Ordinary People: Part Ii

ORDINARY

PEOPLE

Part II

PHIL BOAST

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Copyright 2014 Phil Boast.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2339-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2341-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-2340-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014900168

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1   Perishable Goods

Chapter 2   Cast-Iron Alibis

Chapter 3   Love and Hatred

Chapter 4   The Age of Innocence

Chapter 5   The Road to Hell

Chapter 6   Life and Death

Chapter 7   Making tracks

Chapter 8   Angels and Demons

Chapter 9   Night Shift

Chapter 10   Visitations

Chapter 11   Homecoming

Chapter 12   Baking Day

Chapter 13   Five Seconds

Chapter 14   Seeds

Epilogue

About the Author

Chapter 1

PERISHABLE GOODS

Victoria was sitting on the stone steps which led up to the front door of the Manor House. The steps were wide; some twenty feet at their widest and lowest point, and shallow, and had in their former, grander days, echoed and one time or another to the footfalls of most of the landed gentry of these islands, which the Tillington family had always called their home. Kings and Queens would have stepped upon them, having alighted from grand carriages, together with their loyal and sometimes not so loyal subjects. Now, some three centuries after their construction which had formed a part of the renovation of the much older house, they had fallen somewhat into a state of minor disrepair, and moss and lichen had taken a now well established hold, although the rounded edges, perfectly curving outer extremities and close-jointing of the stone slabs still bore testament to the skill of the craftsmen who had built them, who had in all likelihood been paid pennies for their workmanship.

She sat, in fact, on the third stone from the left on the second step down, just at the point at which the steps began to curve inwards towards the stone buttresses which marked their respective ends. She sat upon this particular stone for the simple reason that she had always done so. Ever since she could recall, which was ever since, at the age of six, she had been able to make important decisions for herself such as which step she should sit on, she had sat on this stone. She had sat here after she learned that she had passed her examinations during her years at Roedean, after she had graduated from University, when she had begun a new relationship or one had ended, and when she had heard the news about her beloved brother. In fact after more or less every significant event which had occurred in her life, she had looked over the same view of the garden; of the lawns that swept down to the boundaries of the Manor House grounds in the middle distance, and on to the fields and woods beyond.

The view had changed over the years, of course. The high brick boundary walls had fallen down or into disrepair in places and had been rebuilt, the new bricks looking incongruous with the setting. The trees which marked the garden boundaries and had been young trees when she was growing up had grown tall now, and some others beyond in the farmland which she could remember had been removed in the name of agricultural efficiency. Still, the view was more or less the same, and throughout all of the doubts, joy and disappointments of her still young life, this stone had been her comfort; her place, and now at the age of twenty seven she came here, especially when the emptiness took over. Here she could smoke cigarettes, carefully putting them out and placing the used filters in her jacket or coat pocket for later disposal. Her parents, Lord and Lady Tillington, knew of and disapproved of her smoking habit and would not allow smoking in the house, but beyond this they thought it better not to interfere or further impose upon or attempt to control their daughter, who had been difficult enough, after all.

So, she had sat here on her special days, but today was just another Saturday morning in mid-winter, at the beginning of a new year. She had put on a coat against the chill north winds, and her genuine Russian fur hat which had been given to her by a rich admirer from Moscow in a vain attempt to win her affections, and was deciding what to do with her day. Having graduated with degrees in Modern Languages and Art History, she worked as an assistant curator at one of the big galleries in London, specializing in escorted tours for Spanish, German and French tourists. In the former two she was nearly fluent; in the latter she was virtually flawless. Her work meant that she had every third weekend free, and although in truth the days of the week meant little to her, there was still somehow a deeply ingrained feeling that Saturdays were supposed to be special, which to her added an additional burden, and she must work especially hard against the emptiness on such days. She thought that she might go and investigate the new delicatessen which had apparently recently opened on the village green. News of village events filtered through only slowly to the Manor House, since neither her fathers’ private secretary nor Jack, the head gardener, came from the village itself, but travelled in from the outskirts of town, and Molly and Susan, respectively the housekeeper and cook, lived in the servant’s quarters. Thus the occupants of the Manor House and the people who lived in the houses which had once been its’ mainstay had, in the course of the passing centuries, become strangers to one another.

Victoria Tillington was not what one might describe as especially pretty, but her high cheek bones and Roman nose which had for many generations been a feature of her family, at least if the ancestral paintings which hung in the dining room and up the central stairway could be believed, gave her a distinguished look, and she held herself with the airs of the aristocracy, albeit nowadays the lower aristocracy, in which she had been raised. Her youngest brother, Alexander, four years her senior, had had the good looks in the family. He had also had the wild nature and a love of fast cars and high living, the combination of which had ended his life in a car accident when he had been twenty two years old. This event, which might have brought some families together in a show of mutual support and shared grief had merely served it seemed to emphasize and perhaps increase its’ emotionally dissipated nature. Her mother had become rather more highly-strung and unpredictable than before, traits which she had passed on to or perhaps gradually instilled in her only daughter, and her father had withdrawn further into himself. Victoria had lost the one person in the family to whom she had felt any real emotional connection during her formative years, and although relations between her and her eldest and one remaining sibling, Michael, had remained mostly cordial, they had never been close in the same way. After the funeral Michael had returned to Italy to continue his tempestuous relationship with his wife, the wayward and passionate daughter of an Italian Count and Countess, which Victoria had always read as her parents’ last attempt to elevate the status of the Tillington family to something like its’ former glory.

The match had, in the event and at times of brutal honesty, been a disaster from the beginning, and was only held together by a threadbare and transparent attempt to save face in the upper echelons of Italian and English society. No offspring had resulted from the marriage, and, despite her parents’ best attempts to remain optimistic, nor was any likely to; the Tillington name which had been held in high esteem at certain times during the past three or four centuries, would in all probability die with Victoria’s brother.

This left her, Victoria, as the one remaining child with the ability to at least carry on the blood-line, a burden which she felt more keenly with each passing year. Lord and Lady Tillington had, over the years and particularly when their daughter had been in her early twenties, made many attempts both at social functions and private visits to and by suitable families, to find for her what they would consider an appropriate partner in marriage, but thus far these attempts had not been even remotely successful. Indeed their daughter had made no secret of the fact that she found such occasions boorish, shallow and false, a fact which had caused viscous and heated family rows on more than one occasion. She had simply dug her heels in and refused to accept the responsibilities which came with her position in society, and which were, as far as her parents were concerned, as much a part of her birthright as had been her education and the considerable privileges which had been bestowed upon her since birth.

‘But I don’t want their damned privileges!’

She could well remember the last time she had argued the situation with Michael, indeed the last time that she and he had engaged in any form of meaningful dialogue.

‘Oh come on sis, I know it’s not easy, but, you know, it’s just the way things are. We all have to face up to our responsibilities’.

‘So what are we, a couple of performing seals swimming around balancing balls for the entertainment of all and sundry, to be married off and told to breed like pedigree dogs? Don’t we have a right to a life too? To do what we want, live like other people, marry whom we want or marry nobody. Are we to be denied these simple things which everybody else takes for granted just because our father and mother happen to have money and ‘position’?’

‘Other people don’t have what we have. Other people don’t attend good schools, go on foreign holidays whenever they want, attend banquets, drive fast cars…’ He realized his mistake as soon as the words had left his mouth, and knew that anything he now said would be pointless.

‘Well then go back to your rich Italian tart if that will make you happy. I want nothing to do with any of it’.

Victoria had regretted her harsh words when she had cooled down, as she often did, but the damage was done. They had both made a mess of it and in doing so had lost any mutual support that they could have offered one another. Those few words spoken in haste had guaranteed their future estrangement, and they would both have to face the world with one less ally, which, as they both knew at some deep level were in short enough supply.

As Victoria’s thoughts wandered through this and other, more secret and even more painful aspects of her past life, she came to realize two things; that she was cold, and that she had to move. She had to stop the thoughts. She had to move before the blackness came over her; before the emptiness returned. She put out her cigarette, placed it in her pocket and stood up.

‘Bathsheba! Prince . . !’ The two English Setters ran from their kennel and formed a sea of grey and white enthusiasm in front of her. She walked to the side door which lead to the kitchen and took down the two leather dog leads from their hooks, clipped them to the collars and headed down the gravel driveway towards the village. It would only be the second time in her adult life that she had been there, the first was just after the meteorite had fallen, but she had not been back since.

Meadow was leaning with her elbows on the counter of the Delicatessen, distractedly waiting for the next customer, her bare feet working against the cold floor. She and Keith had re-opened the shop on the 2nd of January, but it seemed that the world was slow to wake up to the new year, and business had been slow for the last couple of days.

‘It’s really hardly surprising’ Keith had said ‘everybody’s been doing nothing but eat for the last week or so; probably food is the last thing they’ll be thinking about.’

Nevertheless they had done good trade over the festive period, and were still in the process of re-stocking for the new season. Tarragon, their eldest daughter, was due at the shop shortly to help her mother take down the holly and other decorations which adorned the shop. Keith had borrowed a van from Ron at the garage and had gone to the wholesalers in town.

Meadow watched as the young, rather nervous looking but well dressed young lady struggled to control her two dogs across the village Green. They looked to Meadow as though they wanted to run for miles; to feel the wind in their faces. So did the young lady. Instead she tied their leads to the metal ring on the wall of the shop, which they had inherited from the previous tenant when the place had been a general store, and the wind chimes sounded agitated as she came in.

‘Hi’ said Meadow, brightly ‘how may I help you?’

The young lady looked around the shop as though she had never seen one before. She had a lost look under her dignified if clearly rather nervy exterior, and needed help.

‘Just feel free to look around.’ said Meadow ‘Please take your time’.

‘Thank you’ said Victoria, and she smiled for the first time, a smile which to Meadow looked rather forced and sad.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you in the village before.’ said Meadow, trying to engage the young lady in what she hoped was light, easy conversation. ‘Have you come far?’ She was certain that the young lady had not come by car; she would have parked nearer the shop on the track which ran between the houses and the Green.

‘My name is Victoria.’ said Victoria ‘Victoria Tillington; I live in the Manor House, well, sometimes anyway.’

‘Ah, forgive me.’ said Meadow. She was tempted to say ‘My name is Meadow and I live on a bus.’ but thought better of it.

‘That’s quite alright’ said Victoria ‘I don’t… . you know.’ She was struggling.

‘Well anyway welcome to our humble little shop,’ said Meadow ‘my name’s Meadow, I live on a bus just outside the village.’

Victoria extended her hand, it was a stiff, reflex action and about the last thing that Meadow was expecting. She took the offered hand and the two women smiled at each other; the face was beginning to relax a little but the eyes were still working overtime.

‘Perhaps… perhaps I’ll buy some cheese then.’ said Victoria.

‘Of course, which sort would you like?’

‘I’ll um, I’ll leave it up to you.’ said Victoria ‘Just whatever you think.’

‘Yes, of course.’ said Meadow. She began sorting and slicing some cheeses and wrapping them in paper. Just then Tarragon came in looking raw from the cold and in the eyes of her mother, very beautiful. Tarragon was seventeen years old.

‘Hi mum!’

‘Hi Sweet Pea; everything okay . . ?’

‘Yeah, it’s just bloody cold out there, excuse my French.’ She glanced at the rather odd-looking customer. ‘Nice hat’ she said ‘is it real?’

‘Tarragon!’ said Meadow ‘Forgive my daughter, I’ve done my best to bring her up with some manners, but the results are disappointing sometimes’.

‘It’s okay, really’ said Victoria ‘Yes, it’s real; it came from Russia, in fact.’

‘That’s cool’ said Tarragon in a rather disinterested way. ‘Shall I start then mum?’

Tarragon busied herself collecting the short step-ladder from the store room and began taking down the foliage from the inside of the shop. She decided to leave the outside until she had a least warmed up a bit.

‘So, anyway’ said Meadow ‘is that enough to be going on with?’

‘I’m sorry?’ said Victoria

‘The cheese?’ said Meadow

‘Oh’ said Victoria ‘Yes, yes that’s absolutely fine, thank you. How much do I owe you?’

Meadow tapped the prices into the till-register and put the cheeses into a paper bag, Victoria handed her a fifty-pound note and took the change. In the matter of human encounters, timing is everything, and Victoria hesitated a second too long once the transaction was complete.

‘Is there…’ began Meadow ‘Forgive me but are you okay?’

‘What?’ said Victoria ‘Yes, yes I’m fine, thanks. Well, better get going then; thank you again, good bye.’

Victoria made for the door a little too quickly, again her timing was off; Tarragon and Meadow exchanged looks.

‘Um, excuse me, Victoria?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’ve forgotten your cheese.’

‘Oh, yes, how silly of me.’ said Victoria. She took the bag from the counter, Meadow gave her what she had hoped was a reassuring ‘we’ve all made that kind of mistake’ smile and Victoria once again headed for the door. She hesitated in a thoughtful way when she was halfway out, however, made as if to say something but apparently thought better of it, or perhaps the words just weren’t there, untied the dogs and made her way across the track to the Green. The wind chimes sounded relieved before they went silent.

‘She was odd.’ said Tarragon as she threw down some holly from the top of the steps ‘You know who she was?’

‘She’s from the Manor House.’ said Meadow ‘She must be the daughter of Lord and Lady what’s-there-name.’

‘Yeah, she was dressed like a toff.’ said Tarragon ‘Talked like one as well; that hat was a joke; where does she think she is, the Siberian steppes or what? More money than common sense, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Tara, dearest and most beloved child, I wonder sometimes where you get your language.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Toff . . ?’

They smiled together; Meadow leaned on the counter again and watched Victoria as she struggled with the two dogs and the additional burden of the paper bag.

‘I think she looked lost.’ said Meadow ‘I hope she feels the wind in her face sometime.’

‘What, in that hat?’ said Tarragon.

Meadow smiled again. ‘Come on, let me give you a hand.’ she said.

Victoria made it to the other side of the village Green, but no further. She tied the dogs to the park bench beside the road, which faced back towards the village. She had to get her head straight before she could go on. She lit a cigarette and sat there for she knew not how long, vacantly studying the ‘L’ shape of houses which encompassed the village green on two of its’ sides. She noted, mostly subconsciously, that all of the houses save the one brick house were built in the classic style of the 16th or 17th century, and had been well preserved, the black-painted timber frames contrasting with the whitewashed walls which they supported. The roofs of the houses were less uniform, but all were of grey slate or weathered red tiles, and the whole gave the impression of chaotic, comfortable beauty. The scene was quintessentially rural English, and there were few villages which she had seen which had retained their ancient character so well. She studied each of the houses in turn; some were terraced but most were detached, if only by a few feet, from their neighbours. They were not large houses, having been originally built to house the various tradesmen and workers required to maintain the Manor House, her home, in its’ former years, or farm its’ surrounding lands. Indeed some of the houses, she was quite sure, could easily fit into the dining room of Middlewapping Manor, including their small front gardens and low, white-painted picket fences. She wondered in a distracted way about the occupants of the houses; people whom she had lived in such close proximity to all of her life and whose houses she had seen from a distance since she could remember, but had never met. Hitherto they may as well have been on different planets; she was from her world, they were from theirs. And yet… . she felt something here which she was working hard to define; some kind of comforting warmth and normally which she had never herself experienced. Her eyes strayed to the village pub which was set back between the houses on the short side of the ‘L’; maybe that would be the place where she could learn.

She still held the bag of cheese in her hands, and had been inadvertently and unconsciously working on its’ top end with her fingers while she had been sitting there. ‘She lives on a bus’ she thought. And yet she had looked so happy and relaxed; so in tune with everything around her. The short interaction which she had witnessed between her and her daughter; those few words had been so natural, so without undercurrents or agenda. In all of her years she could not recall ever having such a conversation with her own mother. Maybe that was why she had panicked. It was quite ridiculous. She, Victoria Tillington, had attended the best girls’ school in the country, had graduated with honours and now spoke four languages with ease. She had dined with Lords, Ladies, Earls, Barons and Baronesses, Counts and Countesses, and had indeed slept with two of them. She could trace her lineage back to the 15th Century when the first Lord Tillington had made his fortune as a trader in wool and other goods, and had built the first and therefore oldest wing of the Manor House. The family fortune had increased in subsequent centuries largely by virtue of the importing of spices and commodities from the Far East. The fortune had been substantially gambled away or otherwise lost by those that came to inherit the title later, and the Manor House itself bore testament to the changing fortunes of its’ owners, with its’ elegant yet seemingly random mix of Jacobean and Georgian architecture, but still, a fortune it remained. She lived at least some of the time in London, one of the greatest cities in the world, and worked in one of the finest galleries in the land, surrounded daily by the great masters. And yet she had struggled to buy cheese from this small, local shop. She had to move. The emptiness was stalking her; she could feel it’s’ presence and she had no strength now to fight it. She untied the dog leads and headed for the Manor House. She left the paper bag and its’ contents on the park bench.

In the Manor House, Lady Tillington had been arranging winter-flowering Jasmine with some evergreen foliage in the huge crystal vase on the hall table. Her husband was in his study which was just off the hallway under the central staircase. He was browsing the Saturday papers as his wife appeared in the doorway.

‘What are you doing?’ she said, by way of engaging her husband in conversation; he seemed to be spending more time than ever in his ‘den’ as he called it.

‘I’m learning to Cossack-dance’ said Lord Tillington ‘either that or I’m reading the Daily Telegraph; I leave it to your powers of observation.’

‘Have you seen Victoria this morning?’

‘Hmmmm . . ? Nooo… Well yes, but not for a couple of hours. She’s eaten breakfast so I wouldn’t worry about her starving to death, at least.’

‘She hasn’t seemed herself lately.’ said Lady Tillington.

‘Hmmmm; what’s that . . ?’

‘Victoria; I was saying that she hasn’t been herself lately.’

‘Then whom, prey, has she been; the window-cleaner, perhaps?’

‘There really is no need to be flippant, Michael.’

‘It always seems to me to be a particularly silly expression, that’s all. Who else can she be, apart from herself? If you mean that she has been a different ‘herself’ to the ‘herself’ that she used to be, then I would not disagree with you, but I suppose that applies to all of us, one way or another. It all hinges on that with which you are making the comparison.’

‘All I know is that I can barely talk to her anymore and you, I notice, hardly ever try.’

‘That is not ‘all you know’, and you can talk to her as much as you wish. Whether or to what extent she responds is up to herself, whichever herself she happens to be at the time’.

‘Honestly Michael, I am trying to engage you in a serious conversation about our daughter, and all you can ever do is to hide behind a wall of meaningless and very unhelpful banter, and I know it’s not ‘all you can ever do’, but for heaven’s sake you take my meaning well enough. You can’t hide forever, as you well know, we have to tell her sometime.’

Lady Tillington walked quickly to the kitchen in search of water for her flower and foliage arrangement, as the vase was too heavy for her to manage when full. Lord Tillington sighed, closed his eyes, removed his glasses and began massaging the bridge of his nose.

Two doors down from the Delicatessen, at number twelve, The Green, lived a certain Reginald Pratt. Reginald Pratt was not a man who was given to wild mood swings or extremes of emotion, but on this day he was feeling rather pleased with himself, which was, in truth, about as near as he ever got to a state of ecstasy. The source of his present good humour was a pair of shoes, which he had purchased that very morning from a shoe shop in the town centre. He had bought shoes on many occasions previously, of course, but he was particularly pleased with this pair, being as they were of the slip-on variety and in a very shiny patent leather. Previous experience had taught him the importance of being able to remove ones’ shoes efficiently and quickly in an emergency, and so he had made a point of avoiding laces, zips or even Velcro, and these shoes fitted his requirements to the letter. He removed the shoes from their box and put them on, and paced once or twice up and down his rather small lounge. His good humour was at this point dulled, somewhat, by the fact that, as he walked, he detected an audible squeak emanating from the shoes, and they pinched slightly at the heels.

‘Ah well’ he said to himself ‘they will be fine once I’ve worn them in a bit.’

He decided to give the shoes their first test in a real-life situation, and in any case needed to buy a loaf of bread, so he put on his coat and headed the short distance to the Delicatessen.

‘Good afternoon Reginald.’ said Meadow brightly as he entered the shop and closed the door, disturbing the wind-chimes once again. This time they chimed differently, and sounded perhaps a little amused. ‘What can we do for you today?’

Meadow was behind the counter, and Tarragon was gathering up foliage from the floor of the shop in a hessian sack, the contents of which would be taken to the woods later and left to form compost. Reginald was one of the shops’ most regular customers, and although he was fastidious in the extreme, Meadow had grown fond of him, and in any case she found his antics rather funny. Tarragon flashed her mother a look, and Reginald covered the few paces from the door to the counter. The superior acoustic quality of the tiled floor made his shoes squeak even more loudly, and Meadow and Tarragon had to avoid further eye contact.

‘Yes, I need a loaf of bread, please.’ said Reginald.

‘Would that be your usual loaf?’ said Meadow, trying to avoid her smile turning into a full-blown laugh.

‘Yes please.’ said Reginald. As he stood waiting at the counter for Meadow to place the loaf in a paper bag and tap the price into the till-register, even the least movement of either foot caused the shoes to squeak, a fact that for some reason Tarragon found uncommonly amusing and she had to turn her face away. Although it was not generally in Meadow’s nature to laugh at the expense of others, she could tell that her daughter was struggling and could not resist.

‘I hear you have some new shoes.’ she said. Tarragon held her nose and leant on the shelving along the side of the shop.

‘Yes’ said Reginald ‘I am rather pleased with them, in fact.’

‘Well they’re certainly very shiny.’ said Meadow.

‘They pinch a bit at the heel, and although you may not have noticed they presently have an unfortunate squeak.’ said Reginald. He moved two paces away from the counter, bent over the better to observe his footwear and proceeded to lift the heel of each foot up in turn, thus demonstrating the sound.

‘You see?’ he said, still bent over and turning his face to Meadow, ‘I have a squeak in my uppers.’

It was all too much for Tarragon, who left the hessian sack and headed swiftly to the back of the shop and the privacy of the store room.

‘Oh dear’ said Meadow, it was as much as she could do to keep a straight face herself, ‘that is unfortunate. I expect they’ll wear in okay though.’

‘I hope so.’ said Reginald ‘Well, thank you.’ He handed Meadow the correct money and left the shop with his purchase, his shoes continuing to squeak as he walked the short distance home.

Tarragon emerged from the store room.

‘Thanks’ she said ‘I’ll get you for that one.’

‘Why dear, I can’t think what you can possibly mean.’ said Meadow

Back at home Reginald unwrapped his bread, placed it in his bread-bin and gave consideration to the problem of his shoes. It was time for his afternoon cup of tea, so while his kettle was boiling he considered how he might proceed to resolution of the situation. Clearly he must stop his shoes from squeaking, lest it cause him any embarrassment in the future; sooner or later somebody was bound to notice, and he must soften the heel somehow.

‘What I need’ he said to himself as he was drinking his tea ‘is a controlled situation, not too far from home so that I can remove the shoes quickly and at short notice if necessary.’ His small back garden was really not large enough to allow for getting an uninterrupted stride going, so he hit upon the idea of walking at a good, steady pace around the perimeter of the village Green. ‘Ten times should do it.’

And