by Shawna Lewis
*
One Monday morning in mid-February, a small congregation gathered in Denswick Methodist Church. On the bride’s side: Jolene, a one-time room-mate, Bud Baxter and Ambrose Mulholland. On the groom’s: two church wardens (one of whom was Dorothy Simmons); his late wife Sylvie’s brother and sister-in-law; PC Robert Daley and his wife; and Samantha, the swimming instructress. The organist made up in volume for what his playing lacked in accuracy.
Only the two ministers and churchwardens knew the hymns: ‘Love Divine’ to start, with Michael’s favourite, ‘And Can It Be…?’, to end. He longed to teach the words to his Marina; to stand on the church steps and bellow at the top of his voice,
“My chains fell off,
My heart was free.
I rose, went forth
And followed thee!”
In his exultation, he could not tell where Marina ended and God began. With both of them by his side, Michael was sure he would be able to right the wrongs of the world. His voice cracked with emotion as he reached the finale:
“Bold I approach the eternal throne
To claim the crown
And Christ my own!”
Tears salted his lips. His heart hurt with joy and relief. “Thank God! Thank God!” Angels’ voices echoed in his head. Trembling, he took his bride’s hand as they turned to the congregation and walked away from the communion rail to the vestry.
The register signed and witnessed, a small buffet catered by the café over the road was uncovered, a non-alcoholic toast of sparkling grape juice offered, and the tension relaxed. It was Samantha who caught the bride’s small posy of hyacinth florets; Michael had told Marina the girl’s sad story, so the bouquet was aimed with care. Marnie had an idea.
A discreet taxi drove the happy couple to a honeymoon in a farmhouse close to Walla Crag. Their world had turned: they basked in love’s sunshine by the chill glory of Derwentwater, strengthened by their union, fortified by a sense of completeness and ready to face whatever came next.
17
As a harbinger ray of spring sunshine streamed through the bedroom window, Patreesha Street nudged her husband. No response. She nudged again, a little harder.
“It’s gonna be a nice day. You can get ’caravan cleaned.”
Gerrard Street rolled onto his back and snorted. His eyes remained closed.
His wife’s eyes studied the play of the sunlight chinking through the curtains. It was only a few weeks until Easter and so time to gear up for the caravanning season. There would be another talent show at Happy Vanners soon and you couldn’t go anywhere with a mucky trailer.
Gerrard Street had other plans for his Sunday, such as sleeping for two more hours and watching sport on the telly for another six. If Patricia wanted the caravan cleaning, she could do it herself. Not that he’d ever say that to her face, mind. He’d got some sense.
He rolled back onto his side and made himself comfy. He wasn’t that keen on caravanning anyway. It had always been the fishing that attracted him – from the inshore boats operating out of the little harbours along the coast, £40 for the day. As a way to escape the wife and kids, you couldn’t beat it. Mind you, their Harley was starting to take an interest. Gerrard would have to knock that on the head if he were ever to get any time to himself.
Patricia tried again. “You could get all ’cushions out and aired in this sunshine while I’m cooking dinner.”
The breathing at her side deepened. She prattled on regardless, formulating ideas for innovative titivations to the holiday home’s décor. She’d always longed for the sort of husband who’d bring her tea and toast in bed on a Sunday morning, but she’d not found one, and Gerrard had been her third attempt, though the only one to give her children. He was alright in that department.
She rolled out of bed and trudged downstairs to make her own tea and toast. She could hear the blurt of TV from Sloane’s room and electronic beeping from the boys’. They’d stay in there all day if she’d let them, but they needed to practise their music ready for the talent contests. She’d give them a couple more hours.
Sunlight streamed in, reflecting off the foil containers from last night’s takeaway debris piled on the hearth as she drew back the curtains. The room smelt of curry and lager. Patricia opened a window, padded back to the kitchen and fished a black plastic sack from a drawer. While the toaster did its work, she collected the worst of the rubbish before dumping the bag outside the front door.
The caravan took up most of the front garden that wasn’t already used as a car park. Even she had to admit that it all looked a bit of a mess at the minute, though at least the caravan hid those trees and bushes next door, which just encouraged birds, and with birds you got bird muck. She wouldn’t have minded leaving space so she could chat over the fence to that Belinda woman once in a while, though. The van did form a kind of barricade… and that lass probably needed a bit of cheering up, what with her husband buggering off every week.
Back in bed with the tea and toast she flicked on the TV, quickly locating a re-run of the nation’s favourite talent show. As a determined wannabe showbiz mum, Patricia scrutinised every detail of texture, tone, colour, pose and voice, identifying star potential amongst the motley assortment of singing nail technicians, acrobatic hoodies and ageing, toupéed balladeers. Whatever star quality was, she had no doubt that her own offspring possessed it in cartloads.
An hour later, she was restless again. Toast crumbs made her cleavage itch and the sheets gritty. Her spouse had slipped back into the deepest of slumbers and even when the sun shone through the uncurtained window right onto his eyelids, it was obvious that cleaning the caravan was not on Gerrard’s Sunday morning agenda.
“I’ll do it myself, as per usual,” muttered his martyred wife, who nurtured the delusion that she alone held the family together.
Donning a pinafore over a denim boiler suit from her eighties’ heyday, floral wellies and yellow rubber gloves, equipped with buckets, brushes, squeegees, hosepipes and an array of cleaning chemicals, she sashayed out of the front door to confront the five-berth Meadowlark Superior, now tinged with colour where the winter weather had stained the white walls and roof with a greenish bloom. She circled the trailer, planning her onslaught. Inside or outside first? Patricia wondered. When her inspection took her to the boundary side, she was surprised by the amount of tree debris on the ground beside the battered fence. She dragged out a couple of stout, short branches but didn’t ponder on how they came to be there. This tidying up decided her. She would start with the outside.
An hour later, the sun glinted on the Meadowlark’s glasswork and shimmered off its sides, and Patricia needed an audience for her achievement.Time for the kids’ music practice and a brew.
Fifteen minutes after this, the Street Fytas assembled in their ‘studio’ psyched up to making this Sunday special, as instructed by their mother.
Imagine, if you will, the wondrously complex, bewildering harmonies of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as performed by the rock band Queen. Recall the ever-changing chords, tones and rhythms, the inventive lyrics, at once unfathomable and profound. Now imagine, if you can bear it, those same notes, lyrics and harmonies delivered in a series of staccato yells and glissando shrieks by three untalented and tone deaf schoolchildren. Where Patricia heard the former, the rest of Sallby heard the latter.
Upstairs, barely stirring, Gerrard Street pushed his head further under his pillow. Downstairs, heartened by the enthusiasm evident in her offspring’s rehearsal, Patricia girded her loins for an onslaught on the van’s interior.
Warbling garbled snatches of the Rhapsody under her breath, she rummaged in the hall drawer for the key. She was still singing as she turned it in the lock and threw open the caravan door.
The stench knocked her back. Her gorge rose to her mouth. She heaved. Bluebottles lay dead on every surface; a few moved somnolently on curtains
or squirmed in cobwebs. But the smell…!
Patricia tried to step inside but was again driven back. What appeared to be beads were everywhere. Yellow sponge spilled out of the banquette cushions which Gerrard Street had unwisely left in situ over the winter. Tiny fragments mingled with thousands of tiny black ovals.
“Gerrard!” Her scream was loud, but not as loud as the wailing of electric guitars from the garage.She banged on the van walls and yelled again.
*
“That band is truly dreadful,” thought Belinda next door, as she turned up the volume on her elderly CD player. She had been concentrating on learning the lyrics of a new song while ironing Melanie’s school clothes. Belinda had come across an unfamiliar disc when vacuuming under her daughter’s bed the previous week.
The cover picture showed faces masked in white made up to look oriental, and the words The Mikado suggested this didn’t seem Melanie’s type of thing at all; even less so when her mother played it to test for ‘appropriateness’. Catchy tunes, clever words which didn’t make a lot of sense to her, yet she’d found herself listening to it several times when she was alone. One song in particular had struck a chord. It could have been written for her: must have been put there on purpose, as a reminder to reinstate the malevolent mantras.
She experimented to see if her own voice could block out the din from next door, and surprised herself, for though one singer will never make a chorus, her vocal force was improving.
It sounded as if someone next door was hammering, or was it drumming? That family really were inconsiderate Sunday morning neighbours. It was time to refresh her campaign.
“As some day it may happen that a victim must be found.
I’ve got a little list… I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed – who never would be missed!”
She sang pointedly, eyes narrowed. Yes, the entire Street family would go on her list. As she pulled another shirt from the ironing basket, her mind worked on lines of her own.
“There’s the pestilential children who cannot play the guitar
But who screech and wail and holler just to please their dear Mama…”
She had them on her list.They sure would not be missed. She smiled as she sang along and enjoyed the ironing for the first time in ages.
*
Over the fence, though shaken, Patricia Street was a determined woman as she looked down at the Keep Calm and Carry On pinafore that protected the front of her boiler suit. Hysterics never worked with Gerrard. True wartime grit was called for.
Holding the tea towel over her nose with one hand and a long-handled brush in the other, she climbed into the caravan. Her wellingtons crunched over the desiccated droppings. She bashed the brush against the doors and cupboards (which Gerrard had failed to leave open as recommended in Caravan Monthly). The only sound was the intermittent hum of a dying insect. No mice… so why the droppings?
The smell was stronger as she passed the sink. Another step, and she unlatched the door of the minute bathroom. This stank even more. She shut the door, leaned her head outside and yelled her husband again. Again, Gerrard burrowed deeper into the bedding. Patricia, feeling sick, scurried to the steps and gulped in fresh air.
She hated mice – was terrified of them, though of little else. What were husbands for, if not to deal with vermin and protect their wives from rodentine horrors? Was Gerrard to be a failure in that department as well as in so many others?
Her fear was out of all proportion, she knew. The merest glimpse of mouse fur was enough to set her heart pounding; her legs would carry her up onto the nearest table or out through the door, her mind empty of everything but revulsion. And if she should glimpse a length of skinny tail… oblivion seemed the only option.
Standing well clear of the van, she banged on its sides with the sweeping brush. Nothing. No scurrying, no squeaking, no Pied Piperish columns of vermin leaping down the caravan steps. She tied the tea towel across her face, bandanna-style.
Emboldened, back in the caravan, she opened the door beneath the neat kitchenette sink. Hurled back by the stench, she glimpsed an enigma even as she staggered. Hundreds upon hundreds of snail shells were piled up around something dark.
She slammed the cupboard shut, her head swimming. Snails? No inkling of an explanation came to her. She vomited a little out of the door, breathed deeply and once more yelled, “Gerrard!”
The Street Fytas had moved on to a more lyrical number. Maybe Jermyn would come to his mother’s aid.
“Jermyn, sweetheart. I need you!”
In the garage, hearing his mother’s call quite clearly, the eldest son responded sotto voce,
“Duh… We’re rehearsing!”
He tutted at the others and the musical siblings set off on a double-volume rendition of ‘We Will Rock You’ complete with stamping feet.
*
Next door, having completed the ironing, Belinda thought she might do a spot of pruning in the spring sunshine. Doug had already gone down to help Dad out with a few odd jobs, so she rooted out her gardening gloves and secateurs.
Meanwhile, over the fence, some colour had returned to Patricia’s cheeks. She needed to see those shells again… at present, she couldn’t believe what her eyes had told her.
Inching open a tiny drawer, she reached for the torch she knew would be there. A little juice left in the battery allowed a yellow beam to shed some light on the snail shells, all empty. Holding her breath, she moved the beam a fraction. Mounds of dark fur gleamed dully in the dim light. Two, three… no four at least; a tiny snout and a knot of thick rats’ tails – all crawling here and there with maggots.
It is impossible to say whether the scream, the yelp, the leap or the vomit came first.
Belinda, just exiting her own front door, heard the noise but could see nothing for the caravan on the other side of the fence. The screams continued in gasps, interspersed with yelps and a retching sound.
“Hello! Is something the matter?”
No reply. As the lamenting and heaving continued, she left her own front gate and trotted along to her neighbours’. From there she could see Patricia Street, in a rather odd get-up, curled over on the tarmac, howling and shuddering, face buried in a red cloth.
Common decency forced Belinda through the gate to crouch down beside the woman. At the back of her mind, the refrain of “I’ve got a little list…” rang a warning bell that somehow, this was all her fault.
*
Paroxysms of shock and revulsion rocked her neighbour’s equilibrium. She was making no sense, prattling about snails and tails between retches.
“Shall I take you inside, Patricia?”
At the shake of the woman’s head, the saliva dangling from her lips swayed back and forth. Belinda dabbed it away with the Keep Calm and Carry On tea towel. Urged at last to her feet, Patricia allowed herself to be led out of the gate and round to Belinda’s kitchen, where she was dosed with a few drops of Rescue Liquid in warm water. Without comment, Belinda gathered that her rodent feasts had proved attractive to the vermin. Later perusal of the Ratrid packet explained their search for water. She felt a faint twinge of guilt, which didn’t last.
*
Ten minutes later they sat calmly at the table, sipping camomile tea in silence until, with a sudden show of resolve, Patricia stood up.
“I need to make a call.”
Belinda led the way to the lounge and pointed to the house phone.
“Have you got aYellow Pages?”
This was produced. Belinda tried not to eavesdrop on the call… or calls, she thought, although she imagined they were to next door. The tone on this end was quite businesslike – all traces of shock had disappeared.
“I’ll be off your hands in fifteen minutes.” Patricia returned
to the kitchen and sat down. No further information was volunteered as they sat listening to the Street Fytas’ muffled din until at last, their mother went to the Lowes’ front door, opened it and left without a wave.
Belinda couldn’t resist a peek from behind the net curtains. A taxi had pulled up at the kerb, followed a few seconds later by a low-loader which came to a halt outside next door. Two men climbed out of its cab. Together, in silence, they manhandled the caravan into position, attached a large hook to its towing bracket and winched the Meadowlark Superior aboard. Within minutes it was well secured. As the convoy of two pulled away, the woman in the back seat of the taxi was tapping a number into her phone, which had been in her dungarees pocket all along.
*
The driver of a police patrol car passing through the estate took note of the low-loader, which bore a strong resemblance to the one he and his partner had followed up on the moors last summer, and ran a check on the vehicle. This time the livery was plain to see: DunCrushin: Denswick’s Premier Metal Recycling Company. The Farm Watch squad would be calling on DunCrushin very shortly.
Within a very short time, the Street family’s caravan was wrecked. Likewise the Street Fytas’ musical ambitions and the holiday plans of Tyson Dunne, Managing Director of the aforementioned DunCrushin.
It was some hours before Gerrard Street tripped over the bag of rubbish on the step and noticed that both his caravan and his wife were missing. He would have been hard pressed to say which he was gladdest to be shut of.
Next morning, a red and white For Sale notice was visible through the gap where the caravan had stood. Belinda cheered inwardly and stepped jauntily to the tune of ‘As Some Day It May Happen’ as she made her way to the village hall, carrying a plastic container of freshly baked cake for the lodger. This time, she smiled to herself as she walked.
18
Solly Mann’s parents had taken themselves off to the Maldives for a month, making the most of an unexpected legacy that had come their way. Their son had made the most of their absence by returning home from university to engage in a variety of extra-curricular activities not normally associated with undergraduate mathematicians of banal tendencies. So much was done online nowadays that Solly was confident his absence from the Groves of Academe would go unnoticed.