Lois Meade 03: Weeping on Wednesday (1987) (4 page)

“Oh yes, of course! Here, I’ll put them in the cupboard. They’re getting scarce now, with everyone into cartons. These look nice and clean too – not like some.”

“Ah well,” pounced Sheila, spotting an opportunity to raise the subject she’d hoped would come up, “I’ve been well-trained. Working for Lois Meade, y’know. ‘We sweep cleaner’ and all that. Her standards are very high.”

Light dawned, and Rebecca smiled. “Ah, you mean the cleaning business my Bill has signed up with? Yes, he’s really looking forward to it. Mind you,” she added, perching on the edge of her table, “I was surprised. Thought he’d want to do farm work, like he always has. If I’d been asked – which I wasn’t!  – ” she looked confidingly at the motherly figure in front of her – “
if
I’d been asked, I’d have said he’d be better handling bullocks than dusters, though he takes his turn around the cottage. I have to give him that.”

“Well,” said Sheila, “if it don’t work out, my Sam might be able to find him some work. Still,” she said, with a guilty look, “I probably shouldn’t say that, Lois havin’ decided, an’ that. Anyway, I mustn’t stand here gossiping! That’s one of Lois’s rules…”

Rebecca reckoned that Sheila Stratford rated gossip as one of the necessities of life, and before she could escape, said quickly, “This Mrs Meade – is she nice? Bill didn’t seem too sure. Not what he expected, he said.”

“Nice?” Sheila hesitated. “Well, not like your uncle, Rev Rogers, is nice and kind…not soft in any way, y’know. But you could trust her with your life. An’ she’s loyal to her cleaners…providing they’re loyal to her. She’s a good mother, too, in her way. And her husband, Derek,” Sheila added, brightening up, “he’s really nice. Lovely bloke. Puts up with quite a lot, one way and another…” Then she put her hand up to her mouth in a mock stifling gesture. “There I go again!” she said. “I must be off, before you get everybody’s life history at New Brooms!”

“Cheerio, Mrs Stratford,” said Rebecca, “I expect we’ll meet again.”

“Bound to,” said Sheila, and made for the door. Then she turned back. “Oh, by the way, did you see our Waltonby’s in the news? Cathanger Mill? That Abraham chap, seems he done a runner. Your Bill’d be interested, seein’ as Miss Abraham has applied for a cleanin’ job with Lois. I know one thing,” she added, in a final exit line, “I wouldn’t have nothing to do with that Abraham lot, not for all the tea in China!”

Later that evening, when Bill returned from the hospital, Rebecca mentioned the Abrahams. Neither she nor Bill had seen the news item, and had never heard of the Abraham family. “But I’ve driven past it,” said Rebecca, putting another log on the fire. “Spooky-looking place. Bloomin’ great dog came out barking its head off, and chased the car all the way up to the empty farmhouse.”

“That farmhouse is on the market,” said Bill, not much interested in spooks. “D’you fancy going for it? We could do the renovations ourselves.”

But Rebecca shook her head. That would be a commitment she was not ready for. This warm little cottage, rented from the church, suited her fine. There were too many uncertainties ahead to think of putting down roots with Bill just yet.

E
nid Abraham drove her small, grey car slowly up the track to Cathanger Mill. It was growing dark, and the weak lights showed up the potholes and ruts. She could not use the headlights for fear of alarming Mother. Not that it mattered. She could have found her way through this obstacle course with her eyes shut.

In the summer, Enid would walk about the mill garden and field at dusk, often staying out until all the light had gone, but in winter the evenings were long and dreary. Mother would sit in one room with the door firmly shut, and Father and Edward stayed silently in the kitchen, the day’s newspaper shared between them, seldom exchanging a word. She was ignored by all of them. Novels saved her life. She went regularly to the library in Tresham, as she had today, taking out four new novels a week, and these she would read quietly in a chair by the kitchen range. Halfway through the evening, she would make a cup of tea for all of them, receiving no thanks from Mother, and a curt nod from Father and Edward.

Once or twice, she had suggested joining the WI in Waltonby, but this had been dismissed as unthinkable. Edward had been particularly sarcastic. “My God, Enid!” he’d sneered. “I never thought you’d come to that! Jam and Jerusalem? You’d be better employed straightening out our accounts…take a book-keeping course or something.”

But when she’d found an accounting course run by the WEA in Long Farnden village hall, Edward, the turncoat, had said it was ridiculous to be out in the car in the evenings when all she needed was to know how to add and subtract, and surely she could manage that with her past experience in the chemist’s?

So, she had acquiesced, as usual. Then one day recently, searching through a drawer in Mother’s room while she was asleep in the chair, she found an old bag full of lace-making things, and remembered how long ago in Edinburgh she had been to classes and learned the old skills. They’d praised her aptitude, and she’d made lovely lace and sewn it on to fine cotton handkerchiefs as gifts for the girls at work. After they’d moved, and everything changed, she’d forgotten about lace-making.

Now, fetching the bag, she began to sort the bobbins and cottons. The low wattage light in the kitchen was not good, but she moved her chair nearer to where Father sat reading, and as her fingers moved swiftly, sorting out the muddle, she began to hum softly. Perhaps it had been the reminder of happier days that encouraged her to apply for the job.

“What’re you making that noise for?” said Father, without looking up.

“Because I’m happy,” said Enid.

Now he looked up, frowning at her. “What’ve you got to be happy about?” he grunted.

“I’m happy because I’ve got a job, a cleaning job,” said Enid.

“A job? Did you say a cleaning job?” Walter was incredulous, and Enid had a moment’s pang of remorse at adding yet another worry to his burden.

“I’m wasting my life here,” she said quickly, “and this is a chance to do something. Not very challenging, I agree, but it’s a start.”

He stared at her, and knew from the set of her mouth that she would not be dissuaded. “You fixed it, then?” he said sadly.

She nodded. “I start on Monday,” she said.

The Abrahams had no television, and Mother had forbidden them to have the radio. She said there was never anything but trouble, trouble, trouble. News of the outside world came in the pages of the
Tresham Chronicle
, which Father picked up from Long Farnden village shop every morning when he went in for his cigarettes. His one self-indulgence, he said, puffing through sixty a day and discarding packets all around the house and yard. Enid hated the smell of cigarette smoke. Father had never smoked until they came to Cathanger. Now his shoulders were bowed, and his cough kept her awake at nights.

She began to straighten the bobbins. It might be all right, she told herself optimistically. Things could improve, if only Edward would settle things and make a life for himself, preferably somewhere else.

“W
hy couldn’t you just hire a couple of nice ordinary women, with ordinary kids and no trouble?” Derek, in an exasperated mood, sat in front of the dying fire opposite an unrepentant Lois. It was late, and the central heating had gone off half an hour ago. Lois moved her chair nearer to the fire and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Derek,” though she did know, perfectly well.

“Nothing difficult there,” said Derek. He thought how young she looked, hugging herself in the growing chill. You’d never think she was a mother of three, ran her own business and was about as bloody-minded as it was possible to get. Oh yes, and an amateur sleuth into the bargain. He resisted the temptation to grab hold of her and rush upstairs to have wonderful, energetic sex, which she was also good at.

“Just think, Lois,” he continued. “You’ve taken on a young bloke who’s worked briefly as a hospital auxilliary, but mainly on a moorland farm, used to being out of doors, roughing it in all weathers, one of the lads, and a useful scrum half. And you’re goin’ to set him on cleaning people’s poncey houses!” Lois nodded and smiled irritatingly.

“And then,” he carried on, trying hard not to notice how long and lovely Lois’s legs still were. Right up to her arse, his dad had said when he first took her home on approval. “Then,” he said, “there’s Miss Abraham. Anybody else would see that she won’t be any good. Too old, too posh, and from a place straight out of a Hammer Horror! Cathanger! Blimey, that’s enough for a start!”

Lois laughed now, her best open, straightforward laugh, and Derek gave in to temptation. “Oh, all right,” he said. “Have it your own way. You always do, anyway. Come on, gel,” he added, reaching out and pulling her to her feet. “Time for bed, an’ that,” he said.

“Specially that,” Lois replied, putting her arms round his neck and nuzzling his ear until he picked her up bodily and carried her to the foot of the stairs. “Put me down,” she whispered, “else you’ll be runnin’ out of steam.”

Derek, already regretting his chivalric impulse, put her down with relief.

§

Next morning, Lois sat in her office, idly looking out of the window. She was waiting for a ring-back call to a new client, the estate agent’s small branch office in Fletcham. If she got this job, she planned to send Bill Stockbridge along. It would be a good start for him, she’d thought. Better than him having to get used to some woman who might follow him about to check he was dusting the tops of the picture frames.

She knew Derek was right. But right from the launch of New Brooms her cleaners had been more to her than just machines who had to function efficiently in the workplace. Bridie had been her childhood friend, and she remembered the day Hazel wriggled herself efficiently into the world, one of those babies who seem to know the score from the start. They were close to her already, before starting to work for her. Then there had been Gary, a misguided charmer, for whom Lois still had a sneaking fondness, though he’d left under a cloud. And dear old Sheila Stratford, who chose to work outside her own village, treating the job with New Brooms as if it were a fast track career with limitless prospects.

No, nice ordinary women were not for Lois. It was more interesting her way.

A car pulled up on the opposite side of the road, and Lois snapped to attention. Cowgill, seated behind the wheel and looking straight ahead, took out his mobile and dialled. Damn! Lois picked up her phone and said, “Something wrong with your feet? I thought policemen were supposed to plod round their beat, inspiring confidence in the local community and all that rubbish.”

“Morning, Lois,” said Hunter Cowgill. “You can’t have forgotten you’ve forbidden me to be seen with you? No alternative but to – ”

“But to sit outside my house with absolutely no reason for being there,” interrupted Lois. “Anyway, what do you want?”

“To talk to you,” said Cowgill briskly. “More an exchange of information, really. About the Abrahams. You know a bit about Enid now, I’m sure, and I can fill you in with some more about the family. There’s a problem there, as you’ve probably heard. I need your help, Lois. Two thirty, Alibone Woods? It’s not going to rain…”

“I suppose I can be there,” said Lois reluctantly.

“Good.” Cowgill was in authoritative mode now. “And in my own defence,” he added, “I’ve just been to your village shop. They’ve had a break-in. So I have every reason to be in Long Farnden. Bye, Lois. See you later.”

She watched him, and he did not once glance towards her window. The car slid off down the High Street, and as far as she could tell, no one noticed. Of course, she could not see that a small grey car had been parked outside the shop, and that Miss Enid Abraham had been bent over the biscuit selection whilst Inspector Cowgill had discussed the break-in with the shopkeeper behind the counter.

The ring-back call came in, and Lois forgot about Cowgill for the moment. The estate agent’s office was small, three rooms in all, with a sub-manager and girl clerk working there five days a week. They needed to keep it tidy and clean, said the girl, because they had so little space. “And you won’t catch me going round on hands and knees!” she said brightly. “Can you help us? Perhaps you can give us a special rate, as there’s really not much to do.”

“No, no special rates,” said Lois flatly, thinking that estate agents deserved their evil reputation. “I think you’ll find we give good value for money. Our team is the best, and you won’t have any reason to complain. Would it be all right if I call in this afternoon to discuss it?”

“Oh, right,” said the girl in a more subdued voice. “Yes, that will be fine. See you later then, Mrs Meade.”

The morning went quickly, with Lois attending to paperwork and working out the schedules for next week. Bill would start at the estate agent’s, with luck, and Enid Abraham would be going with Bridie to the vicarage to work alongside her and get used to the routines. Lois had decided this was the best way to train new staff. Gran had said surely there wasn’t much to learn; it was a poor sort of woman who couldn’t clean a house decently! But there was quite a lot more to it. Lois had done the job herself. Professional cleaners invaded a client’s private space. It was very important that they did it with tact and efficiency, leaving homes as they found them, but with a cheerful shine. The client must wave them goodbye with a pleasant feeling of well-being that had not been there before.

“Are you out this afternoon?” Gran said at lunchtime. She had made a mushroom omelette, and frowned as she watched Lois clearing her plate in minutes. “Have you any idea what you’re eating?” she said.

“You sound like somebody’s mother,” Lois answered. “But thanks, Mum,” she added quickly. “That was great. Got to be going now, and I may not be back in time for the kids getting home. Will you be here?”

“Of course,” said Gran, smiling happily. “Aren’t I always?”

§

The woods were dark, although it was only halfway through the day. A thick mist hung over meadows that bordered the wood, and Lois regretted agreeing so readily to meet Cowgill. She’d have to think of a better place than this, if their arrangement was to continue.