39. CUDDLY TED RIDES AGAIN

Hearkens back to Wallace's early childhood

Besides being enough to scare a wild cat enough for it to scratch its own eyes out, history can be a comforting thing.

And for once, that’s exactly what it became.

It was Maureen who put the initial idea into Wallace’s head.

“The sixth formers are holding a jumble sale,” she told him, “Eloise is in charge of a stall and she’s quite looking forward to it. She’s doing pottery, but there are plenty of other stalls: old clothes, old toys, you name it, it’ll be there”

Time had done its usual wretched thing and zoomed past with hardly anyone noticing, and Eloise had reached the sixth form, studying modern languages (mostly French) because she believed that her future would become increasingly European and she wanted to be at the forefront of it, probably because she loved the way Mr Lamont, the French master, pronounced her name, which meant as many a teenage girl will tell you that she was half way to loving him.

Ane here she was, crawling towards being eighteen whilst time raced past her with confusing haste.

“Why do they want to do something like that?” asked Wallace.

“It’s good for the soul, to think of others rather than ourselves,” replied Maureen. To look at the two of them, she and her husband, you’d think he was older than she and hence the wiser, but the truth had it the other way round in both instances.

“They’re raising money for the refurbishment of the swimming baths,” explained Maureen, who’d had her first experience of paid employment working there in her teens.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked a grunting Wallace, “they seem perfectly all right to me.”

“You poor old thing,” giggled Maureen, rolling her eyes in wonderment. “The main bath leaks, the filters are out of date and the whole place is rapidly becoming a health hazard,” she said, “and we do want our little ones to learn how to swim, don’t we?”

“I suppose so,” he admitted, “not that we seem to be producing any more little ones, and if we do it would be best if they were to do it better than me.”

“You can’t swim!” she teased him.

“Who says I can’t? I’ve swum before, stroke after stroke, in those self-same baths!” he protested.

“Pity it wasn’t stroke after stroke after stroke,” she grinned.

“It might have been. I forget.”

“Well, I don’t… anyway, this jumble sale. I’ve got a bag of your old clothes sorted out...”

“I don’t have any unwanted old clothes!” he protested, “they’ve all got some life left in them, and I’ve worn them in so that they’re all comfortable!”

She shook her head sadly, “Maybe you have,” she sighed, “but you’re not going to wear them. They’re already starting to look scruffy, and a man in your position at the council should look anything but that!”

“But I might want some of them!” he almost whined. He heard himself, and shuddered.

“Then come along to the jumble sale and buy them back!” she laughed.

“I might just do that!” he groaned.

The Jumble sale, when they got there, was a busy affair. Besides what seemed to be an army of barging middle-aged ladies who were all after the same bargain if only they could get to it first, and here elbows helped, there were parents and students willing to spend a few pennies in a good cause.

“It’s like a rugby scrum!” complained Wallace.

He and Maureen took a good look around and then decided to sit it out in a corner reserved for those buying refreshments.

“Have you seen anything you might have wanted?” asked Maureen as she sipped tea from a cracked cup, and frowned at it.

“I might have bought a nice grey jacket until I realised it had been one of mine and I never wear it,” he murmured.

“Well then. I told you so,” she grinned.

And Eloise chose that moment to push her way towards them.

“Look what I’ve bought!” she exclaimed, and she proudly held her new purchase for them both to admire, “I know it’s old and tired and a bit dirty, but it’ll wash nice and clean and be the perfect toy if I ever have a baby!”

“Why, are you thinking of having one?” Wallace found himelf asking.

“Not yet awhile, I need a husband first, but who can tell?” replied his twinkling-eyed daughter, teasing him.

“You’re too young to think of husbands and I’m too young to be called grandpa,” he muttered, “what is it you’ve bought?”

She was right when she said it was scruffy and dirty and old. As a toy it had clearly been around the block a time or two. But it did something no other toy could have done. It rang a bell, a very distant bell, deep inside Wallace’s mind.

He paled. “It can’t be...” he muttered.

Maureen looked at him. “I’m sure it is,” she whispered.

“Can’t be what?” asked a puzzled Eloise.

“Years ago...” muttered her mother, “when your dad was too little to walk far he went out one day with his mum and my mum together, in a push chair, and, well, he was only young… three or four, I suppose, and they had something serious to discuss...”

“Cuddly Ted,” whispered Wallace dredging the name from somewhere at the back of his mind, “is is, it’s got to be, it’s Cuddly Ted!”

“It’s not a Ted,” scoffed Eloise, “it’s an elephant!”

“Cuddly Ted,” insisted a distant Wallace.

“A knitted elephant stuffed with old socks, all of them well darned and in need of a dustbin,” confirmed Maureen. “I remember him. Eloise, your dad wouldn’t go anywhere without him and then...”

“I dropped him,” breathed Wallace, “over the side of my push chair when we were out … they were talking, I’ve no idea what about, And I dropped him and nobody would listen when I tried to tell them...”

“Well, somebody must have picked him up and really looked after him,” said Maureen, “he’s not much scruffier than I remember him being.”

“And now,” smiled Eloise, “he’s mine! It cost me sixpence, and I’m going to spruce him up and save him! What was it you called him? Cuddly Ted?”

“I wasn’t much more than a baby, it’s about the only thing I can remember from back then, that and being told my dad had died,” explained Wallace slowly, “but I didn’t half miss him until ...”

“Until when, dad?”

“Until I forgot him,” sighed Wallace, “and that was years ago. Now can you imagine it? I don’t. Not really, but Cuddly Ted rides again!”

© Peter Rogerson 24.07.19