"I'm afraid you may never have a desk job again. Employers prefer younger people! They shouldn't - but they do. You must be more flexible".The man at the unemployment office had looked embarrassed. He'd still got his job. Age for age, responsibility for responsibility - the job was the only difference between us.But it was a big difference.
In a way I really missed my desk? It was comfortable. It had been part of me for so many years. It had brought in money - just enough - to keep things going. But now it was over. Chapter closed. I was on the scrap heap. Dumped.
Did I care? For a while I cared a lot, yes., then less. Gradually the me that was defined by a desk gave way to a me that was - freer. True the bills were overdue and there were ugly scenes.
To be honest, I accepted the job that day just to show willing. Of course the pay was a joke - £10 in a day, if I was lucky.
But, once out in the fresh air, somehow it just didn't seem to matter any more. The world seemed full of possibilities; unexplained, undecided and only just round the corner. The country air felt fresh in my lungs, the sun beamed down and my whole body tingled with anticipation. I had not felt so good for years.
The heavy satchel on my unfit shoulders seemed light as a feather. The twisting country lane stretched out invitingly in front of me with its high hedge bordered with a riot of white throated fox gloves, sweet scented creamy honeysuckle and pink campion. Songs from hidden birds in the hedgerow crowded the country air, lifting me up, leading me on.
Just a small country lane - but for me it held the promise of new and better futures. Each stride pushed memories of bitter setbacks into the past and brought with it the promise of a few pennies in earnings.
It would have been easy to miss the flash of light. But it caught my eye through a gap in the hedgerow and, once noticed, it couldn't be ignored. Intriguingly, it glinted in the sun like an urgent signal.
I paused by the half open gate and looked down the path into an overgrown garden to a cottage. It had a wasted and secluded appearance, rather forlorn. It didn't look occupied. The thatch was patched, paint was peeling and the crumbling plaster walls seemed to have been repaired over many years with whatever came to hand.
A border of red peonies and poppies crowded the path that seemed to draw me towards the trellis porch and the weathered wooden front door.
Parting the thickly climbing green ivy, I found the hole in the broken window and through it could just see an austere hall. It looked old fashioned and uninviting. There was a single upright chair and a worn carpet. The hole in the window was big enough for a child to climb through and there were signs of glass trodden underfoot on the inside.
"Can I help you?" I froze.
Her voice was low with a musical lilt. A trace of Ireland or Wales.
Completely embarrassed, I felt like a youngster caught pilfering. Her look was quizzical, inquiring. Brown shoulder length hair was tied back into a single ponytail.
Soft wisps of hair framed a gentle face. She was slightly built with a simple belted cotton dress that brushed her knees. Brown arms were folded around plain white rumpled sheets, just dried and collected from a clothes line. Her eyes were pale blue - wary. A housewife going about her everyday chores, a routine suddenly disturbed ... possibly threatened.
I stumbled over my apology. No intention to intrude... just passing...saw the broken window... first day in this area ... only wanted to help ... not wishing to pry or invade privacy ... I felt flustered, stupid. All I wanted was to escape back to the security of the road outside.
"Would you like a cup of tea?"
A calm question? More a command. It stopped my explanations dead.
She didn't wait for a reply but passed close by me, pushed open the front door and disappeared inside leaving a delicate scent of lavender in her wake.
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 - 2006, 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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