The Great Village Show (27 page)

‘Help? Is that what you call it? I think you’ve done enough of that already. Filling my wife’s head with your nonsense. We were perfectly happy before you came on the scene …’ he bellows into my face, stepping closer towards me, and instinct tells me he’s done this before – warned people off. Jessie did say that any friends she has made in the past have tended to drift away after meeting her husband, and now I can see why. I bet he goes around intimidating them, scaring them off so he can keep Jessie all to himself, controlled and lonely, unloved and uncared for. Well, he’s got another think coming if he reckons for one second he’s going to frighten me away.

‘Err,’ I open my mouth, but he flings up a hand with such ferocity, it startles me and I immediately stop talking.

‘Don’t interrupt me. I haven’t finished.’ Silence follows as he glares at me, but I manage to hold eye contact, unflinching.

‘Actually, that’s where you’re wrong,’ I shout, still holding my nerve. ‘You don’t scare me. You’re a bully! Now get out of my house. You’re not welcome here, and you certainly weren’t invited, so I’d like you to leave. Right now!’ And I stand aside so he can go out the same way he came in here, but he doesn’t move. Instead he looks me up and down before giving me a sneering look. I take a deep breath and will myself to stop shaking. Adrenalin is surging through me so fast, and I can hear my own blood pumping inside my head. But I’m not backing down. No way. Jessie is my friend and that isn’t changing any time soon, just because he doesn’t like it.

‘Enjoy yourself, did you?’ Mr Cavendish sneers. ‘Giving my wife a crash course in being assertive. Women’s rights, or whatever rubbish it is you people spew? What are you, some kind of burn-your-bra freak? That’s if you even need to wear a bra …’ And he drops his eyes to my modest chest. I instinctively fold my arms and glare back at him.

RUDE. VERY, VERY RUDE!

I draw a long breath in.

‘Look, Jessie and I are friends—’

‘Oh yes, I know that,’ he interrupts again. ‘She told me all about you – how caring and kind you are, and how right you were when you said that she needed time to think about her life. Listen, my wife has everything she ever needs, and do you know why? Because I
give
it to her. That’s right, me, her loving and loyal husband.’

Well, I know that isn’t true!

He stabs at his chest with a pointy index finger and I actually think he might be deranged. Deluded. Psychotic, even. ‘You’re nobody to her, so stay away …’ he finishes, panting slightly as he comes to the end of his diatribe.

I change tack. ‘You need to go. You’re clearly very upset.’

‘So long as you understand. You keep away from my wife. You stop trying to change her. She doesn’t need friends like you. That’s why we moved here, to get away from all the other busybodies getting inside her head.’

‘I want you to go,’ I try again, feeling quite scared now. Abusive and threatening is one thing, but the way he’s behaving is something different.

‘I’m going nowhere until you swear to keep away …’ And he actually pulls out one of my dining chairs and drops down on to it with a weird, sort of sneering, manic smile on his face. Jesus. I spot the hands-free phone on the kitchen table. I can call Mark at the police house, but Mr Cavendish sees it too and jumps up. He smashes the phone across the room, causing it to shatter against the side of the Rayburn, and then goes to grab my arm, but the chair topples slightly, catching his foot, so he stumbles instead. My heart near leaps into my throat, and what’s that buzzing noise inside my head? I can’t breathe. My throat has closed and my chest feels as if a concrete slab has been dropped on it.

Suddenly, I see something in my peripheral vision. A movement.

The bathroom door.

‘
GET OUT!
’

It’s Mum.

And, I don’t believe it. She has a pink bath towel twirled around her head, and is sopping wet, with bubbles all over her naked body, only just covering her modesty.

Mr Cavendish doesn’t move. His jaw drops open. Mine too. And before he can respond, Mum swings the white wicker laundry basket lid up in front of her like a shield, which she then uses to body-slam the charming Mr Cavendish.

‘Go on! You heard her.
GET OUT!
’ Mum screams with such ferocity – I’ve never heard the like of it from her before, and it’s utterly terrifying.

She’s bashing the wicker lid into Mr Cavendish’s side now, over and over and over, all the while shrieking at him to leave. And, oh my God, she’s now dropped the makeshift shield and has grabbed a glass demijohn from the kitchen table. Mr Cavendish looks petrified as he tries to bring his fists up to protect himself. But Mum is on a roll; she’s like a Ninja, a super-hero or something, as she hurls the demijohn up high in the air with both hands before aiming it at Mr Cavendish’s head.

‘
NOOOOOOO!
’ I scream, flinging my hands out as if to stop her. ‘Not his head, Mum! You’ll kill him,’ I plead, with a sudden image flashing inside my head of her shuffling into a prison visiting room to see me when she’s serving a life sentence for his murder. ‘He’s not worth it,’ I pant, slapping my hands on to the back of his pinstripe shirt and shoving him as hard as I can.

‘Get off me,’ he yells, wrenching himself free. ‘The pair of you are fucking crazy. Jesus, I’ve a good mind to call the police and have you both arrested for assault!’ And he’s in such a hurry to escape that he gets disorientated and runs into the bathroom and promptly slips, just like I did on the bathroom mat, but instead of catapulting forward across the bath, he goes backwards and ends up in a heap on the floor, so I do the first thing that comes into my head and run across the kitchen and, after quickly kicking his outstretched arm out of the way, I fling the bathroom door shut and then immediately drag the armchair from over by the Rayburn and wedge it firmly under the handle so the charming Mr Cavendish is secured inside.

‘Ha! That’s my girl. Well done Megan,’ Mum puffs, placing both hands on her hips. I instinctively turn away as the suds have started to melt now and there are some things a daughter should never need to see. A sparkly vajazzle is definitely one of them.

‘Mum, run up to the police house and get Mark – here, put this on,’ and I rip off my dressing gown and sling it in her direction before loading wine crates on to the armchair, just in case the charming Mr Cavendish tries to push the door open. Hopefully, with the added weight, he’ll be going nowhere until Mark gets here.

‘I’m not leaving you alone with him,’ Mum protests, with a furious look on her face. ‘I’ll call 999.’

‘You can’t. He smashed the phone,’ I quickly tell her. ‘Go on, I’ll be fine. He’s going nowhere – and there’s no way he’ll fit through the tiny bathroom window,’ I state, loading another crate on to the pile already stacked up on the armchair. ‘Hurry. I need to make sure Jessie is OK. God knows what state she’s in, what he might have done to her before he came looking for me.’

‘Jessie?’

‘Yes, Mum. His
wife
,’ I tell her, feeling frantic now.

‘Poor woman!’ Mum promptly shoves her feet into a pair of my gardening clogs by the back door, and is off, running down the side of my cottage on to the lane and up into the village. The police house is only a five-minute walk away, so if she runs all the way, she’ll be there in no time.

*

Just moments later, or so it seems, and my tiny cottage is crammed with people in police uniform taking Mr Cavendish away. Gabe and Vicky are here too; they heard all the commotion and saw Mum tearing down the lane in a dressing gown, so thought it best to come round and check on me to see if everything was OK. I borrowed their phone to ring Jessie, and she’s fine, shaken up after the terrible argument that erupted when Sebastian turned up out of the blue, but she’s OK – Sam is with her now, and I’m going down to the farmhouse to see her shortly, just as soon as everyone has left.

‘Honestly, I’m fine, thanks,’ I say, gratefully accepting the blanket from Vicky.

‘Are you sure?’ she asks, and I nod.

‘How about I make you both a nice cup of tea?’ Gabe offers, glancing at Mum, who thankfully has kept my dressing gown well and truly on, and with the belt tied securely around her waist.

‘I think we could do with something a bit stronger!’ And she grabs a bottle of carrot wine from the table, pulls the cork out and takes an enormous glug before collapsing in the window seat with a very harried look on her face. ‘And to think I came to Tindledale with my heart set on spending some nice, quiet, quality time with my daughter! How wrong was I? Things sure have moved on around here – in my day it was all cows and sheep and strawberries and fields. Lots of fields.’ She rolls her eyes before glugging another mouthful of wine. ‘Honestly, nowadays, if it isn’t lunatics breaking into people’s homes, then it’s S&M dungeons in your cottage basement.’ She points to the steps next to my pantry door and Gabe and Vicky exchange horrified looks as I shrivel a little inside. An image pops into my head of the
Tindledale Herald
headlines –
Local teacher with S&M fetish – even has own dungeon!
It could happen! If Mum keeps on like this.

*

It’s nearly midnight when Mark and I get to Jessie’s farmhouse. There’s a light glowing from the kitchen window and I can see Jessie sitting at the pine table with her head in her hands. Sam comes to the door right away, on seeing me.

‘Meg, thank you for coming, and I’m so sorry for everything. Are you OK?’ he says, concern etched all over his face.

‘Sam, I’m fine, honestly, it probably sounded a lot worse than it was.’ Sam looks at Mark, who nods and asks him, ‘Is there somewhere where we can talk?’ Mark turns to me. ‘Meg, maybe you could see if Jessie is OK?’

‘Sure, and I’ll make us some tea,’ I smile, before making my way to the kitchen.

I put the kettle on and then sit next to Jessie. She doesn’t move. I edge closer and put an arm around her. We sit silently for a few minutes until she subsides into me and sobs for a good few minutes. Eventually, and all cried out, she leans back in her chair.

‘Oh Meg, I am so, so sorry,’ she says, her voice trembling. ‘And I will totally understand if you want nothing more to do with me …’

‘Hey,’ I lift her chin and look into her eyes, ‘why on earth would you say that?’

‘Because I’m a mess!’ She looks away. ‘And I’ve brought trouble to your door.’

‘No you haven’t. Sebastian did. You didn’t make him come to my house. It’s not your fault. He’s a grown man who makes his own decisions. You are not to blame. Do you hear me?’ I say firmly, and Jessie nods.

‘But I should have left him ages ago, I can see that now … and I should never have told him that you agreed with me, in that I needed time to think; but he was so angry, furious when I suggested we needed time apart and I felt helpless, hopeless, in that moment. I felt so desperate. It was as if I needed to somehow show him that I wasn’t the only one who thought so, to somehow give credibility to what I was saying. Sebastian never listened properly to me, he never took me seriously, but then why would he? I’m feeble. I’m pathetic. I’m a terrible person. You know, I didn’t even have the courage to tell him it was over. No, I shouldn’t have mentioned you at all … I should never have dragged you into my shambolic life.’ She sniffs before reaching for a tissue from a box on the table.

Silence follows.

‘That’s a lot of “shoulds”,’ I smile gently. ‘How about you go easy on yourself for a change? Stop telling yourself off. It’s going to be fine. I promise you. You’ll see, and you are not feeble or pathetic or terrible. Now, I’m going to check on the children and then I’m going to make you a nice cup of tea,’ I tell her, patting her shoulder as I go.

‘Meg, I really am terrible,’ Jessie says quietly, and I stop moving. I turn back to see her face is ashen as she stands up.

‘What is it?’ I ask softly, touching her arm. She looks petrified. A short silence follows. She closes her eyes and then takes a deep breath, before telling me.

‘I’m pregnant!’ she sobs. ‘And Sam is the father.’

‘Oh.’ A short silence follows. ‘Does he know?’ I ask softly, conscious that Mark and Sam are in the next room. I close the kitchen door just to be sure they can’t hear us. Jessie shakes her head. ‘Oh Jessie, why haven’t you told him?’ I ask gently, remembering how she didn’t touch her Pimm’s at the meeting that time, or my elderflower fizz in the garden – it makes sense now.

‘I don’t know. I, just, I … I guess I was in denial for a while, and then I got scared. Scared of what Sebastian would do, what he still might do. He’ll take the triplets away from me.’

‘He can’t do that,’ I quickly say.

‘But he said so – when he found out that Sam had been in touch, and that I went to the funeral, he told me that if I saw him again, then he’d make sure I …’ Jessie drops her head into her hands. ‘Meg, I don’t know if I can go through with this pregnancy. I can’t risk losing the children that I already have, I just can’t do that.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ I say, going to her and putting my arms around her again.

S
how day. And the weather is glorious. A cloudless blue sky and the already warm sun is dazzling and hazing over the fields beyond the stream at the end of my garden. It’s only early, but I’ve come down here to sit on my tree stump beside the magnolia bush and enjoy a mug of tea before the day really gets under way.