Chapter Twenty #2
Of course, the easy, instinctive thing to have done would have been to retreat straight back home, back to the safety of the curtain-dimmed interior with fans whirring over bowls of iced water.
But she knew that if she did that, everything that had just happened would, like the fans, whirr round and through her thoughts.
Plus, Derek would be there in the background, back from his evening run, with his uncanny knack of divining when she was bothered.
She needed the time and space to process the confrontation, and here at the allotments with Ruth and Norinna watering beans and courgettes, with the sky a burnished peach, with the soft chink of Norrina’s windchimes – here was the perfect space.
The surprising thing she found was that although she was disturbed by the angry scene, she didn’t feel in any way guilty, in spite of the fact that Ffion undeniably had a point.
And she realised that she didn’t feel guilty because, at a very deep level, she knew it was important to find out what had happened to Neville Hilton.
Not so much for his sake, as for that of those around him, the women who had in different ways been a part of his life.
There was Chelsey, her dark, crippling fears effectively putting a headlock on her life.
And Jax, upset and troubled by her ex-husband’s sudden death.
And then there was Ffion. Having to face down online rumours was undoubtedly distressing, but after their conversation, Liz knew that the woman was also scared.
But of what? And why did she seem to think Liz had been repeatedly in her house?
What had been going on there? Each of these very different women were connected not just by Neville Hilton – but by a shared sense of unresolved disquiet.
Yes, for all sorts of reasons, Liz felt without any shadow of a doubt that the truth about what happened and why needed to be uncovered.
And she was quite certain that figuring out the truth would begin with discovering just who it was that had been shouting so angrily to Neville Hilton before he died.
She gave one of the legs of the bench a firmer stroke than she intended and felt a spray of droplets on her gardening wellies.
So – what did she know? What did she have to share with Pat and Thelma when she saw them tomorrow?
She re-dipped the brush in the oily green wood preservative and began tackling the back of the bench.
Someone had parked up by the edge of the playing field, then approached the Old Barn and the Snuggery from the gate at the back.
Who? The person who had been going into Ffion’s house?
Or Ffion herself, having somehow faked her trip to Carlisle?
If it was Ffion, it didn’t explain that yellow paper flower she’d found, which seemed to link the whole thing to Pity Me school and Davey Fletcher’s memorial.
But what about those paint spattered wellies – where did they fit in?
They did seem to link everything back to Ffion somehow …
As her neat brushstrokes covered the back slats of the bench, Liz sighed in frustration. Like the fans at home, her thoughts were going in circles.
‘Here she is.’
She looked up to see Derek approaching from the main gates.
‘I’m just doing the bench.’
‘I can see.’ He touched her arm in a friendly, unspectacular way. ‘It’s such a lovely evening I thought I’d walk on and see how you were getting on.’ He stood back, surveying the bench. ‘How was the dreaded pre-diabetes awareness?’
She frowned, applying no-nonsense strokes to the offending part of one of the legs. ‘I have to avoid triggers,’ she said. ‘Knowing there’s biscuits in the cupboard, that sort of thing.’ She thought of those Vegan Moments, rich on her tongue.
It was as if Derek could read her mind. ‘The Food Police’ll sort it,’ he said. ‘If he’s not too busy saving the planet that is. It was today our Jacob broke up, wasn’t it?’
Liz nodded pushing back those guilty thoughts. She’d replace the Moments first thing. ‘Our Tim rang earlier; he’s bringing him over around nine.’
Now her grandson was older (year 6 next year!
Where did the time go?) he was a lot more self-sufficient, and although the Wensleydale Railway, Lightwater Valley and the local maize maze were all written in red on the calendar, he was also largely content to amuse himself.
At the moment this seemed to consist of either going through his grandparents’ food cupboards or having endless, serious online meeting with his group of activists from school (BCCDAG – Boroughbridge Climate Change Direct Action Group).
‘Right.’ Liz gave a final, determined stroke to the slats and Derek stood back surveying her work. Watching him Liz suddenly knew he was remembering another time, a wild autumn night when they’d found Billy’s grandson slumped and barely conscious on this very bench.
‘Love you,’ she said.
He made a not unfriendly noise in his throat and nodded. ‘There’s a couple of bits on the side you’ve missed,’ he said.
Liz clicked her tongue in impatience, re-dipped the brush and gave a couple of hasty strokes.
‘Careful!’ said Derek warningly. ‘You’re getting it on your wellies.’
Tutting, Liz looked down, remembering the spray of droplets earlier. How much had she got on her wellies? But there were only a few droplets round the toes.
Hang on … What did that make her think of? A pair of riding boots liberally spattered all on the toes and up the front with yellow paint! She looked at her own boots, with only a few drops of paint on the toes – and she’d painted virtually a whole bench, not just a single vertical line …
Odd.
About the same time, Thelma was sitting in the space behind number 32 College Gardens.
Not really a garden, certainly bigger than a backyard, she was never quite sure how to refer to it apart from ‘out the back’.
Whatever, this brick-paved space of pots, outhouses and a pocket handkerchief lawn was a place she loved, a favourite place to sit in the summer months.
Now she sat on the bench, breathing in the heady scent of the night-blooming honeysuckle cascading down the back wall.
Away in the west the muted glow of the sun, obscured by the wall and by Ripon and St Bega college was firing the sky.
On the bench beside her Snaffles the cat was staring with focused intent at the open laptop in her knees.
On the laptop was the answer to a prayer.
The email was short and to the point.
Dear Mrs Cooper,
Due to the ongoing challenges posed by the current heatwave, we are pleased to offer an online option for your Speed Awareness course.
Online! Attending from her own front room as opposed to the Villette suite at the Harrogate Heights Hotel – with all the attendant risk of running into someone she knew. Of course, there was still some risk of there being some familiar face online, but there were things she could do about that.
‘Thank you, Father,’ she said, inhaling a deep, deep breath of sweetened air.
She thought again of the actual offence.
Her fingers tightened slightly on the laptop at the word ‘offence’.
It was all so unfair. That hill out of Ripon needed some welly to get up it, and it wasn’t as if there were any houses or even pedestrians there as a rule.
So why was it a thirty-mile-an-hour zone?
Thirty-seven she’d been going! It wasn’t as if she’d been some young buck out to impress his mates.
She’d been dashing from the charity shop to the Friarage to visit Contralto Kate from the choir.
A mobile camera mounted in a van had taken to haunting the pull-in where the old feed mill had been, and it had been this that had caught her.
According to the local online bulletin, the Wakeman, this van had netted untold thousands of pounds for the powers that be in what was a notoriously accident-free area.
So unfair.
But her reaction had taken her by surprise – a crippling shame at being judged and found guilty.
So strong was this feeling it had sapped her confidence to drive at all.
She had expected the feelings to diminish over time, but if anything, they had grown until it towered in her mind out of all proportion to the actual offence.
When she had done the course, even in the less threatening surroundings of her own living room, would this feeling of disquiet ever fade?
What if she never felt comfortable driving again?
Thelma took another scented breath, reminding herself of her favourite go-to passage of scripture at times like this – Let tomorrow worry about itself, sufficient to the day is its own trouble.
The sound of the back door and the chinking of ice heralded the arrival of Teddy with two tumblers of elderflower cordial. He stood a moment, luxuriating in the peace, eyes slightly squinted against the last rays of the sun. ‘Man goes forth to his work, and to his labour until evening,’ he quoted.
‘Were there many parcels?’ said Thelma, referring to the stack of brown packages in the porch that had greeted them on their return.
‘A fair few,’ said Teddy. ‘About thirty fans of varying descriptions. I’ll clear it tomorrow.’ He set the drinks down, sat next to Thelma and took her hand. ‘It’s good news about the course-that-dare-not-speak-its-name,’ he said.
Thelma returned his grip and said nothing.
There was a pause filled only by the lazy noise of an evening game of cricket on the college recreation fields.
‘Thank you for coming with me today,’ she said.
Teddy nodded. ‘I was glad to come with you,’ he said. ‘Glad to be with you, glad to be with Annie on her journey.’
Teddy had never referred to ‘death’ – only to people being at the end of their journey. In her darker moments this was something Thelma found very comforting.
She closed the laptop. With a disgusted stretch Snaffles got up and padded off into the kitchen.
‘So where,’ said Teddy, ‘will you go next?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Thelma. ‘Annie was very definite none of her staff were involved – but then we’ve only her word for it they were all at the memorial service and not in Hollinby Quernhow. And I don’t see how I can possibly go asking them, not without causing a lot of upset.’
Teddy nodded absently, and his wife realised he was in all probability contemplating the logistics of delivering thirty fans.
The ping of the laptop stirred them both. ‘That’ll be the email,’ said Thelma, reopening the lid, ‘confirming my online registration.’
But it was not the course.
The email was brief to the point of curtness.
Dear Mrs Cooper,
I received your contact details from Ms Annie Golightly. I wonder if we could schedule a Zoom call as a matter of urgency.
Kind regards,
Bun Widdup
BUN WIDDUP EDUCATION SERVICES