Sweet Home Summer: A heartwarming romcom perfect for curling up with. Michelle Vernal

       Chapter 3

      Bridget’s hands trembled as she stared at the Valentine’s Day card in her hand. A white love heart on a red background inside which the words, For Someone Special, were inscribed. It was two days early, and she didn’t need to open it to know who it was from. Nevertheless, she did.

      Her fingers traced his handwriting, and she closed her eyes to see if she could conjure up a picture of what Charlie must look like now. It was the sixth Valentine’s Day card she’d received from him. He’d heard through the miners’ long reaching grapevine that Tom had passed away and had waited a full year after his death before sending her the first card. What a shock that had been! Sixty years had fallen away as she’d opened the card and read his condolences. The verse he’d chosen brought tears to her eyes but it was his request to come and visit her that had made her legs turn to jelly and her stomach begin to churn. She hadn’t replied to that card or the ones that had followed annually since. How could she? Not when there was so much water under the bridge. She couldn’t revisit the past with him; it was simply too painful.

      Bridget donned her glasses and read the verse in this year’s card out loud.

       ‘There is a special place within my heart

       That only you can fill

       For you had my love right from the start

       And you always will.’

      He’d written beneath this that he would dearly love to visit her and that all she had to do was call and tell him yes and he’d book a flight. Bridget felt the familiar roiling in her stomach at this request. ‘Oh Charlie, how did I get it so wrong?’ she asked the empty kitchen. The phone began to ring making her jump at the sudden intrusion, and she swore softly as she got up from where she was sitting. A split-second later, Bridget winced for the second time that morning upon hearing Margaret’s not so dulcet tones informing her she’d collect her in five minutes. ‘Good-oh,’ she said hanging up and retrieving her cup from the table. She tipped the dregs down the sink before picking the card up once more. She would tuck it away in the top drawer of her dresser where she put all of her life’s flotsam and jetsam, and try to forget about it.

      It was a victorious Bridget who was dropped home from bowls by a po-faced Margaret. She didn’t even toot as she reversed back down the driveway in her cobalt blue Suzuki Swift. She’d always been a sore loser, Bridget thought, giving her a cheery wave before letting herself in the front door. She’d better rattle her dags and get the dinner on because Joe would be calling in soon on his way home from the wood-processing plant where he worked in Greymouth, hoping to be fed.

      The packet of beef sausages were where she’d left them defrosting on the bench in the kitchen. Back in the days when Max had still prowled the premises, she wouldn’t have dared leave meat out on the bench; she’d have come home to find the greedy old tomcat had mauled their dinner.

      Joe enjoyed bangers and mash; he was a good man her son-in-law and Bridget liked a man who enjoyed his food. What was that phrase? Salt of the earth. She always thought it suited Joe down to the ground. He came to have his tea with her on a Thursday night when Mary swanned off to her dance in the dark session at Barker’s Creek Hall. He’d tuck into the meal she’d put down in front of him with relish, reckoning it was slim pickings on the home front with Mary not wanting a full stomach for all that dancing.

      Bridget shook her head, as she unhooked her apron from the back of the kitchen door and slipped it over her head before tying it around her waist. A brief search for the vegetable peeler ensued and after locating it in the compost bucket along with last night’s carrot peel, she set about scraping the spuds. She didn’t know what a woman past her prime was doing jiggling about in the dark with a group of other women who should know better! What was wrong with a brisk morning stroll?

      Bridget had been doing the same circuit each morning for years unless it was wet or the frost was particularly hard. Off she’d march, what was the point in dawdling? Down the High Street and passing by Banbridge Park, she’d always be sure to pause by the Cenotaph. It was her way of showing respect for the young men listed on the monument. The Great War was before her time, and she’d been too young to feel the effects of the Second World War. She’d known heartbreak in her time though. Her gaze would drift past the stone edifice and over the tops of the swings to the back of the park as she remembered stolen kisses under the Punga trees.

      She’d continue on her way, the Coalminer’s Tavern looming on her left. It always made her grimace when people referred to the old pub as the Pit even if it had seen better days. Then she’d get to School Road. It was the road on which she’d grown up, and it pleased her to see a swing and slide set in the front garden of what had been her family home. The house, long since sold, was rented to a family, which was nice even if they didn’t keep it to the standard her parents once had. Her eyes would inevitably flit to the upstairs window above the thorny rose bushes that needed a jolly good prune, and she’d feel a pang for the girl who’d once occupied that room.

      So many hopes and dreams but life hadn’t turned out how she thought it would. She’d stand there on the pavement of her youth lost in her thoughts knowing the woman with the unruly tribe of under-fives who lived in the house these days probably thought she was potty. She’d caught her peeping through the Venetian blind slats once, and had tried to imagine how she must look to her but had found she didn’t care. She’d stopped caring what people thought of her a long time ago and as the wind began to blow and the leaves to swirl, her mind would return to the night she’d met Charlie. She was once more that young girl twirling with joy.

       1957

      Bridget spun around and around, her arms flung wide. She was young and free, and in half an hour she would be off to dance the night away at Barker’s Creek Hall. The evening that stretched ahead was full of new possibilities and lots and lots of fun. She enjoyed the way the powder blue, poodle skirt she’d sewn for herself, under her mum’s helpful guidance, swung out high around her thighs. She’d spent the morning dipping her petticoat in sugar water, before ironing it over a low heat to give her skirt the fullness that was all the rage. Her mother had thought she was mad! Bridget was surprised, after all she should be used to such carry on from her older sister, Jean.

      She had teamed her skirt with a crisp white blouse that suited her dark colouring, a blue scarf knotted jauntily around her neck to tie her outfit together, and on her feet, she had a pair of white kitten heels borrowed from Jean. They made her feel ever so grown up. They’d come at a cost, mind; she’d had to loan her sister her brand new Bill Haley and His Comets record to take around to her friend Edith’s house, before she’d even had the chance to listen to it herself.

      She did have her new stole, though. She’d saved hard to buy it from the shillings her mother handed back from the wage packet she brought home once a week. She had worked since leaving school six months ago, as a secretary in the administration area of the Farmer’s Department Store on the High Street, and as such was entitled to a small instore discount. She’d put this to good use with the purchase of her first lipstick. It was tucked away inside her purse ready to be applied when she was a safe distance away from the house and her father’s eagle eye.

      Speaking of whom, he rattled his papers just