The Widows of Willoughby Close Ch. 01

The Widows of Willoughby Close Chapter 1 -- Julia

This is a tale of a young man who finds himself living in a small suburban cul-de-sac with three elderly female neighbours. All characters are fictional and over the age of eighteen at the time this story takes place -- some considerably so.

The town of Barkham-on-Sea is fictional too, although you will find towns just like it all along the south coast of England.

I hope you enjoy the story and, as always, I welcome any feedback.

Sylviafan

Barkham-on-Sea straddles the Kent-East Sussex border and is a town of two halves in more senses than one. In the east, on the Kent side, there is a small, struggling commercial harbour alongside a thriving marina; there's also a pier, a beach and an esplanade with hotels and B&Bs and all the other trappings of a minor seaside resort. The western side is largely devoted to retirement housing, a couple of square miles of bungalow-lined avenues where uniformity and uninspired architecture are the keywords. They were designed and built in the nineteen-sixties to accommodate the growing mass of retirees who thought they'd be prolonging their lives by moving to the coast and enveloping themselves in sea air. Maybe it worked; there were certainly a lot of very old people in Barkham as I was growing up, mooching around the shops on a weekday morning or trudging across the sand dunes with their dogs.

It didn't work for my grandad though. He and Grandma moved out of the eastern suburbs of London in the nineteen-nineties and bought a retirement bungalow in Willoughby Close, a nondescript cul-de-sac of four identical two-bedroomed dwellings right on the western edge of the town and just across the road from the beach. Grandad Palmer had visions of springing out of bed in the morning and going for a long walk over the dunes or even having an early morning dip in the icy waters of the English Channel. Unfortunately he only lasted five years before contracting pneumonia and dying on the day before the Millennium; he was only sixty-five. 'So much for sea air,' said my father, with a trace of smugness.

The smugness was premature and short-lived; my mother insisted that we move down to Barkham-on-Sea so that we could look after her widowed mother. Eileen was ten years younger than grandad and perfectly capable of looking after herself, my father pointed out. My mother countered by arguing out that Barkham-on-Sea was a much healthier place to bring up their son than Blackheath in east London. Healthier for all the family. I was six at the time and I remember the rows that went on into the night. But mum got her way in the end. Dad was a Metropolitan Police inspector so moving jobs wasn't too big an issue; I think he was secretly quite glad to leave London behind and go somewhere a bit less dangerous. His one stipulation was that we should move to the eastern side of the town -- he didn't want to live in God's waiting room, as he put it.

We moved down to the coast in late 2001; in 2013, when I was eighteen, I went back to London to read electrical engineering at Imperial College, but after I got my degree I went back to Barkham-on-Sea and lived with my parents. It was lazy of me but I'd got a good job based in Brighton which wasn't that far to commute and the job involved a lot of travel so I didn't see the point of getting my own place just yet. Besides, mum did everything for me and we lived in a nice, detached house on a tree-lined avenue where I had my own annexe in the back garden. And it was rent-free! I kept telling myself I was saving for a deposit on a house.

In the late summer of 2021 Grandma Palmer passed away in her sleep. It was unexpected; she was only seventy-four, no age at all nowadays. And she'd been in apparently good health, except that she'd had an undetected and dangerously thin area of arterial wall in her brain and had suffered a massive and terminal stroke. It was a shock to us all. I don't remember Grandad Palmer but I was very fond of Grandma; I used to cycle over to her house when I was a kid and she'd spoil me rotten with cake and chocolate. She came to my graduation ceremony and she bought me my first car as a graduation present and I used to drive over on a Sunday afternoon, if there was nothing else going on, and take her for a trip out to some out-of-the-way village with a tearoom.

This story really starts with her funeral; I think it was the first I'd ever been to. Grandma hadn't been especially religious but the ceremony was held in the local church and afterwards mum had hired the function room of one of the big hotels on the esplanade so that all her friends and relations could come and have a bit of food and a great deal of booze and talk about Eileen Palmer and her life and the impact she'd had on the people around her. Well, you get the picture.

I didn't know many of her friends, she'd tended to keep that side of her life separate from her family. And we were a small family, so there weren't many people at the wake that I knew and I found myself sitting alone at a table and staring out of the window into the hotel gardens and thinking that this wasn't how I would have chosen to celebrate my grandmother's life. I was interrupted by a voice at my shoulder.

'It's James, isn't it? Do you mind if I join you?'

I looked up to see a lady with shoulder-length blonde hair in a white silk blouse and black satin trouser suit looking down at me. 'No, of course not.'

She put a glass of wine on the table then took the seat next to me, crossing one leg over the other and folding her hands in her lap. 'I'm awfully sorry,' I apologised, 'I don't think we've met.'

'No,' she smiled, 'we haven't. Not for a long time, anyway, although I've seen you lots of times from my garden.' Her voice was deep, for a lady, and melodious, as though she'd trained to be an actress, the accent English middle-class.

Light dawned. 'You're...' I wracked my brain, 'you're Julia! Grandma's next-door-neighbour.'

She smiled again and held out a slim, long-fingered hand with prominent veins on the back and a few light-brown age spots. She wore no rings on the hand and her nails were painted a dark maroon. 'Yes, well remembered.'

'Grandma was always talking about you,' I smiled back at her.

'Really? Nothing bad I hope.'

'On the contrary,' I laughed, 'she always said what a great neighbour and friend you were.

'Well, one does one's best.' She picked her glass up and sipped the red wine and I took the opportunity to look at her more closely.

Elegant is the word that I would use to describe Julia. I couldn't begin to guess her age; it could have been anything between sixty-five and seventy-five. Certainly she had pronounced crows' feet at the corners of her blue-grey eyes, some lines on her forehead and a little wattle of skin under her chin, but otherwise she looked good: full lips, a straight nose, square chin and a trim figure. The trouser suit was close fitting and made her legs look long and slim; the tailored jacked accentuated her hips and bust.

I wondered if she was aware of my scrutiny because she smiled at me again and put her glass down. 'Eileen used to talk about you quite a lot, too. You're an engineer aren't you?'

'Yes,' I admitted. 'An electrical engineer.'

'What do you actually do?'

'I design power distribution systems for factories and hospitals and office blocks. That sort of thing.'

'Do you enjoy it?'

And so I found myself telling Julia all about my job and the places in the UK and outside that I'd travelled to and the time passed very agreeably. She was a good listener, attentive and sharp and laughing in all the right places. After about fifteen minutes I offered to get her another drink, which she accepted, and I got myself another pint and we carried on chatting like old friends. She told me that her husband had died about ten years ago and since then she and my grandmother had been a great support to each other, with the other two residents in the Close.

'Are they here now?' I asked.

'No,' she replied. They came to the church service but Jasminder was very upset so Phoebe drove her home.'

Eventually the room started clearing as people left and Julia stood up and said she ought to be going. I stood too. 'Well it's been a pleasure meeting you, Julia, albeit in rather sad circumstances,' I began.

'Yes, it's been lovely,' she replied.

'I can't quite see why grandma kept you hidden away, as you were obviously such great friends.'

Julia gave me an enigmatic smile. 'Eileen always said friends and family didn't mix.' She was wearing shiny black high-heeled shoes and was as tall as me. Now she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and I smelled her perfume and felt her closeness. 'Goodbye, James. I'm sure I'll be seeing you around sometime.' I looked at her quizzically but she just smiled again and headed for the door.

After she'd gone I got myself another drink, just before the bar closed, and stood sipping it and looking out of the window onto the esplanade. My thoughts about my late grandmother had largely been supplanted by thoughts about her friend. That was crazy; Julia was, quite literally, old enough to be my grandmother. But I had enjoyed her company very much and yes, I did find her attractive, despite her age. In fact, if I was being honest with myself, I thought she was sexier than most of the twenty-somethings that I'd dated over the last five years. There was some indefinable quality about her: her elegance perhaps, her poise, her figure, her dress sense? I couldn't decide if the attraction was because of her age or despite it. Because yes, I'd had crushes on middle-aged women many times in the past but I reckoned Julia had left middle age behind ten years ago. It was very puzzling. Probably as well, I grinned to myself, that I was unlikely to see Julia again; the house would be cleared and sold and that would be that. Which couldn't have been further from the truth.

A week later I was at my desk at work when I got a text message from my mother:

Hi James. Your dad and I have just been to the reading of grandma's will. Guess what... She's left you her house and some money to do it up! How great is that! Trevor's not thrilled about it though. He thought we'd get the house and he'd be able to take early retirement. He'll get over it.

Love mum xxx

This was a complete surprise to me; Grandma hadn't said a word and I'd automatically assumed that she'd leave her estate largely to her only daughter. My first thought was that I'd sell the place straight away; why would I want to live on an estate of retirement homes at the age of twenty-six? My next thought was that I'd be living next door to Julia and my cock twitched in my trousers. Don't be daft, I told myself, what on earth makes you think she'd be interested in someone forty-plus years her junior?

Dad had calmed down by the time I got home. He'd realised that if I moved out, he and mum could let the annexe and that would generate enough rental income to allow him his early retirement. I didn't mention that I was thinking of just selling the place. And anyway, if I did, I'd buy a place of my own, probably in Brighton.

The following day was a Saturday so I drove over to grandma's house where I parked in the vacant drive and got out of the car and looked around. Willoughby Close was a tiny cul-de-sac, just the four houses: numbers one and four flanking the entrance and two and three at the head of the Close. Mine -- it felt a bit weird to think of it that way -- was number three. The gravelled area in front of the house was full of weeds and the window frames looked in poor repair. What would I find inside, I asked myself?

The front door opened with a creak. On the tiled floor in the tiny hall there were some items of mail, mostly circulars. On a little occasional table there was a bigger stack of letters and I assumed somebody must be coming in and looking after the place. It felt funny to be walking through the empty house; all grandma's things were still there but she wasn't. I went through to the kitchen, a relic of the nineteen seventies, and looked out into the back garden. The lawn had been mowed although the shrubs and borders looked a bit wild. I was standing in the front room pondering what to do next when the doorbell rang. Going into the hall I could see a figure through the frosted glass. When I opened the door Julia was standing in the porch.

'Hello, neighbour,' she smiled at me. 'I saw your car pull up and wondered if there was anything I could do to help. Make a pot of tea perhaps?' She was wearing a pencil skirt and black stockings, which showcased her slender calves and slim ankles. On top she wore a white satin blouse with pearl buttons. Her make-up was all in place and her nails were a bright scarlet. The absolute epitome of a sexy elderly lady.

I felt my stomach flip over and my mouth go dry and I looked at her with my mouth slightly open for a few seconds before I recovered my wits. 'Yes, thank you, Julia, a cup of tea would be great.'

Julia lived at number two. I followed her over the shared drive and through her front door and into her kitchen, which was considerably brighter and more modern than that at number three, and she bade me sit at the kitchen table while she fussed around with the kettle and a packet of chocolate digestives. I looked at her legs and bum as she walked around the kitchen and, embarrassingly, I think she noticed, though of course she didn't say anything.

Setting a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of me she took the opposite chair and, cupping her mug with her red-tipped fingers, smiled at me across the table. 'So, how does it feel to be a man of property?'

'You knew, didn't you?' I said, gazing back at her and noting her carefully applied red lipstick and heavy eye make-up. 'You knew grandma had left me the house.'

'Yes, she told me a few months ago. Well, all four of us in the Close. I think she mentioned it on one of our Bridge nights. But of course we'd never have said anything to anyone else. We all thought it would be a wonderful thing to have someone young living here but Eileen said you'd probably sell the place and we'd just get another pensioner.' She paused and looked at me, her expression serious. 'Have you decided what to do yet?' Was it my imagination or was there a hint of anxiety in her voice? 'I wouldn't blame you for selling the place. It's very quiet here, probably too quiet for a handsome young chap of your age. Though with a bit of doing up Eileen's place could be made really nice and it's got the biggest garden of the four.'

'I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'll probably stay while I do a bit of renovation. That'll take me a year or two I shouldn't wonder.' This statement was all news to me. I seemed to have made it up on the spot based on the obvious attraction of living next door to Julia, who was looking even better than she had at the wake. Did she always dress like that, I wondered? Or had she dressed herself up when she saw me arrive. The whole thing seemed suddenly preposterous. She was an old-age-pensioner; I was twenty-six. End of story. I finished my tea and stood up.

'Thanks for the tea, Julia. I should get on, there's a ton of stuff to do as you can imagine.'

She stood and took my mug to the sink then turned back to me. 'Well I'm here if there's anything you need, even if it's just another cup of tea.' We stood slightly awkwardly for a few seconds as I wondered whether she was going to kiss my cheek again. I had a strong feeling that I wanted her too, wanted to feel those rouged lips on my skin, wanted to smell her perfume close up again. Instead I just said goodbye and went back to number three.

Over the next few weeks I went over to Willoughby Close most evenings and every weekend. I hired skips and cleared out, or sold, most of grandma's furniture and replaced it with new stuff. I also arranged for contractors to come in and refurbish the kitchen and fit replacement uPVC windows. I tamed the gardens myself. I saw quite a lot of Julia during this time; she made a point of popping in soon after I arrived and asking if I needed anything and I got into the habit of going in to number two for tea and biscuits and a chat. She was always immaculately dressed and made-up and I concluded that this was her natural way. I never stayed more than half an hour, which seemed to fly by. We chatted about anything and everything and I became more and more attracted to this elegant and sophisticated elderly lady. A number of times I contemplated making a move on her but my natural reticence (or cowardice) always prevented me.

She also introduced me to the other two residents of the Close: Phoebe, at number one, was a small, thin, wiry lady in her early sixties with iron-grey collar length hair and an air of anxiety. Jasminder, at number four, was a Sikh lady, about the same age as Phoebe, running slightly to fat but with an unlined, full-lipped face, dark eyes and a hooked nose. Both of them, like Julia and indeed grandma, were widows. Jasminder gave me a scented hug and a big smile when we were introduced and said how much she missed Eileen; Phoebe was polite, but more reserved.

After about a month I was able to move into number three Willoughby Close. The windows had been replaced and the central heating serviced so I was ready for the forthcoming winter, but the kitchen was still in the middle of its renovation. In an act of considerable generosity Julia offered to cook my evening meals for the three or four days it would take to complete the job and I gratefully accepted. In fact I'd only have two meals at Julia's as my firm was sending me to France for a week on Monday.

The first day of this regime was a Saturday so I took a bottle of wine round in the evening. I suppose I was hoping to prolong my stay and perhaps to precipitate something with the alcohol. The meal was a coq-au-vin, the wine a Chablis. We ate the meal then retired to Julia's comfortable front room with the remainder of the bottle; Julia sat in her usual chair and I sat on the chintzy two-seater settee. We chatted easily as the early autumn evening faded into gloom. I talked about my job and the house and my plans and aspirations for the future. Julia talked about her family -- she had two daughters and three grandchildren -- and her late husband, Simon. About nine o'clock we finished the bottle and Julia went into the kitchen, reappearing a couple of minutes later with a bottle of supermarket Sauvignon Blanc.

'We don't have to drink it all,' she said, taking off the screw cap, 'but I thought as we were having such a lovely chat another glass wouldn't hurt.' I felt my stomach flip over as the possibilities emerging from another bottle of wine raced through my mind. But the time passed and we chatted on and nothing happened except that the level in the second bottle dropped and I began to feel slightly dizzy, and more confident.

By eleven-thirty we were down to the dregs. Julia seemed fine from what I could see, although my vision was not as clear as it had been earlier and the room was in near darkness, the only light coming from the kitchen through the connecting door. I poured the last drops into our glasses as Julia looked up at me from her chair, where she was sitting with her legs curled under her.

'Gosh! Have we really drunk that second bottle!'

'Yes,' I said, sitting back down on the settee.

We looked at each other and, for the first time that evening, a silence fell between us. Partly as an antidote to the silence, and partly because I was a bit drunk and sensed a now-or-never moment, I was the first to speak.

'I think you're a very attractive lady, Julia. Disturbingly attractive in fact.' There! I'd made my mark in the sand. And without slurring too.