between people who had only just met. To give me time to think, I
reached out and played with one of the cups. It was dainty - a lady's cup.
Then, like a stream that once released cannot be stopped, long hidden memories
flooded back.
"When I was a boy," I said, "I used to live beside
Dartmoor.
Nearby, at the foot of the moors there was an old railway bridge
with huge arches that took the railway line across a ravine where the local
river had cut between two hills.
"The trees were tall but even they seemed tiny besides the
vast arches. I used to sit in their shade on the bank and watch the fish. Water
dribbled down the concrete sides and moss had grown all over it so that the
bridge blended into the landscape.
"But it was the old rusty metal and smell of creosote that
made the place really special. Gates, posts, metal ties, old hinges of a broken
down door in a small block house. Those bits of manmade things gave the feeling
of past activities; intangible but still very much there.
I paused and looked up, afraid this was not what she had meant,
but she was listening attentively, so I continued:
"The block house had probably been a tool store for the men
working on the bridge. Strangely, those people's lives and hopes were in
that tool store, their frustrations and successes. You could almost sense their
feelings of exhaustion during their hours of work as the bridge was built.
Their feelings of achievement as it was put into use; something modern,
needed."
I looked up defensively. I had never before told anyone else about
these memories.
Her arms were lightly stretched along the work surface to the
side. Sunlight streamed through wisps of her hair. Her eyes said continue.
"I used to wonder whether they had stopped their work for a
moment on a sunny day to gaze down at the fish just as I was doing and watch
the green oak leaves patterning in the breeze.
"But more than anything else, I wanted to know if I looked
long and hard enough, I could really see. If I could make a
connection, enter their lives, experience their feelings.
"Not to intrude you understand", I said, slightly
embarrassed.
"Just to be there. To sort of show they haven't been
forgotten - silly really". I finished lamely.
Her voice came back sadly, reflectively:
"No, of course it's not silly.
She looked away across the garden. It was not the garden she saw
but some inner memory from which I was for the moment excluded.
"The tea", I said hurriedly. "The tea will be
brewed now."
"Of course".
She glanced back at the roses and the lawn.
"It's such a lovely morning, lets take our tea in the
garden. You bring that blanket and I will take the tray. It was a quiet command
not a suggestion. Picking up the blanket, I followed her.
As I stepped outside, the garden seemed to envelope me and draw in
around us.
She put the tray down on the grass to one side of the blanket and
sat down, legs primly to the side. I squatted down cross legged.
The smell of cut grass mingled with the scent of the flowers and
created an intoxicating onslaught on my senses. But, strangely, nature
was quieter here. Just the distant sound of the wind in the leaves and
water flowing somewhere nearby.
We drank our tea. For the moment there was no need for talk.
"My husband liked to climb", she said, at last breaking
the silence.
"He would be away for weeks climbing mountains all over the
world. He was really good - expeditions to the Alps and the Himalayas. He acted
as a guide to less experienced climbers.
She said it with a sort of indifference, as if it was just a fact
of life something that had to be faced, something that couldn't be avoided.
"One day he didn't come back. He really loved the
mountains and in the end they took him. They last saw him going back to check
on a slower climber. Then he just disappeared."
"It's been years now but I still find it hard to believe
that he's gone." Her light blue eyes, moist with the memory, sparkled
in the sunlight.
Then came a sudden burn of anger in her voice.
"I went out there to find him, you know. The mountains he
loved were just cold and unfriendly."
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself almost as if she could
feel the cold.
"You see, I knew that he didn't want to stay there. The
mountains were just a challenge. He loved their challenge but it was this
garden that he wanted to come home to - even if it was just to say goodbye. But
he never got the chance."
I felt strangely uncomfortable. Although we had only known
one another for a short time, it was as if another person had suddenly come
between us. I had a sudden feeling of loss. For a moment, she was no longer
with me. My wife and my kids came into my thoughts and I began to feel
that I had already overstayed my welcome.
But her crystal clear eyes and low musical voice compelled me back
into her memories. I could hear her calling out to him on that far off mountain
side. I could see the cold peaks pushing towards the snow laden sky and feel
the bite of the wind on her warm body. Then suddenly as the years rolled back
in my minds eye I shivered with him in his dark hidden crevice of death and
felt his yearning to return.
Violently I shuddered and forced myself to drag my eyes away from
hers to break the spell. But the cold and sadness was still with me. Hoping to
lift my spirits again, I lay back to take one last look up at the clear sky
above that garden before I left.
Soft clouds twisted and shifted in layers against the deep blue.
Joining and then separating, they curled around each other and then parted like
huge white creatures trapped in an endless dance.
I sighed and closed my eyes with relief. Clouds had now replaced
mountains in my mind's eye, a big improvement.
"It's lovely here", I said, "but I really must
go". Dimly, and then with some slight apprehension, I felt her move closer.
My face was now shaded from the warm sun, her body was next to
mine and her lavender scent was everywhere. I could hardly breathe.
Soft cool lips caressed, slowly rubbed teasingly too and fro, then
descended with mounting pressure onto mine. Delicate and delicious, it was a
long kiss of welcome to her garden and her memories.
After some moments, she drew away slightly and I was able to look
up at her. Small laughter lines crowded the corners of her eyes but the wistful
look on her face couldn't hide the hunger,.
"Don't go yet", she said. It was a command
All my failures, redundancy, ignored job applications, unspoken
reproaches by wife and children suddenly seemed far away.
I hesitated, the inhibitions from so many years of marriage were
strong. But the link that had grown so quickly between this lady, her mountains
and myself was much stronger and ultimately irresistible.
I reached up and enclosing her face between my two hands, drew her
down to return her kiss. In a small part of my consciousness, I felt the
coldness of the mountains begin to return. Her breathing was shallow and
slowly, with gentle tenderness, our bodies moulded together.
Several weeks later, a boy on a push bike paused by the gate
of a cottage, his shoulder bag of newspapers unbalanced him as he rode but it
was quicker than walking.
He looked at his list of addresses and, turning away, saw the
cottage had a broken window.
For a minute he thought of his predecessor on the paper round.
"An older man. Just took the papers and disappeared",
said the gaffer at the paper shop". Must have been daft, if you ask me!
He turned to look again at the broken window.
"Probably kids messing about", he thought as he cycled
away.
"Anyway, who would care, everybody knew the cottage had been
deserted for years."
The End
© Rob Hopcott 1999 - 2000
All rights reserved. All characters are fictitious in this story and no
reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
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