Hartsend (20 page)

‘‘Was there a queue at the garage last night, Walter? You were gone a while,'' she'd begun, pouring tea for them both.

‘‘Was I?'' he said, with an air of unconcern. He was reading his newspaper as if nothing was amiss. ‘‘Not much on the telly tonight,'' he said. ‘‘Unless you like snooker. It gets worse and worse. I don't know.''

Clearing the cereal bowls, she gave him yet another opportunity. ‘‘I didn't even hear the car. I suppose I must have fallen over quickly.''

‘‘Mm,'' he said, turning a page.

Ruby stared hard at the back of his head, willing him to confess and save himself, for had she not seen him with her own two eyes, tramping down Lesley's path? The window was open an inch to allow steam to escape. Had she not heard his familiar whistled rendition of ‘‘Scotland the Brave'', heard too the squeak of that woman's gate, and seen the silent opening of their own before she let the white metal slat of the Venetian blind fall back into place? She'd barely had time to dry herself and get into her nightie before he came into the house.

She was meant to be in the shop at twelve, but as the morning progressed she felt more and more upset. Should she phone June and say she was ill? Certainly she was very tired. Her mid-morning tea, normally so welcome, tasted strange. Her head felt light, and there was a constant sensation in her bowels as if she needed to go to the bathroom, despite the fact that the needful had already been done.

She phoned June, changed back into her nightie and dressing gown and sat down on the front room settee with a crossword.

Just after one a knock at the kitchen door startled her.

Surely June hadn't come to see how ill she really was? She buttoned up her dressing gown, and unlocked the door.

‘‘Hello,'' the young woman said, holding out a box. ‘‘I need a signature. Would you be able to take it for …'' she looked down at her clipboard, ‘‘… Crawfurd?''

‘‘There's no one here by that name,'' Ruby told her. ‘‘Not in this street.''

‘‘It's care of number four, Crosthwaite.''

The woman pronounced it ‘‘crosstait'' and it took Ruby a moment or two to realise what was meant.

‘‘But this is number six.''

‘‘I know,'' the woman said. ‘‘It's for your neighbour.'' She spaced the words out as if Ruby was deaf. ‘‘Will you take it for her? It needs to be signed for.''

‘‘Oh, all right,'' Ruby said reluctantly, taking the fancy machine and stylus to sign. What a coarse rude woman. Her hair looked as if it had been chewed by a dog. She was surprised that the Post Office employed such a person.

She relocked the door and studied the box. Bold red letters on white tape said ‘‘Fragile'' on two sides. It was addressed to a Mr Duncan Crawfurd. There was no clue as to what lay inside. She gave it a gentle shake, close to her ear, then placed it on top of the biscuit tin.

 

As soon as he came in, Walter noticed it.

‘‘What's this?'' he asked, ‘‘Something from the boy?'' It was the way he always referred to Walter Junior.

‘‘It's for her next door,'' she said. ‘‘She was lucky to get me. I've not felt well all day. I didn't manage to the Shop.''

‘‘I could have come back earlier. You should have phoned me, Ruby.'' He was still holding the box. ‘‘I'll take this round after dinner.''

She let it pass, but she was ahead of him. She had changed back into her clothes mid-afternoon, and had finished preparing the evening meal. She had eaten her own and there was a plate in the fridge covered with cling film, ready to be microwaved for him.

‘‘Aren't you having any, dear?'' he said, when only one bowl of soup was placed on the table.

‘‘I had mine earlier,'' she said. ‘‘I thought it might make me feel better.''

‘‘No croutons tonight, dear?'' he said.

He liked his croutons. Cubes of wholemeal bread were bathed in Extra Virgin olive oil, then toasted in the oven. Sometimes Italian seasoning was added, or cracked black pepper. Toast Melba, which he also enjoyed, needed more care; the slices were thin after being split, and when the raw sides were put under the grill, they tended to burn if unwatched. But there were no tasty extras tonight, peppered or otherwise. Nor would there be until he stopped keeping secrets from her.

She waited until he was halfway through the soup.

‘‘I'll think I might take that parcel round next door, Walter. Your main course is in the fridge. I'll just pop it in the microwave when I come back.''

She went to Lesley's front door, rather than the back one that faced their own.

Lesley came promptly.

‘‘I took this in for you, Lesley,'' Ruby said. ‘‘Although I wondered if it might be a mistake, because of the name.''

She couldn't help noticing Lesley's necklace, plastic beads like big chunks of sweetcorn, yellow and pale brown, and some darker ones, as if they'd been cooked too long.

‘‘This is getting to be a habit,'' she began. ‘‘I meant, like your boots. Not that we mind, of course.''

‘‘Thank you,'' was all Lesley said. She was holding the parcel up to the light, reading the address label, and her face cleared. ‘‘Oh, that's fine. I know what it is.''

But she didn't tell. Nor did she invite Ruby in, not even when Ruby said she hoped she wasn't interrupting Lesley's tea, and the answer was no. She tried another approach.

‘‘You're back at the school, then, Lesley. Is that going all right?''

‘‘Well, it's tiring, but I quite enjoy being back, seeing all the children. Anyway, thank you so much for taking this in for me.'' She was moving to shut the door.

‘‘I didn't recognise the name, you see. I said to Walter, I hope Lesley's not taking in lodgers, now that her dear mother's gone.''

Lesley stared at her.

Ruby said hurriedly, ‘‘I almost didn't take the parcel, you see. Is Mr Crawfurd new to the village?''

‘‘But you've met him, Mrs Robertson. I'm sure Mrs Crawfurd often sends him with things to your shop.''

She nodded and smiled as if of course she had. But had she? What did he look like? Why was Lesley getting parcels for him? But Lesley was saying goodnight, and thank you again, and better not keep you standing in this bitter, cold wind, and abruptly, quite rudely in fact, the door was being shut in her face.

‘‘So what's the news?'' he said.

‘‘This and that. She's back at work. Said she missed the children.''

‘‘It's a shame she never had any.''

Ruby made no comment. She lifted Walter's empty bowl and went to microwave his main course. The roast potatoes looked a bit leathery, as she'd half expected – roast potatoes never reheated well – but Walter ate without complaining. Nor did he push the green beans to one side. The minute she observed this, Ruby felt sure in her heart that something was amiss.

‘‘Well, I think I can solve your mystery,'' he said. ‘‘I remembered after you went out. We put in a new boiler for a chap called Crawfurd about three years ago. He said they knew our next door neighbours. He lives in that great big house across the river, the one with the turret. Sandy hair and a big droopy moustache, like one of those wee terrier dogs. I see him at the bus stop some mornings.''

When supper was over, the mugs dried and put away and all the worktops disinfected, Ruby sat for a little while in the front room, fighting vainly against the hardening of her heart. She looked over the top of her magazine at her husband of thirty years. His curls had receded neatly, like his late father's, leaving his head looking very clean. His eyebrows had become bushy, but she encouraged him to trim them each month with the help of her needlework scissors. Not that she sewed these days. Fine stitching made her finger joints ache. Walter's hands, reddened by honest toil, lay one on top of the other on his cardigan front.

She had always respected Walter. He was the breadwinner, and his firm had an excellent reputation because of his own high standards and his insistence that the men follow suit. He kept his tools out of the house, and took off his shoes as soon as he came in. He knew how to fix almost everything so that she rarely needed to have workmen in her house, and he always showered before bed, where he was affectionate but undemanding. Until now this had always been enough. There had never been a shadow between them until now.

Wisdom, Roderick McKinnon reckoned, had been simpler in the old days. Before medical progress rendered it redundant, he had devised a foolproof method of predicting the sex of the next baby. He would write down ‘‘Boy'' or ‘‘Girl'' in his personal diary, on the day of the first visit, while assuring the mother verbally of the opposite. By this means he had quickly acquired a reputation for astonishing insight and cleverness. Some of his patients possibly still believed it. He himself felt less and less certain. He hoped he was still learning. It was just that the amount one had to learn seemed to grow greater with every passing year. The very concept of wisdom had become more obscure to him. He had seen great courage, and more determination to fight the odds than he himself would have possessed given the same circumstances, but he had also watched seemingly ‘‘intelligent'' men and women ignore his warnings and bring themselves to a premature death. He had an idea in his head now as he walked towards the Crawfurd house, where the cold February sun hung motionless in the bare branches of their ancient beech trees, but he wasn't sure if it was a wise idea or a foolish one.

‘‘Just passing, Edith. Thought I'd check up on you, since you never come to see us at the surgery.''

She led the way to the front sitting room. As always the room overwhelmed him with its beauty. He and Marjory came from working class backgrounds. They'd inherited nothing but their genes.
My shoulders and your mother's brains, and thank the Lord it was yon way round,
had been his father's pronouncement. Even now, accepted without question as an equal by Edith Crawfurd, in a room like this he felt very aware of his roots.

‘‘Sherry?'' she asked.

‘‘A small one.''

He sat in the rocking chair, a modern heirloom. Hand carved with its trademark Mouse, it had, he recalled, taken three years to come after the order was placed, arriving perfectly in time for her seventieth birthday. But who would inherit after Duncan died, apart from the taxman?

‘‘Well then, any problems, or just the same old friends?'' he began. It was impossible not to rock. He placed his glass on the shelf beside him.

‘‘Fit as a fiddle,'' she said.

‘‘Let's have a wee look at your blood pressure.''

She unbuttoned her sleeve and let him tighten the grey cuff around her upper arm. The pressure was a little high, but he felt there was no need to up the dose. Duncan's grandmother, deaf but otherwise hale, had lived to well over a hundred. Edith's arms and legs were losing bone mass – few woman her age could defy osteoporosis – but she was still straight, still elegant. Was that important in these times? To her it would be, he thought. Her hair had a natural wave, with whiter strands around the face. Marjory had told him, not disapprovingly, that she paid an expensive hairdresser from the city to come to the house.

‘‘So how are the legs? Still getting down to the shops and back again?''

She had broken an ankle some years earlier, which had taken its time to heal.

She made a little face. ‘‘Not so often. We go into town sometimes but Duncan does a weekly order on his computer. I'm fine on the flat, though.''

‘‘I wanted to talk to you about Duncan,'' he said. He took a small sip of the sherry.

‘‘Yes?'' she said.

The moment of truth. He felt as he had felt in his youth, waiting for the whistle, when his broad shoulders had made him an obvious but unenthusiastic prop forward.

‘‘I'm feeling a little concerned,'' he began.

‘‘About Duncan? My Duncan?''

‘‘Yes. And I hoped you might help me, keep me right, as it were.''

She had poured sherry for herself, although she hadn't touched it. Nor did she now. She picked what might have been a hair from her skirt, then placed her hands in her lap.

‘‘Tell me,'' she said, looking beyond him at the now shadowed garden.

The box wasn't very big. It looked old but nice. Dark red, the shape of a heart. It took her a while to get it open, because the gold hook and the button it was caught on were so small. If it was sweets inside, they'd be really wee ones. The last time, he'd left chocolate coins wrapped in gold paper. Just two, but they were big. She'd eaten one on the way back to the van, and one in the dark after she was in bed.

But this time it wasn't sweets. It was a ring with a stone on it. It was the smallest ring she'd ever seen. She didn't know you could get rings that small. She thought maybe it was a pearl, because her Nan wore pearl earrings. It was too big for all her fingers, but stayed on her thumb without falling off. It was like a crown for a fairy queen.

Chocolate was better. If she wore this, they'd take it off her. If she hid it, they'd find it. They'd ask where she got it, and she had promised him not to tell anyone they were friends, not ever.

She put it back behind the stone. Then she changed her mind and, leaving the box, put the ring back on her thumb. It was so small, there must be somewhere in the van to hide it.

The twins found it before supper. She saw them whispering. They whispered together, then Josie got her by the ankles, and Martine pushed her over and sat on her tummy, holding one wrist down on the floor between the bunks, pulling at the arm which ended in the hand whose thumb was locked in her mouth, pressing hard against her teeth. Then Martine started bouncing on her, really hard, thumping the breath out of her body.