The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

by Joanna Cannon

  Sheila leaned forward in her deckchair. ‘Who’s disappeared?’

  ‘Grace and Tilly. They were there a minute ago.’

  Sheila put down her newspaper and her glasses. ‘Where?’

  ‘At the top of the road.’ He looked back and pointed.

  ‘For God’s sake, Brian. Where at the top of the road?’

  ‘Just outside number eleven.’

  He turned to look at Sheila, but she was already on her feet.

  Number Eleven, The Avenue

  15 July 1976

  Walter Bishop’s soap was green and cracked, and so stuck down I had to prise it off the corner of the basin with my nails.

  Tilly and I stood next to each other, washing our hands. I knew Tilly was looking at me, but I stared at the long, orange stain in the sink instead, because my eyes hadn’t decided what they wanted to say to her.

  ‘That’s right.’ Walter stood behind us. ‘Make sure they’re nice and clean, ladies.’

  It didn’t make us smile. Somehow, the words didn’t sound the same as when Sheila Dakin said them.

  He handed us a tea towel and we dried our hands, and then I folded it up and put it on the draining board.

  ‘Oh no, no, no.’ He tutted as he spoke. ‘We never, ever fold tea towels.’

  ‘We don’t?’ I said.

  ‘They need air, you see. Or all the germs will be trapped. It always belongs on the little peg over there.’

  I followed his gaze, and took the tea towel to a hook on the side of the cupboard.

  ‘Much better,’ he said. ‘We never fold tea towels in this house. It was one of my mother’s rules.’

  ‘Did she have many rules, Mr Bishop?’ I slid on to one of the kitchen chairs. Tilly put her cardigan on her knee and slid next to me, although every few seconds I could see her look towards the back door.

  ‘Oh yes. Lots of rules,’ said Walter. ‘Never whistle after dark. No new shoes on the table. Stand in a circle to ward off the devil.’

  He put two glasses on the table. They were clouded with dust.

  ‘One for sorrow, two for joy.’ He smiled. ‘Would you like some lemonade?’

  ‘We really should be going.’ Underneath her cardigan, Tilly pulled herself to the edge of her seat. ‘It’s nearly tea time.’

  ‘Oh, surely not yet. You’ve only just got here.’ Walter poured the lemonade. ‘Since Margaret Creasy left, I get so few visitors, you see.’

  He turned back to the cupboard, and I looked at Tilly and shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘A few minutes won’t hurt,’ I whispered.

  I looked around the kitchen. It seemed dark and unhappy, and even in the heat of the afternoon, it was strangely cool. The cupboards were all painted green, and in the corners of the room the floorboards peeped through, where the lino had curled up and surrendered.

  ‘Do you still keep all your mother’s rules?’ I said.

  Walter sat opposite. He laced his fingers together as though he was about to pray. ‘Some of them,’ he said. ‘But not all of them.’

  ‘Even though they were your mother’s?’ said Tilly.

  Walter leaned forward and prayed a little harder. ‘Even though they were my mother’s,’ he said. ‘It is a wise man who makes his own decisions. It’s very important to remember that, especially if you’re looking for God.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘People tend to believe things just because everyone else does.’ Walter looked at his hands and began biting into the skin next to his fingernails. ‘They don’t search for proof, they just search for approval from everyone else.’

  I had to sit back in my chair to think about it. Sometimes adults said things which made sense, even if you weren’t exactly sure what the sense was.

  ‘So if you’ve decided to look for God,’ he said, ‘the first thing you have to do is decide exactly what it is that you’re looking for.’

  I wasn’t even sure. I thought I might recognize God once I saw Him, but the only thing I could be certain of now was that even though everyone said He existed, God didn’t seem to be anywhere on the avenue.

  ‘People believe in things without even knowing if they’re actually true,’ I said.

  ‘Because if everyone believes the same thing, it makes them feel as though they belong,’ said Walter.

  ‘Like a flock of sheep.’ Tilly picked up the glass of lemonade and put it down again. ‘Perhaps that’s the only thing people really need. Something they can all believe in.’

  Walter stopped biting his nails and looked at us both. ‘And that something might not always be God. Which is why it’s important to be wise.’

  ‘And make our own decisions,’ I said.

  Walter Bishop smiled. ‘Exactly.’

  I had a lot of questions for Walter Bishop, and I was just about to start on the first one when footsteps marched into my thinking and disturbed it. They snapped on the gravel outside and we all moved to the window to see who owned them.

  Sheila Dakin. Her pink slippers sent sprays of little pebbles diving for cover.

  Within seconds she was in the doorway, her bikini top heaving with the effort. We stood like figurines at the windowsill.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she said, her arms folded across her chest and air leaving her body in tiny, angry pockets.

  Words came out of Walter Bishop’s mouth, but they were jumbled and twisted, and left in the wrong order. I watched sweat creep on to his terracotta forehead. There was silence, but it was a different kind of silence.

  ‘We were just talking,’ I said.

  ‘No, you most certainly were not.’ Sheila Dakin went to grab our collars, but neither of us were in possession of them, and so she steered us both with mahogany wings instead.

  ‘We weren’t doing anything wrong,’ I said.

  ‘No, you weren’t.’ She answered me, but looked at Walter Bishop.

  ‘We were looking for God,’ I said.

  ‘Well, you certainly won’t find Him here.’

  I wanted Walter to explain. To explain that God was everywhere, in the pigeon and the cedar tree and the brass crucifix that stood on the mantelpiece, but Walter was held by Sheila Dakin’s stare as easily as if he’d been handcuffed to her.

  ‘We’re going,’ said Mrs Dakin, and she pulled us out of the kitchen and along the gravel drive.

  I turned and looked at Walter.

  He stood in the doorway watching us leave, his terracotta arms by his side, but when he saw me turn, he shouted, ‘Grace, don’t forget this.’

  It was Tilly’s cardigan. I broke free from Sheila Dakin and went back.

  ‘Remember,’ he said, as he put the cardigan into my hands. ‘Always be a wise man.’

  I smiled and nodded, and he smiled and nodded back.

  And in that moment I wondered if sometimes, you only really need two people to believe in the same thing, to feel as though you just might belong.

  *

  Sheila Dakin paraded us back down the road, and along the way she exhibited our safety to the rest of the avenue, who seemed to have been alerted to the problem by her slippers.

  ‘How did you know we were there?’ I said.

  ‘Thin Brian saw you loitering outside number eleven and notified me.’ Sheila Dakin spoke as if she had suddenly become a member of the police force. ‘He hasn’t got many uses, but at least he’s good for something.’

  Eric Lamb nodded as we went past. He stood in his front garden, a rake in one hand and a trowel in the other, like a giant garden gnome. Dorothy Forbes paused on her chippings with her hand to her mouth, and Thin Brian stood in the doorway of his garage, searching for something in the back pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ Sheila Dakin said, as we reached the end of the road.

  I looked up at the bedroom curtains. ‘I think she’s having a little lie-down,’ I said.

  ‘Then I suppose you’d better come to my house.’

  Tilly looke
d at me and sighed.

  Not even Sheila Dakin asked about Tilly’s mother.

  *

  We were placed on chairs, with Elvis and the ironing board, and the whole of Mrs Dakin’s kitchen seemed to take on the air of a courtroom.

  Has your mother never explained anything to you?

  What did you think you were doing?

  Did he say anything to upset you?

  ‘Well, did he?’

  ‘We talked about God and pigeons,’ I said.

  ‘And believing in things,’ added Tilly.

  Mrs Dakin watched us, waiting for more words. We watched back in silence.

  ‘Nothing else?’ she said eventually.

  ‘Nothing else,’ I said. Even though I didn’t know what the nothing else was supposed to be, and I was waiting for her to give me a clue.

  Her shoulders lowered a good two inches.

  ‘Why does everyone hate him?’ I said. ‘What did he do wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Then why aren’t we allowed to talk to him?’

  She sat down. I could see the frustration in her eyes. Sheila Dakin, who would normally allow words to spill freely from her mouth, was suddenly faced with the edited vocabulary of a child.

  ‘People said he did a very bad thing.’ She shuffled a cigarette packet whilst she spoke.

  ‘And did he?’ I said.

  ‘The police said he didn’t, but there’s no smoke without fire.’

  ‘Sometimes there is,’ said Tilly.

  I nodded and we both stared at Mrs Dakin.

  ‘I was accused of copying homework once,’ I said, ‘but it was a lie, and my mother made Mr Nesbitt apologize.’

  I saw Tilly looking at me from the corners of her eyes. ‘That’s not a very good example,’ she said quietly.

  ‘There are lots of other examples,’ I said. ‘Your Lisa’s always being accused of things, and she can’t possibly do every single one of them.’

  Mrs Dakin frowned and lit a cigarette.

  ‘What did Walter Bishop do?’ I said. ‘What didn’t he do?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.’

  It was actually the most important thing I had ever come across in my entire life.

  ‘What is important’, she said, ‘is that you keep away from him. He’s not like us, whatever he did or didn’t do.’ She drew smoke into her lungs and held it there as she spoke. ‘He’s a bad man.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but changed my mind. Mrs Dakin didn’t look like someone who particularly wanted to hear anyone else’s interesting viewpoint.

  ‘Is it something to do with his mother?’ said Tilly.

  Mrs Dakin froze.

  She looked like a musical statue with no music. She didn’t appear to blink or breathe, and the only thing that wasn’t still was the cigarette, which swayed and wavered between her lips.

  ‘What do you mean?’ She spoke very quietly, through the cigarette.

  ‘Mr Bishop told us about his mother,’ I said, and watched the cigarette waver even more. ‘In fact, we had a very long conversation about her.’

  The cigarette was wavering so violently, I wondered if it might drop from her mouth, but Mrs Dakin was a seasoned professional and managed to hold it in place.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of anything Walter Bishop tells you,’ she said. ‘He’s just as barmy as his mother was.’

  ‘She had a lot of rules,’ Tilly said.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘No shoes on the table, never fold tea towels,’ I said.

  Mrs Dakin took the cigarette from her mouth and ash drifted on to the kitchen table. ‘Tea towels?’

  ‘Walter never folds tea towels.’ I watched the ash settle into a place mat. ‘Folded tea towels harbour germs.’

  Mrs Dakin stared into the distance and frowned. When she had finished frowning, she looked at us and said, ‘Do they now?’

  We nodded.

  ‘They do,’ I said.

  Sheila Dakin stubbed the remains of the cigarette into an ashtray and immediately lit another one.

  ‘And did Walter Bishop say anything about Margaret Creasy?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Tilly.

  I looked at Tilly. ‘Loads actually,’ I said.

  Mrs Dakin’s gaze darted between us. ‘Does he know where she is? Does he know if she’s coming back?’

  ‘He said that if she does come back, she’ll be telling everybody everything.’ Tilly tried to swing her legs under the table, but they became caught in a washing basket and a gathering of Keithie’s toys. ‘He said she’ll have an awful lot to say.’

  Sheila Dakin’s mouth dropped open, and her cigarette fell to the floor.

  ‘Be careful, Mrs Dakin.’ I handed the cigarette back to her. ‘That’s how fires start.’

  *

  It was a good job my mother’s bedroom curtains were drawn back at that point, because Mrs Dakin began to feel suddenly unwell and thought she might like to sit by herself for a bit.

  We walked down Mrs Dakin’s patchwork path, past unfolded deckchairs and a pile of Lisa’s magazines.

  ‘I liked Mr Bishop,’ I said.

  ‘Me too,’ Tilly said.

  ‘You pissed my mam off?’ Keithie stood by the bottom gate, trailing his football with the tip of his boot.

  ‘No,’ we both answered at the same time.

  ‘You’ve been to that bloody weirdo’s house, haven’t you?’

  ‘He’s not a weirdo,’ I said, ‘he just doesn’t mix well.’

  ‘Well, you two would know,’ said Keithie.

  We watched him bounce the football along the avenue, until it hit the kerb and disappeared over Mrs Forbes’ garden wall.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ said Tilly. ‘We can’t go back to Walter Bishop’s, we’d be grounded for the rest of our lives.’

  I looked over at number eleven. ‘No, I don’t suppose we can.’

  ‘So how can we find out if God is really here?’

  We walked down the path at the side of my house, and I could see my mother measuring out her afternoon at the kitchen sink.

  ‘We can do what Walter Bishop told us to do,’ I said. ‘We can examine the evidence. We can be wise men.’

  As we walked through the back door, Tilly took off her sou’wester and stamped out the dust from her sandals. ‘Will we be like the wise men who visited Baby Jesus?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly like them.’

  Number Twelve, The Avenue

  15 July 1976

  From her kitchen window, Sheila Dakin watched Grace and Tilly all the way to the back door of number four.

  It was a habit, watching children. Even after the fire. Even after they’d all agreed that Walter Bishop had been punished enough and they should leave him well alone, she still watched the kids.

  As soon as Grace and Tilly disappeared, she went to the pantry. Lisa and Keithie weren’t around, but she didn’t switch the light on. It made her feel better somehow, if she couldn’t even see herself, if she couldn’t see her hands shake and the straight, cold liquid hit the bottom of the glass.

  It hadn’t always been this way.

  She could remember, just about remember, a time when there was a choice about it. She’d said to Margaret Creasy, if she could just get back to those days. Not give up, just take it or leave it. But perhaps Margaret was right, perhaps the days of take it or leave it were gone forever. She’d even got as far as standing over the sink with a bottle, but she hadn’t quite got the nerve to go through with it. Funny really, she didn’t believe she had many qualities in life, but nerve was something Sheila Dakin didn’t think she’d ever be short of.

  She took another mouthful. It folded itself into her like an embrace.

  *

  It had been such an ordinary-looking front door.

  She said to Margaret, you never would have thought it from the outside, just what went on in there. A girl from work had given he
r the address. Not the kind of girl you’d expect, either. Pale and skinny, very quiet, always wiping her nose on the sleeve of her overall. She’d written it on a serviette in the canteen, and put it in Sheila’s pocket without saying a word. She’d never spoken to the girl before or since.

  She poured another drink. The floor of the pantry was cold and uneasy, but she curled her legs and leaned back into the shelves, and after a while it didn’t seem too bad.

  She’d kept the serviette in the back of her knicker drawer for three weeks.

  It’s not like anyone would have noticed anything. Her dad was in a world of his own, and her mam had long since gone. Her brothers treated her as they always had, like another boy, except she was the one who cooked and cleaned and put a fresh shirt out for them each morning. But she worried. She worried about work. If the pale, skinny girl had noticed, it might not be long before the rest of the factory noticed as well.

  It took her three hours to knock on that ordinary-looking front door. She’d walked the street, waiting for women to stop whitening doorsteps and for kids to stop playing in chalked-out squares. It was late November, a sharp, raw Saturday afternoon of football matches and shopping trips, with a wind that bit scarlet into faces. Not Sheila’s, though. Sheila’s stayed pale and watery and lost.

  As she knocked on the door, she imagined the woman who might be behind it. She wanted her to be plump and kind, to understand. To have her hair pinned in waves and a stout, flowery apron, like her mother used to wear. But the woman who opened the door was narrow and stern. She looked at Sheila from the ground upwards, and stood to one side without saying a word.

  The woman only asked three questions: her name, her address and her age. She lied about all three.

  Sheila spoke to the woman in a voice she didn’t even recognize. ‘Twenty-one,’ she said, because she was worried it might make a difference.

  Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the light in the pantry. She could see the curved edges of the glass in her hand, and the neck of the bottle as it tilted. She might as well have another now she was here.

  She had lain on the bed, with the narrow, stern woman standing over her. Thin, curtained daylight pushed into the room, and she could still hear the outside creeping through the glass. The sound of children’s footsteps running on pavements, and pieces of conversation as people walked along the street below. She didn’t smoke then, so she’d talked instead to try and unstitch her nerves. She talked about anything – the weather, Christmas, the colour of the wallpaper.