Be Careful What You Wish For

Madi felt in her coat pocket. The keys! Of course, she still didn’t have them. ‘Turn left out of the gate,’ Prue’s email had instructed, ‘and take the lane up to the left when you see the church. You’ll find the new vets’ surgery up ahead of you. Just ask for Sian.’

She retraced her steps down the path and turned left, as instructed, taking in the large stone-built house next door with its frilly net curtains and sturdy oak door, and the smaller, more modern pair of semi-detached houses beyond it. Every building different. As luck would have it, the little church was built at the top of an incline and the lane beside it seemed to have stayed relatively dry, all the rain and hence the mud having run straight down and accumulated in a giant squelchy mess at the bottom. Presumably the church services were over for the day as there was nobody about, but it sounded as if someone was still inside, practising their bell ringing, as a mix of disconnected chimes rang out haphazardly from the tower, not quite making anything resembling a tune. Madi picked her way around the mud, staying close to the hedge at the side, and slowly made her way to the surgery.

An old dog gazed up at her as she entered, its front paw bandaged, its elderly owner sitting with his knees wide apart, hunched forward and flicking through a magazine with a photo of a tractor on its cover. There were no other animals, or people, waiting, but it was a Sunday, so it was quite surprising to find the place open at all.

‘Hello. Can I help you?’ The girl behind the reception desk looked up from her computer screen, put down the biscuit she had been nibbling and wiped her fingers on the front of her green tabard.

‘Yes, I’m looking for Sian.’

‘That’s me.’ The girl’s face cracked into a smile. ‘Oh, you must be Prue’s visitor!’

‘Yes. Madalyn Cardew.’

‘I’m sorry, I’d expected you to be …’ The girl didn’t finish her sentence, just looked away for a moment, leaving Madi wondering just what it was about her that was so obviously not as expected. ‘You’ll be after the keys, right? Hang on a minute and I’ll walk down with you, show you around the place. How to work the fire and stuff like that. Prue’s left you a few bits – milk and bread –but you’ll probably be wanting to visit the shop for supplies in the morning, so I can show you where that is too.’

‘There’s no need. Honestly.’ Madi tried to be polite but she really didn’t need some stranger accompanying her everywhere. ‘I’ll find my own way around. And I have food. So, if I could just have the keys …’

‘Right-o. If you’re sure.’ The girl stood up, went to a back room and came back with a wax jacket, then rummaged about in the depths of its enormous pockets before finding the key ring and brandishing it aloft. ‘Got them! This big long one is for the front door, and the smaller round one for the back. Not sure about the little tiny one. I’m sure you’ll figure that out though if it’s anything important. Just shout if you need anything else, and welcome to Shelling! I think Prue’s left you a note on the table and my number’s on there, along with some others you might need. Oh, and the dustman comes on Tuesdays. Just pop your rubbish in the bin round the side. Recycling goes in a separate green one, but you’ll see that. I can sort you out a newspaper delivery while you’re here, if you’d like. My parents own the shop. Oh, and Mum does hair too, if you’re interested …’

‘Thank you. Very kind of you, but no thanks.’ Madi stepped over the dog’s outstretched paws and made a hasty escape back down the lane. All she really wanted was to collect her bags from the boot of the car, get inside the cottage and close the door on the world. No shop. No papers. And definitely not someone to do her hair.

The cottage felt chilly. She kept her coat on as she wandered from room to room which, as it was only a simple two-up two-down, didn’t take very long. The living-room furniture was old and shabby but looked comfy enough: a cream sofa covered with an oversized throw, one armchair facing a bit-too-large TV, and a coffee table piled with books and magazines. A few cat hairs floated up into the air and made her sneeze as she lifted and plumped a big flat cushion and replaced it on a squashy pouffe in front of the fireplace. Flo’s domain, obviously.

The kitchen, she saw once she’d switched on the light, was of the oak cupboards, range cooker, scrubbed wooden table in the middle kind, with a plain roller blind pulled right down over the back window. There was a small plastic cat flap low down in the door, with the dried marks from muddy paws on the doormat at its base. A separate pantry housed baking essentials, packets and tins on deep shelves, and there was a small fridge and a freezer tucked in, side by side, underneath. Despite its old-fashioned, traditional appearance, Madi was pleased to see a microwave and a washing machine, and an internet hub in the corner of the worktop so she wouldn’t have to rely on a mobile phone signal if she did decide to communicate with the outside world. A bathroom, small but adequate, led off the kitchen, housed in what looked to be a more modern extension. A bowl of blue hyacinths, just coming into bloom, sat on the windowsill above the bath, their heady scent drifting through the kitchen and right out as far as the living room.

Upstairs there was a tiny single bedroom without a bed, just a desk with a computer, trays of papers, a printer and a small wooden chair. Across the way was a more spacious double, the bed swathed in a thick duvet that felt like duck down, with a crocheted bedspread folded across the foot end, and two big fluffy pillows. She was already tired from the journey, and the bed certainly looked inviting. It was the longest she had been behind the wheel of a car for months and the effects of her treatment were still leaving her feeling constantly washed out and listless. No bath or shower up here though, or even a toilet, so she made a mental note not to drink too much before bedtime if she was to avoid nocturnal trips down the steep stairs every time she needed the loo. Still, the cottage had a certain rustic charm about it. It served her purpose. It would do.

She gripped the banister tightly as she tottered back downstairs. Perhaps her usual heels were a little out of place here, so it was a good job she’d brought flats. It was not as if anyone of importance was going to see her. She could relax and let her appearance take a back seat for once. She was glad she’d thought to bring trainers, baggy jumpers and blouses and a couple of pairs of jeans, even though she was still annoyed with herself for coming into the depths of the countryside and not thinking to bring boots.

The note Sian had mentioned was lying on the kitchen table, held down by a smoothly polished pebble. Madi skimmed through the typed list of phone numbers, the instructions for rubbish removal repeating what Sian had already told her, almost word for word, and the details of the wi-fi code. There was a note about the immersion heater and how best to time it for hot water without having to leave it on all day, and a long section detailing how and when to feed the cat – a cat that Madi realised was, so far, noticeably absent. Scribbled at the bottom, as if as an afterthought, was a single sentence in what must be Prue’s handwriting. ‘Sorry, no central heating,’ Madi read. ‘But once the fire is lit, the place soon warms up. Thick walls!’

Oh, yes, the fire. Sian had offered to come and help her light it. Staring at the fireplace with its rather intimidating black and glass stove and huge wicker basket piled with old newspapers and chopped-up logs, she thought perhaps she should have accepted after all. To a townie like her, working out how to light it was as alien a concept as rubbing two sticks together and hoping to make a flame. Why couldn’t it just have a button to press? Something that said Off and On, with a dial to set the temperature? She felt the cold far more than she’d used to when she was younger, especially in recent months, when she’d lost so much weight. Damned illness. Other than the occasional cold, and that highly inconvenient sore throat that had kept her off stage for three days right in the middle of a touring run of Hamlet in 1988, she’d never had a day’s illness in her life before this, and she didn’t like it one bit. She’d rather be fat, healthy and working than skinny and scared, and stuck here recovering with nothing useful to do, any day of the week.

She rubbed her hands together and cupped them around her nose and chin, blowing into them to warm them. It was a good job she’d spotted that thick duvet on the bed and a hot water bottle on the table beside it. She might be needing both of those downstairs during the evenings, and her dressing gown to snuggle into, if her fire lighting skills failed her. And as for the range cooker, all she could say was that the microwave would probably be getting a lot more use than it was accustomed to. Hopefully the village pub she had spotted on her drive in might do meals, or there might be some sort of café or coffee shop somewhere, if she could just build up enough enthusiasm to go out and face people. Cooking had never really been her thing.

It didn’t take long to settle in. Carefully she carried her bags upstairs, one at a time, and squeezed her few clothes into the wardrobe alongside Prue’s, pleased to see that the full-length mirror was attached to the inside of the door and not the outside, so she wouldn’t have to keep seeing herself walk past, or even use it at all if she didn’t want to. She put her sponge bag of basic toiletries aside, and the dreaded box of pills, ready to take downstairs with her, and stowed her empty bags under the bed.

She took a look out of the bedroom window, catching her first glimpse of the back garden, which was neat and surprisingly green, its rounded lawn dotted with crocuses, deep flowerbeds packed with shrubs, and a pair of matching leafless trees, all encased within a low stone wall. Down at the end stood some kind of outhouse, like a tool shed, but with its windows all blacked out, and next to it a round garden table with a couple of all-weather chairs. There was a washing line too, reminiscent of one her mother used to have, stretching the length of the garden and propped up in the middle with a long wooden pole, a few plastic pegs clipped closely together at the end nearest the house. It had been many years since Madi had pegged anything out to dry, happy enough to let her tumble dryer do the work, but if there wasn’t one here, well, she was prepared to give it a go, assuming the weather picked up. Right now, it was cold. Madi walked round closing all the curtains in an attempt to trap whatever little warmth there was, and to isolate herself from the silent, rapidly darkening evening outside.

There were lots of photographs hanging on the uneven white walls. More than she had ever seen in one place, barring a gallery. They were in the living room, in both bedrooms, even in the kitchen and on the stairs. Many were what she assumed to be local scenes, showing farmers at work in misty fields, reeds poking their heads out from shimmering water, sunset over a deserted beach, and a group of three, hanging close together, of a small tabby cat with huge green eyes that she assumed must be the elusive Flo.

Above the fireplace was a large portrait of an old lady, her skin gently wrinkled, her hair tightly permed, her eyes twinkling as if lit from within. Madi liked it. The photo, and the woman herself, had real character, the sort of character that came with being old but still mentally alert and cheekily lively, and that she would have loved to capture onstage, and still might one day, if all went well. As a kindly yet knowing Miss Marple perhaps, with some clever make-up, and layers of padding bundled up inside her dress. She wondered who the woman was. Possibly Prue’s mother or grandmother, but she decided it was none of her business and went in search of something to drink and, if she was to have any hope of getting the fire going, a box of matches.

There was no sign of any alcohol, not that she should be drinking much anyway while she was taking her medication, but she’d always believed a little of what you fancy did you good. Oh, God, the pills! Even after leaving them right next to her on the bed as she’d unpacked, she’d still managed to leave them upstairs. She’d become so forgetful lately, so easily distracted. Putting things down somewhere and then finding them somewhere else. Losing things altogether. She’d lose her head if it wasn’t screwed on. Bloody cancer had a lot to answer for. But what if it was something else? Thinking back, it might even have started before her cancer was diagnosed. There had been that night when she had left the tap dripping in the bathroom, with the plug still in the sink. If she hadn’t got up to use the loo and found it just in time, she would have flooded the place, and quite possibly the flat beneath hers as well. It might have been nothing, the sort of thing that happened to anyone when they were tired, but you heard such stories, about people getting forgetful as they got older. Putting the kettle in the fridge or getting on the wrong bus … How on earth would she ever cope with work, having to learn lines again, if that was what was happening to her?

She shook the thoughts away and looked at her watch. Four thirty. A small sherry or a glass of chilled wine would go down beautifully right now, and sod the pills, but she’d just have to make do with something a little less exciting. She boiled the kettle, standing close to it and breathing in the heat. She found a jar of instant coffee in the pantry and a bottle of locally produced full fat milk in the fridge. She would have preferred her usual skimmed but at least the label told her it had been pasteurised and she hadn’t been confronted with a jug of something still steaming, straight from the cow.

The coffee warmed her as she slumped down on the sofa with the matches in her hand ready to have a go at the fire. Was it a mistake coming here? Back in London, she had started to feel that the walls of her flat were closing in on her, she had spent so much time cooped up in there lately, but all she was doing now was swapping one lonely existence for another, miles away, and bringing all her fears and her sadness along with her. She missed her old way of life, and her old body. Feeling fit, working, keeping busy. She missed the bustle of the theatre and the excitement it brought into her life. But most of all she missed her son.

Still, getting better had to take priority now, and that meant taking it easy, letting her body, and her mind, recover for a while, so she could bounce back and have all of those things again. Time, that was all she needed. And they did say a change was as good as a rest, didn’t they? She pulled off her wig, closed her eyes and tried to decide what to do with herself for the next month.

Chapter 3

I hadn’t expected her to be there.

I was sure I’d heard the door slam earlier, her feet on the stairs, the bumping of bags, her car driving away. Usually that meant a few days, a few nights, at least, when the place would be empty. She’s a creature of habit. And tidy. I’ll give her that. No dirty mugs left in the sink, no stuff scattered around the floor. Just the lingering smells of furniture polish, good coffee and posh perfume.

I suppose I’m a creature of habit too, in my way. I never go in during the day. I prefer the evenings, or the dead of night. Never when I might be seen. Or heard. No noisy shoes on the creaky stairs. No dirty marks left behind on her immaculate carpets. And I never put the light on. No need to. I can feel my way around that flat as if it’s my own.

It’s been different lately though. There had been talk of her not being well, a hospital stay, an operation, but she keeps herself to herself, that one, so nobody really seemed to know for sure. I had wondered if it might be serious, if she was going to die like he did, at the back of some stage somewhere, and how I might feel if she did.

But she survived it, whatever it was. Came back, holed up, stayed at home a lot more. Which curtailed things for me, for a while, until she started venturing out again. No visitors though. Or none that I’d noticed. No flowers either, which you’d expect, wouldn’t you? If someone’s sick? Except the tulips. I found them this morning, in the dark, touched the petals, felt a couple of them fall.

But then I heard her, shuffling about in the bed. The rustle of the pillows. I had no idea she was there until then, and it unnerved me a bit, I can tell you. I was sure the place was empty.

There was a raincoat on the back of a chair. Damp, its belt trailing on the carpet. I brushed against it on my way out. Could have tripped over it. Not like her, that. She’s usually so tidy. So I hung it up for her, on a hook. I like to do little things like that when I’m here. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to help her out or anything like that. I just like to make her wonder. How this has happened, or that. It makes me smile, to think of her wondering. Just a little game I play. Seeing how far I can go, to worry her, maybe even scare her a bit. Like that time I put the plug in and left the tap on, just dripping, that was all, but what fun if it had flooded the place, knowing she would rack her brains, struggle to remember how it could have happened. How she had made that sort of stupid mistake. Well, who else could it possibly have been? She lives alone, and she knows, just as I do, that there’s nobody to blame but herself.

Still, this morning, I should have just left. Stopping to move the coat was a stupid idea, when she was showing signs of waking up, nearly catching me. It was bad enough the door clicking the way it always does, no matter how gently I pull it closed behind me, but there’s not much I can do about that. But I know I’ll have to be more careful. The coat could have stayed where it was. There will be other occasions. Other chances. It’s not worth taking risks.

She has no idea about me. Utterly oblivious. And I’d like to keep it that way.

Chapter 4

PRUE

Monday mornings in London were nothing like those at home. A strange clicking sound had woken Prue while it was still dark, her eyes flying open in semi-panic. She had half expected to see someone leaning over the bed, it had been so real. She lay still and listened, hardly daring to move, waiting for her heart rate to slow back down, but there was nobody there. Of course not. Just the creaks and clatters of the walls and floors and plumbing system of what was still an unfamiliar building talking to her in its own peculiar way, no doubt. Coming from an old cottage like hers, she was only too aware of any number of those, although they had all faded into their own kind of regular routine in time, so she no longer heard them.

Once she was awake though, she couldn’t get back to sleep. The growing rumble of passing traffic throbbed through her head, even though she was sleeping at the back of the building and had pulled her pillow over her ears. And then various clunks and slams as the other residents got up, ran showers, turned on radios and TVs, banged doors and clomped noisily down the stairs on their way to work. Prue was more used to the chug-chug sound of occasional tractors trundling by, the chink of milk bottles being left on the step, and the old cockerel’s crowing call from a nearby farmyard so much a part of her life that she hardly noticed it any more, all in all a much quieter, more solitary start to her day.

But then, since losing her beloved gran, that’s how her life had seemed lately – more and more solitary. If it wasn’t for work, having to drive to the local newspaper office every day and then head out to see the people making the news, even if only briefly, and mostly through a lens, she knew she could quite easily hide away indoors and not speak to another living soul for days. As long as she had one of her cameras for company, and a book to read, and her cat, she didn’t really need anyone else. Oh, she had thought she did, had started to imagine how her future might be as half of a proper couple … but that was not an option any more. If it ever had been, of course, apart from in her own head.

Her parents were nearby, of course, although constantly busy. And she had friends – good friends she’d had since school – but most had moved away from the village now, for exciting new jobs and adventures and marriages, and only kept in touch occasionally, largely by email. There was still her best friend Sian, and Joe and his older brother Ralph, all of whom she had known for ever, all still living in the village, the four of them thick as thieves, as Gran used to say, since their early days at primary school. She remembered them all doing their homework together, Ralph reluctantly helping the others because he was three years older, having fun at various birthday parties, playing games of Twister or Monopoly on snowy stay-indoors days, watching kids’ TV or listening to music in each other’s bedrooms.

She allowed herself a nostalgic moment, picturing them all together as kids, curling up and rolling side by side down a grassy slope, turning faster and faster, racing their way to the bottom, and then crashing into each other, all squealing loudly and her giggling so helplessly that she’d wet her knickers. It was a flash of memory that made her smile, before reality crept back in. Joe. Oh, God. Joe. No, she really didn’t want to think too much about Joe right now, or that night in The Brown Cow just a week ago when she had got things so horribly wrong.

It was going to be hard staying friends with Joe – the comfortable, easy-going kind of friendship they had had before. Since he’d rented the small ground-floor-extension flat in her parents’ old house, they lived within yards of each other and she ran the constant risk of bumping into him, unexpectedly and often. How would she cope with that? She couldn’t bear the thought of him avoiding her, pitying her, perhaps even laughing at her. But she had stepped over a line, and stepping back behind it again, as if nothing had happened, would be pretty much impossible, for both of them. She had not only lost him as a boyfriend, and quite probably as a friend too, but embarrassed herself, publicly and spectacularly, in front of just about everyone she knew. Short of either staying indoors for ever or packing up and moving away permanently, she had no idea how to deal with that. Still, this month away would help, even if it really was just a temporary solution. She was running away. She knew that. And she also knew that, once the dust had settled, and with all her remaining annual leave used up at work, she would have no alternative but to go back.

She stretched out her arms and legs, yawning. Thankfully, there had been no dreams, just a long lovely slip into oblivion that she had needed even more than she had realised. Sticking a foot out from under the covers she was surprised at how warm the bedroom was. Perhaps she should think about modernising the cottage, putting in some central heating with instant hot water any time she needed it, and one of those hot towel rails in the bathroom. Having lived here for just a few hours, she could already see what a difference they made.

The tulips on the chest of drawers had lost a few more of their petals overnight but they would probably last another day. She might buy herself some more when she went out. She did love fresh flowers. And fresh air, fresh bread, the fresh fruity tang of homemade jam. All the joys of a village existence she had known all her life and had never walked away from before. She hadn’t even gone to university, so sure had she been that the life, and the job, she wanted could be found right on her own doorstep. But, of course, she would be able to find real fresh bread if she wanted it. This was London, not Timbuctoo.