'She's not corning today, is she? The Cairns woman.'
'No,' Lottie said. 'She's not.'
'Good,' said Dic. Cautious as a field mouse, little Willie Wagstaff peeped around the door, sniffed the air and then tiptoed into the dimness of Ma's parlour.
The curtains were drawn for Matt, as were the curtains in nearly all the houses in Bridelow, but at Ma's this was more of a problem, the place all cluttered up as usual with jars and bottles and big cats called Bob and Jim.
He crept over to the table. In its centre was a large aspirin bottle, the contents a lot more intriguing and colourful than aspirins.
The principal colour was red. In the bottom of the bottle was a single red berry, most likely from the straggly mountain ash tree by the back gate. All the berries had vanished from that bugger weeks and weeks ago, but this one looked as bright and fresh as if it was early September.
Also in the bottle was about a yard of red cotton thread, all scrimped up. One end of the thread had been pulled out of the bottle and then a fat cork shoved in so that about half an inch of thread hung down the outside.
The bottle had been topped up with water that looked suspiciously yellowish, the tangle of red cotton soaked through
'By the 'ell,' Willie said through his teeth. 'Nothin' left to chance, eh?'
'You put that down! Now!'
Willie nearly dropped it. Ma's eyes had appeared in the doorway, followed by Ma. Too dim to see her properly; she was in a very long coat and a hat that looked like a plate of black puddings.
'Bloody hell, Ma, scared the life out of me.'
'Corning in here wi'out knocking. Messing wi' things as don't concern you.'
'Me messing!' He gestured at the bottle. 'I bet that's not spring water, neither.'
'Used to be!' Ma glared indignantly at him. 'Been through me now. That strengthens it.'
'Oh, aye? I thought you were losing your touch.'
Ma stumped across to the table, snatched up the bottle and carried it over to the ramshackle dresser where her handbag lay, the size and shape of an old-fashioned doctor's bag. She was about to stow the bottle away then stopped. 'Who's carrying him, then?'
'Me. Eric. Frank Manifold Senior. Maybe young Dic.'
'That Lottie,' Ma said. 'She's a fool to herself, that girl. If she'd let the Mothers' Union give her a hand, we'd all be sleeping easier.'
'Eh?' He watched Ma passing the aspirin bottle from hand to hand, thoughtfully. 'Oh, now look, Ma.. – just forget it. I am not… Anyway, there'll be no chance, Lottie'll be watching us like a bloody hawk.'
'Aye, p'raps I'll not ask you,' Ma said, to his relief. The thought of opening Matt's coffin turned his guts to jelly.
'And anyway, why d'you need a thing like that? I thought it were all sorted out.'
'You thought' Ma was contemptuous. 'Who're you to think, Willie Wagstaff?'
'Ma, I'm fifty-four years old!' Willie's fingers had started up a hornpipe on the coins in the hip pocket of his shiny black funeral pants.
'And never grown up,' Ma said.
'This is grown-up?'
Ma bent and put the bottle down on the edge of the hearth. The fire was just smoke, no red, all banked up with slack to keep it in until Ma returned after the funeral.
She straightened up, wincing just a bit – not as sprightly as she was, but what could you expect – and faced him, hands clamped on the coat around where her bony old hips would be.
'It's like damp,' Ma snapped. 'Once you get an inch or two up your wall, you're in trouble. If your wall's a bit weak, or a bit rotted, it'll spread all the faster. It'll feed off… rot and corruption. And sickness too.'
'Ma…' Willie didn't want to know this. He never had, she knew that.
Ma picked up his thoughts, like they'd dropped neatly in front of her dustpan and brush. 'Comes a time, Willie Wagstaff, when things can't be avoided no longer. He were a good man, Matt Castle, but dint know what he were messing with. Or who.'
'Probably dint even know he were messing wi' owt.'
'And that wife of his, she were on guard day and night, nobody could get near. He were crying out for help, were Matt, by the end, and nobody could get near. Well…'
'Matt's dead, Ma,' Willie said warningly.
Ma picked up the aspirin bottle. 'And that,' she said, ramming the bottle deep into the bag, 'is why he needs protection. And not only him, obviously. This is crucially important, our Willie.'
'Oh, bloody hell,' said Willie. It had always been his way, with Ma, to pretend he didn't believe in any of this. Found it expedient, as a rule.
'A time ago, lad, not long after you left school, we had some trouble. D'you remember? Wi' a man?'
'I do and I don't,' Willie said evasively. Meaning he'd always found it best not to get involved in what the village traditionally regarded as woman's work, no matter how close to home.
Ma said, 'He were clever. I'll say that for him. Knew his stuff. Knew what he were after. But he were bad news. Wanted to use us. Had to be repelled.'
Willie did believe, though, at the bottom of him. Most of them did, despite all the jokes.
'What about him?'
Ma's lips tightened, then she said, 'They're allus looking for an opening, and this one stood out a bloody mile. And Matt Castle dint help, chipping away at it, making it bigger.'
'Eh?'
'This musical thing he were working on. T' Bogman.'
'Oh…aye…'
'Another way in, Willie. Weren't doing that on his own, were he?'
Willie went quiet. He knew Matt had been consulting with some writer, but the man never came to Bridelow, Matt always went to the man. Until the final few weeks when he couldn't drive himself any more.
He looked at his mother with her big, daft funeral hat and dared to feel compassion. She didn't need this, her time of life.
'Look, don't get me wrong, Ma…'
Ma Wagstaff's fearsome eyes flared, but they couldn't hold the fire for very long nowadays.
'… but you've bin at this for a fair few years now…'
'More than fifty,' Ma said wistfully.
'So, like… like I were saying to Milly… don't you ever get to, like… retire I mean, is there nobody else can take over?'
Ma straightened her hat. 'There is one,' she said biblically, 'who will come after me.'
'But what 'asn't come yet, like,' Willie said, stepping carefully. You could push it just so far with Ma, and then…
The eyes switched from dipped to full-beam. 'Now, look, you cheeky little bugger! When I need your advice, that's when they'll be nailing me up an' all.'
Willie held up both hands, backed off towards the door.
'Which is not yet! Got that?'
'Oh, aye,' said Willie.
Outside in the hard, white daylight, he looked across at the church.
'On me way, Matt,' Willie said with a sniff and a sigh, rubbing his hands in the cold. 'I hope they've nailed you down, me old mate. Good and tight.'
CHAPTER III
