Perhaps it’s the symbolism I don’t like. Because what are nets for, after all, but to catch things?
As I walk down the narrow high street now, they seem to have grown and spread, even as the place itself seems to have become shabbier and smaller. Every house is swathed, where ten years ago it was maybe half, if that, and the nets look to me as if they have been arranged deliberately to cover up the way that Salten is fading – draped over peeling paintwork and rotting wood. There are empty shops too, faded ‘For Sale’ signs swinging in the breeze, and a general air of dilapidation that shocks me. Salten was never smart, the divide between town and school always sharp. But now it looks like many of the tourists have disappeared to France and Spain, and I am dismayed to see that the shop on the corner that sold ice cream and was always bright with plastic buckets and spades is gone, its empty window full of dust and cobwebs.
The post office is still there, though the net above its entrance is new: a broad orange swag, with an old repaired tear still visible.
I look up as I push the door open with my back, reversing the pram into the tiny shop. Don’t drop on me, I’m praying. In my mind’s eye the tangling threads are engulfing me and Freya in their suffocating web.
The bell dings loudly as I go in, but there’s no one behind the counter, and no one comes as I walk to the ATM in the corner, where the pick-and-mix boxes used to be. I have no intention of taking Kate’s money, but the ￡100 I gave to her nearly cleaned me out, and I want to be sure I have enough in my wallet to …
I pause. To what? It’s a question I don’t quite want to answer. To get groceries? To pay Kate back for the tickets to the alumnae ball? Both of those, certainly, but they are not the real reason. Enough to get away in a hurry, if I have to.
I’m tapping in my PIN, when a voice comes from behind me, a deep raspy voice, almost like a man’s, although I know it’s not, even before I turn round.
‘Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.’
I take the money from the machine’s mouth, and pocket my card, then turn, and there behind the counter is Mary Wren – village matriarch, perhaps the nearest thing that Salten has to a community leader. She worked in the post office when I was at school, but now, for some reason, her appearance wrong-foots me. I had assumed that in the years since I left Salten she would have retired, or moved on. Apparently not.
‘Mary,’ I say, forcing myself to smile as I shove my purse back in my bag. ‘You haven’t changed!’
It’s both true and untrue – her face is still the same broad, weather-beaten slab, still the same small dark penetrating eyes. But her hair, which used to be a long dark river to her waist, is iron grey now. She has plaited it, the thick grey rope dwindling down into a meagre, curling end barely thick enough to hold an elastic band.
‘Isa Wilde.’ She comes out from behind the counter and stands, hands on hips, just as massive and immovable as ever, like a standing stone. ‘As I live and breathe. What brings you back?’
For a minute I hesitate, my eyes going to a pile of local weekly papers, where HUMAN BONE FOUND IN REACH still blares forth.
Then I remember Kate’s lie to the taxi driver.
‘We – I – it’s the summer ball,’ I manage. ‘At Salten House.’
‘Well.’ She looks me up and down, taking in my linen sundress, sticky and limp with sweat, Freya slumbering in her Bugaboo. ‘I must say, I’m surprised. I didn’t think as you came back here any more. Plenty of dinners and balls been and gone and no sign of you and your little clique.’
She pronounces it click and for a minute I can’t work out what she’s saying, but then I understand. Clique. It’s a loaded word, and yet I can’t deny it. We were cliquey, Kate, Thea, Fatima and I. We were pleased with ourselves, and we had no need for others except as targets for our jokes and games. We thought we could take on anything, anyone, as long as we had each other. We were arrogant and unthinking, and that’s the truth of it. My behaviour back then is not something I’m proud of, and I don’t enjoy Mary’s pointed reminders, though I can’t fault the justice of her choice of words.
‘You see Kate though, right?’ I say lightly, trying to change the conversation. Mary nods.
‘Oh, of course. We’re the only cash machine in the village, so she’s in here pretty regular. And she stuck around, when there’s plenty wouldn’t have. People respect that, in spite of her little ways.’
‘Her ways?’ I echo back, unable to stop a slight acerbity entering my voice. Mary laughs easily, her big frame shaking, but there’s something mirthless about the sound.
‘You know Kate,’ she says at last. ‘She keeps herself to herself, living out there like she does. Ambrose was never a loner like that, he was always in the village, down the pub, playing his fiddle in the band. He might have lived out on the Reach, but he was one of us, no mistake about it. But Kate … .’ She looks me up and down, and then repeats, ‘She keeps herself to herself.’
I swallow, and try to think of some way to change the subject.
‘I hear Mark’s a policeman now, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ Mary says. ‘And very convenient it is too, to have someone living local, as you might say. He works out of Hampton’s Lee, but this being his home patch, he comes through here more regular than an outsider might.’
‘Does he still live with you?’
‘Oh yes, you know what it’s like round here with the second-home owners pushing the prices up, very hard for young people to save for their own place now, when there’s rich people from London coming down, snapping up the cottages.’
She eyes me again, and this time I feel her eyes lingering on the expensive change bag, and my big Marni tote, a present from Owen that can’t have been less than ￡500 and was probably much more.
‘It must be hard,’ I say awkwardly. ‘But I guess at least they bring in money?’
Mary snorts derisively.
‘Not them. They bring their food down in the back of their cars from London, you don’t see them in the shops round here. Baldock’s the Butcher closed, did you see that?’
I nod mutely, feeling an obscure sense of guilt and Mary shakes her head.
‘And Croft & Sons, the bakers. There’s precious little left now, part from the post office and the pub. And that won’t be round for long if the brewery get their way. It don’t make enough money, you see. It’ll be converted into flats before this time next year. God knows what Jerry’ll do then. No pension, no savings …’
She moves closer, and tips back the hood of Freya’s pram.
‘So you’ve got a daughter now?’
‘That’s right.’ I watch as her strong, thick finger traces a line down my sleeping baby’s cheek. There are dark red stains under her nails and in the cuticles. It’s probably ink from the post-office stamp pads, but I can’t help thinking of blood. I try not to flinch. ‘Freya.’
‘You’re not Wilde any more?’
I shake my head.