The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Read online

  ‘I wonder who she is,’ I said.

  But Tilly was examining the space behind the settee. ‘Do you think He’s down here somewhere?’ She lifted a cushion and peered at the back of it.

  I looked up at the champagne teardrops which spilled from the light fitting. ‘I think it might be a bit too pink, even for Jesus,’ I said.

  *

  Mrs Forbes returned with a tray and a selection of biscuits.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any custard creams,’ she said.

  I took three fig rolls and a garibaldi. ‘That’s all right, Mrs Forbes. I’ll just have to manage.’

  I could hear the noise of a television in the room next door, and Mr Forbes’ voice shouting instructions at it. It sounded like a football match. Even though the sounds were just the other side of the wall, they seemed very far away, and the rest of the world played itself out beyond the pink insulation, leaving us wrapped in Dralon and cushions, protected by china dogs and cellophaned in an ice-cream silence.

  ‘You have a very nice house, Mrs Forbes,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Thank you, dear.’

  I bit into my garibaldi and she rushed a paper doily on to my knee.

  ‘The key to a tidy house is anticipation. And lists. Lots of lists.’

  ‘Lists?’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes, lists. That way, nothing ever gets forgotten.’

  She pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her cardigan.

  ‘This is today’s list,’ she said. ‘I’m up to the dustbins.’

  It was a long list. It crossed over two pages in loops of blue ink, which thickened and smudged where the pen had stopped to think. As well as vacuuming the hall and putting out the dustbins, it had entries like clean teeth and eat breakfast.

  ‘Do you put everything on your list, Mrs Forbes?’ I started on my first fig roll.

  ‘Oh yes, best not to leave anything to chance. It was Harold’s idea. He says it stops me being slapdash.’

  ‘Could you not remember things without writing them down?’ said Tilly.

  ‘Heavens, no.’ Mrs Forbes shrank back in her chair, and she faded into a pink landscape. ‘That wouldn’t do at all. Harold says I’d get in a terrible mess.’

  She folded the piece of paper exactly in half, and returned it to her pocket.

  ‘So how long have you two been in the Brownies?’

  ‘Ages,’ I said. ‘Who’s the girl in the photograph?’

  She frowned at me and then looked over at the fireplace and frowned again. ‘Oh, that’s me,’ she said, in a surprised voice, as though she had temporarily forgotten all about herself.

  I studied Mrs Forbes and the girl in the photograph, and tried to find something that matched. There was nothing.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t born old, you know.’

  My mother used this saying quite frequently. I had learned from experience not to say one word in reply, and I sipped my cordial to avoid having to make a comment.

  She walked over to the mantelpiece. I always thought of Mrs Forbes as being solid and blustery, but close up she became diluted. Her posture was a slight apology, the folds of her clothes measuring out the end of a story. Even her hands looked small, trapped by arthritis and livered with time.

  She ran her finger around the frame of the picture. ‘It was just before I met Harold,’ she said.

  ‘You look very happy.’ I took another fig roll. ‘I wonder what you were thinking about.’

  ‘I do, don’t I?’ Mrs Forbes took a cloth from her waistband and began dusting herself. ‘I only wish I could remember.’

  On the other side of the wall, the football match ended rather abruptly. There was creaking and grumbling, and the click of a door, and then the sound of footsteps across the syrupy carpet. When I turned around, Mr Forbes was standing in the doorway, watching us. He wore a pair of shorts. His legs were pale and hairless, and they looked as though he could easily have borrowed them from someone else.

  ‘What’s going on here, then?’ he said.

  Mrs Forbes put herself back on the mantelpiece and spun round.

  ‘Grace and Tilly are Brownies.’ Her eyes were so bright, they were almost enamelled. ‘They’re here to lend …’ she faltered.

  He folded his forehead into a frown and put his hands on his hips. ‘A book? Money? A cup of sugar?’

  Mrs Forbes was hypnotized, and she wrapped the duster around her fingers until they became mottled with white.

  ‘To lend …’ Mrs Forbes repeated the words.

  Mr Forbes continued to stare. I could hear his dentures click against the roof of his mouth.

  ‘A hand,’ said Tilly.

  ‘That’s right. A hand. They’re here to lend a hand.’

  She unwound the duster, and I heard the air leave her lungs in little pieces.

  Mr Forbes grunted.

  He said as long as that’s all it is, and does Sylve know she’s here, and Mrs Forbes nodded so vigorously the crucifix around her neck did a little dance on her collarbone.

  ‘I’m going to post my letter,’ said Mr Forbes. ‘If we wait for you to do it, I’ll miss the second collection. I just need to find out where you’ve hidden my shoes.’

  Mrs Forbes nodded again, and the crucifix nodded along with her, even though Mr Forbes had long since disappeared from the doorway.

  ‘My teachers do that to me all the time,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Do what, dear?’

  ‘Throw words at me until I get confused.’ Tilly picked garibaldi crumbs from the carpet and lifted them on to the plate. ‘It always makes me feel stupid.’

  ‘It does?’ said Mrs Forbes.

  ‘I’m not, though.’ Tilly smiled.

  Mrs Forbes smiled back. ‘Do you enjoy school, Tilly?’ she said.

  ‘Not really. A lot of the girls don’t like us very much. Sometimes we’re bullied.’

  ‘They hit you?’ Mrs Forbes’ hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘Oh no, they don’t hit us, Mrs Forbes.’

  ‘You don’t always have to hit people,’ I said, ‘to bully them.’

  Mrs Forbes reached for the nearest chair and lowered herself into it. ‘I expect you’re right,’ she said.

  I was about to speak when Mr Forbes came back into the room. He was still wearing his shorts, but he had added a flat cap and a pair of sunglasses, and he was carrying a letter. He reminded me of my father. Whenever it became hot, he swapped his trousers for shorts, but everything else he kept exactly the same.

  Mr Forbes placed his letter on the sideboard, and sat on the sofa with such force, the aftershock almost suspended Tilly in mid-air. He began tying his shoes, tugging at the laces until little fibres of fabric hovered in the space above his fingers. I stood up to give his legs more privacy.

  ‘So you can cross this off your list for a start, Dorothy,’ he was saying. ‘Although there’s plenty more to be getting on with.’

  He looked over at me. ‘Will you be staying long?’ he said.

  ‘Oh no, Mr Forbes. Not long at all. We’ll be gone as soon as we’ve lent a hand.’

  He looked back at his feet and grunted again. I wasn’t sure if he was approving of me or the tightness of his shoelaces.

  ‘She gets very easily distracted, you see.’ He nodded at Mrs Forbes with the brim of his cap. ‘It’s her age. Isn’t it, Dorothy?’ He made a winding motion at the side of his temple.

  Mrs Forbes smiled, but it sat on her mouth at half-mast.

  ‘Can’t keep a thing in her head for more than five minutes.’ He spoke behind the back of his hand, like a whisper, but the volume of his voice remained exactly the same. ‘Losing her marbles, I’m afraid.’

  He stood, and then bent very theatrically to adjust his socks. Tilly edged to safety at the far end of the settee.

  ‘I’m off to the post box.’ He marched towards the hall. ‘I shall be back in thirty minutes. Try not to get yourself in a muddle whilst I’m gone.’

  He had vanished f
rom the doorway before I realized.

  ‘Mr Forbes.’ I had to shout to make him hear.

  He reappeared. He didn’t look like the kind of person who was used to being shouted at.

  I handed him the envelope. ‘You’ve forgotten your letter,’ I said.

  Mrs Forbes waited until the front door clicked shut, and then she began to laugh. Her laughing made me and Tilly laugh as well, and the rest of the world seemed to creep back into the room again, as if it wasn’t quite as far away as I thought.

  Whilst we were laughing, I looked at Mrs Forbes, and I looked over at the girl on the mantelpiece, who laughed with us through a corridor of time, and I realized that they were a perfect match after all.

  *

  ‘I didn’t know we’d actually have to do actual housework,’ said Tilly.

  Mrs Forbes had left us tied into aprons up to our armpits. Tilly stood on the far side of the room, rubbing Brasso into a sleeping West Highland white terrier.

  ‘It’s important that we don’t arouse suspicion,’ I said, and took the last garibaldi back to the settee.

  ‘But do you think God is here?’ Tilly peered at the dog and ran the duster over its ears. ‘If God keeps everyone safe, do you think he’s keeping Mrs Forbes safe as well?’

  I thought about the cross around Mrs Forbes’ neck. ‘I hope so,’ I said.

  Mrs Forbes returned to the room with a new packet of garibaldis. ‘What do you hope, dear?’

  I watched her empty them on to the plate. ‘Do you believe in God, Mrs Forbes?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t look at the sky or at me, or even repeat the question back again. She just carried on rearranging biscuits.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ said Tilly.

  ‘Because that’s what you do. God brings people together. He makes sense of everything.’

  ‘Even the bad things?’ I said.

  ‘Of course.’ She looked at me for a moment, and then returned to the plate.

  I could see Tilly beyond Mrs Forbes’ shoulder. Her polishing had become slow and deliberate, and she willed a whole conversation at me with her eyes.

  ‘How can God make sense of Mrs Creasy disappearing?’ I said. ‘For example.’

  Mrs Forbes stepped back, and a mist of crumbs fell to the carpet.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ She folded the empty packet between her hands, even though it refused to become smaller. ‘I’ve never even spoken to the woman.’

  ‘Didn’t you meet her?’ I said.

  ‘No.’ Mrs Forbes twisted the packet around her ring finger. ‘They only moved into the house a little while ago, after John’s mother died. I never had the chance.’

  ‘I just wonder why she vanished?’ I edged the sentence towards her, like a dare.

  ‘Well, it was nothing to do with me, I didn’t say a word.’ Her voice had become spiked and feverish, and the sentence rushed from her mouth in order to escape.

  ‘What do you mean, Mrs Forbes?’ I looked at Tilly, and Tilly looked at me and we both frowned.

  Mrs Forbes sank on to the settee.

  ‘Ignore me, I’m getting muddled.’ She patted the back of her neck, as if she was checking to see that her head was still firmly attached. ‘It’s my age.’

  ‘We just can’t understand where she’s gone,’ I said.

  Mrs Forbes smoothed down the tassels on one of the cushions. ‘I’m sure she’ll return in good time,’ she said, ‘people usually do.’

  ‘I hope she does.’ Tilly untied the apron from under her arms. ‘I liked Mrs Creasy. She was nice.’

  ‘I’m sure she was.’ Mrs Forbes fiddled at the cushion. ‘But I’ve never spent any time in that woman’s company, so I couldn’t really say.’

  I moved the garibaldis around on the plate. ‘Perhaps someone else on the avenue might know where she’s gone.’

  Mrs Forbes stood up. ‘I very much doubt it,’ she said. ‘The reason Margaret Creasy disappeared is nothing to do with any of us. God works in mysterious ways, Harold was right. Everything happens for a reason.’

  I wanted to ask her what the reason was, and why God had to be so mysterious about his work, but Mrs Forbes had taken the list out of her pocket.

  ‘Harold will be back soon. I’d better get on,’ she said. And she began running her finger down the lines of blue ink.

  *

  We walked back along the avenue. The weight of the sky pressed down on us as we pulled our legs through the heat. I stared at the hills which overlooked the town, but it was impossible to see where they began and where the sky ended. They were welded together by the summer, and the horizon shimmered and hissed and refused to be found.

  Somewhere beyond the gardens, I could hear the sound of a Wimbledon commentary drifting from a window.

  Advantage, Borg. And the distant flutter of applause.

  The road was deserted. The beat of an afternoon sun had hurried everyone indoors to fan themselves with newspapers and rub Soltan into their forearms. The only person who remained was Sheila Dakin. She sat on a deckchair on the front lawn of number twelve, arms and legs spread wide, her face stretched towards the heat, as though someone had pegged her out as a giant, mahogany sacrifice.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Dakin,’ I shouted across the tarmac.

  Sheila Dakin lifted her head, and I saw a trail of saliva glisten at the edge of her mouth.

  She waved. ‘Hello, ladies.’

  She always called us ladies, and it turned Tilly’s face red and made us smile.

  ‘So God is at Mrs Forbes’ house,’ said Tilly, when we had stopped smiling.

  ‘I believe he is.’ I pulled Tilly’s sou’wester down at the back, to cover her neck. ‘So we can say for definite that Mrs Forbes is safe, although I’m not very sure about her husband.’

  ‘It’s just a pity she never met Mrs Creasy, she could have given us some clues.’ Tilly kicked at a loose chipping, and it coasted into a hedge.

  I stopped walking so suddenly, my sandals skidded dust on the pavement.

  Tilly looked back. ‘What’s the matter, Gracie?’

  ‘The picnic,’ I said.

  ‘What picnic?’

  ‘The photograph of the picnic on the mantelpiece.’

  Tilly frowned. ‘I don’t understand?’

  I stared at the pavement and tried to think backwards. ‘The woman,’ I said, ‘the woman.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The woman sitting next to Mrs Forbes at the picnic.’

  ‘What about her?’ said Tilly.

  I looked up and straight into Tilly’s eyes. ‘It was Margaret Creasy.’

  Number Two, The Avenue

  4 July 1976

  Brian sang to the hall mirror as he tried to find the parting in his hair. It was a little tricky, as his mother had insisted on buying a starburst design, and it was more burst than glass, but if he bent his knees slightly and angled his head to the right, he could just about fit his whole face in.

  His hair was his best feature, his mother always said. Now girls seemed to like men’s hair a little longer, he wasn’t so sure. His only ever got as far as the bottom of his jaw and then it seemed to lose interest.

  ‘Brian!’

  Perhaps if he tucked it behind his ears.

  ‘Brian!’

  Her shouting tugged on him like a lead. He pushed his head around the sitting-room door.

  ‘Yes, Mam?’

  ‘Pass us that box of Milk Tray, would you? My feet are playing me up something chronic.’

  His mother lay on a sea of crochet, her legs wedged on to the settee, rubbing at her bunions through a pair of tights. He could hear the static.

  ‘It’s the bloody heat.’ Her face was pinched into lines, the air in her cheeks filled with concentration.

  ‘There! There!’ she stopped rubbing and pointed at the footstool, which, in the absence of her feet, had become a home for the TV Times and her slippers, and a spilled bag of Murray Mints. She t
ook the Milk Tray from him and stared into the box, with the same level of concentration as someone who was trying to answer an especially difficult exam question.

  She pushed an Orange Creme into her mouth and frowned at his leather jacket. ‘Off out, are you?’

  ‘I’m going for a pint with the lads, Mam.’

  ‘The lads?’ She took a Turkish Delight.

  ‘Yes, Mam.’

  ‘You’re forty-three, Brian.’

  He went to run his fingers through his hair, but remembered the Brylcreem and stopped himself.

  ‘Do you want me to ask Val to fit you in for a trim next time she comes round?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m growing it. The girls like it longer.’

  ‘The girls?’ She laughed and little pieces of Turkish Delight swam around on her teeth. ‘You’re forty-three, Brian.’

  He shifted his weight and the leather jacket creaked at his shoulders. He’d bought it from the market. Probably wasn’t even real leather. Probably plastic, pretending to be leather, and the only person who was fooled was the idiot wearing it. He pulled at the collar and it crackled between his fingers.

  His mother’s throat rose and fell with Turkish Delight, and he watched her dig her tongue around in her back teeth to make sure she’d definitely got her money’s worth.

  ‘Empty that ashtray before you go. There’s a good boy.’

  He picked up the ashtray and held it at arm’s length, like an uncertain sculpture, a cemetery of cigarettes, each dated with a different colour of lipstick. He watched the ones at the edge tilt and waver as he carried it across the room.

  ‘Not the fireplace! Take it to the outside bin.’ She sent her instructions through a Lime Barrel. ‘It’ll stink the house out if you leave it in here.’

  A curl of smoke twisted from somewhere deep in the mountain of fag ends. He thought he’d imagined it at first, but then the smell brushed at his nostrils.

  ‘You want to be careful.’ He nodded at the ashtray. ‘This is how fires start.’

  She looked over at him and looked back at the box of Milk Tray.

  Neither of them spoke.

  He nudged around, and found the glow of a tip in the ash. He pinched at it until it flickered and the pleat of smoke stuttered and died. ‘It’s out now,’ he said.