The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Read online

  As he traced her path through the streets, he would speak as though she were walking alongside him. Before she disappeared, he never said I love you. Unsure of themselves, the words had become trapped and awkward, and reluctant to leave. Instead of saying I love you, he said Take care of yourself, and When will you be back? Instead of saying I love you, he placed her umbrella at the bottom of the stairs, so it wouldn’t be forgotten, and in the winter he put her gloves on the chair by the door, so she would remember to pull them on to her hands before she left. Until she disappeared, this was the only way he knew how, but since she had gone, he found that the words had become untethered. They fell from his mouth in the silence, certain and unashamed. They rattled under the bridge at the canal, and tripped across the towpath. They waltzed around the bandstand and chased along the pavements as he walked. He thought that if he said the words often enough, she would be certain to hear them, and surely if he continued to walk, they would eventually meet. Statistically, there could be only so many steps you had to take before you found someone again.

  *

  He pulled open the wardrobe doors, and a heave of recognition rolled through his body. Her clothes were so familiar, so intimate, he felt imprisoned by them, unable to look away. He had suggested to Margaret that she hang them in some sort of order. Colours, perhaps, or type of garment. It would make everything so much easier to find, he’d told her. But she had just laughed and kissed the top of his head, and said that he thought too much. Her outfits remained disordered and unplanned, and they looked back at him from the rail, a whole audience of Margarets, spectating on his misery. He breathed in, thinking her scent might have been waiting for him behind the doors, but the summer had stolen it away. There was only the bland smell of material, warmth pressed between its layers, and the bite of chemicals from dry-cleaning wrappers. Despite the chaos, it was well taken care of. Hems were restitched, shoes were reheeled, and tears were disappeared. Margaret liked to mend. It made her happy to see things repaired, and the repairing made John feel safe. Now she was gone, he could imagine the threads beginning to loosen and the edges beginning to lift, and all the holes that would form for his life to fall into.

  He felt ashamed to search her clothes, but still his hands wandered over the jackets and the coats, looking for a way into her life. He found that sometimes the pockets weren’t pockets at all, just pieces of material fastened to the front, like trickery, and the ones he did find were empty of everything except a discarded tissue or a Fisherman’s Friend. Her handbags were just as meaningless. Crumpled ‘To Do’ lists and escaped half-pence pieces, spare glasses ready for the optician, and long-ago receipts. Fragments of an ordinary life. A life she had decided to leave.

  He sat back. The litter of his search spilled on to the carpet around him, and he glanced to and from the door, soothing himself with the fear that he still might be discovered. As he shifted his weight, knots of an unravelled life dug into his back. Soon, the house would be overpowered, the chaos would flood every room, and there would be nowhere left for him to exist. Before Margaret left, there was always something to do, something which needed folding or filing or straightening. There was an arrangement, a plan. Now he had become untethered, drifting between layers of his own thinking, surrounded by drawers and cupboards and wardrobes which vomited their contents on to the floor, as he searched for an answer to a question which might not even exist. His fingers laced the back of his head, trying to anchor his mind, covering his ears to block out the sound of his own pulse. He measured out his breaths, like Margaret had taught him. Counting, waiting. It would pass, he just needed to find a distraction, a sense of control. He reached over for one of the lists and unfolded it.

  It was dated the 20th of June, the day before she vanished. He could imagine how she would have spent the week from her words: butcher (order meat), library books, opticians, raffle tickets for Legion (Wednesday), make hair appointment. He imagined the route she would have taken, the people she would have stopped to speak to. Everyone liked to talk to Margaret. She would walk from one end of the High Street to the other, moving from conversation to conversation. Finding something in everyone.

  He wondered if he should do a job from the list. He looked over the carpet for the spectacles, and found them wedged between a packet of Polo mints and a hairbrush. There was a tiny screw missing from one of the hinges, and the arm of the glasses drooped towards the floor. He held his breath, not daring to move. Perhaps it was still in the handbag, but if it wasn’t, and he reached to look, he might disturb something and it would never be found. He needed to see an example of what he was looking for, and so he turned the glasses around without moving anything except for his wrist. It was only then that he noticed the lenses. They were thick and heavy and bulged from their black frames like a cartoon. He held them to his eyes and the room became drunk and misshapen. These certainly weren’t Margaret’s glasses, and they definitely weren’t his, yet they looked oddly familiar.

  The thought found him within seconds. He stood, like a reflex. The glasses. The Polo mints. The hairbrush. Everything scattered across the carpet.

  Number eleven, Mr Creasy. Did your wife ever talk to Walter Bishop?

  He rushed to open a window, the breath of his fear escaping on to the glass in staccato beats. Above the roofs, a river of starlings rolled and turned, spinning out their harmony across a bleached sky, and he tried to find something familiar, something safe. But in the heat, sounds cut across the surface and distorted the picture. The bristles on Dorothy Forbes’ sweeping brush, as they bit into the concrete, the creak of Sheila Dakin’s deckchair, Grace and Tilly’s smiles as they walked along May Roper’s path. Grace’s sunglasses were too big, and he watched as she pushed them back on to her face. May Roper was talking, her arms moving in the space around her head, her lips twisting and stretching and punching out the words. He watched Grace reach into her pocket and offer something up. He heard Sheila drag her deckchair through the grass and a dull tap as the wooden frame caught the edge of a glass. He watched Harold Forbes shouting something to Dorothy, miming instructions from inside the living room. He heard sounds he’d never noticed before. The avenue had become an animation, a carnival. The temperature had brought everything to a point, sharpening the volume and the contrast and the brightness, and digging them into his skull.

  The view was lost to his breathing, and he wiped it with the sleeve of his shirt. When it cleared, he looked across at number eleven.

  He thought he caught the glare of a reflection, as a window turned against the sun. He thought he heard the click of a catch, and he thought he saw the shadow of Walter Bishop, watching from the edge of the glass.

  *

  The tea made him feel a little better. It wasn’t so much the tea itself, it was more the act of making it. The ritual of filling the kettle and warming the pot, of stirring the leaves until it was just the right strength. Distract yourself, that’s what Margaret always told him. When you start getting anxious, give your mind something else to think about. He had become an expert at distracting himself. He had distracted himself so much, he found himself drowning in distractions, and all the little details in the world seemed to join up together in his head and make a whole new problem to worry about.

  Margaret said he should find a hobby. He had tried, but everything came with its own set of worries. Fishing gave you far too much time to think, cricket was practically riddled with hazards, and heaven knows how many bacteria you could find in a garden. And so he did what he always did for a hobby. He went to the British Legion. The only problem was, it was the British Legion which had started all this in the first place. The irony was, he was on the verge of going home that night. It was early December, and frost had already painted itself on to the pavements. He was thinking of calling it a night, before the temperature dropped even further and the walk home became even more dangerous. Perhaps if he had, none of this would have happened. Although he knew from experience that if something bad was goi
ng to happen, it would happen regardless of how much you tried to avoid it. Bad things find you. They seek you out. No matter how you might try to ignore them or hide away, or walk in the opposite direction. They will discover you eventually.

  It’s only ever a question of time.

  11 December 1967

  Harold is talking again. John can hear him over a whine of voices.

  ‘Do you want to know what I think?’ he is saying.

  No one answers, but this has never stopped Harold from divvying up his opinion and handing it around the table.

  ‘I think that if the police won’t move him on, then we need to take matters into our own hands. That’s what I think.’

  There are nods and murmured yeses. John sees May Roper hammer at Brian’s leg under the table.

  Harold is drumming his wedding ring against the edge of a glass, and Dorothy blinks with each beat. Derek Bennett turns his pint ninety degrees at a time, and the group drifts back into a silence.

  John wants to leave. He can see the door from where he’s standing. A few steps and he could be outside, walking away, leaving them all to it, but the whole avenue is here. Everyone except his mother, who is babysitting Grace and watching Fred Astaire tap-dance his way to a happy ending. It would look too obvious if he left. They would notice, and then they would realize that he was weak and useless, and cowardly. He has to stay. For once, he has to stand up for something. He has to find his voice, if only to make up for all the years he has existed in a silence.

  ‘We’ve tried watching the house,’ says Derek. ‘Fat lot of good that’s done. If anything it’s made things worse. He never shows himself now. At least before, we knew what he was up to.’

  ‘A man like that should never be allowed to live on a road like ours,’ May Roper says.

  John sees her hammer Brian’s leg under the table again.

  ‘My mam’s right,’ says Brian, like a tendon reflex.

  ‘They say he has the right to live where he wants.’ Dorothy is still blinking, even though Harold’s wedding ring is silent.

  ‘The world’s gone rights mad,’ says Sheila. ‘Far too many people have rights these days.’

  Everyone nods. Even Dorothy Forbes, who manages to fit it in, in between her blinking.

  ‘What kind of a person harms a child? What kind of evil is that?’ says Derek.

  Sheila Dakin reaches for her Babycham, but she misjudges it and the drink spills across the table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  They find Clive and a tea towel, and everyone lifts their glasses while the mess is wiped away.

  ‘He always says it’s a mistake,’ Sylvia tightens her arms around her cardigan, ‘a misunderstanding.’

  ‘There have been far too many misunderstandings.’ Eric Lamb is drinking Guinness, and he wipes it from his mouth as he speaks. ‘The photographs, what happened with Lisa. I thought taking a baby was a one-off, but it clearly wasn’t.’

  ‘A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to have a camera,’ says May Roper.

  ‘My mam’s right.’ Brian manages to speak just before the hammering starts.

  Sylvia’s arms are still across her chest. She has a Britvic orange, but it waits in its glass, untouched. ‘The police said photography was his hobby, that they couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘A man like that shouldn’t be allowed to have hobbies,’ says May. ‘Heaven knows what other photographs he’s taken.’

  Everyone looks down and takes a sip of their drink. There is a silence. It unfolds across the table like a cloth, and no one seems keen to disturb it. Clive moves in between them, collecting empties. He shares a look with Harold, but neither of them says anything. John watches Clive all the way to the bar. There are too many glasses and not enough fingers.

  Sylvia is the one to speak first, although her voice is so quiet, John can barely hear the words. ‘The only way you’ll get him off the avenue,’ she says, ‘is if he hasn’t got a house to live in.’

  ‘It’s a shame he doesn’t come back after Christmas and find it gone,’ says Sheila.

  John frowns at her.

  ‘He always goes away for Christmas, John. Tinsel and turkey with his mum. Somewhere no one knows him, and no one knows what he likes to get up to.’

  Sheila was right. It was the only time Walter Bishop ever left the avenue. He didn’t even go away in the summer. Instead, he stayed at number eleven, baking himself within its walls, all the way through until September.

  ‘Pity he doesn’t come back in the New Year and find it bulldozed to the ground,’ says Derek. ‘Bloody pervert.’

  Harold leans back in his chair and folds his arms. ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘you don’t always need a bulldozer to get rid of a house.’

  Eric stares over his pint of Guinness. There is the edge of a smile in Derek’s eyes, and under the table, May Roper begins hammering again.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Brian.

  ‘What I mean, lad, is that sometimes fate plays a part in these things. An electrical fault, a spark from a fire. It doesn’t mean anyone will get hurt.’

  Eric places his pint on the table. There is a carefulness about it. ‘I hope you know what you’re suggesting, Harold.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying – these things happen.’

  ‘Or they’re made to happen,’ says Sheila.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Eric pulls his hands across his face.

  ‘Never mind Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ doesn’t have to live next door to him. Neither do you for that matter.’

  Eric says nothing. He shakes his head very briefly, but it’s enough to set Harold off again.

  ‘I’ve had enough, Eric. I’ve had enough of living next door to that bloody weirdo. If we don’t do something, then God help me, I won’t be responsible for my actions. You’ve got to think about the children. There are kiddies on this avenue.’

  John has seen Harold angry before. Harold spends his whole life being angry about something; he’s like a walking argument. But this is different. This anger is darker and more brutal, and it comes from a place John thinks he recognizes. Perhaps they all feel an anger in their own way, because each face around the table has changed. They have shifted, chosen another path of thinking. He can see it in their faces, and in the way they take their opinions to the floor. Only Dorothy looks ahead. There is a brightness fixed into her eyes.

  ‘We all feel the same, Harold. Try not to upset yourself.’

  John can hear it, a brittle pacification, a faint tremor of experience in her voice.

  *

  The flash takes them all by surprise. It’s sudden and shocking, and they all look up to find themselves staring into a lens.

  There are two men. One with a camera, and one with a notepad and an air of curiosity.

  ‘Andy Kilner, local paper,’ says the notepad. ‘For the Seasonal Edition. A bit of local colour. Christmas spirit, good will to all men, and all that.’

  ‘I see,’ says Harold.

  ‘Any quotes?’ says the notepad.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Harold reaches for his pint. ‘We’ve said all there is to say.’

  Number Two, The Avenue

  5 July 1976

  ‘It was a beautiful service.’

  Mrs Roper took a compact from her handbag, and I watched her press powder into the sweat on her upper lip.

  ‘If today’s taught me anything,’ she said, ‘it’s taught me that life is too short.’

  Ninety-eight, Tilly mouthed to me from across the room. I bobbed my shoulders so no one else would see.

  ‘It was a lovely send-off, Brian.’ The compact clicked shut and Mrs Roper slid it back, deep into the macramé. ‘You should have been there.’

  Brian sat in the corner, next to a standard lamp. It had a large cream shade, which spread out like a skirt, and his head had to be angled slightly, to avoid being swallowed by the fringing.

  I looked at the tin of Quality Stree
t. It was on a footstool at the side of the settee.

  ‘You have a beautiful singing voice, Mrs Roper,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, dear.’ She reached over. ‘Toffee Finger?’

  My hand crept through the twists of colour, and I saw Tilly shake her head very slightly and smile.

  ‘The order of service is on the windowsill. You want to have a read of it, Brian. Before I put it with the rest.’

  He glanced from the edge of his eyes. ‘I haven’t got time now,’ he said. ‘I’ll read it later.’

  There was no air in Mrs Roper’s sitting room. It smelled of caramel and mint, and the sweetness hung in the air and wrapped itself around us like a bandage. The walls were a pattern of confectionery, swirls of coffee and cream, and above the fireplace was a selection of photographs in silver frames. Within the frames was a row of people who all looked the same – round and shiny, with fairground smiles, and they stretched out across the mantelpiece like Russian dolls.