Vintage Babes (42 page)

‘In what way?’ she asked, and I explained about us having dinner in London and how he had expected me to spend the night with him and had spoken of leaving Kathryn and their sons.

‘I used to have a certain amount of respect for him, but not any longer. Now my eyes have been opened,’ I said. ‘Tom reckoned I hadn’t found another man because anyone else would’ve come second to him. Talk about arrogance!’

‘You don’t think he was speaking the truth?’ Jenny said. ‘I do.’

‘You – you do?’ I faltered.

‘Yes. I think that for the past eight years, you’ve still been in love with him. You may have been divorced, the two of you may have rarely met, but, as far as you were concerned, Tom remained the man in your life. The one you cared about.’

‘I never said I still cared for him,’ I protested.

She gave a gentle smile. ‘You didn’t need to. Have you never wondered why you haven’t felt the urge to marry again? Or become involved in a proper romance? I think it’s because, subconsciously, you still regarded Tom as the ideal companion, husband and lover, and felt you couldn’t replace him. You didn’t want to replace him because, deep down, you still loved him. So no other man has stood a chance.’

‘You reckon?’ I said wonderingly.

‘I’m sure,’ Jenny declared.

For a minute or two I was silent and pensive, considering what she had said, then I nodded. She was right. All of a sudden it seemed so obvious: alarmingly, glaringly obvious. Yet the Tom I had loved post-divorce had been an imagined Tom. A Tom who had cared about the sanctity of marriage, about the wasted life of a stillborn child, about the emotional security of his two living sons. He did not exist and now it was over. The next time we met I would be civil, but unaffected. I smiled. I had finally, as the current jargon goes, ‘drawn a line in the sand’ and ‘achieved closure’.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

The clock on the
wall showed six p.m. Melanie had only just departed and I remained busy. I was determined to finish a piece I was writing, about how Dursleigh’s shopkeeper community had warned the council they would fight the hourly parking fees which it was rumoured could be imposed on the village’s general car park – and that they had the backing of many local residents. I wrote the last sentence. Re-thought and re-wrote. Then I read through the entire article and nodded. All done.

Steve was also working late, so should I suggest we go out for a meal together? Debbie was at a girlfriend’s house for a sleepover this evening.

‘She’s fed-up with being forced to watch the current affairs programmes and documentaries that I like on TV,’ Steve had told me, grinning. ‘The night away is an escape.’

So he was on his own. Even if Tina no longer seemed to pose an immediate threat, another night of chat and socialising would be good.

‘I was wondering –’ I began, as Steve came into the general office. I broke off. The telephone on my desk had started to ring and I lifted the receiver. ‘The Siren,
Carol Webb speaking.’

‘Your dad lives in the Bridgemont Retirement flats, doesn’t he?’ asked Roger, my friendly policeman.

‘That’s right.’

‘Thought so. And thought you might like to know that the house manager from there has just rung in, reporting a disturbance.’

‘What kind of a disturbance?’

‘Raised voices in one of the flats and rumours of some aggro. Sounds like a domestic. Though I don’t recall any trouble there ever before.’

‘And the police are attending?’

‘Someone’ll be along a.s.a.p., but an accident’s caused a snarl-up on the roundabout and a mysterious package has been left under a railway bridge, so we’re stretched thin right now.’ I heard an authoritative voice in the background. ‘Must go. Bye.’

‘Bye.’ I replaced the receiver, then lifted it again and pressed out my father’s number. ‘There’s some kind of an upset at the retirement flats where my dad lives,’ I told Steve. ‘I’m just calling him to see if he can tell me anything about it. ‘Pensioner puts false teeth in wrong glass and wife goes berserk’. How’s that for a headline?’

He smiled. ‘‘Pensioner attacked by feral sets of false teeth’, would sell more copies.’

I waited as the tone rang and rang and rang. ‘No reply.’

‘Your father wouldn’t be involved in the upset?’ Steve said, as I put down the telephone.

‘No. No, it’s not his style.’ I recalled my scenario of the old ladies fighting over him. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But he’s usually in at this time, watching the television news, it’s part of his regular routine and –’ I frowned. Although the flats were fitted with emergency pull cords in every room in case of illness, it was always possible that a resident – my dad? – could trip and knock himself unconscious or collapse. ‘I think I’ll drive over there and check he’s okay.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘There’s no need,’ I began, then thought of how I had been going to suggest we went out to dinner. Once I had satisfied myself that my father was in prime health, perhaps the two of us could carry on to a restaurant. ‘Actually, thanks. We can go in my car and I’ll bring you back to pick up yours, as and when.’

‘Fine.’

‘Roger also mentioned an accident on the roundabout and a mysterious package left under a railway bridge. Don’t know if they’re of any great importance, but –’

Steve reached for the telephone. ‘I’ll give Tony a quick buzz and ask him to find out more.’

Fifteen minutes later, I pulled into one of the visitors’ parking bays at the flats. As Steve and I climbed out, we heard the babble of voices, interspersed with the occasional shout, coming from around the back of the three-storey block. Taking the path which crossed the neatly cut lawn, we headed for the noise.

‘Good God!’ Steve muttered, as we turned the corner of the building.

Gathered on the grass in the evening sunlight was a crowd of forty to fifty people, the Bridgemont residents. One or two sat in wheelchairs, several rested on sticks, one old lady lay on a white plastic lounger, but all were looking up at a top floor balcony. Edged by a black wrought-iron railing and set with pot plants, the balcony was deserted, though the French windows which led into the flat stood wide open.

‘Let him go!’ a woman cried, from within the depths of the throng.

‘Calm down, old chap!’ quavered a stooped man in a Boston Red Sox baseball cap. Worn with the peak to the front, I’m glad to say.

‘Do the decent thing,’ encouraged a Santa Claus type with a bushy white beard.

As the spectators gazed up in rapt fascination – and exchanged continual comments – Gillian, the house manager, was walking back and forth in front of them.

‘Please, ladies and gentlemen, move away and return to your own homes,’ she appealed. ‘There’s nothing of any interest to be seen here. Please, go now.’

No one took a blind bit of notice.

‘We’ve not had such excitement since Lilian said the cream was off on a trifle at Annie’s birthday party and Annie, she’d made the trifle, tipped it over her,’ a nearby woman remarked to a man in tartan velour bedroom slippers.

He chuckled. ‘Brightened up the day, that did. And this kerfuffle, well, it’s like something on the telly. In
The Bill
.’

‘Or
Midsomer Murders
,’ said the woman. ‘I never miss
Midsomer Murders
.’

The man nodded. ‘Me, neither. Aren’t the villages picturesque?’

As they launched into an appreciation of thatched cottages and steepled churches, I scanned the crowd and, to my relief, saw my father – fit and well and speaking to a woman standing beside him.

‘There’s my dad,’ I told Steve and, as I was pointing him out, my father saw me.

Excusing himself from the woman – the refined Marie? – he came over.

‘This is Steve, my editor,’ I said, in a quick introduction.

My father nodded. ‘Evening. Nice to meet you.’

‘And you,’ Steve replied.

‘We’re here because someone rang the paper to say there was trouble at Bridgemont,’ I went on. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Nasty business,’ my father said. ‘It’s William. Dilys’s William. He’s up there in her place with her and Ernest, keeping the door locked and shouting abuse. William came out onto the balcony a few minutes ago and –’ he expelled a breath ‘– my word, I’ve never heard such language. And in front of ladies.’

‘Who are William and Dilys and Ernest?’ Steve enquired.

‘William is William Langsdon,’ I said. ‘He –’

‘You once asked me if his name meant anything.’

‘That’s right. When I met him, he seemed somehow familiar. He’s the son of Dilys, a widow who lives here. Ernest is another resident and he’s a friend of my dad’s.’

‘Ernest has a dodgy heart,’ my father inserted.

‘He’s a friend of Dilys’s, too?’ Steve said.

My father shook his head. ‘He doesn’t care for her. Considers she’s down-market, a working class cockney,’ he confided, behind his hand. ‘Bit of a snob is Ernest.’

‘So why is he in her flat?’ Steve asked.

‘William took him there, by force.’

‘Force?’ I protested.

‘Brute force. Seems Dilys had been in her garage to get some washing-up liquid and had forgotten to zap down the door. Ernest had noticed and was having a look inside –’

‘Ernest can be nosy,’ I informed Steve.

‘He was having a look inside,’ my father continued, ‘when William arrived, saw him and took offence. Remember I told you how aggressive the fellow was with me?’

I nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Seems he was even worse with Ernest. Much worse. Accused him of prying, then pinned his arm behind his back, marched him straight through the lobby and into the lift. And when they reached the top floor, frogmarched him into his mother’s place. A couple of folk caught a glimpse and they said Ernest looked terrified. White as paper and shaking like a leaf.’

Steve frowned. ‘How long ago was this?’

‘Must be getting on for an hour. They’d hardly gone through Dilys’s front door when the shouting started. Seems William called Ernest all kinds of a snoop and a troublemaker, and declared he deserved to be thumped.’

I thought of how timid the old man had been. ‘Poor Ernest.’

‘Can’t have done his heart much good. Then the shouting stopped and the folk who’d been listening decided the trouble must be over, but later on William let rip again. After his run-in with me, Dilys confessed he has one heck of a temper. Can fly off the handle about nothing. Anyway, the second time someone alerted Gillian and she went up to listen. When she heard William making threats, she knocked on the door and demanded to speak to Ernest, but William told her to mind her own business. Told her in no uncertain terms.’

‘He didn’t open the door?’ Steve asked.

My father shook his head. ‘Shouted through it. So Gillian decided she’d better ring the police, though they haven’t turned up yet. Dilys’s French windows were open and when they heard the racket coming through them, people started to congregate on the lawn. William didn’t like that. When he came onto the balcony and saw everyone, he told us we were a bunch of cretins and ordered us to bugger off. Of course, no one moved and then he really turned the air blue. When he went inside, he slammed the French windows shut, but not much later Dilys opened them. Her place can become airless, stuffy, so –’