‘Here she is.’
She looked up to see Derek approaching from the main gates.
‘I’m just doing the bench.’
‘I can see.’ He touched her arm in a friendly, unspectacular way. ‘It’s such a lovely evening I thought I’d walk on and see how you were getting on.’ He stood back, surveying the bench. ‘How was the dreaded pre-diabetes awareness?’
She frowned, applying no-nonsense strokes to the offending part of one of the legs. ‘I have to avoid triggers,’ she said. ‘Knowing there’s biscuits in the cupboard, that sort of thing.’ She thought of those Vegan Moments, rich on her tongue.
It was as if Derek could read her mind. ‘The Food Police’ll sort it,’ he said. ‘If he’s not too busy saving the planet that is. It was today our Jacob broke up, wasn’t it?’
Liz nodded pushing back those guilty thoughts. She’d replace the Moments first thing. ‘Our Tim rang earlier; he’s bringing him over around nine.’
Now her grandson was older (year 6 next year! Where did the time go?) he was a lot more self-sufficient, and although the Wensleydale Railway, Lightwater Valley and the local maize maze were all written in red on the calendar, he was also largely content to amuse himself. At the moment this seemed to consist of either going through his grandparents’ food cupboards or having endless, serious online meeting with his group of activists from school (BCCDAG – Boroughbridge Climate Change Direct Action Group).
‘Right.’ Liz gave a final, determined stroke to the slats and Derek stood back surveying her work. Watching him Liz suddenlyknew he was remembering another time, a wild autumn night when they’d found Billy’s grandson slumped and barely conscious on this very bench.
‘Love you,’ she said.
He made a not unfriendly noise in his throat and nodded. ‘There’s a couple of bits on the side you’ve missed,’ he said.
Liz clicked her tongue in impatience, re-dipped the brush and gave a couple of hasty strokes.
‘Careful!’ said Derek warningly. ‘You’re getting it on your wellies.’
Tutting, Liz looked down, remembering the spray of droplets earlier. How much had she got on her wellies? But there were only a few droplets round the toes.
Hang on …What did thatmake her think of?A pair of riding boots liberally spattered all on the toes and up the front with yellow paint!She looked at her own boots, with only a few drops of paint on the toes – and she’d painted virtually a whole bench, not just a single vertical line …
Odd.
About the same time, Thelma was sitting in the space behind number 32 College Gardens. Not really a garden, certainly bigger than a backyard, she was never quite sure how to refer to it apart from ‘out the back’. Whatever, this brick-paved space of pots, outhouses and a pocket handkerchief lawn was a place she loved, a favourite place to sit in the summer months. Now she sat on the bench, breathing in the heady scent of the night-blooming honeysuckle cascading down the back wall. Away in the west the muted glow of the sun, obscured by the wall and by Ripon and St Bega college was firing the sky. On the bench beside her Snaffles the cat was staring with focused intent at the open laptop in her knees.
On the laptop was the answer to a prayer.
The email was short and to the point.
Dear Mrs Cooper,
Due to the ongoing challenges posed by the current heatwave, we are pleased to offer an online option for your Speed Awareness course.
Online!Attending from her own front room as opposed to the Villette suite at the Harrogate Heights Hotel – with all the attendant risk of running into someone she knew. Of course, there was still some risk of there being some familiar face online, but there were things she could do about that.
‘Thank you, Father,’ she said, inhaling a deep, deep breath of sweetened air. She thought again of the actual offence. Her fingers tightened slightly on the laptop at the word ‘offence’. It was all so unfair. That hill out of Ripon needed some welly to get up it, and it wasn’t as if there were any houses or even pedestrians there as a rule. So why was it a thirty-mile-an-hour zone? Thirty-seven she’d been going! It wasn’t as if she’d been some young buck out to impress his mates. She’d been dashing from the charity shop to the Friarage to visit Contralto Kate from the choir. A mobile camera mounted in a van had taken to haunting the pull-in where the old feed mill had been, and it had been this that had caught her. According to the local online bulletin, theWakeman, this van had netted untold thousands of pounds for the powers that be in what was a notoriously accident-free area.
So unfair.
But her reaction had taken her by surprise – a crippling shame at being judged and found guilty. So strong was this feeling it had sapped her confidence to drive at all. She had expected the feelings to diminish over time, but if anything, they had grown until it towered in her mind out of all proportion to the actual offence. When she had done the course, even in the less threatening surroundings of her own living room, would this feeling of disquiet ever fade? What if she never felt comfortable driving again?
Thelma took another scented breath, reminding herself of her favourite go-to passage of scripture at times like this –Let tomorrow worry about itself, sufficient to the day is its own trouble.
The sound of the back door and the chinking of ice heralded the arrival of Teddy with two tumblers of elderflower cordial. He stood a moment, luxuriating in the peace, eyes slightly squinted against the last rays of the sun. ‘Man goes forth to his work, and to his labour until evening,’ he quoted.
‘Were there many parcels?’ said Thelma, referring to the stack of brown packages in the porch that had greeted them on their return.
‘A fair few,’ said Teddy. ‘About thirty fans of varying descriptions. I’ll clear it tomorrow.’ He set the drinks down, sat next to Thelma and took her hand. ‘It’s good news about the course-that-dare-not-speak-its-name,’ he said.
Thelma returned his grip and said nothing.
