Will o' the Wisp

By Yvonne Anderson

Sun, 22 Feb 2015

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Through the tall narrow windows of the office three men could be seen laughing together on the drive. I considered them: three beards, one long and flaming ginger, another dark and crisply naval, then the third pale and wispy. I will call him Wispy, it will be easier.Wispy was not tall and he had a withered arm. He made a square shape when he stood, like a rugby player, which made him look bigger. The arrival of Wispy into a room was never unnoticed. He walked in quickly, stopped abruptly by planting his feet apart, made an adenoidal sound and pushed his glasses up his nose with an oil-grimed hand, usually holding a spanner.

From the outset I knew Wispy had issues with his manliness and as a consequence would only do manly things. He had a pick-up truck with a tow bar and became Wispy the hero when it snowed or was muddy up there. I heard Tink call him that one day when he leapt to the manly rescue. Her voice was sarcastic, mouth twisted, but in her eyes sparkled love.

It was with Tink that I had the idea of a girls' adventure over the May holiday in my first year there. I pitched the idea to Red, who was amused and supportive. Wispy got to hear that we were making plans to walk to the lake and he was scathing. You won't you can't you shan't. Why, how would we survive alone without the van with its searchlight on the front, or the trailer to carry the kayaks, or the boys to put the tents up under Wispy's supervision.

The more of a stir it caused the more determined we were to go. You'll be back with your tails between your legs. Youll get cold. What if it rains. Red looked on, It's up to you Eve. Prove him wrong. But woe betide you if anything goes amiss.

It wasn't that far to walk - far enough for two town girls and exciting just to be out in the world, feeling in the rucksacks for snacks and blister plasters, spreading out the map to look at how far was left to go. Far enough to make your body so alive it was sore with life.

The pick-up passed us twice on our way to the lake. The girls waved and I glared, willing him not to wind down the window. Later at night we heard it again and we all giggled at how preposterous he was. Silly bugger. What a carry on.

Early morning we swam in the lake, the cold took our breath away and, exhilarated, we cooked a fry up and smoked lying down on the grass, dirty pots around us, sun getting high. Did we stay one night or two? It doesn't matter. The next time we went camping it was the summer trip to the seaside where the boys wielded mallets and the girls cooked, all under the watchful eye of Wispy.

Wispy exercised his masculinity in many ways, one of which being that he refused ever to cook. In the house there was always a cook in residence so Wispy never went hungry. But on cook's day off it was never Wispy's turn to prepare the meal. He would be in one of his sheds fiddling among the cars and motorbikes. He had a theory that as one is always clean after washing and bathing, one's towel can never get dirty. Wispy's appearances in the laundry room were fairly infrequent.

One towel he owned was memorable. It was a tiny red hand towel. If there was a disturbance during the night he would emerge carrying an enormous industrial sized torch, wearing only the red towel and his spectacles. Once or twice I had got up to investigate a noise only to bump straight into the unedifying site of a betowelled Wispy. We all had to know that Wispy slept naked. If challenged he would say well you only work here but this is my home so I need some freedom to live as I want.

Yes he lived there, behind the only locked door of that wing, among all the other rooms with their transient and not so transient young occupants.

Once Red left Wispy's life became difficult. Red and Jill had indulged Wispy for so long, allowing him to dictate the terms by which he would be paid for a day's work, permitting him to take over the outbuildings as if his own, encouraging him to be the supremo of all outdoor, sporty, adventurous activities and to hand pick the boys he would cultivate in those interests. Oh and the boys included the tomboy Tink.

When Libby took over she started to rattle Wispy. Maybe there had always been tensions, I don't know but he spent a lot of his time muttering darkly. Of course Libby had issues of her own so making a smoke screen out of Wispy suited her ends perfectly. Then again Libby's days there were numbered and although she had let people down badly there was still so much love for her and sadness when she went.

Following Libby's fall from grace, Hannah stepped in and overhauled the place properly. The staff accommodation was converted to other purposes. Wispy was the last to move out; resigning at the same time he moved to a new job and a new home. Tink was way past her leaving date by then and we all wondered how it would be when the little mother of the house was gone. Tink was close with Wispy, knowing that others found him creepy she nevertheless saw something in him to love. But noone had expected that she would move in as his housekeeper.

I was invited to Wispy's engagement party a year or so later, formally asked as in Jack and Henrietta request the company of.....etcetera. It was good to see Tink, but she was very worried about her future, sensing correctly that two women in that household would be one too many. Later I heard she moved out, Wispy and his new wife moved away, had two children. Life moves on. I left the place too, one gut wrenching night, with Debbie lying in the road and Peter hiding on the back seat, James holding my arm and pleading with me not to go.

The next time I saw Tink was quite out of the blue, about eight years later. She turned up in a group signed up for my training course. As soon as the first session was done, Tink and I made for the coffee place to catch up. I was so pleased to see her, what had she been doing, who was she with, how did she come to be on my course. But naturally, before all those questions it was I think about the old place a lot, do you, I still miss it! Tink stubbed out her roll-up and a lot of things fell into place when she said

That bastard was abusing me the whole time I was there.