by Sue Welfare
Rain dripped off the gutters, and now off him too. Stepping off the kerb he swore as he stepped into a deep pothole, soaking his feet inside his trainers. Bloody weather, bloody roads. He walked slowly towards the door, glancing left and right. He rang the bell to double check. No answer.
Probably Catiana had moved out now she was famous, now she’d got a bit of money. Maybe the other woman was just a cleaner or a Jehovah’s Witness. He grinned, then stepped back and looked up at the grimy first floor windows. At one of them, a large ginger cat pressed his face against the glass. Someone had to be taking care of the cat; perhaps he had struck lucky after all.
Glancing around once more to make sure no-one was looking, the man slipped into the alley beside the shoe shop. Rubbish bins and soggy cardboard boxes were stacked two high. Here, the gutters had failed completely; glistening waterfalls of rain cut swathes into the muddy, weed-choked path.
The alley dog-legged around a flat-roofed, single-storey extension. A crumbling brick wall divided the pathway from the fringes of the recreation ground behind.
The man looked at the wall thoughtfully; it wouldn’t take too much to get up onto the roof. The extension joined on to the flat. He stood for a minute or two considering whether he ought to risk climbing up in broad daylight. From the roof he’d be able to get inside the flat, no problem. In, have a snout around for the stuff he was after, and then out. Maybe twenty minutes, tops. Inside his other pocket was an aerosol can of paint. Good way to confuse the Old Bill. He grinned. Only trouble was the little ball in the can made a helluva noise if you ran, kept banging about, rattling.
‘Are you the builder?’
Startled, the man swung around. A teenage girl, arms wrapped defensively around her chest, peered at him through the rain. Her face was screwed up with cold.
He nodded dumbly, trying to gather his thoughts.
‘Not before bloody time. The manager says to tell you that the damp’s coming in through the brickwork in the store room now. Do you want to come in and look?’ She stepped aside and indicated the open door into the shoe shop.
The man shook his head, still thinking.
‘Er no, I’ve just come to look at the outside today.’
The girl, her hair now dripping, rolled her eyes heavenwards.
‘Bloody typical. Well, I’m not hanging about out here watching you wandering about with a tape measure. If you want anything you’ll have to knock or come round the front.’
‘Wait,’ said the man. ‘You don’t happen to have a key for the flat upstairs, do you? I’d like to take a look at them gutters.’
The girl pulled a face. ‘Nah, it’s completely separate. Didn’t you come last time? The woman who lives up there is out all day today, she told me this morning.’ The girl looked down at her watch. ‘I’m going to go and get me dinner.’ Sniffing, she stepped back into the shop, closing the door smartly behind her.
‘Wednesday is shopping-day, Tuesday is egg-n-chips, Monday is s-o-u-p.’ Dora alternated between singing and humming as she drove back along the bypass into Fairbeach town centre. She smiled at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. If she wasn’t careful she would have turned into a crazy old lady before anyone realised it.
Dora had been out to Ely, trying to fill her head with window-shopping as an antidote to Lillian Bliss’s virtuoso performance on the ‘Fenland Arts’ programme. She’d been to the supermarket first, which on reflection was a mistake. The full-cream jersey milk had probably already turned to yoghurt and the meat was no doubt busy defrosting itself all over the custard doughnuts. She turned off the main road into Gunners Terrace, slowing and easing forward as she reached the corner, trying to catch out the blind spot.
There was a car parked outside the street door to her flat – a small white car with a blue light on top. With a peculiar sense of resignation, Dora pulled in behind it. Before she had a chance to lock the car doors. Sheila appeared, and from a nearby hatchback, a slim ginger-haired girl hurried towards her clutching a notepad. They both began speaking at the same time.
‘There you are. I wondered where you’d got to. You don’t want to go upstairs, it’s an awful mess,’ said Sheila.
The ginger girl took a deep breath, pen poised above her pad. ‘I’m Josephine Hammond from the Fairbeach Gazette. I wonder if we could have a word with Miss Moran? Why are the police here?’
Dora stared blankly at the two women and then pushed past them.
Upstairs, there was a young police officer in uniform standing in her kitchen – what was left of her kitchen.
‘Mrs Hall?’ he said pleasantly, turning round to face her.
Dora nodded. The kitchen window was smashed and everywhere seemed to be covered in cups and cornflakes and washing and newspapers and books and plates – cupboards open, milk puddling around an overturned bottle on the lino – on the wall, in spray paint someone had written ‘SLAG’ in huge fluorescent green letters.
Dora stared at the policeman and blinked. She struggled to find something to say but was stunned to discover that there were no words in her mouth.
Sheila launched herself manfully into the breach. ‘You’ve been burgled.’
The policeman looked at his notes. ‘Mrs Shepherd here said she came round at just after twelve o’clock today to see if you were in.’
Sheila sniffed. ‘I was round at nine but you weren’t here, so I nipped back.’
The man consulted his notes again. ‘Twice?’
Sheila nodded, colouring slightly. ‘I’ve been worried about her.’
‘And on the last occasion Mrs Shepherd found the street door open downstairs.’ The officer looked up and pointed at the broken window with his pen. ‘I reckon they must have come in over the flat roof, broken that, and then let themselves out by the front door when they’d finished. Kids, most likely.’
Dora took a deep breath, but Sheila was ahead of her.
‘What are their parents doing? Why aren’t they in school, that’s what I want to know? It’s disgraceful.’
Dora turned round, stepping on crackles of broken crockery. She coughed to clear her mind. ‘I’ve been to Ely. My cat …’ she began.
Sheila snorted. ‘Never mind about the bloody cat. Look at the mess.’ She bent down to pick up the remains of a mug. ‘I bought you these last Christmas – ruined.’
Dora wandered through the little flat. It looked as if a huge malevolent child had been playing hunt the thimble – drawers were upturned, books strewn everywhere, endless sheets of paper curled into snow drifts against the skirting boards.
The policeman followed in Dora’s wake. Sheila skittering along behind.
‘Anything obviously been stolen?’ he asked, still clutching his notebook. ‘Money, valuables? Your sister said the TV and video are still here.’
‘Nothing seems to be missing,’ said Dora, finally finding her voice. ‘I don’t keep a lot of cash in the house. I won’t really know if anything’s been taken until I’ve tidied up.’
In the office there were computer disks strewn all over the floor, books, notes, pens, ink – a multi-coloured archipelago of chaos nosing its way out into the hall. Dora suddenly felt as if someone was sitting on her chest, and slumped down in the swivel chair, the pulse in her ears banging out a calypso rhythm.
‘Your sister mentioned your address was broadcast on TV last night.’
Dora glanced up at the young man and then Sheila. Somewhere low in the pit of her stomach she had a nasty sense of being caught out. ‘Yes –’
Sheila stared at Dora. ‘It’s all right, I already told him about that woman on the telly. Common, if you ask me, and no more brains than she was born with. Said she lived here, but she doesn’t, Dora does. She must have had the flat before. There were students in here, weren’t there? All the same, students. How long have you been here? Three years? Four?’ She glanced at Dora for some kind of confirmation, but Dora said nothing, deciding it was better just to let Sheila carry on – she was doing a fine job of
pushing the skeletons neatly back into the cupboard. ‘But fancy telling everyone the address, and on TV too.’
Before anyone could pass comment there was a funny strangled mewling sound from close by.
Dora sprang to her feet. ‘Oscar,’ she whispered and hurried back into the hall.
He was in the sitting room, camped out under an upturned armchair. When he saw her he lifted a feline eyebrow.
‘The day I’ve had,’ he mewled. She stroked his broad gingery skull and was rewarded with a guttural purr. He deigned to let her pick him up and nosed miserably against her chest. With narrowed pupils, he reassured her that the chaos had nothing whatsoever to do with him.
‘Spur of the moment, I reckon,’ pronounced the policeman. ‘Could be that they saw the TV programme – arts thing, like your sister said – but I very much doubt it. They’re like magpies, these kids. Trouble is, if they don’t find any money or anything they can sell quickly, they smash the place up. They reckon it’s the frustration.’
Sheila made a dark unpleasant sound in her throat. ‘Frustration? I’d give the little buggers frustration. So what happens now?’
The policeman shrugged. ‘Fingerprint lads are on their way, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. There’s an awful lot of this kind of thing goes on.’
Sheila sniffed. ‘What about that woman on TV?’
The man shrugged before returning to a solution he understood. ‘School’s just across the back from here. Maybe they saw Mrs Hall go out this morning. Maybe they climbed up on the roof for a dare. Who knows?’
Dora glanced up at the wall above the fireplace. ‘At least they weren’t totally illiterate,’ she mumbled, reading the arc of obscenities sprayed on the chimney breast. She looked around, swallowing hard. ‘I really ought to ring Kate.’
‘Her daughter,’ Sheila informed the policeman. ‘Lovely girl, she’s an estate agent, works in Banbury, you know, near Oxford? Got married last year.’
The policeman nodded and then scribbled something on a sheet of paper which he handed to Dora. ‘If you give these people a ring they’ll come and sort your window out’ he said in a reassuring voice.
Sheila squared her shoulders. ‘I’ll just nip home and get my overall. I think we’ve got some magnolia emulsion left in the shed. Get that wall done in no time.’
Dora was too overwhelmed to protest.
‘What do you want me to say to that girl down there?’ said Sheila, pulling on her coat.
Dora took a deep breath and went into the office. From the window she could see the reporter from the Fairbeach Gazette, Josephine Hammond, still sitting in her car.
‘Nothing,’ Dora replied flatly.
Maybe the girl would get bored and go away. Dora picked up a fan of paper from the office floor. Wishful thinking.
It looked much worse than it really was, or at least that’s what Sheila said at least two hundred times, as she bagged up the broken remnants of Dora’s life. It was like a mantra. Plumping and straightening with uncanny zeal she cut a swathe of order through the chaos. Dora would have been immeasurably grateful, if only Sheila could have managed her act of compassion in silence.
‘I don’t know …’ Sheila said, for the umpteenth time, dropping a broken plant pot into a black bag, ‘… what is the world coming to? Look at this …’
Dora followed her, cradling Oscar. She felt as if she was walking around inside somebody else’s body.
Finally, hours later. Sheila emptied the sink, stripped off her rubber gloves and tucked them up into a neat ball.
‘There we are,’ she said briskly, claiming another personal triumph. ‘Now don’t touch that emulsion in the living room. I’ll nip round tomorrow and put another coat on.’ She arranged the clean brush and roller back in the paint tray. ‘Might be a good, idea to do the rest of the room while we’re at it.’ She looked round thoughtfully. ‘Whole place could do with a bit of brightening up. I’ve got three quarters of a can of nice sunshine yellow if you want it. What are you going to do about the office?’
‘I’ll start in there tomorrow.’
Sheila took her coat off the back of the door. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? You can come home with me if you like. It wouldn’t be any trouble.’
Dora stared at the shadowy ghosts of the graffiti on the kitchen wall. She wasn’t sure whether she could bear to stay in the flat another minute and at the same time couldn’t bear the idea of leaving. Even the air felt raw and hurt. She wanted Sheila gone so that she could start to make everything better again.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Really.’
Sheila nodded. ‘Good. Funny thing about that Catiana Moran woman, bit of a coincidence you liking her and it turning out she used to live here. Did you know about that?’
Dora hurried across to the door. ‘Thank you for all your help, Sheila. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘You ought to ring the TV programme up and complain though, I would. I’d give them a real piece of my mind, if I were you.’ She sniffed. ‘Have you rung Kate yet?’
Dora shook her head. ‘Not yet. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks for everything you’ve done. I won’t be here in the morning, I’m going to Jack Rees’ funeral.’
Her sister pulled a face but said nothing.
When Sheila finally went home, Dora left a message for Calvin on his machine, then unplugged the phone and crawled into bed. Oscar claimed the lion’s share, which was strangely comforting – not everything had changed.
Alicia Markham, chair of Fairbeach Conservative Association, adjusted her hat, tugging down the veil over the discreet brim so it emphasised her eyes. She smiled at her reflection; she had always looked good in a hat, and her carefully composed expression, from long practice, conveyed a perfect balance of interest and unapproachability.
‘Guy really ought to travel in one of the main funeral cars. After all, he is our new candidate.’
Beside her, Harry Dobbs, the party secretary, coughed. ‘It really wouldn’t be right, Alicia. It’s not official yet. Let’s at least get Jack Rees decently buried.’
Alicia turned away in exasperation. Across the oak-panelled function room in the local party headquarters she caught Guy Phelps’ eye and found herself smiling. He was sitting with his wife and two members of the selection committee. She lifted her glass in a silent salute. Charming man. He should do them very well. She turned her attention back to her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace and tipped her hat a little further forward.
‘We have to wait for the official announcement,’ continued Harry in his unfortunate monotone.
Alicia Markham snorted and glanced at her watch. Time for another sherry before Edwin Halliday arrived from Westminster with his entourage. She was pleased that they had sent one of the more popular cabinet ministers to represent the government. The Fairbeach by-election was crucial. The PM had sent his condolences. She ran a smoothing finger over her eyebrows. Pity he couldn’t have made the effort to come himself, but then again that might look like an act of desperation, so this, presumably, was his idea of a double bluff.
Just inside the door the tables had been set for the buffet lunch. Two pubescent waitresses were arranging glasses on trays for the sherry. She pouted; best remind them that the good bottles near the bust of Churchill were for the VIPs.
Alicia would have preferred some of the more senior party ladies to have officiated, but she could hardly expect them to don pinafores today, though there were at least half a dozen who would willingly have thrown themselves on the sword for party honour. The girls shuffled backwards and forwards with trays of vol-au-vents and smoked salmon canapés. Alicia fought the temptation to tell them to pull their shoulders back. The large blonde one had the most appalling skin – where did the agency get these girls?
‘Besides, I’ve already arranged for Guy to go with Lawrence Rawlings. A discreet statement of intent,’ said Harry, to her reflection.
Alicia had quite forgot
ten about Harry Dobbs. He was now wringing his hands with considerable conviction. Presumably the gnashing of teeth came later.
‘Every newspaper in the country has leaked Guy’s name, Harry. What do you propose we do, unveil him at a fête?’ she snapped. She stared at Jack Rees’ wreath-topped coffin. ‘At least Guy Phelps has some degree of decorum. We won’t have to show him which knife and fork to use.’ She sucked her teeth. ‘And I’m hoping we’ve finally seen the end of our MP ignoring a three-line whip because he’s pissed, and then having to try to convince everyone it was a point of principle.’ She shuddered. ‘What we need to consider now is who the other parties have got lining up against us.’
Across the room, the club steward, resplendent in his morning coat, opened the double doors for Jack’s widow, Caroline. Alicia tidied her jacket and glided across the parquet to greet her. She took Caroline’s hand in hers and pressed an inaccurate airy kiss to each cheek.
‘Caroline, my dear. How are you?’
Caroline snorted. ‘Cut the crap, Alicia, and no, before you offer, I don’t want a bloody sherry. Can we go to your office? Jack told me you keep a decent single malt stashed away for big occasions.’
Alicia glanced around to ensure no-one had overheard the grieving widow’s outburst. ‘Of course, my dear,’ she said, in a carefully stage-managed voice, and led Caroline to the inner sanctum. They were no sooner inside than Caroline Rees dragged off her hat and threw it onto the desk.
‘My daughter, Lucy, wants to sing “Pie Jesu” during the service.’
Alicia smiled benignly. ‘That will be nice, dear,’ she said, in her most soothing voice, pouring two stiff scotches.
Caroline grimaced. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Mawkish little cow.’ She took a long pull on the glass Alicia offered her. ‘You know, when I first met Jack, everyone said he’d make the cabinet. Tipped for a top job. And the honours list – selfish little bastard – awkward to his last breath. Trust him to die before he picked up his knighthood.’ She paused for a second or two, staring unfocused into the middle distance. ‘He was tipped for one, you know – they always give them to the mavericks.’ She gathered up her lips with a drawstring of old resentments. ‘But he didn’t know how to say yes sir or kiss arses, did he, Alicia? Our Jack, good old Jack, was born without an arse-licking gene in his entire body.’