The last day of the month happened to fall on a Thursday, and Hermione helped Arnold with the move over to Colerne. Lucy was on hand and she stayed at the cottage in Corsham and supervised the loading up of Hermione´s small car with Arnold´s things, which he'd painstakingly packed into cardboard boxes from the local shops. He was pleased at the way he'd catalogued and arranged his possessions. His trimmed-down wardrobe fitted into three of the boxes, with footwear in a fourth. He was surprised at the number of kitchen gadgets he´d collected over the years and these filled up another. Books took up two more, then there was his old valve radio plus his bike, umbrella and the few pictures he owned, including his favourite picture of his late parents taken on their honeymoon. He took a long look at this when packing it away and studied their faces, full of joy and expectation of the years that were to come. They had married in the early years of the Second World War when happiness was to be grabbed if you stumbled upon it, as you never knew how much longer you'd be alive. Air raids were a constant threat and, if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could all be over.
They'd both worked in the civil service. His mother was at the Ministry of Food in London and his father was a qualified aviation draughtsman, so too valuable to be called into the ranks as a soldier. They had met during an air raid below ground in Kentish Town Underground Station and discovered they were nextdoor neighbours. Several months later, his father joined an aircraft design unit outside Leicester, and he´d proposed after watching the firebombing of Coventry from the top of a hill after a trip to the pub, fearing he may lose what he´d found in Kentish Town.
The move took up most of the day, with the morning spent ferrying everything over and the afternoon unpacking and organising it all. Stan had furnished the flat sparely which suited Arnold as he felt claustrophobic surrounded by too many things, and he moved the furniture around until he was happy with it. Hermione left him to it once all his boxes had been delivered but had told him to call her if he needed anything. It was about five o´clock when he finally sat down in an armchair with a cup of tea in the lounge and looked over Box Valley to enjoy the view. Being early September the nights were drawing in, and within an hour he felt the light fading as the sun neared the horizon to the right of the windows. He could see flocks of crows climbing and swooping in the valley below and the drifting smoke from several autumnal bonfires curled up into the still skies. He got up and switched on a large table lamp and looked around the room. Being his first evening, he was quite happy to be alone getting used to his new surroundings. It was a novel experience for him and he took his time, acclimatising and feeling his way from room to room. The bathroom had a window, which he was pleased about, even though it had frosted glass. It looked out onto Stan´s garden and he knew he would enjoy being in there with it open in the mornings.
He sat down, picked up his book on the Inquisition, and had just started to read when he thought he heard a faint knock on his front door. He assumed it to be Stan, his landlord, and found him smiling on the doorstep.
'Hello Arnold. Just finished for the day and wondered if everything was alright for you? Anything you need at all? No? That´s good. Well...I took the liberty of picking us both up some fish and chips from the Fat Friar in Batheaston on the way home. Do you ever indulge? I got cod for both of us, and mushy peas as well.'
Arnold didn´t want to appear rude and disappoint him, so he smiled, nodding back in agreement.
'That´s a relief! Well, I was going to say, why don´t you come and have it with me downstairs? It's all keeping warm in the oven at the moment, whenever you likes.'
Arnold thanked him and said he'd be down in a few minutes. As he put on his shoes and slipped his cardigan on he tried to remember the last time he'd had fish and chips. It was deep down in his memory somewhere but he couldn't recall. Perplexed by this he closed his front door and walked down the stairs on the side of the building.
Stan´s half of the house was very similarly decorated to Arnold´s. It was as if he'd ordered two of everything and put one in each flat, and it occurred to him this was a very simple and economical way of equipping both. Stan led the way into his kitchen diner where he´d laid out two places at the table for them.
'Just sit yourself down, Arnold, and it´ll be in front of you in a jiffy.'
There was a bottle of malt vinegar, salt and pepper cellars, and a bottle of salad cream in the centre of the table. Arnold hid his dismay at the salad cream, as he much preferred the taste of mayonnaise. The layout of the flat was different from Arnold´s, and he got the impression more had been done upstairs than down. Apart from the redecorating these rooms probably hadn´t been altered from when Stan had lived there with his wife.
They ate in silence and the fish was surprisingly good. Stan made them both a cup of tea and they discussed Arnold´s move. It was obvious Stan enjoyed some company as he was very talkative. Arnold had perfected the art of being a good listener over the years, it was a quality he thought extremely important in his line of work. It came in handy here as Stan needed no coaxing out of his shell.
'Yes, I likes cabbing. I like the idea of being out, and driving's a favourite pastime of mine, always has been, so I might as well make some money out of it. Eh, Arnold?'
Arnold managed to stay awake through all this small talk although he was beginning to feel exhausted after all the to-ing and fro-ing from Corsham. The move had been emotionally draining. Whenever there was a pause whilst Stan caught his breath Arnold filled it with a cough or a slight change of position in his chair.
'To tell you the truth I been feeling a bit lonely since Nancy´s been gone. We led a quiet life up here in Colerne. Always kept ourselves to ourselves. We didn't have any, what you´d call, real friends. All the people we knew were only, what you'd call, acquaintances, I suppose. In fact, I owe you an apology...'
Arnold´s ears pricked up at this and he shook off his blanket of fatigue.
'You see, Nancy didn't die...She went and took off like. All of a sudden. She left me here's, and went back up North to where she´d come from originally. I felt a bit ashamed, sort of. So I prefers to tell people she passed away. It´s easier for me, saying that. I hope you understand... I´m sorry if I misled you.'
This did come as a surprise to Arnold. He could see now his arrival in Stan´s life wasn´t going to be as simple as he'd thought. Stan continued:
'It was alright for the first couple of year, but then I started to get lonely, like, by myself, wandering about the house. Which is where I got the idea to do the conversion and let out the upstairs bit. As soon as the work got started I began to feel better about it. And now you´re here, well, I´m just so happy.'
Arnold took this as a cue to leave and tried unsuccessfully to offer some money for the fish and chips, but Stan was having none of it and insisted on making it his treat. Once upstairs alone in the quiet, Arnold started to feel sympathetic towards Stan. It must be terrible to have your partner leave you suddenly, probably similar to losing them through death, he thought. What would he feel like if Hermione were taken from him now, so soon after their relationship had begun? He guessed Stan had been married just the once and there probably weren't any children. He hadn´t mentioned any and he would have done so, Arnold was certain of that.
He prepared for bed immersed in sorrow at Stan's situation, something that had been going on the whole time he'd been cocooned away in his Corsham comfort just a few miles away. He was relieved Stan hadn't given in to depression, and he resolved to offer as much company and help as he could. He fell asleep making a mental note to buy some mayonnaise as he would definitely need it for any more shared fish and chip dinners.