The Shed
As I flung open the old wooden door, still a bit loose on the lower hinge, two things struck me instantly. Firstly the shed was much smaller than I remembered it - not surprising as I hadn't been in there since childhood. And second - absolutely nothing had changed.
The smell got me first, old and dusty and oh so familiar, evoking strange memories of a lonely childhood spent here, just dreaming. The same garden implements in the corner - the spade and fork my Dad had been so proud of, how he'd loved his garden. The wretched old 'curtain' draped over the window, in truth nothing more than a shirt no longer deemed acceptable by Mum, though I'm sure Dad would have worn it until the day he died given the choice.
And then there was the table. The old table of sturdy oak which he used as a bench.
"Is that it?" opined my daughter critically, finally joining me. "I thought it would be bigger. And what is that grubby old rag in the window?"
I couldn't blame her, I imagine there are quite a few things an 18 year old would rather be doing than emptying the property of her recently departed grandparents.
"Believe me Poppy, however underwhelmed you are right now is nothing compared to my own disappointment."
"You don't look it - you're almost crying."
And she was right. It had finally got to me that they'd gone. But it was the table that had tipped me over...
"Dad, who is GW?"
"I've no idea, why?"
She pointed at some initials carved into the table top, mine and GW's enclosed in a rough approximation of a heart with an arrow passing through it.
"Ah. Ah yes, that's Glenda Williams. She lived next door. I don't think you ever met her, they had moved out by the time you first visited here."
"Did you looove her, Daddy?" she teased.
I stared at the carving, I remembered doing it. How proud I was of that pen-knife. I pretended to look out of the part of the window that wasn't covered, my thoughts racing back to those days. What I wouldn't give to have them again.
"Dad?" she said, suddenly concerned.
"Glenda was 2 years older than me, and quite attractive. Often when I was kicking a ball around on the lawn she would pop her head over the fence. She had a word which always thrilled me. She would simply say: 'Play?'"
"Play? What does that mean?"
"It was our code, it meant she was going to take me to the shed and... and"
"and you fucked her."
"NO, how could you think that? We didn't even know how, it was different then, no internet, no porn nothing."