Duty and Delusion

by Shawna Lewis

  Gone to stay with Gran and Granddad till Dad and Aidan get home.

  22

  Granddad was impressed with some of the girl’s habits. They reminded him of his National Service years: early rising, obsessive cleanliness, plenty of spit and polish. Well, not the spit. He lay in bed listening to her pattering around the bungalow, remembering his days of young fatherhood. There had been no showers then. A lick and a promise before the girls were packed off to school and a bath once a week if they needed it. Now, it seemed, Melanie was unable to leave the house without three fresh coats of nail varnish and lip gloss, though she was a pretty little thing without any embellishment.

  He convinced himself that Melanie’s form teacher scrutinised her class’s deportment and grooming in much the same way as, in his corporal days, he had inspected his platoon. Sadly, the poor man was wrong.

  *

  The girl had very good reason for rising with the lark and leaving for school before her grandparents were up and about. As one of the leading players in the forthcoming production of The Mikado, attendance at early morning rehearsals was imperative. The buffing, brushing and glossing was all part of a star’s morning routine. Appearance was all in the construction of charisma.

  At 7.30 each day, the Sallby contingent of the cast met at the Jepsons’ gate. Ben’s father, renowned locally as a keen participant in extra-marital sports, had unselfishly agreed to be morning taxi-driver while rehearsals lasted. Felix Jepson was oblivious to both the pubescent sexual tensions suffusing the vehicle each morning and the fact that it had already been noted, locally, that young Ben was his father’s son in more ways than one.

  Deposited at the school gates, Yum-Yum, Nanki-Poo and two anonymous members of the company chorus manoeuvred their way past the cleaners and caretakers who buffed, brushed and polished in their own fashion, and made straight for the Drama Studio. There, the long-limbed, luscious new drama teacher, Miss Montgomery, and the oh-so-handsome, oh-so-gentle Head of Performing Arts, Mr Reubens, were developing a splendid working relationship. The power of the rapport between the two teachers was inspirational to their students; aspirations, emotions and hormones soared along with the youthful voices. Even Jermyn Street had unearthed his latent musicality, once persuaded that volume was not the be-all and end-all for a member of the chorus, and Sloane’s sinuous moves obscured her insecure grasp of the complicated lyrics.

  Whether the students gathered each morning for the love of music, drama and the D’Oyly Carte operettas; whether the dedication of their teachers would bear fruit on stage; and whether their exam grades would reflect their enhanced cultural awareness, were all debatable. It was incontrovertible, however, that by the end of the production’s run, the The Mikado’s cast would all be considerably more worldly-wise than their peers.

  *

  As the performance dates drew closer, after-school rehearsals continued until 6pm. Gerrard Street did the homeward run to Sallby. Neither driver questioned why the Lowe girl no longer travelled with the others, but each gradually became aware that her mother was now alone in the house in Dapple Grove. Both men sensed a potential opportunity, but Gerrard was more conveniently situated to take advantage of any opportunity that might arise.

  Belinda spent part of each evening with her parents, hoping that her daughter might deign to leave the spare bedroom and speak to her. Meanwhile, she held circular conversations with her mother and gave practical assistance to her father, who was as recovered from the stroke as he was ever going to be. She also needed to spend time at home, to attend to village hall business, hope for calls from Aidan or Doug and retain her sanity. Alone in bed each night, it was not her husband that she longed for, but the dark-eyed young foreigner with hairs on the back of his hands.

  *

  This same young foreigner had, after leaving the village hall cleaner and smarter than he’d found it, spent a single uncomfortable, unlit night, silent and still, in an attic at Denswick Manse. It was important for the minister to be kept in the dark.

  Knowing that Dave Simmons was still off work, Marnie needed a day to track down the young man’s cousin. The minister’s wife had only exchanged after-service pleasantries with Dorothy Simmons since the wedding, so a home visit was called for.

  Her once brassy hair now a sober shade of pale brown, Marnie dressed conservatively for the occasion. This went down well with the older woman, whose favoured fashion options were always beige, baggy and nondescript. The personal visit, which she took as recognition of her unstinting labours on behalf of the chapel, pleased her. Luckily, Mrs Batty timed it to coincide with David’s latest hospital appointment, which had been alluded to on the chapel threshold the other day.

  Marina had made it her business to find out how this church-and-God thing worked, who was who and who did what to whom in the organisation.

  Now, she praised the churchwardens’ diligence in their duties, was stunned by the good done in the community on the chapel’s behalf, the high standard to which the building was maintained, their readiness at all times to support weddings and funerals. The wardens were all marvels and Marina was in awe.

  After this pump-priming, conversation naturally took a more personal turn as Marina subtly elicited something of Dorothy’s history: how she had once been sweet on a young man at work who had been snapped up by a younger, prettier girl; how she’d met Wilf Simmons on the dodgems at a travelling fun fair; how, being twenty-seven at the time and afraid of being left on the shelf, she’d married him within months and rued the day ever since. Their first child, a girl, had survived only a few days.

  “It was very hard,” she hiccupped as she wiped her eyes. “I had our David a couple of years later, but you never get over something like that. Now Wilf’s gone – that’s a blessing. I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but he was a difficult man. I’m happier without him, but a daughter would’ve looked after me in my old age.”

  Marina sighed sympathetically. “You still have David, though.”

  “He’s like his dad. A hard man. And since he’s broken his leg, there’s no living with him.

  “His wife was lovely – Pauline – but he’s ditched her and his two kids. That’s why he’s living here with me. She threw him out and I don’t wonder. I miss her and the little ’uns.” The tissue came into play again.

  “Tell me about the children.”

  “Our Lauren’s ten and our Kyle’s seven. Nice kiddies they are. Take more after their mother than him.”

  “Is there no hope of reconciliation?”

  “Not if Pauline’s got any sense. Turns out he’d been having a bit on the side. This woman turned up here one day saying she was a friend of Dave’s. Pauline was in the bathroom mixing up a blue rinse for my hair and came out to take a look. ‘Who are you?’ she says to this woman – all suntanned she was, with coloured streaks in her hair and that.”

  Dorothy rarely had chance to get things off her chest and although she hadn’t taken to the minister’s new wife immediately, the relief of sharing the stored grief secured her loyalty for ever.

  “Who was she?”

  “Called herself Patreesha. Pauline said, ‘As far as I know, Dave hasn’t got any friend called Patreesha.’”

  “‘Well, you know different now, don’t you, love?’ she came back, quick and hard-faced as you like.

  “Well, Pauline – I could see she was upset – she went back into the bathroom, poured the blue rinse down the sink, then put on her coat and took the Patreesha woman outside. That was the last time I saw my daughter-in-law.”

  Dorothy breathed deeply and paused to control herself. “It’s no wonder my hair’s a mess!” She reached up a hand and tweaked a permed curl.

  “Next thing I knew, David turned up with a suitcase, saying Pauline had thrown him out because of a misunderstanding.”

  The tears had run their course now and the sobs were muted. The
women spoke quietly about the temptations faced by those who cleaned the windows of domestic properties; the weakness of men, and the modern-day lack of respect for marriage vows.

  But Dorothy hadn’t finished.

  “So I let him sleep on the settee. Have to keep it quiet from the council. He’d already broken his leg falling off a ladder – it was a really bad break, had to be pinned and all sorts – it just wasn’t healing properly. So he’s here, all day, every day, with his great leg sticking out across the room for me to trip over. Then, would you believe it, that Patreesha turns up again? This time she’s wearing a right get-up: dungarees and wellingtons, even though it was a sunny day. Said she’d left her husband and had decided it was Dave she wanted. Ooh, I was upset, especially being a chapel warden.

  “Well, you could tell that David wasn’t expecting it. ‘But what about your children?’ he asks. ‘Never you mind them. None of your business,’ she says.

  “I just sat there while they argued. Anyway, she could see there was no room for her here, and she’d none of her things with her, so he gave her some money to find a B&B and sort herself out. From what I gather, she collected her stuff next day when her husband and the kids were out, and found herself a little flat in that new development where the pithead baths used to be.”

  This was the longest conversation Dorothy had shared for years.

  “David’s at the hospital now. We’re hoping they’ll take his pot off today so he can get back to work. He’ll need physio, of course. That young chap Steve who helps him has done his best, fair dos, but David’s worried about all the customers he’s probably lost.”

  “Ah, Steve! Is his real name Stevan? He cleans the windows at our house.” Marina’s patience had borne fruit. “I was wondering when he’s due round again – they’re looking very grimy and we don’t have a ladder to do it ourselves. You don’t happen to know his routine, do you?”

  “Well no, but I think David wrote his number down for me somewhere in case I needed it.” Dorothy pushed herself up from the high-seat chair and sorted through the papers propped up behind a dancing lady on the mantelpiece. She found what she was looking for on the back of an overdue book reminder from the County Library Division.

  Marina took out her own device, looked at the card and entered the number she needed.

  It took no more than two minutes to bring the visit to a close without being abrupt. Both women had got a lot out of the conversation.

  Within half an hour it had been agreed that Dragomir Duric would take refuge at Stevan’s place in Bath House Court. In earlier times, the dwelling would have been called a bedsit. Being in a newly erected seven-storey block, designed around a communal garden with the old colliery’s winding gear as a sculptural centrepiece, it was advertised as a studio apartment. Either way, it was tiny.

  23

  As spring intensified, Belinda made use of her days off to prepare for her family’s reunion. Aidan would be home soon, and Doug had promised to spend a full week with the family. In the garden, she sat on her carved snail, weathered to grey now, watching the sparkle of sunlight as a breeze ruffled the pond. Everything would soon be back to normal, she felt sure. Things weren’t so bad. A few minutes’ yoga breathing, a bit of positive thinking, some vigorous tidying – that would sort it.

  The time had come to clear out her wardrobe.

  Grabbing a trio of black sacks, she bounded upstairs and flung open the bedroom window. The sharp air and scent of imminent growth spurred her sense of purpose. The garments on their hangers were lifted from the rails and tossed onto the bed. The topsy-turvy pile of shoes went on top, one by one, but Belinda soon realised she did not possess enough shoes to make a pile so big. At its foundation lay another pile, made up of brown padded envelopes, a calico bag and a blue-lidded bucket.

  At sight of the bucket came the immediate grip of fear. Both Denswick Borough Council’s Licensing Department and the Air Ambulance people might, even now, be investigating a fraud, a fraud committed by someone using the name Belinda Lowe. A sunbeam shone through the window onto the bucket and the calico bag, illuminating their grubby whiteness and with it, her failings.

  Eyeing the containers with suspicion, she spent the next hour sorting the clothes into piles – Keep, Jumble, Recycle and Bin – but no matter how long she tarried over the task, the bulging envelopes, bucket and bag did not disappear from the bottom of the wardrobe.

  The blue-lidded bucket she recognised dimly. It smelt of a cold Christmas night and was very heavy. Up-ending it onto the floor she knelt to count the grubby, small-denomination coins and the occasional £5 note. At last, the money stood in wobbly piles on the carpet. She totalled and retotalled till she got the same figure twice. £121.21, plus three euros, a supermarket trolley token and a Canadian dollar. Who would do that? she wondered.

  Throwing the calico bag aside, she added the cash to the pile of padded envelopes that had come through her letter box over the months. There’d been more than she realised. Puzzling over them had been one more stress that she just couldn’t handle and, as each one disappeared from view, it had also disappeared from her consciousness. If she thought about them at all, it was to assume that one of the hall’s regular hirers, knowing of the treasurer’s hospitalisation, had delivered the rent to the chairwoman instead.

  Moving her knees to avoid the ridge beneath the carpet, one by one she emptied the envelopes and gasped at the flurry that tumbled to the floor. This was more than overdue rent. She sat back on her heels, exhaling through pursed lips.

  Head dizzy, heart pounding, she leant back against the bed. She had extracted £400 in rent from Drago on top of his free labour in redecorating the hall – probably worth another grand. She was already struggling to think how she’d explain those things away when the committee eventually reconvened. Yet here, on her bedroom carpet, was an unexplained £41,000 that was nothing to do with her.

  Going to the police was out of the question. They’d battered her door down for no good reason back in the summer; they had her in their deluded sights for child abuse, and she’d not yet got over her close shave in the pilgarlic debacle. No. She could not ask the police to investigate.

  Was someone testing her honesty? Was it drug money? Could Doug be a dealer, pretending to be working in Sunderland whilst all the time peddling crack cocaine and trying to launder the money through the village hall accounts? She entertained the possibility for a while but, nah! Doug possessed too little imagination and too much decency for anything so exciting. It could certainly be nothing to do with Aidan. He was a golden boy, and he would be coming home soon. As for Melanie, who could tell what she’d do now she’d hooked up with Jermyn Street?

  At the same time, a mental image of Marnie floated through on a cloud of disgruntlement. It was hurtful that her supposed new friend had not been in touch since Dad’s stroke. Belinda could have done with a friend right now.

  It felt like a burglary in reverse. She recalled the police break-in and wondered if that was when it all began. Perhaps the window-cleaner’s mate, the one who’d leered at her and called the ambulance, had riffled the drawers and found a spare key. Maybe he was the drug dealer, and he’d stashed his loot in her wardrobe. She looked in the mirror and tried to see herself as a gangster’s moll, but no. She just looked like someone’s mother, someone’s daughter, someone’s wife who worked in the library: drab, dull and depressed, but not at all degenerate.

  None of the possible explanations made sense. She and Doug had joint accounts. It was one of their things. Total trust, she reminded herself, although, somehow, she must keep this windfall from him.

  *

  Slowly, putting off more decisive action, Belinda returned the Keep clothes to the wardrobe and filled the three black sacks until they bulged. She toyed with the idea of concealing the money there, but what if some poor charity shop volunteer came across it and was arrested? No. This was her
problem and she mustn’t lumber anyone else with it. She didn’t want the money for herself, and she didn’t want it on the premises. Who knew when the police might see fit to batter her door down again? How on earth could she explain it away? She might be able to wangle the Drago income through the books, but not £41,000.

  When the shock was subsiding a little, her mind turned to ways she might dispose of the cash in more creative ways without arousing suspicion.

  Doug wasn’t much of a gambler, but on Grand National day he’d go down to the betting shop in Denshill and place £20 each way on a horse chosen at whim. Although his wife had never been inside, she would watch the comings and goings with interest from the car and had never recognised any borrowers from the library among the clientele. The bookies’ was no longer a woman-free zone: that was apparent from her surveillance. As Belinda knew nothing about gambling or horses, she’d never win anything. She could lose a lot of money that way, and she could start that afternoon.

  Once the idea had taken root, she did some research. The television pages told her which racecourses were operating that day and running Bookmakers Denswick through a search engine provided the addresses of seven betting shops where she could place a wager. Excitement bubbled up with more force than anything she’d felt since enrolling on the sculpture course, almost a year ago.

  Over a lunch of oatcakes and cream cheese, she prepared her backstory, plotted her route and chose her runners. Starting slowly at first, she’d spend just £100 at each gambling outlet, so as not to arouse suspicion. She’d select names according to a different theme each day. She’d liked Geography at school, so took that as her first.

  In case of nosey staff or punters, her gambling persona was visiting relatives in the area with her elderly father, who’d always liked a bet but couldn’t get out much nowadays. It was the only pleasure left in life for the poor old chap, so who was she to deny it? The fictional relatives would always live in the next-but-one village along (Belinda being aware of how, when a woman tripped in Denshill, within the hour all Sallby would know who’d pushed her).