Pollyanna

Pollyanna

         Pollyanna’s Bookstore was much more than that. It was a coffee shop, a Social Club, a sanctuary. Tom came here every day, without fail. To read the paper, to chat with the other regulars, and to dip into Pollyanna’s vast fountain of knowledge and wisdom. They were his surrogate family. Pollyanna, a sixty-something Bohemian, vivacious and hugely generous ex-New Yorker, fell naturally into the role of Mother. Her long grey hair, streaked with purple, she wore in a bun, or sometimes in a long plat, which fell, like a cat’s tail, down her rotund back. Her dress sense could be described as eclectic at best, gaudy at worst.
         There were several younger women who frequented Pollyanna’s, all of whom could easily fit into the category of ‘young sister’. Chatty, outgoing and, in the main, on friendly terms with Tom, they were the very epitome of a clear picture he had carried in his mind since forever, of how a young sister should be. These young women knew Tom to be a harmless sort of chap, minding his own business as he sipped one espresso after the other, reading the daily newspapers, occasionally scanning the Store for a friendly face. He never actually appeared to flirt with any of the women, which was why the male visitors didn’t regard him as a threat to their mating rituals; they, he considered, were his brothers, his uncles, his nephews and cousins. All one big happy family. Where exactly he fitted into this picture, he wasn’t too sure, never having had any first-hand experience of family life himself.
         He watched Pollyanna as she busied herself around the Store. It had taken him a while to get used to using the American term, store, rather than shop. Now, he had to concede, he was used to it, liked it even. Store. Not just some poxy little shop but a Store. Pollyanna pushed her small cart up and down the aisles, refilling the shelves; she pretty much did everything herself. On weekends, a young daughter of her neighbour came to help out making coffees but that was it. Pollyanna preferred to be in charge. It was like watching a bat fluttering about, with the oversized sleeves on her black tunic. She stopped to chat to a few of the regulars, abandoned the cart whenever someone was looking for a specific book rather than just pointing them in the right direction. It lent the entire purchasing process something of a personal touch, turned it into a pleasurable experience; most customers left with a smile on their face, or better still, stayed for a coffee and, in time, become regulars, too.
         Returning to her cart, she passed by Tom’s table, smiled at him with her usual beaming smile.
          ‘Well, good morning my friend. How are you today?’ She hadn’t quite lost her American drawl.
          ‘I am all right, thank you Polly. It’s busy in here today, isn’t it?’
          ‘Well, yes, just as I like it. Any news?’ She was referring, of course, to Tom’s hitherto futile attempts at locating his birth mother, the woman who gave him up when he was only three hours old.
         Trying not to sound too downcast, he said ‘No, nothing yet. But I keep trying.’
          ‘Well, you know what I always say, Sometimes good things come to you. Sometimes you have to chase the good things.’
         She had an entire encyclopaedia stored in her brain of such nuggets of wisdom. Some of them, Tom felt certain, she made up on the spot. Patting his shoulder, she said ‘Another espresso?’
          ‘No thanks, Polly. Only just finished the last one, and either I am getting old and less tolerable of the caffeine, or you are increasing the amount of full-strength beans in your brews!’
          ‘Nothing wrong with my brew, dear!’ she said, walking off with a laugh, sleeves fluttering behind her as she moved.
         She returned shortly afterwards. ‘No greasy paw prints, no easel’s ears, don’t mark it or you’re dead meat’, she said as she tossed a small paperback book onto the table in front of him. Who Moved My Cheese? it was called. A thin, small paperback book with a drawing of a chunk of cheese on the front. He knew the book already; it was one of his favourites. The problem was, as he saw it that he was looking for the cheese he was sniffing and scurrying but the ‘cheese’ didn’t want to be found. ‘Cheese’ being whatever remained of the family he had never known.
         A senile aunt of his mother’s was the only person he’d ever managed to track down. It appeared she was instrumental in his mother giving him up. She was present at the hospital during his birth, anyway. He couldn't shake the feeling that ‘out there’, he had the family he yearned for, a sister, an older brother, loving parents. Or a combination of those, perhaps even just a distant cousin. Anybody, somebody to help him work out who he was; something he’d been grappling with for years. He had discussed this at length with Pollyanna, trying to work out his purpose in life, his reason for existence. She listened intently, and then simply said, ‘God made you because he didn't already have one.’
         The senile aunt, however, was in an old people’s home and didn’t even seem to know her owm name, let alone remember a child given up so long ago. He visited a few times until, finally, he was challenged by a member of staff who said his name wasn’t down on the list as a relative, and perhaps he would stop pestering a poor old lady. If there was a list of relatives, he reasoned they must be HIS relatives but the matron wouldn’t budge. Eventually, he stopped going, but left his name and the number for Pollyanna’s Bookstore, as he didn’t have a phone himself.
         Tom watched Pollyanna as she walked behind the coffee counter, pulled her small stool from underneath the coffee counter and wiped clean the blackboard with a dry sponge. In red chalk she wrote ‘Love many, trust few and always paddle your own canoe’, her chosen saying for the day. She stepped off the stool, considered the board for a brief moment, and satisfied, disappeared behind the green velvet curtain separating her office from the Store to answer the phone.
         He flicked through the Cheese book. Perhaps it was time for him to adopt a slightly different approach. He just didn’t know whether there were any further avenues open to him; there had been preciously few of them as it was and the old Aunt had closed the only plausible one. Apart from that, all he knew was that his mother was born in Preston in 1944. He’d been to Preston, gone through the birth register for that year but he didn’t even have a name to go from. Somehow, the name on the adoption papers had been blotted out, he wasn’t sure by whom. Only the Aunt’s name ‘Gudrun Hallevaag’ remained; there were no Hallevaag’s at all in the entire Preston or Manchester area. He felt pretty certain that his real family name wasn’t Hallevaag anyhow.
         Pollyanna returned to the store, steered straight for his table. ‘Tom, darling. Another coffee?’
          ‘No, really, Polly I am ok. But an orange juice perhaps?’
         She raised her eyebrow in exaggerated horror. ‘Orange juice? What sacrilege to coffee lovers!’ She did, however, few moments later, serve him fresh orange juice with ice in a tall glass.
          ‘Is the computer free, Polly?’ he asked. ‘I was thinking of trying the Hallevaag thing again. It is my only lead after all.’
          ‘Well yes, sure. Help yourself, Tom.’
         She watched him as he rose, with his glass, folded newspaper and personal organiser (a Christmas present she’d bought him the previous year) and walked towards the small Internet Café section at the rear of the store. Smiling what he would have termed a “secret, almost cheeky smile”, she returned her attention to her other customers.
         Tom felt frustrated with the Internet search engines, too many blind alleys were exposed. There just wasn’t enough to go on. He’d done a city-by-city search for Hallevaag and found nothing. Zilch, zero. Perhaps they’d all returned to the land of Hallevaag (he still wasn’t certain of the name’s origin), to live miserably ever after. He browsed instead for sports news. Rugby, cricket, chess. In that order. Until he felt a tap on his shoulder.
          ‘Hello’ a woman in her forties was standing next to him. She smiled at him, clasping her gloved hands.
          ‘Sorry, love,’ he said, ‘I’m almost done and then you can have her. It, I mean.’ Closing down an article on the World Chess Championships taking place in Switzerland, he started gathering his things.
          ‘I’m not here for that, the machine I mean. I’m eh..,’ she hesitated, looking anxiously around her. ‘Look, perhaps we’d better sit down.’
         Puzzled and rather surprised, Tom nonetheless rose and led the woman to his favourite table. He saw Pollyanna craning her neck in curiosity.
          ‘Mrs Rigg, Pollyanna I mean, told me you would be here. I called earlier.’
         Tom frowned, wondering what this woman wanted from him.
          ‘I think you should know Aunty Gudrun died five weeks ago. Old age. Senile, you know.’ She saw the look of horror and astonishment on Tom’s face. ‘I’m terribly sorry. I am making an awful mess of this aren’t I? I just don’t know where to start. I am Margaret. Summerville. I am your sister. Well, half sister. I would have got in touch sooner, had I known about you. When I found out at the home, I was somewhat shocked, I am sure you can understand. And then there was so much of Aunty Gudrun’s stuff to sort out, and seeing as there’s only me’, she looked at him, realised that tears had welled up in his eyes and he was beginning to shake, almost uncontrollably, with crying. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come…’
          ‘No, no. Please, stay. I am sorry. I have been looking for you forever, all my life. And suddenly, here you are. I was looking for Hallevaags on the Internet before you came, another desperate attempt. It was the only name I ever had.’
          ‘Hallevaag was Aunty Gudrun’s married name. Uncle Hick died back in the sixties, they didn’t have any children. So far as I know there are no other Hallevaag’s in all of the UK.’ She paused, removing the gloves from her hands as she realised Pollyanna was approaching with a large pot of tea and two china cups. Pollyanna patted Tom’s shoulder affectionately, bent down and whispered, ‘See what I said? Sometimes good things come to you.’ And with that, she left Margaret and Tom alone, to catch up on lost time.