‘I’ve brought you a video, about some college girls who all get murdered one by one. Killer’s in t’ roof space and he comes down at night and chops bits off ’em.’ – Dogman.
I spent every hour I could at the library, where Miss Dragon was compiling me a reading list while we waited on the official one turning up.
‘Some of these I’ve had to order in from Manchester Central,’ she said, scrutinizing the column of titles. ‘Of course, you’ll soon have access to one of the finest libraries in the country.’ She looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. ‘You’re a lucky girl, you know.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘How’s your grandma?’
‘Livid.’
Miss Dragon sighed and leaned her forearms on the counter. ‘I gave up decades of my life to look after my father. And after he died, what was there left?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A bungalow in Harrop, to myself. Of course, I had my qualifications and my job, one keeps busy, there’s the RSPB . . . But I like to think I could have got a little further, had I made different choices. So let your grandma be livid. You have a life to lead.’
‘I’ve got an interview with the Rehab Officer next week, to talk through care packages.’
‘Well, that’s splendid. Taking practical action; good.’
‘Yeah. The trouble is, she’s so stubborn. They have people to train you, show you how to do ordinary household tasks with limited vision, but she won’t let them in the house. She says they’ll snoop. And they have all sorts of gadgets, talking clocks, embossers, brilliant stuff, but she’s really choosy about what she has.’
Miss Dragon frowned. ‘Why is that? You’d think she’d want to be independent.’
‘Oh, she does and she doesn’t. One minute she’s wailing for help, the next she’s shrugging you off. I can’t do right for doing wrong. The objection to the gadgets is that they cost money.’
‘Doesn’t she get them free? She should do, a pensioner with . . . Sorry, I’m assuming she has no assets. None of my business, of course.’
‘No, you’re right. She’s as poor as a church mouse, she’s always telling me.’ Which is why no computer, no mobile phone, charity-shop clothes, I could have carried on. But I didn’t want Miss Dragon to think I cared about things like that.
‘So what’s the problem? Are social services being awkward about it? I’ve heard some dreadful stories about means testing.’
‘Social services are fine. Well, they did lose a form once and we were waiting for ages, but mainly they’re pretty helpful. It’s Poll who’s the obstruction. She says she won’t have them going through her private documents. She says she came from a generation where your personal finances were nobody’s business but your own, and she doesn’t see why total strangers should see how little money she has and make mock.’
Miss Dragon tutted. ‘People of your grandma’s age are often fiercely proud. I don’t suppose she approves of credit either, does she?’
‘God, no. Not least because to get yourself a credit card you have to give all sorts of information about yourself. She’s spitting fire when these researchers stop her in the street and ask what brand of cooking oil she prefers. She hit a woman once. It was so embarrassing.’
‘I can imagine it was.’
Miss Mouse floated by and smiled sideways, without raising her head.
I felt like I was back in the fold again.
*
Walking back down the village, under a sky that threatened drizzle, I tried to see Bank Top as though for the first time. Imagine not living here any more. Would I miss the place? Past the doctors’ surgery, with its nosy waiting room, always someone calling out some awkward question or other when you went in to collect a prescription. Past the church where I’d had to go every Easter, Christmas and Harvest, on account of attending a church school, and where Revd Rowland had once given a really good talk on bullying, which had had no effect whatsoever. Past the sweetie shop, the Methodists’, the road leading to Bank Top Primary Hell. It was impossible to see this long street as just a road with buildings on it. Everything was filtered through memories.
That led me to thinking about Oxford, and what it would actually be like starting university. Would I get a room to myself? With a sink? What if there was nowhere to be sick in private, and I put on
stones
in weight?
What if I got lost on the way to a tutorial? And the don thought I was messing about, and assumed that I was lazy? What if everyone turned out to be way cleverer than me? If it came out that I only got a B, while all the other students had As? And they decided I was only let in because I was from a lower-class background? Did you have to write your grades down anywhere, so people could see? Maybe they got read out at the first tutorial.
What if all the other students had loads of money, and did expensive hobbies that I couldn’t join in with? Or they all had dead posh clothes? What if they really
couldn’t
understand my accent?
What if the door had been the omen, and not the wasp?
I don’t know what I’d been thinking. Leave home, me? Two minutes, I’d last.
I wanted to call in at the cemetery, but I’d already been longer than I’d said and there was Winston to walk so I carried on down the Brow, feeling thoroughly depressed. As soon as I got in, I’d find Poll’s tea tray and hit myself over the head with it a few times.
I felt in my peggy purse for the key, then realized I’d left it on the sideboard. I rang the bell and waited. Normally you get a scratching of claws on wood, some snuffling or a bark, followed by old-woman swearing in the background. But today all was quiet. Poll must be round at Maggie’s, or in the garden. So I went down the ginnel at the side of the house and through the gate. The garden was empty and the back door locked.
In the outhouse, where Poll once used to keep coal and which currently houses a broken washing machine that Dogman’s going to fix someday, I felt above the lintel for the spare key. Then I let myself into the kitchen and pressed the kettle switch as I walked past. I flipped up the lid of the bread bin, extracted a chocolate sponge slice from the plastic packaging, and folded it, whole, into my mouth.
I only found Poll when I came through into the living room.
It was like those TV murders, where all you see at first is a hand sticking out. I gaped down at her curled-over fingers for a second, then ran round to the other side of the sofa to see the rest. She was flat out on her back, one arm flung above her head, eyes closed. Her skirt was up above her knees, showing the top of her tights, and her forehead was bleeding where she’d struck it against the gas fire as she went down. One slipper was missing. For a second I thought she’d been attacked. Then I spotted Winston, also motionless, near her feet. I know it sounds mad but I went to him first.
I pushed his head gently up and it rolled sideways in my hand. When I let go, it just flopped to the carpet. His flank had a caved-in look about it; he reminded me of an empty nightdress case. I couldn’t see breathing.
‘Poll,’ I yelped in fright. ‘Poll? Can you hear me?’
I turned back and knelt by her head. I reached out to touch her cheek, my arms weak with panic. Her eyelids flickered.
‘Poll!’
No response, so I heaved myself up and made for the telephone. Trembling all over, I dialled for an ambulance, listened to the choices, answered some questions. I was to keep talking to her, they said. Gather any medication she needed. Don’t attempt to move her, or give her anything to eat or drink. Paramedics would be there within fifteen minutes.
I should have gone back to sit with her but instead I phoned Dogman’s mobile. Maggie would have been nicer but she’s no car and she’s not allowed to lift anything heavy.
‘I’m only at t’ top of t’ Brow,’ I heard him shout through the swish of traffic. ‘I were coming round anyway to knock a nail in that bit of carpet on t’ landing. Get some Bailey’s down her, that might bring her to.’
I ignored this stupidity and went to sit by Poll, who was now twitching her head and moving her lips like a dreamer.
‘You’re OK,’ I kept saying, which was a huge lie but it’s what you say to accident victims even when limbs are hanging off. ‘I’ve called an ambulance and Dickie’s on his way.’ I wondered whether to lie about Winston too.
Then the door burst open and Dogman was there, two carrier bags full of crap in his hands as usual. He dumped the bags on the floor.
‘Have you a blanket?’ he said. ‘We could put a cushion under her head too.’
‘I don’t think you’ve to move the patient,’ I told him. I lowered my voice: ‘In case you paralyse them.’ I went to get the blanket, though.
When I came back he was prodding Winston while still talking to Poll. He made a slitting-throat gesture at me and pointed to the dog, let’s hope he never goes in for bereavement counselling, then swivelled on his haunches and peered closely at Poll. ‘What’s this in her hair?’ he hissed. ‘It looks like mouse dirt.’
I leaned over. ‘Chocolate sprinkles,’ I said, like it was perfectly normal. I knew it was probably down my front as well as round my mouth. ‘Shift out of the way then I can throw this blanket over her. Did you leave the front door open for the ambulance men?’
Just before they came to take her away, Poll woke up. We watched her eyes focus and unfocus a few times before she was really with us. ‘I tripped ovver Winston,’ she said weakly.
‘I know, I guessed.’
‘He’s poorly, I think.’ She tried to raise her head.
‘No, he’s fine. Just sound asleep,’ said Dogman.
She drifted off again. Then, as the paramedics shouted from the hall, she squinted at me. ‘You took your bloody time, you did.’
The paramedics were upbeat about the situation.
‘What’s your name, love?’ Pause. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Pollyanna Millar. We call her—’
‘Pollyanna? Pollyanna, can you hear me, love? You’ve been in the wars, haven’t you? But we’ll soon have you in safe hands. We’ll have you break-dancing again before you know it. Can you tell us where it hurts? Can you feel this? Could you give my hand a little squeeze? That’s smashing. Now we’re just going to lift you onto a stretcher, so you might—’
While they got her onto the stretcher, Dogman saw to Winston, rolling him up tenderly in the blanket. ‘I’ll have him,’ he whispered. ‘You go with Poll.’
‘Are you going to the vet’s with him?’
‘Do you think there’s any point?’
‘There’s some money for bills in the top drawer. Take him, please. Just in case.’
‘Aye, awreet, I will.’ Dogman shifted the blanket against him as though he was carrying a baby. ‘Give us a ring from th’ hospital, will you?’
I nodded, and we all trooped out.
‘Have you locked your front door, love?’ said the lady paramedic as we stood by the back of the ambulance. ‘Only there’s scum who’ll break in even at times like this.’
I ran back to check, even though I knew for certain I’d shut it with the latch on.
*
It had been a long day, but it was an even longer night. They sent me home about eight, by which time they thought Poll might only be suffering from concussion and a twisted ankle, but they said they still wanted to keep her in for observation. I wondered if her notes said, ‘Pollyanna Millar: fell over dog’.
I had to get the bus back, in the dark, and I had no coat and only just had enough money for the fare. When I got there, the house was chilly and there were no lights on, and I was shaking with cold and nerves as I walked in through the porch.
I checked every room as I went round lighting the place up, in case a burglar had got in, hidden himself in the wardrobes or under the beds, or in the airing cupboard, or under the stairs with the vacuum cleaner, or behind the long curtains in the front room, or under the sink. I struggled not to think about the Killer who lived in the Attic, or rapists who shinned up drainpipes.
Our attic entrance was over the landing and, when I went to look, well covered with unbroken cobwebs, so clearly no psychopath was using it as a hideout at the moment. But the idea of a man scaling the walls and his face rising up against the blackness freaked me so much I had to go and make sure all the windows were shut tight. Then I re-checked the beds, wardrobes, etc. in case someone
had
climbed in upstairs while I’d been downstairs. All the time I was thinking, this is so stupid, because even if Poll was here and an axe murderer broke in, what could she do against him?
Then I imagined Winston leaping to my defence against an intruder, in a feeble, miniature sort of way, and that made me feel so sad and lonely I started to cry. When I’d called earlier from the Royal Bolton, Dogman had said the vet thought Winston had been run over. He must have hopped through the dog-flap and then nipped out illegally through the gate, although I’d not left it open. Maybe Poll thought she’d put the bolt on when she hadn’t. Anyway, he’d probably seen something on the opposite pavement and gone hurtling across. Nobody knocked at the door and said, I think I’ve flattened your dog, but then the driver might not even have spotted him, he’s so small. There was some blood in his poo, the vet said, so that meant internal bleeding, and his claws were frayed at the tips as if he’d been pushed along tarmac at speed. Dogman described Winston staggering home and dragging himself through the flap, across the kitchen and living room, to collapse between the sofa and the armchair, where he died. I saw it all as he spoke. How was I ever going to break it to Poll?
Poll, lying crumpled on the carpet; Poll under a white sheet on a metal bed with glazed eyes, this terrible gash on her forehead. Me standing there in turmoil, waiting for the doctors to tell me what was going on. What if they were wrong and it had been something serious that affected her balance? Maybe I’d go tomorrow and they’d take me off into a side-room, like they do on
Casualty
when they have to break bad news, and say, ‘Are you next of kin?’
And now back at home, alone and upset, with no dog even. I never thought I could miss her so much. I hadn’t spent a night on my own ever before. Dad was no help now, of course, smirking at me from his photos, the big deceiver. I wasn’t speaking to him because when I’d gone to the cemetery to tackle him about Callum, all he’d sent was a cloud-trail of Morse code. ‘Sackless bloody symbolism,’ I’d shouted up at the sky. ‘Why do you have to talk in riddles all the time?’