To Manchester and Back

By Norma Hart

Conflict is a word often associated with stories, and I am informed that there should always be conflict in a well told story. In Evelyn’s story there aren’t villains, or monsters, or wars. This story then, may not be for you – unless only a quiet inner discord – which our protagonist has perhaps, thought wise to address, might interest you. This is Evelyn’s conflict, and this is her story.

On January first nineteen sixty she would turn sixty. I know she had been widowed when she was thirty, and I can tell you, quite assuredly that she hadn’t grieved in the way other widows did. Evelyn had acknowledged this to herself and she knew why it was so. She hadn’t been much excited by the prospect of married life nor indeed by its reality. Not that there had been anything at all amiss with her husband, or in the way he treated her. No, it was simply that she felt that marriage was all rather underwhelming. In her experience it was like life itself. 

Nothing exciting or even unusually interesting ever happened, and nor was it likely to. That at least, was what Evelyn believed. I wish I could tell you that Evelyn was wrong, but she wasn’t. Her life was rather like the dull grey cardigan she wore almost daily. She had, like most people, experienced loss, not only had her husband died, but both her parents too. But loss can hardly be described as interesting or exciting, can it? After her mother was widowed, Evelyn returned home to care for her. Subsequently, she needed a job and took one up in the village post office, thinking it would ‘do’ until something better turned up. 

That had been over twenty years ago, and nothing better had which was hardly surprising. Unless one is head hunted, jobs don’t land in one’s lap; one has to actively hunt and Evelyn hadn’t, ever. Hunting seemed far too dangerous an occupation for her. Life at the post office had been safe, comfortable; and it suited who she was. You may see things differently as we go on, but such, for what it’s worth, is my perspective on Evelyn. 

Rose Dugdale was eighty years old and had been the village post mistress for forty years. She simply couldn’t manage she said, without Evelyn – her ‘right-hand woman’. A young matron supplemented the team. Gillian Paget was her name, and she worked three mornings each week, an arrangement which allowed Evelyn to take Tuesdays off, and Mrs. Dugdale time to do accounts and such on the other two mornings. Thus, there had been a settled and satisfactory routine at the business for many years. Customers liked it too. So, if Mrs. Warrener preferred to get her stamps from Mrs. Paget she would go in on Tuesdays. If Mr. Aspinall wanted to chat whilst waiting for his pension, he would wait until Wednesday so that Evelyn listened to his war stories. 

Such were the fancies of many in the village. What mattered was that everyone was happy, except Evelyn that is. I know, because I’m beginning to understand her, that she only half grasped that this was so. That is until her spat with Ronald the delivery boy. On Saturday mornings he conveyed a box of groceries for Evelyn to the post office. He would go in via the back door, shout her name, and wait until she had a moment to go and pay him. She always gave him a chocolate bar and sometimes a shilling. Ronald inevitably, would merely grunt and Evelyn found it irritating. Every week was the same. Rarely if ever, did he say thank you, yet she knew this wasn’t the way he had been brought up and so he frustrated her. One particular Saturday however, she found herself infuriated. 

“Would it hurt you Ronald, properly to say thank you”? 

Ronald shrugged, sounding and looking surly. 

“Thanks”. 

“Really? Is that the best you can do”? 

“I said it didn’t I”? 

He left, slamming the back door behind him. She dwelled on the skirmish later and as she did, her thoughts matured slowly, but surely, into insight. Everything in her life had been routine, actually, a pattern of living, utterly lacking in variation. This wasn’t entirely about Ronald, she recognised that, but it was about him and Mrs. Dugdale, Mrs. Paget. Mr. Aspinall and his war stories. Everything, everyone, was the same. She, was the same; the same at almost sixty years old as she had been at thirty. How could that be right? What had she done with her life? What had she learned? Why, she wondered, have I never asked myself these questions before? A myriad of such thoughts followed her into the kitchen as she made a cup of tea. They escorted her later as she washed up her cup and saucer and tidied the kitchen. 

Such questions persisted, nagging her as she went to bed. Casting her mind back over the decades, she remembered an event pushed long ago into the dank cellars of memory. She was twelve and a fan of the wireless. Each week there had been a quiz programme for children, and she found she was good at answering the questions. Unknown to her parents she ‘wrote off’ begging to take part. She was lucky – a letter arrived inviting her to do just that. Unfortunately, her mother opened the letter and instantly put an end to her daughter’s ambitions. 

“If you think for one moment Evelyn, that you will find yourself in that place, then you will find yourself disappointed. Manchester indeed! I think not”. 

Twelve-year-old Evelyn tried, without success, to change her mother’s mind, finally hearing; “And, young woman, I shall hear no more about your nonsense”. 

As Evelyn recalled these events, she re-lived the devastation she had felt and the embarrassment of having to turn down that invitation. So powerful had these emotions been, they had resulted in her being wholly averse to taking any kind of risk. Risks were hazardous. 

This understanding of a life lived in a self-created cocoon, brought her to feeling a sense of shame. Fear and apathy had been there all these long years, and she had invariably pretended that she was, if not happy, she was at least, not unhappy. A sleepless night followed until dawn came, and with it a determination to change what she now knew to have been a life of dissonance. That difference between what one believed, and what one actually did. She believed, (at least in theory), that people made their own happiness, or ought to, yet she had done nothing actively to achieve her own joy. That same day, with a degree of anxiety that almost overcame her, she handed in her notice to Mrs. Dugdale. It’s odd isn’t it, how something we fear the most sometimes turns out to be a blessing in disguise? Mrs. Dugdale retired and sold the business to Mrs. Paget who had long coveted the post office. Now, all that remained was for Evelyn to decide how her future was to unfold.

Her last day at work was a tangle of emotions as she said goodbye to people and to routine. She found herself surprised that she felt a degree of relief, and not a little excitement. However, there was also the question of her grey cardigan. She recognised it was like the cardigan of disquiet she had worn since childhood. Would she be able to take it off and wear a braver colour? She acknowledged her ambivalence, but nevertheless she went home, packed a small suitcase with enough clothes for a few days and climbed into bed. Throughout the night she clutched her doubts close to her bosom, alongside a newly acquired bus timetable. She was embarking on a journey and not just geographically. 

The following morning, she took a taxi to the bus station in town and found the number seventeen; destination Manchester. Cities were wholly unfamiliar to Evelyn and she was nervous but excited too. As passengers got on the bus she watched them. A man wearing a flat cap and smoking a pipe who went upstairs. An elderly woman, arm in arm with a younger woman, no doubt mother and daughter. Soon the bus set off and Evelyn, near the back, had two seats to herself. Her suitcase rested on the aisle seat, whilst she sat by the window, listening to the other passengers. A little boy begging his mother for ice cream. Only stopping when she slapped his legs in frustration. The bus conductor ticked off a young man for not having a ticket. Everything, everyone, seemed suddenly interesting. 

Half an hour went by and then another, and as Manchester approached, she took out the green notebook which she always kept in her handbag. Why was there a notebook? Well, I happen to know she had kept one all of her life. She scribbled all kinds of things in them: a recipe recommended by someone; why dissolvable aspirin worked better than the other kind. She also commented on village characters (never using a name of course). Mrs. L. ‘fearsome if someone jumped a queue’. ‘Elderly gentlemen who are widowers’, she once wrote, ‘are not averse to chasing elderly widows’, then, wickedly, had added ‘for purse or for nurse’! Such were Evelyn’s jottings.

Manchester was enormous. It was loud, bustling, and energetic. It was dusty, malodorous at times, also disquieting, perhaps even dangerous, but equally exhilarating. Evelyn especially liked that particular and virtually unknown feeling. She had booked a room at a small, inexpensive hotel and arrived early in the afternoon. The receptionist, a young, pretty Mancunian girl helped to put her at ease (Evelyn had never stayed in an hotel before and was glad of it). 

“You’ve never been to Manchester? Well love, I think you’re brave coming all by yourself. Make sure you enjoy it”. 

Evelyn almost felt brave as she made her way to her room. It was small and characterless, but it didn’t matter, it was only for sleeping. A café nearby provided a sandwich and a pot of tea. The waitress was friendly and chatty, and Evelyn asked her what places of interest she should visit. She took out her notebook recording a list of venues beginning with the Cathedral. Making her way to Victoria Street she barely looked down – her eyes constantly raised to the skyline and the impressive Victorian buildings lining the thoroughfares. The Cathedral was magnificent, but damaged during the war, was undergoing renovations. In her notebook she reported it was ‘like England itself, beautiful, grand, broken, but always, always, fighting back’. Perhaps, she wrote, ‘that’s what I’m doing; fighting back’. 

Those words were far from being the last scribbled during her visit. There were so many snippets illustrating her insights and her excitement: ‘how marvellous the shopping in Kendal’s’; of delight in the art gallery; ‘those wonderful Lowry matchstick people’; of intrigue; ‘where do all these people come from and what of their destinations’? After supper and ensconced in her room, she answered all of these and many other questions in her notebook. The three-day visit turned into a week; each one filled with emotions she hardly knew she could feel. She wept at names etched in granite at the war memorial. She smiled wistfully at a young couple leaving the registry office hand in hand. They were squealing with delight as friends and family showered them in confetti. ‘So that’s how marriage should feel’. From Manchester she took a further bus journey, this time to Liverpool. She saw the Liver building, the Mersey in bright sunshine and ate fish and chips in the street. ‘Mother would have been horrified’. Finally, she experienced real sadness as she boarded again the number seventeen for her return journey. ‘A life lived’, she wrote, ‘that’s what I’ve been doing this week. How marvellous it has been’. 

On the way back Evelyn remained excited, but uncertain of what might come next. Halfway home, the bus pulled into a small terminus to drop off and pick up new passengers and to wait a while so that it would run to schedule. She watched a woman sitting on a bench. She had a small dog on a lead and was eating a sandwich. She tore a corner off it and proffered it to the dog who sniffed it warily. The woman tempted the dog a second time, and again it refused. Evelyn knew that feeling, it was how she had felt before Manchester. Wary, distrustful. Suddenly, the dog snatched the morsel, gobbled it down and went back for more. ‘An omen’, she wrote and ‘unless I grab my life, I will not have lived my life’. She looked down at her notebook; it had been with her almost all of her life. It was the moment she saw things clearly, and without a hint of fear, the road ahead. 

When she got home, she straightaway telephoned Mr. Lowe the local handyman. Within the week she had emptied her spare bedroom and had it transformed into a cosy study. She would write. She had heard it said that aspiring writers should write about what they know. Well, I know that what Evelyn knew better than anything, was her village, its life, and its people. That would serve as her template. More importantly perhaps, she accepted her writing may never be seen outside of her study and that there was nothing, she realised, which could damage her in that. What mattered was that nineteen-sixty wasn’t just going to be about turning sixty. It, and all the years to follow, would be about living, about challenges, about risk and about Evelyn becoming herself. 

She had furnished her study simply. An old oak table that had been her fathers. A rather battered, faded rug was placed in front of it and on top of that, an old wooden office chair purchased at the junk shop in the village. They had also furnished her with an old filing cabinet which she imagined filled with her writing. Above the desk two prints she had bought in Manchester. One of Lowry’s matchstick people and the other of the Cathedral. It wasn’t only the Cathedral which was fighting back; she had thrown away the grey cardigan and was wearing a bright, cheerful, yellow one. When she doubted herself or became fearful, she would look at those prints and remember the journey she had made to Manchester and back. Mr. Lowe had built shelves to house her books, pens and all the accoutrements necessary for a writer. She sat in the chair with a real sense of elation, then she picked up her pen and began her life. She was, finally, happy and unafraid.

Norma Hart is a retired university lecturer who is new to writing fiction which she is finding challenging but very rewarding. Her work is largely character driven and she  has written a standalone series of short stories based in the fictional rural Lancashire village of Cornshaw. Her characters are drawn from real life observations of people who often do surprising things. Norma lives in rural Lancashire in England, where she was born and bred. She has only recently had her first piece accepted for publication.