August 13th 2011

The post lands heavily on the mat.  I shuffle through the pile, till I spy the one I was hoping for; the Cooper, Cooper and Lake watermark givies it away.  I place the other envelopes all adressed to my great aunt on the table and wonder where I should open this one.  I decide I’ll go outside; I would prefer not to have the ghosts of my ancestors peering over my shoulder whilst I open it.  I don’t actually believe in ghosts, but the generations of history in this house, weighs heavily on me.

I grab a bottle of water from the fridge and have a fight with the back door.  I shove it with my shoulder and it gives a little too quickly; I stumble out.  A quick scan of the area and I am grateful to find no one saw my clumsy arrival into the garden.  You can’t really call it a garden; it is more a wild area.  I make out a cobbled area immediately in front of the door which leads onto a lawned area, surrounded by a border of shrubs.  All of which are now over grown.  It never ceases to amaze how quickly nature wishes to reclaim the earth from us.  Our drive for order and symmetry is dwarfed by the desire of plants to grow.  I have no idea about gardening.  I have only once lived in a house with a garden; my last foster family.  Prior to that, there were a couple of back yards and a balcony or three.   Mr Lake was right when he said the area had potential.  I’m sure in the right hands it will.  I am just not sure yet if they are mine.  I pick my way across the waist height grass, along a path I have made for myself over the last couple of days and end up beneath the cherry tree.  I take a seat on an old wooden bench, which seems to have developed an eco-system all of its own and open the envelope. 

Dorothy was apparently quite a shrewd woman when it came to money and had made several investments during her lifetime.  I’m not sure if she ever worked or not, or what she invested in, but I was told that once the death duties were paid there would be nice little pot left for me.  I tear the edge of the envelope slowly, not wanting to damage the contents.  I pull out a letter and my eyes grow wide as I read the numbers on the cheque, paper clipped to the back of the letter- £97,043.  My heart beats faster and my hands shake as I re-read the cheque, which is made out to me.  I unfold and scan the letter. A couple of minutes later the letter has fallen onto the ground, the cheque clasped between my hands.  I feel elated and terrified in equal measure.  This is the most money I’ve ever seen, or am likely to see.  It will pay off all my debt and if I wish, pay for renovations to the house, with some left over for savings. A black bank balance awaits me after years of multiple shades of red.  I pick up my bottle of water and take a big slurp and realise that I could afford a bottle of champagne if I wanted to. 

After an hour of sitting and planning, I head inside to continue cleaning.  It feels like I have done nothing else for the last four days. Every day and in every room I clean and sort, I find hidden gems and original period features.  As the dust and cobwebs are removed, the house is revealing itself to me.  If I’d acted on first impressions, everything would have gone to the refuse tip.  Now I can see that the house and most of its belongings are actually more than acceptable;  tired and in need of some attention, but definitely too good to be chucked out.

Upstairs is now pretty much sorted, although I need to get a new mattress for the main bedroom and a shower attachment for the bathroom. Unusually, or should that be unsurprisingly, the single mattress in the tiny spare room was still wrapped in the plastic it arrived in.  I moved all of the personal belongings from upstairs down to the kitchen and moved into this room on my second day here.  I suppose I could have the larger main bedroom, but I am used to single beds and walls which you can touch on either side at the same time.   

I spend the next couple of hours given the kitchen a big, deep clean, but because I have brought so much of the stuff from upstairs, down, I struggle to get to half of the kitchen and I decide it is time to tackle aunt Dorothy’s personal effects.  I heave the first box I come to onto the table and my mobile phone rings.  The chirpy ring tone makes me jump.  It is the first time it has rung since I have been here and when I made a call from it yesterday the reception was patchy at best.  I grab it from on top of the phone book on the table and glance at the screen- James Calling!  I could so easily press the end button, but I know that this is a call I must take.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How’s things?”

“When are you coming back?”  Straight to the point.

“Not sure.”

“Is that, not sure this week, or not sure full stop?” Oh!

“Definitely not this week.  I haven’t finished sorting through the house yet.”

“Oh.”

“Next week?”

“No.” I prepare myself for what I know is to come.

“Alice…, things, err… haven’t been great for a while with us and you being there isn’t gonna help, so I think maybe we should just call it quits.  Don’t you?”

“Ok,” I respond.  I literally cannot think of anything else to say.

“Ok… bye, Alice.”  His voice sounds a little sad.

“Ok, bye, James.”

I press the button to finish the call and with that, put an end to the life I had back in London.  I have been on my own for six years now, so I am not saddened by the loss.  Friendships are borne out of routine, stability and familiarity.  None of which have been a feature in my life to date.  I might not be sure I’m staying here, but I know for a fact that I won’t be returning there.  I place the phone back on the table and take a deep breath, exhaling slowly.  Whilst a weight might not have lifted off my shoulders, one less worry now holds my thoughts hostage.

I spend the next few hours rummaging through Dorothy’s papers.  I shovel years of paid bills, receipts, banks statements and guarantees into a bin bag.  Anything current and pertains to the house itself, I keep and place in an A4 box file.  On filling my third bin bag, I move onto a large shoebox full of old photos.  There must be over a hundred in here.  All of them black and white, many of them dog eared.   I take out a handful and look down at the first one, a picture of a young girl, in a long straight skirt, blouse and cardigan.  She is sat under a large tree on a picnic blanket and smiling at the camera.  She is a pretty girl, with long dark hair hanging in gentle waves, curled and sculptured at the fringe.  I flip the photo over and find a note written on the back.  Dorothy, June 10th, 1938. My great aunt was very beautiful in her day.  Flipping through, there are lots of pictures of Dorothy in different locations, with different friends; a host of names written on the back of each one.

Nearing the end of the box, a slightly larger photo stands out.  I pull it out of the box and look at the faces, forever frozen in time.  Six young men, wearing boiler- like suits and leaning against a corrugated iron wall.  The photo is an informal shot, each one of them looking relaxed and happy.  Standing in front of them all is Dorothy, although she is not looking at the camera, but smiling happily at one of the lads behind her.  I flip the photo over and on the back is written: 

Good times with Tommy, Jack, Billy, Donald, Peter and Gil 1941