‘What was it?’ demanded Carole, irritated at the orotundity of his narrative manner, and wanting to hurry him along a bit.
He looked a little piqued, as he said, ‘Very well. A couple of months ago, on a Friday … you know, usual choir rehearsal night … Heather had a problem with her car. Should have been back from the garage late afternoon, but there was a part they couldn’t get till the Saturday morning, something like that. So, since I come from Fedborough and virtually drive past the Shorelands Estate, I had a call from her asking if I could pick her up for rehearsal. No problem for me, and I have to confess I was rather intrigued. You know, Heather kept herself so much to herself, and I thought I might get the opportunity, on the car journey, which was only ten minutes, but I thought I might find out a little more about her, get to know her a bit. In a way, though, perhaps I got more than I bargained for.’
He took another suspenseful pause. Carole had great difficulty in stopping herself from telling him to get on with it.
‘I knocked at the door, expecting Heather to come scuttling out, but it was opened by Leonard. I mean, I knew who he was, I’d seen him around the village, but I wouldn’t say I knew him.
‘Anyway, he wasn’t particularly gracious to me … In fact, that’s putting it mildly. He was damned rude – pardon my French. He said, “Oh, you’ve come to take her off for her bloody choir, have you?” And then he called off into the house, “For Christ’s sake, Heather, your lift’s arrived. What are you faffing around at? No amount of titivation is going to make you look any better at your age.” Which I have to say is not the way that I was brought up to speak to a lady.’
‘Did Heather say anything back to him,’ asked Jude, ‘you know, when she came to the door?’
‘No, she seemed to be completely cowed. Shrank away when she passed him on her way out.’
Carole was immediately aware of the contrast with the cheerful woman she had seen drinking in the church hall. The woman with new glasses, the woman who’d let her hair grow.
‘And did Leonard have any parting shot for her?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes. He said, “Off you go to church then. Maybe God can help sort you out. He’s supposed to have a decent record with lost causes, isn’t he?” I remember the words exactly, because … well, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard a husband be so rude to his wife.’
‘Makes you understand the level of relief she must have felt …’ said Carole, ‘you know, when he was no longer on the scene. It must’ve been absolutely ghastly for her, the whole marriage.’
‘You never know,’ said Jude, who had had a lot of marital secrets shared from her treatment couch. ‘It may have been what worked for them, what turned them on. You can never look inside another marriage.’
‘I agree.’ Carole had certainly never wanted anyone looking inside her marriage to David. Or their divorce, come to that. ‘But the way Heather was behaving in the church hall suggested someone who had just had a great burden lifted off her shoulders.’
‘And the way she was behaving here,’ Bet Harrison contributed.
‘She was here?’ asked Carole, surprised.
Ruskin Dewitt nodded vigorously, setting a ripple through the foliage of his beard. ‘Yes. As I was leaving the church hall, I said, sort of casually, that some of the choir were going to the Crown & Anchor for a drink, and Heather said, to my amazement, “See you there!” She only left half an hour ago.’
‘Goodness.’ Carole and Jude exchanged a look, both regretting that they hadn’t joined the party earlier. Carole looked at her watch. Nearly six. Say formalities in the church hall had finished round two thirty, the session in the pub had been going on for a good three hours. And, until recently, the bereaved widow had been part of it.
‘Incidentally,’ said Carole, drawing Ruskin Dewitt back to his earlier conversation, ‘did Heather say anything to you in the car on the way to rehearsal, you know, that day, after her husband had been so rude to her?’
‘I didn’t think she was going to. And I didn’t really think it was my place to make any comment, but after a long silence, when we were nearly at the church, Heather did apologize for her husband’s behaviour. She said, “He gets like that. I’m afraid Leonard hasn’t taken very well to retirement.” Something of an understatement, I thought, but I just mumbled a few words about it being very difficult for her. And she said – and goodness, I don’t think I’ll ever forget her words …’
On this occasion, Carole did not allow him to indulge in his full dramatic pause. ‘What did she say?’ she asked testily.
‘Heather said,’ Ruskin replied, ‘“Oh, he’ll get his comeuppance. There’s nothing so deadly as a worm that’s turned.”’
FOUR
The other drinkers melted away into the late afternoon. Carole and Jude found themselves alone with Bet Harrison. They noticed, when Jude went to get more Sauvignon Blanc, that she was only drinking mineral water (so it hadn’t been alcohol that made her so forthcoming, it was her normal manner). ‘And thanks,’ she said, when offered a top-up, ‘but I don’t need any more.’
‘Bit of a bugger,’ she went on to Carole while Jude was at the bar, ‘not drinking on an occasion like this, but Rory needs ferrying somewhere this evening. I’m stuck in the driving years, which seem to be going on for ever, and without having a partner to share the burden, I daren’t risk losing my licence, particularly living down here and … well … Do you have children?’
Though this was, by her standards, a rather over-direct question, Carole could not deny that she had a son Stephen, who was married with two daughters. It was not in her nature to mention to a new acquaintance how much joy her grandchildren had brought into her life.
‘Ah, well, you must have done the driving years bit, too.’
‘Yes, but we were living in London back then, so it probably wasn’t so bad. Stephen could go most places on public transport.’
‘Right. What does your husband do?’
‘I’m divorced,’ said Carole, in a tone which she hoped would deter further enquiry.
It failed. ‘Join the club,’ said Bet. ‘Though if I was still married, I wouldn’t be getting much help with ferrying Rory around. Waste of space, my husband was, when it came to anything practical. Great skill men have, avoiding responsibility, don’t they? Even in this day and age—’
Fortunately, the arrival of Jude with two large Sauvignon Blancs stemmed the feminist flow. ‘Just talking about children,’ said Bet.
‘Ah. I don’t have any.’ Jude was always very easy about getting that bit of information into a conversation. When they first met, Carole thought her neighbour must feel some level of sadness about her childlessness, but now she had come round to the view that it genuinely didn’t worry her. Jude had always been better than Carole at accepting the hand life had dealt her. And, perhaps as a result, in Carole’s view her neighbour always seemed to have better cards.
‘Well,’ said Bet, ‘that means you’re missing out on the dubious pleasure of being a glorified taxi service.’ She looked suddenly at Jude. ‘Incidentally, I know you weren’t at the funeral – or the church hall – but do you know Heather Mallett?’ A shake of the head by way of response. ‘I was just interested in what Russ was saying, you know, about when he gave her the lift. Sounds like she was stuck in a really abusive marriage.’
‘Hard to be sure without knowing more detail,’ said Jude diplomatically. ‘Verbal abuse doesn’t definitely mean there’s also physical abuse. Some couples just are combative. They seem to get off on it.’
‘Well, he was combative, we know that. Doesn’t sound like Heather did much in the way of getting back at him.’