...Across the Green

I knew it was coming. I’d seen the notice from the GPO. Comes to me first at the post office, naturally, before the parish magazine gets hold of it. My little victory.

So when the lorry arrived yesterday morning, I wasn’t surprised. Quarter past seven, I was sorting the post, and there it was through the window. Bright red on the back of a flatbed lorry.

The telephone box.

Red. Very red. Right on the edge of the green.

My first thought was... will people stop writing letters?

Buying stamps?

My big sister Dorothy, she’s in Australia, she’d tell me off for worrying. She always does.

~ ~ ~

I finished the sorting by eight. Made myself a cup of tea, sat down at my desk, and started my letter to Dorothy. Fountain pen. Black ink.

I write to her every fortnight. Start it on a Monday, add a bit each day, post it on a Friday.

I told her about the telephone box. How red it was. And what I was worrying about. The stamps, the writing paper, the envelopes. All of it.

~ ~ ~

Nine o’clock. I unlocked the door.

First customer of the morning. Spud Wilkes. George Wilkes, really, but nobody’s ever called him George other than his mother. In his eighties and comes in every Monday morning for his postal order.

His weekly postal order. Sixpence for the football pools, sevenpence with the postal order fee.

“The usual, Miss Pemberton,” he said.

I filled in the postal order for him. I always do. Littlewoods Pools, Liverpool, and put two crosses through it.

Might be lucky this week, Spud.

“Aye,” he said. “You never know, Miss Pemberton. You never know. A widow from Stockport won over two hundred thousand pounds last year.”

He’s never won. But it’s the hope that keeps him going. And sixpence a week isn’t much for that.

He said he’d passed the telephone box on his way in and the workmen told him they’d be gone by lunchtime and it should be all working by the end of the day.

His Gladys would have loved that, he said. Always wanted a telephone.

He was quiet for a moment. Spud doesn’t rush his words. Never has.

“After she passed away, I found shoeboxes under the bed,” he said quietly. “Letters going back years, all neatly back in their envelopes. She never threw a single one away.”

Then he turned back to me.

“Can’t keep a telephone call in a shoebox, can you, Miss Pemberton?”

No, Spud... no, you can’t.

He took his postal order and shuffled out.

~ ~ ~

Mid-morning. Young Mrs Hargreaves from the farm. One stamp. Married last year and now her first baby due in the autumn. Dr Mortimer keeps an eye on her. She said she was writing to her brother Peter. He’s in Cyprus with the Army.

Thrupence. The forces post takes care of getting it there.

She asked about the telephone box. Could she telephone Peter when the baby is born?

You can’t call abroad from the box, I told her. You’d have to book through the operator, from a proper telephone. And it would cost several pounds.

“Then I’ll just have to write,” she said quietly. “And he won’t know about the baby for a week.”

A thrupenny stamp would reach her brother in Cyprus. The telephone box on the green couldn’t.

~ ~ ~

Just before eleven. Miss Truelove. My old school teacher.

“Writing paper, please, Violet,” she said.

She calls me Violet. Since school. Christian names for the girls, surnames for the boys. I was Violet. Arthur Jessop, who was in my class, was just Jessop.

I reached for her usual. The blue Basildon Bond. One and thrupence. She writes to her sister in Dorset every week. Has done for decades. The letters never stop. I admire that.

She reminded me she’d taught us both to write in her classroom. Arthur was by the window, she said. I was two rows behind.

I told her I’d forgotten. Arthur and I in the same classroom.

I hadn’t forgotten, of course.

“Violet, I thought you would have remembered that,” she said.

Miss Truelove has known me since I was five years old. If anyone could see through me... but she’d never say. Not Miss Truelove.

At the door, she gathered her things. She said she’d pop in and see Jessop on the way home. For his magazine.

“A telephone call is a moment, Violet,” she said. “A letter is forever.”

Lunchtime. Tommy Pritchard, straight out of school. The door crashed open. He wanted to know if there were any jobs he could do.

What do you need the money for, Tommy?

“My bicycle!” he said. “Three pounds six and tuppence! Mr Jessop keeps it for me in a tin.”

I looked around. The postcard rack’s a mess. He could straighten those for me.

He started on them, looking at every single card as he went. But he got them straight. Then stood there beaming.

Here, I said. A ha’penny.

He said thanks. That’s one gobstopper.

But aren’t you saving for your bicycle, Tommy?

His face changed. That wonderful, open face.

“Oh yes!” he said. “I forgot!”

I can take it to Mr Jessop for you, I said.

“Thanks, Miss Pemberton!”

Then the GPO lorry went past the window. The workmen were leaving.

“They’ve gone!” he said. And he was off to look at the telephone box. Door crashing shut behind him.

And now I had a reason to go to Jessop’s Stores.

~ ~ ~

Mid-afternoon. The Reverend Cavendish. Parish newsletters to post. The ones too far to deliver by hand. Twelve stamps, he said. Same as every month.

He said the new curate was arriving next month. First the telephone box, now a curate. God reclaiming centre stage.

He smiled at that.

He said he’d just come from Jessop’s. He and Arthur had had quite a conversation about the telephone box. He’d told Arthur it was about connection. Not so different from prayer.

He was quiet for a moment.

“Miss Pemberton,” he said gently, “do you ever think about prayers being answered?”

I think we all wonder sometimes.

“The telephone box is just a box,” he said. “It’s what people do with it that matters.”

He offered me one of his mints on the way out. Polos, not that he’d call them that. He popped one in his mouth and off he went.

I stood there thinking about prayers not answered.

Then I picked up Tommy’s ha’penny...

I told myself I was just delivering Tommy’s money.

That was the lie.

The truth? I wanted to see Arthur.

Arthur Jessop. The boy I sat behind in Miss Truelove’s classroom, fifty years ago. The boy I used to watch when I should have been doing my arithmetic.

He married Edith on the first of August, 1926. I nearly married Geoffrey in 1944. Different paths.

His Edith passed away five years ago. And Geoffrey...

Geoffrey didn’t come back to me.

I crossed the green. The telephone box stood there, red and new, closer to Arthur’s shop than to mine.

I pushed open the shop door. The bell jangled. He was behind the counter. Brown shop coat, pencil in the pocket. Windsor knot in his tie.

“Afternoon, Violet,” he said. “Everything alright?”

And I froze. I’d rehearsed this. Tommy’s money. That’s all. Hand it over and leave.

I said yes, yes, fine. I just... I thought I’d... I could hear myself. Useless.

I said Tommy had done a job for me at the post office. Straightening the postcards. I’d brought his ha’penny for his tin.

He reached under the counter for the tin. Dropped the coin in. It rattled.

“Good lad, that Tommy,” he said.

I should have left then. But I didn’t.

I just stood there. Couldn’t think of a single thing to say. My eyes drifting somewhere past him, towards the shelves.

“Do you fancy a picnic?” he said.

For a brief moment my heart stopped.

The Picnic bars, he said. They were new. Just in from Fry’s. Peanuts, caramel, raisins, wafer, all covered in chocolate. A bit of everything, really.

Of course. Chocolate.

I could feel my face burning.

Oh. Yes. I’ll take one.

I held out a sixpence.

Our fingers touched.

Just for a moment. His hand warm. Mine cold. The coin between us.

I’ll remember it for weeks. He won’t remember it at all.

He went to give me a thrupenny bit change. I put my hand up before he’d even reached across.

“Keep it,” I said. “Put it towards Tommy’s bicycle.”

I couldn’t bear for our hands to touch again.

I said something about the telephone box. How Dorothy in Australia was too far to telephone. “Some distances can’t be closed with a fourpenny call,” I said. I don’t know why. It just came out.

And then I left. Bell jangling. I didn’t look back.

A chocolate bar I didn’t want. With peanuts. I don’t even like peanuts. Sixpence.

~ ~ ~

That evening. The post office closed, the day done.

I sat at my desk. Picked up my Parker pen.

I went back to my letter to Dorothy.

I turned to a new page.

I told her everything. The Picnic bar. The sixpence. Our fingers touching. The thrupence I gave away rather than let it happen again.

Thrupence, Dorothy. That’s what it cost me.

I don’t know if he noticed.

Oh, Dorothy. I’m fifty-eight years old. When does this stop?

I put my pen down. Looked out the window.

Arthur was outside the shop, bringing in the crates. Then he stopped. He turned towards the telephone box.

He walked across the road. Opened the door. Picked up the receiver.

It must have been ringing. I couldn’t hear it from up here. I didn’t know who was calling. I didn’t know what was said.

I found out later. A GPO woman, testing the line. The first call to Hartley Green. And Arthur answered it.

I knew about the telephone box first. I’d seen the notice before anyone. But Arthur answered the first call.

He didn’t look across at my window. Why would he?

I picked up my pen again.

He’s a good man, Dorothy. That’s why it won’t stop.

The telephone box stood on the green.

But it couldn’t reach my Dorothy in Australia. Nothing could... except paper and ink and time.

Some distances can’t be closed with a fourpenny call...