Wings over the Watcher

In different locations in Leek, a Moorlands town in Staffordshire, three separate tableaux are being performed. Joanna Piercy is writing to Matthew to try and explain recent events; Korpanski is filling in his insurance form after his wife has had a minor prang with the car and an unknown person is penning love-letters to a local doctor.

It seems that no one could lead a more mundane life than Beatrice Pennington, a woman who joins Joanna’s cycling club, anxious to regain her figure by dieting and keeping fit. Unexciting, middle-forties, married, a part-time librarian, grown-up kids left home. Her life appears unremarkable. But weeks later a drama unfolds around her. A month after Beatrice begins her quest for health and glamour her distraught husband arrives at the police station to report her missing.

At first Joanna assumes Beatrice has decamped with another man. Evidence certainly seems to point this way. But as Joanna begins to peel back the layers of Beatrice Pennington’s seemingly uneventful life she begins to realise: Beatrice was no ordinary woman at all.

Her complex story begins to absorb and intrigue Joanna. Until she receives word. Matthew is returning home.

This is a story which explores same-sex stalking, its reasons, the effect it has on both the stalker and the victim and the consequences of such obsessive behaviour.

Although a letter is a good way to break significant news it has its drawbacks.

As Joanna Piercy was finding out.

She was sitting at the table in the dining room, haunting Dido music playing softly in the background, supposedly to help her concentrate but her mind kept tracking away. On the table in front of her, neatly set out, was a pad of white notepaper, an envelope and a retractable ballpoint pen. The bin at her feet was full of scrunched up paper balls of the same notepaper. She had made her preparations. But she could not find the right words. They would not come to her aid to help her to explain this difficult thing.

Dear Matthew
, she began again.

She cupped her chin in the palm of her hand, staring into the distance. She could go no further. Matthew had a penetrating instinct for the truth. He would quickly sense any evasion or lack of sincerity. And he could sniff out a lie – even from the other side of the Atlantic.

She took a sip of the sharp, dry wine from her glass, let it sit on her tongue for a second, then swallowed it. She bent over the sheet of paper again, arms curled around it protectively, though there was no one in the room to peer over her shoulder. She was alone. Quite alone. Seconds later she scrunched the paper up again having added only five more words, I’m so very, very sorry.

She lifted her head to stare into space, knowing the problem. Writing a letter was the coward’s way out.

Not hers. She should have boarded an aeroplane to Washington DC and spoken to him, face to face.

For a moment she was transfixed by the image of Capitol Hill and the White House. Washington seemed such a long, 
long way away. As did Matthew.

She stared out through the window at the square spire of Waterfall church. She could hear some holidaymakers from the barn-conversions joking. They were standing in front of the stocks, laughing at something. (Probably something about bondage – it usually was). Distracted now she watched them push open the gate and wander through the churchyard. She felt a certain envy for this cluster of happily-marrieds in t-shirts, jeans and comfortable trainers. It looked cosy and a million miles away from her current situation. Which needed resolving. She bent her head again to stare at yet another blank sheet of notepaper.
She must write this letter. She must find the right words.
From somewhere. She had put it off for long enough and watched the problem expand – as troubles do when they are not confronted. It made it worse that she recognised the problem for what it was – an evasion. She was by nature a fighter, someone who put her fists up and prided herself on not running away from battles.

So what was she doing now?

Retreating.

Hiding. Being a coward. Ducking the issue. There were plenty of phrases for it. And they all meant the same thing. She was not facing her situation or dealing with it but running away, trying to pretend it did not exist.

Dear Matthew
, she wrote for the sixteenth time before being distracted again, this time by a couple of youths in a red Ford Escort revving their car up and skidding onto the gravelled car park of the Red Lion.

Again she stared through the window. The intractable problem was that there simply weren’t the words in the English language to tell a man nicely that he was not going to become a father.

She gulped in air.

He
wouldn’t
believe her.

She could picture his face as clearly as though he was
sitting opposite her, in his customary chair, legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes studying hers, as he sometimes did, usually with that odd question. But this time full of doubt and suspicion. In spite of everything she smiled. Matthew’s chin lengthened when he was dubious about something. It became pointed and sharp, altering the shape of his face subtly so he looked sceptical and suspicious. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat. She missed him. And she did not know whether he would ever return.

He’d been gone for three months now. Three eventful months during which they’d hardly spoken. Typical Matthew, he’d immersed himself in his new project – studying gunshot wounds in Washington DC – and left her to make her decision alone. Except in the end it had not been she who had decided. The choice had been torn from her while she had hardly been aware. And so the problem had, in the end, slipped away into nothing.

And now she must tell him.

Dear Matthew
, she began again.

The distraction this time was a photograph hanging on the opposite wall, of him holding a tiny baby. Eloise. And there was a puzzle. Who had sent her flowers when Matthew had left?

Eloise. Matthew’s daughter who had always returned her cold dislike with her own brand of pure, undisguised hatred.

Who had rung her twice and asked, in that odd, childish voice of hers whether she was “OK”?

Again, Eloise.

Of all the strange relationships that existed in this world this one was the strangest. An initial hatred between them which had softened, blossomed even, as Eloise had grown from a difficult, intelligent child to a strong-willed young woman.

Joanna smiled again at the photograph, remembering. Eloise used to swear blind that she could remember it being taken. Even though she had patently only been a few
months old at the time. She must be making it up. So when would the fable subside? If ever?

Who knows. Like the infant who had died, nature herself would decide.

Joanna bent over the sheet of paper again. This was a task that must be done.

Three miles away, on the outskirts of Leek, in a square, modern house on the Westwood estate, someone else was writing a letter. But whereas Joanna had struggled to find the right words, this pen was swiftly smothering sheets, finding phrases easily.

“
I knew the very first time I met you that this was no ordinary encounter. I knew you wanted me as much as I wanted you. But the confines of our lives are so cruel. Sometimes my passion absolutely engulfs me. Overwhelms me. Threatens to drown me. I love you. I don’t know how many times I have to say it. I love you. We will be together, one day soon. Maybe we should move away from this gossiping little town where people feel they have the right to comment on us, on our love, on our relationship.
”

The writer bit the pen and smiled.

At the other end of the town, in another neat, detached, estate house, Sergeant Mike Korpanski was scowling and chewing his lip. No easy words for him.

“Dear Sir”
, he tapped out, two-fingered, on the computer.
“With reference to my letter of the fourteenth of June.”
Blast,” he exclaimed, deleted the type and retyped,
June. The car was locked and parked in a side street while my wife was getting the dry-cleaning from the shop. When she returned the vehicle had rolled backwards by itself and smashed into the vehicle behind it, causing some damage. It subsequently turned out that she had omitted to apply the handbrake properly.”

He swore under his breath. “Bloody woman.”

Eight hundred quid’s worth of damage. And all because she’d forgotten to pull the handbrake up – hard. How many
times had he told her, “The handbrake’s loose so leave the car in gear if there’s even the hint of a slope.”

Out of the window went his No Claims Bonus.

He swore again, swigged at a can of lager and looked through the patio doors at his son, kicking a football around on the lawn. “Come on, Dad,” he shouted at him. “Let’s do shots at goal.”

“One minute, Rick.” He held his finger up to emphasise the point.

Before suddenly, unpredictably, his anger burst through again.

“Bloody hell, Fran,” he shouted in the vague direction of the kitchen. “Why didn’t you leave the car in gear?”

She stood in the doorway, slim and dark, one hand on her hip, a dishcloth in the other hand. “If you’d adjusted the handbrake, Michael Korpanski,” she said severely, “it wouldn’t have rolled. I told you it wanted sorting.”

He cursed again and bent back over the claim form, grumbling softly. Typical woman. To turn her own stupidity back on him and make
him
feel guilty. And he knew more than anyone that motoring offences hung around your neck for years. He’d have to fill in this trifling little incident every time he applied for fresh cover. He gave a long sigh then scanned down the lengthy document. And to add insult to injury there was a £250 excess. He looked at the garage quote for repairs on his own car. Rear bumper, lights. A new exhaust. And that was before he had any idea what the damage had been to the other car.

He cursed again.

Joanna had given up even trying to write the letter. The words were simply too elusive, the problem too subtle to explain in a letter and besides – the evening was too perfect to struggle with this over-dose of emotion and guilt. She stood up, opened the window and caught the scent of summer jasmine on a late spring breeze.

Guiltily she glanced back at the table, at the brimming waste-paper basket, the sheets of paper – and made her
excuse.

She could think better on her bike. Work out precisely what to say and how to say it without sounding false.

Before she could argue or change her mind she pulled the window shut, ran upstairs, fished her cycling shorts out of the drawer, struggled into a short sleeved cycling-top and ran back downstairs.

Two at a time. Three minutes and she could be out there, the wind ruffling her hair, moving through the grassy moorlands, taking pleasure from the sight of fields of grazing cows and sheep. Feeling the pull of her muscles as she took the hills.

The paper and envelope seemed to reproach her.

She ignored them.

She could think better on her bike.

Korpanski had completed his insurance form, pinned his explanation to it and was venting his anger out on the football, booting it towards some goalposts he and his son had rigged up, at the opposite end of the garden to the house. Fran Korpanski watched him indulgently through the window.

Only one of the writers is still at the task.

“I remember the very first day I ever saw you. I noticed your eyes first. Your beautiful, brown eyes. Those and your quite flawless complexion. Amazing for a woman of your age. Your eyes seemed to alter when I walked into the room. They appeared to get bigger and grow more luminous and look at me with such a melting look of love. You are such a caring person, you know, one of the few I have met. Someone who really understands. So many people these days are too busy to listen to the rhythms of life and love. They ignore their own feelings and so miss out on these subtle messages which cross the air, such as the ones you send out to me every time we meet. I live for those occasions.

Adieu, my sweet, sweet love. I think I shall see you again very soon. One of the great advantages of living in a town as
small as this one is that it is quite easy to “bump” into someone – if you want to. You see I know your routine. Thoroughly. I know where you live, where you work, what time you leave your house in the morning. I often take the dog for a walk at around that time purely so I can watch you fly out through the door – such a busy person. I watch you unlock your car door. Sometimes, sitting inside, you fiddle with the radio as though the station is not to your taste and someone – your husband? has altered it. Classic fm seems to be your preferred station. I like popular Classics myself. I have heard the strains of familiar music as you pass me, unaware that I am there. Invisible. That is how I like to be – sometimes. Only sometimes. I watch you reverse down the drive. Quite fast. Rather than be noticed by you I generally hide behind the rhododendrons. The large, pinkish clump near the bottom. That is a very long, overgrown drive you have leading to your house. Victorian, I suppose. I sometimes watch you through the window on dark evenings so I know how you spend the times when you think you are alone. My father once said to me that when someone is thinking about you, you are not really alone.

You never are.

Do you find that a comforting thought? That you never are really alone?

I do.

I am greatly comforted by the bond that exists between us and the love we share. I often wonder how much of every day you spend thinking about me.

How little am I alone?

She heard his key in the lock first and hurriedly placed the letter in an envelope, slipping it swiftly between the pages of a novel she was reading. A wonderful, exciting book about a man who sees a dead woman walking towards him at a cocktail party. The first chapter gave her such a thrill of excitement that she had read and re-read it many times over. Such a clever writer. And she loved a good murder story.

He was rattling the doorknob.

“Darling. Are you in there?”

She opened the door and smiled.

She streamed down the hill, dipped into Caldon Low, before climbing up towards the hills, honking hard as she ascended until she finally reached the Winking Man, breathless and tired but seeing her life with a clarity she could never find in the cottage.

She had been pregnant. She had not wanted the baby and Matthew had known that – just as clearly as she had known he did.

This he had not been able to forgive – the fact that she had rejected
his
child so he had left her to work in the U.S., leaving her to make the choice – alone. It was an impossible choice.

Then nature had intervened and taken the decision from her with a miscarriage. But Matthew didn’t know that – yet. She could not find the right words to explain what had happened and her unexpected response to events.

And now all she knew was that she wanted Matthew back. She wanted to see him, to say all that she had held back over the years. She wanted their relationship to stop pretending, hiding behind half-truths and euphemisms. It was time to move forward.