56. BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Ursula and Greendale consider their early days together

“It didn’t last long,” said Greendale after the funeral. He had returned to Swanspottle to say a last and painful farewell to his only child, the lovely Primrose, and they had ended up at Ma Tate’s cafe for afternoon tea. Ma Tate herself had died years earlier and been replaced by a new and younger Ma Tate, but the brand was as good as ever despite the change.

Ursula looked at him. The very first love of her life, and such a long time ago it was little more a blur with a few highlights when he had excited her or they had excited each other ... and all those highlights had been in bed. They illuminated the blur, they shone like diamonds in a dark night, and they had produced the lovely girl they had buried today, now aged 61 and prematurely taken from the world by a cruel and callous disease.

“You and that Brenda woman?” asked Ursula, remembering the one time she had met her and her mousy skirt and know-all sneer.

Greendale nodded. “Did Primrose ever tell you?” he asked.

Ursula shook her head. “I think she considered some things off limits,” she said, “though I knew she kept in regular touch with you. After all, you were her father! But your life and mine were on different tracks, and she was wise enough to know that.”

“Well, Primrose knew all about me and Brenda because I opened up to her. She told me before I did it, and I knew myself deep inside, that marrying her was a mistake. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I thought that the one time I met her,” Ursula told him, “all high and mighty and a thirst for champagne because the local plonk wasn’t good enough for her!”

“It was when you told her you wrote books,” murmured Greendale, “she got that inside her head and spent I don’t know how long trying to find one in Smiths, no doubt so that she could say she’d read it and rip it to pieces to her arty friends.”

“My one and only book, and it had only been half written by then,” smiled Ursula, “I wanted to say something that meant I might be someone more than a shop keeper in a small village,” she added, “she could have asked Primrose because the darling girl was my typist. Though truth to tell I almost finished a second book, but got put off from finishing it by the blasted film they made of the first.”

“I saw that,” grinned Greendale, “I actually took Brenda to the pictures just before we went our separate ways, and we watched it together!”

“I shouldn’t think that did your marriage much good!”

“The truth is I quite liked it. It reminded me of you in our early days, a woman with enough freedom in her head to want to live a full life without being dominated by any man. But Brenda, she would have walked out before the end but for the fact she was hoping that the vicar would reveal his wedding tackle for her to complain about or maybe even stare at! And although she was a force of nature, her strengths were all inward looking, clutching to her bosom what was best for her and not realising that her own happiness is almost always dependant on the happiness of others.”

“You really didn’t like her, did you, Greendale?” asked Ursula.

He shook his head. “It just took me too long to see her for what she was,” he admitted, “I’d been married to you, and you were … different.”

“I should hope that I was!”

“You were a lesson in perfect womanhood, Ursula. Anyway, what with one thing and then another, and I’ll bet your film was one of them, we parted company and the last I heard of her was she married a dealer who seemed on the surface to be the sort of man who could give her the kind of life she craved but who ended up in jail for corruption on a grand scale. I don’t know what she’s up to now, and I don’t care.”

“It was all my fault,” sighed Ursula.

“What was?” asked Greendale, curiously.

“You and me. At first we were so right for each other...”

“And then the war came along.”

“And yes, the war came along.”

Greendale sighed, “and it stole the life out of my fertility,” he said, “you were so desperate to have a brother or sister for Primrose, and nothing came along. Firstly because I, well, I found it difficult...”

“Impossible, you mean,” teased Ursula, “go on and say it as it was: you couldn’t get it up however hard we tried, and by golly we did try!”

“I’m glad you said we,” grinned Greendale, “I can remember some of the things you tried to do in order to get some reaction from me. But I was dead down there, and there wasn’t any good reason. I’d been wounded in the war, but that wasn’t it.”

“Then we went to see Griselda Entwhistle,” sighed Ursula.

“Her concoction did the trick! But it was a double-edged sword. It opened the floodgates, there was no doubt about that, but there were no fishes in the waters once they shot forth!”

“Maybe, if we’d seen more medics, more experts, maybe even the odd surgeon...” said Ursula.

“I didn’t want any more poking at my bits! It didn’t matter to Brenda that I was sterile even though she was past childbearing by the time we got married. But then, she wasn’t a great one for that kind of behaviour. She thought beds were for sleep, and only a very rare treat for her husband if he’d been a good boy and pleased her with an expensive gift!”

“You poor dear,” murmured Ursula.

“But you and I went our separate ways.”

“As I said, it was all my fault. I wish we could relive those doubting days over again… I’d happily forgo everything that’s happened since, Cardew, Jude and his nightmares even, my book and its rotten film, just to have a second chance with you.”

“You would?” Greendale looked surprised.

Ursula nodded. “We’re too old for it to matter now,” she said, “but the truth of the matter is you gave me a great deal of joy when we were, you know what, between the sheets.”

“But we were young,” he murmured. “And if you want to know the absolute truth, you did the same for me. I actually think that we loved each other more than any other couple has ever loved. And then we parted and from the distance of extreme old age I can honestly say that parting marked the end of the best years of my life.”

“Less talk of extreme old age!”

“Ok. Our senior position in life, then.”

“Shall we go for a walk?” asked Ursula, and with a smile added, “a short walk to my place because I can’t go far before my darned hip starts playing me up.”

“I’m not so fit either, and I need my stick, but I have got my car just outside.”

“Two old crocks.”

“You said it.”

They wearily stood up, and Ursula winced as her hip reminded her that it was there.

Ma Tate’s was close enough to Ursula’s home for them to be able to slowly walk the distance if they needed to, but Greendale’s car took the effort out of it.

“Greendale, I’ve still got a bed,” said Ursula out of the blue as he pulled up outside the same house that she’d been born in.

He smiled at her. “I was hoping you had.”

“In case we get tired, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“I could put my feet up now, if the truth was told.”

He grinned at her. “The same old Ursula,” he said, “with the same old dreams.”

“Primrose would have liked it,” she said quietly, “her mother and father...”

“In bed together?”

She sighed. “And hip or no hip, reminding themselves of the good old days,” she said.

“The good old days,” he echoed, and he took her hand and led her the last few steps home.

© Peter Rogerson 04.08.18