Hartsend

by Janice Brown

  The good daughter

  It was very late but Lesley didn’t feel ready to go to bed. The temperature had fallen, and the rain had turned to snow, small flakes lightly falling, floating, just visible in the light of the street lamps. If it kept on, the whole village would be a work of art by morning. Everything covered in white: pavements, buildings, the football field, the weeds round the recycling bins. It was all a lie. A white lie. The bad stuff was there underneath.

  ‘‘This is my house. I am alone in it.’’ She said the words aloud. She had anticipated this moment, touching it lightly now and then over the final months, like someone fingering a birthday gift through tissue paper, afraid to guess what it might be. But now, the funeral over, there wasn’t much difference. No relief, no bitterness, no guilt, nothing as identifiable as any of those. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps it was too soon to feel anything.

  Did I wish her dead?

  She had wanted the waiting for death to end. Not the same thing.

  I am glad she’s dead?

  How strange it was to watch the snow sift down from nowhere, and have no-one calling from the other room, what are you doing, Lesley? Just as strange as it had been at tea-time to find the fridge full. Gifts of soup and casseroles and cake had been brought by neighbours. She remembered the smell of the hospital food waiting in the stainless steel trolley in the corridor when visiting was over. A peculiar mix of something fried and something metallic. The nurses said goodnight to her by name, towards the end, grown used to her visits.

  What to eat? Or indeed, whether to eat? All her life she’d accepted what was put in front of her when she came home: soup and main course and pudding. She was the shape and size she was because her mother was a good cook. No, she thought, playing with the words, because her mother cooked good food. Goodness as a moral quality was surely something different altogether. You were a good daughter to her, Lesley. More than one funeral guest had said it, but how could they possibly know?

  If I was a good person, I would feel something definite, something definable. Wouldn’t I at least be frightened by this lack of feeling?

  She remembered something she’d read once in the Reader’s Digest about people trapped in snow, how you had to decide which way was up before you began to dig. The way to do this was to spit. You gathered lots of saliva and spat. If the spit ran up your nose, then you were upside down. She had smiled at the idea, but it struck her now that she was that lost individual.

  Her descent into the crevasse had been slow, a gradual daily slide. Hard to tell when it began. At birth? Or on that day when she told her mother she wanted to move out, to share a flat with two of the other girls from the college?

  If you leave this house, you will never enter it again.

  When she was a child, she played the old game, would you rather freeze or boil to death? Of course the answer was, she didn’t want to do either, but in the game she had to choose. The problem with freezing, she saw now, was that you didn’t disappear. Had she become an embarrassment to those who were still warm? Her friends had all married or moved away, preoccupied with husbands and children. They still sent Christmas cards, but not so many, and some day, she supposed, even this would stop. Even this shivering hypothermia would stop.

  You’ll be preserved, she told herself, like the Ice-man in the Alps, like the bodies on Everest, with the ink stain on your blouse, the shred of cold chicken between your back teeth. You’ll stay here in this house until the planet falls into the sun.

  Earthenware

  When the evening news came on, Ruby went through to the kitchen and filled the Creda water heater with exactly the amount needed to make two mugs of tea. (The mugs were earthenware. The good bone-china cups were never used, merely washed on Wednesdays and replaced in the cabinet.) When the water bubbled, the machine would emit a piercing sound like a factory hooter.

  The room felt cold tonight, and she shivered a little. If only they’d kept the Rayburn, she thought, not for the first time. Lifting a discreet corner of the curtain, she looked across the hedge to Lesley’s kitchen window. No light on. She had probably gone to bed.

  Maybe the weather would improve, despite the forecast. Still, the cupboards were well stocked, and the freezer was full of neatly labelled packages. Make one, freeze one was a good rule. Taking milk from the fridge, she smiled with satisfaction at the big pot of home-made lentil soup. She had learned early in their marriage that Walter needed something to eat the minute he arrived home, and soup had been the answer, summer or winter. She ate hers in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches to the main course.

  As she waited for the water to boil, Ruby felt a little soreness starting at the back of her throat, and offered a prayer to no-one in particular that this would not be the start of anything serious. It had been bitter on Christmas Eve at the graveside. She’d felt the cold seeping through the seams of her coat. She had said so to Walter at the time, looking with envy at the Captain’s widow in her fur. Beaver, she thought it was.

  ‘‘I’d love a fur coat,’’ she whispered to Walter as they drank their tea at the function room in the Village Hall afterwards.

  ‘‘When would you wear a fur coat?’’

  ‘‘Things like this. And weddings.’’

  ‘‘Who do we know that’s getting married?’’ he said.

  ‘‘Do you think she’ll sell the house?’’ she asked a moment later.

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Lesley next door. Do you think she’ll move?

  Walter considered the salmon sandwich he had bitten into, as if it might hold the answer.

  ‘‘Nothing much we can do about it.’’ He lifted one edge of the bread and looked at the filling before carefully extracting a thin slice of cucumber and putting it on his plate.

  ‘‘I wouldn’t like new neighbours, not at our age,’’ she said.

  ‘‘We might move ourselves. Once I retire.’’

  Ruby stared at her husband of thirty years. He pulled a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wiped his nose.

  ‘‘I’ve always fancied living near a sea loch. I could fish off a boat.’’

  ‘‘But you don’t fish, Walter.’’

  ‘‘I could learn,’’ he said, putting the rest of the sandwich into his mouth.

  The hooter began to sound, and quickly Ruby flicked the switch. Her throat was really quite sore. Perhaps she ought to gargle with salt before bed. She poured some boiling water into a mug so that it would be cool by the time supper was over.

  She’d always hated interments. The crematorium was so much nicer, as long as you knew when not to look. She filled the teapot, mopped up a few drips of water on the sink and draining board, added two custard creams to the tray, and took it through to Walter in the sitting room just as the news ended. This ritual, performed every night of their life together, ensured that there was no knowledge of the outside world in her head that had not been there when she left home.

  Mary

  Mary Flaherty waited in the Chemist’s for her prescription to be filled. Feeling hot and cold by turns, she wondered if she’d caught this cold standing at the graveside. A miserable day that had been, and no mistake. She’d felt peculiar the whole time: all those folk there she didn’t know, on the chairs she’d polished herself, and her sitting next to them afterwards eating sandwiches so small they had only two bites in them.

  Would she be needed now the old woman was dead? The house was full of clutter, but it wasn’t hard to clean, because no-one wanted her to move the clutter. She was fond of the old fashioned ornaments. She liked polishing the brass, and waxing the old furniture, and ironing the old lady’s linen pillowcases. In the last few months polycotton sheets had replaced the linen ones, for reasons, Lesley said, of hygiene (meaning that they needed frequent changing) but the linen pillowcases were kept in use. They stayed cool, she learned from Lesley, and were more pleasant against your face. She felt guilty now, remembering how in the last few weeks she’d enjoyed
having the house to herself, dusting, hoovering and polishing without the old witch hovering over her. That bath still annoyed her though. She didn’t know how they could bear the rusty stain under the cold tap. If it had been up to her, she would have had it out and a nice new white one put in.

  Of course Lesley might decide the house was too big and move.

  Outside, the coloured Christmas lights were still up, strung between the lamp-posts, Santa and his reindeer swaying in the wind. Had it been a Happy Christmas? Better than some. Her son-in-law had taken Wee Chrissie and the new bicycle out, so there had been an hour of peace. She’d only had to do the one course, roast ham, since no-one liked turkey. Too much food, of course. She saw her shape reflected in the glass and wished again that there had been a dark coat in her size. It was a good coat, and a bargain; she knew what it would have cost new.

  The cards of hair ornaments on the wall were all pink or purple, too sparkly, all too young for her now. She had plenty of hair but it was fine and flat. She should have worn it up, but she kept losing the clasps, or else they broke. She sighed. She was silly to think about being attractive now, at her age. That was long gone.

  Remembering that she’d given Ryan money the night before, she checked to see what was left in her purse. Ryan was her only boy, the only one still at home. He was eighteen, but still she waited up till she heard him come home. She couldn’t help it.

  ‘‘Who was that?’’ she would ask when another girl phoned to speak to him.

  ‘‘Nobody.’’

  His mobile was always set to the answer machine, and if they called the house phone when he was still in bed, or doing something he wanted to keep doing, he refused to come to the phone and she had to take messages for him.

  She missed her daughters. They would blether on and tell her all the latest gossip, although maybe not all that they’d been up to themselves. Better not to know, she’d told herself. And they’d had their share of screaming matches, of course, them being teenagers and sharing a bedroom, but at least there had been conversation in the house. This one might as well not have learned to talk.

  She worried about him, more than she ever had about the girls. All the junk he ate instead of food, all those chips from Big Sam’s, eaten between the bus stop and the house. He’d been such a good eater when he was a wee boy, now he never touched a vegetable. One time when her back was playing her up she’d had a notion for home-made soup, and, both girls being at work, had tried to get him to go down to the Co-op. Her Nan had made proper soup, soup that was good for you, with butter beans and peas, and long strips of boiled beef and big lumps of potato and wee lumps of yellow turnip. Tear up a slice of bread to float in it, and you had a whole family meal for pennies. Her mouth watered at the thought of it.

  ‘‘And a leek. Make sure it’s a good big one.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘With lots of white on it. A good sized one.’’

  ‘‘I don’t know what they look like,’’ he’d said.

  Tonight’s tea was sausage and egg, the butcher’s own square sausage, he would likely eat that. Or if not, there was fish fingers and baked beans.

  Bird seed

  ‘‘Duncan, didn’t you say you were going into the village to get some bird seed, dear?’’

  Duncan’s pen halted on the Radio Times. The bird seed was simply a valid reason to go out. Mail order was far cheaper than the village pet shop.

  ‘‘I was waiting till the rain stopped,’’ he said, not looking round at his mother.

  ‘‘Well, I would like to get these thank-you letters off, dear, but of course it doesn’t have to be today, if you’re busy.’’

  ‘‘I’ll go out before twelve,’’ he said, twelve o’clock being collection time.

  She put a small stack of letters down on the desk and tiptoed out of the room.

  Duncan stared out at the garden, drawing tiny circles on his cavalry-twilled knee with the capped end of the ballpoint. The previous day’s brief snow had been washed away. The climbing hydrangea next to the window was thoroughly sodden, heavy drips gathered along its naked branches. Had it rained so much last December? It had been dry at New Year, certainly, as some of their visitors had walked up the hill rather than coming by car. He wondered if Lesley would come this year, now that she was on her own.

  He circled some more radio programmes for the week ahead. He might or might not listen to all of them. He circled the Vivaldi recital. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra was generally acceptable, though in the last year or so he had come to prefer the authenticity of early music specialists. He had, in fact, been in Venice during the night, walking in his dream ahead of his mother and several of the Christmas Eve mourners down narrow streets where all the turns were at right angles, making it impossible to know if they led anywhere at all until the turning point was reached. The responsibility of leading the group was heavy on his shoulders. Why was he in charge? They assumed too much, these people. He did his best to read names and numbers on walls and doors but the words on the ceramic tiles were printed in tiny cramped letters, too small to read. Abruptly they had come upon a stretch of water. The waves were rough and the line of gondolas, deserted, made irregular slapping sounds against the water. When he turned, Lesley was watching him. She was holding out her hands. Did she want help, or was she offering it? As he moved towards her, a man of about his own age appeared, catching him by the sleeve. ‘‘I believe I am your long lost brother,’’ the man began, and Duncan knew at once that it was true. With that he’d woken, his first, immediate thought being how on earth he was going to ask his mother about the other child. It took him a few moments to remember that he was the only one.

  If he told Mrs Fleming about the dream, she’d most likely enquire how many cups of coffee he’d had the night before. Mrs Fleming was the most recent addition to the staff at the Library. Half his age, with a face covered in freckles, and a small bald baby that her husband brought with him when he came to collect her on late nights, Mrs Fleming was very concerned about his coffee consumption and kept trying to wean him onto something she believed to be healthier. She brought in various fruit teas. He’d tried peppermint to please her. It tasted like hot mouthwash.

  ‘‘And what are you doing at Christmas, Duncan?’’ she’d asked.

  ‘‘Oh, just the usual. Just the two of us. We like a quiet Christmas. We have people in at New Year.’’

  It occurred to him that she might be about to invite him to the party he knew they were having. She had talked about it a lot, a Murder Mystery Evening, with the guests coming in costume. Not something he’d greatly enjoy, he thought, but he pictured himself in his father’s old Navy uniform, preserved untarnished in its dust covering in one of the spare bedrooms. Duncan considered that he had been very kind to Mrs Fleming, changing shifts to suit her, listening with a smile to her chatter about the baby, generally helping her to find her footing. The husband didn’t appeal to him particularly, with his leather jacket and untidy hair, but still, he thought now, he might have gone, if invited.

  Preparing for the Party

  As he stood waiting for the bus, which was more than a few minutes late, Duncan fingered the folded paper in his raincoat pocket. He glanced somewhat sternly at the masculine-looking woman with razor-short hair who was standing beside him in the shelter and whose child was alternately sniffing loudly and coughing without a hand over his mouth. This, Duncan had long since concluded, was a circumstance absolutely to be expected. Although he had a car, it was hardly used. Far more responsible to travel by bus, which was good for the environment, but not quite so good for one’s own health. He had solved the problem of keeping his clothes clean by wearing his old navy Barbour, but the thoughtlessness of most individuals, combined with limited ventilation, inevitably resulted in a soup of seasonal viruses which all passengers were compelled to sup, whether they would or no.

  It was extremely annoying, but there was nothing one could do. If he had a bad cold, and here he s
tared ineffectively at the woman again, he would travel by car. Had any medical research been done on the effect of bus travel on public health? He made a mental note to run a search when he was back at the library.

  His destination was the delicatessen in the next village. Many of the ingredients for his mother’s New Year gathering had been mail-ordered as they were every year; the salmon pinwheels and smoked duck mousse from an Aberdeenshire smokehouse had already arrived, along with oatcakes and small biscuits for cheese, while the various cheeses themselves had come from Ayrshire. Tesco would deliver basic items, but still there were some small things that only a delicatessen could provide. For these specialities, one had to go from Hartsend to the neighbouring township, which was more middle class and provided more for middle class needs. It had more or less the same number of shops as Hartsend, but they differed significantly in nature. There was no betting shop and the florist sold only flowers, not fruit and vegetables as well. There was an optician’s and an independent shoe shop. There was also a small but very exciting second-hand bookshop, where Duncan had sometimes found poetry first editions at remarkable prices. It troubled his conscience that the owner seemed unaware of the value of his stock, so he always put something in the RSPCA tin on the counter, which seemed to him rather a noble deed since he was not over fond of cats or dogs.

  Deep in pleasurable if somewhat anxious anticipation – for the shop might be shut, the owner was erratic as well as unenlightened – Duncan didn’t at first realize that his name was being called. The speaker, inside a small black car, tried again.