The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’d love that. I’d bloody love that. When? When can I have the keys?’

  Oh shit, thought Marnie.

  HISTORY OF WYCHWELL BY LIONEL TEMPLE

  Contributions by Lilian Dearman.

  Emelie (Taubert) Tibbs came to live in Wychwell on 6th August 1941 with her parents Katerin and William and her elder brother Fred. They took up residence in Clementine Cottage (then Woodfield). Fred emigrated to New Zealand after the war and, following the deaths of her parents, Emelie moved into Little Apples on Kytson Hill. She was a modern languages teacher for many years at Troughton Grammar school and cites writing poetry, gardening and bird-watching as her hobbies.

  Chapter 30

  It appeared, from what Derek gabbled excitedly in the aftermath of the offer, that he’d wanted to leave Una for years but she was in charge of all the money. At least the little money they had, seeing as they’d lost a lot of their savings investing in a get-rich scheme. ‘The bloke’ had said that they’d been really unlucky, because no one had ever done so before. It didn’t need a genius to work out who ‘the bloke’ was. Derek was under the impression that he alone had been caught out. Marnie didn’t enlighten him. She’d keep her powder dry about that one for the time being.

  Marnie had made a list of all the payments which came out automatically from the manor’s accounts and scythed the dubious ones immediately. The so-called loyalty bonuses and Titus’s ridiculous wage and his extras were top of her list. She didn’t stop the stipend that Griff had been getting paid since his stroke; it was a piddly amount but taking it away would impact on the Oldroyd budget. There was more money in the estate account than she’d anticipated, but it wouldn’t last the year. Marnie couldn’t wait for the Suttons to find that the usual monthly standing orders hadn’t gone in to their bank. Bring it on, she thought.

  As she was cutting across the green on the way home, she heard an unholy commotion happening near the church. She saw Derek with a suitcase and a spring in his step walking away from his wife, who was yelling at him from her doorstep.

  ‘You’ll be sorry, Derek Price. You ungrateful, boring, useless shit.’

  She could have called him any name under the sun and Marnie bet that it wouldn’t have wiped that grin from his face. Of course, Una would hold her responsible and come gunning for her before too long. Great.

  There was a bottle of Lionel’s apple wine on her own doorstep when she reached Little Raspberries. She smiled, picked it up, walked into the cottage, locked the door, kicked off her shoes and headed to the kitchen for a glass. She was tired and ready for an early night. The forecast was good for the following day and she thought she’d take Emelie up on her offer to go strawberry picking in the woods. She intended to soak them in Pernod and black pepper then crush them and swirl them into the body of a cheesecake mix. She’d send a sample up on Monday with the driver and knew that Mrs Abercrombie would love it.

  She opened the back door to let in some fresh air, poured herself a glass of Lionel’s wine and picked up her new book: Country Manors Part Two – The Wrong Side of the Blanket. She needed something to dive into and lose herself. Manfred Masters had gambled and lost the manor to the arrogant Sir Titan Sonnett on a single game of poker, though it was obvious he cheated. So Manfred was going to take his revenge by seducing Titan’s wife Lara. By page fourteen, it was looking rather as if Lara wouldn’t take much persuading to exchange bodily fluids with Manfred. Whoever Penelope Black was, she certainly knew how to increase the heartbeat with a few well-placed verbs and definitely had a handle on village life. And there were some interesting euphemisms and innuendos as well. (If you were my woman, Lara, I’d have pleasure licking you into shape.) Marnie needed a cigarette after Chapter Four.

  She’d had good intentions of having a rummage in the red box which she’d brought from her mother’s garage, but she couldn’t put the book down. Plus she needed a cheer-up and she knew she wouldn’t find anything spirit-lifting in a box of memories attached to her family. Better to spend the evening in the company of fictional people who couldn’t hurt her.

  *

  She woke up the next morning with sunshine streaming through the curtains bathing the room in a blush pink light. It was going to be the perfect day for a walk in the wood, she thought, if Emelie was up for it. She had a coffee and read another couple of chapters of her book and wondered if the author knew this area. It was too much to believe that the so-called fictional village of Wellsbury and its cast of characters had nothing to do with Wychwell and its inhabitants.

  She bumped into Derek as he was coming out of the shop. He had a grin on him so big, it had its own moon. Marnie was almost embarrassed to ask him how he was, but felt obliged to.

  ‘I’ve just had the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. No one snoring like a pig at the side of me, no one nudging me with their elbow telling me to go and get them a cup of tea,’ he beamed and Marnie had to check that his feet were on the ground, because he looked taller, as if he were hovering above it.

  ‘And . . . how is Una?’ She winced as she said her name.

  ‘Don’t bloody care,’ came the reply. ‘I feel like I’ve been let out of a windowless prison. Will you let the new owner know that they’ve done me the best favour in the world please, Marnie?’ He grabbed her hand and began shaking it vigorously. ‘I’m not sure I would ever have been brave enough to leave her if I hadn’t been given this chance.’ And off he strolled with his newspaper under one arm and a box of cornflakes under the other.

  Marnie crossed the green and headed towards Little Apples. Outside Peach Trees, Dr and Mrs Court were standing with a young woman Marnie didn’t recognise. As she neared, she saw that Mrs Court was holding a baby, patting its back with a gentle rhythm. Mrs Court was grinning even more than Derek had been.

  ‘Morning,’ Marnie said to them. It would have been impolite not to ask about the baby, but Mrs Court beat her to it anyway.

  ‘This is our first great-grandchild,’ she said, pride warming her voice. ‘And she’s called Sophia after me.’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ said Marnie.

  ‘Would you like to hold her?’

  ‘I’m not . . . sure . . .’

  But Mrs Court was already putting the baby in Marnie’s arms. ‘There’s nothing like the scent of a newborn is there?’

  Marnie breathed her in as her hand touched the butter soft skin on her head and the downy fair hair.

  ‘Is she good?’ she dredged up a standard question.

  ‘So far,’ said the young woman. ‘Drinks like a horse. I can’t produce fast enough for her.’

  The baby’s legs were tucked up, resting on Marnie’s chest. Her hand a perfect small-scale curled around Marnie’s index finger, but it was the tiny nails that drew Marnie’s eyes the most. There were fine lines at the tips as if they’d been French manicured by a master miniaturist.

  ‘Hard to imagine that this time last week she was inside your tummy, isn’t it Jasmine?’ Mrs Court was saying.

  ‘You could hardly tell I was pregnant, I was lucky,’ Jasmine smoothed her hand over her almost flat stomach. ‘I was four months in before I even had a clue she was on her way.’

  Her mother screaming at her. ‘How could you not know?’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Marnie said, speaking to drown that voice in her head.

  ‘Isn’t she?’ said Dr Court.

  ‘Two pushes and a shove and she was out too,’ said Jasmine. ‘I didn’t even have time for gas and air.’

  Gabrielle sobbing. ‘I’m glad it hurt. I’m glad you needed stitches. They should have sewed it up completely then you couldn’t ruin anyone else’s life, you bitch.’

  The baby smelt of talcum, milk and something else that Marnie couldn’t define. Something that drifted up her nostril and found the place in her brain that recognised it and remembered.

  Marnie felt the baby’s mouth gently butt against her shoulder. She placed her cheek next to her head, soaking up the warmth, the scent,
the fragility, the life. It was sweet and unbearable and too much.

  ‘I think she might be hungry,’ Marnie said.

  ‘I’ve just fed the little madam,’ Jasmine said with a tut of joyful exasperation. ‘Come on, you.’ She picked Sophia from Marnie’s shoulder. The baby was wearing a white Babygro, soft as newly fallen snow. Her small fist was now in her mouth and her dark blue eyes were fixed on Marnie from over her mother’s shoulder as she stepped into the cottage. The sight grew suddenly painful.

  ‘Congratulations, she’s lovely,’ Marnie smiled and walked quickly away from the Court family before they wondered why her eyes were wet with tears.

  Her head swung around to Herv’s cottage as she was about to pass it, looking for signs of life. Looking for a woman wearing his shirt opening the bedroom curtains, but they were closed. She wondered if he was still sleeping or still out. Her damned heart was incorrigible. She didn’t need Herv Gunnarsen wafting his Norwegian pheromones her way and making her second-guess what might or might not be going on in his life.

  Little Apples was one of the prettiest cottages in Wychwell, if one of the smallest, with very thick stone walls and a roof that had been put on in pre-spirit level days. The windows were tiny, but there were a lot of them. She knocked on Emelie’s green door and heard a ‘come in’ from the other side of it. Tentatively she opened it a sliver but stayed on the doorstep. ‘It’s me, Marnie,’ she called.

  ‘I said, come in,’ ordered Emelie cheerfully.

  Marnie walked in, after wiping her feet on the doormat. A damp smell met her nose first before the scent of freesias, clustered in a pot on the telephone table by the door. Emelie was pulling a sheet of paper out of an old-fashioned typewriter which sat on a table at one end of her lounge. She balled the paper in her hands.

  ‘The words won’t come to me at all,’ she said, shaking her head.

  She had her lovely hair plaited over the top of her head today and was wearing a white blouse gathered at the neck and a long heavily flowered skirt. She looked as if she had climbed down from an alp.

  ‘I wondered if you were up for showing me where those strawberries were,’ said Marnie. ‘But if you’re busy . . .’

  ‘No, I’m not busy. I can’t think straight today – ’ she tapped the side of her head ‘ – I’m getting old.’ Then she laughed as she launched the paper snowball at a mesh bin full of others, but it missed. Emelie bent to pick it up and stalled halfway with stiffness.

  ‘I’ll get it for you,’ said Marnie.

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Emelie. ‘Today my head and my body are united in defeating me. I’ll go and get my boots. A walk and a stretch will do me good.’ She pointed towards Marnie’s trainers. ‘Your shoes will get ruined in the mud. You can borrow a pair of my wellingtons if you’re a size three or smaller.’

  ‘Four and a half,’ said Marnie. ‘It doesn’t matter, they’re old ones.’

  Marnie picked up the paper ball and noticed a clutch of words on it as she transferred it to the bin: illicit, forbidden, love.

  ‘You like writing then?’ she asked.

  ‘Poetry mainly,’ nodded Emelie, slipping her foot into an ankle boot. ‘But I’ve been working on something else for a while now. It’s a secret,’ and she winked.

  ‘Sounds intriguing.’

  ‘All will be revealed one day.’

  Marnie noticed on her bookshelf there were the three Country Manors sitting alongside a collection of importantlooking hardbacks. She wondered how many more shelves in Wychwell held copies of that trilogy.

  ‘Do you have anything to collect the strawberries in?’ asked Emelie.

  ‘I’ve got a carrier bag in my pocket,’ replied Marnie.

  ‘Take a basket,’ said Emelie, pointing into her kitchen where there were three woven wicker shoppers of differing sizes hanging from nails in the beams. ‘It’s nicer to collect fruit in baskets, it doesn’t get spoilt as much.’

  ‘Thank you again’ said Marnie, reaching up and unhooking the smallest. She put it over her arm and felt instantly like a country girl.

  ‘Aren’t you going to lock your door?’ asked Marnie, when she and Emelie walked outside.

  ‘What for? Hardly anyone locks their doors in Wychwell. It’s one of the advantages of living behind the times,’ chuckled the old lady.

  The lip of the woods was just behind Little Apples and Marnie knew why Emelie had her sturdy boots on. There was a lot of mud.

  ‘The rain comes down the hill and settles here,’ explained Emelie as Marnie tried to negotiate the sludge, hopping between islands of more solid ground. ‘It’s got worse the last couple of years. Climate change I expect, that’s what everyone seems to blame for everything these days.’

  The woods were very pretty, Marnie found. They reminded her of the forest in her favourite childhood book, The Enchanted Wood, where the trees were darker than they should be and whispered ‘Wisha-wisha-wisha’ to each other. Gabrielle had scribbled all over her book but Marnie had been disciplined for the defacing. Then after she’d dobbed her sister in, she’d been put on the naughty step for telling tales – she could never win.

  ‘In April the woods are like a carpet of violet with the bluebells,’ said Emelie, stepping over the tree roots as surefooted as a goat. ‘And in autumn it is like walking in gold.’

  Everything was eerily still in the woods. Marnie felt as if she were being watched.

  ‘There are owls in here at night,’ said Emelie. ‘And I’ve seen a deer. A beautiful fellow with fine antlers.’

  ‘Do the woods belong to the estate as well?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Emelie sighed. ‘You know, I hope the new owner doesn’t want to cut down trees to make Wychwell bigger.’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Marnie. ‘It’s big enough.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that. Some people think that you’re the new owner, Marnie, and all this talk of a manager is a smokescreen.’ Emelie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘That’s boll— . . . rubbish,’ Marnie threw back.

  ‘Your ears must have been burning considerably last night. I went for my dinner with Lionel in the Wych Arms. The air was quite thick with the mention of your name.’ She had an impish light dancing in her eyes. ‘And I did hear about Derek leaving Una.’

  ‘Oh Lord.’ Marnie swallowed.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ said Emelie, halting to take a breath. ‘At least not about that. Una managed to insult Kay by asking her if Ruby would be willing to clean for her.’

  ‘Did she really?’

  ‘Una hasn’t lifted a finger for years; now that Derek won’t be doing the cooking and cleaning for her she is terrified she might have to learn how to dust.’

  ‘Is there anything wrong with her?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘Yes, she has terminal idle-itis,’ chuckled Emelie. ‘I warn you to watch out for her playing a sick card if you are thinking of increasing her rent. Her nerves, her migraines, her bad feet, her bad back. It’s not healthy for a woman only in her late forties to be so lazy. Kay was most affronted that her precious schoolteacher daughter should be asked to clean for her.’

  ‘I wish I’d been a fly on the wall,’ laughed Marnie, as they started walking again.

  ‘There was also a lot of interest in the vans that come to your house in the mornings,’ Emelie added. ‘I thought I should warn you.’

  Which prompted Marnie to ask, ‘Emelie, how did you know I made cheesecakes?’

  Emelie’s hand shot to her mouth. ‘Marnie, I could have cut out my tongue, when I asked you if you wanted the strawberries for your baking in front of Herv. Lilian told me one day about the Tea Lady, but she swore me to secrecy. I can only apologise, it won’t happen again. I certainly acted very dumb yesterday in the Wych Arms and didn’t say a word. I hope that I haven’t spoiled anything for you.’

  ‘No, not at all. It went completely over Herv’s head,’ Marnie replied, hoping Lilian hadn’t gossiped to anyone else. She was surprised. She di
dn’t think Lilian would have sold on her secret.

  There was a motherlode of wild strawberries in the wood, especially by the side of the beck that ran into the larger Blackett Stream.

  ‘Some people say that the Blackett stream is named after Margaret Kytson’s black cat, did you know?’ Emelie informed Marnie as she picked her way across to a long-fallen tree and sat down on it to rest.

  ‘I read about it in Lionel and Lilian’s book,’ she replied.

  ‘Ah yes, the book.’ Emelie smiled mysteriously. ‘But it is sadly unfinished because there are so many secrets which have not yet come to the surface. And of course, the chapter we are all waiting for can only be written when poor Margaret is found.’ They both took a moment to contemplate the vastness of the wood. ‘Until she is laid to rest, Wychwell cannot move forward. That is what Lilian always believed: that it is anchored to the past with chains of poor Margaret’s blood and Wychwell’s guilt.’

  ‘Has no one got any idea where the well is?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘Sadly not. And the wood is, as you can see, enormous. Lilian so wanted to give Margaret and her child a proper burial before she d—’ She cut off her words then, and fell pensive, as if she were chasing something around in her head that refused to be caught. ‘Now wait, Lilian did once say that she had an idea about where the well might be. She saw something when she was doing some research into the book and was looking at the accounts ledgers over at Titus’s house. She said he wasn’t very keen on letting her but he could hardly refuse. But she didn’t write it down and then it was lost. She could never remember what it was.’

  ‘I’m surprised she could read those ledgers. His handwriting is deliberately obscure.’

  ‘Well, she must have been able to read some of it because I recall her saying that it was so obvious, she couldn’t think how she’d missed it. She went through the ledgers again but couldn’t find it the second time.’ She lifted her shoulders and dropped them. ‘I suppose if it were as obvious as she said, someone else would have noticed it too.’ She smiled at that. ‘And this was dear Lilian after all.’