Bridget has walked off the job! She can’t come back after that.
Mrs. Dickinson sits in the dark garden and savors her victory. A flock of rooks passes overhead, squawking, to land in the distant elms. If she stays quiet she can hear the soft scratch of the guinea pigs in their hutch as they make their nest in the straw. She wonders if Bridget filled her hot-water bottle before she left.
Why didn’t Elizabeth come? She didn’t even give a reason. Because she hasn’t got a reason. She just couldn’t be bothered. My only child, and she can’t be bothered to come when I call. For all she knows I’m dying. Except of course Bridget would have told her it’s nothing. The old bat making a nuisance of herself over nothing.
I shall kill that woman. If she comes back.
Now she does feel cold. Suddenly it’s more than she can bear. She knows she must get herself into her warm bed.
She grasps the arms of the garden chair, shuffles her bottom to the edge of the seat, and pushes. Up she goes. There. Who says I need help? She turns herself slowly to face the house. The light in the kitchen window throws an illuminated rectangle across the stone-paved path. Moving slowly, probing with her stick, she sets off on the journey to the back door.
Walking is hard work. Not just the effort required to pull one leg ahead of the other: there’s the constant worry over maintaining your balance. You take it for granted all your life, but it turns out that staying upright is a feat of skill that requires constant responses from muscles all over your body. This common act of crossing the garden is now fraught with danger. Get the movement of an arm or the lean of the back just a little wrong and you fall. So everything has to happen very, very slowly.
She reaches the back door at last. The door is standing as Bridget left it, half open. She puts out her left hand to support her weary weight on the door handle. The door swings back under the pressure. And down she goes.
Falling has its own familiar pattern. The first terrible moment of helplessness. Then the slithering crumpling descent, in which many parts of your body are bumped, but you feel no pain. Then seeing the floor and the walls at odd angles, and not quite knowing where you are. Then twisting your head about you and seeing an arm, a leg, all in strange places. Then the throbbing sensations in various unidentified regions of your body, and the rush of sudden weakness that makes you lay your head down again. Then the pain.
Maybe you’ve broken a hip. Maybe you’ll have to go to hospital. Maybe you’ll have a general anesthetic and die. Or not die, but lie in bed for weeks and weeks, and die later.
Falling is the prelude to dying.
She lies still for a few minutes longer. Then she starts to wriggle her limbs. They all respond. Bruised but not broken. So she begins the slow arduous process of raising herself up off the ground.
The first stage is to get into a sitting position. This she achieves by pushing against the doorframe. But getting up on her feet is another matter. Not that she’s a heavy woman, there’s not much of her at all. But try lifting yourself up when there’s nothing to pull on and you’d think you were tied to the ground with leather straps.
She heaves and strains, and feels what little strength she has left draining out of her. She could try crawling, but that means turning onto her knees, and one knee hurts. There’s a dustbin nearby, she could pull herself up on that, but it’s not quite within reach.
So there she sits, in the open back doorway, with the cool night breeze sucking the heat from her body, and the bruises from her fall pulsing in her thigh, her knee, her elbow. Tears form in her eyes, but she’s too tired to cry.
It’s all Bridget’s fault. She left the door half open. She made me fall. She left me to cope on my own. How wonderful is that, Elizabeth?
She knows now what it is she must do. She must press the red panic button that hangs round her neck. She’s not injured, it’s not an emergency. But if she stays here all night, who knows what state she’ll be in by the morning?
Don’t fall, Elizabeth says. Whatever you do, don’t fall. Well, now I’ve fallen. You try staying on your feet all day at my age. Try doing anything at my age.
She fumbles for the string round her neck, pulls out the heavy plastic fob. Her stiff fingers feel for the dome of the button. She presses. Then she presses again, and again. Nothing happens, it makes no sound. Now all she can do is wait.
A few minutes go by. Then her phone starts ringing. It rings and rings, then falls silent. Another minute. Then the Lifeline speaker by the phone wakes up with a cackle. A boomy echoey voice says, “Mrs. Dickinson? Are you all right?”
“No,” she says. “Send someone.”
“Mrs. Dickinson?” calls the voice. “Can you hear me?”
I can hear you but you can’t hear me. My voice isn’t strong enough. I’m by the back door. My knee hurts. I want to be in bed.
The crackling and booming ceases. Silence returns. Nothing to do now but wait.
She feels the need to sleep. It tugs at her like a child. Then she feels another need, to be held, to be cuddled, to be comforted. Take me in your arms. Make me safe, make me warm.
Love me.
She finds she’s crying. Angrily she pushes the tears from her face. She doesn’t want pity. But just because she’s old and her body is failing doesn’t mean she has no need of love.
How did this happen? How did I get so there’s no one who loves me? It must be my own fault, but I don’t know what I did wrong. Rex pretended to love me, then he left. Elizabeth does her duty, but she finds me a burden. The grandchildren never visit. Perry’s gone. All I’ve got is Bridget, and she hates me. Am I such a despicable creature? Am I so worthless that no one in all the world loves me?
Then she sleeps a little, sitting in the doorway. As sleep relaxes her, she tips slowly to one side, and feeling herself falling again, she wakes.
Time passes. Impossible to say how long.
Then the sound of a car, and footsteps, and the front door opening. Someone coming through the hall, into the kitchen.
Elizabeth.
“Oh, my God! Are you all right?”
Elizabeth takes her hand and helps her up. Mrs. Dickinson feels tottery, her legs seem to have forgotten how to support her. But with Elizabeth’s help she makes it to her bed in the room that used to be called the study. Elizabeth talks all the way in that tight high voice she uses when she’s stressed.
“What happened? Why on earth didn’t Bridget get you to bed? How long have you been there? Thank God you pressed your button. What can Bridget have been thinking? It’s almost ten o’clock. What on earth happened?”
Mrs. Dickinson is too tired and too cold to speak. She lets her daughter help her get undressed and into her nightie. All she wants is to be in bed.
“Are you sure you haven’t broken anything? Does it hurt anywhere? Why wasn’t Bridget here?”
“She left.”
“She’s supposed to help you go to bed. She knows that.”
Now Mrs. Dickinson is in bed and beginning at last to feel warm again. Funny how cold you can get even in mid-summer. She hears her daughter fussing round her, tugging at her bedclothes, asking her about Bridget, but she no longer has the energy to speak. Elizabeth sounds very angry with Bridget, which soothes the old lady. Yes, she thinks as she lets herself slide into sleep, Bridget abandoned me. She failed in her duty. She wants to tell Elizabeth more, now that at last she’s begun to understand. How Bridget hates her and torments her, and wants her to die. How Bridget has been plotting to steal her house. How unhappy and lonely she is. How long the day lasts. How she wants so much to be cuddled. How easy it is to fall. But she says none of these things, not aloud.
She sleeps.
6
Dean drives his van up the Offham Road and waits at the junction to pull out onto the main road. A blaze of approaching headlights. Terry’s in the seat beside him. A truck rumbles by.
“Done this before, Tel?” says Dean.
“Not as such,” says Terry.
/> Out on the A275 between night trees, the van’s engine struggling, needs retuning. Needs scrapping, more like, but where’s the money coming from for new wheels?
Dean has a plan, a dream you could call it. Buy a new van, new tools, set up as a Mr. Fixit, come to your house, fix anything. Fencing, walling, drive maintenance, rubbish clearance, all the little jobs the big boys won’t touch. His name and mobile number on the side of the truck: Dean Keeley, No Job Too Small. Sheena thinks it’s a good plan, she’s backing him all the way. Not like there’s much work going on the building sites these days.
“You’re lucky you got out,” he says to Terry, meaning out of Landport. “Nice place you’ve got now.”
“It’s okay,” says Terry.
“Doing good for yourself.”
“Tell you what, Deanie,” says Terry. “Makes no fucking difference where you live, they still treat you like dirt. They’ve got the money and you don’t, that’s what it’s all about. You and me, we could work till we drop, we’d never make that kind of money. And you know how they get it? They’re born with it. They’re fucking millionaires from when they’re babies.”
“But at least you’re picking up a few jobs round your way.”
“Oh, right. His lordship tips me a tenner to chase away his rabbits. Her ladyship never says a word to me, not even a fucking nod. I’m telling you, that woman can’t even see me. And guess where all her money comes from? From her dad. Like I said, fucking millionaire babies.”
“Just luck in the end,” says Dean.
“We do what we can, don’t we, mate? Even up the odds.”
Ahead on the left looms the cut into the hillside that’s the old chalk pit. The van’s headlights sweep the high grimy white cliffs. The windows of the Chalk Pit Inn glow bright and cheerful. Half a dozen cars parked outside.
Terry jumps out.
“Give me half an hour,” he says.
Dean swings the grumbling van onto the road again and heads back into Lewes. Just before the Neville Estate begins he turns off up the rutted track that climbs the hill to the racecourse. Up here on bare downland there’s not exactly any roads, you just drive. He follows the tire marks in the beam of his lights, careful to stick to the run where others have been. Just before the training gallop he swings the van round full circle to look back down on the lights of Lewes. Here he settles down to wait for Terry.
Towns look different at night. And different from high up. There’s the castle, you can usually find that, high on its mound. And the river, and the lights of the Malling Estate rising up the flank of the Downs beyond. This is the landscape of his entire life.
Maybe I should have got away long ago, run away to London, made my fortune. Some chance. I got away all right, to Rochester Borstal, to Camp Hill. At Camp Hill they give you a whipping you don’t forget in a hurry.
When Dad was on the booze any little thing would set him off, and then I was for it. Send me up the road to fetch Granddad’s belt. Bring it home, bend over. Eight whacks on the bum. Then take the belt back to Granddad. Granddad never said a word. Funny, that, how he never said a word. You’re ten years old and you’ve got a dad who belts you and no one ever asks why. You don’t even ask why yourself.
Terry’s always been a good mate. He knows I need the money, but I promised Sheena no more hooky business. A promise is a promise. All I’m doing is bringing the van onto the racecourse so Terry can have a ride home. That’s all. Terry gets that.
“You’re not breaking any promise, Dean. You’re just helping a mate.”
So Dean watches and waits. A half-moon low in the sky, some stars. His phone rings. It’s Sheena, wanting to know when he’ll be home.
“Just having a drink with Terry,” he says. “Don’t wait up.”
Never before been anyone who wants him to come home.
“Love you, hon,” he says.
“Love you, babe,” she replies.
No one knows him the way Sheena knows him. No one else in the world he trusts, unless you count Brad. But Brad’s a loner. You’d never say hand on heart that Brad loves anyone. He’ll pull you out of a burning house. He’ll take a bullet for you. But you’ll never see him smile and you’ll never hear him cry.
He sees headlights coming up the track, and there’s this roaring animal of a car shuddering to a stop in front of his van. He gets out.
“Fucking hell!”
“This,” says Terry, “is a four-wheel-drive turbo-charged ”92 Cozzie with whale-tail spoiler. And there’s only seven thousand of them in the universe.’
“And you’re going to roll it?”
“That’s the job, kiddo.”
“You saw Jimmy Dawes?”
“I saw Jimmy Dawes and I didn’t see Jimmy Dawes. He comes into the pub to buy a packet of fags and I go outside and there’s the Cozzie with the keys in the ignition just like he said, and I’m away.”
“And you’re going to roll it.”
Dean strokes the sleek spoiler. Seems a dumb way to make a few grand, but what do I know?
“What’s she like to drive?”
“Like sweet fucking,” says Terry. “Ride of your life.”
He gets back into the car and eases it up the track while Dean watches. There’s a slope down to one side of the track, and that’s where the Cozzie’s going to roll. Lie it on its back and it’s a write-off. That’s official, insurance rules.
Terry cuts the engine and gets out. The Cozzie’s right by the edge of the slope. It’s not like he wants to go down with it. But the ground is rutted, and the wheels won’t roll.
“C’m here, Dean! Give us a hand!”
Together they push the car sideways on to the slope.
“You wearing gloves, mate?”
“Course I’m wearing gloves. I’m not an idiot.”
“Okay, okay. Just looking out for you. Give it some welly, now.”
They push some more and the car gets two wheels down the slope and starts to tilt. Then all at once it’s rolling. They stand back, hearing it bump down the slope. There’s some louder thumps, not as much as you’d think, then silence. Too dark to see how it’s landed.
“Get the van.”
Dean goes back and drives the van round so its headlights shine into the valley. There lies the Cozzie, wheels in the air. Terry jumps into the van beside Dean. Dean’s impressed.
“How’d you know she’d roll?”
“That’s a steep slope, mate. Send her down sideways, she’s going to roll.”
Dean drives them back through town, taking Terry home to Edenfield. Once they’re out the other side of the tunnel Terry pulls out his phone and makes a call.
“Jimmy?” he says. “Job done.”
Dean can hear the sounds of the voice on the other end but not the words. He feels Terry tensing up beside him.
“You can’t do that,” Terry says. “You can’t do that.”
He listens some more, then he ends the call without another word, thrusting his phone deep into his pocket.
“The fucker,” he says. “The fucker.”
“What?” says Dean.
“He just fucked us.”
“How? What’d he say?”
“He said, I quote, You call me again, I’ll get the police on you.”
“The police?”
“He said, I quote, I got witnesses you left the pub just before my car was nicked.”
“I don’t get it,” says Dean. “That’s what he wanted.”
“He fucked us,” says Terry savagely. “That’s what he just did.”
“But why? You rolled it like he wanted.”
“Oh, sure. Too fucking right. So now he’ll claim on his insurance and get his five grand. And we get fucking zip.”
“But he can’t do that!”
“He just did it.”
Dean takes in the full scale of the calamity.
“So we don’t get paid?”
“Good old Deanie. You’re there, mate.”
Dean is
shocked. You don’t just break your word. There are limits.
“Fuck all we can do about it,” says Terry.
“Break his fucking legs,” says Dean, his outrage growing.
“This is Jimmy Dawes, right? He’s got family.”
Dean knows. You don’t pick a fight with the Dawes boys. So that’s it. It’s over. He had this sweet dream they’d drive over to Jimmy’s place and Jimmy’d come out smiling, a fistful of fifties in his hand.
I should have known. I never get the luck.
They drive up the main road to Edenfield in silence. When Dean drops Terry off at his house, Terry squeezes his arm and says, “I’m sorry, mate.”
“Not your fault,” says Dean.
But he’s choked.
“I’m just a fucking loser,” he says. “Always was. You should have got someone else.”
“Luck of the draw,” says Terry. “You’re no more a loser than me or anyone else.”
“I’ve been shat on all my life,” says Dean. “I’ve done time. I’ve tried doing myself in. I can’t win, Tel. They won’t let me. I’m fucked, mate. Always have been.”
“Except you’ve got Sheena.”
“I’m telling you, if I lose that woman, I’m out of here. I’m gone. I’m finished.”
“Want to come in for a beer?”
“No. I’m off home.”
That’s when Terry gives him this look that comes out of nowhere. Like he actually cares.
“I’m going to see you right, Dean,” he says.
“Forget it.”
“So you can buy that ring.”
“Not your problem, mate.”
“I’m on this job, gutting this house. I could do with a hand. I reckon I can get you a couple of days at a hundred a day.”
“You reckon?”
“Why not? Gets the job done faster, doesn’t it?”
“I’m up for that. Cheers, Terry.”
“I’ll give you a bell first thing in the morning. Now fuck off home to your woman.”
Dean gives him a wave and drives off. As he drives he thinks about how Jimmy Dawes screwed them over and he can still hardly believe it.