Winchester Words

“Ooh… hello, is this the bus for Oliver’s Battery?”

“That’s right darlin’. Single or return?”

The lady smiled, fishing for the pass in her bulging handbag.

“That’s fine. ‘old tight luv”, nodding, eyes flicking from rear camera to wing mirror. The orange blink of indicator smearing across the wet road, he slid open the droplet-beaded window to give a thumbs up. With a hiss the corner of the bus lifted, pulling away from the front of the station. She jolted towards the first vacant double-seat.

The bus swung through several bends of one-way system before stopping on the Upper High Street. A group of school-uniformed youngsters funnelled on, continuing conversations as they filed towards the back seats, pressing passes on the electronic reader as they came.

“Hello Peter.”

“Grandma!” Eyes widening, a little embarrassed, he paused to allow the last three uniforms to squeeze behind him, then lowered beside her by means of pivoting around the metal hand-loop in the back of the seats in front of them.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well love, I’ve bought a car!”

“Really?”

“Yes, I’m a bit worried. It’s a private sale. You know… through the car magazine. I liked that it’s from here. So, you see, I’ve just arrived from Reading on the train to collect it.” She paused, twisting, hand gripping the top of the seat in front, to look directly at him. “Actually Peter, would you mind coming with me? I’ll give you a lift home and pop in for a cuppa with your mum … if she’s home. If not, I’ll make you one,” she giggled.

“Sure”. He smiled; his embarrassment gone. Grandma was funny. She did not behave the way a grandma should. She drove too fast, swore at other drivers, laughed a dirty ‘un-grandma like’ laugh and rabbited on such that it was hard to make links between one subject and the next.

The journey up the hill was lost in chatter, laughing at the coincidence of being on the very same bus. The public buildings slid past the rain-streaked windows, gradually becoming gentle green as the hill levelled off, spilling into the suburbs. Checking the twice-folded advert once more, Peter pressed and the ‘Bus Stopping’ sign lit at the back of the driver’s cabin.

“Well Grandma, time to see if this car you’ve bought is any good, eh?”

They navigated several curving closes of well-spaced houses. Smart, confident ash-clad frontages; large, glazed porches with galleried hallways mingled with smaller, dated, bungalows. Number Fifty-Two was squat and red-doored, in need of a paint. Netting sagged behind secondary glazing.

Glancing down, Peter checked the number and lifted the latch of the wrought-iron gate.

“After you Grandma.”

The door opened, wafting a Brussel sprout and gravy welcome. The moist-eyed lady stood, positioned mostly in the sanctuary of the red wood, a nervous bird looking from one to the other, unsure what to make of them.

“Good afternoon, I’m Mrs Smith. I’ve come about the car.”

“Oooh, yes! Goodness! How silly of me. Do come in.”

They went inside, Peter wiping his feet, enthusiastically, on the Home Sweet Home mat. There was a barometer, hanging on the floral papered wall, beside a glass-fronted cabinet in which a vast number of china bells were crammed on brightly lit shelves.

The lady was older than grandma, though he found it hard to say by how much. She was frail, making his grandma seem young and strong.

She led them through the hall into her kitchen. Two pans simmered on the gas. She turned them off as she ushered them through another door into a dark space. She stepped beside them, into the pool of light falling through the doorway, before reaching out. As the light flickered on, in three or four flashes, the buzzing intensified and then, before them, appeared a shining pale blue car.

“Richard only drove this for a few years.” The lady explained. “After the stroke he had to stop and now he’s…” she stifled a sob, “…well it seems a waste it just sitting here.”

Peter saw Grandma’s eyes glitter. She always felt sorry for people. He knew his Grandma would like the lady, so he was sure that she would have the car. Nonetheless, he looked around it, peering in the windows. He knew a bit about cars, but nowhere near enough to know if the price were a good one, he hoped the lady would not see his attempt to look informed as laughable.

When it started first time, they were both grateful the woman’s son had been charging the battery from time to time. After a short drive around the estate came over an hour and a half of chat, some hugging, with tears shed – by both ladies.

“You poor thing. It must be hard to see it go, what with Richard so recently gone.”

“Yes. But life goes on… and no one in the family wanted it, so I’m glad to see it go to someone so nice.”

The writing of a cheque, eating of several ginger nut biscuits and a cup of strong tea followed before Peter gladly pushed open the up and over garage door. His journey home from school had taken a lot longer than he had thought, but now they were off.

Grandma took an indirect, motorway route to Peter’s, simply to open the throttle and try it out. Clearly the late and much missed Richard had looked after his Fiat Punto. Peter braced his feet on the floor as, with the little engine racing, his grandmother tailgated at eighty-five. They sped to Chilworth, looped the roundabout and shot back to junction 11 in far less minutes than the 18-mile round trip.

*****

As he drove Peter smiled, remembering his grandma’s driving. Thirteen years had raced past almost as fast as she drove. He had last seen her and her car, on a Boxing Day outside his Uncle’s house. Three years on it was Boxing Day once more. This year the family Christmas gathering was at his Aunt’s in Frome. Christmas gatherings used always to be hosted in his own home, but, since his parents had split, his Aunt and Uncle shared it. He was driving his own car these days. Cat had shifted in the passenger seat. She slid him a sideways look.

“So will Uncle Seb be there …and Susie?”

“Yeah, she’s an only one, so Seb likes to get her down to meet up with her cousins.”

“Okayyy… that’s good. I mean I like kids … and Susie…but…well you know. Having to entertain them ‘cos I’m the youngest person there isn’t so great.”

“Well at least kids sort of warm it up. I hate seeing my father at these things, looking lost.”

“Surely you’d rather he’s coming alone than with that ghastly cow he was seeing last year!”

“I guess so. It’s just not like Christmas’ used to be.”

“Hm, bit young for nostalgia aren’t you Pete? And remember … we can’t stay late, okay? We’ve lunch with Stu and mum tomorrow and my gran’s in the evening.”

“And mine before the weekend! God, it’s such a pain having to split ourselves half a dozen ways every year.” 

“Maybe we can spend a day together at home, just us, next year?”

They had travelled to join his father’s family, his Aunt, her husband and three children along with his Uncle, his daughter and her mother for another Christmas lunch. It was the second year since grandma had unexpectedly died while on holiday. A fatal brain haemorrhage from nowhere. The hole she left, particularly on occasions like Christmas, was universally felt. Her generosity of spirit and silly humour bridged the generation gap. It was the bond that bound them, breaking the ice between the kids, the awkward teens, the younger adults and the slightly stressed parents of her grandchildren.

Peter had locked his car and already crossed the road when he saw the Punto sitting in his Aunt’s driveway. She had taken it a month or so after her mother had passed. She had been using it for a good six months before the garage had told her, after its MOT test failure, that it was beyond economic repair. Now, for more than a year, it had loitered outside their house, steadily dulling under a growth of lichen and leave mould. Black fungus splotches freckled the body work; the windows opaqued by a film of grime and diesel particulates thrown up by the succession of livestock and quarry lorries that trundled past each day. Peter was pained seeing her car echoing his grandmother’s fate. Hers was the first significant death he had known as an adult. He walked past, head down. He preferred to recall the virtually pristine look and feel of that first drive he had enjoyed with his grandma. It was before his childhood had ended. His parent’s separation had been an equally unexpected and summary tipping point into the adult world. It had left a distance between them all that had never been there before. Instead of a unit they were each now individuals.

*****

Today, eight months on, he had made the much shorter journey to his father’s house for another, hopefully not too awkward, family do. He hoped someone other than his father would open the door… and they did.

“Hi Seb.” Peter gripped his uncle’s hand, shook it, and ushered his girlfriend, Cat, through the hallway along with Louis, their new puppy.

“Is that Louis? Where is he? Bring him here” came an excited call from the lawn.

Susie, Peter’s niece, was now approaching nine, an age when puppy adoration becomes the only reasonable justification for stopping off at a relative’s house.

“Hey, good to see you both. Go on outside. Susie will burst an actual blood vessel if she doesn’t get to see Louis right now!”

Uncle Seb, his father and he gathered bowls of steaming new potatoes, plates of tomato and mozzarella salad and followed down steps to the lawn. A table was laid for lunch under the cherry tree, shaded from the August sunshine. Olives shone in heaps, tossed green salad glistened, specked with baby tomatoes, the scent of warm sourdough and cut grass mingled.

“Louis! Here Loueey! Look what I’ve got here boy.” Susie ran around waving a dog chew and squeaky ball. It was sometime before they could persuade her to eat. The black and white barking ball of fluff unwittingly shouldered the mantle of the mother and grandma, who’s absence their gathering still left them sensing.

The conversation had been easy. The antics of the girl and puppy filling any gaps. The afternoon was warm: lunch bled into afternoon tea. The sun sank behind the house and its golden light made a stage flat of the distant hills to the east.

 “Well. I am afraid we really had better go.” Seb announced to all, but mainly to Susie. She was still stroking, chasing and making puppy-dog eyes at the puppy with undiminished enthusiasm.

“Owhh-wa! Do we have to?”

“Susie, come on, we need to get off to grandad’s now”

“Okkaayyy!”

Slumped, head down, tongue lolling, the tired puppy tailed Susie, mirroring her trudge up the steps from the garden, both spent from their hours of playing.

Peter collected some of the used crockery from the table. Placing it by the sink he edged through to the front of the house where the visitors gathered to depart. They walked across the verge and then he saw it. Grandma’s car. He stopped and looked at his Uncle.

“Wowww! Seb that looks amazing. I had no idea.”

“It’s come up well hasn’t it. I got the parts it needed online. Cost next to nothing”

Peter caressed the body work of the car. First with his eyes and then his hands. The evening sun glinted off the roof. He walked around the car onto the road and squinted inside. Though nineteen it looked virtually new.

*****

In an instant he was back, climbing out of the Punto at his parent’s house, laughing with his grandma about their chance meeting on the bus. He heard her laugh; rich and infectious. He was transported to the days of nuclear family innocence. It felt so comfortable. Sitting in the kitchen over tea and cake. His mother had always been a great cook. Grandma was integral to what constituted family: a thread that led back into his prehistory and held things together. He remembered her visits when his parents were parting. She had refused to take sides. She wept, talked, listened, and laughed, with both her son and daughter-in-law in equal measure.

He recalled seeing grandma’s blue Punto sweep into the drive, going too fast as usual. Running down the stairs to get the door. She was a sliver of his father, a link that was both familial and familiar. She made him feel happy rather than awkward.

“Hey grandma, watch our wall, you’re going to take it out one of these days!”

They hugged in the doorway. She was very touchy-feely. Even through his squeamish teenage years Peter had made concessions about hugging his grandmother.

“How’s your mum Peter?” She breathed into his ear, squeezing him. They broke apart, holding hands at arm’s length, eyes meeting.

“Oh, you know… getting on I ‘spose. Doesn’t say much”

“Hmm, It’s a tricky time for you all… your dad too. You know that I hope?”

His eyes wandered. “Well…I guess.”

“There’s always more to things than we know.” She had said. “He’d really like to see you more. I know he’s mine, but anyone can see he’s hurting too.”

“Yeah, well…whatever.”

*****

The slamming car door snapped Peter from his reverie. Susie, having bent to give the puppy a final loose hug, had climbed into the back of the rejuvenated car. His uncle affectionately patted the roof of the car, called a cheery farewell and the trio pulled away. Spinning the car round in the mouth of a minor road, they drove back past, waving from behind the gleaming windows. Louis barked a goodbye to his afternoon playmate, tugging at his lead. At the junction, the indicator flashed right. In a pale blue blur, they slid the corner and were gone… and with them, once more, his grandma.

His teeth clenched. Sniffing he passed his fingers across his face and turned back to his father’s house.

“We’re going too.” Peter said.

With his Uncle, Aunt and young cousin gone he wanted to get away.

At the door, his father shook his hand. Held it too long.

“Be good to see you again soon son. Cycle this weekend? Weather looks good.”

“Err…well, maybe. We might be busy” Peter mumbled, bending to put Louis’ lead on.

At the car, Cat clipped the puppy harness into the backseat belt-holster, and they pulled away.

He drove.

“You okay?”

“Hmmm… that car. It’s …really…”

“For sure, it’s bound to be odd. Like weren’t you where there when she first got it.”

“Yeah.” Peter sighed, rubbing his stubbled chin, one hand on the steering wheel. They drove on in silence. Long shadows of huge beech trees flicked up off the road, over the bonnet, across the roof and lay flat on the road behind them. He drove more slowly than usual.

“Gonna talk about it then?” she finally asked.

“Oh, I dunno. It’s just…well. Seeing her car looking so good. It’s like… you know… Then outside dad’s place, it struck me… after he left, how often she came to see mum, as well as him.”

“That’s who she was Pete. She made efforts to see people’s point of view. She was a bit nuts, but she liked people and they liked her. Actually… you know I think it was love.”

“Hmmm… Maybe”

Before the sun had sunk, they reached home. Peter stilled the engine, reached forward to release his seat, pushed it back and sat. Cat got out, unclipped the sleeping Louis and carried him toward the house. At the door she turned, her face a question. Peter was in the driving seat, staring at his phone.

“You coming?” she mouthed, hunched in the effort to reach her key from a pocket whilst balancing the tired dog in the crook of one arm.

Peter opened the door slightly.

“Yeah. In a bit. I’m just going give dad a call about that cycle ride.”