As the Clock Struck Ten

by Gill Mather

  Of course everything had happened quite quickly or so it had seemed to him at the time, event piling on top of event. Carol had died in late January. He had been totally shell-shocked by it even though it was completely expected. He had known what it would be like but still a death was elemental, one of the basics of life, even more so than a birth since at least the person was already alive at birth before they emerged, whereas the deceased was alive one instant and dead the next and there was nothing whatever to put between the two moments. You couldn't understand it. One second calling for pain relief and then suddenly falling asleep apparently and then, when he’d checked, dead. No life left. He didn't believe in a life after death so that meant that Carol was gone for good and it was very hard to assimilate.

  As it was a weekday, he had called the doctor’s surgery not knowing what else to do and they had thankfully sent someone round to certify death. He had called funeral directors because that was what you did and it was a struggle to avoid a church service but he insisted and after a post mortem and inquest, which was apparently necessary in the circumstances of Carol’s death and which he had sleep-walked through, Carol’s body had been cremated with only him and Emma and a few of Carol’s close relatives present plus one or two very old friends whom he hadn't seen for years. Even the cremation appeared to have to be preceded by some form of religious service conducted by a man who knew nothing about Carol but had been given a few facts which he had embellished and trotted out as though he was a life-long friend of the deceased.

  Don supposed he should have made more of an effort, contacted people they had both known years ago, put an advert in the local papers and organised a proper funeral service and a wake. He had the few mourners round to the house afterwards for an hour or so for a cup of tea and some cakes he’d bought but that was all. He had felt completely drained and totally inadequate to the task and so had woken up a week or so after the cremation to the fact that his wife whom he had cared for for decades was gone and that he had to start making some sort of life for himself again or just succumb to numb depression.

  He had no hobbies or activities to fall back on therefore he decided to start going to church again and the first Sunday he did so, he saw that Grace was there sitting in the front row lit by a sunbeam like an angel, pure and lovely. He realised he had half forgotten about her during his ordeal. But he went as usual before to the tea after the service, getting sympathy from the other worshippers when they learned what had happened. In a daze, he had spoken to Grace once she was less busy. She had looked at him and seemed to know what he was experiencing. She had offered her sympathy and it had seemed very genuine. You couldn't, he thought, expect any more from someone you hardly knew.

  In the weeks that followed, he had started to feel more robust. His ordeal after all was over. He should make an effort to pursue some hobbies and make something of his life as he had only the one life. He started to research possible activities locally on the internet which might interest him. Things that he might do in the community now that he had the time. Grace at church however was subdued and Don had watched her with concern but she conveyed nothing during their brief talks in the little tea room behind the church. On Easter Sunday, as he was being served his tea and biscuits, he had seen as Grace unthinkingly pulled up the sleeves of her jumper that she had deep black bruises on both of her forearms. Don had stopped breathing for a time when he saw them and stood there not moving along just looking at the marks. Grace had quickly pulled her sleeves down and pointedly looked away and Don had felt that he shouldn't interfere and say anything but he was very upset nonetheless. Grace, who had looked tired and drawn, hadn't come over to talk to him that Sunday as she often did after the rush died down.

  The following Sunday, Grace wasn't at the church. Don asked one of the other women where she was but just got a shrug in reply. Grace still wasn't there the week after and Don started to feel seriously worried. Surely the people here, these so-called Christians, would make some effort to help one of their number who might be in distress but it appeared not.

  The vicar only came into the tea room for a short time. Don could understand why. He probably had enough on his plate without being regaled with the concerns of three quarters of the worshipping parish every Sunday morning. But that morning, Don had cornered him and asked about Grace. The vicar had no idea. People came and went. Grace had only been coming for about nine months and that was sometimes what happened. They decided it wasn't for them and stopped coming. Don said he thought that wasn't the case with Grace and so the vicar had said that he should ask Cynthia Anstruther who dealt with the tea and flower arranging rotas and other things. But Cynthia had left already therefore Don had had to go round to her house the next day, not wanting to intrude on her at home on a Sunday. Cynthia again had known very little about Grace and Don, standing at the open front door and feeling fairly unwelcome not having been invited in, had been on the point of leaving when he’d thought to ask if Cynthia knew where Grace worked. Cynthia had treated the information as something of a state secret; she hadn't wanted to impart anything confidential. But when Don had said rather tersely that he very much felt that Grace needed someone’s help and he didn't feel that any of the rest of the congregation had actually lifted a finger to offer any help, Cynthia had looked rather guilty and had given the name of a firm of insurance brokers in the town whom she thought Grace worked for.

  Accordingly the same afternoon, Don had been to the broker’s office and had been told that Grace was off sick for the time being and they couldn't give out any address or other details. Don realised he didn't even know Grace’s surname but they wouldn't even tell him that, and so he had been back to Cynthia and in his own gentle way he’d shamed her into giving him the information together with Grace’s address. You could hardly go looking for someone when you only knew their first name.

  FEELING A COMPLETE idiot, Don had spent three days in his car parked along the road from the house where Grace apparently lived. It was a large detached house in a small cul-de-sac of similar homes which looked quite newly built in a style that seemed to be universal these days, but attractive nonetheless. Because it was a cul-de-sac, Don felt it would have been too conspicuous to have parked in the actual road and anyway it looked from the paved surface as though it might be a private road for residents and their visitors only. Therefore he had parked his car on the main road a short distance from the mouth of the cul-de-sac and waited and watched the various comings and goings, young, middle-aged and elderly people on foot, on bicyles and in cars, their deliveries, other visitors, the postman.

  On the first day he saw the husband drive past him and into the cul-de-sac. Don knew what sort of car the husband drove and roughly what he looked like from his occasional visits to collect Grace from church. The man looked serious and rather cross. But Grace wasn't in the car and Don saw no sign of her at all coming to or going from her home. He stayed until about nine in the evening by which time he judged it would probably be too late for Grace if she was at home to go out anywhere so he decided to call it a day. And the call of nature had become very pressing indeed by then.

  The following day was just as fruitless. He chanced a trip to the pub along the road at lunchtime and bought a bottle of soft drink to take away and eat with his sandwiches and was able to use the toilet there. It entered his head to ask about Grace Bennett but he decided against it. By mid-afternoon he was starting to think about getting out of his car and accosting those on foot and asking for information about Grace Bennett but he judged that it would raise suspicions and abandoned the idea. He didn't want anyone calling the police, thereby attracting more attention to himself and having to account for his movements, let alone the husband being alerted, coming after him and taking him to task.

  The other idea he had was to go round to the back of the small estate and observe the house from the rear. There were only fields at the back so far as he could see from the road but no obvious way into them, no gate or
stile. No sign of any public footpath and the rear fences of the properties looked to be about six feet tall or more so he scotched that idea too. That evening the husband drove up as he had the evening before but then came out again on foot and Don watched him disappear off down the road towards the more built up area nearby. Don could see him in the distance entering the pub he’d been to that lunchtime himself and he was glad he hadn't asked about Grace. It was already eight p.m. and there’d been no sign of Grace. Don couldn't see any point waiting around any longer and left for the day. He decided he’d give it one more day and then give up.

  The following day, he decided that it was ridiculous not to simply walk to the front door and knock or ring the bell and this he did. He rang the bell several times but no-one came to the door. He resisted bending down and looking through the letterbox or putting his ear to it, but he did stand very still as close to the door as he dared but he heard nothing. No sounds of movement or any activity. He went back to his car. He didn't even see the husband coming home that evening and, disheartened, he left at seven thirty.

  He drove back home, wondering what to do. He was fairly disgusted with the church and its lukewarm response to a member’s possible difficulties. He seemed to recall that Grace had mentioned a local horticultural society that she belonged to and looking the organisation up on the internet, he saw as chance would have it that there was a meeting that evening. The information said newcomers welcome. He wouldn’t be on tile for it but if he skipped an evening meal, he could make it before eight thirty therefore not so very late. He returned to his car and raced off in the direction of the next village. He heard the sound of a loud booming female voice from inside the hall and he let himself in trying to make as little noise as possible. He took a vacant seat in the back row.

  It was quite dim in the hall with the blinds down as the speaker held forth about the care of azaleas and other acid loving plants and pointed periodically at a screen displaying photographs of showy red and pink rhododendron bushes and smaller plants in containers. Don scanned the heads in front of him but Grace wasn't there. However during the break for tea, as had happened when he had first attended the church services, this group were also interested in him, how keen a gardener he was and whether he might attend again and become a member. When asked how he had heard about the group, he took a chance and said that his friend Grace Bennett had told him but he didn't say anything about her having disappeared.

  He had ended up speaking to a man who organised some of the outings and he again mentioned Grace and they got chatting. Don didn't go in much for small talk but he did his level best and expressed great interest in everything the man had to say. He was told about a garden which the group had visited on their last outing after which they’d gone as they often did to have dinner at a pub and Grace’s brother who only lived in the next village had joined them. Naturally he couldn't remember the brother’s name but he named the village. Though it was frustrating, Don felt it inappropriate to pointedly ask for any more information.

  The next day, Don had travelled to the village which was twenty five miles away and, prepared to throw caution to the winds by this stage, he simply went round knocking on doors. If he got arrested, well he’d just have to say what his purpose was and he knew of no law which forbade asking about someone’s whereabouts. Unfortunately the village was spread out with no clear nucleus. It was a mixture of new and older properties and just a few very old timbered houses. He realised with a sinking heart that it was likely to take him most of the day, if not two days.

  He decided on a pub lunch himself this time and took his meal at a small corner table. Gone were the days when he might have propped up the bar enjoying a pie and a pint and carried on a conversation with the landlord learning all about the village and its inhabitants. Like many pubs these days, it was done out in pastel colours with sanded waxed tables, unmatched chairs and sanded pale floorboards. It served small expensive portions of unnecessarily complicated sounding dishes and was staffed almost entirely by young cheerful people in or barely out of their teens. And being a Friday lunchtime, it was packed.

  Still there were a number of what looked like locals standing at the bar looking wholly out of place and once Don had eaten his single course meal (more than one course would have emptied his wallet), and that didn't take long, he went and stood at the bar himself. Sipping the remains of his drink, he asked openly if any of them knew a man who lived in the village who was the brother of a woman called Grace Bennett.

  They scratched their heads at this. So this woman Bennett would be the man’s sister, they asked. Don said that that was so, trying not to sound exasperated. So would the man be called Bennett too? Probably not, said Don as Grace was married. So, they asked, where did this man live? Don sighed and said he had no idea. The man would probably be aged in the region of fifty. That was the only information he could provide himself. Maybe one of them could remember a fair-haired woman coming to stay with a family in the village in the last couple of weeks. The men had looked at each other and shrugged elaborately. They had muttered, shook their heads and turned their mouths down. Don offered his thanks, downed his drink and left.

  Disheartened, he decided to carry on anyway but if he continued to get nowhere, he would just have to go and stake out Grace’s office and hope that she went back to work eventually. Getting into his car, he drove to a section of the village where there had obviously been a spate of new house building. It didn't look hopeful. There was little sign of life and the first person who answered was an older man who kept his chain on the door, peered at Don through a six inch gap and quickly sent him away. He got little or no response from the next dozen properties and he decided he’d give it another half an hour and then give up. He inwardly cursed the church for their lack of interest in a member’s situation. If Grace had disappeared, then it must be something serious and he pictured the dark bruises on her arms and her forlorn expression the last time he’d seen her.

  As he rang the next door bell and waited, he turned round and faced the road. A woman was coming out of a house opposite. She was on foot and was carrying some sort of textiles in her arms in front of her. She looked about the right age; perhaps mid-forties to mid-fifties. It was so much more difficult to tell with women than with men what with dyed hair and skilfully applied makeup. The bell-ringing was eliciting no response therefore he crossed the road quickly and excused himself to the woman but, he said, he was interested in trying to locate Grace Bennett whose brother he believed lived in the village. He saw immediately in the woman’s face that she knew who he was talking about. However she was guarded and asked why he wanted to know. He decided that the truth would be the best policy and told her that he attended the same church as Grace, that she seemed to have disappeared and that he was worried about her. He wanted to find her to see if she was all right. The woman looked directly into his eyes across the folded up fabric as he told her this and was then silent for many seconds.

  “She’s my sister-in-law,” she said eventually. Don swallowed. Would she tell him anything else, he wondered.

  “Could you tell me where she is. I just want to make sure she’s OK.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Don Morrison.” He stopped and fished a business card for his web design company out of his anorak pocket. The card bore both his home number and his mobile number as well as his website, email and home addresses. It also had printed on it his own name and his trading name. He put the card on top of the pile of fabric in her arms and the woman scrutinised it.

  “If you know where she is, maybe you could ask her to get in touch with me.”

  “Well she’s not here, but I don't really think I should say where she is. My husband’s not here. He might be prepared to tell you but he’s at work.” She swallowed looking worried.

  “Is Grace all right?” Don asked, frowning.

  “She’s safe anyway, I think, we think.”

  Don was alarmed. “She has
n’t been hurt has she?” he blurted out.

  “As I say, she’s all right now, for the time being we think.”

  “Would you keep my card and if you’re in touch with her, could you ask her to contact me if she wants to. Please.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a second business card. “Here would you take a second one in case….I don't know….just to be on the safe side.” He placed it with the first card.

  “I’ll speak to my husband when he gets home.”

  “Yes of course,” Don said. He couldn't ask any more. He couldn't be more insistent. It would be rude; the woman might become frightened. He had to hope the couple would tell Grace about him and pass on his details to her. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve been very kind. I’ll let you get on. Goodbye.”

  The woman muttered goodbye and he could feel her eyes watching him as he walked back across the street and got into his battered old bone-shaker, not in itself an especially great advert. He put his hand up to her as he drove past her. He saw that she was now clutching the cloth under one arm and was apparently putting his cards in her own pocket. She took her hand out and waved briefly to him.

  Don drove home hoping he had made a reasonable impression. Maybe Grace’s brother and sister-in-law would go on his website, see the photograph of him there and read his background, that he was an ex-barrister, and look at the various reviews left by his clients. He would make a point of diverting his calls to his mobile every time he left the house, keeping his mobile charged up, trying not to be in areas where there was a poor signal. Or perhaps Grace would contact him by email. He would check emails religiously from now on.