Gifts In The Attic

This inspiring short story by Teresa Ashby is set in the 1970s.

Linda was beginning to realise that number 20, Priory Cottages was full of surprises!

THE last box was brought in from the van and Linda paid the two men what she’d promised. “You sure you’ll be all right?” the younger of the two asked – the son, she suspected.

She nodded, her throat too tight for words.

It was as if he knew how she was feeling, but how could he not? He’d seen where she’d come from and what she’d come to.

“We’ve time for a quick cuppa if you want a bit of company,” he said, as if sensing her sadness.

“No.” She found her voice. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Well, don’t forget you have our number. We do all sorts of DIY and maintenance.”

He looked around and she knew what he was thinking. This place was crying out for TLC.

“Thank you, Kevin,” Linda said. “I will probably give you a call.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing else we can do?” Kevin’s dad asked.

“I’m sure.” She knew they felt sorry for her.

Everyone did, but there was no need. She felt sorry enough for herself without other people joining in.

When they’d gone, she looked around number 20, Priory Cottages.

What a miserable, grim place it was, with its grimy windows and yellowed paint everywhere.

Five years earlier, in 1970, Linda had bought a house with her best friend, Rhonda.

Linda had been left a little by her grandmother, enough to put down as a deposit, and with their combined salaries and Rhonda’s dad as guarantor, they’d been able to get a mortgage.

It was a lovely house, modern, bright, semidetached, and they saw it as independence!

At the time Linda was reeling after her fiancé broke their engagement off without explanation, and she never envisaged a time she would fall in love again, while Rhonda had never fallen in love and didn’t expect to.

But she’d done just that. Rhonda met Gary and they got engaged.

Linda naively thought they could carry on as they were, but the happy couple wanted a place of their own and Rhonda gently suggested that it was time for Linda to move on.

She found herself faced with a choice. Sell her share in the house to Gary, or buy Rhonda out so she and Gary could set up home elsewhere.

Of course Linda couldn’t afford to buy Rhonda’s share, so she started looking for something else.

Prices had risen, so her equity in the house had risen, too, but her options were limited.

There were a lot of older properties on the market in desperate need of renovation, and this dark, end terraced house at the bottom of a hill was the best of a bad bunch.

Despite needing a lot of work, it didn’t have any of the problems of rising damp or dry rot that so many others had.

There were a few slates missing from the roof, and it was a condition of her mortgage that she got that fixed within a month, along with a few other things, like a sill on the back door and new glass in the pantry window where the old one was broken.

She had very little capital left for rewiring, central heating, a new bathroom or a new kitchen, all of which the house desperately needed, so it would have to be done little by little.

No sooner had Kevin and his dad gone than there was a tap at the front door.

Linda hurried to answer it and found a woman in her fifties looking in at her.

“Sorry to bother you,”

the woman said.

“I’m Gwen from next door. I just thought I’d say hello and see if you needed anything. A cuppa, perhaps?”

She was hardly looking at Linda and seemed more interested in peering past her into the dark hall.

“That would be lovely,” Linda agreed. “Would you like to join me?”

Gwen’s eyebrows rose. “I would. Thank you. I’ll be back in a tick.”

“I’ll leave the door open,” Linda called after her.

She quickly tidied the little sitting-room, making sure there was somewhere they could sit.

She felt quite excited about meeting her neighbour.

Where she’d grown up, the neighbours had been friendly and the area had the feel of a real community about it.

It hadn’t been the same at the house she’d shared with Rhonda.

They simply didn’t fit in with the young-marriedwith-children brigade, and were looked on as something of an oddity. “Yoo-hoo!”

“Through here,” Linda called.

Gwen put the tray down on the coffee table which had a picture of flamenco dancers.

The raven-haired girl swirling her red dress in the centre always cheered Linda up.

“What a pretty table. I’ll have to see if I can persuade Rod to let us get a new one. I can tell you that Maggie would have loved it.”

“Maggie?” Linda asked. “She used to live here,” Gwen explained. “She welcomed us here when we first moved in.

“We must have been about your age. Such a lovely woman and a wonderful artist.”

“Was she?”

“Not in a John Constable or Pablo Picasso way. She had her own style which was colourful and vibrant.

“She always said she wanted to bring joy to people and she certainly did that.”

“How wonderful.” Linda smiled.

“She used to paint in the back bedroom,” Gwen went on. “The light is perfect in there. You’ll have to come to mine and see some of her work.

“Come this evening!” Gwen suddenly exclaimed.

“You can have supper with us and it’ll save you having to cook after such a busy day.”

Linda couldn’t believe her luck. Already she’d exchanged more words with Gwen than she’d shared in five years with all her neighbours in

Hawthorn Avenue.

Linda took a sip of tea and smiled.

“That’s a lovely cuppa,” she said. “Much needed and appreciated. It’s a shame the house fell into such a state, isn’t it?”

“Oh, that was Maggie’s doing,” Gwen admitted.

“She kept it beautiful all the years she lived here, but she told me before she died that she wanted someone special to take it over.

“She didn’t have any family and she gave me strict instructions not to touch the house, otherwise I’d have kept the garden tidy and cleaned the windows.”

“How strange.” Linda frowned.

“She said that someone would fall in love with the place just as she had, and that person would have to see it in a different way,” Gwen explained.

Linda smiled. She didn’t like to admit that it was about all she could afford.

There was no need to shatter Gwen’s illusions on that score.

“It was how she’d come about it apparently,” Gwen went on.

“Her husband was killed in World War One and she’d been as lost as a person can be, but this little house called to her and she’d rented it.

“It was quite run down, but she found some artist’s materials in the attic and started painting.

“She found something she loved doing, and not only that, she ended up making a living out of it and was able to buy the house eventually.”

“That’s amazing!”

“I’ll tell you more this evening. Come round about six. I’ll do coq au vin.”

Gwen beamed.

Linda’s mood had lifted considerably by the time Gwen left.

Knowing more about the person that used to live here made the house feel more welcoming somehow.

She got on with unpacking, and before going round to Gwen’s, she had a bath.

The ancient taps creaked stiffly and the old boiler made a horrendous noise, but she decided, as she reclined in the old clawfooted bath, that she would keep it.

It was bigger than modern baths and very comfortable.

She didn’t want to go next door empty handed, so she popped into the town and bought a bottle of wine.

As she came out of the off-licence, she bumped into Kevin.

“Not drowning your sorrows already, are you?” he asked.

“No, I’ve been invited round to my neighbour’s for supper,” she replied, and he smiled.

“You look happier than you did earlier.”

“Yes, I feel it,” Linda admitted.

“I’ve decided the first thing I’m going to do is have central heating put in and a new boiler. You don’t know anyone, do you?”

“My uncle Sid is a plumber,” Kevin replied.

“He’ll do you a noobligation quote and he’s really good, and I’m not just saying that because he’s family.”

“That would be great, thank you,” Linda told him. “I’ve a few odd jobs for you, too, if you’re interested.”

“Great. Enjoy your evening and I’ll be round to see you in the next few days,” Kevin returned.

Who would have thought that Linda would end the day with a spring in her step?

Gwen welcomed Linda into her kitchen, where she met Rod, who was as warm and friendly as his wife.

They’d had their kitchen knocked through to the dining-room and Linda imagined doing the same in her house one day.

The food was great and the wine went down a treat.

“Not drowning your sorrows already, are you?”

“I made a trifle for dessert,” Gwen declared. “It’s nice to have something sweet, isn’t it?”

“This is all so lovely, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Rod said. “It’s just nice to know that our new neighbour is someone Maggie would have approved of.”

“I feel I have a lot to live up to,” Linda joked.

“You will,” Gwen said with absolute certainty. “Are you an artist, Linda?”

“Me? No!”

“Well, neither was

Maggie when she moved in. She always said it was an artist’s house.

“The person that lived there before her was a musician who went on to compose her own stuff.”

“I don’t have any skills,” Linda admitted.

“I left school at fifteen, got a job as an office junior and now I’m a secretary to one of the directors. No artistic talent required.”

“That doesn’t mean to say it isn’t there,” Gwen pointed out.

“If you’ve finished, would you like to see some of Maggie’s paintings?” “I would love to!”

Gwen had them hanging all around the house.

There were beautiful gardens full of flowers, beaches dotted with birds, rivers with overhanging branches and bright kingfishers.

There were cats

and dogs and children. As Gwen said, every picture was bright and colourful and had a special magical quality that made you feel instantly cheerful.

“She was a lovely lady,” Gwen said. “She could have afforded to move, but she loved it here so much.” “She lived alone?” “Goodness, no!” Gwen laughed softly.

“She vowed never to love again after losing her husband, but she didn’t bank on falling for the publisher who commissioned her paintings for calendars and greetings cards.

“They did spend time at his flat in London, but they were happiest here.”

Linda spent the next few days painting walls and doing minor repairs.

Kevin’s uncle Sid gave her a decent quote for a new boiler and central heating, and that work got under way, too, while Kevin saw to the jobs requested by the building society.

With the windows sparkling and properly letting the light in, the house felt very different.

Linda thought that Maggie would approve of the bright colours she’d used for the door, window frames and skirting boards.

In fact, she wouldn’t even have thought of using such bright colours if she hadn’t known what the house’s previous occupant was like.

It soon came time to put the empty boxes and packing materials up in the attic.

Linda climbed up and shone her torch around, half hoping to find some artist’s materials tucked away, but there was nothing like that.

There was, however, an office typewriter wrapped in brown paper. It must have belonged to Maggie’s publisher husband.

Carefully, Linda carried the heavy typewriter down the stepladder and took it through to the spare room.

She loved typing, and she particularly loved using a manual typewriter.

At work they’d replaced all the manual typewriters with electric ones, and she missed the clicky keys and the feeling of satisfaction when she returned the carriage with a ding!

She placed the typewriter on the little table and went downstairs to fetch a chair and some paper.

She was amazed that the ribbon hadn’t dried out and she began to type.

The artist, Maggie Barnicott, first picked up a paintbrush at the age of twenty-two. Having been widowed in World War I, she moved into a small rented house . . .

The words flowed as she typed and soon she’d filled three pages, but the ink was getting patchy.

Linda stopped typing, amazed at how much she’d enjoyed writing down what she knew about Maggie, but there was so much more to learn, so she decided to go to the library to find out more.

She’d also need replacement ribbons for her typewriter, so she looked for an office supplies shop first.

There seemed to be no such thing, so she headed for the library and bumped into Kevin coming out of the hardware store, his arms full of supplies.

“Hello, again,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Wonderfully,” she replied.

“I can tell by the roses in your cheeks and the light in your eyes.”

Linda laughed.

“Perhaps it’s because I have a purpose. You don’t know anywhere I could buy office supplies, do you?”

“My cousin, Diana,” Kevin replied immediately.

“She has a shop just outside town and she sells all sorts, from second-hand office furniture to reams of paper.

“Tell her Kev sent you and she’ll give you a discount.”

He gave her the address and once she’d finished at the library, Linda headed straight there.

She hadn’t found out much, but the librarian

suggested she visit the local newspaper office and check their archives for more information.

With the central heating finished, Linda put the rest of her renovations on hold while she researched and typed.

While she was finding out about Maggie, she learned about other notable local women, too.

“I hear you typing away,” Gwen said one day.

“Are you doing work at home in the evenings and weekends? They’re not working you too hard, are they?”

Shyly, Linda told her what she was doing and Gwen asked if she could read what she’d written so far.

“It’s amazing!” Gwen exclaimed once she had finished reading.

“You’ve really captured Maggie. It’s as if you knew her as well as I did!”

“I feel like I did know her,” Linda admitted.

“And those other women you’ve written about are so interesting,” Gwen added.

“Are you going to have it made into a book?”

“I don’t know that anyone would want to publish it,” Linda replied.

“Have a word with

Kevin,” Gwen advised. “He has an uncle who works in publishing.

“Oh, it’s just like Maggie and Richard! Perhaps you’ll fall for your publisher, too.”

Linda laughed. She couldn’t think of anything more unlikely!

The last person Linda chose to include in her book was the musician who had lived in the house before Maggie.

She was astounded to find a piece about her in the newspaper archives that made her pause and catch her breath.

Miss Ward struggled all her life to learn the piano, and when she moved to number 20, Priory

Cottages, she found a guitar in the attic which she took to straight away.

Miss Ward said that the guitar helped everything fall into place, and although she learned to play many instruments, the guitar remained her favourite.

Miss Ward had married, and went on to compose many songs and hymns which Linda was delighted to learn were still being sung today.

But unlike Miss Ward and Maggie, Linda couldn’t see herself ever getting married.

She left the newspaper office and bumped into Kevin.

Every time she saw him he was on his way to or from somewhere or picking up supplies.

“You’re always busy!” She laughed.

“Not today,” he replied with the grin she’d come to love. “I’ve a day off.

“Would you fancy coming to the pictures? They’re showing ‘Jaws’ and I’ve heard it’s really good.”

“Yes,” she replied, surprising herself. “I’d love to.”

“We could have a meal at the new Chinese restaurant after, if you fancy it?” he added.

The film was every bit as good as Linda had heard and was like nothing she’d ever seen before.

She was quite shaky when they came out of the cinema, so Kevin put his arm around her to steady her.

“All right?” he asked.

“I am now,” Linda replied.

“I can’t believe it,” Linda said as she looked back at the house.

It was 46 years since she’d moved in as a sad and disillusioned twentyfive-year-old.

At the back of her mind was always the thought that one day she’d move somewhere better, but she never had.

Even now, as she and Kevin set off to travel the world before finding a bungalow or apartment closer to their younger son, she didn’t feel as if they were going somewhere better.

It felt more like she was passing on this special house to someone else.

It was still on the market, but she was in no hurry to sell. The rightful owner would turn up when the time was right.

They’d improved the house over the years. It had double glazing and a kitchen extension.

They’d raised two sons and Linda had had over 40 books published, most of them on the subject of inspirational people.

Kev slipped his arm around her like he had all those years ago outside the cinema and kissed the top of her head.

“Goodbye, house,” she whispered, then smiled to herself.

“You checked we haven’t left anything behind, didn’t you?” Kevin asked.

“Oh, yes. Nothing’s left behind.” Linda’s smile grew wider as they turned to get in their car.

Nothing except the gift she’d left in the attic for the new owner, whoever they might turn out to be.

She had no idea why she’d chosen to leave a sewing machine in the attic, along with a few bits and pieces like a quilter’s ruler and a cutting wheel, but somehow it had just felt right.

Perhaps one day someone would find a use for it that would change their life.

“Ready?” Kevin asked as he opened the car door.

“Ready.” She nodded and looked one last time at her little house bathed in sunshine.

Such a special, happy house.

She blew a kiss as they drove off, then turned her eyes to the front, ready for their new adventure.

“Perhaps you’ll fall for your publisher, too!”

The End.