by Alex Brown
There was a brief knock on the front door and the woman from earlier appeared in the kitchen doorway.
‘Just thought I’d pop in and see how you’re getting on? I’m Molly by the way, don’t think we were properly introduced, what with all the commotion that was going on.’ The woman chuckled and pushed out a hand towards April. ‘You must be Winnie. Old Edie often mentions you. We always have a little chat when she calls up with her meat order – I’m Cooper’s wife, we own the butchers’ shop in Tindledale High Street,’ Molly finished explaining.
‘Oh, um pleased to meet you again!’ April smiled and pushed her hair off her face with the top of her forearm. ‘But no, I’m not Winnie. I’m April. Edie is my great aunt.’
‘Ahh, that’s nice and a turn up for the books – I didn’t think Old Edie had any relatives left … apart from Winnie of course and from what I gather she looks just like you – dark curly hair, handsome and petite, is what Edie says. Well there you go, just goes to show.’ Molly lifted her eyebrows. ‘And it’s very nice to meet you, April.’ She nodded resolutely. ‘You gave us quite a scare before … when we thought you were a burglar.’ Molly chuckled heartily, making her shoulders bob up and down and her ample bosoms jiggle around.
‘Um, yes!’ April grinned as she stood up. ‘And I really am so very sorry to be the cause of such a drama in the village … it’s unlike me, I’m usually quite calm in a crisis but I guess, well, I panicked and …’ April paused to shrug. ‘I certainly shouldn’t have smashed the window, not when the door was open all along and my aunt was only sleeping, even if it was inside her oven … I feel like a prize fool now.’ She peeled the rubber gloves off her hands to reciprocate Molly’s handshake, pleased to see that the ferret wasn’t in attendance this time. It did have quite an acquired scent, which April was still being treated to a whiff of from time to time. But, thankfully, in the ferret’s place was a large white enamel pie dish covered with a navy striped tea towel from which a deliciously cosy aroma wafted.
‘Oh, don’t be daft, no need to apologise, love. Honestly, you did me a favour to be fair …’ Molly smiled as she took a place mat from the pile next to a fruit bowl and carefully set the pie dish down on the kitchen table.
‘I did?’ April asked, keenly eyeing the dish.
‘Steak and ale, just warm it through for your tea, and it’ll be lovely with some runners and mash,’ and Molly rummaged inside a reusable shopping bag looped over her left arm before producing a handful of super-sized runner beans followed by two large Maris Pipers which she placed on the table next to the pie. ‘Freshly pulled from my patch in the garden – thought you could do with a decent meal after your long journey, and then what with all that broken window shenanigans …’ She shook her head as she lifted the towel before instantly getting back to the conversation – leaving April with not even a second to acknowledge the kind gesture (instead she made a mental note to call into the butchers’ to return the dish and say a proper thank you, before she went back to Basingstoke). ‘Oh yes. Mark, he’s the policeman,’ Molly continued, ‘well, he came into the shop to pick up some pork and leek sausages for his tea …’ she paused to catch her breath. April nodded, liking Molly right away. ‘Anyway, I was up to my elbows in chicken giblets when the call came through to Mark on his radio and then, well, I just couldn’t help myself.’ Molly’s cheeks flushed. ‘I can’t remember the last time we had a bona fide emergency in Tindledale and it’s not every day that you get to see a crime unfolding right in front of your eyes so I hot-footed it down here …’ Her voice petered out and silence followed. ‘Blimey, I sound dreadful don’t I?’ Molly added a few seconds later. ‘What must you think of me?’
‘Not at all,’ April replied graciously to spare Molly’s obvious embarrassment – her neck was now covered in a myriad of red blotches. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’ve come back to the cottage.’
‘You are?’ Molly looked relieved and the redness immediately started to diminish.
‘Sure. Because I can’t remember the last time someone brought me a homemade pie, so thank you.’ April beamed. ‘And I’m curious to know more about Winnie … what else has Edie told you about her?’
‘Oh, it’s my pleasure, I love baking,’ Molly said. ‘It’s so satisfying, and you can’t beat a good pie, don’t you think?’ April nodded. ‘And as for Winnie, um, well I don’t know very much, not in terms of where she lives and stuff. Only that Edie is very fond of her … I get the impression she’s a much younger relative, a niece or daughter perhaps. That’s why I assumed you were Winnie – Edie always says stuff like, “Our Winnie loves a nice rasher of bacon for her breakfast”, you know, when I bring down her order. I always pop in an extra few slices for Old Edie.’ Molly paused and lowered her voice. ‘Poor dear doesn’t have many pleasures in life, and I guess I feel a bit sorry for her … think she gets lonely, probably why she likes to go for a wander,’ she mouthed, indicating with her head towards the sitting room next door, ‘and that’s no way for a lovely old lady to end her days.’
‘A wander?’
‘Yes, you know, it’s happened a few times … I found her once in her slippers at the top of the lane. Driving past I was when I spotted her, and thank God I did as she only had a cotton sundress on and it was perishing outside.’ Molly shook her head. ‘Soon got her warmed up though after I popped her in the car and brought her back home, so disaster averted.’ And Molly chuckled like it really was no big deal … or, and April’s heart sank at the thought … maybe Molly, like Harvey, was just used to Old Edie’s muddled ways and impromptu jaunts around the village in her slippers!
‘Thank you,’ April said quietly.
And now it was her turn to feel embarrassed. It really was no excuse not to have visited her great aunt – since the funeral was fair enough, but that was over eighteen months ago as it was. April felt that she should have mustered up more effort and made herself come to Tindledale before now. Whilst it was wonderfully community-spirited of Harvey and Molly to be looking out for her aunt, it shouldn’t be that way. April flicked her eyes away and then pretended to busy herself by putting the rubber gloves back in the cupboard under the sink. When she had finished, she grabbed her bag from the counter and found a tube of hand cream. She squirted a dollop on to the back of her right hand while Molly continued talking, moving on to another topic.
‘So I see you’re married?’ She gestured to April’s left hand where her wedding band was. ‘Is your husband visiting too?’
April froze.
Silence shrouded in awkwardness hung in the air between the two women.
After what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably only a few seconds, April managed to shake her head, initially taken aback at the directness of the question, but then quickly came to the realisation that, actually, she felt OK. A bit wobbly, she hadn’t been prepared, that was all, but …
She took a deep breath and replied.
‘Um, no. No he won’t be doing that,’ April started, wondering how to explain … as so far she hadn’t had to. Everyone she had spoken to since Gray died – friends, his colleagues, utility companies, people at his squash club (Gray had loved playing squash before he was no longer able to swing a racket), the library, bank, etc. – already knew. April was suddenly conscious that this would be her first time explaining from scratch to a person who didn’t know Gray and she had no idea where to begin – in fact, she wasn’t sure she wanted to share this information about her husband with someone she had just met. It might seem strange, but by keeping the motor neurone disease and Gray’s death to herself while she was here in Tindledale, April felt as though his memory, indeed his life, could be just hers, and hers alone, and therefore protected. Whole. And not diluted by having to share him. At home, she had no choice but to share him with Nancy and Freddie and, whilst April knew that he was never hers alone, today and tomorrow he could be – selfishly so, and right now, she really wanted that.
So she added, ‘It’s just me,’ a
nd pulled her bottom lip in over her teeth and bit down hard as she worked the cream into her hands, masking the sudden tremble that had engulfed them. Molly studied April momentarily before continuing.
‘Don’t worry, love. Happens to the best of us! My Cooper, and the boys – I’ve got four of the wee bastards, God love them – but they drive me bonkers sometimes and I have to take off to a spa for a day or so just to gather my thoughts and gear up for round two hundred trillion.’ Molly puffed in sheer exasperation. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place for some R&R, fresh rural air and hearty country food, and you’ll have made up in no time … give him a few days to miss you and see how he likes lying next to a cold section of the bed—’
‘He died!’ April blurted involuntarily, despite her earlier decision to not mention Gray, and then instinctively pressed a hand to the top of her chest. ‘Sorry, I um … er, I shouldn’t have shouted it out like that.’ The hand moved to her earlobe to twiddle a silver stud as she wondered what on earth to say next. Molly was staring at her, her mouth still open in an O shape and her eyebrows furrowing underneath her fringe.
But then, quite unexpectedly, Molly had her arms around April.
‘Oh God love you,’ she said, patting April’s back before letting her go and taking a couple of steps backwards into her own personal space. ‘I am so bloody sorry. Me and my massive mouth … and don’t you dare apologise,’ Molly admonished harshly, although her eyes were soft and full of warmth.
‘It’s OK. It was a year and a half ago now … don’t know why it still gets me like this,’ April fidgeted.
‘Crikey. That’s no time at all. And who said there was a time limit on your feelings in any case? If it gets you, it gets you, and that’s the end of it!’ Molly shook her head and then looked as if she was trying to work out what to do next for the best. April waited, wondering if she should explain, indeed could explain … without breaking down. She had become so accustomed to keeping all her feelings stashed away inside her and was getting pretty good at it to be fair. But then this was big, a first, having to tell someone what had happened to Gray – her wonderful, witty, vibrant husband, best friend and lover – and would Molly really get it? Could April do Gray justice? Convey exactly how amazing he was to someone who had never known him, or even met him? And somehow it made it all seem so raw again. But April was saved from having to fathom out how she felt exactly in this precise moment in time, because Molly came right out with it and asked a very direct question. A question so direct that many other people may have avoided it for fear of upsetting the bereaved person.
‘How did he die?’
And April surprised herself by suddenly feeling relieved, relaxed even, especially when Molly bustled across the kitchen to where the kettle was on the Aga and, after lifting it up, added, ‘If you’ve got time, I’d love to hear all about him. Shall I make us a brew?’
April nodded and smiled, before glancing through the little serving hatch in the wall into the sitting room to check on Edie. Ahh, her great aunt had given up on her search for the playing cards and was having her afternoon snooze now, so was unlikely to need her for a little while. Feeling unusually calm and, dare she say it … a little uplifted at the prospect of talking about Gray, April pulled out two chairs, took a deep breath and thought what a wonderful thing the kindness of strangers could be.
An hour or so later, as April said goodbye to Molly, she closed the front door behind her new friend and smiled to herself. She felt as though she’d known Molly her whole life, which it turned out was pretty near true, as Molly remembered cycling around Tindledale one summer as a child with the ‘girl down from London’. April couldn’t remember this exactly, it seemed so long ago, but she did have fond memories of those carefree days in the school holidays with a big group of children from the village, so it had been lovely to reminisce with Molly. A rare treat for April, as apart from Aunt Edie, there wasn’t anyone else in her life who shared those memories from years back. When she had gone to live with her grandparents, after her parents died, April had lost contact with her school friends. It was as if the rug had been pulled from under her, and she’d been left dealing with a massive thing when she should have been concentrating on exams and filling her time with reading Jackie magazine and such like. But instead the grief took over and since then she had always found it hard to connect with that period before her parents died. It was often too painful to remember the happy, good times, only for the reality of not having them in her life to then come crashing back all over again. And later, when April had finished her nurse training, she had immersed herself into working as many shifts as she could in the hospital, until she met Gray. It had been easier that way, especially after her grandparents died and she had felt so very alone.
Yes, she had friends now, but was conscious that she had retreated into her shell again after losing Gray, and even though her friends had made such a tremendous effort to re-engage her in life since his death – taking it in turns to visit on a Saturday night with a bottle of wine and ideas for fun nights out, bowling, ice skating, cinema, etc. – she just hadn’t felt up to it. Preferring instead to curl up on the sofa in her pyjamas staring at her wedding video, and then the honeymoon weekend in Venice on the flatscreen TV. No lights on, no volume, just silence and Gray waving and pulling a silly face at the camera. It had been a comfort. But April knew it wasn’t right, she couldn’t carry on like that for ever. Even Nancy, when she returned from her nights out, wouldn’t come into the lounge, probably couldn’t bear to; instead she had crept upstairs to bed and left April alone with her memories.
This had made April very self-conscious, often feeling whenever she left the house for essential trips, such as the bank, supermarket and such like, that everyone was looking at her, as if she had a big sign hanging around her neck that said, ‘My husband died and now I’m turning into a very sad and lonely recluse’. It was an utterly awful way to be. But slowly, it had subsided and her confidence was starting to return – just driving to Tindledale had already given her a boost, something she wouldn’t have even contemplated doing a while ago. Although, she reflected, some of those friends had drifted away … maybe it was too late and they had run out of patience already, moved on. After all, they had their own life ups and downs to deal with, so she couldn’t blame them for that. April chewed the inside of her cheek, and resolved to make more of an effort when she got back home. She’d neglected her aunt, and it wouldn’t do to neglect the few friends that she had left as well. Yes, a change of scenery sure had given her a different perspective on things. And maybe she’d go back to work, find a nursing job again – she’d thought about it on and off since Gray had died, but somehow hadn’t managed to actually put herself forward, get a plan in place and be proactive about it. It had felt, somehow, in that time, that going back to work meant the part of her life with Gray was properly over, and she hadn’t been sure she was ready for that …
April went back into the kitchen and was pleasantly surprised to see that her aunt was laying the table for dinner. Humming to herself, Edie seemed perfectly sprightly as she nipped around the table making sure everything was just so. Knives, forks, pudding spoons, napkins and even a jug of iced water with two glasses. It was nice to see, and gave April a warm glow, a sense of having come home, belonging, just like she had felt as a child during those trips to Tindledale …
‘You’re just in time. Dinner won’t be long, dear. Sit down and I’ll dish up.’ Edie smiled, reaching for a very faded, holey tea towel with which to open the Aga to check on the pie. April hesitated, unsure whether to intervene or not as the tea towel really wasn’t up to the job of protecting an old lady’s hand from getting burnt. But April was conscious that she was in her aunt’s home and didn’t want to be seen as interfering – and, besides, her aunt seemed to be managing just fine, as she then flung the tea towel over her shoulder and pushed a masher into the saucepan of potatoes and started mashing, so April sat down. On second thoughts, maybe n
ot! Hot water was splashing everywhere. April jumped up and gently took the masher from Edie as she winced when a droplet landed on her bare arm.
‘Oh dear. I forgot to drain the potatoes,’ Edie said, wiping her arm on her apron before clasping her hands together.
‘It’s OK. Easy mistake to make,’ April consoled, carefully lifting her aunt’s arm to check that she wasn’t hurt. Thankfully, she was fine. ‘How about you sit down and let me wait on you for a change? Think of me as your waitress for this evening. Dinner will be served in five minutes, Madame.’ April did a little bow and laughed, remembering the game they always played in the past when she had visited as a child. Aunt Edie would let her carefully bring the plates to the table, reminding her to use two hands, and April had felt so grown up. Sometimes, the game had started earlier with April pulling out a piece of paper from her letter-writing set on which to write a menu, and then Aunt Edie would pretend to choose her favourite dish – naturally it was always the meal that they were actually having. April wondered if her aunt would remember – probably not, it was such a long time ago – but to her delight Edie’s face broke into a smile of recollection.
