Open Writing

"There you go Michael." The old man hauled onto the counter a large canvas bag, stuffed with newspapers and magazines. "Last day, last round!" He smiled looking up into the boy's face, who stood over a head taller than himself.

Michael laughed, "I doubt I could have carried this lot when I first started doing the round."

Despite his burden he jogged down the road. He'd been delivering papers for Matty Thomas for the past five years, ever since he was twelve. On Monday he was leaving for Durham University and realised he would have to find part-time work there, just as he had here. Mornings, his paper round; evenings and weekends filling shelves in a supermarket. He had heard too many homilies from his parents about not relying on student bank-loans to start university life going down that road.

Turning left into the large new housing estate, the source of Matty's many new customers, he slowed down. The houses were all five-bedroom detached, with landscaped gardens, BMWs and Mercedes tucked safely away in double garages. There was no getting past these large, high metal gates. He placed the newspapers and magazines in the receptacles provided.

Victoria Gardens looked like a film set. He felt as if he were delivering newspapers to mock-ups of real-life houses. There was no sign of life anywhere. He wondered what would happen if he pressed the inter-communications buzzer and yelled, "Bring out your dead!" to the disembodied voice on the other end. That might liven things up a bit!
He grinned, moving on quickly before his imagination got the better of him. What sort of people lived in these perfect dream houses? At this time in the morning he never saw anyone, not even a face at a window.

Crossing the busy main road he set off into the Hart Hill Estate. This was a private estate and, because it didn't come under the jurisdiction of the Council, it was run-down in parts, certainly not as prestigious as Victoria Gardens. It was one of the oldest parts of Lufton, where the mid-Victorian manufacturers had made their homes after they had prospered and stopped living above their shops and factories in the town. Most of the enormous houses had been made over into large, comfortable flats, where young professional couples lived. In the Drive were bungalows and an old people's residential home, close beside a large block of sheltered accommodation flats.

The estate was built into the hillside with a wood between Hart Hill Drive and Hart Hill Lane. Each house in the Drive had at least twenty steps, which he ran up to deliver the papers. In the Lane, which was situated on top of the hill, the steps went down to the front doors. Mr. Bailey, his PE teacher, once asked Michael how he'd managed to develop such powerful leg and thigh muscles, and Michael had replied, "Delivering papers on the Hart Hill Estate, Sir." His teacher had laughed, but it was no joke, it was the truth.

He was in the Lane now and recalled that winter five years ago, and his first day on the round. It had been a cold, dark, miserable morning. The sparsely lit lane looked weird to an imaginative
twelve-year-old, the sort of place where strange things might happen. The last house he had to call at was a very small black-and-white timbered cottage. He had difficulty putting the paper through the letterbox.

Bending down he pushed hard, and as he did so he felt the paper being pulled out of his hand; at the same time he heard a strange cackle of laughter. With a yelp of fright he turned and ran all the way back to the paper shop.

Matty laughed when he told him about the haunted house. "That's old Miss Gregson. She's got an odd sense of humour, but she's a lovely old lady. The house she lives in used to be the lodge of one of the big houses. Hart Hill House was demolished years ago, but the lodge still remains. Next time you deliver, knock at her door. She won't bite you!"

"No fear!" said Michael. But he did; his curiosity made him brave and he pulled hard on the antiquated bell-pull. The door creaked open in the best tradition of horror movies. The person standing on the doorstep looking at him was a bright-faced little woman. She had shiny brown eyes and her skin was softly crinkled, like a sleepy orange-pippin. Michael thought she looked like a bright, intelligent harvest mouse.

Miss Gregson smiled at him and asked if he was thirsty. When he said, "Yes,” she invited him in and gave him a cup of tea and two slices of hot, buttered toast.

Michael loved Miss Gregson's house. It was like her - full of surprises. The furniture was scaled down to suit house size and owner. The lodge was built on different levels. The living room led down four steep steps into a tiny kitchen, and for such a small, old house it was surprisingly tidy and uncluttered.

Miss Gregson was not the only friend Michael had in the Lane. One very snowy morning he was struggling along when he heard someone say in a whisper, "Sh! You'll frighten him away," and he saw a man standing in the dark beside the gate at number seven. He was pointing towards the middle of the Lane and Michael moved over to join him. "Look down there," the man said.

Michael saw something he'd never seen before. A dog-fox was trotting along the Lane. It ran beneath one of the parked cars and then disappeared down some steps into one of the gardens. Later in class he wrote a poem about an urban fox playing in a lane in the town one snowy morning and about a man who couldn't always sleep, because he suffered from chronic asthma.

Mr. Baker had a beautiful garden with two large ponds in it and a dozen apple trees. One autumn morning Mrs. Baker asked Michael if his mother would like some apples. He waited by the kitchen door and she gave him a cardboard box and told him to go down and help himself to as many of the windfalls as he wanted.

Her husband was busy at the bottom of the garden. Michael walked down to see what he was doing and discovered him fixing netting over one of the ponds. Michael asked why he was doing it.

"Why am I doing it, boy? I'll tell you why. We had a visitor a couple of days ago, took every last goldfish in the pond, and I'm fixing it up so that no more fish will be stolen."

"A burglar?" asked Michael,

"No," said Mr. Baker, "a blasted heron. That villain ate all my fish."

Poor Mr. Baker, thought Michael, marvelling that in the middle of an industrial town lay a part of unspoilt countryside that could attract herons. Even though Mr. Baker had called the culprit "a miserable varmint", he spoke as if he admired the bird for its ingenuity and skill in finding food.

The Baker's garden attracted other visitors that autumn. One night the security lights at the back of the house came on and the couple got out of bed to see who was there. In the moonlight they saw two muntjac deer eating windfalls. They must have come all the way from the stately home that lay over half a mile from the town.

When he told his parents about the friends he'd made in the lane, his father said it was probably because they were old and lonely that they were so friendly. But the boy knew that wasn't true. He felt it was because there was something special about living in that little-known area. It attracted people who valued their privacy and considered it to be their own secret world.

Over the years he'd seen woodpeckers and jays, stoats and weasels, Jenny Wrens and hedgehogs. Every morning there were blue tits and grey squirrels and he heard the cooing of wood pigeons and collared doves. One night he had taken a shortcut back from town, through the lane, and listened to the doleful sound of an owl hooting. He came to realise how unique Hart Hill Lane was with its abundant wildlife and ambience of peace and tranquillity, set in the middle of a busy, bustling town.

On Friday morning he had seen Mr. and Mrs. Baker and they told him they would be away at the weekend staying with their daughter and her family. They gave him a copy of Thorburn's book on wild birds as a farewell gift and wished him well for the future. There was only Miss Gregson to say goodbye to now.

He rang the bell and waited, but she didn't answer the door. He peered through the living room window but there was no sign of her. Reluctantly he pushed the paper through the letterbox, and then he jogged off down the hill back onto the main road. He collected his wages, said good-bye to Matty and went home.

His parents had finished their breakfast, and as he had breakfasted earlier, he sat in the kitchen and ate some fruit while his mother washed-up. She looked at him, "Is anything the matter, Michael?"

"I don't know, Mum. Miss Gregson didn't answer the door when I rang."

"Has she ever done that before, Mike?"

"No. She always asks me in for tea and toast. She's the last person on the round you see."

His mother looked at him in amazement and laughed. "She gives a great lad like you tea and toast every morning? I don't believe it. She must think I starve you. I'm surprised at you, Mike, taking food from an old lady."

"Mum, she's my friend, she doesn't mind. She actually likes me. Is that too much for you to understand? Or is everything I say or do simply a joke to you and Dad?"

He stood up, walked out into the hallway and collected his jacket from the cloaks cupboard. Standing by the kitchen door he said to his mother, who stood dumbfounded at her usually quiet and uncommunicative son's behaviour. "I'm worried about her, and I'm going back to see if she's alright. I'll see you later, bye Mum."

"Mike, wait a minute," shouted his mother, but she was too late. The door slammed and Michael was running down the path. When he reached the lodge, he went straight round to the back of the house and tried the door, which was locked. He checked all the downstairs windows - not a chance of getting in by any of those. Looking up he noticed a small window above the porch was ajar. He managed to haul himself onto the top of the porch. It was a bit of a squeeze getting in through the window. He found himself on a small landing.

Miss Gregson was in the bedroom and she was awake. She saw him and gave a twisted kind of smile and tried to say his name and Michael realised she'd had a stroke. He went over to her and took her hand.

"It's OK, Miss Gregson. I'm going for help. Would you like a drink of water first?"

She nodded and he went downstairs. He had just filled a glass at the tap in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Standing in the porch were his parents. Dad rang for an ambulance on his mobile. Michael went upstairs with his mother.

He cradled Miss Gregson while his mother gave her the water. Sitting up, she managed to drink it without spilling a drop. Then the ambulance arrived and the tiny room was full of enormous people.

Dad told the paramedics Miss Gregson was his son's friend, so they asked if he would like to accompany her to the hospital. Michael nodded, and he sat and held the small hand in his large one all the way there. Looking at her, he thought she looked more like a harvest mouse than ever - only trapped and frightened - and her eyes were dull and didn't shine and twinkle as they usually did.

When they got to the hospital, he told the sister that the patient's name was Miss Gregson. The sister said, "Christian names?" Michael realised he'd known her for five years and didn't know her first name, and felt embarrassed, wishing he did.

Suddenly Miss Gregson said, as clear as a bell, "It's Lucy", and he knew then she wasn't going to die. At that moment his parents arrived. Mum was carrying a holdall; he realised she'd done her Good Samaritan act. Good old Mum, you could always count on her in a crisis. Then they took Miss Gregson off to one of the wards. The sister told him not to worry as it was only a minor seizure.

As they walked back to the car his Father looked at him. "Mum and I will keep an eye on her when she comes out of hospital. You did all you possibly could today."

"That's good, thanks Dad! But when she's better she won't like it if you pester her. She's not senile; she's bright and funny, and quite capable of looking after herself. She loves that little house. I don't want to come back and find she's been put into an old people's home on the say-so of some social worker. She'd rather be dead than in one of those places; she told me so."

"We realise that Mike. What do you take us for, for God's sake? Give us some credit! We won't be a nuisance, and we won't let anyone else upset her either. Anyhow, Miss Gregson will want to know how you are getting on in Durham, won't she? You aren't going to have a lot of time for writing."

"No, I suppose not, but tell her I will keep in touch somehow."

His mother plucked at his sleeve, "Is this a free-for-all, and am I allowed to add my pennyworth in this discussion?"

"Yes, I don't see why not."

"Michael, we are proud of you. Not just for what you did today, and not simply because you're our son, but we don't say it often enough. We both think Durham is lucky to get you."

"Well that's alright then," Michael said going red, "and now that we've settled that and the rest of the world, can we go? I've a cricket match this afternoon."

The three of them walked towards the car and got in, Michael sitting up-front with his dad, and the car pulled swiftly away.