38. A SUMMER OF GRIEF

A bad year for Ursula!

It was one hell of a hot summer and Ursula privately thought it was the remorseless heat from a 1976 sun that finally did for Dolly. The older woman was virtually crippled by her arthritis and yet insisted that decency decreed that she wore her best woolly cardigan for church along with a nice warm coat to cut out the draughts which played such havoc with her aches and pains. And she did that despite a scorching sun that beat down remorselessly the whole summer long.

She hadn’t been interred in the graveyard that half surrounded the village church for above a month when Bert gave up the ghost and followed her. The sun was still shining and there was a hosepipe ban, but it was widely accepted that he couldn’t face life without Dolly and simply gave up the ghost.

Ursula had been living in the Snooty Academy Manor house for some time by then, happily married to Cardew, and in his wisdom he knew enough about bereavement to empathise with her, being a genuine and tremendous comfort to her, and in order to prove beyond any doubt his faithful sympathy spent a whole day sandwiched by its respective nights in bed with her.

She appreciated the token of his feelings and responded to his touch in a way she felt was appropriate, which involved a great deal of gasping and cries for more, more, more. It was a good job that it was the summer holiday or they might have drawn the attention of any disturbed juveniles who happened to pass by their bedroom window to their grieving activities. But it was quiet in the Academy, the way both Ursula and Cardew liked it. He often said a school was at its best when there were no pupils present, and that ran just as true for academies.

By the end of August that year both her parents were safely snuggled within feet of each other in the graveyard and there was only a week left before the Academy reopened for the autumn term and the disturbed juveniles returned for that mixture of learning and sarcasm that typifies the British eduction system.

“We must use this week,” Cardew told her, “we must use it to refresh ourselves before the turmoil begins.”

He could be pompous like that.

“What do you suggest?” asked Ursula, who was thinking of writing a novel and had actually sketched out how she saw the main characters interacting with each other. If she had explained the basic plot-line to her mother when she had been alive the old woman would have been appalled, but she didn’t. Ursula, albeit a little later in life than do most, had discovered a few secrets about private behaviour between the sexes that she had previously never dreamed of, and she wanted to incorporate them in her novel. Dolly would have screamed in anger that such things could be put into print, but to Ursula’s mind, nothing but good could arise from a more general understanding of those particular secrets.

When she discussed it with Cardew he nodded his total agreement and told her about his next project, a book about the planet Venus. She pointed out that Venus was associated in many to such delights as physical love and he said he’d put at least one chapter about that in, towards the end. His argument was that the book was intended for young people and only the good readers would get to the end, where a chapter on more mature and adult emotions would come as a treat after they had ploughed through the dull stuff.

Ursula thought he was very wise.

But back to their debate on what to do.

“I think we should go to the seaside,” said Cardew as they sat at the dining table in their kitchen, “there might be a cool breeze off the sea.”

“That would be lovely,” murmured Ursula.

“I have a friend with a caravan,” Cardew told her, “I doubt we could book into a decent hotel at such short notice. He’ll let us use it: I know he will. And it will be good for you after all the grief you’ve experienced. We’ll go for a week, if you like.”

Cardew wasn’t one to make plans without consulting his wife on details such as duration.

“That would be perfect,” murmured Ursula, who, despite being in her fifties still had the heart of a youngster, and she was sure that such things as a disappearing on a sudden break for a whole week was a very young thing to do.

“Will the East Coast do?” he asked, “I suggest that because that’s where Dougie’s caravan is parked. It’s there permanently, you know. On a site with facilities and a shop.”

“It sounds lovely,” smiled Ursula, who hoped that it did sound lovely.

“I’ll ring him, then,” grinned Cardew, and he did a make-believe dance in a circle round her as he went to the phone in the living room.

Moments later he danced back.

“That’s fixed,” he said jubilantly, “We go this very afternoon. It’ll only take a couple of hours driving there, and he’ll be waiting at the office with the key.”

“What a lovely surprise,” cooed Ursula.

“I’ll just get an armful of sheets and stuff, and we’ll be off. Food and drink we can buy when we’re there, and I’m not having my wife being a slave to the stove so we’ll eat out when we’re hungry.”

“You are so thoughtful,” sighed Ursula, and she didn’t add the thought that was rolling round in her mind, and nothing like Greendale was, who thought I was a s**t sleeping around when he was away fighting in the skies above home…

The world was still a very hot place when Cardew drove towards the coast, and the road was sticky in patches with molten tar, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was the simple fact that they were going on holiday and the miserable summer of funerals was at an end.

Or almost so.

The caravan was delightful. It was bright and cheerful and clean enough to satisfy the most critical of doubters, and after Dougie had handed the keys over to Cardew and wished them well, they sat together at the breakfast table and sighed in unison.

“Tomorrow,” said Cardew, “if you like we’ll take a nice long walk along the beach and take in some clean fresh salty air.”

“That would be nice,” she said, and kissed him. Several times. And very thoroughly. Exceptionally so.

“Where did that come from?” he asked, breathless when she couldn’t kiss him much more for fear of dying of suffocation.

“My heart,” the said, honestly, because it did.

The next day the sun rose like it had every day that long hot summer, and they set out for their walk along the beach after a breakfast conjured up by Cardew in a frying pan.

“That was really nice, and I love you,” said Ursula, glowing.

The beach was busy near the resort, but as they walked further along the crowds thinned out until they almost got to thinking there were no other people on the planet.

And it was then that something truly amazing happened.

Out of the blue (and very blue it was until that moment) a wind blew with an astounding suddenness from absolutely nowhere, and the blue started to turn darker until it was a dense and very scary grey cloud. And like a weapon from Thor’s arsenal, balls of ice as big as gob stoppers crashed down, into the sand around them, and onto them.

Cardew pulled Ursula towards himself and sheltered her with his own body because the hailstones threatened to scar her perfect flesh.

Which was a brave thing to do because those same hailstones scarred his own flesh and with an unbelievable suddenness, as he pulled her towards him, his world crashed to silence and with an appalling absence of light and colour he knew no more.

© Peter Rogerson 17.08.18