‘Take it easy,’ I said reasonably. ‘He has to come past us. We can always wave him down.’
The Prius was still more than a quarter of a mile away when it seemed to pick up speed. ‘What the bloody hell is he doing?’ Alison shouted. ‘Dad!’
As we watched in horror, her father’s vehicle slowed, fishtailed, slowed again, then shot forward like a racehorse out of the gates, barreling down the hill toward us at high speed.
‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, what do I do?’ Alison whimpered, seemingly paralysed at the wheel.
I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Stephen Bailey sailed by us, his face set and grim. He slid on to the verge, sideswiped one of the pillars, and in almost balletic slow motion, brought his brand new Prius to a slow, grinding halt against the trunk of a tree that grew out of the hedgerow.
Alison and I were out of the car and at the scene in seconds. ‘Dad, Dad!’ Alison screamed as she wrenched the driver’s side door open.
‘I’m fine,’ the old man said. ‘Don’t fuss, Alison.’
He didn’t look fine to me. Although the air bags had deployed on impact and now lolled out of the glove box and a flap in the center of the steering wheel like limp tongues, Bailey had a small cut on his chin, and his right thumb was twisted back at an angle Mother Nature never intended. While Alison helped her father out of the car, I fetched the Peugeot and backed it down the road, parking it opposite the damaged Prius. Holding his arm, Alison guided her father to the back seat and forced him to sit down.
Alison smoothed her father’s hair back from his forehead so she could examine him for injuries more closely. ‘You’ll live, but I think that chin will need a couple of stitches.’
Bailey batted his daughter’s hand away. ‘Don’t fuss, daughter.’
Undaunted, Alison reached into her handbag, pulled a clean tissue out of a pack, licked a corner of it and used it to dab some of the blood off her father’s forehead. Seemingly satisfied that he was in no imminent danger, her tone changed from solicitation to exasperation. ‘Dad, where on earth were you going?’
‘I started to do the washing-up, but we were out of Fairy Liquid.’
‘Why didn’t you call me, then? I could have brought you some.’
‘I didn’t want to trouble you.’
Alison stared up at the heavens as if praying for patience. I could almost see the wheels turning. As if asking me to come all the way out here today wasn’t already trouble enough? ‘What happened?’ she said instead. ‘We saw you start down the hill, but all of a sudden you were coming at us like a bat out of hell.’
Cradling his broken thumb in one hand, Bailey winced. ‘That damn cat that’s been hanging around the barn ran across the lane, and I went to hit the brake, but I think I got the accelerator instead.’
Alison pulled her cell phone out of her handbag. ‘I’m going to take you to the hospital, but first, I’m going to call the AA and have them come for the car.’
‘No!’ Bailey ordered. ‘Leave it. Tom’ll fetch it with the tractor.’
‘You pay for breakdown coverage, you old fool. You should use it.’
‘Tom’ll haul it up to the barn so I can think about it. Just had some body work done, remember. If I file another claim, I’ll have a rise in premium. Can’t afford that. Not at my age.’
Alison shrugged, capitulating. ‘It’s your car, so you can do what you bloody well want with it, you old fool.’
‘Who’s Tom?’ I asked as Alison fastened the seatbelt around her father and prepared for the long drive to Dartmouth Hospital.
‘He’s one of the lads who helps with the chores. Works part-time at a body shop in Plymouth, so Dad probably figures Tom can pop the airbags back in, pound out the dents, and repaint for pence on the pound.’
‘What will I do about the people who are coming to see the house?’ Alison’s father said wearily.
Alison raised both eyebrows and shot me a pleading look.
I took the hint. ‘Don’t worry about that, Mr Bailey. I’ll stay at the house until you and Alison get back. What time are you expecting the estate agent?’
‘Half two.’
‘No problem. I’ll wait. Is Tom working today?’
‘He’ll be in the barn.’
‘And I’ll see to it that Tom takes care of the car, then.’
While Alison and her father were at the hospital, and after speaking with Tom, I moved through the house like a whirlwind. Tossed two sweat-stained T-shirts, a pair of grimy khakis and half a dozen mismatched socks into the washing machine and slammed the door closed. Threw two pairs of shoes and some slippers into the bottom of a wardrobe. Made the bed. Washed, dried and put away a sinkful of dishes using detergent from a half bottle of Fairy Liquid I found while rummaging under the kitchen sink. Bailey hadn’t been out of it after all.
As I stood at the sink holding the bottle of Fairy Liquid in one hand and a dishtowel in the other, I watched Tom, perched high in the driver’s seat of his tractor, tow Stephen Bailey’s damaged car past the kitchen window. I felt a chill, not entirely explained by the blast of air conditioning blowing on the back of my neck from the small window unit over the kitchen table. Scrapes and scratches cut a wide swath along the entire passenger side of the Prius, and the left front fender was curved around the tire. If Alison’s father had staged the accident in an attempt to cover up damage to his vehicle from a hit and run, he couldn’t have done a better job of it.
But what possible motive could he have had to mow Susan Parker down?
I shrugged, draped the dishtowel over the oven door handle to dry, and moved on to the farmhouse’s single bathroom. Old folks were mistaking accelerator pedals for brakes every day of the week, I reasoned as I swished a rag around the rim of the bathroom sink. Add eighty-six-year-old Stephen Bailey to that statistic. I decided that cleaning the toilet was way above and beyond the call of duty, so I closed the lid on the offending rust stains and hoped for the best. Then I sat down to watch TV and wait.
By the time Alison returned with her father a few minutes after four, a butterfly bandage on his chin and his hand in a splint, I’d learned a whole lot about converting a garage into a granny annexe, but not a single estate agent or Hooray Henry from Manchester or anywhere had showed up expecting a tour of Three Trees Farm.
FOURTEEN
‘There were, inevitably, one or two who could not understand – like the old man of over eighty who had lived all his life in the cottage in which he had been born… So when a messenger from one of the information centres called… he replied that he had heard of some outlandish talk about moving people away, but that he “didn’t want no truck wi’ it, thank ’ee”. “He’s a nice old boy but obstinate [said a neighbor], [but] he’s lost touch with the world, really.” When moving day came, he watched the packing being done as if in a dream, then sat on a packing crate outside the gate and refused to budge.’Grace Bradbeer, The Land Changed Its Face: The Evacuation of the South Hams, 1943-44, Devon Books, 1973, pp.59-60
‘Help me, Hannah.’
It was inevitable. The old Beach Boys classic ‘Help, Help Me, Rhonda’ started running through my head, and I knew the tune would stick with me all day.
Alison was pushing a trolley down the dairy aisle of the Sainsbury’s superstore on the outskirts of Dartmouth, and I’d just tossed three pots of full-cream yogurt into my section of her cart. Fruits des bois, Paul’s fave. Our husbands were due home the following day, and I was stocking our mini-fridge with treats.
‘Hmmm?’ I drawled, the wicked beat of a Beach Boys’ bass drumming hard in my head.
Alison turned a corner and brought the trolley squeaking to a halt in front of a cold case of cheeses. ‘Your dad is in his seventies, right?’