Pigeon Holes – Short Story – ARM 12\10\14

My Auntie Mary used to work in the Coop in the city centre in the 1960s. I have a photograph of her filing mail into brown, wooden pigeon hole boxes that covered half of one wall.

One Friday I was in the shop with mum when Mary spotted us and asked her sister and niece if we wanted a cup of tea in ‘her’ office. For that day only it was indeed hers as the boss was away on some course or other. The place was dark and dingy by today’s standards with dark brown wood everywhere. The desk the chairs the shelves; even one wall was panelled in dark wood. The only up-to-date features were a telephone and a curious vacuum pipe messaging system in one corner. It had containers that Mary called ‘pigs’ that opened with a twist so money or messages could be placed inside.

My awareness of this contraption was only triggered by the arrival of an incoming Pig that made a ‘whoosh’ and ‘thunk’ sound as it arrived in the receiving sabot. I jumped in my chair as I had my back to it and mum and Mary laughed at my fright. Mary then showed me how it worked. Money and\or a receipt would be placed in the Pig and it would then be pushed up into the outgoing tube and a lever pulled. The Pig would then be sucked into the tube and sent on its way to the accounts department for action, usually the correct change and a receipt for the customer. She then wrote a short note for her friend in accounts and let me post it into the system. Some 30 seconds later a Pig arrived down the second tube with a jokey note addressed to me from her friend saying did I want a job. Why it was in the managers office was a mystery as its only use was for sales accounts. The main messaging system was the pigeon hole system where mail was collected and delivered thrice daily by the in-house post office.

When I look at the photograph now I realise that that was how Aunt Mary ran her own life. The tube messaging system was akin to her relationship with her family. Her two sisters and dad plus us nephews and nieces were important to her as her family but we never really knew about her other life in the pigeon holes. The pigeon hole lives were kept apart from the tubes lives and remained that way until the day she died.

Her death was as sudden as it was shocking and we were all grateful that granddad had pre-deceased her. There was no ‘Last Will and Testement’ to be found but during the quest to locate one in her little terraced house all of her secrets came out.

She had never married but we found a locked box that was soon opened. It contained photographs, cards, letters and two certificates. The first certificate was the registration of the birth of a boy where she was named as mother but father was left blank. From the letters it was revealed that ‘Martin’ as she had named her son was a childhood resident of a Children’s Home for the handicapped on the coast. Martin had sent cards for her at Christmas and on her birthday that were written in various hands and signed by him under the printed word ‘Martin’, with a squiggle. Each squiggle was different. There were four photographs, one of him as a baby laid on a pale grey blanket. Two others were of him in a wheelchair at around six and ten years old. The last picture was of Aunt Mary stood beside him sat in a club chair at a party in the home. She had one hand on his shoulder and was smiling somewhat nervously. Martin had his head leaning slightly toward his mother and appeared to be laughing. The second certificate was the registration of his death at thirteen years and four months. My cousin had been born, lived a life and died and we, isolated in the tubes, knew nothing of him.

As the days passed the knowledge we had gained leached into each of our minds. The arranging and sorting took place but without any urgency, a kind of lethargy combined with grief seemed to blanket us all. We all talked a lot saying the same things over and over but we did little. Eventually I did take mum to see a solicitor, Mr Peters, and requested him to deal with Aunt Mary’s affairs. From his office we went to see Mrs Crockett at the Women’s Institute to inform them of Mary’s passing and to give details of the funeral arrangements. Mrs Crockett was suitably kind and sympathetic on hearing the news but, presumably to mitigate the probable lack of mourners, she gently told us that Mary was no longer a member and had not been seen at a meet for some years. It seems likely that the WI days out that Mary had occasionally mentioned were coming up were actually singularly personal visits to Martin.

As mum and Aunt Teresa worked their way through Mary’s home they discovered a ceramic teapot at the very back of the wardrobe. It was in the design of a brightly coloured steam engine. A blue silk ribbon was strapped around it with a double twist around the lid knob and finished off with a neat bow at the front thus ensuring that the lid stayed in place. Upon opening it they discovered a blue silk bag with a purse-string opening. It contained grey ashes. Both women were in tears with clamped throats and sat with the teapot between them on the kitchen table sobbing and saying the same thoughts over again. Why didn’t she tell us?

The final revelation was from the solicitor, Mr Peters. He told mum and Teresa that Mary did not own the little house that she had lived in for years, nor did she rent it. The house belonged to a Mr M Hessay who was a senior manager for the Coop in Huntingdon. Mr Peters had received a short telephone call from him to say that Mary’s family could take as long as they needed to clear the house. There were no outstanding bills nor any charges to come. He asked that when the house was cleared the keys be passed on to Mr Peters. He could not, he said, attend the funeral but sent his condolences. Who he was to Mary or to Martin he never explained.

Two days after the meeting with the solicitor the whole family, five of us, went to see Mary one last time at the Chapel of Rest. It was our last goodbye and we all passed the teapot around for us all to touch before mum and Teresa both together placed it into the coffin with Mary.