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Copyright Oggbashan January 2016
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
Ham House and the statue of the Goddess Fortuna exist in the 21st Century but this story is set in the 1960s.
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It all started and ended with a statue's toes. Female toes. Shapely toes.
They belong to a statue of the Goddess Fortuna that stands in the gardens of the National Trust Property, Ham House, by the River Thames.
I had met Beatrice during a fire drill in our office building. She worked on a different floor for another company. As we filed down the emergency stairs her handbag had caught on a banister and shed its contents. I had stopped to help her pick up the scattered items and had a wonderful view of her nylon-sheathed legs. Beatrice's legs are worth looking at, from a distance, or as I was then, a few inches away. It was the mini-skirt era of the 1960s and Beatrice's mini-skirt was far shorter than any woman working for my company would dare wear.
We left the building together that day and arranged to meet for lunch tomorrow.
We had been out together a few times for a meal and to a couple of West End shows for which our building was given free last-minute tickets. Neither of us was sufficiently senior in our workplaces to afford much that wasn't free or cheap. My major expense was my very old car. It was reliable transport but only because I maintained it myself.
Beatrice was and is spectacular. She is tall and apparently slim with natural blonde hair. Her slimness is only apparent because she has well-developed muscles and is seriously fit. She visits her gymnasium three times a week and plays active team sports at weekends. Her height makes her appear slimmer than she actually is. Her clothes emphasise the vertical and diminish her waist. Either she has good dress sense or someone who knows what would suit Beatrice advises her.
I'm reasonably fit but not in her league. I don't take myself or any sport sufficiently seriously. I know that I'm competent in several sports but I'll never be outstanding even in an amateur club. Sport is just one of my interests. I was beginning to suspect that sport was Beatrice's passion to the exclusion of everything else, including me.
Beatrice shared a run-down flat in Pimlico with three other girls. I had picked her up from her flat a couple of times. One evening we were intending to go to a free concert in the Embankment Gardens but when I arrived the flatmates had a crisis. It was raining and they had tried to shut the upper sash of a bedroom window. The sash cords had broken and the upper window had dropped to its fullest extent.
Beatrice asked me to help. I tried to shift the window. I could pull it up but even with cardboard wedged in the frame it wouldn't stay put. I wedged it as far shut as I could with a broom resting on a dining chair. That was very precarious but it held while I drove to my small house in Bermondsey, collected some tools and returned. As I drove there and back my car's windscreen wipers were struggling to keep the screen clear from the heavy driving rain.
I had found my hank of sash cord. Beatrice and her flatmate Emily had to help me as I took out the lower sash, attached new cord to the upper sash and fitted both frames securely. When I had finished I was soaking wet, tired and it was too late for the concert.
Beatrice and Emily cooked a meal for all three of us while I tried to dry myself in front of the coal fire in the flat's only living room. The fire wasn't burning well. As I nursed a cup of coffee I looked at the fireplace. The grate was loose and too much air was passing through. The fireback was cracked with pieces missing. When I rented my first flat one of the fireplaces had similar problems that I had fixed.
Over the next few weeks I became an honorary unpaid handyman for their flat in exchange for meals and conversation, mainly with Beatrice but also with Emily and her boyfriend Alan. Alan helped me with some of the repairs as an unskilled assistant. He was more useful as the supply officer, borrowing tools and acquiring, legally with his bosses' permission, materials from work. I never met the third flatmate because she was on evening/night shifts at that time.
I was enjoying the company but the relationship between Beatrice and I wasn't really working. We met for lunch on most working days in a cheap café close to our building. She was a pleasant companion. She was delightful to look at. Whenever we were out together she attracted admiring attention but we were beginning to realise that we had little in common. We agreed to wait until the flat's repairs had been done and then go out to somewhere I'd choose, to discuss our relationship and its future.
I had arranged to meet Beatrice at Ham House on Saturday for a tour and a light lunch in the café. She was playing in a hockey match that morning. A friend would drop her off after the match and collect her later. I was struggling with my relationship with Beatrice. Were we friends or potential boyfriend and girlfriend? I didn't know. I don't think she knew. I thought that a few hours at a stately home would settle the matter. Either she would like touring a stately home and show interest in the building, its history and the numerous objets d'art or she wouldn't.
If the visit was a failure we were doomed to be no more than friends. If she shared some of my enthusiasm then perhaps we might build a relationship. If not? I'd regret it.
We toured the inside of the house before lunch. Beatrice soon began to disappoint me. She didn't seem interested in anything, not the rooms, nor the objets d'art, nor even the history of the house and its owners. Where I would have paused to look carefully and appreciate the workmanship or the unusual effects she just walked through as if all she wanted to do was reach the next room.
Over lunch she cut short any of my attempts to discuss what we had seen. When she did talk it was about her athletic achievements and her plans for her future competitions. By the end of the meal it was almost obvious to both of us that we were incompatible. Our interests diverged too much.
We toured the gardens. Beatrice began to appreciate the size of the property but she would have converted the plats of lawn into tennis courts. An archery target was set up in the wilderness garden. That did provoke some enthusiasm from her. She had never tried archery. As we walked back towards the house the entrance to the plats was marked by two statues. One, the Goddess Fortuna, had her feet wrapped in plastic matting. There was a notice attached.
Fortuna's toes had been attacked by grey squirrels. Apparently grey squirrels, apart from gnawing at tree bark, sometimes bite soft stone projections and Fortuna's toes had proved tempting. The damaged toes had been wrapped to prevent further damage and the National Trust were appealing for donations to repair them. The cost was estimated as only five hundred pounds because Fortuna was a modern copy, not an antique statue.
Beatrice winced at the pictures of the damaged toes. Her own feet were an essential part of her activities. Damaged feet would ruin her life. Fortuna's toes were the only thing that Beatrice and I had agreed about. Beatrice's toes were as perfect as her legs. If only there had been something meaningful between us I could imagine kissing her perfect toes.
We walked back to the entrance. Beatrice shook my hand and smiled ruefully at me, still holding on.
"Thank you, Derek," she said, "I think we've found the answer about our relationship, haven't we? We are different and like different things. We can be friends but..."
"...that's all we'll ever be." I finished for her.
"Exactly."
She pulled me towards her and kissed me on my cheek. Then she was gone towards the car park.
I went back into the house to leave a small donation towards repairing Fortuna's toes. I had to wait in the queue of those paying their entrance fee. When I explained what the donation was for it caused some consternation. No one had explained to the volunteers that there was an appeal for Fortuna's toes and they weren't sure how to enter it in the accounts. By the time they had decided to put my donation into a coin bag with a note the queue behind me had grown.
I turned away and went out the front door. Beatrice was standing about fifty yards away. She waved at me. I waved back. The woman standing beside Beatrice waved too. Even at that distance I was startled by the smile on her face. Then they turned and walked out of sight.
That smiling face stayed in my memory as I walked slowly back to the car park. Why had a stranger's smile affected me so much? Was it because of my disappointment about Beatrice?
I sat in my car for a few minutes. Beatrice and I were still friends. If she wanted help I would give it. If there was anything I needed that she could do, I'm sure she would respond, but friends is all we would ever be.
Then she was there, knocking at my car window.
"Derek? Can you help? We can't get into Laura's car."
Standing beside Beatrice was Laura, the woman who had waved and smiled at me.
"Hello Laura," I said.
"Hello Derek," she replied.
She threw her arms around me and kissed me passionately, far more passionately than Beatrice had ever done. I returned her kiss and enjoyed every second. When our lips parted she still held me.
"Thank you, Laura," I said, "but what was that for?"
"For mending my bedroom window."
It was Laura's bedroom window I had repaired.
"If I'm going to get paid like that, I hope it needs repairing again."
