Quiet Neighbors

by Catriona McPherson

  Jude nodded dumbly. She had told him. And he believed her. It was the truth and nothing but the truth, and it seemed to be plenty.

  Four

  Suddenly she was living in an Anne Tyler novel. A world where you can set down one life, walk away, and pick up another. It was almost too easy.

  “I don’t have any references,” she said. “I don’t have my National Insurance number.”

  Lowell’s eyebrows shot up. “No? No. Well, dear me, I was thinking of cash in hand, to be perfectly honest,” he said. “Yes. Um, National Insurance, quite.”

  “I don’t mind if you don’t mind,” said Jude.

  “And your work is your reference,” said Lowell, spreading his arms. “I mean, I can tell already.”

  They were round in the shop by this time. Jude had walked through the ground floor twice and calculated the stock there at twenty-five thousand volumes, the shelf space at capacity minus thirty percent. It didn’t seem like any kind of substitute for a letter of recommendation, but she wasn’t going to argue.

  “I only hope it won’t be too dull for you,” said Lowell, peering at her.

  Jude almost laughed. “I’m literally tingling,” she said, trying out more honesty on him. “My skin is itching.” He frowned and shook his head, and she smiled to suggest that literally had meant, as it usually did, anything but. “I mean, it’s an adventure playground. For a cataloguer.”

  “And would you mind serving the odd customer if I’m abroad?” He caught her look. “In the old-fashioned sense of ‘from home’ not ‘overseas.’ Dear me, no, not these days, at my advanced age. But there’s a sale coming up in Edinburgh, you see.”

  She opened her mouth to refuse, but then wondered. Two cops had let her slip through their fingers when she was pale and shaking. They’d hardly question her behind a counter. If they ever came in. And, in her experience, cops were not big readers.

  But still. Besides that, there was the reason she’d ended up in Cataloguing, where all the books were spanking new and creaked at the spine on first opening. It had hurt her heart up on the desks to see them coming back coffee-stained, old bus tickets and envelopes left in their pages. People had some filthy habits. Once, she’d found a condom wrapper. At least here, if someone took a book away, picked their nose and wiped their fingers, they wouldn’t be bringing it back again. And if any of the books already in here were past saving …

  “Problem?” asked Lowell.

  “Can I chuck them out if they’re vile?”

  His eyes widened. “It’s a small town,” he said, uncertainly, “and many of them are neighbours.”

  Jude took a beat and then laughed. “Not the customers,” she said. “The books. Grotty books. I mean, I see you’ve got a bit of a backlog, but you must chuck some out, right? Right?”

  “As you see fit,” said Lowell, although there was an odd note in his voice. “I leave it in your hands, my dear. The one thing I will stipulate is that you mustn’t … I mean, dear me, there’s no need for you to trouble yourself with … this material.”

  He turned to the walnut document chest that sat to the left of his table and waved his hand at the ranks, floor to shoulder, of shallow drawers.

  “Maps?” said Jude.

  “Photographs,” Lowell said. “And very dear to my heart. I mean, I’m fond of the books, but these are my true passion.”

  “I’ll steer clear,” said Jude. “Cataloguing pictures is a specialism anyway. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Splendid,” said Lowell. “That’s all settled then.” He tugged one of the brass handles and Jude stepped forward, assuming he was going to show off some of his collection—his true passion—but he was checking that the case was locked. “And, dear me, dear me, how can I put this?” he said. “As soon as you’re ready to return to London, you should feel absolutely free to go.”

  He meant it to be reassuring, but it caused a small weight to settle inside her chest.

  “Likewise,” she said. “As soon as you want the place to yourself again, just say the word.” He nodded, but he looked even glummer than she felt. “Or if it starts getting too expensive.”

  “Ah! Ah! Money!” he said. “Yes, quite. Well look, here’s some for now.” He took out a black leather wallet, fat and shiny like an aubergine, removed the notes without looking at them, just shoved them at her. “And, oh, here’s … Yes.” He rummaged in one of the cubby holes at the other side of his desk. “Ah, yes, I thought so. This is the spare key for the car. The garage is never locked, so just help yourself. For Marks and Spencers or Tesco, or anything you like. I mean, dear me, I think you look very pretty. Delightful. But if you want to pick up some of your own … things too. Dear me, yes of course, you’ll want to pick up some of those.”

  Jude was half sure he looked at her chest as he spoke, and she rounded her shoulders to let the thin dress fabric fall clear of her bare breasts. She counted the money for something to do and then raised her head.

  “There’s more than four hundred pounds here,” she said. “That’s far too much to hand over like petty cash.”

  “Oh, ah, yes, well, mm,” said Lowell. “Petty cash. Well, it’s not really bookshop money, I don’t suppose, strictly speaking. It’s more the picture side. But yes, you’re right. We should keep things shipshape for the tax man.”

  “Sorry,” said Jude, “I didn’t mean to be picky. I don’t know the first thing about running a business, never mind two.”

  “Two?” said Lowell.

  “The photography,” Jude said.

  “Oh! No, no, no,” Lowell said. “I don’t take photographs. Dear me, no. That spot of cash … well, I keep it handy for buying them. I’m a collector. No, I mean, L.G. Books is as poor as a church mouse, it’s true. As poor as a bookshop mouse, we could say. But Lowell Glen himself is well, dear me, not to be vulgar, but I’m fairly comfy. I can indulge my passion without too much sacrifice.”

  Jude tried not to raise her eyebrows. She had noticed that his shoes, like his chair, were mended with duct tape, and his towels had been as frayed as his cuffs.

  “I live quietly,” he said, acknowledging that her eyebrows had risen anyway. “And my grandmother, my mother’s mother, never forgave her for marrying a doctor. She was delighted with me—she saw me as a scholar, you know—and left me all her loot, in a trust, which I eventually managed to get my mitts on, despite some opposition.”

  Jude nodded as if she understood trusts and bequests and a doctor being an undesirable match.

  “So let’s call that a little gift, shall we?” Lowell said, nodding at the banknotes.

  Jude hesitated. She loved Anne Tyler, of course. All those instant new lives. But still she hesitated. Was this too good to be true? A friend, a job, a house, a wad of cash. No questions, no strings? Forty years of London rose up inside her and threatened to break through.

  Before she could speak, though, the shop door opened at the other end of the passageway, beyond the curtain, and a voice muttered, “Mess of the place! He must be turning in his grave.”

  “Oh dear,” Lowell whispered. “Well, this is a bit much for your very first morning. You can slip away into Crafts and Cooking, my dear.”

  “Customer service training?” said Jude, but she stepped back into the dark doorway.

  “She’s not exactly a cust—” Lowell began before the curtain was swept aside.

  “Mis-ter Glen.” The voice was clipped and tight, and Jude thought its owner must be from some other part of Scotland. She sounded nothing like the cheerful publicans and shopkeepers whose soft friendliness had charmed her last summer. She looked the same, though: an elderly woman, dressed as though for church in a coat with a brooch pinned to the lapel and a swipe of bright lipstick, like the Queen.

  “Mrs. Hewston,” said Lowell.

  “I’m here to help you, Mr. Glen,” she went on. “I
t’s that mess of briars on the fence.”

  “That mess of briars is a beautiful Rosa rugosa, Mrs. Hewston,” Lowell said. “And it’s on my side of our common fence, and perfectly pruned.”

  “There’s a bird’s nest in it,” the woman went on, sounding as though she were landing the knock-out blow.

  “I saw it,” said Lowell. “Finch, I think. A thing of wonder.”

  “A source of infection,” said Mrs. Hewston. “I know you decided against a career in health, Mr. Glen, and so it’s up to me to watch out for you. I never mind what I do for the good of the community.”

  Lowell shared a glance with Jude at this, and Mrs. Hewston swung round, following his look.

  “Oh!” she said. “You’re back, are you?”

  Jude stepped forward out of the gloom, and as she moved from silhouette into full light, the little woman put her hand up, fluttering, to her neck.

  “Oh!” she said again. “I beg your pardon.” She blinked and suddenly all the sharpness fell away, leaving her face naked and young-looking, although the liver spots and webs of wrinkles round her eyes put her well over seventy. Perhaps it was just that vulnerability always makes us think of infants, Jude decided. Tearful eyes too. And Mrs. Hewston’s eyes were swimming.

  “I’m getting old,” she said, “and it doesn’t come itself.” She turned to Lowell as though he had argued. “I’m fine! I’m coping better than many half my age.”

  “I don’t doubt it for an instant,” said Lowell. “Mrs. Hewston, allow me to introduce my colleague, Jude. She’s come up from London to help me with a special project for a while.”

  “London, is it?” said the woman, back to what Jude felt sure was her true self, sharp as a tack. “A special project at the house? Because I’m always happy to help if you need me.”

  “Here at the shop, Mrs. Hewston,” said Lowell. “Jude is a book person. There’s nothing happening at the house.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry for that,” Mrs. Hewston said. “I like my peace. Although something will have to be done someday. But for now, how do you do, Jude?”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Jude said.

  “Oh my! That’s London and no hiding it,” said the woman and left without a word of goodbye.

  Once the door had shut, Lowell let all of his breath go in a sigh that was halfway to a groan.

  “Mrs. Hewston. From next door. You’d better get used to her.”

  “Her house can’t be that close to your place,” said Jude, thinking that Jamaica House sat in the middle of gardens so generous you would almost believe you were right out in the country.

  Now Lowell groaned for real. “It’s worse than you think,” he said. “Her house is my place.”

  “She lives with you?”

  “No! Good grief! Heavens, no. Gosh. She lives in the bungalow. It was the surgery. My father built it in the sixties, state of the art for the time. It was supposed to be ready for me when I qualified and joined the practice. Then, when he retired and went south, he fitted it up as a house. It really is quite dreadful. The worst the decade could provide in the way of pebble-dash and what have you. And then he rented it out to his practice nurse for sheer spite because she’d always hated me.”

  “Can’t you—?”

  “She’s a sitting tenant with a lease like the Magna Carta. If she weren’t, you could take up residence.”

  “Oh, I’ll sort something out,” Jude said. There had to be a bed-and-breakfast near here somewhere, she reckoned. A cheap B&B run by someone house-proud but not inquisitive. It was an unlikely combination, she knew. Women laid-back enough not to wonder about their guests were too laid-back to clean. But she couldn’t live at Jamaica. She knew that coffee cup was still in Lowell’s bedroom near the newspaper. She knew he hadn’t rinsed out the mouldy jam pot before he’d thrown it in the bin.

  “Dear me, that’s a thought, actually,” Lowell said. “I am a chump, wittering on about Tesco and references. But I tell you what: go back round to Jamaica, right up to the top, up again from the bedrooms. See what you think.”

  He refused to say anything further, and so Jude left with no more than an hour’s work done for her four hundred pounds. If nothing else, she could take care of the coffee cup and the jam pot. He surely wouldn’t mind if she did all the dishes and gave the kitchen a wipe round.

  As she walked, though, she stopped thinking about it. The sea wasn’t close enough for her to hear the tide, but there were gulls circling and salt in the air. And she was rested too. She was wearing soft, bright clothes quite unfamiliar to her, the way the skirt eddied about her legs and the soft kiss of wool against her cheek from the borrowed scarf. Even her hair felt different. Washed with Lowell’s big bottle of supermarket shampoo and left to go its own way, it blew lightly back and forth across her brow, clean and dry, like the skeins of pale sand that sheet across a beach in a breeze. Her feet in the wool socks and borrowed clogs looked ridiculous but felt wonderful, the blisters from her funeral shoes cradled and unprotesting.

  This time, she noticed the surgery because she was looking. Dr. Glen had done his best to turn it into a home. There was a tacked-on chimney and a tacked-on porch, but its origins showed in the ramp up to the front door, the tubular steel handrail, and the row of small windows along the front wall, perfect for a dispensary, consulting room, and waiting room, perhaps, but mean things to live behind.

  As she walked around the side of the big house to the kitchen door, she caught one glance through a smeared window of faded curtains drawn back roughly, a jumble of spectacle cases, binoculars, books, magazines, and wine glasses on the inner windowsills. She turned to the rose beds instead, drinking in their neatness, feasting her eyes on the cobbled yard and breathing in the scent of those little purple flowers.

  “Not here. I’m not here.”

  She let herself in, thinking she would see what he meant about going up another floor then start the search for a B&B. How close was the nearest Travelodge? That would be anonymous and sterile. How far would four hundred pounds go?

  But then, at the bottom of the dark stairwell, she looked up and was surprised to see, high above, a clear and pale brightness. It grew as she climbed the stairs and, as she turned and climbed again, it opened and admitted her. She arrived on a little landing with white walls turned blue by the cold winter sunshine.

  There were two doors, one on either side. In the left-hand room, the walls were yellow and the window, tiny and deep-set, looked out over the front garden and across the fields and there was the sea! A low, slack ribbon of still water in a bay. There was a kitchen corner in here, with a small, square china sink on metal legs like something from a laboratory or—she realised—a medical surgery. And on a wooden counter beside it, a small fridge and a two-ring cooker were plugged into a single socket on a big square adaptor. There was no other furniture in the room and no carpet on the floor, just the bare, broad floorboards and the light bouncing around the coombs and angles, making a hundred shades of sunshine yellow.

  Jude stepped across the landing. This room was painted a pale medical pink and was utterly empty. It didn’t even have a window, just two small skylights, one on either slope of the ceiling. She imagined lying on a mattress on the floor looking up through them at the stars, knowing that, even if someone heard she was here and followed her north, in this room, at the top of this tall house, with its windows facing the sky, they still wouldn’t find her.

  Five

  It didn’t take Mrs. Hewston long to sniff her out. She got four days of peace—long enough for a shopping trip to Stranraer in Lowell’s ancient Volvo, long enough to choose a bed and a couch, a table and chairs to set about in the pale attic rooms; not to fill them, but just so that she could spend her days inside their emptiness. She cleaned the bathroom, boil-washed the towels. He didn’t mind; she suspected he didn’t notice. She put some of the tasselled, mirr
ored clothes from downstairs into a cupboard out on the landing, took some of the dishes and glasses Lowell pressed on her—“far too many, dear me, I never have dinner parties these days”—and, of course, she selected some books.

  Without a television, a computer, a phone, or even a radio, the small stack on her bedside table was a miser’s hoard of gold. O. Douglas was at the top of the pile, small and perfect with the fringe of a blue leather bookmark curling softly out from between its pages. Under it was a green Penguin of a Margery Allingham, one of the playful ones; a reprint of Midnight’s Children with a jacket like an album cover (she had always meant to read it one day); an old cloth-covered Rebecca, with fine floppy pages like a Bible; and one more, chosen solely for the picture on the jacket. It was the kind of book that didn’t exist anymore. It wasn’t a mystery, nor a romance, nor even what Lowell called Literature. It was simply a story, a ripping yarn, a tall tale of derring-do. It had an inheritance, a misunderstanding, and a small plane crashing in a desert, throwing two people together, man against wilderness and woman with man. The picture on the jacket, in perfect condition forty years later, showed the aftermath of the crash: sunset and scrubland and two people, the man strong and suave and the woman with a streak of dirt on one cheek and her hair escaping a chignon. She had even found time to tie her shirt in a knot just under her bosom and turn up the hems of her khaki trousers to show off her slim, brown ankles.

  Not what most people looked like as they hauled themselves away from the brink of near disaster and stood reeling, catching their breath. Not what Jude looked like as she tackled the bookshop, one room at a time, with rubber gloves and buttoned cuffs, her hair in a scarf and a paper mask on her face.

  By the fifth day, though, the shadows were gone from under her eyes and those odd yellow streaks that might be what people meant when they said “pinched” were gone from the sides of her nose too.