“It’ll be tough for Tanya.” Jude shook her head sadly. “It’s always tough to bring up a kid on your own.”
Her sympathy sounded so heartfelt that Carole wondered whether that too came from personal experience. Had Jude been a mother? Carole still knew almost nothing about her neighbour’s background. Whenever they got on to personal matters, however much she tried to resist the temptation, Carole always seemed to end up talking about herself.
And there does come a point when you know someone too well to be able to ask about the basic facts of their life. Carole had decided she’d have to set up a dinner party for Jude and a couple of the nosier denizens of Fethering. The village was rich in the expertly curious. Yes, if she invited people who hadn’t met the newcomer before, they might be able to winkle out all the details that Carole had so signally failed to uncover. It remained deeply frustrating for her to know so little.
Recognizing that she wasn’t going to get any more of Jude’s history at that point, Carole moved the conversation on. “What’s sad about the whole Rory Turnbull story is that his plan was so preposterous. The chances of it working even first time round were minimal. I’m sure a basic post-mortem would have revealed the burnt-out body wasn’t his. And by the time the corpse was a week old, he had no chance of getting away with it.”
Jude shook her head grimly. “But by then he was so caught up in his plan that he couldn’t let go.”
“He’d already committed murder, apart from anything else,” said Ted. “He had to go through with it.”
“But why go through all that rigmarole? Why on earth didn’t he just dump his wife and go off with a younger woman – like thousands of other married men before him?” asked Carole, with the bitterness of experience.
“You underestimate the hold Barbara had on him. I asked him that very question in Tanya’s flat and I’ve never seen a man’s face lose colour the way his did. He was literally terrified of his wife.”
Another tremor passed through Ted Crisp’s body. “Sorry. Man thing again.”
They heard the pub door open. Spot on cue, Bill Chilcott appeared. As ever, he was dressed in quasi-nautical style. And there was a smug smile on his root vegetable face. “Evening, mine host.”
“Evening, Bill.” There was a mumble of greetings from the others. “Your customary half?”
“I thank you kindly. And my customary half-hour away from my other half – from the little woman, that is.” Bill Chilcott chuckled, then turned to Jude. “Or is it politically incorrect to make such a remark in the presence of a liberated woman
“I can assure you, it’s no more politically incorrect than anything else I’ve heard you say.”
Carole held her breath, but Jude’s accompanying sweet smile somehow convinced Bill Chilcott that what she’d said was a compliment. “Oh well, there you go. Of course, I’ve never spoken a word of criticism of Sandra. She’s extremely attractive and highly intelligent – for a woman.”
Over Bill’s chuckle, Ted passed across the ‘customary half. “You seem remarkably chipper this evening.”
“Yes, well, I do have the satisfaction of having achieved a small victory.” He beamed, waiting to be prompted to his revelation.
Carole obliged. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Denis Woodville, by any chance, would it?”
“As a matter of fact it would. A small matter of trespass. I have warned the old fool often enough. He can’t claim to be surprised by what’s happened.”
“So what did happen?” Carole asked dutifully.
“You know he’s had that wretched dinghy cluttering up his front garden for months?”
“Yes.”
“Apparently he’s trying to sell it now. Fallen on hard times, I’m afraid, our Mr Woodville. Insufficient pension arrangements.” The complacency with which this was said left no doubt that Bill and Sandra Chilcott’s pension arrangements were immaculate. “Can’t even afford to pay for the boat’s space at the Yacht Club. That’s rather funny, isn’t it? Calls himself Vice-Commodore and puts on airs and excludes perfectly qualified yachtsmen from Fethering Yacht Club membership” – he spluttered at the recollection, but quickly recovered himself – “and yet he can’t afford even to keep his own boat there.”
“So what happened?” asked Carole, keen to cut through the gloating to the facts.
“Someone came to see the dinghy this afternoon with a view to buying it and, in the course of the potential purchaser’s inspection, the boat got movecj around a bit.” Bill Chilcott snickered in anticipation of his pay-off. “In fact, it was left with six inches of the mast projecting over the hedge into our garden. Which, as I have made clear to Mr Woodville on numerous occasions, constitutes an act of trespass. Well, you’ll never guess what I did…”
No one gave him the satisfaction of a response, so he had to deliver his punchline unprompted. “I got a hacksaw…and I cut off the offending six inches of mast!” He looked round for response. “Then I threw the offcut into Mr Woodville’s front garden. Result – end of trespass!”
He rubbed his hands together gleefully and burst out laughing at the extent of his own cleverness. As he laughed and laughed, his tuber face took on the aspect of a white-rooted beetroot.
Carole, Jude and led Crisp didn’t share the joke. They exchanged looks, and all their thoughts went along the front to the Fethering Yacht Club. There they imagined the plotting of revenge by the Vice-Commodore and his band of cronies. Wartime parallels would be being drawn, cunning deeds of sabotage recalled to provide the means for Denis Woodville to get his own back. And no doubt someone would be recalling a similar incident that happened while he was stationed out in Singapore.
The feud between Bill Chilcott and the Vice-Commodore would go on until one or other of them died, and even then the badmouthing would continue until all three – including Sandra – were dead. The two old men’s cooperation to save Nick Kent might never have happened.
The old ways of Fethering had reasserted themselves. As they always did. As they always would. Senior citizens would continue to weave their strange square dance around the pillars of Allinstore. Bill Chil-cott would appear in the Crown and Anchor at the same moment every evening for his ‘customary half. And in the Fethering Yacht Club the Vice-Commodore and his cronies would detail how much better a place the world would be if only they were in charge of it.
And Dylan, or someone like him, would be there as a hazard to the young people of the area. And peer pressure and consumerism would work their evil, and most of the young would survive them, and develop into adults no worse and no better than the current residents of Fethering.
But there’d be a few casualties. Like Aaron Spal-ding. And Sam Kent.
And Rory Turnbull. A dreamer, consumed – literally – by the fantasy that he could change everything in his life by one final throw of the dice.
For the remainder of his customary half-hour in the Crown and Anchor that evening, Bill Chilcott continued to recapture details of his triumph, unaware of, or unworried by, the lack of response from those around him. Then, having rationed his half-pint by the minutest calibrations of sips, he looked at his watch. “Still, better go back to the little woman. Time, tide and Sandra wait for no man, eh?” He chortled. “So…cheerio, ladies. And cheerio, mine host.”
“Good night,” Ted Crisp called out to the closing door, adding without enthusiasm, “See you tomorrow.”
“God,” said Carole, “it’s so petty. Why don’t they just stop the whole feud?”
“Because they enjoy it,” replied Jude. “Only thing that keeps them alive – well, together with the line–dancing and the swimming in the Chilcotts’ case.”
“Yes, you’re probably right. Depressing, isn’t it?”
A melancholy had settled on them. Ted Crisp tried to break it with forced geniality. “Hold it right there – as the bishop said to the actress. What we all need is another drink. What d’you reckon? Landlord’s treat again.”
“Really?” Jude grinned. “You know, you always say that as if it’s rarer than a total eclipse of the sun. And yet you keep on doing it. You keep on buying us drinks. Your trouble, Ted, is that beneath that gruff exterior, you’re a total pussycat.”
He looked at her belligerently. “If you wasn’t a woman, you wouldn’t get away with saying that. Now do you want this bloody drink or not?”
“Oh, certainly. I’ll seize the moment while it lasts. Large white wine, please.”
“Carole?”
She looked at her watch. “No, thanks, Ted. Better get back. I’m expecting a phone call.”
“If you’re not there, they’ll call back some other time, won’t they?” As Carole rose from her seat, Jude grinned one of her big, easy grins.
Carole was torn. There was no phone call she was expecting. All that lay ahead of her was an evening
