Читать книгу The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - Joanna Cannon, Joanna Cannon - Страница 15

‘Go on then.’ Tilly elbowed me with the edge of her jumper.

I stared at the doorbell. ‘I’m working up to it,’ I said.

Mr and Mrs Forbes’ house was the kind of house which looked as though no one was ever at home. All the other houses on the avenue seemed bewildered by the heat. Fingers of weeds crept along garden paths, windows were dimmed by a film of dust, and long evenings lay abandoned on lawns, as if everything had forgotten what it was supposed to be doing. The Forbeses’ house, however, remained smug and determined, as though it was setting an example to all the other, more slovenly, houses.

‘Perhaps no one is in,’ I said, ‘perhaps we should try tomorrow.’

I slid the toe of my sandal along the edge of the doorstep. It was brushed smooth.

‘They’re definitely at home.’ Tilly pressed her face against a slice of stained glass in the door. ‘I can hear a television.’

I put my face next to hers. ‘Perhaps they’re watching a film,’ I said. ‘Perhaps we should come back later.’

‘Do you not think we owe it to Mrs Creasy to ring the bell as soon as possible?’ Tilly turned to me and adopted her most serious face. ‘And to God?’

Sunlight reflected from the brilliant white of Mrs Forbes’ Cotswold chippings, and I creased my eyes against the glare.

‘As a Sixer, Tilly, I have decided to assign ringing the doorbell to you, while I prepare my speech.’

She looked up at me from under her sou’wester. ‘But we’re not actually in the Brownies, Gracie.’

I gave a small sigh. ‘It’s important to get into character,’ I said.

Tilly frowned and stared at the front door. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps no one is at home.’

‘Someone is very much at home.’

Mrs Forbes appeared on the path which ran down the side of house. She wore the kind of clothes my mother saved for doctor’s appointments, and under her arm was a large roll of dustbin bags. She snapped one free, and a small group of pigeons tumbled from the roof in shock.

She asked us what we wanted. Tilly stared into the chippings and I folded my arms and stood on one leg, and tried to take up a very small amount of room on the doorstep.

‘We’re Brownies,’ I said, as soon as I remembered.

‘We’re Brownie Guides. We’re here to lend a hand,’ said Tilly, although she managed to stop herself from singing.

‘You don’t look like Brownies.’ Mrs Forbes narrowed her eyes.

‘We’re being casual.’ I narrowed my eyes back.

I said that we needed help from our neighbourhood, and Mrs Forbes agreed that she was, indeed, our neighbourhood, and suggested we might like to come inside, out of the heat. Behind Mrs Forbes’ cardigan, Tilly waved her arms around in excitement, and I waved my arms around back again to try and calm her down.

We followed Mrs Forbes’ heels down the side of the house, as they clicked a neat path on the concrete, and our sandals smacked and squabbled behind her in a tangle of keeping up. After a moment, she turned, and as Tilly and I were both still waving our arms around, we almost fell into her.

‘Does your mother know you’re here, Grace?’ she said. She held her hands up, as though she were directing traffic.

‘We told her, Mrs Forbes,’ I said.

Her hands dropped back, and the tap of her heels began again.

I wondered if Mrs Forbes realized that telling my mother something and my mother knowing about it were usually two very different things, that my mother’s fingers would often fly to her throat and she would strongly deny ever being told anything of the sort – even when my father presented her with witnesses (me) and a word-by-word account of the entire conversation.

‘She never asked about my mum,’ Tilly whispered.

Tilly’s mother was usually considered too unpredictable to ask after.

I straightened the back of her jumper. ‘It’s all right. Asking about my mum will cover both of us. You are always welcome to borrow her.’

Tilly smiled and linked her arm through mine.

I sometimes wondered if there was ever a time when she wasn’t there.

*

Mrs Forbes’ carpet was the colour of cough syrup. It ran along the hall and into the sitting room, and when I looked back, I saw it climb all the way up the stairs. There were still lines where the vacuum cleaner had sailed across, and as we walked into the sitting room, there was an extra square of syrup, just in case you were to discover that a whole houseful wasn’t quite enough.

Mrs Forbes asked if we’d like some cordial, and I said yes, and I wouldn’t say no to a custard cream, and she’d made an oh shape with her mouth, and left us to sit on a dark pink sofa, which had twisty arms and its own set of dimples. I decided to balance on the edge. Tilly had sat down first. The seats were so deep, her legs didn’t reach the floor, and they stretched out in front of her, like a doll.

She rolled across and peered into the gap between the sofa and the wall.

‘Can you see Him yet?’ she said, from near the carpet.

‘Who?’

She rolled back, her face crimson with effort. ‘God,’ she said.

‘I don’t think He’s simply going to pop out of the sideboard, Tilly.’

We both looked at the sideboard, just in case.

‘But shouldn’t we make a start?’ she said. ‘Mrs Creasy might be in peril.’

I stared at the room. It looked as though someone might have served it into the house with an ice-cream scoop. Even the things that weren’t pink had a mention of it, as if they hadn’t been allowed through the door without making a firm commitment. There were twists of salmon rope holding back the curtains, fuchsia tassels on each of the cushions, and the pot dogs guarding the mantelpiece had garlands of rosebuds around their necks. Between the pot dogs was a line of photographs: Mr and Mrs Forbes sitting on deckchairs at a beach, and Mr Forbes standing next to a motor car, and Mrs and Mrs Forbes with a group of people, having a picnic. Right in the centre was a girl with her hair pinned into waves. All the people in the other photographs looked away from the lens with serious eyes, but the girl stared straight into the camera and smiled, and it was so honest and so unprotected, it made me want to smile straight back.

‘I wonder who she is,’ I said.

But Tilly was examining the space behind the settee. ‘Do you think He’s down here somewhere?’ She lifted a cushion and peered at the back of it.

I looked up at the champagne teardrops which spilled from the light fitting. ‘I think it might be a bit too pink, even for Jesus,’ I said.

*

Mrs Forbes returned with a tray and a selection of biscuits.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have any custard creams,’ she said.

I took three fig rolls and a garibaldi. ‘That’s all right, Mrs Forbes. I’ll just have to manage.’

I could hear the noise of a television in the room next door, and Mr Forbes’ voice shouting instructions at it. It sounded like a football match. Even though the sounds were just the other side of the wall, they seemed very far away, and the rest of the world played itself out beyond the pink insulation, leaving us wrapped in Dralon and cushions, protected by china dogs and cellophaned in an ice-cream silence.

‘You have a very nice house, Mrs Forbes,’ said Tilly.

‘Thank you, dear.’

I bit into my garibaldi and she rushed a paper doily on to my knee.

‘The key to a tidy house is anticipation. And lists. Lots of lists.’

‘Lists?’ I said.

‘Oh yes, lists. That way, nothing ever gets forgotten.’

She pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her cardigan.

‘This is today’s list,’ she said. ‘I’m up to the dustbins.’

It was a long list. It crossed over two pages in loops of blue ink, which thickened and smudged where the pen had stopped to think. As well as vacuuming the hall and putting out the dustbins, it had entries like clean teeth and eat breakfast.

‘Do you put everything on your list, Mrs Forbes?’ I started on my first fig roll.

‘Oh yes, best not to leave anything to chance. It was Harold’s idea. He says it stops me being slapdash.’

‘Could you not remember things without writing them down?’ said Tilly.

‘Heavens, no.’ Mrs Forbes shrank back in her chair, and she faded into a pink landscape. ‘That wouldn’t do at all. Harold says I’d get in a terrible mess.’

She folded the piece of paper exactly in half, and returned it to her pocket.

‘So how long have you two been in the Brownies?’

‘Ages,’ I said. ‘Who’s the girl in the photograph?’

She frowned at me and then looked over at the fireplace and frowned again. ‘Oh, that’s me,’ she said, in a surprised voice, as though she had temporarily forgotten all about herself.

I studied Mrs Forbes and the girl in the photograph, and tried to find something that matched. There was nothing.

‘Don’t look so shocked,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t born old, you know.’

My mother used this saying quite frequently. I had learned from experience not to say one word in reply, and I sipped my cordial to avoid having to make a comment.

She walked over to the mantelpiece. I always thought of Mrs Forbes as being solid and blustery, but close up she became diluted. Her posture was a slight apology, the folds of her clothes measuring out the end of a story. Even her hands looked small, trapped by arthritis and livered with time.

She ran her finger around the frame of the picture. ‘It was just before I met Harold,’ she said.

‘You look very happy.’ I took another fig roll. ‘I wonder what you were thinking about.’

‘I do, don’t I?’ Mrs Forbes took a cloth from her waistband and began dusting herself. ‘I only wish I could remember.’

On the other side of the wall, the football match ended rather abruptly. There was creaking and grumbling, and the click of a door, and then the sound of footsteps across the syrupy carpet. When I turned around, Mr Forbes was standing in the doorway, watching us. He wore a pair of shorts. His legs were pale and hairless, and they looked as though he could easily have borrowed them from someone else.

‘What’s going on here, then?’ he said.

Mrs Forbes put herself back on the mantelpiece and spun round.

‘Grace and Tilly are Brownies.’ Her eyes were so bright, they were almost enamelled. ‘They’re here to lend …’ she faltered.

He folded his forehead into a frown and put his hands on his hips. ‘A book? Money? A cup of sugar?’

Mrs Forbes was hypnotized, and she wrapped the duster around her fingers until they became mottled with white.

‘To lend …’ Mrs Forbes repeated the words.

Mr Forbes continued to stare. I could hear his dentures click against the roof of his mouth.

‘A hand,’ said Tilly.

‘That’s right. A hand. They’re here to lend a hand.’

She unwound the duster, and I heard the air leave her lungs in little pieces.

Mr Forbes grunted.

He said as long as that’s all it is, and does Sylve know she’s here, and Mrs Forbes nodded so vigorously the crucifix around her neck did a little dance on her collarbone.

‘I’m going to post my letter,’ said Mr Forbes. ‘If we wait for you to do it, I’ll miss the second collection. I just need to find out where you’ve hidden my shoes.’

Mrs Forbes nodded again, and the crucifix nodded along with her, even though Mr Forbes had long since disappeared from the doorway.

‘My teachers do that to me all the time,’ said Tilly.

‘Do what, dear?’

‘Throw words at me until I get confused.’ Tilly picked garibaldi crumbs from the carpet and lifted them on to the plate. ‘It always makes me feel stupid.’

‘It does?’ said Mrs Forbes.

‘I’m not, though.’ Tilly smiled.

Mrs Forbes smiled back. ‘Do you enjoy school, Tilly?’ she said.

‘Not really. A lot of the girls don’t like us very much. Sometimes we’re bullied.’

‘They hit you?’ Mrs Forbes’ hand flew to her mouth.

‘Oh no, they don’t hit us, Mrs Forbes.’

‘You don’t always have to hit people,’ I said, ‘to bully them.’

Mrs Forbes reached for the nearest chair and lowered herself into it. ‘I expect you’re right,’ she said.

I was about to speak when Mr Forbes came back into the room. He was still wearing his shorts, but he had added a flat cap and a pair of sunglasses, and he was carrying a letter. He reminded me of my father. Whenever it became hot, he swapped his trousers for shorts, but everything else he kept exactly the same.

Mr Forbes placed his letter on the sideboard, and sat on the sofa with such force, the aftershock almost suspended Tilly in mid-air. He began tying his shoes, tugging at the laces until little fibres of fabric hovered in the space above his fingers. I stood up to give his legs more privacy.

‘So you can cross this off your list for a start, Dorothy,’ he was saying. ‘Although there’s plenty more to be getting on with.’

He looked over at me. ‘Will you be staying long?’ he said.

‘Oh no, Mr Forbes. Not long at all. We’ll be gone as soon as we’ve lent a hand.’

He looked back at his feet and grunted again. I wasn’t sure if he was approving of me or the tightness of his shoelaces.

‘She gets very easily distracted, you see.’ He nodded at Mrs Forbes with the brim of his cap. ‘It’s her age. Isn’t it, Dorothy?’ He made a winding motion at the side of his temple.

Mrs Forbes smiled, but it sat on her mouth at half-mast.

‘Can’t keep a thing in her head for more than five minutes.’ He spoke behind the back of his hand, like a whisper, but the volume of his voice remained exactly the same. ‘Losing her marbles, I’m afraid.’

He stood, and then bent very theatrically to adjust his socks. Tilly edged to safety at the far end of the settee.

‘I’m off to the post box.’ He marched towards the hall. ‘I shall be back in thirty minutes. Try not to get yourself in a muddle whilst I’m gone.’

He had vanished from the doorway before I realized.

‘Mr Forbes.’ I had to shout to make him hear.

He reappeared. He didn’t look like the kind of person who was used to being shouted at.

I handed him the envelope. ‘You’ve forgotten your letter,’ I said.

Mrs Forbes waited until the front door clicked shut, and then she began to laugh. Her laughing made me and Tilly laugh as well, and the rest of the world seemed to creep back into the room again, as if it wasn’t quite as far away as I thought.

Whilst we were laughing, I looked at Mrs Forbes, and I looked over at the girl on the mantelpiece, who laughed with us through a corridor of time, and I realized that they were a perfect match after all.

*

‘I didn’t know we’d actually have to do actual housework,’ said Tilly.

Mrs Forbes had left us tied into aprons up to our armpits. Tilly stood on the far side of the room, rubbing Brasso into a sleeping West Highland white terrier.

‘It’s important that we don’t arouse suspicion,’ I said, and took the last garibaldi back to the settee.

‘But do you think God is here?’ Tilly peered at the dog and ran the duster over its ears. ‘If God keeps everyone safe, do you think he’s keeping Mrs Forbes safe as well?’

I thought about the cross around Mrs Forbes’ neck. ‘I hope so,’ I said.

Mrs Forbes returned to the room with a new packet of garibaldis. ‘What do you hope, dear?’

I watched her empty them on to the plate. ‘Do you believe in God, Mrs Forbes?’ I said.

‘Of course.’

She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t look at the sky or at me, or even repeat the question back again. She just carried on rearranging biscuits.

‘How can you be so sure?’ said Tilly.

‘Because that’s what you do. God brings people together. He makes sense of everything.’

‘Even the bad things?’ I said.

‘Of course.’ She looked at me for a moment, and then returned to the plate.

I could see Tilly beyond Mrs Forbes’ shoulder. Her polishing had become slow and deliberate, and she willed a whole conversation at me with her eyes.

‘How can God make sense of Mrs Creasy disappearing?’ I said. ‘For example.’

Mrs Forbes stepped back, and a mist of crumbs fell to the carpet.

‘I’ve no idea.’ She folded the empty packet between her hands, even though it refused to become smaller. ‘I’ve never even spoken to the woman.’

‘Didn’t you meet her?’ I said.

‘No.’ Mrs Forbes twisted the packet around her ring finger. ‘They only moved into the house a little while ago, after John’s mother died. I never had the chance.’

‘I just wonder why she vanished?’ I edged the sentence towards her, like a dare.

‘Well, it was nothing to do with me, I didn’t say a word.’ Her voice had become spiked and feverish, and the sentence rushed from her mouth in order to escape.

‘What do you mean, Mrs Forbes?’ I looked at Tilly, and Tilly looked at me and we both frowned.

Mrs Forbes sank on to the settee.

‘Ignore me, I’m getting muddled.’ She patted the back of her neck, as if she was checking to see that her head was still firmly attached. ‘It’s my age.’

‘We just can’t understand where she’s gone,’ I said.

Mrs Forbes smoothed down the tassels on one of the cushions. ‘I’m sure she’ll return in good time,’ she said, ‘people usually do.’

‘I hope she does.’ Tilly untied the apron from under her arms. ‘I liked Mrs Creasy. She was nice.’

‘I’m sure she was.’ Mrs Forbes fiddled at the cushion. ‘But I’ve never spent any time in that woman’s company, so I couldn’t really say.’

I moved the garibaldis around on the plate. ‘Perhaps someone else on the avenue might know where she’s gone.’

Mrs Forbes stood up. ‘I very much doubt it,’ she said. ‘The reason Margaret Creasy disappeared is nothing to do with any of us. God works in mysterious ways, Harold was right. Everything happens for a reason.’

I wanted to ask her what the reason was, and why God had to be so mysterious about his work, but Mrs Forbes had taken the list out of her pocket.

‘Harold will be back soon. I’d better get on,’ she said. And she began running her finger down the lines of blue ink.

*

We walked back along the avenue. The weight of the sky pressed down on us as we pulled our legs through the heat. I stared at the hills which overlooked the town, but it was impossible to see where they began and where the sky ended. They were welded together by the summer, and the horizon shimmered and hissed and refused to be found.

Somewhere beyond the gardens, I could hear the sound of a Wimbledon commentary drifting from a window.

Advantage, Borg. And the distant flutter of applause.

The road was deserted. The beat of an afternoon sun had hurried everyone indoors to fan themselves with newspapers and rub Soltan into their forearms. The only person who remained was Sheila Dakin. She sat on a deckchair on the front lawn of number twelve, arms and legs spread wide, her face stretched towards the heat, as though someone had pegged her out as a giant, mahogany sacrifice.

‘Hello, Mrs Dakin,’ I shouted across the tarmac.

Sheila Dakin lifted her head, and I saw a trail of saliva glisten at the edge of her mouth.

She waved. ‘Hello, ladies.’

She always called us ladies, and it turned Tilly’s face red and made us smile.

‘So God is at Mrs Forbes’ house,’ said Tilly, when we had stopped smiling.

‘I believe he is.’ I pulled Tilly’s sou’wester down at the back, to cover her neck. ‘So we can say for definite that Mrs Forbes is safe, although I’m not very sure about her husband.’

‘It’s just a pity she never met Mrs Creasy, she could have given us some clues.’ Tilly kicked at a loose chipping, and it coasted into a hedge.

I stopped walking so suddenly, my sandals skidded dust on the pavement.

Tilly looked back. ‘What’s the matter, Gracie?’

‘The picnic,’ I said.

‘What picnic?’

‘The photograph of the picnic on the mantelpiece.’

Tilly frowned. ‘I don’t understand?’

I stared at the pavement and tried to think backwards. ‘The woman,’ I said, ‘the woman.’

‘What woman?’

‘The woman sitting next to Mrs Forbes at the picnic.’

‘What about her?’ said Tilly.

I looked up and straight into Tilly’s eyes. ‘It was Margaret Creasy.’