The Weather We Actually Had

Gran's loft had contained thirty years of objects labelled useful, sentimental or not mine to throw away.

She was reducing the third category first.

“Your grandfather's great contribution to storage,” she told me, opening a cupboard, “was believing that if he wrote prototype on something, it became illegal to dispose of it.”

I laughed, then felt disloyal and stopped.

Gran noticed.

“He's been dead two years, June. He hasn't become less funny to live with in retrospect.”

We worked at her dining table, where a faded mark showed the position of a vase she had moved only after deciding she no longer liked it. The new empty space still surprised her. She kept putting the salt there and then looking annoyed with the salt for not being flowers.

I told her about the coat, the nine loops and the damaged plants. She listened without interrupting to explain what Grandad would have done better. When I finished, she closed her eyes for a moment.

“He was supposed to dismantle that.”

“Did he know how?”

“Not safely enough to stop talking about it and do it.”

She opened a narrow notebook from the tin. Its pages contained expenses, sketches and occasional entries with no date, because Grandad apparently considered the order of his thoughts more durable than calendars.

Gran found the photograph of Mae and turned it over.

“He promised her something before he'd worked out whether he could make it. Then she changed her mind about wanting it. He said that was fine. It wasn't fine immediately.”

“Agnes said.”

“He was embarrassed. Not angry with Mae in the way he made it sound when he told the story. Embarrassed that being useful hadn't made him necessary to her leaving.”

I looked at the notebook.

The resemblance was uncomfortable enough that I tried to concentrate on his handwriting instead.

A page near the back showed the coat pattern with three different endings. Two were crossed out. The third led to an unmarked strip beyond the final loop. Beside it he had written: Leave enough unprepared cloth. Do not improve the evening.

“That looks important,” I said.

“It might be. He wrote important things beside shopping lists.”

I photographed the page. It wasn't a set of instructions. The stitching order was incomplete, and one return still doubled back beneath the sleeve. But the empty strip at the edge matched something in the actual lining we had treated as spare material.

“Did he test this version?”

“I don't think so. He said he'd look at it when he had time. Then he found another thing he wanted to make.”

Gran poured tea into cups that did not match because she had decided matching was an optional service crockery could provide.

“I remember the day Mae left,” she said. “Not because it was special weather. Because I had washing out and your grandad kept insisting the afternoon would clear.”

“Did it?”

“No. It rained on and off until evening. Mae came to say goodbye with wet shoes. Agnes pretended she was too busy to walk to the station, then went anyway and complained about the entire journey afterwards.”

I smiled.

“What did Grandad do with the coat?”

“Put it in the old return box. Later the box was used for something else, and he stored the coat with its opening loose. I made him write the warning when I found him telling someone it only needed a few neat stitches.”

I looked up sharply.

“He knew someone would think that?”

“He knew he himself might forget which few stitches were the dangerous ones. That's why we label things. Not because the next person is less clever.”

I felt a small part of my shame shift position. I had made a mistake. It remained mine. But the warning hidden in a folded seam was not proof that everybody else had handled the object perfectly until I arrived.

Gran touched the edge of the photograph.

“Don't make saving this coat the only way to love him.”

I swallowed.

“I don't want to cut it apart.”

“I know. It's beautiful.”

“It might not be after.”

“Then you can be sad about that too.”

We went through the rest of the papers. There were no final answers waiting under the last envelope. There was a rough drawing of a broader return frame, a list of ordinary fabric allowances and a note reminding him to buy potatoes. I kept all three in the photographs. It seemed wrong to preserve only the version of Grandad who made useful discoveries.

Before I left, Gran asked about the interview. I told her the full story, including the car I could have taken.

She listened, then pushed a biscuit towards me.

“What are you going to do now?”

“I don't know.”

“That's a beginning. Don't furnish it and move in.”

I put the notebook in my bag and kissed her cheek.

Outside, the afternoon had become grey while we talked. Not beautiful, not dramatic. Just enough light to see the way home.