Memories are made of this

Joe’s arrival
After the long summer school holidays they were all back at the railway station, their mum, unaware of freshly painted white emulsion walls (hurriedly done in preparation for a dignitary’s visit the following day – so the local newspaper had reported). A tramp withdrew a newspaper from a bin, whilst plastic flower baskets swung at varying intervals along the platform. Esther’s younger brothers were both twirling bags of marbles and laughing.
“Oh...why do we have to meet this man, Mum?”
“You don't have to worry, Esther. He does sound lovely in his Braille letters, and he is always saying how he loves kids and that he is really looking forward to meeting you all”. Laura said.
“Joe, you mean?”
“Yes, Joe!”
“We are all fine on our own and didn’t you say how we have some nice relatives to help us. I wish Nana Coventry would write back to us all, though!
Esther’s eyes then scanned the platform, as feet and bags swung out into the cold air and the steam. Esther spotted Joe and his guide dog striding towards them. Instantaneously she felt sick.
“There he is!” shouted Andrew. “I can see him, and look at his big guide dog. You didn’t say he was old though, did you Mummy?”
“Hush, don’t be rude, Mark. Try to be quiet for once, and just stay quiet when he is close, and then I can say hello. You two boys try to be good for mummy and maybe you can stop up later tonight!”
Suddenly Laura spoke with urgency, hearing her children’s footsteps approaching the platform’s edge.
“Keep away from the railway line and get closer to the wall. However many more times must I have to tell you?”
Laura shivered as she stretched out her left arm into the damp air.
“Of course he’s not like your Daddy, Esther, but Daddy is dead and we have to try to go on!”
“Hello Joe” said their mother, as she blindly reached for the stranger’s hand. She faltered and then spoke in the vague direction of his cold face and dripping nostrils. “I have been looking forward to meeting you. I think I know so much about you from your lovely long letters. You must be tired after that long journey of yours from Durham, though”.
Stooping slightly, he pecked her on her pale cheek and they began to walk back along the busy platform, whilst Esther and her brothers lagged behind the man with the guide dog. Esther noticed how he tugged at the choker of his Alsatian.
Somehow it seemed all very unreal, after all, their daddy hadn’t been dead more than twelve months; and then she thought how she hadn’t even been back to the cemetery in Essex; but such a long way to go. Then her mum dropped her arm from where it had been just linked through his as moments later, they walked in the street and snapped.
“I told you not to bring that ball, you two. It’s just not safe in this busy place, and you are not in the Close now. Where is it? Give it to me now!”
Esther’s brothers pleaded to keep the ball as they bent in the gutter.
“Do as your mother tells you, lads. Anyway, better still give the damn ball to me right this minute!” The stranger, with loose fitting teeth and liquorice-stick wrists, held out his nicotine-stained hand and, in that very moment, Esther noted how his voice had changed.
Obediently they handed over the ball and Joe hurled it in the direction of some green painted railings where it landed in yard where a man was loading sacks of coal onto his truck. Esther noticed how vigorously the man with the flat cap and black donkey jacket was shaking his head.
The church clock was just striking nine as they returned up the hill where Valentine’s material shop on the edge of the town was just opening up. An assistant was tugging out a huge roll of bright red material from the double-fronted window display.
“He’s a nice man” whispered her brother Mark as his fingers undid a cellophane wrapper from boiled sweets brought moments before from confectioners. Esther stood there with them at the bus stop on Wellingborough Road. Did he really think buying her a bag of jelly babies would make her like him?
She hoped so desperately that the week would pass quickly with him then back on the train with his return ticket to Durham forever. The Nesbitt family, however, soon discovered that dreams didn’t always become a reality. At the end of the week it wasn’t that way at all.
Laura felt as if she was grasping stone. No warmth there. Perhaps love would grow, given time. She did hope so, as she whispered the evening before he returned home as they sat on the battered settee.
“I think it’s a most wonderful idea for us to get married, and doesn’t it make sense with us both being on our own now, if that’s alright with your son and family!”
However could she say how her stomach ached or just how lonely she felt but her decision to remarry did seem a chance of normality again. Someone who might help her with the burdens of life, and take away some loneliness as well as helping her children to grow strong and well!

Within six weeks Joe had handed in his keys to Durham council, packed in his basket-maker’s rep job for the local blind, and visited his wife’s grave to leave some roses…at least that is what he had said to Esther’s mum in his last letter.