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‘Apparently not. He must have been plotting this long before he came home for his last holiday, because he’d already removed all his personal stuff into storage without me noticing.’
‘You’re not the most observant of women, are you? Head in the clouds. Or the plants.’
‘I might want a few bits and pieces, because I don’t think I could live at home again for very long, not after living in my own house for years. And I need somewhere to put my plants.’
‘I don’t think Upvale sounds very exciting. Matt said it was just one steep cobbled road like a Hovis advert, with three streetlights, half a dozen houses, your Parsonage, and a lot of dirt tracks leading to farms.’
‘There are a lot more houses than that in Upvale, but they’re spread out. And the only cobbled bit is about a hundred yards in front of the pub.’
‘I didn’t know there was a pub. Civilisation!’
‘Yes, the Black Dog, after the local legend. There’s Blackdog Moor, too, haunted by this huge, hideous fanged creature, with blood-red eyes and jaws dripping with—’
Angie shuddered. ‘No more, please. What with noises in the attic and demon dogs I won’t sleep a wink tonight all on my lonesome.’
‘Oh, yes – the noises in the attic. Are you haunted, Angie?’
She should have been, by the ghosts of all the creatures who died in animal experiments on cosmetics.
‘No, it’s squirrels.’
‘Squirrels? You’ve got squirrels in your attic? What colour? Those nice little reddish Squirrel Nutkin ones, or the big grey ones?’
‘What does it matter? They’re all vermin, and they’ve chewed to bits the furniture I’ve stored up there! Squirrels! They’ve eaten all the wooden parts of the chairs, and the grandfather clock, and a nice tallboy. I suppose I’m lucky it isn’t rats, which is what I thought when I got back on Wednesday and heard all those funny thumping noises. Isn’t that what you’d have thought, Charlie?’
‘What?’ I said, dragging my mind back from my own problems with some effort. ‘I’m the madwoman in the attic, I think, or will be. Perhaps I should join your squirrels.’
‘Who mentioned madwomen?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Do concentrate, Charlie. The little tree rats have eaten all the lovely furniture Mother left me. I mean, what am I going to say to the insurance company? “Squirrels ate my furniture”?’
‘“Weasels Ripped My Flesh”!’ I exclaimed, perking up. ‘I’d forgotten all about that song, but my eldest sister Em used to play it a lot years ago.. Wasn’t it Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention? Or no – maybe it was Jethro Tull. Those were her two favourite bands so it must have been one of them.’
Angie sighed. ‘Not weasels, squirrels,’ she said in cold, clipped accents.
What a matron she would have made if she hadn’t got off with Greg and left the nursing profession! Or a wardress.
‘Sorry, it just reminded me of that song and … but do go on. Squirrels ate your furniture?’
‘Yes. Grey ones.’
‘How did they get in? There must have been a hole somewhere.’
‘A tiny one, but they found it. Still, I expect the insurance will pay up in the end.’
‘Unless squirrels are an act of God, Angie.’
‘Don’t be silly. How can squirrels be an act of God?’
‘You never know. When our garden wall fell down that time, they said it had been undermined by moles, and that was an act of God, so—’
‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ she asked warily.
I smiled encouragingly. ‘I expect they’ll pay up – and what a shame about that furniture. I really liked some of it, especially that knobbly triangular chair. Although bottoms aren’t that shape, are they? And with all those bits sticking out it wouldn’t have been very comfortable, and although it would fit right into a corner of a room, you don’t usually want to sit right in the corner, do you? So I expect you can replace it with something more practical when you get the money.’
‘You do go off at a tangent.’
‘I’ll have to go off altogether, Angie – I’ve got my hairdresser’s appointment.’ Which I absolutely loathe; but my roots were showing.
‘That dead-black Goth look with the dark eye make-up and purplish lipstick is very out of fashion,’ she said, scrutinising me severely.
‘I know, but Matt insists, and—’
Suddenly I realised that it didn’t matter any more what Matt liked or didn’t like. He wouldn’t be here to throw a major wobbler if I stopped dyeing my roots, wearing heavy black eye make-up and vampire-style black clothes …
It was a look that seemed less and less me as I got older. I mean, it was what I was into at seventeen, when I ran off with him, but I didn’t think I’d be stuck in a timewarp forever afterwards.
But now I could do what I liked.
‘I can do what I like,’ I told Angie, brightly.
‘You always did,’ she said sourly. ‘Wasn’t that part of the problem?’
‘Only in the major things, the ones that mattered, like the painting. In little things Matt had it entirely his own way. And I hadn’t realised we had a problem.’
I was about to add that until the morning Matt asked for a divorce I hadn’t realised how old he was either, but just managed to stop myself in time: like Angie and Greg, Matt was a good ten years older than I.
Greg was an awful, red-faced old roué who tried to jump on women the moment he was alone with them. He was Father’s type, I suppose, but without the leonine good looks – and Father did go in for his mistresses one at a time, as a rule.
‘Greg will be home in a couple of weeks, if you want any help,’ Angie offered.
‘Oh, no thanks, Angie,’ I said hastily. ‘I’m sure I can manage.’
Her eyes fell on the stack of magazines she’d brought, and she pounced on the top one. ‘Now, what’s that doing there? I didn’t mean to bring that old copy of Surprise!. I only kept it because it had photos of that gorgeous Mace North in it.’
‘Who?’
She exhibited the magazine, and I scanned the man on the cover with no recognition whatsoever, although his was a very distinctive face. His slightly oblique, hooded dark eyes seemed to be staring back at me assessingly (and probably finding me wanting).
‘You must know him! He’s a well-known actor, and he’s got this deliciously plummy voice, a bit like Jeremy Irons.’
‘You know I don’t watch much TV. But it sounds an unlikely combination with that face,’ I commented. ‘He looks a bit – barbaric.’
‘It’s the Tartar blood.’
‘Oh? I thought tartar was something you found on your teeth,’ I said disagreeably.
‘Not that sort of tartar – it’s a place in Russia. Mongolia? The High Steppes, or Chaparral, or something? His great-grandmother was a Tartar and that’s where those fabulous cheekbones come from, and the come-to-bed eyes …’ She gazed at the magazine and sighed. ‘He’s sort of like a young Bryan Ferry crossed with Rudolf Nureyev.’
‘Rudolf Nureyev’s dead.’
‘You must have seen photos.’
‘Yes, but I don’t find men in tights very appealing. I’d never have made Marian.’
After a minute she smiled weakly: Sunrise over Yellowstone Canyon.
‘You will have your little joke,’ she said, hoisting herself to her feet and tucking the copy of Surprise! firmly under her arm. ‘I’d better go and sort out the roof rats. I’ll soon have the little buggers out of there.’
Her car was parked opposite, outside Miss Grinch’s, who would not be pleased, because she liked the front of her house kept clear so she had a better view of what her neighbours were doing. Had Angie been a man visiting me while my husband was away she would have been straight across with a milk jug or sugar bowl to try to catch me out in some imagined misdemeanour.
I don’t think I’d ever done anything to surprise her – I must have been such a disappointment. You’d think she’d have lost interest. Apart from Angie and Greg, Matt’s friends didn’t bother me when Matt was away, and if Greg came to the door when I was on my own I’d pretend I was out.
I always checked from the landing window first, after one nasty experience soon after I married Matt, when Greg found me on my own and was horribly overfriendly in a near-rape kind of way.
He was even like that in front of Angie at parties, but she didn’t seem to mind particularly. Maybe she thought he was all mouth and no action. Maybe he was all mouth and no action when it came to the crunch – I didn’t intend finding out.
When she’d gone I finally phoned Em, the Ruler of Upvale Parsonage, told her about the impending divorce, and asked if I could come and live at home for a while.
‘OK,’ she said.
‘Will you tell everyone? Father?’
‘He’s always thought Matt was a waste of space. Anyway, he won’t be very interested – he’s got a new mistress.’
I groaned. ‘Is she in the Summer Cottage yet?’
‘Not yet. She’s renting a house down in the valley. But she’s always round here, and they’re all over each other. It’s revolting. And she’s got twin little girls who sit about giggling. She leaves them here when she goes out with Father.’
I supposed it was better than leaving them in an empty house, but not much – Em didn’t like children, so she wouldn’t see their presence in the house as being anything to do with her.
‘He’s never had one with children before, has he?’
‘No, unless you count Bran’s mother, and that was unintentional. He’ll probably get tired of her, if she won’t move into the cottage. You know how he likes everything convenient.’
‘Flossie says hello,’ I told her.
Em’s voice immediately softened to a medium baritone that was positively sugary. ‘Give her a big kiss on her shiny black nose from me, and tell her Frost can’t wait for her to come and live here.’
Flossie was petrified of Frost, a giant grey lurcher with questionable habits (a bit like Father, really), but I appreciated the sentiment.
‘I will – and thanks, Em.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘You’re just – there.’
‘Where else would I be?’ she asked, sounding puzzled.
Chapter 3: All Panned Out
I didn’t turn up for my hairdresser’s appointment in the end, which made me feel like I was bunking off school. I realised I need never sit in one of those foul-smelling torture chambers again.
Things were moving so quickly now that I’d decided to start packing my belongings. I’d put the stuff I didn’t want in the small spare room: it was half-decorated as a nursery, a place of abandoned hopes, so entirely suitable. Anything going with me would be stacked at one end of the living room.
I’d been looking at the heap of magazines left by Angie, and I was feeling extremely irritated: none of them seemed to have any connection with reality as I knew it. They might as well all be called Rich Young Brain-Dead Anorexic London-Based Fashion Victim Magazine, and have done with it. Where were the magazines aimed at women like me? Skint Old Northern Woman, perhaps? I’ll have to write my own:
Skint Old Northern Woman: Issue 1
Our motto is: Every Woman For Herself!
Welcome to our new magazine for the older, more frazzled reader. While written primarily for the Northern woman, it may also prove invaluable for those Southerners harnessing their huskies ready to brave the Frozen North, containing as it does many cultural hints.
To any peripheral Skint Old Southern Women, why not write your own issue, addressing the topics you find important?
We welcome readers’ letters, except those sycophantic ones saying how wonderful our magazine is: we already know that, so for God’s sake write about something. If you have an embarrassing personal problem write in to Sister Charlie’s ‘In Confidence’ page: she will only share it with the entire readership …
I thought I’d discovered a fascinating new hobby.
The house was now on the market, and Matt, via his solicitor, had said he’d give me half of any profit, though I could see that it would all be eaten up by these mysterious debts and the overdraft. It had never felt like my house anyway, so I didn’t care.
He’d also said he’d stored everything that he wanted from the house, and he didn’t mind what I did with the rest.
What a busy boy he must have been during that week at home – and how unobservant of me not to notice.
He was going to carry on paying the mortgage and utilities until the house was sold, but for some reason he hadn’t transferred any extra money across that month for food, etc. Was this a mistake, or had I already dwindled to the present of the odd duck?
Seeing that I would have to start selling the furniture now (however odd an appearance that would give to prospective house purchasers) I went out to the supermarket and removed as many cardboard boxes as I could fit into my ancient 2CV.
I also laid in a large supply of long-life consumables, like baked beans, jars of olives, red wine and dog food, before the money ran out altogether.
Em phoned: the mistress and her children had got into the house, and were laying waste like Angie’s squirrels.
None of the others had managed to sidestep the Summer Cottage like this, and Em had begun an offensive against the invader. Em did offensive very well. She hoped to have them out before I moved back, but in the meantime the mistress was domiciled in my room! I was highly indignant, even though Em had removed all my personal belongings from it and stored them in one attic, and the two little girls in another.
She would have much preferred squirrels, and so would I.
Why did it have to be my room? Why not Bran or Anne’s? Having foreign bodies in my only remaining sanctum was the last straw. Think the aliens were now taking over Yorkshire.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get them out,’ Em said grimly. ‘Father won’t be able to stand them around all the time once the sexual novelty’s worn off – you know what he’s like. Then I’ll put your room back as it was.’
‘But it will never be the same again,’ I said sadly, for now I really did feel like a dispossessed person. I was blowin’ in the wind.
I told Em about Skint Old Northern Woman, and she said it was a wonderful idea, and she would write some inspiring verse for it, or maybe cookery hints, like: ‘In Yorkshire We Eat Faggots’.
Em has a knack for writing doggerel verse, which is very saleable: practically every greeting card seems to contain one of hers. Now she reminded me that we all had old portable typewriters. Father bought them when it became clear that we weren’t going to write Gondal-type stories in the minute notebooks he kept giving us. Perhaps he thought we needed a bit of twentieth-century apparatus?
When I found mine, the ribbon had dried to paper tape, and trying to buy a new one proved to be a vain quest, for the computer age had long overtaken me.
When I eventually did track one down it was the wrong sort and I had to hand-wind it onto the old spools. I feared I may have red and blue hands for the rest of my life. Still, it worked.
Skint Old Northern Woman
In this issue:
Tart up that skirt
Normal women bulge
Superfluous hair
Bulimia for beginners: what to do if your body doesn’t want to part with the food
My roots were turning slowly silver as the divorce proceedings trundled tumbrel-like towards the final division. I’d always had long hair, but I didn’t think all that dye would come out. It looked quite interesting, though – more badgerish than Cruella.
My clothes I couldn’t do much about, since they were all black; mostly culled from charity shops and jumble sales. There were one or two floaty Ghost things, purchased at who-knows-what-price or with what credit card by Matt in London, but they were black, too.
Since I was not the same person who’d eloped with Matt, it didn’t seem right that I should look the same, especially if I was moving back to Upvale. I was going full circle on my life, but surely it should be a different me that returned?
New To You.
It was melancholy packing up the house, and my dreams with it. And there was that moment when the auction van removed the marital bed … Very symbolic.
Not that I ever liked it.
Angie had been ringing continually, offering to help, but that was just nosiness. And Greg was back, but he hadn’t got in, even though he phoned first to make sure I was here. That should have got the message through.
Soon he’d be flying off again – they both would – and I need never see them or any of Matt’s other friends ever again, so there was at least one good side of divorce.
Skint Old Fashion Victim, No. 1
Criteria for buying second-hand clothes:
1. It fits you
2. It has no noticeable holes or stains
3. You can (just) afford it
4. It doesn’t say ‘Dry clean only’ on the label
5. The colour doesn’t make you look like a dead Martian
6. It conceals/reveals all bulging bits in a socially acceptable manner.
Phoned Anne’s London flat, and for once found her home. Her normal manner of answering the phone was so indistinguishable from the answerphone that I’d started to leave a message when she broke in.
‘Anne, this is Charlie—’
‘And you think I can’t recognise your voice after all these years?’
‘Oh, you’re there! Good. Is Red there, too?’
‘No. Bosnia.’
‘I didn’t think anything much was happening there at the moment.’
‘It isn’t; he’s coming back.’
‘Has Em told you I’m getting divorced?’
‘Yes. Bloody good idea.’
‘It wasn’t mine, but I’m getting quite used to it. I’ve discovered that although I’m deeply shocked and upset, I’m not heartbroken. Mostly I’m annoyed that I stayed faithful all these years when I needn’t have bothered.’
‘Em says you’re selling the house and going home.’
‘Yes – I won’t have much money, so I’ll have to live at home for a bit, until I can rent a place of my own. But to do that I’ll need to either sell more paintings or get a job of some kind.’
‘Father’s mistress has got in the house.’
‘She’s not only in the house, she’s in my room. If Em doesn’t get rid of her soon I’ll have to stay in the Summer Cottage.’
‘You might like it. Home but sort of independent. Eat in, live out.’
‘Yes … Oh, I saw you on the news a few days ago. Nice waistcoat – khaki suits you.’
‘Just as well; never wear anything else. Like you, with your black.’
‘I might have a change.’
‘Em’s thinking of having a change, too: turning to the Black Arts, or maybe greyish. The darker side of Wicca, anyway,’ Anne said noncommittally.
‘Yes, but is it a good idea?’
‘Who knows? No one can stop Em doing anything she’s made her mind up to do.’
‘That’s true. I expect she’s got the measure of the mistress by now, too. Do you think you might be visiting Upvale soon?’
‘Might do, in a few weeks. Depends.’
She rang off after a few bracing words about getting a solicitor and a better settlement, but I didn’t think Matt had got very much to settle, so it would be pointless and tiring.
Came back from the supermarket with a whole lot more boxes, and had to kick the front door closed behind me.
Flossie was still snoring in the kitchen, lying just as she had been when I went out: on her back in her furry igloo, with her head hanging out of the opening and her ears on the floor. She didn’t wake up even when I started clattering unwanted cooking-ware in the boxes.
It was as I was standing on tiptoe on the very top of the high kitchen steps, unhooking the cast-iron frying pan from the ceiling rack (so convenient for Matt, who never cooked, so inconvenient for me, who did), that I was seized extremely familiarly from behind.
‘All alone at last?’ gloated a horribly familiar voice. ‘You can’t know how long I’ve wanted to get my hands on these!’ And he squeezed painfully, like an over-enthusiastic fruit tester.
These were, I fear, the last words ever spoken by Angie’s husband, Greg. Had he known, perhaps he’d have thought of something a little less trite: but then, everything he uttered was straight out of a Victorian melodrama, so perhaps not.
Startled and off-balance, I couldn’t stop the weight and momentum of the pan I’d just grasped from swinging down and connecting with his head.
What an odd, strangely meaty, but hollow noise it made against his skull! A sort of watermelon-hit-by-a-cricket-bat sound that I don’t think I’ll ever forget as long as I live.
It was only the smaller frying pan, but unluckily he must have had a very thin skull. Mind you, even with a two-handed swing I would probably have dropped rather than swung the bigger pan. Bad luck all round.
As I stepped carefully down, Greg twitched like a dying insect at my feet, then lay still.
Not dead yet? Not dead?
Someone let out their breath in a long exhalation, and when I looked up, Miss Grinch was standing in the doorway, her choppy fingers to her skinny lips, as Shakespeare has it. An empty milk jug hung from the lax fingers of her other hand.
‘I mustn’t have locked the door,’ I said inconsequentially. ‘I’m always careful, especially when I know Greg’s home – but it was awkward with all those boxes.’
Naturally Miss Grinch would have been so consumed with curiosity she’d followed Greg in. Probably tiptoed up the hall right behind him.
‘Is he dead?’ she enquired, stepping into the room just as I dropped the pan from nerveless fingers. (It landed on Greg’s foot with a crunch, but he was beyond caring by then.)
‘Did he fall, or was he pushed?’ I quavered.
‘Not that he doesn’t deserve it, behaving in such a disgusting way to a defenceless woman,’ she said severely. ‘Find a mirror and hold it to his lips.’
I began to giggle helplessly: ‘A mirror? Why would he want to see himself at a time like this?’
‘Pull yourself together, girl,’ she snapped. ‘A mirror will mist up if he’s breathing. Here, I’ll do it.’
She unhooked the small pine square from the wall under the clock. ‘You phone 999.’
I managed that, even though my fingers felt even deader than Greg looked.
‘Ambulance – accident – emergency!’ I babbled. ‘There’s no mist on the mirror!’
‘Where are you speaking from, please?’
‘This is Miss Grinch,’ that lady said, taking the receiver from my hand. ‘I don’t think there’s any rush. He’s dead.’
She gave my name and address to the operator, then added, ‘We just need the ambulance, no police. This is such a nice neighbourhood, and none of the Grinches have ever been mixed up with police.’
‘Except the one who stole Christmas,’ I said helpfully.
Of course, we did get the police, much to Miss Grinch’s indignation, but never did I think I would be so glad to have a nosy neighbour!
Were it not for Miss Grinch I was sure I’d have been facing a murder charge, but she described how she’d followed Greg right into the house and had seen the whole unfortunate accident.
If Greg hadn’t suddenly assaulted me just as I was reaching down the pan, with no idea that I wasn’t alone, it would not have occurred.
The frying pan was impounded, but I wasn’t, although I felt so guilty at having taken a life I’d have gone without a struggle.
Flossie finally awoke at one point during the noisy and exhaustive débâcle, took a look out of her igloo and retired back in, until everyone was gone except Miss Grinch and me. Flossie was easily confused by loud voices and big feet.