Mary George of Allnorthover

by Lavinia Greenlaw

  Stella found a towel before she went to open the shop and Lucas sat back with it tucked like a bib around his shoulders and under his chin. His hair was so lank, the grooves made by Mary’s comb stayed visible. The acrid whiff of his skin reminded her of the salon. She thought of May’s girls. ‘Been away this summer?’ she chirruped.

  Lucas chuckled. ‘Well, I’ve been to the water.’

  ‘The coast?’

  ‘No, the Dip.’ Mary began to comb and snip. Lucas went on. ‘There’s fellows out there’ll let me have a fish from their buckets.’

  ‘You cook fish in the shed?’

  ‘On my bonfire. Wrap it in newspaper, and into the embers. Old army trick.’ Scurfy flakes and yellow-grey clumps of hair fell on his shoulders. ‘Water’s right down, you know …’

  ‘Low?’

  ‘Low as I’ve known it.’

  ‘Can you see anything?’

  Lucas cackled. ‘Well, still a lot of water, that’s for sure!’

  ‘I mean, the buildings –?’

  ‘Saw Tom Hepple out there, you know. Writing and measuring, he was. Boy needs to leave well alone.’

  ‘Is it still there?’

  ‘The Hepple place, you mean?’ Mary’s hand shook so much, she held her scissors and comb away from his head. Lucas snorted. ‘Funny business, that. Old Iris hated the place, you know, hated being stuck out there!’

  ‘But I thought –’

  ‘And those boys, all grown up and not moving on. Drove the woman mad!’

  ‘But my Dad –’

  ‘She was good to him, wasn’t she? He was like a son, after all. And he was the one who did go, off to university on a scholarship, and a year early. By God, old Iris was proud!’

  ‘But the house –’

  ‘Nasty old place, that. If I were those boys I’d have been glad to see the back of it – pokey, mouldering, miserable pile.’

  ‘But the money?’

  Lucas shifted in his chair and lowered his head, even though Mary was behind him. ‘That were up to your Dad, weren’t it? Between him and them. No one else’s business.’

  ‘Are you just saying that?’

  ‘I just said it, didn’t I!’ and he chuckled till tears leaked from his clotted, rheumy eyes. Mary quickly trimmed the last strands at the nape of his neck. He left still wearing the towel, and she let him. She put the scissors in the sink and the comb in the bin. She swept the floor and washed her hands.

  Two mornings later, just after Lucas had finished breakfast and gone, in the back and out the front as usual, there was a knock on the door. Stella answered it. Mary was still asleep upstairs.

  ‘Mrs George?’ It was a small man, already sticky in his shiny grey suit. A vest showed through his white nylon shirt. He had a folder under his arm. He put out his hand and grinned, showing small, pointed, stained teeth.

  A survey, Stella thought. He wants an opinion or a donation or the promise of a vote. ‘Ms Lupton, actually.’ She didn’t take his hand.

  The man spat out a brisk ‘Ha!’ and a spot of his saliva landed on Stella’s cheek. His breath smelt of cabbage, milk and baked beans. She wiped her face and stepped backwards. He moved towards her. ‘Mzzzz Lupton? Your maiden name? But once Mrs George?’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  He looked covertly and obviously from side to side, then opened the file and showed her the top page. ‘Shall we discuss it indoors?’

  ‘By all means.’ Stella’s voice was flat as she led him through and closed the door.

  When Mary was woken by her mother’s shouting, she thought for a moment she was a child again and, half asleep, she did what she had done then, crept to the top of the stairs and listened.

  ‘He gives me absolutely nothing!’ There was someone else there, murmuring. The door flew open and a man stumbled into the hall. Stella pushed papers into his hands. ‘Take your damned file and go see him in his smart new seaside home! If he’s not there, you can always catch him in the offices of his smart new London practice!’ More murmuring. ‘Yes, he did leave years ago and I do have my own business but it is going down. You want to see the books again? You people have been through them already! And what the hell do you mean, turning up at this time of the morning? Are you spying on me? What the hell for?’

  The man’s voice was getting stronger: ‘Reason to believe … cohabitation … seen leaving your home three consecutive mornings …’

  ‘Lucas!’ Stella screamed. ‘You think I’m living with a tramp?’

  ‘Three consecutive mornings constitutes –’

  ‘Get out!’ Mary hid behind the banisters but caught a glimpse of Stella yanking open the front door and throwing the file out onto the Green. ‘Take your government filth and get out!’ The man scuttled out the door. Stella followed and Mary rushed into her mother’s room and was at the window in time to see May Hepple hurry away from her gate, and a ripple of withdrawing shadows, and windows and doors being closed all round the Green.

  ‘Did you think to ask me? Did you think to ask my neighbours?’ Stella screeched as the man stumbled about, picking up spilt papers. ‘Ask them now!’ There was no movement among the doors and windows, and around the noise that Stella was making, the Green held an unusual silence. ‘You say there’s no shame in coming to you for help!’ she shouted at the man who was hurrying towards his car. ‘Ask anyone about me!’ She scanned the houses.

  Mary watched the man drive away and her mother turn and turn on the spot, her fists raised and her hair all over her face. She was still wearing the purple kaftan she used as a dressing gown. Her feet were bare and Mary could see the chain of bells round her left ankle. Mary went back to bed and stayed there till she had heard her mother come indoors and leave again for the shop. It was only then that their neighbours began to come out of their houses again.

  Now that it was full of water, people thought of the Dip as a bowl, but it had never been that shape. It was a crooked valley that had come about through pressure and fissure. Its sides were steep in some parts and, in others, almost level. The valley floor had been broad and flat around Goose Farm, but narrowed almost to a point behind the church. In between, it curved and swelled and shrank again. Iris Hepple’s house had been built on a shelf, high up one side of the valley, behind which the ground rose so steeply that it had been left wild. To reach the house, you had to take the lane into the Dip and then make your way up the track. Her boys had hung a knotted rope from the long branch of the oak that Mary now walked out on, and had swung themselves down, crash-landing in the bracken.

  In the Chapel, Tom Hepple went over and over the arc of that swing, trying to remember how deep and how wide it had been, and how far you had to scrabble up the bank from behind the house to get back to the tree. He drew a line out from the bank and another up from the house, and tried to think himself back to his boyhood scale of things. He thought about floating, jumping and flying (had she been on the water or in the air?). He drew diagrams and made calculations on the backs of bits of paper that had spilled from the filing cabinet. Some had got stuck together when those candles had burned right down and dripped everywhere. Among them were some photographs he’d tried to separate, only they had torn. He found one of a little girl with plaits, in a woolly hat. A stream of wax had run across her face. He levered it off as carefully as he could, but a whole strip of the picture came away. Nonetheless, Tom liked the old-fashioned tones of the unstable colours, how her thick red coat had taken on a blue sheen like plums, and how the snow had yellowed to fleece. He set the picture on a shelf. On one clump of paper, a puddle of wax had dried with a strange shape in the middle of it, almost like a footprint. Tom put that on the shelf as well.

  An alarm clock went off. It was the big old enamel one from home that shook as it hammered at its two bells. Tom reset the clock, rewound the alarm and put it back far enough away for him not to hear its solid tick. He went to the sink, counted out the capsules, and took them with some water. He needed to drink a lot to fe
el they had really gone down, and then they left him thirsty. He went back to his work, but could get no further with his sums. There was too much to check. He pushed some paper and pencils into his pockets, and set off for the Dip.

  The narrow pavement ran out just after the phone box. From then on, Tom walked on the lumpy strip of wilted grass that bordered the hedgerow. The sky was changing, though the weather stayed the same. High grey clouds were beginning to churn overhead. Too insubstantial to be stormclouds, they were more like steam accumulating under a low kitchen ceiling. The atmosphere was becoming dimmer and closer, making it easier to see and more difficult to breathe. Tom looked for shade to walk in, but there was none. He felt a constant itch in his throat and a swelling of his tongue that made him swallow and swallow and drink all day – water, tea, soup, coffee, water. He felt like the man in the myth condemned to insatiable hunger, who finally ate himself. What helped was a couple of pints with Christie in The Arms. He knew not to overdo it now and Christie kept an eye on him. Tom liked the ease he felt at the end of those evenings, the slow walk back to the Chapel, the long satisfying piss in the outhouse, two glasses of water, a few of those capsules and the certainty of sleep. Then there were the evenings when Valerie offered to walk him home.

  As he reached the Verges, Tom could feel sweat flooding his chest and back. His shirt clung to his armpits and his face ran with wet. He raised his hands to wipe it and the idea burst into his mind that his face was coming away; it was melting. At this, Tom stopped and crouched down. He held his breath and concentrated on the thought of the capsules he had just taken, pushing their cool magic into his veins. He gave himself a sum to do, calculating body weight, temperature, absorption and circulation. When he had all the numbers in place, he felt better and continued on till he turned off by Temple Grove.

  The reservoir looked dull under the new sky. Tom walked away from the jetty, in the opposite direction to the house, to where the bank was shallow and he could clamber down to the water’s edge. Sweat prickled his eyes and his chest ached, but he would neither drink nor swim nor wash himself. He cupped his hands and dipped them in, surprised by how a surface that looked so opaque could give way so readily. He studied the water, looking for clues, but it ran through his fingers, painfully clear.

  Even though it was what had brought him here, Tom couldn’t face walking along to the tree to take more measurements. He was exhausted. The overcast sky had left him with no sense of time, and he was surprised to realise how late it must be, that the grey was turning purple already.

  When Tom reached the Verges, he was walking in near darkness which would have been alright, but the road was confusing just here. He had to stick to the edge of it, more so because the long drop back from the road to the bushes darkened and dissolved any further edges.

  If a driver didn’t bother to dip their headlamps, he was swept away by each passing wave of light. He crossed the road so as not to walk into the oncoming traffic and found it better when the light came from behind him. He walked faster, hoping Christie might pass and pick him up, and offer him a pint at The Arms. Tom followed the edge of the road by feel alone. There was no painted line or curb, rise or fall, just a point where the tarmac ended and the grass began.

  The car was parked just off the road. Tom would have to pass close by. He had not seen it till he was almost upon it as although there was someone inside, there was no light or noise and the car itself was stripped down to a grey-green like camouflage. The bushes behind it were deep and tall. The road was empty and Tom set off into it, as far away as he could get from the car while still feeling safe. He could hear the erratic rumble and chug of the Camptown bus as it rounded the bend towards him. The weak yellow beams of its lights were already visible, but he knew the bus was slow and there was time to get past the car and step back onto the grass again. Then, somehow, there were more lights, faster and brighter than those of the bus, coming from nowhere, from the wrong place. He heard a loud, dull noise and a crack, and felt himself stopped in his tracks by a wall that doubled him over and shovelled him sideways. There were other noises, some big, some small: screaming, tearing and crunching, and a shredding, a crackle, an intense hum like a tuning fork, a sigh and a gurgle, but these sounds were far away. That was all.

  Stella and Christie met in one of the long corridors of Camptown Hospital.

  ‘I gave Shirley Lacey a lift,’ Stella began. ‘Kevin’s not able to say much yet, but she likes to be there.’

  ‘Does he know about his mates?’

  ‘No. They’re waiting. How’s Tom?’

  Christie shrugged. ‘His leg was a clean break – it’ll mend. Otherwise it’s just cuts and bruises.’

  ‘And shock?’

  ‘I suppose so, but he didn’t come off worst did he?’

  ‘No, but still … I mean, it’ll set him back a bit.’

  ‘He’ll pull through. What were those boys playing at?’

  ‘I believe it’s called “Chicken”.’

  ‘God, yes. We all played that one, didn’t we? But on our bikes, going along walls or down the Dip, not overtaking bloody buses on a blind corner in someone else’s car.’

  ‘Was anyone in the bus hurt?’

  ‘Just cuts and bruises. One or two of the old ones were near done in by the shock. They all had to get off, see, and those lads were half hanging out of the wreck – blood everywhere. They’d swerved away from Tom, straight in front of the bus.’

  ‘Who was driving?’

  ‘The Hotchkiss boy; he was only fifteen. Kevin was in the back.’

  ‘And Tom? What was he doing?’

  Christie’s face set. ‘Walking home. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to suggest …’ Stella faltered and reached out a placating hand.

  ‘That’s how it is, isn’t it?’ Stella had never seen him look so angry. ‘There’s a loony wandering all over the road so it has to be his fault, right? Not just a man, minding his own business, walking home. If he’s a bit cracked, it had to be him that forced those boys onto the right and stood in front of them laughing, yes? Surprised he wasn’t wandering about naked and all?’ Stella didn’t know what to say. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs George. My brother’s back in the hospital now, where people like you think he belongs!’ He marched off.

  Stella couldn’t stand to be thought of like that. She rushed after Christie and caught his arm. ‘No! No!’ She realised she was shouting and lowered her voice. ‘I know Tom, remember? I think what you’re doing, trying to keep him where he belongs, is … right! I’ve explained to Mary how it is, with the water and seeing her. She’s almost grown up now and she understands. No one wants him back in one of those, those … prisons of the mind, Oh no!’ She shook her head earnestly.

  Christie was puzzled. Prisons of the what? He patted her hand and left.

  Stella continued to wait, knowing that Kevin was just the same and Shirley Lacey would be just as she had been these last few days: angry, frightened, overjoyed he wasn’t dead and ashamed of her luck.

  When Shirley appeared, she was with a man Stella recognised. If there had been a corner or even a cupboard nearby, she would have hidden from him.

  ‘Mrs George,’ Shirley began in her tidied-up voice. The man, whose face had been lowered and softened in sympathy, looked up and gave a thin but toothy smile. Stella gave a flick of her head, which he acknowledged with a jerky nod.

  ‘How’s Kevin?’ Stella asked, avid in her nervousness.

  ‘Same.’ Shirley was exhausted. ‘This is Mr Sedge. He was there. He’s a witness. He’s a lawyer, too, wants to help, says we can get special aid.’

  ‘A lawyer?’ Stella’s surprise was too obvious.

  ‘Yes. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just make myself comfortable for the journey.’ Shirley Lacey hurried off.

  ‘A lawyer?’ Stella stepped back, away from that familiar, rotten breath.

  ‘Not currently attached to a firm, you understand, Ms Lupton.’ Tough-l
ooking strings of saliva hung across his open mouth. ‘Between practices, you might say.’

  ‘So they took you on as a government snoop?’

  He didn’t rise to her. ‘Temporary and part-time. I am here to aid Mrs Lacey, in a professional capacity.’

  ‘And as a witness, Shirley said.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘It was your car, wasn’t it, parked by the road?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Notorious black spot.’ The Adam’s apple in his puckered and ill-shaven throat bobbed urgently.

  ‘And why were you there?’

  ‘Notorious black spot,’ he repeated.

  There was a long silence as Stella made sense of what he’d said. ‘You creep!’ As she put it together, she moved towards Frank Sedge, who backed into the wall. ‘You were waiting for an accident to happen, weren’t you?’

  ‘Well, I –’ he spluttered and pressed himself harder against the wall.

  ‘Did you have your business card? Did you leave it in the pocket of that dead boy’s shirt? Or does everyone have to have been there three consecutive nights!’

  ‘Sorry to keep you!’ Shirley called, as she reappeared in the corridor. Stella strode off to meet her and steered her so firmly and quickly the other way, that Shirley only had the chance to give her lawyer the briefest of waves.

  ‘What would settle you?’ Father Barclay asked, after a long silence. It was the end of visiting time. Through the curtains drawn round Tom’s bed, he could hear the nurse who wheeled round a trolley each evening, doling out a mug of pale cocoa made with homogenised milk and a couple of musty biscuits to each of the patients, who were doing what they could to bring on sleep.

  Tom smiled. ‘Not cocoa.’ The nurse trundled past without slowing.

  ‘Does it really help, being back in the village?’ Father Barclay felt at ease in Tom’s company, not agonised by the shyness that compelled him to manic heartiness when he had to play the village priest. Here was someone he knew and understood, and perhaps could help.