Trembine Halt

by Ivan B

  Harry stared out across the courtyard, his thoughts caught up in another time and another place. A sunny day over forty years ago and three months before his marriage when he and Jenny had been literally making hay together and had ended up making love in a hay-loft. Neither had planned it, both hadn’t wanted to have intercourse before they were married and yet both had passionately enjoyed the experience. He tore himself back into the present. “All right son I’ll keep my nose out of your business.”

  Norman sighed with relief, “What about mum?”

  Harry pulled down his windcheater, “You leave your mother to me.”

  He went to leave the barn and stopped. He said softly, “Just don’t make a fool of her son, and don’t go leading her where you don’t want to follow.”

  With that obtuse advice he left. Norman sat still for a good ten minutes until his frozen ears could bear the pain of the cold no longer, but it was ten worthwhile minutes.

  Harry walked into the kitchen. Jenny was stirring the gravy as if all life needed to be chastised from it. He sat down and pulled off his boots while noting her angry brow. “Been talking to Norman,” he said casually.

  “So you know what he’s been up to, “she retorted.

  Harry nodded. “And I’ve been thinking.”

  She slammed back a saucepan lid after inspecting the peas. “About what? Throwing out that young hussy into the snow?”

  “About Old Samuel’s barn,” he said.

  She stopped stirring wondering what he was rambling about. “Old Samuel’s barn? What about his barn?”

  He smiled, “Old Samuel’s barn on a summer’s day after haymaking with my fiancée.”

  She stopped stirring, he continued. “I know we was wrong, but I’ve never regretted that day, in fact it’s one of my most treasured memories.”

  She sat down at the table with him. “You haven’t told Norman, you…”

  He laid his huge paw over her wrinkled hand, “Of course not. I promised I’d never tell a soul and it’ll be our secret to my dying day, but it’s still a lovely secret.”

  Her mind wandered back through the years to that other time and place. “We were terribly young and we were engaged.”

  Harry stroked her hand, “All I’m saying love is that those that’s been in glasshouses shouldn’t go throwing stones.”

  She sat still and Harry could almost watch as the anger drained from her. It had taken him years to realise that she was as swift to leave anger behind as she was to take it up, providing she had some rational reason for doing so. The peas started to boil over and she got up, she turned them down and smiled at Harry, “It’s one of my best memories to. It was the perfect end to a perfect day.”

  She turned and concentrated on rescuing the think glutinous mass that was supposed to be the gravy and Harry relaxed, not only had he diverted a storm he’d resurrected a cherished memory, a shared cherished memory.

  Not too far away Sarah was standing in the vicarage kitchen. She peered into the casserole dish and frowned. The contents of the pot had fragmented into a steaming mess. She prodded it, stirred it and sighed, it was a total failure. She was about to throw it out when a movement on the hearth rug stopped her. Hoof was watching with his large brown eyes as if anticipating a gorgeous feast. Sarah let out a long breath and turned the pottage into his food bowl to cool. Hoof let out a sigh and lay down. She pursed her lips, “Something, “she said to the dog, “tells me that you’ve been here before.”

  “Been where before?”

  Sarah jumped at Rupert’s words and pointed to the mess. “Casserole, not fit for human consumption.”

  Rupert laughed, “It’s the aluminium casserole dish. I’ve never managed to use it, Anna could never cook in it and Hoof is always the winner. There’s a cast-iron dish in the kitchenette, that works fine.”

  She knew he meant the one with the horrendous built up of charred matter around the edge of the bottom. Rupert rubbed his hands. “How about a stir-fry? There’s some frozen fish and Chinese vegetables in the freezer.”

  Sarah mentally ran through the freezer contents, “I hadn’t noticed,” she said nodding to the freezer in the corner.

  Rupert stared at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Not that one, the one in the garage.”

  Sarah swallowed as a ghastly thought crossed her mind, “Have you used that freezer since…” She swallowed again, “Since Anna died.”

  He shrugged, “Might have, use the one in the garage more.”

  Sarah counted her blessings that they hadn’t died of food poisoning and sought out the garage.

  Julia wiped the soup bowl clean with her piece of bread, “That was yummie.”

  Buster gave a slow smile, “Now do you want the bad news?”

  “Bad news?”

  “I’ve put Maria’s organiser back into the freezer, It woke up and remembered that it needed a password.”

  Julia ate the last few breadcrumbs off her plate. “You could just reset the thing, you’ve got the data card.”

  “No good, bet it’s encrypted so you need the organiser to read it. Reset it and you’ve got gobbledegook.”

  He downed the last of his coffee and carefully place the china mug on a porcelain coaster. “Suppose we’d better start getting ready for our pretence at an engagement party.”

  She caught the sorrow in his voice. She suddenly reached across the breakfast-bar and laid her hand on Buster’s. “I haven’t said no and the longer we’re together the more unlikely it becomes that I will. For all you know I might be a screaming harridan of woman who’d make your life a living hell.”

  He flipped his hand and held onto her while gently massaging her hand. “You’re no such thing and you know it. I know it’s crazy and it’s not in your vicar’s rule book of acceptable ways to start a relationship, but you are the woman for me. I knew it when I saw you ploughing and I know it even more now.”

  She took in his steady gaze (was this a loving gaze?) “You’ll get fed up and want one of your club girls.”

  He murmured, “They’re just girls, you’re a woman, the only woman for me.”

  She let go of him, walked around the breakfast bar, put her hands around his waist and kissed his cheek before whispering, “Just give me time. Three days ago I was an innocent schoolteacher worrying about my hockey team, today I’m a minder’s moll in another world.”

  He stroked her nose with his, “Have all the time in the world,” and kissed her on the cheek.

  She paused, kissed him briefly on the lips and stood back. “Time to get ready or my family will have nothing to eat and I want to put on a good show for them.”

  They piled the plates into the dishwasher and set it running. Buster stretched, “Now leave the nibbles for the meal to me. There’s plates of pre-set nibbles in the basement freezer so it won’t be difficult, and I’ll look up some decent wine.”

  Julia nodded, “And some of that scrumptious Apple juice.”

  He grinned, “Didn’t scrump it, bought it legit.”

  It took her a few seconds to realize his play on words before she chuckled. All of a sudden her cares about her job and worries abut her family seemed a million miles away, so perhaps this was a peculiar form of love after all.

  Chapter 20

  Prelude to a Soirée

  While Buster was putting out the food and drink Julia, for the first time, went into Maria and Jeremy's room. It was huge and dominated by a seven foot circular bed that was covered in purple silk sheets and topped by four bright pink silk covered pillows. There were no bedside cabinets, bedside lights or bedside chairs, just the bed in splendid isolation. Julia investigated the room further, on one side there was a huge walk-in wardrobe full of her expensive dresses and his expensive suits and racks of blouses, shirts and underwear. On the other side there was an en-suite bathroom and off of that a ladies powder room with a huge dressing table that was positively laden with expensive make-up. She went back into the centre of the bedroom and stood st
ill. It was different to her parent’s bedroom, there you felt happiness and mutual comfort, here she felt only lavish coexistence and mutual sadness. It was as if there was this all pervading feeling of wanting more, always wanting more. More money, more comfort and more love. She shivered and went to leave. At the door she looked back, frowned and crossed over to the bed. One of the pillows was askew. She picked it up to plump it before putting it back in it’s rightful place and out tumbled Jeremy’s organiser, a tiny pink mobile phone, a shiny red credit card for a Swiss Bank, an exquisite tiny filigreed silver cross in a small polythene bag and five small photographs that had obviously been folded inside a small piece of paper. She read the note on the paper, looked at the photographs and screamed.

  Rupert finished washing up the wok and looked down the lounge to where Sarah was sitting reading a book with her toes pointing towards the wood-burning stove. He paused for a moment and thought. Was it only a few days ago that she had arrived and he had resented her intrusion upon his life? He knew in his heart of hearts that in the last three days he’d come to terms more with Anna’s death than in the last three years. She’d also opened up to him the possibility of companionship, not just plain companionship, but real female companionship. He tried to analyse what he felt for her. Paternal protection? Friendship? Love? He sighed, he just did not know, this was new and uncharted territory for him. He quietly put the wok away praying that the snow would stay just a few more days to enable him to get his thoughts together. He picked up a book on Ancient Mesopotamia that he had been meaning to read for years and padded up the lounge to sit beside her and start reading. As they sat together, the wood crackled in the stove and the words started to be absorbed by his brain he knew that he was beginning to find peace.

  Dinner at Flosse farm was a subdued affair, but at least Jenny was not on the warpath. Petra didn’t appear and perhaps that was for the best, given the circumstances. As Jill and Harriet had volunteered to wash up Colin decided that the time was right for him to retreat to his bedroom and sneak a quick listen to the rugby commentary from Ireland. He was disturbed by his mother knocking at the door. She entered his room clutching something in her hand. She took hold of Colin’s huge hand and dropped into it a small diamond engagement ring. She looked him in the eyes in a sort of pensive fashion. “This was my grandmothers. I kept it because I had this fancy notion of one day passing it on to my daughter.”

  She shrugged, “But she’s got hands like a bunch of bananas and in any case she’s now got that fancy ring from Buster.”

  She shuffled from foot to foot. “It’s not that I didn’t think that any of our sons would want it, it’s just that Julia was the easy choice.”

  Colin gazed at the ring and she added, “Had it professionally cleaned and the setting checked over when Julia was eighteen.”

  Colin gently turned the ring over in his hand, “It’s beautiful mum, your grandma must have been some person.”

  Jenny nodded, “She married a Major in the cavalry, this is the ring he gave her. He died in the Boer war and she married again and passed the ring onto my mother, who never used it.”

  She watched his eyes, “So it’s at least a hundred years old. My mother always told me that the ring was already a heirloom when granma got it, so it’s quite old.”

  Colin lifted his eyes to look at her, “And precious.”

  She said softly, “And I reckon Jill’s precious to you.”

  Colin kissed her on the cheek, “Thanks mum.”

  She turned to go and paused, “What do you think of that Petra and our Norman?”

  Word had got round about Jenny walking in on Petra so Colin chose his words carefully. “To be honest I don’t know. At first I thought she was out for a laugh, now I’m not so sure.” He bit his bottom lip, “But I am sure of one thing mum, she’s probably not the sort to live in the country.”

  Jenny sighed and left. Colin gazed at the ring in his hand and knew that his mother was giving him a gently message and telling him to ‘get on with it and propose.’ He smiled, she was probably right, he did need a nudge and now he had no excuse to wait any longer.

  As they were speaking, ‘that Petra’ was sitting on the side of Norman’s bed feeling like she’d had her entrails and brain removed to be replaced by jelly. Normally she couldn’t have cared less about what other people thought of her, but Jenny’s discovery earlier on had rattled her. Jenny had offered her open hospitality in a storm and she, quite literally, had abused that hospitality. Normally she’d toss her head, walk away and mutter something like ‘get stuffed.’ But she couldn’t walk away, for a start there was the snow locking her into the farmhouse and secondly there was Norman. He was definitely not the first man she had ever slept with. In fact she’d been ‘playing the field’ for some time with the effect that the more she slept around the less attached she became to the men she was sleeping with. However Norman had got under her defences. She’d first thought that he was a big lummox, whereas he’d proved to be quite a tender sensitive person and, to his great advantage, he had not treated her like an easy going sex-object but like a lady to be treated with courtesy and respect. The weather had also forced her to stay with him and not just walk away, as was her usual practice. This had meant she’d actually taken time to get to know him. She really wanted to creep back into bed and sleep for a week, on the other hand Norman wanted to take her to his sister’s engagement party. She stood up and staggered into the bathroom where she put her head straight under the cold tap wondering whether she was becoming slightly demented.

  Buster appeared in the bedroom, open flick-knife in hand, about fifteen seconds after Julia screamed. He quickly assessed the room, took in the view of Julia with a face like parchment and rushed up to her. She offered, with trembling hand, the photographs and the note. Instinctively he put his right arm around her waist while using his left hand to look at the photographs. They were gruesome. The first photograph showed Maria sitting on a man’s lap and gazing into his eyes, she was wearing nothing but a baby-doll nightdress. The second showed Maria dancing cheek to cheek with the same man, who was obviously tall dark and handsome; this time she was wearing a slinky black dress. The third photograph, a rather grainy long-distance shot through a hotel bedroom window, showed Maria in bed with the same man. The forth photograph showed the man lovingly placing the small silver cross around Maria’s neck; this photograph was in black and white and obviously taken from some surreptitious camera with a poor quality wide-angle lens. The fifth photograph, in full high quality colour, showed the man lying on some grassy knoll with his throat cut. The note said simply, “Job done, send payment via usual channels.”

  Buster felt Julia shudder and he increased the pressure of his hugging arm. He nodded to himself, “That explains the quick exit, fleecing you main competitor is one thing, having him bumped off is quite another.”

  Julia thought she might be sick, she said weakly, “He had his throat cut.”

  Buster gave the photograph the once over. “Not cut, garrotted. Shows in the eyes.”

  He felt Julia shudder and threw the photographs on the bed and put both arms around Julia and hugged her to him. She pushed him away, “Did you know about this?”

  There was fear, anger and hurt in her voice. Buster took a step back, “I swear I never had any idea about this. I was just their minder, I never got involved in their day to day activities.”

  Julia pointed a finger at the photographs, “So this is day-to-day activities?”

  Buster realised that he was fighting for his relationship with her and a wrong answer could send it all down the drain. “I don’t know what it is and that’s being honest. It could be that Maria had an affair and Jeremy took umbrage, or – more likely - it could be that they were planning to blackmail the poor chap and he wouldn’t pay and threatened to retaliate. These are typical private investigator shots.” He paused, “I’m not saying that it was a private investigator mind, only that the photographs look like the sort you�
�d expect from one of them types.”

  Julia stared at him, she looked even whiter than before. “Look,” he said earnestly, “I’m no saint, I’ve roughed up the odd person, but the most I’ve done is break a few arms. This is way out of my league and if I’d know that either of them was into this sort of thing I’d have been over the hill faster than Roadrunner.”

  Julia squinted at him. “Honest?”

  He nodded, “Honest, bad news for minders this sort of thing, they’re usually the first in line.”

  She sat on the bed, “I want to believe you.”

  He knelt in front of her and held her hands. “I swear on me mother’s grave I didn’t know, I wasn’t involved and I’ve no idea what they were doing.”

  Julia frowned, “But your Maria’s minder, surely she couldn’t just swan off without you knowing, this was obviously not done in a day.”

  He shrugged, “Not stuck like glue. I’m there when she’s most vulnerable, but if they’re working alone or out in a restaurant I’m not always around. Sometimes they deliberately told me to take the evening off, or get lost.”

  Julia watched his eyes, it looked like he was telling the truth. She glanced at the photographs again and it all overwhelmed her. “Oh Buster,” she moaned. He leapt to his feet and held her to his chest. To tell the truth he felt quite weak, not from the photos or his ex-employers activities, but weak from the fact that he’d almost lost her. That was something he decided must never happen again.

  Sarah looked up from her book, placed a bookmark in the pages and gently closed it. Rupert was still absorbed in his book and demolishing pages at a prodigious rate. “I’d better get ready,” she said quietly as she circumnavigated the settee.

  There was a slight pause and Rupert looked up, “Oh, is it that time already?”