13. The First Really Good News

THE POETESS Part 13

It was maybe a year after the prize-giving and my prize money was still safely in the bank. I was careful with money just like my parents had been. They’d never had much spare cash and they instilled in me at an early age that there might always be an unforeseeable rainy day in the future.

I’d become friends with Leslie Babbage, and I kept his secret. We occasionally met up and even went out to the Sans Chappelle on two or three occasions when his real best friend Denis was away on business. Leslie was an intelligent and thoughtful man who was troubled by his own instinctive sexuality and afraid that his father might disown him if he discovered the reality behind his bed-sit.

What he didn’t understand or even get a glimmer of is the perceptive nature of fathers!

There was a polite knock at the door while Rosie was getting ready for work. She was still at Woolworth’s but had been promoted to what the manager saw as a more profitable counter having done what amounted to an apprenticeship on the electrical counter.

It was Mr Babbage, and he had about him the look of a man in a hurry.

“Sorry to disturb you like this, Rosie,” he said. Yes, they were on Christian name terms even though the older man was rarely in her company. But the original poem, and one or two other attempts since then that had gone down well but ended up as runners-up, had assured him that she was a serious young lady.

“I’m almost ready for work,” she told him, meaning he should tell her what was on his mind without too much delay.

“I’ll give you a lift if you like,” he said, “that’ll give me a few moments to see what you make of this bit of news. You might find it interesting and even important.”

She climbed into his car. The skies looked a bit iffy, as if it might rain at any moment, and she was grateful for the lift.

“That old wreck of a cottage down Strong Lane,” he said, “I’ve been given it to handle. I’m to dispose of it somehow, and you showed interest a few years ago.”

“Crikey! It was years, too,” she said, “I often think of the place, still. It’s as if there was a thread of something intangible, thought, spirit, connecting me to it. I feel … well, I feel like it is my home even though the house I’ve just left is the one I was born in and have lived in for most of my life barring a few weeks in a caravan!”

“Mildred’s caravan,” he nodded, “that’s something else I need to tell you. I’m the luckiest man on planet Earth because Mildred has agreed to become my wife…”

Rosie was shocked. She’d always looked on Mildred, Roy’s aunt Mildred, as being more or less her own age, and Mr Babbage most certainly wasn’t. Why, he had a grown up son!

I hadn’t worked it out by then, but women like Mildred with a happy-go-lucky attitude to life sometimes keep their ages quite a secret. And she had done that because she was roughly the same generation as my parents, and they’d been gone for several years by then. But Aunt Mildred looked just the same as she always had, and when she spoke it was with the same teasing voice and the same youthful look in her eyes. So she was older than I thought, and I had no idea how old Mr Babbage might be except he’s got a son of my own age…

“I’m pleased for you,” said Rosie, feeling that her words sounded a tad too formal but a little shaken.

“She’s a wonderful woman and too good for me,” smiled Mr Babbage, “I tell her that all the time, but she doesn’t believe it! Anyway, before we arrive at your place of work … you are still at Woolworth’s, aren’t you?”

Rosie Nodded.

“Miller’s Cottage. The museum lot haven’t come back, so as I thought they’re out of the picture, and the current unwilling owner needs to dispose of it as soon as he can. He’s getting on in years and doesn’t want it hanging round the neck of his only daughter, who herself has got mental problems, should she be left on her own with it. To get to the nub of the issue, you can have it, the land it’s on and any bricks and mortar that are still standing, for a hundred pounds, which is one hell of a bargain despite the condition.”

“Done!” exclaimed Rosie.

“Now are you sure? The old boy who’s made the offer doesn’t want to be messed about with. Look: Miller’s Cottage has been on the market for goodness knows how long and you’re the only person to show an interest in it. Demolishing it is the only other option, and that’s possibly too expensive for the seller.”

Rosie looked at him, and he noted her eyes, how bright they were, how firm, how decided, and he smiled.

“I wish my Leslie was a bit more like you,” he said, “though he’s a good lad in his heart. I was hoping that time at the prize-giving that you and he, but, well, he doesn’t think I know but I do. He’s got a very good friend in young Denis Simpson and as long as he’s happy…”

So old Mr Babbage knew that his son was gay. But then, he was a good man with a good heart, and a caring father. Of course he knew!

But the big news was I might well be getting my own heart’s delight, a tumbledown old cottage down Strong Lane, and it was going to be mine, all mine, and I was going to create a paradise of it as soon as my old family home was sold and I had the money to do what I wanted! Life was surely looking up.

I didn’t even pause to wonder what I might be risking, selling up my home and having just a derelict wreck to live in. If I could live in it, that is.

That night, after work, I called on Leslie in his bed-sit. He and Denis were having a hearty meal of fish and chips and their small home smelled full of it. I was hungry and it smelled delicious!

Rosie smiled at Leslie and helped herself to one of his chips.

“Have a bit of fish too, if you’re hungry,” he said, and she did. It was very good fish.

“I called to tell you something,” she said, “your secret…”

He paled visible. “You haven’t … you can’t have … you’ve told him?” he asked nervously.

“Would I do any such thing?” grinned Rosie, “but he did tell me something about you.”

“He did?”

“He said he’d had the idea that you and I might hit it off that time after the prize giving, but he knew, deep down, that we wouldn’t. As far as he was concerned it was wishful thinking,.Because, he said, you’re all right as you are with Denis.”

Leslie looked at Rosie with eyes wide open. “He said that?” he almost choked on a chunk of white cod.

“Leslie, he’s your dad,” murmured Rosie, “and he knows you well enough. If he didn’t he wouldn’t be much of a father, would he? He’s probably known that much about your nature since you were knee-high to a grasshopper.”

© Peter Rogerson 19.03.21

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