Beryl took to her bed much earlier than usual that night with a hot water bottle and a good book but spent a restless few hours tossing and turning. These regular antidotes to wakefulness had completely failed her this time and she was unable to shake off the memories that were pouring into her mind like a river after a fierce rainstorm.
Contemplating a brandy to tip her over the edge into sleep, Beryl decided against it. That seemed a bit like desperate measures and smacked of being out of control. To be in charge of her own body was very important to her. She supposed that to an outsider she might look a bit giddy at times, with her love of Prosecco and dancing, but there were limits, she told herself.
After trying many times to get comfortable, she finally woke from a fitful doze at six o’clock and came downstairs in her dressing gown. It was a relief to have given up on sleep. She settled herself in her favourite chair and switched on the TV, choosing one of her favourite programmes about property renovation. Anything like that would usually help to soothe any anxieties. A large mug of tea and a couple of digestive biscuits should have settled her troublesome thoughts, but this tried and tested panacea didn’t work its magic either. She got up to make more tea and turned off the excited chatter about removing walls and building extensions. It was distracting her from thinking, and today she needed to concentrate. On previous occasions, returning from a holiday with her two best friends had always been something of a letdown, but the arrival of the new neighbour had put all such gloom right out of her head. There was much to ponder on when she was back again in her chair.
‘What’s she doing coming back here after all these years?’ Beryl muttered, aiming her question towards a photograph that stood in pride of place on the sideboard, a habit that had been growing ever since her husband had departed this life so many years ago. ‘There was a very good reason why that family left Willowbrook, and it hasn’t gone away. We know what it is, don’t we, Eddie? And even though you’re not around any more, there are some of us still living here that have long memories.’
Leaning back, Beryl wriggled her toes in the slippers which she’d left ready at the side of her bed last night. They were almost new; fake sheepskin, fleece-lined and trimmed with nylon fur. She picked up the second mug of strong tea laced with two sugars that she’d placed on a small table by her elbow and sighed with relief as her tired feet appreciated the welcome comfort of the slippers. As the sweetness and warmth of the hot tea permeated her body, Beryl made a huge effort to pinpoint why the fact that Venetia Prescott was about take up residence next door had rattled her so much.
It wasn’t as if she’d known the girl particularly well when the Prescotts had been around, but Venetia’s mother Tallulah had been a good friend, and Tallulah’s sister Yolanda had been fun when she came to stay, which was often. Even so, the niggling feeing that she was missing something wouldn’t go away. Of course, there were the disturbing rumours about Venetia that circulated just before the family from next door left, but Winnie and Anthea obviously knew nothing of those. Beryl, on the other hand, had been privy to rather more information about Vee’s father, Ivan Prescott, which she’d vowed to herself never to pass on to a single soul in the village. What was even more unsettling was the gut feeling she’d always had that somehow her beloved son Patrick’s deep unhappiness had been linked to Venetia and her little gang. But how? He’d never confided anything about his troubled state of mind to his parents. Beryl racked her brains. What was she not remembering? It might be something totally insignificant and nothing to do with the boy’s misery at that time, but then again, it might not.
Beryl drained her mug and decided to do what she’d been putting off since she’d unpacked her suitcase and thrown a load of washing into the machine. She hauled herself to her feet with an involuntary groan – maybe joining that salsa class in Majorca had been a mistake – and went over to the bookshelf by the living room door. A recent cull of a lot of the older books had made the shelf look much tidier but Beryl hadn’t been able to part with the albums, and she knew she never would. They dated right back to the early days of her marriage. The earlier photographs depicting Beryl as a baby had been appropriated by her sister when the family house was emptied, and she’d been glad to see the back of them at the time. With a small son to deal with and not much room to spare, number five Fiddler’s Row had always been kept scrupulously tidy. That was no problem, the pictures she needed were right here in front of her.
Beryl made herself as ready for the experience as she possibly could. The photographs she was going to look at were those showing what she thought of as the golden years, when Eddie was bringing home a good wage and everything in the garden was rosy. She’d wanted more children after Patrick was born but it just hadn’t happened. Their little boy was a joy to them both, and Beryl eventually resigned herself to the fact that Patrick was going to grow up without the gang of brothers and sisters she’d planned for him.
Homing in on the two decades that were at the forefront of her mind, Beryl reached for a large navy-blue album. She remembered sticking the photographs in this particular one herself, although Eddie had usually claimed that job. He loved cataloguing their life and writing amusing (or so he thought) captions, although in those days, he’d not exactly been a dab hand at photography. A lot of the pictures featured figures with various limbs or their heads missing, due to his impulsive habit of takingpoint and presssnapshots. Others had the fuzzy image of a large thumb in the corner. Regardless of the lack of technical skill, the album now in Beryl’s lap was a beautiful reminder of days gone by.
‘Oh, Patrick,’ she whispered, as she turned the pages, marvelling at the radiant smile and auburn curls of her first and only child. He’d been an adorable baby once he’d stopped being so red and dribbly, a chubby, loving toddler and a sturdy little boy with a fascination for finding out about rocks. His collection of stones had gradually taken over his bedroom and it was no surprise to Beryl and Eddie when eventually Patrick took off for university to study geology. It was earlier when he was at secondary school when things had started to go badly wrong in his life, and to be honest, Beryl had been glad to see him escape the confines of Willowbrook and get away from the school cohort that seemed to have been the catalyst for his anxiety.
Beryl closed the album and sat with it on her knee. She reached for the next one. This catalogued Patrick’s teenage years up until he’d left home. As she turned the pages, Beryl felt her stomach clenching. The familiar trembly sensation was back. It happened whenever she pondered too deeply on her son’s too-short life and how it ended. One picture stood out from the others. In it, Patrick stood on the edge of a group of his classmates. Beryl remembered that this had been taken at a school camping trip to North Wales.
The date was under the photograph in her own neat writing:
19 August 1985
Patrick had an arm around the shoulders of a pretty girl with blonde curls. Venetia Prescott was standing on the other side of her. Aha. Venetia Prescott and Rhonda Clements. Both names triggered a whole lot more unwelcome memories. Patrick had been completely besotted with Rhonda for a while. When Beryl had been teasing Winnie and Anthea about her inside knowledge of past village affairs, she’d only been thinking of Venetia’s involvement, but now… there was more, much more to think about.
Had she blanked some of it out? Had losing Patrick affected her mind in such a way that she couldn’t handle all the memories? Beryl knew about this sort of thing from her addiction to certain types of daytime TV, where digging into people’s psyches was held up as entertainment. The thoughts crowding her mind were ones that she didn’t usually allow in, but seeing Venetia yesterday had opened doors that should probably remain closed. The temptation to dig deeper was strong today. She shivered. There was nobody left to ask about those times. Then, an idea came to her right out of the blue. Someone who might know what really happened back then was Venetia’s aunt, Yolanda, who had been staying in Willowbrook with her sister and family at the time of the summer camping trip to Wales. But Yolanda was far away now, living out her retirement in the small French town where she’d made her home many years ago. Beryl reached for her phone and pressed Winnie’s number. The call was answered immediately.
‘Hello, are you missing me already?’ Winnie’s voice was always reassuring and today it seemed especially warming.
‘Ha! As if. No, I just wanted to ask you something.’
‘You’re seeing me later, couldn’t it wait? I’m just preparing the chicken. My hands are all sticky.’
‘This won’t take long. A quick question, that’s all. How much do you remember about the time when my Patrick…’ Beryl swallowed hard and carried on. ‘When my Patrick was at the secondary school in Meadowthorpe with Venetia from next door? I know your kids were younger and we didn’t see much of each other around then. I was working full time at the surgery, and you had your hands full. You used to be looking after half the toddlers in the neighbourhood if I remember rightly.’
Winnie didn’t answer for a moment. Then she cleared her throat. ‘I haven’t heard you mention your lovely boy for a long, long time,’ she said. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘That’s not important. What do you remember, Winnie?’
‘I’m not sure what I’m meant to say to that,’ Winnie said. ‘You’ve already mentioned why we didn’t live in each other’s pockets then, like we do now. I didn’t know Patrick very well. What I do recall is a handsome lad with a shock of ginger hair. He was…’
‘He was what?’ Beryl prompted. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he was almost too good-looking to be true. Kind of… delicate, if you know what I mean. Fragile.’
‘But you don’t remember anything about the crowd he hung around with? Or tried to,’ Beryl added bitterly.
‘Sorry, no, I don’t. As you said, we moved in different orbits at that time. Why are you asking? I’m guessing it’s the new arrival next door that’s set you off?’
‘Ignore me, it was just a thought. I’ll see you and Anthea later. Is she picking you up?’ Beryl said, hoping to distract Winnie. Her ploy worked.
‘Is she ever. That woman’s driving gets worse every time I go out with her. I usually manage to make an excuse, but I need a lift to bring the food tonight. Wish me luck. Do you remember Jasper Carrott, the comedian? He did a great sketch about people’s ridiculous car insurance claims.’
Beryl, mystified, said she didn’t.
‘Well, there was that one where he said something like, “The driver said the accident was caused by him waving to the man he ran into last week.” Always made me giggle… until now.’
