Duty and Delusion Read online

  Did Belinda think they’d need to hire an entertainer, she wondered?

  “Why not?”

  Twenty-four four-year-olds on a bouncy castle, a load of young adults necking down cans in the back room, some clown you’ve never met before scaring them witless with God-knows-what tales while you’re getting trolleyed. Bellyfuls of pizza and ice cream. What could possibly go wrong? Heaven forbid that you should entertain the little ones yourselves.

  Once the experiment had worked, this was exactly what Bel would say to women like Candy.

  She turned to continue with the tour of the building and entered the small kitchen. Here on the wall was Belinda’s favourite thing. She’d ordered it herself off the internet after some lout had thieved the whistle, which the fire service had deemed an adequate warning device for such a simple building.

  It was fire engine red, a round metal dome fixed to the wall at head height. It had a black handle and carried instructions in bold black print. Candy stood inspecting the sink and crockery. Bel, behind, reached her left hand over the woman’s shoulder, grabbed the handle and rotated it at speed. The noise was fit to wake the dead. The jangling clangour of a past century’s fire appliance gonged around the tiny space. The walls shook.

  “And this is the fire alarm,” Bel mouthed, still rotating its handle. She stopped, smiling. “Quite effective, isn’t it?”

  Candy, paler now, and clutching her ear, fought her way past Bel to a larger space. “Mmm …” She fumbled in her bag - couldn’t get away fast enough - and thrust over the £10 deposit.

  As the Saab zoomed away, Belinda, with some satisfaction, saw Candy slapping at the side of her head with her left hand.

  “Round One!” Bel laughed and shook her fist in the air. “Winner: Belinda Lowe, the Sharp Pain.”

  2

  It came to pass that Bel’s middle age, like a bank balance in a recession, became pinched and spare. It still worked, still had enough reserves to tide her over, but there was no slack.

  Job Dunne’s party, at which only his mother’s heart had been broken, became a distant memory. Party bookings were down overall. It is a little-reported truth of the children’s entertainment scene that, when times begin to get tough, parents spend a higher proportion of their monthly income on giving their kids what they want. Rather than hire the village hall for young Tamla or Tyler’s birthday, parents will put themselves in hock and hire minibuses to take the party to MacDonald’s or Harvester, which give away goody bags to seal the deal.

  Keeping everything up and running sapped energy from charities, businesses, local authorities and individuals alike. It had come so suddenly – a generation had grown to whom notions of thrift and making-do were absurd. A generation of young parents were bewildered; unbelieving.

  The village hall’s finances were in a pickle: expenditure exceeded income and alternative sources of revenue must be found. Belinda dipped a digestive in her coffee and sucked out the liquid, concentrating on preventing the biscuit from disintegrating. Her experiment had stalled once again, but the time she had nearly deafened Candy Dunne remained in her memory as a triumph. Weeks later, she’d heard that the woman had suffered a burst eardrum, which people thought to be the result of the very loud disco music played at Job’s party and, always, in his dad’s vehicle … whichever he was using at the time. Bel thought that she knew otherwise and grinned with satisfaction at the knowledge. She frowned at the still, small voice which murmured, “It’s your fault,” at the back of her mind. Best not dwell on repercussions.

  Family life was changing for Belinda and Doug. Decision-time lay ahead for Aidan, their firstborn. Would he go or would he stay? His mother longed for him to stay, but knew he must go. She must not let on about the dread that churned her bowels at every thought of his departure. She worried about his sister, too. Melanie, over-sensitive, relied too heavily on Aidan’s presence – at home, and even at school, where her brother had reached the stage of prefect-hood and status. The bullies had backed off from him now, but Melanie was just warming up to be fair game.

  Each night, her mother would fall asleep imagining envious, hoyden girls encircling her sweet-natured angel with yells and taunts. In dreams, her child wept softly, longing for her mother’s loving embrace. In dreams, those arms encircled and clasped, sheltered and protected, held close: strong; constant; ever-present.

  She worried about whether her son would cope without her constant attention and support. She’d made sure he could cook an omelette and use the washing machine, but she’d heard that university campuses offered a wide range of diversions not available in Sallby. There was always the risk that he’d be distracted from his studies. On the other hand, he had to understand that he needn’t spend every spare minute studying.

  When she wasn’t worrying about her children, Belinda had a rich seam of alternative subjects to mine. Her parents lived not too far away – just close enough for her to be on constant call but too far to pop round. Mum was losing it, but to voice the truth would be more painful than could be borne. Dad soldiered on, keeping everything looking normal from the outside.

  Then there was Doug. Always a bit detached, somehow, now constantly pre-occupied with finding enough work to keep the business afloat. Self-employed electricians were ten-a-penny nowadays, with Poles and Estonians getting the work that the locally-born tradesmen used to rely on. Doug’s bottle green van had spent more time on the drive than off it, this year. He never said much. How worried he really was, she had no idea. He’d never been one for discussing problems. “Talking solves nowt,” he’d say.

  Belinda did often wonder what made a rather dull, middle-aged electrician with few social skills transform, on Saturday afternoons, into a singing idiot in a green nylon wig, face paints and giant hands made from sponge, for his one weekly foray into ‘normal’ society. His team usually did badly, home or away, but she had to give credit for his loyalty. He was a loyal man, give him his due.

  With the downturn, even libraries were closing, and her three afternoons a week looked like disappearing. She would miss the superficial chats with users and the escape from her real responsibilities, although it hadn’t been the same since the council turned the outlying libraries into One-stop Customer Service Points. The old air of studied quiet had gone; there were squabbles about why someone’s green bin was un-emptied, whines from council tenants about dripping taps and, always, people queuing to search for jobs on the internet. The library now had more DVD’s than books, and encyclopaedias were things of the past. Belinda missed them.

  The village hall was still standing but would soon be in need of another facelift. Over the years, many committee members had come and gone, putting in their two-penn’orth as and when. Some worked wonders but burnt out quickly. Others attended meetings month after month but had lives too full for hands-on volunteering. Nowadays, only a couple of old lags like Belinda really knew how it all worked. She was waiting for someone else to offer to share the load, but they all had good reasons not to.

  And in moments of rest, there was always the issue of Dorothy to consider.

  *

  One of Belinda’s tasks at the library was to keep the What’s On displays up to date, taking down old posters and putting up new; making sure all the leaflets were current and plentiful. One Wednesday in April, at 14.20 exactly, she took delivery of a pack of new publicity material from the Central Library Service. By 14.30, Belinda had glimpsed the golden gate of opportunity.

  The poster was stark, with a grey-green background. It showed a dark, bulbous shape which may have borne some resemblance to human form, but equally, may not. Beneath the image, in a green so dark it was almost black, the words Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

  A school visit years before swam at the back of her mind. She knew she had been to the YSP; remembered sitting under the trees with the rest of her fifth form Art class, while the teacher, handsome, young Mr Edwards, to
ld them of the brilliance of Barbara Hepworth. Belinda remembered her own puzzlement. Would Dad think these sculptures were brilliant? She could almost hear him saying, “A load of arty-farty rubbish if you ask me.” But Mr Edwards had been different – gorgeous dark blue eyes which seemed to understand what you were thinking. And you often caught him actually thinking himself. Dad hadn’t seemed to do much of that, when she was fifteen.

  She looked at the poster again. It advertised a wood-sculpture course during the summer. Her open-mouthed gasp caused Tim, her colleague on the Council Services desk, to call over, “Everything OK Belinda?” before turning back to his monitor.

  Her eyes were fixed on the poster. Why had she never seen these things advertised before? She wondered how many places there were; how much it would cost.

  Not that she could go, of course. It was Aidan’s A Levels soon and then he’d be on edge waiting to see where life would take him come September. He needed her to be there, although he did have his holiday job to keep him occupied. Melanie was another matter.

  The afternoon wore monotonously on. She found herself returning to the poster repeatedly to check the state of the Blu-Tack holding it up. When her break came, she sat at one of the public computers and ran YSP through a search engine. She soon found the details she needed. Mmm … a lot of money for five days, but she’d only have to use up one afternoon of her holiday entitlement. Maybe she could do an extra shift the week before. Then Doug wouldn’t be able to complain about interfering with his caravanning plans: although he never made any until the last minute, he liked to think he was well-prepared.

  3

  Four months later, having spent an uneasy night at the B&B, Belinda ate a full English breakfast alone in the chintzy dining room. Hepworth House’s landlady, Maureen, a cheery woman of sixty, seemed unfazed by accommodating someone going on a course at the sculpture park. It seemed a completely normal thing to do … nothing outlandish at all. Not like when she’d raised the possibility at home. Doug had shaken his head in disbelief but said,

  “If you feel like it, go. Don’t see why you want to, but they say women do strange things at your time of life.”

  Can he not see himself in his green wig and sponge hands? Belinda wondered.

  That had been more or less his last word on the subject, except to ask who would look after the kids and, later, to insist on a reconnaissance trip ahead of the date. Maybe there’d be a caravan site where he could pitch the van for her to stay in. It would work out cheaper than a hotel.

  Stuck on my own in a tin box in the middle of a field? Lovely!

  There was no caravan site. Mum and Dad had offered to pay for a B&B for four nights as a joint birthday and Christmas present, though Dad, like Doug, had been bemused. Bel reckoned that, behind closed doors, Mum had put her foot down. Despite her failing memory and intensified emotions, she still had intuition, and sensed that this adventure was necessary for her daughter. Melanie would stay with Gran and Granddad, who lived on the same cul-de-sac as a friendly classmate, so it was OK.

  Belinda arrived on site on a misty, grey morning. The puddles in the parking area were rapidly evaporating, though the sun had yet to make up its mind. Between mature trees she could not name by species, a number of nylon gazebos had been erected, the sort of thing she’d seen in catalogues. Further away stood a circular pavilion of faded cedar wood.

  Following the path towards the gazebos, Belinda saw that each shaded one, if not two, large plinths of wood, rough hewn at the sides but smooth-topped, and standing within six inches either way of an average man’s waist height. Here and there, smaller slabs of stone lay singly or stacked one atop another.

  A figure approached through the trees, eyes on Belinda. The man’s body was long, narrow and fluid as a ribbon, this impression heightened by his hair. Unevenly streaked with white and steely grey, its primary shade was somewhere this side of mustard. It hung clean, in cords, ending in wispy tails just beyond his waist. His beard grew sparsely, the product of neglect rather than cultivation. His teeth, when he spoke, were tinged with yellow.

  Smiling, the figure stretched out a sinewy hand.

  “Hello there. I’m Ambrose. Welcome to the sculpture park.” His accent was posh, Belinda thought, with a slight West Country burr.

  “Oh. Hi. I’m not sure if I’ve come to the right place.” She felt so twee, so out of place, so ordinary.

  “I’m the tutor.” He put down the chainsaw he’d been carrying. “You’re in the right place – just the first to arrive. Good to meet you.”

  His eyes didn’t signify that he’d noticed anything odd about Belinda. As if it was perfectly normal to be standing in a woodland setting with a married, middle-aged mother and library assistant of mousy demeanour. He seemed quite nice, actually.

  “Come up to the pavilion. Let’s make a brew.”

  She could not imagine this man in any other habitat. It seemed that he was of this place, the shades of his gaunt features mirroring the flickering shadows of the foliage above, a creature of the trees under which they stood. They strolled towards the building, where Ambrose placed a neat tick against her name on the list. His hands, she noticed, had power, grace and precision.

  The space was rimmed with trestle tables supporting a number of tool boxes, of both battered wood and grazed plastic. They were filled with mallets, chisels and gouges of various cross-sections. Some were fine and tiny; others spoke of larger sweeps and scars to come. Hard hats, yellow and white; gloves; plastic goggles with green elastic; sand-paper; sanding discs, and unidentifiable mechanical tools lay orderly, waiting. Reels of extension cable stood on the planked floor. The place smelt of sawdust and herbal tea.

  Another table, set slightly apart, held a chrome urn emitting the sounds of water coming to the boil. A row of chipped mugs and plastic teaspoons stood neatly on an ancient tray, in front of boxes of teabags and fruit infusions, a jar of cheap instant coffee and a blue tin labelled SUGAR. A flowered biscuit-barrel added a domestic touch, which drew Bel forward.

  This was a different world. What was she doing here?

  The rest of the group arrived in dribs and drabs, some timidly, others surging onto the scene. A surprisingly large proportion of them were women; Bel wondered if any might become her friend. Most looked quite ordinary, which was reassuring. The men it was easy to imagine wielding the tools, but not the women.

  Ambrose’s introductory talk was lots of common sense about Health and Safety, (which made everyone groan inwardly), the use of the tools and the types of wood available for sculpture. At no point so far had there been any mention of size. She had imagined herself carving a small box or figurine, but others were asking about garden benches and full-scale nude figures. Her nervousness welled up again.

  “Let’s go and take a look at some wood,” suggested Ambrose. “I’ll show you what we’ve got and you can take your pick.”

  They followed his long stride down a path until he stopped, pointing to a pile of fallen or felled tree trunks, some three or four metres long, ranging in circumference.

  “These are oak - some lovely pieces. If you think you want to work with oak, take a look at each log and see which one speaks to you.”

  The idea of being ‘spoken to’ by a log seemed a bit bizarre to Belinda, though Bel thought it just fine.

  “The whole trunk?” one woman ventured.

  “Decide which length you want – look at the shape, where the branches might have been – some have bits left. Imagine the grain and think about what you intend to create.”

  Create. Not make. How lovely to be about to create something. Even if it turned out to be rubbish … as it was bound to do.

  “Once you’ve decided, let me know.” He stroked and fondled the timber as if it were his child. “Paul here,” pointing to a pleasant-looking young man who had just arrived, “will help with the sawing. It might take us all morning bu
t don’t rush your choice. Decide which part of the log you want. If you’ve any worries about lifting, get us to do it for you. Just ask me or Paul there.”

  Grinning, Paul waved his chainsaw in their direction. Ambrose led them further down the path, introducing haphazard piles of cedar and birch logs. The men seemed to find it easy to stroke tree trunks, or haul logs from where they lay. The women were more tentative. Belinda had never imagined going so far back to nature: she’d somehow expected the wood to come ready-prepared by B&Q.

  For the rest of the morning there was a lot of hanging around, and the tranquillity of the setting was riven by the ZZZZ…ZZZ of the chainsaws. Having chalked her name on a hefty, forked bough of cedar, Belinda killed time by wandering up to the pavilion. Another woman joined her. Of the group, Marnie seemed least comfortable with the proceedings: clothes less practical than showy, shoes more slippers than the recommended sturdy boots, yet the smile was friendly enough as she asked if Belinda would like a roll-up.

  Mistaking the question for the offer of a chocolate caramel, Bel nodded.

  “Ooh, yes please. I’m quite peckish.”

  “Won’t do much for your peckishness,” retorted Marnie, with a smoker’s voice, holding out a pack of Rizlas and a tobacco tin between black-lacquered, diamante-studded fingernails. “It’s all a bit slow, isn’t it?”

  Belinda murmured agreement and, feeling silly for her mistake, drew comfort from sucking a mint taken from a tube in her fleece pocket. The other woman rolled a flimsy cigarette and lit up, while Bel made them both a cup of cranberry and camomile tea. She had often seen similar teabags in the shops but, knowing Doug’s tastes as she did, had never experimented with them. She felt a bit disloyal, but Doug need never know.

  Marnie had never had them before either. “What the hell’s this? Looks like watered-down blood. It smells nice, though.”

  They sat together in shy silence, but not for long.