‘You know, him with the rag-and-bone shop.’
‘You mean Nick?’
‘That’s him. Stroke, three weeks back.’
I stared. ‘How did you find this out?’
Maisie had got the story from a friend at her church coffee morning, who’d got the story from Mr Singh. Apparently, Nick had rung him to ask him to bring round some groceries but when he’d arrived at Nick’s flat, he couldn’t get an answer. He’d called the police, who’d had to break in, and they found Nick on the kitchen floor.
‘And he’s been in hospital three weeks?’ I asked, aghast. ‘Where is he? Exeter?’
‘Paignton. He’s in the rehab unit,’ Maisie went on, pleased to be able to air her knowledge. ‘Mr Singh’s been visiting. He says they won’t let him come home cos he lives alone and there’s no one to look after him.’
This is not my problem, I told myself firmly, as I watched Maisie drink. But I decided that I’d pop round to Mr Singh’s shop, anyway, and get the full story.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I lied to the staff at the hospital. I told them I was Nick’s niece.
Maisie’s information was only partly correct. It turned out that he hadn’t suffered a major stroke, just a TIA – what they used to call a mini-stroke – and was, according to Mr Singh, as right as rain after a day or two. And he’d only been in the rehab unit for ten days, not three weeks. But social services weren’t prepared to allow him home unless there was someone there to look after him. I lied again. I would take him home, I said, I would look after him.
As soon as I laid eyes on him, I felt like turning around and leaving him to their mercy. It wasn’t so much the Juno-I-knew-you-would-come, with which he greeted me, but the twinkly-eyed, knowing grin that accompanied it that infuriated me beyond reason. Nevertheless, I heard myself apologising for not coming before, for not knowing what had happened to him.
‘Do not leave me here, Juno,’ he begged me in a whisper. ‘I go mad.’
I glanced around me at the day ward, empty except for two old ladies dozing in their chairs, undisturbed by a television blaring in the corner, and an old fella nodding and chatting away to himself whilst he tried to fill in a jigsaw puzzle.
‘Is awful here,’ Nick confided. ‘All stinky old ladies. No one even play chess.’
I heard real desperation in his voice and I relented. ‘Don’t worry. If we can’t get past the guards on the gate, we’ll tunnel our way out.’ I looked around for a nurse. ‘Leave this to me.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, accompanied by a bag containing pyjamas and slippers (thoughtfully brought in by Mr Singh), a walking frame that Nick had refused to use, but which I wedged in the back of the van to save any arguments with the staff nurse, and his new medication, I assisted him into the front seat of my van.
He began to perk up as soon as the van passed through the hospital gates. I could sense him growing restless. He was excited. There was something he wanted to tell me.
‘Juno, I have great idea,’ he said at last.
‘Oh yes?’ I kept my eyes on the road.
‘We open shop.’
‘Sorry?’
‘My shop. We sort out junk – throw away old rubbish – smarten up, open it …’
I interrupted him. ‘Just a moment … you told me that you shut the shop because it was too much for you … you’re too old, you’re not well, you can’t cope with it any more. And now, when in addition to all that you’ve just had a stroke, you want to open it again?’ This wasn’t my objection at all. It was his use of the word we that had me worried.
He was nodding vigorously. ‘Yes, yes! Life too short, Juno … I not ready to be with stinky old crazies … eat baby food … walking frame. We clean shop. Make nice.’
And then he added. ‘I am not ready to be ghost.’
I ignored this last remark. ‘It’ll need more than cleaning. It’ll need redecorating inside and out … Mind you,’ I conceded, ‘if you cleaned the windows and washed down the paintwork …’ Nick was nodding enthusiastically and I realised I’d better shut up. If I wasn’t careful I was going to talk myself into agreeing to what he wanted. ‘And if you did open it, who’s going to run it?’
‘You and me!’ he said, as if it was obvious.
I sighed. ‘I have my own work, my own business. Why can’t you get this through your thick head?’
He gave a snort of contempt. ‘Looking after old ladies … walking dogs … is not business! Is nothing!’ He slid a wicked glance at me. ‘Is no job for goddess.’
‘If you don’t shut up,’ I warned him, ‘I am going to throw you out of this van.’
He chuckled, but surrendered into silence whilst I drove us back to Ashburton.
All this was my own fault. Months ago I’d tried to persuade him to open the shop. You’ve got all that stock just sitting there, I’d said to him. If you gave this place a lick of paint, some clever lighting, you could make it look really inviting. And when he pointed out that it was in a poor trading position, I’d suggested something stupid like putting a cafe board on the corner of North Street, pointing visitors in the direction of Shadow Lane. I only had myself to blame.
Fortunately, when we got back to Nick’s, we had more immediate things to think about: for example, whether he was actually fit enough to climb the stairs. It took a little longer than usual but he made it, breathlessly. Once I had got him into his armchair, I took his key from him so that I could let myself back in, and went round to Mr Singh to pick up some essential groceries and give him a full report on the patient. By the time I got back, Nick had already risen from his chair and poured himself a whisky.
I frowned. ‘Are you allowed that on your medication?’ He just flapped his hand at me as if I was an irritating fly, so I decided to let him get on with it.
‘Mr Singh will be round first thing in the morning,’ I continued, ‘to see you’re all right.’
‘Why you no come?’ he demanded.
‘Because I am not your slave and because I have dogs to walk and jobs to do for other people. I’ll pop round later. I owe you some money, anyway.’
He frowned. ‘What for you owe me money?’
I told him about the stock I was trying to shift for him through Pat in the bazaar and his face wreathed in smiles. ‘You see, Juno, you like antiques business.’
I ignored this and ploughed on resolutely. ‘Now, do you think you can get down the stairs in the morning, to let Mr Singh in, or do you want me to take this key back to him, so he can get in by himself?’
‘What you think? I am not cripple. I have key.’ He held out his hand for it. ‘I be OK.’
I placed it in his waiting palm. ‘Do you want me to make you a sandwich before I go?’
‘No.’
A thank you would have been nice. ‘I’ll be off, then. Ring me if you want anything.’ And I left the ungrateful old bastard to his own devices.
I could hear the phone ringing as I climbed the stairs, so I dropped everything to fumble for my keys and then flung myself across the living room to reach the receiver before it stopped ringing.
‘You said ring you if I want anything.’
I sighed. ‘What is it, Nick?’
‘I want to open shop.’
‘Goodnight,’ I said firmly, and I heard him chuckle as I put the receiver down.
At 2.47 a.m., according to the glowing green numerals of my bedside clock, I abandoned all attempts to get to sleep and got up to make a cup of tea. Bill, who’d been curled up next to me like a warm, furry bolster, wandered into the kitchen to join me. I might have made it into the land of Nod if I could have stopped myself mentally reorganising Nick’s shop. I would paint the interior a soft white and light it with shaded table lamps to give it a warm glow. I’d get rid of the stuffed animals and remove the heavy items of furniture to the stockroom. With all the wood and brass polished, and some pretty pieces of china dotted around, I was sure it could be made to look inviting. Once, that is, th
e sign above the door had been repainted properly and the hideous wire mesh removed from the windows.
There was a lot I hadn’t told Nick. He didn’t know that I’d started going around car boot sales, looking for things to buy, that I was doing my homework, watching antiques programmes on TV, studying Miller’s Antiques Guide, that I’d bought a little book on silver hallmarks: that I’d been bitten by the bug.
I’d even started a collection of my own: hatpins. Daft, really, as apart from one brown woolly one, I don’t possess any hats, but I’d become hooked on hat pins. My collection was small at the moment: one with a pearl head, a dainty silver one, the end shaped like a swallow, and a long spiteful job that ended in a great knob of red glass. I’d made a velvet pin cushion to stick them in and I wouldn’t be satisfied until it was bristling like a hedgehog. I was quite taken with lace bobbins as well, but decided that one passion was enough for any woman.
I sat in my armchair, sipped tea and mulled things over. I had four vacant work slots at the moment. Chloe Berkeley-Smythe was on the high seas again and wouldn’t return for several weeks. I’d lost a gardening job, due to a client moving away and I hadn’t replaced Verbena Clarke. Maisie had her daughter Janet coming to stay, so she wouldn’t be requiring my time just now. I could give those four half days to Nick.
I rang him next morning, not having achieved much in the way of sleep. ‘I will help you get the shop ready to open,’ I told him.
I heard him chuckle down the line. ‘I knew you would.’
This made me want to slam the phone down on him straight away but I persevered. ‘There are conditions,’ I warned him. ‘First of all, you do no more selling on for Russians … or any other nationality for that matter.’
‘I promise,’ he said dutifully.
‘No more dodgy, back-door customers,’ I went on, remembering Piano Teeth.
‘No, no, no,’ he assured me.
‘Secondly, you pay me for all my time.’
‘Of course, Juno.’ He tried to sound offended. ‘What you think?’
‘And once it’s open, I am not giving up my work to sit in your shop all day, waiting for customers to come in. That job is yours.’
He began to speak but I told him to shut his mouth and wisely he complied.
‘I’ll redecorate inside,’ I went on, ‘but only if you get a professional painter to do the outside and repaint the sign properly.’
There was a pause. ‘OK,’ he agreed.
‘And we will need to get someone to shift the really heavy stuff out before I can start painting the walls.’
‘Paul,’ Nick said instantly. ‘He do it.’
It was my turn to pause. ‘Paul may not be around. Since his baby’s been born he’s up and down to Nottingham a lot.’
‘I ask him.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘OK,’ he said.
And I put the phone down, knowing I’d made a horrible mistake.
I was right. It wasn’t until Nick’s shop was cleared of all the furniture and junk that I realised what a huge area it was. I fitted in painting when I could but there was so much paintwork. The doorway, and the big windows on either side of it promised to be days of work, what with rubbing down, undercoat and gloss. And then there were the walls.
The painting became a real chore, my progress was interminably slow. The end of summer slipped away under innumerable coats of paint. I got sick of the smell, felt stifled by the shop and the narrow, cobbled alleyway. I longed to escape for a day up on the moor, in my walking boots, tramping over open ground, breathing fresh air, watching clouds roll across a wide sky. But I knew I wasn’t going to get it. Evenings were drawing in and the leaves were already on the turn. Nick was threatening to go back on his promise to employ a professional signwriter for the shopfront, arguing that I could do just as good a job for a lot less money. I knew he would, of course, and told him he was a cheapskate.
Walking the Tribe each day saved my sanity, got me out while it was still early and the morning air was cool and fresh. I spotted Paul’s van one morning, parked in the lane outside his field. He hadn’t been around for weeks. I kept the dogs on leads. I didn’t want any of them racing ahead of me and running amok inside his workshop. As it turned out, the workshop door was safely shut but I could see the door of the caravan was open, so I strolled over, calling his name.
As I approached, a large green rectangle was suddenly propelled through the open door and landed with a soft thump on the ground outside. I recognised it as the mattress of the sofa bed, on which he and I had once enthusiastically bounced around.
‘Hello?’ I called. I didn’t want to risk putting my head around the door, I didn’t know what might come flying out next.
Paul’s voice came from within. ‘Juno? Hello!’ He jumped down from the caravan, grinning, gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek and patted the heads of canines of various sizes who were circling round his feet, tails wagging and demanding attention.
‘I didn’t know you’d come back.’
‘I’m just down for a few days, picking up a bit of work. I hope you weren’t planning on bringing this lot inside,’ he said, nudging aside a nosing doggy snout. ‘It’s enough of a mess as it is.’
‘Spring cleaning?’ I decided to risk a glance into the interior. It was bedlam. It looked as if he’d been throwing everything around, pillows, bedding and clothes all over the floor, the fold-down table piled high with boxes, items of junk spilling out all over the place.
‘Not exactly,’ he explained. ‘I’ve lost something.’
‘Anything important?’
‘Just one of my netsuke. I was packing them away and I must have dropped one.’
‘Well it can’t have gone far. Do you want me to help you look?’
‘No thanks, it’s not important. Like you say, it can’t have gone far. It must be in there somewhere. Anyway,’ he said, closing the door on all the chaos, ‘how’s things?’
The dogs, bored with standing still, were whining and straining at their leads. We released them to romp about the field, sniffing around unknown territory, whilst we followed on at a walking pace. I told him about Nick’s stroke, and how I was working on the shop, and how Verbena Clarke had sacked me because she suspected I’d pinched her earrings.
He looked horrified. ‘She can’t believe that, surely?’
‘Well, the damn things are missing,’ I told him, ‘and it looks like I was the last person to go in her bedroom.’
‘But she hasn’t accused you directly?’
‘No, she just sent the cops around to question me. Although Ricky and Morris don’t believe they’d have gone that far if I wasn’t an associate of known criminals.’
Paul laughed. ‘What? You mean Nick?’
‘Well, I don’t know any others − apart from you, of course. And he was in prison once, wasn’t he, for receiving stolen goods?’
‘More than once, but I don’t suppose he was doing anything a lot of other people weren’t doing, and it was all a long time ago.’
I frowned. ‘You ever hear Nick mention his family?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know he had any.’
‘A son and daughter, apparently …’ I stopped to yell at Schnitzel, who was eating something in the long grass, probably something nasty.
‘I’ve never heard him mention them,’ Paul responded. ‘Why?’
‘It’s seems sad, that’s all. He’s old and alone and vulnerable. He could do with some family support.’
‘He’s not alone.’ Paul grinned and patted me on the shoulder. ‘He’s got you.’
Later on, we met for a drink. Paul showed me pictures of the new baby, Molly. He was planning to stay up in Nottingham for a few months, coming down now and again to pick up work. He was still trying to persuade Carrie to accompany him home, still battling her parents, who were exerting all their pressure to make her stay where she was.
I made the right cooing noises about the baby. But I was relieved he
was going back. Seeing him again was like being prodded with a sharp stick, reaffirming my desire and a sense of solitude that I was not often conscious of. He told me he was planning to head off to Nottingham that evening. Just as well, I thought.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I arrived early at Nick’s front door, enthusiasm summoned for another long, back-breaking day’s painting, and reached out to press the bell. But the door was already open and swung wide at my touch. Nick never left his door unlocked, never left it open. I hesitated for a moment, calling out as I headed up the stairs.
‘Hello, Nick! You there?’ I stopped on the landing and tapped on the bathroom door. There was no movement behind the frosted glass panel, no sound of running water, no reply. ‘Nick?’ The silence, the stillness, was beginning to unnerve me.
I could see the light was on in the living room. I trotted up the last few stairs and stood in the doorway.
I will always remember everything about that moment: the rumpled rug, the patch of rubber missing from the sole of Nick’s slipper, the blue and white striped legs of his pyjamas, his brown dressing gown with its twisted cord: his skull smashed in like the shell of a meringue. Blood had seeped over the collar of his dressing gown, splashed over the fender and the green glazed tiles of the fireplace; there was blood on the rug, spreading out in a puddle from behind his head, dried rusty brown and soaked deep into the pile, a sharp, metallic smell.
My knees gave way and I clutched at the door frame, holding on while the room reeled sickly and a dizzying wave swept up from the soles of my feet. I clung on, staring, hearing the ticking of the clock in the corner. It was slowing down, a heartbeat of time between each swing of the pendulum. For Nick, time had stopped altogether. His white fingers had stiffened into cold claws digging into the carpet. His face was half turned towards me, one blue eye, for ever frozen, staring like the eye of a creature in a glass case.
I choked back bile with a shudder and fled, stumbling down the stairs, yanking open the door, desperate to get out. I couldn’t breathe. I lurched into the alleyway where I staggered like a drunk, leaning against the wall to steady myself, bent over, hair falling over my face, whilst I struggled to heave air into my lungs. Then I plunged out into North Street, heading for the nearest shop.
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