23
Irreparable Damage
‘I see you’ve had a bit of trouble,’ said the milkman, handing Katherine a pint of gold-top. She was on her way out, just as he was bending down to the step. She flashed him an uncomprehending glance. He indicated with his thumb to the road. ‘Your car,’ he explained.
The windscreen had been smashed in. ‘What on earth…?’ she said, treading the short path to the gate, the milkman at her heels. The bonnet was covered in a sprinkling of glass, and it lay on the pavement catching the early-morning sunshine.
The milkman wandered over to the passenger side and peered in at the window. ‘That’s the culprit,’ he said. ‘There’s half a brick on the passenger seat. No respect for anything these days, some people.’
Katherine opened the car door and lifted the brick, scrutinising it as if the identity of the vandal lay in its ragged form. She dropped it to the ground. ‘Bastard,’ she said.
‘Probably some cider-head or other, on their way home drunk. It happens,’ the milkman surmised. ‘You ought to telephone the police. There’s Doble’s garage down the road,’ he added. ‘He’ll be able to fix it for you.’ Then he shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Long-haired yobs, they’re everywhere. They bring their football-terrace-hooliganism onto the street.’ He abandoned Katherine and clambered aboard his milk-float. It rattled away down the street, its electric engine moaning soulfully.
Katherine drove the car to Doble’s garage and arranged for them to order in and fix a new windscreen. She was stopped on the way out of the garage by one of the mechanics. ‘It’s a good thing you brought this in today, miss,’ he said, his face falling serious even for a garage mechanic. ‘Here, let me show you something.’ He led her back over to her car parked in the forecourt and crouched down to the rear wheel. ‘You see this puddle?’
‘Yes. What is it?’ she asked, hardly interested in the ramblings of some local grease monkey.
‘That’s brake fluid. I had a quick check underneath and, if I’m not mistaken, it looks like someone’s taken a pair of snips to the brake pipe.’
‘Someone did it deliberately?’
He screwed up his nose. ‘Well it doesn’t look like natural wear and tear to me. You can even see the scratches in the old copper, new copper showing through where they’ve been at it. It’s not quite severed but even so it wouldn’t have been long and you’d have lost some braking power and maybe even had a nasty accident. I’ll check the other wheels, just to be safe, and we’ll fit a new pipe, drain the system of brake fluid and refill it with fresh.’ He stood up.
‘Could it have been the same person who smashed my windscreen in?’ she said, her heart beginning to race a little.
‘Bit of a coincidence otherwise. Can’t have been done long otherwise you’d have noticed the loss of braking power. My advice would be to go straight to the police with it. Even if someone were playing a prank it’s a stupid and dangerous thing to do.’
That was the second time that morning someone had mentioned the police. ‘Yeah, I’ll think about it,’ she offered.
Her mind in a bit of a daze, Katherine left them to their work and went out onto the main street of Glastonbury. Morning shoppers were steadily filling the pavements as the town didn’t so much spring to life as pull down the blankets from its sleepy face a little at a time. As she made her way back through town she saw a blue Hillman Imp crawling slowly towards her. She stopped dead when she realised it was Laura Leach sitting behind the wheel. As it drew level Laura turned to stare fixedly at Katherine, her expression stony, her dark, gimlet eyes unblinking. Katherine felt her chest tighten beneath the woman’s strangely uncompromising glare. The car all but came to a halt beside her before suddenly speeding up and leaving Katherine to watch as it shot away into the distance.
It was Sunday and it was early. Normally at this time of year Vince would have a long lie-in on his only full day off work, but he was due to meet with that woman Katherine on Monday evening and so far he had nothing to tell her. He remembered that Edith had an aunt who had seen Laura in this Bartholomew Place and he’d asked Edith whether she might take him to see her. Strangely, she jumped at the opportunity. So he found himself sat beside Edith, taking one of only two buses to run that day to the small village of Blaxton where her aunt lived. And Edith, as usual, was full of beans. She was humming a song to herself, the last in a long line of such songs.
‘Are you never quiet?’ Vince asked.
‘I like music,’ she said. ‘I’ve just bought the album An Evening with John Denver Do you like John Denver? I just love John Denver. Have you heard Annie’s Song? It’s so romantic!’
Vince frowned. ‘He’s OK, I guess. I don’t listen to the radio much,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t have many albums either.’
‘That’s no problem,’ she said. ‘I can borrow you some of mine, if you like?’ He didn’t respond either way. ‘This is really nice, Vince,’ she said. ‘You and me going out together.’
‘It’s only a visit to your aunt,’ he reminded. ‘It’s hardly a date or anything.’ Though he had to admit he was warming to her by the day, in spite of himself and his resistance. She could be quite infectious. ‘Are you sure your aunt knows something about Bartholomew Place?’ he asked, thinking of his meeting with Katherine and not looking forward to it at all.
‘Yes, she does. Though I only know what she told me, which wasn’t a lot. You’ll meet her soon enough anyway and then perhaps you can put this Laura-thing to rest.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to put it to rest,’ he retorted shortly. ‘Maybe I want to find out it’s all been a pack of lies. And anyway, even if it was true and she had been in that place, it wouldn’t stop me feeling the same way about Laura, if that’s what you think.’
‘I didn’t think that at all. You asked me to take you to see my aunt and that’s what I’m doing. I thought we were enjoying a nice day out at the same time. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’
This time he was sorry he’d upset her. He tried to study her profile without her noticing and thought that she really was a pretty young thing. She’d avoided putting on any make-up and he thought she looked better without it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m a little bit on edge, that’s all. I find I tend to snap without thinking about it. I never used to, but a number of people have been on my back recently.’
Her clouded expression was wiped away instantly. ‘That’s alright, Vince. Look, I have something that will cheer you up later.’ She lifted up a carrier bag and rested it on her lap. She took out a foil-wrapped pack. ‘They’re cheese and pickle sandwiches for lunch. I know how you so like cheese and pickle.’
‘Cheddar?’
Her eyes looked troubled. ‘Red Leicester,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘I love that as well,’ he said, and was pleased when she smiled too. ‘You shouldn’t have…’
‘I wanted to.’
‘That’s very kind of you to think about it, I guess.’
She beamed with pleasure. The bus gave a lurch on the country road, her arm coming into contact with his. She didn’t make an effort to remove it and he let it stay pressed against him. He rather liked the feeling. Together they stared pensively out of the dirty bus window to the vibrant colours of autumn, the few remaining leaves, tenuously clinging to branches that whipped close by them, dressed in their autumnal livery of acid yellows and rich ambers.
They arrived at Blaxton, a sleepy little place tucked out of the way, populated by people who tended to tuck themselves out of the way – mainly farmers and the like. A trip from Blaxton to Langbridge was the equivalent of a trip from Langbridge to London. They took a side lane that led to a few desultory-looking cottages burdened by heavy blankets of moss-covered thatch. Edith brought Vince to a halt beside one of them.
‘Before we go in to see her I just wanted to warn you,’ she said.
‘Warn me? Of what?’
‘My Aunt Elizabeth – Aunt Liz – she can seem a little strange to those who don’t know her.’
‘Strange? In what way?’ he asked uncertainly. ‘You never told me about her being strange.’
‘That’s because I didn’t want to alarm you as you seem to have your mind set on wanting to see her and I didn’t want to spoil us having a day out together. There’s something you should know about her. My aunt knows about Bartholomew Place because she was in it.’
‘As a worker?’
She shook her head. ‘She was admitted for a time.’
‘You could have told me earlier! Is she safe?’
Edith smiled at his sudden disquiet. ‘Oh yes, perfectly harmless now. She’s been a lot better since they changed her medication. She used to hear voices – mainly God, Mary and Joseph, sometimes Marilyn Monroe, but I never knew how she fitted into the scheme of things. They told her to do various acts and she’d do them – steal things from shops, walk naked up the street, set fire to the vicarage…’
‘I think I’ve changed my mind. You didn’t tell me she was mad!’
‘She’s not mad!’ she defended. ‘Not now at least. But she’s still a bit eccentric.’ She grabbed his hand and held him firm. ‘We’re here now, aren’t we? She’s not going to attack you or anything – she might preach a bit of the gospel if she’s in the mood, but that’s no more mad than going to church and hearing it, is it?’ She led him meekly through a gate, down the weed-strewn path and to a battered old door. She took out a key and unlocked it. ‘She always locks it against Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ she explained. ‘She’s terrified of them because they tend to come in pairs, like policemen or bailiffs; no one should be trusted if they come in pairs, she always says.’ She pushed hard at the door but it hardly budged. ‘You might find this a bit of a squeeze,’ she said apologetically, easing her way through the narrowest of openings.
Vince followed and was amazed to see the entire hallway, small as it was, stacked high with cardboard boxes, heaps of bulging carrier bags, skyscraper-like stacks of newspapers and magazines. Empty tin cans and bottles were everywhere. He noticed every last step on the stairs leading up to the bedrooms was piled high with every conceivable object; mounds of neatly-folded clothes, rows of spent light-bulbs, empty bleach bottles, blackened old pans, cracked ceramic jugs, dented metal ones, threadbare cushions and moth-eaten blankets. It would have been near impossible to get up the stairs, he thought. He heard a soft mewling, and two cats leapt from out of nowhere to scuttle over the precarious piles like agile mountain goats on a steep-sided rock-face to sit and cry plaintively at him. He saw at least two more scoot away to hide as they pushed their way down the clutter-strewn hall.
‘It’s like the worst junk shop I’ve ever seen!’ said Vince, half- appalled, half-fascinated. ‘Don’t tell me the entire house is like this.’
‘I’m afraid it is. That’s Joseph’s fault – told her to keep everything as he and Mary might need it if they had another baby and had to move to a bigger house.’
‘She believes that?’
‘It’s real to her. She can’t throw anything away. All this makes sense to her – she says she’s even got it organised. Every now and again we manage to persuade her to clear some of it but she gets upset if we go too far. It’s a case of doing what we can.’ She paused and put a hand to her mouth. ‘Aunty Liz!’ she called. ‘It’s only me, Edith. I’ve brought someone along to see you!’
‘Are you definitely sure this is safe?’ he asked nervously. One of the cats looked desperately thin and hungry and ready to take a bite out of him. ‘How many cats has she got? They’re all over the place.’
‘About ten, at one point. And five dogs. She had a time when she started to collect two of everything, you know, ready for the flood. Langbridge had a rather terrifying one in 1947 which convinced here that was a warm-up to the real thing. So we had dogs, rats, mice, budgies – you name it. Most of the twos became threes and fours and more; you know how it is when you get male and females together. The amount of kittens and puppies we’ve had to take to the RSPCA! Thing is, you turn your back and she takes another one in.’
‘Christ, Edith, I hope none of this runs in the family, for your sake!’
A woman burst unexpectedly out of a doorway; her eyes were wide, and with her unruly, matted hair it gave her such a demonic appearance that it caused Vince to start. He tripped over something on the floor and fell onto a mound of cardboard boxes. His heart pumping like mad he stared up at her.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ said the woman calmly. ‘Hello, Edith – is this the young man you were telling me about?’
‘Hello, Aunty Liz. Yes, this is Vince.’
She bent down and held out a scrawny hand. ‘Good morning, Vince,’ she said. She shook her head dolefully. ‘Can you not sit all over my work? You have no idea how long it took me to organise all this, and now you’re sitting in it and messing it all up.’
Vince scrabbled to his feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at the crushed boxes. ‘I’ll pay for any damage done.’
Aunty Liz put a hand to her forehead. ‘That’s far too late, young man; the damage is irreparable. Right, let’s have that cup of tea, shall we?’
Edith stifled a chuckle and Vince scowled at her.
* * * *