Stupid Cupid! Heart of gold

FICTION Could Ben’s “tough” granddad really be just a big soft marshmallow at heart?

Iscratch my head, traipsing back from my fourth trip into the hallway to check if the postman’s been. He hasn’t. There’s nothing waiting on the mat. Not a sausage, and the pleasant anticipation I woke up with this morning is rapidly curdling into worry and disappointment.

Now, even with the re-run of her favourite soap on, the love of my life has clearly clocked the number of times I’ve been up and down to check. I’m about to slink back into the kitchen when she pops her head around the living room door, catching me in the hall.

“Were you… er… expecting anything in particular in the post this morning, love?”

“Oh no. Just looking out for my hardware catalogue, that’s all.”

I keep my voice deliberately bright. No good letting Rosie get wind of this. “Fancy a cuppa then?” Darting into the kitchen to escape her scrutiny, I feel an unfamiliar pang of unease course through my stomach. Blame it on me being fifteen years in the army, but Rosie knows I’ve never been what anyone might remotely call the “romantic type” and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already more than a little suspicious.

It’s a little embarrassing. If she ever found out what I’m expecting, I’m not entirely sure how she would react, but I don’t think she’d be best pleased. www.myweekly.co.uk

I’m beginning to think it wasn’t the best plan I’ve ever had, but there’s no helping it now.

Kettle on, I settle down at the kitchen table determined to forget about it and get on with my crossword…

“One across, nine letters: Christian saint whose name-day is celebrated in February. Begins with a ‘V’.”

Huh. No chance of taking my mind off things here, I see.

It’s no good. I can’t. I can’t think of anything else until it arrives and I’ve safely disposed of it.

I keep getting these visions of Rosie’s face if she ever realised what I’d been up to. You’ re not them an I married, her

I just can’t THINK of anything else until it ARRIVES and I can GET RID of it

eyes would say accusingly. You’ve changed. And after forty mostly content years of marriage, what man would welcome an upset such as that?

Abandoning the crossword, I flick my biro back onto the table and go and peer out of the window instead.

Still no sign of the post. Perhaps I’m being impatient? I read somewhere that the Post Office gets five times the amount of mail on St Valentine’s Day than on any other day of the year. I don’t know how true that is, but it might at least explain his tardiness.

“Looks like the post isn’t the only thing coming in late today, then?”

Rosie again, who’s just joined me in the kitchen. Her favourite soap’s not over already, is it? I feel my heart sink at the thought. “How do you mean?” “There’s no sign of Ben’s special school bus yet, and he’s normally back by now.”

I nod, non-committally. Our fourteen-year-old grandson Ben’s got a fragile hip – something they’ll operate on once he’s old enough, but in the

meantime the lad’s confined to a wheelchair. He’s lived with us ever since his parents split up and we volunteered to became his main carers so his mum could carry on working. He normally gets brought back by 4pm.

“I take it he’s not staying on at any of those after school-clubs you tried to interest him in, then?” Rosie shakes her head. “A lot of them seem to be sporting activities. Or other clubs he doesn’t feel confident about taking part in.”

“It’s a shame,” she continues. “I know they’ve all got the internet now, but what with the family split and having to move to a different school I do worry at times that he must feel so isolated.” I shrug my shoulders. “I know it’s not easy for him but the only way through it is if he can find a way to man up,” I mutter. Rosie is well aware I was brought up in an era when men were expected to get on with things: you did what you had to do. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” I add for good measure. It’s how I’ve always operated. I’m sure Rosie often feels I’m being a “tough cookie”, but better a tough cookie than a bleeding heart, right?

“He’ll survive.”

“Hmm.” My wife gives me an I’mnot sosure look. She’s about to reply more fully when I’m saved by the music from her programme coming back on in the next room. Ad-break over, she heads off to watch the ending.

I go and sit at the table and stare, unseeing, at the crossword again. She thinks I haven’t noticed exactly how hard things have been for the lad, especially now he’s entering that awkward teenage stage where he’s just noticing girls. A handsome lad like him… well, it’s a shame, that’s all. He’d probably have received half a dozen

Valentines cards today too, if it weren’t for his troubles.

I’ve seen the way Ben looks at that young girl who helps out at the corner shop. I’ve noticed how he’s always first to volunteer if we ever run out of milk or need a loaf of bread from the shop. He’s sweet on her, that’s what it is! I get the feeling from the way he always spruces himself up before going, that he hopes she might be a little sweet on him, too.

Us men haven’t the luxury of showing our feelings the same way women do. But I was a young lad once, I know the signs.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the postman’s bike as it scoots past.

I’m up and at the window again like a shot, my fingers drumming on the window-ledge, as I watch him make his delivery at doors number four, six, eight and ten. Then he comes over to our side and… missing us out altogether… he goes straight to door number 11!

My heart sinks right down to my boots. Surely, there’s got to be some mistake?

I’m about to open up the door and accost the postman before he disappears again, when I catch sight of Ben’s bus doing its usual turn-in-theas

My grandson BLINKS – he probably didn’t EXPECT two VALENTINE cards

road at the top of the close.

Ben’s sitting right at the back and I catch a glimpse of his face as the bus reverses down to us. As usual, the lad’s looking wan, exhausted after the struggle of a long day at school.

Maybe I’m imagining it, but today I think I spy a deep sadness in his demeanour as well. A sadness, no doubt, born of being pushed from pillar to post while his parents sort out their mess. A sadness that must come from not knowing who his friends are in this new place, or if he even has any, and of not being able to see far enough into the future to know if he’ll ever be properly mobile again, as I know he longs to be.

Seeing his face in the back of that bus it reverses down the drive, it does something to me inside.

It hurts to know there is nothing I can do for the lad except try and show him, in my own small and maybe not very efficient way, that he is loved.

It’s the reason why I went out and bought that card for him yesterday.

Not that I’d ever admit as much to Rosie, and I’m sure the lad would rather she didn’t know a thing about it, either.

I spent ages in the shop, trying to work out what sort of card a girl like the one in the corner shop might buy him. Would it be an all-pink and heartcovered one, or would it be something a little more considered with a cutesy blue bear on it? I went back to that shop five times! I couldn’t make up my mind so in the end, I bought them both.

Inside one I wrote Fromsomeone youknow. I did it with my left hand, too, so he wouldn’t recognise my writing.

I’d hoped to cheer him up but now it looks as if my plans might have all come to nought. Unless… In the army, we were always taught to improvise and find ways to execute our plans, no matter what the obstacles.

Using the steaming kettle, I unstick a used stamp off an old letter. Then I quickly write out the spare Valentine card I bought, address it, “stamp” it and place it on the mat and – hey presto – who’s to know that it’s not just been posted through our door?

Right in the nick of time, too.

As I open the door to him, my grandson’s eyes alight immediately on the envelope on the mat. There is no question about it, his face actually lights up. Any doubts that I did the right thing vanish in a heartbeat. “Hey, Gramps.” “Afternoon, young man.” “Looks like the postman’s just been.” I lean down casually to pick it up. “My catalogue’s not come in but um… this came for you.” I hand it over and Ben stares at it for a few moments, a little puzzled, before looking up at me, a small smile suddenly playing around his lips. Then he stows it carefully away in his blazer pocket, unopened.

Right on cue, his nan comes out now, TV programme over, to give him a hug. Thankfully, she hasn’t noticed a thing. I breathe an inward sigh of relief. Mission accomplished! I’m just about to close the front door when our neighbour Elsie makes an appearance over the fence.

“Coo-ee!” she says cheerfully, waving an envelope at us. I feel a small shock at the familiar sight of it. It’s bright pink as I’d gone with posting the hearts-andflowers one in the end.

“This one just got misdelivered to our door. And no wonder. Postie said he’s had a load more post to deliver today, that’s why he’s running so late.”

My wife turns to look at me. Is that expectation I see in her eyes?

“I had my hopes up there for a bit.” Elsie is still beaming. “But I see it’s actually addressed to young Ben.” “Er… Thanks, Elsie.” My grandson blinks, looking a trifle confused. He probably wasn’t expecting two cards.

“Someone’s popular.” Rosie’s standing in our hallway, hands on hips and looking vaguely amused. “Clearly, he is.” If only Elsie had waited for a couple of minutes then Ben would have already

gone to his room and I’d have ditched the second card.

Elsie winks at Rosie over the fence and I shoot both women a warning look.

“It’s his mail, so it’s his business,” I mutter at them, wondering, not for the first time, how I ever came to be involved in this matter in the first place. I close the door on our neighbour and wait until the lad has wheeled his way out of the hall and into his own room before turning to Rosie.

“Well, he doesn’t want us discussing his love life, does he?”

“I didn’t even know he had one,” she comments.

“He’s… well, like you say, a popular lad,” I croak.

My wife nods, smiling. Then she adds, “I do appreciate why you did it, but don’t you think sending him two cards was a slight overkill?”

I stare at her. After I’d been so careful to cover my tracks, too! How did she ever find out?

“That young girl at the corner shop told me you’d bought two cards off her the other day.” My wife obliges.

“Oh.” Do women in shops really tell other women what their husbands have been in there, buying? How do they even remember?

“I didn’t know which one to send,” I’m obliged to confess. “Then when the post failed to turned up, I ended up fake-posting the second one.”

“You fake-posted it?” My wife’s eyes are suddenly looking very bright. I can already see this tale being told and retold at her ladies’ coffee mornings, and I’ll never live it down. This is so embarrassing! My usually eagle-eyed wife doesn’t seem to have noticed just how embarrassing. She adds, a touch more quietly, now, “I think the girl in the shop was a little worried that you might be seeing some fancy-woman on the side.”

“Was she now?” I grin at her sheepishly. “Were you worried as well?”

She snorts. “That you’d been seeing two of them?” I laugh. “I should have realised the other card would turn up, sooner or later. Sending them both was a Cupid idea.” “That’s a terrible pun.” She smiles back at me, and now – totally unexpectedly – I spot a hint of relief in her eyes.

“It was a lovely idea, though.” Then she admits, “Though… by the way you were hanging around the doormat all morning, I was starting to wonder if you were expecting one yourself!”

I nearly choke on the sip of coffee I’ve just put to my lips. She never sends one, so what is she thinking?

“Rosie… what would I want with a fancy woman at my time of life?”

“You’ve never been one to keep secrets, but then you started going out to the corner shop a lot… I see now it was just that you didn’t want me finding out.” She runs on. ‘‘Why all the secrecy, though? Why didn’t you just tell me that you posted Ben a Valentine’s card?”

I straighten. “Because you’d have laughed me off for an old fool. You don’t like silly and soppy romantic things. You never have done.”

“No? Why do you think I ever went and married you then, you big dope?” I put my cup down in shock. My wife thinks I’m a soppy romantic? And me fifteen years in the army, in case she’s forgotten. “Oh, we’ve never done the whole Valentine’s thing, but you always pick me up a pretty posy or a cream cake if you see anything nice while you’re out,” she tells me. “You remember anniversaries – not just birthdays, but the date we met, the colour of my favourite flowers. “My friends all tease me about it – they all say I married the most romantic man they know!” I stare at her, feeling a little shaken. My reputation as a hard man, it seems, is in tatters. In fact, I seem to be the only one left who still believes I ever had one! Apart from my grandson, that is… When Ben emerges from his downstairs bedroom, announcing that he’s off on some pretext to buy something from the corner shop, I hardly dare to meet his eye. What if he finally finds the courage to talk to the girl – because of the cards I sent – and she rebuffs him? All because I went and put my big foot in it?

“Whatever would I WANT with a FANCY WOMAN at my time of life?”

Ineedn’t have worried. At the dinner table later, Ben’s faced is flush with a rare look of happiness.

He looks different somehow. The sad shyness I’ve glimpsed hanging about his shoulders now seems to be underpinned with a new sense of confidence. He reminds me a little of who I used to be, all those years back when I was first courting his nan.

He looks older, more like a boy on the brink of manhood, and I know his nan sees it too. She catches my hand under the table and gives it an appreciative squeeze.

Maybe it wasn’t such a Cupid idea after all?