by Roland Moore
With new purpose, Connie unfolded a fresh sheet and moved to the neighbouring bed.
When she finished, Connie scampered home. Dusk was beginning to fall as she ran through the village, past the pub and down the hill to the vicarage. In the distance, far away, she could see a figure riding away on a push bike. Oh blast! It was Henry. Connie stopped in her tracks, annoyed to have missed him by such a narrow margin. One less bed and she’d have made it! But again, this disappointment was tinged with a slight relief. There would be no arguments tonight. Was that the way she should be viewing her marriage after only a month? It felt wrong, but she couldn’t hide her feelings from herself.
The wind knocked from her sails, she trudged towards the front door; her legs suddenly feeling very heavy and tired. She entered the hallway. No old biddies there tonight. No Henry. The house was still and quiet without Henry inside it. A house, not a home. Connie closed the door and entered the parlour, where her spirits lifted in pleasant surprise. There was a note on the table next to a china plate covered by another plate. Connie read the note:
“I caught you some supper! Love Henry”
Connie’s hand reached towards the plate and lifted the cover. What would it be? What could Henry have caught for her? Not a rabbit, surely –
Under the cover was a cheese sandwich. Connie grinned, warmed by his playfulness. He was trying his best. She would try hers too and have things spick and span for when he came home. She slipped off her boots and sat in front of the fire in the big armchair. Henry had left the embers burning, with a fire guard on the hearth. Connie placed some new wood onto the embers and watched the fire slowly catch hold as she sat there and ate her sandwich. The spoils of the wild.
After Connie had eaten she looked at the clock above the fireplace. It was half-eight. Henry should be back soon. Putting on her apron (Connie felt like a proper vicar’s wife when she did this), she decided to busy herself with some chores until then. She unbolted the back door and went into the small vicarage garden to collect the eggs from the chickens. There were two deck chairs that she had put at the far end of the plot. The chairs faced away from the house, and Henry and Connie sometimes sat there in the evening, chatting over a cup of tea. On one side of the garden was a narrow chicken run that stretched the length of the grass. Part of the wooden frame had been broken and, as it awaited a proper repair, a large amount of mesh had been used to ensure the occupants didn’t escape. Inside were two chickens, whom Connie had nicknamed Esther and Gladys (after warden Esther Reeves and local busybody Gladys Gulliver). Esther had laid an egg and Connie picked it up and shook it free of the hay that had stuck to it. Carefully she placed it in her apron pocket and looked around to see if Gladys had produced anything. Suddenly something caught her eye. Cigarette smoke was rising from one of the deck chairs. Connie looked closer. Although the chair was turned away from her, she could see the definite indentation of a weight on the canvas. And on closer inspection: two silhouetted legs going to the ground.
“Who’s there?” Connie said, in as commanding a voice as she could muster.
It wouldn’t be Henry, would it? Playing a joke? No, he wouldn’t smoke a cigarette, even for a lark. No reply came from the chair, although Connie could sense that the occupant had heard her and was now motionless, on edge and waiting.
“It’s not funny,” Connie said, looking for some weapon. But Henry was such a stickler for putting the few garden tools they owned into the shed that there was nothing to hand. She spotted a small earthenware flowerpot and picked it up. Anything would do.
No head was visible, which meant the occupant was either slouched down in the seat or was very short. Her heart was pounding as she neared the side of the chair.
“You’ve had your fun.” Her mouth was dry and it was hard to swallow.
She reached the edge of the chair. Finally she could see the occupant. A big man, slouched down. The angular good looks of his face, his slicked hair, the cheap, dark suit. Eyes glinting in the night air. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. Jesus, no …
And yet, Vince Halliday was sitting, as bold as brass, in her garden smoking a cigarette.
“Looks like you’ve had your fun too,” Vince said, fixing her with his deep-blue eyes. “Nice set-up, Con. Vicar’s wife, eh? Who’d have thought? I laughed when I saw that.”
At first she couldn’t believe it. How was this possible? How had he found her? She couldn’t even really hear his words as her head swam with a seasick-like queasiness, half-hoping that this was some hallucination caused by too much sun in the fields.
“So what’s the angle with you being a vicar’s wife?”
“No angle,” she stammered. Connie steadied herself. She felt as if she wanted to throw up. This situation was so wrong. A sickening juxtaposition of two things that shouldn’t ever meet. This grubby bull wasn’t part of her world of jam-making, tea-drinking and church fund-raising. Wearing her apron, Connie suddenly felt like a fraud, a silly girl playing at being a vicar’s wife. It added to her own deepest fears that this was all some silly role-play. Who was she kidding thinking she could be a genteel lady? Who was she kidding thinking that she could escape?
As her mind focused and she snapped back to the moment, she knew one thing. She didn’t want this. She didn’t even want to ask what he wanted here, what he was doing. She just wanted him to go so she could pretend he’d never been here. Pretend he’d never soured the milk of her supposedly perfect life. But she found herself asking nonetheless.
“What do you want?” she managed, her voice shaky and small.
“Cup of tea would be a start.” He smiled, blowing smoke up into her face, adding to her feelings of nausea.
“My husband is here. He won’t take kindly to–” As she said it, she knew how empty and impotent her threat was.
“He’s not here, is he?” Vince still smiled, staying in his seat. Henry’s seat. Vince must have been watching the house, waiting for Henry to leave. How long had he been keeping tabs on them? “The vicar’s out, isn’t he?”
“Well he’ll be back soon,” Connie said, turning to the house and half-hoping that if she turned back the whole thing would have been a dream and Vince would have vanished into the night air like bad cigar smoke. But in a lightning-fast move, Vince grabbed her wrist, his grip strong and powerful. It wasn’t like the way Henry had grasped her the other night. This was visceral, animal-like, painful. She tried to pull her hand back, but to no avail. She wasn’t going anywhere. He looked at the small flowerpot in her other hand and grinned at her.
“Go on, give it a go.” He knew that she wouldn’t use it as a weapon. And even if she did, Connie knew that it might only make things worse. Connie let the small pot slip from her hand onto the grass. Thunk.
“Please. He will be back.”
“Good. Time I said hello, eh?” Vince let Connie go, her arm whiplashing back to her body. She nursed her wrist and was aware of something wet spreading on her stomach. Had she somehow been stabbed? In the woozy unreality of this moment, had Vince stabbed her? What had happened? And then she realised with some relief that during the struggle Esther’s egg had shattered in her apron pocket. The yolk was swilling around the fabric, but the white was seeping through the lining onto her dress.
Reluctantly and with deep foreboding, Connie led Vince to the house.
A brown stain splashed onto the white linen tablecloth. Connie cursed herself as she found it difficult to stop her hand shaking as she poured tea from the pot. Vince sat at the table, the place where she and Henry had their meals, a malignant force in their genteel home. Amused that most of the tea was residing in the saucer, Vince tipped it back into the cup as he scooped it up in his big hands.
“Relax, Connie. Anyone would think you wasn’t pleased to see me.”
“You drink that and you go,” Connie said with as much conviction as she could muster. Maybe if he drank it quickly he could be on his way before Henry got back from Dr Beauchamp’s house and then
she wouldn’t ever have to mention the matter. It could be tucked away with all the other old secrets from her life: the degrading acts, the humiliation, the illegal scams.
“I’ll go when I’m ready,” Vince said, his gaze firm and cold.
As he raised the cup to his lips and slurped it, Connie noticed for the first time that his hand was bandaged. A piece of cloth, perhaps a shirt sleeve, had been wound tightly round and pinned in place. But it was dirty and soaked with blooms of old blood. It was probably an old wound. A couple of days old at least.
“What happened to you?” Connie asked, surprised that she cared even that much.
Vince nodded as he contemplated the question. What would he tell her? Would it be the truth? Vince knew that truth didn’t always play as well as a good lie that could get you a bit of sympathy and a bed for the night.
“Some people are after me,” he offered flatly.
Connie’s eyes flickered with something approaching concern. Vince smiled warmly at her. She snapped out of it, defences up. Would it delay him leaving in any way? When could she get him to go?
Deciding that taking charge and blocking out all her conflicting feelings was the best way to move things along, Connie revealed that she worked at Hoxley Manor some evenings in the temporary military hospital as a helper on the wards. As she was used to dressing wounds and treating people, perhaps she could look at Vince’s hand before he left? The underlying message was that this favour would be all he would be getting from her.
Vince considered this and slurped his tea again. He winced suddenly. Connie knew that her tea-making was pretty poor but this seemed more than a reaction to that. Vince’s hand was playing him up. Feeling her legs shaking, she went to get the bandages from the bathroom.
Vince stretched out his arm, keeping it still on the table cloth, as Connie carefully unwrapped the makeshift bandage. It was stuck to the wound, so she had to gently tease it away, little by little, checking his reaction at each stage. Vince told her not to worry about the pain. He could take it.
“Remember that time I got me head cut?” He lowered his head and lifted up his fringe to show an old scar. Connie knew full well what it was. The result of a bar-room fight with two loan sharks that had seen Vince come off worse, for once. Connie had spent much of that night patching up Vince by candle-light in his one-room flat.
“Yeah.” Connie offered a tight smile, uneasy about being driven down memory lane.
He’d winced as she’d tried to clean that wound, so she’d stroked his hand as she’d done it. But tonight, a world away, she kept her mind on the job and her other hand on the table. He knew this too and regarded her with a wistful look. Perhaps he wished that he could turn back time.
Eventually she managed to remove the old dressing, wrapping it up on the table mat like a discarded snake’s skin. Now she turned her attention to his hand. The wound itself wasn’t pretty. A deep gash on the back of his hand, the skin around it flaming pink with infection. This looked serious. Was it a knife wound, she wondered? Connie tried not to let her face betray her.
“How did this happen?”
“Told you. People are after me.”
“Looks like they caught you, don’t it?”
Vince couldn’t help but smile at her humour. They glanced at each other and for a split second an old, and dangerous, chemistry was back. “Connie-” he started, but Connie shook her head, unwilling to hear the rest of what he wanted to say. Whatever it was, it would make her feel uneasy, awkward, and perhaps in some small way, regretful. Regretful? Really? Where had that come from? The saying was true, some things were better left unsaid.
Connie focused back on the wound. But she could feel Vince’s eyes burning into her.
“Does it need stitching?” he asked.
“No,” Connie lied, keen to get him out of her life; a clean break seeming more attractive than any other complication.
But Vince knew what she was doing. He saw the moment of doubt. He spotted the hesitation in her eyes as she spoke.
“Can you stitch it?” he persisted.
“Told you, it doesn’t need –”
Vince flashed a look of anger. “Don’t lie to me, Connie.” And suddenly Connie was plunged back into that fear she used to feel. The fear of his unpredictable nature and his sudden, violent mood swings. Suddenly she was two years younger, back in the East End. A lifetime ago. Her heart was pumping, an uneasy mix of fear and excitement. Adrenaline was coursing in her veins, and despite her misgivings, Connie felt energised and alive. It was wrong, but also worryingly familiar; the glimpse of an old life from behind the curtain of a new one. How could he make her feel so insecure, unsure of herself, in just one moment? This was dangerous. She couldn’t trust her feelings. She couldn’t think straight. But at a primal level, she knew that she had to get rid of him.
“Joyce, my friend Joyce, she’s done stitching before. I could take you to her.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Vince snorted. “You take me out of here and turn me over to the old Bill, is that it? After all we’ve been through.”
Connie went to protest.
“Didn’t stop you running out on me before, did it?” he muttered. She had no answer for that.
He shook his head and insisted that Connie do it. Despite her protests, he said that she’d better learn fast, hadn’t she? Hastily, he wrapped the new bandage around his hand and told Connie to pin it. He would keep that on for now, until she got back with the things she needed from Hoxley Manor. Connie was worried about leaving Vince alone in her house. What if Henry came back? He’d be shocked to find a strange man in his home and there was no guarantee that Vince wouldn’t attack him. And perhaps even worse – what would Vince say to Henry? What would he tell him? The past was a box best left closed. But what choice did Connie have?
Suddenly she had an idea. Hesitantly, Connie got to her feet and fumbled for her coat in the hallway. Vince came out and warned her that she’d better not go for help.
Again it was as if he was reading her mind. She’d already thought that she could head to the village hall rather than Hoxley Manor and ask the Home Guard officers there for help. Helmstead didn’t have a regular police force any more, with its two full-time bobbies conscripted and sent overseas, but the Home Guard managed to instill some sort of order into the town. They’d be able to help. Yes, that was a plan.
Vince opened his jacket a little to reveal the handle of a revolver sticking out of his waist band.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned.
Connie’s plan shrivelled and died.
“I’m not stupid,” she reassured him.
Her head swimming and feeling nauseous, Connie went outside, closing the front door behind her. She gulped in the fresh air, hoping it would give her the strength to walk away from the house; the strength to make her jelly-like legs work. She took a few steps and nearly stumbled. She waited for her head to clear and walked as confidently as she could to the gate at the end of the front garden, aware that Vince’s eyes would be on her the whole time. The man with the gun.
Connie moved off down the road. As she turned the corner she found herself on steadier legs. Mrs Gulliver was coming the other way with a prayer book in her hand. She scowled at Connie, but managed a strained smile and a good evening. Connie couldn’t reply. She walked straight on. Mrs Gulliver mumbled and grumbled about flighty women – and went on her way. She wasn’t a fan of Connie and this rudeness did nothing to change that view. But Connie had barely seen her. Suddenly Mrs Gulliver’s disapproval was small potatoes.
And then a strange salvation seemed to find her in the village square as Connie was nearly knocked over by a man on a push bike. It took her a moment to realise it was Henry. He looked at her quizzically, baffled that she barely seemed to recognise him. Connie started to babble about how she needed him to stay away, how she could handle this. Just give her a little time. As he tried to play catch-up, he recognised that it was the instinct that had k
ept her going on the streets of the East End and in the orphanage; a default survival mode. Finally, he held her by the shoulders and asked her what was going on.
“What’s happening now?”
The words stung. It was the implication that this was merely the latest unpleasant occurrence in a long line of misdemeanours. What had she messed up? What fresh hell was this? His troubled, long-suffering expression stung just as much. It seemed to say what a disappointment you are, Connie Carter. She felt like a child who had been misbehaving.
In a wavering voice, Connie admitted that Vince was back.
Henry didn’t know the name. Was this the guy who tried to ruin their wedding? Connie shook her head. Danny Sparks, another unwelcome blast from the past, had turned up days before their wedding with a plan to rob a petrol tanker from the US military. It didn’t go well. Connie felt queasy about the whole episode. She’d hoped that their marriage had been a clean slate and that Henry wouldn’t ever think back to what happened. Danny had threatened Connie and demanded that she leave Helmstead with him. He was going to hurt Finch. In order to save the people she cared for, she’d had no choice but to agree. Henry had saved her, displaying a rare moment of macho bravado that resulted in him knocking Danny out. At the time, it had felt like a euphoric display of his affection for Connie, but since then it had chipped away at Connie’s confidence. She didn’t feel worthy of this great and decent man; a man who had been forced to play the adult in their relationship; a man who seemed burdened by having to sort out the problems of her life. She never spoke about Danny to Henry, believing that the memory might fade away and become, at most, a small footnote to their happy lives together. But here she was, unearthing another slab of her gruesome past for him to sort out. Connie felt wretched.