“She slipped away in her sleep,” On the phone, Charles Fogarty’s voice hitched. “The tenants in the cottage found her. Excuse me…” Our family solicitor took a moment to quietly clear his throat. His distress echoed mine. “Anne, I’ll need you to come down and decide what to do with the house. Esther’s Will states she wants you to make a decision within the month, while we’re waiting for probate.”
“Any idea why the hurry?” The phone call, although always half-expected when your grandmother is over 90, managed to bring tears to my eyes. My darling grandmother, dead and a two-storey house full of memories left for me to sort out.
Charles snuffled at the end of the line and I imagined him wiping his eyes and trying to find the right words. Perhaps he and Gran had been more than ‘just good friends’.
“You might know what this means because she states, quite clearly, that you need to make a decision about the fairies at the bottom of the garden. I have never seen any signs of dementia in your grandmother, and I’m sure she had full control of her faculties, but those were the exact words she made me write into the Will. Said you’d know what she meant.”
I did.
Here I was, 21 years of age, deep in university life, studying performance arts, and now I needed to return to Gran’s house and decide whether I wanted to keep it, or sell it to fund my future career. Gran always had faith in my talent. She shovelled me off to university and sent me a monthly stipend from her estate fund, which she always said was ‘my right’. She’d reared me from being a gangly six-year-old orphan to the tall, young woman I am today. I’m enjoying the Sixties, ignoring the flower-power aspect, and I’m self-confident and secure in the knowledge I am well-loved…except she’s gone… and who will love me now?
I knew about the fairies. Gran had reared me on the constant admonishment “Keep away from the bottom of the garden. There are fairies down there,” and it wasn’t until I attended university that I heard the term applied to gay men. Then the penny dropped.
As a youngster I’d spent many illicit hours down the garden, looking under fungi, peering into flowers, hunting for fairy circles, never for a moment considering that Chester and Samuel, two artists who came each summer to paint and stayed in the garden cottage, were the fairies Gran was referring too.
For a straight-laced old lady with God-fearing Welsh Chapel principles the discovery stunned me. Why would she go against all her teachings and allow two homosexual men to use her garden cottage for six months of every year? Her opinion of such people had always been loud and clear and I’d given up arguing for the rights of those who were different. Yet, even after realising who the fairies were, the very people she’d spent her life warning me about, I’d never been brave enough to ask why her standards didn’t apply to Samuel and Chester.
Perhaps now I’d find out.
Gran’s cottage had never looked more welcoming than when I pulled up in my reliable Austin 40, parked under the oak tree on the lawn and climbed the three steps to the front door. I paused and looked around. The sunny day hummed with life; insects rustled in crevices and the birds resumed their discussion, having paused when I arrived. In the two weeks since her death the spiders were making their presence known, creating webs in the window corners as if to say ‘we’ve outlived your broom’.
Inside, the usual smell of home baking and tasty meals had been replaced with an odour of stale air and a threat of mustiness. I opened windows upstairs and down, checked the power was still on and was surprised to find the fridge empty and clean. Had she known she was going to die? Perhaps ‘the fairies’ had cleaned it out?
Being late summer they’d still be in residence. Time to discuss their future and mine. Charles Fogarty assured me there was no sign of a lease of the garden cottage, or any contractual arrangementt he could find.
They were expecting me. On the sheltered side of the small veranda fresh scones were stacked on a china plate on the small table, with three chairs arranged, just so. Whipped cream and red jam in tiny crystal pots enhanced the image of a tea party. Their welcome, with hugs and air kisses, seemed tinged with a touch of nervousness. While Samuel made the tea Chester enquired politely about my journey and my university course. I noticed his nails were well-bitten. Did he always do this? The rattle of the teapot as Samuel put it down on the tile, spoke of a tremor of anxiety that continued as he offered me a scone and passed me my coffee. I’d forgotten they were ageing at the same pace as I was. They had always seemed to be young, yet today I saw them in real life; each with a slight stoop, fine wrinkles around their eyes and the sag of skin on their forearms. They’d aged without me noticing.
“So sad – dreadful.”
“We noticed she didn’t feed the birds that morning.”
“A happy life, well lived.”
“She didn’t suffer.”
“We called the ambulance and the police. No sign of a break-in.”
“We cleaned the kitchen. She’d left a mess. She must have been very tired.”
Their expressions of sympathy fell about me until I raised my hand.
“Thank you, thank you. I’m really grateful to you both but I need to have a heart to heart conversation about your arrangement with Gran.” The two solemn men nodded. “Plus, I have to make a decision as to whether I keep the property and if I do how do I maintain it? Or do I sell it.” I took a deep breath. “Mr. Fogarty can’t find any legal documents relating to this cottage and your tenancy each summer. What was your arrangement with my grandmother?”
They exchanged glances, each indicating the other should speak, and finally Samuel spoke. “There are no legal grounds for our summers here. Esther said we could use this cottage as long as we looked after it and didn’t bother her.”
“We kept our side of the bargain. We have maintained this cottage, painted and reroofed, and never given her cause to worry…for the past fifteen years,” Chester said and nibbled his thumb nail. Samuel reached and stayed his hand. “We’ve always kept an eye on Esther’s wellbeing, without being intrusive.”
Grief and confusion made me snap, “But why? You must know, as I do, that Gran didn’t tolerate homosexuals, yet here you are living here, presumably rent free, every summer for years on end. Why?”
“She never told you?” Samuel’s eyebrows rose, his eyes widened, hand flapping.
“Such a shame,” Chester pursed his lips and shook his head.
I firmed my lips, determined to wait out their exaggerated surprise and ignored the pounding of my heart. Their uneasiness disturbed me. What hold did they have over Gran? The silence grew, interrupted only by the intake of breath and the faint sucking of teeth. Finally, after a nod from Samuel, Chester began.
“We saved you. That’s why Esther tolerated us. It was her way of saying ‘thank you’.”
I bit back my need for an answer and held my jaws together, waiting.
“You know your parents were killed in a road accident?”
I nodded, closing my eyes, trying not to see again torch-beams sweeping the dark and the black freezing water. The memory always chilled me. I shivered.
“Oh, you poor darling, you’re remembering,” Samuel reached and rested his palm on my arm, his tremor transferring to me. Seeming to realise I could feel it he gave me a quick pat and sat back.
I blinked and smiled “It’s alright. I only remember the lights and being cold.”
“We were following their car.” Chester continued. “It was dark, the rain was dreadful with water coursing down the bank and rushing across the road to the river. We were all going slow, but around a bend the road had slipped away and your parent’s car dipped into the hole before they could swerve around the slip. The car nose-dived into the water.” He stopped.
Samuel took up the story. ”Chester jumped in and tried to open the doors but the water was too swift and the current held them shut. I grabbed a rock and climbed onto the back of the car. I smashed the back window and between us we pulled you out. You were stunned, half asleep, soaked by the river but we got you to our car and wrapped you in blankets and fed you sweets, for shock.”
“We could see your parents had been thrown forward by the force of the fall and had probably been knocked unconscious. They were under the water. One of us stayed with you all the time.”
They held each other’s gaze. I could see the memory of the night remained vivid for them, even years later.
“Our headlights stopped the oncoming traffic and someone turned around to get help,” he said. “Lots of people tried to rescue your parents. We stayed until the police arrived and kept you with us until your grandmother could be located. It was a dreadful night, but at least we saved you.” Samuel wiped his face with his sleeve, his tremor visible once more. “We will understand if you wish us to leave. We love it here and both of us do our best work while here, but this is now your place. Your grandmother’s gratitude ended with her death.”
I listened to the creak of the trees around the cottage and watched the flight of a starling, its mouth full of worms. The solution came to mind and rang sound in my heart, without any doubt in sight.
“But my gratitude hasn’t ended,” I said, “You can stay here every summer, and winter too if you wish, as long as you mow the lawns and keep an eye on Gran’s house. We will need a proper lease and a peppercorn rental. Mr Fogarty says I have funds to maintain the property for insurance and rates. Would that suit? I don’t want to be nosey but where do you spend your winters?”
Their smiles said it all. “We usually find accommodation somewhere, have an exhibition and run workshops, but with Samuel’s Parkinson developing it has been harder to cope. We’d love to stay here all year round. This little cottage is home to us. We hate leaving it each autumn.”
Images of Gran’s lounge and veranda graced with paintings resting in easels rushed to mind. Having the rooms filled with the chatter of enthusiastic artists would have appealed to her.
“You could hold an exhibition at Gran’s, or run workshops there. I’ll make sure my visits don’t clash with your plans. We’ll put it in the lease. Is that a good idea?”
I could see their tension dissipate, running off their limbs as they beamed at each other and turned to bless me with their adoration, which I had never noticed before.
“Did you know that Gran called you ‘the fairies at the bottom of the garden’?”
“We did,” Samuel said. “We would hear her call out to you.”
“We didn’t mind,” said Chester. “It was hard for her generation to breach the tenets of their church’s teachings. In later years we became friends and sometimes she would share a sherry with us of an evening. We lived here as quietly and honestly as we could – and of course we always kept an eye on you.”
“Having saved you once, we were always prepared to save you again,” said Samuel. “Do you know that the Japanese have a saying that if you save a person’s life you are forever responsible for them?” He locked his trembling hands between his knees and grinned at me.
And I knew who would love me now that Gran had gone.
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