15. Meeting Harry

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

THE POETESS part 15

THE POETESS

15. Meeting Harry

The next few weeks were hectic. Mr Babbage took great delight in informing me that one of the pies he had a metaphorical finger in was the building firm Jones, with his son Leslie actually in charge of it. Jones the builders had been a small family firm, reliable and respected for many years but when the last in the line of Joneses retired and sold up, Mr Babbage had bought it to add to what he called his portfolio. He’d already been the town’s Mayor and now he wanted to spend his more mature years as some sort of superman in the business world.

I never did understand that properly, but the net result was his son Leslie taking overall charge of the rebuilding of Millers Cottage. And quite a lot of it did need rebuilding. The roof let in water by the bucketful when it was raining, and quite a lot of the brickwork needed tender loving care before it collapsed altogether. And the interior: soggy and ancient plaster, timbers that probably wouldn’t take another cold season, all needed urgent attention.

The good news was I could just about afford the work from the proceeds of selling my parental home. Leslie was good at taking the advice of his more experienced employees rather than trying to decide things himself from an imperfect grounding in the building trade. I got the feeling that any work done would be of a high standard and exactly what the old place required.

“The good news, Rosie,” said Leslie when she walked down to see how things were progressing after work on an early closing Wednesday, “is that most of the roof looked a lot worse than it was and we were able to save a great deal of it before it collapsed. The lads are quite enjoying this project, especially when they know who they’re working for. It must be that twinkle in your eye or the turn of your legs!”

Rosie, it seemed, was a popular visitor to the site. She was never critical and always open to suggestions. Doorways, for instance, offered Leslie a chance to suggest slightly altering the building so that what was once the lounge would become a dining kitchen and a room at the back looking our over the garden and facing South and looking over a particularly promising patch of the lawn would become the new lounge. And she even discovered that her choice of clothing affected the eyes of the men. She wore her now ageing mini-kilt on one occasion, and Leslie pointed out that work was coming to a standstill with the men pausing to ogle her.

“You’re paying for their time,” he told her, grinning, “and even I can understand what turns them on!”

Nevertheless, she was amazed how quickly the place became habitable. New doors and windows went a long way to making it look as though there might already be someone living there. Services such as water, gas and electricity were reconnected, and heaters whirred away as they started drying out the infrastructure that had been subject to bad weather and neglected for more years than anyone knew.

I wasn’t in Mildred’s caravan for long before I found I could start moving things into my new home. Furniture from the family home had been put into storage when I sold up, and gradually I was able to arrange to have it taken to Millers Cottage. It seemed wonderfully swiftly that the whole thing was coming together, and I would have a home for life. That’s what I thought it would be, and that’s what time proved it to be…

As coincidence would have it, Roy was one of the workers who put in some time at my cottage. He’d already told me he was a sort of dogsbody on Joneses sites I saw him on a couple of occasions, and then, before I was ready to move in completely he asked me if he could have a word with me.

“I’ve left Violet,” he said, “I know it was a mistake, me being with her, but I stayed with for all the best reasons. At least, that’s what I believe. Archie’s a smashing kid, but she won’t let me be a father to him. And I suppose that’s only right seeing as I’m not his dad.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Rosie thoughtfully, “a child needs both parents even if they’re not blood related.”

“Violet’s a sweet enough kid,” he muttered, “and I do like her. Quite a lot, if only she’d let me get close, but she won’t. It’s as if I was the dirty old man who put her with child when she conceived Archie, and I’m not that man and never could be.”

“You’re not a bit like that, Roy,” she told him, knowing deep down that he wasn’t.

“It’s the impression she gives,” came his reply, “I can’t seem to do right for doing wrong! Anyway, I’m due to move into Aunt Mildred’s caravan until I can sort something out. She said it’s all right when you’ve finally left it.”

Then he wandered off before Rosie could say anything else. But her mind was dominated by a fleeting memory of that first wonderful kiss from years earlier, when she’d been sweet sixteen, and she wondered what might have become of her if she hadn’t been so naive and innocent about relationships back then. Maybe, she thought, frowning to herself, maybe Roy and she would have made something together. Who can tell?

And nobody could from the perspective of the here and now either.

So I moved in to Miller’s Cottage as soon as it was safe to do so. It was still very much like a building site, with piles of rubble waiting to be carted off with scaffolding still against one wall as well as the long back garden that led to the stream that had once been the power source for the now disused mill. The old mill house was still there. It would be good for storage, I thought.

Isolated as I was and probably above a mile from my nearest neighbour, I was in heaven. It didn’t cross my mind that there might be any kind of danger in isolation. Maybe the world had once been a dangerous place, but the sixties had cured all that and now, in the early years of the seventies, I knew that I was safe as houses. Or safe as this house anyway!

And there was no sign of anything being amiss until, that is, I decided to tackle my back garden.

Rosie knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted a nice smooth lawn leading down to the stream. That would be just about perfect. And, to add colour and texture, she wanted patches where flowers could grow. Not just narrow borders but beds of vibrant colour during the summer. Already, in he imagination, it was a well-established corner of Heaven.