The Reading Room

by Ruth Hamilton

  While he pottered about, Lily repaired to a ground-floor bathroom in order to compose herself. The poor man was only trying to help, but he couldn’t. No one could. There was just Babs. Babs would probably be spending the night in bed with Pete, because Cassie now had her own room. Lucky Babs. She had found a man who seemed solid and strong, someone who would take care of her and her little girl. Would they take Cassie away?

  She splashed water on her face. Her distance from Cassie was greater than ever, because it had to be. Cassie could never be her daughter. She stared into the mirror and scarcely knew herself. The weight she had shed had not returned, and the round-cheeked Leanne was unrecognizable. There had been no need for plastic surgery, because she looked completely different. After all this time, she should have grown used to the blonde hair, but she felt she never would. She missed herself, mourned the woman she had been before . . . before Clive Chalmers. Even thinking the name made her want to vomit.

  ‘Tea,’ Mike shouted.

  Lily re-entered the kitchen. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, her voice still shaky. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You know perfectly well, and I’m sorry to have invaded your space. Goodness knows you paid enough for this house. If you like, I will go and make other arrangements, but you must unburden yourself to someone, so why not me?’

  ‘I don’t have the answer.’

  He poured tea and handed her a mug. ‘Now that was Father O’Hara’s very own drinking vessel. I nearly put it into the grave with him, because he went ape if anyone else used it. But he’s dead, so enjoy.’

  Lily stared into the mug. ‘I suppose he must be dead if you buried him.’

  He nodded sadly. ‘Yes, but I was sorely tempted on many an occasion to have the burial before the death. He was into his eighties, deaf as a post, and I think he went to the same charm school as Adolf Hitler. I was a young priest and scared to the bones of him. Then I realized that he was actually stupid, and stupidity must be forgiven. He couldn’t have been academically unsound, as a priest has to learn some difficult stuff, but he—’

  ‘Like joined-up writing? Did you learn that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And pantomime?’

  ‘All right, all right. Stopped you crying, anyway, didn’t I? But he’d no common sense. He needed the simplest things doing for him, and his personal hygiene was questionable—’

  ‘And this is his cup?’

  ‘It’s been washed.’

  Lily got up from the table and brought her own mug.

  Mike filled it for her. ‘Better now?’

  ‘It comes and goes.’ She didn’t want to look at him, wished he would go into another room. ‘It will be some time before I can talk sensibly. But I’ll tell you now that it was serious enough for me to change my name, give up a promising career, consider cosmetic surgery and come up here.’

  ‘And Babs?’

  ‘Part of the same package. You don’t ask her about me, either. Understood?’

  ‘Yes. Now, I’ll take myself off and think very seriously about the threat made tonight. Maurice Jones is a decent enough chap, but he should leave my hair out of things.’

  ‘Out of your eyes would be a start.’

  She was calmer. He knew that he could leave her now. Michael Walsh was a man of the world. Priesthood had not diminished him; on the contrary, it had served him well, because he now knew more about human nature than most psychiatrists ever managed to learn. His inner core was attracted to the sad female at the table. It wasn’t the first time he had felt physical desire, though he had seldom experienced anything deeper. But now he was on the brink of something or other that could alter his life for ever. Falling in love? No. It wouldn’t happen.

  Lily washed the cups and left them to dry. She walked out into her massive garden and sat on a flagged patio just outside the dining room and kitchen. A security light turned itself on as she settled herself on a broken-down chair at a decaying table. She looked at the wilderness that was freehold and hers. It was a big undertaking, and she needed a better gardener than the one upstairs. Her heart skipped a beat when she reminded herself of his kindness, his gentle, forgiving nature, his acceptance and understanding. It was a pity that many religious figures seemed not to learn from those who toiled at the coalface of life.

  The magic happened then, while she sat and surveyed her extensive domain. Unafraid of the light, they stepped out of shadow and stood staring at her – the father, the mother and the two cubs. When she rose from her seat, they did not move; when she returned with meat on a plate, they were still waiting. She placed the food at the edge of the paving stones, then went inside.

  In darkness, Lily Latimer stood at her kitchen window and watched the foxes. Babies scuffled and took what the parents gave them. Never before had Lily been so close to a fox. Grandpa had shot them, because they killed chickens. She could not do that, no matter what. Nevertheless, she would keep no hens. Tears flowed again, but she was smiling through them. The fox family walked away, one of the parents stopping to look over a shoulder, as if saying thanks.

  Life went on. No matter what, day became night, dawn broke the dark, evening brought longer shadows. ‘Accept, just like the foxes do,’ she said softly. One day, she would talk to him. One day, she would need his help.

  Six

  Enid Barker sat in her usual bird’s eye position, turning to look over her shoulder only when her flatmate walked in. ‘I missed them coming out of the meeting,’ she moaned. ‘The school’s at a funny angle, anyway, but I had to go to the bathroom, and even with the walker melegs were all over the . . . What’s up with you, Mary? Have you swallowed a gobstopper or something?’

  Mary sank into the armchair nearest the door. She couldn’t just say nothing at all, because somebody else would say something when Enid decided to become well enough to sit listening on the stairs, and it had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. So she let it all pour out in a steady stream, her voice flattened to the point where no emotion showed. When she had finished, she closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. It was like waiting for the wrath of God to descend upon her, and she wished that she had never gone to the flaming meeting of FADS. This business was nothing to do with her, and she regretted her change of address yet again. She’d seen Tommy and Valda, and they’d talked about building a small granny flat at the back of their house . . . Enid had turned a funny colour, and her mouth was hanging wide open.

  It hung open for quite a while. ‘Mary?’ she cried when her lips finally met each other again. ‘What the bloody hell are you telling me? Hand in hand? Dave walked back to her house holding hands? With that blinking Gallagher woman of all people? And everybody watching? The whole bloody village finding out before me?’

  When Mary looked properly at her companion, she noticed a further change in the colour of Enid’s skin. It had turned an interesting tone bordering on pale puce, if such a shade existed. ‘I could be wrong,’ she said sheepishly. ‘It’s possible, you know.’ But she knew that other villagers had commented on the new closeness between Dave and Philomena. ‘Enid, I don’t think I should be responsible for telling you—’

  ‘No. You’re not wrong, Mary. You weren’t wrong about Valda not being good enough for your lad, and you’ve stuck to your guns right from the off. Give you your due, love, you’re like me. You’re a woman of very strong instinct. There’s something going on all right.’

  Mary didn’t want to think of herself as being like Enid. Enid Barker might well have a degree in nasty – even a doctorate – because she did nothing but find fault with everything and everybody. ‘Calm down, Enid,’ she pleaded. ‘No sense in making yourself ill over it, is there?’ It was time to make peace with Valda, because the alternative might be to end up like this crazy harridan. She had to get out of here. Whatever the cost to her pride, Mary needed to go home to her own little room or to the extension currently under discussion. Noisy grandchildren? Stupid daughter-in-law?
They were infinitely preferable to this way of so-called life.

  But Enid was past the point of no return. ‘Hand in hand? I’ll give him hand in hand when I get hold of him. He’s had it drummed into him since he was a lad. No Roman Catholics. So what does he do? He starts walking out with a saint who’s not dead yet. It must be like courting one of them daft holy pictures they carry round in their prayer books.’ She shivered. ‘This has got to be put a stop to. I can’t let it happen, Mary. Everything in me screams that I have to do something straight away before he goes too far. Hand in bloody hand?’

  Mary nodded.

  ‘She’s RC.’

  Here came the bigotry again. Enid Barker seemed to enjoy repeating herself, as if she chose to underline in red ink every opinion she expressed. Mary needed to scream, wanted to tell her companion to shut up about the Catholic thing, but she dared not. ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘But it’s the twenty-first century and folk don’t seem to—’

  ‘Too old for kids, she is. All they’ll have for family is that bloody daft dog, and that’s only three-quarters furnished in the leg department, never mind daft as a brush in its head.’

  Mary knew that Enid was completely legless at the moment, because she had tried to stand seconds earlier and had failed miserably. She was probably in some sort of shock, yet Mary Turnbull could not quite manage to worry about her hostess. ‘Shop’s being run by Valda and two of the old blokes tomorrow. I heard Sam Hardcastle telling Bert Thompson that Dave and Philly are going out somewhere, probably to town.’ She wondered whether they might be going to buy a ring, but she dared not air that possibility, or Enid Barker might literally have a fit.

  Enid’s heart, pushed along by a great surge of adrenalin, was well into overdrive. ‘Get that bloody wheelchair sorted – I saw it being delivered, so I expect it’s in the store room at the back of the Reading Room – and help me down them bloody stairs. Well? What are you waiting for? The three-fifteen to Manchester?’

  ‘You’re going nowhere,’ replied Mary with as much determination as she could muster. ‘I saw you trying to stand before you got really worked up. I’m no spring chicken, Enid. I can’t get you down below while your legs aren’t working. We’d both break our necks. Sorry.’

  Enid managed not to scream. ‘How can I stop them, then? But I’m having a stairlift put in, and I’ll see if I can afford a motorized scooter or some such item. Then I won’t need help from you or anybody else. But I can’t get them things by tomorrow, can I? Fetch me that phone. If I can’t get there in person, I can speak my mind, at least.’

  Mary experienced a sudden desire to be elsewhere – preferably in the southern hemisphere. If Enid phoned Dave and Philly, they would know that she had gone back to the flat and started tittle-tattling to his mother. ‘Why don’t you wait till you feel a bit calmer?’ she suggested.

  ‘Because I’m not going to feel any calmer. If I let this go till morning, they’ll be at Preston’s of Bolton and she’ll be wearing a diamond set in platinum. Philomena Gallagher’s out for what she can get. I mean, look at him. Fat as a pig, does no exercise – when I’m out of the way and he drops dead, she’ll get the business.’

  ‘But it’s half past nine, Enid. A bit late for a phone call—’

  ‘Thank you, speaking clock. If I’d wanted the time, I’d have looked at my watch. Get me the phone.’

  Mary brought the instrument, handed it to Enid, then walked into her own bedroom. She didn’t want to hear any more, but she heard it anyway. She had a strong suspicion that Manchester might have heard it. She turned on her television, and managed not to listen to the ranting from the next room.

  Philly answered the phone.

  ‘Is my son there?’

  ‘Yes. Just a moment, please, Mrs Barker.’

  He came to the phone. ‘Mother?’

  ‘You’re carrying on with that fat Catholic, are you? Going to marry somebody whose life runs according to the Roman calendar, all holy water and plaster statues, who can rob a bank on Monday and get forgiven by a priest by Friday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Enid gritted her teeth before wading in again. ‘Then you can buy me out.’

  ‘Whatever you wish, Mother.’

  Taken aback, Enid was silent for a couple of seconds. Her pension was pennies. The bit of income that floated into her bank from the shop once a month was the only bright spot in her life. A diabetic needed good food. An old woman needed good food. As she listed herself in both categories, she was twice as needful as most people. ‘Are you marrying her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why? Is she pregnant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What have I told you all your life, eh? We don’t mix with Romans. They’re not right in the head if they think a bit of bread turns into flesh. Whispering confessions to a bloke who carries on like he’s big enough to talk to God at a different level from the rest of us, carrying pictures of saints in their handbags—’

  ‘I promise not to carry saints in my handbag, Mother. The rest of it is none of your business. Philly’s a Catholic, and that’s an end to it.’

  ‘It should be the end. And where are you going tomorrow?’

  ‘Why? Do you want to come along for the ride?’

  ‘No, I bloody don’t.’

  ‘Birmingham,’ he said.

  ‘Birmingham? Why?’

  ‘Jewellery quarter. Anything else? Are we playing twenty questions?’

  ‘You can’t marry her,’ she screamed.

  ‘Better that than coming back to you, Mother. Better to get married than carry on like you used to, selling yourself for a few quid shoved behind the clock on the mantelpiece. I’m grown up now. You can’t whip me, can’t lock me under the stairs, can’t frighten me any more. You’ve done your worst. It’s my turn now, and I am doing my best for myself and for Philly.’

  ‘How dare you?’

  ‘Because I am talking to an ex-whore who doesn’t even know who my father was. Because Philly is a good, God-fearing woman who wants to marry the ugly son you bore. And I dare because you have pulled to bits every decent body in this village and the residents of at least another five. So bugger off. I can’t be bothered with you, Mother.’

  She heard the phone as he threw it into its base. Her fingers shook when she dropped her own handset. From a pocket, she took a glucose lozenge and placed it on her tongue. The shock had pushed her towards a hypo. Dave had a lot to answer for. Then, as if presenting the last straw, Mary Turnbull emerged from her bedroom and stood near the stairway door, a suitcase in her hand. ‘What . . . ? Where are you . . . ?’ For once in her life, Enid ran out of words.

  ‘I’ve had too much of this,’ Mary announced. ‘I can’t do it any more, Enid. God knows I’m bad enough, but you’re in a class of your own. Even my telly couldn’t drown out your screaming just now. I can’t be your yes-woman. Things aren’t right here, so I’m going. I’ll send for the bigger stuff in a day or two.’

  ‘Who’ll look after me?’

  Mary lowered her chin for a second. After counting to three, she raised her head and looked Enid Barker straight in the eye. ‘The devil will mind you. He’s your best mate, anyway. For now, I’m off to throw myself on the mercy of your lovely son and the nice woman he’s been lucky enough to find. My grandchildren will be asleep, and I don’t want to disturb them, so I’ll crawl back to Valda tomorrow. Because I’ve learned something while living here, love. I’m not as bad as I thought I was, and I am prepared to apologize. You’ll never do that.’ She left the flat, closing the door softly.

  Enid gulped, almost choking on fizzing glucose. There was nobody here. For the first time ever, she was completely alone. She could phone Dave again, she supposed, but he’d know in a few minutes that Mary had left her, so there was no point. Who would see to her now? Who would make a cuppa when melegs got worse, sit with her when she needed company, help her when she wanted a shower? Where could she apply for help? The Catholics had it sorted, of cou
rse. There were so many of them hereabouts that Father Walsh had made a rota for the elderly and disabled, and he didn’t stick just to Catholics. But Enid would die before she’d beg at his door.

  Reaching out for her walker, she managed to stand. Fear made her weak. The knowledge that no one would come if she fell terrified her, but she was determined. She could walk and she would walk. Given a stairlift and a scooter with a motor, she could do anything she liked. Couldn’t she?

  Philly, who had clearly been crying, opened the door. Dave had shot upstairs after the call from his mother, and Philly was giving him a chance to recover. ‘Hello, Mrs Turnbull,’ she said. ‘Come in. You look upset.’

  Mary entered the cottage. ‘I am upset, love, and so are you. But can I borrow your sofa for the night? Only I don’t want to wake my grandchildren, you see. I don’t know what sort of reception I’ll get from Valda, and if there’s a row when I turn up—’

  ‘She’ll be all right. Valda’s a good woman. You’re both good women, Mary, but you’re going to have to make space for each other. And I don’t mean separate living rooms – I mean inside, in your heads. If you do that, she’ll be fine with you.’

  ‘Better than what I’ve been living with, and that’s for sure.’

  Philly went into the kitchen to make Lancashire’s universal cure, a cup of tea. She popped her head through the doorway and asked whether Mary would care for a biscuit. ‘No thanks,’ was the reply. ‘I couldn’t stomach anything after what’s gone on. Sorry I told her. But it’s all round the village anyway—’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.’

  Mary sniffed, dried her eyes and wiped her nose. ‘Will Enid be all right, though? Her legs are terrible today.’

  ‘That’s our problem now. I know what she’s like and I know what she thinks of me. What’s had me in tears is finding out about how she’s treated her son. She gave him a terrible life, and she intends to carry on doing just that. But I’ll sort her out, don’t you worry.’

  ‘You?’ Mary failed to keep the shock from her face. Philly was a gentle soul, far too kind to survive more than a couple of rounds with Enid Barker.