Miss Potterton's Birthday Tea (7 page)

Miss Potterton smiled at the young woman who seemingly also wanted to spend time with her, and this thought made her very happy. ‘I think the pot might need refreshing.' She reached over and placed the back of her liver-spotted hand against the cooling china.

‘Oh, let me!' Tina jumped up and carefully scooped the teapot into her hands, carrying it like a precious thing into the kitchen.

Ian noted her slender form as she left the table. ‘Your mum's full of energy!'

‘She's always like that. It makes me laugh – and pisses me off sometimes. Oh! Sorry!' Marley hunched his shoulders and turned down his mouth as he apologised to their hostess.

Miss Potterton, however, was having a deaf spell. Conveniently.

Marley continued. ‘I don't know anyone else like her – she's happy all the time. When the toast pops up, she makes this little noise like it's an exciting thing, and when she gets to pick up our chips, they call her order number and she waves the little slip of paper over her head like she's won something.' He shook his head. ‘Even when things are shit…' Again he looked towards their hostess. ‘She just seems to find the happy!'

‘I think that's a really nice way to live.' Ian smiled at Marley.

‘Tom was very much like that. A positive nature, always found the good. Whereas I could be a bit judgemental.'

‘You, Cordelia? No!' Ian laughed.

‘Hmmph.' She bristled, with the twist of a smile to her mouth. ‘But Tom balanced me. And even now, all these years later, I still take the advice and try to temper my thoughts and views accordingly. We're always conversing, you know. On any number of topics. I find it most comforting that we can still talk. I find great solace in that.'

Ian stared at his maiden aunt. This new insight into her life was quite wonderful. He was glad that she'd had someone special, someone to help her find the happy. But who was Tom and why had they never married? Surely she wouldn't have got involved with a married man? He smiled at the thought, realising that everything he knew about her had come via his mother before she died and was therefore skewed by her views and his aunt's rather unforthcoming nature. He liked the idea of trying to figure out the puzzle of her in her ninety-fourth year.

‘Where does the name Marley come from?' Miss Potterton asked rather abruptly. ‘Was it a fondness for Dickens?'

‘What?' Marley stared at her.

‘Your name. Marley. Are you named from the novella? After Scrooge's partner?' She spoke a little louder, as if increasing the volume might help his understanding.

Tina scooted back into the room and placed the fresh pot of tea in the centre of the table. ‘Oh no, Miss Potterton. Marley's one of his middle names.'

‘What's your first name?' Ian asked.

‘Bob,' he replied, and bit into a tiny crustless chicken sandwich.

‘What's your other middle name?'

‘Gibson,' he muttered through a mouthful of food.

‘Don't eat with your mouth full.' Tina tutted.

‘He asked me a question!' Marley pointed at Ian with the remainder of his sandwich, again speaking with his mouth full.

‘So your name is Bob Marley Gibson?'

Marley nodded.

Ian chortled. ‘Gibson as in the guitar maker?'

‘His dad was a big fan.' Tina smiled and sipped her tea, which had cooled and was almost unpleasant.

‘Of Dickens?' Miss Potterton asked loudly.

Tina and Ian laughed.

Ian noted Tina's slight shudder as she tasted her brew. He lifted the pot and poured hot tea into her cup.

*

The champagne and tea continued to flow through the afternoon. There was the singing of ‘Happy Birthday' and the cutting of cake. Tina produced a batch of crumbly scones glued together with clotted cream and fresh raspberry jam, and there was gooseberry tart to follow.

At five o'clock Miss Potterton stood up. ‘I should like a nap.'

Without a word of thanks or further discussion, she walked slowly from the table and made her way towards the hallway. Ian got up and took her elbow, guiding her along, leaving her at the entrance to her bedroom, much to the relief of them both.

‘Is it okay if I push off, Mum?' Marley slipped his arms into his jacket as he asked.

‘Yes, love, and thank you for today. You've been great.'

‘Great to meet you, Marley, and I hope our paths cross again. If I can be of any help…' Ian shook the boy's hand.

Marley smiled. ‘Thanks,' he replied, with the polite dismissal of a boy who had learnt not to rely too heavily on the word of any man who presented himself as a temporary role model.

Ian poured another glass. ‘He's a nice boy, and he seems to love college.'

‘He does. Mind you, I liked school, too – not that I learnt much.' Tina sipped her champagne.

‘It's interesting, isn't it? I hated every second and learnt a lot. I went to this small private school for boys in the middle of the countryside, where I learnt how to pass A levels, read Latin and recite the periodic table.'

‘Wow! I went to an inner-city school in Bow, where I learnt rhyming slang, winkle picking, and how to sew on your pearly buttons and do the Lambeth Walk. General Cockney behaviour.'

Ian slumped forward, he was laughing so much. ‘I'm picturing it! That's so funny!'

‘I sometimes wonder what I might have done if I'd gone to a school where people had actually given a shit about my education.'

‘What would you like to have done?'

She shrugged. ‘Dunno. Suppose if I was starting again, if I was young and had all the time in the world, I'd like to learn floristry. I spend an awful lot of time looking at flowers and plants ‘n' stuff, trying to copy arrangements and that. I've always had this little dream of having me own flower shop. I'd love that.'

‘Well, it's not too late! You can do that any time!' Ian banged the table as if to emphasise his point.

Tina shook her head. ‘Nah, too late for me. Even if I did do the course, how could I just start a flower shop? You need money and I've never had enough of that. Not that I want
a lot
, but enough would be nice. You kind of get trapped, don't you? Trapped in your life – working, setting the alarm, having a cup of tea, working some more... It's like you're on a hamster wheel, and sometimes just thinking about it can be exhausting.'

For some reason, Ian pictured Mrs Coates with her downturned mouth and her miserable demeanour. ‘Well, my job isn't a picnic exactly.'

‘But you're a doctor!' Tina said, wide-eyed.

‘I am.' He nodded. ‘But I don't remember having any choice. My father set the course upon which I was to sail and I just had to follow his coordinates and try not to let him down. It felt like the most enormous pressure, just to please him, and my choice never really came into it.'

‘That's really sad.' She put her hand on his arm.

He liked the feel of her skin against his. He liked it very much.

She withdrew it as quickly as she had placed it there.

‘What would you like to do, then, if you could do anything?' She cupped her chin in her palm, her elbow resting on the tabletop.

He liked the way her curls had worked loose and hung over her face but resisted the temptation to push them back for her.

‘If I could do anything?' He looked up at the ceiling, as if that was where the answer might lie. ‘I'd like to know about wine, maybe travel the vineyards of the world and come back with an improved understanding of the production process, what makes a wine great or terrible. And I'd like to open a vintner's, a specialist wine shop, with big oak barrels lining the walls, and flagstone floors. There'd be racks full of bottles of red, gathering dust, and fridges full of chilled whites, and great food to go with the tasting, like tapas... Maybe a bar as well, for real ale fans and anyone else who wanted to pull up a stool and enjoy a platter and a chat... Oh and it would have to be near the coast.'

‘Blimey, sounds like you've given it a lot of thought!' She laughed.

‘I haven't really, not until this moment. But I'd bloody love that!'

‘Well, it's not too late! You can do that any time!' She banged the table.

‘Touché.' He raised his glass to hers as he mentally catalogued a million reasons that would prevent him from fulfilling this dream.

‘I'd love to live near the seaside,' Tina said. ‘I went a couple times when I was younger and I remember the way the air smelt and the feel of the sand under my feet. I felt free, with all that space and no concrete. Just that big patch of moving blue to look at. I think that would be my dream too, actually, to live somewhere where I can open me curtains of a morning and see the sea every day. And if I want to see it at any other time of day, then all I have to do is pop my head out and there it is!'

‘That does sound pretty perfect.'

‘I find you very easy to talk to.' She looked up at him.

‘That'll be the champagne!' He sniffed, glowing at the compliment.

‘Yes, probably.' She laughed.

‘So do you have a partner now? After Marley's dad?' He tried to sound nonchalant.

She shook her head. ‘No. He kind of put me off. I was proper crazy about him – Marley was on the button; he was a talker all right – and I was naive. I think I really wanted to believe that he was the one who might take me away for a different kind of life…' She stared into the middle distance.

‘Is that what you wanted?' Ian thought of all the times he'd wished for something similar.

‘I think so. But it turned out there were so many of us all under the same promise, he'd have had to hire a bloody minibus!' She shook her head at the absurdity of it. ‘So what about you? What's Helen like?'

Ian sat back in the chair and placed his clasped palms behind his head. ‘She left. We're done. She has someone else and I'm on my own without the microwave.' He reached for his glass.

‘Oh God! I'm sorry. I feel awful. I wouldn't have asked…'

‘No, no. It's fine. It's like you were saying: you are on that hamster wheel and you can't get off and then one day you're thrown off and while it might shake you, scare you, even, when you regain your senses and look at the life you were leading, you have to question whether you want to get back on. And I really don't.' He smiled at her.

Tina coughed. ‘Can I ask you something?'

‘Sure.' He leant forward, his arms on the table, as if this required his full attention.

‘Why don't you buy a new microwave? They're only £24.99 in Argos.'

‘Why the hell didn't I think of that?' He laughed, lowering his glass and staring at Tina as she mirrored his every move.

Her heart was beating so fast, she felt sure they could hear it all the way back in Hammersmith. He was going to kiss her! She was going to be kissed by a bloody doctor. Closing her eyes, she waited.

‘Tina!' Miss Potterton's voice made her jump to attention. She shot off her chair as though the old lady had pressed an ejector button.

‘Miss Potterton, I didn't hear you! Are you okay? Do you need anything?' she babbled, wishing her face would stop burning.

Ian smiled at her. ‘More tea, Cordelia?' He lifted the pot in his aunt's direction.

‘Good morning, Greta Garbo, how are we today? Ignoring me, I see. Well that's fine, I happen to find you rather dull too.'

Miss Potterton placed one hand on the wall as she shuffled towards the kitchen. ‘I think tea and toast with marmalade,' she mumbled as she made her way along the hall.

Greta Garbo meowed.

‘Oh, I see. The mention of food and you're interested again! You fickle old thing.' She laughed.

‘Too bad you weren't at home for my birthday tea yesterday, madam! It was most enjoyable, as it transpired. Despite the rather cosy turn-out.' Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. ‘And those two youngsters seemed to get on well. I rather thought they would, actually…'

A sudden flutter in her chest stopped her short and she propped herself against the wall. It passed.

Settling back into her armchair, with her tea and toast cooling on the side, she placed the album on her fragile lap and opened the heavy cover until it rested on the arm of the chair. The stiff cardboard pages were interleaved with a thin sheet of tissue paper, covering the many black and white images, each held in place by tiny cardboard corners, stuck to the page. Cordelia ran her finger over an image of Tom, leaning on a shovel with a bunch of dirt-covered carrots in one hand, proudly holding them up towards the camera. She remembered the laughter; as the pose had to be held for quite some time to be captured. It seemed all they did was laugh, how she missed that.

Greta Garbo purred, ‘oh hello you. Look at this Miss Garbo,' she pointed to a picture of a rubble-strewn street, ‘the aftermath of the blitz, my beautiful city burnt and I was powerless, we all were. A frightful time.' She turned the pages, stopping at a black and white shot of a Soho street, in the sixties, ‘not as frightful, as this time. This for me was the worst. I lost my love, lost my hope. I think it was cancer, we were unsure, but with today's technology, I'm sure it would have been far more identifiable. Not that it matters. Death is death and that was that.' She took a deep breath and blotted at her eyes with her handkerchief.

The sound of the letterbox flap roused her. She closed the album and slowly made her way into the hall. She stood, staring at the front door, her smile broke and her heart filled with joy. For there, standing with one foot on the welcome mat, was Tom.

‘Oh, my!' Cordelia Potterton put her hand to her neck, clutching at the double string of pearls that lay against her shirt. ‘It's you!' she breathed.

Tom nodded, arranged the stack of mail in a neat pile on the bureau and placed the paperweight on top.