Granddad Is Gone
Charlotte had just dragged her suitcase inside after another business trip, her coat still buttoned and shoes on, when her mobile buzzedher mother was calling.
Sandra sounded anxious, but Charlotte brushed it aside, dulled by exhaustion. Maybe it was just another nosy update about their neighbours, she thought, not in the mood for tales told over tea.
All she wanted was to collapse onto her bed and finally sleep. After all, the train last night had been havoc: a raucous lot in the next carriage, four young men with an endless supply of cider and a battered guitar, cackling and howling out tunes, includingshe sworea mangled version of “Blow the Wind Southerly,” complete with her own name belted out off-key.
Had Charlotte been in better spirits, she might have laughed, but tonight, she just wished the guitar would snap a string. No such luck.
“Mum, let me just rest for a bit, clean myself up. I’ll call you back and we can chat properly, alright?”
“I don’t think you can rest,” Sandra said with a sigh.
“Oh? And why’s that? I just came back from a work trip, not planning on going anywhere, or having anyone barge in without notice! Unless you know something I dont? Youre not about to turn up uninvited, are you?”
“Charley, love… Granddads gone.”
The phone pressed against her ear, Charlotte sank heavily onto the sofa. This was the last thing shed expected.
“His neighbour, Mrs Mary Ford, rang this morning. Went to bring him milk, and found him… there, just inside his door, hand to his chest, not breathing. Mustve lain there all night. We need to get to his cottage in the village, arrange the funeral. Neighbours will help, but… will you go, Charlotte? Will you see Granddad off?”
Charlotte nods at the phone, unable to muster words, just a breathy, “Mhm.”
“Mrs Ford called his relatives, but they flatly refused to go to the funeral. Said unless hed left them something in his will, there was no point in wasting their time. His house isnt worth anything, doesnt even have proper plumbingno one wants it now.”
Sandra hesitated, then confessed, “To be honest, I dont fancy the village trip either. Granddad himself told me not to set foot in his house again, even for the funeral. I promised, remember? So youre the only one left, love. Will you go?”
Silence. Charlottes eyes catch on the old side table, where Granddads last letter sits unopened, postmarked a month ago, arriving while she was away. This was her third business trip in six months, each longer and more draining than the last, as the company had opened a new branch up in Manchester, and only shewithout sick children or excusesever seemed available.
“Mum, I just dont understand it. He seemed so well when I saw him at Christmas, so lively, no complaints at all.”
“Sweetheart, he was well into his eighties. Plenty dont make it half as far. Lets be grateful. May he rest in peace.”
It was true: of all the family, Charlotte alone had kept in touch with her granddad. The restwell, things had soured long ago. Since her father, Andrew, died young of heart failure, Granddad never forgave Sandra, blaming her for working Andrew too hard, pushing him onto those long contracts to pay for house repairs and a better life.
Sandra would snap, “Hes a man, needs to bring home the bacon, isnt that what men do?” But Andrew had never complainedhe returned with gifts, not gripes. One day, though, he just never came home.
At the funeral, Granddad had howled enough to chill the church walls.
He hadnt spoken to Sandra since, barely tolerating her shadow in the village. Contact, such as it was, limped on through letters to Charlotte, because Granddad refused to acknowledge anything with a screensmartphones, tablets, computers were sorcery as far as he was concerned.
Everyone thought Granddad was cracked, a relic typing letters in the twenty-first century. “Off his rocker, poor old chap,” gossiped the pensioners outside the corner shop. “Wife gone, son gonewould drive anyone round the bend.”
Lately, hed been seen chattering away in his cottage gardennot to neighbours, nor to himself, but to his cat. Except… no one had seen any actual cat. Thats village life for you: a bit of harmless old nonsense, or something more?
After the call, Charlotte let her phone fall onto the bed and cried. Shed wanted to visit Granddad that summer, but business trips kept stacking up while her boss, all smiles, shrugged off her every complaint: “If you dont like it, Charlotte, no ones stopping you. But youll be hard pressed to find another job paying this well.”
So she kept on, because the salary was good, convincing herself that one day things would go back to normal, whatever “normal” meant.
*****
The funeral was as grim as any English village send-off. When the churchbells echo faded, they lowered the simple pine coffinsatin lining and allinto the cold ground, earth thudding onto the lid. Flowers, wreaths, fresh soil. “Is this really it?” Charlotte wondered. “One minute youre Granddad, next youre just a memory in the mud.”
But soon the wake started, and the neighbours raised their glasses with gin and room-temperature ale and told tales, and in this way Granddad lived onat least in their stories.
When the last vol-au-vent was cleared and the crowd meandered home or to the village shop, Charlotte found herself quite alone. A stifling solitude settled. “I never got to say goodbye” she whispered, wiping her tears.
To shake off the gloom, she set about tidying. She flung the windows open, mopped the warped floorboards, dusted every shelf, swept out webs from ceiling corners, and packed leftovers into the fridge. The air, now fresh with late spring, felt easier to breathe.
Granddads house had always been a lived-in jumble: garden well kept, even if nothing much grew that yearperhaps hed already sensed it was his time. The apple trees in the orchard still blossomed; currant and raspberry bushes bent under their own green promise. Whod care for the place now, Charlotte wondered?
After phoning to tell her mum, “Hes at rest now, Mum. I did it,” Sandra said, “Well done, Charlotte. He could be prickly, but he was still a person.”
“He wasnt so bad, Mum. Life just battered him about more than most. Dont be too hard on him.”
“Ah, Charley, Im not. Let him sleep. When will you be back? Sounds awful, all alone up there!”
“Not today or tomorrow. Ive taken some leave. I want to stay a bit, rest and take care of the nine days. Wont you come?”
“What, to the back of beyond? And Ive got the allotment to tend! Oh, my shows about to startcall me if you need something.”
Typical Mumwhen things grew too emotional, shed always find an urgent errand.
Charlotte made herself tea from dried mint and blackcurrant leaves she found in the larder, drank, and got ready for bed. But before sleep, she picked up Granddads last letter again.
Normally, he wrote about garden news and the state of his knees, but this one rambled about a cata cat named Midnight.
Charlotte frowned; Granddad had never liked animals, let alone owned a pet. Yet the letter painted a picture of a hungry, shy cat who lapped up half a bottle of milk, but hid from sight no matter how much Granddad coaxed, just a dark blur darting to the shed, always out of reach.
Shed been in the house for days and seen no sign of any cat, but last night she did feel that queer prickling of being watched, just as Granddad described. Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll ask Mrs Ford what she knows.
*****
Dawn crept in, the sun leaking pale gold between faded curtains, sparrows chattering, cocks crowing in rivalry across the gardensa perfectly ordinary English village morning.
Charlotte flung open the window and breathed in. She remembered childhood summers here: helping Granddad build bird boxes from scraps, sticky hands grasping hammer and saw.
She headed next door and asked Mrs Ford, “Did Granddad ever actually have a cat? He wrote me all about ‘Midnight,’ yet theres been no cat about.”
Mrs Ford slapped her forehead, “Oh, that! Yes, about a month ago, he got into the habit of talking to someone in the gardenheard him going on and on, seeming to plead with someone to show themselves. I looked over the hedge, saw no one about. Next day, the same thing. Soon enough, he was gabbing daily to his ‘invisible friend,’ telling life stories, and kept calling it ‘Midnight.’ Not just me, other neighbours heard him, too. But no one saw a cat, ever. I visited plenty, brought him pies and milk; nothing. Asked him straight, but hed just laugh, say, ‘When I catch him, Ill show you.’ Honestly, I thought hed lost his marbles. But if a cat was there, surely someone would have seen it?”
“Maybe he was lonely…” mused Charlotte. “Or maybe the cat really could hide anywhere. No ones missing a black cat in the village?”
“No, and as far as I know, no one owns one.”
Feeling restless and a little sad, Charlotte tidied the garden, her mind circling round this phantom cat Granddad had described but no one had seen.
All the while, from a tangled patch beyond the fence, a small black cat watched. He felt oddly drawn to this visitorsomething about her, maybe her voice or gentle way, reminded him of the kind old man whod left out milk and scraps, talking gently to him in the dusk.
The cat had always been warypeople threw stones if he came too close, some tried to kick. Hed wandered for years, never trusting anyone, until the old man with kind eyes and a good heart. Midnight listened to his tales, his sorrows, perched out of sight behind an apple tree.
Then one day, the man was gone. That night, the cat smelled something wrong in the air. He waited at the back door, mewing softly, but no one answered. He pressed close as the frost bit in, but the house stayed silent.
When Charlotte arrived, Midnights instincts warred with his curiosityhe longed to meet her, but held back, scraping closer only when shed left offerings on the step, never daring to show himself.
But on the ninth day, as tradition called for, when the last visitor trudged away through the dew, Charlotte spotted a flash of jet-black fur beneath the roses. “Well, so you do exist, Midnight! Granddad really wasnt joking. Come here, lets be friends!”
But the cat vanished, shadow in the hedgerow once more.
“Come along now, dont be shy. Id love to meet you, I really would,” she coaxed, peering beneath the shrubs.
Behind her, Mrs Ford, bringing over a sack of scones for Charlottes journey, paused as she saw Charlotte crouched, apparently talking to the empty air. No cat in sight. “Well, bless my soul,” she murmured, scurrying away, “First Granddad, now the granddaughter. Perhaps madness does drift through the air here”
That afternoon, black clouds gathered, muttering with rolling thunder. Hens clucked, the very air seemed to tense. “Storms brewing,” Charlotte muttered, and as the first fat drops fell, she called out for Midnight, offering shelter, but saw nothing.
The black cat, curled tightly beneath an overturned wheelbarrow, trembledterrified of storms, more so than people.
*****
Rain pounded the old slates, drumming fitfully through the night. Restless, Charlotte tossed on the squeaky sprung bed. And thencrack!
Lightning split the sky, rattling the window so violently she jumped, drawing her knees to her chest as another bolt left the room momentarily day-bright. In that instant, two golden eyes shone in the open window.
She shrieked, jerking herself to the head of the bed, as something small, sodden, and black shot in, dashed under the cupboard, and finally settled trembling under the bed.
“Midnight,” she whispered in awe.
It took a long, gentle coaxing with tinned tuna to lure him out, a towel to dry his shivering fur, but by the time the worst of the storm had passed, Charlotte and Midnight lay together, drawing comfort from each other. The wildness outside became less frightening, the world smaller and softer.
*****
She woke to soft scratching at the window and a slant of morning sun. “Off so soon, friend?” she smiled at the cat perched on the sill. Midnight glanced back apologetically, as if embarrassed for last nights panic.
“Miaow,” he pleaded, pawing the frame.
“Youre not leaving on an empty stomachnot after last night. After that, its your decisionstay here, or come with me back to London. Its up to you. Id like to think Granddad would want me to look after you. But Ill let you choose. I hope you pick well, sweetheart.”
Breakfasted and released to the garden, Memorial Day packing began. With hours to spare before her bus, Charlotte looked up from latching the front door to find Midnight waiting on the step, brushing his flank against her legs.
“Youre coming then, are you?” she laughed. “I knew you would.”
When Charlotte stopped at Mrs Fords to hand over the cottage key and bid farewell, the old womans eyes rounded. “Is that that cant be the very cat?”
“The very same,” Charlotte grinned. “And you thought Granddad was mad! Nothing wrong with his mind at alljust a cat with a talent for hiding. He was just afraid of people… and storms, it seems. But now were alright.”
“Well, I never… I’ll keep watch on the house for you, Charlotte. Will you visit again?”
“Yes, Mum and Iwell be back again. And Midnight, too, I expect, if hes still brave enough to ride the train!”
“Good, good. Here, take some scones for the trip,” said Mrs Ford, handing her a paper bag.
“Thank you, Mrs Ford. For everything.”
On the coach, Charlotte gazed at the sky, and just for a moment, in the drift of a cloud caught by the golden sun, she thought she saw Granddads kindly facesmiling, maybe even winking.
Midnight, curled on her lap, pressed a cold nose to the window, watching that same cloud until it vanished.
Maybe it was all just a trick of grief and longing, but it didnt matter. What mattered was the knowledge that Granddad wasnt truly gone. He lived on in their memories, and, somewhere in the strange and soft logic of English dreams, he would always watch over Charlotte and Midnight, who had found each other in the most unexpected way.
