And now, seventy years later, he knew they were about to meet again. He could see her more clearly than he’d ever done. She drifted in and out of his mind, she was foremost in his thoughts; singing, always singing. And now here she was, coming towards him, smiling, holding out her arms ready to embrace him.
‘I love you,’ he cried, opening his own arms to greet her. ‘Did I ever tell you how much I love you?’
The wife knew that he had gone. She wept, not just at his passing, but at the words he’d never said, not once, throughout their long married life. Still, it was wonderful to know that all that time he had really loved her.
Miranda Dickinson
MIRANDA DICKINSON is the author of five Sunday Times Bestselling novels, two of which have been international bestsellers in four countries. She is published in six languages and to this date has sold over half a million books worldwide. She is also the founder of the New Rose Short Story prize. She has been nominated for two RNA awards –the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year award 2010 for Fairytale of New York and the RONA for contemporary novel of the year in 2012 for It Started With a Kiss. Her fifth novel, Take A Look At Me Now, is available now, published by Avon (HarperCollins).
Miranda publishes regular vlogs at her website: www.miranda-dickinson.com and blog: coffeeandroses.blogspot.com. You can follow Miranda on twitter @wurdsmyth and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MirandaDickinsonAuthor.
I love my job.
It’s not glamorous or particularly well paid, nor is it anywhere near what my careers advisor had in mind for me when I left school, but it offers magic that few people looking in would see. The van I drive and company sweatshirt I wear may be emblazoned with sunnyside meals on wheels, but my job is so much more than that. I might deliver affordable, nutritionally balanced ready meals to elderly customers, but what I receive in return is priceless. For I am a collector of stories, a sharer of nostalgia, a confidant of dreams.
Not that my boss –who, awkwardly, also happens to be my mum –understands this. She would much rather I limit my conversation with customers to ‘Hello’ and ‘Goodbye’, or maybe ‘See you next week’, if it’s a quiet day on my round.
‘We don’t pay you to be their friend, Emily, we pay you to deliver their food,’ she lectured one morning, clearly imagining herself to be the female incarnation of Lord Alan Sugar. ‘If they want company I’m sure their families can oblige.’
‘Mum, have you ever met the customers on my round?’ I protested, knowing full well that she hadn’t and that my argument was futile. ‘I’m the only other person some of them see all day.’
Mum cast a disapproving eye over my dyed hair –this week a fetching shade of blue. ‘What a treat for them! The point is we are not a charity or a befriending service. First and foremost, we are a business. Now, I need you to read this time and motion study Trevor’s written. And act upon it.’
As she passed me the sheet of paper, I inwardly groaned. Trevor. Repulsive, fifty-something boyfriend of my mother and the kind of man so boring even paint drying would mock him. Since Mum had met him at a business breakfast six months ago, he had fast become the balding, beige-faced bane of my life. What Trevor Mitchell didn’t know about health and safety, workplace law and mindless business jargon simply wasn’t worth knowing. In fact, he seemed to think it was his God-given right to comment on anything and everything, regardless of how much he actually knew about it. And, judging by his latest intrusion, Trev was on top form.
I cast my eyes over his calculations, unimaginatively typed in Comic Sans font –the childishness of which only served to make the whole document more insulting. Well, he could shove this exactly where all his other advice could be deposited. I knew that effectiveness in my job couldn’t be measured by miles covered per hour or minimum amount of time spent with each customer. It was in how I could share a conversation, spend a little time with someone lonely and maybe make a difference to their day. Unfortunately for me, Trevor saw our lovely elderly clients as nothing more than aged donkeys on a conveyor belt, good only for parting with their pension and having food chucked at them.
‘Trevor says you’ve been spending too long with each client,’ Mum continued, oblivious to my disdain. ‘By his calculations it should take no more than seven-point-five minutes to make a delivery. Now, there’s a new gentleman on your round today, so Trevor says you should begin the new timings on this one.’
I rolled my eyes and this time she couldn’t ignore it. ‘Oh well, if Trev says…’
Mum gave me a stare that could freeze the Sahara. ‘His name is Trevor, Emily, and I’ll thank you not to disrespect him. That man could well be your next stepfather.’
On that cheery note I left, glad for the peaceful sanity of my company van when I climbed into it. I wasn’t surprised by boring Trev’s intervention, but it still annoyed me.
‘Idiot!’ I grumbled aloud, pulling out of the gravel car park by the small industrial unit Sunnyside Meals on Wheels called home, to turn left onto the busy coast road. ‘Well, it shows how much you know, Trevor Mitchell! Our customers are more than ticks on your ridiculously timed list. And, I’m sorry, but who actually says “seven-point-five minutes” anyway?’
My indignation brought a wry smile to my face, not least because if boring Trev could see me ranting to myself in the van he’d probably accuse me of wasting company oxygen.
I glanced across at the small clipboard attached with a suction pad to the windscreen. Mrs Clements was first today –and straight away proof that Mum’s boyfriend was completely wrong.
I’ve delivered meals to Mrs Clements since my first day on this job, eight years ago, and she is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. When she was only seventeen years old she made the biggest decision of her life: to move to Canada to look after her nephew and brother-in-law after her older sister’s untimely death. She had been a promising student and dreamed of being a teacher but she left it all to go to another country and live the life her sister had left behind. Eventually, she married her brother-in-law and adopted her nephew as her stepson, only returning to England after her husband’s death in the mid-1970s. Mrs Clements was the first Sunnyside customer to share her memories with me and since then I have always taken time to listen when someone on my rounds wants to tell me about their past.
So yes, maybe I did take longer than the other two drivers to complete my deliveries but how else would I have learned about Mr Cooke earning his Distinguished Service Order medal by saving four of his Army comrades under intense enemy fire; or when Mrs Trellawney met the Queen; or about Miss Atkinson’s secret dream to be a champion ballroom dancer?
None of this mattered to my mother and boring Trev, of course. But that wasn’t important: it mattered to me.
Mrs Clements met me at the door already armed with a time-battered photograph album and the sound of the kettle boiling from the tiny kitchen of her retirement bungalow.
‘Oh good, you’re here, Emily. Come in, come in!’
I swung the box I was carrying into her hallway and closed the door behind me. ‘You’re chirpy today, Mrs C.’
‘That I am,’ she replied, leading the way