Mid-October. The chill had tightened its hold on Witch-wood, and the blackberries in the hedgerows, plump and ripe only a week or so ago, had already rotted and grown their mildew coats in readiness for winter.
Standing outside in the cold drizzle, Liz, minus a coat and still in her slippers, didn’t budge. She propped her elbows on the roof of the car and pulled on her sixth cigarette of the morning. Exhaled thin grey streams of smoke. Soon they would be in Cinderglade: in a dull little house, with dull little rooms, on a rundown estate where everyone was a stranger. No pub. No business. No nothing. Just her and Ian. Liz had hardly spoken to him since Ellie’s funeral, she didn’t know where to begin, so she watched him instead. Today he was taking his frustration out on a set of muscled removal men the brewery arranged for them along with the haulage truck that blocked the lane. Liz wondered if they were dawdling deliberately, to provoke her husband: a man they could tell from his frenetic hand gestures and gruffness was struggling to keep a lid on his anger.
With lips shiny from his own spit, Ian gave a little rub of his hands and glanced behind him. ‘Careful with that, you idiots,’ he barked, aggressive, surly; close on their heels as they transported a heavy oak table to the open-doored truck. ‘Do I have to do every flamin’ thing myself?’
The men swapped looks Ian was too slow to see. But Liz did, choosing to turn away in case they caught her eye; she was no one’s ally. Her cigarette finished, she dropped it to the kerb, screwed it out with the heel of her slipper. Was she going to be able to put up with him? Her doubts folding in on themselves. Wouldn’t she be better off starting again on her own? She’d wanted to share her misgivings about Ian with Mrs Hooper when she called round to say farewell to her the previous evening. So caring, so kind, it would have been easy to be unburdened of what she carried in her heart. Thoughts of Mrs Hooper’s beautiful organist’s hands had Liz assessing her own – the bitten nails, a habit she’d been cured of for years. Not that her hands were ever her best feature, but they were completely ruined now. The skin on her palms was rough and mannish, the knuckles broadened from years of mopping out and washing up; her wedding band couldn’t be removed even if she’d wanted to.
‘You’ve got the address?’ Liz heard Ian shout. ‘Right. See you there, then. We’ll probably get there before you do,’ he added, before ducking away to retrieve something from just inside the Boar’s main door.
Liz opened the passenger side to wait in the car. Damphaired and despondent, she stared out through the rain-mottled windscreen at the wind shaking what remained of summer from the trees. Her socks were wet from where rain had seeped through the lining of her slippers, and her feet were freezing – it was all she was conscious of; the fact she was about to leave a place she’d once been so happy in left her surprisingly numb and disconnected.
‘Fucking brewery.’ The door behind her clunked open. It jolted Liz out of her introspection. ‘They’re such bastards,’ Ian growled and slid whatever he’d gone back to fetch from the pub on to the back seats of his Volvo. ‘Could have given us a bit more time. It wouldn’t have killed them.’ He slammed the door shut again.
Liz flinched when he swung his burly, belligerent self into the driver’s seat.
‘All they’re fucking concerned about is money,’ he continued to rant as he turned the ignition. ‘Business would’ve picked up soon enough … once the fuss died down.’
Fuss ? Died down ? That’s my darling Ellie you’re talking about. His callousness banged inside her head, but she didn’t challenge him. From his blotchy face and sweating brow, it was obvious he was spoiling for a fight. A fight she didn’t have the energy to give him. Instead, she swivelled to see what he’d put on the back seat.
‘What’s that?’ She jabbed her thumb at an old-fashioned suitcase.
‘Nothing much.’
‘Give it to the removal men, then – they can take it on the lorry, can’t they?’
‘No, they can’t. I need to keep hold of it.’
‘Why, what’s so special about it? Why can’t it go with the rest of our things?’
‘I don’t want it getting lost.’
‘Getting lost? For God’s sake, Ian, we’re only going to Cinderglade.’ She looked sideways at him. ‘You wouldn’t let me bring my guitar separately, and that could easily get broken. What’s in it?’ She gestured to the suitcase again.
‘Just stuff.’
‘What stuff ? Must be pretty important stuff if you’re afraid to let it out of your sight.’
‘Look. It’s stuff of Dean’s, all right.’
‘Stuff of Dean’s ,’ Liz shrieked, smacked her hands against the dashboard. ‘Why d’you want to keep anything that belongs to that bastard? If I ever clap eyes on him again … I swear … I swear … ’
‘Calm down, love.’ Ian spoke in his reasonable voice – the one that had the facility to rile her even more. ‘It’s just stuff of his mum’s.’
‘Oh, yeah, the wonderful Maggie … I wondered when she was going to rear her head again. The perfect wife … the wife and mother I’ll never live up to.’ Her face crumpled and she burst into tears.
‘Love … love .’ Ian placed a consoling hand on her sleeve: to soothe, to temper; but Liz could tell he didn’t mean it and shrugged it off. ‘Be reasonable, eh? The boy left in such a hurry. He meant to take it with him … He did. You know how much he loved his mum.’
‘Don’t. I. Just.’ Liz spat out her bitterness. ‘But I still don’t know why you have to be so bloody precious about it.’