Sue Welfare - A Few Little Lies

From the corner of her eye Dora noticed Calvin wince slightly, and played the advantage.

‘Really,’ she said, handing the girl a cup of tea. ‘That’s nice. Whereabouts?’

Lillian simpered in the general direction of Calvin Roberts. ‘Calvin’s found me a really nice place down by the river. One of those new warehouse conversions?’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘It’s funny, me getting a nice place like that and you living here …’ She stopped, and glanced round the room, blushing furiously. ‘Well, it is small, isn’t it? Not like I imagined at all, really. Not that it’s not nice, I mean, I’m not saying …’ She stopped dead, tripping over her own embarrassment, then took a deep breath and started again. ‘I saw a film about this famous American writer once, she’d got this big house on the beach. And a little fluffy white dog. Calvin said …’

Calvin coughed theatrically before Lillian got a chance to share what it was he’d said. He tugged at his waistcoat.

‘Er, right, I think we ought to be going now. Maybe Dora could just show you her office and then we can get on our way.’

Dora suppressed a smile and picked at the cat’s hairs on the arm of the chair.

Lillian pouted. ‘I haven’t finished my tea yet. Bunny,’ she protested in a little-girl-lost voice.

Calvin waved her to her feet. ‘Don’t worry about the tea,’ he said briskly. ‘Let’s look at the office. We’ll get some lunch on the way home.’

Lillian beamed. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said enthusiastically and turned her piranha smile on Dora. ‘I wanted to know where I write all that stuff. That’s why I wanted to come.’ She stopped and buffed her smile up. ‘And to meet you, of course.’

Dora lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at Calvin, who coughed again.

‘Come on then,’ he blustered. ‘We’ll take a look at the office and then we’ll be off.’

There was barely room for two in the office. Dora hung back while Lillian looked around, running a painted fingernail over the books and shelves. Calvin stood in the doorway.

Dora grinned at him. ‘Bunny, eh?’ she whispered in an undertone.

‘She’s just naturally affectionate,’ hissed her agent.

Dora suppressed a smile. ‘You surprise me.’

Satisfied, Lillian looked up. ‘Okay, all done,’ she said cheerfully. She glanced at Dora. ‘Calvin said you were going out to lunch, would you like to come with us?’

Dora felt Calvin bristle. She smiled and shook her head. ‘That’s really very kind, Lillian, but no thanks, actually I’ve been invited to my sister’s.’

‘We could drop you off on the way,’ continued Lillian. ‘It wouldn’t be any trouble, would it. Bunny?’

In spite of herself, Dora felt a rush of affection for her alter ego. She shook her head again, Calvin shuffling uncomfortably beside her.

‘That’s very nice of you, Lillian, but it’s not far and I enjoy the walk.’

At the top of the stairs, Lillian thanked her for tea, buttoned up her jacket and was gone. Calvin adjusted his crombie.

‘Nice girl,’ he said, teeth closing on his cigar.

Dora grinned. ‘I hope you’ve got a licence.’

‘Uh?’

‘Dangerous animals act, you’re supposed to apply for a licence.’

Calvin snorted. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to be dropped off anywhere?’

Dora shook her head. ‘No thanks, Calvin, just make sure, between the pair of you, you don’t drop me in it.’

Calvin squared his shoulders. ‘Have I ever let you down?’ he murmured and lifted a hand in farewell.

Dora didn’t feel he deserved an answer.

On a corner plot in the newly, dismally developed Harvest Meadows, Sheila was already busy in the kitchen, slipping a tray of gold-tinted roast potatoes back into the oven.

Dora hung her coat in the hall cupboard. ‘Everyone out?’

Sheila wiped the steam from her glasses.

‘Uh huh. You’re late. Have you taken your shoes off? That Axminster’s new. Lunch will be ready in half an hour.’ She peered at Dora. ‘I don’t know how you stay so slim, all the rubbish you eat. Doesn’t seem right. I only have to look at a cream cake and I put on half a stone.’ Sheila tugged her apron down over her ample hips. ‘Is that the dress we got from Marks?’

After the cool sharp air outside, the kitchen seemed uncomfortably hot. Dora glanced round at Sheila’s immaculate work surfaces, and sighed. ‘It was the only thing I’d got left that was clean. I’ve had company this morning –’ And on reflection the company had left her with a disturbing sense of unease.

Sheila was oblivious, setting out gleaming cups and saucers on a doily-covered tray.

‘You ought to take more care of yourself. I’ve told you I’ll come and give you a hand with your housework if you like; two fifty an hour. Cash of course.’

Dora grinned. ‘Pinkerton’s going rate?’

Sheila shook her head and wiped up an imaginary sugar spill. ‘Never heard of them. An agency, are they?’

‘It was a joke. Can I help you with anything?’

Sheila sniffed. ‘It’s all done now. You didn’t come through the Milburn Estate again, did you?’ she demanded, arranging bourbons on a small silver plate.

‘Never miss.’ Dora leant over and prised a broken biscuit from the crinkly red plastic packaging before Sheila could consign it to the swingbin. ‘It’s a really pretty walk through those new little designer houses round the back. They’ve landscaped the parking bays now. Weeping willows and red hot pokers, very Sunday supplement.’

‘It’s sick. You didn’t put flowers down again?’

‘A single cream rose.’

Sheila sighed. ‘People talk, you know.’

‘It seems very fitting to mark the place where my husband died.’

‘That would be all very well if he was dead.’

Dora crunched the biscuit, hoovering wayward crumbs into her mouth with her tongue. ‘He might as well be. I like to mark the spot where our marriage finally passed away.’ She lifted her hands to add dramatic emphasis. ‘One final, fatal collision between magnolia and sage-green emulsion that changed two lives irrevocably.’

Sheila pursed her lips and picked up the tray. ‘Sick.’

‘I’m much happier now.’

‘People do not get divorced over emulsion.’

‘It was the final straw.’

Sheila sniffed. ‘Twenty years.’

‘Do we always have to talk about this? You always bring it up, it’s over, gone, dead.’

Sheila stood to one side while Dora opened the sitting-room door for her. ‘Talking about dead. Did you see they’re having Jack Rees’ funeral next week? Taken their time to get it organised. I suppose it’s getting all those bigwigs down here. It’s all over the Gazette . They did a special pull-out bit. You’d think he was royalty, the fuss they’re making.’ She took a newspaper out of the magazine rack. ‘I kept it for you.’

Dora stared down again at the familiar stranger’s face. Jack Rees was a local legend, a heroic tribal warrior woven into the fabric of Fairbeach history. She scanned the article – he’d been in his sixties. The report said it was his heart.

A small pain formed in her chest which she recognised as grief. It took her by surprise, though she knew the pain wasn’t personal, but an abstract, unexpected sense of loss for the passing of someone of worth.

The pain, mixed with her earlier unease, made her feel faint. She stood very, very still, aware of Sheila’s voice like a distant echo over the roar of the wind. The sitting room suddenly seemed as if it were a bright patchwork quilt of colours and light, all sewn together by Sheila’s insistent running-stitch voice.

Sheila rearranged the tray on a coffee table and picked up the newspaper, glancing over the same front page, talking all the time. She stepped closer, into sharp focus, every last stitch of her best Sunday dress and her best Sunday face caught in a spotlight’s glare in Dora’s mind. Sheila, Calvin and Lillian Bliss were just too much for anyone on a quiet Sunday morning. She suddenly felt sick.