ILLUMINATION BOOK CHAPTERS (UPDATED LIST OF CHAPTERS HERE).. ROMANTIC COMEDY — QUIRKY ROMP — CO-STARS MOOCHER THE DOG

‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ — Chapter Twelve

Two digits? Could it really be a coincidence? Really???

In the morning she was back at the computer, trying to work out how one of her clients thought he could claim for his nanny’s salary when the telephone rang. She swore but picked it up anyway and a voice said, “Hello Liz.”

The hairs on her arms, and on her legs and on her neck as well as hairs she didn’t possess, shot upright. Oh, no! This couldn’t be true. Why were they doing that? Oh, why, oh why? This was not right when the voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Hugh. She could have wailed, but she didn’t. Instead, she croaked: “Hello Hugh.” Oh, so cold, so cold, so unlike the way they’d always been before all this.

His voice immediately changed to one of warm and husky, thrilling concern: “You’ve got a cold?”

“No, no. I just need to cough. Excuse me.” Cough. Cough. Play for time. “There, that’s better. Um, what can I do for you?”

“I heard you’d had a visit from the police. Not before time either, judging by bricks through windows and heavies at the door.” This was the new Hugh all right! For one, wild ecstatic moment she thought the old Hugh had come back.

“How did you hear that? You got a mole in Malvern road?”

“Of course I have. I have to keep an eye on you. Can’t have the family name dragged through the mud.”

Ohmigod. Who was spying on her? She really needed that as well. She’d be eyeing up all the neighbours now, wondering who was the turncoat. How dare they? She lived here — they should be on her side!

“Who is it?”

“Who is what?”

“Your snake in the grass. Your mole.”

“Now be reasonable, Liz. If I told you that they would no longer be my mole would they? Where’s the point of having an undercover agent in place and then telling who it is? Wouldn’t work would it?”

He was being so very patient with her. She wasn’t at all grateful.

“Male or female.”

“Not sure.”

“Not sure? Do you mean you’ve subverted one of my neighbours and didn’t take time out to decide on their gender? Typical.”

This was met with silence. He wasn’t going to tell her.

“Do you need me to come over?”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to do that anymore? I thought you weren’t allowed to come over to this den of iniquity. And anyway, I’ve just realized what you meant about dragging the family name through the mud. I suppose I should give it up and revert to my maiden name now you’re giving it to someone else?”

More silence. She supposed it wasn’t very nice of her, but it was either get nasty or cry. He should know better than to ask whether to come over. He should have simply leaped onto his white stallion and galloped straight over without asking first. He was supposed to be her friend.

She realized how close to tears she was and how weak she felt and how lovely it would be just to lean back on him and let him sort it out. His powers of the organization were such that he would have all the answers before the kettle had boiled. How she wanted him to charge up Malvern Road on his warhorse, yelling a challenge to her enemies, coming to her rescue. But she’d given all that up. Gladly. And not only had she given it up but someone else, someone with a name like Charity had taken it up instead. It was no longer hers to lean on.

“Everything’s fine. Everything’s hunky-dory and under control. Thank you all the same. You’re very kind, but no. Thank you. Thank you all the same.”

Before-Charity, he would have said something like, “Right, I’m on my way.” He’d have thrown the phone down and she would have ranted and raved in her attic. Something like: Bloody nerve! How damn arrogant could you get? She’d made it quite clear she didn’t want him and he was coming anyway. She’d have leaped up from her chair and thrown herself down onto the carpet with Moocher. Nose to nose they’d stare into each others’ eyes. His tail would thump the rug steadily like it did when he was laughing. She would laugh too.

But not now. No. This time, After-Charity, she threw herself on the bed and cried in great, gulping, unattractive gasps of despair.

Because she finally realized that she did love him. Not as in loving him for the person, he was anyway. Anyone would do that. Anyone who met him Before-Charity would love him. No, she loved him as her husband and she wanted him back. And she wanted him back when it was too late to have him. He’d moved on, put her in his past, and found himself a new future. A new future that didn’t have her in it. And she would do nothing to jeopardize that. Because she loved him.

She wore herself out crying. Moocher even hauled himself onto her bed — forbidden territory — just to keep her company, somehow knowing he was welcome this time.

Eventually, when she was all cried out and hating herself for her stupidity, she was dragged from the pit of despair by a diffident tap on her door. This was rare. Mostly, lodgers were too terrified to come up to the attic. She leapt from the bed, Moocher scrambled off, and she sat at her desk before saying “Enter” in a very cold voice.

It was Simon, looking, if possible, even more, frightened than before. He came straight out with what was on his mind. “I’m far too old for her.”

“Yes, I think you are.” She had to agree, her brain immediately swinging back into action in quite a heartening way considering it had been at death’s door mere seconds ago. Thinking of Julie, she realized it wasn’t the age thing so much, it was that Simon lived his life assuming it was still the swinging sixties. He wore lightweight jackets that made him look like he was going on safari any minute. Also, he was obsessed with his ex and frequently had imaginary conversations with her. On the other hand, another love interest might help him out of all that. But then, why should it be someone else that got him out of it, why couldn’t it be him? Also, he might have been perfectly happy just the way he was and why should he get out of it at all?

“I agree,” she said, faltering at the complexities of the situation.

His face relaxed.

A moment of inspiration came to her. “I think she may see you as a father-figure type person, Simon, rather than as a lover.”

He looked so relieved his face nearly slid off his head. He hadn’t thought of that. His sudden urgency to beard Liz in her lair was forgotten. He nearly grinned. Good grief! He turned sharply and left. Gosh, that was an easy one. And then she remembered the finger.

“Simon!” she shouted. She listened and heard his footsteps come to a halt, turn and come back up again. His head appeared around the door, followed slowly by the rest of him.

“What was that about the finger? You did start to tell me.”

He immediately looked sheepish. “I put the finger in the fridge,” he said.

“Did you say it had something to do with the brick?”

“Yeah, it was attached to the brick with a rubber band. It was when Good-All-Rounder-Tony grabbed your arm and held you back and then you dashed out and he went off to get a vacuum cleaner — he’s not human, that man — the first thing he thought of was an electrical appliance…”

That was the longest sentence she’d ever heard from Simon. She encouraged him to continue: “Go on. What happened then?”

“It meant that I was the first to see it and when I saw it was a finger I knew straight away it was a warning message for me and I didn’t want to have to explain that publicly — not all the stuff about Stella. So I picked it up before anyone could see it. I didn’t want Julie to see it either and get upset.” He pinkened becomingly. “Of course, she did see it in the end, but I… Well… You know…”

“No, I don’t know, Simon. Why should Stella throw a finger on a brick through my window?”

“It was a message for me. I’ve told you that. She’s still trying to get money out of me. She was ‘giving me the finger’ in retaliation for my lawyer’s success last week in court.”

That startled Liz. She had no idea Simon lived in such interesting times. How could one tell when he slouched around the house the way he did, in odd shoes, spending all his time ironing his clothes and cleaning his teeth and doing the odd few moments of work on his computer? Oh, and sometimes playing the violin.

“I had no idea Stella was capable of being so, um, colorful.”

“Oh, yes! This is only the start, I’m sure. You have no idea what she’s capable of when she’s not getting her own way.”

“I just hope she doesn’t take any more liberties with my house while she’s at it then,” Liz said. “In the meantime, perhaps you could sort out with her payment of the bill for the window and pay it back to Tony?”

He nodded.

“Simon. Why did you present that finger so tidily, on a plate and everything? Why, indeed, did you keep it? Why put it in the fridge? Why didn’t you tell me about it? Especially when we were sitting around the table yesterday morning waiting to see what would happen when Tony or Julie opened the fridge. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t realize that’s what that was all about,” he said. “How was I supposed to know that’s what that was about?”

Well, yes. He had a point. It might not have been obvious. Not to Simon.

“Anyway, I’d forgotten it when I first came down.”

That was more like it. That sounded like Simon. Liz didn’t believe there was anyone else in all of human history capable of picking up a finger from brick through the window, putting it on a pretty paper plate, cling-filming it, and putting it into the fridge of a house with five people living in it and not tell one of them and go to bed and forget they’d put it there. It wasn’t possible. Unless it was Simon Medley.

“The plate was one of Lydia’s. It had ginger creams on it and I finished them and somehow must have put the plate in my pocket. So it was handy when I was wondering what to put the finger on. And of course, I cling-wrapped it. You should cover things in the fridge especially if you’re putting uncooked meat in with cooked. I thought it should go in the fridge because whatever else it might be it’s still meat isn’t it?”

She couldn’t deny it.

“But whose finger do you think it is?”

He shook his head, his hair flopping around his ears. “No idea. It won’t be anyone special’s. It’s just to send me a message. You can buy anything, you know. If you know the right place to go to, you can order anything that exists, and get it if you’re prepared to pay. Stella would know where to get body parts, I’m sure.”

How morbidly fascinating, but she had this need to know: “Simon, just where would someone obtain a finger?”

His face brightened a little. He was always pleased when asked for information or conjecture. “Oh,” he said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you couldn’t go to a particular pub and speak to a particular person who would have a cousin once removed whose brother’s wife’s son worked in the crematorium and could probably get bits to order. After all, who’s going to miss them at that point?” He gave her an approving nod as though she were a favoured pupil.

Liz wondered if that was possible. Did people do that?

“Why did you keep it?” she asked.

“It didn’t seem right to throw someone’s finger away and I thought if I left it until the morning I might think of something. You know — sleep on it.”

That figured. Sleeping on it was always a good thing to do.

“But, it’s more likely,” he added. “That Stella gained access to the anatomy department or wherever it is that they cut them up at the university, because she can, you know. And I thought if she borrowed the finger in order to make a point, as it were, to me, with it — she might need to put it back. Well, it just serves her right that there’s nothing to put back now.”

Ohmigod. Liz could find nothing to say, so she nodded.

“You all right, Liz. You look a bit pale.”

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks, Simon. I, er, I might as well tell you before anyone else does, that Hugh is engaged to be married.”

The shock on Simon’s face echoed the feeling Liz had of being kicked in her stomach because of actually saying it aloud. She’d given the notion life by uttering the words.

“He’s what?”

“He’s engaged to be married. To someone called Charity?”

“Charity?”

“Yes. Charity.”

He seemed totally pole-axed. His eyes shifted from her as if suddenly embarrassed and flicked around the attic, not really seeing anything, she was sure. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, mumbled something and left.

Liz had absolutely no idea why Simon should be so stunned and she had absolutely no inclination to try and puzzle it out. She was quite pleased with herself, though, in a sad but noble way, that she’d told him. She had started the process of moving on. Life goes on — even After-Charity.

Also, the little interlude with Simon had answered those few, trifling queries of hers although it did seem odd that two severed-finger episodes could occur in two houses that happened to have been built next to each other. It could be coincidence. But that was stretching it a bit…

Hearing a car, Liz stepped into her dormer window, her watchtower, and peered down at the road. She thought maybe she’d nightmared the last day or so and that Hugh would leap out of a stallion shaped car, swirl his cape and stride thrillingly to her front door, his chiselled features purposeful and lovely, come to sort everything out and make it all right again.

It wasn’t him. It was Clive, last seen doing the marathon run, jump and hop obstacle course down the back gardens of Malvern Road at a truly remarkable speed. He parked across the road. Damn! She’d forgotten to issue the sacred writ to her lodgers not to park outside his house. He got out, crossed the road and kicked the car outside his house. It was quite clear, the ‘thunk’. She heard it even up here through a double-glazed dormer. Had he really put that note through telling her of her flat or had it been Superpecs all along? Superpecs! She’d forgotten him. All these men about and she kept forgetting them. That was a good sign. She was obviously developing well. Life was not just about men. She knew that and now she was proving it. She allowed herself a small, satisfied sigh, not exactly of contentment, but she’d work on it. She knew her place in life and it was here. With her dog.

The only trouble with the idea of Superpecs was that she knew he peed behind his hedge whilst waving to people in the street. Oh, well.

She was glad Clive and she were on better terms, but she had a feeling that, despite all the books in his house, he really was a Git-Next-Door. Nevertheless, although she’d tried hard, petty spitefulness wasn’t really her thing. It was so wearing and you had to think about it all the time. He hadn’t been watching for them anyway — he’d been watching for thugs coming for him. That was all right then. Mind you, he had just kicked that car. Perhaps he was her ex’s mole? No, he couldn’t be. She knew men tended to stick together, but an unholy alliance between those two didn’t seem likely.

After kicking the car, Clive inspected his own gate, probably checking for scratches in the paintwork and thinking, excitedly, about touching it up. He scrutinised his miniscule, but obediently flat and forbiddingly neat lawn, and twitched away a damned cheeky chocolate wrapper that had blown in. He checked out the geometric flowerbeds surrounding the green square and pounced on something that dared to grow out of step. He wasn’t acting like he was afraid of thugs coming back for more fingers at all. She looked more closely. In fact, he looked as relaxed and content as she knew she’d be feeling just as soon as she relegated all men in her life to exactly where they belonged. Having said that, she suddenly realised what a nice rear end he had. Not bad. Not bad at all. Out of place on a Git-Next-Door type, but a nice rear end all the same. Blimey — another nice rear end. They were everywhere just at the moment.

He disappeared up his path and she heard his door shut behind him. Her gaze wandered upwards, over the rooftops. Idly she watched a lone seagull sliding down an air current, swing round and back to do it all over again. A happy creature. She could see the floodlights for after-dark cricket at the grounds, intruding into the pastel sky. Further away she could see the mast thing for television reception. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

Bringing her gaze closer to home she admired the façade of the house opposite. Three floors, red brick, dormer window in the roof-room. Handsome house. Just like hers. She shifted from foot to foot. She just knew something wasn’t right. The passers-by continued passing by — a marvellously dexterous skate-boarder, a woman carrying far too much shopping in carrier bags the handles of which she knew would have reduced to the width of garrotte wire with the inevitable effect on her fingers, a chap in a turban…

And she had it! Clive had the same or a similar, massive bandage on his hand. The same arrangement of snowy white, carefully bound bandage. You’d have thought it might have got grubby by now, especially considering his recent gymnastics. He could have changed it of course, or perhaps he’d been out to have it changed. However, as she visualised the sight of him crossing the road and fiddling about in his garden, she just knew that he had a full set of fingers on both hands. She clearly remembered him moving piles of books one handed, using his right hand. The bandage was now on his right hand. Clive had not had a finger removed with a power tool or a rusty hatchet or nibbled away in his sleep by rats. Clive was a liar. So what the devil was that all about?

And, did she really want to know?

And where the hell was her ex? He wasn’t coming. It really was all over. He really was engaged to someone called Charity. He really was beyond her reach forever. And it was all her fault. She was just stupid. Downright stupid. That bloody Charity had better sodding well appreciate him, that’s all she could say, and make him happy. Or else.

Desperately trying to think of something heartening she realised that because she’d been fool enough to believe Clive, and to sympathise with him, at least she hadn’t told the police about him losing a finger. She could just imagine the ensuing conversation when they went to check that one out and found it had miraculously grown back. Not much consolation, however, because she was in even more of a mental maze than before and getting fed up at being given the run-around. Maybe if she followed that up she could stop thinking about her lost love for a while.

She raced down the stairs with Moocher galloping behind her and shut the lobby door on him. He did his you-always-leave-me-behind, you-never-take-me-anywhere bit, which really creased her up and she had to go back and hug him several times before she could make herself leave him. She carefully shut her door, making sure it was as shut as she thought it was. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. She leapt over the wall. Banging hell out of Clive’s front door she saw his nets twitch and knew he was debating about letting her in, just knew it. If he didn’t she would launch a back garden attack. Luckily for him he opened the door.

“Well, hello, um, Liz. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you Clive, I will.” She didn’t mess about this time. She marched straight in, removed the books and sat down in the front room. “How do you feel now?” she demanded. “How’s your hand? I hope you’re having it dressed properly. Don’t want it to get infected do we? You could get gangrene and lose the whole arm. And then your shoulder. And then goodness knows where next. Do you want me to help you out? Shall I make the coffee?”

Might as well make the most of it — there was no coffee left in her house after last night. The PCs had drunk it all, spent a happy hour mocking and scoffing her and her dog and eaten all the biscuits. Mmm, coffee. She rushed out to his kitchen and put his kettle on before he could refuse. She restrained herself from poking in his cupboards, but had a good look around while he hovered in the doorway. He didn’t seem able to look directly at her. He inspected his nails and moved from foot to foot as though treading grapes.

His kitchen looked brand new. Perhaps it was, or perhaps it was never used, or perhaps it was that he was so immaculate, or perhaps it was in comparison to hers. Nothing interesting there, then. She looked through his tiny kitchen window and got a shock when she realised how much he could see through into hers. She’d never realised how one-way some of this funny glass was before, nor how two-way the glass she had previously assumed was one-way. She refused to dwell on either the state of her kitchen or the state of her sometimes when she inhabited it.

Although a chill swept over her when she remembered the odd occasions she would come down in the middle of the night when the rest of the house was asleep (even Sandra, despite her latest hot sex date). She wasn’t always conscious of the need to get dressed to do that. At that time of night honest neighbours should be asleep too. She gave Clive a very nasty look. He shrank back against the door-frame and swallowed repeatedly, a faint but noticeable flush starting up his neck, gathering pace over his cheeks and disappearing darkly into his hairline.

Back in the front room and tucking into a load of chocolate biscuits she’d found in his bread bin, she fixed him with her most piercing stare. He looked like a caterpillar pinned to his chair. “So, Clive, tell me how your hand is doing. I’m really concerned.” Yeah, really, really. She composed her face into an expression of genuine concern, but wasn’t sure it was all that convincing.

“Um, well, it’s okay. I’m a fast healer.”

“Oh, good, I’m so pleased to hear it. Tell me, do you get phantom pains in that finger? I’ve heard of this — where someone loses a limb and then they still feel pain in it. Do you?”

“Ah, no, or not yet, I haven’t. No, no, just a general discomfort as one might expect from having one’s finger removed with a power tool.”

“Was it a jig-saw? I’ve always fancied one of them, or was it more of a circular saw they used? Or perhaps a fret saw — that would be handy, wouldn’t it — just think of all the things you could make with a fret saw — fret-type things, you know.”

Sweat appeared on his forehead. He was easy prey.

Oh, the power, the power of it all.

“It was… um… it was… I’m not sure. I didn’t take note. I’m not a handy-man. It was a small sort of saw.”

“Must had been I suppose or they wouldn’t have been able to help cutting into the fingers on either side. Perhaps it was a sort of drill or a miniature road thumper type thingy. Did they drill it off, or just squash it a lot ’til it fell off or was it actually a cut type action? Or a hacking, axe-like motion?”

More sweat trickled down from the roots of his fair, floppy hair, remarkably like Simon Medley’s now she looked at it. Simon’s hair was very fine too, like a baby’s, so it looked like he had millions of hairs on his head instead of the usual number, whatever that was.

With a suddenness that startled her into dropping her half eaten, seventh biscuit — you get into the habit of counting when you share a house — onto the floor, Clive leapt out of his chair and grasping his bandage, yanked it off in one smooth motion and hurled it at the wall. It thudded off and slid down to disappear behind a pile of books.

Liz had no qualms, in this house, of just picking up her dropped biscuit and finishing it off. In her house she would have ended up choking on fur balls for a week. She picked up another, the very picture of casual unconcern.

“There! See. Yes, I’ve got all my fingers. Are you satisfied now?” He fidgeted from foot to foot, his hands inches from her face.

She went for another biscuit. Might as well make the best of the situation. “I’m waiting for an explanation, you know, Clive, or whoever you are.” She said it as coldly as she could considering she had a mouthful of chocolate crunch.

“We, the thugs and I, came to an agreement that they would pretend they’d sawn my finger off.”

“Why?” She imagined it would be because part-time thugs didn’t expect finger-severing to be part of the job. It seemed more of a full-time thug type activity.

“Because they didn’t want to do it,” he said.

“You’re telling me the tiresome threesome got squeamish about it?”

“No, they forgot to bring the saw.”

The world was full of incompetents these days.

“They could have used the bread knife.”

He recoiled from her and dropped into his chair.

“I don’t think they thought of that. They didn’t seem awfully bright.”

“Tell me, why were you so afraid when they came back then? Why did you run away?”

“I thought they’d changed their minds and come back with the saw.”

Yes, that would explain it.

“You have no idea how worried I was that it was your finger that Moocher ate.”

He froze and looked at her as though she’d just sprouted a waist length beard with rats and snakes nesting in it. “Your dog… Your dog ate someone’s finger?”

“Yes. I didn’t tell you because I thought it was yours. I thought it would be in bad taste.”

“How very sensitive of you,” he said.

Liz gave him the benefit of her coldest glare. “So, what about this big secret you’ve been keeping to yourself for years? Why aren’t they still trying to get that from you?”

“They made a mistake. It’s not me they want after all.”

“As easy as that. One minute you’re terrorised for a secret, the next it’s all a big mistake and someone else was supposed to be terrorised for it instead. Oh, come on! Do you have a big secret or don’t you?”

“We all have secrets. Some bigger than others.”

Liz couldn’t argue with that, but neither could she think of any secrets she had that someone would cut off her finger to get at. And anyway, they hadn’t cut his finger off. She was getting that now-familiar feeling of frustration again.

“So, do you know whose finger was in our fridge?” She already knew since Simon explained it, but she wanted to see if she could get anything else out of Clive and couldn’t think how else to keep the conversation going. Also, now she’d had some time for reflection she wasn’t totally convinced by the Stella explanation. It could still be nothing to do with her.

“You had someone’s finger in your fridge?”

“Yes.”

“It was this someone’s finger that Moocher ate?”

“Yes.” She was a bit concerned now. At least if it had been Clive’s finger she could have been certain it was clean. Still, Moocher didn’t seem to have suffered from his first taste of finger food and maybe a bit of dirt was better for him than disinfectant.

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I don’t know whose finger it was in your fridge. That Moocher ate.”

She knew that forever more she’d be acutely suspicious of anyone she met with a missing finger. She also would now spend her whole time assessing all her neighbours in Malvern Road both for missing digits and to see if they looked like moles for her ex — ones she didn’t already know about, that was. She already knew Melanie — who didn’t know she knew — rang him up whenever she thought he ought to know something. Melanie was keen on the idea of them getting back together again. Sadly, Liz realised she’d need to let her know she’d have to stop. It wasn’t fair to Hugh — or to that Charity person. She wrenched her mind back to matters at hand.

“So, none of the finger stuff or the part time thugs has got anything to do with you? It was all a mistake and we’re none the wiser. You don’t know why they wanted my lodger, Simon Medley?”

“No.”

Perhaps it was all to do with Stella, then. Deep in thought she reached for another biscuit. Her hand came back empty.

Biscuits all gone.

Might as well go home.

Chapter Eleven of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ is here!

Chapter Thirteen of ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ will be here next week!

All ‘White Lies and Custard Creams’ chapters to read are here.

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