Chapter Fifteen
After a few days staying in the shed and amusing himself by doing a little gardening, Jim set out to buy some more food at the village shop. He was feeling cautiously optimistic about being able to stay here for a few days longer.
When he heard a car coming towards him, however, he slowed down to watch it as he moved slowly along, trying not to draw attention to himself. He kept a careful eye on what was going on around him these days, especially when he was coming out of a temporary hidey-hole only to buy food. He’d never even dreamt of studying passers-by this suspiciously when Gracie was alive.
By the time the car had passed him, he was nearly at the village shop, but he stopped in the shade of a big roadside tree, not even trying to go inside to make his purchases. Not yet. He hoped neither of the two women in the car had noticed him stop to watch them.
No vehicle only passing through the village would be turning off to the big house, so he had to know for sure whether it was going to stay there. He hoped not, so that he could spend another night or two in that lovely cosy shed without worrying.
He felt uneasy. In the few days he’d spent here so far, he hadn’t seen many people driving about in the village at this time of day. The main reasons for cars moving through it seemed to be for people to travel to work elsewhere in the early mornings or to come back home again at the end of the day. One young guy always came back around six o’clock. He had a trailer behind him with what looked like tools in it and Mack’s Electrics written in bright red on the sides. It always had music thumping out of it. That’d not be good for his long-term hearing but at least he was definitely a local, living in one of the cottages and not going anywhere near the big house.
Who were these strangers currently driving through the village? The only other reason cars came here at this time of day was to go to the shop, which was well patronised by locals. But this vehicle had come from outside the village and driven straight past the shop. Why?
The main street didn’t seem to lead anywhere except to a T-junction at the far end from the shop, where you could turn one way and rejoin the main road or turn the other along lanes that led to a few scattered farms. He’d walked partway along it on his second day to find out where they led, planning to pretend he was a hiker if he met anyone. Only, he hadn’t run into anyone. This seemed to be a very quiet part of the country.
He knew some of the locals were aware of his presence on the block of land but they hadn’t made any effort to get him to move on. A guy had come out of the top cottage at the side of the grounds early on as well to stare at him and scowl, then gone back inside.
Jim hadn’t tried to chat to whichever of the pair of shopkeepers was serving him, just bought what he needed quickly and got out again, in case either of them suggested that he should leave the district.
An older woman had stopped him as he came out of the shop the previous day and thrust a package into his hand, muttering, ‘This may help,’ then she’d hurried away looking rather embarrassed and gone into a nearby cottage.
The plastic bag had contained some slices of stale bread in its original wrapper, plus a couple of slices of ham, two apples and a jar half-full of apricot jam. The latter had improved the taste of the bread considerably. He managed to light a small fire and toast it – well, more or less toast it. One piece fell off the stick he was using as a toasting fork and part of it got covered in ash and dirt, so he shared that with the birds.
The kindness of the woman’s act had made him feel good, however, and it had saved him the trouble of going to the village shop that day.
She hadn’t stopped to chat to him, though. People rarely did chat to strangers these days, he’d found. He remembered when he was a lad, his grandfather passing the time of day with strangers on the tramp or people who were just walking down a street towards him, as well as with the neighbours and friends he knew well.
Where were those women in the car going? he wondered now. Had they turned into the village in error or were they passing through on their way to a farm? He stayed where he was, mostly hidden by the tree trunk, keeping a careful eye on the car. He didn’t want anyone to take him by surprise in his temporary lodgings in case they accused him of trespassing and called the police.
He was only staying in and near the shed furthest from the house and hadn’t been near the latter because he didn’t want to leave footprints and risk being accused of planning to break in or worse. He wasn’t quite sure what the law was these days about vagrants but he didn’t intend to find that out the hard way.
He wasn’t ready yet to try to build a new life. Not quite yet, but he was getting there.
He had slept a lot of the time in the past few days because once he’d stopped, he’d been utterly desperate for a respite from trudging on and on. It was lovely and quiet on that piece of land, with a few mature trees in full leaf now and some birds nesting and feeding their tiny, clearly newly hatched offspring.
He’d have liked to stay there and work in the garden properly, extending it and turning it into a place of beauty not just picking out a few weeds. Even thinking about it made his hands twitch to pull up more of them.
Oh, no! He watched in dismay as the car slowed down well before it got to the T-junction and turned into the drive leading only to the big house. He waited, praying the turn was a mistake, as had happened once before, but this car didn’t come back out again.
He was fairly sure the two women inside the vehicle wouldn’t have paid much attention to him as they drove past. He’d be just another scruffy old tramp. But they’d have asked what he was doing there if they’d found him in the grounds of their house, he was sure.
Who were they? Were they coming to stay here? Was his wonderful new resting place to be taken from him after a mere few days of staying here peacefully? He’d even given in to the temptation to do a bit of gardening. It had felt wonderful to get his hands in the soil again and tidy up the area behind his shed. He’d be so sad to leave it all behind.
How would he bear it if he had to go on the tramp again? That thought made him realise how much he wanted to find a new home. He could feel deep-down weariness in every part of his body now and it was so bad today that he couldn’t think straight. It felt as if the world around him was as blurred as his thoughts and he still didn’t feel well enough to walk far, couldn’t seem to shake off the cold or virus or whatever it was that he’d picked up a week or so ago.
Oh dear! He remembered overhearing various fragments of conversation in the village shop and suddenly they all clicked together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to give him a deeply worrying whole. Apparently the former owner of this big house with its lovely grounds had been taken ill a few weeks ago and someone had recently got word that she’d died. She’d only been in her mid-sixties, too.
Now, it seemed, everyone in the neighbourhood was expecting the heir to come and take possession of the big house and its grounds. Well, everyone except him. Until now, he’d been too far out of touch with the people around him, had had to rely on snatches of information from conversations that he’d overheard fragments of. The new owner was another woman, they seemed to think.
Could one of the women in the car which had just turned into the grounds be the new owner? If so, she’d have a lot on her plate sorting out the old place. He’d spent time studying the exterior, for lack of anything better to do, and it was in a very run-down condition. He could list all the places that needed urgent attention and do some of the smaller outside jobs himself, too. He doubted that the place would be any better cared for inside.
As for the gardens, they must have been shamefully neglected for a long time to get into the state they were in now. His fingers itched to start setting things to rights every time he studied another part of them. There were some lovely plants fading away for lack of attention and some that desperately needed fertilising at this time of year. It’d be relatively easy to sort most of them out, would just take some ongoing efforts for a year or two. If only…
It would also take time. Plants need to grow again the way nature prefers them to, slowly and steadily. But he could have helped nature to get the necessary changes started and would have enjoyed doing it properly and carefully, too.
He sighed. He’d even found an old bag with some fertiliser left in the bottom and had been enjoying using a few little sprinkles here and there to bring one small corner of the vegetable plot back into order. Just a handful or two scattered judiciously could work wonders. Plants could be so wonderfully grateful for a little attention, especially from someone with an understanding of their needs.
Sadly, he’d been having to move about more slowly than usual because he still wasn’t feeling very well. This cold or virus or whatever it was had made him feel rather weak and ‘wambly’, to use one of his late wife’s pet words for a person being a bit under the weather.
He changed his mind about going into the shop. If he had to leave suddenly, he wouldn’t be able to carry the tins of food he’d been planning to buy today. Pity. Tins of ready-cooked food made it much easier to feed yourself properly – well, more or less properly, now that he didn’t have any cooking facilities. He had no way of cooking fresh vegetables and really missed them, with butter dobbed on top and melting slowly. He sighed and licked his lips at the memory of how good that could taste.
It would probably be wise to go back to the shed via the side entrance because if he crouched a little as he walked up the track he could stay more or less out of sight but still see what the two women were doing. He’d have to leave if they were settling in to stay there permanently, but it’d make sense to check first whether they were indeed doing that or just checking it out.
They had a house to sleep in, the lucky things, but if it was in a really bad condition inside, they might go and stay at a hotel or B&B for a few days while they hired people to sort out the interior. That would at least give him time to work out what to do next, and he could rest a day or two longer perhaps if he hid in the bushes beside the rough path at the side during the daylight hours. He was so very tired still.
Only – if they decided to stay here from now on, he’d have to leave today and where could he go so late in the day? He’d not have time to walk very far before it grew dark and he wasn’t sure he could manage to tramp far yet anyway. You could only push a tired old body so much then it fell to pieces. No, his best plan might be to hide in that group of leafy bushes during the daytime, and stay a little longer. He could lie very still, cover himself with a few small branches and doze. He kept falling asleep anyway, whether he intended to or not, felt really dopey at the moment.
A tear trickled down his cheek. He couldn’t help it. He was a long way from his former home now, knew no one round here who would take him in till he recovered, and anyway, did he want to let his former friends know that he’d been living like a tramp? No, of course he didn’t. And there were no B&Bs nearby, not that he’d seen on the way here anyway.
Oh, hell! What was he going to do? This settled one thing. It was time to stop wandering round like a lost soul. Gracie would be upset with him for giving in to losing her like a useless fool.
In the end he admitted to himself that he’d have to risk staying here tonight because he simply couldn’t walk very far. But if he waited until it grew light before he left, hopefully after a decent night’s sleep, perhaps he’d manage to find somewhere quite near to stop at a B&B. He couldn’t walk far, he knew that.
Or he could go and find a park or public open space to spend the day in, then come back here after dark.
Yes, he might have to do that if there was somewhere in the village. He felt so weak.
He’d pack his things in one of the sacks and make it look like the other sacks full of rags, then leave it on the top shelf of the racks in the shed. Hopefully no one would realise it belonged to a temporary visitor.
No, not a visitor, just a very weary old tramp at the moment.