Cross Words

 

The little girl was desperately trying to hide behind the brown coat that enveloped her mother. Concealment was pointless. Her sobs could probably be heard in the next street.

 

‘I’m very sorry to disturb you,’ said the young woman as she stood at my door, ‘but I think my daughter’s balloon has flown into your garden. Would you mind if I fetched it? She’s very upset.’

 

‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘But you’ll never reach. It’s caught in a tree.’

 

I had seen it waft across my view as I sat in my armchair, half way through the Times crossword, one of those helium filled balloons with ‘Mickey Mouse’ ears. It had floated around the garden, the wind depressing its path skyward, and trespassed impertinently on my hybrid rose bushes and camellia. It finally got entangled in the apple tree. The balloon was a brilliant red and looked ludicrous amongst the leafless branches, making a mockery of the horticultural effort I had made throughout the summer. I’d got out my gardening shoes from the utility room but, just as I’d slipped them on, the doorbell had rung.

 

The woman looked at me with wide embracing eyes. ‘Well would you mind if I tried?’

 

I’m a private individual. I admit it. I don’t take well to meeting people. All the more so since Jenny. My garden’s taken me over, become a bit of an obsession over recent years. You know where you are with a garden. So strangers tramping over the lawn was not on my list of good ideas. But this woman, she’d got the knack. A light silk scarf framed quite the most appealing face I’d seen for a long time. Her large brown eyes brought to the surface memories that I’d left untouched for years. I had tried not to think of Jenny for a long time but this woman, her smile, those lips...

 

‘Oh, all right, I’ll unlock the side gate.’

 

‘I really am most grateful,’ she said as she and the child followed me along the path to the back garden. ‘Laura won the balloon at the school fete. I can’t believe she’s so heartbroken.’

 

Nor could I. It was only a stupid balloon. I was right in the middle of thirteen down. Kids can be such an inconvenience.

 

The apple tree was a magnificent specimen even if I say so myself. After fifteen years it had grown to its full height and needed an extension ladder to reach much of the fruit that it bore in abundance each autumn. The balloon was exposing itself above the bare canopy and made the tree look like a side show at a fair ground. The tape hung below it, twisted and caught through the gnarled branches, the end a few feet above my head.  

 

‘You’ll need a ladder to get that,’ I said with some irritation.

 

‘Do you have one?’ the woman asked. ‘I don’t mind climbing up.’ Her eyes grew even larger and took on the sort of pleading look that I remembered so well.

 

Was I really going to hold a ladder while she struggled up a tree? She wasn’t even wearing trousers. Worse, I might be left holding the kid’s hand. Call me old fashioned but I only had one real option and she knew it.

 

‘It’s all right I’ll do it,’ I said as I went to retrieve the ladder from the shed and felt momentarily pleased that I’d remained a bachelor. But then if Jenny and I had got it together, we might have had a little girl like this.

 

I steadied the ladder against the trunk and manoeuvred my way through the branches. Though the tape was easy to get hold of, releasing it from the tree’s clutches was another matter. I wriggled and stretched but, just as I pulled the balloon free, my boots slipped forcing the steps into an unsustainable angle. The ladder and I began our synchronised journey to the ground but, for a reason I will never be able to explain, I kept hold of the tape.

 

‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed the woman. ‘Are you all right?’

 

I got up slowly and silently while removing some of the mud from my face and a leaf that had managed to glue itself to my forehead. I handed the balloon to the woman and marched, with as much decorum as I could find, into the house.

 

I suppose it could have been worse, a bruised forehead, a deep scratch to my cheek and countless minor cuts to my hands and wrists. I cleaned myself up, put the ladder away, re-locked the side gate and returned to my crossword. Thirteen down was ‘humour’, the last letter providing the second of twenty five across.

 

I hadn’t felt much humour, six years before, when I was eating the loneliest meal of my life. Jenny said she’d be there by eight. She’d broken up with her long term partner a few months earlier. The final nail was his need to get a job in the middle east, the last thing she was going to agree to. They parted on fairly amicable terms and all she had to do was drive him to the airport so we could start our new life together.  But by the end of the evening, the chicken had dried on the plate, the French bean salad had gone limp and the champagne was flat and warm. I drank it anyway.

 

I was woken from my memories by the door bell. I slammed the newspaper down and got up. It was the woman with her little girl.

 

‘I just wanted to say sorry. About your accident,’ she said with a soft smile. ‘And for putting you to all that trouble.’

 

The tension between us seemed to have evaporated. She was so like Jenny. The look that had once taken me over was there before me again.

 

‘It’s all right.’ I said, noticing that the girl was holding nothing but a small bag. ‘You haven’t lost the balloon again?’

 

‘No. It’s at home tied to Laura’s bed.’ The woman looked at her daughter. ‘She wants to thank you personally.’

 

The little girl reticently held out the bag, looked at her mother for support and then at me. I could detect a hint of fear. She was going to be as pretty as her mother when she grew up. I would have liked a daughter like that.

 

‘What’s this?’ I asked.

 

‘It’s a bag of Allsorts,’ said her mother. ‘Laura would like you to have them.’

 

I took them from her and looked at them both while I struggled for words. They were a nice family.

 

‘Do you like Allsorts, Laura?’

 

Laura nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said in a whisper.

 

‘So do I.’ I opened the bag and offered her a liquorice while taking one myself. ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘that’s very kind.’

 

I closed the door and went back to my armchair. I tried to think through twenty five across but found myself staring at the sweets instead. What a nice kid. All that time ago I’d made myself sick on sweets. I’d bought them for Jenny and me as a sort of ‘petit fours’ after the meal. But when she didn’t turn up I’d eaten the lot. She phoned the next day but I’d got so angry I don’t remember a thing she said except that she’d changed her mind. She phoned a lot after that and wrote a couple of letters. She said she’d made a mistake and wanted to start again. But when you get that sort of pain you try and avoid any repetition.

 

I looked back at thirteen down. Then I got twenty five across. It was ‘friendship’. I wondered how Jenny was these days. Probably had pretty children of her own, like Laura. Maybe I should have replied to her letters. Maybe gardens look even better with people in them. I took another liquorice allsort and searched for her last address in my phone book. I never did finish the crossword that day.