Cross Check: The second Posh Hits story

by Caron Allan

  We said we did know. “What sort of sickness?” I asked, crossing my fingers behind my back and ignoring strange looks from my beloved.

  “Er – it is becowse of thee feesh – the - er - the oysteurr?” We nodded vigorously to encourage him to continue. “There is many peoples seeck, very seeck, and not just becowse of the oysteurr but also the other – er – feesh. And now thees man, he is dieded.”

  “Dieded?” I asked, shocked. I mean, it’s one thing to cross one’s fingers, but when good luck does come one’s way, it’s always a little bit of a shock. Usually nothing goes right for me.

  “Er – yes, they is find heem dayd these morninggg.”

  “Oh my God!” I said, and sat down with a bit of a bump, “we were only there last night!”

  “You were there last night? You know thees man? You eat of hees feesh, no?” The waiter asked, setting down a glass he had been wiping and taking up another. The glass was shiny before he wiped it, and afterwards it was still shiny. I wasn’t seeing what was gained from all this activity.

  “Yes, we do know him. But no, we didn’t eat the –er – feesh.” Matt said. He sounded shocked, grim even. He looked over his shoulder at me, those eyes were narrowed again! Oh dear, I thought, think I may have some explaining to do.

  “How shocking, I am so verrry shocked for you!” Said the waiter, and indeed he did pause momentarily in wiping his glassware. “He was a good friend, yes?”

  “We had only just met him,” I said. “But he seemed like a nice man. Such a shame.” I collected our drinks and began to move away.

  “Yes, but, the peoples do not take the goodist care with the feesh when they cook him. So seemple to get seeck if that happen.” The waiter pointed out.

  “How true.” I said.

  Matt led me to a table some distance from the bar. And some distance from everyone else too. He hissed at me immediately, “what did you do?”

  Why does he always assume things are my fault? I sat fondly gazing at my belly and stroking the slightly pointy little bulge where young Thomas Sidney was obviously turning over in bed.

  “Well, it doesn’t look as if it was anything to do with that, if a lot of people were ill.” I pointed out. “Sounds like they got in a dodgy batch of fish. He was always a cheapskate, according to my mother. No doubt he didn’t want to pay for actual freshly caught fish.”

  Matt leaned closer as a couple of Germans walked past. He whispered, “so did you put something in the food, or in the drinks?”

  I was shocked. “What? No, I didn’t poison everyone! I would never do anything like that. I just left him a couple of doctored cocktails by his bed. In case he was a bit thirsty in the night. With a little fake love-note from a fake admirer.”

  Matt groaned and leaned back now, eyes closing for a brief second. But when he turned to me, the twinkle was back.

  “Ethylene Glycol, I presume?”

  “It’s trending,” I said, and smiled. “How about that walk?”

  Tuesday 26 August – 10.15pm

  Lovely walk yesterday evening, then another little rest and then a soak in the bath followed by dinner – I couldn’t help avoiding all the seafood – just thought of it made my tummy sort of lurch, so I opted for the good old chicken. And the inevitable non-alcoholic fruit cocktails.

  Excitingly, later in the evening there was a band in the ballroom, and can you believe it – Matt can dance – more or less – and so we had a lovely, lovely evening listening to the music, dancing like it was the 70s, chatting with some other guests who seem quite nice, if a bit odd. (Beginning to think everyone is a bit odd, actually!) Turns out they had been at Desmond’s last night too, (thought I recognised them!) I forgot to ask how they knew him, but we had a nice long chat about the perils of seafood! They come from Manchester, of all places.

  Then another little walk outside to cool off before bedtime and gaze at the stairs, hand in hand with my lovely man, and I was feeling absolutely shattered again. Had a fab back rub from my new husband!

  Everything was going along nicely but then a text came through to Matt’s phone, and in case it was about the children, he took a look and discovered it was from Lill. We are now rather upset and not quite sure what we should do, not sure if it’s serious enough to do anything at all. But the urge is to rush home as quickly as possible.

  An envelope was put through the door, Lill said, and when she opened it, it had a couple of photographs in it. One was of me sitting alone on a bench with a bouquet of flowers, and the other was of Matt and Paddy coming out of the hall in the village where they have the pre-schoolers group.

  It certainly killed the mood for sex.

  He phoned home, chatted with Lill for a few minutes but there wasn’t really anything more to tell than she had already said in her text. She sounded a bit concerned but not super worried, and obviously Sid is there, so …

  We discussed the photos at length for the next hour and a half, and finally fell asleep. I had horrid dreams, and woke feeling listless and heavy. I can tell Matt is not sure what to do, perhaps he would like to go home but is afraid I will be disappointed at cutting short our honeymoon.

  As soon as breakfast was over (and that made me feel a bit better – I had my first coffee for months, felt like I needed something pretty heavy-duty.) we went out for a walk along the marina again and immediately fell to discussing the photos, going over and over the same ground that we covered so thoroughly last night.

  In the end, I turned to Matt and said, “I think we should go home.” He said nothing, but it was all there in his eyes, his concern, and feeling torn between wanting to go home and be sure, and the wanting to stay here and enjoy the rest of our honeymoon. I went on, though I didn’t really need to persuade him. “It may not be anything really serious but I just feel we need to be there. It’s not the end of the world, cancelling our honeymoon – we’ve got a lifetime ahead of us to go away together. And if we’re worrying about the family, we won’t be able to relax and enjoy ourselves.”

  We stopped walking and stood looking out to sea. He put his arms round me and we stood like that for a few minutes. Then he dropped a kiss on my hair.

  ”Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not! I won’t be able to relax for a moment until we’re back home and I know everyone is okay.”

  I felt relieved just to have made a decision. And so we went back to our room and packed. We got the first plane back to Britain. So here I am, sitting up in my own (now shared) bed in my own bedroom. Actually it’s good to be home.

  Wednesday 27 August – 9.30pm

  It’s so nice to be home again. And – such a relief – everyone is okay. The children were overjoyed to see us, and they have both been clinging to me and will not let me out of their sight. (Most gratifying that it is me they are clinging to! Feel like some kind of Earth Mother, wonderful!) (But of course, very humbling, at the same time. Have realised I have a duty to really nurture those around me.) (Oh my God! Have just realised I am turning into Nadina! The perfect wake-up call! What complete and utter shit!)

  Lill and Sid were equally relieved to have us back. But all okay, no damage done. On route for home there was a frantic text from my mother saying “OMG have just heard abt Dsmnd – fluds of tears, cant blve he srvd shllfsh at his party – he’s alwys been allrgic. Did you see him? Did you get sick?”

  At least she’s showing some maternal concern. After thirty odd years.

  We had a look at the photos that came in the post. They were just as we had suspected, not the kind of photos anyone could have got legitimately, they are utterly voyeuristic, just like the ones supposedly bequeathed to me by Monica.

  And the envelope they came in, completely blank, so as Matt says, not posted at all, but slipped under the front door by hand, which is much worse because of obviously it means someone has actually been here. Mind you, we already knew that Monica knows where we live – obviously!

  But that was two days ago, and there ha
s been nothing else since, no other incident, no calls, no one hanging around, nothing to alarm either Lill or Sid in the least. No cars parked along the road. Nothing. Not that any of us are happy about that because it can mean only one thing – we are still waiting for the sender of those photos to say what they want. Meanwhile they’re messing with our heads. And we will have to wait for them to be ready, to feel they’ve achieved whatever it was they wanted to achieve. Which is terrifying.

  Sid and Matt have decided we are not to go anywhere alone, and that we keep the doors locked night and day, none of this “in this village our doors are always open” crap.

  Matt’s sister is still here. It seems she stayed on a few extra days to ‘help out’. I don’t think she wants to go home. From a couple of hints she’d dropped, she seems to want to leave her husband and stay here. I suppose the rest of the clan are here, so it shouldn’t surprise me that she, too, is angling for an invitation to move in permanently. She told me within an hour of us returning, that she and her husband no longer have anything in common, they never do anything together or go out together and that she is keen to move closer to her parents “now they’re getting older”.

  Thing is, I don’t really like her very much – there’s something about the way she walks around my home, and if she thinks she’s alone she strokes the furniture and straightens cushions in a kind of proprietorial way. I can’t quite put my finger on what’s happening. I feel she has come here whilst I’ve been away and seen what the house and furniture is like and now she doesn’t see why she should go back to slumming it in her three bed semi in Milton Keynes. She wants my house.

  But what about her children? How can she bear to be away from them all this time? I can’t remember if there are three or just two, I get a bit muddled due to the council-estate names. And she doesn’t seem to understand, husbands are supposed to be ordinary, that’s the whole point. (Why do I have to keep explaining this?) Was Thomas exciting and dynamic? No, of course not! He was sweet, he was occasionally romantic, but you know – a bit, well … and I’m sure he’d have been the first one to say I was less than scintillating company too.

  So why does Leanne think her hubby what-his-name should be more exciting? I mean, when we start going out with someone, it’s so that we will have the rest of our lives to create a home together, not so we can have a pal to go to shopping and bingo with – that’s what our girlfriends are for. We stay in with our menfolk and go out with our galfolk. Why is this a surprise to anyone? It’s perfectly obvious! Perhaps I should write a book on relationships? Think I may have finally found my calling in life.

  And we are breaking in yet another daily woman. This one is called Joan. They always are called things like that, aren’t they – Vera, Cynth, Joan. All older women. Surely they aren’t physically up to the demands of the job? But Lill tells me she has high hopes of this one (she’s said that before!) because a) this one is a cat lover (which was very much the first consideration, I suspect) and b) she’s already been here three days in a row and still seems to like it, and c) she doesn’t seem to mind Lill telling her what to do. So maybe Lill’s right and we have finally found ourselves a Treasure.

  So the house seems quite full. When I think back a couple of years, it was just Thomas and I most of the time with Lill just popping in for a few hours a couple of times a week. If he was a way on business, which was fairly often, I would sometimes spend days without talking to another human being. Looking back I realise I was often lonely. Now there is always a crowd. Although sometimes it gets a bit much, as clearly communal living can have its drawbacks occasionally. But perhaps it’s good to have so many others around in view of the weirdness that’s going on at the moment.

  Amongst the post that has accumulated whilst we’ve been away there was a congratulations card from Nadina and Jeremy. How did they even know? As I gazed at it (silly little chicks with top hat and wedding veil, wing in wing) I thought about phoning Nadina and just having it out with her there and then, telling her I knew Monica was still alive and that she, Nadina had colluded with her against me. But I hesitated to act – because, I suddenly thought, she could simply hang up on me, or deny it, or laugh – or any number of things other than what I really wanted which was to make her realise how deeply I felt her betrayal. So when I do finally confront her, it will have to be face to face, where she can’t wriggle away or laugh it off or shelter behind Jeremy.

  I might have to add her to my little list.

  Thursday 28 August – 4.05pm

  Woke up feeling fantastic – soothed and relaxed due to being back in own home (in spite of Someone’s sister also still being here and reclining on MY swooning couch and dog-earing MY Vogue! She’s even started copying my mannerisms and pet phrases!) – and I then had big row with squeaky-new husband due to getting caught popping out alone to go to pub for lunch with aged pal Henrietta.

  “What did I say about not going anywhere alone?” He said, and his tone was such that I felt like doing a school-girl imitation but resisted on grounds that he might get really furious and leave me and that my second marriage would be over after a mere ten days. (The average for most Hollywood marriages, surely?) Besides I am pregnant and no one, least of all I, wants to look abandoned and desperate when heavy with child. Actually not that heavy – have still only gained five pounds – woo-hoo!

  I was about to joke that I could take Billy with me when Lill grabbed my arm and said, “I can go with her, I want to pop in the shop anyway and so we can keep each other company. And don’t worry about Joan, she knows what she’s got to do this morning.”

  So off we went. Wasn’t sure if Lill was going to abandon me at the door to the post office slash general store as surely that would then mean that we were both on our own again, thus defeating the object of the exercise? But she just steered me inside saying, “won’t be a mo, just need some stamps and some kitchen foil.”

  When we came out she turned with me in the direction of the pub and we set off, still arm in arm, and Lill was telling me something about the photos. “Got ‘em in me bag,” she said, “I fort we could show ‘em to ‘Enrietta, see what she finks.”

  It turned out ‘Enrietta fort the same as us.

  “Someone’s been spying on you.” She said. I resisted the urge to slap my forehead and declare that it was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes. Such an insightful revelation. Not.

  We were all three of us sitting at our favourite table with our favourite tipple – Henrietta with her Rum and OJ, me with my hot chocolate with squirty cream and gloopy pink and white mini marshmallows, and Lill with her Gin and It, no matter that she had originally said to me, “ooh it’s far too early for anything naughty.”

  This was almost the first time Lill and I had socialised together beyond the realms of the kitchen, and it was also the first time Lill and Henrietta had met properly outside of their Housekeeper and Guest roles. But Lill was now my mother-in-law and Henrietta seemed to be making a special effort to be friendly and get to know her. And – it was nice! Henrietta set the photo back down on the table and I immediately scooped it up. Henrietta leaned towards me and nodded at the photo.

  “You look as though you’re talking to someone.”

  I felt a bit embarrassed. But no point in covering anything up so I nodded and said, “yes, I was. I was talking to my dead husband. I was telling him about Matt and I and the baby.”

  Lill gave me an ‘aww bless’ look and I knew she was touched. She patted my hand and said, “he was a lovely chap, your Thomas, a real gent.”

  I sighed. “Yes. Poor Thomas.”

  There was a brief moment. Then, coming back to the topic of the photos, I added, “that’s one of the reasons this is all so upsetting. I thought I was alone. It’s like when Thomas was killed, on our own patch, doing our own outdoor pursuits, on a private estate. It’s not the car park at Tesco’s. It’s not as though this was a public occasion where we were out in the open somewhere and there were people taking
photographs, and lots of people milling about. Our wedding day, for example. Here, someone is clearly lurking, in the wilds of Scotland, taking photos of me in secret. They’re saying, look how close I got, I could have touched you, harmed you, you didn’t even know I was there. That’s why it makes me feel – for want of a better word – violated. And frightened. And that’s why Matt is so angry.”

  I picked up my teaspoon and played with the residual foam on the surface of my drink.

  “Do you have any idea who sent the photos? Who took them?” Henrietta asked.

  “We have some idea, yes.” I said.

  “So what are you going to do now?” She asked.

  “Give them a taste of their own medicine.” Lill suggested. I stared at her. It felt as though someone had switched on a light in my mind.

  “That is a brilliant idea.” I said. “I think we’ll do just that.”

  Of course it means a lot more driving around when all I really want to do is stay at home and make a nice ‘nest’ for my baby. But maybe, if we do this (I’ll persuade Matt to help me – it’s not as though he’d let me do anything alone anyway) it might be the perfect way to tell certain people to leave us alone. Once and for all!

  Friday 29 August – 1.45pm

  Have been up all night feeling poorly with the baby. Went to the doctor first thing, but she reassured me everything is okay – listened to the baby’s heart, blood pressure okay, everything. So maybe it’s just stress. I must admit I’ve been very lucky so far, I mean, some of my friends have been poorly from conception to delivery, and for the following sixteen to eighteen years, but I’ve really been fine most of the time. Am now almost halfway at 18 weeks pregnant – and am bigger but (thankfully!) not massive. Anyway, all okay, doctor has given me the all-clear and told me to try to relax more and take moderate exercise. Matt was with me so he did that manly, “I’ll make sure she does as she’s told” thing men do. LOL.