Mr Wilson's Beret

Mr Wilson’s Beret

The first thing I saw was Mr Wilson’s black beret, it was hanging on the picket fence that surrounded his front garden. It was surreal, as I had never seen the hat on its own; in fact, I had never seen Mr Wilson without his beret. My groin clenched as it did when a child goes too close to a cliff edge. Only then did I see the sweet peas, Mr Wilson’s prized sweet peas. The trellises that he had carefully constructed were broken and lying on the ground, in amongst were the blooms, trodden, trampled and vandalised. I think I gave a gasp, taken straight from a Jane Austin novel. The scent from the crushed blooms seeped over me, mocking in their death throws.

I looked towards the house for signs of my neighbour. The house looked closed up. I crunched up the path, tiptoeing - I don’t know why. I took a deep breath and for the first time ever, I knocked on his front door; the brass fox-shaped knocker gave a sharp rap that echoed in the empty house. No-one at home it said.

The roar of the Transit van as it reversed up his drive turned me, and I watched rooted as four or five men in identical dark blue overalls got about their business. A black Range Rover with government-style tinted windows, had pulled in after and the large man in an out-of-town overcoat came forward. He might just as soon have been wearing his sergeant-major’s uniform; I could almost see the moustache.

‘You’re a neighbour, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Looking for Mr Wilson?’

‘Yes, what’s going on?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Wilson died yesterday, of a heart attack.’

‘Oh.’ I said, a grossly inadequate response under the circumstances. My neighbour was dead and I didn’t even know his first name. I had always called him Mr Wilson.

‘We’re here to sort out his things,’ and without any apparent coercion, he guided me to the gate and added, ‘I’m sure you understand,’ and I was sent on my way back home. I forgot completely that I was on my way to the post box.

The following day I returned to the little cottage. The old man’s beret was still in place silently reviewing the destruction of the once award-winning flowers. Mr Wilson kept a spare latch key under the seventh brick along the path; one day when chatting – about his sweet peas – the wind had blown shut the door and he had sworn, or rather I assumed it was an oath by the tone, although I hadn’t recognised the word. Retrieving the key from the seventh brick, he had beckoned me in for a cup of tea. It was the first time in all those years that I had been in his house. It was a strange place, somehow utilitarian. The rooms were bare, no pictures, no photographs, no knick-knacks. No stuff. No soul.

Mr Wilson was quite frail by then, his hands shock a little as he brought the tea. I feared for his care as he got older. I took the tray from him and placed it on the little table. There was a plate of bourbon biscuits as well.

‘Do you have family close by Mr Wilson?’ He stopped and considered the question as though he didn’t really know the answer. He stood up straight and with some purpose went to the kitchen drawer took out a kitchen knife and prised open a panel under the bottom step on the stairs. I sat in some awe and even, if I’m honest, a little trepidation. He pulled out a Charles and Diana biscuit tin from the cubby hole and passed me an old and creased picture of a young girl from inside. It looked as though it had been in a wallet for a long time. It was creased and had taken on that sepia look that old photographs aspire too.

‘My sister.’

‘Very pretty,’ and she was, hair blown back and laughing at the camera. Her dress was floral and of a cut that wasn’t British somehow. She leant against an ancient car that I didn’t recognise. I handed it back and was about to ask more, but stopped for he had a tear running down his cheek. I felt acutely uncomfortable sharing his memories and sat silently while he recovered hiding his and my embarrassment. I finished my tea and left without saying more bar my thank yous.

When I went back up his path, on the second day after his death, I felt I was betraying him. The house stood surrounded by a palpable aura of loss. On entering I was prepared for ‘empty’ but not this empty. Before it had been bland and not a home, now it was sterile and the smell was all-invasive. Detergeant? Some kind of strong cleaner? I walked around the empty kitchen, every surface had been washed down, thoroughly and a damp film remained. Nothing of Mr Wilson was left, not even a fingerprint.

My pocket knife opened the cubby hole just as Mr Wilson had showed me. The biscuit tin was still there, missed, even by the efficient. His passport was in the tin, the photo starring out wide-eyed - a much younger Mr Wilson. Here he was called Alexandr Belovol, a Ukrainian. There were several photographs, more of his sister and others of an elderly couple standing outside a simple wooden house, his parents? The newspaper cuttings were held together with a paper clip. They were in Russian. There was a grainy picture of the young Alexandr Belovol looking straight at the camera. I have no Russian but this was not recording a happy event, this was a police picture. He was in trouble. My fingers touched on a second envelope, ‘Miss Belovol’ written in a spidery hand, the destination an address in Kiev. Inside was a note in the same handwriting, again in Russian. It must be Mr Wilson’s sister, odd, surely they didn’t use ‘Miss’ in Russian or Ukrainian and after all this time was it likely that his sister was unmarried?

I sat at the bare table the contents of the man’s life spread cold on the now sterile surface. The owner of this story was gone its details never to be unravelled, I felt a lump in my throat, the smiling young faces of the two newlyweds on the lid made it worse. The desire to know more was negated by the need to know less. I took the envelope returned the tin with its history to the hiding place, for someone else to find and wonder over. On the way out I picked the few remaining blooms that had survived where the paramedics had laboured in vain and took his beret. The flowers lasted a while in the vase at home. The beret has claimed its own peg on the coat rack. On the way home I managed to remember to post the letters this time.

©Lawrie Hammond 2017