GRANDDAD’S CUP OF TEA
AMY RAE DURRESON
Copyright © Amy Rae Durreson 2019
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Table of Contents
About This Book
Granddad's Cup of Tea
Other books by Amy Rae Durreson
About the Author
About This Book
Granddad's Cup of Tea was first released in Dreamspinner Press's Snow on the Roof anthology in 2013.
LIKE many of the most important discoveries in his life, Ewan found out the truth about Alex Tregarron from one of his grandchildren.
“And then,” Kayla said indignantly, not even taking a breath as they reached the steepest stretch of Chapel Hill, “Maddy said that if I didn’t say it was Jess who didn’t clean the paintbrushes, she wouldn’t be my friend. Can I do the next one, Granddad?”
“Of course,” Ewan huffed, fishing the next newspaper from the bright orange sack slung over his shoulder. Kayla darted off down the drive, and Ewan took a breather.
She came back all too soon, the little lights in her shoes flashing as she bounced with every step. “Where next?”
“Just the top house.”
“That’s where the sad man lives,” Kayla informed him. “Why’s he always sad?”
Runbourne was just small enough a village that Ewan could answer that. “He’s sad because his brother died. You remember Mr. Peter, don’t you? He used to bring the hand bells into school.”
Kayla’s face cleared in recognition. “He was fat. And he was funny and he had a great big beard.”
“So he did,” Ewan agreed, grinning. Peter Tregarron had been a well-known local character. Like Carole, Ewan’s wife, he had been involved in everything. His brother Alex was far more reserved, and Ewan had never met him properly, though he knew his face.
“Mummy says they were only pretending to be brothers,” said Kayla, hopping over a crack in the pavement.
Startled, Ewan said, “What’s that?”
“Because then they could live together and have the same surname, and no one would mind. Granddad, isn’t that silly?”
“Why silly?” Ewan asked, as his mind whirled.
“If you want to share someone’s name, you shouldn’t do pretending. You should just marry them.”
“So you should,” agreed Ewan. As she skipped ahead, he looked up at the beautiful Victorian house he had always envied, and felt his heart go out to the poor bastard still living there. He’d lost half his world when Carole died, and he couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if no one knew what you’d lost.
Then, while he was still turning the idea around in his mind, transforming jovial Peter from a lifelong bachelor to a man hiding his true self, they turned up the path to Hill House just as Alex Tregarron came out of the front door with his dog.
“Ooooh,” breathed Kayla, bouncing forward. “What’s his name? Can I stroke him?”
“She’s called Saffy,” Tregarron said, “and you may, so long as you’re gentle.” He looked enquiringly at Ewan.
Uncomfortable with a stranger, especially as he’d just been speculating about the man’s domestic life, Ewan hefted his bag defensively and said, “Your paper.”
“A little old for a paper boy, aren’t you?” Tregarron asked, with a weak half-smile. He had always been slender in comparison to his bulky “brother,” but now he looked gaunt and tired, his eyes shadowed. Ewan had noted the differences between him and Peter before and never thought anything of it. Wee Kayla, after all, had inherited her stocky frame and bright red hair from him, though his had been grey for years, whereas her sister Mia was dark and angular like her father’s side of the family.
“It’s supposed to be Connor’s paper round,” Kayla informed Tregarron. “Except Connor’s stupid and just wants to play games all day, so Granddad started doing it for him, and now Mr. Patel says that Granddad’s the most reliable paper boy he’s ever had, and what kind of dog is Saffy, please?”
“Kayla,” Ewan said warningly. The man didn’t need to know all their business.
“It’s fine,” Tregarron said. “She’s a bit of a mix, I’m afraid.”
“Mixed-up dogs are my favourite type of all,” Kayla declared, and Ewan knew she was about a minute away from trying to wrangle an invitation to come back and play with Saffy.
“I’m sure the man and his dog have places to be, Kayla,” he said.
“But we don’t, do we, Granddad?” At his raised eyebrow, she added grudgingly, “Except for school, of course. I meant important places.”
“I know what you meant, trouble.”
She giggled and scrambled up. “Thank you for letting me meet Saffy.”
“My pleasure,” Tregarron said gravely and tucked his copy of The Independent under his arm. He watched quietly as Kayla headed off down the path.
Left alone with the man, Ewan hesitated. Condolences hurt, but they kept you connected to the world, and he couldn’t go without saying something, not after what Kayla had let slip.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said at last. “You must be missing your,” and, crucially, he hesitated, “brother very much.”
He saw Tregarron register the pause, his grey eyes widening, and then, to Ewan’s surprise, the man laughed, a hollow, bitter sound that made the hairs lift on the back of Ewan’s neck.
“I always wondered if the whole damn village had worked it out,” Tregarron said, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Peter would be furious. He worked so hard to keep it secret.”
“I’m sorry,” Ewan said. “I shouldn’t have.... I must be after Kayla now. I... really, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Tregarron said, and Saffy whined at the note in his voice. “The truth will out, after all.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Ewan said, backing away like a fool. “I’m sorrier still, knowing the truth. It’s hard to lose birth family, but it’s harder to lose the family you’ve chosen.”
And he escaped down the hill after Kayla, wishing he’d never spoken.
BACK at his daughter’s house, the usual morning chaos had begun. Carly was making toast in suit and stockinged feet. Mia was slouched across the table blowing on her nails, her navy school jumper stretched almost as long as her rolled-up skirt. Connor was lurching down the stairs with all the surly exhaustion of the newly adolescent, and Kayla went dashing into the midst to start hunting for her school shoes, chattering at full speed.
“Shut up,” Connor groaned, reaching the bottom of the stairs with only one eye open. “Shut up!”
“He told me to shut up,” Kayla bellowed cheerily.
“He’s got a point,” Mia muttered, spreading her fingers and fanning her hands through the air. “Hurry up, Connor. You’re going to make me miss the bus.”
“Shut up!” Connor lowed to the room in general.
“And I met a dog and her name was Saffy and she was a mixed-up sort of dog and–”
“Kayla, shush,” Carly said. “Connor, stop shouting at your sisters. Dad, I’ve got an early meeting—can you get Kayla to school? Mia, eat your toast and go wash that muck off your face.”
“I can’t. My nails will smudge.”
Quietly, Ewan went to help Kayla find her shoes before he got drawn into the argumen
t about Mia’s makeup.
Once Kayla was at school, the day was his own, and he wandered back to his bungalow with a sigh. Since Carole had gone, it had been a very quiet place. He didn’t even have memories of his own children to liven it up. He and Carole had moved down here to be close to Carly after that Neil had run off with his office manager. He spent his evenings at Carly’s with the kids, but these days it seemed like they were coping without him. With Mia and Connor both at secondary school, only Kayla needed collecting, and they all seemed to be busy in the evenings, with homework and friends and the internet. Carole had always filled their days with activities—the gardening club, rambling group, and the many local causes she had championed. Without her to chivvy him on, he wasn’t sure how to go about having a social life. Indeed, if it was all to be gossip and reminiscing, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted one.
He spent the day, rather guiltily, catching up with all the telly he had recorded while at Carly’s. He was as addicted to Britain’s Got Talent as the rest of them, but only Connor would watch Top Gear with him. They all, except Carly, watched Doctor Who, but he liked to record it so he could watch it again when no one was talking over the clever bits. None of them liked his crime shows, so those he saved for his mornings on his own.
He had a sandwich for his lunch as the good-looking investigators found the third body of the week but then lost the thread of the plot.
Instead, his mind wandered back to Alex Tregarron, alone in that big house with his—whatever he was—not yet gone three months, and only the dog to keep him company. How long had he and Peter been...? Ewan stopped to search for an appropriate word and then shrugged. A marriage was more than words spoken in a church or registry office, and Alex and Peter had clearly shared more than a name. How long, then, had they been married? Had it been official, one of those civil partnerships? Long enough that they’d learned to hide, obviously. He’d married Carole in 1968. He couldn’t imagine two lads together openly then; he wasn’t even sure it had been legal. Could the Tregarrons have been together so long?
Well, why not? He scolded himself for being so sceptical. He knew plenty of couples who’d had more than forty years. Why shouldn’t he assume that about two men? Good for them if they had.
He turned the telly off mid shoot-out and wandered through to the neat little kitchen to water the herbs on the windowsill. His mind was half in the Sixties still. It had been a funny old time, freedom nibbling at the edges of their lives, even so far from the swinging cities, but it had been narrow too, unbearably so compared to today. Little things had meant more—a brush of hands, a smile, the evening sun catching on a freckled shoulder or a sunny cap of hair.
A kiss.
Had Peter Tregarron had his beard even then, he wondered wryly, imagining a thinner, intense Peter sporting long hair like a revolutionary. No fishing boat out of Girvan for those two, he was sure. No cold Scottish mornings where dawn was a steel band above the sea and the steam of your breath mixed with that of the nearest man; no catch pouring onto the quay in thrashing streams of silver; no endless summer evenings where the light spread over every surface, gilding every boat and buoy and making working men shine like angels.
The memories made him uncomfortable, hinting at things he hadn’t thought about much since his marriage.
That evening, walking home from school with Kayla, he glanced uneasily at Hill House as they passed, not sure what he’d say to Tregarron if he did see him. An ignorant old fool he must have seemed to the man.
Kayla was peering over the hedge too, walking on tiptoes, but neither man nor dog were in sight and the windows were dark.
IT WAS a Saturday next day, with a heavier set of papers and a steady fall of drizzle that sent Kayla back to bed.
“Good for the gardens,” Ewan called up the stairs at her. “We’re almost in a drought, you know.”
“Good,” Kayla called back. “I like droughts.”
Ewan shook his head and went out alone. He rather liked the low soft rain himself, the way it clung to the leaves and made the streets so quiet and ghostly.
He did the weekend papers in three separate rounds, great bulky things that they were, and saved the Chapel Hill set for last. His steps got slower as he climbed the hill, and it wasn’t just because slopes were hard going these days. When he got to the top, he paused, as he always did, to look back at the view. Even on a day like this, the Downs made him breathe a little deeper. They loomed softly across the valley, their deep curves so different from his home mountains. On a bright day, he could see the sea from here, between the hills. Today there was only mist, so he turned up the drive to Hill House, bracing his shoulders.
The thud of the paper landing on the mat was greeted by a torrent of happy barks and rapid footsteps.
Ewan stood his ground, clutching his orange bag like a lifeline as the door opened.
Despite his rush to the door, Alex Tregarron didn’t seem to have anything to say. He pushed the dog down, fussed with the lock, and eventually said, “Ah.”
“Huh,” Ewan responded cautiously.
“I, er, feel I should apologize,” Tregarron said at last. “You were being kind and I was ungracious.”
“No kindness in upsetting you,” Ewan said. “I’m sorry I did.”
“I never even asked your name,” Tregarron said. He had the sort of flowing accent you rarely heard these days, an old BBC accent, the type where you knew the speaker had been brought up to hate rudeness above all other sins.
Ewan offered his hand. “Ewan Sinclair. I knew Peter, to say hello to. He and my wife were on a few committees together.”
“Dear God, the committees,” Tregarron said with a shudder and gripped Ewan’s hand. He had a proper handshake, firm but not crushing. “Alex. Oh, I shouldn’t have said that about the committees, if your wife is....”
“Carole passed two years ago,” Ewan said. “And I could never stand the damn things either. She was always off to another bloody meeting.”
“I’m sorry,” Alex said, and some of the light went out of his face. “I remember Carole Sinclair. You must miss her very much.”
“I do,” agreed Ewan and wasn’t sure where to go with the conversation from there. Carole had been the love of his life, but he’d almost learned how to live without her now, stepping carefully around the empty spaces where she should have been. She would have known what to say, he thought. Women always did. They had a knack for taking the most important things, love and death and new life, and making them ordinary.
“I should be off,” he said.
In the same moment, Alex blurted out, “Can I offer you a cup of tea?”
Ewan laughed at the muddle and Alex drew back a little. Ewan hadn’t intended to accept the offer, but now he said, “Unfortunately, Kayla’s ballet lesson in Bognor is at the same time as Connor’s rugby practice in Chichester, so Granddad’s taxi is required.”
“Another time, then,” Alex said and offered his hand again.
It wasn’t until Ewan got to the bottom of the hill that it occurred to him that he was making a new friend, and that he hadn’t had to join a single committee to do so.
ON MONDAY, Alex and Saffy were waiting for them in the garden, much to Kayla’s delight.
“Time for tea?” Alex asked, ushering them inside. “Or will it make her late?”
“We can manage ten minutes,” Ewan said. “Keep her out of her brother’s and sister’s hair a bit longer.”
“Three grandchildren?”
“Five,” Ewan corrected proudly. “These three and my son’s twins up in Ayr. You’ve not got any yourself.... And that was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
“We were too old by the time the law on adoption changed,” Alex said. Then he shook himself and added, “Peter wouldn’t have risked it, anyway. He never wanted to come out.”
“But you did? Must have been hard.”
“Oh, I didn’t mind, most of the time. You get used to it.”
Ewan wasn
’t sure he believed that, but it was none of his business. He could keep his mouth shut.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Aye to both. Make it proper builders’ tea.”
Alex chuckled as he went into the kitchen, leaving Kayla and Saffy to play in the hall. “Do you ever wonder if some builders secretly long to drink Earl Grey out of delicate little teacups, yet are afraid of what their friends might think?”
“I say let them,” Ewan said, drawing up a chair at the kitchen table. “How they drink their tea in the privacy of their own homes is nobody’s business but their own.” He’d meant it as a joke, but now realized how it could be misinterpreted. “I didn’t mean....”
“No,” Alex said, putting a mug down in front of him. “No more apologizing, or we’ll be here all day and Kayla will never get to school.”
“Hush,” Ewan said. “Not so loud. You’ll give her ideas.”
Alex didn’t quite laugh, but his eyes brightened and a sudden smile warmed his solemn face.
HE DIDN’T stop for tea every morning. Some days there was no sign of Alex or his dog. By November, though, it happened often enough that Kayla embarked on a project to teach Saffy to shake hands, and Ewan began to feel that he knew Alex. Indeed, when Carly, who took after her mother, gleefully announced that she’d signed him up to the bowling club, he demurred.
“You need to get out more, Dad. You shouldn’t be sacrificing your whole life to me and the kids. You need to meet people your own age. Make new friends.”
“I have friends, love.”
“Granddad’s friends with Saffy too,” Kayla put in, without looking away from the computer screen, where she was dressing a cartoon princess in a purple fish costume.
“Who’s Saffy?” Carly asked.
“Saffy,” Mia said scornfully from behind her school copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, “is a dog. Normal people don’t see animals as part of their social network.”
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