Chandlers Green

by Ruth Hamilton

  But Anna had spotted something else on the desk, was rummaging and muttering. ‘This reeve named Silas Morton was a pain in the side of the Chandlers – we kept being fined twelve pence for withholding rents. You see?’ She waved the offending evidence. ‘That is what drink does – fine upon fine upon fine – and let that be a lesson to you.’

  Aggie was studying her own bit of paper. ‘Hey, look at this. It wasn’t just Hitler – it says “no burgess may sell his burgage to the Jewry”. That’s terrible.’

  ‘But we could cut and burn our peat,’ said Anna.

  ‘What had Pete done?’ Aggie placed the page with its fellows. ‘Sorry, that was a bad one.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, it was. Oh, here’s a thing. “No burgess is to bake bread to sell except at our ovens.” Never mind, no-one would have paid to eat your bread, Aggie.’

  ‘I could get dragged into all this,’ Aggie said. ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I mean, you are holding stuff in your hands – real stuff – that was held by your ancestors way back. My lot were digging up spuds in Ireland, I think. Never mind – we progressed to frying them.’

  ‘You most certainly did.’ Anna leaned back and watched the small girl leaving the room, spindly dog at her heels. Jeremy had claimed a real prize and Anna was glad for him. Marie, too, was promising, though Aggie was closer to home and easier to study. Yes, they would do well together, these two couples. What about Meredith?

  Anna shook herself. ‘Never mind the matchmaking, get on with your work.’ She applied herself to the activities of reeves and courts, of landowners and tenants. In the kitchen, Aggie was murdering ‘It’s Only Make Believe’, a song originally produced by someone with the name Conway Twitty. There were some stupid names around these days: Elvis, Buddy, the aforementioned Twitty. Aggie’s singing was on a par with her bread, slightly overworked, assassinated by enthusiasm.

  It was earplug time again. With the nonchalance of habit, Anna Chandler stuck two balls of cotton wool in her ears and rolled another cigarette. Yes, this was indeed a mad, mad world.

  Polly was happier than she had ever been in her whole life. She was respected by tenants, who had begun to see her as one of them, by Jean, who admired her dogged efficiency, and, most importantly of all, by Polly Fishwick.

  She stood in front of her mirror and adjusted her hat, a fake fur with a flat top and an upturned brim. It was warm and it suited her and she was ready to go off on her rounds. Eeh, if Derek could see her now, he wouldn’t recognize her – good coat, decent boots, gloves. And she liked work. She hadn’t expected to like it, but trudging along country lanes, visiting folk, writing lists of needs, collecting rents, drinking tea – she revelled in all these things. It was just a matter of confidence, and Henry Chandler had given her that, as had Jean, his daughter-in-law.

  She popped next door to see the old man before setting off on her rounds. ‘What the blazes are you doing now?’

  He was standing on a chair and he did not flinch when she scolded him. ‘I’m getting this book down off the top shelf,’ he replied, ‘and stop treating me like an infant, woman. I am having a good day, so let me be.’

  She let him be. He was a funny old devil. Some days he was as weak as a kitten, then he would buck up and start his antics. When he was on terra firma, she spoke to him again. ‘Anna’s next door. If you need anything, shout for her, or pull the kitchen bell for Aggie.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ He stuck out his tongue.

  ‘Keep that there,’ she said, ‘I’ve a stamp wants licking.’ Then she set off on her journey.

  She made her way through the village, watched children at play, noticed Christmas trees in windows. The schools had closed and the holidays had begun, excited voices raised in expectation, slides made in a thin layer of snow. It was wonderful to be alive.

  She was halfway up the hill that led to Bankside Farm when she realized that she was being followed by a very shabby van. Thinking that she was impeding its progress on the narrow lane, she stepped aside to allow it to pass. But it stopped. She thought that her heart, too, would stop when she saw Richard Chandler stumbling from the driver’s seat.

  ‘What the hell are you up to?’ she asked. ‘You shouldn’t be driving, not in your condition.’

  He managed to focus on her. She didn’t look bad, but most people didn’t look bad after a few whiskies. Even Freda Pilkington’s skin looked almost decent after a couple of Johnnie Walkers. ‘I want you to talk to her,’ he said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘To Jean. Tell her I need some money. No, tell her I demand some money.’

  Polly bridled. ‘Tell her your bloody self.’

  He thought about that, tried to remember why he was here, why he had followed this bloody woman in the first place. He was supposed to be anonymous, wasn’t he? God, he was losing track of things – events were happening in the wrong order. It was not time to be here yet. To be where? Ah, yes, Chandlers Green – he wasn’t supposed to arrive yet, because he didn’t have a plan.

  ‘I haven’t got a plan,’ he said.

  ‘You haven’t got a bloody brain, that’s your problem,’ she advised him. How on earth had she managed to fear such a man? One puff of wind and he would be laid out on the road – in spite of his weight, he was as weak as water. ‘Get gone,’ she ordered, her eyes fixed on the van’s number plate. AWH 301, she noted in her head. ‘I’ve work to do.’

  He changed tack. ‘I looked after you.’

  ‘Aye, you did.’ She knew that the edge of sarcasm would not cut through Chandler’s drunken fog. ‘And I looked after you. And you wanted me to spy. And your wife knows all that, so bugger off.’ She swept past him and quickened her stride.

  When she reached Bankside, the farmer and his good wife noticed that she was not quite with them, so they gave her extra tea with plenty of sugar. She wrote down her list in the usual fashion: point the north gable wall, replace a stable door, splice some good wood into the kitchen window frame. ‘I’m not myself,’ she explained before leaving.

  The farmer’s wife smiled. ‘No, Pol, you’re a damned sight better than your old self, God love you.’

  She left the farm, hoping as she walked that God would, indeed, love her enough to get her home without meeting that bloody man again. He had disappeared as easily as this morning’s fall of snow, had evaporated into the atmosphere, a ghost, not even a shadow. It was almost as if she had imagined the scene. But no. She wrote in the back of her notebook AWH 301 and made her way back to the grange.

  Leena Martindale was preparing her table. There were still a few days to go, but she wanted to be on top of the job. Marie, who had taken a day off work, had helped her father to carry the kitchen table into the dining room and she was currently dressing a small tree on the sideboard. The main tree – a whopper – was positioned in the sitting room.

  Leena counted up again. ‘There’s your dad and me, you and Peter, Aggie and Jeremy, Anna and old Henry, Jean, Bert and Elsie, Polly—’

  ‘Our Colin and Meredith – that’s fourteen.’

  ‘I had it at thirteen at one point, Marie. But it’s not going to be thirteen, because if Henry’s too ill somebody will stay with him. I couldn’t be doing with thirteen.’ Leena did not walk under ladders, never put new shoes on a table, seldom left her house if the thirteenth of a month fell on a Friday. It was all rubbish, of course, but there was no point in tempting fate.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘What?’ Thank goodness the crockery had been easy to match – there was a lot to be said for plain white.

  ‘There’s a man in our back garden. He’s just crouched himself down in the bushes over there, next to that old shed.’ Marie pointed.

  Leena joined her daughter. ‘Where? I can’t see anybody. Are you sure you weren’t imagining things? With sun shining on frost, your eyes can play tricks.’ Leena’s heart had picked up pace, but she kept the fear from her voice.

  ‘No, no, I’m sure. I wish that phone would come, Mam. What shall we do?’


  ‘Nothing,’ replied Leena. ‘The doors are locked. We’ll be all right.’ There was movement out there – whoever was hiding seemed unsteady on his feet – or on his haunches – because the neglected vegetation was becoming agitated. ‘Or shall we run up to the grange? Marie? Marie? Where do you think you’re going?’

  But Marie, poker in hand, was already out of the room.

  ‘Marie!’ Leena pursued her daughter into the jungle. ‘Marie, stop where you are!’ For once in her life, Leena regretted not having been tougher with her children. She had loved them, had reasoned with them, had tried to bring out their best. And the best of this one was currently striding along with a brass and iron poker. ‘Don’t hit anybody,’ she screamed.

  Marie pushed her way into the undergrowth. What might have happened if she hadn’t taken a day’s holiday? Mam might have been burgled, attacked, hurt. Angrily, she parted the final curtain of bedraggled greenery, and there he was, bottle held in both hands, head tilted back as he poured the final dregs into his mouth.

  Leena caught up with her daughter. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said flatly. ‘Mr Chandler. What can we do for you?’

  He belched, then grinned. ‘You can die,’ he replied, the words slurred, ‘and take your husband and your brats with you.’

  Marie lowered her weapon. Peter’s father. This filthy, drunken tramp was probably going to be her father-in-law. ‘What is the matter with you?’ she asked. Then she spoke to her mother. ‘We should get the police.’

  ‘Police?’ he echoed. ‘This is my land, my village, mine.’ He struggled to his feet. ‘All of it’s mine. Handed down.’ He waved his arms wildly. ‘It’s my right, my inheritance – not theirs.’

  Marie turned to her mother. ‘He looks like something that’s fallen out of Yates’s Wine Lodge on a Saturday night. Will you run to the phone box while I keep an eye on him?’

  Leena shook her head. Jean Chandler had enough on her plate without the police coming to dig up this terrible man’s past. He looked as if he had been living rough, too, clothes shabby, face covered in stubble, skin rather less than clean. She stepped forward. ‘Right, you. I shall say this once and only once, so try and get a grip of it, will you? Bugger off.’

  He blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘I said I’d say it just that once. My husband saved your worthless life seventeen or eighteen years ago and what did you do? Tried to have him drummed out of the army, tried to ruin him. Well, you never shifted him then and you’ll not shift him now. You’ll shift none of us, because we are here to stay. This is our house. We haven’t even got a mortgage. All right? So get lost. You are the one who deserves the dishonourable discharge, Mr Chandler.’

  He carried on blinking slowly.

  Marie knew that her mouth was wide open and she closed it quickly. So, her dad had saved Peter’s dad’s life. She had known for a while that the truth would be something of this nature, yet it was strangely hard to take in. Why would a man whose life had been saved turn on the one who had saved him? She framed the thought. ‘Why do you hate my dad?’

  Richard found his dry tongue. ‘Cocky bastard.’

  Marie nodded. ‘Yes, but he has a wash and he doesn’t run round drinking whisky in the middle of the day. You killed Nanny Foster.’

  He reverted to his blinking.

  ‘You killed her and you tried to kill your wife. We all know that. The whole village probably knows it,’ she lied, ‘so get gone while the going’s good. Loads of people round here are after you – loads.’ Lies were sometimes a necessity, she told herself determinedly.

  Richard staggered back. There was a letter written by – what was her name? Foster – and she had left all her money to Jean …

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ asked Leena. ‘The bus to town?’

  He rallied. ‘I have my own transport, thanks. You know …’ He searched for words. ‘I paid her. She was a servant, no more, and she never spent a penny piece of wages except on stockings and the like, then she left it all to … to whatsername.’

  Leena whispered in her daughter’s ear. ‘He’s on about Sally Foster. She left a packet to Jean, and he wants his money back.’

  ‘There’s no plan,’ he wailed.

  ‘Jesus,’ snapped Marie. ‘Look, just go away.’ She pushed him towards a hole in the hedge. ‘Go on, get out, and make sure you don’t come back.’

  He fixed his eyes on the two women, Martindale’s women. Most of the troublesome creatures in his life were female. ‘You will never know what hit you,’ he said, before collapsing in a heap on the ground.

  ‘Well, we all know what hit him,’ muttered Leena. ‘What must we do with him? He could die out here – it’s mortallious cold.’

  ‘I’m trying to worry about that,’ replied Marie, ‘but before we worry any more, let’s go in and put some warm coats on – no use us getting as cold as he is.’ They went inside, Leena muttering about alcohol dragging heat away from the skin and causing hypothermia.

  When they returned to the garden, there was no sign of the intruder. Marie poked her head through the gap in the hedge and saw him staggering across the field towards the lane. She brought her head back into the garden. ‘We must stop this gap,’ she said. ‘Now come on – we are going up to the grange.’

  Leena shook her head in near disbelief. She had come to live up here for peace and quiet, but it was turning out to be a circus, what with comings and goings and folk falling over in other folk’s back gardens. ‘All right,’ she agreed, ‘I suppose we’d better tell Jean he’s on the prowl.’

  ‘Well, if it continues, we must get the police.’ Jean looked at all her companions and saw their concern. Aggie and Marie, the girls chosen by her sons, sat together at one side of the table with Leena; Anna, Polly and Jean occupied the opposite side. ‘I think it may be time to tell the truth,’ Jean concluded. ‘We cannot carry on feeling threatened in this way. If he is going to follow Polly, if he is determined to damage your family, Leena, we have to stop him. It is happening not just at the grange now; he is spreading his poison beyond this house. I could not forgive myself if he hurt anyone else.’

  Polly had related her tale about the van in the lane; Marie and Leena had just finished giving an account of the scene in the garden.

  ‘But I must think about it first,’ Jean went on. ‘There are my children to consider, and now Aggie and Marie—’

  ‘Don’t worry about us.’ Aggie folded her arms. ‘Marie and I can look after ourselves. You do what you think is right. If they want to know why you never said about the other things – Sally Foster and all that – you can say you were afraid.’

  ‘Sally left a letter.’ Jean put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on steepled fingers. ‘She knew she was badly hurt. Oh, God – can you imagine what this will do to us? Newspapers and … I shall speak to the children and Pa, too. But please, let us have Christmas first. Life will be altered when we start the business of getting him caught. Please, please, one Christmas of peace – no Richard, no misery, no police until the New Year.’

  Leena nodded her agreement. ‘And I don’t want Alf worried, either. We can do synchronized worrying after Christmas – how’s that for a big word on a Monday, eh? And I shall come up here every day, if you don’t mind, Jean. Until the phone’s in, I shall feel safer.’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Jean. ‘Aggie, put the kettle on, please. The twins and Meredith will be back shortly from their walk.’

  ‘With Hero.’ Aggie’s voice was mournful. ‘Hide everything that looks edible and don’t talk to him – leave all that to me. He obeys me.’ She rose to her feet. ‘I’m a liar, but at least I make an effort.’

  Not for the first time, Jean Chandler wondered why she had not fetched the police in the first place. There would be endless questions, Richard would be arrested, there would be press and neighbours and shame. But she had good friends. She looked at Polly. ‘Go and tell Pa what has happened. And thank you – all of you – for your support.’
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  They drank tea, and when the boys and Meredith came back the whole tale was told once more. Hero, after performing two laps of honour around the room, collapsed in front of the fire while the stories got their second airing.

  Anna, who had been unusually quiet so far, joined the discussion, leaving Polly to look after Henry. She agreed wholeheartedly with Jean’s decision – her nephew had taken several steps too far and he needed to be stopped. Yes, they would have their Christmas first, but as soon as the holiday season was over, Richard would be dealt with.

  To Anna, her sadness seemed bottomless, as did Richard’s capacity to do harm. Yes, she was a Chandler, and yes, she took a strange pride in the fact that she could trace her ancestry – however tainted – back to the thirteenth century. Now, however, no matter what the outcome, this ancient family had to face the courts once more; and this time it would not be a simple matter of a twelve-pence fine instigated by Reeve Silas Morton in a local assizes. This time, it might involve twelve good men and true, because the charge could well be murder.

  The world was in a constant state of flux. There were trees where there had been none, bends in roads had honed their sharpness, lamp posts had been breeding in the night.

  Richard Chandler narrowed his eyes against a low-hanging winter sun. Driving at under twenty miles per hour, he made his unsure way back to Halliwell Road. If all the other dozy beggars on the road would shape up, he could be home in a few minutes. Home? He sneered. He had just been home, hadn’t he?

  Chronology was becoming a problem; days melded together, the events of one period slipping backwards or forwards in an order that seemed random. Often, he set off for one place and ended up somewhere else – hadn’t he followed that big woman today? Pol? Strangely, the only place in which he felt tidy and safe was the grubby little house towards which he now drove. Plan. He had to make a plan. She would be there – the one whose presence made him feel better …

  Freda. Yes, that was her name. Freda had become a necessity. She asked very few questions and she liked a drink in the evenings. He got breakfast, dinner and tea – as she termed his meals – and he was seldom alone. Freda was there when he woke, cup of tea, boiled egg, slice of toast and the daily newspaper; she was there with his other meals and she was cheerful enough. He paid for all the food, she cooked it, they both ate it, so for four pounds a week she tidied up a bit and cleaned his clothes.