The Mysterious Miss Mayhew

by Hazel Osmond

  The guy commentating sounded almost poetical. ‘And Rich here wrestles out of Rothbury.’

  An ‘Oooh’ from the crowd and one of the boys was on his knees and then up again to shake hands.

  And now there was someone tapping Tom on the shoulder, a guy from the furniture store who was one of their biggest advertisers. He obviously wanted to talk business, so Tom tuned out the wrestling and soon they were discussing whether Tom would be interested in doing a four-page spread to celebrate the store’s tenth anniversary. Tom heard the last bout of wrestling finish and a new one begin before he said, tactfully, ‘Perhaps something smaller?’ but the cheering from the crowd was making it hard for him to get his point across. There was laughing too. Tom turned to check on Hattie.

  No Hattie! Clammy, disembowelling fear got hold of him. He quickly scanned the crowds. She could be anywhere. But she wouldn’t leave the ground, would she? His breathing was suddenly all over the place. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he gabbled. ‘Got to go—’

  ‘Yeah. Think you better,’ Furniture Man agreed. ‘Before that lad gets hurt.’

  It made no sense to Tom until he turned and looked into the wrestling ring.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘But you always say ladies can do anything,’ Hattie grumbled as he hustled her away.

  ‘I know I do, but you can’t just barge in because one of the boys didn’t turn up to fight.’

  Tom thought about the way she’d been clasping that poor teenager. It had been like a koala attacking a tree. Her grip had been so firm, Tom had had difficulty prising her off.

  ‘Look, I’m not angry,’ he said, slowing down. ‘It’s just you need to be entered for these things properly—’

  ‘So next year I can do that? Can I? Can I?’

  He was backed into a parenting cul de sac. ‘Maybe. We’ll see.’

  ‘Yes!’ She punched the air before telling him how she was going to flatten the opposition. He didn’t doubt it. At least one lad would see her name on the programme and decide to take up a less dangerous sport. Like running with the bulls at Pamplona.

  Would it be an easier life with a demure little girl? He’d never know, he’d got a paint-chipper, as his mother put it.

  They were nearly at the entrance to the Home Crafts marquee when Tom spotted the distinctive white hair that belonged to the Rev. George. He was balanced on a shooting stick.

  ‘Hello, George,’ Tom said, ‘we’re about to collect Mum and go for lunch. Like to join us?’

  George looked as uncomfortable as if he was sitting on the wrong end of his stick. ‘Most kind,’ he said, his hand worrying away at his clerical collar, ‘but I … I was just leaving.’

  ‘Why doesn’t Granny’s friend want to eat with us?’ Hattie asked, in a not very whispery whisper as they passed out of the sunshine and into the tent.

  ‘I think he’s trying to pretend he isn’t Granny’s friend. Well, not her special friend.’ Tom squeezed her hand. ‘But don’t ask Granny about it, Hats. OK?’

  It pained him to say that because Rob and he were desperate to know what was going on and perhaps Hattie’s way of simply asking the same question over and over again might be more effective than their own efforts.

  George seemed to be popping up more and more regularly at the same social events as his mother. Yet both he and Tom’s mother pretended nothing was going on. And, if they were an item, how did that work? His mother had never had any truck with religion, an attitude that had hardened when his father had dropped dead while out jogging, having decided to take more care of his health. If God existed, she had said, he had a bloody cruel sense of humour. Only eight years old at the time, Tom had agreed.

  Inside the tent, it was cooler and much less crowded. Hattie and he had already paid it one visit to see how her entry for ‘Vegetable Wildlife, age group five to seven years’ had gone down. To Tom it looked as if a potato had been cloned violently with a courgette, but Hattie had been gutted that her ‘Shark Attacking a Whale’ had been beaten to the top prizes by a porcupine, a lion and a badger.

  His mother was standing with the other ladies who made up the baked goods’ judging panel. What they had been judging was displayed on trestle tables that ran along one side of the tent.

  Although he had known most of the panel’s individual members since he was a boy, collectively they unnerved him. He felt they were assessing and marking him: Attractive appearance but rather a stodgy middle. And, possibly, his parenting style: Needs to be firmer to avoid collapse.

  ‘Had a good wander, love?’ his mother asked, and then, ‘What’s that on your shirt?’

  ‘Something that came out of a llama.’ He made sure he had her directly in his sights. ‘And guess what? I saw George outside and invited him to lunch, but he’s off somewhere else.’

  ‘George?’ Evasive shift of eyes. ‘Oh, he was here? Hattie, could you get that bag for me?’ Yup, definitely diversionary tactics.

  He gave up. ‘So, how’s it gone, the judging?’

  His mother tutted. ‘That Great British Bake Off has a lot to answer for. Record entry this year and some you wouldn’t give to your dog. We’ve had the marks of cooling racks clearly visible on items; artificial colourings …’

  Tom tried to look shocked.

  ‘And we’ve also had … No, Hattie, the blue bag. Yes, that’s it. We’ve also had … an incident. That Mrs Egremont. Only class she hasn’t won is ham and egg pie on a saucer and she’s querying our marks for it.’ His mother was sounding ever more indignant. ‘She’s only asking for a recount. We’ve told her “No”. So now it’s a stand about.’

  ‘Do you mean stand-off?’

  ‘Yes, a stand-off.’ His mother’s gaze drifted past his shoulder and he turned to see Mrs Egremont stationed near the contentious pie. A terrier of a woman, she might just go for your ankles if you annoyed her.

  ‘Nasty,’ he agreed, quietly. ‘But come on, it’s lunchtime.’

  His mother was hunting in her bag. ‘I’ll be two minutes. I need to warn the Secretary of the Show there might be a formal complaint. Right, pen, paper …’

  He knew she’d be more than two minutes, so when Hattie asked if she could go and have a look around, he let her. He scanned the marquee for anything of interest and saw a woman bending to inspect the plates on the first trestle table of baked goods. Her distinctive grey-blonde hair looked good against the faded mauves and pinks of her summer dress. Nice touch putting the grey suede bag and sandals with it too.

  Being married to Steph had left him with an interest in fashion that he rarely voiced to his own family. Rob, whose greatest accolade was ‘That’s a nice dress, Kath’, would certainly rip the piss out of him.

  He spent a few seconds wondering in which European capital Steph was currently matching underfed models with overpriced accessories, and then pushed her away again.

  The woman was looking towards the judging panel, but they were still in a huddle, so she turned back to the scones, frowning. Another glance around and she caught his eye. She was much younger than he’d first thought. Must be the hair that had wrong-footed him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said.

  He was bored and she didn’t look dangerous, so he wandered over. It was only when he arrived that he realised he’d put his hand over the stain on his shirt. Awkward. It looked as if he was about to take the pledge of allegiance, but if he moved it away again, she would see he had tried to hide the llama spit.

  ‘I’m sorry to be a pain,’ she said, ‘but do you know anything about these scones?’ Her delivery was clipped, but not unfriendly. There was a glance at, and then away from, the hand marooned on his shirt.

  ‘Anything in particular you wanted to know?’ He checked on Hattie, who was mooching about near the flower arrangements.

  ‘Fruit oven scones,’ she read from her programme. ‘But why did these get the first prize? All the entries look perfect to me.’

  Her tone was earnest and he did a quick assessment of her straight back and
came up with Slightly odd, possibly humourless, but points for the hair.

  ‘Well, the scones must have a good colour, and …’ He used his free hand to draw her attention to the finer details. ‘They should have a definite seam around the middle.’

  Being so close to the baking was making him feel hungry. It was tempting to filch one of Mrs Egremont’s prize-winners, but that would mean spending the rest of his life in a safe house with a new identity.

  ‘Fascinating.’ The woman was nodding as if she meant it. She gave him, and the hand on his shirt, another look. ‘Ah,’ she said, smiling. ‘I know why you seem familiar. You’re the man who was wrestling those children earlier. Did you hurt your arm?’

  He had to check to see if she was joking. Evidently not.

  He ignored her question, but she didn’t appear to notice. ‘Well, thank you for the information on the scones. You’ve been most kind.’

  Most kind? He looked around to see if they were still in the twenty-first century.

  She had moved along to the next table and was frowning again.

  ‘Problem?’ he said, joining her mainly to see how much odder she might become.

  ‘Well, sorry to repeat myself, but why has this sandwich cake, unfilled, been selected over the others?’

  ‘More even bake,’ he pointed out. ‘Better texture.’

  He appeared to be channelling Mary Berry. Mind you, he had an excuse; he’d reached the age where he was beginning to think Radio 4’s Money Box Live might be worth listening to. But she couldn’t be more than twenty-three, twenty-four.

  Another frown. ‘This Mrs Egremont seems to win a lot. I expect she’s some rosy-cheeked farmer’s wife.’

  He tried to keep his face absolutely neutral, but she laughed and said, ‘Oh that look speaks volumes. The opposite of rosy-cheeked, then.’

  ‘Uh … I didn’t say that.’ He wished she’d keep her voice down.

  She walked a little further, looking at the rosettes. ‘Yes, she’s won this and this and, oh, wait a minute. She hasn’t won this one.’ She peered at the offending pie. ‘Why is that?’

  Mrs Egremont turned to look at him as if to say, ‘Yes, you bastard, why is that?’ Her elbows looked particularly sharp today, as if she had whittled them on purpose.

  ‘Is it,’ the young woman said helpfully, ‘because that bit of crust is slightly burnt?’

  Mrs Egremont looked as if she’d been Tasered and Tom figured they had ten seconds at most before she snapped out of it and started biting people.

  ‘Hello,’ Hattie said, appearing next to the young woman. ‘Your hair’s nice, is it real?’

  Before he could tell her off for that, the young woman said, ‘Well, that’s an interesting question. It’s real hair, but it’s not real in the sense that this is my natural colour. I dyed it.’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said when Hattie looked at him. ‘Not till you’re older.’

  He checked on Mrs Egremont. She had recovered the power to blink.

  ‘Do you have a tattoo as well?’ Hattie was asking.

  ‘No.’ The tone was regretful. ‘I really don’t like needles.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Hattie looked at him as if he was always poking her with them. Then her face brightened. ‘Would you like to see my vegetable sculpture?’

  ‘I’m sorry … your?’ The woman was consulting her programme and he was going to say, ‘Hattie, enough,’ when it occurred to him that getting this completely tactless woman away from Mrs Egremont might not be a bad thing.

  ‘It’s just over there,’ Hattie said and they all set off, which gave him time to process that word tactless. He thought about it some more when Hattie covered up the card that explained what the sculpture was.

  ‘Can you guess the animals?’ Hattie asked and Tom wondered how badly this was going to go. Odd Woman seemed as if she had limited experience of dealing with children – possibly humans of any kind. So when she failed to guess what the courgette was doing to the potato, she might be brutally honest about Hattie’s artistic skills.

  The woman gave the sculpture a good look over and said, ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious. That’s a shark attacking a whale.’

  ‘It is! It is!’ Hattie squealed, taking her hand off the card to prove it.

  How the bloody hell …

  That frown was back. ‘Great White or Tiger?’

  ‘Tiger,’ Hattie said and the woman nodded as if somebody had confirmed that the masterpiece in front of her was a Cézanne and not a Seurat.

  She barely glanced at the winning entries. ‘And you did yours by yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hattie said, proudly. ‘Dad didn’t give me any help at all.’

  It made him sound like a lazy, uninterested git.

  ‘Only one suggestion, though.’ A finger was being held up.

  Uh-oh, here we go.

  ‘To really pep it up, you could roast a red pepper, take off the skin and then mash the insides to suggest blood and gore.’

  The impressed ‘Cool!’ from Hattie was accompanied by a look that suggested she might like to ask the woman home for a sleepover.

  ‘Hattie, could you go and hurry Granny up a bit?’ he said, feeling sidelined.

  Hattie went off reluctantly and the young woman suddenly announced, ‘Ah, stick dressing,’ and veered off towards the carved shepherd’s crooks. ‘Oh they’re lovely. Look at the detail on this.’ He reluctantly joined her to see that she was pointing at a carved brown trout which formed the handle of one of the sticks.

  ‘Oh, and this,’ she said, singling out an otter. ‘How long do you think it takes to carve one?’

  He looked around for one of the old boys who made them.

  ‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘And, to be honest, these are good, but you should have seen the ones Charlie did.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Charlie Coburg. He was a “real” artist, could turn his hand to all kinds of things; drawing, painting, carving. Used to win this every year. The others said he should be barred to give them a chance.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘No. Nobody would dare to ban Charlie from anything. Big character, plus his family, well, they’re one of the county families. Died before Christmas.’

  ‘A big character?’ She was studying one of the less successful handles, a sheepdog that looked as if its mother had been intimate with a pig. Over near the judging table he saw his own mother give her I’m ready now wave. Best wrap this up.

  ‘There are all kinds of stories out there about Charlie,’ he explained. ‘Armour-plated liver. Bit of a lady-killer in his younger days. A devil at parties.’ He remembered Charlie at the office Christmas bash, baring his arse at the window.

  ‘You don’t make him sound very attractive,’ the woman said. Her back looked even stiffer.

  That irked him. Even worse, he was irked by the way he was suddenly using the word irked.

  ‘That wasn’t my intention,’ he said. ‘Charlie was a real life-enhancer. People loved his illustrations and his pieces on wildlife. We’ve never really filled the gap he left.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘The magazine. The Place, the People. He was a contributor. I’m the editor.’

  ‘So you have a hole in your parties and your magazine?’ She turned a page in her programme as if making a point.

  ‘No, that’s not what I—’

  ‘Really?’ There were no more jolly hockey sticks in her tone.

  ‘Now, hang on …’ He realised that, in his agitation, he’d taken his hand off his shirt.

  She wrinkled her nose when she saw the stain. ‘You haven’t hurt your arm wrestling at all.’

  ‘I never said I—’

  ‘In fact, you appear to have dropped some of your lunch down your shirt.’

  ‘I haven’t had my lunch yet.’

  ‘Somebody else’s lunch then, perhaps.’

  ‘It’s actually llama spit,’ he protested, wondering, even as he said it, why he thought that was pref
erable. Her expression told him it wasn’t.

  Hattie reappeared. ‘Granny says she’s hungry. So am I. Do you want to come?’ This to the woman.

  ‘No thank you,’ she said primly. ‘But … Hattie, it is Hattie, isn’t it? You’re very kind to ask me. And I meant to say how much I enjoyed your wrestling.’

  He was trying to think of a smart come-back to that, but she was unnerving him by the way she was looking at the stain again. ‘Were you antagonising it? The llama?’ she asked.

  Subtext – like you’re antagonising me.

  ‘No, I wasn’t antagonising it.’

  ‘Well something must have caused it to spit.’

  She lifted her chin and regarded him gravely and again he searched for just the right phrase to convey that he thought she was weird and bloody ungrateful after he’d taken the time to explain baking and sticks to her. That he was a grown-up with a daughter, a man of the world, while she was obviously a tight-arse who couldn’t understand how you could think someone like Charlie was a pisshead, but still admire him. He almost had the perfect thing when he became aware that Hattie was studying him with a strange expression.

  ‘Dad,’ she asked, ‘can I have a look at your testicles?’

  Tumbleweed blew through the tent, first one way and then the other, before he was trying to explain how Hattie had just been taught the word … not by him … and not about him … about mammals … bollocks, no, he didn’t mean bollocks, he meant bullocks …

  The young woman gave Hattie a sympathetic look before walking purposefully to the entrance of the tent. She paused only to wipe off something that had adhered to her sandal.

  He had no doubt she was thinking about him when she did it.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sunday 11 May

  Well, I’ve made a start and dipped my toe in the water.

  Actually, in those strappy sandals, I dipped my toe in quite a lot of other stuff too.

  And the heat took me by surprise. The entire Internet led me to believe the essential item of clothing for summer in Northumberland was a polo-neck jumper, but I was boiling, even in that dress. It’s still warm now, sitting here in the last of the sun and slowly filling up the first page of this notebook.