Duty and Delusion

by Shawna Lewis

  *

  Two hours into their wait, an old woman in a faded beige coat and a furry hat arrived. She spoke to the receptionist at the desk before turning to scan the seated, waiting wounded. Her face clouding with a look of recognition when she saw Belinda, she smiled stiffly as she spotted Dave Simmons. The woman squeezed past with a glare, indicating that Belinda should move along. Plonking her large, rigid handbag on a seat to create a barrier between them, the woman turned towards Dave and kissed him on the cheek.

  The old woman was Dorothy.

  She started talking to the man, whining about the difficult bus journey to the hospital, only asking about his injuries after a good five minutes and pointedly ignoring the woman on her right, who sat bemused by this latest revelation.

  If Dorothy was the window cleaner’s mother, as seemed likely, and Dorothy had been her father’s bit on the side, as she believed, the man she’d tried and failed to seduce last summer could be her own half-brother! Had the window cleaning been a front, a cover for stalking his half-sister? Was Dorothy behind this morning’s fiasco? Dave had seen her bare behind that very morning! The thought brought colour to her cheeks. She squirmed in her seat. Her vow to think more kindly forgotten, more malevolent mantras followed, this time encompassing the ubiquitous Dorothy.

  *

  Maybe the mantras were working. The old woman was looking uncomfortable, undoing her scarf, removing her coat and cardigan, fanning herself with a copy of Take a Break pulled from her handbag.

  When Dave’s number came up on the digital display above the desk, Stevan wheeled him through purple double doors. Dorothy picked up her bag and moved into the vacated seat, glancing evilly at Belinda. She continued flapping her hands in front of her face. Her breath came in short, rasping heaves, open-mouthed. Under normal circumstances Belinda would have offered assistance, but now, she watched in amazement at the impact of the venomous vibes she was emitting.

  *

  A chap sitting on the row behind called out. “Nurse! Nurse! This lady needs attention.”

  The nurse scuttled on, deep in her own responsibilities. Someone else attracted the attention of a porter.

  “Tell the triage nurse.” He pushed on with the squeaky-wheeled trolley he was manoeuvring. A disembodied female voice called out from a speaker next to the digital display: “Number ninety-three, please.”

  Belinda walked through the swinging doors unaided. What a waste of time this all was. And why was Dorothy still stalking her?

  A tired, plump nurse asked her a few questions and examined the bruised temple, making it obvious that, in her opinion, Belinda was a time-waster. A white-coated Asian youth, possibly a junior doctor, sidled in for a quick glance at her notes and a nod and sidled out again. She was free to go.

  There was no sign of Dorothy or her handbag when Belinda walked out. No sign of Dave or Steve either. It was by now 2pm and Belinda had no way of getting home. The dozy ambulance man had not reminded her to take purse, phone and keys to the hospital.

  She sat on the low wall of a bare, raised flower bed which bloomed only with fag packets and tab ends whatever the season. It was eight miles back to Sallby. She was tired, hungry, angry and stranded. There were so many people to blame for her predicament: her own family, for being somewhere else when she needed them; Greasy Steve for phoning the ambulance; Dave Simmons for peering through windows at naked women (were all window-cleaners perverts?); the woman next door for sharing unfounded assumptions with PC Willis; Dorothy for stalking her and seducing her father. Bel needed to strengthen the mantras, though of course she would not include her own family members.

  She’d lost track of how long she’d been sitting on the wall when a taxi drew up opposite. As soon as the occupants climbed out, she climbed in, explaining her predicament to the driver and agreeing that he would take her to her parents’ bungalow. They were bound to have some cash in the house to pay the fare.

  Not until she was seated did she think about how much she should tell her parents. They mustn’t find out that Dave, the window-cleaner and possibly her father’s by-blow, had seen her naked, or that she had been sitting next to Dorothy in A&E. Even after all these years, she could not be sure if her mother was aware of the other woman’s existence.

  Melanie, by now on her way home from school carrying her own back-door key, was summoned to her grandparents’. Another taxi ride with more borrowed money, and they were home, exhausted, embarrassed and depressed. Bel’s temple was quite sore, too.

  She’d forgotten about the policemen battering the door down. It had been made safe, as in, not usable in the normal manner. However, the state of the front entrance meant that Belinda could not conceal the morning’s events from her daughter.

  Melanie was not that interested, as it turned out. Ben Jepson, the topmost, fittest, dreamboatest boy in the school, had sat next to her at dinner. Not only had he pinched a couple of crisps from her plate (the standard first step in canteen-based foreplay), he had touched her hand accidentally-on-purpose whilst pouring a glass of water, and said she had nice teeth. Hurrah for the inter-dental brushes! In her dreams, a diamond ring and mountainous wedding dress would lead to a house full of good-looking, well-behaved and incredibly brainy children, though she had the sense to keep those dreams to herself for now. No, her mother’s hospital jaunt didn’t even register on Melanie’s radar of significant events.

  Too tired to think, Belinda rang the takeaway and ordered a home-delivery meal for two. Soaking in the bath before the food arrived, she replayed the key scenes of the day. Her breathing slowed and deepened, eventually giving nasal voice on the exhalations. A mental image of Dorothy in her mind’s eye, she watched as the old woman shrank, withered and collapsed like a blow-up doll punctured.

  Depletion completed. Her attention shifted to Patricia next door.

  8

  A tight-muscled woman, hair dyed unnaturally black with orange streaks, the new neighbour affronted Belinda on many levels. Foremost were her insensitivity and superior air. The two had met in September as Belinda picked roses from the rambler which clambered over the fence separating their gardens. The house next door was on the market, though she’d heard rumours that a buyer had been found.

  Belinda said a friendly hello. Instead of returning the greeting with a smile and an outstretched hand, the woman had looked at the flowers, then at the bush, and said,

  “That’ll have to go. It’s an eyesore.”

  Belinda adored the mass of shocking pink blooms and shiny green leaves. The plant’s enthusiasm for life gave hope for the future. She loved to fill vases with its blooms. She loved the way the fading petals changed colour before they dropped or lay where they fell. She loved the memories – of her parents’ garden in her childhood, of the scent of roses carefully pruned and tidied by Dad; of gathering bowlfuls of petals to make pot pourri or ‘perfume’ with the children. Dad’s garden was neat and tidy; her own taste was for rampant growth. She chose plants with vigour, which thrived on neglect.

  “It’s an eyesore. I can’t abide flowers. So tasteless.”

  “Then why buy a house with a garden?”

  “We’re going to gravel it over. We’ve got a big caravan and what with three cars, we’ll be taking down that hedge as well.” She pointed to the dense run of copper beech which ran between their houses and down the first half of the front boundary.

  “That’s our hedge.” Her voice came out faintly. Inside, Belinda was all disappointment. She’d hoped the newcomer might fill some of the gaps in her life – provide friendship and chats over coffee. This was clearly not to be.

  The woman let her eyes rove over Belinda, her garden and house front… a little faded, maybe; not quite freshly painted. Certainly past their best.

  “You want to get PVC windows put in. I bet them wooden ones you’ve got are all rotten. They’ll devalue all the property in the street! They l
ook a right mess.”

  Belinda had thought for months that they needed painting, but she’d let them rot now just to spite this interloper. She thought fondly of Mr and Mrs Benson, who’d lived in the house since it was built back in the 1930s, raised children and grandchildren and died in their own beds just weeks apart. She gave a watery smile and stretched out her right hand.

  “I’m Belinda Lowe.”

  “Oh. Patricia (she pronounced it Patreesha) Street.” Ignoring the offer of a handshake, she nodded her head towards her own new dwelling. “The way some people live! We’re going to be gutting this place. You should see it… like something out of the ark.”

  Belinda had seen it, many times. Had seen it the day Mrs Benson died; helped organise the funeral; found Mr Benson dead in bed before the floral tributes had faded. It had been a true family home and she missed them all.

  Patreesha was continuing. “All the inside walls are coming down – we’ll have everything new. Our Jermyn’s going to turn the garage into a studio. He’s got his own band.”

  Belinda’s heart slumped even lower. That garage stood between their two houses. She asked the age of this young musician.

  “Thirteen. Our Sloane’s twelve and Harley’s eleven. Their dad, he’s called Gerrard.”

  “Hmm. Unusual names. Anyway – must get on.”

  “Ta. Oh, do you want us to see about taking this hedge down or will you see to it?”

  Belinda pretended not to hear.

  *

  The transaction had taken months to finalise, but Patricia Street was soon included in the malevolent mantras. Sloane’s nasal voice, screeching along to her brothers’ unsynchronised drumming and strumming like a dentists’ drill above the sound of heavy traffic, became a familiar earache. With Doug away for most of the week, there had been no autumn trim for the offending hedge and the dry, russet leaves, dispersed by November gales, gathered in heaps along hedge bottoms, gutters and driveways. The milkman kicked his way through drifts each morning as he marched past the six-berth caravan parked between the hedge and where next door’s lawn used to be.

  *

  Belinda had been waiting for the mantras to kick in even before the day’s ambulance trip and associated traumas. Now, as the water cooled in the bath, her mood became colder, more resentful, as if she had entered a spiritual zone of malice. She seemed to stand outside herself, observing the shift in her aura. Thinking about the hedge, she realised how much she loved it, though she had often complained about the fallen leaves herself. Now, she would defend it at all costs.

  She called upon the hedge to protect her family. Defend and protect – surely the true purpose of any boundary. She thought of the row of copper beech as a barricade, now. She envisaged herself manning that barricade against the enemy.

  Drying herself with a warm towel, she looked out of the window overlooking the parked caravan and the breeze-blown leaf piles. A fat rat strolled calmly from one heap to another. It was joined by another, and another, even fatter. Belinda smiled, and pulled down the blind.

  Later, noticing a chilly draught as she walked downstairs, she paused to draw the curtain over the front door. An unexpected weight impeded the drag. Stopping, she found a brown, padded envelope holding down the hem. It was addressed in block capitals to Sallby Village Hall.

  Puzzled, Belinda took the package into the kitchen to open. At her first glimpse of the contents, she sank onto a chair at the breakfast table and up-ended the packet. A stack of bank notes fell out: twenties, some tens and fives – even a couple of fifties, all jumbled together haphazardly. A plain postcard carried the message in blue felt pen: For the village hall. From a Well-Wisher.

  She sat at the table sorting the notes into piles, baffled, her mind swirling with possible mystery benefactors, motivations and uses for the money. The last was easy: there were bills to pay, for a start, and any left would buy toilet rolls. She was sick of buying them out from her own pocket for half the village to take home.

  £630! This was the equivalent of 126 week-day hours of hire, with none of the associated outgoings. But where had it come from? How long had the package been behind the curtain? Belinda thought back. It had not been there when she vacuumed last Friday before setting off for Wales. When they’d returned on Sunday evening, the weather was mild for December and she didn’t remember pulling the curtain shut. Today had been frantic. Her head was spinning. Logic told her that the salsa teacher, who had disappeared owing a lot of rent, was trying to assuage his guilty conscience.

  A ring of the doorbell signalled the arrival of the chicken chow mein for two. It smelt good as she set out the container and called Melanie, who was, mercifully, uninterested in her mother’s life. She asked no awkward questions about the sealed-up door, being more bothered about Jermyn Street’s scrap with Ben Jepson. While her mother was in the bath, a call from Chelsey had destroyed Melanie’s life. It turned out that her friend and Ben had been ‘an item’ for nine whole days. He’d told Chelsey she had nice teeth too, and held her hand on the bus. Chelsey had kept the relationship secret because she felt sorry for Melanie, who now wept into her noodles, convinced that she’d be single for life.

  Bel was sympathetic to a degree, whilst the phrase self-centred drivel in her head couldn’t be ignored. A box of chocolates bought as an emergency Christmas present was unearthed and they ate till they both were sick, tired and ready for bed. The money slept under Doug’s pillow.

  Maybe things would be clearer in the morning.

  9

  The first thing was to get the money paid in to the village hall’s bank account, a job normally done by the treasurer, John Spinks, for the last few years the only man on the team and the one to whom hire fees were paid. One of the old guard, John had served even longer than Belinda – since 1970, according to the old minute books stored in the hall’s oddly shaped loft. Now over eighty, John only occasionally attended meetings, due to indifferent health and dodgy legs. He had been treasurer for nearly all his time with the hall and kept beautiful account books in copperplate handwriting. No-one had ever stood against his re-election to the committee at the Annual General Meeting or put themselves forward as treasurer. As for suggesting computerised accounts, no one would dare. When the time came, John would be a hard act to follow and no-one had a clue as to who might be willing to try. His mind was still as sharp as a tack.

  At the moment, John was in hospital having veins removed during a rare good spell for his varicose ulcer. An intensive spell of home visits from the district nurse had improved the leg’s condition sufficiently for the operation to take place. John’s wife, Sybil, now mentally quite frail and hard of hearing, had resisted efforts to take her into respite care while her husband was away from home.

  *

  Belinda needed to bank the money before she started work at two that afternoon, so as soon as Melanie had clattered off to the school bus, she dialled John and Sybil’s number.

  “Hello Sybil. It’s Belinda, from the village hall.”

  “You’ll have to speak up a bit.” The line crackled. “Did you say you’re coming to mend the wall?”

  “It’s Belinda, from the village hall. How’s John?”

  “John? I don’t know where he’s got to. I thought he’d gone to make me a cup of tea.”

  “His operation. Has he come out of hospital, then?”

  “Oh, he’s out, is he? I don’t know where he’s gone with my tea.”

  “Sybil, listen. I’ve got some money to pay into the village hall bank account and I need the paying-in book. Could you ask John if I can call round and collect it?”

  “Who are you? John’s not here. Don’t know where he’s got to. I’m not giving you any money.”

  “No, I just want the paying-in book. Could you ask John where he keeps it, please? There might be some bills that need paying too, so if I could collect those and the cheque book
, it would make things a lot simpler for John when he’s back on his feet.”

  “Are you the chiropodist?”

  “No. I’m Belinda from the village hall. It’s to do with some money.”

  “I’m not giving you any money. You sound like a con-man to me. I’ll call the police if you call again.”

  Belinda scratched her head, perplexed. Nice woman, Sybil. What a dreadful thing to happen to anyone.

  *

  John and Sybil’s son Derek lived an hour’s drive away and Belinda knew him only vaguely. Their other children had emigrated years ago to Canada and New Zealand. Only Derek could help, but it took an hour of phoning round known relatives and associates to track him down.

  She explained the situation and begged for his help. John’s summons to hospital had come after a cancellation, leaving little time to transfer responsibility and the village hall accounts. Derek would need to persuade his mother to part with the cheque and paying-in books. He would do what he could, but it might take a few days.

  *

  Belinda was left with the stash of bank notes. If she’d had the bills, she could have paid them. Instead, she hid the money in an old calico shopping bag and hung it on a coat hanger in her wardrobe, so full of old clothes that the bag was well concealed. She really must get round to having a clear-out.