It's Raining Men (31 page)

Lara folded the quilt back and reached over to the curtain, nudging it, by degrees, to the side, but she couldn’t see anything suspicious. She thought about knocking on the window to
frighten whoever – or whatever – was making that noise, except she had a vision of a fist crashing in through the glass and grabbing her by the throat. She padded softly out of the room
and over to the side and front doors to check they were locked, even though she knew they were because she had locked them herself before they all went to bed. She hoped whoever was on the outside
didn’t see the handles being pressed down.

While she was in the lounge she realized the tapping was coming from above her. Someone was on the roof. Should she wake the others? Another loud bang answered that one. She shook May awake
first, her finger across her mouth warning May not to speak.

‘There’s someone outside,’ whispered Lara. ‘Banging.’

There was a loud crash as if something was falling down the roof and they both jumped. A beam of light passed by May’s window and they quickly ran out of her room and into Clare’s to
wake her up. They had to shake Clare quite considerably because once she was asleep she was virtually comatose.

‘Shall we ring the police?’ asked Clare, after Lara had filled her in on why they had disturbed her. She remembered an urban myth from her schooldays about a madman bouncing a head
on someone’s car roof. She shivered.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

‘I think we’d better,’ said May, heading for the phone in the corner of the lounge.

There was a rattle of metal and seven squeaks as if someone was descending a ladder. Another rattle and then quick footsteps melting into the distance. Lara leapt to the side window to see a
flash of something silver disappearing down the hill.

‘The phone’s crackling,’ May whispered, rushing back over to the others. Safety in numbers.

‘Have they gone? What the hell was that?’ asked Clare at Lara’s shoulder.

‘Whoever it was has run off,’ replied Lara.

‘We should go and have a look.’

‘Tonight? In the pitch black?’

‘I’ve got my torch,’ said Clare.

Lara slowly turned the key in the door and opened it noiselessly. Holding onto each other and brandishing a torch, a poker and a rolling pin between them, they cautiously walked outside. Clare
moved the torch to check all was safe around them before directing the beam upwards. And then they saw it.

There, bolted onto the roof, was a metal tower covered in barbed wire which definitely hadn’t been there earlier on.

‘What is that?’ asked Lara.

‘God only knows,’ replied Clare. ‘I’m sharing someone’s room tonight, though. Or shall we drag our mattresses into the sitting room?’

Lara groaned. Not just at the ugly metal thing they were all staring at but because this meant one of them would have to pay Gene Hathersage another visit. And she so was hoping it wasn’t
her.

Lara awoke with a horrible pain in her neck. She had been sleeping at a twisted angle on the sofa and she couldn’t rub the muscles back to normal. Clare and May were
still fast asleep and looking very comfortable on their mattresses on the floor of the lounge. Lara pushed the quilt back and got up to put the kettle on.

She remembered that one of them had to pay Gene Hathersage a visit today and find out why people were attaching metal structures to the roof in the middle of the night and scaring them all half
to death. She bet that whatever the thing was, it would interfere with the television signal. She stepped over Clare and switched on the TV to find a mess of silver and black wavering lines.
Brilliant. Someone was really out to make their holiday memorable, for all the best reasons. And when she checked the phone, that still wasn’t working either.

She made herself a coffee and hoped one of the others would wake up and volunteer to go and pay the fateful visit. Clare was snoring softly and looked dead to the world; May was out for the
count. Lara took two sips of coffee and knew that she couldn’t just sit here doing nothing while she waited for them to rise. She poured the contents of her mug into the sink and went to get
dressed. Her neck still felt as if Mike Tyson had been jabbing at it all night with his big padded gloves.

Lara set off at a march down the road, purpose thudding in every step. She knocked hard on the door of La Mer but there was no response. There was none at the back door either. Her blood started
to boil as she set off for the outbuildings where last time she had found him brandishing his chainsaw. Her search was fruitless but he was here; she could sense him, like the bad smell he was. She
tried knocking hard at the front door again and at the back. Then she realized there was no dog barking. He must be out after all. Then she saw him in the distance, in the field beyond his garden.
He was carrying what looked like a tree trunk.

‘Gene Hathersage,’ she called, her voice packed with anger. ‘Can you hear me?’

He turned to her voice and she saw him shake his head and puff out his cheeks. He had the nerve to look exasperated.

She stomped towards him, crossing the overgrown lawn.

‘Mr Hathersage, can you please explain why there is . . . Jesus Christ!’

The ground came rushing towards her and there was a pain in her ankle that shot right up to her brain, out of her skull and headed towards outer space, making the ache in her neck feel like a
tickle. She found herself writhing in agony and with a mouthful of grass.

If that wasn’t bad enough, within seconds Gene Hathersage arrived to witness her creased-up face and her eyes spouting involuntary tears of pain. She felt his hands on her arms, pulling
her out of the large hole she had fallen into and guiding her over to sit on one of his twisted-wood garden benches.

‘How could anyone not see that?’ he asked, gruff as bear. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No, I’m bloody not,’ said Lara, the pain in her ankle forcing out hot tears of anger and embarrassment as well as pain. She could see now that she had fallen down a newly dug
rectangular hole. ‘What’s that? Are you preparing a burial site for tenants who dare to complain?’

‘It’s for my dog actually,’ said Gene, not meeting her eyes.

‘Your dog?’

‘Jock. Furry thing, four legs, tail,’ replied Gene. ‘Dead.’

Lara gulped back any retort on hearing the last word. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, biting down hard on her lip. Her ankle felt tight and swollen.

‘I’m going to have to take your shoe off,’ said Gene, kneeling at her side.

‘I’d rather you didn’t . . .’ she said as he slid off her shoe, ignoring her, and peeled down her sock. Her ankle was puffy and turning purple.

‘You’ve sprained that. Let’s get you into the house.’

To Lara’s horror, he stood up, hooked one arm under her legs, the other around her back and lifted her into the air.

‘You’re carrying me?’ she gasped.

‘Only as far as the kitchen. I don’t want to break my back,’ said Gene Hathersage with a grunt, striding over to his house and opening the back door with a bump from his
bottom. He set Lara down on a chair at the side of a huge thick-topped pine kitchen table with the command, ‘Wait there.’ Then he disappeared back outside.

Lara rotated her ankle and wished she hadn’t. The pain shot up her leg again and brought a wave of agony. This was all she needed. What next? Was a helicopter going to land on her
head?

She could see Gene leaning over in the garden, apparently picking something. She couldn’t imagine what. She bet it wasn’t a bouquet of flowers. She looked around her at the kitchen
and found that it wasn’t the sort of room she would have paired with Gene Hathersage. It wasn’t pristine – there were dishes in the sink and some crumbs on the work surface
– but it was a homely farmhouse kitchen with bare stone walls and wooden furniture. There was an old hairy dog bed at the side of a wood-burning stove, empty.

Gene returned to the kitchen with a handful of leaves. He put them into a stone mortar lifted from a high shelf, and started grinding them with the pestle. He added a few splashes of water from
the tap, then reached down into a cupboard for some flour to add to the mixture. All this was done silently. Then, with his hand, he scooped the green paste he had made into the middle of a folded
tea towel and bent down next to Lara. He carefully lifted her foot and wrapped the poultice around it. It felt very cold and slimy.

‘Nothing better than knitbone for sprains,’ said Gene. ‘Hold that.’

‘There’s a plant called knitbone?’ asked Lara incredulously.

‘Otherwise known as comfrey.’

Lara leaned over and held the towel whilst Gene went to a drawer. He came back with a safety pin and a bandage, knelt down and began to secure the poultice to Lara’s ankle.

‘You won’t get anything in your Harley Street that works as well as this.’ Gene glowered at her as she flinched. ‘It has to be tight. It’ll fall off if it
isn’t.’

‘My Harley Street? Why would I know what goes on in Harley Street?’ she snapped.

‘You posh London types go there, don’t you?’

‘Posh London types?’ Lara harrumphed. ‘I’m about as much of a chirpy crafty cockney as Dick Van Dyke. I’m from Barnsley.’

‘You don’t sound as if you are.’

Lara was cross. ‘My accent might have been ironed out a bit but, trust me, I’m from Barnsley. My dad was a miner until the pits closed, then he had his own electrician business. Mum
was a dinner lady. They scrimped to give me more chances in life than they had. Harley Street – ha! Posh London type, yeah, of course.’

‘Anyone who paid what I asked for the cottage rental had to have more money than sense. It was an easy mistake,’ Gene grumbled as he unwound a length of bandage to reapply it more
tightly.

‘If you were listening when I first explained, we thought we’d paid for a luxury spa – which was worth the money. Why on earth would you rent out a cottage for such a
ridiculous sum?’

‘I need to earn my own living,’ he said. ‘No one wanted me to rent out the cottage so I figured that if I charged a small fortune for it, only idiots would pay up.’

‘It didn’t work like that with us, did it?’ Lara smiled but there was no humour in it.

‘I don’t know, didn’t it?’

‘You have to be the rudest man I’ve ever met, Mr Hathersage.’

‘Thank you.’

‘It wasn’t a compliment.’

‘Look.’ Gene stopped wrapping and lifted his head. His eyes were so black Lara’s dad could have dug them out of a mine. ‘I’ve had a really bad week. This, I could
do without.’

Lara huffed. ‘You’ve had a bad week!’ She matched his stare with her bright hazel eyes. ‘You haven’t a clue what a bad week entails.’

‘My dog died. I think I do.’

Lara fell guiltily silent for a moment. ‘Yes, maybe you do. I’m sorry. Was he old?’

‘Eighteen, not that his age makes it any easier,’ said Gene. ‘When you came around on Wednesday morning the vet had just left. He told me that there was no hope. I wanted a few
more days with him. Last night he was in too much pain to carry on and I had to let him go.’

Lara nodded. ‘So that’s why you’ve been in such a foul mood.’

Gene looked surprised. ‘I was no different to how I usually am.’

‘Oh.’

‘Stop moving. I’ve got to unwrap this again; it’s too slack.’

Lara shifted in the chair. ‘I’m not moving deliberately. It’s a reflex because you’re hurting me.’

‘No pain, no gain.’

‘I should gain plenty, then. Ouch.’

‘Do you want something to bite down on?’ Gene growled.

‘Yes, your head.’

He looked up; she looked down. They viewed each other’s scowling countenance and burst into involuntary laughter.

‘I don’t know why I’m laughing,’ said Lara, wiping water from her eyes. She couldn’t tell if they were tears of laughter, pain or sadness. ‘This time last
week I was happy and both ankles were working perfectly. This week I’m homeless, single, crippled and in bits.’

Tears started plopping down her cheeks and there was no mistaking that these were big fat sad ones. Embarrassed, Lara started to wipe them away on her sleeve before she realized it was full of
mud. She felt a wad of material being pushed up against her nose – another tea towel.

‘Here,’ said Gene. ‘Have this before you flood the place.’

Lara blurted out a bubble of laughter. ‘Thank you,’ she said meekly.

Gene pinned the bandage and stood up.

‘You should have a cup of tea or something. For the shock,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t mind one if you’re asking.’

He turned away from her and put the kettle on. His head almost reached the ceiling beams over by the window, but Lara noticed that the beams were lower there than in the rest of the room. The
cottage walls were all out of square. La Mer was probably hundreds of years old.

She studied the back of him and compared him to James but found there was not much similiarity. Gene Hathersage’s shoulders were twice the width, his waist was thicker and his bum a fine
chunk. Once again she thought of the last time she had seen James’s bum, white, skinny and stuck up in the air. Lara’s cheeks were rivers of water. The tea towel was drenched.

‘Don’t know how you take it, so here, help yourself.’ Gene thumped a milk carton and a bag of sugar down on the table before placing a steaming-hot mug of tea in front of her.
‘So, why were you looking for me?’

‘Someone was on our roof in the middle of the night, bolting a big metal aerial thing to it. It scared us to death. We can’t watch the TV any more. And the phone isn’t working
either.’

‘Uncle Milton.’ Gene shook his head. ‘I’ll sort it. Sorry about that. It’s my great-uncle. On my mother’s side. The Birds are all flaming loop the loop.
He’s over ninety and shouldn’t be climbing ladders, especially in his stupid slippery pumps. He’s a Bird by surname, I mean, not by species.’

‘I gathered that’s what you meant. What is it? Why did he do it? And why did he do it at two o’clock in the morning?’ Lara poured a little milk into her cup.

‘He . . . er m . . . probably thought he was improving the television reception. He invents things,’ Gene explained.