Precious Time (26 page)

It was spite that was stopping him from selling. It had been the same earlier that year when he had approached his father for a loan to get the bank off his back. ‘Enough is enough!’ Gabriel had roared.

‘Not another penny, Caspar. So long as I’m breathing, you’ll not scrounge another bean out of me.’

At last somebody in Northumberland answered the phone.

‘Rosewood Manor Healing Centre,’ announced a reedy voice, which sounded as though it needed a boot taking to it.

‘This is an emergency,’ lied Caspar, sitting upright and uncrossing his legs. ‘I need to speak to Damson Liberty. Tell her it’s her brother and that it’s imperative she comes to the phone.’

‘Damson who?’

‘Damson Liberty - I mean Damson Ackerman,’ he repeated

impatiently. He never could keep up with the changes to her surname. Peevishly he added, ‘Just how many Damsons do you have there?’

‘Oh, you mean Damson. Hold the line and I’ll see if she’s

available.’

‘You do that. Now trot along quick as you can and find her for me. Meanwhile, I’ll cope with the pain of your absence by slipping a rope around my neck and pulling it tight.’

Drumming his fingers on the smooth leather arm of the sofa, he listened to the woman’s footsteps recede down what he imagined was a dark, draughty passageway, and in the minutes that passed, he went over what he was going to say to his sister. He had to attract her attention in the first nanosecond of their conversation. Let Damson run so much as an inch with the ball and he would never get a coherent word out of her. She would be off on one of her surreal planes of fantasy.

What he needed to get across to her was that they had to work together on their father, persuade him to sell Mermaid House now, while the property boom was still at its height. Leave it till next year and they would lose out. Despite what Jonah thought, every pound counted. For some annoyingly perverse reason, his brother seemed intent on missing the crucial point that they must cash in on a buoyant market. Just as he was woefully naive about the appearance of this unknown woman at Mermaid House.

What the hell was their father up to? And just who was she? A gold-digging opportunist who had caught the whiff of money?

He brought the flat of his hand down on the arm of the sofa with a loud smack. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about without his father getting involved with a travelling New Age hippie! He could picture her perfectly. An irresponsible single mother who was shaven-haired, pierced all over, and who clomped around in boots and khaki trousers that were three sizes too big for her. It was the thought of her getting her unwashed feet under the table at Mermaid House that was causing him to act without delay.

He wanted Damson to understand that unless they took immediate action they might find themselves out in the cold with a scheming new stepmother calling the shots. Gabriel Liberty wouldn’t be the first or last old man to make a fool of himself over a much younger woman.

Footsteps in his ear told him Damson was about to pick up the receiver. He felt himself relax and realised how tense he had become.

He knew that once he had his sister on board, it would be like old times, and they would be invincible.

But he was wrong. They weren’t Damson’s footsteps he had heard.

They belonged to the woman with the reedy voice. ‘Are you still there?’ she asked.

‘More’s the pity, yes. Where’s Damson?’

‘I’m afraid she can’t come to the phone just now. I’ve been told to tell you she’s in the middle of a very important holistic—’

‘But I need to speak to her!’

A timid silence seeped down the line, followed by the sound of a loud gong. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ the woman simpered, ‘I’m going to have to go. I should ring back later if I were you.’

‘And if I were you, I’d have a full-frontal lobotomy!’ He slammed down the phone.

Now what?

He’d have to deal with the problem direct. Scooping up his keys from the glass bowl on the table by the front door, he locked his apartment, took the lift down to the garages on the ground floor and slipped behind the wheel of his Maserati. He nosed the car into the early evening traffic and tried to steady his temper by switching on the CD player, at the same time focusing his thoughts on the smoothness of the drive.

It worked.

By the time he had picked up the A6 and had driven through Disley, he could feel the knots easing in his neck and shoulders. He knew he shouldn’t let things get the better of him, and knew, too, that as long as Damson was under the thumb of those hippies up in Northumberland, he could no longer rely on her. But old habits died hard: he still saw her as his rock. As children she had always been the more daring and cunning of the two of them. If ever he thought he was losing his nerve, it was always Damson who reassured him that nothing could go wrong.

But where was she now when he needed her support and

reassurance?

Hanging around with a bunch of navel-gazing screwballs who had as much chance of finding their inner selves as he had of becoming the next Queen of England.

The tension was building again in his shoulders, and he tried not to think of how much he missed Damson. It was ages since he had last seen her - Val’s funeral probably.

He pressed his foot down on the accelerator and sped on towards Mermaid House and the devious woman who had designs on his father.

She might have met his younger brother and concluded that he was as much of a threat to her plans as a wet paper bag but she hadn’t reckoned on coming face to face with Caspar Liberty.

The day had gone well for Archie. The shop had been busy from the moment he had opened. A cold north-easterly wind had provided him with a steady flow of day-trippers coming in for a browse and a warm. There had also been a number of more serious customers, like the well-dressed couple who wanted to furnish a cottage in Castleton, which they were letting to the holiday trade. ‘Naturally we don’t want to fill it with anything new and expensive,’ the wife had said, in a tight, haughty voice, ‘not when cheap tat will do the job perfectly well. And what a lot you seem to have. I suppose it’s all clean?’

Ignoring the implied slur, Archie smiled and got on with

offloading as much furniture and knick-knacks as he could and arranging for its delivery on Monday morning.

Another couple had come in soon after them, a husband and wife in matching fleeces, whom he recognised from their monthly trawl of his shop. They were dealers from Buxton who made it their business to check out the bottom end of the market for the antiques of tomorrow. It always surprised him what they picked from his shelves. Last month it had been an ugly chrome ashtray - one of those silly things on a stand that always got knocked over. Today it had been a Bakelite clock. He couldn’t see the attraction in Bakelite; in fact, he hated it. It reminded him of when he had been in his bedroom as a child, listening to his father shouting at his mother downstairs. To keep himself awake, just in case his mother needed his help, he would leave his bedside lamp switched on. But then it would overheat and give off a horrible fishy smell.

Alone in the shop now, he was locking up. Samson had given Bessie a lift home earlier so that she could take her time to get ready for their big Saturday night out at the pictures. Just as he was slipping the last of the chains and bolts across the door, the telephone rang. Because Archie was thinking of his mother, he rushed through to the office and snatched up the receiver, fearing the worst.

‘Is that Mr Merryman at Second Best?’ asked a woman - an

assured young woman.

‘Yes, it is. What can I do for you?’

‘You might not remember me, but my name is Clara Costello and my son and I—’

‘Of course I remember you. How are you? Still enjoying the delights of Deaconsbridge?’

‘Yes, but not quite in the way I thought I might. I know it’s a bit late in the day but I’ve got a proposition for you. Have you got a moment?’

‘I’m all ears.’

When he’d heard what she had to say, he laughed. ‘Well, I think I could manage that. I’ll put it in the diary for Monday afternoon, around three o’clock. That soon enough for you?’

‘Yes, that’ll be fine. Do you need directions?’

‘No, thanks. I’ve a nose on me like a bloodhound.’

After he’d rung off, he reached for the diary to make a note of his appointment with Clara Costello at Mermaid House. It was only then that he remembered he’d be delivering an entire house’s worth of ‘cheap tat’ for Mr and Mrs HoityToity over in Castleton that morning. Oh, well, he and Samson would just have to make sure they got through the job in double-quick time.

Feeling surprisingly chipper, he left the shop to walk home. He crossed the square, waved at Shirley through the window of the Mermaid cafe, then made his way slowly up the steep hill of Cross Street. The early evening air was sharp and it sliced through his thin jacket. He paused to catch his breath in the usual spot, leaning against the rail. The coldness of the metal scorched his hand and he wondered if they were in for a late snap of winter. Just because they were on the verge of April, and had recently experienced a few welcome days of spring weather, it didn’t mean they were out of the woods. He could recall many an April morning when he’d had to scrape ice off the windscreen. Then he remembered he had left his car at the shop. He had driven to work that morning because he had taken his mother in with him on the pretext of needing her help again. ‘I’m knee-deep in stuff that needs cleaning,’ he had told her the night before. ‘I don’t suppose you’d come in for another day and give me a hand with it, would you?’

By the time he had parked the Volvo outside his house, it was almost seven. He’d have to get his skates on now or they’d miss the opening minutes of the film. As he let himself into the house at the back, he called to his mother. It was the moment in the day he dreaded most, other than first thing in the morning when he knocked on Bessie’s bedroom door. He told himself repeatedly not to keep imagining the worst, but the memory of finding Bessie on the floor of her own home last year was difficult to shake off.

Hearing voices, and thinking she was in the sitting room watching the television, he pushed open the door and found her rigged up in one of her best dresses - collar and buttons askew - listening attentively to an earnest young man who could be no more than seventeen. He was reading from a copy of the Watch Tower and next to him was an older woman pouring tea. All three looked up as he came into the room.

‘Hello,’ he said, cheerfully enough, but inwardly annoyed. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘Archie,’ his mother said, unaware of the tension that his presence had caused, ‘this is Rickie and his hummer.’

‘I think she means mother,’ the woman said, lowering the teapot.

‘And I think she may have lost track of the time,’ Archie said firmly. ‘We’re due out shortly, so I think it would be better if we brought this cosy chat to an end.’ He was livid now. How dare these people think they could take advantage of a defenceless woman and indoctrinate her with their religious beliefs?

‘Another time perhaps?’ the woman said smoothly, rising to her feet and pulling on her coat. She had probably been thrown out of more homes than Archie had had hot dinners.

When he had hustled them to the front door, he realised how uncharacteristically rude he was being. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just that you could have been anyone - robbers, murderers, you name it. She’s too sweet-natured for her own good. She thinks well of everyone.’

‘A fault with which more people should be blessed,’ the woman said, with a smile of such forgiveness that he felt twice as churlish.

Watching them close the wrought-iron gate behind them, Archie noticed that the boy’s trousers were too short for his long thin legs and his conscience pricked again. He wished he could replay the scene and deal with it better. It’s not your religion or beliefs I have a problem with, he wanted to call after then, it’s the world we live in. A dog-eat-dog world that takes advantage of innocent children and old ladies.

Later, as he was driving to the cinema, he thought how heavy handed he had been. He knew he had hurt his mother’s feelings by behaving like a boorish, arrogant bully, taking it upon himself to censor her enjoyment, which was bad enough, but what pained him more, was that he had reminded himself of his father.

Determined not to let this thought put a dampener on the evening, and knowing that Bessie was still upset, he said, ‘I’m sorry about turfing Rickie and his mother out, but in this day and age you really ought to be more careful who you let into the house.’

What she said next made him feel even worse. ‘Lonely, Archie, on my bone.’

Cut to the quick, he drove on in silence. Then he thought of something that might cheer her up, and told her about the call he had had from Clara Costello. ‘She’s only gone and got herself working for that dreadful man I told you about at the hospital. You know, the one who was so rude to Dr Singh. I hope he doesn’t take advantage of her.’

‘Mr Liberty, please don’t think you can take advantage of me. I’m really not that sort of a girl.’

Gabriel scowled. She was merciless in the way she kept twisting his words. But two could play at that game. ‘Miss Costello, I may have lost some of my social skills of late, and the use of plain English may have changed since I last made anyone such an offer, but as far as I’m aware I believe I only suggested I’d cook you supper. There’s not the slightest chance of me wanting to seduce you. As disappointing as that might be to you.’ Hah! Let’s see you bat that one back!

They were standing in the dining room where she had been hard at work all day. She was polishing a pair of silver candlesticks he hadn’t seen in a long while. He couldn’t even remember where they had come from. She stopped what she was doing, folded the yellow duster in half, then in half again and turned away to place the candlesticks on the stone mantel above the fireplace. Without looking at him, or giving him an answer, she said, ‘What are you hiding behind your back?’