Snake in the Grass Page 9

  The landlady reappeared, her husband in tow. He looked less than delighted to have been summoned downstairs but it seemed as if it was more than his life was worth to disobey. One would not dare to treat Basil like that, of course, but would it perhaps be possible (Gwen mused) to manage him a little better?

  ‘Come and join us, Sandra,’ said the landlady as she settled herself into a chair by the fire.

  Lydia greeted the girl with a smile. ‘How is that boyfriend of yours?’

  ‘He’s….’ Sandra hesitated.

  ‘Trouble in paradise?’ Lydia suggested.

  ‘It’s been two days. He hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lydia nodded wisely, as if she wasn’t surprised.

  ‘But he does have to work.’ Sandra rallied, putting on a brave face. ‘He works shifts. It’s not always convenient. I can’t expect him to be at my beck and call.’

  What a sensible girl, thought Gwen. Dare one hope that Amanda…?

  The meeting got underway at last. Gwen found it a frustrating experience. Making any headway was next to impossible. Sandra, it was true, had some useful ideas, but most of these were squashed by the landlady who disparaged Sandra’s youth and inexperience. The landlady herself kept going off at a tangent, bursting with village gossip, while Lydia seemed oddly detached and ambivalent, as if she didn’t care one way or the other. Had she grown bored of the exhibition already? Or did she have something else on her mind?

  Becoming agitated (profligate misuse of her time had been known to keep her awake at nights), Gwen realized that the onus was on her to force through a few decisions. Easter was fixed as a date. Nobody objected to the village hall as a venue. But what if they could not muster enough exhibits to fill the hall? In which case, Sandra suggested, why not open it up to handicrafts as well as art? The landlady, for once, did not pooh-pooh the idea. She knew ‘for a fact’ that several people in the village had interests in that line, including Old George who carved wood. Old George would be in the public bar by now. Why didn’t they all go round and ask him if he’d be interested in their exhibition?

  Gwen felt like tearing her hair out. They’d drifted from the point again and the dirty dishes at home were beginning to prey on her mind. If only she’d had time to put them in the machine! But she’d been in a hurry and of course supper could not be rushed. Basil had regular habits, got dyspeptic if his routine was upset.

  Old George also had regular habits and was sitting in his accustomed place in the window seat with his first light and bitter. He looked at them one by one, a deadpan expression on his face, then denied that he’d ever carved wood in his life.

  ‘Oh, George, you’re such a fibber!’ shrieked the landlady. ‘I sat here and listened to you! You make egg cups and toast racks and things like that, and you sell them at car boot sales!’

  ‘No. That weren’t me. No. Never been to a car boot sale in me life. Never.’ He took a sip of beer, smacked his lips, set his glass back on the beer mat. ‘So what is this art show? We’ve not had one of them in these parts before. Never needed one. It’s you incomers, that’s what it is. All you incomers, spoiling the village.’

  Toying with her coat, Gwen decided that the meeting could now legitimately be said to be over. She had no desire to listen to the protracted wrangling over wood carving and car boot sales that Old George and the landlady were engaged in, and the way George smacked his lips made her feel bilious. She wished he’d put his teeth in of an evening.

  Walking with Lydia up Well Lane, Gwen found the conversation somewhat stilted. Lydia seemed preoccupied. Perhaps she really had lost interest in the exhibition? But no, that was a silly idea. It had been Lydia’s suggestion in the first place. Of course she was all for it. It had to be that dog of hers which was preying on her mind. She was pining for that dog.

  I must, said Gwen as she took her leave of Lydia and continued up the hill on her own, I must do more to help, be more wholehearted, move things along. This exhibition will be just what Lydia needs to take her mind off things.

  Gwen’s steps slowed as the house loomed ahead. She felt a great reluctance to go inside. It was the dirty dishes, it had to be. She was worried that Basil might have seen them.

  She told herself not to be so silly. There was no reason for Basil to have gone anywhere near the kitchen. All the same, she felt very weary as she searched in her bag for her keys: and was it any wonder she felt weary, when it took all one’s courage merely to open one’s own front door?

  ELEVEN

  LYDIA SAT IN her car, looking out at the wet, dark January evening. WET and DARK ought to be in capital letters, she felt. It was only just gone five and already it seemed as if it had been dark for ever. The rain didn’t help, nor the gusting wind. It was utterly depressing.

  And now, just to top things off, her car wouldn’t start.

  Her car was conspiring against her, had to be. Of all the days to stop working – of all the horrible, miserable evenings after a horrible, miserable day teaching horrible, miserable kids.

  But it was no good dwelling on it. That would be playing into her car’s hands. Tempting as it was to leap out and do a Basil Fawlty on the malignant machine, she knew that was just the reaction her car wanted and she was not going to give it the satisfaction. She would sit here, pay no heed, twiddle her thumbs for ten minutes (well, perhaps five: it was very cold) and then, having lulled the contrary contraption into a false sense of security, she would lean forward in an offhand way and casually turn the key in the ignition. With any luck, the car would be taken by surprise. It would forget that it was meant to be playing hard to get, start up by mistake, and once it realized that it had been outwitted by a mere human, it would be far too embarrassed to conk out again.

  A sardonic voice in her head cut across her thoughts: not the voice of her mother. The femme fatale, perhaps? ‘You do realize, I suppose, that people who imagine their cars are out to get them are generally classed as psychologically disturbed?’

  ‘Can you think of a better plan?’ Lydia said sharply. ‘Then shut up.’

  The voice seemed suitably cowed. Nodding her head in satisfaction, Lydia searched around in her mind for something to occupy her time while she waited. There was little enough to inspire her. The car park was all but empty; acres of tarmac glistening in the sordid yellow light of the sodium lamps. Spots of rain were being dashed against her windscreen. Wind hissed and moaned, whipping through the damp darkness, setting the car rocking.

  Lydia pulled her scarf closer round her neck; sat on her frozen hands to warm them.

  What could she think about?

  Richard?

  No. Not Richard.

  Prize, then?

  Oh, all right, Richard.

  She felt a twinge which she imagined someone younger and less experienced might have mistaken for their heart skipping a beat. It was more likely to be angina at her age. After all, she was hardly likely to get all goo-eyed over someone like Richard: the very idea was laughable. He wasn’t even her type (what was her type?). He was coarse, crude, brash; puerile too. All that jack-the-lad, devil-may-care nonsense got on your nerves after a time. And he wasn’t exactly an Adonis. So just what was it about him? She couldn’t put her finger on it, but whatever it was, he had it in bucket loads. Perhaps it was nothing more that the attractiveness of youth. (Oh to be young: no snipping out grey hairs, no bulging in inconvenient places, no feeling shattered at the end of a working day.)

  ‘I hope,’ Richard had said last night as he pulled on his hoody, ‘that you’re not getting the wrong idea about all this. I’m not your boyfriend or anything like that.’ Anxiety had been evident in the jack-the-lad, devil-may-care facade.

  Lydia remembered that she had not deigned to reply, looking up at him from the sofa, a blanket artfully arranged over her, covering much, revealing just enough. I must have looked, she thought, every inch the femme fatale….

  ‘Ridiculous is the word, my girl. You looked ridiculous.’
Her mother’s ghost was there, the disembodied voice hovering somewhere over the passenger seat.

  ‘Oh, shut up, go away. I’m not listening.’

  She returned to the scene in her cottage, pictured herself lying there like the Venus de Milo, an arch smile playing on her lips. Richard had lingered, unable to tear himself away. Who could have?

  ‘As long as we’re both clear on this,’ he’d reiterated. ‘It’s a casual thing, a bit of fun—’

  A snort of derision from the passenger seat. ‘Fun? Huh! Cavorting is what I’d call it.’

  ‘No one asked you.’

  Had there been, perhaps, the merest whisper of regret at his words? Staring out at the bleak evening, Lydia felt it safe to admit to a dash of disappointment, but no more.

  ‘Did you really expect anything else, my girl? You’re old enough to be his mother.’

  ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

  ‘Huh! Obsessed, that’s what you are.’

  ‘Why don’t you just mind your own business? There’s only room for two in this relationship—’

  ‘Relationship! Ha! There’s no relationship. You’re just convenient, that’s all. Available. Easy. We had names for girls like you in my day.’

  ‘I am not a girl. I am a grown woman.’

  ‘Woman? Nymphomaniac would be nearer the mark.’

  ‘Nymphomaniac? Chance would be a fine thing!’

  ‘It’s obscene, that’s what it is. And afterwards, all that guilt and shame: I don’t know how you bear it.’

  ‘There is no guilt. There is no shame.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that, my girl, and you might even come to believe it!’

  ‘We are not living in Victorian times. I am free to do whatever I like. I can take responsibility for my own actions.’

  ‘You? Take responsibility? That’ll be the day!’

  Lydia had heard enough. She flung open the door of the car, at the same moment reaching forward to pull that catch that opened the bonnet. She had better things to do than sit here and listen to her mother’s ghost. She could poke about in the engine, might strike lucky. And if all else failed, there was always the Basil Fawlty routine.

  She pulled her woolly hat down to cover her ears. Cold air was blasting across the wasteland of tarmac. Rain was swirling through the air. Her fingers as she fumbled with the bonnet were quickly frozen into sticks of ice. She looked down into the engine with a sense of despair. Where did one begin? Pull a few wires, see if that did the trick? Clean the spark plugs? But where, in the name of wonder, would one find the spark plugs?

  ‘Hello there! Having a spot of bother?’

  The sudden voice made her jump. She spun round, half expecting to meet the glinting eyes and sinister smile of a would-be rapist, but it was only one of the other lecturers, an entirely harmless-looking man in a baggy waterproof with the hood up. Hesitant eyes looked out at her from under the elasticated rim of the hood, tapes tied beneath his bearded chin.

  She tried to place him. Wasn’t he science? Surely he was science? He was not much by way of a white knight, but beggars….

  ‘I wonder…? Could you…?’ She even managed a smile. It seemed only fair, considering that he was about to rescue a damsel in distress. All men loved tinkering with engines. He’d have her malignant machine up and running in no time.

  ‘No good asking me.’ He held his hands up, a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue when it comes to cars.’

  ‘Then why…?’ She felt cheated. ‘Aren’t you science? I thought you were science.’

  ‘Physics.’

  ‘Isn’t a car engine physics?’

  ‘Theory and practice.’ He held out one hand, theory, and then the other, practice. ‘Two different things.’ He smiled, diffident. (Diffident? He ought to be ashamed, not diffident!) ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  ‘What about my car?’ She prevaricated. She knew she ought to be grateful – anything was better than being stranded on the tundra of the college car park – but quite honestly, what was the point of a man who couldn’t fix a car engine? ‘Will my car be safe here?’

  ‘Quite safe, I should think.’ (Blind faith. Not very scientific.) ‘My vehicle is over there.’ He pointed. ‘If there’s anywhere I can drop you …’

  It was better than nothing. Better than slowly freezing. Perhaps he was a white knight, of sorts, after all.

  But what the hell was his name?

  John? Was that it?

  It had to be. He looked like a John. She was sure it was John.

  ‘Thank you, John. A lift would be marvellous. I must warn you, though, that I live out in the sticks.’

  ‘I know. It’s OK.’

  He smiled again, that diffident smile. An odd smile, thought Lydia. Somehow it seemed younger than his face – his beard, for instance, was going grey. But weren’t all scientists still children at heart?

  Installed in his battered old Renault, Lydia felt it beholden on her to make conversation – tit-for-tat, as it were: amusing chit-chat in return for a lift home. There was plenty of material to draw on. Picking holes in the college principal was always a favourite staff-room pastime, as was grousing about the students. ‘You know what he’s like, John … I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, John … so I said to him, John … and then I just sent her out of the room, John: I’d had enough….’

  He seemed a lot less chatty in the car than he had out in the car park. Maybe he needed to concentrate on driving. Men couldn’t do two things at once, it was a well-known fact. Or perhaps the offer of a lift had been out of politeness only; perhaps he hadn’t expected her to accept. Well, tough luck.

  She paused, watching the windscreen wipers, gathering her thoughts for another measured critique of the students (lazy, idle, ignorant). In the little silence he suddenly spoke.

  ‘Terry,’ he said quietly. ‘My name is Terry.’

  ‘Terry?’ Terry! Not John. Terry! ‘Of course it is! Of course. Ha ha! I must be going senile in my old age. Ha ha!’ Oh Lord, why do I always do this? Why don’t I learn to look before I leap? Why must I keep putting my foot in it?

  Her embarrassment seemed out of all proportion. Anyone can make a mistake, she insisted as she flushed hot then cold, her cheeks burning. It was John’s – Terry’s – fault if the mistake had been magnified into cringe-worthy proportions. Why hadn’t he put her right at once, instead of letting her call him John over and over? Why should she be expected to know his name? It wasn’t as if she knew him. They must have exchanged half a dozen words at most in as many terms. Who did he think he was, anyway? He looked ridiculous in that shapeless waterproof with the hood still up. And what sort of stupid name was Terry for a science teacher? All science teachers ought to be called John. It was obvious, it was patently—

  ‘You’ve had your roads resurfaced.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Lydia blinked, interrupted mid-flow. (Flow? Torrent, more like.)

  ‘Your roads. They are all smooth. No bumps. You should see some of the streets in town. Pot holes the size of the Grand Canyon. I am for ever getting complaints.’

  ‘Oh?’ Complaints? What complaints? Why should people make complaints to John – Terry – about their street surfaces?

  ‘And look,’ he went on, ‘a brand new bus shelter. Wooden, too. Not cheap plastic.’

  There was a strident tone to his voice now. Was he like this when he was lecturing?

  ‘It’s always the same with this bloody council. Half the revenue is from the town, but most is siphoned off by Tory councillors to lavish on their villages.’

  Lydia said, ‘I’m not a proper villager. They call me an incomer.’ Why am I defending myself? I have no control over how the council spends its money. And I never use the bloody bus shelter.

  Terry ignored her, carried on. ‘But if you try to find out where the money is going – if you want to know how much they are actually spending – you never get anywhere. They ba
mboozle and stonewall and lead you up the garden path….’

  Oh my word! I really shouldn’t have called him John. It has obviously opened up deep wells of bitterness. ‘You can drop me here.’ False brightness. Help! Let me out!

  Terry pulled up. His brakes squealed. Lydia scrambled out. It was raining heavier now, the icy wind gusting, but she was simply thankful to get away.

  Or nearly away. Terry wound down his window.

  ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘Yes, fine. Thanks so much for the lift, Joh— Terry. It was so kind of you.’ She was much less daunted now that she was out of his car, felt she ought to offer him some sort of reward for saving her. Encouragement, perhaps? She leant towards the window. ‘If you really feel so strongly about what the council gets up to, you should try and get yourself elected. I’m sure you would stand a good chance, being so eloquent on the subject.’

  ‘I have been elected. I’m a district councillor.’ A quiet, weary tone. ‘But you’ve no idea how difficult it is to get things done when there are only six councillors from the town and twenty from the villages.’

  He wound up his window and drove off, tyres swishing along the wet road, leaving Lydia standing in the rain. For some reason that she could not fathom, she felt more than usually crushed.

  TWELVE

  HEARING THE DOORBELL, Dean decided that the safest course of action was to beat a quick retreat, even though he was halfway through a very instructive TV programme about the Large Hadron Collider. There was probably some old dear at the door come to have a gossip with his mother. They would sit in the front room and he wouldn’t be able to hear the TV above the chatter. He could, of course, try to interest them in the Large Hadron Collider but he was painfully aware that, past a certain age, women (his mother) developed a condition that might be described as myopia of the intellect. The conversation would be a long litany of ‘Have you heard … what do you think … and I said … then she said … can you believe it?’ They talked such drivel that you began to wonder if humans might actually be evolving backwards: back towards our ape-like ancestors, and further back, towards an ultimate form that would be something like a puddle of apathetic slime. Many people, Dean theorized, had already gone so far on this road as to have brains that had dissolved into slime.