The Bench

Charlotte walks past the fishermen, all set up with their folding chairs, pop-up tents, camping stoves. In spring they’re always there, each at his own station, a home from home beside the lake. They’re all men and this is all they seem to need – something to hunt, somewhere to rest, something to eat and drink. One of them always gives her a friendly smile as she passes, a younger man in an oilskin coat.

 As a teenager, Charlotte once went fishing with a boyfriend whose Motorhead teeshirt belied his hobby. They watched the sunrise and for a while it felt romantic, despite the cold and the maggots that wriggled around in a plastic pot. Later, the gulping, gasping mouths of the few speckled specimens that the boyfriend dragged in made her feel breathless and afterwards, the skin of her buttocks was branded with the criss-cross pattern of the rattan basket she’d sat on all day. But still, there had been something soothing about it all – the rippling quiet, the solitude.

            Natasha’s bench is at the edge of the lake, in the park halfway between Mr Mughal’s shop and Charlotte’s house. Mr Mughal doesn’t ask questions. Charlotte’s purchases are more profitable than whatever he makes from the old ladies and their butter mints and Daily Mails. There are other benches around the lake, in equally picturesque spots, but Charlotte always chooses this one. It’s old, but un-graffitied, and the birds have been kind to it. She wonders if they know about Natasha, if they don’t splatter her bench out of respect.

Natasha Louise Harwood

The light of our lives. August 17^th 1983 – November 2^nd 1986

 The bronze rectangle is dulled now, each letter picked out in green patina. The light of our lives. Incandescence snuffed with a whisper.

It was two years ago that Charlotte first found Natasha’s bench. She used to sit there inhaling the fresh air, folic acid in her pocket, fingers curled around the hope she held so tight inside her palms. Sometimes she felt nervous. She tried to avoid big dogs that might jump up at her or strange men, the non-dog-walkers, non-fishers, non-stay-at-home dads, suspicious only because they were walking dog-less, fish-less and child-less in a park, which was of course their right.

But most of all she tried to avoid the mothers with babies in prams, toddlers at their sides, who might break her heart.

“This is the last time,” Paul had said with a frown. “The very last.” He had spoken to her as though she was a child begging for one more go on the merry-go-round.

In those days, Charlotte used to buy fruit smoothies from Mr Mughal’s noisy fridge and brazil nuts from his tightly- packed shelves. She’d perched on Natasha’s bench to drink and eat and dream.

Today she is here to drink. She takes a swig from the bottle, returns it to her bag and takes out the newspaper. She doesn’t sit back. To lounge on the bench would seem to intrude too casually on the memory of a tiny stranger . . . but not really a stranger. If Natasha had lived, she would be older than Charlotte by now, but for Charlotte she is always three years old, with deep emerald-green eyes, wearing a white cotton frock with sprigs of flowers and a straw sunhat that she won’t keep on and little sandals that reveal, beyond the straps, rows of plump, curling toes.

Charlotte opens the newspaper. Why has she brought it with her? Why look again? What a masochist! It was Paul who arranged to have this thin local rag delivered to their home. He liked local news – oh yes, pillar of the community was Paul! After he left, she was too lazy to cancel it and this morning she glanced through the pages over breakfast. Stories of traveller encampments and motorbike accidents; villagers clustered around an unwelcome telephone mast, not knowing whether to frown with outrage or smile for the birdie. When she saw his name, she dropped the slice of Marmite toast she’d been nibbling, wrong-side-down. Despite the scrubbing, a faint stain was left on the cream carpet. Pale, pinkish brown, like old blood.

Charlotte drinks from the bottle again. The vodka looks like water, looks like the vast limpid expanse of lake in front of her, but it burns like fire. The burn is good, slapping at her memories.

She had named the child in her mind, practised saying it out loud, as though she was calling her to tea, imagining another just like Natasha shuffling down the stairs on her bottom with a stuffed rabbit in her arms. Don’t relax, don’t plan, she’d told herself after the first twelve weeks of her IVF pregnancy, but she had. And then it had happened.

Rebecca, her best friend, had come running when Charlotte called, had held her tight until there were no more tears left to cry. A kind person, Rebecca. So very kind. Kind enough, months later, to wait in the car while Paul packed his bags, kind enough to turn her head away in embarrassment when Charlotte looked out of the window to see who that was waiting for him. His parting comments – “You’re obsessed, Charlotte. I’m not sure I ever really wanted kids anyway.”

And now here it is in black and white.

Local Announcements

Paul and Rebecca Blair are delighted to announce the birth of their beautiful twin daughters.

Charlotte gets up, walks on, skirting the water’s edge. She looks back, as always half-expecting to see Natasha’s ghost watching as she walks away.

“Hi, there!”

It’s the oilskin fisherman, sitting among his rods and nets. Water is boiling on his little stove. He looks so comfortable there, so achingly content.

“Tea?” He smiles, holds out an enamel mug.

Charlotte hesitates.

“Come on.” He pats the seat of his folding stool.

She sits down beside him. The fisherman passes her the mug. Through the hot steam of the tea, she notices that his eyes are a deep emerald green.

 Charlotte takes a tiny, tentative sip.

Julie says: I live in Surrey with my husband and our dog. My story ideas are often suggested by place – The Bench was inspired by a beautiful lake near me, which has a bench dedication plaque to a little girl who died in the 1980s.