Hartsend

by Janice Brown

  ‘‘Milk?’’ she said.

  He poured a little from the jug, then a little more. Too much. It slopped over onto the brown oilcloth.

  ‘‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching properly …’’

  Lesley pulled some sheets of kitchen paper from a roll and put them down over the puddle of liquid.

  Why didn’t she say something? What was he doing wrong? He wasn’t really a tea drinker and he’d put in so much milk it was lukewarm. He took a large swallow, as if it might improve with familiarity.

  ‘‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in your kitchen,’’ he said desperately.

  ‘‘What do you think of it?’’

  He tried to think of something positive and polite. The yellow vitrolite wall-tiles reminded him of old hospital corridors. The Belfast sink had a brown streak below the cold tap, though he didn’t doubt it was clean.

  ‘‘I hate every inch of it,’’ Lesley said. She took a sip of tea. ‘‘I hate this house, I hate this village, and I think I might possibly …’’

  She broke off. She straightened, as if there were hooks in her skin, as if invisible cords were pulling her head and shoulders towards the ceiling.

  He’d never seen her like this. Slowly, slowly, he put down the mug, as if sudden movement might panic her, make her fly into the glass like the collared doves when he went out to refill the seeds. He hated that sound, hated to see the imprint of their fawn-coloured bodies on the patio window …

  ‘‘I ought to go. I’m so sorry I woke you. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. When you …’’

  ‘‘I’m not all right, Duncan. And I don’t think I’m ever going to be all right, whether you’re sorry or not.’’ She drew the cardigan tight, folding her arms. ‘‘I mustn’t blame you, I suppose, since you haven’t a clue, have you?’’ She unlocked the kitchen door and pulled it open. A cold draught swept in.

  ‘‘What have I done?’’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘‘Go home, Duncan.’’

  He was at the front gate when he remembered the sugar bowl. It would have to stay where it was, he decided.

  Guilty

  June was already in the Hospice Shop when Ruby arrived. She was applying mascara, using the mirror on the wall behind the cash desk.

  ‘‘The kettle’s just boiled,’’ she said, ‘‘but Letty isn’t back yet with the milk. I told her not to rush, the pavements are that slippery this morning.’’

  Ruby looked at the high heels on June’s suede boots, and thought her own thoughts. June was in charge. Which was why they were always behind in the opening and sorting of bags. June would rather chat with customers than get down to work.

  ‘‘Shall I get started on the bags?’’

  ‘‘Oh, thank you pet,’’ June said.

  Pet. Not for the first time Ruby wanted to scream. It was infuriating to be ‘‘pet’d’’ by someone younger.

  She gave the back room a brisk spray of Woodland Breeze then emptied the first plastic bag onto the table. Shirts and trousers. Men’s tan leather shoes, a good make, nicely polished. They’d soon sell. Men didn’t seem to mind wearing other people’s shoes.

  She hoped Walter wouldn’t have to wait long at the Surgery. He’d left the house before her. She’d told him to phone and let her know how it had gone before he went to work but whether he’d heard and whether he would remember was not certain. He was becoming very absent minded, just like his father. She frowned at a tie with a distinct mark over the stripes. Neglected gravy stain? Too late now. Into the Discard bin it went. She heard the door open and the sound of Letty’s voice, cheerful as ever.

  She herself could hardly remember what it felt like to be cheerful. She generally slept like a baby, but in recent days she’d found herself lying awake next to Walter’s snoring body. Once, when the sound reached a crescendo, she had actually kicked him. It had achieved nothing; he was asleep again before she was.

  And now he was looking for sympathy, complaining of stomach pains. For years she had devoted herself to this man, making nutritious, economical meals, catering to his every whim. The idea that there could be something wrong with his stomach was a piece of nonsense.

  ‘‘It’s wind,’’ she told him. ‘‘You eat too fast. I’ve been saying it for years.’’

  It wasn’t wind of course. She knew fine what it was. A guilty conscience. She’d waited and waited for him to tell her why he’d been in Lesley’s garden in the dark. This pain was his guilt breaking out. She tugged in vain at the imitation gold clasp on a white handbag. Sometimes money was left in handbags, or nice little handkerchiefs that could be washed and sold separately. Less nice were unwrapped mints that had melted into the linings.

  ‘‘That’s the tea made, Ruby,’’ June called.

  ‘‘… Mrs Birnie was buying bread for Sammy’s sandwiches, and she said it was a disgrace.’’ Letty had evidently returned from her errand with much to tell. ‘‘and the police no’ takin’ a blind bit o’ notice.’’

  ‘‘You shouldn’t listen to Mrs Birnie,’’ June said, bringing the biscuit tin from under the counter. ‘‘That woman picks up gossip like a cat picks up fleas.’’ She took up her mug, then put it down as her mobile phone rang. ‘‘Back in a moment,’’ she said.

  Ruby had frequently found out interesting things about the village from Letty, but it was important to ask at the time, because the girl forgot quickly. She offered Letty a chocolate digestive.

  ‘‘Start at the beginning Letty dear, and go slowly,’’ she said. ‘‘What else did Mrs Birnie say?’’

  Kettle Chips

  As the train drew in to her station, Harriet pulled on a light waterproof over her blazer and took off her uniform scarf and tie. From here on, it was safer not to look like someone from a private school. It had been a long, exhausting week of exams, and she felt completely miserable, not helped by her period starting that morning. One more miserable thing to do and she would be free to lie on the sofa with a large bag of salt and balsamic vinegar Kettle Chips and watch junk TV.

  A bus took her to Hartsend. She didn’t know the name of Ryan’s street, but she remembered where it was: beside a street lamp, with low hedges in front and all the curtains the same, upstairs and down in brown and white stripes. There was no name on the door. She rang the bell, and when nothing happened, knocked on the glass panel. Moments later the door opened a few inches. She saw a chain stretched across.

  ‘‘We’re no’ wantin’ anything.’’

  ‘‘It’s just a letter,’’ Harriet said. ‘‘For Ryan Flaherty. Is this his house? ’’

  The chain was loosened, the door opened, and the woman stared at her. Harriet hadn’t really looked at her that day in the shop. Her hair was held back from her from her forehead by a pink plastic band with teeth, the kind that little girls wore. A dark green jumper stretched over her front. Either she wasn’t wearing a bra, or it was too loose to give her any shape.

  ‘‘It’s … it’s just a personal letter,’’ Harriet said.

  Ryan’s mother, if it was she, took it without speaking, and closed the door. Was he at home or not? Harriet walked quickly away in case the door should reopen and a familiar voice call her back.

  When she reached her own house, the kitchen light was on. She took out her key, but the door was unlocked. Which it shouldn’t have been.

  ‘‘Dad?’’

  ‘‘I’m in the sitting room.’’

  He was on the sofa, shoes off, and a mug balanced on his stomach, watching football.

  ‘‘I thought you were going to be late home,’’ she told him.

  ‘‘Oh, they cancelled it, thank goodness. Not enough to make a quorum. Combination of illness and road closures. I’m so glad. I’m absolutely knackered.’’ He turned the sound back up.

  ‘‘Why didn’t you come to the station, then?’’ she asked. She had to say it twice, dropping her bag for emphasis.

  ‘‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m really not
that long in.’’

  Long enough to make yourself coffee though.

  ‘‘What’s for tea?’’ she said.

  On the screen, a man in a white shirt jumped high in the air, his foot striking a red-shirted man in the groin. Her father groaned loudly with the rest of the stadium.

  ‘‘My exam was very hard, since you ask. And my period started and my stomach’s very sore.’’

  ‘‘Fine,’’ he said.

  ‘‘Dad!’’ she yelled.

  He started, spilling his drink over his shirt.

  ‘‘Harriet, what are you …’’ he got to his feet, wiping at himself with short, exasperated bursts of words and half words.

  ‘‘I’ve just told Ryan Flaherty I don’t want to see him ever again.’’

  He seemed to struggle for a moment, then he said, ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Because that’s what you told me to do.’’

  ‘‘When did I say that?’’ He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  She gripped the top of the sofa. ‘‘On the way home the other night. You said you didn’t want me to see him.’’

  ‘‘I think I said you ought to. …’’

  She hated it when he began to slow down his words as if she was stupid, as if she was five years old …

  ‘‘No, you said, ‘I want you to keep away from him.’ ’’

  And now he was using the hand gestures as well, ‘‘I said you should keep away from him if he’d been drinking, Harriet. I didn’t mean …’’

  ‘‘Yes, you did. And I’ve just seen his mother and his house and the hedge is all weeds and holes and it’s awful. No wonder he’s miserable. Anyone would be miserable in that house. I wish we’d never left Aberdeen. I wish we’d never come to this horrible place. I can’t even travel on the bus home without getting spat on, or chewing gum in my hair. And I’m tired of making the tea every night, when I’m not even hungry!’’

  She slammed the door behind her. Half way up the stairs she conceded that her last statement was not completely true. She went furiously through the kitchen cupboards, grabbing the Kettle Chips, a family pack of Kit Kats, and a can of Coca Cola. As an afterthought, she twisted two sensible bananas off the bunch in the fruit bowl and stuck them in her blazer pockets.

  Rumours and confusions

  Rumours are spreading through Hartsend. Passed like a virus from one human host to the next and minutely altering, they are turning back on themselves and turning again, until they become quite different from their original selves.

  In the Primary School the staff complain that the children are becoming increasingly excitable. The place is already something of a fortress, has been since Dunblane, with cameras, tall locked gates, and staff patrolling the play areas at lunch time, but Miss Calvert has now had to send out reassuring letters. She is certain that the rumour about High School pupils selling drugs disguised as Love-Hearts through the Primary railings is completely without foundation. Vigilance, she assures all parents is high. The security devices are in working order. All the same, she suggests that children if not accompanied by an adult should walk to and from school in groups if possible.

  The bank, the chemist’s, the fish-shop, and the baker’s are all abuzz, and in the heart of the village, Dr MacKinnon, after a quick word with the other doctors, has asked the Practice Manager to mail a firm reminder to the admin staff about confidentiality. Mindful however of the old maxim – a secret is something you tell one person at a time – his hopes are not high.

  High on the hill, Mrs Crawfurd has chosen to ignore the whispers on the wind. Besides, she is preoccupied with her own thoughts. Too much time has passed to inquire about the mystery blonde. To ask now would be ridiculous. As far as she knows, the woman has not called again, but she cannot be sure. She is beginning to doubt her own judgement. When Dr MacKinnon had said, ‘‘Duncan is looking rather morose these days. We have to cheer him up. If he took an old friend like Lesley Crosthwaite out for dinner, I think that would do him a power of good.’’, she had acquiesced, but Duncan had come back that evening in a very angry mood, and she is afraid to ask why in case it makes things worse. In fact, Duncan is becoming rather annoying. She feels herself becoming tense when they are in the same room and he doesn’t speak.

  Life is beginning to confuse her on many different levels. A neatly ironed handkerchief, was lying with the post behind the door one morning, and the postman denies all knowledge of it. Mrs Flaherty is still unwell and has stopped coming to clean, which is not good. More curiously, the Spode ‘Camilla’ sugar bowl has disappeared. Did she herself put it somewhere? A few days ago she found her pension book in the fridge without the least memory of how it got there, and just recently, when she looked at her old school photographs, she could not immediately recall the other Prefects’ names.

  Down in the Dirty Duck, where memories tend to linger, and where the regulars energetically maintain a weary, cynical consensus about wives, politicians, footballers and life’s other disappointments, there is a new swelling sense of outrage. Many of the pub’s patrons are underdogs, done for by their genetic inheritance, unfairly treated by fate or baffled despite their own best efforts. They, out of all Hartsend, are the ones most instinctively sympathetic, most vocal, most outraged by the intelligence that someone is preying on the children of the village, for who is treated more unfairly, who is more regularly baffled in this life than a child?

  No difference

  The child was found, before anyone knew she was lost, by local man Albert Falconer, aged 43, who had just come off night shift, and whose habit it was to exercise his two Alsatian dogs on the edge of the golf course before going to bed so that they wouldn’t wake him mid morning. The brief exposure to silence also helped him to relax, washing the din of the factory out of his head. Albert was a single man of quiet habits, one of a family of eight children, who enjoyed spending time with his siblings and their offspring, though as he liked to say, the dogs were less bother, they went to bed when they were told and didn’t ask so many questions.

  As always, he carried a large torch by which to see his way, a walking stick, for no real reason except that he liked a stick in his hand, and plastic bags to scoop up the dog dirt, because he wanted no trouble with the green-keepers. In truth, he felt a sense of ownership and responsibility when he walked through the grass. He had lived in the village all his life; he and his two older brothers had played in these fields before they’d become a golf course. There was a thin layer of frost on the ground, but Albert remembered proper winters, when the small loch in its middle had frozen. His elderly father spoke of even colder winters, when the waters had frozen long and hard enough for a bonfire to be lit, and bonspiels held.

  The younger dog had run ahead and didn’t come when called. Its barking grew more energetic. Albert shouted again, thinking it had found a rabbit or an injured bird. When he came close, he told it to be quiet. It switched to growling. The old dog went forward a few paces, then stopped, looking back to his master, back to the young dog, echoing its low growls.

  In the light of the torch Albert saw something half in, half out of the shallow stream. A bundle of clothes, he thought. Another lazy git, too idle to take their rubbish to the dump. He went over to pull the daft dog away. A second look, and his heart failed him. He knelt down, heedless of the wet soaking his corduroys. His vision blurred. Only when the young dog began whimpering did he realise how tightly he was twisting its collar. Albert had never married, never had children, but it made no difference, not with this before him. No difference at all. Not with this.

  Late night

  ‘‘Hello, Father,’’ the barman said. He was holding the phone to his ear.

  The Reverend had given up trying to get the man to call him John, or Mr Smith.

  ‘‘The room’s all ready. And the food’s to hand, though I doubt you’ll have many in tonight.’’ The man spoke hurriedly, as if his mind was elsewhere.

  This was the fourth meeting of the Men’s Pie and Pin
t Night, held in one of the upstairs function rooms. He had persuaded Dr Gordon to talk about Overcoming Stress but some of the regulars had sent their apologies, the weather was so foul. He’d wondered about cancelling the evening. The news about the dead child had depressed the whole village, including himself. It seemed almost wrong to talk about anything else.

  It looked as if the weather had kept even the usual clientele away. The immense TV had been switched off, and the background music, normally loud and pulsating, had been muted, so that the rain could be heard battering hard on the stained glass panels of the upper windows. Two women sat at the far end of the bar, and an older man was working the slot machine. All three looked up and immediately lost interest.

  ‘‘I’m on the phone to the polis,’’ the barman said. ‘‘They’re all on a mission, Father, off to deal with the bastard that killed that wee girl from. …’’ He broke off to speak into the phone.

  Moments later, the street door opened. Dr Gordon, one elbow against the inner door, gave his umbrella a vigorous shake before coming fully into the room.

  ‘‘That’s some night out there,’’ he began.

  Smith held up a hand to quiet him, as the barman hung up the phone.

  ‘‘What’s wrong?’’ Gordon asked.

  ‘‘I was just telling the Father here, somebody said he knew who’d done it, they’d known him from the old days, known him for a fucking bastard, excuse my French. So they’re off to Whiteford to sort him out.’’

  The Reverend forced himself to unhunch his shoulders and relax his grip on the wheel. He didn’t enjoy driving at night, and bad weather made him nervous, gusting wind and darkness and the windscreen wipers at full speed making not much of a difference. Gordon’s Lexus was heavier, far better equipped for this kind of weather, but the good doctor had come to the pub by taxi, anticipating more than one pint with his pie.