by Ann Purser
“I know you did,” said Lois. “But she turned out to be a very good sort of woman, just right for us.”
“Huh!” said Derek. “Well, nothin’ I say’ll make any difference. I’m used to that. So it’s your affair, me duck. Don’t blame me if it goes wrong. And the minute that Cowgill puts in an appearance, she gets the chop. Agreed?”
“Right,” she said. She always agreed when Derek got masterful. He seldom held it against her when she did the opposite. “I’ve got no worries about Bill Stockbridge,” she continued, “except whether he’ll stick at it.”
“He’d be better sticking to farming,” said Derek, reaching for the teapot.
“Here!” said Gran. “Give me that! We don’t want ginger twins, do we?” She chuckled and poured him another cup. “Well,” she continued, “I didn’t get a chance to talk to Miss Abraham” – this with a meaningful look at Lois – “but she looked just the ticket to me. She’d get on with the others all right, too, if she’s used to handling a difficult family. I might be able to help her out,” she added briskly.
“No, Mum, you keep out of it!” said Lois firmly.
“So that’s all the thanks I get,” Gran said huffily, “for working my elbows to the bone – ”
“For God’s sake!” said Derek. “Can’t a man get a bit o’ peace in his own house? Women!”
§
It was about an hour later that Derek picked up the paper, leafing idly through the property pages while Gran listened to The Archers, her favourite radio soap. Everything stopped for The Archers. Lois said Gran learned more about the country from The Archers than she did from living in the middle of it. Derek said that he was buggered if anybody could learn anything about the country from The Archers! Just like all the other soaps, he reckoned, with a few mouldy sheep baaing in the background.
“Hey,” he said now, “look at this.”
“Sshh!” said Gran.
Lois leaned over Derek’s shoulder and peered at the paper. It was a house-for-sale advertisement, with a small, smudgy picture. “That’s that farmhouse just up the road from Cathanger Mill,” he said. Her hair tickled his face, and in spite of himself he turned and kissed her cool cheek. “Bin empty for years,” he said, as she kissed him back. “Old Joe Bell used to live there, and let it go after his wife died. Mind you, it’s one of them old stone farmhouses that are solid as a rock. Wouldn’t take much to get it up to scratch. Still, look what they want for it!”
“Blimey!” said Lois, relieved that he’d cheered up. “Not worth five hundred the way it is now. Still, it’s got a few acres. Some townie with kids and a pony will buy it, you bet. Restore it to something it’s never bin, and move in with the four-by-four and a mother’s help. Beats me why they have kids, that sort, if they can’t even be bothered to look after them!”
“Well, we’ll see if anybody’s fool enough to buy it at that price,” said Derek.
Tumpty, tumpty, tumpty, turn, went The Archers’ tune, and Gran turned off the radio. “That Brian Aldridge,” she said. “A leopard never changes its spots. If I had my way, I’d put him up against a wall and shoot him.”
Six
In a newish estate of executive dwellings in a well-heeled suburb of Birmingham, Rosie Charrington sat at an elegant little writing table she had bought for a song at a car boot sale. She turned over a pile of newspapers, each time going straight to the property pages. Rosie and husband Sebastian, a local vet dealing mostly with dogs, cats and hamsters, had decided it was time to move out to the real country. It would be good for the children, Maria and Felix, to get some fresh air into their lungs. It would be a whole new social life for Rosie and Sebastian, and if they chose wisely Rosie could still be within reach of motorways that would take her swiftly back to civilization when required. And if Sebastian could get that job with a veterinary practice advertised in the area they had chosen, he could get back to the large and, to Rosie, fearsome farm animals he loved best.
Her moving finger stopped on a smudgy photograph. She peered more closely. “Bell’s Farm,” she read, “situated in one of the county’s most desirable areas, close to the M40 and M1, and maintaining its rural charm. Four acres of pasture, with delightful stream. Barns and stabling, many original features. In need of some restoration.”
Excitement rose. This was it, Rosie felt it in her bones. Sebastian had said the best thing was to get a property where they could rebuild and restore to get it exactly how they wanted it. She looked at the price. More or less within their limits, and Sebastian was good at bargaining. “Bell’s Farm,” she said aloud. It had a good, plain ring to it. They’d need to change her car, of course. Sebastian had a company Ford, but she’d need one of those off-road jobs. Pile in all the children, and Anna, and they’d have to get a dog…or two…
“Mrs Charrington?” It was Anna, a Polish girl who looked after the children and had failed to master much of the English language in six months’ stay. “I go for the children?” she said, looking up at the old shelf clock.
“No, no,” said Rosie. “It’s your free time. I’ll get them, and then nip into the supermarket for some food for tonight. I’ve got something exciting to show you later on,” she added, and never thought to wonder if Anna would like living in the country, where there would be no other Polish au pairs to befriend, and where there was only one bus per week to get her into town.
§
Not many miles away, in the reception class of Waltonby village school, Rebecca Rogers was tidying up her classroom after her pupils had gone home. She’d been out in the freezing playground, making herself available for any worried mum whose child had not yet settled down, though it was two months since the start of the new school year. Most of her little ones soon accustomed themselves to the new, strange routines, especially those who had been to playschool already. There was really only one, whose parents were older than average and had clung overprotectively to this little girl, keeping her a precious baby until the law said she had to go and join the cruel outside world of Waltonby village school.
“Miss Rogers?”
Rebecca blinked. “Sorry, Mrs Stratford,” she said. “I was miles away. Can I help?”
Sheila Stratford, one of New Brooms’ cleaners and Waltonby grandmother, stood smiling at her. “I just wondered if you were carrying on with the milk bottle tops collection, like last year? My granddaughter’s just gone up a class, and I’ve got a bagful here. But I can take them away if you’re not…”
“Oh yes, of course! Here, I’ll put them in the cupboard. They’re getting scarce now, with everyone into cartons. These look nice and clean too – not like some.”
“Ah well,” pounced Sheila, spotting an opportunity to raise the subject she’d hoped would come up, “I’ve been well-trained. Working for Lois Meade, y’know. ‘We sweep cleaner’ and all that. Her standards are very high.”
Light dawned, and Rebecca smiled. “Ah, you mean the cleaning business my Bill has signed up with? Yes, he’s really looking forward to it. Mind you,” she added, perching on the edge of her table, “I was surprised. Thought he’d want to do farm work, like he always has. If I’d been asked – which I wasn’t! – ” she looked confidingly at the motherly figure in front of her – “if I’d been asked, I’d have said he’d be better handling bullocks than dusters, though he takes his turn around the cottage. I have to give him that.”
“Well,” said Sheila, “if it don’t work out, my Sam might be able to find him some work. Still,” she said, with a guilty look, “I probably shouldn’t say that, Lois havin’ decided, an’ that. Anyway, I mustn’t stand here gossiping! That’s one of Lois’s rules…”
Rebecca reckoned that Sheila Stratford rated gossip as one of the necessities of life, and before she could escape, said quickly, “This Mrs Meade – is she nice? Bill didn’t seem too sure. Not what he expected, he said.”
“Nice?” Sheila hesitated. “Well, not like your uncle, Rev Rogers, is nice and kind…not soft in any way, y’know. B
ut you could trust her with your life. An’ she’s loyal to her cleaners…providing they’re loyal to her. She’s a good mother, too, in her way. And her husband, Derek,” Sheila added, brightening up, “he’s really nice. Lovely bloke. Puts up with quite a lot, one way and another…” Then she put her hand up to her mouth in a mock stifling gesture. “There I go again!” she said. “I must be off, before you get everybody’s life history at New Brooms!”
“Cheerio, Mrs Stratford,” said Rebecca, “I expect we’ll meet again.”
“Bound to,” said Sheila, and made for the door. Then she turned back. “Oh, by the way, did you see our Waltonby’s in the news? Cathanger Mill? That Abraham chap, seems he done a runner. Your Bill’d be interested, seein’ as Miss Abraham has applied for a cleanin’ job with Lois. I know one thing,” she added, in a final exit line, “I wouldn’t have nothing to do with that Abraham lot, not for all the tea in China!”
Later that evening, when Bill returned from the hospital, Rebecca mentioned the Abrahams. Neither she nor Bill had seen the news item, and had never heard of the Abraham family. “But I’ve driven past it,” said Rebecca, putting another log on the fire. “Spooky-looking place. Bloomin’ great dog came out barking its head off, and chased the car all the way up to the empty farmhouse.”
“That farmhouse is on the market,” said Bill, not much interested in spooks. “D’you fancy going for it? We could do the renovations ourselves.”
But Rebecca shook her head. That would be a commitment she was not ready for. This warm little cottage, rented from the church, suited her fine. There were too many uncertainties ahead to think of putting down roots with Bill just yet.
Seven
Enid Abraham drove her small, grey car slowly up the track to Cathanger Mill. It was growing dark, and the weak lights showed up the potholes and ruts. She could not use the headlights for fear of alarming Mother. Not that it mattered. She could have found her way through this obstacle course with her eyes shut.
In the summer, Enid would walk about the mill garden and field at dusk, often staying out until all the light had gone, but in winter the evenings were long and dreary. Mother would sit in one room with the door firmly shut, and Father and Edward stayed silently in the kitchen, the day’s newspaper shared between them, seldom exchanging a word. She was ignored by all of them. Novels saved her life. She went regularly to the library in Tresham, as she had today, taking out four new novels a week, and these she would read quietly in a chair by the kitchen range. Halfway through the evening, she would make a cup of tea for all of them, receiving no thanks from Mother, and a curt nod from Father and Edward.
Once or twice, she had suggested joining the WI in Waltonby, but this had been dismissed as unthinkable. Edward had been particularly sarcastic. “My God, Enid!” he’d sneered. “I never thought you’d come to that! Jam and Jerusalem? You’d be better employed straightening out our accounts…take a book-keeping course or something.”
But when she’d found an accounting course run by the WEA in Long Farnden village hall, Edward, the turncoat, had said it was ridiculous to be out in the car in the evenings when all she needed was to know how to add and subtract, and surely she could manage that with her past experience in the chemist’s?
So, she had acquiesced, as usual. Then one day recently, searching through a drawer in Mother’s room while she was asleep in the chair, she found an old bag full of lace-making things, and remembered how long ago in Edinburgh she had been to classes and learned the old skills. They’d praised her aptitude, and she’d made lovely lace and sewn it on to fine cotton handkerchiefs as gifts for the girls at work. After they’d moved, and everything changed, she’d forgotten about lace-making.
Now, fetching the bag, she began to sort the bobbins and cottons. The low wattage light in the kitchen was not good, but she moved her chair nearer to where Father sat reading, and as her fingers moved swiftly, sorting out the muddle, she began to hum softly. Perhaps it had been the reminder of happier days that encouraged her to apply for the job.
“What’re you making that noise for?” said Father, without looking up.
“Because I’m happy,” said Enid.
Now he looked up, frowning at her. “What’ve you got to be happy about?” he grunted.
“I’m happy because I’ve got a job, a cleaning job,” said Enid.
“A job? Did you say a cleaning job?” Walter was incredulous, and Enid had a moment’s pang of remorse at adding yet another worry to his burden.
“I’m wasting my life here,” she said quickly, “and this is a chance to do something. Not very challenging, I agree, but it’s a start.”
He stared at her, and knew from the set of her mouth that she would not be dissuaded. “You fixed it, then?” he said sadly.
She nodded. “I start on Monday,” she said.
The Abrahams had no television, and Mother had forbidden them to have the radio. She said there was never anything but trouble, trouble, trouble. News of the outside world came in the pages of the Tresham Chronicle, which Father picked up from Long Farnden village shop every morning when he went in for his cigarettes. His one self-indulgence, he said, puffing through sixty a day and discarding packets all around the house and yard. Enid hated the smell of cigarette smoke. Father had never smoked until they came to Cathanger. Now his shoulders were bowed, and his cough kept her awake at nights.
She began to straighten the bobbins. It might be all right, she told herself optimistically. Things could improve, if only Edward would settle things and make a life for himself, preferably somewhere else.
Eight
“Why couldn’t you just hire a couple of nice ordinary women, with ordinary kids and no trouble?” Derek, in an exasperated mood, sat in front of the dying fire opposite an unrepentant Lois. It was late, and the central heating had gone off half an hour ago. Lois moved her chair nearer to the fire and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Derek,” though she did know, perfectly well.
“Nothing difficult there,” said Derek. He thought how young she looked, hugging herself in the growing chill. You’d never think she was a mother of three, ran her own business and was about as bloody-minded as it was possible to get. Oh yes, and an amateur sleuth into the bargain. He resisted the temptation to grab hold of her and rush upstairs to have wonderful, energetic sex, which she was also good at.
“Just think, Lois,” he continued. “You’ve taken on a young bloke who’s worked briefly as a hospital auxilliary, but mainly on a moorland farm, used to being out of doors, roughing it in all weathers, one of the lads, and a useful scrum half. And you’re goin’ to set him on cleaning people’s poncey houses!” Lois nodded and smiled irritatingly.
“And then,” he carried on, trying hard not to notice how long and lovely Lois’s legs still were. Right up to her arse, his dad had said when he first took her home on approval. “Then,” he said, “there’s Miss Abraham. Anybody else would see that she won’t be any good. Too old, too posh, and from a place straight out of a Hammer Horror! Cathanger! Blimey, that’s enough for a start!”
Lois laughed now, her best open, straightforward laugh, and Derek gave in to temptation. “Oh, all right,” he said. “Have it your own way. You always do, anyway. Come on, gel,” he added, reaching out and pulling her to her feet. “Time for bed, an’ that,” he said.
“Specially that,” Lois replied, putting her arms round his neck and nuzzling his ear until he picked her up bodily and carried her to the foot of the stairs. “Put me down,” she whispered, “else you’ll be runnin’ out of steam.”
Derek, already regretting his chivalric impulse, put her down with relief.
§
Next morning, Lois sat in her office, idly looking out of the window. She was waiting for a ring-back call to a new client, the estate agent’s small branch office in Fletcham. If she got this job, she planned to send Bill Stockbridge along. It would be a good start for him, she’d thought. Better than him having to get used to some woman wh
o might follow him about to check he was dusting the tops of the picture frames.
She knew Derek was right. But right from the launch of New Brooms her cleaners had been more to her than just machines who had to function efficiently in the workplace. Bridie had been her childhood friend, and she remembered the day Hazel wriggled herself efficiently into the world, one of those babies who seem to know the score from the start. They were close to her already, before starting to work for her. Then there had been Gary, a misguided charmer, for whom Lois still had a sneaking fondness, though he’d left under a cloud. And dear old Sheila Stratford, who chose to work outside her own village, treating the job with New Brooms as if it were a fast track career with limitless prospects.
No, nice ordinary women were not for Lois. It was more interesting her way.
A car pulled up on the opposite side of the road, and Lois snapped to attention. Cowgill, seated behind the wheel and looking straight ahead, took out his mobile and dialled. Damn! Lois picked up her phone and said, “Something wrong with your feet? I thought policemen were supposed to plod round their beat, inspiring confidence in the local community and all that rubbish.”
“Morning, Lois,” said Hunter Cowgill. “You can’t have forgotten you’ve forbidden me to be seen with you? No alternative but to – ”
“But to sit outside my house with absolutely no reason for being there,” interrupted Lois. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“To talk to you,” said Cowgill briskly. “More an exchange of information, really. About the Abrahams. You know a bit about Enid now, I’m sure, and I can fill you in with some more about the family. There’s a problem there, as you’ve probably heard. I need your help, Lois. Two thirty, Alibone Woods? It’s not going to rain…”
“I suppose I can be there,” said Lois reluctantly.
“Good.” Cowgill was in authoritative mode now. “And in my own defence,” he added, “I’ve just been to your village shop. They’ve had a break-in. So I have every reason to be in Long Farnden. Bye, Lois. See you later.”