Burley Cross Postbox Theft

by Nicola Barker

  When I arrived at Skylarks (Fitzwilliam St) on the stroke of six, I was not a little surprised to discover no one home. I knew that Catrin had been planning a quick dash into Bradford after school to collect a dress for an engagement party at a boutique there, so presumed that she had simply been held up.

  After a long fifteen minutes, Veterinary Crawford screeched to a halt in his battered, old Land-Rover, full of apologies. Catrin had phoned him on his mobile to say she was stuck in traffic. We went inside and waited for about ten or so minutes, then Veterinary Crawford offered me a sherry. I told him that I didn’t generally indulge in alcohol (except at Communion!), but that I certainly wouldn’t object to a nice, warming cup of tea!

  Veterinary Crawford disappeared off into the kitchen, from whence an impressive volley of crashes and curses then emerged, before the – somewhat harassed – veterinary reappeared again, his cheeks all flushed, claiming that not only had he been unable to locate any tea bags, but that they also appeared to be completely out of milk!

  After a few pointed enquiries (on my part) it soon became evident that the poor dear soul had never actually produced a cup of tea in his own kitchen before! Sensing his embarrassment, I quickly swallowed down my misgivings (I am generally teetotal) and suggested that we share a small glass of sherry together, after all. This we did, Mr Jennings, and very convivial it was, too.

  Another twenty or so minutes passed in idle chit-chat, during which time Veterinary Crawford received an urgent call on his mobile saying how a cow had been hit a glancing blow by a car on the A65 (just past Ilkley, the same incident that was holding up Catrin, it later transpired!).

  The veterinary tried to get his assistant (McGraw) on to it, but McGraw was engaged in his own little drama in Leathley (where a poor terrier had a large hide chew stuck in its throat). I naturally insisted that Veterinary Crawford should attend the call (who knows what that poor creature was suffering?), and, after much resistance, he relented, begging me to hold on a short while longer for Catrin, who had assured him that she wouldn’t be any time at all.

  Well, I sat down and I waited, Mr Jennings, and after a few minutes I must’ve nodded off. I’m not sure how long I was asleep for (probably just a couple of seconds), but I was suddenly awoken from my light doze by a sharp knock at the door. I hurried to answer it, adjusting my hair (all right – my dentures! The bottom plate had briefly slipped forward!), somewhat startled and confused.

  Imagine my surprise, then, when on opening the door I was greeted with the spectacle of two large (by large I mean tall – imposing – muscular) gentlemen, in uniform (the details of which I can’t entirely recall) standing either side of a small, pale-faced brunette with a pair of large, one almost might say ‘burning’, brown eyes. I remember wondering at the extraordinary length of her scarf. It was long, very long, green and white, and wound around her neck countless times (like a woollen boa constrictor). It hung down in front of her, almost to the floor.

  ‘Mrs Crawford?’ the men asked. ‘Mrs Catrin Crawford?’ ‘Well, yes…’ I answered, meaning, of course, that it was Mrs Crawford’s house. ‘But I’m not—’ (I was intending to say, ‘I’m not she. I am not Mrs Crawford. I am simply waiting for Mrs Crawford in her delightful home.’ But I didn’t get the chance, obviously.)

  ‘This is just a formality,’ the girl interjected, irritably (and with great authority, if I say so myself), waving her hand around, airily, ‘just a formality. Come on, dear, quick, quick…’

  She grabbed hold of the pen (which one of the two men was proffering me) and pushed it into my hand.

  ‘Crawford,’ she said. ‘Sign.’

  The second man passed me a clipboard with an official-looking document attached to it and she pointed to the space at the bottom of the page, next to the word SIGNATURE. ‘Crawford,’ she repeated, prodding at it, forcefully, with her forefinger, ‘Catrin Crawford.’

  Now obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, Mr Jennings, I realize that it was a mistake – a terrible mistake – for me to take that clipboard and to sign Catrin Crawford’s name on it. In truth, I can’t actually even remember signing it. I was still half asleep at the time. I’d had the sherry, remember, on top of a rather large quantity of painkillers. I was physically and mentally exhausted after an exceedingly long and trying day.

  And I know it probably sounds rather like I’m just making excuses for myself, here, Mr Jennings (and I probably am, truth be told), but the girl who stood before me, Miss Lydia May Eardley (as it later transpired), had an extraordinary presence about her (one might almost call it a surfeit of character!). She exuded this strange atmosphere of… of calm implacability, as if she must – by necessity, by pure force of will – control any situation she might get herself in to.

  I signed the name, Mr Jennings. Indeed I did. I knowingly and calculatedly committed perjury (the legal consequences of which have yet to be fully thrashed out). Although may I just say, in my own humble defence, Claw, that my motives, I believe, were entirely good and honourable (I have a tacit agreement with both of my immediate neighbours on Lamb’s Green, for example, to automatically sign for deliveries on their behalf. It can so often be the case with modern delivery companies that if they fail to make a drop on their initial visit to your home, it can take literally weeks for them to arrange to come back).

  As soon as the document was signed (I know it was wrong, Mr Jennings, but I sincerely believed I was helping Catrin out) Lydia May pushed past me (somewhat rudely) and disappeared into the house. The two men thanked me, cordially, then turned on their heels and left. I closed the door and limped back to the living room (I had forgotten my stick in the rush), fully intent on seeking an explanation of some kind from Lydia May about the unusual circumstances of her arrival.

  When I re-entered the room, however, I was somewhat astonished to discover the girl – large tumbler of sherry in hand – going through the Crawfords’ compact disc collection, looking for something to put on. Yet instead of simply reading the names of the discs as they sat in the rack, or removing each disc, individually, and inspecting it more closely, she was pulling them out, in fistfuls, and then hurling them down on to the carpet around her!

  I immediately tried to encourage her to desist from this somewhat disruptive (one could even say violent!) behaviour, but she was talking all the while (ten to the dozen!) and asking a series of these infernal questions that one couldn’t really find an answer to, saying things like, ‘This is such a taupe house, don’t you think? Catrin’s so very taupe. Don’t you just loathe taupe, Laura?’

  (She called me ‘Laura’ throughout the time we spent together.

  It later transpired that Laura was the name of Veterinary Crawford’s dead mother.)

  At last (at long last!) she happened across a compact disc that she didn’t mind the look of and shoved it into the CD player – Ravel’s Boléro, I think (yes. The Boléro. I’m sure of it, now), but it was almost impossible to tell what it was when it actually began to play because Lydia May had turned it up to such a deafening volume.

  The rattle of the drum (is that how the thing starts?) during the opening refrain sounded not unlike a volley of gunshots. In fact I was so startled by this explosion of sudden harsh sound that I lurched to my feet, in alarm (I was crouched on the floor, trying to gather the wretched CDs together, some of which had slipped out of their plastic containers), and inadvertently knocked Lydia May’s sherry glass from her hand!

  The sherry went everywhere, Mr Jennings: my cardigan, the CDs, the carpet (which isn’t taupe, for the record, but what I’d call a very modern and attractive ‘pale mushroom’ colour).

  ‘Oh, you clumsy old fool!’ Lydia May exclaimed (once I’d finished grappling with the volume controls; I remember her words exactly, for some reason). ‘Now look what you’ve gone and done!’

  Well, I tried to keep my wits about me, Mr Jennings (even in the face of this abusive onslaught!), and hobbled into the kitchen to look for a cloth to clean up the mess
with. I’d just located one (under the sink) when I thought I could hear a phone ringing in the other room. By the time I’d returned, however (cloth in hand), Lydia May had already finished her brief conversation and was hanging up the receiver.

  ‘Was that Catrin?’ I asked, slightly breathless. ‘Uh… yes,’ Lydia May answered, turning and inspecting an abstract watercolour on the wall behind her with a sudden – very intense – level of interest. ‘Yes. I do believe it was.’

  ‘Did she mention whether she would be home any time soon?’ I followed up.

  Lydia May didn’t respond to my question at once. Instead, she continued to inspect the painting, very closely, until, ‘What the hell is this?’ she demanded, pointing to it.

  ‘An abstract,’ I answered promptly (and why not? The question seemed perfectly uncontentious).

  ‘A bowl of fruit, I believe.’ ‘A bowl of fruit?!’ Lydia May echoed, plainly astonished. ‘A bowl of fruit?! Seriously?!’

  She drew in still closer to the painting, until her nose was almost pressed up against the glass. ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked (somewhat querulous, now).

  ‘Fruit, you say? Fruit? But what about…?’ She stepped back again, scratching her head, obviously deeply puzzled. ‘I mean how can you possibly ignore…?’

  ‘Ignore what?’

  I stared at her, nervously.

  ‘Those!’

  She pointed.

  I gazed at the painting, blankly.

  ‘Those! Those!’ She continued to point. ‘The two, huge iguanas, stupid!’ she exclaimed (although she pronounced it ig-hu-anas). ‘The two of them, right there, just… just…’

  She threw up her hands, horrified.

  ‘Iguanas?’ I murmured, hoping that if I gazed at the painting for long enough, the iguanas might just magically materialize (but I could see no physical evidence of the iguanas, Mr Jennings! All I saw was an apple, an orange, some grapes and possibly a pear).

  ‘Urgh!’ Lydia May grimaced, turning to face me, again, appalled. ‘Don’t you just find that perfectly disgusting?!’ I didn’t answer her immediately. Instead I pretended to busy myself (to win a little time) with the sherry stain on the carpet.

  ‘I mean in a public space like this? A lounge-cum-diner? To hang a picture – a painting – on your wall, of two, huge, taupe reptiles sodomizing each other? Doesn’t that revolt you, Laura? Doesn’t that just make you sick to your very stomach?!’

  I stopped dabbing at the carpet for a moment and gazed up at her, dumbly.

  ‘I mean here we supposedly are, in this safe, taupe world,’ she continued blithely, ‘this safe, respectable, taupe world. Everything in its place… Everything “just so”… And then hanging there, in the middle of it, right in the middle of it, at the very heart of it, these vile and brazen reptiles, these two, huge, deviant reptiles, engaged in a blatant act of filthy, lusty, uninhibited—’

  ‘But are you sure?’ I quickly interrupted her (terrified she might actually use that awful word for a second time). ‘Sure?’ she echoed, surprised.

  ‘Yes. I mean…’ I grabbed hold of a sherry-soaked CD and quickly began drying it off. ‘I mean are you absolutely certain?’

  ‘Certain?’ she repeated, her chin lifting, her two hands settling, combatively, on her hips. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘It’s just…’ I stuttered (struggling to hold my nerve in the face of her sullen glare), ‘it’s just that I’m not entirely sure if they are iguanas, exactly.’

  ‘Really?’

  She turned to look at the painting again. ‘What? You think they might be monitor lizards?’

  ‘No. No. I mean…’

  ‘Geckos?’

  ‘No. No. I mean I don’t think that they’re…’ I swallowed, hard.

  ‘I don’t think that they’re reptiles at all…’

  She gave this controversial statement a moment’s consideration.

  ‘Ah. I see,’ she finally mused, ‘so you think they’re amphibians? Is that it? You think that iguanas are actually amphibious?’

  ‘No. No. Good gracious, no!’ I exclaimed (I do like to think I’m quite knowledgeable in the field of Zoology, Mr Jennings!).

  ‘Iguanas aren’t amphibious. Amphibious creatures are born in water, and I certainly I don’t think iguanas—’

  ‘But of course they’re born in water!’ Lydia May snorted, waving a dismissive hand at me.

  ‘No. No. I think they’re actually hatched from—’

  ‘Frogspawn!’ she interjected.

  ‘Eh? What?’ I paused, confused. ‘Oh. Like a frog, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly! Like a frog.’

  (Lydia May seemed very pleased with this notion.)

  ‘Well, to be perfectly honest with you,’ I still persisted, ‘what I was actually going to suggest was an egg. I think iguanas might possibly be hatched from—’

  ‘WHO CARES HOW THEY’RE HATCHED?!’ Lydia May suddenly yelled. ‘God! Why get so uptight about it?! Why get lost in all the details, for heaven’s sake?! The fact is that they are here! In this lounge! On this wall! In awful taupe!

  FORNICATING!!’

  A short silence followed.

  ‘Yes. Well. Good…’ I murmured, softly. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to take your word on that, eh, dear?’

  I tried to look calm and obliging (perceiving this statement as a kind of tacit retreat).

  ‘My word?’ Lydia May parroted (obviously not seeing it in quite this way herself). ‘What’s that supposed to mean? “My word”?’

  I opened my mouth to respond—

  ‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ Lydia May promptly interrupted me, ‘I’ll tell you exactly what it means! It’s just a weak and mealy-mouthed way of saying you don’t believe me! Isn’t it? Isn’t it?’

  Lydia May stuck out her chin again, defiantly.

  ‘No! No!’ I insisted. ‘Not at all!’

  ‘Are you standing there and calling me a liar, Laura?!’

  Lydia May’s wan cheeks had reddened, perceptibly.

  ‘No! No!’ I exclaimed, shocked.

  ‘Or deluded? Are you calling me deluded?’ Lydia May clenched her fists and took a couple of threatening steps towards me. ‘Is that it?!’

  ‘No! Absolutely not! Not at all. I’m just… I’m simply…’

  I began to flounder. My throat contracted. The CD I was holding accidentally slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor. Then, before I knew it, Mr Jennings, Lydia May was advancing on me, at speed! In just a matter of seconds she was almost upon me (her fists still clenched, her arm swinging out), and as I uttered a strangled cry and flung myself, flinching, against the shelves (preparing for the very worst!), she snaked down, grabbed hold of the CD, straightened up again and proffered it to me, gently, with an ingratiating smile (it was a movement of such extraordinary grace and beauty, Mr Jennings! A movement of such marvellous fluidity! And the instinct apparently a benign one! But the smile, Mr Jennings? The smile? Extremely cold! Immensely cruel! Horribly intimidating!).

  She was standing very close to me, now, her warm breath on my ear.

  ‘Do I make you uncomfortable, Laura?’ she whispered, in insinuating tones, and then, before I could answer, ‘Does the truth make you uncomfortable, perhaps?’ Her voice hardened. ‘I mean some people are uncomfortable with the truth. It doesn’t sit well with them, eh? They seem to much prefer it if we all just gaily pretend.’

  ‘Did… did Catrin happen to mention if she would be home any time soon?’ I all but squeaked, turning and enthusiastically dusting a couple of imaginary drops of sherry from the front of the storage unit (to try and mask this sudden – and clumsy! – change of subject).

  ‘Catrin?’ Lydia May frowned.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Catrin. On the phone …’

  ‘The phone?’

  ‘Yes. A little earlier, remember? When she rang…’

  ‘Oh. Oh…’ Lydia May took a sudden, quick step back again, her tone now studiedly cool and off-hand. ‘Yes. Of cours
e. When Catrin rang…’

  ‘Did she leave any kind of… of message at all?’ I persisted.

  ‘A message?’ Lydia May paused for a moment, thoughtfully.

  ‘Hmmn. A message… Well, yes, yes, I suppose she did, as it happens…’

  She gazed at me, enigmatically.

  ‘And… and what was it, exactly?’ I eventually prompted (since no explanation was forthcoming).

  ‘The message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Catrin’s message?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You actually want me to tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Lydia May thought deeply for a moment.

  ‘Well, the message – Catrin’s message – was that she wanted us all to… to…’ Lydia May paused again, frowning, then her face suddenly lit up with a luminous smile, ‘to go for a drink! All of us – you, me, her – down at the local pub!’

  ‘Sorry?’

  (This wasn’t remotely the kind of message I’d been anticipating, Mr Jennings.)

  ‘Yes. Yes! In fact Catrin was very strict about it, Laura. She wanted us to leave straight away – immediately! – she virtually insisted.’ Lydia May was gradually picking up speed. ‘She’ll probably be waiting for us by now, all in a rage! What time is it?’

  I peered down at my watch: ‘A quarter after seven.’ ‘Oh dear!’ she tutted. ‘How dreadful! We’re a whole ten minutes late, already!’

  ‘Really? Ten minutes…?’ I gazed at my watch again. ‘The pub? The Old Oak, you say?’

  ‘Yes. The Old Oak. I’m afraid so,’ Lydia May sighed, unwinding her scarf with a look of studied indifference, then carefully rewinding it again.

  I adjusted my cardigan (which had fallen from one shoulder in all the previous excitement), then dabbed away at it, ineffectually, with the cloth (to try and win myself a bit of breathing space).

  ‘But are you sure that’s an especially good idea?’ I eventually queried, glancing up again, nervously.