by Gwyn G B
The six women scrubbed all day, stopping only briefly for lunch; some sandwiches and tea brought over by Tom, courtesy of the pub kitchen. By the time Alison had to leave to meet Sophie’s bus, her aching arms wouldn’t have been capable of scrubbing another headstone. They’d made a big difference. The church inside was almost back to normal and outside only a couple of stones and one wall still bore the scars of the evil attack. Up in the far corner where the large rectangular hole lay ready for Jack Cotterell’s mortal remains, Margaret had even managed to tidy up the grass and flowers. Six tired women left for their respective homes to rest their weary bodies; or in Carol and Jean’s cases, to help their husbands with milking and get some supper ready.
17
The week came and went for Charlie, work just an inconvenience to be suffered in the interest of paying the bills. On Friday evening he waited for the lemmings to desert London, smugly content at the traffic reports of tailbacks on the M3 from London to the Bracknell/Guildford turn off. At 9pm he judged things to be sufficiently improved for a relatively clear run, and he threw his bag in the boot and turned his windscreen Dorset bound.
It was an uneventful journey and he’d amused himself by trying to spot the rabbits on the grass verges; their eyes glowed in his headlights as he sped by the shadowy little V signs of their forms. They prompted memories of Digger, the almost obligatory and inspirationally named pet rabbit he’d had as a child. It used to chase the neighbour’s Alsatian out the garden and seemed totally indestructible, chewing through the electric cables on the lawnmower and even knocking a pile of bricks onto himself. When eventually Charlie had gone out to give him his morning bowl of rabbit muesli and veg only to find his pet cold and flat in his hutch, the whole family had come out to see, incredulous that Digger could have eaten his last carrot.
His father had carried him into the house where his mother, snuffling back tears, had wrapped him in an old pillowcase. They were just about to bury him, Charlie and his brother standing respectfully upright starting at the hole their father had dug for their beloved rabbit, when suddenly his mother in a fit of panic had rushed into the house. She came back with the small mirror she kept in her handbag and which she used to put on her lipstick. She put the mirror to Digger’s nose and they all watched and waited. No little steam marks left his nostrils to transfer themselves to the mirror – his mother began to wail and his father patiently and very carefully put Digger to rest.
As Charlie turned down the small track which led to Alison’s house, he glanced at Martha’s cottage, a light in one of the top rooms catching his eye. He smiled to himself, wondering if she was entertaining some toy boy on her black silk sheets.
Alison was overjoyed to see him, which was the main thing, but he couldn’t help being a little disappointed that Sophie hadn’t waited up to greet him. He’d hoped that last weekend would have all been forgotten by now.
‘Oh Charlie, don’t take it personally. She’s had another busy week, and we’ve got to be up early tomorrow morning for horse riding. Besides, isn’t it better that we’ve got some time to ourselves?’ smiled Alison coyly, but he couldn’t help feeling that she was just trying to pacify him.
As soon as he entered the house his nose and eyes began to itch, then he started sneezing, immediately guessing that Beelzebub must still be in residence. Alison noticed his allergy symptoms and he’d had to admit that cats and he didn’t exactly mix too well.
‘Well then he’ll have to go,’ pronounced his girlfriend, glad she had a good solid excuse.
‘But Sophie?’ ventured Charlie
‘I’m actually pleased we’ve got a good reason now, to be honest with you. The damned cat gives me the creeps. Doesn’t seem to like anyone but Sophie and of course Martha. Hangs around like some black shadow.’
Charlie looked at her, not quite convinced that it was going to be as easy as Alison was making it sound. Besides getting rid of Beelzebub because of him wouldn’t exactly endear him to her daughter, and right now he needed desperately to score points, not lose them. But he didn’t spend too much more time worrying about it, Alison had her arms around him and was very gently kissing his neck. They retired to bed, eager to re-acquaint themselves and enact what they’d both been thinking about for the past five days.
Afterwards with both of them tired and content, they accidentally drifted off to sleep, still holding each other in their post-coital embrace. The alarm clock just ticking the time away redundantly by the bed side.
Sophie found them both the next morning, an hour after her mother was supposed to have come and woken her to go riding. She traipsed around to the side of the bed where she could see Alison’s ruffled head protruding from the sheet, stood there and hollered,
‘Mum, mum it’s nine o'clock.’
Alison woke with a terrible fright. For a split second she was totally confused, her frowning daughter stood in front of her, hands on her hips, with the black tip of Beelzebub’s twitching tail beside her seeming to rise out of the bed, the only visible sign of his presence. In the corner of her eye she also saw Charlie’s naked torso lying next to her, he was groaning awake. She assessed the situation, took in the time on the clock, closed her eyes and groaned.
‘Oh God Sophie, I’m so sorry. I must have fallen asleep without turning on the alarm.’
Sophie just looked at her mother, then at Charlie who had by now turned round, and then back again at Alison. Her face like a mortally wounded animal, she bent down, picked up the source of the twitching tail and stomped out of her mother’s bedroom slamming the door behind her.
‘Sophie, Sophie, I’m sorry…’ Alison called after her, but got no response. ‘Oh God, what have I done,’ she said slapping her hand to her forehead and turning to Charlie. He didn’t reply, mainly because he didn’t know what to say. Alison bounded out of bed, threw on her dressing gown and went to talk to her daughter. Charlie flopped back down onto the pillow. One more point lost.
Sophie was putting away the clothes she’d carefully set out the night before ready to go riding, the room saturated with the air of martyrdom.
‘Sophie I’m really sorry we missed your riding. I didn’t mean to you know that.’
Her daughter concentrated on smoothing out a non-existent crease from her t-shirt which had a New Forest pony printed on it.
‘Sophie look at me and don’t ignore me.’
‘You ignore me as soon as Charlie comes.’ The spite surprised her mother.
‘That is not fair or true and you know it. Just once this morning and it wasn’t Charlie’s fault. I was very tired and simply fell asleep accidentally.’
‘That’s only because HE was with you. He wants you all to himself.’
‘Now you are going too far missy,’ Alison was angry at her daughter, but at the same time her anger was weakened by the thought that firstly she’d let her down on the riding and secondly that she’d found her and Charlie sleeping together. ‘Charlie would never want to come between us, he cares about you very much, just you remember all the things he’s done for you over the past months. Now I want you to stop sulking and get dressed. I’m going to go and ring the stables and apologise, see if they can fit you in later.’
Sophie didn’t say anything, she just looked at Beelzebub and thought about how much she was beginning to hate Charlie, who thought he could just come along and take her dad’s place. Her mother may have fallen for it, but she hadn’t. She longed to go and talk to Martha and Michaela, they knew what he was up to, they’d talked about it already. They understood.
Alison phoned the stables, who weren’t overly impressed with her tardiness and therefore failed to put themselves out in arranging a new time for her. Sophie would have to wait until the following Saturday, they told her. Alison remembered that her parents would be down next weekend, and decided that sadly she’d have to wait even longer.
Sophie was secretly glad her mother hadn’t been able to arrange a new time as it meant she could milk her martyrdom st
atus for all it was worth. She knew her mother was feeling guilty and she guessed that Charlie must be too because he came down late for breakfast and was very quiet. She made a point of finishing her last spoonful of cereal on his arrival and leaving the kitchen. Charlie sneezed as Sophie and her furry shadow passed him by.
‘She’s turning against me, isn’t she?’ he said, blowing his nose on a piece of kitchen towel and leaning back against the sink to face Alison. ‘Thinks I’m trying to replace Phil and come between you two, all that sort of stuff…’
She hadn’t answered him immediately, instead staring down at her piece of toast, suddenly struck by the large strawberry that had found its ways there from the jam. She sighed.
‘She’ll settle down eventually, you’re right it’s a classic reaction and I guess we’ll just have to be patient.’ She mushed the strawberry and spread its pulped body around her toast.
‘Have you told her about my cat allergy yet?’ Charlie asked, coming to sit at the table with her, subconsciously interested in what it was about her breakfast that was holding her so transfixed. She looked up at him, her berry butchery completed.
‘No, not yet, don’t you think that would kind of add to things a bit?’
‘Yes. Don’t, at least not this week. I’ll take an antihistamine. What do you think about the idea of me buying a little puppy to replace Beelzebub, you could do with a dog anyway living on your own.’
Alison smiled.
‘Yes that might be a good idea, but not a Great Dane or anything like that, I’ll think about it,’ she watched him tuck into his bite size Shreddies with a new lease of hope painted across his face. She wasn’t about to put him off, but she wasn’t so sure it was going to be as simple as he thought. Sophie had talked about him with such vengeance this morning. She couldn’t work out why she’d had such a dramatic change of heart, she used to really love Charlie. A little jealousy and maybe resentment that he was commanding her mother’s affections was to be expected, but not the strong spite she witnessed in her face and eyes. Alison was going to have to talk to her in the week when he wasn’t around. Find out what it was that was really bothering her. In the meantime she’d have to get used to being piggy in the middle, she cared about Charlie too much to lose him. There was no way she was going to give up on him.
18
The following week Charlie left work early on the Friday, firstly to pick up the little puppy he’d chosen on Tuesday, and secondly because he wanted to be down in Dorset well before Sophie’s bedtime so that he could give it to her. He’d fretted all week about how he could improve things between them and he knew it was worrying Alison too. She’d tried to talk to Sophie but had got nowhere. She was beginning to wonder whether some kid at school might have been saying things. Sophie would admit to nothing.
Alison also had her first positive reply from a local radio station, they were looking for a part time producer and wondered if she’d be interested. Sadly, however, the hours they’d need her to work meant not being home for when Sophie returned from school and right now she didn’t think that would be a good move. Charlie heard the disappointment in her voice as she told him, but he’d had to admit that she’d made the right decision.
‘Something else is bound to come up,’ he’d replied and she’d in turn agreed.
‘I’m going to ring them back and say I can’t consider this job, but I could come in for a chat anyway about other possibilities.’ Charlie was proud of his girlfriend’s positive attitude and her motherly devotion.
It was going to be a big weekend. Not only was Charlie hoping to score points with Sophie for getting her what must be the cutest puppy ever, but Alison’s parents arrived Saturday morning and he desperately needed to get them on his side. He needed allies within Alison’s close family to help in his defence, in case Alison became influenced by Sophie’s attitude towards him and wanted to call the whole thing off.
He’d already met Alison’s parents at the funeral anyway. He remembered her mother as being a bright, astute and energetic woman with more zest for life than her age alone would suggest. She’d obviously not had it easy through the years, or spent a great deal of time and money investing in her figure as his mother had; but the energy from within smoothed out the wrinkles and glossed over her stomach. Charlie preferred Elizabeth Wright’s attitude to life than his mother’s. She’d got so obsessed about her looks and getting older, that she’d forgotten about living and had let the years trickle by wasted. Not that this was all her fault, Charlie knew his father had a great deal to answer for. Abandoning his wife for a young bimbo from the office during his ego’s mid-life crisis, had a very bad effect on Charlie’s mother’s confidence. He wished she’d just forget about getting him back, or making him wish he hadn’t left by trying to look fantastic. It was time she moved on. As it was though, his father’s bimbo had returned to her ex-boyfriend, a twenty-eight-year-old, and after a string of passionate, but eventually hollow flings, he’d recently confided in Charlie that he was considering returning to his mother. Charlie just wished they’d get on with it and leave him out, it was heart-breaking to watch the two people he cared and respected the most in the world making total fools of themselves.
He couldn’t imagine Alison’s father, Jim, having an affair in a million years. A solid, dependable man, Charlie had a lot of time for Jim. They’d chatted at the wake, a typical man’s conversation about re-upholstery, totally skirting around the subject which they were all there for and which hurt too much to talk about. Charlie thought that he probably had more in common with this quiet but considerate man than he did with his own father and his flashy, loud ways.
That hadn’t always been the case though. Years ago, before he’d even met Phil, the pack mentality had been in full swing. Showing you had money and proving you could pull the babes were the two main aims and the only important thing in life besides your job, was your mates. When Charlie met Melissa, none of the boys had yet dared live with a girl, let alone marry one and Charlie shared a flat with his two closest accomplices - Bob and Tim. Playing on their Sega Megadrive and watching footie with a few cans, were their favourite recreational pastimes. Melissa wanted more. They dated for over two years with her putting up with having to share Charlie with the rest of them, but eventually her patience began to wear thin. The trouble was, the more pressure she put on him to do his own thing, the more pressure the boys put on him for being under the thumb and deserting the lads. In the end it came to an ultimatum - the relationship had to move on - or Melissa would walk. She wasn’t asking for marriage, just a little bit of adult commitment and attention. Charlie crumpled under the pressure of the gang and became young, free and single again - a move he’d regretted for years. He really had cared for Melissa, he even tried to get her back once he’d realised it, but to no avail. Then within a year, Bob had proposed to some tour guide he met while in Switzerland and Tim moved his girlfriend into their flat. Eventually tired of constantly finding them ‘at it’ in just about every room, not to mention the girlie influence which now pervaded their domestic situation in general, Charlie had bought his own place ending up without Melissa and of course without his friends who’d both been selfish enough, or was that mature enough, to know when it was time to move on in their lives. He hadn’t found anybody he’d loved as much as he had Melissa, until now, until Alison. He’d had a long time for that lesson to sink in and he wasn’t about to let her go without a big fight.
Half way down the M3 the little puppy, a Labrador Golden Retriever cross, started crying and making escape attempts from his box. Charlie had been forced to pull over onto the hard shoulder to pick him up and calm him down. Company had been all the little fellow craved and with Charlie cradling him and concurrently praying his bladder held, he soon snuffled back off to sleep. Putting him gently back in his box, Charlie was convinced that no little girl in her right mind could resist such a sweet fur ball. Sophie’s reaction was therefore a complete surprise, although Beelzebub’s was per
haps a little more predictable.
‘What have you brought that here for?’ asked the extremely ungrateful nine-year-old. Beelzebub was spitting and arching his back at the little dog which was wagging its tiny tail in total oblivion. Every hair on the cat’s body appeared to be standing on end and Sophie was trying desperately to comfort him.
‘Sophie don’t be so ungrateful and rude,’ said Alison surveying the scene with total dismay, ‘Charlie has bought the puppy as a present for you. We thought you’d like a pet of your own.’
‘What for? I’ve got Beelzebub and he doesn’t like silly dogs.’
‘You…’ Alison checked herself before she said something she’d regret, ‘Beelzebub has to go back to where he belongs, he is not yours and you know that,’ she said in exasperation.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Sophie was adamant and defiant now. ‘Martha has given him to me and she says I can keep him for as long as I want.’
‘Well I’m your mother and I say you can’t. He isn’t really yours, I’m sure Martha does want him back really, she’s just being nice because you’re a little girl and she doesn’t want to upset you.’
‘She does mean it and I don’t want that stupid puppy.’ Sophie turned on Charlie, more reminiscent of a Rottweiler than a nine year old girl. ‘You can’t replace my daddy and you can’t swap your silly dog for Beelzebub.’
‘Sophie don’t speak to Charlie like that,’ Alison was horrified and looked at Charlie in sympathy. He was just standing there, his jaw dropped open in amazement. He’d been dreaming about this moment, smiles and rosy cheeks and big thank you kisses as she fell in love with the little dog’s cute charm. Instead there were tears, screaming and a thoroughly horrible little girl that he’d never seen before.