by David Nobbs
Sally’s heartbeat had barely slowed when she heard a cough from the allotments on her right. Oxford Road had become a minefield that day. Her blood curdled. Her heart missed several beats. She hurried across the road, to walk alongside the houses that carried on right into town on that side.
She’d imagined it. She was in an acutely nervous state.
She hadn’t imagined it. There had been a cough. A man’s cough. The cough of a killer.
She walked fast now, listening all the time for footsteps. But there were no footsteps. It occurred to her that it was odd that she should be so frightened. A few minutes ago, in the house, she had felt that she wanted to die. Turn, Sally. Face your killer. Get stabbed.
But he might just rape her and leave her. Besides, there was no one there.
The curtains were drawn in the Rose and Crown. People said that would be the next pub to go. She didn’t care if it did. Why should anybody be happy, with her Barry dead?
She crossed the street again, and turned into Cadwallader Road. The street lights were dim, and one of them was out. In her heightened state she could feel only hostility from the low stone terraces. Their very regularity, the total absence of decorative features, admired by purists, seemed comfortless now. Why on earth was she visiting number 6? Wasn’t it absurd to call on Ellie Fazackerly at this hour?
She had to speak to somebody. She didn’t know Jill Buss quite well enough to call so late. She couldn’t go back to the Sparlings. There was nobody else.
Ellie would be glad to see her. Ellie would be glad to see anybody.
She rang the bell. The moment she had rung it she wished that she hadn’t. Ellie would be watching her favourite television programme, her one way of escaping the prison she had built for herself.
You can’t de-ring a bell.
Perhaps they wouldn’t answer.
She heard footsteps. The door opened. It was Ali. She was the least obese of the three Fazackerly sisters. She was nineteen stone five.
‘Is it …? I just thought I’d call and see Ellie. Is this a bad time?’
‘Nooo! She’s always pleased to see you, Mrs Mottram.’
It was no use trying to get any of the sisters to call her Sally. She was Mrs Mottram, a do-gooder who lived on a higher plane. She had first met the Fazackerly sisters when Ali had fallen in the street; she had rushed to help, and she had escorted her home. She’d known of Ellie’s existence, and a few days later she had called round, to see if Ali was all right but partly also out of sheer curiosity, and she had stood at the doorstep for so long that in the end Ali had felt obliged to ask her in. She was still slightly ashamed of the origins of her concern for Ellie.
Ali led her along the corridor, her shoes squeaking on the lino – they were in a time warp – and took her into the tiny kitchen. Oli was seated at the table, watching television. She tried to get up, not easy. Ali and Oli had lived in the kitchen, in the tiny claustrophobic house, ever since the moment had come when Ellie could no longer go upstairs.
‘No, no, Oli, it’s all right. I’ve just come to have a word with Ellie. You keep watching. How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you, Mrs Mottram.’
Oli was twenty-one stone three. It didn’t help that she worked in the cake factory. Ali was a cleaner at the hospital, where cleaners moved slowly. They both worked antisocial hours, so arranged that one of them was always at home to care for Ellie. They were adamant that they didn’t want any help from anyone else. They were proud people. Only Sally was welcome, and she felt now that she was almost on the verge of being considered a friend rather than a voluntary social worker.
‘I’ll tell her you’re here,’ said Ali.
Ali went through into the front room, which had once been the lounge when Ellie could still get upstairs. A thought occurred to Sally now, a thought that astonishingly had never struck her before. What would happen when first Oli and finally Ali could also not get upstairs? How would they sleep?
Sally heard the television set go off in the front room. Ellie had been watching something. She shouldn’t have come.
There was always a very faint smell of festering humanity in the house, a sense that not enough windows were opened often enough, a feeling that rather too much air was being used up and not replaced fast enough. On the whole, though, it was clear that their standards of cleanliness were amazingly high, considering the circumstances. Sally never felt an overwhelming urge to leave, and now, sitting and waiting, she felt less traumatized than she had been all evening.
Ali came back in.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘She’s ready for you.’
Sally’s heart sank slightly at Ali’s words. She was still Ellie’s voluntary social worker, calling not out of love but out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe there was further to go than she had hoped, before she became a friend.
She entered Ellie’s room.
‘Hello, Ellie,’ she said.
‘Hello, Mrs Mottram.’
Ellie’s face was now so fat that it was hard to tell if she was smiling. Her huge body was hidden beneath the vast, specially made duvet. It stretched over the mounds of her fat like dunes in the desert. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed for more than two years now. She was thirty-three years old. It didn’t do to think about her weight. She was fat because she couldn’t help it, not because she wanted to be in the Guinness Book of Records.
It also didn’t do to think about the toilet and bed-linen arrangements. Ali and Oli looked after her brilliantly, did everything necessary with never a complaint. Easy to make fun of Ali, Oli and Ellie but beneath all the blubber there beat hearts of gold, and how many of those are there in this stony world of ours?
In fact it didn’t do to think about Ellie’s life at all, and Sally realized why she had needed to call here rather than anywhere else on this terrible night. She wasn’t proud of her motive. She had needed to feel sorry for someone else, because she couldn’t stand how sorry she felt for herself.
‘I hope you weren’t watching something,’ she said.
‘It were rubbish.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘It’s all rubbish.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I only watch it cos there’s nowt else.’
‘Oh, Ellie.’
‘You’d think they’d put good things on, wouldn’t you, for folk like me?’
‘You certainly would.’
‘They haven’t a clue, have they?’
‘They haven’t. They haven’t a clue.’
‘None of them have. Politicians, clergy, doctors. None of them have a clue.’
‘You tell them, Ellie.’
‘I would, but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘So, how are you, Ellie?’
‘Mustn’t grumble, Mrs Mottram. Sit yourself down.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And how are you, Mrs Mottram?’
‘Well, I suppose I too shouldn’t grumble, Ellie. I … um … something’s happened, Ellie. Something terrible.’
‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’
‘Yes. Terrible. I …’ She swallowed. ‘Barry’s killed himself.’
‘Oh, Mrs Mottram.’
‘I know.’
She told Ellie the whole story of how she found him, of the police, of the Sparlings and Kenneth. Ellie was too upset even to laugh at the story about Kenneth.
Oli came in with plates of cake.
‘Not just now, Oli,’ said Ellie.
Oli looked at her sister in astonishment.
‘Not just now?’ she said.
‘Not just now.’
‘But it’s cake.’
‘Later, Oli. Oli, Mrs Mottram’s husband has committed suicide.’
Sally still hadn’t been able to use that word, and on Ellie’s lips it came like a gunshot.
‘Oh, Mrs Mottram. I’m so sorry,’ said Oli. ‘And so’s Ali. Well, she will be. Can I tell
her?’
‘Please do.’
‘Thank you. Um … was it …? How did he …? I mean …’
‘Can I tell her, Mrs Mottram?’ asked Ellie.
‘Of course.’
‘She found him hanged at the top of the stairs, Oli.’
‘Oh my God. Oh my God, Mrs Mottram.’
‘I know.’
Oli left the room.
‘Thank you,’ said Sally. ‘It was nice of you to send the cake away.’
‘Not appropriate, Mrs Mottram. Not appropriate at all.’
‘I just couldn’t stay in the house any longer on my own, Ellie.’
‘No wonder.’ Sally could sense that deep inside her big head Ellie was struggling with an immense thought. ‘If you don’t want to go back,’ she said at last, ‘you could stay here. There’s my bed upstairs. Ali could go in with Oli. Gladly.’
The thought of Ali and Oli in the same bed was more than Sally could bear.
‘Gladly.’
‘I’m sure they would.’
‘They’re great, them girls. Angels. They’re angels, Mrs Mottram.’
‘They certainly are. No, that’s very kind of you, but … no … I have to face it. Get it over. Get myself tired enough, I’ll sleep.’
‘You can stay as long as you like, Mrs Mottram. And come round any time.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.’
And Sally talked about the fact that there was no note. She talked about why she thought he might have done it. She talked about her marriage and how happy she thought they had been – well, they’d had their ups and downs etc., ‘as you do’. ‘As you do,’ repeated Ellie, who had no idea really. Ellie was a good listener and Sally could see that she was truly upset for her, but she could also see that the thought of cake was slowly growing; movement of that great neck was not easy but the eyes, deep in their folds of fat, began to stray longingly towards the door, as if Ellie was an enormous Labrador, a giant Kenneth.
‘I think, Ellie, that it might be appropriate to have that cake now,’ she said.
‘Are you sure? Only I don’t want to … well, thank you,’ said Ellie. Then ‘Oli!’ she bawled. ‘Ali. Cake.’
The two angels entered with plates liberally piled with cake. Two angels killing themselves and their sister with their hearts of gold.
SIX
A very short chapter, but fear of a very long evening
At last it was over. Olive would never know how she got through the dessert. Very few people dislike treacle, but those who do find it a particularly difficult thing to eat.
Jill led them to the door. Arnold wasn’t very good at goodbyes.
The damp, cold night air of the cul-de-sac was as welcome to Olive as the scent of oranges on a sunny Spanish morning.
‘Thank you, that was lovely,’ she said, kissing Jill on one cheek.
‘Lovely,’ said Harry, kissing Jill on both cheeks. ‘We must do it again soon. Our turn next time.’
He was pleased that the street lights were so dim in that impoverished town. There was a chance that Jill couldn’t see the horror on Olive’s face.
SEVEN
Marigold goes to a party
Marigold Boyce-Willoughby was going to be very late. She was taking such a long time to get ready. It really wasn’t that surprising. The party was her first outing into Potherthwaite society since Timothy Boyce-Willoughby had ditched her for a Venezuelan dentist and ex-beauty queen, leaving her with a house she hated, a name she loved, a few happy memories, rather more unhappy memories, and sixty-two pairs of shoes. ‘Is it the shoes?’ she had asked plaintively when she had pleaded with him not to go. ‘I won’t buy any more, if it’s the shoes.’ ‘It’s not the fucking shoes, Imelda,’ he had exploded. ‘It’s that I can’t stand the fucking sight of you.’ And he was the man Potherthwaite regarded as a gentleman. Always such a gentleman. Always except at home. Thousands like him.
The party wasn’t going to be easy. She was a social climber and she no longer had a rope. She had looked wonderful on her third wedding day, dressed from head to foot in ironic white and happily married in Potherthwaite church by a vicar desperate for money. Her long train had flowed magnificently behind her. Now her train had hit the buffers. She knew what people would be saying tonight in posh Potherthwaite, that tiny enclave. Pity Marigold has such bad taste in men. Must be something wrong with her, to be ditched by three husbands. Maybe she was cold in bed. Cold in bed? Her! Or maybe she was too voracious. Wore them out. She had prided herself on being rather a good lover.
Maybe she hadn’t been a good lover. Nobody actually knew what a good lover was. She had never seen any other woman make love. Potherthwaite wasn’t Hebden Bridge.
Everyone would be thinking these sorts of things about her tonight. So why was she going? Because she couldn’t admit defeat, not to Potherthwaite, not to herself.
But what should she wear? It boiled down to a simple choice, between humility and defiance.
She could present herself as being ashamed of having been carried away by her wealthy husband, her glamorous lifestyle (for Potherthwaite – she had once met Hockney for three whole minutes and had talked about it for three whole years). She could show that at last she had realized that deep down she was still what she had always been, a modest working-class girl.
No. Wouldn’t do. Couldn’t do it. She had been born Marigold Smith. She’d hated her name. Smith. So common. Marigold, hateful. Marigolds were among the coarsest flowers in the garden. They were also washing-up gloves. And here she was, coarse and washed up.
But the name had been saved by being attached to Boyce-Willoughby. There was every chance that she had been the first person from her road ever to become double-barrelled. She had ceased to be a Dalston girl. She had become a Boyce-Willoughby, one of the Somerset Boyce-Willoughbys, and she wasn’t going to throw that away, husband or no husband. No, humility wouldn’t work, not for her. It was defiance or destruction.
So it was a lavishly dressed ex-Mrs Stent who wandered out to her waiting taxi in the cul-de-sac not much before ten o’clock on that chill Potherthwaite evening. It was a glamorous ex-Mrs Larsen who walked round on her high heels to the far side of the taxi, just in case somebody should be looking out, fusty old Arnold Buss, perhaps, who wanted to interview her for his history of Potherthwaite, or the new people whose furniture van had arrived earlier. The man had looked all right. Bald, but they said that was a sign of virility. She shuddered. That was the last thing she wanted.
It was a defiant Marigold Boyce-Willoughby who gazed out at the dreary High Street and told herself that there was now no reason why she should stay in Potherthwaite. We laugh. I know, and you suspect, that she will still be there in ten years’ time.
The taxi took her the full length of the High Street. She could feel her defiance slipping away as it rattled past the church she only entered for the sake of appearances, past the nearly-new shops she wouldn’t be seen dead in, past the end of Quays Approach. She hadn’t approached the Quays for months.
The taxi turned right where the High Street became Valley Road, sped through the empty roads towards the hills, began to climb one of the hills, passed through grand but rusty gates, crossed a large gravel forecourt, circling a fountain topped by a statue of a wool magnate, and pulled up outside a pillared entrance. This was – you’ve guessed it – Potherthwaite Hall – and the party was being held – you may have guessed this too, for we are in the twenty-first century – in one of the eight apartments into which that great house had been split.
Suddenly Marigold Boyce-Willoughby, glamorous lady, defiant spirit, brave soul, owner of many shoes, wanted to turn round and go home.
Apartment 1 was the home of Councillor Frank Stratton, owner and managing director of Stratton’s, whose stationery shops can be found in many towns around the Pennines. Frank Stratton was big in bulk, big in appetite, big in stationery, and big in charity. He wasn’t actually quite as
big as he thought he was, which was why he only owned an eighth of this great house. However, Apartment 1 was the best. His lounge had been the drawing room. It was absurd to call this huge room the lounge, but he had to persuade the voters that he was still humble.
The event was his famous annual bash for those who had supported his cancer charity. His daughter had died of breast cancer in 2005 at the age of thirty-seven. Some said he had never fully recovered, and he and his wife Marian had devoted themselves to raising money for cancer ever since. The party was for those who had given during the past year, and for those who unaccountably hadn’t but might with luck be persuaded to in the coming year.
It took courage to step into the great lounge. The bulky brown leather furniture had been pushed back to the walls; almost all the men were in suits and ties, while the women were in various stages of excess, although not quite so excessive as usual.
Frank and his wife Marian greeted Marigold warmly.
‘So sorry about …’ began Frank nervously.
Marigold waved her arms in a negative gesture.
‘Good riddance,’ she said. ‘Past history.’
‘Thank you anyway for all your support,’ said Marian.
‘I’ve no idea what’ll happen this year,’ said Marigold.
‘No matter,’ said Frank. ‘You’re always welcome here.’
‘Nonsense, but nice to hear,’ said Marigold. ‘And I’m so sorry I’m so late.’
‘You’ve missed my speech,’ said Frank.
‘She heard it last year,’ said Marian. ‘Only two words were different, Marigold.’
Marigold laughed dutifully.
‘Go and get yourself a drink,’ said Frank. It was an abrupt but attractive dismissal. She longed for a drink.
She accepted a glass of champagne and a mini Yorkshire pudding from smiling waitresses. One or two people were already leaving. She really was much too late. And it wasn’t as crowded as usual. The town was on a slide. She wouldn’t stay long – here at the party, or in Potherthwaite.
She looked around the room, searching for women she knew and liked. Searching particularly for Sally. There were women in the town whom she liked but didn’t much trust, and there were women whom she trusted but didn’t much like, but Sally was the only woman whom she liked and trusted, of those she knew well enough to approach.
