Searching; fifty shades of sight

Chapter 1

May drew her collar up against the cold; sensing the wind shifting slightly to the east.
“Stand clear, the train approaching platform two is a through train. Please stand clear”. The tannoy had a slight echo. She lifted her head, listening to the remaining resonance, which was 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 as 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 kind young Porter.
“You’ll be OK now, love. Here comes your friend, and what a smashing looking guide dog she has!” He tentatively reached out and placed May’s hand on her friend’s shoulder as she drew closer- feeling the steam on her shins.
“Thanks you for your help, but we will be fine now won't we?
A momentary silence followed whilst her friend reached down for her dog’s harness; tussling with her carrier bags.
There followed a walk of winding stops and starts in New Street as they encountered irregular pavements as well as various potholes. May heard and imagined pushchairs and prams, with vigilant or sleeping faces beneath woolen blankets. Cycles with lights dimmed, heads erect, whilst May’s collapsible cane swept wide to the left and the right.
Rita whispered whilst gripping May’s hood-
“This is the place where I first got drunk!”
“Trust you, but I’m not surprised to hear this. I guess your parents weren’t impressed though!”
Giggling quietly, shoulder to shoulder, they sat at an oval, highly polished table where stained table mats of the world they couldn't see stuck. Moments later they struggled to get to the bar. Some of the crowd they moved through, as they carried their slopping drinks, insensitively stopping to whisper. They disliked anyone feeling sorry for them.
Rita bent down and stroked her dog’s soft, warm coat. May smiled as the biggest sneeze broke the silence.
“If you blow your nose anymore, you'll make it bleed!”
“I know, bloody flu! 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 May?”
“How do you know I am laughing?”
“I can feel it” she replied.
It’s good to laugh though. You don’t know how much I've looked forward to seeing you. It’s great to chat to someone I can trust!”
Neither viewed their blindness as a personal tragedy, yet they wished society’s ideas regarding disability was a little more understanding.
“We must have been eleven…do you remember May?”
May laughed whilst gently kicking her friend’s ankles.
“Remember what; you’re always going on off into your own little world. Anyway I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about!”
“Sorry May! I was thinking back to when we went to secondary boarding school at eleven, and we both panicked after we forgot our way to the science classroom. All the narrow hallways felt the same. Our bloody sticks weren’t much use. Two frightened kids’ miles away from home. Some smug soul came up from out of nowhere. What made those struggles difficult was someone must have been watching us all along”.
Let’s look on the bright side Rita, after all gained our independence, as well as our everyday living skills, and we wouldn’t be here now without them?”
“Yes, I know mate, it’s a pity the staff didn’t acknowledged how alone we all felt back then.
May was ready to break the news she'd been itching to share when a barmaid dropped a pint glass on the floor. As it shattered May broke news she’d been wishing to tell her boarding school friend.
The week-end passed quickly.
Breathlessly having run the length of the road where she’d played as a child she stopped running. May hesitated at the front door before anxiously taking a deep breath. Her damp leather soles slipped on the tiles. She dropped her bag with a thud onto the floor before reaching to hang up her coat. She wondered what mood her father might be in. As she pushed open the door she heard her father's voice.
“I wanted more for you, our May, and not your preposterous talk of marriage your Ma’s told me about. It’s obvious that you haven’t talked this barmy idea through – two blind folks talking of marriage, I’ve never heard the like!”
Unable to contain her anger May moved forward in the direction of her father; huddling as close to the hearth as he could.
“I know it was love that sent me to a boarding school in Birmingham? But is this love now, Dad?”
Moving heavily in his armchair, reaching to turn up the wireless, he muttered
“Your mother and I acted as we did because we loved you, and to give you the best start in life!”
What her dad was saying meant her dreams of an ordinary family life would not be possible if she didn’t start making her own decisions; however frightening they might seem. How she wished he might take responsibility for his mistakes, but few in the family ever spoke about them. A stroke of luck on a pools win a few years earlier had allowed him to hand in his resignation to a national parcel delivery firm where he had worked as a lorry driver, after being DE-mobbed and then to invest in a farm with his winnings.
“It’s not very sensible lass!” – That was one of his well-stocked phrases – “It’s criminal that you should think of falling in love, never mind marriage, or cruelly thinking of kids, our May”.
He’d little idea how she felt. What right did he have to think she shouldn’t have dreams like everyone else in her town? In the past, men hadn’t got close to May, and closeness had made her feel uncomfortable, yet now it wasn’t fear she felt, but love. Then later there was the incident with the stick. This time, though, she was ready to fight her dad as she was anyone who tried to stand in her way!
“Anyway,” he muttered, as he gazed guiltily, she was sure, at her sightless eyes, whilst she stood quietly by the cracked hearth.
“Don’t you think that this is all rather sudden, as well as being bloody foolish and ill-thought-out? Ah well, this won’t buy the baby a new dress, or pay the old women her thru pence” he muttered, as he crunched his peppermint stripe, dropping the wrapper into a tin mug of cold tea on the cracked hearth.
“It never helps to get carried away, our May. You know we will always look after you whilst we can!”
Her mum stretched across the dining room table, bought years earlier from an auction house.
Tuesday was traditionally the day for cutting up strips of newspaper for their outside lavatory.
“What’s to be done said her mother, as she furiously slashed with her scissors at yesterday’s news. May reached out to touch the steadily growing heap of newspapers upon the oil cloth covered table and thought about such pointless frugality. Everything in their house was making do and mend, so when the sash-cord in their bay window snapped her father hammered it shut.
Her father was interrupted by someone knocking on their front door.
“Don’t bloody folk know when to stop hammering and intruding on our home lives. I’ll speak with you later, our May, and it’s no use turning on your damn waterworks!”
They heard him drop the coins for a tray of cracked farm-eggs, sold to an elderly neighbour, onto the dresser he had brought back in his lorry after another mysterious overnight stay in Birmingham. May had shared this knowledge with her auntie who'd bought a cottage at the other side of town.
During the war, whilst May was away at boarding school, her auntie had worked as a capstan lathe operator, where she'd shared how she once made screws and nuts for planes and guns, instead of working as a clicker in a shoe factory. May loved getting her aunties letters and news of what was happening as fighter planes flew overhead.
Her town had made significant contribution to the countries war efforts with the town’s eligible men torn from their assured lives where they had once worked in dimly lit shoe factories or toiled the sodden or sunbaked land that wrapped their town.
As elsewhere, it had then been up to the women to pick up where the men had been forced to leave off.
May’s mother scuttled back and forth to the scullery; carrying supper plates that she dropped into the sink.
May was told by her auntie that her mum was pretty with brown hair and blue eyes like hers had once been; but with a lovely and kind nature too. She idolized her mum, and wouldn’t forget how she had cared for her. Although she loved her parents and the town she'd grown up in but May had to leave them all.
As she sat on her single iron-framed bed drinking her last mug of bitter cocoa that evening she thought of James’ words.
“Everyone will come to their senses eventually. I know my folks will be fine, but your dad doesn't seem to understand. I know we can handle most challenges but you need to be sure that eloping is the right thing to do!” She was sure….
So it was that, early the next morning, May shivered at Birches’ bus station. As she placed her hands on the rail she heard a familiar voice.
“If you so much as take one more step onto that there bloody coach then you needn’t bother coming home again!” It was her father, and he meant it.
She’d no idea how her dream might end but was certain it wouldn't be without a fight. Hadn't she a right to a normal life-no matter what the challenges were.
The seasons came and went…..
Darkness had fallen over woods and fields, whilst town folk got on with their living. May’s father had brought in a good wheat harvest then, with the help of a gang from the next village, bundled it into neat sheaves.
Her brother, Errol, had married Enid, and she fortunate enough to be a bridesmaid. Enid had proudly been flashing an engagement ring that October of 1948, and she had told anyone with half a mind to listen,
“It cost only ten pounds!”
“I booked the damn organ for Errol and Enid!” she had overheard her father mutter, as he tucked into his egg, bacon and fried bread.
“I hope they remember how I arranged eight choirboys at two shillings and sixpence per head. Anyone would think me made of money......god knows where they get that idea”.
May sobbed in her room knowing she couldn’t mention her lovely man’s name.
Her isolation compounded on, what should have been a happy day, as her sister-in-laws bouquet soared through the air and confetti fluttered in the church-yard.
.