Page 14 of Escape to the Country

I was about to say I didn’t have time. It was more of a habit than anything else, and I realised that I did have time. All the time in the world. I had no other plans today and, just maybe, having a chat and a cuppa with this lady might brighten her day. And it felt good to be doing something for someone else for a change.

‘Yes please, that would be nice,’ I replied, but as she was clearly struggling to lift the kettle and manoeuvre around her walking frame, I took it from her.

‘Let me. Why don’t you sit down and let me make you one, Mrs Darby.’

‘Ooh my dear, how lovely. I can’t remember the last time someone made me a cup of tea. Thank you. And please, call me Leila.’ She plonked herself down onto one of the kitchen chairs and directed me to the cups, spoons and teabags. ‘We’ll take one up to Ron if that’s OK. It’s been a while since his last one. Can’t let him have too much to drink, it’s so much trouble to get him out of bed and into the bathroom.’ She laughed. ‘It wears us both out.’

We chatted easily as the kettle boiled. Leila told me that she and Ron were childhood sweethearts and had been married for seventy-five years. They were both ninety-six. They had two children with families of their own, giving them five grandchildren, but they all had busy lives and they didn’t live in the local area so weren’t able to help out much.

My heartstrings twanged when I thought about how little I knew about my own grandparents. Mum had told me that they’d had a falling out years ago and she flatly refused to talk about it, so over the years I just stopped asking. While I respected her decision, it was my life that was affected too and I wondered again whether there were still people out there related to me, struggling along in their lives. Or had they left this world already? Would I ever know? Did I have a whole family still to be discovered? And would I ever discover them, or would my questions go unasked and unanswered for the rest of my life? Mum and I were a family, and a great one, but I always wondered about the people that I’d never met.

I made tea for three and carried the tea tray to the foot of the stairs where a stair lift took over the bottom of the hallway. Leila shuffled down the hallway and suggested that she made the journey first, then send the chair back down, and I would rest the tray on the top of the box of books and send it up again. Leila laughed as she alighted the stair lift at the top of the stairs. ‘Bloody slow but it does the trick. And as Ron used to fart with every footstep on the way up, it’s way more pleasant than following him up. Don’t get old dear, it makes you very windy!’ She winked at me.

‘Nearly there, Ron my love. Make sure you’re decent. I have a young lady with me who doesn’t want to see your wrinkly old soldier hanging out of your pyjama bottoms, thank you very much.’ She grabbed another walking frame on the landing, and I squeezed past the stair lift as it made the trip with the books and tea.

Leaving the box of books for a moment, I carried the tea tray into the room that Leila had disappeared into, where she told me to put it down on an old oak dressing table.

‘Just the job,’ came a man’s deep voice from behind the door.

‘And you must be Mr Darby. Good morning. I’m Maddy.’

‘Call me Ron, my dear. Mr Darby makes me feel old!’ He winked. ‘Hello, Maddy, what brings you to Glasscroft Close this morning? Not that I’m complaining about getting visitors. We don’t get many these days, do we, Leil?’

Leila plonked herself on the bed next to her husband and took his hand in hers and patted it, her eyes full of love as she shook her head gently. A lump formed in my throat. When I was younger, my dream was to grow old with Alex, and then when I met Jamie, I thought it would be us. But now, it’s just me. All alone.

Remembering the books, I scooted back to the landing and returned with the box and put it on the edge of the bed.

Ron’s eyes lit up like the Blackpool illuminations and a grin spread literally from ear to ear. ‘Ooh, you’ve brought books. Do I get to choose one?’

‘Not one, they’re all for you if you want them. There’s a selection of the genres that the library ladies know you read.’

‘Goodness me!Allof them?’ Ron looked like a child in a sweet shop. ‘Are you sure? All of them. There must be twenty books in that box. Really?’

My heart warmed to the happiness that was etched on his face as he started to search through the box and there were oohs and aahs coming from him as he took them out and read the blurb on the backs, with his glasses perched on the end of his nose.

‘As you can see, Ron is mainly bedridden and we can’t get to the library these days, so someone suggested that the library could come to us. We normally have a lovely young lady called Beth deliver our books.’

‘Ah, Beth is my best friend, but she’s not able to get around much at the moment as she’s had an operation. I’ve known Beth all my life.’

‘Such a lovely girl. What she has done for us has given us both a new lease of life. We’re both avid readers and because we don’t have a fat lot else to do in the day, we devour books. We’re both very lucky to be blessed with good eyesight, which is unusual at our age and which we are so grateful for, as reading is our escapism. I don’t think people realise how important this community service from our library is to people like us. You’ve made us so happy, Maddy. If you hadn’t have come, we might not have been able to get any more books till Beth was better, and I’m not sure how long that might be. Please do give her our love, won’t you. And Maddy, we honestly can’t thank you enough. We can’t get out much into the world any more, but books bring the world in here to us.’

What a lovely way to look at reading, I thought.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you while I’m here?’ I asked. Ron looked at Leila and raised his eyebrows, but she shook her head.

‘No, it’s fine, thank you, you’ve done more than enough already,’ Leila replied.

‘It’s no problem, honestly. I have a day of no plans, so make the most of me while I’m here.’

‘Well, there is something, dear, if you really wouldn’t mind. On top of that wardrobe is a small suitcase which I’d love you to get down if you can reach it. I keep meaning to climb up on that bedroom stool, but Ron keeps telling me I’m not to.’

Being tall was something that used to drive me mad when I was at school. I used to get picked on and called ‘lanky legs’ and I hated it. But right now, it was very useful as I reached up above the wardrobe and pulled the suitcase down, along with a cloud of dust. Ron started to cough, and Leila asked me to open the window a tad. ‘Come on, Ron, steady on. You know when you cough like that you have to concentrate and control your bodily functions.’

Leila turned to me and giggled. ‘Honestly, my dear, at our age, anything can happen.’

He took in some fresh air and got his breath back as she gently patted his back. He took a sip of his tea and I pulled the window to again, so that he didn’t catch the draught.

We chatted easily while we drank the tea. I thought they were a lovely couple. Looking at my watch, I noticed that an hour had passed since I’d arrived, so I collected the cups, took them downstairs and swilled them in the old Belfast sink, leaving them on the side to drain. I gave the sides a wipe down with the dish cloth. Leila might think their eyesight was good but an extra wipe would get rid of some of those crumbs that had been left behind.

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