by Jodi Taylor
I stayed out in the public area, swept and washed the floor, cleaned out the toilet and then, when the floor was dry, began to unpack the colourful crockery and set it out on the big dresser.
It was very peaceful out here in the shop. Just me, making sure all the cups and teapots pointed in the same direction. Certainly more peaceful than back in the kitchen where apparently some sort of war was being fought. I ignored them to concentrate on what I was doing.
Sharon emerged, brushing her hair off her face.
‘You don’t want to go in there, Mrs Checkland.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Where do ... you want the tablecloths?’
‘Can you wipe down the tables and lay a cloth on each one. The rest will be stored in the bottom drawer of the dresser so I have cutlery, crockery, and cloths all together. If you don’t mind,’ she said, suddenly polite.
‘No, of course not. Good thinking.’
And it was. This was not the Sharon of twelve months ago, shy, clumsy and overweight. Sharon is Mrs Crisp’s niece and had worked briefly at The Copper Kettle, further up the High Street. She hadn’t been very happy there, so she came to work for us at Frogmorton, where she’d met Kevin. Well, I say ‘met Kevin’, because that makes things sound normal but, actually, she’d come in through the gate, smiling her beautiful smile, and Kevin, trundling his wheelbarrow across the yard, had been unable to take his eyes off her. He’d walked straight into the water trough, wheelbarrow and all. She’d blushed and smiled even more. He’d blushed and been unable to speak a word. Obviously at some point he’d regained the power of speech and they were hardly apart these days.
Anyway, this new Sharon had cut her hair, gone to college, acquired her qualifications, badgered the bank, and was about to open Rushford’s first cupcake shop and cafe. We were so proud of her.
There was a prolonged clatter, followed by a sudden, worrying silence from the back. We looked at each other.
‘You go,’ I said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Tea in five ... minutes.’
She disappeared to investigate.
I filled the kettle and pulled out a tray. I thought we could sit at the window table, where people could see us as they passed, because it would be good publicity for her forthcoming opening. Carrying the tray to the table, I began to lay things out. I smoothed the cloth and made sure it hung straight, polished up the gleaming teaspoons, and began to set out the cups and saucers. I was concentrating hard and making sure everything looked pretty because this was, literally, her shop window.
I don’t know what made me look up, but something did.
I looked up and there was a man on the other side of the window. Less than twelve inches away. Looking directly at me. For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes. If I hadn’t known he was abroad, I would have sworn it was my cousin Christopher. The sun was shining on the glass and I couldn’t quite make out his features. It couldn’t possibly be him. I hadn’t seen him since the night Russell threw him out. Out of our house and out of our lives for ever. Or so I’d thought. I took a step to one side, trying to see through the ‘dekaB flaH’ lettering on the window. Was Christopher back? Was he right here, right now, and staring straight at me? I squinted some more, trying to see his face. The man inched forwards, still staring straight at me and I stepped back in a hurry. It was him. I was sure of it.
If his face had been contorted with rage or he had been screaming threats then I think I would have been less frightened, but his blank, empty-eyed look took away all thought and movement. I stared back, paralysed.
Long, long seconds passed and still he stood motionless, his face pressed up against the window. He wasn’t a tall man and I was standing on a raised area, which meant we were eye to eye. I could see the individual hairs in his eyebrows. In my imagination, I saw him draw back his fist, punch through the window, and reach for me...
The cup fell through my fingers and shattered on the tiles. I heard the pieces skitter across the floor as all the old nightmares came flooding back. His bullying. His casual cruelty. His single-minded dedication to getting his own way at all times and what he could do to anyone getting in his way. My heart-stopping terror when I thought Russell was burning to death. The things he would do to ensure that whatever happened, he, Christopher, would always be all right.
I’ve always thought Christopher was the wrong way around. Most people protect their soft interior with a hard shell on the outside. In his case, his core was solid rock, but people usually only saw his soft, spongy exterior and judged him accordingly. How could I have been so stupid as to think he would give in and quietly leave the country? Of course he wouldn’t. Of course he would come back. What he thought he could do was a mystery to me, but that was Christopher all over. Long on self-interest but very short indeed on intelligence, which made him dangerous. People would be hurt. People I loved.
I heard Russell shout, ‘You all right out there, Jenny?’
I’m sure I only looked away for a heartbeat, that I only glanced over my shoulder towards the sound of his voice, but when I looked back again, the window was empty. Just normal people hurrying past with their shopping, chatting, calling their children, scrabbling for their car keys. Christopher was gone. If he’d ever been there in the first place. How could anyone vanish so quickly and so completely? I leaned forward and craned my head to right and left, trying to catch a glimpse of him hurrying away, but there were too many people around to make him out clearly.
I let the table take my weight. My heart was pounding and I felt sick. I stared at the cloth, concentrating on the green and purple pattern. Following the stripes. Struggling for calm. This could not be happening. Not again. Only yesterday I’d looked around the lunch table and felt that first faint shiver of premonition? Like wind ruffling the surface of a lake. Was I imagining things? After all, I’d spent years talking to an invisible horse. Old fears I thought long buried began to claw their painful way to the surface.
‘First breakage,’ said Russell, emerging from the kitchen. ‘And not even open yet.’
I tried to speak, to say I was sorry, but the words wouldn’t come. To hide my face, I knelt down and started to pick up the pieces.
‘I’ll get the dustpan,’ said Sharon and, fortunately, everyone was too busy milling around pouring tea and sweeping up the broken cup to notice that I couldn’t speak. Even if I could, what would I say?
Yes, I know. Normal people would say, ‘Hey, you’ll never guess who I just thought I saw,’ but I’m not normal. I’ve spent too many years being poor little Jenny Dove who had something the matter with her and counted herself lucky not to be packed off into some sort of home. As Jenny Checkland, I had a stake in the real world now, and I wasn’t going to risk losing it, so I stayed silent, because – take it from an expert – it’s much better to be thought clumsy than mad.
I chose my seat carefully making sure I had my back to the window, while everyone else chattered away about how much work there was still to do.
Eventually, Russell looked at his watch. ‘Sorry to drink and run, but Jenny and I have chicken responsibilities.’
‘It’s not today, is it?’ said Kevin, in alarm. ‘I haven’t built the hen house yet.’
‘No problem, we’re sticking them in the stables until they have a proper home. They’ll be fine,’ said Russell, the eternal optimist.
‘Rats,’ said Sharon.
Even Russell stopped in his tracks. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’ll need to watch out for rats. Chickens attract rats.’
‘Do they?’
‘Well, not the chickens as such, the chicken feed and water. You mustn’t leave it out at night.’
I could see Russell thinking furiously.
‘Kevin, how long to build a hen house?’
He shrugged. ‘With help, about two days I should think. But I have to finish here first.’
‘Don’t knock yourself out. I’ve just had rather a good idea.’
Someone groaned.
They both do this – Andrew and Russell. It must be a Checkland family thing. They’ve finished their business, so they assume everyone else has too. Tanya, the love of Andrew’s life, deals with it by ignoring them both, calmly finishing whatever she’s doing and getting up in her own time. Today, however, I was too flustered. I just wanted to be home, so I gulped down my tea and rose to my feet. There are many advantages to being married to Russell Checkland, not least that he can talk for England, so no one noticed that in the flurry of goodbyes, I wasn’t able to get a word out.
Russell swept me out of the shop and we set off towards the car park while I tried to think of a way of telling him I really didn’t feel up to driving back to Frogmorton, without mentioning why.
I needn’t have worried.
‘I’ll drive,’ he said, whisking the keys from my hand.
We pulled out into the high street to the usual accompaniment of hooting horns and squealing brakes. Russell is not a good example as a driver – he’s a horrible warning.
He spent the journey home chattering on about chickens, Boxer, the finishing touches to Half Baked, his latest work, and whether Joy was teething again. I kidded myself he hadn’t noticed anything, sat back and let the comforting words wash over me.
*
We pulled into the yard with his usual toot on the horn. I jumped out and Russell went to park behind the stables.
Mrs Crisp appeared at the back door, waved, and disappeared again.
I stood in the yard and looked around me.
Frogmorton is not a beautiful farmhouse. There’s no thatched roof or half timbering. It’s a long, low, rambling building in a kind of stone and red brick patchwork. Random windows are scattered haphazardly around the facade and strangely shaped chimneys sprout from the roof. The kitchen leads into the mudroom which leads into the yard, which itself is surrounded by various higgledy-piggledy outbuildings. The barn and stables are opposite the gate and the big water trough sits against the wall. One big five-barred gate leads out into the lane, another opens into Boxer’s field, and the third into our big field, currently the scene of regular Sunday afternoon dramas.
It’s all a bit ramshackle. There never seems to be enough money to make it look pretty – a pot of geraniums by the back door is usually the best we can do. It’s not even completely waterproof – but Russell loves it and I do too. It’s our home.
I stared around. Everything seemed normal. The door to the stables was open, the boxes were swept clean. Boxer and Marilyn were grazing quietly together in their field. All the windows were letting in the summer breeze. The open back door gave a glimpse into the cluttered mudroom. Apart from the odd flapping curtain, everything was silent and still. There couldn’t be a more peaceful scene.
It didn’t last.
Russell’s chickens had arrived in our absence. Two sturdy boxes had been delivered and were being regarded with deep suspicion by Mrs Crisp.
I’d looked up Buff Orpingtons on the internet and was therefore expecting big, golden-brown birds. These were much smaller; some had fluff still showing between their feathers, and they all had that mad dinosaur look.
‘Pullets,’ announced Russell incomprehensibly.
I must have blinked at him.
‘Under a year old.’
‘Ah.’
He reached down and gently scooped one up.
It screamed. I thought chickens clucked. Surely this wasn’t right. True, no one who owns a donkey is a stranger to decibels, but this was ear-splitting. Eyes squeezed tight shut, it inflated its feathery body and screeched. How could so much noise come from such a tiny creature? And this is Marilyn’s owner asking that question!
Presumably showing solidarity, the others screamed back.
Russell hastily replaced it and eventually the noise subsided.
The cat stalked over to have a look, tail in bottle-brush mode and ready for anything.
‘Oh yes, right,’ said Russell, trying to edge him away. ‘Now you wake up.’
The second, as yet unopened, box began to shuffle its way across the kitchen floor under its own steam.
Mrs Crisp seized her security tea towel and backed up against the range.
The cat moved into attack mode.
‘The ... magic ... moving ... box,’ I said.
‘The cockerel,’ said Russell, proudly.
‘Russell, you don’t need a cockerel,’ said Mrs Crisp.
‘You do if you want baby chickens,’ said Russell, putting his arm around her. ‘Let me explain to you how these things work. When a daddy chicken loves a mummy chicken...’
She swiped him around the ear with the tea towel.
‘Ow. Does Bill the Insurance Man know you’re prone to these sudden fits of aggression?’
‘You’re not too big to go over my knee,’ she said, grimly.
‘Not in front of the girls. We don’t want traumatised poultry running around the place, so please make an effort to curb your violent impulses.’
‘The ... cockerel,’ I reminded him, before he got the tea towel around the other ear.
‘Not in here,’ warned Mrs Crisp.
‘No indeed,’ said Russell. ‘Sadly, my plan to house them in the stable is not the brilliant idea I thought it was. Fortunately, I have conceived another. Wife, bring the other box.’
I scooped up the surprisingly heavy box, nearly dropping it again as whatever was inside shifted its considerable weight. Russell had the other box and was already heading towards the stairs.
‘You’re not keeping them in one of the spare bedrooms,’ shouted Mrs Crisp.
‘Of course not,’ he said indignantly. ‘That would be unhygienic.’
With considerable misgivings, I followed Russell up the stairs to the family bathroom. He shouldered the door open. ‘In here, Jenny,’ and proceeded to decant the hens into the bath where they puttered up and down, their claws making funny scratchy noises on the enamel.
‘What do you think? Brilliant, eh? They can’t get out. Rats can’t get in. A couple of days while we get their living quarters sorted out. And we can hose it down with the shower each morning – practical and hygienic. Do you know, sometimes, I amaze even myself?’
‘You’re keeping the chickens in our bath?’
‘Well, we could hardly keep them in someone else’s, could we? And let’s face it, we’ve already had a donkey in here, so chickens aren’t going to make a great deal of difference. Let’s have a look at Big Boy.’
I handed over the box and retired to a safe distance. He unfastened the box and an indignant comb-covered head stuck itself out and glared around, rather like an angry submarine periscope. Scrambling free of the box, it flapped its wings, left the ground, perched on the taps and took stock of its surroundings.
His harem gazed adoringly at him.
‘Women used to look at me like that,’ said Russell, nostalgically.
The cockerel leaned forwards slightly and released something greasy and unpleasant.
‘Russell!’
‘It’s a bathroom, Jenny. Where could be more appropriate? And all we have to do every morning is lift them out, hose everything down and put them back again. We’ll put their feeder up at the blunt end, their water at the other, and with a bit of straw on the bottom to give them grip they’ll be absolutely fine.’
‘But...’ I said, convinced this wasn’t right, but unable to pinpoint the huge flaws I knew must be there somewhere.
He patted my shoulder. ‘It’s the family bathroom – no one uses it. There’s another bathroom off Joy’s room and a shower in our bedroom. Tell me honestly, have you ever used this bathroom?’
‘I ... threw up ... in ... it once.’
He regarded me severely. ‘Are you considering a repeat performance over the nex
t couple of days?’
I shook my head.
‘Then we’re good to go. I’ll go and get their bits and pieces. You stay here in case they panic at all.’
What action I could possibly take should six chickens and a cockerel take it into their heads to panic he didn’t say. I lowered the toilet lid and made myself comfortable. They looked at me. I looked at them.
‘So he’s a ... madman,’ I said. ‘Live with it. The rest of ... us have to.’
*
He was back minutes later. I heard his footsteps galloping up the stairs and along the landing. He opened the door gently. ‘Everything OK?’
I don’t know what catastrophe he thought could have occurred in the five minutes he’d been gone. ‘Of course.’
‘Great.’ He poured chicken food into the feeder and gently lowered it into the bath where it disappeared under a mass of milling chickens. Feed flew in all directions, pinging off the sides of the bath. I was glad to be out of range.
He filled the water dispenser, which immediately disappeared under a mass of milling chickens. Water flew everywhere.
‘Russell, there’s ... water everywhere.’
‘Not a problem,’ said Frogmorton’s resident genius. ‘Just leave the plug out and it’ll drain away. It’s a bath, Jenny.’
I did briefly contemplate braining him with the toilet brush, but there was no need. Once Mrs Crisp discovered he was keeping chickens in the bath, he had only moments left to live anyway. I could wait.
‘Do they have names?’ I said, watching six excited chickens rushing from one end of the bath to the other under the mad, despotic eye of their overlord. The cockerel kept an eye on them, too.
‘They certainly do,’ he said, pulling a crumpled sheet of paper from his jeans. ‘Let’s see. Yes, the smallest one – that one there. That’s Agatha. Boadicea is slightly darker than the others – see. Cleopatra is more yellowy. Desdemona keeps nodding her head all the time. Elfriede has that funny white patch and Francesca has hairy legs.’
