Lottie’s ‘Sunny Afternoon’

There are references to a fatal car accident/child death in this story.

Lottie had been up since dawn, at least, it felt like she had! She hadn’t slept a wink. She never did on the night of 14th July, and wouldn’t tomorrow, on the 15th. The date was ingrained on her soul. But today was the sixtieth anniversary. She glanced out of the kitchen window at the garage. At 93, she was too old to drive. Today, of all days, she wished she could have driven, just once more!

The kitchen radio had played their song yesterday. Why couldn’t they have played it today? A tear ran down Lottie’s cheek. She brushed it away, more tears tumbled down her face. Her hands shook as she tried to fill the kettle to make her morning cuppa. She knocked over the coffee jar, watching it smash over her kitchen floor. Lottie left it there, put on her jacket and shoes, grabbed her bag and keys, opened the front door, and left. She had somewhere important to be.

                                                              *****

As she arranged the pink flowers in the vase by the headstone, Lottie’s mind wandered back through time. August 16th, 1966, Timothy’s birthday party. He was seven, and a precocious child. Harry spoilt him. He never hid the fact that Timothy was his favourite. Lottie loved both of her children, of course she did. She treated them both equally, but she had a soft spot for her little Jane. She was born six weeks early. The birth was traumatic. Jane was her miracle baby.

Harry insisted that Timothy had a big birthday party, inviting nearly all of the children in his class. Lottie had been rushing around all week sorting out party bags, decorations, games, food and of course, the big celebratory cake. Harry wanted it to be the best party that Timothy’s classmates had ever been to. He was like that. Always wanting to be the biggest and the best at everything. Jane had not been well, running a slight temperature. Lottie was worried.

‘She’s fine!’ Harry admonished her for fussing.

‘But she’s hot and hardly eating.’ Lottie said.

‘It’s August! Of course she’s going to be hot! Don’t spoil Timothy’s birthday week!’ Harry was annoyed with her and with Jane for being ill.

Lottie was still worried and made sure that Jane was drinking plenty, keeping her hydrated. And then the day of the party arrived. It was a crazy day. Lottie was rushed off her feet. Harry went to the pub with his mates, leaving her to do all the work. Luckily, two of the mums offered to stay and help; they could see Lottie struggling.

Lottie was furious with Harry. She was only 33. Her whole life in front of her. She was beginning to suspect that Harry wasn’t going to last the stretch.

Timothy was born in 1959 and Jane in 1963. Lottie and Harry were only going to have one child, so when Jane came along, Harry blamed Lottie. ‘Another mouth to feed!’ he lamented, as if Jane were a stray animal that had turned up on their doorstep. But Lottie ignored him, she adored Jane.

Jane may have been small for her age, but she was adventurous. On the day of Timothy’s party, Lottie had asked her mum to keep an eye on her. But Jane gave her the slip. Wanting to get away from the noise of twenty-two boys running around, she went for a little wander. They lived in The Grange, a six bedroomed Georgian house which Lottie had inherited from a great aunt six years earlier. It cost far too much to run. The huge wrought iron gates at the end of the long drive were usually bolted, but today they were open to allow parents back and forth.

Jane had seen a little black and white cat near the bottom of the drive. She scampered off to pet it. A taxi, in a hurry and deciding to do a quick turn in the drive, never saw the blonde, curly-haired toddler sitting stroking a stray cat. Lottie never did know why her daughter was at the bottom of the drive. Jane had always stayed close to the house. But she heard the squeal of brakes that day, the shouting and then the screaming. The silence that followed stayed with her.

*****

At Jane’s funeral, Lottie was inconsolable. She pushed Harry away. She blamed herself, her mother, the taxi driver, but most of all, she blamed Harry! She struggled, refused help and before she knew it, she was in hospital.

‘Nervous exhaustion,’ the doctor had said. ‘Lottie needs complete rest and lots of sleep.’ He prescribed her antidepressants. Lottie flushed them down the toilet when Harry was out. She wanted to be aware of everything, even the bad days.

‘Who’s going to take care of Timothy?’ Harry was not about to take any time off from his job, so he dropped their son off at his parents' house three villages away and left Lottie at home on her own.

Lottie had been Harry’s doormat. Doing what she was told, never questioning his decisions, behaving as a good wife should. But as she recuperated, her broken heart mended with an inner strength and a confidence that she had not felt before. She knew that Harry had another woman. Possibly two! Lottie could smell the perfume on his shirts when she put them in the wash. Once, a note fell from his trousers as she pulled them from the laundry basket. She picked it up and read it. She was disappointed, disgusted, but not surprised. Several times, she had answered the phone to hear it quickly click off as she recited their number. She could do the maths!

*****

Timothy loved being at his grandparents' house. They both spoilt him as much as his father did. Giving in to his every whim. Lottie knew she would have a challenging time with him when he came home from his holiday. And she was right.

Timothy never asked for his little sister or cried because she had gone. Instead, he went into her bedroom and broke some of her toys. He also drew on her walls and jumped all over her bed. Lottie was furious with him. She wanted to keep Jane’s bedroom as it was for as long as she could. One day, when she was visiting her cousin, she returned to find that Harry and Timothy had both completely cleared out Jane’s room.

‘It’s just not healthy to keep it like a shrine, Lottie!’ Harry told her. ‘You have to let Jane go! Besides, Timothy can have it as a den!’

‘What have you done with her things, Harry?’ she screamed at him.

‘I took them to different charity shops, as I knew you’d go after them!’ He was almost triumphant in his malice.

Lottie left the house, grabbing the car keys to her Old English White 1963 Morris Traveller. She had bought it the year her little Jane was born. Jane had loved going out in her ‘Little Woody’.

 Lottie drove to every charity shop in a twenty mile radius, until she had found nearly all of Jane’s toys, books, and clothing. She was not about to take them back to the house, instead she took them to her mum’s little bungalow. Lottie knew she was away for the week, staying with a friend in Cornwall. She had a spare key, so she let herself in and neatly packed all of Jane’s things into dustbin bags and put them up in the attic. Her mum never went up there; it was too dangerous for her. Then Lottie drove home.

                                                                *****

It had been ten years since Jane had passed away. Timothy was nearly eighteen and had left for university. Harry had persuaded him to apply for Edinburgh and when he got in, Lottie was a little relieved.

‘Maybe it will make a decent man out of him yet!’ She had thought to herself.

Once Timothy was out of the way, Lottie started on her next plan: to get rid of Harry! She knew he was messing about with that woman Beryl at No. 42; she just needed him to bugger off and move in with her. So, she began to really wind him up.

First, she put a pair of bright red socks she had bought especially in the washing machine with his white work shirts. Pink was obviously not Harry’s colour!

Secondly, she started only cooking vegan meals. He was disgusted.

‘But they’re so much healthier than all that greasy, fatty meat,’ she had explained, adding for good measure, ‘I am trying to take care of your body for you, Harry!’ Lottie had almost vomited in her own mouth at the thought of his pudgy, hairy, anaemic-looking body. So, Harry ate his dinners at the café in the next village.

Thirdly, and her best shot at completely getting rid of him, Lottie told him she was having an affair! He had laughed in her face. That really made her mad.

‘What’s so funny about me having an affair?’ she asked him.

‘You? You’re having an affair, seriously? Has he got a white stick and a guide dog?’

Lottie could have cut his heart out with a spoon. She had heard that line in a Robin Hood film and contemplated how painful it would be.

‘Well, actually, I’ve had several over the years Harry!’

He looked at her in horror. ‘And…and I’ve been sleeping in the same bed as an adulteress all these years?’

Lottie laughed now. ‘And so have I then haven’t I Harry?’ She stared him out until spluttering under his breath, he bounded up the stairs, reappearing ten minutes later with a huge suitcase. He bounced it down each step. Lottie guessed he had filled it up with his gear. She watched with amusement as he navigated the front door, almost getting wedged with his case in the doorway. He turned to say something; his face contorted with hatred. Lottie kicked the door, catching something as she locked it. The yells from outside told her it must have been part of Harry. She hoped it was something important.

*****

Lottie made herself a cup of strong tea with two sugars, Harry no longer there to tell her how bad it was for her and took the biscuit tin from the top shelf of the pantry. It had been well hidden as Harry made sure she couldn’t find them.

‘They’re just not good for you, love!’ he would say, polishing them off with Timothy. Lottie had noticed that her eighteen-year-old son was beginning to join in with his father!

Lottie sat at her kitchen table in the huge empty kitchen and sighed. How she wished that Jane was there with her. She was sure that she would have always stuck up for her mum. As her eyes filled with tears, Lottie thought she saw a shadow flit across the kitchen into the hall. She stood up, just as she heard a thump upstairs. Lottie was not afraid of anything anymore. She had experienced the worst. What could happen to her now?

As she climbed the stairs, she heard a noise coming from Jane’s bedroom. Only it did not resemble her room anymore. Harry and Timothy had seen to that! Lottie slowly opened the door. There, sitting in the middle of the carpet was a little black and white cat. It had tuxedo markings and the biggest green eyes. ‘Like my Jane’s’ she murmured. The cat was thin and looked like it had been through several wars. Lottie bent down and gently held her hand out towards it. Hesitantly, it walked over and butted its head against her hand. ‘I wonder where you came from?’ She said gently, looking around the room. The windows were closed and so had the door been.

‘So how did you get in here?’

Putting the cat in the carrier she had borrowed from a neighbour, Lottie drove her to the nearest vets. They scanned her neck. ‘No chip, no collar, so she’ll have to go to an animal shelter,’ the vet had said.

‘No, I will take her home with me. I think we may need each other.’

Lottie paid the bill and picked up a bag of cat kibble that the vet had suggested. When she got back home, the little cat wolfed the food down so fast that she began to choke. Lottie put a dish of water in front of her. She drank for ages, purring through mouthfuls. ‘I will have to think of a name for you now, won’t I?’ She looked around thinking. ‘Ah, I know. I am going to call you Sunny!’

That was their song. Lottie’s and Jane’s. They would dance around the kitchen to the music, singing the words at the top of their voices. It had been in the charts the week Jane turned three: ‘Sunny Afternoon’ by The Kinks. Lottie had no idea that just one month later, there would be no more sunny afternoons. Not for a long time!

 *****

Lottie and Sunny lived in The Grange for many years together. Timothy had left university, moved into a flat, landed a managerial post at the local bank and married Jeannette. Eventually, Timothy decided they should move in with Lottie. Jeannette had no intention of pulling her weight with housework and cooking. So, Jeannette and Lottie clashed. When their first child was due, Timothy decided to buy Lottie a small bungalow in a quiet residential area of the village. He took over the title deeds of The Grange, and Lottie and Sunny got a two-bedroomed ‘rabbit hutch,’ as she liked to call it.

                                                             *****

Lottie returned home from the Cemetery. It was her daughter’s birthday. Jane would have been sixty-three today. Lottie liked to imagine they would be best friends as well as mother and daughter. On Jane’s second and third birthdays, Lottie remembered how she shrieked with joy as they drove around country lanes on an adventure together.

Timothy hated the little ‘Woody’. ‘It’s too bumpy. It’s too noisy. I want to go home!’       ‘For goodness’ sake, Timothy, be quiet!’ Lottie would lose patience with him. Then he would cry loudly and they would have to turn around and go home. Timothy much preferred his father’s dark green Ford Zephyr!

Lottie had kept the ritual going for as long as she could. Every 15th July, she took her ‘Woody’ for a mini adventure, Jane’s favourite teddy strapped in the passenger seat.

                                                             *****

Lottie had been on a mission. She had finally decided to sell her ‘Woody.’ Full of wonderful memories, she would have liked to have kept it, but there was nobody to drive it now. If anything happened to her, Timothy would scrap it. He hated her car that much. A local garage would collect it in the morning. Lottie was dreading it. So, first thing in the morning, she went for a long walk, dropping the keys into the garage on the way. The owner appeared, wiping his hands on his overalls.

‘I put some feelers out about your car, and I’ve already had quite a bit of interest in it. Hopefully, you will have some good news soon!’

He meant well, but the thought of her memories being driven away without her, was never going to be good news.

Later that afternoon when she returned home, her garage key was on her hall mat.

*****

One month later, as Lottie settled on her sofa, the doorbell rang. She peeped through the spy hole. A tall young man was talking to a child. Lottie opened the door a crack, keeping the chain on.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you, Mrs Entwistle. My name is Mark Rutherford, and this is my daughter, Phoebe.’ Lottie could see a small child with curly blonde hair gripping his hand. She took off the chain.

‘I have just bought your car, and we both wanted to say thank you. I was told it meant a lot to you, so Phoebe has drawn you a picture of us at the seaside in it.’ Phoebe held out a large, colourful drawing. Lottie, unusually lost for words, took it.

‘Thank you, Phoebe.’ As she looked at it, the tears flowed down Lottie’s face. The little girl looked up at her dad, a worried expression on her small face. ‘Doesn’t she like my picture, Daddy?’ she whispered.

Lottie struggled to find the words. ‘I love it more than you’ll ever know!’

After that first encounter, Mark and Phoebe would pop in if they were passing and take Lottie for a ride in her old ‘Woody.’ It made her so happy knowing that another little girl was having adventures in her beloved old car. She was sure that Jane would have approved as well.

                                                             *****

It had been many years now since her little cat ‘Sunny’ had passed on, living with her for twenty years. Lottie adopted many cats over the following years, giving a loving home to those who needed a new life. Like she had needed once.

As Lottie got ready for bed that night, she unlocked the spare room opposite hers. It was locked to keep Timothy out. She switched on the light, illuminating the floral wallpaper and pale pink ceiling. A 1960s pink floral bedspread covered a small white wooden bed, with a well-loved bear sitting on top of the matching pillowcase. A bookshelf was full of children’s toys: Chad Valley bears, Mattel dolls, a wooden Noah’s ark, Sooty, Sweep and Sue glove puppets, some Gonks, and an array of colourful picture books. Above the bed was a photograph of a little girl with huge green eyes, blonde curls, and the biggest, cheekiest smile. She was holding her mum’s hand and standing in front of an Old English White Morris Traveller.