The Garden on Sparrow Street: A heartwarming, uplifting Christmas romance

by Tilly Tennant

  The man wiped a sleeve across his sweaty forehead. ‘So you don’t want it?’

  ‘It’s not that we don’t want it or that we wouldn’t ordinarily take it,’ Nina said. ‘It’s just that we can’t.’

  ‘Why not? You’re a charity shop, aren’t you?’

  Robyn was unable to hold in the sigh of exasperation this time. ‘A soon-to-be-closed charity shop if you read the signs in the window. We can’t sell that stuff if we’re closed.’

  ‘Though we do appreciate you thinking of us,’ Nina added. ‘And I’m sure the Cancer Research shop would be very grateful for it.’

  ‘That’s bloody miles away!’ the man muttered. He looked as if he might launch another complaint, but then seemed to think better of it. He dragged his bag out instead, the door slamming behind him.

  ‘Miles away…’ Robyn said with a huff. ‘It’s two doors down!’ She drained her cup of the last drops of tea. ‘I’ll bet that bag was full of shit anyway – he looked the type. Some people think we’re just here to dispose of what the municipal tip won’t take.’

  ‘Well, Cancer Research will get the pleasure of rooting through it now,’ Nina said, finishing her tea too and handing the cup to Robyn, who was edging towards the doorway to the staff kitchen. ‘I suppose we’d better get the rest of this stock boxed up for when the van comes to get it.’

  Robyn nodded. ‘I’ll just wash these and I’ll be with you.’

  Nina watched her go. And then she turned her attention to a rack of children’s clothes with a sigh. Packing up this shop felt like finally packing up her last solid connection to Gray and she didn’t want to do it. But some choices in life were never yours to make and some things were taken from you before you were ready. Nina knew that by now, better than anyone. She could rage all she wanted but it wouldn’t change a thing, and she knew that well enough too. She’d learned over the last couple of years that if she could turn all her rage and grief into a force for good, it hurt a lot less than if she let it grow into thorns around her heart. So while her last day at the Sacred Heart Hospice Shop had been heavy and hectic, at least heavy and hectic had kept her mind off the fact that it was the last day.

  With that thought, she began to pull the clothes from the rails and fold them into neat piles.

  A manager they’d never met before arrived during the last hour of trading with instructions for the removal of the stock they hadn’t been able to sell, and had left with a vapid handshake and a half-hearted thanks for Nina and Robyn’s hard work before taking the keys from Robyn and locking the door for the final time. Nina and Robyn had stood outside on the pavement and watched him drive off, then they’d headed to the nearest Wetherspoons for chips and a beer. The last supper, Robyn had called it, but really neither of them could quite believe that it was all over. Neither could they quite bring themselves to let go; chips and beer was just another way of prolonging the goodbye, stretching it just that bit further.

  But, as the skies darkened beyond the windows of the pub and the lights went on in the sleepy northern town of Wrenwick, Nina’s thoughtful gaze went to the windows. The yellow streetlights illuminated the municipal buildings of grey stone and reflected off wet roof slates; they shone onto the old Victorian swimming baths where the date of its opening stood proudly etched into the brickwork over the entrance, and they gave a yellow glow to the mix of Edwardian and art deco shops that made up the high street – some restored to their former glory, others crying out for a little tender loving care to make them beautiful again. Wrenwick was a town that had seen a rollercoaster of fortunes over the years, a fact reflected in its eclectic town centre, but one thing was always constant – the friendliness and community spirit of its residents.

  And then their supper had been cut short by the arrival of Robyn’s teenage son, Toby, looking for his bus fare home.

  ‘God knows what he does with all the bus money I give him at the start of every week,’ Robyn had said, ignoring a scowling Toby as she scrabbled in her purse to find very little spare change in there.

  Robyn had ended up leaving early to drive Toby home instead, so that even their extended goodbye had been taken away from Nina in the end.

  Nina had headed back to her own little terraced house on Sparrow Street. The houses here had once been pokey worker’s cottages, back in the days when there had been a booming textile industry in these parts, belonging to a factory that looked down from a hill where the landscape almost all belonged to the owner. The old factory was now a museum, and the houses of Sparrow Street were all double-glazed with loft conversions, extensions and conservatories, satellite dishes and hanging baskets adorning the fronts, the grime of Wrenwick’s industrial past sandblasted from their red-brick façades.

  Beyond the town boundaries there were moors of green and black that Nina could see from her bedroom window. On a clear day she’d watch kestrels hover high above them and on stormy days she’d see grey clouds settle on the highest points. Once she’d looked at them with Gray, loving the perfect spot they’d managed to find for their first house. After his death, though the memories pained her, she hadn’t wanted to give up this perfect spot and looking up at the moors was a bittersweet pleasure.

  They’d decorated the house together and every panelled door, every patterned wall, every rug reminded Nina of the choices they had made, back when he’d been well enough. Every room was decked in warm, muted tones that, together with the narrow windows and low ceilings gave the place a cosy, cocooning sort of feel, a place where you could shut the world out at the end of a busy day and feel as if you were burrowing into a warm nest like a little mouse. The master bedroom still had the patchwork quilt on the bed that they’d bought together, the colourful rag rug Nina’s aunt and uncle had got them for a moving-in present and the tall anglepoise lamp overlooking the bedside table that Gray had chosen for himself to read by at night before he went to sleep.

  At home and safely inside, Nina locked the front door. Then she put the radio on and ran a hot bath, where she stayed until the water had gone cold. It gave her time to think about the things that she hadn’t wanted to think about before, the things that now she had no choice but to consider. The biggest of these things was: what the hell was she supposed to do with her life now?

  In the bedroom she got into fluffy pyjamas. Gray smiled down at her from the wedding photo hanging on the wall. By the time of their wedding, he’d already been consigned to his wheelchair. People had never said it, but Nina knew that plenty thought she was mad to be marrying him, given his prognosis. Sometimes the idea of their disapproval made her sad and sometimes it made her angry, but mostly she thought that if that was their attitude, then they must never have felt real love and she was sorry for them. She loved Gray so much that she’d have married him no matter what. She wouldn’t have changed a thing about their time together, only that if the universe had been a bit kinder and miracles possible, Nina could have had him for just a little longer.

  As it often did, her mind went back to the first time she’d laid eyes on him. She’d left her umbrella on the bus home from her job at a now closed shoe shop and he’d leapt off miles before his own stop to get it back to her. He was handsome, good-humoured, totally at ease with himself, and the attraction had been instant for both of them. The following night they’d met up in a local pub for their first date. He was five years older than her very young nineteen, but his gregarious and fun-loving nature more than made up for her shyness and inexperience. Whenever she was with him it was like she’d been only half-alive before he’d come into her life, like she was able, finally, to live life to the full through him. He was so confident, so kind and patient, so sure of himself, so capable of opening the world up to her, that it hadn’t taken her long to fall in love, heart and soul, with him and everything he believed in.

  Within a year they were living together in a little flat above a florist, and barely a day went by when he didn’t come up the stairs without a bunch of something pretty he’d picke
d up from the shop on his way through. He’d cook her favourite meals on days when she had to work late and have them waiting on the table for her with wine and a smile and she’d always forget how tired she was. Sundays would see them stay late in bed, sometimes making love, sometimes just talking, until the morning was old and he’d get up to make her coffee.

  She worked hard in the shop and he spent his weeks as an insurance underwriter and, while their existence was dull and uneventful in most people’s eyes, they were happy. They saved and made plans for the places they would visit, the house they would one day buy, the wedding they’d have and the children that would follow, but there had never seemed to be any rush for any of those things because in the meantime they had each other. Their love was quiet and constant, and sometimes it was so right and natural, so unburdened by the problems that other couples seemed to have that it felt like a fairy tale, too good to be true. Sometimes Nina was almost scared that she was having it so good that the universe would come and demand its payment for too much happiness.

  And then, not long after they’d taken the leap and bought their own little house on Sparrow Street, it happened. It started with a strange twitch in his hands, then the unexplained and sudden episodes of weakness, the dropping things for no reason, and finally, Nina had persuaded him to go to the doctors. There were tests, a few weeks of anxiety, of hope, of sometimes optimism but more often crushing pessimism, and then his disease was diagnosed and reality came crashing in. Nina’s worst fears were realised – she’d had it too good and the universe had come to collect on her debt after all.

  It was Nina who’d proposed to Gray in the end. At first he’d refused her, not wanting her to burden herself with that kind of tie to a man who was deteriorating fast, but then she’d reasoned that she was staying with him until the end regardless, so what difference did it make? It was unlikely they’d see any of the places they’d dreamt of or have the children they’d wanted, but the wedding was one thing they could make happen, and eventually he’d agreed. And, despite everything, it had been the most wonderful day of her life.

  Leaving the Sacred Heart shop, or rather, Sacred Heart leaving her, brought back memories of Gray more forcefully and painfully than she’d had for a while. If she lay on the bed in the stillness of her room now and closed her eyes, she knew she’d hear his breaths next to her, feel the warmth of his body, sense the touch of a hand resting on her belly as he slept beside her. If she tried hard enough, she could almost believe he was still alive.

  But then her eyes would open and the pretence would fade and life would return – her life without Gray – lonely and methodical. Two years after his death there was a contentment of sorts, an acceptance of what was and couldn’t be changed, but there was no magic. Not that she’d sought any; she’d simply been doing her best to get by, to move on and build something she could work with, to fill the void Gray had left with something… anything. In time, the mourning had begun to feel like a memory, a ritual to be observed; her life had simply seemed duller and colder without Gray in it. She still missed him every day but she didn’t cry every day any more; she only tried her best to find colour where she could, and working at the Sacred Heart shop had done that. Robyn had done that, and all her wonderful neighbours on Sparrow Street who’d all tried their best to take care of her had done that.

  Nina went to the dresser drawer and took out a DVD in a blank case. She opened it up and read the scrawled label, then took it downstairs to put it in the player.

  Chapter Two

  The screen showed Nina in a lace-sleeved wedding gown. Her dark, unruly curls were piled onto her head, a delicate tiara nestled in amongst them. Her hair had always been and continued to be a constant source of frustration – often difficult to control and impossible to style – but she’d been so happy that day that it had looked better than it ever had or would do again. Her dress had a deep V that teased at the creamy skin of her cleavage, and beneath the generous folds of her skirt her feet were clad in her battered old Doc Marten boots. Nina’s aunt had been horrified to learn that Nina had no intentions of wearing more traditional wedding footwear, but that had only made Nina more determined to stick stubbornly with her old faithfuls. One half of the happy couple was already in a wheelchair, Gray had joked in Nina’s defence, so it seemed only prudent that she should wear shoes that guaranteed she wouldn’t end up flat on her face with a broken ankle. Typical Gray. If Nina was happy, he was happy. If she’d wanted to get married in a refuse sack he’d have readily agreed. He cared for convention even less than she did, but either way he’d have gone with what she wanted.

  The camera panned to him now. Nina was reminded of how well he’d looked that day. She’d always supposed that it had been the happiness of the occasion that had lent him strength. He’d certainly paid for it in the days and weeks afterwards, Nina having to nurse him at home in lieu of the honeymoon other couples had to look forward to.

  In an attempt to keep costs down, Nina’s uncle, rather than a professional, had been filming, and she smiled now as the camera wandered momentarily from the bridal couple onto the congregation, settling on Nina’s aunt Faith. Nina recalled now with a fond smile how she’d noticed her uncle get distracted, and how she’d caught a little wave from him to his wife. Perhaps they’d both been reminded of their own wedding day. In the next second he’d seemingly remembered that this wasn’t his wedding at all and he’d quickly shot back to follow the ceremony again. As the camera had whipped back, it caught a fleeting shot of Nina’s dad, doing his best to look as if he wasn’t crying, though everyone knew he was.

  The DVD continued to play. Nina fluffed her lines, and Gray tripped over her middle name twice before he managed to say it. He looked so handsome as he blushed amidst the polite and affectionate laughter of their very closest family and friends that the Nina of now, watching from her sofa, almost let out a sigh of longing. She carried on watching as the vicar announced them husband and wife and they kissed, and even though she didn’t cry all that much these days, tonight she knew she would.

  If she were here now, Robyn would have asked Nina why she would put herself through such an ordeal when it was bound to upset her, and Nina wouldn’t really be able to explain. But then, Robyn had handled the death of her husband Eric very differently. Eric’s motor neurone disease had seen him fade far more slowly and painfully than Gray, and though Eric and Robyn had been together a lot longer, Robyn freely admitted that by the time Eric’s disease had been diagnosed they hadn’t been in love for years. They were simply one of those couples who worked well together as a team, who shared the care of their son and ran the house together and secretly thought that one day perhaps they’d have the courage to set out and see what the world had to offer instead of the life they’d settled into.

  But Robyn had nursed Eric to the end anyway, out of a sense of duty and affection for the love they’d once had. Once he’d had his diagnosis there was no way she’d have left him, and really, she’d admitted frankly to Nina, what would have been the point when the inevitable conclusion would part them eventually anyway?

  When the end came, though it had been painful for their young son, Toby, as it was in many ways for Robyn too, it had also been a relief, a guilt-ridden lifting of a burden. Robyn had talked about it to Nina, of course, and they’d shared their experiences and thoughts, but it wasn’t the same at all. Robyn simply wanted to put that part of her life behind her and concentrate her energies on raising Toby as a single mother.

  On the TV screen, Nina bent to kiss Gray. He mouthed I love you. The Nina of now, sitting curled on her sofa with tears tracking her cheeks, watched herself say it back. Till death do us part, they’d promised, and there had been no choice but to be true to their word because they’d both known it was coming anyway.

  Nina jumped now, dragged from the past by a loud rap at her front door. She glanced up at the clock with a frown. For a moment, slightly irked by the lateness of the hour and the imposition on her privat
e time, she considered ignoring it. But then the idea that one of her older neighbours might need help pulled her from the nest of cushions on the sofa and she made her way to the door.

  After a brief glance through the spy hole Nina relaxed. It was Ada and Martha from number seventeen. Twin sisters in their eighties, they went everywhere together. There was some speculation amongst the other residents of Sparrow Street that they might just go to the toilet together too, but Nina left that notion to the less charitable members of their community to ruminate on. They were standing outside in matching coats. Nina just knew that beneath those coats they’d have the same long cotton nightdresses and identical pairs of boots poking out from beneath. They even had the same pink curlers rolled into the front of their hair. In fact, they were so identical that Nina knew which was which only because Ada wore glasses and Martha didn’t, though Nina was often vaguely surprised that Martha didn’t just buy a pair anyway so she could continue to confuse the street.

  Pulling her dressing gown tighter, Nina opened the door.

  ‘Ada… Martha… what brings you out at this time of night?’

  ‘We’re so sorry,’ Ada began.

  ‘But the bulb in our kitchen has gone out,’ Martha finished.

  ‘We went to get Nasser,’ Ada said.

  ‘But he wasn’t in,’ Martha said.

  ‘And Yasmin said she couldn’t do it because of her vertigo.’

  ‘Then we tried Ron.’

  ‘But he was out too.’

  ‘We would have called on Kelly.’

  ‘But you know she doesn’t like to be disturbed after nine.’

  ‘Not that you’d get an answer once she’s had her sleeping tablets.’

  ‘And she does like a drink…’