Tammy’s brow drew together.Men, she thought,they are all the same—selfish.
***
TEN MINUTES LATER,Tammy raised her hand in a farewell gesture to Oliver as he turned his car around and headed back down the hill. She stared at the small cottage-type terrace house with a wooden lean-to on the right-hand side. The green paint on the windowsills was flaking and there were weeds where flowers should have been growing, but apart from the house needing a lot of TLC, it had a rustic charm about it.
Tammy clutched the handle of her suitcase and walked up the short stone path to the front door. She lifted the tinged green brass knocker that must have shone with polished brilliance at one time in its life and knocked.
Her hands were clammy with nerves. The last time she’d been in the presence of someone who shared her same DNA was when she was four years old.
She stood patiently for a few minutes and was just about to knock again when the wooden door to the lean-to hut opened and a man with a grey bushy beard, blue beanie hat, and blue denim dungarees appeared.
The crinkles of skin surrounding his eyes instantly swallowed them up when his mouth curled up into a smile. ‘Tammy...I thought your mother’s ghost had come back to visit me for a second there. You are the image of her, but you have your father’s colouring. The same coloured hair. What colour are your eyes?’
Tammy was dumbstruck. The last thing she expected was to be told she resembled her parents. ‘Bl-blue.’
‘Yep. You got your father’s eyes alright. Nicola’s eyes were green.’
Tammy’s heart galloped in her chest. She always thought her father’s eyes were grey. The photo was old and dirty. Over the years, her sticky little fingers had clutched it too tightly as she spent hour after hour examining every detail. If she never got to hear another word about her parents, those extra titbits of information would nourish her soul for years to come. But Ben was standing before her. He was the fountain of knowledge, and she was thirsty for more.
Yet, her unquenchable thirst would have to wait. She couldn’t be rude. She dragged her suitcase back down the path and made her way over to Ben, releasing the suitcase’s handle to open her arms wide when she was a couple of feet from him and embrace her elderly uncle.
‘It’s so lovely to meet you Great-Uncle Ben.’ It surprised Tammy at how sturdy he felt beneath her embrace. She was expecting someone of seventy-nine to be skin and bone. He smelt like fresh fish, but Tammy couldn’t imagine him smelling any other way. Strangely, it was welcoming.
Ben held her at arm’s length. ‘You don’t know how good it is to see you, Tammy. The last time I laid eyes on you, you were just a few days old.’
‘Really? You’ve met me before?’ Tammy was taken aback. ‘Did you visit my parents in the city?’
Ben chuckled and shook his head. ‘I’ve never been further than York Cathedral. No. I was much too busy with work to venture outside of town. Your parents used to live here in Seagull Bay.’ It was a good job Ben was still holding onto Tammy because she felt a little dizzy. ‘Anyway, we can chat more in a little while. Let’s get you settled and I’ll stick the kettle on for a brew.’
Ben turned around and led the way through the lean-to hut. It smelt just as fishy as he did. It was sparse inside the hut. There was a large chest freezer, a smaller one, a wooden stool, and a wooden cart that looked like a large wheelbarrow, but with four wheels instead of three.
At the end of the hut was a door that led to a small kitchen inside the house. The kitchen was simple and tiny, but Tammy felt as though she’d gone back in time. She tried to put an age to the basic cupboard units, but she’d never visited any museums that paid homage to the past eras of Great Britain, so she could only guess, and her mind settled for the fifties.
Ben continued through another door, which led into a narrow and dimly lit hallway. He raised his arm and pointed up the stairs. ‘Your room is the door immediately to your right at the top of the stairs. The bathroom is the door next to it if you want to freshen up. I’ll put the kettle on, lass.’
‘Thank you, Uncle Ben. Yes, I’ll quickly freshen up.’ Ben nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen. Tammy pushed the extendable handle down on her suitcase and carried it slowly up the stairs.
Her mouth tugged up at the corners when she saw that the well-worn rectangles of carpet on the stairs didn’t cover the entire steps. There were five or six inches of the stained wood staircase on either side of the steps that had a small gathering of dust up the corners. The seventh step creaked, and it only added to the charm of the worn-out staircase.
Twisting the wooden doorknob on the first door on the right, Tammy pushed it open and was immediately immersed in sunlight. The room wasn’t anything like she was expecting. She’d expected it to be as dimly lit as the hallway with something like a bottle green or rustic brown woollen blanket on the bed, but the room was far from dull. It was painted in a cheerful pale lemon with an even brighter flower-patterned bedspread. It even had a small potted plant on the windowsill.
Tammy pulled her suitcase over the threshold and wheeled it over to the wooden set of drawers. She thought she really should unpack but then changed her mind. She’d do it later. Her clothes couldn’t get more crumpled than they already were. Besides, she was eager to get back to Uncle Ben and listen to anything he could tell her about her parents. She’d use the bathroom and unpack later.
Tammy’s smile was even bigger when she saw the colour of the bathroom suite. Mint green suited the tiny room. It even smelt of mint—mint and lemon disinfectant.
By the time Tammy was washing her hands, the high-pitched sound of a whistling kettle and the promise of a cup of tea was calling to her.
She made her way downstairs, and when she reached the creaky step, Ben called out from the kitchen. ‘Go into the sitting room, Tammy. We’ll have our tea in there.’
Tammy smiled to herself. Her uncle must know every groan of his cosy cottage. She twisted her head, saw an open door, and headed for it.
The sitting room was totally in keeping with the rest of the house. It had two armchairs, a small coffee table and a sideboard with two radios. One looked old, but how old, she didn’t have a clue. But the other was modern. Not from this decade, but a good deal younger than its companion.
There was a stack of newspapers at the side of the armchair with threadbare arms. Tammy knew without a doubt that was Ben’s armchair. Like her uncle, the sitting room also had the remnants of a fish smell, but it wasn’t unpleasant—it was her uncle’s smell.
Tammy heard the rattle of the tray behind her and stepped out of the way. ‘Go on, sit down. Don’t be shy. You’ve been in this sitting room before you know. That was almost three decades ago mind you, but you’ve been here before, nonetheless.’
Tammy’s chest fluttered with the statement as she settled into the other armchair and Ben placed the tray down. There were two unmatching mugs on it, a china teapot with a chipped lid, a small sterling silver pot with milk in it, a couple of sachets of sugar that looked like they’d come from a café, and a blue plate with garibaldi biscuits on it. Tammy grinned and watched enthralled as her Uncle Ben sunk into his armchair with a contented sigh, his eyes twinkling as he looked across at her.
‘This is one of the happiest days of my life,’ he said, breaking into a smile. Tammy was overcome with emotion and had to blink away tears that took her completely by surprise.
‘Can you tell me more about my parents, Uncle Ben?’
‘I certainly can. But before I do, tell me howyouare? I don’t know the grown-up Tammy, but I sense sadness in you my gal.’
Those few kind words from a blood relation were all it took. The dam that had been strong and steady up until now, finally burst.
