Miss Potterton's Birthday Tea

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Blimey, sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought!’ She laughed.

  ‘I haven’t really, not until this moment. But I’d bloody love that!’

  ‘Well, it’s not too late! You can do that any time!’ She banged the table.

  ‘Touché.’ He raised his glass to hers as he mentally catalogued a million reasons that would prevent him from fulfilling this dream.

  ‘I’d love to live near the seaside,’ Tina said. ‘I went a couple times when I was younger and I remember the way the air smelt and the feel of the sand under my feet. I felt free, with all that space and no concrete. Just that big patch of moving blue to look at. I think that would be my dream too, actually, to live somewhere where I can open me curtains of a morning and see the sea every day. And if I want to see it at any other time of day, then all I have to do is pop my head out and there it is!’

  ‘That does sound pretty perfect.’

  ‘I find you very easy to talk to.’ She looked up at him.

  ‘That’ll be the champagne!’ He sniffed, glowing at the compliment.

  ‘Yes, probably.’ She laughed.

  ‘So do you have a partner now? After Marley’s dad?’ He tried to sound nonchalant.

  She shook her head. ‘No. He kind of put me off. I was proper crazy about him – Marley was on the button; he was a talker all right – and I was naive. I think I really wanted to believe that he was the one who might take me away for a different kind of life…’ She stared into the middle distance.

  ‘Is that what you wanted?’ Ian thought of all the times he’d wished for something similar.

  ‘I think so. But it turned out there were so many of us all under the same promise, he’d have had to hire a bloody minibus!’ She shook her head at the absurdity of it. ‘So what about you? What’s Helen like?’

  Ian sat back in the chair and placed his clasped palms behind his head. ‘She left. We’re done. She has someone else and I’m on my own without the microwave.’ He reached for his glass.

  ‘Oh God! I’m sorry. I feel awful. I wouldn’t have asked…’

  ‘No, no. It’s fine. It’s like you were saying: you are on that hamster wheel and you can’t get off and then one day you’re thrown off and while it might shake you, scare you, even, when you regain your senses and look at the life you were leading, you have to question whether you want to get back on. And I really don’t.’ He smiled at her.

  Tina coughed. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’ He leant forward, his arms on the table, as if this required his full attention.

  ‘Why don’t you buy a new microwave? They’re only £24.99 in Argos.’

  ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that?’ He laughed, lowering his glass and staring at Tina as she mirrored his every move.

  Her heart was beating so fast, she felt sure they could hear it all the way back in Hammersmith. He was going to kiss her! She was going to be kissed by a bloody doctor. Closing her eyes, she waited.

  ‘Tina!’ Miss Potterton’s voice made her jump to attention. She shot off her chair as though the old lady had pressed an ejector button.

  ‘Miss Potterton, I didn’t hear you! Are you okay? Do you need anything?’ she babbled, wishing her face would stop burning.

  Ian smiled at her. ‘More tea, Cordelia?’ He lifted the pot in his aunt’s direction.

  14

  ‘Good morning, Greta Garbo, how are we today? Ignoring me, I see. Well that’s fine, I happen to find you rather dull too.’

  Miss Potterton placed one hand on the wall as she shuffled towards the kitchen. ‘I think tea and toast with marmalade,’ she mumbled as she made her way along the hall.

  Greta Garbo meowed.

  ‘Oh, I see. The mention of food and you’re interested again! You fickle old thing.’ She laughed.

  ‘Too bad you weren’t at home for my birthday tea yesterday, madam! It was most enjoyable, as it transpired. Despite the rather cosy turn-out.’ Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. ‘And those two youngsters seemed to get on well. I rather thought they would, actually…’

  A sudden flutter in her chest stopped her short and she propped herself against the wall. It passed.

  Settling back into her armchair, with her tea and toast cooling on the side, she placed the album on her fragile lap and opened the heavy cover until it rested on the arm of the chair. The stiff cardboard pages were interleaved with a thin sheet of tissue paper, covering the many black and white images, each held in place by tiny cardboard corners, stuck to the page. Cordelia ran her finger over an image of Tom, leaning on a shovel with a bunch of dirt-covered carrots in one hand, proudly holding them up towards the camera. She remembered the laughter; as the pose had to be held for quite some time to be captured. It seemed all they did was laugh, how she missed that.

  Greta Garbo purred, ‘oh hello you. Look at this Miss Garbo,’ she pointed to a picture of a rubble-strewn street, ‘the aftermath of the blitz, my beautiful city burnt and I was powerless, we all were. A frightful time.’ She turned the pages, stopping at a black and white shot of a Soho street, in the sixties, ‘not as frightful, as this time. This for me was the worst. I lost my love, lost my hope. I think it was cancer, we were unsure, but with today’s technology, I’m sure it would have been far more identifiable. Not that it matters. Death is death and that was that.’ She took a deep breath and blotted at her eyes with her handkerchief.

  The sound of the letterbox flap roused her. She closed the album and slowly made her way into the hall. She stood, staring at the front door, her smile broke and her heart filled with joy. For there, standing with one foot on the welcome mat, was Tom.

  ‘Oh, my!’ Cordelia Potterton put her hand to her neck, clutching at the double string of pearls that lay against her shirt. ‘It’s you!’ she breathed.

  Tom nodded, arranged the stack of mail in a neat pile on the bureau and placed the paperweight on top.

  Miss Potterton took a step forward with her hand outstretched. Smiling broadly, she broke into a run, then jumped into the arms of the person she loved. Arms that had soothed her fearful heart during many a long, fretful night as their city had crashed and splintered under Nazi bombs. ‘Oh, Tom! My Tom! How I love you.’

  15

  Tina hovered in the kitchen, not wanting to go and mix, unwilling to swap small talk with the hordes that were cluttering the sitting room and filling the hallway. She decided instead that she would make a sweep of the room every twenty minutes, offering to replenish a sandwich, cut another slice of cake or pour fresh tea. It wasn’t as if she knew these people, though it had been lovely to see Len and his wife at the crematorium. She knew Miss Potterton would have been touched he’d made the effort.

  ‘Oh, there you are!’ Ian smiled as he rested his bottom against the kitchen sideboard. He folded his arms. ‘You’ve done a great job here, Tina. It’s a lovely spread – you’ve done Aunt Cordelia proud. And those tribute flowers you arranged for her coffin were absolutely stunning. You’ve got a real talent there.’

  Tina nodded and picked up a cup from the drainer on the sink.

  ‘Marley’s been making conversation with Huey, Dewey and Louie, I see!’ Ian chuckled. ‘And everyone seems to be making the most of the free food and the chance for a get-together.’

  Tina ran the tea towel around the rim of the cup, then popped it back on the shelf of the dresser. ‘Yep, that’s what I’m hearing. All them people who are standing in Miss Potterton’s flat, scoffing her food, chattering away, and yet they couldn’t even make the effort to come to her bloody birthday tea! I’m sorry, I shouldn’t shout, but it pisses me off. It would have meant the world to her.’

  Ian nodded. ‘Yes, it would, but that’s human nature, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t like human nature much sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t like human nature much a lot of the time.’ Ian raised his eyebrows in agreement.

  Tina reached across him for the saucer.

  ‘Her birthday t
ea was a great afternoon, despite the lack of guests,’ Ian said, looking straight at her. ‘I really enjoyed it.’

  ‘Me too.’ She felt her chest colour with embarrassment as she remembered their champagne-fuelled flirting.

  ‘Marley says college is going well.’

  She liked how he seemed genuinely interested. ‘Yes, he’s doing great. Studying hard, you know, getting on with it.’

  ‘Still on Plan A then.’

  ‘Yep.’ She smiled. ‘Still on Plan A.’

  ‘I…’ He hesitated, shifting his feet, awkward.

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘I…’

  ‘Dad!’ The voice was loud, bossy.

  Tina turned to take in the plump girl with the very high heels, jeans and sheer shirt that showed off her ample cleavage beneath her bolero jacket. Her hair was lustrous, long and curled. It looked either expensively coiffed or expensively stuck on.

  ‘Can we go? This is the pits. I’ve shaken hands with a hundred old people who smell like wee and mothballs and then had to watch them eat sandwiches while they talk with their mouths open. It’s disgusting! One man actually gobbed out a bit of cress that landed on my hand. Urgh!’ She shivered.

  The girl was pretty, but her words and her tone erased any attractiveness.

  ‘That’ll be you one day,’ Ian replied.

  ‘It bloody won’t. I don’t even like cress!’ She shuddered again.

  Ian and Tina exchanged a despairing look.

  ‘I meant the getting old bit, not the cress bit,’ Ian shot back.

  ‘No, it won’t. The day I start to lose my marbles or smell of wee, I shall throw a huge party, get pissed, say my goodbyes and take a private jet to Dignitas!’

  ‘And guess who’ll have to pay for that?’ Ian directed his words at Tina, who looked away.

  ‘I’m Tina, by the way. I was Miss Potterton’s cleaner.’

  The girl looked her up and down, gave a small-mouthed smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and continued whining. ‘Please, Dad, I need to leave!’ She stamped her foot on the floor like a petulant three-year-old.

  ‘Be my guest. Leave.’ Ian held his palm out towards the door like an effusive maître d’. His tone was sharper than his daughter was used to hearing.

  ‘But you drove me here!’

  ‘That’s right, and now you can get the train back, or the bus, I don’t really care which.’

  Minty stared at her father as tears of frustration glistened in her eyes. ‘Mum’s right, you are an irritating twat!’

  ‘Oi, missy!’ Tina’s shout was almost involuntary. ‘You can’t talk to your dad like that! You can’t talk to anyone like that! And especially not today. It’s Miss Potterton’s funeral.’

  ‘I think you’ll find I can do what the fuck I want, and I think you’ll find it has fuck all to do with you!’ The girl stormed from the room.

  ‘Minty!’ Ian yelled after her, furious.

  He turned to Tina with his fingers tugging at his hair in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry she spoke to you like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry she spoke to you like that! Flippin’ ’eck, Marley wouldn’t dream of—’

  ‘I know.’ He interrupted her. ‘I know. And there are two things I want to say to you. Firstly, you were so much more than my aunt’s cleaner; you were her friend. And secondly, I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that afternoon. I can’t get you out of my head and when my days have been gloomy or I’ve felt lonely, even just picturing you and the way you are has helped me find my happy.’

  Tina stared at him, shocked that this lovely man, this doctor, no less, could feel that way about someone like her. She stepped forward and tossed the tea towel onto the sideboard. He took her small hands inside his own and bent his head, kissing her lightly on the mouth. Tina felt her heart leap into her throat and her stomach clench with nerves and excitement. It had been a long time since she’d felt a bolt of pure unadulterated joy shoot through her body.

  ‘Ahem.’

  They both turned towards the pompous-looking old man with the walrus moustache who was standing in the doorway, his large stomach bulging beneath his navy blazer.

  ‘Afternoon! Muir Tyson-Blaine,’ he boomed, as though this should mean something. And it would have, had he bothered to turn up to a certain ninety-fourth birthday party. ‘Any chance of some more cake? We seem to have run out.’ He nodded towards the sitting room.

  Tina grabbed the packet of Garibaldi biscuits from her shopping bag and threw them at him. ‘’Ere you go, love. Get these in your norf ‘n’ sarf.’

  Ian smiled at her. ‘I think you lied to me – I think you actually learnt a lot in your rhyming-slang class.’

  And the two laughed and kissed again.

  *

  When the last of the guests had been ushered from the premises, Ian switched off the lights and pulled the plugs.

  ‘Can you still pop in, keep an eye, give the place a onceover? I want it kept nice until we know what’s happening with it.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve got my key.’ She smiled.

  As they made their way into the hall, Tina noticed a small stack of mail piled neatly on top of the bureau under a paperweight. She gathered the letters into her hand and passed them to Ian. ‘I suppose you’d better let the relevant agencies and whatnot know that she’s passed on.’

  He nodded grimly as he sifted through the letters. One in particular caught his eye. ‘Gosh, look at this!’ He held up the envelope and pointed at the large ER with a red crown above it. ‘It looks rather official!’

  ‘Open it!’ Tina urged.

  Ian placed his finger under the flap and pulled out a glossy card with a picture of Her Majesty on the front.

  ‘What on earth…?’ Tina was as curious as she was excited.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Ian stared at her.

  ‘What?’ She did a little jig on the spot.

  Ian read aloud: ‘I am so pleased that you are celebrating your one hundredth birthday…’ He looked up at Tina. ‘I send my congratulations and best wishes to you on such a special occasion. Elizabeth R.’

  ‘She was a hundred!’ Tina blinked.

  ‘She was.’

  Tina remembered standing on the other side of the front door and their first ever exchange. ‘You’re not one of those ghastly women who lie about their age to suit the circumstances, are you? Adding some years in their extreme youth and then removing them later on? I think that’s the height of vanity!’

  ‘The sly old devil!’ She laughed. Her laughter quickly turned into a torrent of tears. ‘I’m going to miss her.’ She sniffed.

  Ian gathered Tina to his chest and kissed her scalp. ‘And that, Tina, is the greatest compliment you can ever pay someone. To miss them. That’s real love.’

  They made their way up the steep steps to ground level and Ian looked up and down the street. ‘Can’t remember where I left the car!’ He scratched his head.

  ‘See, that’s another advantage of not driving. I always know where I’ve left the Tube station.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Do me a favour, Ian, just drop me a little text when you get home. Let me know you got there safely. I know it’s daft, but I’ll worry about you when you’re travelling.’

  Ian stared at her, as his heart leapt with happiness. ‘I will.’

  16

  ‘You sure you don’t mind dropping me off, Len?’ Tina leant forward from the back seat of Len’s cab.

  ‘Not at all, girl. It’s quite nice to be doing the journey, truth be told. I don’t ’arf miss old Miss P. She was one of a kind. She used to call me Leonard. I never had the heart to tell her I was called Len because me surname is Fairclough – it’s an old nickname from me army days, after that character from Corrie – and not because I was christened Leonard.’ He smiled.

  ‘I never knew that. What is your first name then?’

  ‘You’ll never guess it!’

  ‘It’s not Rumpelstiltskin, is it?�
��

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘My mum was a right bookworm, loved a bit of Dickens. It’s Josiah. I’m named after Josiah Bounderby in Hard Times.’ He looked into his rearview mirror at Tina, who was crying into her tissue. ‘You all right, girl?’

  ‘Yep,’ she managed. ‘I just had a bit of a flashback, that’s all. Dickens, eh? It’s a lovely name.’

  Len indicated and pulled over by the cemetery wall. ‘Right, as I said, it’s a little way round to the right of the gate. Follow the path and you can’t miss it. It’s under the big yew tree. Next to a family plot by the name of Jones, I think.’

  ‘Thanks, Len. You sure I can’t give you some petrol money?’ She jostled the bouquet of yellow roses in her arm.

  ‘Nah!’ He batted his hand. ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll just take the next foreigner round the block a few times, make it up.’ He winked at her, double-checked his mirrors and drove off.

  Tina looked up and there he was. Her heart jumped and she felt a thin film of nervous sweat prickling her skin. He was wearing a white shirt, a dark green linen blazer, jeans and loafers. He looked lovely.

  ‘D’you often loiter around graveyards?’ she asked as she approached him. And just like that, they picked up where they’d left off, familiar and comfortable.

  ‘I do today.’ He leant forward and kissed her cheek, as though they met every day and this was how he greeted her. ‘What beautiful flowers.’ He ran his finger over the blooms.

  She nodded. They were. ‘I found an old pressed flower on her bedside table, it had a little brown luggage tag tied to it with a piece of string, it said, “yellow rose” and so I thought these would be fitting.’

  Ian held her hand and guided her towards the gate. ‘I got here early and decided to try and find the grave, which I did.’

  ‘Oh wow! I’m dying to know more – no pun intended. Was he married, like we thought? Or did he die in the war?’

  ‘Neither.’ He smiled.

  The two trod the path in near silence, conscious of where they were and wanting to show respect for the person they had both been very fond of.

  ‘Here we are.’ Ian crouched down and rested his hand on the top of the gravestone.