“It’s obvious,” said Oscar. “You sat through that atrocious performance of Antony and Cleopatra, which filled in a couple of hours. I’m sure you’re enjoying this fine meal and fine wine. Another few hours gone. All you’re doing is passing the time. But when you talk about Bunburry, your face lights up, you’re animated. These are people you care about, a real community, where you should be. And what about all the projects you had there? You’re not doing anything like that here.”
Alfie drank some wine before replying. “You know why I left Bunburry.”
“I know why you left London,” said Oscar. “You were grieving over Vivian. It would have been pure hell to be here without her, being reminded every moment that she had gone. Of course, you had to get away. But leaving Bunburry was completely different. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with the Green goddess, but if you ask me -”
“I’m not asking you anything,” Alfie spat out.
But Oscar continued: “– it’s time you stopped hanging about in London, moping. She may not even be in Bunburry.”
The waitress arrived with the two desserts. Alfie waved his away.
“I’m sorry. I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Can I get you a coffee?” she asked.
Alfie stood up. “Thank you, no. I really should be going.”
“You really should,” said Oscar patiently. “Back to Bunburry.”
With the briefest of muttered farewells, Alfie left the restaurant and decided to walk home. After a while, he found himself passing St Martin’s Theatre with its glowing neon sign proclaiming, “Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.” He had gone there with Vivian, that day they decided to play at being tourists. But he was shocked to find the pang of loss he always felt when he thought of Vivian wasn’t his only reaction.
He also felt sudden guilt. He had been pressganged into becoming director of Bunburry’s amateur dramatics group, dubbed “Agatha’s Amateurs” by the villagers, since the only play they ever put on was “The Mousetrap” at Christmas. That tradition continued, but he had managed to persuade them to put on a summer production as well. In his absence, nothing would be happening. And the community library – it needed a lot of hard work if it was going to succeed.
The pedestrian light switched from red to green. Alfie stepped off the pavement and was almost run down by a delivery bike whose rider swore loudly at him. Shaken, Alfie made his way towards The Strand. Even after three months, he hadn’t fully adjusted back to London life. The capital seemed too crowded, too frenetic. He missed Liz and Marge, he missed Windermere Cottage, he missed Sunday lunch at the Drunken Horse, he missed Dorothy quizzing him about his post, he even missed the cows which had terrified him so much when he first arrived.
He owed Oscar an apology. Oscar had been trying to help, and Alfie had just been too pig-headed to listen to the truth. Perhaps Oscar was still in the restaurant – Alfie could go back and join him for a nightcap.
He got out his phone, which he had put on silent in the theatre. He had six missed calls. All from Marge.
He was preparing to ring back when Marge called again. He dodged into a shop doorway to minimise the traffic noise.
“Marge? Marge? Sorry, I can’t hear you. Could you speak up?”
To his horror, he realised she was crying.
“Oh, Alfie,” she sobbed. “It’s awful! Something terrible has happened. Alfie, please, we need you to come and help us.”
2. Back to Bunburry
The distinctive Cotswold Blue Jaguar headed down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace, bearing right at the Queen Victoria Memorial to reach Hyde Park Corner.
Alfie had tried to get Marge to tell him what terrible thing had happened, but she was too distressed. He reassured her that he would come first thing in the morning. Having barely slept, he set out before 7am after a rushed cup of coffee and a slice of toast.
Even at this early hour, there was traffic, and it took Alfie a while to traverse London and get on to the motorway.
As the Jaguar swallowed up the miles, he thought back to the last time he had seen the elderly ladies.
The doorman had called the flat. “Mr McAlister? There’s a lady here at the desk for you, a Ms Hopkins, calling on behalf of Liz and Marge.”
He had felt almost the same alarm as yesterday. Liz, in London? Which he knew the ladies considered a filthy, dangerous place, to be avoided at all costs. Why was she here?
“Thanks, Darren – please send her up.”
Alfie was waiting at the lift door when Liz emerged, flustered.
“Goodness, Alfie, this is all quite something, the sliding glass doors and the carpets and the doorman. He said it was all right for me to come up, I hope you don’t mind -”
“Of course I don’t mind,” said Alfie, kissing her on the cheek. “But is everything all right? How’s Marge? Where is she?”
Liz fluttered a hand in the direction of the street. “Outside in the car. She’ll drive off if any blue meanies appear, and then come back for me.”
“We can’t have her worrying about parking tickets,” said Alfie. “She can have a visitor’s space in the underground car park. I’ll sort that out. Come and have a seat.”
He ushered her into the drawing room overlooking the Thames.
When he returned with Marge in tow, Liz didn’t appear to have moved from the spot where he had left her.
“Goodness,” she said faintly, sitting bolt upright on the settee as though trying not to disturb anything. “You can see Tower Bridge from here.”
“I know,” said Alfie, smiling. “It’s particularly lovely at night, when everything’s lit up. And if you come round here and look in that direction, the pointy skyscraper is the Shard.”
“Goodness,” she said again, more faintly, not moving an inch.
But Marge had already rushed over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and was exclaiming about the view.
“And a balcony! Alfie, this is marvellous. Look at that cruise boat with all the people on it! Do you sit out here with your coffee and croissant, and wave to them?”
“Sometimes,” said Alfie, amused by her enthusiasm. “Speaking of which, what can I get you? Tea? Coffee? Gin?”
“Ooh, gin, please,” said Marge. “Easy on the tonic.”
“Margaret!” said Liz sharply. “You can’t drink – you’re driving. Alfie, we’ll have a nice cup of tea.”
“Driving?” said Alfie. “But you’ve only just got here.”
“We can’t stay long,” said Liz firmly. “We want to get home before it’s dark.”
“And we want you to come with us,” declared Marge.
“Pardon?” said Alfie.
“You’ve been away for a week,” said Marge. “It’s time you came back. We’ve come to get you.”
Liz gave a long-suffering sigh. “We agreed, dear, that I would do the talking, didn’t we? And you’ve rushed in like a bull in a china shop. I’m sorry we’ve just sprung it on you like this, Alfie, but Marge is right. We’ve been worried about you, just running off like that.”
“I had things to sort out here. Urgently,” said Alfie. He was lying, and he knew they knew he was lying.
The two-storey flat had three bedrooms. There was no sign that the ladies had brought overnight bags, but the concierge service could get them whatever they needed. He could invite them to stay, show them round London. But no. They would wear him down and he wasn’t prepared to reverse his decision.
“Let me get you that tea,” he said.
An hour later, he was waving them off, mortified by the look of disappointment on their faces.
“I just need a little more time. To sort things out. I’ll be back soon,” he assured them. He hadn’t meant it then, and again he knew they knew that. Now they never asked him about his plans in their weekly phone calls, never talked about Agatha’s Amate
urs, the community library, volunteering at the hospice. They never mentioned Betty, and he never asked. He had no idea whether she was back in Bunburry.
But now it didn’t matter whether she was or not. Last time, Liz and Marge had asked him to come back for his sake. This time, they were asking him to come back for theirs, and there was no question of him refusing.
He took the next motorway exit, and was soon on the narrow roads that had unnerved him so much when he resumed driving. Now, he felt elated to be among the gently rolling hills, to see the warm golden stone of the tiny villages, catching sight of the occasional patient fly-fisher in a limestone stream. He wished the roof of the Jaguar was open, so that he could breathe the clear air, but there was no time for that. He wanted to get to Liz and Marge as quickly as possible.
He reached the familiar turn-off for Bunburry, and minutes later was in the village itself, reducing his speed to a sedate twenty miles an hour. He passed the Drunken Horse, with its lop-sided agglomeration of buildings; he passed the post office, closed since it was Sunday; he passed the church with its tapering spire, and thought he caught a glimpse of Philip in his black cassock.
As he neared Jasmine Cottage, he saw a police car parked outside. Emma. He was glad she was already here, to support her great-aunt. He parked the Jaguar in front of the other car and climbed up the three stone steps to the white wooden gate.
The front door of the cottage was open, and he could hear raised voices. None of them Emma’s. One of them a man’s. Emma’s boss, Sergeant Harold Wilson.
He couldn’t make out what they were saying until the sergeant suddenly appeared in the doorway, pursued by Marge. Alfie had heard the quips about how Margaret Thatcher handbagged her opponents. Now he was witnessing an actual handbagging, Sergeant Wilson ducking out of the way as Marge swung at him, Liz standing open-mouthed in the background.
“Assaulting a police officer carries a twelve-month prison sentence!” Wilson shouted at her.
“And what sentence does police harassment carry?” Marge shouted back. “How dare you come round here upsetting everyone!”
Alfie still had his hand on the latch of the gate. Suddenly, he found himself shoved aside as the gate was flung open. Emma darted past him to join the melee.
“Aunt Liz! Aunt Marge! Are you all right? What’s going on?” she yelled, which was exactly the question Alfie wanted to ask.
He stepped through the gate and said in his most encouraging voice: “Hello everyone! Let’s all calm down for a moment and see how we can sort things out.”
Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention.
“Margaret Redwood, I’m arresting you for assaulting a police officer,” shouted Sergeant Wilson, “and Clarissa Hopkins, I’m arresting you for refusing to assist a police officer. You do not have to say anything but -”
Emma grabbed hold of him and pulled him away from the ladies. “You leave Aunt Liz and Aunt Marge alone! You can’t arrest them. They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Haven’t done anything wrong?” Wilson spluttered. “That one there hit me with her handbag.”
Marge, now clutching her handbag to her bosom, gave a grim smile suggesting she would be perfectly happy to do it again.
“That’s going to sound great in court, you complaining about being hit by Aunt Marge,” said Emma. “Good luck with making her out to be the Muhammad Ali of the Women’s Rural Institute.”
Alfie had to agree. Marge, small and birdlike, peering warily through her oversized glasses, looked even tinier beside the large overweight sergeant, his belly hanging over his belt.
Wilson turned to Emma as though seeing her for the first time. “Constable Hollis, you are suspended with immediate effect for insubordination,” he snapped.
Emma gasped. “You can’t do that. There are procedures.”
“Oh, there will be procedures, my girl, you can be sure of it. And be in no doubt that at the end of them, you’ll be kicked off the force.”
He turned on his heel and marched past Alfie, down the garden and the steps to the police car.
“Suspended on full pay, I take it,” Emma called after him. “That suits me just fine.”
But as the car drove off, Alfie saw her face crumple, and tears start rolling down her cheeks. He was dismayed. Emma was always so professional, so self-possessed. He could never have imagined her crying, and now he was witnessing it.
Liz was crying as well, and Marge shooed her into the house, Emma trailing after them. Alfie followed on, wondering whether he should alert them to his presence. So far, nobody had acknowledged that he was there.
He cleared his throat, and at that very moment, Marge turned and glared at him.
“Go and make some tea,” she ordered.
Behind her oversized glasses, her eyes were glistening with tears as well. Three weeping women. Alfie did the only thing he could, and fled into the kitchen.
He took his time over making the tea in the hope that they would have managed to console one another by the time he joined them. But despite the tears and the upset, he felt a sense of contentment. He was back in Bunburry, and he knew it was the best place for him to be.
When he came in with the tea tray, Emma and Liz were sitting on the chintz-covered sofa, Emma with her arms round her great-aunt. Marge was seated on her customary rocking chair, rocking furiously.
“I’ve brought the tea,” Alfie announced unnecessarily, putting the tray down on one of the two nests of coffee tables, and pulling out tables for their cups.
Nobody else spoke. He would have to try to lighten the mood.
“Marge always says a cup of tea is very dry without something to go with it. I don’t suppose you’ve got any fudge?”
Liz burst into tears again.
Emma turned to him. “Alfie, you idiot!” she said in reproach. “Why would you say that?”
“Say what?” asked Alfie, bewildered.
She shook her head in vexation. “Just pour the tea.”
Alfie did what he was told, setting a cup beside each of the women, which none of them touched. Marge was still rocking back and forth, her expression grim. Emma still had her arms round Liz.
“I came as soon as I could,” she said gently to her great-aunt. “But what was Sergeant Wilson doing here in the first place?”
“Throwing his considerable weight around,” answered Marge. “That beer belly’s bigger every time I see him. He just stormed in, told us there would be an investigation, and we had to stop everything right now.”
The rocking chair was beginning to creak.
“Marge was wonderful,” said Liz, looking gratefully at her friend. “She was so brave. She told him to leave, that it was nothing to do with him.”
“I did!” said Marge, her voice shrill. “I said, ‘Get out of here, Harry Wilson. This isn’t a police matter - there hasn’t been a crime.’ That’s exactly what I said.”
She stopped rocking and picked up her tea cup. “That man! He’s a tin-pot dictator. What about you, Emma? He can’t just suspend you like that. You’re in a union, aren’t you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” said Emma. “I’ll get on to the Police Federation rep tomorrow, and it’ll be sorted out before you know. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to a few days’ paid leave. I can spend some time with the pair of you. That’ll be nice, won’t it?”
She gave Liz an affectionate nudge.
But her great-aunt didn’t respond to it. Instead, she said in a bleak tone that Alfie had never heard from her: “It’s all over. When the word gets out, I’m finished. I don’t know what to do. Oh dear, I just don’t know what to do.” She stared blankly at the patterned carpet.
“Please,” said Alfie. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“For heaven’s sake, Alfie, isn’t it obvious?” said Emma impatiently.
“Since you ask, no,” he said.
“Oh, Alfie, don’t you understand? It’s the fudge.”
3. The Drunken Horse
When Alfie came into the Drunken Horse, he was greeted by a squeal of delight from Edith.
“Look who’s here! Hello, stranger!”
Edith might be seventy-something, but she was perfectly sprightly as she rushed round from behind the bar to give him a hug. The other patrons called out greetings, some coming over to shake Alfie’s hand. Oscar was right. This was a community. Nowhere in London would he get a reception like this.
“Leaving us without a word,” Edith scolded. “You didn’t even tell Liz and Marge where you were going, you bad boy. Off somewhere exotic with that girlfriend of yours, I suppose?”
Edith was Bunburry’s gossipmonger-in-chief, and Alfie was relieved that Liz and Marge hadn’t been discussing him with her: she clearly didn’t know he had been holed up in his London flat.
“No, Betty and I were … travelling separately,” he said. Edith had him paired off with Betty long before he himself had entertained the prospect. However much he contradicted her, she always called Betty his girlfriend, and in the end he just went along with it. He had never worked out whether she was joking or not.
“So when’s she coming back?” Edith asked. “We haven’t heard a cheep from either of you, all these months.”
“I’m not sure of her timetable,” said Alfie. “She’s doing some work with Greenpeace at the moment.”
That was what she had said in her letter, and he saw no reason to conceal it: he wasn’t telling Edith what Betty was doing or where, since he didn’t know.
Edith sniffed. “Heaven knows when she’ll be back then. Probably travelling by canoe so as not to leave a carbon footprint. So what can I get you?”
“A pint of Bunburry Brew, please, and one of your fine Sunday roasts.”
Edith beamed at him. “You’ve missed my lunches, then?”
“Why else would I have come back?” asked Alfie.
Bunburry--Sweet Revenge Page 2
