Caught!

by JL Merrow

  “I’m in absolutely no danger of getting a unibrow.” I peered into the hall mirror, relieved to find no unruliness in evidence. “My eyebrows are perfectly discrete.”

  “What, small, inconspicuous and won’t give away your secrets?”

  “That’s e-t-e, not double-e-t. Meaning discontinuous and individual.”

  “God, I bet when you were little you used to ask Santa for a dictionary for Christmas.”

  It had been the Encyclopedia Britannica, actually. I decided not to mention this. “Well, you enjoy yourself getting plucked like a chicken.”

  “Yeah,” Rose said, sounding strangely amused. “I’ll do that. Me and the girls. Doing girly stuff.”

  Tuesday evening, I went onto Facebook and found she’d uploaded a new photograph with the title “Girly Day Out”. It showed her in helmet and lifejacket, hurtling down the Olympic white-water course on a raft with seven other women, some of whom I recognised from St Saviour’s School. Their expressions ranged from abject terror through grim determination to demonic glee (Rose).

  Feeling properly chastised for my presumption, I liked the picture and added a comment: Mea culpa. Skydiving next?

  Her reply blooped in a few seconds later: I’m game if u r. Will see if can arrange.

  Ye gods.

  I hoped she was joking.

  Chapter Eleven

  Halloween this year fell smack in the middle of the half-term holiday. The Old Hatter’s Cottage being smack in the middle of the village, I thought I’d better get in a goodly supply of sweets or risk the consequences. After further deliberation, I also purchased a small and somewhat oddly shaped pumpkin, which was all that was left in the village Tesco.

  Scooping it out was a lot messier than I’d imagined, and I was covered in slimy, stringy, orange stuff when I’d finished, but I also had a perfectly functional jack-o’-lantern to place outside my door. The Internet had been a mine of intimidatingly complex ideas for carving the thing, but I went for the classic triangular eyes and nose, with a very approximately crescent-shaped mouth, and it didn’t look too bad.

  At least, I was confident very few of class 2E could have done much better. Not without help, at any rate.

  After a seasonal meal of canned spaghetti on toast—when plated, it looked uncannily similar to pumpkin innards, which didn’t help my appetite overmuch—I settled down with a copy of M.R. James to await my visitors. I was barely four pages into Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad before the first knock came. I flew to the door and found two miniature demons standing on my doorstep, accompanied by a very large and rotund ghost.

  “Trick or treat!” they chorused. The demonic voices were infantile and lisping; the ghostly one gruff and manly, which at least solved the question of whether I was looking at a pregnant spirit or one with a fondness for ectoplasmic beer.

  I cowered in mock fear and held out the bowl of sweets at arm’s length. The demons giggled and very politely took one sweet each. “Oh, go on, take a handful,” I encouraged them. “You deserve it for being so scary.”

  “Thank you,” they chorused.

  “Cheers, mate,” their ghostly guardian added. “Oh, and good costume. Matt Smith’s Doctor Who, right?”

  “Right,” I said, with a somewhat fixed smile.

  It would only have embarrassed us both if I’d admitted I was in my usual clothes.

  “You ought to get a fez,” was the spectre’s parting shot. “Be even better then.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind. Thanks.” I shut the door and sat back down with old Monty’s ghost stories and a miniature Mars bar to await the next callers.

  An hour or so later, by which time two separate fathers of preschool children had informed me they’d liked Tom Baker better, I opened the door to a loud, confident knock and found two redheaded spiders and a six-foot-tall black rat standing on my doorstep.

  “Trick or treat!” the twins yelled at high volume.

  Sean lifted the snout of his costume to grin at me through the mouth. “How’s it going? Had any more visitors? Little furry ones, I mean.”

  “Up until now, my house has been refreshingly rodent-free,” I said, smiling back at him. “Although there seems to be a bit of an arachnid infestation right now. I don’t suppose you’ve got any tips to deal with that?”

  “Chocolate. Give ’em chocolate, and they’ll go away. Won’t you, lads?”

  “Yeah!” they shouted as one. I duly held the bowl out, and they dived in. Fortunately with only one hand each, not the twelve they now seemed to possess between them.

  “Are you having a good half-term holiday, boys?” I asked them.

  There followed an excited competition between them as Wills and Harry each tried to tell me in his loudest possible voice all about his own particular favourite half-term activity. The net result was that I was no wiser when they finished speaking than when they’d started as to what they’d actually been doing. But I got the general impression they’d been enjoying themselves.

  “How about you?” Sean asked, his voice warming me despite the chill in the night air.

  “Good,” I said. “Cunning marketing ploy, by the way.”

  He laughed. “Yep. Any excuse to drum up trade. Debs made the boys’ costumes. They wanted to be zombies at first, but we persuaded them spiders are scarier.” He didn’t add and less morbid, but I strongly suspected that might also have been a factor.

  “Absolutely,” I said firmly. “After all, how many people do you know who’ve ever been terrorised by a zombie in the bath?”

  The giant rat head nodded. “Although fair dues, they’d be a lot harder to wash down the plug hole.”

  There were predictable yells of “You’re not washing me down a plug hole!” Then the left-hand spider (Wills, I thought, but it was hard to be certain with them in costume) asked, “Why didn’t you dress up, Mr. Enemy?”

  “Emeny,” Sean said. “And not all grown-ups like dressing up.”

  “On the contrary,” I said drily and recounted the compliments I’d received on my “costume”.

  “But Doctor Who’s not scary,” Harry (or possibly Wills) complained.

  “Oh? You tell that to a Dalek. Daleks are terrified of the Doctor.” I folded my arms.

  “Are they scared of spiders too?” Wills/Harry asked.

  “Probably. Actually, yes, definitely. Spiders creep inside their metal cases where they can’t exterminate them and crawl all over their squidgy alien bits. And there’s nothing the Daleks can do about it.” I smiled.

  Four arachnid eyes opened wide. “Yeah! We’re going to scare the Daleks!”

  I looked up from the twins to see Sean gazing at me from beneath the rat’s snout. The costume cast a shadow over his expression, leaving me unable to interpret it, but it seemed like something important had been said, nonetheless. We didn’t speak for a moment. Then Sean let the snout fall to cover his face almost completely. “Come on, lads. We’d better get on to some other houses before they run out of sweets, yeah? Say thanks, now.”

  “Thanks Mr. Enemy!” they yelled, and then they were gone, Sean with them.

  It was only as I closed the door that it registered they’d come a very long way from their house. Sean must have driven them down in the van. Were pickings really that much better in the village centre?

  Or had he wanted to visit me in particular?

  It was probably just wishful thinking. But the thought warmed me, nonetheless.

  After that, the trick-or-treaters died down to a mere trickle of treaters. There were a few more witches and vampires, an absolutely adorable pumpkin-in-arms, and then that seemed to be it for the night.

  I settled back down with my bowl of sweets and thought about Sean. He should have looked utterly ridiculous in that rat costume, but somehow he’d managed to carry it off.

  Although poss
ibly I was biased.

  Chapter Twelve

  It seemed amazing, in hindsight, to think I’d been concerned the week-long half-term holiday would drag. In fact, what with all the preparations for the next six weeks of school, coupled with sorting out a few things in the house I’d let slide while I was still finding my feet, it seemed no time at all before Friday evening rolled around. Of course, I’d also finally had the chance to give Peter’s piano a proper workout and dust off my collection of Scott Joplin rags. The Head had been kind enough to allow me to play the children out of assembly with the occasional burst of “The Entertainer”, but it wasn’t quite the same as playing on my own instrument.

  I gave the top of the piano an affectionate stroke as I wondered if Sean liked ragtime, or could be persuaded to.

  It would probably be best not to spring it on him too soon, I decided.

  Dressing for my second date with Sean was significantly easier than for the first. (Not, of course, that the first date had actually been a date. Or, indeed, anything that I really wanted to dwell on, in retrospect.) For one thing, I already had the assurance that Sean liked my bow ties. For another, I could be confident in advance he’d get a kick out of this particular tie: it was a subtle grey, with a tasteful print of little blue TARDISes spinning jauntily along the space-time continuum.

  Of course, we hadn’t actually said this date was, in fact, a date. Had we? Perhaps Sean just wanted to be friends. Which would be fine, obviously. Friends were good to have. And usually significantly less complicated to deal with than people you actually got to share your bed and your life with.

  I imagined waking up with Sean on a weekend morning. Would he be a cuddler? Yes, I was sure he would be. We’d wake up entwined, all warm and drowsy, and he’d be hard and so would I, and we’d have all morning to…

  I cut off that line of thought ruthlessly. Any more of that and I’d need to take another shower. A cold one.

  At 7:28, I heard the roar of Sean’s motorbike as he pulled up in what I was now doomed to think of for all eternity as mi entrada. I took a deep breath, checked my reflection in the hall mirror and threw open the door.

  Lit from above by the streetlamp, Sean pulled off his helmet, ran a hand through his copper hair and smiled. The shadows gave his roguish features an almost demonic air that had me in serious danger of needing that cold shower after all. “Honey, I’m home.”

  I couldn’t have stopped myself from smiling back if I’d wanted to. “And what sort of a time do you call this?” I paused, mentally replaying how that might have sounded. “Um. We were quoting Doctor Who, weren’t we? Because actually you’re right on time.”

  His smile broadened. “We were. Although I probably should have been River and let you have the Doctor’s line, seeing as you’re the one in the bow tie. Are you ready to go? If we’re quick, we can get a drink in before it starts.”

  “Yes, absolutely.” Manfully resisting the urge to pull him into the house and say to hell with the amateur dramatics, I patted my pocket to make sure I had my keys, slipped my feet into my brogues and joined him outside. The stiff autumn breeze made me shiver, but on the plus side, it had a distinctly cooling effect on my ardour which was probably just as well, seeing as we were going to be out in public.

  “Sure you don’t want to grab a coat?” Sean asked.

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. It’s only a six-minute walk. Nearer five, if we’re walking briskly. What?” I asked. Sean’s smile had taken on the sort of look I often saw directed by mothers at the least intelligent of their offspring.

  “Nothing. Just, you know, most people aren’t that exact about timings. Come on, we’d better get moving. We’ll only have”—he looked at his watch—“twenty-three minutes to get those drinks in.”

  “Are you making fun of me?” I asked suspiciously as we crossed the road.

  “Would I?” His eyes were wide and guileless.

  “Yes,” I decided firmly. “Yes, you would.”

  “Well, only a little bit. Just to keep you on your toes.” He grinned. “If nothing else, that’ll even out the height difference.”

  I mock-glared at him. “I’m sure you were exaggerating anyway. I strongly suspect if we measured you now you’d only come up at five foot eleven and three quarters. Possibly only five foot eleven and a half.”

  “Ah, but we’re all the same height lying down. Least, that’s what Debs always says.”

  “How is she?” I asked, aghast at myself for having failed to do so earlier. We’d just passed the pub, a burst of chatter and laughter reaching our ears as someone opened the door, and were heading up the sparsely lit back lane towards the park.

  “She’s doing really well.” He shrugged. “Well, you know. Considering. She’s been enjoying half term with the twins.”

  Really? I thought, but didn’t say aloud. Personally I’d have thought the company of two young tearaways was the last thing an ill woman needed, but presumably it was different for their mother. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a while since she’s been feeling up to taking them out places. And they’ve had a couple of cinema trips—you know how they do these Kids’ Clubs in the school holidays, with cheap seats—so she’s been able to take it easy some of the time as well. But she’s been a lot better since she finished the chemo.”

  “I’m glad.” We rounded the corner and walked up the narrow lane alongside the park, its other side lined with houses whose owners had no doubt paid a pretty premium for their uninterrupted view across the fields. All that could be made out at this time of night, of course, was the string of moving fairy lights made up from the headlights of cars driving along the distant village bypass.

  The village hall loomed at the very top of the park, standing guard over the tennis courts and the kiddies’ playground. Inside, it was quite large, with a wide permanent stage at one end, raised high enough from the floor that the lack of banked seating wasn’t a problem. Ranks of orange plastic chairs had been set out with a central aisle, giving an effect somewhat similar to a registry office, although without the tense atmosphere usually imparted by feuding relatives.

  The bar was in a little side room, separated from the main hall by a folding partition. We ordered drinks for now—wine for both of us this time, as apparently the extremely limited bar didn’t stock the right kind of beer—and more for the interval. I was a little concerned about Sean riding his bike after a couple of glasses of wine, but I needn’t have troubled myself. The plastic “glasses”, when they arrived, were exceedingly small.

  “Are they worried people will get drunk and heckle the performers?” I whispered to Sean as we took our drinks to a quiet corner.

  “Nah,” he whispered back. “I reckon it’s just that a lot of the old folk who come to these things aren’t all that steady on their feet to start with.”

  And indeed, the crowd milling about seemed to consist mainly of a rather older demographic than I had expected, given that this was Friday, and Saturday was supposed to be grannies’ night. I wondered if they’d be shocked to see two men on a date together. Or if they just wouldn’t realise we were, in fact, on a date together. Which, upon reflection, was far more likely. I’d had it drummed into me from a very early age that public displays of affection were vulgar, and although I’d gone past the stage of holding rigidly to Mother’s teachings, I really didn’t think this was either the time or the place to start snogging in public.

  Assuming, of course, Sean was even interested in snogging. In public or otherwise. Maybe this wasn’t a date. Maybe he’d just invited me here as, well, a friend. Hadn’t I stressed just that when I’d asked him to Badgers?

  Feeling a little depressed, I put my thimbleful of wine down on a table and flicked through the programme, which had cost me a pound on the way in. As the content was almost entirely made up of adverts for village businesses, I wasn’t totally certai
n I’d got my money’s worth.

  “In the interests of full disclosure,” Sean said quietly in my ear, “I probably ought to mention Eliza Doolittle’s my ex.”

  Eliza Doolittle, my programme informed me, was played by Heather Matthews. She was, presumably, the dark-skinned, pretty young woman adorning the posters which had been placed all over the village to advertise the event.

  I knew there had been something about her I disliked.

  “We’re still friends, but that’s all it is,” Sean went on. “And if you could, you know, say something, I might feel a bit less like I’ve just ballsed things up completely.”

  “I…” I stared at the programme. “Is this a date? I mean, well…”

  “Yeah,” he said and took hold of my hand. “It’s a date.”

  I darted guilty glances around the hall. Most people, either huddled in their little conversational groups or already seated, had their backs to us, but Emily G’s granny caught my eye and waved. I waved my programme at her awkwardly, left-handed, as Sean still had my right hand in his disconcerting grasp. I was certain my face must be worryingly red. “Are you sure this is, well, appropriate?” I hissed in Sean’s ear. Oh God, would it look like I was kissing him?

  “We’re holding hands, not shagging,” he whispered back. “Didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. Anyway, we probably ought to go and sit down. You can take your glass in, don’t worry.”

  He let go of my hand. Freed of his grasp, it felt smaller, and bereft, as he led me to a pair of seats quite near the back. “That’s all right,” I said inadequately, but couldn’t quite muster the courage to take his hand back once we’d sat down.

  The lights dimmed, and some poorly reproduced music began to play, swiftly followed by the opening of the curtains to disclose a mocked-up Victorian street scene, where a young lady in tattered period garb was attempting to sell some rather modern-looking artificial flowers.

  I soon realised Sean had been right when he’d said that some of them could act. Eliza (curse her) was rather good, as were Professor Higgins and Mr. Doolittle, but Freddy was more wooden than the scenery and far too old for the role. He and Colonel Pickering were much of an age, instead of at least a generation apart. Still, it was entertaining enough to a crowd who had come willing to be pleased. Eliza’s timing and delivery on the iconic Not bloody likely line was impeccable, and I roared with laughter with the rest of the audience. Crispin, I thought, wouldn’t have been seen dead here. I felt an unwonted—and to be honest, unwanted—pang of sympathy for him.