Hold My Hand

by Serena Mackesy

Carol cackles. It sounds a bit bravado-ish. “Oh, don't you worry. Nothing I can't handle.”

  So he has, then.

  “I haven't told him where you are, don't worry.”

  “I didn't think you would.”

  “Actually, I let slip something about Derbyshire. Then pretended I hadn't said it. He's probably up scouring the north as we speak.”

  I do hope so. No I don't. “I'd rather,” she says, “he gave up scouring anywhere.”

  “Yeah, well, we can but hope. Has he been on the blower?”

  Bridget nods. “Several times. I think I'm going to get another one. Throw this one away.”

  “Just get a new SIM card. That's all you need.”

  “Yes, I guess so. It only seems to work sporadically down in that valley, anyway. Half the time it doesn't pick up a signal at all. That was why I didn't answer when you rang the other night.”

  “Ah, right. Don't you have a land-line yet?”

  “No. There's one downstairs, but it's only for ringing in on. And believe it or not it's still a couple of months on the waiting list to get another line into the flat.”

  “Nothing surprises me,” says Carol. “Oh, did I tell you? I think I might have got a job.”

  Bridget stops dead. “Carol! No! Fantastic! What?”

  “Virgin,” says Carol, “Transatlantic. Seems like they've realised that the odd fortysomething might actually keep the drunks under control.”

  “Oh, that's wonderful!”

  “Yeah,” says Carol. “There's life in the old dog yet. Not that I'm saying I'm a dog, but you know what I mean.”

  “So when would you start?”

  “Sooner rather than later, hopefully. I've just to do the medical and a refresher course and hopefully I'll be in the air in a month or so. I can't wait, I'll tell you. I was beginning to think it was all over.”

  “I know.”

  They both think about the last year: the pair of them, dwindling savings, Carol trudging off to temporary filing jobs because trolley dollies don't really learn to type. Even Carol's impermeable cheerfulness was beginning to wear a bit thin. There were many days when they'd see each other on the stairs in the morning and the bags under her eyes were exaggerated by leftover tears.

  “So it looks like we're both on the up, then,” says Carol. “I'll tell you what: I'm getting out of Streatham as fast as I can once I've got some sort of income. I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but I don't need to live in London to get to the airport. In fact it's completely stupid. I've been looking at estate agents around Crawley and places are half the price they are in London, even where we live. And without the crack dens round the corner. I'll tell you what, you've inspired me. London's not all it's cracked up to be.”

  “No, it's not,” says Bridget. “I don't think I ever want to go back.”

  “Steady on.”

  “No, I don't. I just look at – ”

  Yasmin teeters on the wall and she prepares to run. Relaxes as she sees her jump down onto the paved side and run towards a climbing frame. She nods in her direction. “– her. I mean. Brockwell Park or rock pools? Drive-by shootings or learning to surf? Winifred Mandela primary or Meneglos school? It's a no-brainer.”

  “And no Kieran,” adds Carol.

  “And no Kieran. Carol, he's not been bothering you, has he?”

  “I told you. Don't worry about it. He wouldn't dare.”

  I don't know, thinks Bridget. I don't know. Not while he had me to focus it all on, no. But by now we'll've turned into a coven of witches in his head, conspiring against him, and she's the only one he can get to.

  “You will be careful, though, won't you? He's not – balanced.”

  “Stop it,” says Carol. “I know what he's like.”

  “I just – you know, you've got dragged into this and I don't want…”

  “So what,” asks Carol, in a let's-change-the-subject voice, “do you get up to for fun around here? Made any friends?”

  “Mmm. Yes, I think so. Sort of. There's a girl in the village with a kid Yas's age. Tina. I like her. She's a laugh. And her brother's nice, too.” She glances over at her, hopes she won't pick up on the reference to a man. I'm not looking for a man. All I want right now is a life. She hurries on. “And they're – yes, they're good people around here. Friendly. Careful, but friendly. I think they want to be sure I'm staying, before they bother too much. But they're not standoffish.”

  “So what do you do? Pub?”

  “There is one. But it's no more child-friendly than the Bricklayers in Streatham. And anyway, there's babysitters.”

  “So you don't go out, then?”

  “I'm not you, Carol. You're good at this sort of thing. You pick up friends like they're going out of business. Me, it takes more time. I'm fine. There's things go on in the village and we go down to them, and we'll get to know people. It's fine.”

  “Sounds a bit lonely to me,” says Carol.

  “Well, it's not,” lies Bridget. “It's fine. I don't need other people around me all the time.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Tea? Coffee?”

  “Um… I'll have a coffee. Thanks.”

  She stands awkwardly, hands in pockets, while the grey-haired stranger spoons Mellow Birds into a plastic beaker and fills it up with water. “Black or white?”

  “White, please.”

  She spoons Coffee Mate onto the top, stirs vigorously until most of the lumps are gone.

  “Sugar?”

  Bridget shakes her head. “Thanks.”

  “So,” she says. “Whose mother are you?”

  “Oh,” says Bridget, “Yasmin. Yasmin Sweeny's.”

  “Ah, right. Lovely Yasmin.”

  Bridget feels pleased. There's only been a couple of weeks of term but she's glad if Yas is making a good impression. “And where is Yasmin tonight? Not home alone, I trust?”

  Bridget colours. She's only joking. She doesn't really think you're a neglectful parent. Look, she's smiling. “She's back at Rospetroc. I've got a friend staying, her sort-of godmother. She'll be in the throes of sugar rush right at this moment, if my guess is good.”

  The woman laughs. “That's what godparents are for, in my experience. Winding them up and handing them back when it gets out of hand. So how is life at Rospetroc? Nice to see a family settled in there at last.”

  Look this is all very well, but I don't know who the hell you are. “Sorry,” she says, “you are?”

  “Oh – gosh.” She sticks a hand out. “I am sorry. You get used, I'm afraid, in small communities, to thinking everyone knows who you are. Sally Parsons. I teach maths and science. Well, you can hardly call it science. Sums and How Things Grow. Yasmin's very bright. You must be very proud of her. We were expecting her to be behind, coming out of the London state system, but frankly I don't think she's going to have any problems.”

  “Oh, thank God for that.”

  “Were you nervous?”

  “I don't know,” says Bridget. “It's this Parents' Evening thing. It just makes you nervous even if you think everything's fine.”

  “I remember,” says Sally. “I used to spend about three hours getting ready for them, changing my clothes so I didn't look too – fast. It was like being lined up outside the headmistress's door waiting for a spanking. I wouldn't worry, if I were you. We're very soft here anyway, but I don't think anyone's got any complaints where Yasmin's concerned.”

  “Phew,” says Bridget. Sips her coffee. Scalds her lips. I should remember that about instant. It's pretty much like drinking kettle water.

  “So how's Tom Gordhavo? I haven't seen him in ages. Gosh, he was a naughty one.”

  “Tom Gordhavo went to school here?”

  “Standard practice. Mix with the next generation of tenants until you go to prep school.”

  “Oh, right. Well, he's fine, as far as I know. Though I've only seen him once since I got here. He's fairly – hands off, as bosses go.”

  “Mmm,”
says Sally. “I can't say I'm surprised. He never liked the place.”

  “So people keep telling me.”

  “Yes. I'm sure they do. I'm surprised they didn't sell it, to be honest, when his grandmother died. Frankly, I think the poor old place probably deserves a new start.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well. Not a happy family. A house like that deserves a happier life. Not that I'm wishing you out of a job, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “It's just a shame, that's all. Some families just do seem to have these runs of bad luck, don't they? And anyway, a house can't just sit there for several hundred years without getting a bit of history, eh?”

  Funny how everyone seems to just assume that I know everything about my employers. It's as though it's celebrity gossip published in the papers this morning. “No,” she says. “Not that I know all that much about it. I know about Mrs Gordhavo's brother, but really, the rest is a mystery to me. I've been having to make stuff up for the renters. Cavaliers and roundheads and tin mines and Trelawny and that.”

  Mrs Parsons laughs. “Well done you! Not bad at all! And much less offputting than a hanging in a hayloft, I must say.”

  “Yes, I thought so.”

  “Is the boathouse even still there?”

  “Yes,” says Bridget. “Though I've not been down to it apart from to check that the padlock's strong enough to keep Yasmin out. It looks pretty derelict.”

  “Well, it would be. It's not been used since before – heaven knows. Probably since well before the war. I don't suppose they had a lot of use for it when it was a school. They had Health and Safety or whatever the equivalent was breathing down their necks, even then in the 1930s.”

  “It was a school?”

  “Didn't you know? Yes. Mrs Blakemore's mother's attempt at keeping the place going after her husband bought it in the trenches. Paddy Blakemore – Tom's grandfather – was the estate manager, running the farms and the bit they didn't use for the school. That's how she met him.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “My parents. I'm afraid we don't move very far from where we grew up, down here. Trouble is, you get to a certain age and your biggest regret is that you didn't listen to them enough while they were still alive. Anyway, the school barely outlived the mother-in-law. I think both the Blakemores felt it was a bit infra dig, even if it was the only reason the place was still in family hands. She was a right stickler for class, I remember that. Had conniptions when she got a bunch of refugees dumped on her in the war. Worried sick that they'd bring her children down to their level. It was the village joke. The local organiser had a field day, picking the ones who would brown her off the most and fixing it so she couldn't get rid of them. Bringing lice into the school and swearing. I'm sure there was something about one of them… oh, I do wish I'd listened properly. I just can't remember. Some mystery, though. Some sort of Something Nasty In The Woodshed type thing. Mind you. It was all hints and rumours around here back then. The Cornish village way. People were a lot less forthcoming when I was a child. People keeping stumm, just letting all sorts of things go by with nothing more than a knowing look and a say-no-more. A leftover of the smuggling era, I wouldn't be surprised.”

  “Doesn't matter,” says Bridget. It's all good material. For something. She's sure it's the sort of thing that would have amused the Aykroyds, at the very least.

  “No, it doesn't. You're right. It's just funny, and it's a shame, to lose all these bits of local history for the sake of paying a bit of attention. One of them at least got kicked out of the school for something, but I don't remember what. I remember Mrs B very well. Mad as a ferret by the time she went. Wandering about in the village with a hat with cherries on and no shoes and socks, always looking over her shoulder like she thought someone was coming up behind her.”

  “Crikey.”

  “I know. I think at least some of it was related to –” she raises a cupped hand in front of her face and wobbles it in the universal drinking gesture. “Of course we were horrible children, as children are, and used to do awful things like jumping out at her and making her scream. It's not wonder they ended up just shutting themselves in there and never coming out except to collect the grocery deliveries at the front door. Mind you, I've got a feeling she might have been a bit loose-screwish for a lot of the time, actually. Certainly, Paddy Blakemore buggered off – excuse my French – some time in the war. They pretended he'd been killed in action, of course, but even down here people occasionally spot people in London restaurants. But men didn't do that, on the whole, especially if they came from that sort of background, unless they had quite a compelling reason.”

  “No,” says Bridget.

  “I don't think it was exactly a happy household after that. I think it was the shame. Women whose husbands left always ended up getting the blame in those days. Anyway, she practically shut the house up in the Winter of '43, and that was that. Got very reliant on Hugh: did the whole man-of-house-bit on him while he was still at Eton. Took him out of school and wouldn't let anyone near him for love nor money. Poor sod didn't stand a hope in hell of marrying. She wouldn't let him out of the house. He'd have had to go a bit further afield to find a wife anyway, mind you. Mum said he was creepy and all the village girls gave him a wide berth long before he did himself in. I suppose Tom's mother was lucky to escape it, really. She married Jack Gordhavo pretty much the minute she turned 21. Definitely one of those running-away-from-home marriages, but I think they were happy enough for all that. So you see. She didn't go back much while her family was still alive, and you can see, especially as they had a perfectly good house where they were, that it wouldn't appeal much after they were dead.”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “You always got the feeling there was some sort of – secret. Something they were trying to cover up. I don't know if it was to do with Hugh or something. But Tom Gordhavo always looked sort of – guilty? – when the subject of the house came up. Like there was something they weren't telling anyone?"

  "You know what the aristocracy are like," jokes Bridget. "Terrified that someone will find out what their income really is."

  "True enough. But all the same, it surprises me that he hasn't sold it. It's not like there's a load of sentimental memories.”

  “No,” says Bridget. “I suppose, even so… getting rid of something with all that history… it would be a wrench, wouldn't it?”

  “You're quite right. Anyway. Maybe it was just meant to be. Maybe the point was that you and your lovely little daughter were going to come and change its fortune.”

  Bridget finds herself smiling, shrugs. “Well, maybe it's changing our fortunes right back,” she says. “It certainly feels like it.”

  Sally looks at her with curious, button-bright eyes. “Yes? I'm glad to hear that. Can't have been easy for you, bringing up a little one by yourself.”

  You're not going there, she thinks. I'm not going to start confessing to privations beyond your wildest so you've got something to tell the village. “Well,” she says dismissively. “It's not like I'm the first woman it's ever happened to.”

  “You're right there. And I don't suppose you'll be the last. Tell me. Has he had the electrics fixed yet?”

  “Oh, have you heard about that?”

  “Frances used to go on about them all the time.”

  “Oh really? I thought it was just me. I guess I'd better talk to him about it, then.”

  “Yes,” says Sally. “Don't let his meanness end up driving you off. He can at least get Mark Carlyon to come and have a look at them and do the basics.”

  “Mark's the guy to ask, is he?”

  “'course. He's very good. He was another cheeky little so-and-so, though. Not as bad as Tina, but I was sorely tempted to give him the odd clout round the ear back before Humans had Rights. Grown up nice, though. Trustworthy. Won't rip you off and cleans up after himself. You should call him.”

  “Okay,”
says Bridget. “I'll ask Tina, once I've talked to the Big Man.”

  “You do that. Tell him I told you to.”

  “Anyway,” says Bridget, “I'm wasting your time. We're meant to be talking about Yasmin, aren't we? And you're meant to be telling me off about something and pointing out the importance of homework.”

  “So we are. And how much time is Yasmin spending on her homework?”

  Bridget blushes. “Oh my God. I didn't know she – the naughty minx. They don't, you know, in London schools, so it never…”

  “Joke, Bridget. She's only six. It’s just the reading.”

  She feels herself flush again. I must learn to spot when someone's shitting me. I seem to have lost my sense of humour over the years. “Oh, sorry.”

  “How's she settling in, at home?”

  “Fine, I think. She seems pretty happy.”

  “Well, she's a delight at school. We were all expecting some gun-toting, gum-chewing inner-city gangsta, but she's fitted right in, made friends, picked up the work. Does she talk much about it at home?”

  “Oh, she loves it. She's having a lovely time. Won't stop going on about it.”

  “Great. Great. And who's she friends with? I can never tell, from the playground. Half the time you think they're fighting and they're actually rehearsing a dance routine.”

  “Quite a few.” She racks her brain for names. “Chloe Teagle, obviously, and Jago Carlyon.”

  “Nice kids.”

  “And there are a couple I haven't met yet. Carla Tremayne?”

  “Oh yes. Blonde ringlets and proud of it. Parents have a pottery shop in Helstone.”

  “Okay. I think I've seen her. And there's one called Lily. She goes on about her a lot.”

  “Lily?”

  “Mmm.”

  “No. Can't think. Are you sure she doesn't mean Lulu? Louise Strang?”

  “No. Well, I'm pretty sure. She's not one of those kids who muddle names up.”

  “How bizarre. I really can't think. It must be a child who doesn't go to the school. But I can't think of anyone called that at all around here.”

  “Funny. She said she lived here.”

  “I must be slipping,” says Mrs Parsons. “I thought I knew everyone in north Cornwall. Oh well. There you go. Looks like Mrs Varco's free, now. Do you want me to take you over?”