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| April's Fools | |
| By twriter | ||||||||||
| 01 April 2006 | ||||||||||
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This a piece which I have written for the Lazy Writer's Forum and I must say that I'm really pleased with it - enjoy! (All comments are, of course, more than welcome!) They sometimes say that even when they’re in there sixties men can still be like the little schoolboy’s that they once were. This was not the case it seemed for Charlie and Jim, they had grown up. There lives had grown with them. Jim had married a girl from the village where he still lived in Lancashire but Charlie, who farmed his own arable land, had never married and lived in a draughty old farmhouse but it was thought by all his neighbours probable that it might fall down on top of him any day. They had both changed since they were at school together; best friends who always rode their bikes up the long hill which led past the fields in which so many happy summer holiday days had been spent. “What are you doing tomorrow?” said Victoria as she stepped through the front door. “Nothing, that I know off.” April tried to keep her face under control but she could feel the pencil thin lines of a smile creeping onto her lips. “Just a quiet day at home.” “Well, you enjoy it!” Victoria shouted as she pulled out in her car from the bottom of the drive, “You deserve a break!” April waved her goodbye and then went inside the house. Misty, her treasured cat, was sat on the sideboard and if April had not known her better she would have thought that Misty was giving her a look of accusation. “I know, I know,” April said, partly to herself and partly to the accusing Cat. It was of course important, she thought all of a sudden as if to settle her mind, that one’s friend’s did not know everything, particularly as some of them (especially Victoria) were liable to talk. The clock was ticking and it would not be long, thought April, dressed in her favourite pale blue dress for summer, as she arranged the sandwiches which had made and the cake which she had bought onto a plate. What was the point of baking your own cake, occasions such as these were so rare, when someone would make it for you. They would soon be here and this was the first time that she checked herself in the mirror, she had not been worried until now. Things had moved on so much that she wondered what they would talk about. Lives changed and people, however close they had once been, went their separate ways. It was purely coincidence that both Charlie and Jim arrived at the same time – ten minutes late – from opposite ends of the country. April noticed, as she stood in the doorway, that neither of them acknowledged each other as they walked in almost a chorus step along the gravel drive to April’s front door. “Come in,” she said simply. It was without much enthusiasm that the two men followed April to the lounge where they sat in an awkward silence. It was then with equal awkwardness that Charlie asked where the toilet was and departed for a short time, leaving April and Jim alone. “Your letter never said that you’d acquired all this.” It was the first time that Jim had spoken and it occurred to her how gruff his voice was now to how it had been then. “Well I couldn’t –” she paused, “it would have sounded a bit vulgar wouldn’t it?” Jim knew, of course, that she was right and that really he was just making conversation but he could not find an appropriate response so he just said: “You never said much in your letters.” April smiled. “ I said all that needed to be said, Jim and you know it.” Uncomfortably Jim began to strategically stack sandwiches onto his plate like dominoes. “More tea?” April asked lifting the pot. “Tea!” said Charlie with pleasure – much brightened since his visited to the convenience. “Good!” He began to eagerly cram sandwiches and cake onto his plate as April poured him tea into a cup and he added milk. “How very civilised,” he said. “Yes.” Jim was feeling flat, what was Charlie doing making remarks like that, he thought and so he decided to up his own tempo and with as bigger grin as he could manage, he remarked jokily, “Is it me or is it hot in here?” “The heating’s not on,” April was beginning to remember exactly what they were both like. She looked at Jim. “And it’s not a particularly warm day either.” “I think,” Jim said, and it was only later that April thought that he got up rather too quickly, “I’ll take a walk outside.” With that he scurried to the front door where he could calm himself down. Charlie was looking out of the window at the lambs which graze softly on the grass – unlike humans he thought, some are incapable of being truly gentle, like Jim for example. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for him in some ways – today must be tinged with sadness because it seemed like he had always lost out. “Quite the opposite!” Charlie heard the teacup shake. “You always were like chalk and cheese but I’ve never known you this quiet.” He looked at her suddenly as if he had a great desire to speak but then he turned his bald head away and, even though she was almost afraid to look, she thought that she saw him wipe a tear from the left lens of his glasses. “Poor old Jim, that’s always how he reacts when he feels pushed out.” “Pushed out!” April was shocked, she’d never even thought… “Well, you know.” April felt that Jim was being decidedly airy in his remarks about his old school friend but then he laughed. “You might expect me to be hanging onto the past, a bachelor eh? But I never did, it was always Jim.” April was speechless. Totally speechless, all she could say in a very loud voice was: “It was over forty years ago!” “On this day. That is why you asked us to come, isn’t it?” Charlie smiled as he saw the colour beginning to drain from April’s usually pink face. “I never thought. Oh, Charlie, it’s all so long ago!” ~ “I really don’t think that dress is suitable, do you April?” April just looked at her mother and then lifting her skirt slightly to allow it to swish, as if she was about to go and meet Mr. Darcy in a Jane Austen novel. Not that she would have wanted to be one of those sorts of girls, they were, from April’s understanding, far too straight laced and life was too easy for her liking. By the time she reached the dark garden, she was really out of breath but she knew that she would need all her energy for the take ahead. She stopped and looked up at the big house – it looked so much more menacing in the pitch blackness of the night time. She could see that there was a single light, coming from a single small window at the very top of the house – someone was awake. She walked a little more gingerly than before because, as she thought to herself, you never know who might be out at this time of night, spying. Jim was late and he knew that April would be waiting for him by the rose bush as they had arranged and so he ran past the house without looking at it. He was strong and fit and so, he didn’t notice what others would consider to be a steep climb. He arrived and looked around him, no sign of April. He did hope that she hadn’t given up on him because he only saw her when he could get leave and there was something that he wanted to tell her tonight – 31st March – exactly three years after they’d met, it was the right time he thought, in wartime you had to make the most of your relationships and he had always known that April was the one for him. It would be so good to be able to put some of their money together and get a little house somewhere, perhaps in Crab Street, just a few houses away from the terrace where he was brought up. It was then that he heard approaching footsteps and suddenly saw April coming towards him, she was out of breath and looked slightly dispelled – not usual for April at all, who liked to be at the height of fashion, even though it was difficult in wartime, and took a great pride in her overall appearance. Charlie was feeling very smug with himself as he walked away from the gardens. He was very pleased with how it had all gone and was now more determined than ever, should she say ‘yes’, to really make a go of it. April had seemed particularly alive and excited this evening and, as ever, she was in the latest design of dress and was, of course, neat. He was so looking forward to their life together, it was all so exciting. She’d asked him to call around to her Mother and Father’s house the next day to hear her decagon but he was sure that she would say, “Yes.” “I, want to say something very important,” began Jim. “For both of us.” April looked into his eyes and saw only a man who was frightened. It was then that he let go of her hands which he had clasped and was holding in front of her and got down on the damp grass of the garden onto one knee. “Will you marry me, April?” he said. It was without hesitation that April replied, “I’ll think about it, it’s a big step Jim for both of us and I really must talk to Mother and Father – call at the house tomorrow and I’ll let you know my decision.” It was soon after that they each departed, promising to see each other the next day. As April walked home she thought that this moment, really she should be smiling but instead her face wore a tired and miserable expression. She had be proposed to by two handsome, good-looking men! She had, make no mistake, intended to be proposed to by her two suitors; on the same night; in the same place but she had not expected the choice which she now had to make to be so difficult and she only had until tomorrow. The next day April watched as her two suitors arrived, by coincidence, at the house at exactly the same time, they were not pleased to see each other but they waited patiently, none the less, sitting next to each other, each having his own private fantasy about April. Charlie could see her in a long flowing dress, where as Jim saw her in the pretty, slightly shorter dress that she had worn when they met. Time passed and they waited. They waited and waited but still April did not appear to relieve their anxiety. It was over four hours after his arrival that Jim decided that he had had enough, they’re was no point in continuing and just as he was leaving, a slightly more determined Charlie, came to the same conclusion. The two of them walked out of the house together and April, never saw or heard from them again. ~ “It was a cruel thing to do, I know,” said April looking suddenly upset. “Poor Jim, I never meant any harm, I just wanted to see how you both were.” “It was a shock you getting back in touch too,” said Charlie. “I presumed that it was to apologise.” “Apologise!” April was becoming offensive again. “I don’t really think that I’ve anything to apologise for, do you?” “You set me up,” said Charlie and then added: “You set us both up.” “I was young!” April brandished her cup. “We were all young,” said Jim from the doorway. And so it was that for the last time in April’s life, Charlie and Jim who were again fed up with waiting left a short time afterwards in perfect unison and go into their separate cars. As they drove away, April thought how lucky she was to have Victoria, she was always such a good friend but, she didn’t remember the old days. No, those friends were gone.
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