by Susan Sallis
There was no one in sight. Not on the causeways, nor the little promenade, nor the steps up to the path. I stared until my eyes ached. If he’d left immediately I plunged into the trees, he would still be visible going back to the amusement arcades and then the bandstand. Unless, of course, he had followed me up into Becket’s Hill.
I took a breath and held it so that I could hear above the sound of the water. Nothing. I let it go slowly. But I did not begin to move myself up on to the path again. My feet were braced against a tree beneath, one of my hands clutched the branch of another tree level with my face, the other hand was flat on the leaf mould. It was through that hand that I felt a footfall. I dropped my head sideways on to the ground, vividly recalling the old cowboy films when the Indians had put their ears to the railway lines to listen for oncoming trains. Muffled yet clear enough to identify, the pad of someone walking the path above me came through the earth and rock of Becket’s Hill. I glanced upwards; I was well hidden. I stayed still, breathing with the top of my lungs. The sounds were louder and then passed over my head. Where the path turned to the west and levelled off, they became closer together. He was jogging now.
He was trying to catch up with me.
I glanced at my watch: almost eight o’clock. The village would be stirring now, day staff for the nursing home passing my gate to relieve Mrs Hardy, perhaps. Here, a mile from the village clock, the amusements and ice cream kiosks were closed until mid-morning. Becket’s Hill cut us off from the farming communities along the water meadows. And once my follower rounded the next part of the hill, he had a clear view of the footpath as it led down to the tiny disused harbour. He would know that I had taken to the trees. He would probably give up. But he might not.
Very carefully and slowly I began to slide downwards again. From tree to tree, negotiating the rocky outcrops nearly all the time, I lowered myself to where the trees ended in a wall of brambles, and then there was a sheer drop back down to the little promenade and the lake.
I put my ear to the ground again and heard nothing. But with my face against the ground I could see two or three distinct holes in the low-lying brambles. They were big; too big for rats surely? Perhaps a fox – or a badger? I kept my eyes on them and saw no sign of life, and decided they had been made by children in the school holidays. And then I heard those footfalls returning and told myself those tunnels were most definitely made by children. By which time I was already sliding into the biggest one.
How long I crouched there I have no idea. I kept my ear to the ground but heard nothing at all, no sounds of sliding as the man saw my tracks and followed me down the almost vertical face of the hill. He could have jogged on for all I knew, or climbed upwards through the trees to the bald summit. And then, when I was on the point of pushing myself out of my burrow, the padding sounds resumed, slowly at first, then accelerating into a comfortable jog. I was frozen again; this man had been waiting in complete silence for sounds of movements. He must have suspected my presence in some way; perhaps he was a kind of tracker, like those old-time Indian trackers in the films. And I had been on the point of shuffling out of my hole and giving myself away. In a kind of nervous reaction I pushed myself deeper still, and then my feet came up against the retaining wall and I could see light where the schoolchildren – if it had been them – had made a kind of lookout over the lake and the tennis courts behind, sweeping right round to the bandstand and the pier. Somehow I got on to my knees, and ignoring the brambles clawing at hair and clothes, put my arms and chin on the top of the wall and took all this in. It was the perfect watch-tower. I saw my pursuer emerge from the trees on to the path above the little promenade. He had the hood of his sweatshirt well over his head, and he appeared to have pulled the sleeves over his hands. I watched, fascinated, as he pumped along the level path. He was the perfect jogger, his rhythm and movements perfectly coordinated. He began on the long straight length taking him beyond the tennis courts to the crazy golf and then the amusements, leaving the lake to itself. And then he stopped. He seemed to listen for a while; he was too far away for me to see him in detail, he seemed to be concentrating on something. And then, slowly, he turned towards the lake and kept turning until he was facing me. He could not possibly have seen me framed in brambles at least a quarter of mile away. But after a while his arm went up above his head in a kind of salute. And he turned and disappeared.
I should not have told Mrs Hardy. She had been on a day shift and was on her way home, so had more time to spare. She wanted to tell me that Mr Hardy had really enjoyed the blackberry and apple for his last night’s supper. She had made him eat three slices of bread and butter with it to make it last. He would pop up on Saturday afternoon and see to the hedge, and he had a spare door-chain from another job which he would fit on my front door if I agreed.
I thought about it and nodded, and Mrs Hardy looked surprised again.
‘You had any trouble with callers?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.
I shook my head, but then found myself telling her about the man down by the lake.
‘I got it into my head he was following me.’ I sounded apologetic. ‘Of course, no such thing. Must have made me a bit nervy. But . . . well, I wouldn’t mind the added security. And if the chain really is going spare . . .’
‘Course it is. D’you think he might have followed you home?’
‘Not for a moment, no. Just made me more . . . aware. The house is a bit cut off. You know.’
‘Remember the staff up at Tall Trees. When the weather’s decent there’s always someone wheeling one of the residents down to look at the view and get some fresh air.’
‘I know. Perhaps I’m being silly. Mr Hardy’s got enough on his plate—’
‘You ain’t being silly, and Hardy will be only too pleased to think he can do something for you. He always says, “How’s that girl doing up there?”, and when you sent him down that fruit he was that delighted. And will be even more when he can do the hedge and the door.’ She looked at me, still frowning. ‘What about reporting this to the police?’ I shook my head violently and she sighed. ‘I knew you wouldn’t a’course. But it dun’t sound quite right. And now you’re doing so well, Mrs Venables, we don’t want you going backwards, like.’
It was very good that I was touched and not irritated by her concern. But I wished I hadn’t mentioned the man. Policemen always needed descriptions, and I had not even seen a face beneath that hood, nor hands below those sleeves.
But I had heard the footfalls; I had definitely heard the footfalls. So it could not have been . . . a ghost.
Three
THE HARDYS HAD lived in the small seaside town all their lives, and were completely content to continue doing so until those lives were done. Michael Hardy, known by his old school friends as Mick, had done a long carpentry apprenticeship with his uncle, and had inherited his reputation and customers when he had retired. Mrs Hardy said he would do twice as well if he could develop a bedside manner, but she accepted that this was a biological impossibility for her Hardy. He would occasionally burst into a conversation, but kept to monosyllabic grunts and comments if he could. ‘Nice day’ disposed of the weather. ‘Decent timber’ or ‘rotten wood’ dealt with the materials of his trade. When Mrs Hardy told Vivian Venables that she and her husband had talked things over, it meant that she had talked and he had nodded or grunted assent. He was honest, painstaking, turned his hand to anything, but was an excellent carpenter. That was what counted to her and to his many friends, customers and acquaintances.
She was the same, though not trained to be anything except full of common sense. She had taken a job at Tall Trees when their son was found to be unusually clever and they saw that in the future he would need help to go to university. She turned out to be a born carer. Half-jokingly, half-not, most of the male residents had asked her to marry them the minute Hardy threw her out. She always laughed, not so much at the marriage proposals as at the thought of Hardy throwing her out. Old David Ven
ables had suggested that she should do the throwing out and then marry him. She had laughed again, then said, ‘Hardy and me . . . we’re like peas in a pod. Couldn’t do nothing without him.’ She nodded. ‘Like your boy and his wife, I reckon.’
He had said nothing. She was used to male silences, but she noticed this one and registered it. When he and his son died within a few weeks of each other, she was unexpectedly angry. She talked to Hardy about it.
‘Silly old fool! Coronary, my foot! Let himself go, that’s what he did. He could surely have hung on till she came out of hospital. She’s got no one now, no one at all.’
Hardy grunted, and she smiled and put a hand on his shoulder as she poured tea. ‘What should I do without you, love? You always understand.’
He cleared his throat and said, ‘You. She’s got you.’
‘She wouldn’t have let me get near her, Hardy love. It was only because she had a bit of an accident, like. Scraped her feet and legs something awful. Did her good in one way, though. I persuaded her to let you do something about them conifers in the front. And perhaps fit that old chain on her front door. That all right with you, love?’
He grunted. Then suddenly he took the teapot from her, put it on the stand depicting Brunel’s suspension bridge over the Avon, and pulled her on to his knee. ‘It will stop you worrying about our Tom and Della, won’t it?’ he said.
She held his head to her wrap-over pinafore and whispered, ‘I hope so, my love.’
They stayed very still, and shared the usual thoughts about their son. He was an only child, and they would have loved him however he had turned out. The fact that he was clever and hard-working amazed them, but made little difference to their feelings. He ‘made his own way’, and eventually combined his father’s practicality with his mother’s instincts for caring and became a doctor. He joined a big practice in Cheltenham, and within two years had met and married Della.
As Mrs Hardy had said so often, Tom had married Della for the wrong reason: because she needed him so desperately. She had been no more than a skivvy for her parents, and Tom had rescued her from that and given her status and self-respect. And he would have stayed with her for the rest of his life had he not met and fallen in love – ‘prop’ly this time’ – with the practice nurse at his local health centre in Cheltenham.
He tried to talk to Della. But it was a situation beyond words because he knew exactly what he was doing to her. Even so, he was aghast when she overdosed on her sleeping pills and ended up in hospital. And it was there that she was told she was pregnant, and lucky enough not to have lost her baby.
So Tom went back to her and was ‘doing his best’.
Hilda Hardy sighed deeply. ‘I’d feel easier if I could hate Della. Or be angry with Tom. Or blame that woman – Elisabeth.’
‘Elisabeth Mason,’ Hardy murmured, which showed he had followed her thoughts as usual.
‘But it’s not no one’s fault really. It just happened. Poor Della can’t help being hopeless. And Tom can’t help feeling really sorry for her. And . . . I s’ppose he can’t help falling in love again.’
‘It’s the first time, my maid. He weren’t in love with Della. But he’s stuck with her now. So he’ll have to fall out of love with Elisabeth Mason double-quick!’ He leaned back, exhausted by so many words.
She stared for a while longer, then sighed again and kissed his forehead. ‘I think you’re right, Hardy,’ she said.
It cheered her up to go to work. There was always plenty to do, and the residents were appreciative, and the home was a little world on its own, sealed off from big worries of the big world.
When she cleared the supper tables, there was some kind of discussion going on around John Jinks’s chair. It was not his usual chair, which had arms on which he levered himself up and into his wheelchair. She assumed he was complaining about this. She had told him only the week before that he would get a gold medal for complaining if the Olympics would allow it as a sport. She sailed across the dining room with her trolley, relishing the thought of crossing swords again. He was that sort of man; as she said to Hardy that night, he brought out the worst in everyone.
But this time it was nothing to do with the seating arrangements. She pointed out to him that a chair with arms was vacant right next to him.
He looked at her sourly. ‘So it is. I’m not blind, thank you. I can’t get myself close enough to the table – the arms block me. Thought I’d try this chair for a change. Won’t be bothering again. If I drop food someone must clear it up. That’s why I’m paying such an exorbitant fee to the owners of HH!’
‘HH?’ she queried unwisely.
‘Hell Hole,’ he answered back, smiling happily. ‘I understand they called the place Tall Trees, which of course would be TT. Teetotal. That’s true, as well. So the whole thing would be the TTHH. Teetotal Hell Hole. Suits it well, don’t you think?’
She almost grinned back at him, but said quickly, ‘If the armless chair is your choice, what’s all the fuss about?’
‘I’m trying to put these old fools straight on one or two things. It’s like collecting water in a colander, of course.’
‘Of course.’ She winked at Esmé and Winifred. ‘We’re well known for improvising, Mr Jinks. Aren’t we, ladies? I expect if there was nothing else around we would be quite capable of collecting water in a colander.’
It was too petty for words, but at least they were speaking to each other.
Esmé’s face was very pink. ‘He says that Mrs Venables is running away from her own guilt. How can that be, Mrs Hardy? What a terrible thing to say about someone who cannot defend herself because she has simply forgotten the whole tragedy!’
Winifred added severely, ‘I always thought women were supposed to be the catty ones – until I met Mr Jinks here.’
‘As if you could simply forget something like that!’ Mr Jinks ignored Winifred’s sideswipe. ‘You want to forget it. Of course you do. But you can’t. So what do you do about that? You run.’
Mrs Hardy stopped feeling part of a valuable social confrontation and wished she could give Mr Jinks a sharp clip on the ear. At last, after almost a year, she had been allowed into the little house and had helped poor Mrs Venables. Mrs Hardy knew a lot about grief.
She bent down to look at the old man crouched over the supper table, bald as a coot, miserable as sin, trying to stir up a row as an antidote to boredom, and her indignation fell away; an enormous sadness engulfed her. She said, ‘If we had a leg and an arm missing, if we was suddenly only half a human being . . .’ She looked into the colourless eyes so full of bitterness. ‘. . . maybe we’d think it was impossible to run ever again. Mrs Venables puts us right, don’t she, Mr Jinks?’
She stared him down, and at last he said bitterly, ‘I know things about that woman that would turn your hair from grey to white!’
And at last she burst out laughing. ‘I reckon you are right, Winifred! Men certainly can teach us a trick or two when it comes to being catty!’ She swept the linen napkins on to the trolley and picked up the water jug. ‘Now, I think Coronation Street is starting. Why don’t you wheel Jinx here into the lounge and help yourselves to coffee?’ She made it obvious she was using John Jinks’s nickname, which nobody ever did – at least to his face – and his scraggy eyebrows climbed at least half an inch up his forehead, but then two of the nurses arrived and hoisted him into his chair, and the ladies followed willy-nilly. Winifred actually winked behind his back. Mrs Hardy smiled. She hated it when they sat in the lounge or around the dining-room tables and stared glumly into space.
Vivian’s story
A week went by and it was October. I made tea for Mr Hardy, mowed the grass and did some weeding. He took the mower to service it, tamed the front conifers into a hedge, fitted a chain and some bolts on to the front door. Word got around, and the phone rang a lot, and people came to the door. I worked in the garden and told myself that if it was urgent they would come to the side gate and call down to me. I n
ever answered the phone, anyway. I intended to have it taken out, but like a fool mentioned this to Mrs Hardy, who almost threw up her hands.
‘Dun’t do that, my girl! What if you fell and broke a leg? Or someone broke in – not that that is possible now, of course, what with Hardy putting the bolts on as well as the chain. But you never know when you might need to ring someone. I could be up here with you in five minutes. Hardy would get out the van.’ Mr Hardy used his van to carry his larger tools; people rarely got into it. Mrs Hardy’s assurance was meant as a sign of his regard for me.
The phone seemed to present another choice: if I was injured should I get the phone off the hook somehow, and dial for help? Or simply lie in the hall and wait? It was all so hypothetical: I wasn’t going to fall and break my leg anyway. So in the end I did nothing about the phone – except ignore it. It rang less and less. By the end of October it was silent again, and the doorbell ping-ponged just once a day when Mrs Hardy came or went from Tall Trees nursing home.
The clocks went back, and evenings began at tea-time, but mornings were earlier, and my jogs took me further than the bandstand and home. I took the path past the amusement arcade one Sunday morning. It was six thirty and almost light, and in an hour’s time I could return home to the sound of the church bells. I still liked church bells. But I hadn’t come this way since September.
The little promenade was not deserted: two men and two girls, wet-suited and helmeted, were launching canoes. Their laughter echoed around the lake, and I stood watching them, and hearing other laughter from another time, and for a moment or two I smiled reminiscently. One of the girls threw back her head at something that was said and saw me. She went on laughing, and waved. I waved back, but then I had to move on; to stand there staring at them wouldn’t have been right. So I went along the left-hand footpath, through the woods, and into the empty west face of the hill. I wasn’t keen. I simply did it without thinking, and didn’t even glance to my right where I had slithered down the steep slope to the bramble burrow. Back then it had been an ordinary working day, not a Sunday. No canoeists or dog walkers. The path began to slope down towards the little harbour – or the Pill as it was called. The tide was out, and the enormous flat pancake of mud gleamed slightly. Boats were on their sides; nearer the land where the shingle started, one was propped either side so that it was upright. It was being painted by two men in overalls and wellingtons. My spirits lifted. I lengthened my strides. The sun was out, and the forecast had been good. The men had six hours for their paint to dry, then the tide would lift their boat up and off the props. They worked steadily.