Chapter Six

Ellie woke with a start when the front-door bell rang. One prolonged, insistent ring. Diana. It must be.

Ellie eased Frank out of her arms — he was still fast asleep — and covered him over with her jacket before going to the front door. Yes, it was Diana. And Denis. Denis was smiling. Ellie wondered, uncharitably, whether he smiled even in his sleep.

Denis handed over Ellie’s two trays while Diana stalked through into the conservatory, shedding her jacket and handbag as she went. She didn’t observe her son, curled up on the settee in the sitting room, but she did comment on the mark on Ellie’s jumper.

‘Honestly, Mother. Food stains! Whatever next!’

Denis bent down, still smiling, and took Ellie by surprise by kissing her cheek.

‘Dear Ellie!’

Flustered, Ellie dumped the trays in the kitchen, and offered coffee or tea.

‘Something stronger?’ said Denis, rubbing his hands. ‘To celebrate.’

Ellie tried to slot back into their world. ‘Would you like a sherry? I think I’ve got some in the other room, but I don’t drink much nowadays. You had a good first day?’ She dived into the sitting room to rescue the bottle, and a couple of glasses, taking care not to wake Frank.

‘What, no champagne?’ said Denis.

Ellie’s eyes widened at the thought of keeping champagne in the house. Whatever next! She poured him a small sherry, which he was graciously pleased to accept.

Diana said, ‘It will be better when we can contact your friend up the road, Mother. And before you ask, yes, we’ve removed the Sold sign.’

Ellie handed Diana another sherry, and scrabbled in her handbag for the telephone number of Mr Ball which Mr Hurry, the decorator, had given her. ‘Here it is. The house is owned by a Mrs Ball. Her nephew — same name — doesn’t live there, but is involved with the plans to modernize and sell it. They’re often at cross-purposes, it seems. The garden is a wreck . . .’ Ellie swallowed. ‘But there’s a new bathroom and kitchen being fitted. That’s his mobile phone number, not hers.’

‘You are quite brilliant, Ellie,’ said Denis, smiling. He took Ellie’s hand in both of his. ‘We’d never have got this house without you.’

Ellie thought, but managed not to say, You haven’t got it yet.

‘And I want to assure you that you will receive a cheque for a percentage of our profit when the sale goes through.’

‘Oh, but I wouldn’t dream of it.’ said Ellie.

‘Nonsense, my dear.’ He pumped her hand up and down between both of his. ‘We regard you as a partner in our little agency, don’t we, Diana? You have a stake in our success, right? As such, I’d like to propose a little contract between us. You are in an ideal position in church to learn about who might be wanting to downsize or, indeed, to go into better accommodation around here. You will get a percentage each time you bring us a lead which goes through to a sale.’

Ellie removed her hand. ‘A kind thought, but it’s not really my style.’

Diana threw herself on to a chair. ‘Oh, come on, Mother. It’ll be easy money for you, and help us to get established. As Denis says, it’s in your interest for us to succeed.’

‘I wish you well,’ said Ellie, diplomatically, ‘but I’m no saleswoman. I’m sure that dealing honestly with people will be your quickest road to success.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Denis, losing his smile and narrowing his eyes.

Diana yawned. Shrugged. ‘Well, we offered.’

The doorbell rang again, twice. Thomas.

Ellie hastened to let him into the hall. He looked serious, was wearing his dog collar with a good navy-blue suit.

Ellie asked, ‘Mrs Dawes?’

‘Still unconscious. They thought at first she might have a broken jaw, but apparently that’s all right. It’s the head injury that’s worrying them now. They’re going to do a scan, see if there’s a depressed fracture and if so, they’ll need to operate. But, it’s Saturday and they may have trouble trying to find a safe pair of hands. There’s talk of moving her to another hospital, but they think that’s too dangerous. It all depends on the results of the scan. Neil’s at her side.’

‘Prognosis?’

He shook his head. ‘They say it was right to call the next of kin. Neil’s beside himself. He only saw her yesterday, when she tore him off a strip as usual. I’ve got another visit to pay first but I said I’d go back and sit with him later on. Have you eaten? Could you manage something?’

Ellie tipped her head to the conservatory. ‘I’ll come with you when I’ve got rid of them. Diana and Denis are here. They seem pleased with the open day at the agency. Little Frank’s here, too. Asleep. Yes, I do need to eat, I suppose.’

She led the way into the conservatory. ‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Diana on seeing Thomas.

How rude! Ellie felt herself flush with embarrassment. ‘Thomas has just come from the hospital. Our old friend Mrs Dawes has been attacked and is in a critical condition. We’re all terribly upset.’

‘Oh?’ said Denis. ‘You mean . . . it’s serious? I don’t think I know the lady, do I?’

‘An interfering old buzzard,’ said Diana. ‘But maybe it’s an ill wind, if it means her house comes on to the market.’

Ellie gasped, ‘Diana!’

‘I’m only being realistic,’ said Diana, with a shrug. ‘Anyway, where do we all fancy eating this evening?’

Denis tried to grasp Ellie’s hand again but she moved away to avoid him. He said, ‘Ellie, we want you to come out with us to celebrate. You’re such an important member of the partnership. We want to show our appreciation.’ He bestowed one of his toothy smiles on Thomas, who was standing by, stroking his beard. ‘You understand, old man, don’t you? Family comes first, doesn’t it?’

Thomas said, ‘I’d never try to come between Ellie and food.’ Which didn’t help.

Ellie tried to defuse the situation. ‘Denis, that’s very sweet of you, but I’ve promised to go back to the hospital with Thomas, and we’ll pick up a snack on the way. Diana, you’d better wake little Frank up and take him home or he’ll not sleep properly tonight. He’s only had baked beans for lunch and that was a bit later than usual for him.’

‘I thought we’d let him sleep here for a while, and then he can muck in with Denis’ kids while we three go out to eat,’ said Diana, beginning to frown.

‘I dare say.’ Ellie wasn’t having it. ‘But I have to go out now, and I can’t leave you all behind in the house.’

‘Don’t you trust us?’ Denis held on to his smile.

Ellie fought with the desire to say ‘no’, which would be the truth. Perhaps silence would be best.

Thomas lifted his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘Excuse me while I make a couple of phone calls, people who need to know about Mrs Dawes, and an old friend in trouble.’ He went back to the hall to get some privacy.

Diana marched into the sitting room to gaze down at her son. ‘What shall we do with him?’

Denis followed, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Let his father look after him.’

‘He’s away this weekend. I was relying on Mother to help out, but if she insists on being so selfish . . .’

‘Oh well, he can always doss down with my brood.’

‘Of course.’ Diana shook Frank’s shoulder, not unkindly. ‘Time to go.’

Frank was muzzy, confused. He mumbled, ‘I saw her, I did . . .’ His voice trailed away, then he started into full consciousness. Recognizing his mother, he dived into her arms with a wail, only to be held away from her as she spotted the baked beans stain around his mouth. ‘Not on my best suit!’

Ellie mumbled something about checking that the back door was locked and fled into the kitchen via the conservatory. Thomas, still talking on his mobile, realized something was wrong and followed Ellie, putting his arm about her as she reached for a tissue. He finished the call, but kept his arm about her.

She said, fiercely, ‘I know it’s considered best for a child to have contact with both parents.’

He patted her shoulder.

‘What’s all this?’ asked Diana, leading Frank into the kitchen to wash his face.

‘A spot of comfort in a cold world,’ said Ellie, expecting Thomas to remove his arm — which he didn’t.

‘I thought the clergy weren’t supposed to cuddle their parishioners,’ said Diana, wiping Frank’s mouth with a J-cloth. ‘It lays them open to all sorts of gossip.’

‘A cuddle in time saves many a breakdown,’ said Thomas. ‘Your mother is eminently cuddlable, in my humble opinion.’

‘Now, now,’ said Ellie, trying to regain her composure. ‘Stop it. Both of you. Frank, didn’t you have a jacket, earlier? Thomas, I’ll just pop upstairs and change. Give me fifteen minutes?’

‘Take twenty, if you wish,’ said Thomas, once more busy on his mobile phone.

Diana followed Ellie into the hall. ‘Mother, is that man trying to flirt with you?’

‘To comfort me, yes.’

‘If he carries on like that, people will talk.’

‘The parish is getting used to it, and so will you.’

‘It’s obscene.’

Ellie was tired, hungry, and getting cross. ‘Listen to yourself, Diana. Thomas is a grown man and I’m a grown woman. If we choose to spend time in one another’s company, then it’s none of your business.’

‘It is my business! Heaven’s above! An impecunious vicar and a wealthy widow! He’ll strip you of everything you’ve got!’

‘How dare you!’

Their raised voices had brought Denis to the doorway from the sitting room, and Thomas from the kitchen.

Ellie reddened. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas. Diana, that was not called for. I think you’d better go.’

Diana exploded. ‘I should go? It’s he who should go, not me!’ She turned on Thomas. ‘Please go. I need a private conversation with my mother.’

‘Diana!’ said Denis, a warning note in his voice.

Thomas stroked his beard, looking sideways at Ellie. ‘If your mother asks me to leave . . .’

‘I don’t!’ said Ellie, glaring at each one in turn. ‘Diana, Denis, see yourselves out, will you?’

‘But . . . what! Do you mean you’re throwing me out? That’s just not—’

‘Yes,’ said Ellie, opening the front door. ‘And please remember that a certain small boy has had a bad time today and doesn’t need grown-ups rowing over his head.’

Diana’s face changed. ‘Oh. Well, I was just going to say, about tomorrow . . .’

‘I can’t look after Frank tomorrow. I have church in the morning followed by a family lunch, and I suspect any spare time will be spent at the hospital and looking after Mrs Dawes’ family.’

‘Will Thomas be at this “family” lunch?’

Embarrassed, not knowing how to deal with the situation, Ellie held the door wider. ‘Will you please go?’

Denis took Diana by the elbow, and manoeuvred her towards the front door. Rubbing his eyes sleepily, little Frank followed them. As she closed the door on them and the nasty cold night Ellie hoped they’d remember they’d got the boy in tow.

Thomas was still standing four square in the door to the kitchen. She couldn’t read his expression so she said, ‘Sorry about that,’ to a point somewhere above his head, and almost ran upstairs to change.

What would Thomas think! How could Diana!

Pray heaven they don’t forget poor little Frank . . . and please Lord, remember to look after Mrs Dawes. I don’t know what to pray for her, but you know what’s in your mind for her, so I’ll pray for that . . . and for poor Neil, at his wits’ end . . . and his father, driving down from the Midlands . . . drive carefully, won’t you . . .

Suddenly, she remembered Roy and Felicity, and that difficult woman Anne. Ellie shot out on to the landing, pulling a long woollen skirt around her.

‘Thomas!’ He appeared in the doorway to the sitting room, holding the prayer book that he always carried with him. ‘Thomas, I’d quite forgotten. Weren’t we going to ask Roy to deal with Anne, to stop Felicity getting upset?’

Thomas said something more or less under his breath. Ellie grinned. Sometimes Thomas seemed just too good to be true. It was nice to have it confirmed that he was human, after all.

‘Use my telephone,’ said Ellie. ‘Roy’s number is in the memory.’

He put his prayer book away and got down to dealing with the next problem.

* * *

Thomas put capable hands at ten to two on the steering wheel. He’d only a couple of parking tickets and a speeding fine in thirty years of driving, and Ellie felt safe in the car with him. She wondered if he’d mention Diana’s outburst, and decided — a little hysterically — that she’d ignore it. It was all too embarrassing.

Thomas and Ellie had drifted into spending time with one another some months back. He’d given her his mobile phone number and he had hers. They were taking it gently, enjoying one another’s company, without feeling any need to set boundaries. He knew that she wasn’t thinking of getting married again soon. Perhaps she never would. Diana’s intervention had upset Ellie’s comfortable view of their relationship. Were other people going to think the same way as Diana? What would this do to Thomas’ reputation?

What a mess!

Thomas said, ‘I suggest I drop you off at the hospital. You find Neil and make him eat something. There’s quite a good café in the basement of the hospital. Do you know it?’

Ellie nodded.

‘I’ve spoken to Roy. Felicity said she had a bit of a headache when they got back and she’s been lying down all afternoon, so she hasn’t yet done anything about contacting her mother.’

Ellie nodded again. Good.

‘I told Roy what Anne had done. He agrees with me that Felicity may well be coming down with something infectious . . .’ Ellie smiled. ‘And that they’d both better keep away from the retirement home for the next few days. I said I’d call in tonight to see how Anne was getting on . . .’ Ellie now frowned. ‘Because, whether we think she brings her troubles on herself or not, she is a woman in pain.’

Ellie sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. I’ll stay with Neil till his father gets here, and try to persuade him to eat. I’ve given Neil’s father my mobile number, so he can contact me so long as I’m not actually in A & E.’

He drew up outside the entrance to the Accident and Emergency department.

Ellie pulled her coat around her and got out of the car. She remembered her handbag but found she was missing one glove. Again. ‘You’re a special case, Thomas.’

He said, ‘I’ll come back when I’ve finished there.’ He drove off, leaving her to reflect that his day threatened to be a long one, starting with an SOS from the home for Anne, then the big wedding. After that he’d dealt with the problems for the church of the attack on Mrs Dawes, then made another visit to the home, and finally he was going to end up in A & E.

She found Neil in the waiting area, staring blankly at the floor while rubbing his hand over his shaven head, bobble cap on the seat beside him, one big hand clutching a magazine that he was clearly not reading. A half-empty packet of crisps lay beside him, with an opened can of Coca-Cola.

The place was thronged, trolleys passing to and fro, nurses bustling, doctors hastening, blank-eyed relatives staring; there was a pool of yellowish liquid on the floor which someone was mopping up.

Saturday night in A & E: drunks, fight victims, overdose victims. Plus the usual chest pains and unexplained stomach upsets. A child wept in his mother’s arms and was swept away to a cubicle. Policemen and women wandered in, conferred at the desk and wandered over to cubicles or left the department.

Ellie touched Neil on the shoulder, and sat beside him. ‘It’s me, Neil.’

He looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. ‘She’s not back from the scan yet. Still unconscious. Been down there for—’ he consulted an outsize watch on a bony wrist — ‘nearly an hour.’

‘She’s very strong. A fighter.’

He nodded. Looked down at the magazine in his hands again. ‘I’ll kill them,’ he said, meaning it. ‘Why did they need to pick on her, when she’s hardly two pence to rub together? I’ve been thinking and thinking. Why her? I mean, it’s not exactly on their doorstep.’

‘On whose doorstep, Neil?’

‘Those scumbags that hang around the take-aways in the Avenue at night, selling dope. It must have been one of them. I told her, don’t you say nothing to them. I don’t care if you do think what they’re doing is wrong. It’s best not to interfere.’

‘Did she say something to them?’

‘Boasted of it. Said she’d given them a right mouthful when she caught them selling to some schoolkids. I mean, it’s not as if she’s often that way late at night, but she’d been to an event at the library with a friend who’d gone home a different way afterwards. Trust Gran to step in. She sees something wrong, and she has to have her say. I told her, sometimes it’s best not to see something, if you know what I mean. They’re a mean lot, specially that very thin one. I reckon he carries a knife — not that I’ve seen it, but that’s what they say.’

‘It wasn’t a knife that laid her low, Neil.’

‘Whatever. They must have followed her, or seen her going into her house, maybe one of them lives up that way, I dunno. And then they decided to pay her a visit, teach her a lesson. She never listens when I talk to her! She always thinks she knows better.’

‘You saw her yesterday?’

‘Wish I hadn’t! She was still going on about that greenery she wanted, and I’d told her before that I’d look out for some more for her, but I hadn’t seen any elsewhere.’

‘You’d tried Mrs Ball?’

‘Big woman, way up the hill? The house that’s being done up inside but the garden’s a right mess? Yes, Gran had me go round there some time last week, asking if I could get some greenery for her. While I was there, I asked the old woman if she’d like me to do the garden for her, but she said I was too expensive. Honest, Mrs Quicke, it was a proper price.’

She patted his hand. The chaos in A & E continued as two drunks were brought in, still trying to fight one another. ‘Neil, how about we go and get a bite to eat?’

‘Couldn’t.’

She used guile. ‘Well, I must confess, I’m about dropping. Finding the body took it out of me. I haven’t been able to fancy anything to eat, but I’m afraid I might faint if I don’t.’

‘You poor old thing.’ He put his arm about her, helped her to her feet. ‘I’ll tell them at the desk where we’re going, and then we’ll see what we can find for you. I think there’s a café somewhere . . .’

She steered him in the right direction. If she dithered enough, perhaps he’d take a firm, manly stand and bully her into eating something. It was child-play, manipulating someone like Neil.

* * *

Normally on Saturday nights he’d be down at the pub, which is where he’d met Russell in the first place. Two men drinking alone, both liking Young’s Best Bitter.

The pub had been crowded and some youngster had jogged Russell’s arm so that he’d spilled beer over Lee’s jacket. The youngster had bought them both a fresh pint, and somehow Lee and Russell — the ex-bank clerk and the wiry supermarket shelf-filler — had started talking.

Lee was skint, as usual. Russell was flush and bought them both another pint, and then another. Lee was looking for new digs where he could leave his car in the street without it being graffitied overnight. Russell’s parents had left him a house which he hated but hadn’t the courage to leave.

Marginally the soberer of the two, Lee offered Russell a lift home in his ancient Volvo at chucking-out time, and stayed overnight on Russell’s settee. And moved in there the following day.

Now he had the house to himself, Lee swore he’d not give it up for anybody.

It was what he’d always dreamed of: a place of his own with no one to shout at him, and money coming in. He was riding high. He could do anything he wanted.

There’d been a spot of bother, yes. But poof! It had disappeared, just like that.

He’d never realized before how easy it was to remove people who got in your way.