5. A First Lonely Night

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

THE POETESS Part 5

The night was threatening rain as the older Rosie Pinkerton sighed to herself and watched a ginger Tom as it haughtily strolled down her lawn towards the stream at the bottom, paused, and yawned. It took her back to her teenage years and the caravan, and that first night she’d spent entirely on her own. Roy had suggested he stayed with her for a while as she settled in, but for some reason she turned him down. In her head she wanted to be with him. Other girls shared long evenings with their boyfriends, they boasted of it in little giggling groups of fragrant hair and tiny skirts about the naughty things they did with boys, but most of it, she suspected, was so much fiction created entirely to titillate each other.

I sometimes wish I had, she thought, learned about that kind of thing, but there was always that a whispering voice in my head that told me I’m not that kind of girl. But that caravan, it started to open a door in my head, just a crack, but wide enough for the whispers to sneak out...

The caravan loaned to her so generously by Roy’s Aunt Mildred was fairly new and so comfortable that when Rosie went into it and waved goodbye to Roy, she flung herself onto the bed, closed her eyes and somehow went to sleep even though it was hardly time for a teenage girl like her to begin to dream of sleeping.

The row she’d had with her own aunt simmered on in light dreams as she saw herself in that pretty mini-kilt that the older woman had insisted had bordered on the obscene.

“They’ll see your knickers, and then where will you be?” the harridan had demanded.

“They can see them any time they like, in Marks on the underwear counter,” she had grumbled, and it was true. Somehow a pair of knickers underwent some sort of metamorphosis when it was wrapped round a female bottom! At least, that’s what grumpy aunt Clara insisted.

Anyway, there was no way she was going to get rid of that mini-kilt, and she said so.

“I’m not having that sort of thing under my roof!” snapped the dragon.

Her roof! Rosie had been born in that house, her parents had scrimped and saved and bought it and suddenly it was Clara’s house with her roof perched on top of it.

So she had gathered her things and stuffed them in a suit-case and stormed out.

“At least I wear decent knickers,” had been her parting shot, a barely-concealed reference to the state of wear that her aunt’s underwear often displayed to the world as it fluttered on the washing line. Aunt Clara liked to make things last!

Images of that row flittered through her mind, and then fractured memories of Roy’s face when she had suggested she wasn’t that sort of girl. And of course he knew she wasn’t, though that first meeting had terminated in the king and queen and even emperor of all kisses.

Fully dressed and lying on the unmade bed, she squirmed as something inside her head replayed that kiss. It had been glorious and she was sure there’s never be another like it.

And there never was. I can say that with certainty now that I’ve reached this age and my memory is still as good as it ever was… I suppose the old saying is true, that a girl never forgets her first decent kiss, and I most certainly haven't…

Darkness had fallen when she woke up because there was a knock on the door.

“It’ll be Roy,” she thought, half in hope and half in anger.

But is wasn’t. It was his smiling aunt Mildred, and she as holding a box of matches.

“I don’t suppose your understand the lighting,” she said as she walked in and stood in the shadows of the caravan. “It was only when I noticed that the caravan was in darkness that I thought you might not understand the lights. You see, they’re gas. There’s a gas bottle outside the van, and pipes take it to the hob and the lights and a small heater for cold winter nights.”

“I didn’t know, “ she confessed, “I must have had so much on my mind that I went to sleep and I’ve only just woken up.”

“Here, I’ll show you,” said Mildred, and she turned the valve on the light in the corner above the bed, struck a match, and the gas mantel filled the van with bright light.

“It’s as good as electric!” gasped Rosie.

“And I’ve also brought you a can of clean water. You’ll need something to drink and I’m afraid if you use it to wash in it’s cold. Oh, and I’ve got some crisps. Not much, but if you get hungry…”

“That’s so thoughtful. I hadn’t thought I might get hungry,” sighed Rosie, “it’s all happened in such a rush.”

“Now I can see properly that’s a really pretty skirt,” smiled Aunt Mildred, “I might get one like it! You’ve got just the right legs for something like that, and I don’t think mine are so bad either,” and she briefly lifted the hem of her skirt high enough for Rosie to see a few inches of her thigh.

It was inches back then. These days they’d talk of centimetres, as if that made any sense to an old woman like me! But she wasn’t being flirty to me. I bet Roy explained to her what the row with Aunt Clara was all about, and she wanted to show me whose side she was on. She was nice, was Roy’s aunt. I got on well with her back then, and I probably would now if she’s still in the land of the living. I do hope she is. She deserves a good long life.

“It would suit you,” said Rosie, smiling, “would you like to try it on and see what you think? We’re probably the same size and anyway they do adjust a little bit.”

“That’s sweet of you. I’ll wait until you’ve put something else on, and then I’ll take you up on the offer.”

“It’s all right,” insisted Rosie, and she slipped the kilt off and handed it to Mildred.

“I can see what our Roy sees in you,” approved Mildred as she pulled the kilt on and swirled round so that, little as it was, it swirled out, revealing her thighs. The she removed it and handed it back to Rosie.

“I tell you what,” she said, “I saw a stall selling something like that on the market, and I’ll get one for myself tomorrow! Then if the two of us walk down the street together the neighbours will get an eyeful of what fashion really is!”

And at that she was off, still smiling.

“I wish my aunt Clara was like that,” thought Rosie, and she found a cup on a shelf and poured herself some water.

“I’ll save the crisps for breakfast,” she thought, and yawned. “I can’t believe it, but I’m still tired. It’s not been the nicest of days.”

This time she undressed and sorted a nightdress from her suitcase before curling back in the bed, carefully extinguishing the gaslight first.

And this time when she slept there was peace and harmony in her head, and Aunt Mildred’s eternally smiling face.

Years later, the ginger Tom yawned again, and stared with big green eyes at the moon, and the older Rosie slept too.