To Catch a Creeper (19 page)

‘It’s just you seem more
active
than any of us,’ Purple Jumper said.

‘And you know what they say,’ Red Jumper added. ‘Evidence gained is evidence gained.’

‘Well thanks,’ I said, touched, feeling like a knight who’d just been presented with some magical sword. ‘I’ll try and use it well.’

Turns out it was bought from donations. I didn’t think people donated to Neighbourhood Watch, but apparently a few years back an ex-member helped nail a thief and the homeowner was really grateful.

Anyway once I feel I’ve outstayed my welcome at the Wood Green café (called Joe’s Cath after poor Joe’s dead wife and my namesake), I take a trip to the library in Haringey Park, which is warm and quiet and where I’ve been immersing myself in all these books. The things I’ve learned. First week it was all about Martin Luther King and Birmingham or rather ‘Bombingham’, Alabama. And then this week it’s been Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott and how she refused to get off the bus and how everyone walked to freedom. And others boycotted the buses for 381 days after she was arrested. And they had to come from miles away, then the bus company collapsed and Washington was fed up seeing it all on the news, Martin got involved and the blacks were given the vote. I admit I shed a tear about that, not only because it made me think of Rosa, being like my Rosa who I miss to blithery, but also because of the injustice of it all. Next week I’m going for Emmeline Pankhurst and the suffragette movement and the week after, well it’s a toss up between Boadicea and Joan of Arc. Not that I’m sexist or anything. After all I did start with Martin Luther King.

If I get bored of that, another place I go to is the launderette. I sit there for a few hours at a time, either with a library book or daily paper and position myself in front of a washer. It takes a while before people realise I’m not waiting for any clothes, especially as I keep swapping positions. And then those that do, tend to think I work there as I’ve taken to emptying the dryers and folding everything up into neat piles. I even got a tip one day. I only leave if the lady who oversees it drops by. She might think it odd that I’m always leaving just as she’s arriving but she’s not said anything yet.

Sometimes for a change, especially when it’s bitter cold, I end up on the bus. It’s warm, safe-ish and I’ve gotten to know some great routes. I’ve been as far as Trafalgar Square and then back just for the hell of it. The drivers are beginning to know me, but that’s OK, they don’t ask questions and they never say, ‘Off love. We’re terminating’ or ‘End of line, me ducks’ because they know I’ll just sit there waiting for it to go back again.

It’s a strange kind of twilight life (but in the day of course). I’m not lonely or bored. It’s almost as if I’m on a holiday (without the sun, sand and Sangria). The places I’m seeing, photos I’ve taken. And I
adore
using the digital camera. I download all these shots straight onto the PC and it doesn’t cost me a thing – apart from ink cartridges. I’ve even captured a few of the people in the streets, dogs in the streets, horses in the streets – actually that was only once – a police horse rounding up some stray Arsenal football supporters.

‘Mum, can I have this?’ Josh is holding up a tin of custard.

‘No, you need to find the cheapie cheapie.’

‘But last time we got custard, you said you hated the cheapie cheapie and it’d always be Bird’s from now on.’

‘Things change. Birds fly away.’

There’s two things though that I’m finding it hardest to bear and have to set up a block mechanism to handle mentally.

Firstly, the money situation. Occupying myself is all well and good but it doesn’t deposit cash into the account. Wages day has been and gone at Younger and Wilding and although I’ve not actually had all these brown envelopes dropping on my doorstep yet, I know it’s only a matter of time. If I don’t pay anything in soon, direct debits will be stopped, charges made, our overdraft soar over its limit. And then there’s the loan payment which is due to start soon. I know I can rob Peter to pay Paul…nick from the electric to pay the gas, steal from the telephone to pay the water, but it’s only a short-term
fix. I need an income somehow. But where do I find it? And now I’ve been suspended, what type of reference will I receive?

And my second concern is Rosa. Although I’ve rung her once or twice, I’ve not gone round to her flat to visit and it doesn’t feel right. The longest time we’ve not seen each other was three months and that was when she was travelling round Australia so understandable, but now she only lives a few miles away. What type of best friend must she think I am?

Obviously her excuse for not coming to me is the pregnancy. Now that she’s nearing her due date, she’s getting larger and more cumbersome and in the evening she’s really tired as she doesn’t sleep too well with the baby kicking all night and heartburn and things.

When we last spoke she quizzed me a bit about how work was going, but I know she’s only half interested because she’s so wrapped up in the goings on in her womb. And I only have to say something like, ‘Oh did you hear there’s a new super duper buggy/baby sling/travel cot/sleep bra’ and she’s away, daydreaming of how wonderful it’s all going to be. Poor thing.

‘Mum, can we have some of those little meringues?’ Sophie pleads. ‘The ones you crunch up and mix with cream and raspberries. Please, Mummy, please.’

‘No, they’re bad for you, plus they’re expensive.’

It’s the WOWs that are harder to deal with because I have to see them each week – face to face.

The second Wednesday after being sacked, well I was dreading going out with them – so much sothat the day before I came up with a cunning plan. We’d visit the cinema, thus no-one could talk, my lips wouldn’t be loosened by liquor and it would be an early-ish night. Then the next week, I again jumped ahead of the game, saying I’d got half-price tickets for the bowling at Finsbury Park. I know, I hate bowling, it cost me a fortune to subsidise, I was a rubbish player and it didn’t help that Janet won each game, getting strikes on almost every round. But the point was none of us had much opportunity to really speak about things on an intimate level. Apart from Isobel who, for some odd reason, began quizzing Janet about her sexuality.

‘So, Janet,’ Isobel didn’t look up from the row of bowling balls where she was waiting for a particular brown ‘lucky’ one. ‘When did you first discover you were a lesbian?’

Henrietta and I both stopped our puzzling over scores as we anticipated her response. We’ve always been a bit…how shall I put it…terrified, frightened, petrified…of Janet because of the intenseness of her views and the way she can be so touchy. Nothing like, for example, the two gay girls who bought the bakery last month and always have a good laugh with me every time I go in (although how can you not adore someone who serves you cake?). Even Janet admits she can be scary to some people, so although we’ve occasionally discussed her relationships with different women, we’ve never brought up the subject of how it all began for fear of causing offence.

‘I used to be straight,’ Janet said it like she was confessing she was once a war criminal, ‘And I slept with heaps of guys. But then…I had this best friend,’ and her hard pinched face seemed to soften a fraction, ‘who worked with me. Or rather for me. Over time, over late nights, shared deadlines, work difficulties, we fell for each other.’

‘Did she know you were…gay?’ I probed gently.

‘Er…helloooo…that’s what I was saying,’ she rolled her eyes at the others. ‘I wasn’t back then. Nor was she. She was married, two children. Never even been touched by a woman. I guess you can say we realised our true feelings. Hey guys, don’t look so gloomy,’ she offered us each a sympathetic look, ‘it could still happen to you. You and Rosa for instance, Cathy. You never stop talking about her.’

‘Yes, well, but…’ I saw Henrietta and Isobel grin, ‘I don’t fancy her.’

‘I’d have said the same about Monica until it happened,’ Janet challenged, dark eyes piercing, as if facing down an uptight narrow-minded middle-aged housewife freaked out by the tiniest deviation from the norm. ‘Why? Would it be so
awfully dreadful?
’

‘Well, not because it’s bad or anything. But I can’t imagine what Declan would say.’ My mind boggled thinking of the ramifications, until I realised that Monica had been in exactly the same situation.

‘Oh yes…Darling Declan,’ Janet goaded. ‘Only the way you talk, sometimes it sounds like you have a better relationship with old Rosa than your husband.’

I was about to be indignant and go, how
very dare
you, but a part of me cried out,
yes
sometimes it
was
true. She’d pinned the nail right on my donkey’s ass.

‘And you, Isobel,’ Janet was obviously in a confrontational mood. ‘Larry walks all over you and treats you like a doormat.’

‘Not exactly like that.’

‘Yes, exactly like that.’ Janet stooped down and with one mighty swing of her arm rolled her bowling ball down the alley. ‘Not exactly a balanced relationship, is it?’

Isobel started to protest but was drowned out by Janet fisting the air because she’d got another strike.

I stepped forward for my turn and waited for my green ‘lucky’ ball to come back. Actually all the others had been ‘unlucky’but it was the only one I hadn’t used.

I tutted inwardly, closed one eye and rocked my arm backwards and forwards with as much accuracy as I could muster before I released my ball. As usual it went straight into the gulley.

Janet was on a roll, ‘As for you, Hen…’ She focused her attention on Henrietta then immediately stopped, because we all knew there was nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Henrietta and Neil’s marriage.

‘So what happened with you and Monica?’ I asked, adding up scores.

‘Went back to her family. Couldn’t stand the heat,’ Janet declared in a flat tone, glaring fiercely at the far lanes. If it had been anyone else I’d have thought she was hiding some strong emotion.

‘Wish I’d never brought it up,’ Isobel whispered to me, when Janet went off to the loo a short while later. ‘Cor blimey.’

So that’s that. My life for the last fortnight and a bit.

Oh and halfway through the first week, two days after the Neighbourhood Watch meeting, I paid a little visit to Ma Baker.

It took ages for her to answer her door. No need to ask her to have door chains fitted. It was like Fort Knox.

‘Can we have a special knock in future?’ she asked. ‘Because I shan’t open the door to Eleanor. Not after all she’s done.’

‘Yes. I understand. What about…’ I rapped three times quickly, then two slowly, then three quickly again.

‘I think it should be more…’ She rapped three times quickly, then three slowly, then three quickly again. Talk about picky.

‘SOS,’ she explained. ‘I used Morse code. In the war.’

‘You were in the war?’

‘I’m ninety-three, my dear. You bet I was in the war.’

‘And you were doing things like signalling people?’

‘Not people, liaisons. I’d signal my liaison. I have something in my cellar. Shall I show it to you?’

‘OK.’ I’d replied warily, as I followed her inside, wondering what she might turn up with and praying it wasn’t her dead husband’s ancient bones.

When she returned, she held in her hand a small seven by three inch mahogany wooden box with a green octagonal shaped glass light at the front, a little black tapping lever and a white note with various odd markings on the inside of the lid.

‘They’re secret codes. I was presented with this when I left.’

‘Left where?’

‘Can’t say. What do you want anyway?’ She suddenly stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘Not sent by
her
,’ she spat, ‘were you?’

‘No, I’ve been sent by the Neighbourhood Watch. I’ve joined up.’

‘Bleedin’ bunch of no-gooders.’

‘That was my opinion too at first.’ I fetched myself a chair and placed my bottom on its hard wooden surface. I hadn’t waited to be asked, because I doubted very much she was going to. ‘Or rather I thought they were a bunch of no-good do-gooders. But really they’re OK. They want me to be your Nominated Neighbour.’

‘Nominated Neighbour? What’s that mean when it’s at home?’

‘Any visitors come knocking that you’re unsure of, you contact me.’

‘But you’re never there. You work all day.’

‘I know, well, obviously, very true. But…um, I’ve got my mobile on me and my husband’s around a lot during the times I’m in the…office and I’m always home in the evenings. Look, I’ve been asked to ask you.’ I handed her one of the cards that Shilpa had made for me. ‘You’re not obliged to take it, but I need you to know that if trouble comes looking, then I’m your man. Or rather woman. Just stick this in the window and call me pronto.’

‘Dot dot dot?’ she asked.

‘Dash dash dash,’ I replied.

My eyes slowly refocus as my mind drifts back to the present. I’m standing inches from a packet of raspberry jelly and there’s a woman few feet away with a little rose-patterned headscarf staring at me. Ah well, I pick it from the shelf and turn to drop it in the trolley, which I realise is filled to the brim and threatening to spill over. Josh and Sophie are somewhere further down some of the aisles collecting more goodies – taking advantage while I’ve been daydreaming. I’d much rather have left them at home but Declan wanted everyone out of the house so he could have ‘a good sweep up’.

Finally I reach the till. The cashier picks up my tea-bags and turns them over.

‘I bought those ones the other day. Full of flavour.’

‘They are?’

‘And on special offer, I see. They’re quite strong though. Do you like strong?’

‘Um, I guess. My husband does.’

‘We always please them, don’t we? Put ourselves last.’

‘I suppose we do,’ I say wearily, catching sight of Josh and Sophie, arms full of cereal boxes – the most sugary, chocolatey kind they could grab in a hurry.

‘Ooh.’ The cashier begins pulling more things off, scanning each item slowly and perusing them all, like she’s an
Antiques Road Show
assessor, while I’m trying to pack and separate carrier bags that won’t be separated, ‘Baked Beans. You prefer that type? Not Heinz?’