THE COTTAGE IN THE WOODS .Part 2.

The teenagers discuss the old woman with the local constable

Enid and Anthony took a great deal less time walking back to their corner of Brumpton than they had when sauntering through the woods earlier, exploring, and as they hurried along they had plenty to think about. An almost derelict cpttage, an old woman, and a gun...

“That was scary,” gasped Enid.

“When she pointed that gun at us!” agreed Anthony.

“I think something ought to be done about her! You can’t allow scruffy old women the right to threaten kids like us with a gun even if one of our feet did go near her garden!”

“We’re not kids any more,” suggested Anthony, “we stopped being kids when we had that kiss earlier. It was too grown up to be a game between two kids!”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Enid, “but I’ve sort of wanted to kiss you for ages, before any other lass caught you in her net!”

“What for? We’re friends and sometimes friends sort of kiss. And I don’t know any other girls. Not properly, though there’s a few in my class at school, but they’re not like you...”

“Sort of kiss? That wasn’t sort of, but let‘s talk about it later. I reckon the police ought to be told about her. It was what looked like a real gun that she pointed at us, and we weren’t even in her garden, if you can call it a garden!”

“I know, and thank goodness it only clicked… and she is an old woman who seems to think the war we did in history is still raging and that we’ve lost the battle and even joined the other side…”

“Do you reckon she’s old enough to have been alive back then?” asked Enid.

“I dunno. I find it hard working out how old someone is. Last week Mr Psalmer asked me how old I thought a visitor to school might be before he went to see him and I thought about it and then said approaching middle age because I wasn’t sure. He told me later that he was almost thirty and still young!”

“Well, I reckon she’s between fifty and sixty, which isn’t really old even though her face is all wrinkles, which means she can’t have been alive when the war ended in 1945.”

“That was nearly eighty years ago and even if she’d been a baby when that war ended she’d probably be dead by now,” suggested Anthony.

“Look: there’s constable Pierce chatting to someone on the corner. Let’ ask him what he knows about our old woman,” said Enid, “even if it seems a bit like grassing her up, she shouldn’t have pointed a gun at us even if it didn’t work and deserves to be grassed up!”

There was a time not so long ago when the local policeman was a common enough sight on the estate, but financial constraints had made Constable Billy Pierce’s appearance on the streets where the two teenagers lived into a rarity, though as he lived just round the corner from the two families and liked to chat to his neighbours when he was off duty under the guise of keeping a weather eye on things he had got to know most of his neighbours rather well, and rumour had it, Mrs Cinders better than most.

“Come on, then,” urged Anthony, and the two of them hurried towards where he was deep in conversation with a middle aged man standing in his own garden and leaning on a spade.

“I’ll keep an eye open then, Bert,” he mumbled to the gardener, and turned away to see the two teenagers approaching him. “Did you two want something?” he asked.

“There’s an old woman with a gun,” burst out Enid

“And she shot at us,” added Anthony, “or she would have shot at us but her gun just went click as if it was broken.”

“Where might this be, then?” asked Billy, frowning. He knew Anthony and Enid well enough to know they wouldn’t deliberately create a problem where one didn’t exist.

“Down through the woods,” Enid told him. “We were walking along minding our own business when we saw an old broken down building, like a cottage or something really old like that.”

“And she came out, mouthing at us and making out we were enemies. She sounded like she didn’t know the war was over!”

“What war might that be?” asked the constable.

“The one we did at school in history, against the Germans,” said Enid, frowning, “she seemed to think we were spies or something for someone she called the commandant and that if we told him anything she’d be in trouble.”

“Ah,” grinned Constable Billy Pierce, “then it must have been old Ma Winterbotham you bumped into. I can see why you were scared, though truth to tell I reckon that gun of hers is just a toy she was given as a nipper. At least, I hope that’s what it is! She was born in that old cottage and I’ll bet a pound to a penny that she dies in it when her time’s up! Her ma was just the same, like as two peas in a pod they say, though she was before my time.”

“It’s not right she should be like that,” suggested Enid, “I mean, her home looks none too safe. I’ll bet its roof leaks when it’s raining, and she’s nowhere near the shops, so what does she get to eat?”

“That’ll be her worry, not yours,” advised the policeman. “Look, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take a nosey down there next time I’ve got an hour spare, when Im off duty. I’ll check on her, make sure she’s okay and, who knows, might be able to help the old dear a bit. It’s no way for a lady to live, on her own and with a brain tuned into the age before she was even born”

“Do you want us to show you the way?” asked Enid.

“Now there’s no need for that! I’ve been down her way before, but truth to tell it’s been a year or three since! Now I’ll be off, if you don’t mind.” He turned to the man still leaning on his spade. “Say, Bert, what do you know about old Ma Winterbotham? You know, the old lass who lives a mile or two down the road through the woods?”

“Her?” he replied, “the old biddy, mad as a hatter? Is she still alive, then?”

“I’ll check tomorrow,” nodded Billy, “it seems as she is and might be a bit on the lonely side, down in the woods miles from anyone, and nowt in her pantry…”

© Peter Rogerson 07.01.23

...