Bob of Small End (101 page)

There he made
a mug of coffee and sat in his easy chair looking at the sketches
he had made. He’d redraw them using carbon paper to have a copy
that he’d send to Maria. He’d send her a copy of the photographs
too, as soon as they had been processed.

Bob took the
two rolls of film to the Big End photographers after lunch ordering
two prints of each, drove to the shopping centre where he looked in
the windows of the hardware shop to see if they had any barbecues.
He didn’t see any, presumably they wouldn’t display them until
spring now. He entered a furniture shop and made his way to the
easy chair section.

“
No, I’m
just looking,” he told the assistant, “but I like this kind of
chair. Do you have a two-seat sofa that goes with it?”

“
The
company supplies them and we can order one for you. All we have at
the moment is this three-seater,” and he pointed to it on the other
side of the room. “Here is the manufacturer’s brochure and my card.
Please ask for me if you decide to buy.”

After doing
his shopping Bob drove home thinking about the study furniture. He
liked what he had seen but he should look at more before deciding.
He’d drive to Southampton and Bournemouth and visit their furniture
shops next week. Once he’d found the nicest he’d order it.

“
It’s
strange being retired again,” he said, after sitting down with his
pint in the Crown that evening. “There’s too much time. Yesterday I
didn’t know how to fill it.”

“
Just
give me a call when you feel like that Bob,” said Joe. “I’ll give
you some work.”

“
No you
don’t. Bob’s got to relearn how to retire,” Jane told him. “You had
three years of retirement before this year Bob, so you can soon
discover how to fill your time.”

“
I
suppose so, though I’ll never make wooden toys again. I might carve
birds but I think the next thing I’ll do is make a workshop and a
boat house then make a boat. Like the one we used to use Joe.
Remember it?”

“
Yes, I
do. We had a good time. That was Dad’s old clinker. I wonder what
happened to it.”

“
He
burned it when the tractor backed over it shortly after we were
married Joe.”

“
We’d
could all go fishin’ agin’, if it’s big enouf,” said
Jack.

“
Yes we
could. I’ll make it big enough for four. Not until next spring,
though. I’ll be too busy, or on holiday before then.”

“
See,
Bob, now you’ve plenty to do,” said Jane. “You won’t have any spare
time.”

“
I guess
not. Say, what did the committee decide about Christmas? Are you
going to have a party or a dance?”

“
We’re
still arguing about it. The thinking now is that we should have
both, a party for the children and a dance for the adults. I’ll let
you know what’s been decided next week. We’ll have to know by then
otherwise there won’t be enough time to get anything
organised.”

“
Any
plans for your holidays?” asked Bob.

“
We
booked two weeks in Spain,” said Joe. “It’s in February, it’s the
one we talked about taking.”

“
We’re
taking a ten day bus tour to Nice at the end of January,” Rose
said. “I’ve always wanted to go there. It’ll be nice and
warm.”

“
You’re
closing the shop then?”

“
Yes. We
won’t miss much trade. Are you still going to Lagos
Bob?”

“
Yes,
for a month, and to Paris for a week over Christmas.” He
immediately wished he hadn’t said that, it was like saying he had
enough money to go on holiday anytime he liked. Which was true, but
not nice to say to people who couldn’t do the same.

They had
another round of drinks and talked about how the village was
growing and the rumour that there would be another row of shops
built the other side of the Post Office next summer. Then they left
for home.

He redrew the
floor plan of Ken’s house Sunday morning, adding the length of each
wall. Then he sketched the garden, guessing at its size and tried
to visualise how it would look with a workshop and boathouse in one
corner. He’d have to remove half of one of Mary’s flower beds but
that would be all right, he didn’t want to spend a lot of time
growing flowers.

It was still
too miserable to go for a walk after lunch so he wrote to Maria,
describing the house and telling her that he’d send the photos of
the rooms next week. He asked her if she’d like an Aga and told her
that he’d have to buy that or a stove this month and a
refrigerator, because he’d be moving in before December, adding
that he’d leave the ones he had in his old house for Lori and
Craig. ‘And do you want a dishwasher? There’s room for one.’

As usual, he
phoned Regina first that evening and told her that he now owned
Ken’s house and would be moving there later this month.

“
I need
a name for it, Regina. I can’t keep calling it Ken’s house. Do you
have any ideas?”

“
Not at
the moment. I’ll think about it. Are you coming to see the play
that Roy’s in? It’s from December 11th to 14th.”

“
You
bet. I’ll stay for a night if I may, then visit Sam the next day.
Can I tell you which day after I’ve called him?”

“
Yes.”

Sam
suggested coming on the Saturday. When asked what the new house
should be called he proposed ‘
Toymade
.’ Bob promptly vetoed that. He phoned
Regina afterwards and told her that he’d come on Friday to see the
play.

Chapter 45 Moving in

The mail
dropped onto the mat as Bob was watching the morning television
news show Monday morning. It was his electricity bill and Maria’s
letter. In it Maria said that she didn’t want to come for a month
in January. ‘For one thing, we’ll have been together for a week in
December and you’ll be here for a month in February, so we’ll have
seen a lot of each other. I want to be here when I start my
freelancing, I don’t want to miss any calls. The most I’d come
would be for a week. We can choose the basics in that time and you
could get the rest. I’ve already had a request to guide a tour in
February and I’ve accepted. I’ve asked but they don’t want to pay
for an assistant. Too bad! Maybe you should join us and take the
tour.’

Maria writing
‘we’ll have seen a lot of each other’ troubled Bob. Was it just due
to her wish to make a success of her freelancing career or did she
only want to see him occasionally? He thought about writing and
asking her but ruled against it. He didn’t want to push her in a
direction she didn’t want to go. He’d have to see what happened
over time. He’d have to find something that would keep him busy in
Lagos when she wasn’t there.

The phone
rang. It was Lori who told him a cheque for £51,750 had arrived.
“Thanks for letting me know, Lori. I’ll collect it later.” He
wanted to spend this warm day at Ken’s house, no, at his house,
measuring the garden and thinking where he’d put a vegetable plot.
He’d also have to rethink and maybe redraw the workshop he was
going to build and integrate it with the boathouse. If he did that
it would make more room for a vegetable plot. He made some
sandwiches put them in a carrier bag with a plate, glass and an
apple. One of the first things he should buy was a refrigerator,
one with a bigger freezer than the one he already had. He’d measure
the gap in the kitchen to find out what size he should buy.

Bob used the
garage door opener and parked his car in the garage just to see how
much room he’d have when it was parked there. Plenty. Then he
measured the garden, noting the distances between the corners of
the house and the garage to the corners of the lot. He marked where
Mary’s flower and shrub beds were and where he planned to build the
boathouse and workshop.

He
stopped at
Wooden Toys
on his
way home. It was five thirty and everybody except Lori and Craig
had gone home. Craig was cleaning the extractor filters and Lori
was checking the stock room.

“
Why,
hello Bob. I’ll just finish here then get you the
cheque.”

“
Hello
Lori. How has your first day been?”

“
Great.
Everybody was cheerful and we probably made fifty more farms than
usual.”

“
You’ll
have to make more shelves then. And they’ll have to go in the next
room, there’s not much room here.”

“
Yes.
Craig’s going to do that tomorrow night if the wood arrives. Leon
wasn’t sure they had what Craig wanted.”

“
Hello
Bob,” said Craig, as he entered the room.” Enjoying your
retirement?”

“
Yes,
thanks, Craig. It’s strange not to be busy all day but I’ll get
used to it.”

He took the
cheque to the bank Tuesday morning, transferring money to his and
to Ken’s accounts, then visited the other, larger, Big End
furniture shop. They had a comfortable easy chair in the rich
brown-leather he liked but another, one that reclined and had an
extending footrest, attracted him more. It would be nice to sit in
that, put up his feet and look at the fire or the television or
read. He collected brochures from the assistant then drove to
Bournemouth and parked near to Tina’s shop.

"Hello Tina.
How are you?”

“
Oh,
Bob! Hello. Haven’t seen you for a long time. Are you delivering
here today?”

“
No.
It’s a long story. Let me buy you lunch, some Thai, and I’ll tell
you what’s happened.”

Tina, since it
was Tuesday and didn’t expect much lunchtime traffic, closed the
shop and they walked to the restaurant. There Bob told her about
the many changes that had happened to him. Then he asked her about
her business and what she’d been doing.

“
The
business is just the same; no big increases or drops in sales. I
think I’m going to try selling my things through the internet.
Tommy knows how to do that and he’ll set it up.”

“
Tommy?
Wasn’t he your ex-boyfriend?”

“
Yes,
but we’re together again. He’s asked me to marry him but I don’t
think that would work so I said no. A bit like you and Maria I
guess.”

“
Yes, it
sounds like it.”

After lunch
Bob went to two of Bournemouth’s furniture shops and one of the
department stores. They carried the same lines as the shop in Big
End but in one of them the reclining chair also rotated. He asked
the price and if they could be obtained in all colours and fabrics.
When told that they could he thanked the assistant and moved on to
look at the writing desks, collecting a brochure that described
them.

It was Guy
Fawkes’ night that Tuesday so, after supper, Bob walked to the park
and across the playing field to where the bonfire had been burning
for some time. Joe was pushing foil-wrapped potatoes into a bed of
red embers and Jane was sitting at a table waiting for the first
load to be cooked.

“
We’re
selling the spuds this year. Fifty cents each, to raise money for
the Centre. If you want one, Bob, you’d better buy a
ticket.”

He bought one
then walked over to Jack who was standing by the fireworks and
offered to help. “Nay, Bob,” Jack said, “don’t need no help,
thanks. There’s four o’us already.”

His potato
number was shouted in the middle of the firework display. It was
too hot to eat but cooled quickly after he’d broken it in half. He
remembered when Sam had burnt his mouth from eating his so long
ago. Not Regina, she was always careful. The youngest children were
given sparklers after the fireworks had finished and they ran
around waving them. The crowd began to disperse and Bob and his
friends decided to go to the Crown for a drink but when they opened
the door it was so noisy and crowded that they changed their
mind.

Bob drove to
Big End Wednesday morning and talked to the assistant about the
rotating chair he had seen in Bournemouth. He was told that they
could also provide them and so Bob, wanting to trade locally,
ordered two of them and the two-seater sofa, all in the rich brown
leather. He gave them a deposit and they said it would be delivered
by the end of the following week.

While
driving back to Small End he decided to call the new house
Rivermead
, partly because it was on
the river but also because years ago he had read a story about a
couple who lived in a cottage called
Rivermead
and had envied their pleasant life.
They had a boat and sailed along the Thames to go to the village
pub. He could use the boat he’d make to go to the pub on the
river-path or even go to the sea but he couldn’t sail it either
way, the river wasn’t wide enough. ‘I’ll have to buy an outboard
motor if I want to do that. Ken was right, it’s easy to spend money
once you have it.’

After lunch he
placed the boxes holding his tools on the shelves in the garage and
checked to see how the bench was fastened to the wall. ‘It
shouldn’t be too hard to remove,’ he thought.

Thursday he
went to the Big End library and looked at several sailing and hobby
magazines knowing that one of them should have a design for a boat
that would be suitable but it took him an hour to find one that was
big enough for four people and had a reinforced stern so it could
take an outboard. It was sixteen feet long, probably four feet
longer than the one he and Joe used so many years ago. The sketch
in the magazine was complete, with measurements given, but the
designer sold a much more detailed diagram with details about
construction, the plan for a form upon which it could be built and
a list of materials. Bob copied down his address and ordered the
package that evening.