The Creaking Gate ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 50 )

Constance and Bernard have been an item ever since he didn’t win the Longest Carrot competition. They eventually decide to marry and move in together. They have been single for a good few years and the prospect of being part of a couple again is exciting. What could possibly go wrong?

You may recall my next door neighbour is Constance, a retired horticulturalist, whose small garden puts to shame most of us in the village. You may also remember Bernard, who’s garden I likened to the gardening version of an intensive case unit, his enthusiasm was for vegetables, the bigger, the better. He was expected to win the longest carrot in our annual produce show, as he had done for several years before, but when he didn’t, the shock was such that Constance, having been a member of the St. John’s Ambulance, had to come to his rescue and nurse him back to health. Judging by the creaking gate that Bernard built between their two gardens, the nursing has been continuing ever since. 

You see, Bernard’s cottage is on Shipston Lane which runs at right angles to our main street, meaning his garden runs partly along the back of Constance’s. Being that Constance is my next door neighbour, the bottom of her garden is visible from my upstairs bedroom window, and the sound of a creaking gate is obvious. 

So, it was hardly a surprise after a year or so that Constance and Bernard should announced a sort of engagement party to be held in the Drum’s skittle alley. It was a ’sort of engagement’ as no wedding was intended until ‘things had been settled’. That was confusing but it wasn’t too long before what was meant started to fall into place. 

The way that happened was when Constance asked me round for a coffee and to talk about some pieces of furniture she was ‘having to get rid of’. ‘Wanting to get rid of’, ‘needed to get rid of’, are phases I’m used to hearing and when in the trade were music to my ears. ‘Having to get rid of . . . ‘ made it sound as if they were a liability, so riddled with furniture beetle they were infecting structural parts of the building, or the V & A had discovered them missing and had at last located their whereabouts. Of course it turned out to be neither. Constance and Bernard, looking forwards to marriage, had decided that it was natural for them to live together as married couples do. The amount of furniture and other personal belongings they had accrued over the years was far more than would fit into either of their homes but if they were starting a new life together it seems appropriate to dispense with the old one. Didn’t it?

I could tell by the way Constance ran her hand over a Gillows side table that she had a real affection for it.

She pointed to the rail beneath,

‘That’s where I would sit and hide. My mother kept a long chenille cover over it, I’ll be sorry to see it go.’

Constance had mostly lived alone since her husband died. Because you live alone doesn’t mean you are lonely. Freed from the responsibilities of family life and having retired she was able to indulge her passion. Recapturing the independence that you had gladly exchanged for a family life, can be a fulfilling, positive experience. The prospect of then becoming part of a couple again after more than a few years is exciting, but I could see had its problems.

Constance led me to another piece. A late Victorian walnut Davenport with red leather writing slope, a beautifully made piece of furniture with little or no use nowadays, and a value a fraction of what it deserved.

‘This was my grandfather’s,’ Constance told me. 

If I could have compensated her by saying that the pieces she wanted to sell were in demand and buyers would be fighting over them, I would have done, but they aren’t and they won’t. I could also see that if she and Bernard were to live together there would be much more that would have to be, ‘got rid of’.

It was probably no coincidence that Bernard approached me in the Drum.

‘House clearance,’ he said, ‘Constance and me are going to get married and live together so I thought I’d get rid of everything, make room for her stuff in mine.’

Two days later I was in Bernard’s cottage looking at a dresser which he thought was worth a lot of money. I misunderstood thinking he wanted a price but he told me that there was no way that he was going to sell it. He had always wanted a proper antique Welsh dresser, his family were from the Rhonda, but his ex-wife flatly refused to have anything in her kitchen other than fitted cupboards. So when they divorced the first thing he bought was a genuine Welsh dresser and he would never be parted from it. 

Beds can be a delicate matter, no matter what the style or period, comfort or value. If your spouse-to-be has spent their previous married life on what they are intending you should now share, it can feel uncomfortable to be constantly reminded of the bed’s previous experience, if you see what I mean.

Bernard thought was a perfectly good bed so why dispose of it? In the trade beds were often up for sale, or being bought, as a symbol of a new relationship and a ‘moving on’ from the past. Bernard eventually agreed but then showed me a large mahogany wardrobe, which he insisted was staying as well as a chest of drawers that had been his mother’s.

Outside the contrast between their gardens was stark.

‘We can divide the garden up,’ Bernard told me, ‘so Connie can have that side and I’ll have this.’

Back in the kitchen Bernard was admiring his Welsh dresser. It was an excellent piece and an exception to the rule of brown furniture, in that dressers were increasing in value, but how that would fit into Constance’s more feminine light and airy kitchen, I was wondering.

Back in my own cottage I was looking around at all the things I had acquired, in particular that set of collector’s drawers that I bought without a key, I now have a key and it is still of little use but I marvel at the workmanship. It’s mere existence is a joy. How easy would I find it to get rid of things if I was setting up home with a new partner? 

‘Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful’, well, nearly Mr. Morris, but things are also the embodiment of memories, achievements and failures, those we have loved and those we have lost. It can be just the beauty of a thing, but so often it’s what the thing evokes or represents, that’s of value. Sentimental I know, but we are.

I had done nothing being undecided about who I should contact. I was wondering whether I should even be involved in what might be an emotionally traumatic process, when I saw Bernard in the Drum. He was not looking happy,

‘Look like it’s all off,’ he told me.

I asked him why and he just said that Constance had got cold feet. He then said that he’d be removing the gate and putting the fence panel back. 

‘No fool like an old fool,’ he said finishing his pint and then leaving with more than a little embarrassment.

Both Constance and Bernard had been single for some time and are able to do what they want to do, without fear or favour. Each was surrounded by the things they loved, and at a certain age didn’t want to be parted from them, or have to start over. Their gardens in particular were a testimony to each being an individual, and enjoying their individuality. I could understand why Constance had changed her mind. 

No sooner had I returned to my cottage than Constance knocked on my door asking me not to contact anyone about the furniture as Bernard had changed his mind and he didn’t want to get married after all. With that she burst into tears. There seemed to be nothing that Bernard had actually told her, and she had just ‘got the impression’. From what he’d said to me in the Drum, it appeared both were ‘getting the impression’ the other had changed their mind. Don’t ever think that romance gets less complicated the older you get, eighteen or eighty, it’s the same madness, but this was a practical conundrum.

It was by no means extraordinary what I suggested to each of them secretly. They both separately dismissed the idea at first but having given them some successful examples, they must have come to understanding what now has become at least not unusual.

Constance and Bernard will probably never live together, or at least never have the same address, but they did get married, and are very happily.

Bernard removed the gate so it doesn’t creak anymore. Sometimes they’re at hers, and sometimes his, they have everything they love, including each other.

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.