The Reading Room

by Ruth Hamilton

  Derek’s eyes were immediately on Lily. He put down his spoons, which were, unfortunately, the least offensive of all the murdered instruments, and made a beeline for her. Eve ceased playing for a few blessed seconds and nudged her husband. ‘He’s setting his cap at her,’ she whispered.

  Chas stopped blowing into his mouth organ. He shook it, muttered something about the bugger being full of spit and beer, then continued the torture. It was arrested abruptly when his wife’s words finally registered after negotiating a route to his brain past Stella Artois and red wine. ‘Well, he won’t get her. Nobody will. She’s built a wall the size of Hadrian’s around herself.’ He started to play again, after shaking more moisture out of his harmonica.

  Eve watched her son. The enthusiasm had gone out of her playing, while Chas, whose mouth organ was still delivering all the wrong notes in the wrong order, also gave up. ‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.

  ‘In the jungle,’ his wife replied. ‘They made a dash when you started the assassination of “Amazing Grace”.’

  ‘I never played “Amazing Grace”,’ he said, his tone reflecting deep injury. ‘It was “Knees Up Mother Brown”.’ Chas armed himself with a yard brush and another can of ale before venturing forth to rescue friends and neighbours from wild animals, killer insects and dangerous snakes.

  Ghostly figures began to emerge from the depths of Rose Cottage’s not inconsiderable acreage. Lily saw Valda and Tommy, Philly and Dave, Maurice with Sally, Babs and Pete. There were many others whose names she didn’t know, but the main problem was Derek, who had taken up a nonchalant position against a wall. One look at Lily’s face had told him to stay away. Tim Mellor was approaching her, but he was easily fifty, so he didn’t count in Derek’s inexperienced book.

  ‘How are you?’ asked the notoriously cheerful vet.

  ‘Fine,’ she answered. ‘I shan’t stay long, though. I’m not a great drinker.’

  ‘Me neither.’ He took a long draught of beer, covered a belch with a polite hand. ‘We should get to know each other better,’ he continued. ‘You must come for dinner one night. Mind, I’m not the best of cooks, so it would be takeaway. There’s been nothing decent cooked in my kitchen since the wife ran off with the rep for a company which manufactured diet food for dogs. She’s on the Isle of Wight now. I suppose someone has to live there.’

  For a non-drinker, he was terribly drunk. Lily excused herself and went to talk to Babs and Pete.

  Just on the edge of her vision, Mike Walsh stood, drink in one hand, Skippy’s lead in the other. He had probably taken charge of the dog so that Dave and Philly could cut their engagement cake. There were speeches, followed by applause, then ABBA blared out all over the garden. It was clear that Skippy was not an ABBA fan, because she bolted just as ‘Waterloo’ began, the priest hanging on to the lead for dear life. Lily smiled. The dog had lost a leg, but she could shift, while many people here were more legless than Skippy would ever be.

  Mike regained his composure and handed Skippy back to her grateful owners. He approached Lily, a hand beating his breast. ‘Mea maxima culpa,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t you get ointment for that?’ Lily asked.

  He made a remark about people who didn’t know Latin, so she reeled off a list of plants with names that were inches long.

  ‘Touché,’ he said before wandering off.

  Lily sat alone for a while, just watching other people having fun. This was how ridiculous the inebriated seemed to the sober, then. Chas was standing on a chair. For some reason best known to himself, he was reading out the American Declaration of Independence. His wife, the lovely Eve, had decided to show everyone her curtain swatches, some of which had ended up in the pond. Dave and Philly were sober, as were Babs, Pete, Valda, Tommy and Sally, but the rest of the company were in a state of sore disrepair.

  Tim Mellor had attached himself to a piece of eye-candy from the other end of the village, while Maurice was making a collection of garden gnomes, strays left behind by a previous owner. He was lining them up under the dining-room window, and he seemed to have plans for them. ‘He’s going to drown them in Fullers Brook,’ a voice said. ‘There will be a suitable service conducted by himself in a frock.’

  It was Derek. If he asked her to go out for dinner again, she would have to make herself clear. It was no, had always been no, would always be no. He must have seen the expression in her eyes, because he staggered off without further comment or request.

  Lily decided that she was a miserable cow, and went to put that right. Eve, having eaten enough to soak up the wine, was one of the least tired and emotional revellers present. She greeted Lily with enthusiasm. ‘Good to see you, Lily. Glad you decided to come.’

  Lily smiled. ‘If you’d like to stop by my house one evening, I have a portfolio that belonged to a friend of mine. She was in interior design, and she had a way of making the truly modern work without spoiling the history of a house. It’s all Belfast sinks and brushed steel, but it works given the right colours and textures.’

  Eve was delighted. ‘Oh, ta, love,’ she gushed. ‘Here, have a prawn vol-au-vent. I’d say I made them myself, but it would be a lie. Yes, I’d be glad to look at your porto – what was it?’

  ‘Portfolio.’

  ‘Like an artist has when he goes to college?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lily pulled Eve to one side. ‘You won’t be offended if I go home, will you? It’s a headache.’

  ‘You go, sweetheart. I’ll see you tomorrow, if that’s all right.’

  Lily took herself off. She couldn’t drink more than a couple of glasses of wine, because she had seen firsthand what happened when people over-imbibed. Sober, Clive had been evil; drunk, he had always become the devil incarnate. Alcohol changed people, and seldom for the better.

  At home once more, she wondered whether she was now doomed to be a mere spectator, an outsider like Mrs Barker who sat all day at a window and watched a life in which she no longer took an active part. She had been reduced to this by marrying too young, by marrying the wrong man. He would have been wrong for just about anyone.

  In the dining room, she stood in darkness, because the outside security light was on, and she knew it was announcing the presence of her little fox family. They had begun to allow her into their lives, because domestic food was palatable and they were becoming unnaturally tame. Was that a good thing? Had they managed to make a friend of the one animal that had always been their greatest enemy?

  Out of the shadows, a human figure stepped, and Lily’s heart began to crash about until it seemed to threaten her ribs. But it wasn’t a stranger. It was Mike. He sat down carefully at the edge of the paved area and reached out a hand, and one of the adult foxes came and took food from him. It was unutterably touching. Here, in a dark garden, a man trusted by timorous beasts seemed to portray all that Lily had lost. He was no threat. He removed nothing, gave everything, was full of love for all around him.

  Lily’s heart slowed to its normal pace, and she retreated from the window to sit on a dining chair. She could still see him, could tell that he was talking to the creatures. The babies, growing older and more sensible, skittered about less enthusiastically now that wisdom was colouring their behaviour. But they didn’t run away. Nothing and no one ran away from him. Except Lily Latimer, of course.

  He came into the house, and she was drawn to join him. At the kitchen sink, he washed his hands, turned, saw her standing there. ‘Lily?’

  ‘They’re so tame now.’

  He nodded. ‘And you are in charge when I’m not here. On the one hand, we have upset the balance of nature, but on the other we are privileged beyond measure.’

  ‘They’ll be inside the house soon,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps. But keep them away from your Chippendales.’

  ‘Imitation Chippendales. I’m not that wealthy.’

  He hung up the towel. ‘What now, party girl? Scrabble, dominoes, Monopoly?’

  ‘I hate Monopoly.’

>   ‘Cards?’

  ‘No. I think bed is the best place for me.’

  He lowered his head for a few seconds. ‘Lily, this isn’t the first time.’

  ‘What? First time for what?’

  ‘I’ve fallen in love before. Never did anything about it, but it’s more frightening this time.’

  She didn’t ask why, because she already knew.

  ‘This . . . feeling is travelling in more than one direction. Isn’t it? That’s why I have the courage to speak to you. Emotion as strong as this couldn’t exist in a cul-de-sac, could it?’

  With anyone else in the world, Lily would have shrugged it off. She might have called the man foolish, stupid, deluded, would probably have advised him to go away and play with the other infants in the school yard. But with Michael Walsh, there had to be absolute truth at all times and at whatever cost. She whispered, ‘No,’ then sat at the table. ‘But nothing will be done this time, either, Mike. Not just because of your position in the world, but because I’m not suitable. Too damaged.’

  ‘I need to find somewhere else to stay.’

  ‘No. We’re adults and we are in control.’

  He sat opposite her. ‘I’m glad you feel like that. But sometimes, if I wake in the night, I am sorely tempted to climb that second flight of stairs. Just to look at you, just to hold you . . . but we both know it wouldn’t stop there. I should have more sense at my age – I’ll be forty in a couple of years – but I’m like a teenager whose hormones are just kicking in.’

  In spite of herself, she smiled at him. Then, with a more serious expression on her face, she gave him a part of her past. ‘There is a possibility that I may not be able to . . .’ Oh, God, how could she put this? ‘There was physical hurt, you see. I was very badly injured, in and out of hospital for eight months, in a coma for the first couple of weeks. I had some extremely fancy embroidery done on my . . . abdomen. None of the blood in my body was my own. They started me on O neg, did the tests, gave me the right group. I owe a lot to the hospital, everything to blood donors. I should have died.’ There was no need to tell him that she had wanted to die at the start, when she had woken from the long sleep.

  ‘God,’ he breathed.

  ‘No, it wasn’t God – it was a surgeon named Myers. He put me together again. I was luckier than Humpty-Dumpty, you see.’

  He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry you went through all that, Lily, but I’m so glad that you survived it. I don’t care what you can or can’t do – this is more than sexual. That’s why it’s different.’ It was powerful and dangerous. It was true that he had been attracted to women in the past, but this was the first time he had been afraid. Beyond the fear loomed excitement, adventure and the loss of his job. But she shone more brightly than anyone he had ever known, and he would sacrifice anything at all to be with her. He squeezed her hand. ‘Your face was dead when you arrived here. Now, you’re coming to life.’

  Her hand tingled as if hit by a bolt of lightning. She didn’t believe in any of it, had never set much store by the concept of chemical love, as she termed this kind of attraction. The idea of love at first sight was similarly alien to her mind. Yet the fact remained that she was shaking inwardly, that she wanted to dash round the table and hold him in her arms. But Lily was an adult. ‘It will be all right,’ she said, her voice slightly unsteady.

  ‘How can it be all right?’

  She looked straight into his eyes. ‘It can be all right because it isn’t hell. I’ve been there, so almost everything is easy after that.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘A man.’

  ‘Lily—’

  ‘Go to bed,’ she told him. ‘Go and sleep in the room that was always yours, and I shall go to my room. I’m not ready for any great changes, and I don’t know whether I shall ever be ready. You are a priest, and I don’t need to tell you what that means. You’re a good man, and these villages round here need you. Not just for church, but for—’

  ‘Pantomime, last rites, rotas for loving thy neighbour. Most of all, for pantomime.’

  ‘For the community, yes. It’s not just the Catholics, you see. Apart from Mrs Barker, who hates almost everyone, this whole area values and loves you. Can you imagine how they would feel if you gave up all that for me, abandoned them for me? Or for any woman, come to that. We have to act our age and just carry on carrying on.’

  ‘And without carrying on in the other sense of the word.’ He held on to her hand as if it were a lifebelt. ‘Who are you, Lily? Who sent you here?’

  She shrugged. ‘I came all by myself. Stuck a pin in the upper part of the map, and here I am.’

  ‘Like a piece of magic.’

  ‘No, Mike. Like a wounded animal that daren’t trust its own kind. I may be ten years younger than you, yet I am half a century older, because what happened to me made me old.’

  ‘Was Babs part of it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘But she wasn’t injured.’

  ‘Her heart was broken, but her physical hurt healed. And she has Cassie. Cassie is the only good thing to have emerged from the whole sordid mess.’ She freed her hand and stood up. ‘If you are truly tortured in my house, find another place. But I like having you here. You’re the closest I’ve come to trust. Apart from Babs. She and I have needed to believe in each other. Good night, Mike.’

  It was lonely upstairs. Even the circular window didn’t cheer her. Nor did the crisp sheets, the mirrored French furniture, the beautiful curtains. He was suffering, and she hated that. She was used to pain, physical and mental, but he had never asked to be dragged into this, whatever ‘this’ was.

  On the floor below, Mike undressed, showered, said his prayers. He was a priest. Priests could overcome just about anything, because God was on their side. He groaned. Sexual attraction he might have dismissed as a feeble effort by Satan to get him on board. After all, hadn’t Christ Himself been tempted by the devil?

  Neither slept well that night. Each was tormented by the knowledge that comfort and understanding were just a few steps away. Each was wise enough not to take those steps.

  The trouble with screws is that the government pays peanuts and gets monkeys. Give a monkey a nut to chew on, and he’ll follow you home.

  Some following has to be done. We follow the money. Her house is sold and her shop, too, has changed hands. Those places were sold by Leanne Chalmers. Even if she has changed her name, there are people in banks and solicitors’ offices who are open to suggestion. So. We need to know the area to which the money was sent, the bank into which it has been paid, the name under which it is making interest.

  Walton’s OK. It’s not the Ritz, but the locals are amusing. Bright, too. Scallies, as Liverpool calls its fallen ones, are not without brains. That quick-fire humour conceals nothing, and it shows intelligence behind such wit.

  I know a man who’ll pay a man who’ll pay another man. Leanne, I’m on my way, babe.

  Seven

  ‘Right. You can eat it or leave it, Mrs Barker. I’m not going to stand here worrying like Dave used to. If you don’t eat, the insulin you’ve injected will be too much for you, and you’ll get confused, fall over and may go into a hypoglycaemic coma. That’ll be you in hospital for several days at least.’

  Enid’s hands closed into fists. Here was another one who’d swallowed a bloody dictionary. Between them, Dave and his fiancée knew English inside out, and they used it as weaponry. If only she had her health and strength, she’d send this one back downstairs at a faster than normal rate. There again, if she had her health and strength, she wouldn’t need to be in the same room as Philomena Gallagher, because she’d be fending for herself. Determined not to talk to this madam, Enid allowed only a small grunt to punctuate the ensuing silence.

  ‘Well? Shall I get the doctor to come? Shall I tell him you’re sulking and making yourself ill by refusing food? Because he’ll put his foot behind you, mark my words. Acting like a child, refusing fo
od—’

  Enid picked up a fork, stabbed half an egg and transferred it to her mouth. Who the bloody hell did Philomena Gallagher think she was talking to?

  ‘Good decision,’ said Philly before rushing back downstairs. She was in a state worse than Russia, and she had to deal with a certain matter immediately.

  It was a computer day. Bert and Sam, a pair of recidivists who couldn’t go a day without the Reading Room, were fighting over a woman they’d both met online. Bert, who walked with the aid of a stick, was a few years older than Sam. ‘I’ll be bloody dead in a few months,’ he cried. ‘You can have her when I’m gone and buried. The way your arthritis is thriving, I’ll leave you my stick and all.’

  Sam snorted his disgust. ‘What is this? Pass the parcel? Leave a girlfriend in your will? She likes me, not you.’

  ‘Children, children,’ Philly shouted. ‘Stop the fighting, will you? I’ve trouble enough upstairs without you two kicking off. Skippy, who gave you that scone?’ She looked round the Reading Room. ‘Stop feeding the dog,’ she ordered. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, she’s one leg missing and we have to keep her thin.’

  ‘Don’t get your corsets in a twist,’ said Sam. ‘You’ve gone all . . . what’s the word, Bert?’

  ‘Religious?’

  ‘No, is it heck. You’ve gone all . . . wotsit since you got engaged, Philly.’

  She gave him the word. ‘Bolshie,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve gone difficult.’ She smiled, then reminded herself that she shouldn’t be smiling. Because there was a question that needed to be answered right away.

  Nevertheless, she was proud of herself. For years, she’d never said boo to a goose, but now she could tackle a gaggle or a skein, because she had Dave to back her up. Feeling powerful, she clicked the computer off line. ‘Now,’ she said, a finger wagging at the two old men. ‘Stop courting and fighting in here, because we’ve no licence for entertainment.’