Meeting the Neighbours

Ursula settles into her new life, but does it have enough to keep her from her old life? More importantly, is she welcome 'back home' anymore?

Leaving the shop Ursula dragged her small suitcase up the stairs to Aunt Hilda’s flat. The carpet must have been more than twenty years old but still had a deep soft pile and the case bounced from stair to stair. At the top her gaze fell upon the telephone table sitting in the hallway as it always had. The telephone was still there in all its brown Bakelite glory as was a notepad and pen now gathering dust. Pyewacket the stuffed cat however was missing. Ursula giggled as she remembered the will the solicitor had shown her. Aunt Hilda didn’t have much money so that went to a conservation project in the Orkney Islands; an old church apparently. The shop, the flat, and its contents went to Ursula. That was, nearly all the contents.

The solicitor had stammered as he explained Aunt Hilda’s black cat Pyewacket had been left to the local vicar but he must have run away and could she keep an eye out for him. Ursula had bit her lip eyes pricking with tears as she tried not to laugh. She wondered whether Aunt Hilda thought Pyewacket was expensive and might raise important church funds, or whether the reverend had declared a love for the dusty beast taxidermy had forever frozen in time, a tiny mew forming on his face. The vicar must have been new to the parish; Aunt Hilda had hated the one in service when she was a child despite loving the church itself. Ursula ran a finger across the dust forming on the telephone table; Pyewacket had gone. The solicitor had probably figured out the cat was stuffed and transferred it to its rightful home.

Leaving her coat and suitcase in the landing at the top of the stairs she crashed through the door of the bedroom she’d slept in as a child. The pink feather eiderdown was still there with its cool satiny feel, and the 1970s flock wallpaper proudly displayed its flamingo pattern. Breathing in the smells of her childhood brought Ursula’s emotions spinning back and she collapsed onto the bed, hugging the pillow firmly as though the bed were spinning and she needed to hold on tightly for fear of falling overboard. Finally, the great big sobs she’d been fighting throughout the journey caught up with her and she gave in, allowing them to envelope her in their comforting web.

Hagger’s Hill. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it. It would be nice to stay for awhile and find out more about the Hagger’s Hill witches. Aunt Hilda had always been tight lipped. Now she was dead she could investigate her aunt’s link to the witches who’d regularly featured in the press during the 1960s. The village had been famous until foot and mouth disease hit in 1967 and the reporters moved onto another story, another part of the countryside they could honour with five minutes of fame whilst they exploited. By the 1980s when Ursula arrived, the stories had taken on a mythical quality. Although the circumstances were not what she’d hoped, she was pleased she could finally find out the truth.

Sitting up and kicking off her shoes Ursula slipped underneath the covers fully clothed. Her smart skirt pinched at the waistband and across the hips. Her blouse was tight across her breasts leaving ripples and gaping holes between the buttons. Despite the lack of comfort in her size too small clothes for the next few hours Ursula slept better than she had in months.

She was awoken by hammering on the door of the shop below. Squinting at her watch she realised it was now way past midday. She looked out her bedroom window and saw a flame haired figure standing outside the building. She staggered downstairs wondering if anything in the shop was still in date. Surely everyone in the village must know it was closed? Hagger’s Hill had very few visitors this time of year so it was unlikely to be passing trade. She sighed wondering how she would get the shop up and running again; it would take a lot of hard work and organisation. Her throat felt tight, she didn’t know how to work the cash till let alone run the village stores. What about profit and loss, and wholesalers?

Ursula caught sight of herself in the mirror between the flat and the shop. Running her fingers through her long hair she tried to make it look less slept on. All she managed to do was create a triangle of frizz reminding her of Aunt Hilda’s hair. Taking deep breathes Ursula reminded herself she hadn’t decided she was going to stay. She might only be there a few days until she figured out where to go. Having forgotten her passport she was limited to the UK but it was a big place, she could pick and choose. The only place she couldn’t go was home. Not after what she’d done. She shuddered; it might be better for her to stay out of London completely.

The hammering on the door continued. She smoothed away the creases in her clothes and opened the door. Faced with her visitor she blinked a few times wondering if she was still asleep.

“Very pleased to meet you”, trilled an elderly woman holding out her hand. She was no taller than five feet with nut brown skin and bright green eyes heavily lined with black kohl. Her lips were painted bright red, just in the centre.

Ursula stood open mouthed silently reaching out and shaking the outstretched hand. It felt cold and hard, the thin skin giving way to the bone beneath.

“I missed you at the funeral,” the woman continued. “I’m Ivy. Hilda, bless her soul, was my truest and dearest friend. You must be Ursula. Do you remember me?”

Ursula didn’t. She stared trying hard to place her. She had a fleeting memory of the name but not the face standing opposite. She nodded buying more time for her memory to return. After all, Ivy wouldn’t have been the first person she’d forgotten lately and it had been thirteen years since she’d stayed in Hagger’s Hill. Maybe she’d remember by the end of the conversation.

“Shall I come in?”

Ursula nodded again and before she could stand aside and open the door Ivy had pushed past her and started walking up the stairs.

She took the key out of the lock and followed her as fast as she could, her hips stiff from sleep. Ursula wrung her hands wondering if she could ask her to go into the shop instead of invading her home, her personal space. It was too late; Ivy had turned at the phone table and wandered into the living room. By the time Ursula’s aching legs made it up the stairs Ivy had already settled into an old leather armchair. It was a deep shade of berry pink and clashed with her nutmeg skin and flame orange hair.

Today is far too surreal for me already, thought Ursula as she ran her fingers through her hair. But nothing could be as surreal as the events of last month. People told her she’d never be the same afterwards, it changes you they said. How right they’d been.

 “I would offer you a tea”, she told Ivy, “but I’m not sure where Aunt Hilda kept it.”

Ivy pursed her lips. “Above the kettle to the side of the sink; no milk, one sugar, you’ll find the sugar in the silver bowl.”

Ursula’s jaw dropped. How did she know the contents of Aunt Hilda’s kitchen so well? Ursula blushed as she remembered her aunt had been ill for a few months before she’d died, she’d been cared for not by family but by her neighbours.

“You spent a lot of time here recently!” she exclaimed walking through the room to the kitchen. Ursula hadn’t. She’d been preoccupied.

“We were best friends for nearly fifty years.”

Fifty years, thought Ursula. Longer than I’ve been alive, almost as long as Aunt Hilda had lived in Hagger’s Hill. Why couldn’t she remember her? Maybe she’d looked different when Ursula had been a child; she could tell Ivy would have been very attractive as a young woman. She wondered whether she’d been making her face over in the same way since the 1970s. As she switched the kettle on she wondered again why she couldn’t remember. Surely a few years didn’t make that much difference. But then again, she wasn’t remembering much these days. Yesterday had even taken on a hazy quality. That’s what lack of sleep did for you.

Ursula found the sugar bowl. Her face broke into a grin, now this was something she did remember. The silver was tarnished now but the rounded lid with the almond eyed hare took her straight back to being a child. The hare curled around in a foetal position with its ears flowing behind it.

 “Beware the hare,” Aunt Hilda used to say. “For hares have ears.”

“Of course they have ears!” Ursula would laugh. “Silly Aunt Hilda”.

Aunt Hilda. She used to say the wind had ears too. At least hares actually did have ears.

Ursula remembered her mother’s stifled laughs as she came to pick her up on the autumn afternoon which heralded the end of her first ever stay. The flat had been hopelessly out of date even then, and to think the fashion was only from the decade before.

Her mother swept her into her arms all smiles as she whispered, “The 1970s was the decade taste forgot! But this flat looks like even the seventies would have shunned it for being too gaudy.”

Ursula had frowned feeling disloyal. After all, Aunt Hilda had nothing but good things to say about her mother and but now her mum had arrived she was laughing at her home. It had been Ursula’s home too and despite Aunt Hilda’s insistence her mother would come back for her she had worried she might stay in Hagger’s Hill forever. Of course her mother was right; the flat was the epitome of bad taste especially during the money hungry 1980s when no one wanted to be thought of as old fashioned. But Ursula didn’t want to hear that, she’d loved Aunt Hilda’s home with its aroma of joss sticks and tea. She still loved the place; it reminded her so much of her childhood.

She picked up the cups of tea and brought them into the living room handing one to Ivy before setting hers on the coffee table beside a second armchair. Gasping she leapt back. Her hand recoiled. The tea spilt pooling on the table, running down the arm of the chair, puddling on the pink carpet. A glassy eye greeted her from inside the coffee table; a dead glassy eye. She screwed her face up as she peered over. Her arm hurt from the scalds of the hot tea. The scream caught in her throat refusing to dissipate or be voiced.

Ivy leapt up to find a cloth allowing Ursula to investigate the table properly. Staring back at her from inside the table was a goldfish pickled in an eternal formaldehyde glide. Alongside the goldfish was a collection of swimming fishy friends their glassy eyes and scaled bodies forever frozen in time within the table. This was new. Ursula had never seen it before. Her laughter rang out across the room. Where could you even buy a table like that? Only Aunt Hilda would have dead fish underneath her teapot.

Ivy appeared behind her. She bent down and mopped up the spilt tea whilst Ursula apologised profusely for her clumsiness feeling terrible an elderly guest was cleaning up after her. But as she wrung her hands and watched Ivy get on her hands and knees to scrub the carpet she knew she wouldn’t have been able to bend that far.

“You like the table?” Ivy asked as she rose to standing.

“I’ve never seen anything like it!” Ursula laughed.

They both sat on the pink armchairs, the ancient leather giving a squeak and a creak underneath their bodies as they made themselves comfortable.

 Ivy shuffled her feet. “It was a present I bought for Hilda, her favourite.”

That explained a lot, thought Ursula knowing Aunt Hilda really would have loved it however hideous. It was just her taste. And because of that she knew she too would grow to like it. She would have to; she’d decided it would always have a place in Aunt Hilda’s flat. At least Pyewacket had moved on to vicarages new.

Ursula wondered whether Ivy had been the one to educate the solicitor as to Pyewacket’s true form. She was going to ask her but her eyelids grew heavy. Taking deep breathes and sitting as upright as she could she fought to stay awake as Ivy chatted. First she talked about Aunt Hilda’s pivotal role in the village, then about the importance of the shop.

“The only person who didn’t warm to Hilda was Reverend Murrell from St Nicholas’ church,” Ivy was saying.

Ursula’s head nodded as she jolted back into wakefulness.

“He lived here forty years and never said a word to her.”

Ursula’s eyelids fluttered as she fought the snooze. Why would Aunt Hilda leave Pyewacket to someone who didn’t even acknowledge her? It must have been her idea of a joke. That wouldn’t have been out of character.

“Of course she loved the church. What a shame he couldn’t see how much she had to give.” Ivy’s voice was echoing in the air between them rising and falling in time with Ursula’s heavy breathing. Ursula felt herself begin to slide into a gentle sleep. The sound of seagulls and roaring tides rushed through her as she dreamt she was floating. The marmalade goldfish and sticklebacks with scales like woven rugs grew wings and flew with her higher and higher through fat white fluffy marshmallow clouds. They took Ursula with them as they glided to the crossroads of Hagger’s Hill. An army of little mice danced in the clouds waving great strands of white fluff into a web like a mouse maypole. And in her dream Ursula spun pirouetting with her arms outstretched and her feet balancing on nothing but marshmallow sky.

Ursula woke with a shudder her body jerking forwards. She gasped trying to remember where she was. Right in front of her newly open eyes her mobile loomed ringing at her like an alarm. Attached to the phone was Ivy’s nut brown arm. Ivy’s icy cold hands met Ursula’s sleep warmed skin as she forced the phone into her palm, her jauntily painted eyebrows furrowing as she towered over her. Gasping Ursula threw the phone across the room where it bounced off the sideboard. Her hand flew to her mouth as though she couldn’t believe what her own hands had done. With her heart beating fast she closed her eyes and ran her palm across her forehead.

She shook her head as her heart sank. Crazy Ursula was loose again. How many faces did she have, crazy, sane, professional? She’d coped so well over the last twenty four hours; finally got her head together. As the functional Ursula regained control her face turned scarlet from her neck to the parting of her hair. Ivy’s face was crumpled which only served to make Ursula feel worse. Not only had she behaved like a mad person she’d done so in front of a guest, an elderly woman who also happened to be her Aunt Hilda’s best friend.

 “Oh my goodness, Ivy, I’m so sorry.” Ursula insisted. “Gosh I really am, so sorry. You shocked me. I’m tired because I was driving through the night to get here and I must have just dropped off. We’ve all done it haven’t we, fallen asleep when we shouldn’t, in meetings and what not. The noise of the telephone gave me a fright!”

Except she knew she never had; never fallen asleep in a meeting, or a lecture, or even in the comfort of her own squashy sofa as she watched television. She didn’t do things like that. She was sensible; she didn’t stay up late, didn’t drink too much, and went to bed when she was tired.

You’ve got to have a routine, wasn’t that what she always said? Then you’ll never feel tired. And she never did, except now. Now she was exhausted.

“Sorry Ivy,” she said again. “You know what it’s like.” She drew her hands up to her chin and pulled a face.

Ivy jumped backwards, her nutmeg face creased and confused.

Ursula winced, “Sorry.”

Why had she tried to be cute? The fear in her eyes had taken away any playfulness in her action. She might as well have held up a sign saying, ‘Mad Person alert’.

Gaining her composure far sooner than Ursula, Ivy shook her head and smoothed down her velvet skirt. “Well I better be going, and you can go and answer your call.”

“Thank you,” Ursula said in a small voice, “sorry.”

 “I expect you’ll have the shop open tomorrow,” Ivy continued. “After all, it’s been a great many months and you are the only shop in Hagger’s Hill. People relied on your aunt. She was an absolute life saver, always with a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, and a good dash of wonderful advice.”

“Service with a smile,” Ursula said weakly although privately she wondered how much trade there could possibly be from a village that had so few houses.

“Well I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone expected a smile,” Ivy replied.

As Ivy left, Ursula watched out of the window as the small lady with the bright orange hair made her way down the street her walking pace fast with small footsteps like a brightly painted pied wagtail. She wondered what Ivy meant by people not expecting a smile. The Aunt Hilda she remembered was very friendly and happy, always with a kind smile. Still, maybe Ivy had known her better than she did; after all she hadn’t spent a decent amount of time with her in a long while. Ursula watched Ivy disappear up her path only moving from the window when she was satisfied she wasn’t going to come back. She made her way awkwardly across the living room bending down to pick up the mobile.

She shivered, recognising the number. Saying it was the last person she wanted to hear from sounded so dramatic, so unlike sensible Ursula. But that was exactly the name and number staring back at her. She put the handset down on the coffee table where a goldfish stared up beside it. Sighing she tried to remember what their last conversation had been. Had she really thought he wouldn’t try to call her? Well, she had nothing to say to him. Their last argument now felt like a dream. Had Simon shouted or had he hissed out his angry monologue trying to keep his voice down? Why couldn’t she remember? The last few weeks of Ursula’s life were fuzzy like a dream or like a distant memory she couldn’t quite recall.

Slumped in the armchair Ursula watched the phone buzz and go silent over and over again. She didn’t dare press the cancel call button for fear it would be obvious her phone was in her hand, as though she could somehow be traced that way. Sometimes she recognised the numbers, sometimes they were withheld. It seemed as though everyone was desperate to get hold of her. She didn’t want to speak to anyone. There was no point. There would be sympathetic noises and declarations of how worried they were; that she’d scared them. And they were the people who sympathised. It didn’t bear thinking what the rest would say but there was no way of knowing who would fall into which camp. Ursula picked up the phone and dialled the voicemail number. She put it down again instantly. She could reel off the messages without having to listen to them.

“Do you want to talk?”

“I’m here for you; I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

 “Do you know what you’ve done you big heartless b***h?”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the offending object. In Hagger’s Hill no one knew who she was, she could hide here for as long as she needed to. She flicked through the numbers again. There was only one person she wanted to talk to and he was the only one who’d not bothered to call. But then Brogan’s life was a whirlwind of activities these days, all of which had stopped including her. He was the only one who’d have any idea how she felt, the only person who wouldn’t judge her. He’d know not to try and push her memory; know not to try and fill in the gaps. Her lack of ability to recall the last few weeks terrified her but only she could know what was really going on. The real disasters happened in her head. It was better not to remember at all. She’d be happier that way. She could get on with her life as though nothing had changed.

But they have changed, the tiny voice of her conscience piped up, and whether you have to answer to anyone else you will always need to live with yourself.