by Shawna Lewis
Her hands moved slowly from his shoulders to his neck. She stroked as she would to comfort a hurt child, graduating her touch, adding pressure as her fingers swept round his ears, tugged gently at the lobes and round again to his nape. Hands moved tenderly, caressingly over his skull, stroking then kneading, pausing to increase the pressure where she felt tension, and finally round the rim of each eye socket.
She’d learnt how to do this at the village hall, when they’d run an aromatherapy course with a final session on Indian head massage. Bel knew she wasn’t following all the rules, but it always calmed Melanie down when she was in a state after other girls had been cruel to her. Melanie’s horrified face appeared in her mother’s head at the same instant that Bud spun round on the stool.
He buried his wet face in her midriff where the cord of her wrap had come loose. Strong arms wrapped forcefully round her hips. She could feel his tears through her nightie. Thank goodness she was wearing the new one she’d got for Christmas.
“I wish I’d had a mother like you!” he blubbered through snot and tears.
Aghast, she pulled away and stepped into the tiny en suite bathroom to compose herself.
A mother like her? How old did he think she was?
By the time she returned, Bud was sprawled on his back on the plum-coloured counterpane, asleep.
Top Tips for Boys:
1.Never mention your mother during foreplay.
2.The one exposed testicle is not a good look on a recumbent man.
From her vantage point at the foot of the bed, Bel could see that the sole of his right foot bore a tattoo. Twisting her head, she was able to read, in blue lettering intertwined with red roses, the word Mother. So, Bud’s father was not the only one who treated the poor woman like a doormat! Her sympathy evaporated. No excuse could cut the mustard with her.
She eyed the man with distaste. There was to be no seduction, though she could claim to have had a strange man in her bed if anybody asked…well, on it. Desperately tired, her every sinew burning, awash with fresh air, she slipped between the sheets on the other side of the bed. No-one would know.
As she reached to turn off the bedside lamp, the pleasant scent of deodorant and talc wafted from her own body. She buried her face in her armpit to block out the stench of belched beer fumes and flatulence. Doug’s underpants always fitted snugly.
She reached out again for her phone and typed in the text, “Great day. Missing you. Love you all.” She pressed SEND and fell asleep.
*
Some time around 4.30 she became aware of someone urinating from on high into the en suite loo, but turned over and slept on. By the time her alarm sounded, Belinda lay alone. Embarrassment flared, but if she could play it cool she might get away with it. At breakfast, feigning nonchalance, she helped herself to cereal. An oddly-matched elderly couple at the next table nodded politely and continued with their scrambled eggs. The woman was tall and large; her husband short, slight, with a tonsure-like bald patch set amongst hair of a wiry pale grey.
When Ron came to take her order, he eyed her cautiously.
“Tell you about his father, did he?”
He knew! Belinda’s face turned puce; her breath caught in her throat.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s cremated four fathers to my knowledge. A bit of a regular, is our Daryl.”
“Nothing happened!” she whispered, shamed.
“Never does. I reckon his mother was a serial monogamist. Our Margaret works at the care home she’s in nowadays. Reckons she’s always climbing into some old geezer’s bed. No wonder Daryl’s a bit of a mess. You have to feel sorry for him. Never had much of a chance, from what I can tell.”
Bel sat silent.
“Listen, love, don’t worry about it. We get all sorts in here, each with their own tragedies and problems. No-one tells tales and we’ve all got skeletons in the cupboard.” He poured her tea and went back to the kitchen.
So that was her hunk! He must be given his comeuppance. Wished he’d had a mother like her, did he? Well, she’d show him just what a mother like her was capable of.
Belinda found herself increasingly belligerent nowadays; outwardly mousy and compliant, in her head she was a harridan. The experiment begun months ago was having some effect, although it wasn’t making her happier and as yet was barely visible to the outside world. Candy Dunne had been her only victim so far, but Bud-bloody-Baxter was next on the list.
He’d very nearly attempted to take advantage of the mother of Bel’s children, and tacitly insulted her by not following it through. Her very honour had been sullied: it seemed to be common knowledge at Hepworth House that, semi-naked, he’d come to her room at the dead of night. His sobs had been heard through the walls. The creaking of the bed, the bellow of his snores and even the cataract of his urination had resounded through floor and ceiling and along the landings. She had been shamed.
Even worse, according to Ron the proprietor, she hadn’t been the first.
She hadn’t encouraged him. She’d been nothing short of demure. No – Dashing Daryl would have to learn that he’d messed with the wrong person. He had messed with a woman who knew how to handle a chisel.
*
Like raindrops falling on an upturned bucket, the tapping of mallets on chisels rang through the woods next morning. Belinda, chastened, gathered her tools from their place and resumed work on her project. Others, already in full concentration mode, acknowledged her with a smile or raised eyebrow.
Few masterpieces were yet in evidence, although it was plain that some were destined to be sculptures, while others would remain chunks of carved wood. Belinda already recognised that her own work would fall into the latter category.
It was relaxing: good to empty the mind again and let the shame seep away. When she imagined the chisel against Bud’s shaven head, her action with the mallet intensified. It felt good. Food for thought.
Marnie arrived late, fag dropping trenchant ash as she passed Bel’s area with a wave but without stopping, en route to collect her tools. Ambrose and Paul wandered by from time to time with words of guidance or praise. Otherwise, the morning passed in quiet concentration. At lunch, a few of them gathered round a larger table in the café and discussed the current exhibitions in the galleries. The decision of whether or not to discuss Bud’s conduct with Marnie did not arise, although Bel would have liked the more worldly woman’s take on events.
At the end of the day, it was easy for Bel to slip a chisel into her bag.
Bud had booked into Hepworth House for another three nights, allowing time to sort out his late father’s affairs. Hoping to avoid another meeting, Bel stayed in her room, watching back-to-back reruns of Antiques Road Show, Dad’s Army and QI. Does no-one make new TV programmes nowadays?
The late summer evening was sultry; dark by nine, and clammy. She watched from her window as other guests returned from cooling bedtime strolls or turned in after a last cigarette on the terrace. By eleven o’clock, all was quiet.
She waited a while before she slipped on her cardigan and left the building, silently. Curtains were all drawn, windows closed against moths and midges. Circling the building, she searched for one particular vehicle. Bud had mentioned, nay, bragged about his car, a silver four-wheel drive with blacked-out rear windows.
The main parking area contained no such motor: her own red hatchback; a newish mini; a nice blue sports job and a back VW, but no four-wheel drive. She found it tucked away beside the bins, furthest from the road and sheltered by a thick bed of laurels.
From her cardigan sleeve she extracted the elegant chisel, its edge narrow but keen. Already aching from the day’s labour, her legs shook as she gently placed a folded towel on the gravel drive and knelt down beside the driver’s door.
Bel had been thinking about this all day. Her artwork would be stunning.
It took ab
out half an hour to complete by the light of Aidan’s headtorch, slipped into her suitcase at the last minute ‘just in case’. A hedgehog shuffled by, searching for slugs among the rotting vegetation. Her legs and feet stung with pins and needles by the time she stood up and tucked the folded towel under her cardie. The chisel she slipped back up her sleeve, holding it in place with a flexed middle finger as she crept back to the house, keeping to the side of the drive where the gravel was silenced by moss and last winter’s leaf mould.
She skirted the cars quickly and quietly. From inside the blue sports job she discerned a red glow, moving a little, tiny, just bigger than a pinhead. Then a second glowing dot appeared and a faint whiff of cigarette smoke mingled with the night scent of damp earth and herbage. Bel moved deeper into the laurels, chest constricting.
There were two people in the sports car. In time, its windows opened with an electronic buzz and the glowing dots were jettisoned on either side of the car, their light fading slowly. An owl hooted somewhere nearby; unidentifiable squeaks, barks and wheezes responded. Moments later the sports car began to rock. Bel took her chance and darted up the front steps, slid her key into the lock and slipped into Hepworth House.
As she climbed into bed, she felt a satisfying sense of revenge fulfilled. Tomorrow she would set her mind to recompense, but tonight she would sleep soundly.
*
The soft light of an English summer’s morning washed into the room at Hepworth House. Birdsong trilled and echoed through the single-glazed window. Bel woke with Browning’s lines running through her mind:
“God’s in His Heaven,
All’s right with the world.”
Extending her fingers to draw back the curtains, she felt the pull on each muscle and nerve in her upper body. Though she ached to her very bones, her heart sang for love of life and liberty.
She knew that she had achieved half her aim. Soon, if not already, Bud Baxter would learn that he’d got his comeuppance. Bel would have claimed her second deserving victim. He would not dare to admit any suspicion of the perpetrator’s identity.
She lingered between the sweet-smelling eau-de-nil sheets, musing randomly. Laundering this bed linen would not be her responsibility. Preparing breakfast; clearing the dishes: not her job. Worrying about Bud’s reaction: not her problem. Another day beckoned, a day of creativity and contemplation, of the loveliness of trees and the fellowship of kindred spirits. What freedom was promised by this dawning?
By the time Bel made her way to breakfast, the other guests were going about their business. The elderly couple, Sheila and Gordon, stopped in the hallway to tell her about their plans for a day in Knaresborough, visiting Mother Shipton’s Cave. It was to be a trip down Memory Lane: their first visit since Gordon had, beneath the petrified boots and bags of several generations of visitors, proposed to his shapely sweetheart fifty-one years ago. They were all smiles and happy memories.
Alone at her table in the window, Bel watched them help one another down the steps towards the parked cars and out of view, her eyes misty with sentimental fondness. They reminded her of her parents, each living only for the other. The thought of Dorothy flitted across the back of her mind but she would not allow it headroom, instead savouring the sharpness of fresh orange juice in preparation for an onslaught on the full fry-up she’d ordered. By the second sausage it was hard going, but she persisted with her second pot of tea. Her parents had paid for this. Besides, she had a hard day’s work ahead and would need the fuel.
She wiped her lips on the gingham napkin and smiled. Hunger for both food and revenge had been satisfied.
As Bel passed through the hallway, Sheila Tickton sobbed her way back in through the front door. Her tiny husband shuffled up the steps, lugging a picnic basket and protesting loudly.
“After all these years I thought I could trust you!” Sheila wept. “My mother was right all along. She said you’d never change!”
“Sheila, love, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We need to call the police – this is going to cost us a fortune. I wasn’t happy about borrowing our Tony’s car in the first place but you all insisted. It’s too big for me to handle – but would you listen? Now look what’s happened. Who on earth could have done such a thing? And the insurance won’t pay up if we don’t have a crime number.”
“Don’t change the subject. I know who did this: that floozy’s husband.”
“What floozy? I don’t know any floozies! When have I ever had chance to meet floozies?”
This argument had been rehearsed many times before.
“There are always floozies,” Sheila complained bitterly, without divulging any specifics.
At the commotion, Ron appeared from the private rooms.
“Is something the matter?”
“He’s betrayed me again.” Fury and grief fought for supremacy in Sheila’s emotions.
“Someone’s attacked my – our Tony’s – car. That’s what’s the matter!” Gordon clarified, standing as tall as he was able.
Bel drew closer to Sheila and sat her down on a chair with barley-twist legs. This mention of a car was disturbing.
“Just come and have a look. Then we must ring the police.”
Bel followed as they trooped down the steps, crunched across the gravel and round to where the silver four-wheel drive with the blacked-out rear windows stood. Her blitheness dissipated like the morning mist.
It really was quite something, gleaming in the sunshine, effectively a coat of arms, carved in shining steel on a bed of silver. Argent, they called it in armorial circles, she believed.
Within a shield-shaped outline, each top corner held a St Andrew’s cross. In the centre, what seemed to be a rat couchant. Neatly, though not expertly engraved beneath was the single word “Pilgarlic”!
The group stood, shuffled, stared and wondered. Except that Bel didn’t wonder – she knew that Bonkers Bud had lied to her. The silver-four-wheel-drive-with-the-blacked-out-windows in the car park did not belong to him.
She joined in with the bafflement as the group discussed the significance of the graffiti. Sheila was adamant: the vandalism was proof of her husband’s infidelity right up to this anniversary day. The perpetrator must have been an angry spouse in search of revenge. No-one knew what the word pilgarlic meant, yet. Gordon, with trembling chin, tried in vain to argue his innocence as he looked up, pleadingly, into his wife’s ravaged face.
These unreasonable accusations were getting him down more and more. He knew that the event on Sheila’s mind had happened in 1954, in a shelter on Blackpool promenade, before they were even courting, when she’d seen him necking with Pamela Turner. It was only during the last year or two that his wife, the one love of his life, had dredged up the name from the depths of her memory and become obsessed. He knew it was a heart-breaking precursor to the dementia with which Sheila’s mother had been afflicted.
Back inside, the guests clustered round the desk while Gordon used the house phone to call the police. They detected a certain reluctance to send out a car – or even an officer on a bicycle – all the way from the nearest station ten miles away, just for a spot of criminal damage. A crime number was issued but the victims were not to hold their breath waiting for a visit. The two female PCSOs carried out a weekly foot patrol in the area but that had been yesterday, so it would be next week before they were back. But if a car happened by, maybe it would call in.
As Gordon maintained his innocence and Sheila accused, Bel set off for the sculpture park with the chisel firmly wrapped in her apron at the bottom of her bag. Detouring round the 4WD, she could not resist another look at her handiwork. A glow of pride sat uncomfortably with the clutch of fear at her midriff; a trace of guilt, too, at ruining the Golden Couple’s day.
Hepworth House was only a five-minute drive from the park, down a quiet country road which became the main street of a tiny, sceni
c village. Slowing down between the parked cars which narrowed the road outside the church, she spotted Bud Baxter. He stood at a bus stop. The real pilgarlic. She drove by without a second glance.
Her log was by now looking recognisably snail-like in form and Bel was hopeful that she would end the course with a usable garden ornament, at least. The tranquil atmosphere of diligent concentration continued on the third day, and the learners gained confidence enough to stroll around the site to see how the others’ pieces were progressing, inwardly comparing their own works of art to the rest. It was in this spirit that Marnie came over to Bel’s space during a fag break.
“Want to see the exhibition this lunchtime?”
Bel waited until she’d executed a particularly tricky manoeuvre before asking,
“What’s on?”
“Don’t know but I’d like to have a look. Might as well make the most of the chance.”
Bel agreed. As long as no-one expected her to make pseudo-intelligent comments about bits of wire or unmade beds, she’d be glad to tag along. They arranged to knock off early for lunch in an hour’s time.
The new criminal wondered how much to share with the other woman. After all, she hardly knew her. Yet she felt an affinity with, even admiration for Marnie, who, after all, was even further from her comfort zone than Belinda herself.
When the time came, the subject turned quite rapidly to Hepworth House. Marnie had been travelling daily from the city, but with some of her savings still unspent, she fancied treating herself to a couple of nights’ en suite accommodation. Belinda handed over the B&B’s promotional card, Marnie touched the numbers on her shiny pink mobile and the room was booked.
The gallery was large and geometric, a stark contrast to the classical balustrades which edged the terrace outdoors. Large rooms contained monumental shapes: bald, expressionless heads; gongs of bronze vibrating massively in different tones when stroked with sheepskin-covered mallets; a corridor of chains suspended from the ceiling, rippling and ringing as they swung. The women were awestruck. They felt strangely excited, as if seeking the true significance through a veil of ignorance. This excitement spurred Belinda on to tell her tale of Bud’s ‘seduction’. She knew that Marnie was no angel herself and once the course was over, their paths were not likely ever to cross again. It would be a relief to talk to someone who understood fleshly matters, and it seemed pretty safe.