Thursday 17 January 2008

The Young Lovers

To continue with the tenants.

I was surrogate Mum to the next lot - she was 16 and he was 19 and they were so desperately in love you’d have thought they’d invented it.

She was very cuddly, worked in the local greengrocer’s shop and gave me wonderful discounts. He was a stick thin gardener who needed feeding up.

Unfortunately she had absolutely no idea how to cook and would often pop downstairs to borrow a cake tin (the cake was a disaster), recipes etc and ask for advice on – well, just about anything.

I think he took over the cooking in the end, out of self defence, and when he came back from work they’d sit down to Fray Bentos pies, or Tesco value pies when things got worse. (I had to go and fix the cooker in the midst of several of their meals as it kept shorting.)

I’ll never forget their first Christmas – she asked me to come up and see their tree, that she’d bought in November, and was already lovingly decorated. For some reason it was in their bedroom, which was covered in teddy bears, all over the floor. That struck me as particularly poignant. The Child Lover.

Unfortunately, like the Christmas tree, this love peaked too early and she decided she’d had enough and went back to live with Mum. Her real one, that is. He stayed on for a few months, alone and resigned, before moving away because he’d been accepted into the army.

The place was a pigsty when he left. It took me three days just to clean the cooker. After that there were five trips to the dump and the entire flat needed not just cleaning but repainting. That was a long week.

I see her in town every now and then. She became pregnant by someone else at the matronly age of 18 and now has lost a lot of weight, looks stunning, and has a gorgeous little blonde daughter. She is manager of Burger King and the new bloke looks OK too. We haven’t seen the original boyfriend but apparently he’s around somewhere. So things didn’t work out badly for them.

15 comments:

wakeupandsmellthecoffee said...

One wonders how her mother could allow her to move out in the first place. I know my daughter wouldn't do that: feeding her stomach is too important to her. Still, nice to hear it's had a sort-of happy ending. Could have been much, much worse.

Flowerpot said...

exactly wakeup. Could have been much worse. I think she moved out because it was so crowded at home - loads of them packed into a tiny council house.

Julia Phillips Smith said...

Your observation - the Child Lover - is wonderful. First relationships are so all-consuming because the participants are just that - child lovers. I'm glad you have an update on them. Hopefully things will turn out for them in their 'matronly' days to come.

Akelamalu said...

Halfway through I was like

"aw, bless, what a shame" then I got to the end and smiled - it turned out OK!

Flowerpot said...

julia - this lot certainly were child lovers! You're quite right about first relationships. Not sure that I can remember that far back...

Ak - yes though I'd like to know what happened to him!

Elaine Denning said...

I wish I could bottle 'young love' ind sell it...it makes me go all gooey. I'm glad everything turned out ok for her. I did smile when you mentioned she was a Burger King manager!

Flowerpot said...

MissU - yes I laughed at the Burger King bit when she told me. No, I laughed afterwards...

Ellee Seymour said...

My eldest son is 17 and I shudder to think that I would have a 16 year old daughter living away from home like that, it's too young. I wonder how old her mother was when she had her.

laurie said...

oh my oh my oh my so young.
manager of a burger king, and with a daughter, at 18? oh my .

Irene said...

It's a shame when teenager become convinced so early on that they are grown ups and ready to handle the responsibilities that come with it. You would hope that they would postpone any life changing decisions until they were much older and wiser. It's so sad to see a teenage mother. You wonder about all the missed opportunities.

Flowerpot said...

ellee - yes she was very young whereas he was mature for his age - took his responsibilities very seriously. And he could cook - after a fashion.

Flowerpot said...

laurie - yes very young. But she's done Ok - more than that, I think she's done really well. And she and the new man seem very happy which is wonderful.

Flowerpot said...

sweet irene - I think she realised early on that it wasn't going to work which is why she went back to live with her mum. But I seem to remember it was very cramped at home and she was keen to get out of there. I don't think she missed out too much - she now lives down the road from her mum so she's able to go out while mum babysits. They seem to get on well - better than when she lived at home.

Flowerpot said...

ellee - yes she was very young whereas he was mature for his age - took his responsibilities very seriously. And he could cook - after a fashion.

the rotten correspondent said...

things do work out for the best sometimes, don't they?