by K Leitch
All the bungalows on the crescent had very long back gardens that backed on to what had been at one time Redbank airfield, one of the smaller airfields that dotted the surrey countryside and had been busy during the last war. Although it had long ago become a waste land, a few of the air raid shelters remained and as such it had been hard for the building company to get planning permission to build on it. But money works miracles and build they had, simply leaving the air raid shelters and the six protester’s bungalows untouched.
Flora loved her bungalow and she particularly loved her garden. With its long lawn bordered with flowering shrubs and her well-kept vegetable patch right at the very end where she grew lettuce, runner beans and potatoes. She loved her fruit trees which created a border half way down the garden and provided her with more fruit than she could ever eat. Up until a few years ago she’d enjoyed looking after it herself, but she’d had to admit defeat as her arthritis had worsened and handed the caring for it over to Billy Hobbs, who she could now see trying to untangle the flex of the lawn mower from around his leg.
Flora rolled her eyes and tutted to herself as she took the teapot from the shelf and rinsed it out before spooning fresh leaves into the pot. She always used leaves and a pot; teabags just didn’t taste the same no matter how convenient they were. She filled the kettle and plugged it in watching Billy as she did so. He was a good boy Billy was, she’d taught him for a couple of years, back in the day when she’d taught Art and History at Riddlestone High. He’d been “special needs” of course and came from a most dysfunctional family, his mother was a simple woman who’d had trouble looking after herself let alone a child and his father had cleared off not long after he’d been born. Billy had learning difficulties and had struggled with his reading and writing, not to mention his emotional problems and his complete lack of social skills, all of which had made him an easy target for the most vicious bullying.
Poor Billy, Flora thought, shaking her head, what he had suffered at the hands of those little thugs. Some children should be strangled at birth, she thought viciously, they could be so unimaginably cruel; they had some sort of evil in them that would seek out differences or weaknesses and they would home in and prey on those poor unfortunates relentlessly.
The number of times Flora had found Billy shivering in a corner hiding from one child or another, quite often he would be bleeding or (even more mortifying) he would have wet himself. It still made her blood boil to think about it, thank goodness what Billy had lacked in brains he more than made up for in size. By the time he was 16 he was almost 6’6 and powerfully built and the bullying had stopped.
Flora had taken him under her wing a bit back then and she had continued to try and help him after he had left school. Not surprisingly Billy had found it difficult to find work, he had never progressed beyond the mental age of about ten and now at almost 25 was working as a handy man and gardener. He had needed a few lessons in good manners at first mind (but what could you expect coming from a background like his) but he hadn’t resented her for it. He knew she was punishing him for his own good and she hardly ever had to discipline him these days. Flora always managed to find work for him to do in the garden, it was no hardship she liked having him around.
She found that time passed very slowly for her now; days could go by without her seeing or speaking to another living soul. Teaching had been her life; she’d never married or had a family.
She’d been engaged once, but two weeks before her wedding George, her fiancé, had run off with her younger sister Mavis and Flora hadn’t seen either of them again. Heartbroken she had consoled herself with her work, Mavis had been her only family, both her parents having been killed years earlier in a tragic car accident. Mavis had written to her a few times over the years… trying to make peace…but Flora wasn’t having any of it. She’d torn up the letters and the subsequent photographs sent at the birth of her various nephews and nieces, she didn’t need their company or their pity. She had her work and her cats, she was fine. What Flora hadn’t anticipated however, was how alone she would be once her teaching career came to an end…how lonely and vulnerable she would feel, how empty her life would be…
‘Can’t reach that bit by the old tree,’ Flora was jolted out of her thoughts by Billy’s voice through the kitchen window.
She looked up and smiled. ‘Sorry Billy I was miles away, what did you say?’
‘Can’t reach it…the bit round the old tree…flex won’t reach,’ Billy repeated holding up the end of the flex to illustrate his point.
Flora nodded; they had this conversation every time Billy cut the lawn. ‘I know Billy,’ she said patiently, ‘we have to use the shears round the tree…remember? Leave it for now and come and have your tea, you can use the shears later.’
Billy nodded his agreement and came in through the kitchen door taking his muddy boots off on the mat before sitting down at the kitchen table. Flora poured them both a cup of tea and then put some hobnobs on a plate before sitting down on the chair opposite Billy.
‘Yer ‘tatoes look about ready…do you want I should dig ‘em up for you?’ Billy asked a moment later after taking a huge swig of tea.
‘If you’ve got time that would be…’ CRASH! Flora let out a squeal of shock and Billy jumped up out of his chair as the kitchen window exploded and glass rained down onto the kitchen table. In a panic, Billy ran out through the back door and round to the front of the house, then back down to the end of the garden and out into the little alley that ran along at the back of the house onto the edge of the airfield, he returned a few minutes later breathless and shaking his head.
‘You alright Miss Metcalf?’ he said panting, his hands on his knees, ‘I couldn’t see no one, not in the alley or nowhere…what was it…who done it?’
Flora held up the offending missile which had landed on the oven, a half brick which had a note tied to it. With shaking hands she opened up the crumpled note and laid it out on the kitchen table.
Flora gasped and let out a moan of despair as she read the message, written in a childish scrawl…
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES YOU INTERFERING OLD BITCH…WE’RE WATCHING YOU.
CHAPTER 7 - MAGGIE
‘Oh God darling I’m sorry I can’t today, Duncan’s got a meeting with a new supplier and I said I would go with him,’ Maggie said to her son Dom, as she loaded up the dishwasher with breakfast dishes. ‘Anyway doesn’t Lena pick him up today?’
Dom pulled a face. ‘Yes she does usually but she’s got a hospital appointment this afternoon, I suppose I could ring Tracy, but now that she works she’s not always around at that time…’
‘Oh bloody hell,’ Maggie said shaking her head as she started up the washer and collected Juke’s lunch box from the fridge, ‘I suppose I could always ring Duncan, put him off for today, he won’t mind I suppose, once I explain…’
‘Oh Mum that would be brilliant,’ Dom interrupted eagerly, giving Maggie a squeeze, ‘I’m so sorry but this meeting is really important and I just can’t miss it…’
Maggie pursed her lips. ‘Yes that’s all very well, but we really must get something properly sorted out about Jukie. I mean it’s hardly ideal is it, him going home with different people every day, and with the best will in the world we can’t both be around all the time to look after him. And that is something that we will have to be able to show to the adoption board, that he is getting proper supervision in a stable environment…’
Dom held up his hands, ‘Don’t worry I’m on it, I’m putting an ad in the local paper. It’s obvious that what we need is a full time nanny. Now that Juke and I have moved into the main house and the annex is free, we can advertise for a live-in one, which will be the best solution all round I think….’
‘Yes…I suppose so,’ Maggie said dubiously, ‘just as long as we don’t end up with some dozy cow that we don’t get along with, or some domineering dragon that scares us both to death. I mean Berta’s bad enough, she gave me hell the other day ju
st because I’d re-arranged the kitchen cupboards and she scares the living daylights out of me if ever I forget to replace the loo rolls. She doesn’t say anything but she gives me that look, you know the one that says “watch your back lady, I have a plunger in my pocket and I’m not afraid to use it.”’
Dom laughed as he thought about their little Hungarian cleaner, ‘Oh you love Berta Mum, you know you do…anyway we’ll just have to be really fussy about who we choose…I mean we would anyway wouldn’t we, if she’s going to be looking after Jukie full time, so…’
Maggie thought for a moment. ‘Yes…okay I think it’s a good idea, but we don’t hire anyone unless we are both happy… agreed?’ she said firmly.
‘Okay Mother,’ said Dom pulling a face at her, ‘anyway thank you so much for today, you’re a life saver.’
‘Where is Juke anyway?’ Maggie asked, ‘I sent him upstairs to get his shoes on over ten minutes ago.’ She stopped and rolled her eyes, ‘You didn’t give him his PSP back did you?’ Dom gave her a shifty look, ‘Oh bloody hell Dom, it’s hard enough getting him to school as it is, without having to rip his beloved PSP out of his hot little grasp as well, he is going to hate me.’
‘Oops sorry,’ said Dom unrepentantly, he hastily grabbed his laptop from the side and headed towards the door, ‘I really do have to shoot now though, thanks again Mum I’ll see you later…bye.’ And with that he was gone.
‘I must have “Mug” tattooed across my forehead,’ Maggie grumbled, as she drained her coffee and went upstairs to hurry Juke along. She could hear the familiar noises of his latest PSP game coming from his room and took a deep breath.
‘Come on sweetheart, time to get ready now,’ she said walking into the little room that had been transformed from her old office into somewhere that a four year old boy would feel proud to call his own. Maggie was very pleased with how this room had turned out, the walls were painted in a lovely pale eggshell blue except for one which was covered with a beautiful colourful mural (courtesy of Helen) depicting animals of all shapes and sizes. Maggie had wanted to create a room which Juke could feel was his very own, maybe give him a sense of belonging. Which was something the little boy really needed after being more or less abandoned by his mother the previous year.
Maylee, Juke’s mother and Dom’s ex-girlfriend, had been living with Dom in the annexe over the garage that was attached to Maggie’s barn. Dom had thought that Maylee was the love of his life, and he had planned a future with her and little Jukie. Unfortunately though Maylee had had other ideas and when she’d had a better offer (from Maggie’s wealthy neighbour’s son, for a life in Hollywood no less) she had dumped them all, her son included, and scuttled off as fast as her Jimmy Choo’s would carry her. It had taken Dom an age to get over it but having Jukie to think about had definitely helped, he loved the little boy as if he was his own and now, so too, did Maggie.
They had applied to formally adopt him; not surprisingly Maylee had put up a token fight, obviously not wanting to look like a bad mother. But it seemed that her protests had all been for show, because just last month they had been told that she had given them her permission and signed guardianship of her son over to Dom. Now all they had to do was convince the adoption board that Jukie was in safe hands and that meant stability and not being picked up from school by anyone that happened to be free…Dom was right, they needed a professional.
‘Come on Jukie,’ Maggie said again to the little boy sitting on the floor next to his bed all his attention focused on the game he was playing. ‘Juke!’ Maggie raised her voice, as he completely ignored her, ‘where are your shoes? Come on love you can play on that thing when you get home later, but right now we need to find your shoes and get you to school.’
‘Don’t want to go to school…hate school,’ Jukie muttered sulkily, reluctantly putting his PSP to one side and getting to his feet.
‘Well we all have to do things we don’t like now and again,’ Maggie said firmly, spotting his shoes under his bed and retrieving them. ‘Anyway that’s a load of rubbish, you love school, you said to me yesterday that you were really excited about making dinosaurs today didn’t you?’ she sat Juke down on the end of his bed to put his shoes on.
‘I like dinosaurs,’ the little boy said looking at her with his enormous brown eyes, ‘I just don’t like school…Angela Hoddy is a big fat pig!’
Maggie hid a smile. ‘What…not Angela surely? I thought she was your best friend, anyway it’s not nice to call people fat or pigs sweetheart.’
‘Well she told Colin Lee that I took his ROBOB cards and I didn’t, it was Darren Scruton I saw him…so she is a big fat pig…and a fibber and…’
‘Yes well that wasn’t very nice of her darling,’ Maggie said hastily before his rant could get any worse, ‘but I’m sure she just made a mistake. Come on now let’s get your bag, we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry, and if you are a good boy today maybe we can go down to the café for our tea tonight, ‘cus I’m picking you up this evening.’
‘Yay,’ Jukie said flinging his arms round Maggie, ‘Can Nonna come too, and Benji and Abby?’ Nonna was Maggie’s friend Helen’s Polish mother-in-law… well sort of. A wonderful sweet old lady who had become Nonna to most of the kids in the neighbourhood.
‘Not tonight darling, Nonna’s doing something else this evening, that’s why you’re stuck with me. Right you all set?’ Maggie asked grabbing Juke’s bag from the end of his bed, ‘Good, let’s go.’
By the time Maggie had driven the short distance to the school and parked her enormous car in a tiny space between two other enormous cars, Jukie was jumping up and down in excitement at the thought of his dinosaur making and he ran ahead of her into his class without another complaint. Just as Maggie was leaving the reception classroom a moment later, she spotted her other friend and fellow witch Tracy, coming along the corridor towards her, staggering under the weight of a huge pile of exercise books that she was carrying.
‘Cooee…Tracy,’ she called and went over to her, taking half the books from her as she did so.
‘Oh my God Maggie thank you…I think I bit off more than I could chew, they were a lot heavier than I expected,’ Tracy babbled as the two girls made their way into the school office where Tracy worked. ‘Oh if you could just put them down there…thank you, you’re a star,’ she finished and then plumped herself down on her chair fanning her bright red face with one of the books. ‘I am so unfit…I keep meaning to do something about it, but then someone offers me a jam doughnut and I forget all about it, I am so useless…it’s no laughing matter,’ she said as Maggie giggled and sat down opposite her, ‘it’s ok for you “Maggie I can eat what I like and I don’t put on a pound Wendover”, but us more buxom wenches have to make an effort.’
‘Oh bloody hell Trace change the record,’ Maggie said ruthlessly. ‘It doesn’t matter how many times we all try and reassure you that you’re fabulous as you are, you still seem to have this warped image of yourself. You’ve got that, whatsitsname…um, body dysmorphic syndrome or something like that, where you see yourself differently from the way everybody else sees you.’
Tracy snorted, ‘Um…I’m pretty certain that everybody else sees a thirty something, top heavy little weeble, just like I do actually,’ she said, opening up her drawer and getting out two cream eggs, one of which she threw at Maggie who caught it deftly and smiled her thanks.
‘Anyway if you’re that bothered,’ Maggie said opening the cream egg and biting the top off, why not try that new slimming club that’s just started at the village hall…Berta’s been going, it’s on every Tuesday evening I think.’
‘Oh, how’s she been doing?’ Tracy asked licking the filling out of her cream egg, ‘has she lost anything?’
‘Well the first week she lost four and a half pounds,’ Maggie said before shoving the whole of the rest of her egg into her mouth.
‘Blimey that was good going…how did she do this week?’
Maggie tried to speak
but her mouth was too full of chocolate, eventually she said, ‘Oh this week she lost another two pounds and her shoes…someone pinched them while she was being weighed.’
Tracy burst out laughing covering them both in a chocolatey spray.
‘What are you doing here anyway?’ she asked when they had cleaned themselves up, ‘it’s not your day to bring Jukie is it?’
‘No,’ Maggie said pulling a face, ‘Dom has a meeting so I’ve been drafted in again. Duncan’s not happy, I was meant to be going with him to Burgess Hill today to speak to some new suppliers…anyway that’s one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you. We have decided that we need someone full time to look after Jukie…’
‘Oh darling you know I would but I’m so busy, what with the children and now my job…’ interrupted Tracy.
‘Not you…you daft cow,’ Maggie said laughing. ‘No I was just wondering if you would keep your ears open in case you hear of anyone that’s looking for that sort of work…you know talk in the playground that sort of thing…’
‘Oh yes of course I will,’ Tracy said with relief. ‘I’ll ask around and I’ll speak to Juno, she is the font of all knowledge around here.’
‘Thanks love that’d be great,’ Maggie said getting up and collecting her bag from the back of the chair, ‘are you ok for the cauldron meeting tomorrow evening and would you like a lift, I won’t be drinking anyway I’ve got and early meeting the following morning so…?’
‘Oh my God yes that would be great! After the week I’ve had I can’t wait…no I’ll tell you about it tomorrow,’ she said when Maggie would have asked, ‘let me just say that Simon is lucky his balls are still attached to his body…no, I’m saying no more,’ she said firmly holding up her hand.