Meet Me Halfway
Was Easter weekend something that Violet would be able to compromise on?
I Twasn’t the Easter Violet had planned. But when her boyfriend had thrust the envelope at her the week before, his face aglow, she’d not the heart to counter his plans.
“We’ve always said we should do a boating holiday, and I had those days left to take,” he told her. “I managed to secure the last boat they had available.”
The envelope revealed tickets for a weekend on the Norfolk Broads on a boat called Tilly Mae.
There was a photograph of the boat moored at the banks of a river next to a family pub and restaurant. “Isn’t it perfect?” Robert pointed at the name of Violet’s grandmother in blue italics against the white hull.
“It’s really sweet of you,” Violet said.
“Oh, no, you’re not pleased, are you?” Robert flopped down on the blue velvet sofa next to her.
The sofa had belonged to her grandmother.
Violet adored curling up in a corner, remembering how she’d done so as a little girl.
“I do appreciate the gesture . . .”
“But?”
“I’m down to do flowers for the Good Friday service,” she reminded him. “You know how important it is for me to be here.
“Anyway, we don’t know how to sail these boats.”
“We don’t have to. I’ve booked one with a skipper. We just get to enjoy the scenery.” Robert sighed and stared out through the window.
Violet put her hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry to dampen your excitement.”
“Look,” Robert began. “She died three years ago. Surely we can keep her memory alive without having to be here?” Violet frowned.
“I never thought I’d hear you sound so thoughtless.”
He turned to meet her gaze.
“I think she’d love to see us away together, relaxing for a weekend on the water, like they used to do.”
“That was different. They worked in London and digs were expensive. That old barge was all they could afford.”
“It’s romantic, though, don’t you think?” Robert nudged her arm.
Violet’s grandparents had moored their barge on the London canals in the 1960s, in an area known as Little Venice near Maida Vale. She shook her head.
“I feel closer to her here.” “What, in a cold and drafty churchyard?”
Violet lifted her chin slightly. “Yes.” Picturing herself anywhere but the village church at Easter filled her with sorrow. “I thought you wanted me to be more spontaneous,” Robert tried.
She looked around their ordered living-room, with cushions at just the right angle and the pile of magazines perpendicular to the edge of the coffee table.
“I do . . .” Her sentence petered out as she struggled to pinpoint why his idea wasn’t filling her with delight. “You’d have known the Easter weekend was one I wouldn’t be keen to go away for.
“You could have checked with me before you booked it.”
“It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I’d asked first!” he pointed out. “Anyway, I want to spend quality time with my girlfriend.”
When Robert got nothing back, he got up and quietly left the room.
Snowdrops edged the path from the latch gate beneath the arch.
Gravestones near the church entrance leaned this way and that, like tired people who’d forgotten how to stand up straight.
Violet paused at each stone, their names obscured by lichen.
To the east, more recent additions in marble stood sentinel over their occupants.
A vibrant community lived in the small village where Violet had grown up, and the network of support through the church was strong.
Everyone stepped up to help whomever had lost someone.
But three years on, it was still her duty to mark Tilly’s special day.
March 29 had been her grandmother’s birthday, and the date when she’d married her childhood sweetheart.
Horrifyingly, it had also been the date she’d lost her own battle with illness.
Occasionally the date would feature in the Easter weekend, and this year it fell on Good Friday.
“I’d planned to eat hot cross buns beside her,” Violet mumbled to the vicar as she organised prayer books at the back of the church.
He didn’t say anything, but let her go on to share
the burden while they worked.
“I hate myself for not wanting what Robert is suggesting. I think I really hurt his feelings,” she confessed.
“When our hearts are torn, it’s not easy to find the right words,” the vicar replied.
“But he’s right about this being our time. We’re both alive and well. So why does it feel like I’m letting her down if I’m not here?” Violet asked.
“Well, firstly habits are hard to break. Repetition makes us feel secure.
“Yet I’m sure Tilly would not hold it against you to miss this year if you and Robert are spending time together,” the vicar told her.
“And secondly?” she prompted.
“Well, you could take your buns with you and eat them wherever you are.
“Say a prayer for Tilly. She will hear you.”
“You think so?” Violet picked up a fallen hymn book from the floor.
He popped a hand on her shoulder for a few seconds.
“I know so.”
On the Wednesday before Easter, Violet took her basket and walked through the archway on gravel held firm by a late frost.
Her breath curled in the cold air of late afternoon.
The compromise she’d reached had been something Robert was unable to join in with, but that was the point of compromising. She knew that.
He was a paramedic on a night shift out on the county’s roads.
Violet understood that his career choice was another reason Robert could rarely be spontaneous.
He’d trained hard and was meticulous in his planning of anything.
It was just the way it was, and she’d never denied loving him for it.
The tea towel with blue forget-me-nots embroidered at each end lay across the top of the basket and was still warm.
The freshly baked buns beneath it had been an annual tradition in her family.
Violet unfurled a blanket and lay it next to her grandmother’s beautifully carved oakwood cross, which marked a spot beneath a cedar tree at the back of the church.
“Here you are.” Violet unwrapped a warm bun and put it gently down on the grass next to the cross.
Mixed spices filled the air and her nostrils.
She unwrapped a second and bit into the soft dough, currants and raisins bursting on her tongue.
“You’d have enjoyed this one, Granny.”
Dusk gathered pace and Violet switched on her torch.
She wanted Tilly to have enough time to enjoy the bun.
“I’m sorry I’m here two days early.”
Violet batted away something which flew at her face.
It landed with a clack against the wooden cross and Violet shone her torch on it.
“Goodness, you’re out early, too.”
It was a Maybug, with its characteristic pointed abdomen the females use to lay eggs below the ground’s surface, and not for stinging humans as she’d at first assumed.
“So the bug and I are both here to see you earlier than normal,” she continued.
The beetle crawled its way towards the bun, drawn in by the sweet aroma.
“I’m two days early because we are going away. Please, forgive me.”
The beetle didn’t pause in its exploration of the food source, her antennae darting this way and that.
Violet smiled, knowing Tilly would have been amused.
Later, when an owl hooted. Violet gathered up her things and blew a kiss into the dark.
She made her way out of the churchyard and along the path to her little cottage.
Compromise was an art Violet had learned from her mother.
Having enjoyed her time in the graveyard, chatting to the stars about memories from the past, Violet found she’d been able to enjoy the idea of being away and the early morning drive.
Good Friday dawned bright and they met their boat’s skipper at the pre-arranged mooring.
It was a little before noon when the pub from the photograph came into view and they felt the boat being steered towards the bank.
“At least it’s not cold.” Robert pulled Violet closer. “Tilly will love the rising temperature of the ground.”
“That’s true.” Violet grinned. “Remember how she used to sit in her deck chair as soon as the daffodils came into flower?”
“Yeah, and the windbreak.” “I’d forgotten her windbreak!” Violet giggled.
They both laughed, recalling the little northfacing garden where her grandparents had lived.
Violet’s grandparents had moved to north Norfolk after the acting jobs had dried up in London.
There had been no question that Tilly would follow her husband.
Violet’s grandfather had worked in local theatre until his health had forced him to stop.
Violet stepped off the boat on to a jetty and was still smiling as she walked up towards the pub, holding hands with Robert.
Then she stopped and gasped.
“Look at those!” Blue ribbons tied to the branches of a tree fluttered in a breeze. “I wonder why they’re there.”
Robert stood still and after a moment checked his watch.
She looked at him and smirked.
“What’s the rush?” she asked.
He seemed not to hear her but reached for her hand.
“Let’s see what the pub has for lunch.”
They left the grass and walked across a large outdoor patio.
He opened the door for her and she stepped inside.
They found a pre-set table by a window and began to study the menu.
A waitress came out from the kitchen carrying a silver tray and walked towards them.
She smiled and showed Violet the tray’s contents
– a pile of hot cross buns.
Not all of them had just the white cross melted into the dough.
One had letters spelling Tilly’s name.
“Oh, wow!” Violet gasped. “That’s so lovely.” Robert smiled.
“Now we can have Tilly with us while we have that break away from home.
“You don’t miss out on your Good Friday tradition and neither does she.”
“Oh, Robert.” Violet got up and went to hug him. “You’ve gone to all this trouble. I’m so touched.”
“Well, there’s something else I’ve been giving some thought to.”
“What’s that?”
It was Robert’s turn to stand up.
He took the bun with Tilly’s name on it and offered it to Violet. “Break it open.” Confused, she did as he asked and tore the warm dough apart.
Robert knelt on one knee. Her heart hammered in her chest.
Inside, nestled among the lightest dough, was a ring.
“Violet Tilly Osborne, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”
“Yes.” Violet nodded and choked back tears of joys.
Taking the ring from the dough, she hugged him again.
“Yes, I will!”
THEY are public works of art,” Andrew Grundon says emphatically. “No other country in the world has anything like the English inn and its tradition of signs.
“They carry so much history and cannot be allowed to die out.”
There has recently been a revival of interest in traditional hand-painted pub signs, and Andrew has never been busier with commissions from around the country and overseas.
Apparently, having your own bar in the basement, complete with a hand-painted English pub sign, has become quite the trendy thing for the Manhattan millionaire.
Old signs, too, are increasingly admired and sought after, particularly for the patina that develops on them over time.
And they, of course, need to be replaced when sold.
Born in Northern Ireland, with an Irish mother, Andrew grew up in various parts of England, wherever his father was stationed with the RAF.
Andrew never had any formal training in art, but embarked on a career selling his paintings and drawings when his parents moved from the Midlands to Cornwall in the 1980s.
He has remained in the county ever since.
Twenty-five years ago, Andrew discovered his mission to preserve a great part of our social and cultural history when he was first employed by St Austell Brewery to replace their sign-painter.
Since then, he has produced more than 300 spirited paintings.
They reflect the British love of the countryside and close ties to the sea, commemorating kings and queens and historical events, as well as celebrating heroic figures, inventors and statesmen.
“I was a jobbing landscape, wildlife and portrait painter, working in oils,” Andrew says.
“Then I became a jobbing sign-painter working in enamels!”
These days, he’s the owner of Signature Signs, which is a Bodmin-based company specialising in hand-painted branding.
According to him, a lot of research goes into the preparation, just in order to achieve historical accuracy.
“I do have some free reign to use my imagination, of course,” he says, “but I always respect tradition while accommodating the brief from the brewery.”
Andrew often draws on the old masters for inspiration, and Caravaggio is a particular favourite.
In fact, some figures from one of the Italian master’s pictures are now on display outside the Punchbowl and Ladle at Feock, Cornwall.
Despite Andrew’s great modesty, over the years he has come to realise that sign-painting is not only a public art form but something uniquely precious.
“I think the future is quite bright,” he enthuses, firm in his belief the appreciation of hand-painted work now is higher than it has been for many years.
“People have become jaded with cheap clip art and plastic products and want things with integrity that can enrich their lives,” Andrew adds.
Traditional sign-painting was once viewed as a very skilful trade.
Now, because of its rarity and the talent of a small group of exponents, it’s being increasingly accorded the status of an art and craft that must be preserved.
In recognition of his achievement, Andrew has recently been awarded the much-coveted Heritage Crafts Association accolade Maker Of The Year.
Sign by sign, Andrew is succeeding in his mission, and painting himself into history!