He’d been sitting on his own at a corner table in the Canaan Community Centre. In front of him was a cup of tea that he hadn’t touched. He’d leaned his walking stick against the table. When Ellie pottered in at her usual time, eleven on the dot, she became aware of a frostiness in the air. A dozen residents of Canaan were in the room, nibbling at digestive biscuits and reading headlines about social security scroungers in the Daily Express, but it was as if they’d deliberately chosen seats as far away from Norman’s as possible. She didn’t understand, either. Surely this was a time to show a united front? The thugs from the estate were a common enemy. All right, at present poor Norman was the target for their bad behaviour, but it could just as easily be somebody else. She could have understood it if people were thanking their lucky stars that they weren’t the object of the hooligans’ anger, but this silent hostility towards the old man made no sense. He looked as bewildered as he was unhappy and her heart went out to him. She made a point of going up to his table and drawing up a chair. A couple of women glanced at her and pursed their lips as if she were a teenage floosie, intending to chat up a bad hat. Stupid old biddies, Ellie thought, forgetting that she was five years their senior.
‘I couldn’t hear what they were shouting.’
Norman’s leathery cheeks reddened. ‘Filth. Utter filth.’
Ellie frowned. ‘It’s a disgrace.’
‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it,’ he said, his voice trembling.
Concerned, she leaned over the table. She was afraid he might be about to burst into tears. This was what those wicked people had done to this proud old man. They had stolen his peace of mind.
‘They are bullies,’ she said. ‘Cowards. They like to single out somebody who can’t fight back.’
He bowed his head. ‘What they were saying about me – it was horrible.’
‘You’re just an easy target. They think because someone is old and defenceless, they can get away with murder.’
He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Why me?’ he muttered into the tablecloth.
‘They don’t like anyone in Canaan. This isn’t about you, Norman.’
He looked up and cast a glance across the room. ‘Then why is everyone inside sending me to Coventry?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Even Mrs Billinge didn’t acknowledge me when I said hello.’
Ellie blinked. May Billinge was an old lady of eighty-two, sweet-natured to the point of child-like gullibility, who never had a bad word to say about anyone. Not even Jess, whose high-and-mighty attitude and sluttish dress sense provoked muttered disapproval in most of the residents of Canaan.
‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘You’re the innocent one.’
‘I feel like a bloody criminal.’
‘Nonsense!’
Despite himself, he mustered a faint smile. ‘That takes me back. Did you tell me you used to be a teacher? When I was a lad, I had a teacher who told me I used to talk nonsense.’
‘Have you spoken to Barry?’
‘He’s about as much use as a wet weekend.’
‘It’s his job to look after the Park. That includes looking after the residents’ health and safety.’
Norman shrugged. ‘He doesn’t wear the trousers anyhow.’
‘Then I’ll speak to Jess.’
He took a sip of his drink and pulled a face. ‘Stewed.’
‘She sorted things out last night.’
‘Aye.’ He sniffed. ‘In the end.’
Canaan Park benefited, as the brochure put it, from a cliff-top location, the northern tip of which overlooked the Irish Sea. The park was home to eighty caravans and a tattered banner over the entrance proclaimed it as The Promised Land. On the other side of the fence lay the council estate, a couple of pubs and the scattering of houses that comprised the rest of the village. The Centre was close to the park entrance and included a small launderette, cafeteria and bar. For eighteen months there had been a rumour that the owners planned to add a spa bath and swimming pool. Ellie expected to see pigs flying first.
The place needed money spending on it, she reflected as she trudged back along the path to her caravan. The fence cried out for a lick of paint and several panels were damaged. Canaan had a down-at-heel look, like a pit village after the mines stopped working. It hadn’t kept up with the times and the facilities scarcely compared with those at other parks dotted along the coast. Each year the owners put up the service charge, but residents never seemed to have much to show for it. Of course, they could vote with their feet and move elsewhere, but that wasn’t as easy as it seemed. If you sold your caravan – mobile home was a phrase that Ellie never had much truck with – back to the company, you would only be paid buttons, and finding any other purchaser was next to impossible. Caravans in many parks were just second homes, but most of Canaan’s residents lived here all the year round. At least there was a community atmosphere, that meant a lot to Ellie. But now those wicked people spent their nights shouting vile things at Norman. And even May Billinge didn’t have a kind word for him.
The sun was blazing down. Wiping a trace of sweat from her wrinkled brow, she asked herself why her fellow residents were being cruel to Norman. She could only assume that such unfairness was borne of fear. Last night the commotion had been loud enough to wake someone living at the other end of the park. Most of the residents were past retirement age, many were nervous or infirm. Perhaps they blamed Norman, thought that somehow he’d brought trouble to Canaan. But he’d lived here for years, he deserved respect. She must talk to Jess, explain the need for everyone to rally round their neighbour.
On the other side of the fence ran the lane, linking the last handful of council semis with the coastal path. Phone wires ran from ugly telegraph poles on either side of the lane. Someone with a pot of yellow emulsion had painted graffiti on the remains of a burned-out car. A few yards away lay a rusting supermarket trolley, although the nearest Tesco was a mile distant. There was always a lot of rubbish in the lane. People reckoned you could find used condoms, syringes and other disgusting stuff if you bothered to look. Ellie preferred not to think about it.
Ahead of her sprawled the Irish Sea, lovely and eternal. She adored the view out over the water and counted herself blessed that, when she woke up each morning and drew her blinds, the first thing she saw was the vast blue expanse, perhaps with a boat or two bobbing up and down in the distance. On one of her all too infrequent visits, her young niece Sara had sighed with pleasure at the sight.
‘A view to die for!’
In her own mind, Ellie had decided that she would like to die here. Much better than being left to rot in some ghastly nursing home. Not that she had any intention of dying yet.
Two caravans were perched on the edge of the cliff, a hundred yards (Ellie refused to have anything to do with metres or any other foreign unit of measurement) from the rest of the site. Her own pride and joy, with its colourful window boxes and gaily patterned blinds, formed a triangle with Norman’s caravan and the whitewashed cottage – built long before the caravans came to the tip of land known as Canaan – where the Park Manager lived with his wife. And their dogs.
In Ellie’s book, things had never been the same since Barry’s predecessor, a nice man called Vincent with an even nicer wife known as Mo, had decided to pack in his job six months ago to manage a pub in Lytham St Annes. Rumour had it that the owners weren’t sorry to see the back of the couple, since Vincent and Mo were ready and willing to pass on complaints or requests for additional facilities. Barry was a different kettle of fish altogether. As for Jess…
But needs must. Ellie made her way towards the cottage and knocked politely on the door.
‘I blame the parents,’ Barry said.
They were sitting in his living room, with its splendid view of the sea. Ellie couldn’t fault him for hospitality. He’d brewed up as soon as he saw her on his doorstep and had produced packets of fondant fancies and custard
creams to accompany their tea. No wonder he was so fat, he was constantly scoffing cake and biscuits. Never mind about spoiling lunch, he said with a conspiratorial smirk. If friends and neighbours couldn’t sin together, who could?
Ellie didn’t consider Barry or his wife as friends. She didn’t think of herself as a snob, but she couldn’t forget that the Park Manager was someone whose time (and, presumably, whose sweet tooth) she paid for, out of that increasingly burdensome service charge. Not that it mattered. All she cared about was ensuring that the events of the previous night were never repeated. The trouble was, Barry didn’t have anything to offer beyond tea and sympathy.
‘The question is,’ she said with asperity, ‘what will you do if we have the same disgraceful performance tonight? Or on any other night, come to that?’
‘Look, Ellie, I’ll be honest with you.’
Ellie wrinkled her nose. A man with better manners would have asked her permission before using her first name in such a familiar fashion. Besides, in her experience, people who made a point of telling you they were honest were invariably feckless and unreliable, if not downright deceitful. Sometimes they tried to sell you timeshares in Spain.
‘The fact is, nobody likes mob rule…’
‘It’s dangerous.’
‘Well, yes… but some might say Norman only has himself to blame for what’s happened over the past couple of nights.’
‘What?’ In her outrage, Ellie almost choked on her custard cream.
Barry puffed out ruddy cheeks. He might have passed for a well-fed gentleman farmer, had it not been for the fact that as soon as he opened his mouth, you could tell he was no gentleman. ‘I’ll be blunt, Ellie. Some very nasty stories are doing the rounds.’
‘Stories? What about?’
‘Norman’s behaviour.’
‘What on earth are you implying?’
Barry guzzled a fondant fancy. ‘I’m not implying anything. All I can tell you is that I’ve heard tell that he has been behaving – inappropriately.’
‘Inappropriately?’
Barry assumed a solemn expression. ‘With young boys.’
‘Norman? Is this some kind of joke? If so, it’s in appalling taste. An allegation of that kind is extremely serious. Actionable, I shouldn’t wonder.’
Barry sighed. ‘I don’t know the gory details. This is all third hand, it’s…’
‘Tittle tattle!’ Ellie banged her cup on the side table. ‘Baseless innuendo! Vindictive claptrap!’
‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’m afraid Norman may have one or two skeletons in his cupboard that none of us were aware of.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it. Who are these boys? I’ve not seen any young boys coming to his door.’
‘With due respect, Ellie, you’re not keeping his home under round the clock surveillance, are you?’ Barry stroked his stomach, as if wondering whether it could accommodate anything more. ‘And besides, I’m not sure that these unsavoury incidents – whatever they consist of – have always taken place at Norman’s.’
‘But he hardly ever goes out! He’s disabled. You’ve seen for yourself, he can’t manage more than a couple of paces without his stick. It’s all he can manage to toddle down to the Centre.’
Barry belched. ‘I’m not his keeper, Ellie. But if I may say so, neither are you. From what I’ve heard, we don’t know the half of it, where Norman is concerned.’
Ellie’s reply was stillborn as the door to the cottage crashed open. At once the house was filled with the barking of Barry’s dogs. Jess was screaming at them to shut up, swearing wildly. A tide of anxiety swept through Ellie. She thought of herself as an animal lover, but these dogs were brutes. Pit bull terriers, scowling and savage in demeanour, their tempers roughened by the heatwave. Until the past two nights, she’d consoled herself with the reflection that at least they offered a guarantee of security. No intruder in his right mind would want to make an enemy of those dogs. They presented a terrifying prospect even when safely tethered. But not even their barking had deterred the people outside from tormenting Norman with their vile lies.
And she did believe that they were vile lies. She prided herself on her judgement of character, and could not conceive of having been so mistaken about the man. Even though a small voice in her head whispered: but you can’t really claim that you know him, can you?
The dogs fell silent and Barry called out, ‘We have a visitor.’
His wife strode into the sitting room. ‘Those bloody beasts, they nearly took a chunk out of my hand. They’ll have to be punished. Nothing to eat for forty-eight hours.’
She smoothed back her chestnut hair. Dyed, of course, but undeniably glamorous. Jess took care of her appearance, Ellie had to give her that. Too much care, actually. The purple nail varnish, glossy lipstick and black eye-liner seemed better suited to a sleazy night club than to Canaan Caravan Park. The woman was forty if she was a day, but dressed as a teenager might. Tight tops and excessively revealing skirts were par for the course. Today she was wearing a pair of faded jeans, but they still clung to her buttocks in a way that Ellie regarded as unseemly. There was a phrase for women like Jess, although it belonged to Ellie’s youth, and she hadn’t heard it in years. No better than she ought to be.
‘And how are we today?’ Jess’s accent always grated with Ellie, a Liverpudlian born and bred. Jess came from Newcastle, and her Geordie accent was broad and uncompromising.
‘Fine, thank you.’
Ellie’s voice was stiff with ill-concealed resentment. Jess raised her voice and spoke with exaggerated care whenever they had a conversation. As if she pigeon-holed Ellie not only as deaf but also rather stupid. In truth, it was nothing personal. Jess treated every resident more than ten years her senior exactly the same.
Barry cleared his throat. ‘I was saying – about Norman.’
Jess grimaced. ‘The less said about the way he carries on, the better.’
‘I’ve lived next door to him for years,’ Ellie protested. ‘He doesn’t carry on at all.’
‘Well, I don’t know.’ Jess did not actually say There’s none so blind as those who will not see – but her expression implied it.
‘He’s a harmless old man!’
‘Listen, pet, I understand. And whatever’s gone on, we can’t condone law-breaking. Or violence towards residents. Why do you think I went out there last night and took them on?’
Even though she hated to be patronised, Ellie was forced to say, ‘It was a good job you did. It was brave.’
‘All part of the service, pet. But I can’t do that every night. He has to see reason. You know what I think?’
‘What?’
‘He needs to move away.’
‘Leave Canaan?’ Ellie was horrified. ‘It’s impossible. Where else would he go? The company only pays a pittance when it buys back our caravans.’
Jess frowned. ‘Listen, I’m not suggesting that he leaves the Park. The thing is, where Norman lives, he’s exposed. Right next to a fence with broken panels…’
‘The owners should get them repaired!’
‘And do you think those lads wouldn’t break them down again the next night?’ Jess retorted. ‘That’s no solution, pet. No, what Norman needs is a new caravan. There’s a pitch on the path that runs up from the main building, you must have seen, it’s been vacant for months. Right in the middle of the park. If he moved there, no one from outside could get at him there. I made enquiries of top management yesterday morning, after the rumpus the previous night. They authorised me to offer the move.’
‘But what would happen to his own caravan?’
‘As a matter of luck, we could sort that for him,’ Barry said. ‘My own mother’s looking to move here. She’s not been happy in the flat in Rhyl since Dad died, she’d be willing to offer Norman top whack. Far more than he could get from the company or on the open market. He could switch to a 23 foot caravan – I know it’s smaller, but for Heaven’s sake, how much space does an old man
like Norman need? – and be quids in.’
‘He won’t agree.’
‘But that way, everyone wins,’ Jess said. ‘Barry’s Mum gets to live next door to us and Norman moves somewhere safer, out of range of the hooligans. Obviously, then it’s down to him to make his peace with the other residents. But we’d do our best to calm the waters, obviously.’
Barry nodded. ‘Tell everyone there’s been a terrible misunderstanding.’
‘Which makes it all the more disappointing that Norman is digging in his heels,’ Jess said. ‘He wouldn’t agree to a move when I put the idea to him. It’s pride, that’s all. In fact, I did wonder…’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, pet, you seem to get on with him better than anyone else. Would you be willing to have a word?’
‘I won’t hear of it,’ Norman said.
‘But don’t you see?’ Ellie was almost pleading, not something that came readily to her. She hated to acknowledge it, but Barry and Jess were at least doing their best to achieve a tolerable solution. Groping for the modish cliché, she said, ‘For once in his life, Barry’s right. It’s a win-win situation.’
Norman drew himself up to his full height. In his prime, he must have been a fine figure of a man. ‘That’s not the point, Ellie. It’s not even the point that those smaller caravans don’t give you room to swing a cat. Or that the site is the worst in Canaan – and my goodness, that’s saying something.’
‘What, then?’ But Ellie guessed the answer even before he gave it.
‘I can’t allow some dirty-minded youngsters to drive me out of my own home. If there’s any repetition of that sort of behaviour this evening, I won’t leave it to Barry. He’s a useless article anyway. I’ll call the police myself.’
‘And how long do you think it will take them to get here? Last night they never even arrived. Despite promising Jess they would come over. You can’t rely on them, they’re too busy filling in forms these days.’
They were standing outside the door to Norman’s caravan. Through the broken fencing, the lane from the council estate appeared deserted. In the distance, Ellie could see a middle-aged woman with a shopping basket, heading past the burned-out car for one of the semi-detached houses. The boarded-up window on the caravan was the only clue to the previous night’s uproar, the only reason not to believe that she’d imagined the whole terrible affair, and that this truly was a haven of undisturbed tranquillity, a promised land. Norman gazed over her shoulder and out to sea before replying.
Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories Page 3