A Tangled Web

by Ann Purser

  Doris Ashbourne saw through this one, but agreed that Eddie would be better inside the warm shop.

  'They're on the move again,' said Old Ellen, peering out of the window. The car was small, dark blue and very clean, except where mud from Bates’s Farm had splashed up the sides and into the shining alloy wheels.

  'Perhaps it's not them,' said Mrs Jenkins, manoeuvring Eddie into a corner away from the sweets.

  But Mrs Ashbourne could see the car pulling up outside the shop, and the driver opening his window, asking Octavia Jones – who just happened to have stopped to tie her shoelace – something which caused her to smile and nod towards the door of Round Ringford Post Office and General Stores.

  'So this is it,' said Peggy Palmer, releasing her seat belt, and closing her map book with a snap. She looked out through the car window, now misted over with a fine drizzle, and saw a small shop, set high above the pavement, with three steps leading to the narrow door.

  'Looks quite clean and tidy,' said Frank, 'not as scruffy as some we've seen.'

  'That sign's been up there a long time,' said Peggy, reading aloud from a surprisingly elegant curved and shaped signboard placed above the shop window. ' "General Stores – High Class Provisions" – that's nicely done, Frank – "Post Office, Round Ringford. Postmistress: Mrs D. Ashbourne." Can you see F. and P. Palmer up there instead?'

  'Steady on, old girl,' said Frank. He and Peggy had heeded Jim Marks' advice and taken their time. It was now six months since Frank had been axed by Maddox's, but he still felt the pain of the wound and had difficulty matching Peggy's enthusiasm. He went along with her, though, because anything was better than watching old colleagues from other departments setting off for work each morning while he stayed at home, brooding.

  'It's just on three o'clock,' he said, 'better make a move.'

  He opened the car door and stepped out, straight into something soft and juicy, left behind after the morning's muck carting by Robert Bates. 'Oh shit!' said Frank, and Peggy giggled. 'Smells like it,' she said, and began to laugh louder at Frank's horrified expression.

  'You may well laugh,' he said, rubbing his smart brown shoe against the grass verge. 'I can see this is going to be the truly rural experience you are looking for.'

  Peggy walked round and took his arm. 'Come on, Mr Palmer,' she said, 'who knows – this could be the village of our dreams.'

  They stood on the pavement, unaware of the high state of tension inside the shop, and looked out over the Green at the cluster of old houses round the pub, the tiny school with its gabled school house, and the blue line of hills on the horizon. There was nobody to be seen except for a solitary old man hobbling down the street on a stick, pipe in his mouth. A ruffled brown hen with a bright red comb tipped drunkenly over one eye pecked at the grit in the gutter outside the school gate.

  'It's a very small village, Frank,' said Peggy.

  'And quiet,' said Frank.

  'Do you think that's all there is?' Peggy said, a small note of doubt creeping into her voice.

  'If it is,' said Frank, 'we shan't make our fortunes here.'

  They were silent for a moment, listening to the rap-rap of the rope against the white flagpole in the school playground. Peggy watched a sudden flurry of rooks, quarrelling and swearing, rise from the tall trees in the distant park, and said, 'It's very beautiful, though, Frank...'

  'It is indeed, my love,' said Frank, taking a deep breath, 'come on, let's investigate.'

  Conversation in the shop stopped as they opened the door, and everyone turned to look at them. Frank cleared his throat and was about to introduce himself, when a crowing voice came from the corner.

  'Palmers farmers. Palmers farmers!'

  Young Eddie's vocabulary was small, but he came from a long line of gossips, it was in his blood, and he had naturally absorbed the name which had been travelling round the village all morning.

  Mrs Jenkins cuffed him not too gently round the ear. 'Edward! – just you be quiet.' She turned with a broad smile to Peggy, and said 'I am ever so sorry! I don't know where he thinks he got that from.'

  'Don't you?' said Mrs Ashbourne wryly. She looked over the top of Old Ellen's untidy head and said as pleasantly as she could manage, 'Mr and Mrs Palmer? Glad you found us. I'm Doris Ashbourne. I'll be with you in a minute.'

  'Got Mary York coming in, ain't you?' said Old Ellen.

  Mrs Ashbourne had had just about enough of Old Ellen. 'Is there anything you don't know, Ellen Biggs?' she said sharply.

  'Keep your hair on, our Doris,' said Old Ellen, 'I'm off then – you can send round the few bits for the Hall.' She stopped and looked at the Palmers standing awkwardly just inside the shop door. 'Not like it used to be when I was cook up there,' she said, looking at them speculatively. 'Times were when the Hall would have fifty pounds' worth of groceries every week. Doris is lucky if it's fifteen pounds now. '

  She waved at Eddie, shouting at him as if he was deaf, 'Ta ta, Eddie Jenkins, be a good boy!' and left, banging the door behind her. She struggled down the steps, and stood, undecided, on the pavement for a few seconds, then turned and went along to the gate of Victoria Villa, unhooked the latch, and walked in. Ivy Beasley was waiting for her impatiently, the kettle singing on the hob.

  'We shall be in the house, Mary,' said Mrs Ashbourne, 'if I'm wanted. There's no more pensions due out today, and Mrs Jenkins has been in for her benefit. It'll just be the village school turn-out – the big ones have had the day off, so there'll be no school bus.'

  Mary York nodded, and slipped out of her sheepskin coat, hanging it on a hook behind the Post Office cubicle door. She was a plain girl, short-sighted and thin, and looked younger than her twenty-six years. She had anchored her hair in a pony-tail with a black elastic band, and wore no visible make-up.

  'Don't you worry, Mrs Ashbourne, I shall be fine,' she said, and her smile embraced Peggy and Frank with a pleasant warmth.

  Mary liked the look of Peggy, who reminded her of her mother. She's got a nice smile, thought Mary, very friendly. She's well dressed, too, better than my mum – got more idea.

  Her examination of Frank was cursory, as he and Peggy began to follow Mrs Ashbourne into the house. She noted his well-cut thinning grey hair and a mouse-coloured gabardine raincoat. His eyebrows were drawn together in a small frown, but his eyes were kind, and twinkled a bit when he smiled at her. There was a smell, though. She sniffed. Surely not him? He looked so clean.

  'We'll make a start, then,' said Mrs Ashbourne, and led the way.

  Two doors led out of the shop into the house, one straight into the kitchen from just under the clock, and the other into a passage, a rogues' gallery of family photo graphs. At the end of the passage was the front door of the house, covered with a thick, dark red curtain.

  'Don't use that much,' said Doris, 'just weddings and funerals, I suppose. You might just want to wipe your shoe on the mat, Mr Palmer, I think you could have trodden in something out there – that Robert Bates was goin' too fast this morning.'

  Frank meekly cleaned his shoe on the rough bristles of the mat, and caught up with the two women as they went through another door out of the dark passage, Mrs Ashbourne saying 'Mind the step!' just too late. Peggy recovered her balance, and peered into the long gloomy interior.

  'What a lovely room!' she said, causing Frank to look at her in surprise. She walked down its length and turned back to look at the long central beam, huge and black, notched and pitted with age, supporting rows of cross beams like the skeleton of a fish.

  'There is just this one sitting-room,' said Mrs Ashbourne, 'it's cosy when the fire's going. Me and Jack used to eat in the kitchen mostly.'

  'Is your husband... er...?' said Peggy.

  'Dead,' said Mrs Ashbourne flatly.

  Peggy had noticed a photograph standing prominently on top of a bookcase by the fireplace, of a smiling young man, carefully groomed, with plastered-down hair and neatly trimmed doggy moustache over a full, rather feminine mouth.
/>   'Is that your Jack?' she said, and immediately felt she had been too familiar.

  'Yes,' said Mrs Ashbourne primly, 'that is the late Mr Ashbourne. Taken many years ago, before he... took badly.'

  'He was very handsome,' said Peggy, trying to retrieve approval.

  'Handsome is as handsome does,' said Mrs Ashbourne dismissively. 'Do you want to see the kitchen now?'

  Peggy and Mrs Ashbourne disappeared back into the passage, but Frank loitered in the sitting-room, trying to register some details. Peggy was a great one for instant enthusiasm, but often she couldn't remember much at all when they got back home.

  Two small windows at either end of the long room gave some light, but it was a sombre space, filled with graceless heavy furniture and ornaments not old enough to be antique. He closed his eyes and imagined him and Peggy sitting either side of the big open fireplace, curtains drawn and the wind roaring outside. He put his hand to the back of his neck, where he felt a draught, a real draught, not imagined, and shivered.

  'I hope you know what you're doing, Peg,' he said.

  'Frank!' shouted Peggy. 'Come and look at this!'

  She was standing in a large kitchen, leaning back with her hands on the rail of an elderly, cream-coloured Rayburn cooker which gave off a warmth that was almost visible.

  'Isn't it marvellous?' she said.

  'I do like a larder myself,' Mrs Ashbourne was saying, and Peggy, who had never had a larder in her life, was agreeing wholeheartedly.

  Frank looked round at the plain white walls, unadorned except for a trade calendar and a crooked heart-shaped corn dolly tied with a dusty green ribbon. He didn't much like the liver-red quarry-tiled floor, and looked with growing impatience out of the window where the wind blew tea towels horizontal on a scrappy washing line.

  'We mustn't be too late back, Peggy,' he said.

  Mrs Ashbourne took the hint. 'I'll just show you round upstairs,' she said, 'then we can discuss the business.'

  'Now you're talking,' said Frank, and followed the women once more as hey climbed the narrow stairs and went from a white-painted bedroom, with heavy white cotton lace covers and thick net curtains, to a tiny bathroom scented with a windowsill full of geraniums, and back on to the low-ceilinged landing.

  Peggy looked out of the small window into the garden. 'Lovely daffodils, Mrs Ashbourne,' she said, 'are you a keen gardener?'

  'Not me,' said Doris Ashbourne, noticing with relief that the sun had come out again, bringing the garden to life. 'It's more like April than March, isn't it?' she said, and carried on without a pause. 'No, it was him, he was very keen until – well, until he wasn't any more. It's a bit untidy now, but it wouldn't take much to set it straight.'

  Much of what, thought Frank, having a sudden, unappealing picture of himself toiling over a spade full of heavy, wet earth. And what is all this about old jack? Just what was it about this place that did for him? Probably setting that garden straight. If she drops many more hints I shall ask her outright.

  'Who's that?' said Peggy, looking down on the bent back of an elderly woman in the neighbouring garden, vigorously wielding a chopper and splitting logs like a man. An old black felt hat covered her iron-grey hair, and her sturdy legs were planted well apart to anchor her firmly for the job in hand.

  'That's Ivy Beasley,' said Mrs Ashbourne quickly, 'she's all right when you get to know her.'

  The woman straightened up, hand on her back, easing the strain, and turned slowly, as if she sensed the watching eyes. She looked up, and the expression on her face sent a shiver down Peggy's spine.

  Frank, noticing, put out his hand and touched her gently. 'All well, Peg?' he said quietly.

  'Someone just walked over my grave!' she said, smiling weakly.

  'I'll just put the kettle on,' said Mrs Ashbourne, 'and then we can have a chat.'