The Trouble with Goats and Sheep Page 9

  The vicar was very loud and convincing. Even though I could never understand what he said, I always seemed to want to agree with him.

  We have come here today to remember before God our sister Enid, and to give thanks for her life. To commit her body to the ground, and to comfort one another in our grief.

  I stared past the vicar to Enid’s coffin, and thought of the ninety-eight years which lay inside. I wondered if she’d thought of them too, alone on her sitting-room carpet, and I hoped perhaps that she had. I thought about how she’d be carried from the church and through the graveyard, past all the Ernests and the Mauds and the Mabels, and how ninety-eight years would be put inside the ground, for dandelions to grow across her name. I thought about the people who would forever walk past her, on their way to somewhere else. People at weddings and christenings. People taking a shortcut, having a cigarette. I wondered if they would ever stop and think about Enid and her ninety-eight years, and I wondered if the world would have a little remembering left for her.

  I wiped my face before Tilly had a chance to see. But I was glad. It meant that Enid mattered. That ninety-eight years was worth crying for.

  The organ started again, only more sure of itself, and all the hymn books began to rustle.

  ‘What does abide mean?’ Tilly pointed at the page.

  I looked at the words. ‘I think it means you have to behave yourself,’ I said.

  People sang in very quiet voices, and Tilly and I mimed a bit, but Mrs Roper made up for everyone else by putting her hymn book back on her seat and singing at the top of her voice.

  When we’d sung about behaving ourselves, the vicar climbed into the pulpit and said he was going to read from the Bible.

  When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he said, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

  I sat back with a Liquorice Allsort.

  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

  ‘Sheep again,’ said Tilly.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘They’re everywhere.’ I offered her an Allsort, but she shook her head.

  Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

  Tilly nudged me with her poncho. ‘Why does he hate the goats so much?’

  ‘For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘He only seems to like sheep.’

  ‘I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

  ‘Oh, they didn’t look after Him,’ said Tilly. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’

  Then those on the left will go away to eternal punishment, and only those on the right to eternal life.

  The vicar nodded his head, as though he had told us something very important, and I nodded back again, even though I wasn’t very sure what it was.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ whispered Tilly. ‘How does God know which people are goats and which people are sheep?’

  I looked at Eric Lamb, and at Mr Forbes, who was rearranging Mrs Forbes’ hymn book for her. I looked at Mrs Roper rubbing her feet, and the barman from the British Legion, and at the two old men, who still bowed their heads and whispered to themselves. And then I looked at the vicar, who looked back at all of us from the top of his little flight of stairs.

  ‘I think that’s the trouble,’ I said, ‘it’s not always that easy to tell the difference.’

  *

  When we left the church, the vicar stood in the doorway, saying goodbye to everyone. He shook my hand and said thank you for coming, and I shook his hand back and said thank you for having us. He tried to shake Tilly’s hand as well, but it was lost somewhere in her poncho and she couldn’t find it in time. Everyone else seemed to disappear, but Mrs Roper leant against a gravestone, pinching at her toes.

  ‘I’m a slave to my legs,’ she said to us, as she pinched a bit harder. ‘I’m always under the doctor.’

  ‘It was very good of you make it,’ I said, ‘when you’re in such dreadful pain.’

  Mrs Roper looked up and shielded her eyes from the sun, and gave us a very wide smile.

  ‘You must be very religious, to make such an effort.’ I held my hand out like Jesus, and pulled her up from the grave.

  ‘Oh, I am,’ she said, ‘but it does me the world of good to get out. It really perks me up.’

  I told Mrs Roper that she was a wonderful example to the next generation, and Mrs Roper said that yes, she was, and her smile became even wider.

  She put the order of service into her handbag and clicked the clasp shut. ‘Are you girls walking back to the avenue? Shall we walk together?’

  I said that we would like that very much, and I could see Tilly smiling behind her poncho.

  We’d got as far as Lime Crescent before she mentioned Mrs Creasy.

  ‘Terrible business,’ she said, pressing a handkerchief into her armpit, ‘disappearing like that.’

  ‘Did you know her very well?’ I said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She swapped armpits. ‘Better than most people. She found me very easy to talk to.’

  ‘I expect she would,’ I said, ‘because you know what it’s like to suffer, Mrs Roper.’

  Mrs Roper agreed that she did.

  ‘But why do you think Mrs Creasy disappeared?’ She walked very quickly, and I had to take more steps to keep up. Somewhere behind me, I could hear Tilly’s breathing. It sounded like a little steam train.

  ‘Well, it could be all sorts of reasons, of course.’ We’d reached the end of the avenue, and it seemed to make Mrs Roper slow down. ‘But I know what my money is on.’

  I reached into my pocket. ‘Would you like another tissue, Mrs Roper? You look positively exhausted.’

  She took the tissue and smiled. ‘Are you girls in any rush? Only I’ve just opened a new tin of Quality Street.’

  We followed her along the garden path.

  When I turned round, Tilly was smiling so much, I was worried that someone might hear.

  Number Eight, The Avenue

  5 July 1976

  ‘Did you and your wife have an argument?’

  It took PC Green six minutes and thirty-two seconds. John knew this, because he had been watching the clock on the mantelpiece. When he’d written out the list of questions he thought they would ask, he’d put this one at the top. Now, everything was out of order.

  ‘Mr Creasy?’

  ‘No, we hadn’t had an argument.’

  He was going to add that they never argued. He was going to add that in six years, he and Margaret had never disagreed about anything, but then he decided that PC Green might think it odd, that he might be one of those strange people who believed that arguing with your spouse was somehow healthy, so he stopped himself from saying anything else by watching the second hand on the clock instead.

  ‘Mr Creasy?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the question?’

  The policeman was perched right on the edge of the settee, as though he didn’t intend to stay for very long. As though the fewer parts of his body he committed to sitting down, the less time he’d have to spend there. His collar number was 1279.

  ‘I was asking whether your wife might have had a disagreement with anyone else?’

  Twelve months in a year, seven days in a week. What could the nine stand for? He couldn’t think of any nines.

  ‘Margaret got along with everyone,’ he said. ‘She was friendly with all the neighbours. Too friendly, really.’

  The policeman stopped writing and looked up. ‘Too friendly?’ he said.

  John picked at the threads on the arm of the chair. That’s torn it. Policemen were like doctors. They started off
with their own idea about something, and cherry-picked your words to prove themselves right.

  ‘I mean, she spent a lot of time helping people. Trying to sort out their problems.’

  The policeman looked down at his notebook. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Neighbourly.’

  A stitch in time saves nine. That would do, although it wasn’t strictly factual. John watched PC Green writing down the words. He wondered how he could wear such a thick uniform in this heat. The police force should issue them with a summer uniform. Or perhaps they did. Perhaps this was the summer uniform, and the winter one was even thicker.

  ‘Are you tape-recording this?’ he said.

  PC Green held up his hands. As though that would prove anything. ‘No one’s under arrest, Mr Creasy, we’re just following up on a few questions.’

  ‘Only I told all this to your colleague last week. PC Hay. Collar Number 7523. Seven days in a week, fifty-two weeks in a year, plus the Holy Trinity.’

  PC Green paused his writing, and stared.

  ‘You do know PC Hay?’

  The policeman nodded. He still stared.

  ‘Then you’ll know that I’ve already been asked these questions. In a different order of course, but I answered all of them very thoroughly.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Mr Creasy.’ The policeman didn’t seem to want to lower his eyes, but then he gathered himself and turned back a few pages in his notebook. ‘We’ve just had a phone call, several phone calls, from …’ he stumbled around his words, ‘… a concerned neighbour, and the sergeant felt it might be worth revisiting things.’

  ‘A concerned neighbour?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say who, Mr Creasy.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to, PC Green. I wouldn’t want you to break the rules.’

  There was no air in the room. John could feel his chest tighten and pull with the effort of breathing. All his muscles were quarrelling with his mind, trying to prevent him from filling his lungs, and the ends of his fingers had begun to prickle. He knew it was happening, but he couldn’t stop it.

  ‘You told PC Hay that your wife had no family?’

  ‘I did.’

  He wanted to open a window, but he was afraid to turn his back.

  ‘That you lived in Tamworth when you first married, and then you returned to this house after your mother died?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He wasn’t even sure his legs would hold his weight. They felt watery and distant, as if someone were stretching them away from his body.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mr Creasy? You’ve gone very pale.’

  He crossed his legs to test them out. ‘I’m just hot,’ he said. ‘There’s no air.’

  ‘Let me open a window.’

  The policeman stood and tried to move around the furniture. His uniform seemed to get in the way. It made him awkward and rigid, and the edge of his jacket caught a pile of newspapers on the windowsill. They slipped on to the carpet. John wondered how policemen managed to chase criminals when they couldn’t even negotiate someone’s living room.

  PC Green sat down again. He was even further towards the edge of the settee than he had been before. ‘Is that any better?’ he said.

  John nodded, although it made no difference. The heat had become a gatekeeper. It refused to let anything past, holding itself up against the rest of the world, and sealing them all in an airless prison.

  ‘Is there anything else, PC Green?’ He pushed his hand into his hair, and felt a film of sweat slide across his skin.

  The policeman flipped through the pages. John could hear him talking about hospitals and being positive, and railway stations and bus terminals, and how grown people sometimes needed a break from their own lives, and how they usually returned of their own volition. And the heat, lots of words about the heat. He had been given these reassurances so many times, he should start saying them to himself from now on and save them all the bother.

  ‘Mr Creasy?’

  PC Green was looking at him again. He stared into the policeman’s face and tried to find a clue to the question.

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

  John Creasy could hear the sound of his own breathing. He wondered if the policeman could hear it too. He tried opening his mouth, but it seemed to make it worse. The air rattled across the roof of his mouth and sucked all the words from his throat.

  ‘Mr Creasy?’

  ‘I should very much doubt it, PC Green.’ John could hear his own voice, but he wasn’t sure how it had managed to find itself. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘He’s just the only neighbour we haven’t managed to speak to yet.’ When the policeman frowned, the whites of his eyes disappeared. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said. It made him look worried.

  ‘She left without her shoes. Did you know that, PC Green?’

  The policeman shook his head. He didn’t stop frowning.

  ‘It’s very dangerous, walking in slippers.’ John began picking at the arm of the chair again. He could hear his nail lifting up the threads. ‘It’s not safe.’

  ‘Do you have anyone who could stay with you, Mr Creasy. A family member, a friend?’

  John Creasy shook his head.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m very sure, PC Green. I am never anything but very sure.’

  The policeman closed his notebook and stood up. He put the pencil back into his top pocket. ‘We’ll be in touch if we hear anything. I’ll let myself out, shall I?’

  It was fifteen steps to the front door. A lot can happen in fifteen steps.

  John stood with him, and rested his weight against the chair. ‘I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘you can’t be too careful.’

  *

  The house hadn’t changed much since he’d moved back. Margaret had talked about building a little conservatory, but he’d told her it would attract flies and possibly even mice if they started having their tea in there, and Margaret had smiled and patted his hand, and said it didn’t matter.

  He missed her reassurance. The way she stole his disquiet and diluted it, and how her unconcern would pull him through their day. She never dismissed his worries, she just disentangled them, smoothing down the edges and spreading them out until they became thin and insignificant. He missed her conversation, the ease of her words as they ate, and the sound of cutlery resting on a plate. He had tried to carve into the quiet with the television and the radio, and the sound of his own voice, but his noise just seemed to grow the silence and make it taller, and it followed him from room to room, like water pouring from a glass.

  Since she’d disappeared, he’d noticed that the silence happened everywhere. People glanced at him occasionally, when they thought he couldn’t see, and sometimes whole groups of them would all turn around at the same time, but no one ever spoke. They avoided him in shops. They lingered by the tinned fruit and assorted household goods, rather than join his queue at the till. They rummaged for imaginary items in their handbags and read postcards about prams for sale and evening classes, instead of walking past him in the street. He could hear them whispering. He could hear the opening statements and the expert witnesses, the rhetoric and the verdicts, and the sound of opinion being passed. Then they would edge away from him, as if disappearing people was contagious and, should they be careless enough to get too close, they might find themselves vanishing as well. Margaret always said he took too much notice of other people, but it was very difficult to avoid it, when they were making so much of an effort to be unnoticeable.

  Even though he was alone, the sitting room still felt unsettled. John could see the dent on the edge of the cushion where the policeman had rested his weight, and the untouched glass of water on the coffee table, and in the silence, he could still hear the questions, hanging in the air like lengths of rope.

  Did your wife ever talk to Walter Bishop?

  John chewed at his nails. He needed to get out of the ro
om.

  There were twelve steps. Thirteen if you counted the one just before you reached upstairs, but that was more of a mini landing. Margaret had placed a spider plant there a few weeks ago, but there were concerns that it might be a tripping hazard, so she moved it into the spare bedroom. It was ironic, because now there were items on all of the steps. Books and letters, and cardboard boxes filled with paperwork and photographs. He had to step around gas bills and insurance policies, Margaret’s secretarial work and her bookkeeping certificates. Instruction manuals and exercise books, and newspaper cuttings – it all had to be checked. Everything needed to be searched. If Margaret had left of her own free will, she had to have found something which had made her disappear. If no one had said anything to her, she must have discovered it all by herself. There was something in the house. Something that had told her his secrets, and he needed to find it.

  He picked his way around the debris as he climbed. Over the past two weeks, he had checked all through the downstairs and in the garage. The kitchen had taken the longest, lifting every lid, searching between every plate. You couldn’t be too careful. So much of the house was still his mother’s. Towards the end, she saved everything. Receipts and coupons and old bus tickets. He’d found them in the strangest places, tucked behind the breadbin, inside a forgotten library book. Perhaps there was a newspaper clipping? A mention of it in a letter? Perhaps Margaret had tripped up on the evidence without meaning to. Perhaps the past had just fallen into her hands by mistake.

  He opened their bedroom door. The room smelled scorched and static. As though layers of heat had settled themselves upon the memories and smothered them. He had tried to sleep in this room for the first few days, but it was impossible. The bed felt too light, weightless almost. He felt as though he might float away without her there beside him, and when he did manage to doze, he would wake a few minutes later and lose her all over again.

  Instead of sleeping, he had walked. He walked as the rest of the estate slept, along the avenues and the crescents, through corridors of people drifting out of awareness, and the stillness was an opiate to him, cushioning his mind and unthreading his thoughts. He walked to the park, where Margaret liked to sit by the bandstand and watch the children playing. Then he walked to the bench overlooking the pond and stared at the spines of bulrushes gathered at its banks, and the ducks, skirting the edges of the water, tucked into a feathery sleep. He chose the route she would take to do the shopping, marking her journey along the High Street. He walked past mannequins, past windows cellophaned in orange, past the cool silver trays of the fishmonger, empty of everything except growths of fraudulent parsley. He trailed the sound of his own footsteps on deserted streets, all the way to the library, and then back through the marketplace and down to the canal. He knew she liked to sit by the towpath and eat her lunch. During the day, there was a string of people to pass the time with, dog walkers and cyclists, and shoppers taking a shortcut into town, and each evening as they ate their meal, she would laugh and tell him their stories. But in the darkness, the ash trees bowed their heads towards the water, searching for their reflections, and the canal became black and limitless, stretching like a ribbon of ink into the distance. The night altered the landscape, until it became as confusing and unfamiliar as another country.