The Good Old Days
by Alex Holt
It was about 2.50pm on a Sunday afternoon when Mr Geoffrey Blackerwick, longtime Secretary of the Greater Purcester Gardeners Society, died.
All things considered, it was probably one of the better ways to go. He’d had a large Sunday lunch cooked by his wife Maureen, sat down to some classical music on the record player, had just put his cup of tea (milk, two sugars) on the table next to him and picked up his Mail on Sunday. Just as he had done every week for years.
Then something just gave out.
He didn’t really have time to contemplate what exactly it was. But as the paper dropped from his hands, he could see his prize winning topiary (bronze medal for the last two years!) and felt a last swell of pride as this world faded away...
…
..
.
Things came back in pieces. A smell of a steak and kidney pie baking in the oven. The feel of dappled light beneath trees. The sound of songbirds. Then the sight of Greater Purcester as if the clock had been turned back on it. He was lying on the grass of the Old Orchard behind the house he had grown up in. A bumper crop of plump red apples lay dangling on the branches above.
He knew in his heart he was dead. Not a fearful feeling, but certainly a deep acknowledgement. Although as a devout churchgoer, he was disappointed by the lack of big Pearly Gates and Archangels. He liked the idea of a fanfare of silver trumpets at his arrival to greet someone of his stature. He looked around; not even one, just the lazy sound of bees buzzing and distantly, football being played on The Green.
As he sat up, he realised he was not alone. A single figure sat watching him genially… although the oddest thing was he couldn’t actually focus on what they looked like. There was definitely a person there, but his mind just slid around them somehow.
“Ahh welcome Mr Blatherwick, I hope you understand where you are now”
Even without seeing their face, there was something akin to a warm smile. In normal circumstances the appearance of such a bizarre… person would have likely resulted in him calling the police, and perhaps writing a strongly worded letter to the town council. Yet there was something supremely kind and patient about the voice, as unidentifiable as it’s owner, that made him feel at ease.
“You are here in the place that you most longed for, I do hope you find yourself comfortable here. I’ll drop by later to see how you are settling in.”
And with that they were gone.
Geoffrey spent the next few days exploring around his home. It was much the same as the one he had just left in many ways, but just slightly better polished and dusted. Others might have commented that perhaps he merely lacked imagination, but to Geofrrey, he couldn’t think of anything better. Though the garden looked immaculate - this would have won him the gold medal for sure!
But as he spent time exploring the neighbourhood he found small things irking him.
The first was a rather prim looking pair of women dressed in Victorian clothes would come to his front door, open it and then simply vanish. He waited for them from inside one time and then jumped out his front door to ask them what the dickens was going on? Miss Pentlehurst and Miss Needleworth very politely explained that it had been their house too, and the front door lead to their home, which was the same but in a different place. This seemed highly irregular to Geoffrey, but lacking a good response he scurried off grumbling.
He also couldn’t help but notice that there were, for lack of a better term, a lot more foreigners than he had ever remembered. He remembered Mr and Mrs Khan had owned the tobacco shop on the corner of Peas-Pudding lane, but had realised that here they no longer lived on the upstairs floor of the shop, but in one of the nice cottages on Willsthrorpe Crescent. Not where they’d lived when they were alive at all!
The final straw was when he realised that he knew some of the young children who were playing football on the Green. Some had been even older than he! Mrs Haverhill had been walking on a cane for years and many years his senior, and yet here she was as a knobbly kneed girl, running round and laughing. That was no behaviour for a grown woman! She should be doing more respectable things like…. like….
It was at this point his limited imagination gave out and he decided to write one of his famous letters. That’d set things straight, he had been the righteous scourge of the Greater Purcester Gazette for years, holding them to account for funny business, and now he would apply his skills here. So he set to work.
Just as he finished it all up, he suddenly realised that the strange imperceptible figure was there watching him. He picked up his letter, all written out in his finest cursive, and assertively handed it to them, requesting they read it. The slightest glance at it somehow conveyed hundreds of years poring over the slight nuances of it, and then those unfathomable eyes were back on him again. There was something like an almighty wave of sadness and disappointment that washed over him.
“Oh Geoffrey. This place was never just for you”.
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