The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew

by Milly Johnson

  Three-quarters of an hour later, a combination of Cleopatra and Claudia Winkelman was staring back at her via the distressed glass. Sophie the Trophy was no more.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Good grief,’ said Elise when she walked into the room the next morning. ‘I didn’t recognise you.’

  ‘Perfect,’ replied Sophie.

  ‘You look French,’ said Elise. ‘Here, I bought you some petit déjeuner. Un café, un sandwich et une pomme.’

  Pom.

  How odd she should use that word. One happy summer she was known as Pom and not Sophie. She took the bag and said, ‘Merci bien, Elise. Tu es très gentil.’

  It was a sign. That’s where she needed to go. Back up to Yorkshire.

  ‘Ten thousand pounds cash. How the hell I didn’t get mugged in this area is anyone’s guess.’

  Sophie took the packed envelope. ‘Thank you so much. Will you drop me off at the train station, please?’

  ‘You’re travelling somewhere by train with all that money on you?’

  ‘I don’t look as if I’m the sort of person to be carrying ten thousand pounds cash, to be fair.’

  Elise sighed. ‘We’ll go to Allerwich. It’s a bigger station and you can get a direct train to London there. Or wherever you’re going, though I insist you don’t tell me. And if you really do not want to have the police searching for you, you’d better send John a text to say that you are going away for a while and to leave you alone. Otherwise he might say that you’re a vulnerable person and have all the country looking out for you.’

  ‘I did that whilst you were in the supermarket yesterday. Then I stamped on the phone and dumped it.’

  ‘Good girl. Did you put my number in your new phone?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll ring you so you have mine.’

  ‘I’ll save you as Farrier. I won’t tell a soul that I’ve helped you escape, I promise,’ said Elise, giving Sophie a small, sad smile.

  ‘You do believe me. . . that John was thinking about having me sectioned?’

  ‘I don’t disbelieve you, Sophie. Gerald has always said that John was the sort of man who would do what he had to when the chips were down.’

  Sophie shivered.

  Elise dropped her at the busy train station. Elise didn’t hug her because she wasn’t the type, but she told her to be careful and her concern was evident.

  Sophie boarded the 13.45 to York. The train was quiet and she drew no one’s attention. She kept her head towards the window, staring out at the scenery but seeing none of it because her head was a maelstrom of thoughts. When she arrived there, she tried not to look at the front pages of the newspapers as she passed a kiosk but couldn’t help it. Her outburst was lead story in all of them, the headlines a variation of the sentence: MY HUSBAND IS A SHIT. She felt sick. John could easily have got away with having her committed to a psychiatric unit for evaluation after her behaviour. She’d probably helped drive public sympathy to him more than if she’d read out Len’s words. People would presume they had witnessed a glimpse of the real Sophie Mayhew, a foul-mouthed harridan, so vile her husband had sought solace in the bosom of a much kinder, softer woman. No wonder she hid behind a mask, if that was what lurked beneath it.

  She walked into the station café and ordered a tea, picking up a leaflet from the stand to give her something to read whilst she drank it. It had a detailed map of North Yorkshire in it. She found the village of Winmark, where St Bathsheba’s was, the school now abandoned and not featured as a point of interest. She traced the road down to the coast with her finger and smiled. Briswith. The year of Pom. That wonderful summer that changed everything for her. She followed the coastline upwards, her mouth moving over long-forgotten names she recognised. Ren Dullem, Slattercove. Ren Dullem was tiny; Slattercove was larger, she’d head there. No one would think of her returning to Yorkshire, they’d all presume she would lose herself in London and be staying in a swanky hotel that she’d foolishly pay for with her bank card and then they’d find her. She took off her wedding and engagement rings and popped them in her purse, rubbing the groove away. It felt strange looking at her ringless hand and weirdly like a betrayal, pretending to be single when she was very much married. She wondered if John had kept his ring on whilst he had been screwing Rebecca.

  Once on the train to Slattercove, she started to think about what she was going to do and then decided that the best thing she could do was not think and just go with the flow. She needed to recalibrate, she needed to strengthen, she needed time out of the madness of the situation. If she thought of everything that must be going on behind her back, she would go insane. Wouldn’t that be too funny. She needed some rest most of all. She was tired: mentally battered and physically weary. The bed in the guest house had been lumpy, the quilt stained and smelling of damp. She decided that she would hole up in the first hotel she came to, climb into bed and sleep.

  Slattercove was a pretty town with a long street of independent shops but only one hotel, which was full. The hotelier recommended two guest houses down the road but they were both full too. ‘There’s an inn in Little Loste,’ said the landlady in the second guesthouse. ‘It’s about a ten-minute taxi ride from here. There’s a rank around the corner.’

  There was a group of people behind Sophie waiting to check in so she didn’t ask for a phone number so she could ring ahead. She’d just have to take a chance.

  Little Loste. She couldn’t remember the place. Maybe it was a sign, because no one felt more than a little lost than Sophie did at the moment. Maybe she was being guided by something that had helped her so much already. Not God, though. Not Him.

  Pom

  Chapter 18

  Sophie was soaked by the time she got into the back of a taxi and she’d barely been waiting above five minutes. Packing an umbrella as well as a coat might have been a good idea, but hindsight was a wonderful thing. The taxi driver had to go slowly because his windscreen wipers were working at full pelt and still his vision was impaired.

  ‘Coming down a treat tonight,’ he said in his broad Yorkshire accent.

  ‘Yes, it is very wet,’ she said, trying her best to sound authentically French; anything to further disassociate herself from the posh politician’s wife in all the newspapers. Elise had said she looked like a Frenchwoman, maybe she could convince other people that that’s what she was too.

  ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

  ‘No. I am from France.’

  ‘I love France. Me and the wife have a little holiday home over there. In Barfleur, do you know it?’

  ‘I know it, yes.’

  ‘Bloody hell, what a small world.’ And the driver chattered on until they reached their destination.

  Little Loste looked tiny: a couple of streets full of houses and three-quarters of the way up a hill, the Little Loste Inn with a car park to the side.

  ‘Here you go, love. Four pounds fifty please.’

  The rain wasn’t letting up. Sophie darted from the car into the building hoping that the black dye on her hair wasn’t leaving rivulets all over her face. The woman behind the darkened bar seemed more than surprised to see her. It looked as if she had started to close up.

  ‘Oh, am I too late?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘No, not at all. Let me put the lights back on,’ said the woman. She had mid-length curly brown hair and pretty blue eyes and was roughly the same age as herself. ‘I didn’t think anyone would be in tonight, what with the weather, so I was going to shut up early, but happy to serve you.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you sell food?’

  ‘Got some crisps and nuts, that’s it.’

  ‘Just a glass of red wine in that case, please.’

  ‘Coming up.’

  ‘Do you have any rooms available?’

  ‘Sorry, no.’

  Sophie’s heart sank. She’d have to get a taxi to Whitby then. As if able to see into her brain the woman then said:

  ‘You’ll not find anywhere around here if you
haven’t booked. There’s a massive music festival on in Whitby and everywhere’s been booked for a while.’

  ‘I didn’t know I would need to find anywhere.’

  ‘Oh that’s a shame,’ said the woman. ‘Five pounds sixty, please.’

  Sophie’s hands were shaking as she took the money out of her purse, which the woman assumed was because she was cold. Sophie picked up her glass and went to sit next to the small fire burning out in the grate in the corner of the pub. The woman came out from behind the bar and put another log on it from a basket at the side.

  ‘You look frozen,’ she said.

  ‘I am,’ replied Sophie. Frozen and beat and more than a little lost, a big lost. A huge fat enormous massive lost.

  ‘Where’ve you journeyed from?’

  ‘London,’ lied Sophie.

  ‘What for? I’m presuming not the music festival, seeing as you didn’t know it was on.’

  ‘I . . . er . . .’ I’ve run away from my husband who is trying to have me committed to an asylum. A sob escaped her, shocking her with its suddenness.

  ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business,’ said the woman, looking embarrassed.

  ‘I ’ave left my ’usband,’ said Sophie, sounding less subtle and more like Fifi from ’Allo ’Allo. ‘I didn’t have the chance to think ahead.’

  ‘Oh, bless you,’ said the woman.

  The tears were raining down Sophie’s cheeks now. One Yorkshire accent and a bit of sympathy and the dam walls had crumbled. She didn’t have a handkerchief and so mopped at her face with her sleeve, which was soaked from rain so not the best item for drying.

  The woman went back behind the bar then, brought over a wine bottle and tilted it over Sophie’s glass, filling it to the top. ‘Here, get that down you. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  She disappeared into a room to the right of the bar whilst Sophie sipped the wine. How could so much have happened in thirty-six hours? Yesterday morning she was a blonde English woman living in a huge house. Now she was French, black-haired and homeless.

  The wine wasn’t the best but it was palatable and warmed her inside. She had no idea what she was going to do now. None at all. When the barlady came back she’d have to ask her if she could recommend somewhere that would have a vacant room, however far away. She should have stayed in York, she thought. There had to be a room free somewhere in the North of England. She was so tired she was starting to hallucinate. The smell of toast curled up her nostrils.

  Then the woman reappeared with a stack of buttered toast which she set down in front of Sophie.

  ‘Here you go,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t see you starving. And I’ve got you somewhere to stay for the night or the weekend if you need it. Don’t get too excited. My brother is the local vicar and there’s an almshouse. It was left to the church by the old lady who owned it. I’ve rung him, he says it’s okay, there’s hardly a rush for the place.’

  No, she’d misheard, she couldn’t be that lucky.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’ The landlady smiled gently.

  ‘Oh my goodness. Thank you, thank you, I can pay,’ gushed Sophie. ‘Tell me how—’

  ‘It’s a church house,’ said the woman. ‘You don’t pay. Trust me, when you see it, you’ll be asking me to pay you for staying in it.’ She laughed. ‘I’m Tracey by the way. Tracey Green.’

  ‘Pom,’ said Sophie, without even having to think about it. She was Pom again. Pom who had no surname. It was like finding an old favourite coat in a wardrobe, slipping it on and realising it still fitted.

  ‘Isn’t that a potato in French?’

  Sophie smiled. ‘An apple. But I’m a P-O-M. It’s spelled differently.’

  ‘Unusual, does it mean anything?’

  It meant a lot.

  ‘It’s just a name that my mother liked.’ Another fib.

  The toast was delicious and Sophie gobbled it all up whilst Tracey bustled around closing up the bar. Eventually she came out of the room at the side with a carrier bag and a set of keys.

  ‘There’s some newspapers in here so you can start a fire if you need to warm the place up. It’s been standing empty for a while so I imagine it’ll be quite cold tonight. And I’ve made you up a flask of soup.’

  Her kindness humbled Sophie, who felt weakened by it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice scraped dry with emotion.

  ‘Let’s just say I left my husband in much the same way, so I have every sympathy,’ said Tracey. ‘Come on, I’ll take you there.’

  Whatever Sophie was expecting was not this. The alms-house was enormous. A huge double-fronted building with deep bay windows.

  ‘This is it,’ said Tracey, opening the sort of front door that would have featured happily on the Addams’ Family residence, complete with haunted-house creak. ‘It’s a shame it’s so run down, but it would cost a fortune to do up and the church doesn’t have the money. There’s only the front left part of the house that is liveable in. Don’t go up the stairs, they aren’t safe. We should seal them off really but – again – money. So fall and break your neck at your own peril. Plus none of the lights work anywhere but in the bedsit.’

  ‘I will stay in the bottom,’ said Sophie. ‘I am so grateful.’

  The sight that greeted her when they stepped inside was of a grand staircase and a white-and-black tiled floor that had seen much better days.

  ‘My brother has some photos of the house in its heyday,’ said Tracey. ‘There was a massive chandelier that hung there.’ She pointed to a gaping wound in the ceiling. ‘And the tiles shone like a dance floor.’

  ‘What happened to the last owner?’ asked Sophie.

  ‘It’s quite romantic in a tragic way. Kitty came to the house seeking sanctuary on a very stormy night after being thrown out of her maid’s position. She’d been used and abused by her boss, turfed out pregnant and Mr Henshaw, who lived here – a confirmed bachelor surgeon – nursed her back to health. Sadly she lost her baby and couldn’t have any more, but he fell madly in love with her and married her. They were incredibly happy for many years until he died. It sent her slightly mad and she was convinced that he was still around, which is quite a nice sort of mad, don’t you think? It’s said that she . . .’ Tracey cut off her words and made an awkward face.

  ‘She what?’ asked Sophie, taking in the hallway, not finding it difficult to imagine the former grandeur of the place despite its present state.

  ‘Oh, er, that she . . . er . . . loved this place so much and didn’t want to . . . er . . . leave it . . .’

  ‘She haunts it? Is that what you are trying to say?’

  Tracey cringed. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t want to freak you out.’

  Sophie smiled. ‘You haven’t freaked me out. I don’t believe in . . .’ She shut up. Maybe not the best time to say that she didn’t believe in ghosts, ghoulies or gods. Not when it was the church who had come to her rescue tonight.

  ‘You’ll be okay, anyway. She likes having guests. No one who has stayed here has run off screaming. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘I am happy to make your acquaintance, Kitty,’ Sophie spoke into the air. There was no response, as she expected.

  ‘Come through,’ said Tracey, unlocking the door to her left.

  What used to be a parlour was now a bedsit. It had a single unmade bed in the window bay, a wooden ottoman standing at the bottom of it; a couch facing an open fireplace, complete with grate; a table and two chairs in the middle of the room and, against the far wall, a run of cheap kitchen units. An old Baby Belling oven sat on the work surface.

  ‘Bathroom’s through there,’ said Tracey, pointing to a door in the far corner. ‘Those two switches to the left of it, one is for the light and the other’s for the immersion heater. It turns itself off after an hour but that’ll give you enough for a nice bath. There’s towels and bedding in the ottoman there. They’ll be clean but lord knows the last time anyone stayed here. Must be at least
a year so they might smell a bit musty.’

  ‘It’s very trusting of you.’

  ‘Ha! There’s nothing to nick,’ laughed Tracey. ‘The kettle maybe. We’ve had to replace a couple of those over the years, which is why it’s a ten quid thing from Argos and not a Smeg.’

  ‘I won’t steal your kettle,’ smiled Sophie. ‘I promise.’ Tracey handed over the carrier bag. ‘There’s a couple of teabags in there too, although if you’re French you probably prefer coffee.’

  ‘No, I like English tea,’ replied Sophie. ‘Thank you. Again.’

  ‘It’s Yorkshire tea, the best sort,’ said Tracey. ‘Right. Here’s the key. I’ll call around tomorrow and check on you. Have a good night. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. Do you say that in France?’

  ‘Not really. We say, bonne nuit, dors bien, fais de beaux rêves. Sleep well, sweet dreams.’

  ‘Sleep well, eh?’ replied Tracey. ‘I hope you do. Oh and the only stipulation if you stay here for any length of time is that you attend the church service on Sunday morning. You won’t find it a hardship, even if the vicar is my brother.’ She gave Sophie a wonky grin as she turned to go, but no explanation of what she meant by that.

  Sophie made up the bed and considered waiting for the water to heat up for a bath, but she was too tired even to brush her teeth. She slipped off her tracksuit bottoms and snuggled down under the quilt. She was asleep in minutes, the deep restful sleep of someone who felt safe.

  Chapter 19

  Sophie awoke the next morning with a brass band playing in her head, a throbbing painful drum beat in her temple. A class A bona fide stress headache that had taken up residence in her skull with the sure and certain knowledge that it had the right to be there. She had no tablets to combat it, so she decided to see if she could try and run it off. The rain hadn’t let up and, judging from how the trees were blowing, the wind was pissed off about something. Perfect weather for blasting a headache to smithereens.