10. A Second Hope

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

THE POETESS, part 10

Rosie in her early seventies had just watched the quiz show Pointless on the television and wondered why she bothered before making her way to her kettle in the kitchen. But something on the television had struck a chord in her memory and it burst into focus as she poured a cup of tea and carefully place cup and biscuits on a tray.

There had been a question involving four letter words. Not the smutty ones beloved by schoolboys but proper words of just four letters in length The contestants had to replace one letter in a given four letter word and thus create a different word, one that was actually in the dictionary and not made up by them for a chance of winning a cash prize.

The word on the programme was MILE, and the last person to answer said MILL, changing the E into a second L.

And that brought something back to her as she carried her tray of tea and biscuits into her pandemic parlour.

There had been a mill at Miller’s cottage, and it was quite interesting, you may even say it was exciting, when we found the last remnants of what it had once been.

The baby had been born and Violet was so proud of her little boy it was wonderful to see her, and one warm summer’s day the three of us (four if you include baby Archie) went for an afternoon stroll that almost spookily took us towards Miller’s Cottage down the picturesque Strong Lane, and whilst Roy and Violet were seeing to Archie and his nappy I went to explore slightly further afield.

The outbuilding had obviously always been there, but we hadn’t ever poked around that far from the main cottage. Once upon a time it must have been a watermill. There were enough scraps of ancient timber and bricks to prove that much, but the infrastructure looked to be well beyond repair and the water that drove it had been diverted to become the stream that ran by the bottom of the cottage garden to be a decorative feature, probably some time in the nineteenth century when the mill fell into disuse.

It was the hottest summer for years when we discovered that! Even I had taken to protecting my head with more than huge strands of natural blonde hair which was getting to be ever longer. I actually wore a floppy hat!

Aunt Mildred popped round to see Rosie soon after the discovery of the remnants of the old watermill, which may have been little more than a pile of scrap rather than an interesting remnant from its past.

She looked a little flustered, excited even, as if she had a whole load of news to tell. Baby Archie was upstairs sleeping in his cot and quiet as a mouse, leaving Rosie to babysit and Roy and Violet had gone out to, as they put it, try to iron a problem or two.

“I’ve had word from that solicitor we went to see,” said Mildred, smiling as ever, “do you remember?”.

“Mr Babbage?” asked Rosie, hoping she’d got the name right.

“That’s the man. It’s about that cottage you told him about, the one down Strong Lane. Mr Babbage mentioned to us he’d been trying to find out who owned it, for a different client who wanted to restore the mill and use it as some sort of museum. I suppose it’s an interesting way of keeping memories of past times alive.”

“Oh dear,” murmured Rosie, “I still find myself thinking about it, and dreaming.”

“But listen on. The cottage actually belonged to people who have been dead and buried in the cemetery for decades, sadly. They were victims of a stray German bomb in the forties while they were visiting folks down south somewhere. Anyway, the closest relative that could be found to inherit is already an elderly gentleman, and when he decided to inspect the cottage quite recently he decided that it would cost less to demolish than to rebuild, but both would cost more than the land’s actually worth. And the museum people said much the same thing. It’s too far gone.”

“It is in what I’d call a state,” murmured Rosie.

“I’ve not finished. Mr Babbage said that it might help a few people if it vanished off the face of the Earth and he could probably arrange that the elderly heir of the deceased owners would sell it for a song if you were serious about doing the work to make it habitable.”

“Oh, I am!” exclaimed Rosie, “did he say how much it would cost me to buy it?”

“He can negotiate, but it will only be peanuts. That’s Mr Babbage’s words, not mine. Shall I tell him to see what the old fellow says? I know him quite well on a personal level, you know. A woman does need a handsome man in her life sometimes, and he is a widower!”

“I’m beginning to see there’s more to life than mum taught me,” murmured Rosie, noticing the flush on Mildred’s always smiling face.

“And there’s something else. I picked this up at the library,” she said, and handed Rosie a leaflet. “Read it when I’m gone. It might help you seeing as you’ve always hankered after being a poet.”

“A poetess,” corrected Rosie, “I am a woman and we women shouldn’t subsume our gender into masculine terminology, but be proud of what we are.”

“That’s one way of being a feminist, I suppose,” grinned Mildred, and having said that she smiled and winked and made her excuses to go.

And it was that leaflet that found its way past the recent months and went back to my first ever dream, of being a poetess, of committing my thoughts, my emotions, any loves I might have in the future, into lines of, hopefully, meaningful beauty.

BRUMPTON LITERARY SOCIETY POETRY COMPETITION.

OPEN TO ALL

A CASH PRIZE FOR THE BEST POEM OF TWENTY LINES OR FEWER ON THE SUBJECT OF LOST LOVE TO BE SUBMITTED BY JULY 31ST THIS YEAR.

SO HURRY!

And I remember quite distinctly what was going through my mind at the time. It was July 10^th, so if I was going to enter and win, then I’d best get writing right away!

“I wish I knew something about lost love,” thought Rosie, staring at the leaflet, “I could do with an influx of funds, and prize money would go down well. But the only love I ever lost was mum, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever get over that properly. And looking back the worst thing that ever happened to her was the day she died. I suppose it is lost love, but probably not the sort they mean when they talk about romantic stuff.”

That was an odd thought for her to think. After all, if anyone was having a worst day it was the woman whose heart gave way, the lovely mother who’d died.

Then, more like romantic love, there was Roy. Had that kiss, that one and only lonely kiss by Miller’s Cottage, been a taste of love? Surely not! Love was more than touching tongues in a junk yard, wasn’t it?

And then as she pondered the first lines came, fully formed, into her mind and she scrabbled in a drawer for a writing pad, and paper.