by Sarah Till
CHAPTER 11
I get off the bus and my legs are still wobbly. There isn't time before the meeting to go up the lane and get Macy, and I still have the bags. I rush along the main street, past the police cars are still in the car park, to the community hall where the meeting is due to start any minute.
There's an air-brick there that the warm air from the big hall flows through to meet the cold shadows, and I put myself in between that and the day. I can feel my heart beating fast and my hands are shaking. I lie down on the grass, with my ear to the brick, and I can hear the voices in the hall perfectly. I convince myself that nothing has changed yet, the ground beneath me is still solid. I put the palm of my hand on it just to make sure, and it's warm. It seems like the world had been knocked slightly more off its axis the moment I saw my grandchildren, and it hasn't quite settled yet. My head aches and I taste bile in my mouth, such is the shock that Andrew could do this to me, on top of everything else. He can't have forgotten about me. Can he?
I hear louder voices now and stretch to look through the skylight. I'm on a small bank at the back of the building, with the airbrick and the skylight providing me perfect access to the meeting. Not that I'm so sure I want it right now. But it's my only opportunity to find out exactly what I'm being accused of. I press my ear tight up to the brick. I can just about see the table, with six people sitting around it, Julia Scholes is sitting at the top of the table and the others at the far end. Alice is there, along with Doug Sherwood, who has his Labrador Jack with him. Sue-Ann, the Secretary, sits beside Julia. Alan Blease, our local councillor is there, I recognise him for his picture in the free paper, and John Davies, the local GP. I can see my little pile of envelopes piled up at the end of the table, and Alice passes them round with other papers. Mia Connelly isn't there and feel a pang of anxiety as I imagine her making her enquiries, maybe further afield. What if she gets to Andrew before I do and he tell her? What if she goes to talk to John? Julia looks stern and taps her teaspoon on her teacup.
'Alright, everybody. Meeting has commenced. The thirtieth meeting of the Tintagel Community Committee. Apologies from June Close, her brother is ill, and Nancy Smith, she's had to work. But I'm pleased to announce we are quorate.' She pauses for breath. 'Now. We have a very important item on our agenda for today's meeting. As you all know, there's been a growing nuisance in our town from tramps, vagabonds and homeless people converging on us. Usually, these are just here for the season, but one in particular has stayed here now for years.'
Alice rolls her eyes and folds her arms. Julia continues.
'Lizzie Nelson. She's a menace to our community, stealing, begging and generally contravening the Vagrancy Act of 1824. Now there's been some serious crime here. Murder. And the police think Lizzie Nelson has something to do with it. She's involved. I’m the last person to accuse someone who’s innocent, but I’ve seen her creeping about on the headland, even on the night Susan was killed.'
I sigh. Julia has certainly done her homework. But Alice puts her hand up now.
'Yeah. Alice Taylor. Local shopkeeper, for anyone who doesn't know me, I have the Tintagel Rocks! shop on the main stretch. I'd like to disagree with Julia. I don't think Lizzie is a nuisance at all. And I don't think Julia has any proof that she has been stealing. She certainly hasn't got any evidence that she's involved in the murders. I know there's been a lot of talk about the spots those poor women have died being where Lizzie hangs out, but that's just speculation. I've never seen her begging openly or sleeping outside. Lots of people sleep on the beach in summer, even in the car park. What are we going to do, throw them all out? Anyway, instead of worrying about poor Lizzie, shouldn't this meeting be about protecting the people of the village, what with a killer on the loose?'
Julia is red, and opens her mouth to speak, but Doug beats her to it.
'Well, I don't want to be unkind, but she is a little bit dirty. And she does go in the bins behind the supermarket for food. It's not right. I've never been near her, don't really want to, but I reckon she stinks. She looks like she smells. And, to be fair, she is around wherever this trouble is.'
Julia nods in agreement, her self-satisfied face grinning. John Davies speaks up now.
'OK. So, we have two points to discuss. Lizzie Nelson and the safety of the village. Let's deal with Lizzie first. So, she has to take food out of a skip? Does that not tell us all something?'
Julia nods.
'Exactly. It tells us she's a great big stinking thief. Thank you, John.'
He sighs.
'No, Julia. Doesn't it tell us that there's something wrong with our society if an old woman has to take her food out of bins? Shouldn't we try to help her?
Alice and Councillor Blease nod in agreement, but Julia bangs hard on the table.
'Help her? She's walking around here scaring everyone, growling and gurning and bloody singing to herself, doing a little jig. She's bloody mental. Something wrong up there.'
John looks shocked.
'That's not very nice, Julia. If she's got mental health problems, which we don't actually know for sure, then surely, again, she needs help?'
Julia is livid now.
'Yeah. Help somewhere away from here. Anyway, there's a law against people like her. Vagrants. I want her warned, and if she doesn't stop it, arrested and sent to prison. Maybe she'll get the help she needs there John, eh?'
Alice stands up and leans over the table.
'What law? What law is this Julia? Come on, read it out? Let's hear what poor Lizzie's been doing, apart from walking up the headland and onto the beach. I can't see what harm there is in that?
Julia pulls out a piece of paper.
'She's disgusting, that's what. She's untidy. She looks like an old witch, not the sort we want round here. She doesn't belong here.'
John Davies blushes crimson.
'Actually Julia, you're not a very nice person yourself. Can you imagine how poor Lizzie would feel if she heard you say all those horrible things about her?'
Alice snorts.
'Ha! If? She's always telling her. She's hits her too. She knocked her over the other day.'
Julia jumps up now.
'She threatened me. I'm only defending myself.' She's pointing the rolled-up paper at Alice, who backed away. 'Anyway. This is my motion. Lizzie Nelson is homeless. She's not wanted in this village. She's a nuisance and a disgrace to the village. Or anywhere.'
A disgrace. I lie back and think about what this means. None of the people in that room, not even Alice, knew anything about me. Not one of them had ever had a conversation with me. Ever since I was a young girl of fifteen, that summer week in Tintagel when my life changed forever, I had stepped into grace. That was partly why I endured the life I did. My mother was never graceful. She was either bony and emaciated from her anorexia, her suffering in protest to having a life she never asked for. Or clumsily away in a dream world, weaving a story where her real future lay and that she finally changed to reality. I was the opposite. Firmly fixed in the here and now, or, in the baggage of the past I carried around with me. For me, the future was always a surprise, not always pleasant, but one into which I stepped gracefully, even if my feet were dirty. I never complained and I never asked for help. On the rare occasion that I found I had to retaliate, like the times when Julia had rounded on me, I would snarl out a warning, but feel guilty afterwards and swear that I would never do it again. If anyone was full of grace, it was me. Of course, I feel guilty for the bad things I have done, but some people deserve it, don’t they? I was in tune with nature, the world, everything that wasn't a person.
My body feels heavy and I'm starting to sense a little dampness coming through the soil. I shift over towards the window and see that they are sifting through the papers. Alice is opening my envelope and I see her smile broadly and place it in front of her.
'Actually, I think we should hear what Julia has to say about Lizzie.'
I see that Julia hasn't bothered to open her envel
ope. She's places it on one side with the other papers. She stands up and begins to walk about.
'Right. Starting to see sense, are we, Alice? OK. Let me give you an example. One Friday afternoon, Lizzie was on the main street. Two boys had been having a pasty and one of them left their tray on the wall with a half-eaten pasty in it. Along she comes, takes the tray and starts to eat the pasty. Right in front of everyone!'
John sighs.
'Hardly a crime against humanity is it, though, Julia? Maybe she was hungry.'
'Yes, but my point is that she's taking local trade away. She should have bought her own pasty. Just like she should be using all the local amenities and paying her way. She's not. She's just waltzing through here, skip diving and pushing that bloody rusty trolley, which, I'll have you know, belongs to the supermarket, so she's stolen that.'
The hall is silent for a while, then speaks.
'Anything else, Julia? Like where Lizzie might sleep. Because to be a vagrant she's got to be sleeping outside. Haven't you had the police out a few times?'
Alan Blease pulls out some papers and begins to read from them.
'Twenty-six calls from Julia Scholes this year pertaining to Lizzie Nelson. All reports of vagrancy. And an additional call accusing her of murder. Thirty-three calls reporting threatening behaviour. Officers attended the location that Miss Scholes gave and found that Lizzie Nelson was not sleeping there.'
Julia jumps up again.
'That doesn't prove nothing. She's sleeping somewhere, and I'll find out where it is, if it kills me. She's sleeping outside every night.'
John sighs again.
'Look, Julia, I have to ask. Why are you persecuting this poor woman? Has she done something to upset you personally? Surely you can see that eating out of bins and living outside is not something we should be persecuting someone for. There must be an underlying social problem for her to be doing that. Don't you agree?'
Julia's anger gets the better of her and she leans over the table towards John.
'Social problem? I'll bloody say so! She's a bag lady, for God's sake, not the arch angel Gabriel. Can't you see it? She's doing it on purpose. Anyone can have a wash or get some money from the dole to eat. She's just not wanting to.'
Alice intervenes.
'And is that a crime? Not wanting to? I don't have to dye my hair red, but I do. Are you going to have me arrested because you think it should be black? It's a bit untidy. Am I turning into a bag lady of my own free will? Grow up, Julia. She's obviously got serious problems. No one would choose to live like that. Don't you agree?'
Julia huffs and puffs for a while, then sits down.
'I suppose so. But why can't she live like us?'
Doug Sherwood puts his hand up now.
'To be fair, Julia, aren't we all a bit eccentric behind closed doors? I mean, I talk to Jack here, and four evenings a week I play piano and he sings. Now, I can choose to do that without being carted off, can't I?'
Silence again, then Julia speaks.
'No, Doug. Anyway, you're supposed to be on my side. I'm still insisting on this. I won't be convinced otherwise. Vagrancy's against the law and I won't have no law breaking in Tintagel, right under my nose. I say we ask her to leave, and if she won't, have her arrested. Can we vote on it?'
I stare at Julia and she actually looks like she believes that she will win the vote. Even Doug has deserted her and it looks like Alice is going to read out my letter.
'Hang on a minute. I think we've got some evidence from Lizzie herself. We seem to have a letter from her.' Julia scrambles to open the envelope. John smiles widely and Alan nods and drinks his tea. I can see the long loops of my perfect handwriting on the paper, sloping slightly to the right, exactly the same hand as Andrew. I'd spent hours sitting with him as a child, practising. Alice begins to read.
Elizabeth Nelson is not a vagrant. She owns Coombes Cottage and pays both Council Tax and Community Fee at this address.
Elizabeth Nelson does not live outside and even if she did, this is not a crime as long as she does not sleep on privately owned land.
Elizabeth Nelson does not beg. She has never asked anyone for food or clothes whilst resident in Tintagel.
Nor had she stolen anything from anyone, knowingly. Discarded items thrown in bins are intended for the rubbish tip and retrieving them is not stealing.
Elizabeth Nelson has never hurt anyone intentionally in her whole life. That's part of the problem. She certainly hasn't murdered the two women who have died recently.
Elizabeth concedes that she may make the village look untidy sometimes, but she is not the only person in Tintagel who wears second hand clothes and doesn't cut her hair. There are lots of older unattractive people. Will you herd them all together and throw them all out of town?
Julia takes more time to read the letter, then scrutinises the deed document.
'Coombes Cottage? Where old man Gregory used to live? But isn't it derelict? She can't live there?'
John puts the papers back in the envelope.
'Even if it is, she owns it fair and square. She's a resident of Tintagel and that's all there is to it. It's not a criminal act to live in a derelict house. It seems to me that she's done nothing wrong. I think this meeting's over.'
Alice smiles.
'Actually, before we move onto the issue of personal safety, which I would like to move to adjourn to a special meeting when we can have the police present. I think there is something need to address. I think Julia has an apology to make.'
Julia looks round the room, her eyes cold.
'Sorry to inconvenience you all. Seems I was mistaken.'
Her voice is quiet and calculating, with the promise of more trouble behind the tone. Alice shakes her head.
'No, Julia. No, no. Not to us. To Lizzie. You've been horrible to her. I'd like to see a public apology.' Julia is scarlet with rage, but the other committee members stare at her. Alice continues. 'How about tomorrow? Lizzie usually passes by your shop about half tennish. How about I come over and I can supervise your apology?'
Julia scrapes her chair back slowly, and even from outside, the sound grates in my ears. She walks slowly round the table and I can see her ashen face.
'See you tomorrow, then.'
She leaves and slams the door behinds her. Doug and Jack follow her, and Alan Blease smiles widely.
'Meeting closed then? To be honest, I'd never really noticed this woman until Julia put up those. I can't see what the fuss is about. Seems harmless enough for me. And she owns Coombes Cottage, eh? Who would have guessed? Takes all sorts, doesn't it.'
Alice and John nod and Alan packs up and leaves. Alice sighs.
'Terrible, though, isn't it? That people like that exist. And wandering about on her own like that. Someone should warn her that Tintagel isn't a safe place right now.'
John laughs.
'Julia you mean?'
She smiles now.
'Well, yes, but I mean Lizzie. Poor bugger. Can't we do something to help her? It's awful to think she's living out of bins in this day and age. She might own Coombes Cottage, but there's clearly something amiss. She spends all her time wandering round, sits on the beach at night. Although I expect she must be in the cottage in the winter. The only time we see her then is up on the headland. And now with this terrible business. I have to admit, it's made me wonder why she spends so much time up there.'
Up until this point, I'd lain quite still at the back of the building, reeling from seeing a new generation of my family appear before my eyes. Now I stiffened, back to full alertness. The headland. Top Secret. John was quiet for a while, deep in thought.
'Yes. She not from round here, she's moved here from somewhere else. There must be something here for her. Something up there.'
Alice is nodding and I'm shaking.
'But all there is up there is the chapel and some seagulls. And the cliffs. Oh, and the view.'
John smiles.
'Maybe she just likes looking
out there. You can see the castle from there. She might be one of the Camelot freaks. There's a lot of people here who are obsessive about those stories, it's taken over their lives. I see it all the time in the surgery, some of them are quite convinced by them. I wonder if it's something like that with Lizzie?'
Alice shuffles the papers together.
'Freaks they may be, but it's those stories that keep the tourists coming. Don't knock it, John.'
John leans back in his chair.
'I'm not knocking it, in lots of ways it's a good thing. But at the end of the day it's just a story. Not one single account of what happened here concurs, yet people flock here as if it's fact.' He rubs his forehead. 'I suppose that's what keeps some people going. Clinging onto something. Escapism. I don't know. Anyway. Lizzie. Shall we take a walk up on the headland somewhere to see if we can find out what she likes up there? Maybe we should call at Coombes Cottage to see if we can help her?'
I've had enough. For the first time in years, fear rises up and I suddenly feel cold and tired. I realise that I've lulled myself into a false sense of complacency, and that my secret is closer than ever to being discovered. I dart out from behind the Community Centre and run up the road, through Merlin Lane and up the hill to my shed. I grab Macy and run back through the town and up to the headland. When I reach my safest spot in the world, the only sanctuary I know, I lie down and cry for those children I will never know and the women who have gone.
CHAPTER 12
I carry my bags around in Macy. The visible bags, anyway. The invisible luggage of my past, which is getting heavier day by day now, is carried in my heart. I slept on the headland last night, my whole body touching the earth. I've been amazed at what kind of items people leave behind on beaches and campsites. Picnic sets, camping stoves, tents and sleeping bags. I've got a mountain grade sleeping bag in the shed, too warm for the summer. It rolls up into a tiny pack and I store it in Macy. So, last night, as I stretched in the moonlight, I was warm and cosy. I made sure that I was as far away as possible from the blood-bronzed grass where Susan Blake's body had lain and closed my ears to imagined footsteps in the darkness. I could have done with a cup of tea, but you can't have everything.
