Unit of Memory and Love

Units of Memory and Love

Rita carefully squeezed past the first towering row of boxes and precariously stacked furniture, eager to reach the centre of the storage unit. She picked up a small basket that had toppled over and threaded her way to her sanctuary, the place she came to think and remember. The overhead lighting in the unit was glaring, and Rita reminded herself to get it changed for something more soothing, to get an extension lead and plug in a couple of her lamps. The old hatstand almost fell as she squeezed by, but it had nowhere to go, wedged as it was between a bookcase full of things that might come in useful one day and Derek’s old writing desk. Rita smiled fondly and brushed dust from the desktop, remembering her husband sitting in the evenings, writing the novel that he never finished. She sighed and pushed further in. To anyone else this place would probably look like a madhouse Rita thought, but, to her, it was a repository of a lifetime’s memories. 

It was only six months since Rita had sold the family home, the place where she and Derek had lived, loved and raised their children, Karen and Paul. The rambling Cotswold stone house was much too big for one, and right on the edge of town, but it was a terrible wrench to let it go. Karen, ever practical, had stopped short of telling her mum to ‘ buck up,’ but her relentless advice and jollity had almost driven Rita to distraction. 

‘You can get a lovely little flat in town Mum! You can’t manage this place by yourself, and another family would love it! And think of the money you’d make! No need to worry about finances!’ Karen always spoke in exclamation marks. It was draining, to say the least. But she stopped short of telling Rita that she should be over Derek’s death, after more than a year, although that was clearly what she was thinking.

Rita loved for the house she’d lived in for nearly fifty years but, deep down, she knew that her daughter was right. When Derek died she had become unmoored; wandering round her home seeing shadows of her past in every picture, every piece of furniture. Seeing her family. Seeing Derek. So, after months of resisting what felt inevitable, she had put the house on the market. It sold fast, making much more than Rita had expected, and she had to face the task of deciding what to take to the small bungalow she’d bought, near the centre of town. Impossible. How to let go of so much, of all those physical manifestations of memory? She couldn’t do it. So, she rented the large storage unit, told nobody, and had everything that wouldn’t fit in the new place packed up and brought here. To the place that had become her sanctuary.

In the middle of the labyrinth of boxes and furniture was a small calm and comfortable oasis. An armchair, a side table, a wind up radio and a pile of books awaited Rita, surrounded by things still to be unpacked. Things that would, when she got round to it, make other small pockets of reassurance and continuation. She sat for a while, listening to Radio Four, and thinking about what to tackle next. The boxes from her bedroom formed a pyramid to her right. The bed she’d shared with Derek for so long had fitted in the new house, but everything else was here, even her dressing table. Did people even have dressing tables now? She thought probably not. The thought spurred her to action, lifting everything onto the floor, piling box upon box and finding a piece of material to dust the surface and mirror. Reflected there was an ageing woman; she refused the term old. The woman had perceptive blue eyes that were still bright, shoulder length hair that needed another trip to the salon to get rid of the grey roots, and more wrinkles than Rita would have liked. But, on the whole, she was happy with her seventy-five year old face. The lines, like the things surrounding her in the storage unit, reflected her life; lines like traceries on a map of the years, and things that had helped sustain her. After an hour or so of shifting boxes around, emptying some and figuring out the jigsaw of how to stack others to allow for a bit more floor space, Rita’s arms and back ached, and she was desperate for a cup of tea. Although there was a plug in the unit it was behind several rows of boxes, a beautiful walnut wood wardrobe and a tangle of bicycles, so she couldn’t plug the kettle in. She admitted to herself that maybe bringing the bikes had been a mistake, she never rode hers now anyway, and decided to offer them to a local community project. That would create a little more room. But now she would have to walk into town, make tea and try to feel more at home in her diminished living space. Strange, she thought, feeling so much more at home in these cramped surroundings than in the larger, cleaner and perfectly adequate bungalow. She threaded her way carefully back along the only clear walkway to the door, and was about to open it when there was a knock. Who on earth could be knocking on the door? Nobody knew she had this place, apart from Bob, the helpful jolly man who was always in the office.

Rita froze for a moment, not wanting to open the door in case Karen had somehow found her out and was here to give her a lecture about being sensible and not wallowing in the past. But the voice coming from the other side of the door was male, and not one she recognised. 

‘Just a minute!’ Rita reached for the handle and eased the door open a crack. Standing in the other side of it was a short, rounded man with a wide smile, brown skin as wrinkled as her own and a shock of white hair.

‘Hello!’ The man’s voice was soft, ‘I hope you don’t mind me knocking, but I come here most days, and I have noticed that you do the same. My name is Raj Kumar, and I wonder if you would like a cup of tea.’

A cup of tea? Why was this stranger offering such a thing? It was as though he’d read her mind. but it wasn’t wise to accept drinks from total strangers, was it?

‘Um..’ Rita really didn’t know what to say. ‘I… thank you, I mean, no thank you, I won’t have tea but thank you for offering.’

Her visitor smiled, ‘Ah, you are wondering who is this strange man? I’m sure you are. But Bob in the office will tell you that I am a long term user of my unit here, that I am harmless. And that I often take him a mug of tea. It is very good tea because my cousin in Cloud Gange, in India, where all the hippies used to go in the seventies, sends it to me. It is grown on a local plantation there.’

Rita was somewhat reassured, and also very thirsty. ‘Well….hello Mr Kumar, My name in Rita Mathieson, and I was just about to go home and make tea, so perhaps I should take you up on your kind offer.’ 

‘Excellent! I will return in five minutes with tea!’ And Mr Raj Kumar bustled off to his own storage unit which, Rita saw, was almost opposite her own. She could see Bob in the office, and he waved at her. Right, surely having a cup of tea with this stranger would be fine.

Rita was still standing in the doorway of her unit, and she looked round at the muddle of boxes and furniture behind her, spotting two garden chairs that could be extracted and set up just outside the door. Would Mr Kumar bring her tea and leave, or would he except to sit with her? She pulled both chairs free, after moving Karen’s cello and Paul’s old saxophone, neither of which had been played for years. Rita stifled a brief memory of Paul’s frustration when he first got the sax, trying for cool jazz and achieving noises more reminiscent of a cat fight. He got fairly good in the end, but gave it up when he decided on a sensible life in banking. Neither of Rita’s children were anything like her or their father, neither seeming to harbour a yearning for anything other than ‘normal’ worldly success and conformity. Rita sighed and returned her attention to rearranging things. Should she get rid of the cello and sax? No, that felt like a step too far. She set the chairs up outside the unit door, surprised to realise how much she was hoping that her visitor would chose to sit and drink his tea here, rather than retreating to his own unit. She looked up to see him walking towards her.

‘Hello! Tea has arrived!’ Mr Kumar’s cheerful tones made Rita smile, and she reached to take the steaming mug from him, noticing that he had brought one for himself too. 

‘Do come and sit. Sorry it’s a bit of a mess in there.’ Rita indicated the chairs, and her guest gladly accepted, slipping into the small seat and looking at the extraordinary jumble behind them in the unit.

‘I see you perhaps have a lot of sorting out to do Mrs Mathieson. My unit was similar when I first got it, but now I can even walk around in it.’ He laughed, and Rita found herself laughing too. It was nice to share a moment with a stranger.

‘I can walk around in mine too Mr Kumar! But you have to know the way through the labyrinth.’ She gestured at the towers of boxes and memories.

‘Ah! Well, I know Ariadne’s secret - I would bring a ball of string. And please, call me Raj. Mr Kumar is terribly formal, don’t you think?’ He raised his cup as if to say ‘cheers,’ and took a sip of tea.

Rita inhaled the delicate sent of the warm drink, noting that no milk had ben added. Not how she usually took her tea, but when she tasted it she realised that none was necessary. The tea was fine and aromatic. Delicious. ‘Very well Raj it is. And you can call me Rita.’ 

They sat and talked until the afternoon light began to fade, and Rita realised in surprise that they must have been chatting for a couple of hours. They bid each other goodbye and set off in opposite directions, leaving their storage units locked for the night. As she walked home Rita found herself hoping that Raj would be there tomorrow, and she decided to bake some biscuits to take, to thank him for the tea. 

Having spent such an enjoyable time with a stranger made Rita think about her friends, and she realised that she‘d been neglecting them lately, had put her social life on hold. During and after the initial grief and disorientation when Derek died her friends had wrapped her in a blanket of love and support that had continued through the sale of her house and the move into town. Liz and Debbie had even helped with the move, and Liz, in particular, had seemed worried that Rita had had to get rid of so many things that meant a lot to her. Maybe she would invite them both to the unit, when she had it a bit more under control. She felt awful that in the past few months she’d distanced herself, ignoring invitations for lunch or country walks and forgetting to return phone calls and texts. What on earth was wrong with her? She vowed to call Debbie and Liz the minute she got home, and to reply to all the text’s she’d been ignoring. Perhaps, she thought, the need to keep her storage unit a secret from her family had led her to cut her friends off from more than just the knowledge of her refuge. How silly.

The next day was rainy and grey, but Rita’s heart was singing after speaking to her friends the previous evening. She’d got quite tearful on the phone, but emerged realising that she hadn’t needed forgiveness and that her friends were just happy to hear from her. She was looking forwards to them getting together at the weekend, for lunch at her favourite cafe. She packed the biscuits she’d made into a pretty tin, wrapped her lunchtime sandwiches in greaseproof paper, dug out her wellington boots and an umbrella, and set off for the storage yard.

The happiness of reconnecting with her friends seemed to have energised her and, before she needed to stop for lunch, she’d made significant inroads at the front of the unit. Dragging the old bikes out had been really tricky, almost sending a tower of boxes crashing to the floor, but it had been worth it. She’d created a surprising amount of space, and that had spurred her on to sort out a few more things that she really didn’t need to keep. She sank into her armchair gratefully, planning a hot bath that evening to get rid of the aches and pains that she could feel developing from all the exertion. It was time to eat the sandwiches she’d brought for lunch, and drink the tea she’d brought in a vacuum flask. Not a patch in the tea Raj had given her yesterday. She wondered if he were in his unit and decided to go and knock after a bit more sorting out. So, at about two, she did. He was in, and he invited her to see his private hideaway. Rita knew that he came to escape the house he shared with his son and his wife and children. He needed some peace from the chaotic household, even though he very much liked living with his family, and was grateful to have a home there. Raj’s unit was, Rita decided, rather beautiful. There was very little clutter, just a sofa and an easy chair, walls lined with bookcases and paintings, and a small kitchen area with a kettle and a microwave. Raj made tea and they carried their cups over to Rita’s unit, where the biscuits were waiting. Over the next few weeks this became their almost daily routine. Rita started to let Raj help her move and sort through her boxes, creating a calmer space, and Bob from the office took the things she discarded to charity shops or the local tip, and refused her offer of payment for his help. 

As summer turned towards autumn Rita felt a developing peace and joy in her life. Peace in her unit and, more surprisingly in her bungalow, that now housed more of her personal things, more of her memories, brought from the unit. She was spending a lot of time with Raj, and also with Debbie and Liz. They’d even visited her unit and, after the initial surprise, had really understood why it was important to her. Raj had made them all tea, and Rita had had to explain that no, he wasn’t her boyfriend. Just a friend. And, for goodness sake, who had a ‘boyfriend’ in their seventies! But, secretly, she wondered if this were true. Maybe Raj was becoming more than a friend. Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, she was grateful that her storage unit had brought them together.