LITMIR.BIZ

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… um … I must be on my way. Barry’s a stickler for his tea.’

      Oh God, why had she said that? What an awful picture of their life it painted, and their life was happy, wasn’t it? Marigold made it worse by commenting on it. Well, she would. She liked Marigold, but it was small wonder that three husbands had walked out on her.

      ‘Oh well,’ said Marigold Boyce-Willoughby. ‘You’d best be on your way. Mustn’t keep a stickler waiting.’

      She would forgive the sarcasm, under the circumstances. After all, she was a Christian … a long while ago.

      She walked on, on on on, as it felt. She passed the post office, and the forbidden territory of William Hill, never been in, couldn’t, imagine what folk would say! ‘I saw Sally Mottram in William Hill’s. She was pretending she didn’t know how to fill in a betting slip. Didn’t fool me. She’s a secret gambler.’

      There is no sense of an incline in Potherthwaite High Street when you walk from west to east, but Sally found her legs growing tense and weary as she climbed gently from east to west. Surely the incline that day was just a little steeper than usual? She found herself wondering if the High Street was a geological oddity, level in one direction, uphill in the other.

      She crossed the road. It was an entirely negative move, symbolic of Potherthwaite. She wanted to avoid walking on the edge of the waste ground, which stood like two missing front teeth in the unsmiling mouth of High Street West. The local department store, Willis and Frond, had failed seven years ago. The failure had been followed by several years of fierce lethargy, but now there were plans to pull down the adjoining delicatessen – yes, it was called ‘The Potherthwaite Deli’ – and build a large supermarket on the site. She shuddered. Potherthwaite already had a supermarket, tucked away at the head of the valley, beyond the allotments. It didn’t need two.

      She hated walking on the edge of that gaping pit, not because she might fall into it – a criss-cross of barriers had been erected by the Overkill Department of the Health and Safety Office – but because she wouldn’t be able to resist looking down and seeing all the rubbish people had dumped there. Her neighbour referred to it as Condom and Coca-Cola Corner. It made her feel so angry that she could scarcely breathe.

      Ahead of her, the removals van had its right-hand indicators on. It was going to turn in to the cul-de-sac. Some lucky people were going to move, escape from Potherthwaite, settle in or near Chichester. Hayling Island, perhaps, the gentle waves dappled with sunlight; the weather was different down south.

      Luke Warburton, Johnny Blackstock and Digger Llewellyn were playing on the waste ground, idly kicking an empty Diet Coke tin around, bored out of their tiny minds in this tiny-minded town. Ben Wardle, that strange boy, appeared to be building a column of stones, placing a stone rather perilously on the top with infinite care. Johnny Blackstock, for whom the word ‘unstrange’ might have to be invented, strolled over and kicked the stones down. Luke Warburton and Digger Llewellyn thought this the funniest thing they had ever seen. Sally hurried on.

      Mrs Oughtibridge – Sally was no longer religious, she didn’t believe in miracles, but it was almost a miracle that there was a Mr Oughtibridge – condemned all youngsters as wastrels, pointing out that there was a perfectly good youth club to which they never went. Sally hadn’t liked the little drama played out on the waste ground, but she had some sympathy for them. When she was their age she wouldn’t have been seen dead in a youth club, particularly a perfectly good one. Sometimes, when she was young, she had been naughty. She hadn’t been naughty now for twenty-five years. She didn’t think she would ever be naughty again. She did have thoughts, she was still attractive and attracted, but she dismissed them. Barry might not be the most vibrant man in the world, or even in Potherthwaite, or even for that matter in Oxford Road, or even the south side of Oxford Road. He didn’t go in for dramatic or romantic gestures. Men who are sticklers for their tea usually don’t. But he was a good man. Suddenly she felt that she wanted to get home, hoped he’d be back early, loved him in her way.

      She crossed the road again, deftly dodging the slow-moving traffic. The removals van had disappeared into the cul-de-sac.

      She passed ‘Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow’ – how she hated attempts at funny names for small businesses. She passed ‘The Kosy Korner Kafé’, on the corner of Canal Road which led to Canal Basin, the town’s minuscule red-light district.

      She took a brief glance up the cul-de-sac, being mildly keen, in the dreary waste of that long, grey, almost motionless, late afternoon, to discover the identity of the lucky people who were leaving stony-faced Potherthwaite for the sunny environs of Chichester.

      The big double doors at the back of the van were down, and the first items of furniture were being removed and taken into one of the semi-detached, Gothic-windowed old Victorian town houses in Potherthwaite’s Conservation Area. These were not lucky people at all. They were either deeply unfortunate people or really rather thick people. They were moving from the exciting creeks of Chichester Harbour to the cul-de-sac under Baggit Moor. Sally thought, from the position of the van, that they must be moving into number 9.

      She should have realized that at five o’clock a furniture van would be delivering, not arriving to load up, but the sight of the van had set her thoughts rolling in a familiar direction, that of escape down south, and there had been no room for even the consideration of people moving to Potherthwaite from anywhere, let alone Sussex. As she stood staring at the furniture being removed, she was actually seeing that mythical day when her furniture van would set off, taking Barry and her down south, to glorious Godalming perhaps, or even cloistered Chichester.

      But her fantasy didn’t last long. Barry would never move; he had his solid little business, his valued clients. He wasn’t one for grand gestures or for brave moves, and she could never leave him.

      As she passed the turning into Cadwallader Road – how did they choose these street names? Cadwallader was absurd, it was a street of small terrace houses – she glanced at number 6 as usual. The curtains were closed in the front room. Sally always glanced at those curtains. It saddened her when they were closed, and cheered her when they were open, which was ridiculous, because Ellie Fazackerly was bedridden, had been for years – how many? Didn’t bear thinking about – couldn’t get up to see the view, not that you would want to see the view even if you could, but Sally was a humane person and she couldn’t bear to think of poor Ellie Fazackerly, trapped in her bed, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, always. Of course a lot of people didn’t feel sorry for Ellie. All her own fault. Brought it on herself. Saw her eat seven pies in half an hour once.

      But Sally did feel sorry, and she thought of calling on Ellie, helping a few of those minutes to pass. But Barry was a stickler for his tea, however unwise it was to broadcast the fact, and he was a good man, on balance, and not every woman could say that about her husband.

      She was coming to the edge of the town centre now, and High Street West was beginning to lose what little charm it had. To the right was Vernon Road, home to three adjacent Indian restaurants, the Old Bengal, the New Bengal (family feud) and the Taj Mahal. Already the smell of frying spices was drifting in the evening breeze. On the end wall of a Chinese takeaway, beneath a window beyond which rows of cheap pink clothes were hanging, someone had sprayed ‘Immirgants Go Home’ in angry black.

      Now, at a confusing mini-roundabout, High Street West breathed its last. To the left were allotments, extensive, too extensive for these busy times, sadly. Many of them were badly cared for, and quite a few were unoccupied. Beyond them was only the supermarket and its huge car park, and then the bare inhospitable hills marked the head of the Pother Valley.

      To the right, the moment you left the remnants of High Street West, you were suddenly in smarter territory. The houses were larger than anywhere else in the town, most of them were detached, and two or three even had swimming pools, which was ridiculous in that climate. Even the occasional solar panel spoke of wild optimism.

      Now the road forked. Sally took the right-hand fork, along Oxford Road. Beyond the road, at the head of the valley, high above the rushing streams

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