As soon as she had slammed the door on her row with Pete, Alison realised she’d locked herself out. That afternoon she’d walked for miles, far too proud to go back to the house and face him again. She and Pete had always bickered, what couple didn’t? But this had felt different, more serious. This time she had allowed that thought into her head, the one she usually tried to ignore –
Would it be easier?
The question was relentless:
Would it be easier being apart?
The fresh air helped clear her head a little, although the edges remained frayed. Ali had walked up the hill to the left of their house and over into the cornfields, following a sprinkling of poppies that marked a loose path. She’d clambered over stiles, the wind gently
ruffling her hair, grateful she’d at least grabbed her cardigan before she left. As she climbed over a low stone wall to walk down by a stream, she thought about marriage.
How were you supposed to stay in love with each other for decades and decades, when you were both changing all the while? Then there was money, kids, ageing parents, the multitude of things life threw at you every day. Alison pulled her cardigan tighter around her. Even her parents hadn’t made it, and everyone had assumed they were the perfect couple. She’d seen her friends hit the hurdles during married life, and quite a few had fallen. Why did there seem to be a rule book for everything apart from marriage?
When Alison had got home later that afternoon, Pete had let her in without question or acknowledgement, clearly no readier to talk than she was. She’d said hello and gone straight through to her workshop. As she walked through the door an idea came to her. It was silly, really, but all the same she couldn’t shift it – she’d always believed that things happened, and people came into your life, for a reason.
She switched on her laptop and typed the name, Mrs Derek Spencer, into the search engine. The name on the box the teaset had come in. She added the place: Charlesworth. Her mind buzzing with possibilities, she pressed the return button and waited to see what fate had
in store.
*
Willow Tree Close. It was a part of town that Alison knew well, a place as calm and quiet as the high street was bustling. She looked around at the houses and thought back to her own. She and Pete were like strangers to each other still and their bedroom felt hollow. Was she really deluded enough to think she’d find the answers she was looking for here?
Being in these hidden-away streets again brought back memories. It felt like she was discovering a secret tin of photos and cinema tickets that she’d buried as a child. As a little girl the shaded communal gardens here had been her escape – on the way home from school she and her friends used to push the loose railings aside and sneak in to make daisy chains; as teenagers they’d given each other leg-ups and landed the other side, heady with the same spirit of adventure. In the longer cool grass, under the weeping willow, there had been furtive cigarettes, stolen kisses and dozens of whispered secrets. The residents of the surrounding houses must have had keys to the gate, but they didn’t seem to use them, preferring to chat on their front steps, or while they hung up their washing in their backyards. Every time Alison had gone there the gardens had been empty, ready to be discovered all over again.
Today Alison’s eyes were trained on the 1930s houses. Eighteen, twenty, she carried on along the
row until she reached number thirty-two. From the online records it had looked like Mr and Mrs Derek Spencer could still be living there. It wasn’t very different than any other house on the close. The flowers around the door were a little neater, perhaps, the hedge more carefully tended. She stepped up to the door and pressed the bell.
The woman who opened the door had a warm smile. ‘Hello,’ she said, almost as if she knew Alison. She was smartly dressed, in a yellow twinset and a sky-blue skirt that matched her bright eyes. It took a moment for Alison to register the hunch of her back, the deep lines in her face, her hands liver spotted and gripping a wooden walking stick.
‘Hello, Mrs Spencer,’ Alison said, glad she’d made the effort and put on a smart skirt and blouse for the visit. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said, searching for the right words to explain what had brought her there. ‘But I bought a teaset,’ she said, shuffling her feet. ‘And I think once it might have belonged to you.’
Mrs Spencer’s eyes drifted downwards, as if she was trying to remember.
How silly of me
, Alison thought,
to have come here. She must be at least eighty. Of course she doesn’t remember
. Alison gave it one more go. ‘It had forget-me-nots on the cups,’ she said, ‘and a sugar bowl, with little silver tongs.’ She remembered the photo. She pulled the Polaroid of the teaset out of her jacket pocket and held it up so that the old lady could see it. ‘Here – this is it.’
A flicker of recognition passed across
Mrs Spencer’s face right away. ‘Ah, of course! Oh yes. Forgive me dear, my memory’s not what it was. We gave that to our neighbour Gareth just last month. They are ancient old things really but we were always fond of them. We were going to throw it out actually, but Gareth thought he might be able to make a bob or two so we gave it to him for the stall.’
‘I’m glad you did,’ Alison said. ‘I bought it with two friends and we think it’s beautiful.’
‘How nice,’ she said, genuinely.
‘I’m Alison,’ Alison said, holding out her hand for the older lady to shake.
‘Ruby,’ she replied with a wide smile, her handshake firmer than Alison had expected. ‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘That would be lovely,’ Alison replied.
Mrs Spencer – Ruby – walked Alison through into a tidy little living room that smelt faintly of biscuits, with framed photos of children on the mantelpiece and crochet coverings on every other surface. In the armchair facing out to the window with a book in his hand was a grey-haired man in smart trousers and a white shirt, wearing thick, dark-rimmed glasses.
‘Derek,’ Ruby said to him, gently. ‘We’ve got a visitor. This lady is Alison.’
Derek got up from the armchair and
stood to greet her.
‘Hello my dear,’ Derek said, with a smile. ‘Welcome. How nice to have a young guest. Shall I put the kettle on?’
‘Yes, do,’ Ruby said warmly. ‘And there’s some Battenberg in the cupboard, could you pop that on a plate too?’
Before she’d arrived, Alison had worried she’d be intruding, but right now she felt like the Queen on a state visit. Ruby plumped the cushions on another armchair nearer the sofa, then motioned for Alison to sit down.
‘So dear, the tea things,’ Ruby said, as Alison took a seat. ‘Yes, I do remember them.’ She paused, and looked a little more misty-eyed than she had by the front door. ‘Derek,’ she called out, louder, ‘you remember our old teaset, don’t you?’
Derek peeped through the strands of the bead curtain by the kitchen. ‘What was that dear? Tea’s nearly ready, yes.’
‘No, darling. Not that. This young lady and her friends bought our teaset. You remember the one we gave to Gareth along with the books?’
‘Oh yes, the one with the flowers. I do.’ Derek ducked back into the kitchen. Alison could hear him pouring the boiling water into a teapot. A moment later he reappeared carrying a tray with sliced Battenberg, plates and three cups and saucers and put it down
on the table between them. Alison looked at the cups, admiring them – each one had a tiny picture of a thatched cottage with a country garden on it and the saucers matched. Derek sat close to Ruby on the sofa and Alison took in the picture – Ruby’s hair was styled into perfect white curls and a delicate gold locket hung around her neck.
‘Help yourself to some cake,’ Ruby said, motioning to it.
‘Yes,’ Derek said, as if continuing something he’d already been saying. ‘We needed to clear some space. The problem is we can’t get up the stairs like we used to. So last year our son and his wife helped us bring the bedroom downstairs, did a conversion. It works for us, doesn’t it, Rube?’
Ruby nodded, and gave Alison a little wink, clearly used to her husband’s long stories.
‘We didn’t want one of those stairlifts.’ Derek shook his head, dismissing the idea.
‘Andrew and Julie asked us recently if we’d let them convert the top part of the house into a flat for our granddaughter, Suzie. She’s a student, you see, and it’ll mean she can move out of her parents’ house without it costing a fortune.’
Alison nodded, smiling.
‘We liked the idea,’ Derek continued, ‘Suzie is a gem. Anyway – long story short, sorry, dear, I do go on sometimes – we realised there was far too much
clutter up there. Still is, we’ve only just started really. We were fond of lots of the things, but time passes, doesn’t it? Some things start to matter less.’ He leaned forwards and poured the tea, then milk, and passed Alison a full cup.
‘But that teaset saw us through many years,’ Derek said, a faraway look in his eyes.
‘Oh yes,’ Ruby chipped in. ‘We used to get it out when friends were round, and every Sunday after church.’ Alison bit into a slice of cake as she listened. ‘Lots of happy times here,’ Ruby said, with a smile.
‘I can imagine,’ Alison said. There was something welcoming and easy about the atmosphere in the Spencers’ modest, cosy home, as if the walls themselves carried memories of music and laughter. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘We moved in just after the war,’ Ruby said. ‘Derek had been away in Germany and I was here, working at the factory. At the time, in the first flush of love as we were, the wait seemed to go on for ever.’
Looking at the two of them Alison wondered how they could ever have been apart – they were even holding hands as they talked.
‘It wasn’t easy,’ Ruby continued, ‘but during that time apart we both made a lot of friends – friends for life.’ Ruby pointed to a colour photo on the wall of a group of ladies as old as she was, her in the
centre, all smiling for the camera. ‘And when Derek came back …’ Ruby looked at her husband and Alison noticed her squeeze his hand gently. ‘Well, we didn’t want to wait around any longer, did we?’ she laughed. ‘After all those romantic letters back and forth, we could finally get married and make a home together. We got that set as a wedding present, didn’t we, dear?’
Derek nodded, ‘That’s right. My Aunt Brenda gave us that.’
‘A wedding present?’ Alison said, the words tumbling out. ‘Then you should have it – I’ll get it back to you.’
Ruby laughed kindly, her cup rocking a little in her hand.
‘Oh no, dear. Don’t you worry. It was the 1940s. We didn’t have wedding lists like now, and everyone would end up buying you the same thing. Four china teasets we got for our wedding! Who needs that many? Not us. I’m happy that your one has gone to a good home. It’s funny though, isn’t it? Four teasets for little old us and then you three ladies having to share.’
Alison noticed then that above the couple, on the little bookshelf over their heads, there was a black and white wedding photo.
‘Is that photo of you?’ she asked, curious, before she could stop herself.
‘Yes,’ Derek said. ‘Pass it over to Alison, Ruby.’
Ruby reached behind her and gave Alison the
silver framed picture to look at. Ruby and Derek, younger but still recognisable, stood on the steps of Charlesworth church.
‘Lovely,’ said Alison. She took in the slender, dark-haired bride in a long-sleeved white lace gown, the man next to her handsome in a dark suit and horn-rimmed glasses. They were standing as close then as they were sitting now, two halves of a whole. It was so different from the pictures Alison had collected and pinned around her dressing table mirror – there was no awkwardness to them at all; here was a couple who, now as then, were meant to be together. In the photo Ruby’s slim hand was enveloped by Derek’s. They were looking directly at the camera, but it seemed as if all they really wanted to do was look at each other.
‘You look very happy,’ Alison said.
‘Yes,’ Derek said. ‘We still are.’ He used the tongs to put two cubes of sugar into his tea and stirred it, then took his first sip. ‘I always leave it for a bit. I don’t like it too hot, you see.’
‘Derek’s right, we are happy. But even in that photo, well the smile’s only ever half the story, isn’t it?’ Ruby said. She hesitated for a moment, then carried on.
‘While Derek came home from the war, my brother David never did. He was killed over in Germany, you see.’ There was a distance in Ruby’s eyes as she spoke. ‘When we got the telegram just before
the war ended, I thought it would be the end of my mother and father too. Losing David was a reminder of how important it was not to wait about, but I missed him terribly. In those first few months of our marriage I wasn’t really all there, was I, Derek?’
‘No, you weren’t yourself back then,’ Derek said. ‘The girl I’d left when I set out in uniform loved dancing and good times, but the life went out of you for a while, didn’t it?’ He rested a hand on Ruby’s knee.
‘War is cruel,’ Derek continued, ‘we all know that. It was strange for me too, coming back to Charlesworth, the peaceful town I’d lived in all my life, but having seen things that other people hadn’t.’
‘But then our Jimmy came along,’ Ruby said. ‘And things got better. He reminded me of David from the day he was born, and I still feel like I got a piece of my brother back that day. Anyway, things change when you become parents, and we just got on with it. So we’ve had bad times and good,’ Ruby said, ‘like any couple. But we’ve always tried to be there for one another. Work through things as a team. Not give up.’
‘Sometimes she drives me round the bend,’ Derek said, earning himself a playful jab in the ribs from his wife. ‘But I wouldn’t be without her. Not for a minute,’ he smiled. ‘She’s my – what was it that Spanish fella
at work used to say? – my half orange. That’s right. That’s my Ruby.’
Alison finished the cake on her plate and took another sip of tea before putting the cup back on the tray. She saw Ruby’s eyes rest on her wedding ring as she did so.
‘It looks as if you’re married too, Alison. You’ll know what it’s like then, the ups and the downs.’