Trembine Halt Page 4

  Rupert re-entered the room sometime later and peered at Sarah asleep on his settee. She looked too small to drive a diesel locomotive and most peculiar in her shapeless Cargo-Haul boiler suit. Rupert usually avoided women, or rather women usually avoided Rupert, but he sat down in the other settee and watched her. He didn’t touch her or ogle at her, he just observed her. He studied her small feet, her plaited hair, her thick eyelashes and her tiny, but perfectly shaped, nose. He scrutinised every part of her, estimated her weight, noted the tiny gold studs in her ears, watched her sculptured pink lips move slightly as she breathed and mentally timed her breaths. He was not really being a voyeur, rather it was almost as if he were carefully studying an alien from another planet that he might never see again. After an hour he got up and left for his study. He pulled a large plain-paper sketch pad from out under a pile of notes and set about drawing Sarah. Within ten minutes he had a reasonable sketch of Sarah asleep on the settee, but had to walk quietly back into the lounge twice, once to study her hands and once to check on the length of her eyelashes (were they really that long and that thick?) When that sketch was finished he drew her as he imagined her in the seat of her cab with her right hand on the power leaver and her left pushing a button on the side-panel. Finally her drew her as she would appear when viewed through the cab window from the side and then from the front. He studied his four sketches for a while, added a few final touches and then closed the pad. He sat still for a full two minutes and then re-opened his pad to draw a full page head and shoulders portrait of Sarah. He did not miss out a thing, every small wrinkle, every contour of her lips, every mark on her cheeks were all added with great care. His only concession to artistic licence being that her drew the sketch as he imagined she would look with her long hair our of its plait and flowing over her bare shoulders. He studied this sketch, nodded to himself and smiled before he closed the pad. Ten minutes later he and Hoff went out for a walk.

  Sarah eventually woke up and studied the fire. She sat up, stretched and reached forward to place another couple of logs on the fire and close the doors of the wood-burning stove; she felt like she had been toasted. She noted a large off-white towel draped over the other settee and a short note proclaiming that she could take a bath if she wished and that Rupert had gone to check on the oldies and may be sometime. She smiled to herself, total blizzard conditions and a man saying that he was going for a walk and may be sometime; but it was just too much of an imaginative leap to conceive Rupert as Captain Oates the valiant Antarctic explorer.

  Chapter 4

  Settling

  The upstairs of the cottage was more of a jumble than the downstairs. All the different size doors were closed and there was nothing to indicate which was the bathroom. Sarah assumed that it was over the kitchenette, instead she found what was obviously a spare room piled high with small paper models. They ranged from a simple tetrahedron to a skeleton of a triceratops complete with a small frill on the neck. She closed that door and tried the next. Another spare bedroom, this time full of wooden models ranging from a huge glider down to a tiny model of the Eiffel Tower made out of matchsticks. Neither room looked like it had been cleaned for a million years. The third door revealed a toilet and the forth the bathroom, which by the overpowering smell of bath-cleaner had probably been cleaned, or to be more accurate there had been an attempt to give it a clean, earlier in the day. She found the bath-cleaner in the end-bath cupboard and completed the bath clean before running herself a bath. After carefully locking the door she lowered herself into the bath and relaxed. She’d not had a bath in years as her tiny flatlet only had a shower cubicle. She washed herself with a dubious piece of lavender soap and then laid back to allow her whole body to benefit from a good soak.

  Julia wriggled her toes as the water bubbled around her. For her sixtieth birthday Julia and her brothers had clubbed together to buy their mother a spa-bath and it was wonderfully relaxing. She poured a minuscule amount of foam bath into the water and in a few moments was shrouded in bubbles. She sighed to herself and relaxed; she knew that she’d have to make a decision about the school sooner or later, but not here and not now.

  Meanwhile Rupert was struggling against the wind-blown snow along the lane towards the Trembine Cottages. He’d checked up on Jill Crow, a young single mum, and her twelve year old daughter Harriet at the old Crossing Keeper’s cottage. They were fine with Harriet revelling in the fact that being snowed-in meant no school. Rupert frowned to himself, they may be fine now, but he doubted that they had enough food to last for a prolonged isolation and their entire house was run by electricity. Should it fail they had no means of cooking or, more importantly, heating. He stood at the end of the track in front of the Trembine cottages and noted that the wind direction had changed slightly. He struggled up to the door of cottage number one and rang the bell.

  Sarah was disturbed from her hot water therapy by her mobile telephone ringing. Fortunately she’d placed it in the bath-rack. She talked briefly to Mr Gladbury and then settled back into the water humming gently to herself. She’d just been told, grudgingly, that, owing to a national wage agreement, she was now on double pay until she got back to her Grantham Yard depot. She could also claim reasonable expenses. She giggled to herself and wondered how Mr Gladbury would react if, as Rupert predicted, she was snowed in for a week.

  Assured that George Happleberry, a long retired farm-hand, and his arthritic wife Ella were both coping well Rupert headed against an increasing wind towards cottage number two, the home of Ma Jones where he had a double mission; firstly to make sure she was safe and secondly to see if she could temporarily house Sarah. Hammering on the front door gained no reply so he struggled round to the back of the cottage. He found Ma Jones lying halfway down the garden path in a somewhat skewed position just as if she’d just sat down for a rest and then fallen to one side. Rupert waddled over to her and knew from the first glance that she was dead, she was already icy cold and stiff, which was not surprising given the conditions. He paused to wonder why she was half-way down her garden path clad only in her dress when her dustbin was beside the back door before he squatted on his hunches and said a prayer over her and burst into tears. Rupert had a strong faith, but recently he’d always found death difficult. It wasn’t that he was not convinced that the people went onto a better place; it was that the loss of someone he knew that always churned him over; so much so that he avoided funerals if he could. So he cried for Ma Jones, his nephew and for every other person he knew who had died. Eventually he managed to cease sobbing and stand up as the practical Rupert took over from the emotional Rupert and he considered his options. He knew that he’d have to move the body, he also knew that he’d need both help and a witness. He considered Mr Happleberry, but he was old, deaf and had already had one heart attack. Rupert looked through the blizzard towards Ambrose House, but if there was one place on earth he didn’t want to have to go to for help it was Ambrose house. It wasn’t the geographic distance, a mere two hundred metres, it was the philosophical distance as the inhabitants of Ambrose house lived to the sound of a different drum and as far as he was concerned did not have one moral scruple between them.

  Sarah eventually eased herself out of the bath, dried herself on the none-to-soft towel and examined her underwear. She did have one clean bra and one clean pair of knickers in her capacious bag. She glanced out of the window and decided to leave those for another day as it was still snowing as hard as ever. Once she had finished she went back downstairs and looked for a television so that she could get a weather report, but there was no television and, as far as she could find, no radio either.

  Julia eventually made it down to the kitchen and immediately took the kettle from off the Aga to make a cup of coffee. She retuned the radio to a different station and hummed along to the music as she washed up the crockery from her breakfast-in-bed feast and then joined her mother in preparing vegetables for the daily meals. After half an hour she was already beginning to long for open
spaces and violent exercise.

  The door to Ambrose house seemed more huge than ever as Rupert stood at the front of Ambrose House and swallowed. At least they had parked their pair of huge wrought iron motor driven gates in the open position before the snow had got too bad. He rang the door bell and waited. He’d been here twice before and on each occasion had felt totally scorned by the owners of this semi-mansion, Maria Scott-Packard and Jeremy Lyons. He knew that Jeremy ran some sort of casino chain and that Maria had been the daughter of one of his major investors, but that was all. The door opened and Maria stood in the lobby wearing a skimpy shiny red designer dress and holding a drink of some sort, Rupert could feel waves of hot air wafting through the doorway. She proffered an artificial smile, “Why if it isn’t Rupee our resident member of the God squad, come to see if we’re alright?”

  Her voice was overflowing with her harsh accent with violent overtones of sarcasm and disdain. Rupert took a deep calming breath, “Actually I came to see Mr Lyons, I fear I need his help for a gruesome task.”

  She raised a well manicured eyebrow on her near-perfect over-beautiful face, “You need his help? I rather thought that you had the help of the Almighty. I suppose you’d better come in; please leave your coat and boots in the lobby.”

  She swung round and paraded into the house showing Rupert her bare ultra-smooth shoulder blades, the left one having a small red heart with ‘J’ inscribed in green within it. Rupert struggled out of his boots and hung up his coat. He’d watched the house being built two years before and knew that it was both over-large and that no money had been spared to make it as sumptuous as possible. He shuddered to think just how many maple trees had been felled to provide the floor and just how much it cost to heat as all the heating was electric and under-floor. Just as he entered the hallway Jeremy came down the highly polished open staircase looking every inch like a suave army captain in a dress suit. He frowned and became full of false bonhomie; “Good god man you look frozen, come into the lounge!”

  Rupert was ushered into the wooden floored lounge and made to stand by the tiny cosmetic open fire. He managed to refuse alcohol, but Jeremy insisted on fetching him a coffee. Rupert looked around while he waited, all the furniture was exquisite and either purpose built or purchase from a high class and exclusive stores. He examined the coffee table and was wondering just how the carpenter had managed to carve such intricate interlocking legs when Maria spoke softly over his shoulder. “It’s Danish, we acquired it last time we were in Copenhagen, isn’t it just beautiful?”

  Rupert nodded, “The carving must have taken hours.”

  Maria ignored his comment and brushed an invisible speck from the top of the single tiny strap that held up her dress. “So are all your flock safe and well?”

  Her voice contained just enough sarcasm for Rupert to know that she didn’t really care if they’d all fallen off the edge of the world to some terrible doom. Fortunately before he had to find a suitable answer Jeremy appeared with the cup of coffee. Rupert squirmed as Jeremy was everything he wasn’t; tall, handsome and having a face that could have been hewn out of granite. The only slight mar on his otherwise perfect appearance being his droopy left eyelid and his absurdly small bow tie. Jeremy brought with him another man, a short stocky man with a face like a boxer and a squashed nose to advertise the fact. Jeremy thrust the coffee into Rupert’s hands, “This is Buster, he’s staying with us at the moment. Maria said you wanted my help?”

  Rupert sniffed the coffee, it smelt heavenly. “Ma Jones had died in her back garden and I fear I need someone to both witness how she has fallen and help me carry her body to a safe place.”

  Jeremy looked out through the vast picture window that ran down the entire length of one side of the lounge and turned his nose up. “You mean go out in that?”

  Rupert shrugged, “We need to move her before she gets covered in snow.”

  Jeremy pursed his lips and shook his head, “You need to move her; I don’t. There is no way that I am going out in that to help you pick up some old biddy who was too careless to stay upright.”

  Rupert took a sip of the coffee to try and hide his repulsion at Jeremy's gibe, but obviously didn’t succeed for Maria murmured silkily, “Oh look Rupee is disappointed.”

  Rupert held his tongue and Buster looked at Jeremy, “OK if I go boss?”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes, “If you must, but there is really no point, she’s not going to rot in this weather.”

  Buster nodded and turned to Rupert, “Give me a few minutes guv and I’ll be ready to give you a hand.” The accent was pure cockney modified by BBC English to allow the use of the letter ‘h.’

  He walked out of the nearest door with a slightly rolling gait and arms not quite straight. Rupert was reminded of the way he’d seen weight-lifters walk and wondered what Buster’s job actually was. Maria suddenly called out at his receding form, “Don’t forget Buster darling that we’re due to leave at one.”

  Rupert took another sip of the ultra-smooth coffee and Maria turned to him to give him the full benefit of her slightly superior smile, “Helicopter’s coming at one, we couldn’t possibly stay here.”

  Rupert involuntarily looked out of the window and Jeremy gave that sort of sigh that signifies extreme boredom, “Weather men say there will be a break in the clouds around then and some of us have to work for a living.”

  Rupert finished his coffee and placed the cup on the exquisite table, “Thank you for the coffee, I hope you’re right about the weather, but I rather fear that even if there is a break in the clouds your helicopter won’t be able to land as the pilot will have no idea what’s under the snow.”

  Maria rolled her eyes as if she was talking to an idiot, “He’ll hover, silly, and just blow the snow away.”

  Rupert smiled at here naïvety and took refuge in the lobby.

  Sarah eventually found a very dusty wind-up radio in the kitchen tucked away in a corner behind a mug rack that crookedly held a selection of ancient chipped mugs. She wound it up, turned it on and sought to find a local radio station. In the end she managed to find one called Fenband Radio just as they started a weather report. It was absurdly simple, snow, snow and more snow during the day with the possibility of an overnight respite with temperatures falling well below freezing. The radio announcer then turned to some local reports about roads that Sarah had never heard of. He ended up by announcing that Methwold Hythe was experiencing a power cut and that the electricity suppliers were saying that they would be off for at least twelve hours. Sarah shivered, all she knew about Methwold Hythe was that it was the very next village, she hoped Trembine Halt would not suffer the same fate.

  Julia listened to the weather report and then turned to her mother. “Be like three years ago, weren’t we stuck her for a fortnight?”

  Jenny Flosse laughed, “You make it sound like a prison sentence! It was only ten days.”

  She continued, “At least you’ve got Mark here as well, that is if you can drag him off of his laptop.”

  Julia smiled; she had four brothers, Colin, her twin who still worked on the farm; Mark, who was two years older and an architect; Norman, another two years older and now really the Farm manager and Bill, two years older still and a doctor in far away Edinburgh. But it was always Mark who Julia had got on with best, perhaps it was a mutual love of sports, whatever it was they were close. “I’ll go and annoy him in a minute.”

  Jenny Flosse paused from kneading the dough, “I dunno, you two were always as thick as thieves, do you remember when…”

  Rupert stood over Ma Jones’ body and looked at Buster, “This is going to be a problem as we can’t straighten her out.”

  Buster nodded and screwed up his already squashed face, “Where we gonna put her guv’nor? We shouldn’t put her in the cottage as she’ll thaw.”

  Rupert saw the sense in his statement, “How about in her old brick outside loo. She’d be safe from rats there and stay cold enough not to deteriorate too much.
”

  He swallowed hard, he hated talking about Ma Jones like a piece of meat. Buster nodded, bent down and picked up her frozen body seemingly without effort. They battled their way across to the old outhouse and, after much struggling, Rupert pulled the door open. Buster gently placed her inside propped up between the old WC pan and the wall. Rupert closed the door. “Thanks for that.”

  Buster shrugged, “No problem.”

  Rupert nodded towards the house, “Maria doesn’t really expect to fly out today does she?”

  Buster squinted at Rupert through half-closed eyelids, “Shouldn’t speak ill of my bosses, but they believe that money can buy a solution to every problem; it’s just that old mother nature doesn’t have a way of accepting payment.”

  Rupert shook his hand and started out for the back door of the cottage where he had to clear the snow out of the kitchen and lock up.

  Rupert arrived back to find Sarah hoovering in the lounge, she smiled weakly at him, “Thought I’d make myself useful.”

  He looked bewildered for a moment and then managed a smile, “You don’t have to you know.”

  Sarah shrugged, “If I don’t do something I’ll go stir crazy.”

  Rupert’s face creased into a genuine smile, “Then clean all you like. I thought that I’d make us a small omelette for lunch.”

  Sarah, instantly remembering the lumpy porridge, volunteered to cook.