The whole town was talking about it. Even though she had lived here for years, Alice still found it hard to accept how parochial this place could be, compared with London.
The smallest things seemed to make it to headline status in the local paper. The other week, there had been half a page about a child’s trike being stolen from outside the library.
Now it was much more dramatic.
“Flagrant display of al fresco sex in local park”
That was how the Seaway Herald put it. It didn’t just make the front page. It carried on to the Letters column where the word ‘disgusted’ was used in abundance. They must have worked fast to get it into print. It had only happened two days ago.
“Weren’t you there at around that time?” asked Daniel, who never usually read the local paper. He lowered his new glasses: a cutting-edge design which he had spent ages choosing; stuck in middle-age denial over fading eyesight. “Amazing that you didn’t see anything.“
This would have been the time to tell him! But for some reason, Alice, who was topping up the marmalade pot at the time, dropped the teaspoon which Mungo of course, immediately dived for. And in the confusion between mopping the floor – something she was quite fastidious about as she hated that sticky feeling you got if your shoe picked up something mucky – she didn’t actually contradict him.
Afterwards, of course, it was too late. It would look odd, she told herself, to say, ‘By the way. I forgot to tell you that I saw a couple having sex in the park. Before we went out to dinner. That’s why I picked at my food in the Italian and we came back early. It wasn’t because I had a headache at all. It’s because I couldn’t sit there and make banal conversation after seeing that. Surely you understand that, more than anyone else.”
But instead, Alice remained silent; paralysed by guilt and shame.
Embarrassingly, when she went to Book Club that evening, they were all talking about it. “Unbelievable that anyone could do such a thing in broad daylight,” declared Monica, a thin, sharp-forehand player from the tennis club, who was also in the book club crowd.
Janice, who was the nearest that Alice had to a best friend since moving down here, dug her in the ribs. “Probably just jealous! Can’t see her having it off much, can you?”
Alice had prickled with discomfort. Sex, in her view, was something too private to discuss. A bit like money. Yet perhaps this was one thing she should have mentioned. It would have been so easy. Something casual, like “Actually, I saw it”. Or maybe “You’ll never guess but …”
Yet she had let the moment slide, just as she had done with Daniel; fearful of all the questions and the blushes on her part. Perhaps it was just as well, she told herself. A revelation at book club might get back to Daniel. Besides, there were some – maybe like prickly Monica – who might even think she’d made it up, to get in on the act.
The following day, Alice tried to hide her ‘should she have said something or shouldn’t she?’ angst with work. Mentally, she’d already put aside this week to repair a delicate early Victorian cup which had been dropped, causing the pink and green handle to become brutally separated from the main body. “Do you think you can do anything about it?” its owner had pleaded, after finding Alice through her advert in the parish magazine.
Alice had started mending china soon after Garth had started secondary school and found that the day needed filling with more than tennis or reading or walking the dog. It went some way towards filling her creative frustration at having dropped out of her Fine Art degree so many years ago.
Then a chance workshop on china restoration, advertised on the noticeboard outside an art shop, changed her life. The tutor, a friendly woman favouring ankle-length floral skirts and a rather messy birds’-nest hair style, had filled her with a passion she hadn’t known possible. “I see it as restoring a piece of history,” she had told the class, which – Alice noted with relief – was dominated by women in her own age group, each searching for ‘something to do’.
The history reference had struck a chord. At school, she’d had a teacher who had spoken fervently about “us all having a piece of the past inside us which could, in turn, shape the outcome of the future”. Perhaps this was her chance!
She also, as she discovered, had what the flowery workshop leader described as a ‘real knack’. To her surprise and delight, Alice’s fingers proved quite adept at gluing the missing piece into place. Janice, who had gone with her for company before dropping out, hadn’t been so impressed. “What a performance! I simply don’t have the patience.”
But it was this quality, combined with a sense of purpose, that had encouraged Alice to practise on her own grandmother’s rose-patterned china and then, after a few months, to quietly take on commissions.
Three nights after the park incident (which she was just beginning to put out of her mind, thank goodness), she was just sealing the broken handle to the cup when there was a knock on the door.
How annoying. Alice hoped it wasn’t one of Daniel’s cronies from the Parish County Council. Another custom, which she still found hugely irritating, was the frequency with which locals simply turned up on the doorstep instead of ringing to see if it was convenient.
“I’ll get it,” called out Daniel, amidst Mungo’s enthusiastic barking.
She bent down to open the top right door of the Aga to check on the fish pie that she’d made earlier, using salmon from the harbour shop. The cheesy top layer was bubbling nicely. Hurry up, she thought, listening to the voices at the front door.
“Alice.”
Daniel’s voice had various tones to it – most of which she had learned to read during their married life. This one had an edge to it, which normally accompanied a discovery of an unpleasant variety. The time when he’d discovered a rolled-up cigarette in their son’s bedroom, just before Garth had embarked on the second gap year, had been a case in point.
“Alice, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Daniel’s voice preceded his entry into the kitchen. Someone was behind him. A tall man with neatly cut dark hair, wearing a uniform. Alice’s mouth went dry as she took in the helmet under his arm. For a minute, she was eighteen again.
“Don’t you dare call the police,” her mother had said. “Don’t you dare.”
The visitor was holding out his hand for a handshake. “Sorry to bother you in the evening. My name is PC Black. Paul Black. I wonder if I might have a word.”
Horrified, Alice glanced at Daniel who showed no sign of leaving. Any possibility of pretending that this was a parking offence of some kind or even a potential client (might a policeman be interested in mending broken china?) was hopeless in his presence.
“What’s all this about, Alice?” asked Daniel, in a low voice.
“I’m not sure,” she said faintly, desperately hoping for some last-minute reprieve. Perhaps he really was here for a parking misdemeanour, although she couldn’t recall one. Once, Alice had been caught parking on a double yellow line for all of two minutes while she’d nipped into the chemist to get something for a teething Garth. The resulting ticket had shamed her into never doing it again.
Right now, Paul Black was looking at her intently. He had very blue eyes, she noticed irrelevantly. So blue, they should surely belong to a woman. His hair matched his name. At any other time, she’d have found this intriguing.
“I’ve been told that you might be a possible witness in the park case,” he said. His voice was gravelly-deep and reassuring; rather like an articulate presenter she secretly admired on the radio whom her husband despised for his political beliefs. He also had the kind of weather-beaten skin, she noticed, that suggested a man who surfed or walked a lot. An explorer with a strong, rugby nose rather than a policeman.
There was a similarity too with a dark-haired Steve McQueen crossed with one of the old Bonds. And there was something about those almost boyish features, despite his age (forty-something at a guess) which reminded her of Gordon.
“Rubbish,” snorted Daniel. “she didn’t see anything. Did you, Alice?”
No, she was about to say. But then those blue eyes fixed on hers and there was something about them – so clear and penetrating – that the only possible answer was to tell the truth.
“Yes,” she said, with a clarity that reminded her of the day she had said her wedding vows to Daniel. Her voice had rung out in the stone church, in direct comparison with her groom’s quiet measured reply.
His face had been steady then. Trusting. Ready to shoulder the responsibilities that marriage would bring. Ignorant of the emotional baggage that his new wife was bringing with her. Now, however, Daniel’s eyes registered shock. His forehead was wrinkled with disbelief. His hands, she suddenly noticed, were clenched at his side. Small, even though he was quite a tall man. Neat. Confused.
“You told me you hadn’t seen anything,” he said, in a steely tone.
Mungo, as if sensing his distress, got out of his basket and plodded across the kitchen floor, eyes fixed on his master as if to say: “I’m on your side here”.
Alice found herself picking up the cup she had been mending, putting it down again, and then picking it up again. The repair was almost invisible; only she and its owner would know the crack was there unless an expert was present.
Just like her body.
“I was embarrassed,” she said at last. “That sort of thing makes me …”
She stopped, aware of Daniel’s tight expression. An image of their two separate beds, pushed together to look as though they were one but each with their own tucked in sheets, came into her head.
“That sort of thing makes me feel rather awkward,” she continued lamely. The policeman’s clear blue eyes seemed to flicker momentarily. Sympathy perhaps? Or curiosity. Or maybe nothing. Perhaps she’d just imagined it. What had he said his name was? Paul Black. That was it. It sounded clean cut. Memorable. Able to tell right from wrong even if those around him fudged the boundaries.
“How did you know?” Alice asked, leaning against the Aga for its warmth. She began to shake, despite the fact that it was unusually hot. Hadn’t she been complaining for weeks that the Aga made the kitchen stuffy and that they really ought to get a conventional oven as well, just for the summer months?
“Someone saw you.” The policeman glanced down at his notes. “A bike rider who thought she recognised you.”
What bad luck. “Then she’s a witness too.”
“Unfortunately not. She, like you, was embarrassed about coming forward but it turns out that she didn’t actually see what …”
He paused for a minute.
“… See what happened. But she did think, from your location, that you might have witnessed more.”
Location? The use of such a distant, official word, disappointed her. Such official jargon didn’t seem to marry with those sky-blue eyes which were pinning hers down again, as though seeing right through her.
“So it was this woman who reported it then?”
“Not exactly.” PC Black gave a wry half shake of the head. “We had an anonymous tip-off about ten minutes earlier. However, the caller used a pay as you go and we can’t trace it.” Those blue eyes were fixed on hers again. If this had been a social situation, Alice might have imagined he was attracted to her. If only he knew.
“So you see, Mrs Honeybun, you are our only witness.”
There was a pause during which Alice almost wanted to giggle. When she’d first met Daniel and he’d told her what his surname was, she had shot him a ‘you can’t be serious’ grin. Later, when he’d proposed, she actually wondered if she could bring herself to live with such a name (so quaintly old-fashioned and yet suggestive at the same time) for the rest of her life.
Now, more than ever, it seemed highly inappropriate.
“I can’t tell you how important that is,” continued PC Black. “The man in question, Mrs Honeybun …”
Spontaneously, she interrupted. “Please. Call me Alice.”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose but she didn’t care. She was in too deep now.
“The suspect, Alice, is a well-known character around here. He preys on young girls – usually rather naive ones – by giving them drugs so he can take advantage of them. Slippery sort. Until now, we’ve never had a witness.”
He shrugged. “We can’t force you to give a statement. But I would urge you to give it serious thought.” His eyes glanced at the pictures of Garth on the kitchen dresser, studded amongst china cups and plates and hand-written invitations to dinner which now seemed inconsequential. “I don’t know if you have a daughter but, if you do, imagine what it would be like if she had been taken advantage of …”
“That’s quite enough.” Daniel’s voice cut in. “This is emotional blackmail. If my wife doesn’t want to give evidence, that’s up to her. Besides, I’m not at all sure you ought to be telling us all this. Isn’t it confidential?”
A daughter. If she had a daughter …
Alice’s mind went back to the day Garth had been born. How grateful she had been at the time that he hadn’t been a girl. Thank God, she had breathed to himself. A boy would never, ever, have to go through what she had.
So why did she still occasionally yearn for a daughter who would have the guts to defend herself? To do what she had failed to do. She could have taught her. Trained her. Made her strong. Victoria. A daughter who would be everything she wasn’t.
“It’s all right,” she heard herself say before Paul Black could say any more. Instinctively, she knew that he probably shouldn’t have told them about the man and the drugs and the underage girl. But equally, she could see why he had done it.
This was her chance now, Alice told herself. To stand up and be counted. To claim back what was rightfully the girl’s. Innocence. Not in terms of sex because that was too late. But to take the moral high ground. The earth that had been ripped from between her own feet all those years ago.
“If I do give a statement,” she asked, deliberately not looking at Daniel, “will you give me protection? I don’t want a brick through our window.”
She tried to make it sound like a joke but secretly hoped this man would understand what she really meant. I don’t want someone leaping on top of me in the dark and trying to rape or kill me.
He was nodding. “We will.”
“How can you say that?” demanded Daniel angrily. “If my wife has to go to court to give evidence, this man will see her from the dock. He and his friends might track her down. And all in defence of some slut.”
Alice’s legs turned to jelly. Gripping the back of the kitchen chair to steady herself, she forced herself to look at Paul Black’s face. It was tight with anger.
“I’m sorry you think that way. Regarding your concerns over security, it is possible that your wife would not have to go to court at all if we are able to tell the defence we have a witness. The hope is that the man in question will then plead guilty.”
If. Maybe. Do this and you will be all right. Refuse and I will tell your parents you’ve been a bad girl. Slut … slut …
“I’ll do it.” Alice’s voice sliced through the taunting words in her head. “Would you like me to come down to the station with you?”
There was a brief flicker of surprise. After what he’d just said, he seemed more like a Paul Black than a PC Black. More human. He knew, she thought gratefully. He knew she was different from her husband.
“We could take the statement here, if you like.” He glanced at the Victorian pine kitchen table with its turned legs and aged knots that spoke of an earlier time when wars had been waging; long before her own.
Here? Amidst the green and cream trays, each neatly laid for a TV fish pie supper? Not of course, that she had an appetite any more: a feeling which she suspected that her husband shared from the look of distaste on his face. Slut … slut. She knew it. Despite his words through the years, that was really what he thought of her too.
But Paul Black was already taking out a pile of papers and pen from his briefcase. Somehow she hadn’t expected a policeman to carry a bag that looked more like a civil servant’s. “Mind if we sit down? I’d like to start at the beginning. What did you see first?”
She could remember as if it had happened that morning. “They were sitting on the bench. A young girl with long wavy, auburn hair. I noticed that because it stood out. Rather pre-Raphaelite if you know what I mean.”
“One of my favourite periods, actually.” So he understood art too! The discovery gave her confidence. It was always easier to talk to people who liked the same things. Just as it was easy to grow a wall between you and someone who didn’t.
“The man,” she continued, “appeared a bit older.”
“What colour hair?”
“Black. I think.” Alice felt hot with confusion and embarrassment. “Then the girl stood up and moved as if in slow motion to a hedge. He followed her. She … she bent down. I … I thought she was putting a plaster on his knee …”
Sweating, she glanced up at her husband. Daniel’s face was dark. “You don’t have to do this, Alice.”
The policeman’s hand stopped. Disappointed. As though she’d personally let him down.
“You want to do this, Alice.” That’s what the other man had said to her all those years ago. “ I can tell. You want to do this.”
“I want to do it,” she said. Quietly. Firmly. “Please Daniel. Do you mind leaving us alone for a bit?”