In the Village of Pepperstock Green – Chapter (045) – Awoken from Solitude

January

 

It was on the same bright sunny January day that newlyweds Charlie and Toddy Phelps returned from their Honeymoon in Rome, when George Wozniak was awoken from his comfortable solitude on the northern outskirts of Pepperstock Green.

It was there that the cottage stood where the widowed retiree had lived for the previous 30 years, the last 9 on his own following his darling wife Elspeth’s passing.
He had long since come to terms with living alone with his memories of a happy life well lived and after having performed his chores, taken his constitutional and did some shopping in the village he was sitting in his armchair enjoying the peace and quiet of the afternoon when there was a persistent knock on the front door.

George didn’t initially hear it because, he had been enjoying the peace and quiet so much that he dozed off in his armchair and he was certainly enjoying that nap very much indeed.
He did a lot of dozing in his armchair on the winter afternoons it was the by-product of having too much time and too little to occupy it.
George woke with a start and after he had come to his senses he reluctantly got up from his comfy chair and went to answer the door and when he did so, there was a smiling young woman in dungarees and a holey cardigan, standing on the step.
“Hi I’m Julia” she announced “Do you have screwdriver I can borrow?”
It transpired, Julia had just moved into the cottage next door to his.
Strictly speaking calling her a young woman was perhaps stretching a point as Julia Kaiser was actually fifty one years old and had 3 grown up children but she was young in comparison to George who was knocking loudly on the door to his seventh decade.
“Of course you can” he replied “Come in a minute”
“Thank you” she said
“I’m George by the way”
“Pleased to meet you George” she said and smiled again.
George thought she had a very pleasant smile, in fact he thought Julia had a very pleasant face, but with sad eyes, not sad like a puppy dog, more the kind of sad that went deep and left a tell-tale impression on her countenance.
She also had a very nice figure, even taking into consideration the fact she was in her early-fifties and had given birth 3 times, not that he knew any of that at the time, but his first impression was a favourable one.
Julia herself noted that George was not an unattractive man even if he was almost a decade older, not that it was anything more than a casual observation, his looks, even his good looks were immaterial, that was not why she was there, she just wanted to borrow a screwdriver.
So although they both found the other nice to look at, there was no instant mutual attraction, no flash of lightning, no tingling of the senses, no fluttering hearts, sighing or a cascade of Mantovani’s violins.
George thought she was an extremely “fit” young woman but he’d always needed more than just mere physical attraction to light his fire.
He had to know the person, like them and preferably love them for true sexual attraction to take hold of him.
Nonetheless looking at an attractive younger woman beat dozing in his armchair hands down so he wasn’t in any hurry to see her leave so he said
“Would you like a coffee while you’re here?”
“Oh yes please” she replied enthusiastically

“You know I’ve made three drinks today already and I let them all go cold” she said as she sat down.
Apart from noticing the obvious facts that she was very attractive, had a sublimely attractive smile, sad eyes and didn’t own a screwdriver, he also divined the fact that Julia was Jewish as she wore a gold Star of David around her neck.
He also detected that the dungarees that she was wearing pulled tight across her ample bosom as she sat, but hung loosely when she was standing, which left a lot to the imagination, which was fine by him because he had an extremely vivid imagination.
After a brief conversation he soon ascertained what task she was doing at home, the dreaded flat pack furniture, and what type of screwdriver she required to do it with, and he could easily find her a small selection from the tool shed for her, but after having coffee with her he said
“Why don’t I come and give you a hand, I’ll only doze off in the chair again, so make use of me”
“No I couldn’t ask you to do that” she protested, but in truth she pleased so didn’t protest to vehemently.
“I insist” he said
George had retired from Teaching and lived alone, his wife had died nine years earlier and his two sons had families of their own so he had a lot of time on his hands, a lot of which ended with him sleeping in his armchair.
So the prospect of getting out of the house and doing something useful appealed to him greatly.
Although he would have had to admit to an ulterior motive in volunteering his services, other than to alleviate his boredom and that was because his new next door neighbour Julia was very pleasing to the eye and although that wasn’t enough in itself to get his motor running, it was a bloody good start, even if he only looked at her as a friend.