Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

The Jackson boys helped out at the school while Jones was away. This was the term people were using: away. There was a discomfort in discussing the matter. Arrangements were made to look in on Jones’s sister, and she was soon found another place to stay. She had questions that no one wanted to answer. At the school some of the children asked if they could make cards to send Mr Jones, wishing him well and hoping he would come back soon. In the staffroom this was discussed at length and it was hard to know what to do. By lunchtime the word paedo was heard in the playground and any idea of making cards was dropped. In the afternoon there were difficult conversations. It’s a word that means someone who hurts children, or thinks about hurting children, or touches children in a way they don’t like. We don’t know if Mr Jones has hurt anyone. The police are trying to find out. If any of you are worried about anything that’s happened you can come and talk to me by yourself. It’s okay to ask questions. Sometimes we just don’t have the answers. On the television in the evening there were pictures of starving children, and men with guns and knives, and women hiding their faces, and later the same shots of Jones going into court were shown. The woodpigeons got under the netting on Clive’s allotment and stripped out his Brussels sprouts and kale. The bats were folded snugly into hibernation, their breathing slow, hanging together in leathery clusters from the eaves of the church. Cathy knocked on Mr Wilson’s door and asked whether Nelson wanted a walk. They had tea and cake and then she took Nelson quickly up the lane to the church, down past the orchard to the packhorse bridge and along the river. Always the same route, and Nelson didn’t need to be told the way. At Hunter’s wood she squeezed through the gapstone stile and followed the river up through the narrowing gorge, the path climbing away from the water, even Nelson beginning to slow as he lumbered up the steps to the visitor centre. She stopped to catch her breath for a moment, then turned down the road towards the beech wood and the allotments and the village. The Millennium Millstones had been pushed off their plinths again, and when Sean Hooper came up to repair them he said the structure was basically unsound. The strength it must have been taking, it was hard to know why anyone would go to the trouble. There was carol singing in the square, but the weather was wet and not many people showed up.

Brian Fletcher had someone in to advise on the orchard restoration, and coloured strings were tied where the pruning was to be done. Sally’s brother and the second man, Ray, were busy for a week with stepladders and pruning saws, and the two of them were seen looking proud of their work. The cut branches were heaped up and burnt, and in the evenings their voices carried down the valley with the wet spitting smoke. People knew this was Sally’s brother now, but they didn’t know the other man. They didn’t know what the arrangements were. It seemed unorthodox, but that was par for the course with the Fletchers. Their marriage was little understood. There was some speculation but most felt it was no concern of theirs. The twenty-year age gap was one thing, but it was clear they knew how to get on. Brian’s family had lived in the area for years and there was some connection with the original Culshaws. But Sally was from somewhere else entirely, and his family didn’t approve. He went ahead and they cut him out altogether. The wedding had been a quiet affair. Neither of them enjoyed the fuss. It was known their introduction had been arranged online but this was never acknowledged. There was heavy snow and it settled. Irene and Winnie went to the sales in the city, as they’d done every year they’d known each other. It took a bus and a train to get there and the crowds never got easier to face. But it was worth it for the prices to be found. Martin happened by Cooper’s office while he was working on the new issue, and they fell into conversation about computers. Martin was thinking of selling his, he said, but he wanted to be sure the memory was properly wiped. Passwords, bank details, all that. You’ll get a more or less clean drive if you reformat it, Cooper told him. But the only way to be sure is to physically destroy it. A hammer works well. A hammer? Martin asked. Won’t that affect the resale value? It will tend to, Martin, yes. There is that.

At midnight when the year turned Rohan found Lynsey on the dance floor at the village hall and kissed her while ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was sung. Rohan said later that they’d both been as surprised as each other, but in truth he’d been hoping that something would happen again for a while. Lynsey went home by herself soon afterwards, but in the morning she was seen leaving Rohan’s house. There’d been no snowfall since the previous week but neither had there been a real thaw. The streets were cobbled with frozen slush. Someone falling at the top of the lane by the church could have slid right down to the packhorse bridge. The Cooper twins spent an afternoon proving this, until Lee turned his ankle and had to be carried home. At the school when term started there was a sickness bug that went round. Jackson’s boys were kept busy with the sawdust and bleach. By the end of the week the staff had gone down with it too and the school had to be closed for a time. There was talk of the kitchen being at fault but nothing was ever proved. The pantomime was Snow White , and in the absence of seven small enough actors in the area the parts of the dwarfs had been taken by the tallest and broadest men the production committee could find. It was meant to be funny but not everyone got the joke. Irene in particular could be heard trying to whisper objections. She wasn’t good at whispering. Andrew took his role of Bashful very seriously, and delivered his lines clearly. When he knelt beside Ashleigh, who was playing Snow White, and promised to watch over her, the laughter quite abruptly subsided. There was a hesitation which was either a dramatic pause or Andrew forgetting his line and then Irene whispered that she still didn’t see why they couldn’t have just used children and the spell was broken. Late in the month Martin drove out to the disused quarry and took a sledgehammer to his desktop computer, kicking the pieces beneath the chassis of a burnt-out car.

Sally drove her brother to his hospital appointment. This was the first chance she’d had to talk to him since Ray had turned up. He told her he’d felt some of the old ways coming back. She told him she’d been worried, that Ray wasn’t good for him and couldn’t he understand that? We’ve seen some times together, sister, he said, with the enigmatic tone he’d been attempting for a few years now. She asked what he meant, and he told her they had an understanding. They were stuck behind a cement lorry and running late. She was tense on the pedals and she kept checking the mirror. She asked what kind of a hold Ray had over him. She called him Phil and he corrected her to Flint. She told him he was only ever in trouble when Ray was around. He doesn’t look out for you, she said. He doesn’t care about you. Undertakings have been made, he said. She pulled across the road to see if there was space to overtake. There wasn’t. She told him Ray was going to get them both in trouble again, that he was mixed up in all sorts. Flint looked at her steadily. When freedom is outlawed only the outlaws will be free, he said. She told him to grow up. She called him Phil and again he corrected her to Flint. She said that had never been his name before. The road straightened, but a delivery van swept past from behind her just as she started pulling out. She swerved back and swore, and Flint smiled patiently. She asked whether he’d got the name from Ray; whether Ray also told him what to eat, what to drink, when to go to bed and get up in the morning. Undertakings have been given, Flint said again. She told him to stop saying that. She told him their mother had never trusted Ray, that she’d had good reason not to let him into the house when they were younger. He stiffened, and told her not to talk about their mother. She was a good judge of people, Sally told him. Stop it, he said. The traffic slowed as they approached the town, and then stopped altogether. Brian’s not happy with the situation, she said. Are you kicking me out again? he muttered. He understands you need somewhere to be safe, she said, turning to him. But not in the house, he said. Don’t let the freak in the house. It’s not that, she said, almost managing to keep the impatience out of her voice; he’s just not happy with Ray. He doesn’t trust him. People have had words. There are suspicions. Flint wanted to know what sort of words, what sort of suspicions, and she said only that people had reason to worry. People don’t know anything, he said. Loose lips sink ships. She asked him to calm down and listen, and told him that Ray couldn’t stay any longer. I can’t make him leave, Flint said. He can’t stay, she told him. He won’t listen to me, he said. She told him they needed to do something. Brian had had enough. He asked what kind of hold Brian had over her, and she told him not to be clever. It doesn’t suit you, she said.