by Ann Purser
The sixth woman on the list was a talker. Lois could hardly get a word in, and mentally crossed her off the list. Then again, perhaps she’d better give her a chance. She arranged the appointment and went off to the kitchen to make herself a strong coffee. She felt tired and tense. When she heard the telephone ring, she went to answer it in a less than euphoric mood.
“Lois?”
“Yes…who’s that?”
“Hunter Cowgill. You remember?”
“Of course I remember. What do you want?”
“Well…and how are you, too? Don’t sound so suspicious, Lois. I said I’d keep in touch, and I just wondered how you were doing, now you’re living in Farnden. How does the family like village life?”
“OK,” she said.
“So, how’s the cleaning business going? New Brooms? A really good name, that. Have you got going yet?”
Lois remembered that there was not much that escaped Cowgill’s eagle eye. “No,” she said, “but I’ve just fixed some interviews with possible women.”
She made an effort not to sound too hostile. In fact, it wasn’t too much of an effort. In spite of all that Derek had said, she’d had a lurch of excitement at hearing Cowgill’s voice. It wasn’t that she fancied him…no, no…It was suddenly being part of that other world again, the shadowy, risky world of the dark side of the law. And having to think, to think hard about something else that wasn’t family. A while ago, she’d volunteered to be a Special Constable, but was turned down: “Get in touch with us later, dear, when your family has grown up a bit.” That had been the old bag at the police station. Well, Lois had early on in life found her own way of side-stepping the law. She was a respectable wife and mother now, but, as Derek said, her leopard spots were still there underneath. She certainly could listen to what Cowgill had to say now. No harm in that.
“Excellent,” he said. “Well, I’d be most interested to hear when you start. Perhaps we could have a little chat? Just something I’m trying to set up…”
“Like what?” said Lois.
Hunter Cowgill was vague. “Oh, you know, along community involvement lines…new thinking in police practice…all that…”
“What use would I be now?” Lois was curious. She hunched forward in her chair, holding the telephone closer to her ear.
“Much as you were before,” said Cowgill. “Ear to the ground, that sort of thing.”
“Well,” said Lois, “we’ll be operating in the villages. But there’s not too much in the way of weekly murders there, thank God.”
“There’s always crime,” he replied, and sighed. “Anyway, Lois,” he continued, in a brighter voice, “it’d be good to see you again, so I’ll give you another ring when you’ve got going, and we’ll talk. Bye for now.”
Lois felt the usual pang of guilt. Her involvement had come so near to disaster last time, and she had then been tempted to promise Derek anything he asked. But now…well, it sounded more official. She would just think about it.
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
Four
When Lois had put Gary Needham on the list of six, Derek laughed in scorn. “A bloke doin’ housework!” he’d said incredulously. But Lois was intrigued. There could well be clients’ places where it would be safer, or more tactful, or more useful, to have a man going in to strange premises. And anyway, the application had intrigued her. It was well-written, on good quality writing paper, and whoever he was had a nice line in self-mockery.
“I don’t care what you say,” she answered Derek, “and I know what you think. But I reckon any man who’s brave enough to opt for house-cleaning as a job – can you imagine his mates at the pub? – must be worth a look.”
“If he can spare the time from his knitting to go to the pub,” muttered Derek darkly.
Lois laughed. “There you are then, you silly sod,” she said, “that proves my point.” She passed by him on her way to get her coat, and he grabbed her.
“Now then, young woman,” he said, holding her against him, “just because you’re about to be a big tycoon, don’t mean you can’t take a bit of advice from your lord and master.”
She broke free good-humouredly. “Must go,” she said. “First stop, Joanne Murphy, then take Mum’s shopping, and then Gary Needham. And no! Don’t say a word.”
Derek shrugged his shoulders, picked up his jacket and followed her out to the garage, where he helped to start her car and waved her off down the road to Tresham. Why couldn’t she be like other women, contented with house and kids and looking after him? But he knew that if she had not been exactly as she was, he would probably not have married her.
♦
Lois drove into Tresham and it seemed as if the car turned automatically on to the short cut route to the Churchill Estate. She and Derek had started their married life here, and her mother still lived in one of the old people’s bungalows. Not ‘old people’, Mum reminded Lois frequently, but widows and retired couples, who found each other’s company more reassuring and familiar than trying to keep up with contemporary jargon and preoccupations.
She found Joanne Murphy in a semi-detached house still belonging to the council, with a garden reminiscent of the municipal tip, and a front door with so much paint chipped off that most of it was the original salmon pink undercoat. The door was ajar, and a whiff of stale air wafted out. Inside, on the door frame, Lois observed with a sinking heart a patch of deep grime where child-height hands had grabbed it when passing through.
“Hello?” Lois called in a loud voice to penetrate the sound of a television quiz game. “HELLO!” This time she yelled as loud as she could and knocked so hard that her knuckles hurt.
“Who’s that?” The woman’s voice was followed up by her appearance at the door. She was wearing dirty jeans and a boy’s T-shirt with a rude message stretched tight across her ample chest. “Oh, ‘ello,” she said, smiling crookedly. “You Mrs Meade?”
Lois wondered whether it was worth even stepping inside, but she hadn’t the confidence yet to end it there. The living room was untidy, dirty and sombre, chiefly owing to the windows not having been cleaned for months…or years…Lois’s heart was now in her boots, and she sat gingerly on the edge of a rickety chair.
“Like a coffee?” said Joanne Murphy, quite relaxed and friendly.
Lois declined hastily. The television continued unabated, and no attempt was made to turn it off, or even lower the volume. Finally, after a few desultory questions about the woman’s experience, the answers to which were before Lois’s eyes, she stood up.
“Mrs Murphy,” she said firmly, “there’s no way I’d take you on as a cleaner.” She turned slowly around in a circle. “Just look at it…”
As Lois moved out of the room, Joanne Murphy got angrily to her feet, stubbing out her cigarette on a child’s eggy plate left on the floor. “What d’ya mean?” she said loudly. “You got no right to come ‘ere and bloody criticize! You can get out and stick your bloody job!” She pushed Lois towards the door.
This was a mistake. Up to now, Lois had kept professionally cool, but nobody pushed her around. Nobody. She whipped round and glared at the woman. “If you dare touch me again,” she spat out, “I’ll have the law round here quicker than you can shove a fag into your foul mouth.”
The woman backed off, and Lois walked rapidly out to her car. Please God let it start, she prayed, her heart thumping with fury. It did, and she drove off without looking back. When her mother opened the door to her, she marched straight in, sat down in the clean, fragrant little sitting room, and sighed with relief.
An hour or so later, fortified by her mother’s calm presence and strong coffee, she set off again for Gary Needham, two o’clock at number twenty-four, Tresham Park Road. She knew it was an attractive, expensive suburb, and had no idea what to expect. She told herself firmly that nothing could be worse than the unlovely home of Joanne Murphy, and turned into the pleasant tree-lined road with her spirits rising.
♦
�
��What was he like, then, Mum?” said Josie.
The whole family sat around the big kitchen table that Derek had bought from a client on one of his jobs. It was Lois’s favourite piece of furniture, the thing that had made her feel most at home in this big house, and she looked round at her kids and Derek with relief. It had been a very strange day, and she reminded herself that she had a lot to be thankful for. The young ones moaned every now and then at not having anything to do in a village, forced to get lifts and beg parents to take them where they wanted to go. But Lois had noticed a brightness in their eyes, clearer skins and less tension in all of them. It was the space, she’d decided, as well as the cleanest air for miles around.
“Room to breathe,” she’d said to Derek, as they watched the boys at football practice on the pitch behind the village hall.
Now they were all getting restive. “Come on, gel!” said Derek, “we want to know how you got on with the very charming Gary.”
Lois frowned at him. “I’m warning you,” she said.
“Mum! What was he like?” said Jamie.
“Bloke doing housework?” said Douglas in his father’s voice. “Not my idea of a career…never heard of a careers session in school for boys wanting to take up housework!” He laughed a lot, and Jamie joined in loyally.
“Shut up, both of you,” said Josie, and finally it was quiet enough for Lois to speak.
“He was OK,” she said.
“Is that all? ‘OK’?” said Derek.
“Well, he was nice. I think he’ll do.” Lois told herself not to be so mean. She knew they were all bursting for some juicy details, and there had certainly been some. Well, all in good time. “Who wants more ice cream?” she said.
“Lois,” said Derek firmly, “if you don’t tell us exactly what happened, we shall tie you to your seat with the washing line and walk out!”
“Dad!” said Jamie, alarm widening his eyes.
“All right, all right,” said Lois, and put out a hand to pat her youngest on the top of his carrotty head.
She began at the beginning, when she had driven into Tresham Park Road and cruised slowly along looking for number twenty-four. It was a Tudor-style house, and two smart cars stood in the driveway. On each gatepost sat a bad-tempered stone lion, and the front door was an antiqued reproduction, with black iron studs and a ring handle. Lois had checked that she had the right number, and parked.
“I wondered what on earth I was doing,” she said to her attentive family.
“Or what that bloke was doing, more likely,” said Derek.
Lois nodded. She had had a strong feeling that it couldn’t be right. Everything in her warned against going on with it. He was playing around, doing it for a lark, wouldn’t last two weeks, would be rude to the clients, laugh at the other cleaners, and herself…
“Hello!” A bedroom window had opened, and a young man with an unfashionable mop of woolly hair leaned out. “Mrs Meade? Come on in, I’ll be down right away!”
He’d disappeared and the window shut. Seconds later the forbidding door opened, and Gary Needham, tall and thin, obviously nervous, had beckoned her in.
“Was the house bigger than ours?” said Josie, who had discovered that their own solid Victorian villa had given her quite a lift-up in the eyes of her Tresham friends.
“Not really,” said Lois, “just different. Anyway, I didn’t see much of it. We talked in the kitchen.”
“Blimey, that was a bad start,” said Derek. “Shows what he thought of you.”
But it hadn’t been like that, thought Lois. Gary had hopped from one bare foot to the other, asked her if she’d like a drink, apologized for the house being a tip, and allowed her to suggest they sat down in the kitchen, the only room that seemed to have a chair that was free from piles of books. Blimey, she’d said to herself, is there a tidy house in this town? She watched his face closely for signs of secrets and saw a twitching muscle in his cheek. Well, that could be nerves…only natural, under the circumstances?
“I must say straight away,” she’d begun, deciding firmly to take the initiative this time. “I must say that if housework is the love of your life, then you haven’t made much of a start.” She’d looked him straight in the eye, and he had grinned.
“Fair enough,” he’d said. “Good point. But it’s a lost cause in this house. Dad’s a lecturer, and Mum works in the library, and then there’s young Sam…”
“And you just recovering from a broken arm and a sprained ankle, and only getting your sight back after an operation?” Lois had stood up. “And look at you!” she’d added. “I couldn’t send a scruffy-looking bloke in a dirty T-shirt and no socks into a client’s house, not in a million years!” She had made swiftly for the front door, just in case. “No,” she’d said, turning back to look at him. “I’m wasting my time here, Gary. But best of luck with whatever it is you really want to do.”
“He didn’t look much like a cleaner,” she said now, half to herself.
“Told you so!” said Derek triumphantly.
But Josie looked at her suspiciously. “Why did you say he was OK, then?” she asked. “Surely you didn’t…”
“Well, yes, I did,” said Lois. “There was something about him. He stood there looking hopeless, and then he said I could believe or not, but he was very good at housework. He’d had his own flat, and she could ask any of his friends, it had been like something out of a magazine.” Then he had said that what he really wanted to do was play his guitar in a rock band and be a big success. But so far this hadn’t happened, and so he’d decided to try and make a living doing what he knew he was good at. And, he’d added, with a convincing emphasis she was to get to know very well, he could get his hair cut, put on a clean T-shirt and socks, and he could guarantee he’d be welcomed with open arms.
“Well,” said Derek, “so you took him on?” Lois nodded. Derek was stunned, and shook his head in disbelief.
“What about the other woman?” said Josie quickly, seeing her parents were about to start an argument. Lois gave a pithy account of her interview with Joanne Murphy, and was surprised at the silence that followed. “So?” she said, looking round the table.
“What was the difference, Mum?” said Douglas quietly. “Two dirty houses, but one with a posh address? Two dirty cleaners, but one with a posh accent?”
Derek looked at him proudly, and opened his mouth to speak, but Josie got in first: “The difference,” she said, lightly touching her mother’s hand, “is what Gran says. “Clean dirt” – that’s the difference.”
“Got it in one,” said Lois, and stood up to clear the table.
∨ Terror on Tuesday ∧
Five
Joanne Murphy, now dressed in a low-necked, tightly-fitting top and brief miniskirt, jumped off the bus and patted her hair back into its shining blonde beehive. She had bought the wig in one of those dodgy joke shops in Adam and Eve Street, and was very fond of it. As she’d said to her neighbour, it covered a multitude! She walked with quick, small steps on very high heels, and in five minutes turned into the yard of Tresham’s self-proclaimed oldest pub, the Tresham Arms. She left her jacket in the staff cloakroom, indulged in some sharp banter with the barman in the Lords and Ladies bar, and clacked along the stone hallway to the Coachman’s, where, she was delighted to see, stood her old friend, Major Todd-Nelson.
“Good morning, my dear!” he said, with a fractional bowing of his head. Oh, how she loved to be treated with some respect for once.
Joanne adjusted her neckline, and put on her listening face. “And how is Major this morning?” she said, pouring deftly, and out of sight, a glass of neat vodka which, had she been challenged, she would have said at once was water.
“Much better for seeing you,” he said gallantly. This was partly what he came for. His regular glass of Teacher’s gave him a welcome lift, but an hour or so of sophisticated attention from this fine young woman would keep him going for several days. He admitted secretly to himself that there
was something special about the innocent, fresh charms of young Prudence at the Waltonby pub, but this splendid woman in front of him, leaning on her arms on the bar and showing him a rounded plumpness that would haunt his dreams, was the real thing.
♦
By evening, the major was back home, and Joanne Murphy was once more in thrall to the television, having forgotten all about her abortive attempt to become a cleaner.
In the Waltonby village schoolhouse, Prudence Betts’s parents were having their customary conversation about Prue working at the pub in the evenings. Although the village had been proudly labelled one of the safest in the country, they felt uneasy until she was safely home in bed. And then there were the increasing number of occasions when she was very late – once it was one thirty in the morning – and when they complained, she always had a legitimate excuse ready. It was a special evening of Thai food, with mountains of washing-up; or shortages of staff; or extra training from Geoff Boggis. This last one raised their suspicions, and they asked one or two pertinent questions, but Prue had always been very good at giving away the least possible information with apparent total lack of guile.
“It’s all good experience, Dad,” she’d said. “You say you want us to see all sides of life. That’s why you are teaching in the state system, you said, didn’t you? Anyway, Auntie Betty keeps an eye on me.”
Her father sighed. You brought up your children to be articulate and questioning, and then it all bounced back at you, when you could have done with a bit of good old-fashioned respect and truthfulness to parents, and obedience and duty, and all of that.
“Very well, Prue,” he had said, “but we expect you to behave in a responsible way, and to be honest and straightforward with us, as we try to be with you.”
Yuk! thought Prue, but smiled meekly and said, “Don’t forget, Dad, that Prue is an anagram of ‘pure’.” This witticism reduced her mother to apprehensive alarm, and sure enough her father glared at her.