Memories are made of this

Another journey
Always grateful not to be in the driving seat, Esther sat quietly whilst her daughter skillfully entered the stuffed A14 from the Barton Seagrave/Burton Latimer entrance on the second Saturday in December.
“Oh Mum, the times you have said that!” Esther noticed the hint of a smile on her youngest daughter’s face as she tossed her brown hair back and quickly changed up to fifth gear and into the outside lane, in order to overtake a Morrison’s lorry, and then a truck from Poland, then returning swiftly into the inner lane; behind a caravan being towed.
“I meant to ask you, Mum, why you are still young and sort of okay, but with a big milestone ahead of you, whether you would want to go into a home or be looked after if things get too much for you?”
“As long as I don’t go out with my knickers on my head or socks on my hands and can sling some food into my microwave then you can leave me at home please!”
Then Esther shifted, doubly uncomfortable at this thought, as they whizzed along past hedges where torn carrier bags and black bin bags mournfully and scornfully still hung for week after week.
“Why are folk so lazy, and why can’t they take their rubbish home with them? I can’t tell you whilst you are driving what I saw recently on the floor of a toilet!”
“Alright, Mum, I can guess!”
Then one of her ploys for a bit of quiet was to switch on her music. Did she have a preference? Then, before she had time to think, Lily Allen – sang out with gusto into her car.
“Oh, I do love Lily!”
“I didn’t know you knew about her, Mother, I always thought Cliff Richard more your style!” She didn’t say to her daughter, but firmly felt she had her feet in the twenty-first century. Esther noted with amusement the way the word ‘Mother’ was used.
Half an hour later they were in Coventry cemetery, seeking the attendant who was to lead them through the city graveyard to where her grandparents lay. Standing at the bottom of their grave she stood quietly and looked across at her daughter and then back to the grave, wondering of what had passed and thinking of the last time she had seen her nana in Essex, wanting to know that she cared. They turned away from the grave and Esther felt happy, but also sad, and then once or twice turned and looked back at her past, knowing that memories were everything good as well as bad.
………………..

Looking outside
Her family had now found their feet in the world, and she had so very much for which to be grateful, apart from her own sight and life.
“Orbis, what do you mean, have you been on the gin again, Esther?”
Arthur grinned, re-emerging from beneath one of his black and pink scrap cars he had been rebuilding (where she thought, one day, roses might be).
“Let’s have a mug of Tetley’s!” he said, as she followed him back down their long narrow garden.
“Don’t you think you should have a rest now, we don’t want you doing too much again, do we?” Although nothing else was said they both knew what he meant, and no way would Esther risk losing her family to be incarcerated where you lost your very soul and identity, with all that entailed, in there.
She filled the kettle in their half-built kitchen and, as she waited for it to boil, she continued to tell him her story and her plans.
“Orbis is a charity operating in the third world, giving back sight to people with operable conditions, such as cataracts, and it costs so little. It will be in memory of our mum and dad, and a tribute to them both really”.
Kissing her on the cheek, he dropped the empty white tea-stained mug into their new sink and left her with her bright idea still simmering, wondering, as he walked back out the door, where it might take her.
Later, and with the kind agreement of the local Gladstone Working Men’s Club, who had offered her a free function room for the night, she began to put her plan into action. First she made a list of all the family, friends, acquaintances and neighbours who might be keen on a nice night out whilst doing something for other people less fortunate than themselves. Then she pitched each ticket at five pounds for entry and food and disco as well. Then a kind friend called Gina from the next town offered to do the catering for free. Over the following months invitations she had earlier delivered by hand came back through her front door, with many people keen to take up her idea. Never had she bought so many lettuces, and, God, was that the price of the ham and cheese?
There was no stopping her now. Then there was the disco and music to decide on. What if it all went wrong and fell flat? She wondered as she continued to rush around. Again she thought of her father’s words, “It was better to try and fail than never to try at all!”
He had gone to London and survived and made a nice life after losing his sight, then fell in love and married her mum; how could she be anything than proud of that memory?

She arrived early at the planned function along with so many of her kind friends and family without whose help, she knew, she wouldn’t have been able to follow her dreams through. How the silver ball on the high ceiling spun and glittered on the dance-floor as she helped with the balloons and plates, chairs and gingham tablecloths. In a split second, in that room, she thought of the two wars and those who never returned home again.
Then, from their past, was the girl who had her plaits tied to the front door of Dr Spencer’s house. A character nicknamed Lizzie Miller, who once, years ago, owned the iron-monger's shop and sold paraffin for lamps. Turkey Rhubarb, the tall man who wore gaited trousers, and all the wedding receptions and wakes right through the years. Many of those faces and feet were now deathly still, but memories lingered on. The best of that night was that her dad’s sisters and family were there and she now knew a little about where she came from and her identity reconnected somehow.

…………………….
She had spoken several times on Radio Northampton as well at County Hall in Northampton about how no funding from NCC would mean WRAG, where she was a volunteer, would close without the support they needed. She hadn’t spoken in public before; but with the Micro-phone there in front of her and television cameras outside all she felt was a public duty. Her voice bounced then, somehow, reverberated again in her head. She had just stepped down and away from the speaker when the fire-alarm rang. Protesters and listeners forced to leave the official building. She knew that she could never do that again!