Open Writing

Vera released the Zimmer frame and sank gratefully onto her high-backed chair. At ninety-one she found life more and more difficult. True her eyesight had improved after the last cataract operation but her hearing remained poor. She was reliant on her lip reading skills. Television, ‘Countdown’ apart, had rarely featured in her life but she missed the radio. These days she lived in a world of muted sounds.

Today was a special day. Last night had been spent worrying about her visitor. He was due in about half an hour. She fretted about making another trip to the bathroom. She moved in her chair and winced with pain.

The red shoes that the care assistant had retrieved from her wardrobe sat on the side table. She reached out and ran her fingers over the fabric. Why had she kept them all these years? Why did she want to see them now? She shook her head. Raking up the past would benefit no one. Had her feet ever been so small? She sighed and looked down. These days she wore support stockings and comfortable slippers.

She remembered buying the shoes, after much scrimping and saving, when she had been twenty or so. Frank had admired her in them; she felt like a queen. They had been part of her honeymoon outfit. A week in Scarborough had seemed very daring at the time. They went to all the dances. Frank had swept her off her feet.

Both had come down to earth with a bump when they went back to the tenant farm high on the moors. Frank worked all hours trying to knock the sour land into shape and to build up the milking herd. Their only relaxation had been the Saturday night dance in Huddersfield. Frank had been a handsome man and remarkably light on his feet...for a farmer.

Vera had been a good cook whose table fairly groaned with produce. As the daughter of a publican she had helped serve mouth watering cream teas. On the farm her particular speciality was the ‘beastings’. This custard pie was made using the cow’s first milk after calving.

She would have liked ‘to calve’ successfully herself. After ten years of disappointment she had become pregnant in the last year of their marriage. This much wanted girl was stillborn. Vera imagined her daughter growing up, bringing a lad on the farm to help. She’d even named her Ruth. At the sheltered housing she had let it be known she had a daughter who now lived in Canada.

One month after the loss of her child Frank’s shattered body was brought back on the hay wagon. He had been up on the scarp edge grubbing out gorse when his tractor had overturned. No more dancing for him.

Vera moved from the farm into a small cottage with a large side garden. Her vegetable garden and herbaceous border were much admired. For the next forty years she worked in a series of bakers’ shops. After the isolation of the farm she enjoyed meeting people. Two gentlemen admirers would have liked to marry her, consecutively not concurrently. She would have none of that. Dancing partners yes; marriage partners a decided no. Frank was to be her only mate and anyway there was the widow’s pension to consider.

She glanced at the clock. Her visitor would be arriving shortly. Mrs Wood, the care worker, was to bring him along to her room. Two months earlier she had arrived flourishing a letter.

‘I thought you said your daughter lived in Canada. You’ve got a letter from Australia. Can my son have the stamps please?’ Of course she had to read the letter to Vera. Distances were not too bad but print was the very devil. At the end Vera was left in a confused state. Today all would be made clear.

When her guest came in Vera’s heart lurched. She didn’t need any explanations. John Ramsden was the spitting image, albeit an older version, of Frank. What a very strange situation. The son was older than his father. He was tall and carried himself well…he would make a fine figure on the dance floor.

Vera’s anxiety seeped away…she felt strangely calm. She seated him opposite her, in a good light from the window. At a pre-arranged signal Mrs Wood made them coffee and was then despatched to her other duties.

‘G’day. It’s good to meet you Mrs Coburn. I hope my letter wasn’t too much of a shock. I should’ve sorted all this out much, much earlier.’

‘Sorry, can you speak up.’

‘Is this better? Well, when I was about to retire I began to wonder about relatives back home in England. With the help of the inter-net, and my wife, I dug up quite a bit of information. To be honest we weren’t sure about contacting you at first. Hope you weren’t too upset when you received my letter.’

‘I couldn’t understand what it had to do with me. At any rate John… now we’ve met I think I know.’

‘After the war my mother and I went to live in Australia. I was just a nipper about six years old. I don’t remember England. She refused to tell me about her early life. In fact it was only when she was dying she told me about my father. She’d lived her whole life feeling ashamed of having me ‘out of wedlock’. It mattered much more in those days. Friends she made in Australia believed she was a war widow. So did I…my father was a hero to me. Couldn’t understand why she’d never kept any photographs. Thought she must have had her reasons. Dreamed he had been in the RAF, a fighter pilot of course. It came as a shock to learn the truth.’

‘Frank must be your father. You’re so alike. But I don’t understand. He was never off the farm except to go to auction and the cattle market.’

‘According to my mother they met at a dance. He was a brilliant dancer, apparently.’

‘I know.’

‘They only went out together for about three months but, as they say, that was long enough. He disappeared when he found out about the pregnancy. Even after fifty years mother hadn’t forgiven him.’

‘How old are you John?’

‘I’m sixty.’

‘So…let’s see. It happened when I was pregnant. Doctor said I had to rest…all for nothing. My daughter never lived. I insisted that Frank keep up his dancing; he needed a break from the farm. He seemed reluctant… at first.’

For a moment she pondered the unfairness of the situation.

‘Do you know what Frank had intended to do?’

‘My mother said he’d arranged to meet her but he never turned up. She didn’t know where he lived. Only knew his name. Didn’t want to contact him anyway, she said a girl has her pride. The irony was he was going to see her on her birthday, 8 June 1939.’

Vera reached out and put a hand on John’s arm.

‘John, that was the day he died.’

Two hours flew by with sixty years to cover. John helped her to organise a light lunch and showed her photographs of his family. His son had two children. Most of the photographs were taken on his farm near Pemberton, Western Australia. He had been happy to hand the land over six months earlier. The farm seemed a light brown almost orange blur…very different to the Pennine moors.

Before John left he gave Vera a family photograph taken at Ayres Rock. She returned the compliment by presenting him with one of her photograph albums and the pair of red dancing shoes destined for her husband’s great grand-daughter.