Ann Cleeves - Telling Tales

“Sorry,” she said. “I was in the bath.”

Her feet were bare and he couldn’t stop staring at them, at the feet and the smooth legs which disappeared into the to welling robe. He imagined her lying in the bath, shaving them. Her toenails were painted silver. Who was there to see them this time of year? It wasn’t the weather for sandals. He stared at the painted nails, couldn’t stop.

“Can I help you, Michael?” she said, trying to keep the impatience from her voice. He realized she’d been waiting for him to explain why he was there.

“Maybe I should come in. You’ll be catching your death standing there with the door open.”

She nodded, giving in to the inevitable. “Just give me a minute. I’ll get some clothes on.”

She let him into the kitchen and left him there. In Peg’s day he would have taken off his shoes before going in, but now there didn’t seem much point. He would never have recognized it. He could tell that underneath the mess nothing much had changed. They were the same cupboards and benches Peg had chosen from the MFI on the ring road. But everywhere there was clutter. Dirty washing spilling out from a basket, a pyramid of shoes and boots, mucky plates and pots, drying cat food on a purple plastic dish. He didn’t know what to make of it. He tried to work up some indignation, told himself Peg would have a fit if she could see it, then thought it didn’t really matter. When Wendy came back in, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and top, slippers too big for her, she cleared some clothes from a chair and sat down.

“Now then, Michael, what can I do for you?” Not unfriendly but brisk, making it clear she couldn’t give him much of her time. No offer of tea either, and after the walk he was gasping.

Now, he wasn’t sure how to start. On his way he should have planned how to go about it. He shouldn’t have let his mind wander back to the good times.

“It’s about James,” he said. “James Bennett. How well do you know him?”

“What are folk saying?” She narrowed her eyes, seemed to curl back in her chair like a cat ready to spring.

“Nothing. Nothing like that.”

“Only you know what it’s like, one woman working with men, people make up all sorts.”

“No,” he said. “But I thought he might have talked to you, that’s all.”

“What about?”

“His childhood, where he grew up. That sort of thing.”

“Why would you want to know?”

He felt the room swim around him as he grasped for an explanation which would satisfy her. “I thought I might have known him when he was a lad.”

“Oh.”

Again the spinning panic. “Did he go to the Trinity House School?”

“No, he’s not a Trinity House lad.”

“Local, though?”

“I don’t think he’s ever said. He’s not one for chatting. He doesn’t give much of himself away… Michael, what is all this about?”

“Like I said, I thought I knew him. Came across an old photo. It was the spitting image. But he wasn’t calling himself Bennett in those days. Shaw, that was his name. I wondered if he’d talked about it to you.” He realized he was gabbling. She was looking at him as if he was one of those mad old men let out into community care, who rant to themselves as they walk down the street. He wondered, as he had that day talking to Peg’in the cemetery, if that was what he’d come to in the end. Perhaps that was what he’d come to already.

“Why would he change his name?” she said reasonably. “You must have made a mistake. You can’t really tell from an old photo, can you? Why don’t you ask him next time you see him, if it’s troubling you.”

“He must have said something about his family, what he did before he joined the pilotage. You know how you get chatting while you’re waiting for a ship.”

“James doesn’t chat,” she said. “He’s always pleasant and polite, but he likes his privacy. And so do I.” She stood up and he saw he’d have to go.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you. You’re right. It must have been a mistake. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m not myself at the moment.”

Then she felt sorry for him again. “Look, how did you get here? Give me a minute and I’ll take you back to the village.”

“No, I’ll not trouble you. Stan said he was bringing in a pilot. I’ll get a lift back with him.”

They stood awkwardly. She was blocking his way to the door and moved to let him out. At exactly that moment there was a sound upstairs, a slight creak. One of the floorboards in the bedroom had been loose even in his day. She saw that he’d heard it.

“Must be the cat,” she said.

Aye.” Though he knew it wasn’t any cat. It wasn’t just the sound from upstairs, which had more weight behind it than the heaviest cat. It was the way she looked as she said it, furtive and excited at the same time, as if she was playing a secret game. After she’d shut the door behind him, he stood in the small garden and looked upstairs where the light had been, but now the curtains were drawn and he couldn’t see anything. The single car parked behind the cottage he recognized as Wendy’s.

The launch was out and he waited beside the office for it to come back to the jetty. He didn’t feel he could just let himself into the office any more. The boat nosed back through the gloom and he felt the stab of nostalgia which he’d expected to feel in the house. Later, he stood with Stan looking out towards the river while the pilot made a call to the data centre.

“Who is it that Wendy’s taken up with? You live next door, man. You must have seen him go in and out.”

“Never. He must be like the Invisible Man.”

“There’ll be rumours. I know what the gossip’s like round this place.”

“One thing’s obvious.” Stan touched the side of his nose with his finger. “He’s married, isn’t he? Why else would she keep him secret?”

They sat in church, in their usual places. Mary and Robert, Emma with the baby on her knee and James. At Mary’s feet the dreadful fat handbag which Emma hated and which was always full of rubbish. A splash of sunlight shone through the glass, coloured the dust which swirled in the draught from the door and stained the surplus of the priest who walked down the nave to shake the hands of the congregation as they shared the peace. He reached across James to touch Emma’s head. “Peace be with you, my dear.”

The sun had shone briefly in just the same way on the morning of their wedding. James remembered sitting on the front pew, next to Geoff, the colleague he’d persuaded to be his best man. It had taken some persuasion, he thought now. Not that Geoff hadn’t been pleased to be asked, but he’d been surprised, unable to hide his bewilderment. “Of course I’d love to. But usually it’s family, isn’t it? Or some mate you’ve been to school with. Someone you’ve known for years at least.” James had said there wasn’t anyone. No one he’d rather have than Geoff.

So, he’d been sitting at the front of the church, surprisingly calm, knowing absolutely that this was the right thing to do. The music had started. Not “The

Wedding March.” They’d decided against that. “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’. He’d known Emma was on her way, but he’d not looked round, not immediately. He’d waited a few beats before turning. And just at that moment the sun had come out, bleeding the colour from the stained glass onto the ivory satin of her dress. She’d caught his eye and smiled nervously, and it had come to him, like the melodramatic ending of a romantic novel, that everything had worked out for the best. His father’s death, the shame and the scandal, everything that followed, had all led to this moment, to his taking this beautiful young woman to be his wife.