by Mona Marple
Her stomach flipped as she walked, focused on one step in front of the other, heartbeat pounding in her ears.
The old man scared her, which was not surprising as that was his intention.
It was madness to visit him, alone.
To not tell anyone where she was going.
She thought that Tom might guess, from her voicemail, but he was on shift at The Tweed and wouldn’t check his phone until after he’d locked up. That was hours away.
Sandy wondered whether to turn and walk away, to return another day with back-up, or to forget the whole thing entirely.
But then she remembered Anastasia’s devastation, her certainty that Gurdip hadn’t fallen.
Nobody else was helping the widow.
It was down to Sandy.
She marched onward, leaving the path and traipsing through the long grass, almost stumbling twice in unseen dips and holes, until she reached the farmhouse, a sturdy stone building with single-pane windows, and a stream of smoke puffing out of the chimney.
She tapped twice, loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to cause concern, and waited.
And waited.
She tapped again, more forcefully, and the door opened with her touch, revealing a dark corridor lined with photographs. Dozens of photographs. Sandy tried not to look, surprised by their presence and understanding their significance. Victor Dent was not a man who would want her to scrutinise his photographs.
“Mr Dent?” She called, already telling herself that he was out, that he was a farmer who would be busy with his farm work, not sitting at home for her visit.
“In here!” A strangled voice came, and Sandy forgot her nerves and darted down the hallway, following the voice.
Victor Dent was sprawled on the floor in the kitchen, same moth-eaten jumper on, eyes swimming with pain.
“Oh my, it’s me Mr Dent, Sandy, from the village. Are you okay?”
He attempted to sit up but groaned.
“Don’t try to move, I’ll call an ambulance. What happened?”
“Making a drink.” He said, eyes darting to the work surface where a china cup filled with water and a teabag stood. “Didn’t see the water had spilt, fell all my length.”
“Okay. Let me get an ambulance.”
“No, don’t!” He protested. “They’ll have Social Services all over this place. I don’t want no-one questioning whether I can live alone.”
“But if you can’t move, Mr Dent…”
“Victor, for cripes sake. Am I really that ancient that I’ve stopped having a first name? Ere, hold my arm, I’ll be ‘rate now.”
“I really think we should get some medical help.” Sandy said.
Victor Dent glared at her, then, with sheer stubbornness, pushed himself to a sitting position, every movement forcing a gasp out of him.
“Okay?” Sandy asked. “Take it steady.”
“Take it steady.” He repeated, mocking. Sandy looked at him and thought that Cass would love to get her wax on his eyebrows. They were so long they almost met his eyelashes, as if his facial hair was creating a prison to trap his face in.
“Now, get my stick, over there.” He pointed back down the hall, to the front door. Sandy saw it, a beautiful walking stick topped with a golden eagle. Over the banister hung a black suit jacket, covered in a thick layer of dust.
“Help me up.” Victor commanded, and Sandy gripped under his arms, close enough to be surprised by the fresh soap scent from his body. Once standing, he clung to the walking stick with his right hand and Sandy held on to his left arm. “In here, this is where I live.”
The back room was old-fashioned and dusty, the wallpaper thick and dark green, curtains to match. Sandy guided him to a high-backed chair, one chosen for practicality not appearance, and stood in front of him.
“Shall I finish that tea off for you?” She asked, amazed by the man’s strength and wary of leaving him alone.
“Two sugars.” He said, then flashed her a smile, revealing a perfect white set of dentures. “Get yourself one, lass.”
Sandy didn’t get herself one, mainly because of spotting what she was sure were mouse droppings on the kitchen counter. She picked a clean cup - china again, pink rose design - for Victor and gave it a thorough wash with hot water. She couldn’t see washing up liquid and didn’t want to go through his cupboards more than she needed to.
“Here you go, tea with two sugars. That’ll do you good. How are you feeling now, where does it hurt?”
He erupted into a mix of a laugh and a coughing fit. “Where does it hurt? That’s a good one. Hurts everywhere, has done for years.”
“Are you sure you don’t want -”
“I’ve already told you, no.”
“Okay.” Sandy said. “Well, I’d like to stay for a bit and just keep an eye on you, would that be ok?”
To her surprise, he shrugged indifference.
“It’s a lovely big farmhouse.”
“Too big.” He moaned. “But I’ll not leave.”
“Do you find it hard looking after it all?”
“I’m not here, am I?” He asked. “I’m out there. This place is just to rest my head, have a cup of tea but I can’t even do that right.”
“We all have accidents.” Sandy said with a weak smile. She heard the condescending tone of her own voice, as if she were talking to a small child who had just wet their big girl pants.
“What were you doing out here anyway?”
“I came to see you.” Sandy admitted. “Glad I did, now.”
“Hmm… what do you want to come and see an old man like me for?”
“You sounded really angry the other night.”
He looked at her blankly.
“Do you remember? You came out to me and my, erm, Tom. We were at Black Rock.”
Victor Dent rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t remember you. I go out to twenty people a day on there!”
“Why does it bother you so much, them being there?” Sandy asked.
“Is that what you came to ask me?” Victor asked, holding her gaze, his mouth stern, thin lines, downturned.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
Victor sighed, lost in his thoughts. He reached across to the coffee table next to his chair and picked up a photo frame. Gazed at it, a smile creeping across his face, then held it out to Sandy.
It was old, the photograph dated by it’s low resolution. In it, a young man stood atop Black Rock, a border collie by his side, a grin on his face.
“Travis.” Victor said, the word costing him something visceral.
“Travis? He looks happy.”
“He was.”
Sandy looked up at him, encouraging him to continue. To speak, to share the pain that she suspected he had hidden for years.
“My son.” Victor croaked, tears escaping him. He wiped them away with a furious, shaky hand. “Black Rock’s his.”
“You’re protecting the land for him.” Sandy said.
He nodded. “He was only 26. No age. No age at all.”
“What happened to him, Victor?” Sandy asked.
“Nobody can tell us.” He admitted, and began to weep, his cry soft and quiet, desperate. “They found his body, at least. We got to bury him. But they can’t say what happened.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sandy said, feeling herself choke up. Her heart broke for Victor Dent, for the questions he had that wouldn’t be answered, the son he wouldn’t see grow to inherit Black Rock, and the return each night to this ramshackle house filled with memories.
“Twenty years since I heard his voice.” Victor said.
Sandy reached across the space between them and held the old man’s hand in hers.
“That’s why you don’t want people on Black Rock. Why not just tell them that, Victor? People would understand.”
He shook his head violently. “People don’t need to know my business. I can’t use his name like that, as if it’s gossip.”
“People think you killed Gurdip.�
�
The words startled him. “Me? Kill someone?”
“I don’t think you did it, Victor, but that’s the reputation you’re building by being so angry. People are scared of you.”
Victor reached back to the coffee table and handed Sandy another photo frame, this one clearly showing Victor himself as the proud groom, standing next to a beautiful bride.
“She left because she was scared, too.” Victor admitted. “Valerie. We tried to hold it together, but you can’t lose a child and hold it together. She turned to God, I turned to hate. When she left, I was glad. All I wanted was my boy, not that stupid woman with her Bibles and her praying for everyone and everything. As if anyone needed more prayers than our boy. And then she left, scared I’d hit her the next time. Who knows, maybe I would. Maybe people should be scared.”
“I’m not scared.” Sandy said, the honesty of the words surprising her. “I think you’ve been through something awful, and you’ve hidden yourself away when there’s a whole village ready to support you.”
“Nah, my bridges are burnt down there.”
Sandy smiled and shook her head. “You’ve got one fan left at least.”
He looked at her, head cocked to one side.
“Dorie.” Sandy explained. “She won’t hear a bad word about you.”
“Ah… yes. A loss sends most people running, you know. They come to the funeral but then they think life carries on, and it doesn’t. Dorie was good, good to Valerie. She knew loss, she knew it didn’t go away after the funeral.”
Sandy nodded. Grief. The common thread creating the most unexpected relationships.
“How is she? Haven’t seen her in years.”
“She’s good.” Sandy said. “Dealing with her loneliness in her own way, I think. Being around people helps her.”
“Nothing subtle about you, is there?” Victor said with a laugh.
Sandy flushed but grinned. “I own the cafe in the village. I’d really like you to come in, when you’re feeling better. And I promise you a warm welcome.”
Victor considered the request and nodded, slowly.
“I think maybe it’s time you stopped isolating yourself. I’m sure your son wouldn’t want that to be your life.”
Victor began to cry again at the mention of Travis.
“I liked Gurdip.” He said. “He was alright. He’d come and knock me up sometimes, see how I was. I know about losing someone, lass, there’s no way I’d put another person through that. Unless…”
Sandy watched him, saw the softness disappear from his eyes.
“Unless they can tell me who took my boy. Then I’d do it. So, no, I didn’t kill Gurdip. I’m saving myself. Saving myself for someone who deserves it. It’s been a long time coming.”
Sandy swallowed and nodded her head.
It was a pointless argument, and one she might not want to have in any event.
If Victor did find out who had killed his son, could she blame him for wanting to exact revenge?
Surely, even his religious wife wouldn’t criticise him. Didn’t the Bible itself advise: an eye for an eye?
**
Sandy settled Victor for the night, him ferociously refusing her suggestion that she help him upstairs to bed.
She glanced at the photographs in the hall on her way out.
Every single one showing the boy he had loved and lost.
She trudged back through the grass, along the footpath, and towards Black Rock, where she allowed herself to stand for a moment, imagining the future Victor had planned.
She began to cry and looked down as she saw something caught under a stone near her feet.
She bent down and pulled at the soft piece of fabric, dirtied by the elements.
A handkerchief.
She clasped it in her hand, her fingers rubbing away at the dirt, until a pattern was revealed in one corner.
A swirl, no not a pattern, but writing.
Letters.
The handkerchief, obviously well-made, fine quality and craftsmanship, embossed in the corner:
PH
11
Sandy had refused the offers from friends to attend the funeral together, knowing that she wouldn’t have time to stand in the church and pay her final respects and have the food prepared in time for the wake.
Bernice had insisted that she also skip the service to help, even though it fell on a day she wouldn’t usually work, and Sandy had been relieved.
“It’s all going to work fine.” Bernice reassured her as they retreated to the back of Books and Bakes, leaving Coral and Derrick to manage the front of house.
The kitchen had been transformed to a treasure trove of fresh food. The counters were stacked high with plump, red tomatoes, large spring onions, fresh gem lettuce, cucumbers bigger than Sandy had ever seen before.
She’d visited the farm shop on the outskirts of the village, paying their inflated prices for their hand-reared produce, and had asked Anastasia for potatoes out of her own garden, and the potato salad recipe. The request had made the woman weep again, fiddling with the gold cross around her neck as she abandoned her half-dragged cigarette in an ashtray on the dining table.
She didn’t know the recipe, she’d confessed. It was Gurdip’s not hers. She thought it was mayonnaise with a little mustard, chopped spring onions, maybe chives too. Lots of sea salt and black pepper.
The potato salad would be the focal point of the buffet, and Sandy was left trying to recreate a dead man’s recipe. The thought made her insides churn.
“Come on, no time to flap now.” Bernice commanded, and Sandy was once again grateful for her no-nonsense attitude. “The potatoes need to be getting on, you want to chop?”
“Yes, captain.” Sandy teased, but she was happy to follow orders. Bernice was much better at following through with a well-organised plan than she was.
“Okay. So, we’ll have the potato salad, the quiches’ll be done in a minute so they’ll cool nicely, I’ll make us a nice salad.”
“Thanks, B.” Sandy said as she pulled a knife out of a drawer. She placed it down on the cutting board then washed her hands, enjoying the meditative routine of it. She was always careful to wash the length of each finger as well as the spots in between.
“How’s Anastasia doing?” Bernice asked as she chopped lengths of gem lettuce and tossed them into a large salad bowl.
“As you’d expect.” Sandy said. “I worry for her because I don’t know who she knows really, who she’s got to talk to and stuff.”
“She might not be a talker.”
“True.” Sandy said with a nod. She fell into a rhythm as she chopped the potatoes into two chunks each, dropping the pieces into a large pan.
“These tomatoes smell amazing.” Bernice gushed, holding a tomato under Sandy’s nose. She sniffed obediently.
“You get what you pay for.” Sandy said with a laugh, although the smell was glorious. It was the smell of one more bounce on the trampoline before bed, the smell of spending all day in the garden in a swimming costume while her mother tried to concentrate on reading a book, hidden beneath enormous sunglasses that scared Sandy, in case her mum stopped being her mum when her eyes were hidden. “Smells like childhood.”
“Closest we’ll get now.” Bernice said, returning her attention to the chopping.
“Would you like to go back in time to your childhood?” Sandy asked as she poured boiling water into the pan and turned on the gas, adding a sprinkle of sea salt to the water.
“Nah.” Bernice said. “I think I prefer being the grown up. I was never too good at being a carefree kid.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Sandy admitted. “I’d love to be a kid again, just for a bit. The days were so endless then, weren’t they? Everything seemed bigger.”
Bernice glanced around at her. “Set a timer on those potatoes.”
Sandy set the timer and, when she was sure Bernice wasn’t watching, rolled her eyes, enjoying the feeling of being a naughty chil
d once more.
**
The Tweed was full of mourners.
It felt as though the whole of the village had turned out to say farewell to Gurdip, all dressed in their darkest colours, faces sombre until they spotted the food and exclaimed over it.
Sandy had typed a note explaining that the fresh buffet was inspired by Gurdip’s love of fresh, homegrown produce, and ending with an invitation for the mourners to pick up a plate, tuck in, and join Anastasia in enjoying this meal in Gurdip’s memory.
Several mourners became watery-eyed when they read the note.
Dorie Slaughter read it first, of course, and let out a small, strangled cry, before composing herself. She nodded her head repeatedly as she piled her plate high with the natural feast, then caught Sandy’s eye. The connection caused a single tear to drip down her cheek, and Sandy wondered how much of her sorrow was for Gurdip, and how much was the memory of losing her own husband years before.
Felix Bartholomew, dressed as smart as he was on any other day, followed Dorie and took a seat beside her. Sandy watched as he clasped his hand in hers and gave her a reassuring smile, even as his own lips wobbled. Watching the two, both widowed, made Sandy’s heart smile and break at the same time.
“A good man.” Benedict Harlow murmured as he worked his way down the food tables with his wife and son by his side. “A good man, indeed, and what a wonderful feast in his honour.”
“Good job, Sandy.” Sebastian said with a wink. The young man’s constant flirting was harmless and she shook her head in his direction with a smile.
“The famous potato salad.” Benedict exclaimed as his wife dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. “Let’s give it a whirl.”
Sandy glanced at Bernice.
“Where’s Anastasia?” She asked.
Bernice shrugged. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Hmm, I hope she’s okay.”
“She might just need a minute to compose herself.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Sandy said doubtfully. Anastasia had been so keen to see the food, to ensure it was right, it was strange that she wasn’t present.