Planning on Love

The day started like any other. I awoke slowly, sensuously, cuddling up to Johnny’s back, clinging on like a limpet, like we were two spoons nestling in a drawer. He smelt sleepy and warm, like a baby lifted tenderly from its’ cot …and like … well … like Johnny. I inhaled his scent, which should really be encapsulated into little green glass bottles and sold as perfume (we could make a fortune), and closed my eyes, a smile tugging at my lips. Johnny moved a little and brought his knees up to his chest, muttering some sort of sleepy gibberish.

A watery sunlight struggled around the thick seams of the curtains as, reluctantly; I turned away from Johnny’s warmth to lie on my back. I looked around the bedroom waiting for my eyes to adjust from sleep. The wardrobe and chest of drawers seemed to squat in the gloom like vaguely sinister animals about to pounce yet the oval dressing table mirror shone out like a beacon, like a welcoming light.

Sitting up, knowing that the day had to begin at some point, I stretched bringing my arms above my head and then fumbled on the bedside cabinet for my phone. The brightly coloured screen sprang to life showing me that it was Tuesday 20 October 2015 and it was 8.30am. The weather report showed a picture of a round yellow sun edged with a tiny fluffy white cloud. The temperature was showing 7 degrees centigrade and rain showers were expected. I didn’t know it then, but today was a day that I would never forget, a day that would change my life forever.

***

Johnny was late of course. It didn’t register with me at first that it was 8.30am … 8.30am! Johnny was usually up, showered, dressed, breakfasted and on the road in his dark blue Mazda by eight o’clock. He loved that car, worshipped it … next to our daughter, Lizzie, oh, and Layla and Joe, it was his pride and joy. However busy he was he always made time in the evenings or weekends to polish the bodywork with a bright yellow duster until it gleamed and twinkled like a shooting star as he drove around the streets of Cobby, our village and our home.

I remember that he leapt out of bed and fairly flew around the bedroom in a panic, his long lean body encased in dark blue underpants and a vest from which springy dark hairs sprouted at the neckline. The muscles on his arms rippled as he shrugged into his dressing gown. I heard a vague tinkle of water into the bathroom sink, then the whoosh of the shower, as I padded downstairs to put the kettle on.

“Luckily,” I thought, as I raised the kitchen blind and peered from the window. “I’ve booked annual leave today. I fancied a bit of shopping.” I felt quite light hearted at the prospect of a day off and happily spooned coffee into our matching granny and granddad mugs as the post clattered through the letter box onto the tiled hall floor and from the radio Chris Evans introduced Moira to read the nine o’clock news. Nine o’clock? Johnny was going to be very very late!

In his haste he stumbled on the stairs and swore loudly, “Damn and blast it …” followed by a few more expletives which made my eyes widen in surprise. Where did Johnny learn words like that? I thrust his mug of coffee at him as he strode rapidly into the kitchen.

“No time; no time,” he said, batting the mug away with an upraised hand, then, giving me an apologetic glance; took it from my outstretched hand and gulped quickly at the hot liquid. He winced as the dark brew burnt his tongue. “What happened to the damn alarm? Big day at work today, should have been there by now …”

“I know,” I soothed. “You’ll only be a little bit late though … how about some cereal or some toast?”

“I hate being late,” he muttered grumpily. “No … no thanks I’ve no time for breakfast …I’ll get something later …” I could smell toothpaste and mouth wash on his breath as he pecked me quickly on the cheek. He grabbed his briefcase and overcoat then hurried out to the car. “I’ll be late tonight darling,” he said, over his shoulder. “Planning meeting at the Town Hall …”

“Okay,” I said. “Drive carefully …” I placed a kiss on my finger tips and waved it airily in his direction as he tooted the car horn and drove away. I stood at the door watching until the car disappeared into a tiny black dot as though Johnny had been sucked into a vortex. Mrs Edmunds from across the road gave me a little wiggle of her fingers as she picked up a bottle of milk from the doorstep. She wore a green dressing gown and had a towel wrapped turban style around her head. Her face looked white and pasty in the weak sunlight. I raised my hand in a greeting.

Blood coloured leaves prised themselves slowly from the trees and twisted and twirled lazily in the chilly air. The sun shone in a pale blue sky speckled with filmy cloud which at this time of year held little heat. I shivered and hunched my shoulders for warmth as I went back inside. I didn’t know then, at that moment in time, that I would never see Johnny again.

***

It’s April now and I’m sitting in the lounge on my favourite big squashy sofa, looking out of the patio doors. The garden is awash with daffodils. They look like an army ready to attack as they sway in the breeze, their yellow helmets shining in the sunlight. I was surprised that they didn’t suddenly uproot themselves, sprout legs and march towards me.

I hadn’t been back to work at the estate agents since Johnny died. I didn’t have the staying power at the moment to deal with house buying and selling. Six whole months and what had I done but sit in the house, only going out when I needed food and drink …wine mainly … a deep red merlot and a microwave meal for one had become a regular habit with me.

After the first impact of Johnny’s death, Lizzie had stayed with me as much as she could, but she had the children and her job and needed to get back to her own routine. She was struggling too and wanted to be able to lean on me, to use me as her crutch, but without Johnny, I felt unreal, as insubstantial as a cardboard cutout and not much use to anybody. I was glad that she had Martin, dear capable Martin, who although he worked full time, helped look after the children, supported Lizzie, yet still found time to ring me every day to see how I was doing.

My eyes strayed from the garden to look more closely at the lounge, to really look at it as an outsider might. It looked unkempt like the old man that I sometimes saw wandering the village with his long tatty beard and scuffed shoes. The old ne’er do well as Johnny used to call him. I’d seen him rifling through bins, looking for bits of food and cigarette ends, I suppose.

Dust, I am ashamed to say, coated the furniture and the surface of the television and cobwebs hung from the ceiling like forgotten Christmas decorations. Even the framed photograph on the wall of Johnny and me as Mayor and Mayoress was covered with a thick furry film. I could write my name in that dust. I imagined my finger tip drawing a heart shape pierced by an arrow flanked by a K for Kath and a J for Johnny. I remembered writing that on a desk at school with a thick black biro, getting myself into a lot of trouble at the time. I sighed at the memory. “Don’t go there,” I thought to myself. “Don’t go down memory lane …” I should pull myself together, get myself back on track. Johnny would be disappointed in me. I could hear his voice, “I thought you were tougher than this Kath … I really did …”

I put my head in my hands and raked my fingers through my hair which badly needed a cut, and a good wash come to that. I stood up and looked in the mirror that hung over the fireplace. Yes I was right; my hair looked like old limp curtains hanging around my face. I’d lost weight and my cheekbones stuck out as sharp as razors as well as my collar bones. The jeans and long sleeved tee-shirt that I wore hung on my skinny frame like washing on a line.

Come to think of it, I was beginning to look like one of those emaciated models that you see on the TV. What a mess. I’m sure that not even Johnny would fancy me now. “What are you doing to yourself Kath?” I heard him say. “Come on, you don’t look like my girl any more … pull yourself together. I’m okay here, wherever it is I am and, well, I’m in a lot better shape than you are anyway …”

“What time is it?” I thought, glancing at my watch. “Hmm, just about midday. Is it too early for a drink?” I wandered aimlessly into the kitchen for the wine bottle when my phone rang making me jump. Rushing back into the lounge, I picked it up. It pulsed in my hand like a living thing. “Lizzie,” it screamed at me. “Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie …”

“Hi Mum,” Lizzie’s voice came clear and strong in my ear. I imagined her sitting in her lemon painted kitchen, next to her funky red fridge covered with magnets and nursery school pictures painted by Layla and Joe. Her smart phone would be clamped to her ear, hidden amongst long dark curly hair that rioted around her face like unruly snakes, and her large mobile mouth would be painted in her trademark red lipstick.

“Lizzie, darling, how are you?”

“I’m fine. How you doing mum?”

“Well, you know …”

“Yes I know,” she replied sadly. We talked of this and that. Lizzie’s part time job as a secretary in the local solicitors, Firth and Fewer, how Joe was enjoying nursery and God can you believe that Layla will be four soon and starting school in September?

The conversation slowly petered out after that. Lizzie had told me her news but, well, really what did I have to tell her? Well Lizzie, I’ve been sitting in the lounge, looking out of the window, wondering if the daffodils are going to sprout legs and attack me! Or, I’ve been looking in the mirror at a person with limp hair and razor like cheekbones. I don’t know who she is! Or, I was just about to go into the kitchen to get the wine bottle, it’s midday, early enough for a drink! Or, and this was the worst of the lot. Your dad who died six months ago has been speaking to me, giving advice on what I’ve to do with my future! No …none of those were good topics of conversation. Lizzie would think I’d lost it!

“They need to see you mum,” said Lizzie suddenly.

“Who?” I asked.

Lizzie took a deep breath and said a bit impatiently I thought. “The kids mum, they haven’t seen you for ages. Not since Christmas! I think they’ve almost forgotten what their nanny looks like … they’re always asking about you … and even though Layla sort of understands that granddad’s not coming back, Joe keeps asking for him …”

“Maybe this weekend?” I said tentatively, thinking, it’s only Tuesday today, the weekend is ages away. I immediately felt bad about having such thoughts but at the moment seeing my two little grandchildren seemed to require a lot of effort like walking the three peaks or running a marathon. I couldn’t really say why I felt that way. It wasn’t just the grandchildren though; everything seemed difficult at the moment. Perhaps I should move house and get a new job! It might give me a new lease of life. I came back to the conversation with Lizzie.

“Are you listening mum?”

“Yes … yes of course I am. I’m sorry Lizzie, I should be seeing a lot more of Layla and Joe … and it must be upsetting when Joe asks for his granddad …”

“Yes it is, and the last time they saw you, at Christmas, well it wasn’t the best ever was it … actually it was awful … “

I thought back to Christmas … the first without Johnny … we all tried so hard but the grief was horrendous. “Yes it was awful. Look, I’ll definitely come over at the weekend,” I repeated.

She sounded pleased. “Oh will you mum, that’ll be great … Martin will pick you up and bring you over, save you driving.”

“Okay,” I agreed. We hung up, Lizzie making me promise hand on heart that I would visit at the weekend and me assuring her hand on heart that I would. I actually did put my rather old wrinkly looking hand over my heart as I spoke to her.

I put my mobile on the coffee table in the lounge and decided to make myself busy around the house. I went upstairs, staring straight ahead, ignoring the kitchen and the wine bottle sitting on the work top. I intended to get some washing from the basket in the bedroom but became sidetracked by Johnny’s clothes in the wardrobe, hanging there just as they had the day he’d walked out of the front door, driven away in his car and never come back. Such a long time had passed and yet I still hadn’t done anything with them. They should have been sorted by now and the good stuff put into big black bags and taken to the local charity shops and any rubbish thrown away.

I flicked along the rail with my fingers, touching and stroking jackets and shirts, jeans and trousers. His shoes were lined up neatly at the bottom of the wardrobe. I pulled one of the shirts off the hanger, a soft blue denim, one of Johnny’s favourites. Holding it to my nose, I breathed in the scent. Yes his odour was still there trapped in the fibres of the material.

I sighed at the thought of sorting it all out. It would be a mammoth task; there were a lot of clothes and a lot of shoes and I didn’t want to ask Lizzie for help. I felt sure that sorting through her dad’s clothes would be far too upsetting for her. I peered closer at the shoes and saw that some even had shoe trees in them! Johnny had always been a bit of a clothes horse.

I jumped and the hairs on the back of my neck rose as I heard a voice shouting from downstairs accompanied by a harsh grating sound like somebody scraping their nails down a blackboard. I crept along the landing to the top of the stairs and leaned forward so that I could hear better. “Martin,” screamed the voice. “Martin, Martin, Martin …”

“Oh it’s my mobile juddering away on the coffee table.” I ran downstairs thinking that I really must change the ring tone to something less frightening and picked up the phone.

“Hello? Martin?”

“Hi Kath … yes it’s Martin.” I could hear talking in the background and telephones ringing.

“Martin, how good of you to ring. Are you at work?” Martin didn’t usually ring from work but waited until he got home saying that he didn’t want everybody at work to know his business. Why was he ringing me now, had something happened?

“Yes, just a quick one from work, Kath. I couldn’t wait until I got home. I’ve seen a job in the Cobby News that you might be interested in …”

“What makes you think I’m looking for work?” I asked tentatively.

Martin hesitated. “Well, I’m not absolutely sure that you are but you’re not going back to the estate agents are you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said.

“This looks good, Kath, right up your street I think …,” He took a deep breath. “Cobby Town Council is advertising for a Town Clerk.”

“Really? I thought that Marjorie was the Town Clerk at the Town Council … um, what’s her name … Marjorie Wilson? …”

“No, Marjorie Williams,” said Martin. “She’s retiring,” he explained. “I thought because of Johnny’s previous standing within the local council and all you’ve learned from him over the years and you being the Mayoress and all, that you might be interested in applying …”

“Oh … I don’t know Martin. I don’t think I could do a job like that. Marjorie’s retiring is she? Well … I know she’s older than me … but she doesn’t look retirement age does she? I got to know Marjorie quite well when Johnny was the Mayor.”

“Yes I’d thought you’d know her. I think it’s early retirement, Kath, although I suppose she might be sixty at least. Anyway, the advert says that you have to have the CiLCA qualification or …”

“Oh well, that rules me out then, I haven’t got any council qualifications …”

“Hey Kath, hear me out … you have to have the CilCA qualification or be willing to work at getting it. Just in case you didn’t know, it says in the advert that CiLCA means Certificate of Local Council Administration. It would probably take a year or two to get that but working as a clerk you can earn good money. What do you think? …”

The background noise had become deafening with telephones shrieking and people shouting just like my scary mobile. I could barely hear Martin now. “Martin,” I said. “I can’t hear you properly.”

“I’ll call in with the paper on my way home,” he said in a raised voice. “See you then …”

Slowly and thoughtfully I put my mobile back onto the coffee table. Town Clerk … hmm … what would Johnny say to that? It might be worth looking into. I could certainly do with the money. My widow’s pension didn’t seem to be stretching that far at the moment! Hmm … definitely something to think about.