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In Vera's debt
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2022-01-06 13:59:05I decided that turning up at the pub, drinking a sherry and going home again, was a compromise I could deal with. She would doubtless ride.
I walked home via the stables and dropped in on Sid. I had to tell her that Vera was looking for a lover. But Sid was busy reading stories and being a mother and housewife. I popped next door, to give her time to get straight, but Charley kept me busy a long time.
When I finally walked home the pub was shutting. I hated walking in the gloom when strangers were around. Strangers? The village has enough of its own home grown scrumpy-head loonies. Why be scared of the visiting ones?
Most of all I was scared of the hunt. That was new territory and I had never dreamt I would cross the threshold into the biggest openly flaunted symbol of plutocracy in these fair isles.
I needed Sid to walk with me. What would my severest critic have said?
'I am excited and flattered that Vera is so keen on my ideas for disbursing the
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I didn’t go home, but round to Charley’s stable apartment. He was just making his industrial-strength tea. Once settled with a full mug, I came to the point.'What do you know about Vera not riding with the hunt today?''She no longer has a horse. I mean she has plenty but her grey hunter is gone.''What? Explain!''Sold it, I think - yesterday a man in a van from Lowestoft came to collect it. She told me to sign the paperwork and put the company stamp on what looked to me, like a bill of sale.''Why did a numpty oik like you have to sign?''Steady with the abuse. I’m a trusted employee.''Course you are, but that is a bit strange.''And she was a bit attached to the horrible nag. She came the evening before to say goodbye and give me instructions - there were floods of tears - then she fled.'I was silent while we supped tea. I was in shock. Why would she offload a beast she was so fond of? I broke the
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Day 331. Friday.Nearly a year has gone by and much has happened.My Diary. I shall never show Vera this diary and she will never ask to see it. It’s better that way. It’s behind us.Vera’s pregnancy. Nothing to report. She either got carried away with her diagnosis, she was lying for reasons only known to her, or she lost the baby. Whatever, if she wants to talk about it, she will. She doesn’t seem fussed, now she has Sid in bed and Tom and Sandra to mother.But why would she lie about that? I have my theory (as always).Charley saw himself as the surrogate father and would never have let the children down. Only by bringing Charley into the house, could she hope to get Sid and the children for herself. Trying to exclude Charley was too risky. He would certainly have been hurt after all he had done for them and may have l
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'A lot has happened since then. I expected more recent thoughts.''It all has to start at that point. If we extrapolate back from all points around today’s Lower Butts, we end up at that fateful morning. That’s where big bang happened. Let’s start at that moment. We can consider distance travelled since then.''That’s fine by me,' she affirmed.'I’m going to assume that you knew Sid had lesbian leanings. I wasn’t sure. You were!'I waited for confirmation. She remained quiet so I took that as a ‘yes,’ and proceeded.'You wanted her and you wanted the children she looked after, so you hired me so that you could have contact without your scheme becoming obvious to the outside world.'Vera stiffened, sitting upright like a governess wanting to make a good impression. She still said nothing.'Then you moved the Walker children into the stable apartments - with good reason I hasten to add. Ch
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Day 64.Friday. I’ve slept on it and decided I’ll have to ask Vera for her version of events, woman to woman, two friends together. It’s the only way to lay the ghost of Sonya’s ramblings. Should I tell her the full Sonya version? We could have a laugh about it. I didn’t. You can’t laugh about the death of two destitute alcoholics, who had once been the kindest, softest villagers - according to village lore that is. I’d never known them and only spoken to them the few times this summer. The walk up to the House after work that day was the loneliest I’d known. I didn’t notice the late summer colours forming, the swifts collecting on the electricity cables, chattering and practising their departure, the squirrels hunting nuts, and the chill in the air as the autumn mists collected over the sea. It must have all been there. It’s there every October. This was the first October that I had carried such a
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