Holmes Chapel 2011

I parked Liz's white Nissan in a two-hour spot and strode across the pavement towards the stalls, walking and thinking. I heard traders announce their wares in loud jovial voices.

"Come on, darling, two for a fiver," a female vendor, muffled in a scarf tucked into a woollen cardigan, called out loudly. She pointed out pink bed sheets wrapped in cellophane to shoppers. Christmas earrings dangled from her ear lobes as she repeated her sales pitch.

I bumped into someone. "Sorry."

"You're dreaming, mate," the man said with a frown. 'It's true,' I thought. I dreamed and I walked. Not contemplating my fate or reason for being I looked forward to visiting the market thoroughfare, just walking and thinking.

I had told Liz before I left home, "I just need some happy memories from my childhood to give us strength and resolve for what we face. As a boy, I worked at my granddad's market stall. Maybe I'll feel the joy of those times." I think Liz understood. She was one of the few who "got me".

On Saturday February 11th 2011, a few days before my 61st birthday, I braced myself against the cold wind. The farmers' market in Holmes Chapel was only a few miles from where Liz and I lived at Kirmingsham Hall.

Buffeted by jostling crowds buying vegetables, shoes, clothes, knick-knacks, and all sorts of wares I strode on. With a hint of pleasure, my eyes focused on a flower stall 100 feet away. An assortment of coloured blooms spilled out of buckets. Customers happily carried bunches away dripping with water. A cold breeze chilled my cheeks as I slowly made my way. The aroma of bacon caught my attention; it circulated the air and directed me to a cafe near the flower stall. Combing my fingers through my hair, I walked on with a plan: 'kill two birds with one stone,' I thought. I slowed my walk to an amble, my hands deep in my trouser pockets.

A market trader nodded to me as I passed and spoke. "From round here are we, Sir?"

"Yes," I said, "my brothers and I splashed in the waters of the River Dane, and we danced to Elvis and the Beatles in the town hall." The man nodded knowingly and weighed some tomatoes for a customer.

"Time flies, doesn't it?" the man said, serving dripping lettuces to another customer. "But we can't turn the clock back, can we?"

"Well my school motto, at a school not far from here," I said, "was, 'what a man sows he will reap', so let's hope we don't reap everything we deserve, huh?" The man nodded but looked mystified. He moved further down his stall. I felt foolish.

I did wonder if I had brought a harvest of pain because of my misdeeds. When I'd asked Sean months before about my concerns, he'd said "bollocks", that I was one of the best blokes he knew. And then he joked, "Mind you, I know some right buggers."

Confident that not every decision I had made had turned out bad, I recalled meeting Liz and asking her to marry me.
Thinking of Liz, my mind continued to wander while I walked. I moved sluggishly, hardly aware of the stalls around me.

*

I had met Liz Davies in 1984 at her dad's haulage business at Ebbw Vale. I thought of our first meeting. Liz worked in her father's office, a brown porta cabin in their vehicle yard. Typing invoices and worksheets, she flicked her black shoulder length hair back as she worked. I noticed her perfect neck and coughed. A soft-featured face with naturally rosy cheeks turned towards me as I stood in the doorway.

"Oh, hello," she said, piercing brown eyes surveying me. "Dad will be back in a sec...he's in the yard somewhere."

"It's OK," I said, "I'll wait if that's no problem. I'm John Morgan by the way."

"Nice to meet you, John", she said, standing and pushing back her chair. "I'm Liz, Bill's daughter."

Her hourglass figure was snug in Levi jeans and white tee-shirt. She extended a warm hand and shook mine. My cheeks flushed when her perfume drifted towards me. My ears grew hot as I became aware of her closeness, aware of her body in the confines of the porta cabin. On my trips to Ebbw Vale I couldn't resist popping into Davies Transport to stand at the door watching her shuffle papers, type or answer the phone. I watched the way she moved, confident but not arrogant, the way she solved problems by doodling creatively.

One day, noticing Liz had gone out in her white Renault, I spotted Bill, his sleeves rolled up, near an HGV. I called, "Bill, can I have a word?" He strolled over to me, splashing through dark muddy puddles in his steel-capped boots.

"OK, John, you happy with our service?" Bill replied, rubbing his hands on his overalls. His boots squeaked as he walked closer.

"Yeah, it's not that...it's personal." I think I wanted to gain his approval.

"Oh...OK...let's wash this oil off, boyo, and we can have a drink." Bill dried his arms and hands on a checked towel. We slurped from beer cans and I outlined my intention. I felt my cheeks growing hotter.

"You'd better ask her, John my boy," he said. "Not up to me." We had another cold beer.

Later that day I combed my hair with my fingers until it felt orderly, stroked my tie and plucked up the courage to ask her out. I added, "You OK about me being 34?"

"What, and me only 24?" she laughed, punching me on my shoulder. "Of course I will go out with you. Are you OK about me being Labour, and my dad racing pigeons?" she said, her dark eyebrows rising in friendly mockery.

"Sure, I can't have everything!" I was relieved that she giggled.

Going out meant the cinema or a restaurant. Sometimes, after his retirement, we took Bill out too. We grew serious, and Liz took a job with a fashion chain in Manchester and bought a flat. We married in August 1986.

A month after we married, as we lay in bed reading, Liz said, "John, what do you feel about us having a family?"

"I think that'd be great." I rubbed my eyes and continued to read.

Placing her book on her bedside cabinet, Liz said, "Oh, that's good, 'cos I'm pregnant." Her cheeks glowed under the hue of bedside light.

"We're going to have a baby?" I sat up fully alert. "We'd better get a bigger house." My immediate reaction was to make plans.

Liz laughed, her voice echoing around the bedroom, "Well, he or she is very tiny at the moment so won't need much space." Her eyes sought mine. "You are glad, aren't you?"

"Yes, wife of mine, I'm over the moon", I said, and tossed and turned all night. We needed a home. We needed a decision.