For the Love of Weetabix

Many years ago, I found something out. I found out that if you put two Weetabix into a bowl in just the right way, they make a heart shape. You might think that’s daft. 

‘Silly old beggar,’ you might be thinking. ‘What’s that sort of nonsense about?’

That’s the trouble with you young ones. The first thing that doesn’t fit in with how you see things and off it goes, into the bin, dismissed. But get this. This is not your story. It’s mine. Mine and hers. I’m offering you the telling of it but it’s my story still. Just hear me out for a bit. Then you’ll do with it what you’ll do with it and I won’t know different. Just give us a chance, all right?

When I met her, Lilian, life was slower. None of this rushing around to get a million things done at once. Oh, we worked hard, don’t get me wrong. A farmer’s lad I was and it was often blood, sweat and tears by the end of a day. None of these new-fangled machines were about, not here on the farm nor at home in the kitchen. But it was a good life. There’s a kind of satisfaction in the ground broken for the sowing and the animals bedded down for the night. I don’t know as you get that from switching on a machine.

Anyway, about me and Lilian. Lil. We made our own entertainment, mind, no television then or these screens they reckon you can’t live without. I first saw her at the harvest dance. A right pretty flower she was, my Lily. Not that she was my Lily then, not with that toffee-nosed cousin of hers as keen as the royal bodyguard. All I had that night was a smile, but I never forgot it. I still haven’t – the way her face lit up, her dark curls bouncing and those blue, blue eyes.

As luck would have it, we all got invited to a do for the Coronation. No, not up in London, not many travelled far in those days. It was down the village, on the green. All pretty it was made, with flowers and flags and fanfares. But none of it was a patch on Lil. For there she was, sparkling at me across the room and not a cousin in sight. ‘Course, I bought her a drink and that’s how it was from then on – Ben and Lilian, Lilian and Ben. She didn’t have much of a life at home, what with one thing and another, and no-one seemed to take much notice of her. She’d come up the farm and give a hand. She wasn’t afraid of hard work, that one. She sort of got absorbed into the family, like we’d always known her. She was up ours more often than not and we made the most of moments we could steal together. No-one was more pleased than my old dad when I finally got on one knee and popped the question. Well – two people were more pleased, of course: me and my Lil.

We had a simple wedding, me in my Sunday best and Lil looking like some kind of angel in the light through the stained glass windows. We chose the village church even though we knew that the reverend would be sure to make some mistake or other. He didn’t let us down on that, either. No matter. We were happy and it was on our honeymoon by the sea in Lil’s gran’s old cottage that I first found out the thing about the Weetabix. It made Lil laugh and it became a tradition between us.

Don’t be thinking that life was all jam. It wasn’t. There wasn’t much money about and we had to make do and mend more than once. Mind, we were fair creative in those days and more than one old crate or torn curtain found a new life in one shape or another. 

By the time the babies came, we had our own little place. We rented it from Sir up the manor. It was a little bit of house, just two bedrooms upstairs, kitchen and living room all in one downstairs and a little extension that Sir had put in for a bathroom. We did love it there. ‘Course we did. We had each other. It was a bit cramped, mind you, in some ways. The twins found it, having to share that little back bedroom, though we did our best to make it right for them. It was all right when they were small, no call for too much space then, but once they started needing friends round and a bit of privacy, they were nagging us for something bigger.

Oh, those twins. Nell and Bria.  How Lil adored her pretty daughters, like her of course, and so like each other that even we couldn’t always tell t’other from which. Make up and frocks and all that; it was all a bit of mystery to me, to tell you the truth, but I loved them just as much as she did. I love them still, always will. I wish they were a bit nearer, especially now, but I know they come when they can, when Nell can get away from the business and Bria can find a babysitter. Her brood’s a bit much for Lil now.

Anyway, Danny came along. He was a bit of a surprise, our golden boy. We thought we’d done with nappies, bottles, waking nights and all that. The girls helped when they weren’t scrapping over whose turn it was but they were right, we all needed more room.  After all, baby Danny in with us was one thing but trying to cram toddler Danny into a small bedroom with two teenage girls was quite another.

That’s when we moved into this place. You look surprised. But I told you, life was more settled then. We never had this old rush of on to the next thing, the new toy, the latest gadget. Thirty years, we’ve been here. The girls were chuffed when we got the house. It was a stroke of luck really - for us at any rate. I’d been doing a bit of extra work for my dad’s mate on his farm and just like that he upped and died and left this to me for carrying on the work. Those girls with their own bedrooms; you’d have thought we’d given them the universe.

Danny was too small to get what all the fuss was about but he loved the space. He never wanted to be indoors and he was so curious about everything. 

‘What’s that, Da? How does that work, Da? Why’s that cow brown and her calf white, Da?’ Da this, da that, all day long. It about drove me mad sometimes, but I tell you, I’d give so much to hear that voice again. 

That’s our tragedy, you see. Danny’s curiosity got the better of him and he fell trying to see how far he could see from the barn roof. I think that’s what he was up to; my old binoculars came crashing down with him. He’d always loved that old barn, scrambling up the ladder into the hayloft and inventing all kinds of games. He was forever asking to sleep up there and it was a memorable birthday night when the girls said they’d keep an eye on him if we let him. They all bundled down together in the straw with books and a midnight feast. Our boy kept on about that for weeks. He adored his big sisters and the feeling was mutual, even if they sometimes moaned about sticky fingers on their bedroom walls and little ears eavesdropping.  That terrible day, I only had my eyes off him for a few minutes but I’ll never forgive myself. He was just eight years old.  Has Lil forgiven me? She said she didn’t blame me, that it was an accident, nothing more, but there was a shadow all the same.

It was before Nell got so successful and Bria just had the one then, little Joy. Lives up to her name, that girl, and between them I reckon they about saved Lil’s life. Ever since she saw me do it for Lil, Joy’s insisted on having her Weetabix arranged in that heart shape when she’s at ‘Nanna’s farm.’ I like that. It seems to carry the love into the future. I went on best I could; what else was there? I made the farm work, you know and I’m right proud of young James, my brother’s lad, the way he’s learning and getting ready to take over with his wife. I still do bits here and there but I’m glad his Da decided to let him farm. He was never cut out for the office, that boy.

I don’t know if it was right back when Danny died that we started to lose Lil. There were times I recognised the old sparkle in her eyes but she was never quite the same. We carried on. ‘Course we did. We wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything else. And you’re not to think it was all doom and gloom. There were many, many happy times. I remember them. Lil remembers them, too. Oh, not in sequence like a movie of our lives. Not reliably, like a documentary. Snippets here and there, though; she can still tell you what we wore to Bria’s wedding and what the weather was like for Joy’s christening. Lil can still tell you. Understand that. I know my Lilian and I know that she knows, it’s just that she can’t find the words these days, so she doesn’t try much any more. 

She’s tired, my Lil. It’s almost time for her to rest. One day we’ll go in to find that she’s travelled on ahead of us to a better place. I don’t know how much she understands now, but I reckon she understands love … And if putting two Weetabix in a bowl just so is the way I can show her that, then that’s how it’s going to be.