Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
Sunday was blissfully quiet. No motorbikes, no chainsaws. Even the gas guns seemed to have been given the day off. If it wasn’t for the bait boxes the pest controller had left scattered around the terrace and garden, she could almost have persuaded herself that these last few weeks hadn’t happened.
On Monday, she dropped the kids off as usual at the bus stop. When she came back, she saw the postman had been – there was an envelope on the mat, with her name and address printed on it in capital letters.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded.
DEAR WHORE,
I WILL CALL YOU A WHORE BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE. YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHED LEERING AT YOUR GARDNER, HE IS ONLY DOING HIS JOB. IF YOU WAS A MAN, YOU WOULD BE CALLED A SICK PERVERT. THEY SAY YOU ARE GOING TO HOLD YOUR FILTHY SWINGER ORGIES AT YOUR HOUSE, WELL IF YOU STAY, YOU WILL BE ASKING FOR IT.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
GOODBYE SLUT.
She felt, not so much disgust, as resignation.
This too was Paul’s doing. Oh, not directly – writing poison-pen letters was undoubtedly far beneath him; his preferred method was to expertly manipulate the planning system, which he clearly knew inside out.
But he’d made Matt and her a target for the local trolls and bullies, and now they had her in their sights.
This was probably what passed for entertainment here, she thought wearily as she balled the letter up and pushed it deep into the rubbish.
She ought to keep it, she knew, and show Matt.
But he might want her to take it to the police, and she didn’t want to think about it for a moment longer than she had to.
Even so, she couldn’t shake off the awful, sick-making realisation that, for some people, this was clearly becoming personal. Support for Rosemary and Paul was changing, little by little, into hatred of her and Matt.
And yet, and yet . . . A little later, when she walked down to see if, by any miracle, the Keep Out signs had been removed, now the chain-sawing was finished – they hadn’t – she came across a glistening, iridescent snakeskin, right on the edge of the wood.
It was almost three feet long, as fat as a sausage.
There was even a bulbous eye, or at least what had once been the film over one, regarding her watchfully from where the skin lay on the grass.
It was as pale and ghostly as gossamer, freshly shed that very morning.
She crouched down and carefully picked it up with a twig, so she could take it back to show the children later. Will, she knew, would be thrilled, and even Tilly was losing her city-girl fear of such things.
Looking up at the house as it squatted protectively over her, she instinctively felt it was a gift, a reminder of all that was special about the place. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed, and in her heart she felt Trade Cottage answer that everything was going to be all right.