Vera, purple-faced, screamed at the top of her voice, ‘You bitch, it was you, wasn’t it? You told ’em, didn’t yer? It’ll be the end of me but I don’t care. I’ll go down fighting.’ She grabbed Mrs Jones by the throat and began shaking her so that Mrs Jones’ head swung back and forth violently. All the time Vera was shouting, ‘You bitch! You bitch!’
At last, Mrs Jones struggled free of Vera’s grasp, stumbled over her fallen shopping and tried desperately to escape by running back into the Store. Her way was impeded by Linda, Jimbo, Bel and a customer who’d rushed out into Stocks Row when they heard the shouting. Vera caught up with Mrs Jones and began hitting, punching and scratching her, anything to get her own back. Linda couldn’t stop saying, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ at the top of her voice, but Bel waded in and grabbed Vera, while Jimbo stood in front of Mrs Jones to protect her.
Vera, still screaming, fought like a wild cat to escape Bel, but the sheer weight of Bel’s body prevented her. Finally Vera capitulated and began to groan, ‘Oh! God! Oh! God! Oh! God!’
Jimbo and Bel took Vera inside, followed by Linda holding on to Mrs Jones who was trembling and so white they thought she was going to faint.
‘Linda! First aid box, small brandy for these two. Come now, Vera, sit here and calm down. Mrs Jones, you too, sit yourself down. My goodness me, what a hullabaloo! What were you thinking of? Bel, ring Harriet. No, better still, ring the Rectory. Get Dr Harris. Tell her it’s urgent. Quick sharp, please.’
Linda arrived with three brandies, one for each of the two antagonists and one for herself. She tossed it down, went weak at the knees, pulled out a stool and plumped herself down on it. ‘Oh, Mr Charter-Plackett! I feel terrible. What’s it all about?’ she asked.
‘Sip it, Vera. Steady now.’ Jimbo, still supporting Vera, looked over to Mrs Jones, who was tossing back her brandy as though it was cola. ‘Mrs Jones, steady with it, please. Do you know what’s caused this?’
Mrs Jones shook her head. ‘No more than you.’ She took out her handkerchief and mopped her lips.
Vera, encouraged by the warmth the brandy was bringing her, said, ‘She does know. It was her told Jeremy Mayer about my pots and that, just to get her own back.’
Mrs Jones opened her mouth to deny it but catching Jimbo’s baleful eye she closed it again without a word.
Vera finished her brandy and gave the paper cup to Jimbo saying, ‘It was her, I can see it now, to get back at me about them costumes. Well, she got more than she bargained for, didn’t yer? Yer own son and his wife perhaps made homeless. Serves yer right. No wonder yer wouldn’t confess.’
Linda, catching a whiff of scandal and emboldened by her brandy, said, ‘No, really? Is this true Mrs Jones? Was it you?’
Mrs Jones didn’t reply, but Jimbo looked sorrowfully at her and said, ‘Better to get it out now and apologise before it’s all too late.’
‘Before it’s too late?’ Vera stood up, wobbled a bit, and then sat down again. ‘It’s already too late. The damage that old cow’s done … and now she’s most likely lost me a blinking good opportunity to kick myself into a lifestyle above and beyond what I’ve got now.’
‘The brandy’s gone to her head. What on earth is she talking about?’ Mrs Jones sniffed derisively. ‘Lifestyle! What lifestyle can she ever expect?’
Caroline arrived in breathless haste. ‘What’s happened? Bel said there’d been an accident.’ She looked from one woman to the next, then at Jimbo.
‘We thought Mrs Jones was going to faint and Vera’s not feeling too perky. There’s been a disagreement, you see, between the two of them.’
‘I see.’ She looked more closely at Mrs Jones. ‘You’re going to have a lovely black eye.’
‘Am I? That’s all your fault, Vera. Hitting me like that.’
But Vera had suddenly gone very quiet. The blood had drained from her face and she was nervously plucking at her cardigan sleeve. Caroline bent over her, her arm around her shoulders. ‘All right, Vera? Is there anything I can do for you? Get Don, perhaps? Walk you home, maybe?’
‘I’d come to ask Mr Charter-Plackett how to go about renting out my cottage. That’s all.’
‘Are you moving, then? I didn’t know.’
‘No one did.’ Abruptly she stood up, clutched her handbag to her chest and made a move to leave. ‘I’ll go to our Dottie’s. She’ll sort me out.’
‘But that’s in Little Derehams. There’s not another bus now till nearly six o’clock.’
‘I’ll walk. Do me good, some fresh air.’
Jimbo raised his eyebrows at Caroline, who shook her head. ‘Dr Harris says you’re not fit to walk all that way. I’ll take you in the car.’
Vera tried to smile at him, but it wouldn’t quite come. ‘Will you? Then we’ll talk about renting out the cottage on the way. Got to get it straight for tomorrow.’
‘Of course. I’ll just have a word with Bel.’ He winked at Caroline and left the office.
When Jimbo and Vera had gone, Linda went to pick up Mrs Jones’ shopping and Caroline sat down facing Mrs Jones and asked her what it was all about.
There was a moment of indecision, then she said, ‘It’s all my fault. I’m the one who split to Jeremy Mayer about the garden stuff. I never let on, someone must have told her it was me. She’s quite right. I should never have done it. I didn’t think about the consequences, you know, about it affecting our Barry and that.’
‘All over the costumes?’
Mrs Jones nodded. ‘That’s right. Then when it all blew up in my face I couldn’t, just couldn’t let on. Our Barry was so upset for the kids and that. I couldn’t have faced him, just when life was going really well for ’im. My own grandchildren, ’omeless.’ She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief but it made her wince. ‘But she just attacked me, didn’t even speak, just hit out at me. Such a shock.’
‘It must have been. You’ll need to apologise, best to come out in the open, you know. Your eye’s looking worse by the minute.’
‘Never mind, I’ll get my herbal stuff out, I’ve cured more bruises for my three boys than I’ve had hot dinners. I’ll just go see if Linda’s rescued all my shopping.’
‘We’ll both go, then. Vera did seem odd though, didn’t she?’
Before Mrs Jones could reply they heard a commotion in the Store and Rhett shouting, ‘Quick, Bel, ring for an ambulance – the call box is out of order. It’s Grandad, he’s fallen and split his head open. There’s blood all over the place.’
Rhett wouldn’t go inside the cottage again, said he couldn’t bear all that blood, he’d wait outside in Church Lane and direct the ambulance when it came and would Dr Harris do what she could? Instinct told Caroline that something more than a bad fall had taken place at Vera’s cottage: Vera’s confused behaviour at the Store, and two cups and saucers on the table with the teapot still quite hot. Don, who never touched alcohol and hadn’t ailed a thing all his life, falling off a chair? He was unconscious on the floor, looking for all the world as though he’d fallen and hit his head on the corner of the cooker as he went down. Lying on the floor in the pool of blood was a heavy pan. He must have clutched it as he tried to save himself, or knocked it off the cooker with his arm, perhaps. She moved it away to make a space so that she could examine him.
After making sure she’d done all she could for Don, and despite realising she might be interfering with evidence, Caroline quickly washed up one cup and saucer and put them away in the cupboard, rinsed the bloodstains from the saucepan and replaced it on the cooker.
It took twenty-five minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
‘Dr Harris! How’s things? Those two nippers of yours all right, are they? Good. Good. What have we here?’
‘This is Don Wright. It would appear that he’s fallen and hit his head on the corner of the cooker. He’s not spoken since I got here, he’s out for the count and no mistake.’
The ambulance man gently removed the clean towel Caroline had put on Don’s head and examined
the damage. ‘Cor, he’s bleeding like a stuck pig.’
‘Well, you know head injuries.’
‘I do. Certainly looks as if that’s what’s happened. Poor old fella.’ He bent down to sniff Don’s breath. ‘Not been drinking, ’as he?’
Caroline shook her head. ‘Only tea,’ she gestured towards the teapot, ‘he doesn’t drink alcohol. Well known for it.’
‘Wife, has he?’
‘Yes. She’s at her cousin’s. I’ll let her know, leave that with me.’
They expertly fixed a thick dressing to Don’s head to absorb the blood and carried him off to casualty, leaving Caroline feeling guilty and distressed. She’d interfered where she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t have done it. Rhett had gone with his grandad, so she locked up the cottage with the key Rhett had given her and went back to the Rectory to telephone Dottie with the news about Don.
‘I’ll drive her in, Dottie, if she would like.’ Caroline waited while Dottie explained her offer to Vera. But Vera wouldn’t go.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Harris, she doesn’t want to go.’ Dottie’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She’s behaving real odd, I don’t know what’s the matter with her. Funny like, something about a fight with Terry Jones’ mother, and she won’t answer proper about Don. Insists on going to work tomorrow, says she’s got business to attend to and can’t have a day off.’
‘Look, Dottie, I’ll ring casualty and find out what’s going on, and let you know. I’ll make some excuse about Vera being ill in bed. OK? I’ll be in touch. Take care.’
Don came home after three days and had only Rhett to look after him because Vera refused to go home.
The general consensus was that Don had dropped asleep at the table and fallen off his chair. In the Store, heads close together by the tinned soups, they nodded wisely and agreed, ‘All that night work, can’t be good for a living soul that can’t, must upset yer body clock and it’s caught up with him at last’.
‘Drink isn’t to blame like it could be with some.’
‘Our Kev knows the ambulance chap who came for him, he said he hadn’t been drinking and he should know.’
‘Poor Vera. Taken real bad she is. Still ’asn’t come home from their Dottie’s. Going to work, though, she can’t be that bad.’
‘She’ll be having a bit livelier time there than she’s had for years with that Don!’
‘What I can’t understand is where Vera was. I saw her get off the bus when I was coming out of here – I’d been to collect one of Mrs Charter-Plackett’s birthday cakes for my old man – and I called out, “Hello, Vera”, she seemed real excited about something. So where was she between getting off the bus and beating up old Mrs Jones? Nobody’s answered that one, have they?’
‘One of life’s unsolved mysteries, that is.’ The gossip topped the list for days and even surpassed the talk about the play and the troubles Hugo Maude had brought upon the village.
Chapter 15
Vera, disgusted by her cousin Dottie’s nocturnal comings and goings and spurred on by her need to get her belongings together, eventually returned home after work. She stepped off the lunchtime bus, two plastic carrier bags she’d borrowed from Dottie in her hand. She cursed her bad luck as she saw Mrs Jones coming out of the Store. Vera turned on her heel and set off for home but Mrs Jones called after her.
‘Vera! Just a minute! Hold on!’
Reluctantly she turned back.
‘Vera! I’m sorry. Very, very sorry for what I did. Shouldn’t have tried to get back at yer. I never should. My Vince is blazing.’
Vera studied over the apology, turning it over in her mind, pondering on the effort it must have cost Mrs Jones to make it, her being a proud woman. ‘Not ’alf as sorry as me. However, I shall accept it. I owe you one too for going for you the other day. Perhaps you’ve learned a lesson from it. Barry and Pat don’t deserve all this trouble, yer know.’
‘I know they don’t. I’ve been up and told ’em. Greenwood had a lot to say.’
‘I bet.’
Mrs Jones had put down her bag and was twisting her hands together, looking down at them as though transfixed by their movement. ‘I did wonder … I ’ave to admit I’m getting nervous about the play. I don’t suppose … I mean, would you be free to …’
‘Yes?’
Taking a deep breath she said, ‘I could really do with another pair of hands on the night, well Friday and Saturday. Back up, kind of. Would you …?’
Masking her triumph as best she could, Vera replied graciously. ‘Why, of course … Greta … I’d be delighted to help. It’s more than one body can do, isn’t it?’
Mrs Jones, smarting under Vera’s use of her Christian name, agreed. No one ever called her by her Christian name except for Vince. ‘It is, it gets very fraught.’
‘I shall be moving into my new flat on Thursday but I’ll make it somehow.’
Mrs Jones’ eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Your new flat? What new flat?’
‘I’ve got the job of assistant housekeeper at the nursing home and a flat goes with it. When I’ve got straight you’ll have to come one afternoon for a cup of tea and have a look round it.’
‘My word, Vera, that’s a turn up for the book and not half. What does Don think? He must be pleased.’
‘He isn’t coming with me. Staying where he is, is Don.’
Shock registered in every bone in Mrs Jones’ body. ‘Not going? You mean you’re leaving him? Vera! After all these years. Yer can’t be!’
Vera studied this question for a moment and then said, ‘I suppose I am. Yes, I am leaving him. Yer right. In one way you did me a good turn refusing to let me help yer and then splitting on us. It made me take stock. Sometimes it does yer good to take stock, yer know. What time shall I be there?’
‘Where? Oh, the play. Come to the dress rehearsal Thursday, if you can manage it, that is, I wouldn’t want to put you out. Six o’clock. Learn the ropes. Well, I never.’ She strode away down Jacks Lane shaking her head.
Vera became aware that the boost to her morale which her triumph over Mrs Jones had given her was steadily evaporating the closer she got to home. She prayed that Rhett would be in, he’d be glad to see her even if Don wasn’t. His reaction to her return to collect her things was a definite unknown quantity. Would he remember it was she who knocked him unconscious? Would he remember about the flat?
She didn’t need to use her key, the door stood open in the afternoon heat. Don was sitting at the kitchen table on the very same chair, the same teapot and cup and saucer in front of him, a newly opened carton of milk to hand. It was as though the whole incident had never happened. She glanced at the cooker and saw the pan stood on the top as before. It was just as it was. Every blessed thing in the same place, even Don. Nothing had changed. Her heart jerked. Had she been given a chance to retrieve herself, time having taken a queer turn? Had it all been a dream? Then through the gloom she saw the massive bruising on Don’s forehead, the shaved scalp and the stitched cut. So it was true, then.
‘You’re back.’
She put down her bags. ‘I am. Any tea left?’
Don picked up the pot and weighed it in his hand. ‘Enough for another one. Get yerself a cup.’
She sat at the table with him and poured herself some tea. It was stewed but for now it would do. In her mind’s eye she imagined herself in the kitchen in the flat. All light and airy, the sun filtering through those lovely blinds framed by the matching curtains, all quiet and peaceful and glorious.
‘How’s things, then?’
She sipped her tea. ‘Fine! Fine!’ Didn’t he know what she’d done? The stupid pillock. The stupid, dull, boring, useless, hopeless pillock.
Don sat without speaking and then burst out with, ‘I’ve not been shopping. There’s nothing in for tea.’
‘I see.’
‘I’ll have to be off about seven. They want extra hours. Still, the money will be handy.’
‘It will.’
‘Rhett’ll
be back soon. Been out for a job interview, he has.’
‘Right.’
His small brown eyes covertly watched her from beneath his thatch of grey disordered hair. ‘Well, then, are yer going shopping?’
‘When I’m good and ready.’
Don’s eyes focused on hers. They looked steadily at one another, saying nothing but meaning a lot. She realised he wasn’t going to mention what she’d done. He was going to ignore it. Shelve it. Pretend nothing had happened. Like always. Don’t mention it and it’ll go away, and Vera will carry on slaving in this tip like she’s always done.
‘I take over the flat on Thursday. Jimmy’s giving me a lift with all my things. Are you coming?’
‘I’m going nowhere, and neither are you.’
‘I am. Don’t say I didn’t ask.’ She stood up to put her cup in the sink, pouring away most of the stewed tea. There’d be no more stewed tea from now on. Rhett came in.
‘Gran! You’re back! Feeling better?’ Vera nodded. ‘Grandad tell you I’ve been for an interview for that garden job? Job’s mine if I want it. Said I’d let them know.’
Vera smiled at him. ‘That’s good, I’m pleased, really pleased.’ She paused. ‘Rhett, I’m moving to the new flat, Thursday. Like I’ve said, there’s a bedroom for you, and you’re more than welcome. What do you say?’
Rhett nodded his head in his grandad’s direction and raised his eyebrows.
‘Grandad’s staying here.’
‘You’re going without ’im?’
Vera thought about her answer. ‘I am. Come with me tomorrow on the bus and have a look see. You’ll love it.’
‘I will. It’s very tempting.’ He looked round the depressing shambles that was his gran’s kitchen. ‘A real fresh start.’
Village Gossip Page 19