Then, at last, the screaming stopped. I let out a heavy sigh. I slowly pulled back the blanket and peeped my eyes out from under the quilt. It was as though nothing had ever happened.
Until I saw her.
At the window was an old woman. Toothless, black-eyed with white wirey hair, a tatty black shawl round her haggard shoulders. She looked me dead in the eyes, her bony arm slowly lifting upwards, and that was when I realized she was hovering.
‘AWAY!’ I shouted.
My mouth clammed up once more. Her arms reached higher and higher until she rolled her fragile hand into the shape of a fist, about the same size as a small plum and she knocked.
And knocked.
And knocked.
Three times in total and then pointed her finger, straight at me, her nail shooting into the glass like a warning. I looked down the bandage around my hand I had used to cover my wound from Mozart–it was drenched in thick red blood. A tremendous pang weighed me down, filling my larynx with a cloggy bogginess, unsure of what this feeling was leading me to believe, it crept up on me like hands in the dark and something made me think–it was my turn.
I woke up to the sound of the bin men arguing with the neighbours. My bed was a damp nest of perspiration and muck. The white sheets had changed to a murky sour colour, the corners of the pillows like smokers’ lampshades. I got up out of the dismal filthy pit and thought about making coffee. Last night’s incident was nothing but a nightmare, my life was not fiction, this was not a storybook, this was nothing but a calculation of the mind.
I finished my coffee in the chair by the window. Mozart was still distressed from last night’s activity and was shaking himself into a fuzzy ball underneath my footstool. This made everything only too real for me to deal with. My hand throbbing away in its bandage and I knew I needed to talk to someone about this. I decided to call the vicar. I wasn’t religious but it seemed only appropriate. I found his telephone number in my address book under ‘V’, Vicar Doddley, written in pencil. I dialled his number and waited for the for his voice.
We met later that day at the entrance to the park. The vicar was early as was I.
‘Shall we walk?’ he asked. ‘I know a sweet little teashop nearby.’
The vicar pushed his bicycle by the side of the river, the sunshine beaming off the spokes. The elderflowers candied the air like billowing perfume of a fat aunty. The geese gossiped over crusts.
‘Something strange happened to Mozart and me last night, Vicar. I had gone to bed, and I heard this strange wailing; it was sharper than a dog cry, almost the fix between an owl’s hoot and a woman’s moaning more like a…’
‘Foxes!’ the vicar sussed. ‘It’s foxes. My wife and I had a similar anxiety until not so long ago, it is—’
‘Wait,’ I interrupted. ‘When I looked to the window I saw—’
‘Good grief, look–it’s Sally-Anne Reeves, Betty and Colin Reeve’s little one. Well, she’s not little anymore…Sally-Anne, Sally-Anne, over here, my love!’ The vicar jumped up and down to get the young girl’s attention, ‘Her parents own the little trinket shop, you know the one?’ He began peering up on his stretched legs like a small yapping dog. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Jim? It’s just I haven’t seen her in such a long time! Sally-Anne, over here!’
‘No, not at all.’ I kicked the soil with my feet and bent down to give Mozart a stroke. Sally-Anne strode over; she was confidently flirtatious even in her walk.
‘Good afternoon, Vicar, how are you? And…?’
‘Yes, this is my very good friend, Mr Jim Beam.’
‘As in the Jim Beam?’
I shake my head.
‘I like whisky,’ Sally-Anne smiled, and twisted a dark lock of hair around her finger.
‘Sally-Anne Reeves, surely you don’t. That’s a gentleman’s refreshment. Next you’ll be saying you like beer!’ The vicar laughed off his disapproval awkwardly, his mouth bent like a wire hanger slurping in his drool. He mopped his brow with an embroidered handkerchief and made his lips into a little funnel allowing a hoot of air to hush out of it. Sally-Anne crinkled her nose into a perky little shape that happened to be quite charming and her eyes, quite almond-shaped, looked into my soul and unpicked a few stitches. I decided I fancied her slightly.
‘So where are the two of you troublemakers off to?’ She winked at me, pulling me in on the joke.
‘Troublemakers!’ the vicar squealed. ‘I don’t think that we’ll be seeing any trouble from me, not as long as the Lord is watching!’ The vicar panicked under the beautiful scrutiny of Sally-Anne, his nimble hands locked into a prayer position before again making good use of his handkerchief.
‘We’re going to have tea,’ I answered, not wanting to neglect Sally-Anne.
‘Yes, we’re having tea at the sweet little teashop in the park. Do you know it?’
‘Well, I was passing through that way anyway to meet a girlfriend. Perhaps I could join your walk?’ Sally-Anne smiled, her teeth as perfect as the white picket fence I could see framing the home we shall live in for the rest of our lives together.
Sally-Anne met her friend at an indoor table and the vicar and I chose to sit outside in the sun.
‘She’s a real beauty, Jim, honestly. From one man to another, she makes me question my faith. She brings me out in these…you know…steams.’ The vicar wiped his forehead. He tried to focus on me; his blank eyes drove holes into mine. I decided it was time to draw him back to my problem.
‘Right, well, in terms of foxes, I’d say sprinkle the juice of twelve ripe lemons onto your front lawn; the smell will put them off doing their dirty business outside your home, something about the citrus. By the way, when are the Barretts back?’ the vicar asked, doing up the dorky little buttons on his jacket.
‘The day after tomorrow,’ I answered.
‘Come and see me before you go, share a tumbler of Jim Beam, Jim Beam. Tell me, before you scoot, is she looking?’
‘No, Vicar,’ I answered. She was looking at me.
The two of us left the café and made our way towards the path home. ‘Damn!’ I sighed. ‘I forgot to tip the waitress,’ I lied, clicking my fingers for dramatic effect. ‘I’d better go back.’
‘No need, I go there often, I can drop in some change tomorrow,’ the vicar offered.
‘No, it’s very rude of me. Here, take Mozart.’ I quickly took Mozart’s lead off my wrist and handed it to the vicar, ‘I’ll just run by and drop off a little bit,’ I insisted, and turned my walk into a backwards jog towards the café. ‘I’ll catch you up.’
The door fanned open and plunged at me the smell of toasted almonds, honey and coffee. Sally-Anne’s eyes hit mine like cricket balls, my eyes wanted to bleed. I acted fast, went up to the counter, tore off a piece off the corner of a receipt and hurried the waitress to find me a pen.
‘Got a biro, love, but it’s red.’
‘That’s fine, red’s fine.’ I snatched the pen away with such haste I forgot to say thank you as I squiggled my details down on the corner and called back the same waitress. ‘That girl–that woman–over there, when you give her the bill could you also please give her this? Thank you