ARTHUR’S BENCH

There’s a small village in Warwickshire which has a charming village green at its heart. There’s a duckpond shaded by the green droop of a willow tree, and an old red telephone box by the path on one side without phone in it as it is now a free library for everyone in the village to gift, borrow, and swap books.

There are a number of benches around the green, popular places for the old folk of the village to stop and rest and to update each other on who in the village has died since last they spoke, and for mums to sit and have a moment’s peace, checking social media while, like a cat ,always keeping one eye on toddlers in bright yellow wellies throwing bread at the ducks.

All of the benches have a little brass plaque on them, marking the memory of someone who was loved and now is gone. Or in the case of one, someone who was not loved and the jury is out on the meaning of gone. The little plaque has no dates on it, just a name, Arthur Merren. If you hang around the pretty village green for a while, you will see that none of the locals sit there, and that no matter what time of day it is, the bench always appears to be in shadow. If you sit on the bench for a little while, you will start to hear whispers, so faint that you cannot make them out, but if you sit there for too long although you cannot make the words out your heart will hear them, and you will spend the rest of your life hearing a whispering and sitting in the chill of the shadow, wherever you go.