In the late morning one of Tom’s surfer friends, who’d been a bearer at the funeral, phoned up and asked if he and his mate Jimbo could drop in.
‘That’s nice of you, Freddie,’ I said, assuming they wanted to say goodbye before setting off back down to Cornwall. It was amazingly thoughtful of them and, I would have previously said, totally out of character.
‘Well, we wanted to say goodbye, Lizzy, but we’ve also got a proposition.’
‘A proposition?’
‘Yes, we thought we might take on Tom’s business and wanted to discuss it with you. If you’ve no other plans for it, of course.’
‘No, I haven’t really had time to think of it. But of course you can come down and we can talk about it,’ I said, for it would be a relief. I had no idea what to do with all his equipment and half-finished boards and stuff, and it would be rather nice if his friends carried on with Board Rigid.
So far as I could gather from male-bonding rituals, Freddie and Jimbo had been two of Tom’s best friends. They’d all been at Rugby School together, dropped out of university and then washed up in Cornwall, bumming around on family money. But I suppose even that and the patience of your family is finite, and when a man is heading rapidly for his forties it’s time to stop being the playboy of the western UK, and earn your own bread and wetsuits.
I went into the workshop and opened the big front door to the sunshine for the first time since the accident, instead of the little Judas door.
Things looked dusty already and there was that familiar smell of paint, varnish and dope (both kinds). Tom’s wetsuit swung from a hook like the spent chrysalis of some strange creature: which I suppose it was, when I came to think about it.
One or two boards that were obviously commissions were almost finished, and there were several of the ones he bought in and painted to sell on through shops. I had a rough idea what they were worth and the people who had ordered boards had their names and phone numbers taped to the back: Tom’s idea of paperwork. Mind you, the system seemed to work, which is more than could be said for his tax returns: I only hoped the Inland Revenue was not now going to fall on me like a ton of bricks.
Tom’s friends turned up so quickly they must have phoned from a mobile up the lane and were very kind, kissing my cheek and hugging me as if they had always liked me, which they didn’t. I was the wrong sort of girl: Tom should have married someone sea-sporty, acquiescent, well connected and, above all, rich.
Jimbo has a long body, stumpy legs and a big nose, but he didn’t get his nickname from his appearance: his name is James Bow. Freddie is tall and skinny, with grey-blond hair fuzzing over a head like a bleached coconut. They must have to get their wetsuits made specially.
After looking over the workshop as though it was a dubious garage sale, they um-ed and ah-ed a bit, then said they would take the worry of it off my hands for three hundred pounds, what did I say?
‘What, for the whole lot?’ I gasped, thinking I hadn’t heard right.
‘Well, let’s say four hundred, to be fair. There’s not much here, and we’d have to finish off the old orders and deliver them, of course,’ Freddie pointed out, as if this would be a big favour.
‘But Tom’s almost finished them, and he hasn’t been paid yet. And the other boards that belong to him are worth more than that alone!’ I protested, stunned.
They exchanged quick looks and I realised they hadn’t expected me to know anything about the business or the value of it, and be too upset to think straight. I’d fallen among thieves.
‘Oh, no, Lizzy, they’re not top-quality boards, you see,’ Jimbo said quickly, ‘and several are half-finished — you’d never sell them like that. Besides, you don’t have the contacts, do you? But we do.’
I looked at them: these were supposedly Tom’s closest friends. He’d been to school with them, hung out with them over the years, and they were well off by my standards, even if they did look like bums most of the time. And now they wanted to make a quick profit by cheating his widow!
They were also cunning beach bums, for Freddie now produced a neatly printed agreement. I read it through a couple of times, noting the words ‘sale to include everything pertaining to the business of Board Rigid’, but my brain wasn’t really up to coping with possible pitfalls.
‘Trust us — we’re doing you a favour, Lizzy,’ Jimbo said persuasively. ‘I mean, who else would be interested?’
‘Take it all off your hands — one less thing to worry about,’ agreed Freddie, shiftily avoiding my eyes.
But when I looked around the workshop again I discovered I didn’t have any fight left in me. I really didn’t care that much — and Tom wouldn’t have seen it as anything other than a smart move by his friends.
So, reluctantly, I signed. They paid me cash from a wad of notes: I said they were rich. ‘Do you want a pint or two of my blood as well?’ I asked bitterly. ‘Or a kidney, perhaps?’
‘Poor Lizzy,’ Jimbo said sadly, ‘I can see Tom’s death was a huge shock to you. You’re doing the best thing, putting all this behind you.’
‘Yes …’ Freddie agreed, looking around again with more of a proprietorial air, ‘once it’s gone, you’ll feel much happier, you’ll see.’
‘Might as well load it up and take it all now,’ Jimbo suggested. ‘Where’s the van parked, Lizzy?’
‘The van?’ I repeated blankly.
‘Tom’s van — the one we’ve just bought,’ Jimbo said patiently.
‘But you didn’t mention any van!’
‘Well, not as such, perhaps, but you did agree to sell us everything pertaining to the business, lock, stock and barrel.’
‘Two smoking barrels!’ I said, woken out of apathy into indignation. ‘Look, you’ve already screwed me over this deal, you can’t possibly have expected to get Tom’s van for four times that much!’
‘Lizzy, you don’t know how big a favour we’re doing you. Of course we only offered you that much money because of the van. It’s worth more than the stuff in the shed,’ Freddie began.
‘I know, because I bought it myself, out of the advance for the third of The Perseverance Chronicles! And anyway, you’re too late: I’ve already disposed of it.’
They stared at me, aghast. ‘Disposed!’ they exclaimed as one.
‘If you’re interested, it’s down at Deals on Wheels.’
‘Deals on Wheels?’ echoed Freddie.
‘The garage in the village. I swapped it for a Land Rover this morning, so the van is now the property of Dave Naylor. I suggest you go and talk to him, if you’re still interested in it.’
They were not happy, but the van was legally my property and they couldn’t do anything about my having already disposed of it, which certainly made me feel better. Eventually they stopped trying to browbeat me into getting it back and giving it to them, and went off to talk to Dave at the garage, saying they would be back later to empty the workshop.
‘Fine.’
‘Perhaps you could give us the key, so we don’t have to disturb you again?’
‘Not until I’ve removed his personal things. The CD player and stuff like that.’
But when it came to it, there wasn’t actually much in there that I cared to take, so when they came back again in Tom’s van, which I’d hoped never to see again, I left them to it. I bet Dave struck a hard bargain, and serve them right, too.
Later, I went to collect Jasper and Ginny in the Land Rover and when we got back the workshop doors swung open, and it was empty of life except for some curious hens, one of whom had laid an egg on the old easy chair among the burst stuffing.
Jasper and I have decided to sell Tom’s insanely huge TV and buy a small one that he can take to university with him, along with his laptop — and I am going to put the money I got for Tom’s workshop contents towards a computer and printer of my own.
‘Then you can bring me up to speed on using the internet and emailing before you go,’ I suggested.
‘Good idea,�
� he agreed, ‘your skills do need honing a bit. It’s a pity we still only have dial-up connection, though, because it’s really slow. Middlemoss must be the last area in Lancashire that hasn’t got broadband yet.’
‘Miss Pym says we will get it by the New Year and anyway, slow suits me fine to start with,’ I said, reflecting how much I had changed from the first days of my marriage when I hadn’t even wanted a TV, to now carrying a mobile phone everywhere (even if I forgot to switch it on half the time) and accepting that a computer was going to have to be part of my everyday life.
Still, adapt and survive …
When it began to get dark I went out to shut everything up for the night and while coming back noticed that the light was on in the empty workshop.
My heart stopped dead for a moment, until reality set in and I thought it might be Freddie and Jimbo, returned in a fit of pique to make a thorough job of it. There were still the tattered old sofa and chairs, the ancient upright piano and the kettle, for instance. No resurrected Board Rigid van stood outside to load anything into, it was true, but I wouldn’t have put it past them to have parked it on the road and sneaked in through the side gate.
Then again, it could be Caz, curiosity stirred by the unlocked door; or ARG, setting dynamite charges. Even Mimi on the loose …
I crept up to the open door and peeped in to find, to my astonishment, that the workshop was infested with Mummers. They weren’t doing anything, just hanging about with an air of aimless expectancy, but when they saw me they drew together into a defensive, sheep-like huddle.
Ophelia was mumbling to herself as usual and I thought her pale froggy eyes were going to pop out altogether. ‘Oh God! Oh God! It’s her — she’ll kill me — she’ll kill me! Oh God!’
I looked dispassionately at her. She was as limp and wet as seaweed and I was still finding it hard to square what Jasper had said about finding her and Tom in flagrante, with the reality of what she actually looked like. In fact, she has all the allure of a white blancmange, so it must have been simply availability allied with drink, or the demon weed. After the Leila/Polly revelations it didn’t seem of much moment anyway, unless she really was pregnant by him? Hard to tell, when she dresses in her own smocked garments most of the time.
‘Ophelia didn’t mean what she said, yesterday,’ Mick said hastily, his fingers fiddling with the blue feather in his hat. The three of them edged even closer together.
‘No, no-no-no!’ whimpered Ophelia, while nodding rapidly.
‘She’s not pregnant?’
‘No, she meant that bit.’
‘Tom loved me!’ Ophelia said, but rather uncertainly.
‘Nah, we keep telling you — he just wanted a quick shag,’ Jojo said brutally.
‘So the baby could be Tom’s?’ I asked him.
‘It could be anyone’s — Caz Naylor’s even.’ They stared accusingly at her. ‘Sleeping with the enemy!’
‘The enemy? Caz’s your enemy?’ I frowned over that one, but I suppose gamekeepers and rabid vegans are oil and water and shouldn’t mix, though clearly at some point two of them had.
‘Well, come to that, it could be mine — or even yours,’ Mick pointed out fair-mindedly to his friend.
‘Ooh!’ moaned Ophelia, chewing her lip frantically like a mad albino rabbit, huge pink eyelids fluttering.
‘You’ve got around a bit,’ I said to her, though feeling a bit sorry for her now Mick and Jojo were being so horrible. But Ophelia’s having slept around was quite a good thing in a way from my point of view, because it seriously lessened the chances of the baby being Tom’s. I supposed I would just have to await the outcome, and so would she.
‘Mr Pharamond’s bound to put her out of her cottage, after what she said at the funeral,’ Jojo suggested helpfully.
Ophelia wrung her hands and stared at me with the eyes of a mad martyr embracing her doom. ‘Yes, yes, it’s all my own fault and I deserve to be punished!’
Oh, good heavens, she wasn’t another kinky one, was she? But then I sighed resignedly, for if there was any chance she was pregnant with Tom’s child, I couldn’t let her be turned out.
‘You two stop trying to stir things up,’ I said severely to the men. ‘Of course Roly won’t give you notice, Ophelia — or at least not until after the baby’s born. I’ll speak to him about it, but I’m sure Mick and Jojo are quite wrong.’
‘Don’t think he could do it, anyway,’ Mick said belligerently. ‘She’s got her rights!’
‘Possibly not, but I don’t think the question will arise. Anyway, what are you all doing here?’
They shifted uneasily again, looking around the near-empty workshop as though expecting something — or someone — to materialise out of the dark shadows.
‘He’s not coming back, if that’s what you’re all waiting for,’ I said evenly. ‘Tom’s played his last gig and you’ll have to get a new singer: not that I thought he was much good, anyway.’
‘His voice harmonised with mine very well,’ Ophelia blurted, then blushed as she caught my eye, like she usually did — as well she might. ‘Oh God!’
‘And he wrote most of the lyrics to my tunes,’ said Jojo, slowly turning the gold hoop in his ear as though tuning what remained of his brain.
‘No, actually, that was me,’ I said incautiously and they stared. ‘He used to hammer them out on the old piano and I’d try to fit words to them — just give you a base to work it up from, you know? I mean, they weren’t really mine when you’d finished with them, because they evolved into something else — something better, usually.’
For at their best (after a pint or two of Mossbrown Ale), the Mummers sometimes acquired a near-Pentangle unity that was quite hypnotic. ‘But the last couple of years, he didn’t ask me to help him with them any more.’
‘Thought they’d gone off,’ Mick, the one who looked like an escapee from The Clan of the Cave Bear, said. ‘Can you sing, too?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No.’
‘But—’
‘Absolutely not,’ I said firmly. ‘Look, I don’t mind if you want to come and keep using the workshop to practise in, as long as you don’t bother me. But you’ll have to find a new Mummer.’ A thought struck me: ‘Annie — you know Annie Vane, don’t you?’
They nodded.
‘She pet-sits for an ex-pop singer who bought the old vicarage. Ritch Rainford, he’s called and he’s an actor now, playing a Victorian mill owner in that Cotton Common soap.’
‘Not Ritch Rainford from Climaxxx?’ Miss Drippy said breathlessly. ‘I thought that was just a story, that he’d bought the place. He’s famous … but old,’ she added belatedly.
‘Nah, he can’t be much more than forty-five, at most,’ Jojo said, giving her a dirty look and adjusting his bandanna over his bald spot to the point where it almost became a headscarf. It’d have to be the pirate look next, low down on the forehead. ‘And he might want to keep his hand in, do a couple of gigs with us — worth asking … Good to talk to him, you know?’
‘You do that,’ I agreed.
‘But would the Mysteries Committee let us play for them, if one of us wasn’t from the Mosses?’ said the girl. ‘You know how stuffy they are about second-homers. I shouldn’t think he lives here all the time.’
‘I don’t know, Ophelia, but you could ask. It’s not like you’re performing in the plays and have to go to all the rehearsals, is it? Just incidental music and filling in between scenes.’
‘Olivia,’ she corrected me.
‘What?’
‘My name’s Olivia, not Ophelia.’
‘Oh?’ That was a surprise, but I fear due to her water-dipped appearance she will forever remain Ophelia in my mind. It seemed to strike a chord with the other two as well.
‘Suits you,’ Jojo said, and Mick agreed.
‘Why not change your name — new name, new start?’
‘Yeah! Ophelia Locke — cool,’ she agreed, brightening slightly. ‘I’ll do it! Ophelia … Ophelia …
Ophelia.’
Loopy Locke, more like.
‘Looks different in here, somehow, without Tom,’ Jojo remarked intelligently.
‘That’s because I’ve sold the surfboard business and all the stuff’s gone,’ I said patiently. ‘Look, Jojo, here’s a key to the workshop — I’ve got a spare. It’ll save you asking for it if it’s locked, and you can leave equipment here safely if you want to.’
‘Thanks,’ he said and, giving my arm an earnest squeeze, added, ‘And, you know, anything you want — do anything we can …’ He trailed off, made earnest eye contact and let me go.
‘Ophelia Locke …’ whispered Miss Drippy in an ecstatic undertone. There were brown rabbits stencilled on the pockets of her smock.
Watership Down has a lot to answer for.
Chapter 12: Just Desserts
As you will see in the preface, life took a sad turn here at Perseverance Cottage with the sudden loss of the Inconstant Gardener. However, my friends are all rallying round to divert my mind from unhappy thoughts, especially my fellow members of the Christmas Pudding Circle.
The Perseverance Chronicles: A Life in Recipes
Less than a week had passed since the funeral, yet with disconcerting rapidity summer had slid into September and what passed for normal life resumed. Even when Tom had been home he’d never played much part in the family rounds, so his absence was not really missed, insofar as you would miss a ticking time bomb.
Jasper seems to be feeling much the same, though it didn’t help that half the time Mimi forgot what had happened and we had to explain it to her all over again.
We made an expedition to buy the laptop and printer Jasper thought I should have and then he set me up a little workstation in the window of the sitting room, which provided at least a temporary distraction for his thoughts.
Still, at least Jasper could escape to the dig every day and I had way too much to do to brood, for the garden had taken advantage of my lack of attention to burgeon forth into a burst of flowerings and fruitings like a butterfly dancing along the edge of winter. I was harvesting and bartering the excess, bottling tomato chutney and pickling shallots.
The Magic of Christmas Page 12