A Rival Creation

by Marika Cobbold

  Evelyn stopped frowning. ‘Not Johnny?’

  Liberty smiled for the first time. ‘No, no thank God, nothing like that.’ She paused for a moment, allowing herself to dwell on the great good fortune contained in that statement. ‘No, Johnny is fine, touch wood.’ Suddenly her despair seemed petty now that it was about to be aired before Evelyn’s clear gaze.

  ‘You see, I didn’t really believe it myself when I said I was useless at writing,’ she pressed her forehead against the palms of her hands, trying to force some sense from the aching lump that was her head. She looked up again. ‘Deep down, I still couldn’t really believe that all that desire wasn’t matched by at least some ability.’ She looked pleadingly at Evelyn. ‘It was an easy mistake to make, don’t you think?’ Turning grey, she put her hand up to her mouth. ‘If you’ll excuse me. Feeling a bit sick.’ She hurried off unsteadily, reaching the loo just in time. After brushing her teeth and splashing cold water on her face, she returned to the bedroom. Evelyn had not moved from the chair.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Liberty crept in between the sheets and leant back against the pillow.

  ‘I myself never found that drinking did anything for my research,’ Evelyn said, making Liberty open her eyes wide. ‘I can’t think it would have done much for your writing, either.’

  ‘Well no, it didn’t.’ Liberty pulled a face. ‘But oh, Evelyn, was I happy. I know I looked like shit from all the booze and sleepless nights, but I was happy. I really believed that at last I was working on something first rate, and boy, did it feel good. You know, for a couple of weeks I got all my dreams back.’ A small burp made her slap her hand across her mouth and with a muffled, ‘Please do excuse me,’ she hurried off into the bathroom again.

  ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ Evelyn said when Liberty returned.

  The tea was weak and very sweet, but Liberty drank it gratefully. She put the empty cup down on the floor by the bed and closed her eyes. After a while she looked up and asked Evelyn, ‘Have you ever had your hair permed?’

  ‘No,’ Evelyn said slurping her tea.

  ‘Well I did once, to try to straighten it actually. I remember I was about fifteen and wanted to look like Mary Hopkin. Anyway, you spend all this time sitting with rollers in your hair and perm lotion dripping down your face. Then, just when you think it’s all done, they put what they call a stabilizer on, and it’s very boring and uncomfortable because by that time you’re sitting by the basin with your neck about to break as it’s pressed against the porcelain edge. But without that stabilizer being applied, the rest of the procedure would have been for nothing, your time and your shillings, as it was then, wasted, because the curls would just drop out.’ Exhausted she stopped.

  ‘That’s fascinating, Liberty dear,’ Evelyn said without conviction. ‘I never knew that.’

  Liberty laughed, then instantly felt sick again. This time it passed before she had any need to rush off. She tried to explain. ‘That’s how my writing was for me: my stabilizer. Life flutters past; an experience here, a happening there, but it was only through writing that it got any sort of shape and meaning…’ Tears filled her eyes and, burying her face in the pillows, she sobbed. ‘Oh what shall I do? Just look at me, I’m nothing but a contradiction in terms: a castrated Casanova, a peg-legged mountaineer, a pregnant nun—’

  ‘I’ll get us another cup, shall I?’ Evelyn stomped up to the bed and took the half-empty cup from Liberty’s side.

  At the offices of the Tribune, Alistair Partridge popped his head through Oscar’s door. ‘Quiet down your way is it? Nothing stirring in old Tollymead?’

  Oscar looked up at him. ‘No, no I wouldn’t say it had been particularly quiet. Why?’

  Alistair sloped in and perched on Oscar’s desk. ‘Still no Diary. Third week running.’

  ‘Yea, I know.’ Oscar took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘Sorry, I’ve had a bit of a day. I’ll ask around, try to find out who is doing it, or not doing it, as it happens. It would be a pity if they stopped. The other villages have livened up their entries since Tollymead began to appear as the Mecca of village life, Everton in particular.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Their entries seem to lengthen by the week. More importantly, the whole section is changing tone, getting a little more personal, not so dry. It’s more like a community meeting point than a notice-board.’

  Alistair stroked his beard. ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should sponsor one of those inter-village competitions. Best Kept Hampshire Village, that kind of thing.’ He crossed and uncrossed his legs. ‘What about, Most Caring Village? Very much with the times, very nineties.’

  Oscar smiled. ‘Not a bad idea. “The Most Caring Village in the Tribune Area”. Yeah, I like it. Give it some more thought over the week-end and we’ll talk on Monday.’

  Alistair was on his way out when Oscar stopped him. ‘Oh, and what about that appeal from the parents of the missing girl? Have we got it on the front page?’

  Alistair nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s all there. The police think she might just have decided to disappear. There was that bit of boyfriend trouble, nothing very much, but when it comes to teenagers, who knows, it might have been enough. We’ve got the latest sightings too. One old bat in Ambrose Lane is convinced the girl stayed the night in her attic; said the mice had been disturbed.’

  ‘Her parents must be going through hell. If she ran away, why didn’t she leave a note? For all they know, she could be lying dead in some ditch.’ Oscar looked up at Alistair’s untroubled grey eyes. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you on Monday morning.’

  He waited for Alistair to leave before phoning Victoria to say not to wait with supper for him. It was half past eight when he finally got into the car to start the drive home.

  Once in Tollymead he turned into River Lane, telling himself it was his duty to check on Liberty, to make sure she was all right. The outside light was not on and the curtains were open. The pit of his stomach churned as he stumbled up the unlit path. He rang the doorbell as he had early that morning, but this time when there was no reply he threw himself against the door only to find it unlocked.

  ‘Liberty! Liberty are you in there!’ he strode through the hall, cursing Evelyn for leaving her alone.

  ‘In the kitchen! I’m in the kitchen.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Hanging from the rafters.’

  ‘What the hell—’ Oscar began to run, then stopped short by the door. ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ he said as he sauntered through, his heart thumping.

  Liberty sat at the kitchen table wrapping Christmas presents. She looked up. ‘A wet-suit for Johnny. He’ll need it in Australia.’ She turned over the large parcel on the table in front of her and stuck down the sides of the glossy pine-green paper with sellotape.

  ‘You shouldn’t leave the front door unlocked,’ Oscar said.

  ‘You mean in case someone should burst in and cut me up.’ She gave him a big smile.

  Oscar frowned at her. ‘How’s the arm?’ he picked up her hand and rolled the sleeve of her jersey back.

  ‘I look like a zebra crossing,’ Liberty pulled a face. ‘But you were right, none of the cuts are very deep, just scratches really.’ She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I feel very embarrassed. I was pissed, you see.’

  He looked back at her and she could see he was making an effort not to laugh. ‘You don’t say. I never would have guessed.’

  ‘I’m sort of fatter without my clothes on,’ she blurted out. ‘Did you notice?’

  ‘No,’ Oscar shook his head. ‘I never looked,’ and they both burst out laughing. He sat down opposite her at the table and almost absent-mindedly took her hand in his, turning it palm up. ‘I picked up a whole pile of papers from the floor.’

  She looked away and nodded. ‘I have to thank you for tidying up, too. You really have been terribly kind.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t mention it. But was it a book I swept up with the broken glass?’

  Liberty nodded again.

  He traced a l
ine on her palm with the tip of his index finger. ‘That bad, was it?’

  ‘Hm,’ she nodded. ‘Worse.’ She looked into his blue eyes and thought he was really quite beautiful. Hardly aware of what she was doing she freed her hand from his and raised it to his face, gently removing his glasses. With a quick movement he caught it again, putting it to his lips.

  Liberty closed her eyes leaning back in her chair, her head still fuzzled from the night before. Then as nothing else happened, she opened them again. Oscar was sitting looking at her, eyes glazed. Lust she thought, God I hope that’s lust.

  ‘I must go,’ Oscar sprang up from the chair, dropping her hand. ‘I just wanted to make sure all was well.’

  Liberty stood up too. I never should have brought God into it, she thought sadly, handing him his glasses with an embarrassed little smile.

  ‘Will you be all right? You won’t…’ he paused.

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘No, I won’t. If I feel bad I’ll call a friend, or even my father. But really, I’m fine now.’ She walked Oscar to the door and, closing it behind him, she went into the sitting-room. She curled up on the sofa and switched on the television with the remote control. There was nothing on that she wanted to watch, but it was some sound, some company. She laid her head on the armrest.

  If I was married to Oscar, she thought sleepily, how lovely it would be. Whenever I was tortured by ambition I could just look into those blue eyes and we could bonk each other silly, or we could talk. Even that would be lovely.

  Village Diary

  Tollymead: The Christmas Bazaar is being held, as usual, in the village hall on the second Saturday of December between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. There will be more stalls than ever this year and there has been a suggestion from Oliver Bliss that we should add an exhibition of paintings by local artists to the attractions. The idea is that thirty per cent of proceeds goes to the fête and the remainder to the artist. Anyone wishing to exhibit should leave their work in the vicarage porch, (back door, it’s always open) together with name, address and a proposed price. There’s no need to ring the door bell.

  Everyone is welcome. As the poet Keats said, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

  Ms Anne Havesham has asked the Diary to pass on her most sincere thanks to all the kind neighbours who visited with food and flowers during her recent illness. She especially appreciated the Italian pink-and-gold covered notebook with matching pen, brought by Laura Brown from a recent trip to Tuscany. ‘It was especially welcome,’ Anne says, ‘because just the other day, I started the last page of my “Writer’s Notebook”, and Laura’s gift will be a perfect replacement.’

  The beautifully bound, crisp white pages might soon be filled, as Ms Havesham has announced that the winning village of the Tribune Area’s Most Caring Village Competition will be chosen for the filming of her projected series, ‘Atlantic Cousins’, with many villagers picked as extras.

  Now, a tip from Phyllida Medley on how to give your Christmas cake a bit of a kick: just substitute your normal spoonful of brandy or sherry with a good glass or two of dark Jamaican rum.

  Twenty

  Neville was helping the vicar to deliver the Christmas News Letter. As he approached each house he walked slowly, whistling a tune, so that if there were anyone at home they would hear and maybe come out for a chat. He had hoped to be delivering over at the new estate, but it was the vicar’s patch, and Neville’s was across the river. It was Saturday, but it might as well have been the middle of the week with everyone out at work, for all the people he saw. Three years he and Gladys had been in Tollymead and still they only really knew a handful of people, he thought sadly, as he stomped past the three grey pebble-dash cottages on the corner of River Lane. He brightened. Things were changing in Tollymead, he was sure of it. A car rounded the corner, splashing Neville’s polyester twill trousers with mud. No, there was no doubt about it, Tollymead was becoming a really neighbourly sort of a place.

  As he approached Evelyn Brooke’s house he heard loud voices. Peering over the hedgerow, Neville spotted Andrew Sanderson standing by Evelyn’s gate. Even viewed through a hedge he looked upset, and Neville telescoped his thin neck another half inch.

  ‘You call me across on a Saturday morning for what you call a “friendly talk”, and this is what you’ve got to tell me!’ Andrew’s voice, guttural with outrage, carried right over to Neville. Feeling guilty for listening in, Neville whistled his tune ever so softly whilst taking a couple of steps towards them, but Andrew did not notice, nor did Evelyn, whom Neville could now clearly see on the other side of the gate. Now Evelyn was speaking, but Neville could not hear what she actually said. Then Andrew started up again. Dreadful temper on the man, Neville thought. And Evelyn such a nice lady too.

  ‘You arrange for the Ministry of Agriculture to send someone down to check on Sanderson’s Seeds and you expect me to be pleased? You must be battier than I thought—’

  Again Neville could hear Evelyn’s voice but not her words.

  ‘No thank you I don’t want any bloody broad bean plants!’ Andrew Sanderson yelled his reply as if Evelyn had not only suggested he go off and die, but offered him a choice of poison as well. ‘I want you and your bloody green chums off my back, that’s what I want.

  ‘And no, I do not want a sample of your bug-resistant beetroot seedlings, no, no, no!’

  Moments later, Andrew stormed down the lane, past Neville without a word of greeting. Neville stopped whistling and looked after Andrew until he disappeared round the corner. Shaking his head, he stepped back onto the road from the grass verge and pottered off towards the gate, but by the time he got there, Evelyn had gone. He continued up the path and round to the back door, making a business of pulling the magazine from the brown imitation leather satchel hanging at his hip, whilst giving a breathy rendition of ‘Colonel Bogey’. Evelyn was not in the kitchen, he saw, as he peered through the window, but he pretended not to notice the letter-box and gave a knock on the door. There was a doorbell but he preferred to knock, feeling that pressing the bell was somehow overstating his arrival. He knocked again, a little louder, and presently Evelyn came through into the kitchen and up to the door, opening it.

  ‘Evelyn, you’re there.’ He beamed at her.

  ‘If I said no, would you go away?’ Evelyn glared back.

  ‘You don’t frighten me,’ Neville twinkled on her doorstep. ‘I brought you your News Letter.’ He handed it to her, planting both feet inside the hall before she had a chance to shut the door. ‘Have you seen this?’

  ‘Seen what?’

  ‘This.’ Neville shoved a page from the Tribune under her nose.

  ‘That’s last week’s paper.’

  ‘But have you seen?’ He pointed at the headline, reading out loud, ‘“Most Caring Village in the Tribune Area, does that sound like your village? If it does, we would like to hear about it.”’

  Evelyn sighed. ‘What have you come to ask me to care about, Neville?’

  Neville giggled nervously, wiping his bald head with his hand. ‘There will be inspectors from the paper doing the rounds of the villages. Incognito, I assume.’ He tasted the word and decided he liked it. ‘Incognito, I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Like undercover policemen?’

  ‘No, no nothing like that. More like one of those Egon Ronays, I should say. All very nice and friendly.’ He paused for a moment before saying a little anxiously, ‘I should think that lot over at Everton are up to all sorts already.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’ Evelyn asked. ‘Old ladies being chased out of their beds at all hours so they can be helped over the road by marauding gangs of boy scouts, neighbours force-feeding each other with nourishing casseroles?’

  Neville giggled again. ‘Come come, we all have our own little stories and successes to tell,’ he said. ‘We can cite the help given to you after the fire, to take but one example.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Ev
elyn gave him a dirty look. ‘And I can nominate the kind Samaritan who set fire to the barn in the first place.’

  Neville took a step backwards, out of the door. ‘Oh Evelyn, Evelyn you wouldn’t? And we don’t know it wasn’t simply an awful accident, after all. We have the wedding too, between Mrs Brown, well the paper calls her Ms, and Mr Bliss. That all came out of the same neighbourly act.’

  ‘My dear man, what are you rabbiting on about?’

  Neville pulled out a torn page from the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘I saved this one,’ he said proudly. ‘I thought there would be interest.’ He unfolded the paper and held it up for Evelyn to see.

  Evelyn bent close, peering at the text. ‘Never heard of them,’ she said finally, straightening up. ‘And they most certainly haven’t been here.’

  Neville decided not to argue. A certain forgetfulness was to be expected in the elderly. ‘I know I missed them when I was over…’ Neville scratched the bit behind his ear where the arm of his spectacles rubbed. ‘It makes a lovely story, anyhow.’

  Evelyn gave him a pat on the shoulder with a grubby hand. ‘You live in a very nice world, Neville. Stay there.’

  As he wandered back down the path Neville pondered Evelyn’s words. It was as if one had a choice. Funny old stick, Evelyn.

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ Andrew was shouting down the telephone to Tim Haville-Jones so loudly he might as well have saved himself the cost of a call and just opened the window. ‘Bloody Evelyn Brooke!’ He slammed his fist down on the table, creating a squall in Nancy’s cup so that the coffee spilt over the edge onto the saucer. When she lifted the cup to drink, the coffee dripped from the bottom of the cup down onto her new, cream-coloured cardigan.

  ‘Now look what you made me do,’ she snapped.

  Andrew looked at her surprised, losing the thread of what he was saying. ‘Sorry Tim. Where were we? Oh yes, an inspector from the Ministry of Ag, yes, absolutely.’ Andrew gave a joyless laugh. ‘You’d better hide any two-headed calves you might have hanging around the place.’