It may have been just the sound of passing traffic as she got nearer, but at some point it seemed to Steph that the long drive had, invisibly, begun to belong more to the road that ran past it than to Walden Manor, with its stone arms outstretched more than half a mile behind. Nothing as simple as curiosity turned her in the direction of the village, but when she took the turning that led to it after another twenty minutes’ walk along the edge of the noisy road, she found herself slowing down to look at it properly.
Most of the houses were old and the stone built ones along the curving main street were joined together. Many of them were double-fronted and had steps leading up to their doors. Some had window boxes, others had Bed & Breakfast signs in their windows. Trees were planted at intervals along the pavement. Most of the traffic ripped past along the top road that Steph had turned off, leaving the village quiet. In the middle, the street opened out round a small triangle of grass surrounded by railings and beds of flowering plants, where a stone monument stood, its steps and inscription worn away. On one side of the triangle was an empty bus shelter, across the road on another side was a peeling, semi-detached house with a sign saying ‘Vicarage’. The church sat behind, down a road that led off at the side. Next to the vicarage, well set back, stood a grander, older house, the only one with a drive and a front garden full of trees. The slate sign on the wall read ‘The Old Rectory’. Next to that stood two empty cottages, a shut-up garage, a modern, bright-green painted shop with orange star-shaped notices on its wide flat windows, a litter bin and a sign announcing that lottery tickets were On Sale Here. It was all very pretty, of course, Steph could see that, but empty and pointless unless you lived there. Perhaps even if you did, she thought, as a familiar feeling stirred in her. She wanted chocolate, suddenly, or crisps. Anything, and she had no money.
At the ting of the bell, Steph stepped into the shop and was surrounded by the smells of cheese, wrapped cake, newspapers and ageing vegetables. There was silence but for the dismal buzzing of strip lighting and refrigerators, and the almost audible expectation that she should buy something. From behind the counter a man with big yellow hands was stabbing at buttons on a calculator that sat on an open ledger. He nodded at her over his glasses without smiling. Steph raised one corner of her mouth and turned her back, browsing a rack of biscuits, fly sprays and birthday cards. The man looked down again, and Steph sidled along past shampoo and tins of soup. She couldn’t take crisps without making a noise, the biscuit packets were too big, and the sweets were on display right under the man’s nose. There was a tall, freestanding row of shelves that divided the shop in two, but there was also a round mirror high on one wall that gave the man a view of whoever was behind it. The stuff on the shelves round the back was only light bulbs, soap powder and tin foil, anyway. Unless somebody else came and distracted him, she had no chance. She turned and looked through the door on to the triangle of green grass, willing someone to come in with a long shopping list.
‘You looking for a tent or a lawnmower, you’re in luck,’ the man said, distantly. ‘Four new ones in yesterday.’ Steph turned and smiled cautiously, wondering what he meant.
‘Small ads, four new ones. Good price, the tent. Only got used once, bloke said. Selling it after one go, the wife didn’t like camping, apparently. He’s giving it away at that price, just wants rid of it.’ The man was motioning now towards the door, and Steph saw that he was pointing at a cluster of handwritten postcards pasted over the top half of it. She turned back and looked at them, pretending to be interested. She couldn’t have cared less about a tent or a lawnmower, but if she spent a minute or two reading the ads, something might happen. His phone might ring. He might even go through to the back or something.
‘Tent’s a fantastic price. He was going to put the card in for a fortnight, I said don’t. It’ll go within the week at that price, I said, take just the one to start with. At that price it’ll go in one. Tempted myself, if I’m honest.’
Steph smiled again and turned back. Clipped to the postcard was a blurry photograph of the quite resistible tent. Below it on another card Steph read:
WANTED: Childminder, hrs tbc, for Charlie, four months. Lively baby. Non-smoker. Kind personality req’d. Start IMMEDIATELY. Apply Bell Cottage Green Lane. Or tel (after 6 pm: 583622).
The man looked up again at the ting of the bell and noted that the pale young woman had left without buying anything. He sighed and returned to his ledger. She hadn’t looked the type to buy his tent, and he was beginning to lose hope that he’d ever shift it.
Bell Cottage was a small, double-fronted house down a narrower street that ran parallel to the main one where the shop stood. Steph found it by wandering. The signs on most of the lanes leading off the main street gave also the names of the streets they led to, and there seemed to be no more than a dozen or so at most in the old part of the village. The door was opened by a dark-haired woman in bare feet, who stared at her without speaking. Steph thought she looked too old to be the mother of a baby.
‘Hello… I was wondering if-’
‘I’m just about to go out.’
‘Oh. Oh, but I was just wondering,’ Steph said, sure now that she had got the wrong house, ‘if this is where the job is. The childminding?’
The woman hesitated for a moment without smiling. ‘Oh. Well, I have to go out when he wakes up. But you might as well come in,’ she said, turning back into the house and evidently expecting Steph to follow.
The narrow hallway had been painted some dull, pale colour that had been streaked and scraped black on both sides. The smell reminded Steph of something earthy, cold and none too clean, like mud or certain kinds of cheese. A long, dark bulge of hung-up coats and jackets padded most of one wall. Underneath lay a heap of boots and shoes, umbrellas, a crash helmet, walking sticks, a riding crop and one ice-skate. On the floor next to a low stool that was covered with newspapers sat a telephone directory, on which several milk bottles and a camera had been placed. Next to that stood a folded child’s pushchair whose detached plastic rain canopy leaned against the wall. On the floor nearby was the telephone, a bowl with a spoon and the brownish dregs of breakfast cereal in it, two or three listing carrier bags and an open briefcase with papers fanning out of it.
Steph followed the woman down the passage, past the staircase and into the kitchen at the back. She said, not asking, ‘Coffee’, pulled a kettle clear from a clutter of things on a worktop, filled it and switched it on. Steph wondered where she was supposed to put herself, and decided to stand still. There was nowhere not filled with other things. The worktops and table were laden with jars, utensils, little bottles, a tub of baby wipes and a pacifier, two radios, a toaster, a blender, the kettle, a feeding bottle steriliser, as well as assorted bowls which contained something or nothing: Steph took in papery-looking garlic, pens, bananas, cassette tapes, some pursed-up lemons, rubber bands, an assortment of hair ties, keys, scraps of paper, cut-out coupons, dried up garden bulbs. Only a fraction of space was clear for anything that might be expected to happen in a kitchen, such as cooking or eating. A notice board held curling fragments of cards, lists, takeaway menus, envelopes and postcards of beaches. On a blackboard alongside it were chalked the words Bags Coff Spread Milt tabs. O. Chips bleach. The cooker top was spattered with burnt spills which seemed to be dark orange, the grill above was covered with a rag of tin foil that smelled acrid and rubbery. Two of the wall cupboards had no doors. Any patches of floor that were not covered by cat bowls, litter tray, sheets of spread newspaper and squashed crumbs were more homogenously dirty. The windowsill behind the sink held a few jars of brown water with slimy forgotten herbs or attempts at cuttings of something or other, more milk bottles and a heap of pacifiers on a saucer.