Bit by bit, we managed to get running water into her house, and eventually we had the gas connected too. Then we added all the comforts a proper home ought to have. Later, I stumbled upon my aunts house listed on a property website.
My aunt, Edith, was seventy-eight years old at the time. She had two sisters, one of whom was my own mother. Aunt Edith had married at least ten times over the years. Her last husband passed away a decade ago, and she’d never had children herself. She and her late husband lived in an old cottage that had never enjoyed any modern conveniences. The house had just two small rooms, and aunt Edith’s lavatory was still an outside privy.
Her husband was one of lifes real characters, as people used to say. We visited them often, as ours was always a close-knit family. Her younger sister, Dorothy, lived over in Sweden, keeping in touch through long phone calls abroad.
After her husband departed this life, we had to visit aunt Edith more frequently. Out of our own purse, we bought coal and firewood to keep her warm. We helped her in the garden, planting and tidying up, always lending a hand. We never once accepted anything in return. Many times, we invited her to come live with us, but she always insisted she was not suited for city living.
Gradually, we managed to get water and then gas installed in her cottage. We followed that up by refurbishing the cottage with every amenity we could afford. We built her a proper bathroom in the garden, and replaced the old leaky roofall so aunt Edith could live comfortably in her beloved village. In gratitude, she promised the cottage to our children as inheritance.
Whenever she called, wed drop everything and race over. In the end, though, we learned shed left for Sweden, moving in with her younger sister Dorothy. After all those years of hardly talking, sisterly affection sprang up out of nowhere. And as for the cottage? She said we should just leave it be for the time being!
I remember thinking, no matter how things stood between the sisters, perhaps aunt Edith would come home after all. Dorothy had a family of her owna husband and a grown-up daughter. The whole lot lived together under one roof.
We had the keys to the cottage, so decided to drive up the following weekend just to check if all was well. Of course, our key wouldnt fitthe locks had been changed. White paint scrawled large letters across the garden gate: FOR SALE.
When I got back home, I found Aunt Edith’s house listed on an estate agents website. I rang the number listed. It turned out the cottage had already been sold, for nearly two hundred thousand pounds. I couldnt bring myself to ring aunt Edith; I was too cross.
Were it not for the money wed poured into that place, it wouldnt have fetched a fraction of the price. A month passed before aunt Edith rang me herself, saying shed sold the cottage and given the proceeds to her niece, Dorothys daughter in Sweden. To this day, I dont know how to face my husband, knowing all the money wed spent on that cottage was his as well as mine.
