Chapter Seventeen #2
‘What do you think?’ said Jax, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘I can’t see her coming back any time soon. So that’s yours truly up shit creek without a paddle.’
The ponytail bobbed moodily and she plunged a yellow-gloved hand into the bath. ‘Oh my God!’ she said, ‘That is disgusting!’ She held up some greasy-looking white and orange strands.
‘What on earth is it?’ asked Liz.
‘Coleslaw,’ said Jax.
‘Coleslaw?’ echoed Liz. ‘What’s that doing in the bath?’
‘Oh, come on, Liz,’ said Jax not bothering to hide the exasperation in her voice as she contemplated the mess. ‘You know what weird stuff people get off on.’
Liz did not know. In forty years of marriage to Derek, coleslaw had only ever appeared on a plate, accompanied by tomatoes, lettuce and cucumber.
Jax shook her head. ‘I tell you; you don’t want to know the things people get up to on holiday!
I think to myself: what is it about being in a holiday cottage that turns people into feral beasts.
The stuff I find, you would not believe!
’ She looked in the bath and gave a yelp of frustration.
‘And it’s all in the plughole. And there’s all smears round the tub!
It’ll take me forever; I’ll never get done!
’ She sighed a deep, angry sigh. ‘I tell you, Liz, I can’t be doing with it anymore. ’
‘The cleaning business?’ said Liz.
‘Every weekend I says to myself: “Jax: this is no life.” Every Friday and Saturday cleaning like a blue-arsed fly, dashing from pillar to post, cleaning up everyone’s ess aitch eye tee.
’ Her tone was one Liz recognised of old.
She’d sounded exactly the same when quitting St Barnabus – and for that matter when she’d left Neville.
‘Come here.’ Liz took a cloth out of the bucket of cleaning things and sprayed the sink. Jax being Jax didn’t say thank you, but resumed her work on the bath, picking out strands of cabbage and carrot with a loud, disgusted commentary.
‘Anyway?’ asked Jax eventually as Liz scrubbed vigorously at the beautiful porcelain sink with its ornate brass taps. ‘I thought you and your mates had fallen out with me.’
‘Not at all,’ said Liz mildly (and untruthfully). ‘Though it was a shock being confronted by Ffion like that.’
‘That wasn’t my fault,’ said Jax self-righteously.
Liz could’ve replied that actually, yes it was, but that wouldn’t help her find out what she wanted to know.
‘I was talking to Sidrah,’ she said, ‘the woman as lives opposite Neville. Trying to find out if anyone had been to see him the night he died.’
‘And she said she saw Ffion,’ supplied Jax.
Liz shook her head. ‘No, actually. She said no one went in apart from Nev. And that’s with her checking in her CCTV.’
Jax gave a scornful snort as she put the last bits of offending vegetable matter in a bin bag and began running taps. ‘CCTV! That shows nowt! She’ll have gone round the back, I’m telling you.’
Liz nodded, thinking of that black door in the hedge – and that yellow paper flower.
‘Did Neville ever say anything to you about Ffion?’ she asked. ‘Like she was threatening him or angry with him?’
‘He didn’t have to.’ Jax stood up and applied spray to the glass shower screen. ‘I knew Nev. He didn’t love her – and from what I’ve seen of her, she weren’t capable of loving him. He’d say to me, all jokey like, “She only married me for my money.”’
Jax resumed rubbing the shower screen. ‘You only have to look at their house to see there’s a shedload of money they must have.’ Her rubbing intensified; her voice was high and angry. ‘And now it’s all hers.’
‘Did you talk much to Neville?’ asked Liz gently.
Jax didn’t look up. ‘A bit,’ she said. ‘From time to time. When I’d bump into him.’
She sighed, her eyes suddenly distant, and Liz found herself remembering the photo of Jax and Neville taken so many years ago.
‘I tell you something, I talked to him more than that Ffion ever did. All she cares about are those blumin’ horses of hers.’ Jax absently squeezed her cloth, her eyes sad. ‘I tell you something else,’ she said, ‘I know he was there for me. Whatever had gone on – he was looking out for me.’
She wrung out the cloth.
‘I was wondering,’ said Liz, ‘whether he’d ever mentioned anyone else being angry with him?’
‘Apart from Ffion, you mean?’ said Jax. ‘Like who?’ The thought had obviously never occurred to her.
‘I don’t necessarily mean in the village,’ said Liz. ‘I mean through his work. The Ofsted inspections he did, for instance.’ She deliberately didn’t mention Pity Me; she didn’t want Jax posting the suspicions she and her friends had all over social media.
Jax frowned. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘I thought it was Ffion you were finding out about.’ She picked out the last of the coleslaw and stood up.
‘Because I tell you, Liz, it was her! Had to be. She didn’t care about him – she certainly didn’t care about what he wanted.
And’ – she snatched up the bin bag with a quick, angry flick of the ponytail – ‘she was the one shouting in Nev’s face and she’s the one got all his money. ’
How you hate all this, thought Liz in a moment of insight. How you hate all this cleaning up after people.
‘Everything okay?’ The interior of the mussel-blue Corsair ventilated, Teddy and Thelma sat side by side letting the stale, cool air play over their necks and faces. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to intervene,’ he said.
‘You did exactly the right thing,’ said Thelma. ‘She was angry and needed to vent; hopefully she feels a bit better.’
‘And she’s a teacher from the school?’
Thelma nodded. ‘The school that closed today,’ she said.
‘I think,’ said Teddy, turning on the satnav, ‘that all in all you did very well. With her, of course, but with Annie Golightly too. What a remarkable woman. Having spoken to her, I can absolutely see why her school was outstanding.’ He placed the key in the ignition.
‘Now,’ he said, voice firm, ‘I think you should drive us home.’
Thelma’s head dropped. ‘No,’ she said in a small voice. ‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘You can stop if you want to,’ he said. ‘Just try a few miles?’
Wordlessly Thelma shook her head.
‘I’m going,’ said Teddy with an edge of impatience in his voice, ‘to say another prayer.’ For the second time that day he took her hand.
‘Loving Father,’ he said, ‘thank you for my beautiful, lovely wise wife. You know what a good person she is, and the shame she feels. You love her and you know the truth, that being caught doing thirty-seven in a thirty-mile zone does not make her a bad or dangerous person. Stand alongside her and help her confront the fear, shame and guilt she feels at having to attend a speed awareness course. Amen.’