THE SWEETEST SUMMER WINE Part 1

THE WINDOW CLEANER

Helena Roswell was young when she fell in love for the first time. Young at heart, that is, rather than young in years.

She thought she knew all about love and affairs of the heart because there had been Guy, then Roger, then Davey. She’d spent part of her life, years ago now, with each of those, had even produced a daughter via the gift of secretions from Roger one night when the wine had flowed like water and there had been so much laughter in the air that she’d thought that she’d never forget it but mostly had.

Yet all that was in the past and so buried under mountains of more recent trivia that she rarely thought of it.

Then the years had passed. The daughter she loved and called Rosie had grown up and flown the nest and even produced the sweetest little Rosie of her own, and here she was with only Facebook for friends and a raging pandemic going on all around her.
So she wasn’t in the happiest frame of mind when the grumpy Joshua Grindlestone knocked her door and, sporting a white mask, asked her if she wanted a window cleaner because, well, he could tell from across the road that she did.

She’s seen the old man before and, from the look of him, decided he was probably the sort of man she should steer well clear of, possibly for reasons of hygiene. Not that one should judge by appearances, she knew, but they do help if you need a guide.

The words “I most certainly don’t,” were on the tip of her tongue, combined with a fierce expression of disdain when one of those oddities of nature occurred and it started snowing. Out of the blue. There hadn’t even been a cloud in sight. The blue skies had been extraordinary with their pristine perfection, and it started snowing.

And it wasn’t just snowing. It was an unexpected and veritable blizzard. In mere moments the concrete path outside her back door where the seemingly unpleasant Joshua Grindlestone was standing had turned virgin white.

And he was standing in his shirt sleeves (it might have been November and late in the year, but it was a warm November and he’d been quite happy in short sleeves. And shorts. He was wearing khaki shorts too).

“You’ll get cold,” she said, automatically. After all, the man was a human being and even though she was highly suspicious of his motives she shouldn’t leave him out in the worst blizzard in living memory. At least, that’s what she thought it was. “Just step in for a moment or you’ll catch your death,” she added invitingly.

That was something about her voice. When it was cold it was arctically cold and when it was warm it was tropically warm, and when it was inviting its generosity went over the top.

“Very kind of you I’m sure,” grated Joshua Grindlestone, and he stepped into her kitchen and stamped his feet to dislodge a sprinkling of the sudden snow.

“It’s almost as if there’s someone up there as wants you to consider your windows,” he said, drawing one hand over his bald pate just in case any snow flakes had survived the warmth of his scalp.

“I clean them myself,” she told him, “not so often as I might seeing as the state of my back, but I do my best.”

“Then I might say you do a good job,” he told her with a sort of smile, “though I can see the odd mark,” he added.

“Now you’re teasing me!” she laughed, “they’re in need of a wipe today or tomorrow, depending on the weather. I suppose to warm you up a cup of tea’s out of the question?”

“It’d be nice,” he nodded, “with a nip of this in it!” And he reproduced a shiny silver flask from his breast pocket. “I carry it for emergencies,” he added.

“What sort of emergencies?” asked Helena, trying to work out what normal situation in a man’s life might lead to him requiring urgent attention from the contents of that flask.

“Like when a pretty young woman offers me a nice cup of tea…” he grinned.

“Young? Young woman? Where might she be?” asked Helena, pretending to look around for someone she might have missed.

“Now that would be telling,” he replied, “can I help you with the kettle?” he added as it seemed that Helena might have forgotten all about the offer of tea.

“Don’t be so cheeky!” she replied, “I’m not in my grave just yet! How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-one and a bit,” he said, smiling, revealing unexpectedly near-white teeth.

“A bloody big bit then?” she laughed, “you can nearly multiply that by four to get close!”

“Not far off from me, then,” he said, somewhat sadly, “isn’t that kettle boiling yet?”

“It would be if I’d put it on,” she laughed, “but you got me talking!”

“It’s good to talk,” he nodded, “I live just across the road from you and these are the first words we’ve exchanged in all these years!”

“All what years?” she asked.

“Since my Peggy passed on,” he said, sadly, “and that’s twelve years and a few days.”

“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. She hadn’t really known Peggy, the fat woman who had shared the old man’s life with him, though she did dimly remember the ambulance that called for her and, when she peeped from behind her curtain out of innocent curiosity, the way she had been carted off in the sort of way that suggested that her life was well extinct.

“It’s long past,” he assured her, “and her time was up. Ate too much, she did. She put on a little weight due to her fondness for the chip pan. I told her, I did. Less chips and more mash, I told her She’d been fair pretty when we met, but time’s a cruel mistress…Time and chips!”

“And you loved her,” assured Helena.

“I thought I did.” His simple reply was shorn of emotion, stripped bare of anything human.

“And you’re worried about my windows?” she asked, needing to change the subject before one or both of them burst into tears.

“They look a mite dusty from my side of the street,” he told her, almost awkwardly.

“I suppose they are,” she sighed. “If I were to want a window cleaner, what would you charge?”

He could tell from her tone of voice that money might be a problem for her. Anyway, he had retired from doing anything years ago and any window cleaning he did was on his own house, and only then when he felt like it.

“Me charge?” he asked incredulously, then he relaxed with a warm smile. “A cup of tea with maybe a refill would do,” he said, “and look at your kettle, if it isn’t boiling its head off I’m a sparrow!”

“Tweet tweet,” she said, and poured boiling water into two mugs, stirred and offered him one.

“Sugar?” she asked, “Milk?”

“Both,” he replied, “though not so much sugar. I go easy on sweet things since my Peggy passed on.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, and then, “I’ll have a nip out of your flask if you’ve got enough.”

He grinned. “Peggy’s long gone, so let’s have a party,” he said, “let’s rock around the clock!”

“Are you on Facebook?” she asked.

© Peter Rogerson 13.11.21