Sid wouldn’t normally have done this; he was far too mean. Why would he have left a posy of flowers on my mothers’ doorstep?
When we were kids he would chase us off if we so much as looked at his vegetables in the allotment. Old Sid was really proud of his allotment, and managed to grow vegetables that were bigger, or juicier, or greener than anyone else in the village. We always used to say that his spite made them grow bigger than anyone else, because his plants knew if they didn’t grow he would pull them out and throw them away onto the compost heap.
As with all kids we were constantly playing ball or chasing round the allotment and spare ground at the back, and there were many times when he would come out of his little shed, shouting and threatening us with his rake or his spade for getting too near his beloved patch of ground.
My parents could remember Sid when he was a younger man, and they knew the story why he had turned so miserable. One evening when he had been particularly obnoxious to us kids, and had taunted the older boys with nasty stories about their parents, we sat round the kitchen table and pestered mum and dad to find out why he was so mean and spiteful.
My mum knew him when he was at school with her, and she said that he had been a really normal little boy; he used to do the usual stuff that all little boys do, like climbing the apple trees to take an apple, blackberrying in the autumn, collecting conkers from the horse chestnut trees in the woods for conker fights in the playground; fishing in the local streams for crayfish and tiddlers, all those sort of childhood games. He was a sweetheart to his mum though, and would pick violets in the woods for Mothers Day, and bring her little posies of summer wildflowers when he got out of school in the afternoons. My mum could remember how kind he had been if a small child had fallen over in the playground ; he used to hate to see smaller kids crying.
As he grew up in the village and became a pleasant hard working young man, he started courting Becky, the local baker’s daughter. When Sid had saved enough money to rent a little cottage, he and Becky arranged to get married. Both his mum and dad and Becky’s parents were delighted with the match and were looking forward to the many years of happiness that they both deserved.
The morning of the wedding dawned bright with sunshine and blue skies; Sid bathed and dressed in his very best suit, and with his family surrounding him, set off down the lane to the church for the ceremony. They arrived and were standing talking for a while with the vicar in the church yard, when a small boy came running down the lane, brandishing a sheet of crumpled paper. Mister, mister , he was calling. Everyone stopped what they were doing, stopped talking and turned to see what the commotion was about. The hot and sweaty boy ran up to Sid and handed him the paper. He looked down at it, and paled. His face grew grim and he strode away with the note crushed in his hand. Sid’s mother ran after him asking her son what was wrong. He gave her no answer, simply thrust her away from him and continued along the lane towards the little cottage that was to be his and Becky’s.
Everyone followed him, worried by the look on his face, and the determination in his stride. At the front gate to the cottage, he stopped, and turned to face his family and the followers. “She’s gone” was all he said ,as he unlatched the gate and entered the front door and closed it behind him..
Everyone looked at each other, shock in their faces. The questions flew - what, where, why – and no-one had the answers. They just knew that the wedding had not taken place as planned. His mother hammered on the door to the cottage, calling upon her son to come out or to let her in. There was no response to her anguished pleas. Her worried face crumpled and she allowed herself to be drawn away by her husband. “ Let him be,” he said,” he needs to be alone. Come home lass, and let’s have a cup of tea.”
My mother could remember that day, the terrible shock it created through the village. The baker knew nothing of his daughter’s intention to jilt the young man who had courted her so carefully, and moved away from the village in anger and shame. He never really got over it, my mother told us, but the one person who was so completely changed was Sid. He joined the army after that, and moved away from the village himself. On the rare occasions that he came back to visit his parents, his eyes were cold and calculating now, and his manner was distant. The army became his life, and he never did marry.
Mother remembered the day Sid came home for his mother’s funeral – in uniform he stood at the graveside clutching a posy of wildflowers. One by one he tossed the flowers on top of the coffin as it was lowered into the ground, and that was the first and last time anyone saw him cry.
When he became too old for the army he came back to the village , and now lived alone in the small cottage that had been his parent’s home.
My mother saw him occasionally , and to her he remained as pleasant as he had been as a school boy and as a young man, but the joy of living had gone from him, and he seemed to grow more and more miserable except when tending the plants that he loved so dearly. Plants that he tended and cherished as he would have tended and cherished Becky if they had wed.
Mother’s posy showed that there was still a soft spot in Old Sid’s heart, but he only showed most people his miserable side. At least now we kids knew the reason for his unhappiness, and could make sure that we did not cause him any more grief by spoiling his life in his allotment.
Day 10:
Andrew was not a nice man; he knew that. He had no problems with it. It was his way of life, all he had ever known. He couldn’t understand why he should put others first. He had learned many years ago that it was every man for himself.
It was this thirst for survival that drove him. It was behind every rude smirk, every insult.
He did what he had to do.
He didn’t plan for other people to get hurt. It just…happened. It was as if there was someone following him, burning a trail of destruction. They were always there, waiting to destroy whatever fragile life he had managed to piece together. No matter how far or fast he ran, they were there. They were everywhere he looked.
Andrew was good at running. Hell, he’d had enough practice at it. For twenty three years, he had kept moving, never looking back. The past was too painful for that. When he thought of that man, that monster stood over her body, he felt the familiar urge in his legs, the need to move and never stop. Andrew had been shocked to see how peaceful his mother had looked. He hated how accepting she had looked. She was meant to fight it. Did she really want to die? Didn’t she love him? She was meant to be there for him!
He had fled, left without a single goodbye and hurt heavy in his heart. Andrew had ran as fast as his teenage legs could take him ignoring the tears forming in his eyes. They were not tears of sadness, but of anger.
His mother had loved the monster and look where that had got her. She was dead, lying in a grave nobody visited.
She had let him down.
More than anything, he couldn’t face the disappointment again.
So he was alone.
He grimaced as the sound of a child’s laugh filled the train carriage. Unbidden, memories flooded his mind. His mother, smiling, as they raced on the swings, trying to get as high as possible; the feeling of freedom as the wind caught his hair; the way their laughs had risen in chorus; the happiness that had warmed his heart.
And the man on the bench, leering at the other young mother’s in the park, never satisfied with Andrew’s own mother.
He was brought back to the present, an all too familiar scowl across his face.
“Will you shut that thing up?”
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