‘Why? What’s the matter with it?’
We were interrupted by a sudden hammering on the door. ‘Come out, you murdering witch – I know you’re in there!’ screeched Angie.
I thought of those long, blood-red talons reaching out for me, shuddered and backed away, but Mace got up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Opening the door,’ he said calmly.
I darted in front of him clutching at him with both hands. He simply swept me behind him like I weighed nothing, and turned the handle.
I peered around him; Angie, poised for another onslaught at the knocker, overbalanced and fell forward onto the path, where she stared up at him between witch-locks of violently auburn hair.
‘Can I help you?’ Mace asked politely.
The transformation from raging, unbalanced harpy to normal-if-drooling fan was astonishing in a science-fiction, shape-changing sort of way. Maybe the aliens were at it again. Probably recruited her at the same time as Matt.
‘You’re Mace North, aren’t you? I loved you in
One Midsummer Night
, and – aargh!’
She flung herself frantically back as a clatter of hoofs heralded Elfreda Whippington-Smythe’s sudden advent. Her large and expensive-looking horse slid to a stone-rattling halt and stood steaming, reeking and rolling its eyes, vast hoofs inches away from Angie.
‘Oh, Mace,’ Elfreda gasped, wrestling with the reins as her mount jerked its head up and down. Her little round boiled-gooseberry eyes under the pulled-down hat zoomed in on her quarry and I don’t think she noticed anyone else was there.
‘Hef you heard? That Charlie Rhymer’s an actual murderess! Inga at the nursery—’ She stopped as some elements of the tableau before her finally registered. ‘Oh … you’re there, Charlie?’
I stood on tiptoe and peeped around Mace, who was still holding me behind his back like a secret present. ‘Yes, the murderess in person – and this is Inga’s guest.’ I indicated Angie, momentarily silenced. ‘The murderee’s widow.’
In the face of a new, expanded audience, Angie gave it her all: ‘She killed my husband! She led him on, and then killed him when he made a pass at her!’
‘I killed him, but I certainly didn’t lead him on!’ I said indignantly. ‘He sneaked into my house and assaulted me, and his death was an accident.’
‘An accident? You hit him with a cast-iron pan!’
‘It dropped on his head, and I’ve got an unimpeachable witness to prove it.’
‘If you mean that batty old cow who lived opposite you, she’d say anything.’
‘Don’t speak like that about one of my best friends!’ I said furiously, trying to duck under Mace’s arm, but he held me back with muscles like iron.
‘I just thought you ought to be warned about the woman looking after your child,’ Elfreda said to him stuffily. ‘Especially after what she did to Gunilla at the nursery.’
‘She didn’t do anything to Gunilla. It was the other way around, and
I
have an eyewitness to that one – Caitlin,’ Mace said pleasantly. ‘But thank you for the warning, Mrs Whippington-Smythe. How nice of you to rally to a helpless man’s defence.’
She stared at him, went faintly pink, and kick-started her nag into movement. ‘I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known you were under her spell already,’ she said nastily, and jolted away like a sack of potatoes. King Edwards.
‘What spell? I haven’t
done
any spell!’ I yelled indignantly; trying again to release myself and get around Mace.
‘
Will
you be still?’ he said exasperatedly over his shoulder, then turned back to Angie. ‘I’m so sorry about your husband, but I’m sure Charlie didn’t mean to kill him – it was clearly an accident – and if you persist in trying to blacken her name like this there is a law in this country she can use to stop you. Haven’t you got a life of your own to lead, instead of running a hate campaign?’
‘Life? No – I
had
a good life, and we were going to Japan after Christmas! And there isn’t even a proper pension, and the insurance are hanging back on paying out, and to top it all, the squirrels are an act of God! And it’s all because of that innocent-looking bitch behind you.’
‘I don’t think you can blame the squirrels on me, Angie,’ I protested. She ignored me, her voice rising.
‘She hasn’t always looked like that, you know. When she killed my husband she looked like the vamp she is!’
‘Goth,’ I corrected. ‘Different thing. I’m sorry about … well, about everything, Angie. Can’t you just let it rest and get on with life?’
‘Never,’ she said, turning away. ‘You just wait, Charlie Rhymer. I’m going to make sure your name is like mud, stinking mud, around here.’
‘You could get her stopped,’ Mace said, pushing me back in and closing the door.
‘Anyone who matters around here knows already. The incomers are the only ones who won’t have heard yet.’
‘Like me? Don’t
I
matter?’
‘Well, yes, but I
was
going to tell you, Angie just got to you first. You can let go of me now,’ I added pointedly.
‘I’m not sure I dare – you’ve got quite a temper.’
‘I don’t think I even register as a blip on the Mace North scale of temper, and anyway, I’m not angry with
you
.’
He gazed down at me, his grip tightening rather than letting go …
‘People were shouting, Daddy,’ Caitlin said, pushing the door open with a large bag from which spilled clothes, teddy bears and hair ribbons in artless profusion. ‘Why are you holding Charlie?’
‘To stop her flying off.’
Caitlin giggled. ‘Like a fairy?’
‘Something like that. Don’t you think it’s a bit early to pack?’ Mace said mildly.
Caitlin was to have tea with the twins and stay the night, while the grown-ups had dinner in a civilised manner – though actually no Rhymer Birthday Feast had ever quite managed that yet.
‘Perhaps Charlie wouldn’t mind going upstairs and helping you to repack it a bit?’ he suggested.
‘If we’re not disturbing you?’
‘I find you constantly disturbing, especially since you’ve given up the widow’s weeds: but if you mean will it stop me writing, then no. I’ve come to one of those patches in the play where nothing goes right, and I need a break.’
I stared at him uncertainly, but he was looking so Mr Rochester that I suppressed the impulse to bleat out: ‘What do you mean, disturbing?’ and just followed Caitlin up to her room, where I repacked her case, and calmed her down a bit as she was wildly excited about spending the night with two big girls like Feeb and Clo.
‘What sort of clothes should my Barbie take?’
‘Practical ones. Clo and Feeb’s Barbies are not really party animals these days.’
‘Ski wear?’ she pondered.
‘As long as it’s not a red duvet, like your daddy’s.’
She giggled. ‘Daddy calls it his duvet now, too!’
Daddy, six-four of soft, downy vermilion, went out for a walk with us later, thus entirely defeating the reason for employing me to entertain Caitlin in the first place. But he said he needed to stretch his legs and think.
We climbed right up to the beacon, and although I’m not sure how the conversation took such a turn, I ended up telling him all about
Skint Old Northern Woman
; only I called it a comic, since he seemed to have an acute aversion to the word ‘magazine’. He said he’d order a dozen copies and send them to all his friends for Christmas.
I don’t have a dozen friends. Come to that, apart from family (in which I include Walter and Gloria), Miss Grinch, and possibly Vaddie at the gallery, I’m not sure I’ve got any at all.
‘You need an arts page,’ he suggested. ‘A sort of “What’s on in the North”.’
‘“What’s on in the North That’s Worth Parting with Brass to See”,’ I corrected.
‘Did you know there’s a sort of natural amphitheatre in the rocks above the stream in the woods?’ he asked. ‘It reminded me of the Minack outdoor theatre at Porthcurno in Cornwall. You could start a campaign to have summer theatre there.’
‘Yes, I know where you mean. It’s on Madge’s land, too, so her old dad could charge everyone going in – and out, knowing him.’
‘Local people could be the actors, like the Passion Play at Oberammergau.’
‘Or a Shakespeare a year … in the vernacular!’ I enthused. ‘I can see it now: “Enter Hamlet – he were a short, stiff man with no hair or eyebrows.” Or “Romeo, Romeo, thou art got a right poncy name, flower.”’
‘That kind of thing,’ he agreed, grinning. ‘I could direct it.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll be spending that much time here.’
‘I intend spending as much time in Upvale as I can, though I’ll have to keep my London house on, as well. Upvale and the moors have got to me, in a way Haworth never did.’
‘Don’t mention Haworth – or the Brontës,’ I shuddered. ‘My brother and sisters and I are the result of a failed Brontë experiment.’
Then I described Father’s attempt to replicate the conditions that had turned the sisters – or, in Father’s opinion, the brother – into literary geniuses.
‘So he chose a similar area, not too far away, as the crow flies, and settled there with my mother. She’s Lally Tooke – have you heard of her? She went to America, and she’s
very
big on the radical feminist literature circuit – and they had Em and Anne and me. And by then their opinions of the Brontës had turned in opposing directions, Mother discovered that she hated childbirth, and wasn’t that mad about children, and she bolted. Father carried on, since it made the situation more authentic, after all, especially after our first au pair had Branwell, and made the numbers up. But none of us was brilliant except Bran, and he’s a genius of an entirely different kind.’
‘I met Bran in the pub with your father,’ Mace said. ‘Well, I say met, but we didn’t seem to be speaking the same language.’
‘Not many people do.’
‘Probably not. I’ve also had a close encounter with your other sister, Anne. She said she thought I would strip well.’
I choked: ‘I think she just meant you look like you’d be a good man in a fight.’
‘Let’s hope it won’t come to that – I think she’d win.’
By the time we got back it had been a longer walk than I’d intended, and Caitlin was ready for a snooze before being brought to the Parsonage.
There was no sign of Angie, except for something very rude scrawled across my door in spray paint, which Walter had already half-obliterated with Mediterranean Blue.
‘I seen ’un off,’ he said. ‘I were up the back chopping firewood, and come to see what she were up to. She screamed and run off.’
‘Were you still holding the axe, Walter?’
He nodded. ‘Aye, that’ll be it. Still, t’door wanted another coat.’
‘Yes – it’ll look lovely, Walter. You’re very kind to me.’
He beamed. ‘Don’t you worry about the mad lady – Em’s going to set them three witches on her.’
That would be interesting.
Father wandered into the kitchen, removed several candles from the top of his birthday cake, tossed them into the bin, and wandered out again, muttering darkly.
‘I told you, Em, he wouldn’t like the right number on it,’ I said. ‘Has anyone told Jessica how many it
really
is? He’s wearing well for his age, but he’s still getting on a bit.’
‘Dining room’s ready,’ Anne said, appearing. ‘Girls are in bed listening to that story tape I got them.’
‘I thought Jessica confiscated
Rambo: Tocsin of Terror’
? I said.
‘Ho bleeding ho,’ said Anne. ‘
The Lion, the Witch and the effing Wardrobe
. They’ve got a load of biscuits, pop, and stuff. Said they were going to have a midnight feast.’
‘I don’t think any of them will last as long as midnight, and let’s hope they aren’t sick.’
‘Em,’ I added cautiously, looking at the hem of the magnificent amber velvet gown in which she strode about like a queen, ‘I don’t think gorilla slippers go with that dress.’
‘It’s that or boots.’
‘No it isn’t – bare feet would be better. And you look amazing – it could have been made for you.’
‘You’ve all scrubbed up nice,’ Gloria agreed, coming in with a furtive air and secreting something away in the pocket of her pinafore. ‘I thought you were going to wear that lovely green dress, Charlie?’
‘I think it’s a bit much – I couldn’t decide. It’s very
wispy
for the middle of winter.’
‘You go and put it on this minute,’ Gloria ordered as the Parsonage doorbell sounded. ‘That’s your father’s guests now.’
‘Oh, all right, Gloria.’
Em said, ‘You know what you’re to do, Gloria, don’t you?’
‘Don’t you worry, Gloria knows what she’s doing.’ She looked severely at me as I hovered on the stairs. ‘Scat!’
I ran down and quickly changed into Felicity Hake-Hackett’s rejected Tinkerbell costume and strappy sandals.
There is one thing Felicity and I have in common besides being the runts of our respective families: we may be skinny, but we both have busts. This dress showed more of mine than I thought I’d got.
And thank God I’d already lawn-mowered my legs and armpits even though it
was
winter when you’re usually glad of the extra warmth in Upvale. Otherwise, I’d have been much, much later.
Skint Old Beauty, No. 1: Going Hairless
One of Nature’s most cruel pranks is the way that, after forty, she starts to thin the hair on your head, while over-compensating by causing a sort of angora body stocking to gradually envelop the rest of you like mould.
And, to add insult to injury, there is no cheap, fast, efficient and painless way of removing it. (Or even cheap, fast, efficient and painful.)
One day, we hope, they will perfect the art of a total immersion in body wax from nose to toes, but until then we must suffer.
Now you know why Victorian bathing costumes covered you up like that – and it wasn’t for modesty.
One of the Great Mysteries of the Universe is: just where
did
that three-foot spike of nose hair hide before it sprang from your nostril, fully formed, at an embarrassing moment?
Skint Old Fashion Victim, No. 2