TAINTED LOVE

by Anna Chilvers

  Then I remembered I’d found a phone directory amongst the pile of diet magazines. It was a slim chance: not many people were listed in the phone book these days. When I was a child they were big books an inch thick, and Gran said that they used to be even thicker in the past, that everyone used to be in the phone book. This one was about as thick as a short novel, though taller.

  I looked up Chandler, A, and there was nothing. In fact there were only three Chandlers in the book at all and two of them were in Halifax. But there was an R. Chandler listed at 3, Church Cottages, Hawtenstall. I didn’t know who R might be, but it was worth checking out at the very least.

  The next trick was to find Church Cottages, and I thought the clue was probably in the name. I walked along the main street to where a cobbled lane led off to the old church. On one side were gravestones and the ruin of the church tower. On the other was a row of old terraced cottages. The sign on the end told me I was in the right place.

  Number three looked empty. There were no curtains and, even though it was the middle of the night, the black windows gave it an abandoned look. I peered in the front and could see shapes in the dark. I walked to the end and round to the back of the terrace, where a path led between the cottages and the tiny back yards. I counted along until I was outside number three. A light from the churchyard was shining through from the front and I could see that the furniture had been piled at the side of the room. Someone was clearing out by the looks of things. Amanda? The house didn’t look lived in and I doubted she was here. I tried the back door handle on the off chance, but it was locked.

  I could break in. But I didn’t know how to pick a lock and I didn’t want to smash anything and wake the neighbours. I decided to go back to my cottage and eat and think about what to do next.

  I was about to walk away when I noticed the back yard on the other side of the path. It was a tiny space – enough room for a wheelie bin and a few feet of washing line, nothing more. But next to the bin were two green bags stuffed with paper and two extra supermarket carrier bags, all put out for the recyclers later in the week.

  It took two trips to carry it all across the fields, and when I finished I was knackered. I ate three Gruyère and leek tartlets and snuggled down in my newspaper bed.

  The next day I looked through what I’d found. The green bags were full of old correspondence – some of it addressed to R Chandler and some of it to H. It looked like I’d hit the jackpot. Whoever R was, they didn’t seem to want their stuff any more. Most of it was quite boring. Junk mail, bank statements, bills and offers from gas companies. My mum always used to say you couldn’t recycle that sort of thing because your personal details were on them. I knew Hannah was dead, and maybe R was too, but I thought maybe Amanda could have used a shredder. It seemed a bit weird going through their private papers.

  One of the carrier bags was stuffed with newspapers from earlier in the year. I added them to my stack.

  The other was full of exercise books in different colours. I took one out and looked at it. It had Hannah’s name written on the front in biro. Inside was page after page of small neat handwriting. There were dates every now and then and I realised that what I had was her diary. I wondered what sort of person Amanda was, and why she didn’t want to keep her mother’s diaries. Had she read them first? I rummaged through the bag. There were about thirty books. I suddenly had loads of reading matter and a new person to get to know, even if she was dead.

  Hannah Chandler moved to Hawtenstall from Halifax when she got married to Ray in 1965. She’d worked in a textile mill on the machines before that. The diaries didn’t go back that far, but she mentioned the hard work and long hours, the camaraderie and the nights on the town with the girls. Married life in the village was very different. Ray worked in the mill as well, but Hannah gave up her job when they got married. In the notebook she vented her boredom and frustration. I don’t suppose she ever told anyone else about these feelings. She probably appeared cheerful and content. She probably never told Ray what a boring lover he was, and I bet he didn’t know that he wasn’t her first. She must have kept her diaries hidden.

  After two years they had Amanda. She gave Hannah something to do other than housework, but she didn’t really take to motherhood. They didn’t have any more children. Ray didn’t seem to enjoy the sexual side of marriage and after Amanda was born he lost interest all together. Hannah didn’t miss sleeping with Ray, but she remembered the fleeting excitement of her previous encounter. When she met Don in the park one day and he asked her out for a coffee, she went to the doctor and asked to go on the pill.

  Life split into two parts for Hannah. She was a mother and wife. When Amanda started school she got a job in the local library and Amanda would read in the children’s corner until it was time to close. Hannah became well known and respected in the village. Neither Amanda nor Ray grew any more interesting, but Hannah enjoyed life, chatting to customers who came into the library for piles of romances and adventures to take them away from the dull grey of long Yorkshire winters. And secretly there was another Hannah, known only to her lover. The diaries told me everything about Don, far more than I wanted to know. I think the people of Hawtenstall would have been quite shocked to know what went on in her head and in her notebooks.

  I read until it got too dark to see. Hannah had an easy way of writing, as though she were chatting to herself. I liked her and thought she would have been a nice friend to have at the library.

  I put the notebooks back in their carrier bag to keep them dry and stood in the doorway looking out across the valley. I loved the view. Mostly I stayed back in the cottage, away from the door, so I didn’t often see it in daylight. It wasn’t daylight now, nor fully dark. You could still make out the folds and creases of the hills and valleys. The land was so different from where I’d grown up in Suffolk. There it was smooth, as though the earth had been layered over with a palette knife, covering a shape which was mostly flat with the occasional bump or slope. If you got up high you could see for miles

  Gran said they call Yorkshire ‘God’s Own Country’, but I’m not sure that he liked this bit of it. It was like he’d grabbed it, scrunched it up and thrown it away. The hills and valleys were crazy, one on top of the other and all of them really steep. The valley bottoms were mostly covered in woodland; above, the tops stuck out stark and proud. It made it an easy place to hide in, but you couldn’t see people coming.

  A few hundred yards down the hill from me the woods began, and that day there was a group of shapes just this side of the tree-line. I peered through the dusk and realised that they were deer, grazing. They hadn’t noticed me and I stood very still in the doorway watching them. I’d seen deer in Suffolk, dead on the road or running across the path of a car in a mad dash for the other side, but I’d not watched them like this, just doing what deer do when they don’t know anyone is watching them.

  A star appeared in the sky above the woods. I felt very still. I looked at the deer, heads down, eating, occasionally moving a few steps and eating some more. The woods had become black behind them, but they were nothing to do with me. I didn’t have to go there. The star was twinkling. I almost laughed. I hadn’t realised stars really did that.

  A dog came racing down the hill barking, and the deer turned tail and fled. I saw their white tails bobbing as they disappeared into the woods. The dog ran after them, but lost interest when they vanished. Someone behind the cottage called its name. I tried to keep the stillness in my limbs as I slunk back from the doorway, but it was no good. The dog spotted me and ran towards me, wagging its tail.

  I crouched backwards into the far corner of the room. It was pretty dark now, and in here you couldn’t see anything. Of course, dogs aren’t bothered by that: they go by smell. It came running straight over to me and started butting at my knees with its nose. It was small and white, and its shape showed up faintly. It found my hand and tried to nuzzle into it.


  Footsteps passed the cottage. The person was at the front now. He called the dog’s name again, loud into the valley. The dog tried to prise my arm away from my knees with its head and made a low whimpering sound.

  ‘Be quiet, Beauty,’ I mouthed.

  Someone was standing in the doorway; someone very tall with a mane of hair. He was silhouetted black against the lighter blackness of the outside sky.

  ‘Beauty?’

  The dog whimpered again and gave one last shove at my knees.

  ‘Come on Beauty, are you there?’

  His voice was higher now, and softer, appealing to the dog. It worked. Beauty gave up on me and scampered to the man in the doorway. He leaned down and fixed her lead to her collar, then he stood and stared for a few more seconds into the darkness of the cottage. I stopped breathing. I was still and silent and I was hidden in the darkness.

  He shook his shoulders.

  ‘Ok Beauty, lets get home now.’

  I could hear them as they walked across the field, the man’s feet swishing against the grass, and his voice as he talked to the dog in low tones. They went towards the woods. I started breathing again but I didn’t move, not until they had had time to get all the way back down the valley into Hawden.

  22. Lauren

  In May there were foxgloves at the back of my herb garden. They are one of my favourite flowers. They stand so tall, so proud; unafraid of who they are. Their purple bells are rows of open mouths, spattered on the inside with black dots that look like seeds on the tongue. Their poison can be a powerful medicine if used carefully. At this time of the year they were just a mulch of dead leaves sinking back into the soil. I’d gathered their seeds earlier in the year.

  I was lying on the floor in Jimmy and Suky’s living room. Peter sat cross legged on the floor by my head, playing with my hair. He was spreading it at its full length all around my head like an enormous halo, like those you get in some old paintings that look like a gold plate stuck to the back of the person’s head, but made of hair.

  Jimmy and Suky were both on the sofa with cups of tea. He had his arm around her and she was curled against him with her feet tucked up. When we arrived Jimmy had let us in. He had bare feet, and his jeans and t-shirt were all skewwhiff as though he’d just thrown them on. Suky was upstairs and didn’t come down for a few minutes. We hadn’t disturbed them in the act but they were definitely basking in a glow. I wondered if he’d seen Steph recently.

  ‘So, tell us all about it then,’ Jimmy said.

  Peter picked up one of the mugs of tea on the floor near us and drank some. I felt pinned down by the arrangement of my hair and didn’t move.

  ‘It was ok. Nobody cried or swore or threw their dinner at the wall.’

  ‘What did you eat?’

  I lifted my head and looked at Suky and my hair fell back into place on my neck.

  ‘Aw, I spent ages doing that,’ Peter complained.

  ‘I can’t lie on the floor all night. I’m not your doll.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ he asked in mock disappointment. I kissed him on the mouth.

  ‘Hey, enough of that,’ said Jimmy, and I grinned even more.

  Peter’s lips were warm. I suddenly thought of that day inside the monument and I remembered that Richard’s lips were cold. I touched my neck.

  ‘What did your dad cook?’ Suky prompted.

  ‘He only has five dinners he can cook, and tonight he cooked his special occasion meal. Chicken and Tarragon Risotto with Spinach and Potato Bake.’

  ‘Oooh, rice and potatoes, carb overload.’ She shook her head.

  ‘Mmm. I wondered if she’d eaten it before, because he’s been cooking it like forever. She made this sort of funny smile when he brought it out.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Suky asked.

  ‘She’s lovely.’ Peter said, and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear.

  I picked up my tea.

  No, it was Richard’s hands, not his lips, that were cold. Chilled by the wind up there probably.

  ‘She talked to Peter about physics. She used to be a science teacher.’

  ‘Is that how…’

  ‘… she met my dad? Yes, they taught at the same school. A staffroom romance.’

  ‘How sweet,’ said Suky.

  ‘Sickly.’

  Jimmy was trailing his fingers up and down Suky’s thigh and she snuggled against him.

  Peter jabbed me in the ribs. ‘Come on Lauren, she’s making an effort.’

  ‘Well, we all buggered off after we’d finished eating. Mr Lion had a gig in Brighouse and we came here. So the two of them are there all on their own now finishing off the wine.’ I drank the rest of my tea with one gulp. ‘I might stay somewhere else tonight.’

  I looked at Peter. We’d not spent a whole night together before.

  ‘I think you should go back and talk to her,’ he said.

  Half an hour later we were walking back again. Jimmy and Suky were obviously too loved up for us to stay there.

  ‘I used to think I hated my mum,’ Peter said. ‘I was furious with her for leaving me and Dad. But in the end I realised it was ok. Dad didn’t hate her. That’s just who she is, she’s not a motherly person. We get on really well now, like friends.’

  ‘But she’s meant to be your mother, not your friend.’

  ‘She wasn’t any good at it. Some people aren’t.’

  ‘Well my mother was, apparently, for five minutes before she did her vanishing act.’

  I opened the kitchen door. Dad and my mum were sitting together at the table. They moved apart a bit when we came in. For a moment I was tempted to run straight up to my room and stay there. But they were all trying to make me confront her, so I thought what the hell.

  Peter was putting the kettle on. I sat down at the table.

  ‘So, you two are making up again, are you?’

  Dad frowned and she looked puzzled.

  ‘We’ve been talking through some things,’ she said. ‘Clearing up some misunderstandings.’

  ‘What, like the misunderstanding that you were meant to be someone’s wife and someone’s mother?’

  She flinched as though I’d hit her.

  ‘Lauren, that’s not fair.’

  I turned to Dad. ‘Why is it not fair? She comes swanning in here expecting us to forgive her, as though she’d just been out a bit longer at the shops or something. But it’s my whole life longer. She’s a stranger to me, why should I be nice to her?’

  ‘You could do it for me.’ His voice was quiet, and it had that note in it that I knew – the one that meant I am your father and you will do as I say young lady. But his face was sad, and that was what did it for me. He’d had enough sadness in his life. I didn’t want to add to it.

  I sat back in my chair.

  ‘Is there any more wine?’

  Dad relaxed his shoulders a bit.

  Peter said ‘You’re not having tea then?’

  ‘No, I’ll have wine and be sociable.’

  Peter fetched two glasses from the dishwasher and a bottle of wine from the shelf. He sat next to me.

  ‘Have you come back to stay in Hawden?’ he asked my mother.

  She glanced sideways at Dad.

  ‘I’d like to, but it’s early days. We’ll have to see how it goes.’

  ‘We? You mean you and Dad?’

  She looked at him again and he sat forward and put his hand on top of hers.

  ‘Yes Lauren, me and Cass are going to see how it goes. There’s a lot you don’t understand. I barely understand it either. But I’m willing to try.’

  She flashed him a smile. It was there and then it was gone, but we all saw it, and I realised she loved him. I thought she must have stopped loving Dad and that’s why she’d gone away.

  If it wasn’t
that, what made her leave?

  I closed my eyes. Everything seemed wrong. Behind my eyelids there were sheets of colour flashing first one way and then the other, making me nauseous. I opened my eyes again and the room looked different. Everything in the same place, but as though someone had changed the lighting; swapped the bulb for a slightly brighter one, tinged with blue. I stared at my mother. I knew her features so well from the photograph. Now they moved and changed and it was as though a character had stepped out of a fairytale and become real. I could feel a falling sensation within my body and put my hands on the table for steadiness. No one noticed. The moment seemed to stretch on and on, but was only a second or two.

  I could feel the touch of cold lips on mine. I grabbed Peter’s hand and held it tight. The plants in my garden were dying back for the winter. Roots and twigs and seeds – that’s all they had to offer me at this time of year.

  ‘Is there a lot of work to be done in the house?’ I heard Peter asking. ‘It’s been empty for a long time.’

  ‘It’s not too bad. A lot of dust. But Andy and Mr Lion have been keeping an eye on it.’ She had a really nice voice, soft and quite deep. I wanted to hear her sing, or for her to go on talking while I curled up and went to sleep. ‘I might do some redecorating, but not yet. I’m just taking it day by day for the moment.’

  No point in decorating if it all goes wrong and you need to run away again.

  ‘I’d really like it if you – both of you – would feel free to pop in. I’d like to get to know you.’

  You would know me if you hadn’t gone away, you silly bitch. I pressed my palm against Peter’s and we both squeezed, our nails digging into the backs of each other’s hands.