by S M Hardy
As I went to cross the street to the small cafe, I saw two women I recognised and hastily stepped back onto the pavement. Darcy was striding along with Miriam by her side, almost having to trot to keep up with her.
Mixing with the living was one thing, but I had a feeling if I gave this pair any encouragement at all I might not be able to extricate myself from them. Jed had said as much.
I was tempted to dart into a shop doorway or turn my back to peer into a window, but the body language of both women piqued my interest and, although I took a couple of steps back from the kerb, I watched their passing and hoped neither would glance my way.
Darcy’s lips were compressed into a thin, straight line and I could almost see the anger radiating off her. Miriam was chattering away as though oblivious to her sister’s mood. Then all I could see was their backs. Darcy all stick-thin, straight and angular, even the set of her shoulders broadcast her disapproval, and Miriam all rounded, cushiony curves, giving the impression of good-natured contentment.
I couldn’t help myself, I followed on along the opposite side of the road keeping a yard or so behind them, where they hopefully wouldn’t see me should they look back. Then Darcy’s head jerked around, and I caught a side-on glimpse of her face. She wasn’t just angry, she was furious. Her lips moved as she strode on. Miriam stopped mid step. I could see her reflection in a shop window. Maybe it was distorted by the glass, but her expression appeared cold and, for a second, she could have been a different woman to the one I’d met at Emma’s party.
Her hand shot out, grabbing Darcy’s arm, yanking her to a halt. ‘You even think of going behind my back and I’ll make you very sorry indeed,’ Miriam spat loud enough to turn heads.
Darcy stared at her sister and she looked – scared. She abruptly turned away and kept on walking. Miriam glared after her and a moment later hurried along the pavement to catch her, and then the couple were hidden from view by other shoppers.
I was intrigued. What had that been all about? It appeared to be more than just a sisterly spat. It had looked serious.
I crossed the street to the cafe. It was time for my first coffee of the day and some breakfast. Once I’d settled down with my newspaper the Garvin sisters were all but forgotten.
I didn’t want to go straight back to the cottage, instead I decided to drive around for a while. I managed to find a road that led down to the sea and wound around the coast for a few miles until it took me back up and along the cliff tops. It was certainly a beautiful part of the world and I really did wish I’d found my retreat from civilisation somewhere else other than Slyford St James.
High up on the cliffs I spotted a small lay-by, probably large enough for two or maybe three cars to park comfortably, and on impulse pulled in to admire the view.
The sky was clear with not one powder puff of cloud marring the blue. There was a breeze, but it did nothing to cool the sun warming my skin, instead it ruffled my hair and coated my lips with a salty glaze as I filled my lungs with air good enough to bottle.
The sea below was calm with not a white-tipped wave in sight. It sparkled and gleamed in the sunshine, and in a brief flight of fancy I thought if I could capture this moment and stay in this time and place for ever, I’d be a happy man.
For the second time in a day I wished I smoked as it would give me an excuse to linger a little longer. Then it occurred to me I didn’t need an excuse, I could stay as long as I wanted. I wasn’t a financial executive any more. I had nowhere to be and nothing to do. I was free.
A seagull cried out overhead and swooped down across the deep-blue expanse below me, and I shivered despite the sunshine remembering another day, another bird and a panicked race along the cliff path in fear of my life. My moment ruined, I climbed back into the car.
A few miles further on, the road swung away from the cliff and I came to a road sign directing me back to Slyford St James. I stopped at the junction and it crossed my mind if I carried on to the main road I could be back in London in four hours or so. It was so very tempting, but a white van pulling up behind me, and the realisation that I’d have to go back to the cottage if only to pick up my stuff, sent me back on the road to Slyford, although it was with a heavy heart.
At the next junction I turned left towards my temporary home and the urge to delay my return grew. I almost hoped that, for whatever reason, the road ahead would be closed and I’d have to go back the way I’d come, and then I could take the lane leading me back to the main road and London.
The white van took the turning to the right and, having no impatient driver behind me to make me hurry, I slowed down. I told myself it was to take in my surroundings, though in my heart I knew it was just to put off the inevitable.
If I’d been driving at my usual speed I’d probably never have seen the sign, or if I had I’d have ignored it, but to my right there was a narrow lane with a large gold engraved sign at its entrance directing traffic to Goldsmere House. There wasn’t a National Trust sign or anything like that, it just looked interesting. To be truthful, at any other time I wouldn’t have thought it interesting at all. Kat was the one for stately homes and grandiose gardens. If she ever did get me to walk around one with her, I spent most of my time moaning and grouching until we could leave to get down the pub. When I thought of how I’d behaved back then I realised what a prick I really was. How she’d put up with me for so long I’d never fathom. At the time I thought she was lucky to have me. What a tosser.
I drove past the turning, then thought what the hell and stuck the car into reverse and backed up until I could turn into the lane, and by the cringe it was narrow. For the first twenty yards or so I’d have had to reverse if I’d met someone coming the other way, then it widened out a bit and the high hedges on either side dipped down revealing acres of farmland.
Even so, it didn’t have the feel of a driveway to a stately home. At the end of the lane I discovered why. It abruptly ended with a large turning circle of road surrounded by hedge on either side and a high stone wall with ornate but heavy steel gates to the front. The security cameras above the gates weren’t lost on me. If this was a stately home, it wasn’t one that opened to the public.
I swung the car around so I was side on to the gate, and wound down the window to peer at the brass plate screwed to the wall. ‘Goldsmere House Care Home’ it announced. Care home? If it was a care home it wasn’t for old ladies in wheelchairs, that was for sure. Through the gate I could just make out another line of fencing. This time pointed V-shaped panels topped with razor wire. Nah, this wasn’t some care home for the elderly, this was something else altogether.
I was tempted to get out of the car so I could take a better look down the drive to perhaps catch a glimpse of the building, but as I was about to unbuckle my seat belt I heard a weird whirring sound, and when I leant forward and looked up I could see one of the cameras turning to point down at me, its lens a glistening eye, cold, disapproving and menacing. I got the message. I closed my window, took off the handbrake and continued on my way.
When I reached the cottage, I sat outside in the car staring at the place. The thought of going inside and spending another afternoon on my own, followed by an evening and night of more of the same was too depressing for words. Even so, I couldn’t sit in the car for the rest of the day.
I climbed out, slamming the door shut, and leant back against it peering at the empty windows of the cottage and the reflection of the sky and the few small clouds slowly crossing them.
All my previous gung-ho ‘I’m gonna find out who’s doing all this and solve the mystery’ had dribbled away. What if there wasn’t any mystery? What if I was just one seriously disturbed young man, who by a quirk of fate had met up with two eccentrics who instead of pulling me back to earth were feeding my delusions?
I locked the car, dropped the fob in my jacket pocket and pushed myself off the car, reaching for the gate. I took one step onto the path and thought sod it! I backed out, pulling the gate closed behin
d me. I was going to get a pie and a pint at the Sly. One pint wouldn’t hurt me, but an afternoon with a bottle of Scotch beckoning just might.
I didn’t pass a soul on the street and it crossed my mind that maybe in reality I was locked up in some place like Goldsmere House, surrounded by padded walls and wrapped in a straitjacket and everything else was just in my mind. Then I wondered why I thought Goldsmere House should be such a place, and the razor wire and pointed steel fences floated through my head.
The Sly was empty except for George and one old codger sitting on a barstool at the far end of the bar and Old Ginge, who was curled up on another.
‘Afternoon, Jim,’ George said, looking up from the glass he was polishing. ‘The usual?’
‘Please,’ I said, getting up on the stool next to the sleeping cat. ‘Can I get something to eat?’
George gestured with his head to a box filled with menus. ‘Everything’s on except for the mussels and duck.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking a menu from the pile.
George plonked the pint down next to me and I gave him my order, at the last minute forgoing the pie for scampi and chips.
I took a sip of my pint and I must admit it tasted really good.
‘It won’t be long,’ George told me, returning from the kitchen.
‘No rush.’
‘So,’ he said, ‘are you keeping yourself busy?’
‘Not really. I’m finding it a bit hard to settle.’
‘Different pace of life to what you’re used to, I expect.’
I shrugged. ‘I guess,’ I said, and then as an afterthought, ‘I drove over to Chalfont this morning.’
‘Oh aye.’
‘Nice place.’
‘It has a bit more going on over thar,’ he admitted.
‘George …’ He looked up expectantly as I hesitated. ‘Have you heard of a place called Goldsmere House?’
‘On the top road?’
I took another sip of my drink and nodded.
‘Hmm. Why d’you ask?’
‘Oh, I just saw the sign as I passed and wondered what it was.’
‘It’s a sort of care home,’ George said.
‘Loony bin, more like,’ the old boy down the end of the bar piped up. ‘Loonies thar, the lot of them.’
George gave him a pained look. ‘Now, Cedric, is that anyway to speak about them poor ald folk?’
‘Don’t you go all politically correct on me, George Duffield. The people that end up thar aren’t right in the head and you damn well know it.’ The old boy sunk the rest of his pint and dropped down from the stool. ‘Criminally insane, I think is what they call them.’ He pulled a leather purse out from his jacket pocket and slowly picked through the coins, counting them out one by one onto the copper bar top. ‘Nutters the lot of them.’
George swept up the coins. ‘See you later.’
‘Yessum,’ Cedric agreed and, giving me a curt nod, shambled out of the bar.
George dropped the coins into the cash register and shoved it closed. ‘He’s one of what we villagers call “local characters”,’ he said with a laugh.
‘I guessed as much.’
‘I gather there was a bit of an uproar here and in Chalfont when the Goldsmere first opened,’ George told me. ‘Cedric’s probably old enough to remember it.’
‘Why? The uproar, I mean.’
‘Like Cedric said, the locals all thought they would be murdered in their beds by the “criminally insane” folk that’d be cared for there, but most of the residents are just old people with dementia and the like.’
‘The security looks pretty intense for a care home.’
‘You actually went up there, then?’
‘Just being nosey, I suppose.’
‘I think the security is mainly for show – just to keep the locals happy.’
‘So you’re not from around here?’
‘Brixham, which isn’t that far. Even so, I’ve been here ten years and the old’uns are only just beginning to accept me.’
‘I haven’t got much chance, then,’ I said with a smile.
‘You’ll be all right,’ George said with a chuckle. ‘If Jed’s taken a shine to you most of the rest of the village will too.’
‘People around here think a lot of Jed?’
‘He’s a bit of an odd character, but yes, yes they do.’
‘So he’s a good friend as long as I don’t let him “play with my head”?’
George gave me an apologetic smile. ‘You know what he’s like. All that mumbo-jumbo he comes out with when he’s in his cups.’
‘Yeah, I know what he’s like.’ I ran a finger down the side of my glass, tracing a line in the condensation clouding its surface. ‘Does it get him into any trouble?’
George wrinkled his nose. ‘Not often …’ he paused as if thinking about it, ‘but one time he had a real falling-out with one of the vicars from St Jude’s.’
‘I’d heard as much.’
‘A nasty business.’
‘Really?’ He’d piqued my curiosity now. Emma had made it sound – how had she made it sound? Not as serious as George apparently thought.
He leant over the bar, moving closer as though not wanting to be overheard, although there wasn’t a single other person in the room. ‘Jed and Donald Pugh never really saw eye to eye, then it all came to a head one afternoon when we were holding a wake for ald Mrs Dutton.’ George straightened up and his brow creased into lines as if trying to remember. ‘We’d got over the initial weeping and wailing stage, not that there was much of that, she was very ald, in her nineties, and she’d had a good life. The sandwiches were almost gone, and everyone was getting merry, then suddenly from out of nowhere it all kicked off.’ He shook his head almost as though he still couldn’t believe what had happened.
‘Kicked off?’
Without asking, George took my now-empty glass and poured me another. ‘Take one for yourself,’ I told him.
‘Thanks,’ and he poured himself a small Scotch.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
He took a slug of his drink. ‘You know what? I’m still not exactly sure. It was all going really well. I think Jed’d had a few, though he was nowhere near blathered. Even the reverend had taken a couple,’ George shrugged, ‘and maybe that’s what did it. Maybe it was the drink that gave the reverend that added bit of … I wouldn’t say courage.’ He thought on it for a bit. ‘More like a “you know what, I’m going to tell it how I see it and be damned the consequences” feeling. Do you know what I mean?’
I took a chug of my beer and nodded. If I hadn’t left Sir Peter’s office that final day when I did, I’d probably have said a few things I really shouldn’t have.
‘It started over there by the door.’ George gestured across the bar to the door leading to the lavatories. ‘Whether one of them was on the way out and the other on the way in or whether the argument had started over the urinals, I’m not sure, but there was a shout and all the chatter went quiet.’ He threw back the rest of his Scotch and rinsed the glass. ‘I looked up wondering what was going on and saw the reverend and Jed both red-faced and almost nose to nose. Then the rev turned his back on Jed and began to push his way across the bar with Jed right behind him. He got as far as there,’ George pointed to almost the slap-bang middle of the room, ‘when Jed grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around.’
‘One scampi and chips.’ I looked up to see a young woman appear behind the bar carrying a plate of what I assumed was my dinner in one hand and cutlery wrapped in a red paper napkin in the other.
‘Here, luv,’ George said, gesturing to me. ‘Jim, this is my daughter, Lucy. Lucy, this is Jim, Slyford’s newest resident.’
‘Hi, Jim,’ she said, putting the plate and cutlery in front of me. ‘Any sauces? Vinegar?’
‘Mayo, please.’
She smiled, flicking her long blonde hair behind one ear and moved off along the bar. I couldn’t help but watch. She wasn’t exactly pretty
in the conventional sense, there was something more to her than that. Alluring – I’d call her alluring, at least that’s the word that popped into my head. Tight blue jeans covered an equally small, tight derrière and her dark-blue T-shirt didn’t do anything to hide her other curves.
‘There you go, Jim,’ she said, putting the jar of mayo down by my elbow. ‘Anything else?’
‘No, no thanks. This is great.’
‘Enjoy,’ she said and, giving me another brilliant smile, disappeared through a door that I assumed led to the kitchen.
‘This looks good,’ I told George.
He gave me a strange look and I hoped he hadn’t noticed me eyeing up his daughter’s attributes. I didn’t want to fall out with my local’s publican and ogling his daughter was probably a very good way of doing it.
‘Scampi caught fresh this morning. My missus won’t have any of the frozen packet stuff.’
I speared a piece of scampi and took a bite. ‘Hmm. Tell her to never succumb to the dark side,’ I told him, ‘this is wonderful.’ And I wasn’t lying, it was the best scampi I’d had for a very long time.
I unscrewed the cap off the mayonnaise and spooned a couple of large portions onto my plate. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you were telling me about this falling-out between Jed and the vicar.’
‘There’s not much more to tell, really.’
‘You said Jed grabbed the reverend and spun him around.’
‘Yeah, he did that, then called him a sanctimonious old blatherskite.’
‘Blimey, that doesn’t sound very nice.’
‘I think if it hadn’t been for Pugh being a man of the cloth, Jed would’ve probably said something a lot worse − as it was, I think he was struggling to find an adjective,’ George said with a chuckle.
‘What did the rev say?’
‘He said, “Call me what you will, but at least I’m not a charlatan and a con man playing on the emotions and grief of the bereaved.” That’s when Jed took a swing at him.’
‘No?’
‘’Fraid so. Fortunately, as soon as I saw there was gonna be trouble, I’d got out from behind the bar and managed to get to Jed and grab his arm before he landed the punch. Otherwise he’d probably’ve been had up for assault.’