How to Measure a Cow (16 page)

Nancy did not reply, but looked pointedly out of the window.

‘Speaks to nobody,’ Ivy said. ‘She’s not popular, carries keeping to herself too far.’

Again, Nancy remained silent while inwardly raging at this criticism of Sarah.

‘Any road,’ Ivy said, ‘she’s given notice. No loss, Gillian says.’

‘Given notice.’ All the way home, Nancy repeated the words to herself until they ran into each other and became a strange word she didn’t know. Why would Sarah give notice? Where was she going? Did it mean she was leaving the town? Had that nephew of Amy’s given
her
notice, to leave the house? She tried to answer her own questions but her answers were not satisfactory. There might be a simple explanation: Sarah was just bored with the job and wanted to have another. Simple. But Nancy was not in the habit of
accepting simplicity. Her mind thrived on complications, real or imaginary. Until she’d spoken to Sarah nothing could be known for sure. Ivy Robinson could have got everything wrong.

Nancy watched the front door of Sarah’s house the next day. She’d been watching it since fifteen minutes before Sarah usually left for work. The front door stayed shut. By 9 a.m., when it was still shut, Nancy went into action. She’d made a fruit cake the day before. Half of it was now wrapped in tinfoil, ready to give to Sarah, who had expressed a liking for it when she came for tea. Over the road Nancy went, the half-cake in one hand, her shopping bag in the other, though she’d no intention of going shopping. The bag was just part of her armour, her everyday protection from looking as though she was just wandering about. She knocked on Sarah’s door, imitating the kind of knock she’d heard the postman give, a rat-a-tat with the knocker. Silence. Well, Sarah might be in the bath. Give her time. Nancy gave her time, and then knocked again, and heard movement inside. She expected that Sarah would be in a dressing gown, since she wasn’t going to work and would surely be taking it easy. She was quite interested to see what kind of dressing gown it would be, certainly not the sort she herself had, a heavy woollen tartan affair she’d had for decades and knew was old-fashioned. But Sarah was fully dressed, and not in her usual clothes. The colours startled Nancy. A bright red sweater, long and loose, over white trousers which were not really trousers, more like tights but not tights either. Slightly unnerved, Nancy held out the half-cake.

‘Thought you might like some fruit cake,’ she muttered. ‘It’ll keep.’

Was she going to be asked in? Was she going to be thanked? Was she going to be treated as a friend or merely as a nosy neighbour? Waiting to see, Nancy felt quite sick.

Sarah smiled: a lovely, full, genuine smile which relieved Nancy enormously.

‘How lovely,’ she said. ‘Fruit cake! Come in.’

There was, Nancy noticed, a positive spring in Sarah’s step as she led the way into the living room, which was looking different. Nancy saw that the few bits of furniture had been rearranged to give more feeling of space. And there was some sort of patterned cloth thrown over each of the armchairs.

‘Well,’ Tara said, seeing Nancy look at these throws, ‘I’m trying to brighten the place up.’

‘So you’re staying?’ Nancy said. ‘Only I heard some talk.’

‘Talk!’ repeated Tara, and laughed. ‘About me giving my notice in? Sounds very grand, that, doesn’t it? Actually, you don’t need to “give notice” to leave a job like that, do you? You just say you’re quitting.’

Nancy cleared her throat.

‘Well, then,’ she said, wishing she could think of something else to say.

But Sarah didn’t seem to mind that Nancy was so inarticulate all of a sudden. She’d made tea and brought the two mugs in and told Nancy to have a seat. Then she went back to the kitchen and reappeared with a plate and a knife and proceeded to cut the cake. She took a huge mouthful and as she ate gave little moans of pleasure. Nancy was a bit shocked. Fancy eating fruit cake at nine in the morning. Sarah was laughing again.

‘You look shocked, Mrs Armstrong, I mean Nancy. Don’t you ever have cake for breakfast?’

‘No,’ said Nancy.

‘Well, you should try it.’ They were sitting opposite each other, Nancy still with her coat on, regarding Sarah with fascination. It wasn’t just the clothes, it wasn’t just the smiling and laughing, it wasn’t even the eating of fruit cake for breakfast. It was that something was in the air in Amy’s house that hadn’t been there before. Nancy couldn’t define what it was and didn’t know how, or what, to ask Sarah. So she waited, sipping her tea, and feeling a little tense. She wondered if it would be all right to ask the one question she could think of, and decided it was. It was normal, if someone left a job, to ask if they had another to go to, wasn’t it? Or was it pushing friendship too far? The sort of friendship they had, that is. But Sarah saved her the trouble.

‘I haven’t tried to get another job yet,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I got fed up, you know?’

Nancy nodded. She knew. But she knew, too, that even if you were fed up rent had to be paid and bills.

‘How will you manage in the meantime?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I’ll manage,’ Sarah said, ‘don’t you worry.’

She put her head on one side, looking at Nancy as though sizing her up.

‘I used to be …’ she said, very slowly, pausing. And then, ‘What do you think I used to be, Nancy? Guess.’

Nancy did not approve of guessing, or rather in confessing to guessing.

‘I’m sure you could have been anything,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the brains.’

‘Have I?’ said Tara. ‘How do you know?’

Nancy was silent. How
did
she know Sarah had brains? She had no satisfactory answer. She didn’t even know why she’d said Sarah had brains.

‘I’d better be going,’ she said. ‘The window cleaner is coming.’

‘Oh, now, Nancy,’ Tara said, ‘I’ve offended you. I’m sorry. I just really wanted to know why you would think I was clever when you can’t have seen any signs of it. You’ve only seen me being stupid, a little dullard trotting off to a monotonous job, hiding in her dreary little house when not at work, speaking to no one unless she had to – what was clever about all that, Nancy?’

Nancy was lost. Something was going on, and it alarmed her. She was being played with, she was sure she was. But why? All kinds of explanations were running through her mind, some of them frightening. Best to get out.

‘Well, I’m glad you like the cake,’ she said. ‘I’ll be seeing you,’ and she got up and walked towards the door, but Sarah was on her feet too, and rushed ahead, barring the way.

‘Don’t go, Nancy,’ she said.

‘I have to,’ Nancy said. ‘The window cleaner is coming. It’s nearly twelve weeks since he came, the windows are a disgrace, I can’t manage them myself, see.’

She lunged at the front door, grabbing the handle before Sarah got to it, and pulled it forward so that the door sprang open. Once in the fresh air, Nancy felt better, but she was aware of Sarah close behind her and stepped quickly out on to the pavement. Only then did she turn round.

‘Sorry,’ Tara said, ‘sorry, Nancy.’

‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ said Nancy, but she was pleased. Sarah’s behaviour, and her change in appearance, was odd. That’s all there was to it. But all the same, she was glad an apology was offered even if she had no idea exactly what it was for.

The Woman was right. There were few jobs available in Workington that Tara could apply for with any hope of the work being interesting. She would have been happy to go back to being a lowly laboratory assistant, but there were no laboratories anywhere near. She thought Sellafield might be a possibility. She was a scientist, she had a degree in chemistry, surely that qualified her for some sort of job there, but the posts available all seemed to be administrative. And of course should she get an interview her CV had a big gap, and any checking up would instantly reveal her record.

Money was not yet a problem. She didn’t worry about it too much. She wasn’t greedy, she wasn’t materialistic, and she knew how to budget. There were no shops in Workington which tempted her to buy new clothes, except for the dress she’d worn for the reunion, though she would have liked some. What she did was haunt the charity shops where she bought things she could put together or alter, mixing different styles and colours. She liked sewing, though it was frustrating that she had no sewing machine so everything had to be done by hand. She was finishing the armholes of a jacket from which she had just cut the sleeves, to make a waistcoat, when her landlord arrived without any warning. She stared at him, not knowing who he was, and he had to introduce himself.
She saw Nancy’s curtain twitch as she invited him in and closed the door.

‘I thought I’d come in person,’ he said, ‘to explain.’

The explanation was simple and could easily have been made in two minutes, but he droned on until Tara wanted to jab the scissors she’d been using into his hand. She could see herself doing it, see the cut appear, the blood leak. She could hear his ‘My God!’ and his rage. He’d yell at her, and she’d just sit still and smile.

‘Fine,’ she said, when at last he seemed to have got to the end of his explanation. ‘I understand.’

He seemed relieved, and relaxed in his chair.

‘How have you been getting on?’ he asked. ‘No problems? No unpleasantness?’

She stared at him. It would amuse her, she decided, to push him to define ‘problems’ and ‘unpleasantness’.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, eyes conveying, she hoped, indignation.

‘Well, I just meant … Well, they keep themselves to themselves up here, but they find things out somehow.’

Her eyes really wouldn’t go any wider or her eyebrows higher.

‘Things?’ she repeated. But he was on his feet, not willing to play the game which he knew he would lose.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘so you’ve got six weeks left. Good luck with finding somewhere.’

She gave him a big smile as he left. What a ridiculous man. He was welcome to his horrid little house, and his insinuations.

NANCY SAW THE
nephew arriving, and leaving. She timed him: eleven minutes inside. Come to inspect the house again, see how Sarah Scott was keeping it? Unlikely. He’d already been, already knew. Could he be going to sell it? Quite likely. So, if he did, where would Sarah go?

‘None of your business,’ Nancy said, aloud. She was quite shocked at herself. Sarah was now a friend, or well on the way to becoming one. Shouldn’t a friend be offered temporary shelter? ‘Certainly not. Don’t get ideas,’ Nancy heard herself say, and was instantly ashamed at her own vehemence. Friends should offer help when it was needed. They stood by you, through thick and thin. Nancy nodded her head in tribute to this saying. There crept into her mind the memory of an occasion when she had been grateful for the support of friends. It was all a misunderstanding but it hadn’t seemed so to the shop’s manageress. Nancy had had to appear in court, utterly mortified. She’d looked up at Martin, sitting there, winking at her, and when the case was dismissed he stuck his
thumb up. It had taken her weeks and weeks to get over the whole shocking business. People were funny with her. Nobody said anything, but they’d undoubtedly read the small paragraph in the local paper. She felt their suspicion, the ‘no smoke without fire’ reaction, in spite of the magistrate’s decision. But two friends had spoken up for her. The awful thing was that she now couldn’t remember their names. She had married Martin soon afterwards and they moved to Workington, and she never saw these friends again. Now whose fault was that?

Nancy banged the kitchen door closed. Stop rambling, she scolded herself, stop all this muttering. Do something, if you’re so bothered. Don’t be so damned hesitant, don’t let yourself off by claiming you don’t want to be nosy. You
do
want to be nosy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know what is happening to a friend. She could just cross the street and knock on Sarah’s door and say how are you? Simple. Friendly. No need for excuses like offering half a cake. But it would be such a huge break with a lifetime of reticence that Nancy couldn’t quite manage it, and so, when, agitated by all these indecisions, she stood at her front window and saw Sarah Scott crossing the road to her she felt quite faint with relief.

She had the front door open before Sarah could knock.

‘I saw him,’ Nancy said. ‘The nephew. Bringing trouble, was he? Come in, you look worried.’

But Sarah wouldn’t come in. She stood on the doorstep, saying that no, she wasn’t worried, she was excited.

‘Excited?’ Nancy queried.

She didn’t like the sound of this. Excitement was not good. Then Sarah told her why she was excited.

‘He’s selling my house,’ she said, ‘and I’ll have to move, so I’ve been ringing estate agents and I’ve got a whole list of houses to look at, but I don’t know any of the places they’re in, so will you help me? There’s a good-sounding one in Cleator Moor, but where’s Cleator Moor?’

‘A place you don’t want to bother with,’ Nancy said firmly. ‘Are you off there now?’

Yes, Sarah was proposing to set off house hunting immediately, if Nancy would accompany her and act as her guide. It was one of the afternoons she went to the club, but Nancy didn’t hesitate.

‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.

They met at Molly’s house. Nothing from Tara. They’d all sent text messages over the last month but there’d been no response.

‘She just wants to disappear again,’ Claire said to Liz and Molly.

‘It’s obvious. You would have thought old friends reunited would count for something, but no, apparently not.’

‘Reunited?’ said Liz. ‘Don’t be silly, Claire. We met for one lunch. That’s not reunited.’

She didn’t mention her own later meeting with Tara. Claire would be jealous, Molly disappointed, that neither of them had had a tête-à-tête with Tara.

‘Anyway,’ Liz said, ‘I don’t know why it upsets you so much. If Tara wants privacy, that’s her affair.’

‘But I
care
about her,’ Claire said. ‘I can’t get her face out of my mind again.’

‘Oh, Claire, for God’s sake!’ said Liz. ‘You’ve managed very well without any contact with Tara for the past ten years, so don’t talk rubbish. The “reunion” as you call it was a failure. It was a well-meaning gesture and it failed. Enough said.’