Shape of Snakes

'I'd forgotten you were a teacher,' she said to break the silence.

I nodded. 'For my sins.' I ducked my head down for a closer look at Derek Slater's face. He had long, dark hair and a pleasant smiling face and appeared anything but a wife-beater. 'What did Derek go to prison for?'

'I've no idea. Theft? Assault?'

'On his wife?'

'A woman certainly. I don't think he was brave enough to pick fights with men.'

'Who's this?' I asked, touching a picture of a heavily made-up blonde, simpering at the camera from beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

'Sharon Percy,' said Wendy, turning her mouth down at the corners. 'Mutton dressed as lamb. She wasn't far off forty when that was taken but most of her bosom's hanging out and her skirt barely covers her knickers. You must remember her. She lived next to Annie on the other side from the Slaters and was forever complaining about her.' She heaved a sigh. 'Poor Annie. She was sandwiched between the two worst families in the street-a thieving violent family, the Slaters, on one side and a tart with an out-of-control son on the other.'

Sharon Percy-aka Jock's floozy and Libby's 'bleached vampire,' I thought with amusement. 'I don't believe I ever saw her,' I said, 'or if I did I don't remember. I taught her son, Michael ... at the same time I was teaching Alan Slater, but I don't think she ever came near the school.'

'She was a dreadful woman,' said Wendy tartly, 'little better than a prostitute ... entertained a different man in her house every night ... but she still thought she was superior to a black woman ... made Annie's life a misery with her endless complaints to the council.'

I studied the young-old face with interest and recalled some of the rednecks we'd met in South Africa. 'It's the 'poor white' syndrome,' I said slowly. 'The lower you are in the pecking order the more important it is to have someone beneath you.'

Sharon Percy at a wedding

at St. Mark's Church,

Spring 1983

Alan Slater and Michael Percy in

the alley behind Graham Road,

March 1979

'Mm, well that was certainly true of Sharon.'

It seemed a very unchristian attitude and I wondered what the woman had done to make Wendy dislike her. 'How do you know so much about her?' I asked curiously. 'Was she a regular churchgoer?'

'Oh, yes. Regular as clockwork as long as Peter was willing to give her an hour a week to discuss her problems. Hah!' she snorted suddenly. 'Alleged problems, I should have said. Called him Father Stanhope because she knew it would appeal to his vanity. It was only when she started putting her hand on his thigh that he realized what she was up to and told her he wouldn't see her again unless I sat in on the discussion. After that she never set foot inside the church again.'

I hid a smile. For all her declared frustration with her marriage, she could still feel jealousy. 'Did she ever marry?'

'Not when we knew her. I couldn't even say who Michael's father was, and I don't suppose Sharon could either. The poor child was always getting into trouble with the police and Peter would be dragged out at midnight to stand in loco parentis because his mother was flat on her back somewhere.' 'Turned fourteen in '78,' I said, remembering. 'Dark-haired, rather adult-looking ... always wore white T-shirts and blue jeans.' She nodded. 'He wasn't a bad lad, just hopelessly out of control. He was very bright and very articulate-the complete opposite to Alan Slater, who could hardly speak without uttering an obscenity. I was rather fond of him, as a matter of fact, but he wasn't the type to give his affection easily.' A wistful expression crossed her face. 'I read in the newspaper about six years ago that a Michael Percy had been sentenced to eleven years for armed robbery. The age was right but the photograph was very different from the boy I remembered.' I couldn't bring myself to shatter her illusions. 'Does Sharon still live at number twenty-eight?' 'Presumably. She was certainly there when we left in '92.' She took the album from me and leafed through the pages until she came to a picture of a gray-haired man with a pointed, raddled face like a tortoise, 'Geoffrey Spalding,' she said. 'Married to a woman called Vivienne who died of breast cancer in '82. Poor creature-she fought a long battle against it-nearly five years in all. I took this at her funeral. They lived across the road from Sharon, and it was one of the big scandals that, while his wretched wife was dying, Geoffrey spent more time in Sharon's house than he did in his own. He moved in for good about six months after Vivienne's death.' She sighed again. 'The whole business upset Geoffrey's children terribly. He had two teenage daughters who refused to acknowledge that Sharon even existed.'

'Did they move in with her as well?'

'No. They stayed across the road and took care of themselves. It was all very sad. They had virtually no contact with Geoffrey afterward except to post the gas and electricity bills through his door. I think they blamed him for their mother's death.'

'I suppose we all lash out when we're hurt,' I said, thinking of Jock and his parents. 'It's human nature.'

'They were very quiet girls ... rather too quiet, I always thought. I can't ever remember seeing them laugh. They started caring for their mother when they were much too young, of course. It meant they were never able to make friends with their own age group.'

'Do you remember their names?'

'Oh Lord, now you're asking.' She pondered for a moment, then shook her head. 'No, dear, I'm sorry. They were pretty girls with blond hair and blue eyes ... always reminded me of Barbie dolls.'

'You said they were teenagers when their mother died. Late teens or early teens?'

'I think the elder was fifteen and the younger thirteen.'

I did some mental arithmetic. 'So they'd have been eleven and nine when Annie died?'