Clifford is inspecting a card very closely. He is so engrossed that he doesn’t seem to hear her.
‘SOMEONE’S BIRTHDAY, RUSTY?’ Biddy bellows.
Clifford’s entire body jolts with surprise. He drops the card then bends down to pick it up, inadvertently bumping into a wicker basket containing bags of kindling.
‘Mine,’ he says, then, ‘Sorry,’ (to the basket).
‘Yours?’ Biddy scowls.
Clifford clumsily retrieves the card.
‘The day before yesterday.’ Clifford nods.
(Oh God! The day of the landslip! I have forgotten Clifford’s birthday again, dammit!) ‘It’s visible from space,’ he adds, as a somewhat lacklustre afterthought, ‘the Great Wall.’
‘Happy birthday for … for …’ I start to murmur, agonized.
‘Are you planning on getting yourself a card, Rusty?’ Biddy wonders, with a supercilious smirk.
‘Uh … no.’
Clifford puts the card back down on to the rack.
‘Thank you,’ he mutters.
‘Because you’re two days late!’ Biddy delivers her ringing punch-line with considerable pizzazz.
‘I was actually just after some … uh … matches.’ Clifford grabs a pile of kindling and then moves over towards the ‘shop’ section of the store. There he grabs a packet of Tuc biscuits and proceeds to the counter which is currently vacant because Biddy is in the P.O.
Biddy snorts, amused, then checks the weight of my letter on her scales and inspects her list of foreign postal prices.
‘I’d be scared stiff to go to bed at night,’ she murmurs, neatly tearing a small selection of stamps from their sheets, ‘I mean you can never be sure. A bit of heavy rain and the clay just … it just slips. And there goes your home! Off a cliff! A high cliff! Into the sea! Everything you own – everything you’ve worked for – all gone! Kaput!’
‘And an airmail sticker, please,’ I remind her.
‘Poor Dr and Mrs Bassett lost the best part of their front kitchen. She said they found the cat in a cupboard almost half-dead with fear.’
‘They were up most of the night calling for it.’ I nod.
‘For the life of me I don’t know why the council doesn’t do more to enforce the demolition order,’ she tuts.
‘Tilda’s place is still perfectly livable,’ I interrupt, ‘and the Bassetts haven’t actually occupied the front kitchen since the last big drop …’
‘You’re all nutty as fruitcakes!’ Biddy mutters, pushing over the stamps and the sticker. ‘That’s two pounds and seventy pence please, Carla.’
I pass her the money, then quickly affix the stamps.
‘Well I suppose we should all just be grateful that nobody was actually hurt on this occasion,’ she concedes, generously.
‘Yes. We should. We are. Thanks.’
‘Although it’s only a question of time if you ask me,’ Biddy persists. ‘There’s no point fighting against nature, Carla. I say that as someone who spent much of their childhood in India – Bangladesh as it now is. The Indians respect Mother Nature. Don’t have any other choice. They know, first-hand, what she’s capable of.’
She hands me my change.
‘I’m sure that’s very true,’ I concede, limply (and I am, too).
Without prior warning, Biddy’s disapproving radar suddenly shifts focus and is now centred on the hapless Clifford.
‘Enjoying that, are we, Rusty?’ she demands, scowling.
Clifford has idly picked up a copy of the local paper from the shop counter and is blankly perusing the front page. He quickly throws it down with a stuttered, ‘Nnn … n … no!’
(Biddy, who was once the headmistress of our local primary school, traumatized several generations of small children with her searching questions, her piercing looks and her perpetual air of slight disapproval until a stubborn hip injury put an end to her reign of terror in 1978 or thereabouts.)
I turn for the door, muttering my thanks, but Biddy stops me in my tracks.
‘Shall I put that in the post-bag?’ she asks, reaching out for the letter. I hand it over, somewhat regretfully (it never feels like you’ve actually sent a letter until it’s been shoved into the hungry mouth of a bright, red postbox. Oh well).
I thank Biddy again and start for the exit. I am actually through the door (jingle-jingle!) and halfway across the little car park before Clifford finally catches up with me, as he inevitably must.
‘I left my stuff on the counter,’ he pants. He is still holding the Tuc biscuits.
‘You’ve still got the Tuc biscuits,’ I observe.
‘Damn.’
Clifford inspects the Tuc biscuits, foiled.
‘You’d better go back in,’ I caution him, ‘or Biddy will eat you alive.’
‘Yes.’ He nods, not moving.
I am about to go on to apologize for not responding to his calls (and his visit etc.) when I can’t help but notice the new jumper he’s wearing, partially hidden under his scruffy, khaki work coat. It’s a pure horror: a fashionable Pringle; pale yellow in the main, the front a vile knitted patchwork of interconnected pink, white and mauve diamonds.
I instinctively wince. ‘Birthday present?’ I ask.
‘Alice.’ He nods. ‘She was so pleased with it – cost her almost a week’s wages. I just didn’t have the …’
‘Does it fit properly?’
I push back the frayed sleeve of his work coat and pull away, worriedly, at the cuff. There’s not so much as a millimetre of give.
‘It’s a bit snug,’ he concedes.
‘Isn’t that interfering with your circulation?’ I wonder.
‘I have no feeling in my hands,’ he confirms.
‘Can you actually get it off?’
‘Nope,’ he sighs. ‘It’ll tear when I do. So I’m just keeping it on for as long as I possibly can.’
‘I did that with a sticking plaster once after a polio injection at school,’ I fondly reminisce, ‘and I developed blood poisoning.’
‘I remember.’ He nods.
‘How high can you lift your arms?’
With considerable difficulty he lifts them to a 65-degree angle.
‘There are two tiny holes at the armpit and the elbow,’ he explains, ‘which have allowed a certain amount of flexibility.’
‘You need to get it off, quick,’ I warn him. ‘Isn’t it difficult to breathe?’
‘I feel entombed’ – he nods – ‘like an Egyptian mummy. Although it’s fine,’ he rallies, ‘so long as I don’t over-exert myself.’
‘But what if you get a call out for the lifeboat?’ I demand.
He shrugs.
‘There are little marks on the side of your neck,’ I observe, with increasing concern, ‘little welts. It’s like …’ I shudder. ‘It’s like an expensive, lambswool python has swallowed you up, whole.’
‘I tried to get it off this morning,’