‘Evidence?’
‘Oh yes.’ Walter Bishop’s voice is stronger now. ‘You have no idea the abuse I have to tolerate. I’ve telephoned you on several occasions, but you always tell me I have no evidence. Well, now I do.’
Walter has reached the end of his words, and he’s gathered handfuls of self-assurance along the way. Sheila used to see it with Lisa’s dad. The slow burn of arrogance, as his head caught up with his mouth.
‘And what, exactly,’ says the policeman, ‘were these children doing that required you to gather evidence?’
‘Vandalism, Sergeant.’ Walter points to the rotten flowerbeds and the branches of the trees, which drip with neglect. ‘Trespassing. Victimization.’
The policeman turns to Short, who is still locked to his father’s waist.
‘Mr Bishop is suggesting that you and your friends have been trespassing on his property. Would this be a fair comment?’
Short tries to disappear into the safety of his father’s shadow, but there is nowhere to go. His dad has moved back and folded his arms. The boy looks at Walter Bishop, who looks back at him with eyes full of control. It’s the kind of control Sheila has seen so many times before, and it makes bile creep into the back of her throat.
‘We were playing football.’ Short’s voice is so pale and distant, everyone has to lean in so they can hear. ‘The ball bounced over the wall. We just went in his garden to get it. That’s all. That’s all we did.’
Short’s eyes are wet and wide, and frightened. Sheila watches Short’s father. He’s a big man, with rough, quick hands, and a body fattened with years of being listened to. She thinks about the conceit in Walter Bishop’s eyes.
‘They were just playing football. They were just being kids. I saw it all from my window.’
Sheila hears her own voice before she realizes that she’s the one who is speaking. It sounds brittle. As though it might break at any second.
At the edge of the crowd, she can see Eric Lamb. He is staring right into her words.
‘So you’re a witness to all this?’ The policeman looks at Sheila and then looks back at Walter Bishop. ‘These boys were doing nothing wrong?’
‘Nothing wrong at all.’ Sheila watches Short as she speaks. His body is shaking, although deep within the thick of the crowd, it really doesn’t feel that cold.
‘I have rights,’ Walter is saying. ‘I can take photographs of anybody I choose. It’s not a crime. You’ll see when the pictures are developed just what these boys were up to.’
‘Let’s have a look at this camera then.’
The policeman waits while Walter disappears behind the door.
When he returns, he hands the camera over to the Sergeant.
‘It’s all in there. You’ll find out how wicked these boys are. They need punishing. They need a good hiding, Sergeant. That’s what they need.’
Words of retaliation spill from Walter Bishop’s mouth, as the policeman examines the camera. The first policeman looks ahead, the strap of his helmet digging into his chin, his lips tight and deliberate.
‘Would this be the same punishment you told me you’d like to give to mothers who leave their children unattended, Mr Bishop?’ says the Sergeant.
Walter is silenced. Sheila can see a track of sweat crawl from his hairline.
‘They shouldn’t allow these kinds of people to be parents,’ he says. ‘Children need a firm hand. They need to be shown who’s in charge.’
There’s a catch of voices from the back of the crowd. A push, a hurry of boots.
The second policeman puts out his arm. It stops them. For now.
‘So this has all the evidence, does it?’ The Sergeant turns the camera over in his hands.
‘Everything you need to arrest these people, Sergeant.’
The policeman pushes at a catch on the back of the camera.
‘Oh, don’t touch that!’ Walter reaches out. ‘If you open that it will ruin—’
The policeman flips open the catch. ‘Oh dear,’ he says. ‘Look what I just went and did.’
‘It might be salvageable. If you just give it back to me.’
Walter tries to take the camera, but the policeman tips it upside down, and its contents spills on to the concrete.
‘Me and my clumsy fingers.’ He grinds into the film with the edge of his boot. ‘It looks like we’ll never be able to see that evidence now, doesn’t it, Mr Bishop?’
Walter stares at the concrete. ‘What do you suggest I do?’ he says.
The policeman brings his mouth so close, clouds of his breath drift into Walter Bishop’s face. ‘What I suggest you do is pay a little less attention to other people’s children.’ His eyes work from the ground up. The tired shoes, meal-stained jacket, the threads of yellowed hair. ‘And pay a little more attention to yourself.’
*
The crowd is moved on. They seem hesitant. They leave behind weighted stares and low, heavy promises. Short looks over his shoulder as he drifts away, guided by his father’s arm.
Eric Lamb walks over the road to Sheila, his hands deep into his pockets.
‘It had to be done,’ she says, ‘before you start.’
He says nothing.
‘If the police and the council won’t do anything, people have to take matters into their own hands.’ Sheila looks back at number eleven. ‘Someone has to get rid of him.’
He still says nothing.
‘Someone’s going to get hurt, Eric.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t doubt that. I wouldn’t doubt that for one second.’
‘Does it not worry you?’ She pulls her cardigan around her shoulders. ‘Some weirdo on the avenue, taking photographs of other people’s children?’
‘Of course it does, Sheila, and I know you’re still upset about Lisa. I’m just not sure this is the best way to deal with it.’
The cardigan is scratching the back of her neck, and she can feel her skin start to burn against the wool.
‘What other way is there?’ she says. ‘The rest of us need to do something.’
‘A witch-hunt?’
‘If needs be, Eric, yes, a bloody witch-hunt.’
She hears him draw his thoughts in with the still December air.
‘There’s only one problem with a witch-hunt,’ he says.
‘And what might that be?’
He starts to walk back towards his house as he answers her. ‘It doesn’t always catch the witch.’
Sheila looks over at number twelve. Lisa is waving to her through the glass, and behind Lisa is Dorothy Forbes, her expression brushed with anxiety.
Sheila twists the belt of her cardigan around her fingers. She pleats the material one way, and then the other, pulling it tight against her flesh.
Number Four, The Avenue
9 July 1976
Tilly’s mum kept her in bed for three days.
I thought it was excessive, but Mrs Morton said that you couldn’t be too careful. I thought you could be too careful, actually, but I decided to keep it to myself because every time Tilly was mentioned, Mrs Morton looked upset.
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said to her. ‘Although it might have been a different story if we’d listened to Angela Rippon properly.’
We played Monopoly and watched black and white films on BBC2, and ate Angel Delight, although it didn’t taste as nice with just my name carved in it. One afternoon, we took the bus along the steep road out of the Market Place, and walked around in the hills that overlooked the town. Mrs Morton pointed out landmarks and I got grit in my shoes and felt miserable, and had to put lots of effort into being interested. Nothing was the same without Tilly. Everywhere we went, it felt like your house when you come back from being on holiday. It was all empty and strange.
When Tilly did reappear, she was the colour of pastry.
‘You need some fresh air,’ said Mrs Morton, and she put her in the shade with an extra cushion and a Wagon Wheel.
‘What did you do without me?’ Till
y picked out pieces of marshmallow.
‘Loads,’ I said.
‘Did you find God?’
‘I was really busy,’ I said, ‘I didn’t have time.’
‘So can we carry on looking?’
‘S’pose,’ I said.
And she smiled and passed me the Wagon Wheel.
Tilly had the first choice of television programmes, she didn’t have to fetch her own drinks, and Mrs Morton allowed her to get away without doing any washing-up.
‘I feel a bit faint,’ I said, as I put another plate on the draining board, but no one took any notice.
*
After three days, we were allowed to play outside as long as it wasn’t the middle of the day, and as long as Tilly wore her sou’wester. Tilly always wore her sou’wester, so I took this as meaning everything was back to normal. As it happened, it was too hot to be outside that morning, so we sat at my kitchen table trying to bend spoons like Uri Geller. We’d been at it for ages.
‘It’s bending, look.’ Tilly held up her spoon.
It looked no different.
‘It looks no different,’ I said.
‘There.’ She pointed to a perfectly straight bit. ‘There.’
My mother happened to be passing by, and she crouched down and narrowed her eyes and said that yes, it did look slightly bent. But my mother was very good at agreeing with people just to make them feel better.
‘It isn’t bent,’ I said. ‘It’s straight.’
‘I don’t know how Uri Geller does it.’ Tilly rubbed the spoon a few more times and gave up.
‘It’s because he’s Spanish,’ I said. ‘Spanish people can do things like that. They can be quite clever.’
We abandoned the spoons and watched John Creasy as he waited for the bus to pull up at the end of the road, and then we watched him walk all the way back to his house by himself. He looked even more untidy than the last time I saw him. His hair stuck out in wild clumps, as though it was trying to escape from his head, and his clothes hung around his body like they weren’t really a part of him. Even his shoelaces were undone, and they danced around his feet as he lumbered back up the pavement. My mother stood next to the table, watching with us.
‘He doesn’t look very well, does he?’ I said.
‘No.’ She didn’t take her eyes from the window. ‘He really doesn’t.’
Summer slid in through the curtains and drew sharp lines of sunlight across the kitchen floor. They were so definite, I could move my foot between them, and watch the yellow creep across my toes and escape on to the next tile. Remington stretched out across a series of them, like a small, Labrador-shaped tiger.
‘I think it’s as warm in here as it is outside,’ I said. ‘We might as well be sitting on the wall.’
‘That’s nice,’ said my mother, threading a needle.
The kitchen door closed before the cotton had even found its way through.
*
We had only been sitting there a few minutes when Mrs Forbes blew past in a flurry of beige. We both leaned forward to watch her turn into Sheila Dakin’s garden, and stand on the doorstep having a very theatrical conversation with Keithie.
‘What do you think she’s up to?’ I said.
Tilly kicked at the bricks. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I don’t trust her, Gracie, do you?’
I thought about it. ‘No. But everyone on this avenue is acting really strangely since Mrs Creasy disappeared.’ I was thinking of my father as well, but I didn’t say so, because that would have made it something which could live on its own outside my head.
After a while, Mrs Forbes reappeared with Sheila Dakin, and they crossed over towards Mr Creasy’s house. Mrs Dakin seemed to waver slightly in the middle of the road.
‘I wonder if she’s poorly as well,’ said Tilly.
After a lot of shouting and banging, they vanished into Mr Creasy’s, and as soon as they did, Sheila Dakin’s door opened again and Lisa came out, dragging Keithie along by his elbow. She wore her denim jacket and the exact same mules I’d seen in the Kays catalogue.
No, you can’t, my father had said, just before he started laughing.
‘Come on,’ I said and pulled Tilly off the wall.
Tilly always went along with stuff. It was one of the best things about her. We just made it as Lisa shut their garden gate.
‘Hiya,’ I said.
‘Hi-ya.’ She pulled the word out into two and rolled her eyes.
I scuffed my sandals on the concrete and folded my arms. ‘Where are you going?’
She started walking. She still had Keithie’s elbow and he was trying to claim it back.
‘Cyril’s. We need milk. Would you stop whining, Keith!’
‘Oh, that’s really funny because we’re going to Cyril’s as well,’ I said.
‘We are?’ said Tilly, but she spoke so quietly, no one took any notice.
Lisa turned. Keith still twisted her arm and made a wide range of violent noises without ever opening his mouth. ‘Can you get us some milk then?’ she said.
‘S’pose.’ I scuffed my sandals a bit more. ‘I thought we could all go together.’
‘You’d be doing me a really big favour,’ she said, and stretched out really big favour, so I’d know how important I was being.
I smiled.
She handed me the coins. ‘And take him as well, would you. He’s doing my bloody head in.’
And she walked back up the garden path, kicked off her mules and stretched herself out on the deckchair.
Keithie looked up at us. ‘I always get sweets,’ he said.
*
The three of us walked along Maple Road, Keithie tapping his football every few steps and then losing it over a wall or down a driveway, so we all had to wait while it was reclaimed.
‘My dad likes football.’ I thought I should make an effort.
‘Your dad supports Man United.’ Keithie didn’t look up from his tapping.
‘Does it matter?’ I said.
‘Course it does.’ He stopped tapping and pointed to a patch on his jeans. ‘Chelsea all the way.’
‘Where’s Chelsea?’ Tilly stared at his badge.
‘Dunno.’ He started tapping again.
‘Why do you wear a badge of a place you don’t even know?’ I said.
‘Because it makes you a part of it.’ He missed the last tap, and his football drifted across the road. ‘It means you fit in.’
‘Only in your own head,’ I had to shout, because half of him was in someone else’s hedge bottom.
He reappeared, holding the ball to his chest. ‘But that’s the only place that matters,’ he said.
*
Cyril’s was on the corner of Maple Road and Pine Croft. The man who owned it now wasn’t called Cyril, he was called Jim. It wasn’t really a proper shop, either, it was someone’s front room, made to look like a shop. Whenever the little bell rang, Jim would appear from the back in his shirtsleeves, with sleep sitting in the corners of his eyes, and each time I went in for sweets, he would fold his arms and scowl for the whole time I was making my decision.
‘Hello, Cyril,’ I said, because I knew it annoyed him.
He did his best scowling.
I asked him for a pint of milk, and he looked shocked because I only ever usually wanted Black Jacks and Flying Saucers. I had never bought a pint of milk before.
I put my hand on my hip. ‘What about Margaret Creasy, then?’ I said.
But it didn’t work on Jim. He just folded his arms and asked me if I wanted anything else. Keithie pulled at my T-shirt, and Tilly and I had to scrape Tilly’s pennies together to buy him a Sherbet Fountain.
When we got back to the avenue, Lisa had moved from her deckchair and was curled into the settee, reading Jackie.
‘I’ve got your milk,’ I said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Shall I put it in the fridge?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Sheila Dakin’s kitchen was quite compl
icated, and you had to search for the fridge behind an ironing board and a collection of bedsheets. There were lots of dirty pots and magazines and empty cigarette packets, and the clock above the door had a picture of Elvis on it.
It’s now or never, he said.
Although for someone with a complicated kitchen, Sheila Dakin’s fridge was strangely quiet.
When I got back to the sitting room, Keithie was being a fire engine, and Lisa was saying, ‘I can’t believe you bought him sweets.’
‘He told us to,’ I said.
‘And you do everything a six-year-old tells you to, do you?’
‘Mostly,’ said Tilly.
She told us we’d have to wait for our Sherbet Fountain money until her mum got home, and because all the chairs were occupied, we sat on a sheepskin rug in front of the electric fire. It was pretending to be a real fire, but because it wasn’t switched on, the coal was just a sheet of cool grey plastic, like a range of mountains. There was a hole in one of the lumps, and when I looked through, I could see a tiny light bulb and three dead beetles.
‘What are you doing?’ Lisa said.
I lifted my face from the plastic. ‘I’m taking an interest in things,’ I said.
She went back to her magazine. I could hear the pages turning, and Elvis ticking away the seconds in the kitchen.
‘I like your shoes,’ I said.
Another page turned. I looked at Tilly, and I think she shrugged, although it was difficult to tell underneath her sou’wester.
‘Tilly almost died last week,’ I said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I had to resuscitate her.’
‘Right.’
‘I knew what I was doing, though, because I’m miles older than she is,’ I said. ‘Miles.’
Tilly started to speak, but I stared at her until she changed her mind.
Another page turned.
‘I like your shoes,’ I said.
Lisa looked up from her magazine. ‘Do you want to go home, and I’ll send Keithie round later with the money?’
We said no thank you, we were fine, and Lisa said suit yourself, and put Jackie in front of her face. Keithie had fire-engined himself out, and lay at right angles on the carpet, decorated in sherbet lemon and small pieces of liquorice, and so I pulled at the frizzy wool in the rug and watched Lisa as she read. I tucked my legs into my body and pushed my hair on to my shoulder, and tried to find a way to make us two chapters of the same story. By the time Sheila Dakin got back, I had pulled at the wool so much I had acquired a whole handful of sheep, and had to search very quickly for a place for it to be reattached.
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Page 15