Trouble In Paradise

by Pip Granger

  Reggie looked round and saw a clock above a till that was a work of art. It was silver-coloured, and every inch of it that wasn’t the keys was covered in a bold design involving a great deal of fat, swollen fruit. ‘A quarter to, Auntie,’ said Reggie. It was time to pull myself together. I didn’t know what had come over me; all I’d seen was a little girl with a lot of curls and big blue eyes skipping around the cafe. And I knew, don’t ask me how, that the child I had just seen was Maggie and Bert’s daughter. Maybe not their very own handiwork, but theirs just the same. It wasn’t a sad vision, but a happy one, so why I should pass out cold, God only knew.

  Kind Mr Herbert wouldn’t let me go until he was sure I could stand unaided, and this made us five minutes late in meeting Tony, who was waiting anxiously outside the cafe. He hadn’t had the nerve to go inside by himself to wait for us. I pushed open the familiar door and just for a second, everything seemed to stop, as if frozen solid. There, sitting in the middle of the floor, was the little girl playing with a cardboard box, a tin cup and a large saucepan filled with several sorts of what looked like dried beans. She dipped the cup into the beans and dropped them into her box. Once she was satisfied she rattled her box for all she was worth and laughed with glee. Then she reversed the process and clattered her saucepan, which seemed to please her even more because she laughed harder.

  Suddenly, ‘Pop!’ the vision vanished and it was the usual cafe, full of the hum of voices, the clatter of crockery – and no small girls.

  Luckily, I was learning caution in my old age and I didn’t blurt out to Maggie’s smiling face that I’d seen her daughter. But I was sure that was who my phantom child was. It seemed logical that the two visions were connected, because it was definitely the same child in both. My feeling was that Maggie and Bert could wind up caring for Cassie’s child for her. It would be a good solution to both sets of trouble.

  Perhaps too good. Maybe Dad was right and my dreams and visions were simply down to an overactive imagination. In that case, getting people’s hopes up on the basis of a fleeting hallucination or a funny feeling wasn’t a good idea. Hope was too important to meddle with, to raise or to dash without very good reason and on the very best authority, so I kept schtum. But it was hard; I was so excited and happy for my new-found friends.

  38

  Tony had caught glimpses of Brian in the distance, he told me, but not up close and hostile. Tony’s removal to the vicarage, and the fact that he was in company of one sort or another every time he walked out into the streets or the school playground, had seen to that. It wasn’t ideal, however, because there was a big question mark over how long we could keep the level of vigilance up. George Grubb and his colleagues had still to find Brian’s arsenal and had given up going to check the shed after their third visit. I think they were beginning to wonder if their unnamed informant had lost some of his marbles and had begun to imagine dastardly deeds. Or so George told Dad in the King’s Head during their Sunday dinnertime bevvy.

  Naturally, our hearts stopped when Dad started to tell us PC Grubb’s gossip during our family meal. We thought for a moment that Tony’s name had surfaced in connection with the gun, and that all hell was about to break loose. But the Vicar had kept his word: his source remained anonymous and George Grubb hadn’t mentioned the weapons at all, just that the police were acting on ‘information received’. But not a word as to what the information was or where it came from, thank goodness; Dad might have twigged that Tony had something to do with it, seeing he was sleeping at the vicarage.

  ‘Seems the law was all over the Holes’ shed, but found nothing but the stink of petrol. Still, it shows that they’ve been behind all those petrol thefts, as if we didn’t know that already. But they didn’t find a drop, not a single drop.

  ‘Ma’s put in a complaint about her boy being picked on, and they’ve had to stop searching the shed now. I told George to have a look at that lockup down near the market. He said they’d been and found nothing much.’

  ‘I heard they’d found something iffy down the docks,’ said Gran, ‘or so Iris was telling me at church this morning. Did George mention anything about that?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘He did, as it ’appens. Old George is having a big week. He was something to do with that an’ all, even though it’s way off his patch. It was crates of hand grenades, hidden under some sacks of imported dried beans.’ From the way he told it, he obviously didn’t realize the two stories were in any way connected.

  The minute Dad mentioned dried beans, my mind flashed back to the image of the little girl and her saucepan full of rattling beans. It’s a peculiar fact about dreams and visions that they’re often stiff with hints and impressions but rarely give the straightforward story. It leaves me with the job of trying to work out what the hell they mean. To complicate matters still further, the threads get muddled until they are all tied up in knots, like washing coming out of a copper boiler. It could take ages to unravel the various bits and pieces.

  I was suddenly so glad I hadn’t told Maggie and Bert about the happy little girl, just in case my ‘turn’ was simply a way of telling me where the hand grenades were. Which, if that had been the case, had been a fat lot of good, because I had failed dismally to pick up the message. I thought it’d been about the child.

  The main thing was, though, the grenades had been taken away and safely disposed of and Lily Law was actively seeking the blighter who had stowed them. At least they had managed to stop the swine from offloading any more on to a dangerously stupid boy. A stupid boy who had a mother like Ma. The blood froze! It was something to be grateful for but I, for one, wouldn’t breathe easy until they had Brian’s cache as well.

  Gran made me jump. ‘Zelda!’ My head shot up. I’d been staring blindly at my plate. ‘I said, you look like two penn’orth of Gawd ’elp us today, are you all right?’

  ‘Sorry. I was miles away, wondering what anybody could want with crates of hand grenades. There’s no accounting for folk. You’d think everyone would have had enough of all that.’ I sighed hard. It was true, I did think we’d all had more than enough. ‘I didn’t sleep that well, Gran, I expect that’s it.’

  What I didn’t mention was that I’d had a dream, vague and full of a nameless dread that hung around long after I woke up. I saw a thin figure stumbling through mist and felt the terrible fear. The way my mind was working it probably meant I was going to bump into a skinny bloke in a fog, or something. I could’ve clouted Charlie, if only I had the nerve, for upsetting me so that all the psychic business started up again. I hardly ever saw happy things; they were nearly always sad or grim. Even when I thought I’d had a ‘good news flash’, it turned out to be about bloody grenades instead. It got me down, especially when it interfered with my beauty sleep and left me feeling like a wet rag.

  ‘What’s keeping you awake, love?’ Mum asked.

  ‘I got a letter from Charlie,’ I told them. ‘He’s home on leave next weekend.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Mum, Gran and Vi together.

  ‘I don’t think you should stay there, then,’ said Vi, shaking me and everyone else rigid. Vi noticed the shocked silence and added, ‘Well, I don’t. He really hurt our Zelda last time and he shouldn’t get the chance to do it again. It’s only for the weekend.’

  Dad spluttered with indignation, enraged at the very idea. ‘You can’t come between a man and his wife! You know that, Vi. Anyway, I expect she asked for it,’ he said, as if I wasn’t there. I hated that. ‘She can be a lippy beggar when she’s got a strop on.’

  ‘Nobody deserves what that man’s done to her, Dad. I don’t care what she did or what you say.’ Vi was on her high horse, which was funny because I never knew she even had one. Something had definitely changed in our Vi.

  ‘Now you watch your step, young lady,’ Dad warned, not being used to defiance from his middle daughter. Me, yes, but not his precious Violet. ‘And anyway, it ain’t just for a weekend, is it? Our Enie’s married to the man and he’
ll be home for good soon, won’t he? She can’t be away for ever, now can she? No, Enie made her bed and she can bloody well lie in it.’

  Vi had her mouth open to answer him back when I stepped in. If Vi could show some backbone, then so could I. ‘I expect, if it’s all the same to you, Dad, I’ll make my own decisions when the time comes. And my name’s Zelda,’ I added quietly.

  I thought he’d burst. ‘No, it’s not all the same to me. There’s no decision to be made. You’re a married woman and you’ve got responsibilities, duties, and you will see to them. That’s the way you’ve been brought up and that’s the way you’ll behave! And I ain’t arguing with you about bleeding names either.’

  I kept schtum but, at that moment, I knew he was wrong. I would do something about Charlie, whether Dad liked it or not. Suddenly, it really didn’t matter to me what Dad thought. As he kept saying, I was a married woman, and my behaviour and the decisions I made were no longer any of his bloody business. I smiled a secret smile at Vi, who winked back. I really could not believe the change in my sister. It was miraculous.

  When I asked her later what had got into her, she simply said, ‘I dunno, really. I’ve been thinking, that’s all. I saw what Charlie did to you, saw how scared you were and realized how lucky I’d been to have Fred. Even if he has been taken away from me, at least I’ve had him.’ She paused for a moment, eyes glazed as she looked back to her time with Fred. She smiled sadly. ‘You got lumbered with Charlie and that was never fair, not really. And Tony, well, he’s missed his dad, too, and I’ve only just realized what it’s meant to him. I feel bad, being so blind. I s’pose I was so wrapped up in my own feelings, I forgot about him and his feelings.’ I listened to her in utter amazement and said not a word, but I did slip my arm round her waist and gave her a grateful squeeze. She was all right, my sister. Both my sisters were.

  I went home that night in a very thoughtful mood. Everything seemed to be closing in. Charlie was looming, along with trouble for Tony, and work was awful, Mrs Dunmore being an unforgiving sort. She might not have sacked me, but she made sure I really earned my crust. Likewise, she drove Cook and Beryl hard for their cheek; she hadn’t forgotten that they’d threatened her, and I felt bad because they’d done it for me. If only I’d kept my mouth shut, everything would have been tickety-boo.

  That night I had the brooding dream again: the thin man, the mist, the dread. Perhaps Charlie was the thin man and the dread was mine – I mean, I was afraid of him, there was no denying that. But they felt separate. My fear of Charlie felt like mine, but the nameless dread felt more general. The thin man’s? Perhaps Charlie dreaded coming home. It was possible. Ours was hardly a marriage made in heaven, and I expect he felt as stuck with it as I did.

  I woke up with the dread hanging around like a bad smell. When I sniffed, I got Evening in Paris. The air was drenched with it, and then it was gone. I blinked hard, shook myself slightly and got up. No point in hanging about in bed worrying and dreaming. I washed my face in cold water, had a cup of tea and then lay down again, hoping for another couple of hours’ sleep before work, bright and early on Monday morning.

  39

  Zinnia didn’t answer her back door when I knocked that Monday after work. So, as was my custom – and indeed, everyone else’s – I simply walked into the kitchen when I found the door wasn’t locked. It meant she wasn’t far away. Halfway between the door and the centre of the room, I stopped in my tracks: there in the middle of her kitchen table lay a tabby cat, stretched out and stiff and looking distinctly dead.

  I couldn’t bring myself to examine it more closely, to see which one it was. I had thought Hallelujah was mending nicely, almost back in mid-season form. I backed away. Then I noticed a note beside it, in red. It looked as if it had been written with a forefinger, dipped in blood.

  This time your cat, next time it could be you. Fuck off, your not wanted here. You have been told. A Friend

  I think I had my mouth open to scream, but nothing came out. The breath had caught in my gullet when I’d heard a sound from the other side of the door that led from the kitchen to the hallway and the rest of the house. The shiny brass knob turned and I stared at it, heart in my mouth. ‘Zin?’ I squeaked. Then, a little louder, ‘Zin?’

  Nothing happened for what felt like three days, but was more likely thirty seconds. Finally the door knob was released with a quiet ‘click’. I waited for the door to swing open but I distinctly heard retreating footsteps heading for the front door. I tried to move my feet, but I must have had lead shoes on, because they wouldn’t leave the flagstones. I had to shuffle across the room, past the table and its grisly burden.

  Zinnia could have been hurt, she could even be dead somewhere in the house. I had to get to her. She might need help, if she wasn’t beyond it. I took another scared look at the cat and tried harder. Despite feeling sick and shaky with fear, I made it to the door and yanked it open just in time to see a dim figure disappear out of the front of the house. Suddenly, my leaden heels had wings and I fair flew across the hallway, out of the swinging front door and into the open air.

  All I can remember is falling, blackness and stars, lots and lots of stars, and thinking that stars couldn’t be right, it was still daytime. I woke up to find Zinnia peering down at me. Her dear, familiar and, what’s more, still living face was full of anxiety.

  ‘Are you all right, hen?’ she asked, which struck me as a silly question. Of course I wasn’t all right. For the second time in just a few days, I’d found myself coming round from being sparko. It had to stop. I sat up gingerly, rubbed my head and found a bump the size of half a lemon on the back of it. It throbbed and I had a mighty headache.

  ‘I think I’d better get you into the parlour. You can lie on the sofa. If I put my arm around you, can you stand up, hen?’ I nodded, then wished I hadn’t; I saw more stars than the Milky Way and felt the ground heaving like a heavy sea. I was definitely about to lose my dinner. Zinnia was on top of the situation and whipped a plant out of its fancy jardinière in one deft movement. I chucked my socks up into that.

  I don’t remember getting there, but we must have made it to the parlour because that’s where I woke up next. I sat up again and felt better this time; groggy, but better. I took a while to work out where I was, but got it in the end. I must have been at Zinnia’s for a while, though, because it was daylight when I last looked and it was getting dark when I woke up.

  I was thirsty. I swung my legs to the floor but found I had jelly knees that didn’t feel at all safe to walk with. I gave it a few moments, then had another go. It was better; I managed to stand and, by hanging on to the furniture and then the wall, I made it to the door and out into the hallway, where I paused before feeling my way to the kitchen door. I was parched and the tap was my distant oasis.

  When I pushed open the door, I saw a man sitting in Zinnia’s kitchen. He looked very faintly familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He looked up and grinned at me. My heart almost stopped. Who was he? What did he want? Where was Zinnia?

  ‘Wotcha. How’re you?’ he asked. It wasn’t the sort of question or grin you expected from a murderer, but I was cautious. Things had turned very nasty round at Zinnia’s, one way and another.

  I didn’t answer straight away, but just gawped at him. Who was this geezer anyway? He looked a bit foreign to me, but he didn’t sound it. There was one way to find out.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked rudely.

  ‘I’m staying here for a few days, guest of the lady of the house, and you’re her mate what got coshed,’ he told me. So that’s what happened. I had wondered. The last thing I remembered was a dead cat …

  ‘Hallelujah?’ I croaked.

  ‘Nah, Frankie. I’m a mate of Maltese Joe. I’m from up West.’

  I had a vague memory of someone called Joe and a message for Zinnia, but I couldn’t quite recall it all. The bloke was cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a vicious-looking knife, which was a bit off-putting, but on the other
hand, that’s all he was doing, and he was familiar. If he was dangerous, surely I’d remember who he was. I decided I ought to be thorough, though. ‘If you’re her guest, you should know her name. What’s this lady called?’ I asked.

  He grinned even wider and was about to answer me when the lady in question breezed in from the garden with a handful of herbs. ‘Oh, I see you two have met. Sit down, hen, before you fall down. I’ll pop the kettle on. I’ve got some fennel here, it might help your poor stomach. How’re you feeling?’

  I told her and she nodded sombrely and got me a glass of water while we waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Take small sips, in case you’re sick again. I think it’s only a minor concussion, but I’d like to keep an eye on you all the same. Looks like whoever coshed you didn’t quite have the aim; it was a glancing blow.’ I felt my bump with tender fingers. If this was ‘glancing’, I thought, I’d hate it if the bugger really meant it.

  ‘Do you know what happened, hen?’ she asked.

  I explained about hearing footsteps and the lights going out, as it were. ‘I’m sorry about Hallelujah,’ I told her. My eyes filled with tears. I must’ve been weakened by the blow. But I had grown fond of the moggies, especially since we’d rescued them from the cellar.

  ‘Ach, that wasn’t Hallelujah,’ Zinnia reassured me. ‘He’s away out chasing moths, I’ve just seen him. No, that was a puir wee stray that’s been hanging about lately. I’ve been trying to tempt it in but it’s been awfy shy for a starving cat, so I’ve had to leave its food on the step. If it’s any comfort, hen, I think it died of natural causes. It was never right, that one.’ She handed me a clean hanky and I had a good blow.

  ‘So how did it wind up on your kitchen table?’ I asked. ‘And the note, what about the note?’ I paused. ‘And who bashed me over the head?’

  Zinnia laughed softly. ‘One question at a time, there’s a dear. You’ve always been a great one for the questions. It’s why we get on: I like an inquisitive mind, and yours has always been that all right, from a wee bairn.’ She smiled at me and carried on.