The Oil Lamp. Magpie Tales #34

The bus seemed to take longer than usual and it was cold too. I kept thinking of Aunty’s casseroles and how she always made one for my first night there. She was such a dear and I loved going to her for some of my weekends from Uni, she made a fuss of me and since Mum and Dad had split up, I needed a fuss of me rather than listen to Mum moan about Dad and then when I was with Dad, he moan about her.

'Wouldn’t be long now, 'I thought. I had my overnight bag ready to hop off the bus, which stopped at the end of Aunty’s road. As you walked into Aunty’s road, which was a cul-de-sac, her house faced you and you could see her old oil lamp shining in the upstairs landing window. Tonight I suddenly realised it wasn’t there, I wondered what had happened to it. That had been there for as long as I could remember, and when I was little I remembered watching her clean and polish it till the brass shone so you could see your face in it. Then she would trim the wick and fill it with spirit. On winter nights there it was like a lighthouse beaming out to welcome Uncle home from work. Of course he had died years ago but she still put it in the window.

Before I could even ring the bell, the door opened.

‘Come in come in out of the cold, you look perished,’ she said

I could smell something delicious and my empty tum rumbled.
‘Hello Aunty, you look well, have you been away somewhere to catch the sun?’

‘No I haven’t,’ she said quite firmly. ‘I ‘ll make you a cuppa and tell you what happened.’

‘I’ll just pop to the bathroom first Aunty, I won’t be long.’

At the top of the stairs, I looked at old pine chest in front of the landing window covered with a large tablecloth, which I had never seen before. Aunty had always polished the top of that chest and the smell of the polish was all part of the memories of when I had visited through the years. And no lamp, ‘perhaps it was broken,’ I thought.

The cups and saucers were all laid out on the kitchen table. In the brighter light of the kitchen Aunty’s face looked as though she had been out in a very hot sun.

‘Your hair looks nice, have you had it cut Aunty?’

‘No I haven’t nor have I been out in the sun, I had a bit of an accident,’ and with that she started to chuckle. ‘I shouldn’t laugh it could have been really serious,’ she added. ‘I wanted to see that new man down the road, he moved in a couple of weeks ago so when I saw him going out when evening, as I was putting out my milk bottles, I went up stairs to have a peep at him out of the landing window. I was leaning into the window and my hand caught the lamp and it tipped over, and the spilt spirit flared up and singed my eye brows, burnt the front of my hair and this is what it did to my face. Then even worse the wooden chest with all that polish on it caught fire too and I started screaming.’

‘Oh no Aunty what happened then?’ Have you seen a Dr what about creams for your poor face.’ I said.

‘No nothing like that, Cliff, that’s his name, the new man I mean, anyway he heard me screaming and saw the flames in the window and arrived up stairs, as in my nosiness I had left the front door open, He rushed into my bathroom wet a towel and smothered the flames. Too late to save the top of the chest which is very badly burnt and you’ve seen my face and hair. And she started to laugh and so did I, it all seemed so funny.

‘So what about this Cliff, ‘ I asked, is he nice, have you seen him since?’

‘Can’t get rid of him, he’s a real pesk. He is coming round later with my lamp as he insisted taking it to repair it. She said, but she was smiling as she was telling me and I could see she was quite pleased.

With that the door bell rang and I heard a key turn in the lock.
‘Hello, are you there my lovely Jean? Its me---he your brave fire fighter’

‘Stop that silly talk Cliff, my niece Jenny is here, she doesn’t want to hear that sort of silliness.’

I looked at Aunty’s face as she spoke and she looked so happy I wanted to hug her.

‘You can come in the kitchen, its chicken casserole and there’s enough for three, but I don’t want any silly talk in front of Jenny.

She served up three plates full and we all three sat down after Cliff had shaken my hand and winked when Aunty wasn’t looking our way. So the lamp had led my Aunty to happiness after all those years when she had used it to lead people safely home to her . She smiled at Cliff as she passed the full plate to him and her reddened face looked even redder when  she served me and I winked at her.
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