by Dawn Harris
As the sun rose over the horizon, I saw Richard return under arrest. All his thorough planning let down by the spade and the sand on that rug. But for them I would never have discovered the truth.
A little later, a pale and shaking Zoe watched Richard being driven off to jail. She was hurting badly, but she gave me a hug. ‘Thanks. I’d be the one in jail if it wasn’t for you.’
I watched a native tui bird flit from tree to tree, while a gang of fat sparrows gathered in the nearby bushes, eyeing us hopefully. I knew how they felt; I was starving too. But just this once I ignored it. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘let’s feed the birds.’
SISTERLY ADVICE
‘What you need is a course of hypnotherapy,’ Debbie asserts in her no-nonsense voice. And I groan. Here we go again. My sister is one of life’s know-alls. Convinced I have a problem, she knows the best way to overcome it, as ever. Hence the advice.
Her counselling comes free and unasked for. Anywhere. Any time. Even now, a mere half an hour before her own daughter’s christening. But then, as usual, Debbie has everything under control. Right now, she’s dressing the baby, ready for the five minute walk to the church. There’s no last minute panic in her house. In Debbie’s world things never, ever, go wrong.
Which is why Debbie still makes me feel inferior, even though I’ve been married to Nick for five wonderful years, and have a responsible job as well as running my own home. She doesn’t do it consciously, of course, it’s just how she is. Sometimes, only half-jokingly, I mock, ‘If only you’d fall flat on your face, just once, to prove that you’re as fallible as the rest of us.’
She chuckles and shakes her head, confident it will never happen. And I know she’s right. It never will. It doesn’t stop us having lots of laughs together though, and her suggestion that I see a hypnotist gives me the giggles. ‘What on earth for?’
Debbie carefully puts the christening gown over her daughter’s head. ‘To cure your phobia, of course.’
Weakly I protest, ‘I don’t have a phobia.’
She sniffs. ‘Oh, so I imagined that charade with the gooseberry tart at lunch did I? Be honest with yourself for once, Jill. Admit it, you do have a problem.’ Balancing the baby expertly on her lap, she does up the small buttons at the back of the dress, and sweeps on relentlessly. ‘Being scared witless by something that tiny is hardly rational, is it?’
I lower my eyes and lie, ‘I’m not scared....’
She looks at me, arching one eyebrow, and I flush. ‘Do something about it, Jill. You’ve had this silly fear ever since you were a child.’
Debbie is six years older than me and I owe her a great deal. She was only twelve when our mother died, yet she unhesitatingly took her place in my life. I love her dearly, but her approach to a problem is quite different to mine. She believes in instant action, while I prefer to see whether things will resolve themselves first. As they do, sometimes.
‘A hypnotist is the obvious solution,’ she enthuses, as she brushes the baby’s wispy locks into an angelic quiff. ‘And I know the very man. A few weeks of hypnotherapy and you’ll never be frightened of a wasp again. Not even if one crawls across your bum.’
The vision that presents gives me the shivers, and in desperation I burst out, ‘For heaven’s sake, Debbie, can’t you get it into your head --- I don’t want to feel happy about wasps crawling over my bum.’ Well, I mean, it’s not natural, is it? I loathe the wretched things.
Nick, my husband, wanders in from the garden with Ben, my brother-in-law. Ben picks up a plate of lunch leftovers and sweeps them under my nose in jocular fashion. ‘Gooseberry tart, anyone?’ he asks innocently, and they all howl with laughter, and I sigh. When Debbie and Ben invited us to a pre-christening lunch, I hadn’t expected I would be providing the entertainment.
We had the meal on their patio, making the most of the glorious, hot August sunshine. Which was great, until a wasp took a fancy to the gooseberry tart I was eating. What happened next is re-enacted by Ben. His performance includes ear-splitting wasp dive-bombing noises, a wildly exaggerated imitation of my blood-curdling shriek, and a tart being thrown so high into the air, it lands like a ring on a hoop-la stall over the spike of Debbie’s parasol.
When the laughter dies down, I point out reasonably, ‘Okay, I hate wasps. So what? Everyone’s scared of something. Spiders, beetles.....’
‘No, you’re wrong,’ Debbie butts in, shaking her head. Well, I knew I would be. Debbie’s not frightened of a thing. ‘Fear is a state of mind. And, as such, it’s a problem that can be overcome, just like any other.’
She emphasises the last few words so strongly, it’s obvious which other problem she’s hinting at. I really hadn’t meant to tell her that Nick and I have been trying to start a family for two years. It just slipped out in all the excitement of holding my baby niece in my arms for the very first time. Debbie’s tendency to offer advice means I usually keep any difficulties to myself.
‘Two years?’ she’d repeated incredulously. She had decided to wait until her mid-thirties to produce her first child, and assumed I was following her example. Naturally she became pregnant the first month she tried, and motherhood has sapped none of her strength.
‘You worry me sometimes, Jill. You have this foolish belief that everything always comes right in the end, without any effort on your part. And life just isn’t like that.’ She shook her head and repeated in bewilderment, ‘Two years. Well, it’s quite obvious you need expert help.’
To Debbie, the answer to every problem is obvious. Sometimes I take her advice, sometimes not. On this occasion I talked it over with Nick, and having decided she was right, we saw our GP.
It’s time to leave for the church, and we walk down the road in glorious sunshine. Family and friends fuss over the baby, but as chief godmother, I take her in my arms. The vicar is a genial man, kind and understanding, with a reputation for solving difficulties in an unconventional manner. Before the service starts, he makes an announcement. ‘I must warn you,’ he begins apologetically, ‘that an hour ago I discovered a wasp nest in a corner of the church, and some of the wretched pests are flying around inside. I trust they won’t disturb us.’
His trust is sadly misplaced. The vicar is barely into his stride when a wasp zooms over the gathering. Panic turns to abject terror as it zips around my head, as all my normal methods of escape are clearly unacceptable.
I cannot throw the baby in the air, like the gooseberry tart – Debbie and Ben would never speak to me again. Besides, I adore the child. I can’t flap my arms at the intruder, or move away at the speed of light. Not when I’m holding the star of the show. So I do the one thing everyone swears is the sure-fire way to avoid a wasp’s attention. I stand perfectly still, hoping no-one notices the beads of perspiration quivering on my upper lip.
Unfortunately, this stupid wasp doesn’t know the rules. Instead of buzzing off, it lands. Right on my bare arm. I daren’t move; it might land on the baby next. I tell myself the wasp is worn out by too much buzzing around and is merely resting. I grit my teeth, fight down the panic, and try to stop shuddering at the touch of this loathsome creature on my bare skin. I look across at Nick, my eyes beseeching his help. But he just grins.
Perspiration is running down my face now, and still the wasp stays put. And no wonder. I’m shaking so violently I’m rocking it to sleep on my arm. Desperately, I look round for help and unintentionally catch the eye of the vicar. Either he recognises the sheer terror in my eyes, or else my hair is standing on end. For he immediately stops the service. He doesn’t tell me to pull myself together, or suggest a course of hypnotherapy. He’s exactly what I need in this situation. A man of action.
He flicks the sleeping wasp off my arm on to the edge of the font and, aided by a handy prayer book, swiftly dispatches it to kingdom come. Then, his eyes twinkling in understanding, he carries on with the service.
Later, back at Debbie’s house for the christening tea, while everyone is laughing over the incid
ent, I turn to Nick and hiss, ‘Why didn’t you help me?’
He grins. ‘I didn’t want to upset the vicar by walking about during the service. Anyway, the thing would have flown away eventually.’
Debbie butts in, handing me a card, ‘That’s the phone number of the hypnotherapist.’ I take it without comment. ‘You will go, won’t you, Jill?’
I sigh. ‘I’ll think about it.’
She puts her hand on my shoulder and refers to my other problem. ‘By the way, have you heard from the hospital yet?’
‘Mmm. Yesterday.’
She nods, pleased. ‘Good. This time next year you’ll be pregnant. You’ll see.’ She gives me a loving squeeze, the kind that tells me she knows what’s best for me.
And that’s when I finally explode. Clenching my fists, I snap, ‘This time, Debbie, you just might be wrong.’ Well, I’m sick of her well-meant advice, sick of feeling inferior.
It’s Wednesday before I see Debbie again. My day off work. I arrive at her house to find the baby asleep in her pram and the back door wide open, but there’s no sign of Debbie. Having searched the house, I walk down to the end of her long garden to the shed. And find her in sun-top, shorts and sandals, standing on an old chair, her eyes wide with terror.
‘Good God,’ I exclaim. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
Her mouth opens, but no words come out. Her whole body is shaking. She’s breathing much too fast and she points a trembling finger in the direction of the door. I see it at once. The mouse, I mean. It’s skulking behind a flowerpot close to the doorway, and is every bit as terrified as Debbie.
I start to laugh and Debbie finds her voice. ‘It ran right across my toes,’ she squeals, not even attempting to disguise her naked fear. ‘Get rid of it, Jill,’ she wails.
Obediently, I move towards it, then stop, remembering, all too vividly, her attitude towards my fear of wasps. Her inability to understand my panic when one accosted me, her righteous insistence that I had a phobia that should be dealt with pronto, and all the time she was keeping a weakness of her own carefully hidden. The two-faced sanctimonious know-all. I grin to myself. It’s cruel, I know, but I can’t resist it. Besides, she deserves it, after the way she treated me.
I lean nonchalantly against the door and ask in saintly innocence, ‘Don’t you like mice then, Debbie?’
She’s begging now. ‘J-Jill. P-please. I’ve been h...here an hour.’
‘An hour?’ I chortle. ‘Tell you what, why don’t I ring your hypnotist friend? Of course, he might suggest letting the mouse run over your bum....’
I won’t repeat what Debbie said then. But her opinion of hypnotherapy seemed to undergo a sudden and dramatic change. Still, she is my sister, and reckoning she’s suffered enough, I scoop up the poor little mouse in a flowerpot and return it to the field beyond the garden hedge.
Indoors, I make Debbie a reviving cup of sweet tea. ‘Fancy you being so terrified of mice,’ I remark, casually studying my fingernails. ‘I mean, one might almost call it a phobia.’ And I tease softly, ‘Hypocrite.’
A faint flush colours her cheeks. ‘I’ve never liked mice, but I didn’t know how scared I was of them --- honestly, Jill. Not until I was trapped in the shed.....’ Shuddering, she puts her head in her hands.
‘Now you know how I feel about wasps.’
She smiles at me. ‘Perhaps we’d better go to hypnotherapy together!’
At that, we collapse into giggles and hug each other. I feel exhilarated. Debbie is human after all, and I will never feel inferior to her again. And swept along on a tide of euphoria, I decide to tell her Nick and I won’t be keeping that hospital appointment.
She is aghast. ‘Jill, are you mad?’ Her experience hasn’t mellowed her one jot. ‘I know these tests can be embarrassing, but you must go.’
I bite my lip. ‘Sorry, Debbie, my mind’s made up.’
‘Look, Jill, I’ve made a fool of myself today, I admit that, but I am right about this. Keep that appointment and I’m sure that by next summer you’ll be expecting your own baby.’
‘I can’t see that happening.’
‘Well, of course it won’t, unless you have those tests. You need expert help, Jill. How many more times must I tell you that problems don’t solve themselves?’
‘Sometimes they do,’ I remark. ‘The test I had the other day proves that.’
She blinks, puzzled. ‘You’ve had one done already? Then ....’
I dissolve into gales of laughter and she stares at me. ‘What’s so funny?’
Debbie can be awfully slow at times. ‘For once, Debbie, you’re wrong and I’m right.’ In a soft joyful voice, I finally tell her. ‘The test was positive. I’m going to have a baby.’
DINOSAUR ISLAND
I didn’t know the dinosaur footprints existed, even though I’d visited the Isle of Wight many times since my best friend, Pattie, moved there.
I first learned of them when I was looking after Pattie’s two sons, while she and her husband were in America clinching an important business deal. Taking a week off from the temping agency I worked for in London wasn’t difficult, and I desperately needed a break. I had some serious thinking to do. A vital decision to make.
The drive from the Island’s ferry terminal to Pattie’s lovely thatched cottage took about half an hour, and when I arrived, Pattie, John and the boys rushed out to greet me. As we went indoors, Pattie said, ‘Alex, I can’t thank you enough for coming to my rescue.’
‘Forget it. What are friends for....’
‘Yes, I know. But looking after two boys, a dog and the cottage – well, it’s not exactly a holiday is it.’
‘It’s a lot more fun than sitting at a desk all day,’ I laughed. ‘Now, stop worrying. The boys and I will have a great time.’ The boys, aged ten and eleven, grinned at me. As a frequent visitor we were already great pals.
‘How’s Rob?’ Pattie asked. ‘And when exactly are you moving in with that gorgeous hunk?’
I managed to avoid her eyes by fussing over the dog. ‘When I get back to London.’ That was the plan, anyway. With marriage at some time in the future. Only now I was having second thoughts. And why? Because of one thoughtless remark Rob had made.
After Pattie and John left for the airport I sat giggling at the huge wad of instructions she’d given me, covering everything from dealing with the central heating boiler to de-fleaing the dog. And promptly shoved it into a drawer.
That evening the boys and I enjoyed a riotous game of cricket. And in the morning, after they’d gone to school, I took the dog for a walk. I say dog, but Midge, once a sweet manageable puppy with enormous feet, had grown into something I was tempted to put a saddle on. Soft, good-tempered, and entirely lovable, she also needed a huge amount of exercise.
Everything was fine for about the first mile, then she suddenly leapt forward, pulled her lead right out of my hand, jumped over a gate and headed straight for a man kneeling on a large marked-off patch of bare earth in an otherwise green field. He, quickly assessing the situation, grabbed at her lead, but Midge thought he wanted to play and exuberantly knocked him flat on his back. Then, with her tail wagging happily, she began to dig a hole in the bare patch of earth, presumably in search of bones.
When I caught up with Midge and grabbed her lead, I was decidedly out of breath, and puffed, ‘I’m terribly sorry. She escaped.’
‘There’s no harm done,’ he assured me amiably. As he brushed himself down, I saw that he had been using a small trowel to remove the earth, and without thinking, I said impulsively, ‘Wouldn’t it be quicker to use a spade?’ Well, I mean, why make life difficult for yourself?
A pair of amused blue eyes met mine. A man near my own age, I judged, dark-haired and unremarkable in looks, whose lips twitched momentarily before exploding into helpless laughter. Convinced he was one brick short of a load, I began to back away.
‘Don’t go,’ he spluttered. And taking something from the small mound of canine-dug earth, he held
it out to me. ‘Look – my first piece of Saxon pottery.’
I stared at the small object in his hand, and then at him. ‘Oh----‘ I gasped inadequately, as the penny dropped.
His eyes danced, but his voice was kind. ‘It’s probable that a Saxon manor house once stood on this site.’
Deeply embarrassed I muttered, ‘You must think me a proper dimwit, but I thought archaeologists worked in groups.’
‘You’ve been watching too much TV,’ he said with a grin.
To be honest I’d never been that interested in archaeology, but I didn’t tell him that, I just said, ‘I hope Midge hasn’t ruined everything-----‘
‘Midge?’ he exclaimed, amused. ‘Is that her name?’
‘It’s short for Midget.’
‘Dumbo would be more appropriate.’
‘Probably,’ I laughed. ‘But she’s not mine.’
‘Ah, I thought she looked familiar. Doesn’t she belong to Pattie and John Dawson?’ I nodded and he said, ‘How come you’ve been lumbered with her?’ And, before I knew it, I found myself sitting on an old log with a man who, it turned out, was a friend of Pattie and John’s, explaining why I’d come to the Island.
He told me his name, Michael, and asked what line of work I was in. I told him, adding, ‘But I’d like to become a teacher.’
‘Then why don’t you?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve looked into it, but my boyfriend thinks I’d be making a mistake.’
What Rob had actually said was, ‘You? A teacher? That means college, and we won’t have your salary coming in. Stick to what you know.’ It was that negative, and faintly scornful attitude towards my ambition that had planted a seed of doubt in my mind about our relationship.
Walking back to the cottage, I found myself wishing Rob had Michael’s positive attitude. Yet Rob was the kind of hunk I’d always dreamed of marrying. My friends had taken one look at his beautifully chiselled face, thick blond hair, athletic body, and drooled with envy. I’d thought I was lucky too, until he’d put a damper on my aspirations.