Stoney Beck

by Jean Houghton-Beatty

  “But I tried so hard.”

  “Just shut up, take everything off but your knickers, and get on the stool.”

  “Biddy, please. It’s cold in here and I’m not well. You know I’m not.”

  Biddy stuck her cigarette end into the leftover macaroni and cheese still on her plate.

  “Oh, all right. You don’t have to stand on the stool. I don’t want you falling off and getting bruises that’ll show. You still have to stand in the corner in just your knickers. You’re uppity and insolent, Sarah, and you need to know once and for all who’s the boss in this house. It isn’t cold in here. That’s just your imagination. And if you don’t get a move on, I’ll make you put on the blindfold and stand there stark naked.”

  A few minutes later, Sarah was in the corner facing the kitchen wall while Biddy sat at the table behind her, drink in her hand, leaning her back against her chair. After the first ten minutes, Sarah leaned against the wall trying to ease the pains in her legs.

  Biddy watched through a haze as she felt herself nodding off. “Keep your eye on the clock,” she said “When the cuckoo shoots out at four you can get dressed, but not a minute sooner. If you try to trick me and I wake up, there’s other games. You don’t want to spend the rest of the day in a cold water bath would you?”

  Sarah shook her head.

  Biddy let out a shout and swung round as the back door suddenly crashed open and slammed against the wall. Andy Ferguson stalked into the room followed by Angus Thorne. For a split second they stood by the table, eyes flicking from Sarah standing in the corner half-naked, then to Biddy leaning back in her chair, feet on the table, cigarette dangling from one hand and a half-empty bottle of gin in the other.

  Andy took a couple of steps toward her. “Why, you crazy, spiteful bitch—”

  His uncle grabbed his arm. “Hold it, Andy. Just get Sarah.”

  Sarah had turned around, her head bowed, arms covering her breasts. Andy was already taking off his jacket as he strode across the room toward her. “Come on, love,” he said, as he draped it around her shoulders. “Let’s get your clothes on.”

  “You leave her where she is,” Biddy said. “She’s got to stand there until four o’clock. You can’t come barging in here right when she’s being punished.”

  “Take Andy up to your room, Sarah,” Dr. Thorne said, his voice dangerously quiet, as he picked up her clothes off the back of a chair and handed them to her. “He’ll help you pack a suitcase.”

  Biddy grabbed hold of the table and pulled herself to her feet. “That door was locked and you almost yanked it off its hinges. I’ll report you for breaking and entering as well as kidnapping. Sarah’s under my care. You can’t take her away just like that.”

  “Just you watch us,” Dr. Thorne said, as he picked up the phone and held it out to her. “Here, go ahead and report us. In the name of God, what were you thinking? And what about her swollen lip? Did you do that?”

  Biddy stared at the phone but made no attempt to take it. “So self-righteous, aren’t we? It’s enough to piss off a saint. I’ll bet if you had her, you’d have done a bloody sight more than make her stand in the corner.”

  Dr. Thorne took a step backward. Biddy had always been something of an oddity, which he and everybody in the village had looked upon as more of an eccentricity than anything else. But this woman standing before him had a wildness about her, her dead white face twisted with hate. “Go on, stand there and gawk,” she said. “But I’ll tell you once and for all. Glen Ellen’s mine, not Sarah’s. I deserve it and I’ll never give it up. Never.”

  “You know the terms of the will,” Angus said, in the same calm voice. “You’ll be taken care of. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I don’t care what the lousy will says. And you can forget about your precious Jenny. When Sarah gave the snapshot to the priest, that girl shot out of her pew and went up to the front to try to get it back. But the priest hung on to it. You should have seen his face, white as a dead man’s.”

  Angus’s forehead creased in a puzzled frown. “What in the name of God are you talking about?”

  “The snapshot. The priest’s got it now.”

  “You mean the priest at St. Mary’s don’t you? But what snapshot?”

  Biddy slapped the flat of her hand on the table and snorted. “That’s right. You didn’t know. Well, let me tell you, your precious Jenny flew out of there as if her arse was on fire, and I’ll bet a fan dancer’s fart we’ve seen the last of her.”

  “We’re taking Sarah back to the village with us,” Angus said. “There’s nothing more to be said.”

  He turned away from her, and walked out the door. In the hall, he paced up and down at the foot of the stairs. Every now and then he peeked in the kitchen to see Biddy, arms folded, glazed eyes staring at the Welsh dresser.

  Andy had mentioned the priest, a Father Woodleigh before, and Biddy had babbled something about Sarah giving him a snapshot. He’d ask Sarah. She’d know. At last he heard her and Andy walking along the landing above.

  “Have you got your medicine?” he asked as Sarah came down the stairs holding onto Andy with one hand and clutching her Paddington bear close to her chest with the other.

  She nodded, then let Andy, carrying her suitcase, lead her out the front door.

  Angus stuck his head in the kitchen doorway. “Somebody will be in touch with you in a day or two. Until then, you can stay here.”

  “What do you mean, until then?” Biddy ground out. “I’m not leaving here, not ever.”

  He looked around the room, and then back to Biddy, who hadn’t looked at him but kept her gaze on the dresser. He was reluctant to leave her here alone, but in the end he walked back into the hall and out the front door. He’d get in touch with the Social Services. They’d know how to handle it.

  As soon as Biddy heard the car doors slam, she was at the kitchen door watching the three of them drive away. She pressed her face against the glass. Thorne really was insane if he thought he could get away with kidnapping Sarah. Wasn’t she, Biddy, not just the housekeeper, but also the legal guardian? She examined the door to assess the damage done by Andy Ferguson’s heavy shoes. Even though he had kicked it open, it hadn’t suffered much, and after she’d fiddled with the lock, she managed to get it closed. Next week she would have it repaired and tell the locksmith to send the bill to Ferguson’s Garage. She took out her teeth and put them in the glass, then rubbed her sore gums. The nerve of Angus Thorne telling her she’d have to get out of Glen Ellen. Over her dead body.

  ***

  When Jenny arrived back in Stoney Beck she pulled into Andy’s and waited while he studied a map with a couple who looked like tourists, then pointed down Market Street toward the fells beyond.

  As he walked toward her, and before she could say anything, he told her he and his uncle had gone to Glen Ellen a couple of hours ago and come back with Sarah. He inclined his head toward the house across the road. “She’s asleep right now. Uncle Angus called Jonathon in and they decided that for the time being she’s better off staying with Uncle Angus. They’ve explained all this to her, and told her she won’t have to live with Biddy ever again. Uncle Angus is a doctor, even if he is retired, and Jonathon will drop in every day. Your cottage is nice but maybe not so good for Sarah, at least until she’s been to Manchester Royal. They’ve got a big kidney unit there, one of the best in Europe.”

  Jenny let out a big sigh. “I guess you’re right. I’ll go see her tomorrow. Your uncle and I can talk. Tell him I came will you?”

  Andy nodded. “See you tonight,” he said.

  Back in the cottage, she called the number of the retreat, and left a carefully worded message for the priest. Sarah was staying with Dr. Thorne. Jenny hadn’t broken the news to her yet but would do so tomorrow.

  Chapter Twenty

  At eight o’clock Jenny walked into the crowded tearoom. The sign at the entrance read Whether or not you went to college, come in here and test you
r knowledge. Pub Quiz begins promptly at 8:30 - First prize thirty pounds.

  Tables were pulled together to accommodate the larger groups. Ada and Walter were at one of them, both standing up and waving Jenny over. The archeologists’ table was close by and Jenny stopped to say she’d heard they won most times but could forget about it tonight. They teased her back and said they always won. Her table didn’t stand a chance.

  While Walter flirted with Ada, telling her she got prettier all the time and she giggling like a sixteen-year-old, Jenny examined the beer mat in front of her. A picture of Wordsworth on one side and the first half of his sonnet, “Upon Westminster Bridge” on the other. She picked up another beer mat. Coleridge’s picture on this one and a few lines from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” on the flip side.

  A light tap on her shoulder and Andy was by her side. “I’ve got Sarah with me,” he said. “She’s in the loo and won’t come out. She wants to talk to you.”

  Andy focused on the tiny gold flecks in Jenny’s grey eyes. “Uncle Angus and Jon checked all her vitals and decided if she rested all afternoon, she’d be OK to come out tonight. Jon said a night out with friends, having some fun for a change, would be good for her. She goes to Manchester Royal in a few days. Jon said they’ll probably put her on dialysis.”

  Jenny pushed open the rest room door and went inside. Sarah stood by the mirror, her face pale, anxious, arms clutching a huge canvas bag. “I didn’t know Biddy stole the picture from you. Honor bright I didn’t. Please don’t be angry.”

  Jenny put her arms round Sarah and found herself locked in a bear hug. “It’s OK, Sarah. I know it wasn’t your fault.” Her words came out muffled, buried as she was in Sarah’s neck. “We’ll be friends forever if you promise me one thing.”

  Sarah slowly let go. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”

  “Just don’t say a word about any of this at the table. Please Sarah, let’s keep it our secret, at least for tonight. OK?”

  “You can trust me, Jenny. I won’t breathe a word.”

  “Spit on your hand, cross your heart, then say hope to die.”

  She waited while Sarah carried out the sacred ritual, then reached for her hand. “OK, let’s go. We don’t want to hold them up.”

  “Am I still your pumpkin?”

  Jenny gave her that little push on the shoulder Sarah liked. “What do you think?”

  Andy stood up, beaming at them as they walked to the table holding hands. He pulled out a chair for Sarah who insisted on sitting between him and Jenny.

  Ada reached across the table and took Sarah’s hand in her own. “It’s good to see you, Sarah. Andy said you’re staying with Dr. Thorne for a few days.”

  Sarah looked anxious as she held on to Ada’s hand. “I’m trying hard to get well. Please, Ada, don’t give my job away.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Walter handed out pencils and sheets of paper filled with questions. “Press hard when you write your answers,” he said. “Otherwise it won’t go through to the yellow sheet. That’s our copy.”

  “What do we do?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s easy,” Andy said. “Jim, that guy behind the bar, the one with the pony tail, sits at the table in the corner and calls out the questions. We write the answers on these sheets. Our table’s a team so when you know an answer don’t blurt it out loud so the other tables can hear.”

  “Got yer,” Sarah said with a little giggle.

  At eight thirty, Jim rapped on the table with a small gavel.

  “OK, everybody. Pick up your pencils and let’s get started. Question number one. What was the name of the only horse ever to win the Grand National three times?”

  Jenny looked round the tearoom as almost everybody laughed and wrote something down. Walter leaned across the table.

  “That one’s dead easy for an Englishman,” he whispered to her. “Red Rum. Smashing horse he was.”

  “Question number two,” Jim shouted. “What was the very last spoken sentence in Gone with the Wind?”

  Andy and Jenny both opted for Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

  “No, that isn’t it,” Ada whispered excitedly, her hand over her mouth. “After Rhett said that and walked away, Scarlet closed the door, then went and sat on the stairs. She was crying. I’ll go home to Tara, she said. I’ll think of some way to get him back, or something like that. But the last sentence was definitely After all, tomorrow is another day. If you’d seen that picture as often as I have, you’d know. I’ve even got it on video. It’s my favorite film.”

  “I’ve never seen it,” Walter said. “If it’s that good, maybe I could come over to your place one night and we could watch it together.”

  Ada smiled coyly and patted her new hairdo. “We’ll see.”

  Sarah dug her elbows into Jenny and Andy, smiled then rolled her eyes.

  Jenny knew a couple of the answers nobody else at the table knew. One was the name of the tallest building in the world before nineteen hundred.

  “It’s the Eiffel Tower,” she whispered. “I don’t remember where I read it but it’s true.”

  She got the next one too. “What is the slogan for America’s Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

  All four at the table turned to her. “Finger lickin’ good,” she whispered loudly. Sarah put a finger to her lips to warn Jenny she was talking too loud, then looked around to make sure nobody had heard.

  Andy and Walter both remembered Roger Bannister was the first to break the record for the four-minute mile way back in 1954, and it was also Andy who knew it was Alexander Graham Bell who called out Mr. Watson, come here. I want you. He knew too it was the god Artemis for whom the Greeks had built a temple in Ephesus in Turkey, and judging from the buzz at the archeologists’ table, so did they.

  “Well, they would wouldn’t they,” Ada said. “It’s their business to know. That’s what they get paid for, poking around looking for old buried temples and stuff nobody else cares tuppence about.”

  “And now for the last one,” Jim said thirty minutes later. “In Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The Road to Mandalay,” what was the name of the road?”

  A little murmur went around the room. Jenny sneaked a glance at the archeologists. They leaned toward the middle of the table whispering, heads shaking. Even they didn’t seem to know the answer to this one.

  Walter tapped the pencil against his teeth and rolled his eyes. “Is that a trick question?”

  Andy laughed. “Come on, Walter. Don’t they give you the answers ahead of time.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s just that I know the poem all the way through but the name of the road isn’t mentioned.”

  Most of the time, Sarah had copied her answers from Andy or Jenny, but now, while the others stared blankly at each other, she had her head down, her tongue curling out the side of her mouth as she pressed hard on her stub of a pencil.

  Andy leaned over and looked at her sheet. “What are you writing?”

  She pushed her glasses up on her nose and looked guardedly at the tables close by. “I know it, I know it,” she whispered, squirming in her seat, her face flushed, fists gently pounding the table. “I know the answer, but I can’t spell it.”

  He gave her a playful push. “Come on then, little miss know-it-all, how about letting us in on it.”

  She pulled his head down, and with her hand over her mouth, whispered in his ear, then turned and gave the others a shy knowing smile.

  Jenny had her elbows on the table, chin resting in her hands. “Well?”

  “She said it’s the Irrawaddi, the Irrawaddi River.”

  “Ah.”

  “How did you know that?” Ada asked, her tone skeptical.

  Sarah sneaked another furtive look around the room, then crooked her finger, beckoning the others to come in closer. She put her arms across Andy’s and Jenny’s shoulders. “Daddy told me. We used to sing it marching up and down the path.”

  She began the poem, in a tune
less hoarse style, hardly above a whisper. On the road to Mandalay, where the flyin’ fishes play, And the dawn comes up like thunder outa China “cross the Bay. I laughed and laughed at daddy and said he had it all wrong. How could fishes fly and play on a road. They couldn’t fly. They swam so how could they swim on a road. Daddy laughed and said it wasn’t a road. They just called it that. It was this river, the Irrawaddi.”

  Andy patted her cheek and turned to the others with a shrug. “Well, the Irrawaddi is in Burma, or Myanmar, whatever they call it now.”

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Ada said. “That was the hardest question in the whole bunch. Well done, Sarah.”

  When Andy collected the sheets and took them to Jim, Sarah scooted over and sat next to Jenny and stuck her arm through hers. Jim called out the answers, and when he said Irrawaddi River for the last one, Sarah giggled.

  “Told you.”

  Nobody in the room had all thirty questions correct, or twenty-nine, or twenty-eight. When Jim called out the number twenty-seven, everybody at Jenny’s table raised a hand, everybody except Sarah who got to her feet and raised both arms over her head.

  “We’ve got twenty-seven,” she shouted. “Twenty-seven at this table.”

  The archeologists were next with twenty-six. Jenny’s table had won by only one point.

  “You won it for us, Sarah,” Walter said. “Without you knowing about those flying fishes, we’d have tied with the archeologists. You’re a very clever girl.”

  “Will someone from the winning table come up for the prize,” Jim said into the microphone. “Sarah, how about you? Andy Ferguson just whispered to me it was you who knew the answer to that last very tricky question.”

  Sarah’s usually sallow face turned bright pink and a self-conscious smile spread across her face as she got to her feet then threaded her way between the tables to Jim who handed her thirty pounds and a certificate.

  “Come on, everybody,” he said. “Let’s give Sarah a big hand.”

  From out of nowhere the feeling came as Jenny watched Sarah raise the certificate above her head for all to see. When everybody got to their feet and clapped and cheered, even whistled, Sarah gave a funny awkward curtsey. A standing ovation. Unsophisticated astonishment and happiness shone from her face with all the loveliness of a sunflower.