An old fashioned love story

“Are you sure I look alright?” he asked her for the umpteenth time that evening.

“Yes Arthur, debonair and handsome, for an old guy”! She added. “We’re only going out with the kids, not to visit royalty”.

“I know, but I hate dressing up. Why can’t I just wear my shorts and tee-shirt and be done with it? Where are we going anyway?” he asked.

“It’s a surprise Arthur. I’ve told you that! The children have booked a restaurant for us – we’ll know when we get there, so hurry up and put the finishing touches to your outfit” she teased him.

She was looking forward to it. Someone else cooking dinner and then doing the washing up was exciting! The dress she was wearing still fitted from five years ago and she was pleased about that. It was so easy to put a bit of weight on at her age, and Arthur’s age too judging by his tummy!

“I’ll just wait outside on the seat” she told him, walking towards the front door. “There’s a little while until we’re getting picked up”.

The air had a nip in it and she was glad that she had put her little black wrap around her shoulders. She felt the softness of the material and thought about how long she had been wearing it. ‘I think I bought it when Sam was born and he’s almost forty seven now. Goodness me how the time flies’, she said out loud.

“What did you say?” her husband asked her walking towards the wooden seat she was sitting on.

“I wasn’t talking to you love, just to myself. But do you remember when I bought this wrap?” she asked him.

“What’s a wrap?”…

“Oh it doesn’t matter….Men!” she muttered under her breath.

Gloria looked sideways at the man sitting next to her. His shoulders were slightly hunched and he fiddled with his watch strap as he waited for the lift. He raised his head and glanced over at his wife of fifty five years. “What’s wrong?” he asked her, thinking he had toothpaste on his face or his collarr was tucked inside his jacket.

“I’m just thinking about us, about how much I love you, even though you are a grumpy old bear sometimes” but before she could continue he interjected with “You can talk, Mrs Bossy Boots…and I love you too!”

They both laughed out loud and he gently held her small hand inside his two big ‘paddles’ (as Gloria called them!).

They had met in Primary school, in year five. Arthur was new at the school and Gloria was given the task of showing him around. Her sunny personality and happy nature was the things that he remembered the most about their first meeting, and her sense of humour. She had a nick name for all of the teachers and apart from the fact that he hadn’t met any of the teachers, except Mr. Mullings the Principal, he did laugh at some of the names. Mr. Mullings was ‘doughnut’ because of his hair. He had a circle of hair all around his head but a huge bald patch the size of a soup bowl in the middle.

Arthur and Gloria were friends from the first time they met and soon discovered that they lived a few streets from each other, so they walked to school and home again each day. On the days that it was pouring with rain they would run to the bus stop about half way home and sit there until the rain eased off, but when the rain didn’t abate any, they would just walk and talk, getting soaked and not really caring.

Arthur thought Gloria was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. The day after their first meeting he went home and told his brother about the girl at school with dark shiny hair and the bluest eyes he has ever seen. His brother who was five years older than him and mainly interested in sport and cars replied “So what?”

Gloria really liked Arthur - mainly because he was unlike a lot of the boys in her class, who were crass and just plain horrible, and to her he was her mate and she trusted him. Sometimes she would catch him staring at her and she couldn’t understand why he would be. “What are YOU looking at?” she would ask him, pushing him and laughing.

“Dunno, it’s not labelled” he would tell her and push her back gently.

The two years together at Primary school went by very quickly. Their friendship continued to grow and they felt completely at ease with each other. Arthur always wished that Gloria showed some interest in him that was a little more than just good mates but she didn’t seem to, although he noticed that the time he told her that Gillian Lane asked him if he would help her with her English homework, Gloria told him “She has two older siblings and they are both really smart, so they can help her!”

Primary school turned into High School and they were both teenagers now. Even though they were at different High School they saw each other every day. They caught the same bus into town in the morning before going their separate ways and would call around to each other’s house at the weekend or just hang out for a while at the park down the road.

Arthur was tempted on several occasions to ask Gloria if she would like to do something different to just being at each other’s place’s or the park but with each attempt he failed – shyness and awkwardness took over.

With sweating hands and rosy cheeks from nerves he stammered his way through his first attempt. “Gloria” he said as they sat on her rickety old swing in the back yard.

“Yeah, what?” she replied pulling her soft hair back into a pony tail for their game of soccer they were about to embark on.

“Umm, you know how we always go to each other’s places?....Ummm”…

“Gloria” her Mum shouted at her from the kitchen window. “Can you bring the washing in before it rains love?”

“I’ll be back in a minute Arthur” and she ran around the side to the washing line just as it began to spit.

Meanwhile Arthur’s nerves were taking over, wiping his hands on his shorts he started to wonder if he needed to think about it a bit more. ‘What if she says no?’ he thought.

“Ok I’m back. Now what were you saying?”

“It was nothing important. Let’s just play soccer before it pours down.

He did eventually ask her out, on her fifteenth birthday. They went to the local cinema and saw a Kung Fu movie. Of course Gloria didn’t tell Arthur immediately that she really disliked those types of movies, but when the time was right, she did, and he replied that it was either that, a cartoon or a love story, so Arthur decided that the Kung Fu movie was the best of three choices. Neither of them concentrated too much on the movie – Arthur because he kept sneaking glances at his pretty date, and Gloria because she was just waiting for the movie to end!

He didn’t kiss Gloria that night as he couldn’t pluck up the courage so it wasn’t until many months later that he did. Arthur knew then what he had always known, that this was the girl for him and one day he would marry her.

They were officially boyfriend and girlfriend when Arthur’s Dad broke the news that they would be moving. His father had been in and out of work with his company for a few years now and it was beginning to put quite a financial strain on the family. He had been offered a job in Scotland and of course, being a well-paid contract he couldn’t turn it down. Nobody wanted to go, to leave the life they had always know and move to Scotland, seeming like other side of the world to them all. “It’s only a couple of years” he told them and trying to make it sound enticing, continued “and when we come back you never know, we might be able to afford a house with a bedroom each”. It made no difference to the children, but they still had to leave.

Arthur was devastated that he would have to be separated from ‘the only girl for me’ as he called Gloria. When he managed to tell her in a calm and rational voice, it was Gloria who couldn’t stop crying. “Two years is such a long time Arthur. You might meet someone else. I don’t want you to go” she told him with tears running down her cheeks.

He reached out to hold her soft hands telling her, “I don’t want to go either. How will I get by each day without seeing you Glors? At least we will be able to see each other in the school holidays. It’s only six and a half hours on the train. Do you think your parents will let you come by yourself and stay with my family for a week?” he asked her hugging her tight and stroking her hair.

“When do you leave” she asked, after she had stopped crying and wiped her face.

“Two weeks”

“What? Is that all? Oh Arthur”

The two weeks passed very quickly. Each day they knew they were closer to the time when their lives would change and they would be tested on the strength of the relationship they had. On their last night together as they sat glued together on the lounge room couch, Arthur said what Gloria had been hoping for.

“I love you Gloria. I’ll never stop loving you. Will you wait for me?”

“Oh I love you too and I will wait forever for you Arthur. We’ll see each other in the holidays though. We’ll just keep thinking of the days when we can be this close again and the time will go quicker” she told him, not knowing if it really would help the time to pass.

As soon as his family was settled in their new house in Scotland, Arthur wrote a letter to Gloria telling her of his new address. He poured out his heart telling her how much he missed her and that there was emptiness in his heart. The photograph of them together on their first date, taken by his mother, sat on the dressing table in his room, so he could see it from his bed. Gloria’s lovely smiling face was the first thing he saw in the morning and the last thing before he went to sleep.

The first school holidays arrived since Arthur’s leaving and Gloria was allowed to get the train to Scotland and stay with his family for a week – “But you know our rules and our thoughts on certain matters” was all her Mum and Dad said to her. But she knew exactly what they meant!

He met her at the train station. It had been a long and tiring trip but when Gloria stepped off the train and into the waiting arms of her boyfriend, she felt alive and full of energy. They kissed each other, making the others passengers walk around either side of them as they stood smack bang in the middle of the platform, but they were oblivious to the annoyance some people had!

High School finished for the two of them while Arthur was still living in Scotland. He managed to get an apprenticeship as an electrician and Gloria went to the local technical college to do a shorthand and typing course. Now Arthur only got one lot of holidays a year and Gloria got a three week break half way through the year. Their love for each other never lessened and they wrote to each other weekly, the envelopes adorned with love hearts and kisses on the outside, from Gloria. They spoke on the telephone whenever they were able to, but the phone was in the middle of the kitchen wall in Gloria’s house so afforded no privacy at all. In the case of Arthur, the phone was only the local phone box miles up the road, so even though there was a lot of privacy, time, weather and if he felt like a twenty minute walk there and back played important roles in deciding if he spoke to Gloria or just dreamt of her!

They had no inclination to go out with other people and although Gloria was asked out on several dates she always declined. Arthur looked at other girls but that was about it – he just longed for the day that he and Gloria could be together again. She came up for a week after the first six months of her course and seeing his ‘girl’ stepping off the train made Arthur realise just how much he really did love her.

They talked about the next step in their relationship – getting engaged and Gloria told Arthur what he already knew – she wasn’t allowed to get married until she was 21. They could get engaged at 19 but marriage had to wait. “You know we can get engaged next June when I’m 19?” she asked and told him at the same time. “That’s if you really want to and haven’t met red headed, tartan clad Scottish lass while you’ve been here.” She teased, their hands entwined in each other’s while they sat on the pier seat watching angry waves crash violently into the rocks.

“Oh Gloria this is what I dream of every night – you and I together. I feel empty when you’re not around me and life is just work and sleep – ok, an occasional night out playing darts” he added laughing “but that’s it. I can’t wait until we’ve both finished our courses, we’re earning proper money and we can one day get married. I want to have children with you and when we have finished watching them grow up, to just spend our time growing old together. I will never stop loving you no matter what”.

“I want that too Arthur and there will never be anyone else for me. I think, in Primary School when we first met, we knew deep down that our destiny was to end up together. Even though you looked at me much more than I ever looked at you!”

“I didn’t look at you much”>

“Yes Arthur I always caught you looking at me, and my friends used to tell me, ‘he’s besotted with you!’.

“I can’t recall that”

“Arthur, admit it now” she told him as she whacked him with her shoulder bag and ran off laughing into the cool wind, him chasing her along the pier.

The sound of a car horn interrupted their own private thoughts and Gloria, deeply engrossed in hers, jumped in surprise at the sound.

“Oh look here they are love” she said to Arthur, standing up and smoothing her dress.

“About time – I was nodding off” he said half joking

“Hi Mum and Dad” came the voice of their oldest daughter.

“Where are the others?” asked her Mum as they both climbed into the back of the car.

“Oh well, Paul was running a little late so I said we would all meet at our house and go from there. It won’t take long”.

“Where are we off to then love? Asked Arthur “Or is it a state secret?”

“You’ll see when we get there” replied Jill smiling widely in the rear vision mirror at her parents. “Don’t worry Dad, it’s definitely not Indian. You won’t need your ant-acids through the night” and with this they all laughed.

They pulled up in the car outside Jill’s house and she opened her door. “Come on you two, I’m not even sure if Paul is home yet so you’re not waiting in the car”.

She put the keys in the lock and opened the large wooden door. They wiped their feet before stepping onto the polished floorboards and walked down the wide hall towards the kitchen. “Oh look here’s Penelope” Gloria said happily as she hugged her oldest granddaughter. They put their arms around each other and began chatting about the days events. Just as everyone was about to enter the lounge room the door burst open and with an extremely loud ‘SURPRISE’ the smiling and laughing faces of family and friends could be seen bunched together in the spacious room. ‘HAPPY ANNIVERSARY’ they all yelled again. Gloria stared at everyone with a shocked look on her face “Oh my goodness I didn’t expect this. How lovely” she joyfully said.

Arthur didn’t quite know what to say, he wasn’t sure if his face portrayed the fact that he was rather looking forward to just a family dinner, a few drink and then home to watch the late game of soccer on tv!! But looking at all the familiar faces of people who had been his and Gloria’s friends for most of their married life, he knew that this was much more important th87an any soccer game!

The fifty fifth anniversary party went well for Arthur and Gloria. Laughter could be heard throughout the night. The speeches were heartfelt and sincere. Phil who had been the best man at their wedding said what everyone thought… “I’d like to propose a toast to a couple who have truly loved each other since Grade 5. Enduring tragedy and difficult times during the last fifty five years of marriage has just made them stronger and more resilient, and they are still as much in love today as they were as youngsters. Here’s to another fifty five years” he said raising his glass, to which Arthur replied “twenty will be more than enough thanks” and Gloria retorted “You don’t know when you’re well off Arthur” and hugged the love of her life.