Mornington-By-Mere – (96) Christmas at Briarbank

 

Thirty Five year old Ross Clarke lives in the village of Mornington-By-Mere, which is a small country village lying in the Finchbottom Vale nestled between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest and the rolling Pepperstock Hills.

It is a quaint picturesque village, a proper chocolate box picturesque idyll, with a Manor House, 12th Century Church, a Coaching Inn, Windmills, an Old Forge, a Schoolhouse, a River and a Mere.

But Mornington-By-Mere is not just a quaint chocolate box English Village it is the beating heart of the Finchbottom Vale and there were a number of cottages and small houses on the Purplemere road and Dulcets Lane which form the part of Mornington Village known as Manorside where Ross lived in a small two bedroom cottage in the row of West Gate Cottages on the banks of the River Brooke and he lived there with his grandfather.

 

Ross Clarke loved Christmas and it really irritated him when he heard people whining about what a crap Christmas they had because their mother in law over did it on the sherry and told everyone what she really thought about them or when their wife's uncle Stan spent Christmas afternoon asleep on the sofa breaking wind with monotonous regularity.

Or their brothers new girlfriend who kept hitting on her sister in law or the Gran who said

“Just a small dinner for me, I don't have much of an appetite” then spent the afternoon eating all the chocolate Brazils.

It really made him angry because their bitching and moaning always brought him down at his favourite time of year.

It also wound him up when he thought about those who through no fault of their own had truly awful Christmas’s, like his Grandfather who was one of the half a million or so men of the allied forces, who along with six hundred thousand Germans who spent Christmas 1944 outside in the snow of the Ardennes forest during the battle of the bulge.

Men who sheltered in foxholes, scratched out of the frozen earth with no hot food or drink.

Unable to light fires for fear of giving their position away to the enemy and regularly coming under enemy fire or being shelled.

And sometimes once they had hewn out a decent sized foxhole and settled down into it out of the icy wind, an order would come down the line to move out and they would move a hundred yards or sometimes less and dig another hole.

He wanted to tell all the whiners to go and bitch and moan to one of those old soldiers and see how they would laugh at their petty gripes, they certainly wouldn’t get any sympathy.

He had spent a of time with his grandfather since his teens but for the last three years that time was spent at the Briarbank Hospice and they spent that time talking at length.

But for the last three months the conversations had been very one sided.

But there had been another reason for his visits other than seeing his grandfather, and that reason was Linda Perch, a thirty four year old palliative care nurse.

 

It was 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve when he arrived at the hospice and his spirits lifted when he saw Linda was on duty and when she saw him she smiled.

“Did you draw the short straw?” he asked

“Worse than that I volunteered” she retorted

Because she had no family she was working all over Christmas to allow the nurses who did have families to spend it at home with them she was doing the same thing over New Years as well.

“So are you on tomorrow as well?” he asked

“Yes I’m on until Boxing Day”

“That’s tough” he said and she told him that she would survive and then they parted company with a smile.
They knew they would have plenty of opportunities to talk during the night and he wished her happy Christmas at 1.45am.

 

He managed to see quite a lot of Linda during Christmas Day as he had decided not to go home at all and managed to catch a few zzzz’s in the arm chair beside his grandads bed, but he managed to be awake and alert when she was around and he found that his feeling for her were deepening and he hoped that when she smiled at him it wasn’t just her professional demeanour.

But she went off duty at two am on Boxing Day which was when he decided it was time to go home to his bed.

 

He returned to the hospice on Boxing Day evening and was pleased to see Linda’s car was in the carpark, he didn’t think she would be back in until the next day, but when he went inside instead of being greeted by her normal friendly smile, he found her wearing a grave expression.   

“Hello Ross I was just about to call you” she said

“I’m a bit concerned about Harry, his breathing is very laboured”

“Damn I shouldn’t have gone home” he said

“Nonsense” she chastised “it would have made no difference”

Then she gave him a warm smile and added

“I’ve phoned Dr Lutchford, so go and sit with him and I’ll be in shortly”

“Ok” he complied but what she hadn’t confided was that she thought the end was close.

 

The Doctor arrived about half an hour later and Linda accompanied Ross to the relative’s room and squeezed his hand before she joined the doctor.

Fifteen minutes later she and the Doctor joined him and Claire Lutchford sympathetically said

“I’m afraid he has pneumonia”

“Does that signal the end” he asked knowing that it did but wanted confirmation,

“I’m afraid so” Dr Lutchford confirmed

“How long?” he asked flatly

“Not long” she replied

“Don’t worry” Linda said putting her hand on his “I will stay with him till the end”

Although she wasn’t officially on duty that night she stayed with Harry and Ross.

 

The following day Linda split her time between attending to Harry and keeping Ross company and they spent a weary night and Harry Clarke died just after seven o’clock the next morning with the winter sun invading the room and bathing his deathbed in sunlight.

Linda was patient and considerate and waited with Ross, who was quiet and showed no emotion as they finally left the room 

 

Ross spent the morning in the relative’s room while Linda made all the necessary phone calls.

Sgt Pierce, the village policeman paid a visit to rule out foul play and stayed until Dr Lutchford arrived to sign the death certificate.  

And an hour later William Hemmings and Sons arrived to collect the deceased, although it was Melanie Hemmings who offered their condolences.

 

Ross was looking out of the window as the Hemmings vehicle drove away and Linda walked up behind him and lightly stroked the back of his arm.

“Are you ok?” she asked

“Not really” he replied and the tears he had been holding back immediately welled up in his eyes as he turned towards her, so she took him in her arms and he dissolved completely into tears.

“Its ok honey” she whispered, “let it all go”

And as he sobbed uncontrollably onto her shoulder, Linda kissed his cheek.

She held him close and stroked his back as he sobbed until he lifted his head and said

“I’m getting you uniform wet” 

“I don’t care” she replied and he broke down again.

It dawned on her at that moment as he sobbed his heart out that now his grandfather was gone he would have no reason to go to the hospice and so she wouldn’t see him again, and that was what she was thinking as she consoled him with her empty words.

Shameful selfish thoughts of her never seeing him again as she held him in her arms instead of thinking of him and his loss. 

 

They were both excruciatingly tired because it had been a very long night sitting up with Harry, however she had had a lot of time to think as his life ebbed away.

And almost all of those thoughts had been about Ross and the reason, they got on really well and whenever he was there the two of them flirted, but at first she never thought it was anything other than flirting, but she would always look forward to seeing him and hoped that it might be.

But everything came into sharp focus now that she was faced with the prospect of never seeing him again.

And now she had him in her arms she was not of a mind to let him go.

But let him go she must, because now was not the time for her to claim him, but it wasn’t going to be for long she hoped.

 

Had Ross known the disposition of her heart when she comforted him in the relatives room he would not have carried an emptiness inside him when he left the hospice.

 

In the days that followed his grandfather’s death he had to contend with the double loss of his grandfather’s death and his heart’s desire.

But then on New Year’s Eve he received a fillip when he took a phone call from Briarbank Hospice.

 

It was a gloriously sunny day in Mornington as he stared out of the window of his cottage, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Linda approaching with Harry’s personal possessions, as the winter sun set her red mane ablaze.

And he pledged to himself that once she crossed his threshold he wouldn’t let her leave again until he had told her of his feelings.

The promise would have given him less anxiety had he known that she had made a similar pledge and after she crossed the threshold pledges were kept and declarations were made and so Linda didn’t re-cross it again until New Year’s Day.