“Isn’t that wonderful?” said Number 23. She wasn’t nearly as snooty as she seemed at first. “But it makes what happened to you even worse. I was so glad when I saw you safely back from your sister’s and out and about in the street again. And even more when I heard you were coming today.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Maggie said. “You’ve all been so good to me since Halloween.”
A faint blush spread in Number 23’s cheeks. She must have been remembering the days when they’d all talked about “Mad Maggie” and the “old witch in Number 46 who never weeds her front garden.” Funny how being so frightened could make you a heroine, Maggie thought.
“I wasn’t sure I could ever come back,” she said. “Not till you all sent that card to my sister’s and invited me to the party.”
“We were so shocked by what happened to you. Those louts could’ve burned the house down.”
“I know.” Maggie always tried not to think about it. For weeks after Halloween, she hadn’t been able to sleep, and she’d spent her days hiding behind her curtains in case they came back. She’d always hated Halloween and the trick-or-treating children. But it had never been as bad as last year. She shivered now, in spite of the sun and the kindness all around her.
First she’d had raw eggs thrown by a group of teenage girls who thought she hadn’t given them enough, so she didn’t answer the door to the next lot. They put flour through her letterbox to punish her, and it turned the eggs into a terrible mess. The arthritis was so bad she couldn’t bend down to clean it up. Not wanting more flour, she did answer the door the third time and saw two big figures in horror masks. One of them looked as if he’d drawn a bat on his hand. It was only when she peered more closely that Maggie saw it was just a birthmark.
She was angry by then, so she told them what Halloween really meant and how they should be praying for the souls of the dead, not scaring old ladies and demanding money with menaces. Then she shut the door on them and their greediness.
Someone filled up her teacup and asked if she needed another cushion.
“No, thank you, dear,” she said, glad of the respite from her memories. “I’m very comfortable.”
If she shut her eyes, she could still hear the hiss from outside the door as the trick-or-treaters lit their firework, and the bang as it fell onto her mat, shooting out sparks and flames. If it hadn’t been for her heavy winter coat, hanging ready on the peg by the door, she’d never have been able to put them out. Number 23 was right: She could have burned to death.
“You’ve been so brave,” she said now.
Suddenly Maggie remembered her name. “It’s kind of you to say so, Sarah,” she said. “And I’m having a lovely time today.”
One of the young men from the far end of the street had a guitar and was playing a folk song Maggie recognised. She began to hum in tune. Lots of the others joined in.
Everyone was smiling at her. They’d welcomed her like royalty and made her feel safe again. Tonight she could go to bed happy.
“I think you made those awful boys from the council flats really ashamed of themselves,” Sarah said when the song ended. “They’ve never given any trouble since. We all owe you so much, Mrs. Cross.”
“Thank you, dear. I’m getting a bit tired now. And the sun’s very bright. I’d like to go home.”
“Shall I come with you? Just to make sure you don’t fall?”
“Don’t you move. I’m sure your Colin would help me, and he’s already on his feet.” She beckoned.
A minute later the boy was standing beside her, smiling gravely, and asking if she wanted him to help her off her chair.
“No, thank you. Just to walk with me over the potholes in case I trip.”
“Of course, Mrs. Cross.”
He kept a steady hand under her elbow, then waited patiently while she looked for her door key at the bottom of her big bag. When she’d opened the door, he smiled, showing off his brilliant white teeth.
“Will you be all right now?”
“Yes. I want to give you something.”
“No, no, please,” he said. “It was nothing.”
“It’s advice. There’s no point disguising yourself with a mask at Halloween if you let everybody see that birthmark on your right hand.”
“I... Mrs. Cross, you... I...” Now his face was bright red, and there were tears welling in his eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure, yet.” She found herself smiling at him, no longer scared of any memories. “It’s funny how seeing other people frightened makes you feel strong, isn’t it, Colin?”
Copyright (c); 2005 by Natasha Cooper.
Art, Marriage and Death
by Liza Cody
A winner of the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Silver Dagger and John Creasey awards, Liza Cody lives in Bath, England. Good news for Ms. Cody’s fans: Her popular Anna Lee private eye novels will soon be republished in the U. S. by Felony & Mayhem Press. More of her short fiction can be found in Lucky Dip and Other Stories, published by Crippen & Landru in 2003.
When you’re young you don’t know what’s going to be important later on. Things happen and then other things happen. Some of it jars your mind, some of it grasps your heart, but it takes time to decide which is which and how you really feel about it. Some of the really big events you don’t even recognise as big until later when you talk it out to yourself — make a narrative of it.
It was like that when I first met Gail. I went to pick up Alastair at his shared flat in Notting Hill and I walked in on two women. One had a pair of scissors in her hand, and the other had a towel around her shoulders. They turned towards me with the kind of bright curious eyes that made me want to account for myself.
“I’m looking for Alastair,” I said. In those days I often looked for Alastair. He did not often look for me.
“He’ll be along in a minute,” Gail said, or her friend. I don’t, to this day, know which was which. They looked at me, waiting, while I fought the urge to cough up my life story.
Then Alastair appeared and we left.
“That’s Gail,” he said.
“Which one?”
“The one I’m going to marry.”
“In your dreams,” I said, shocked because now I knew finally that he meant more to me than I did to him. But equally, it didn’t occur to me that I had just met one of my future best friends. And in the long run, that was what made the day important.
For a while I assumed she was a hairdresser. Of course, I was wrong. I often am. Then I got a job at a small liberal arts college in Canada and didn’t see any of my friends for three long years.
The next time I met Gail, we were both wearing black. She was with Alastair and he was wearing black, too. They had married while I was away, and I was too poor to come back for the wedding. Now, slightly richer, I was home for the funeral of a mutual friend, a woman both Alastair and I had been close to — the way students are, for no reason at all except you went to the same movies. Moselle was exotic, secretive, and even had rich parents. She was the one, early on, who introduced me to the word recherche. “Searched-out; rare,” she explained loftily. “Far-fetched.” And Alastair nodded wisely. Words were his thing, too. I didn’t want to recognise it then but they shared far more than just a sophisticated vocabulary. Of course, that was before he met Gail.
While a rabbi mumbled banalities about Moselle, whom clearly he had never known, I studied the sparse crowd looking for other old friends, especially looking for her rich parents. I’d never met them but they were famous for bailing Mo out. She had much more money than the rest of us, but she was always in debt.