Memories are made of this

Prologue

Do you think they will ever let us marry darling? Laura sighed as James pulled her closer to him. Even though they were now well past the wet fish shop and the Working Men’s Club that Laura’s father spoke of derisorily she couldn’t relax feeling a gamete of emotions from fear to an anger she had never known before. She knew that the love she felt now was irrefutable and her choices almost impossible. His breath, presence and courage as well as his humour was the silver thread which lifted her away from monotony and loneliness. He lifted the lid of his Braille watch with his left hand. The bus into the next town was running late. He needed to be back in Coventry by six if he was to get his connecting bus home.

That week-end they had walked down Harrowden Lane, where they found solitude in the Holly Walk away from prying eyes, sympathy or judgements. In spite of everything they had reached their decision that Laura should elope once James had settled into his new telephonist job in London. Really there were no other choice but for Laura to elope. Things might have been quite different if her very dear friend hadn’t broken her promise. She would have prayed if there had been faith but that had long since slipped away. She simply wanted the opportunity to live a normal life with the man she loved. The fact that they were both blind was only a barrier in others eyes. Why was it that her well-meaning community thought they knew best!

She couldn’t see the light appearing in the sky; few knew why! Unable to sleep, Laura slumped down in her small chilly bedroom. She reached for her imperial typewriter; faintly hearing sobbing again. With her tiny left hand, guides the smooth sheet around the roller then begins to type another letter to her friend.
Dear Ceilia
It would be terrific to meet up again. How kind of your parents to invite me and catch up on old times; much has changed since our days at Boarding School.
See you in the New Year.
Laura xxx

Turning the Braille pages back
Laura drew her collar up against the cold, sensing the wind shifting slightly to the East.
“Stand clear, the train approaching platform 2 is a through train. Please stand clear.” The tannoy had a slight echo.
She lifted her head, listening to the slight remaining resonance- soon submerged by the murmur of other waiting passengers. To her left was the scrape of a boot on the platform, and a barked laugh. Behind her, in the distance a car horn sounded. How far was the road she wondered? She half turned, to hear more clearly, but then swung to the front again as she felt a slight touch on her shoulder, and recognized the voice of the young man from her past.
“You’ll be OK now, love. Here comes your friend, and what a great looking guide dog she has!” He tentatively reached out gingerly placing Laura’s hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Thank you for your help, but we will be fine now, won’t we Celia? After all, you are more used to this station than me I guess!”
There was a momentary silence whilst Celia took up the dog’s harness again, tussling with her sale bag bargains, and her pet became, once again, her guide.
“You’re not kidding!”
There followed a walk of winding stops and starts in New Street as they encountered irregular pavements as well as various potholes, pushchairs prams, Bikes. Laura’s collapsible cane sweeping wide across the pavement; with one thing on their mind……the pub!
.
“This is the place where I really first got myself sloshed!”
“Trust you, but I’m not a bit surprised to hear that. I guess your parents weren’t too pleased with you, and good job your guide dog wasn’t in the same condition!”
Giggling quietly, shoulder to shoulder, they sat at an oval, highly polished, table where stained table mats of the world they never saw stuck in juices. Some of the crowd they moved through, whilst carrying slopping drinks, insensitively stopping to whisper and stare. Oddly, they sensed this unthinking intrusion was happening. They hated people looking at them, or worse, feeling sorry, just wanting to be the same as everyone else.
"Tricia really has opened up my world, and she is fantastic and obedient when working, but slightly tempted by cats. Come to think of it, one ran out in front of me when I was on the way to the cane workshop a couple of days ago,
But I can sort you out can’t I sweetheart!” Celia bent slightly in the draughty pub to stroke her dog’s soft, warm coat. Laura smiled as the biggest sneeze broke the silence.
"If you blow your nose anymore, you'll make it bleed Celia!”
"I know. I couldn't eat that much at Christmas, and you must still remember how I always loved my food. What the heck are you laughing at now Laura?”
“How do you know I am laughing?”
"I can feel it,” said Celia, giggling.
“If you don’t watch out, you’ll be in trouble yourself, and I will have the same problem too. It's good to laugh though, and you don’t know how much I need some happiness just now. It’s great to chat to someone I can trust, like you!”
Neither viewed their blindness as a personal tragedy, yet they wished society’s view of disability wasn’t quite so entrenched. Laura, for instance, was grateful for her white cane, but still wished people would just appreciate she was just like them wanted love, as they did.

“We must have been eleven….do you remember Laura?”
Laura laughed, gently kicking Celia’s ankles with her sensible heeled shoes, as they sat there in the now quieting pub. Stupefied customers began to drift home into the thick smog of the city outside.
“Remember what Celia? You’re always going on off into your own little world, and I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about!”
“Sorry Laura, I am a chatterbox sometimes! I was just thinking back to when we went to Secondary School aged eleven. We both panicked when we forgot our way to the science classroom. Our sticks provided precious little as to where the hell in the school we were. Two frightened blind kids, miles away from home, wandering aimlessly with our efforts at re-orientation, becoming less systematic by the minute. Near to tears, some smug soul came up from out of nowhere. What made those struggles so much more difficult was she had been watching all along. I hope that made her feel really good!”
“There’s precious little we can do about that now,” said Laura, “but just hope things get better over time. Let’s not forget, that’s where we gained our independence, as well as our everyday living skills, and where might we be without them; certainly not sitting here now!”
“I know mate, but I just don’t think that the staff acknowledged just how bloody scared we all really were back then!”
Somehow though, it seemed as they sat there in that pub that some of the pain they felt was still rooted in their frustrations with how the outside
world viewed blind people like them. Perhaps neither at such early stages in their lives could appreciate how important eye-to-eye contact in relationships was to sighted people! Or how insecure folk might be not having much of a chance to mix with disabled people.
There then followed a long and uncomfortable silence, shattered when the raucous barmaid with a runny nose (they had overheard somehow state) dropped a pint glass on the sawdust floor.
It was at his point that Laura broke news which she had been dying so long to share; a decision which would surely change her world!
“You know I'm eloping? But please god, don’t say to anyone yet, not even your mum and dad. What time are they expecting us to be back did you say?”
However could blind people marry? And she felt as shocked as her parents would be when she told them her secret later!