Little Fingers! (11 page)

“
Hello, Mary.
Terrible weather we are having! Even the roses are looking
bedraggled! Ah, thank God! I could murder a cup of
coffee!”

Mary (Maloney)
and I arrive together. “Mary, this is the Julia I told you
about.”

“
Welcome,
Julia, to our little circle” she says in greeting. She barely looks
at me, but her senses are all out

“
I love your
annuals, Mary, “says Mary M. “They are so beautiful set into the
lawn like that!”

“
George
complains all the time about those. They make it difficult to cut
the lawn, but somehow he manages.”

“
It's worth
it!”

George enters
the room. “George, make yourself useful. Get Mary, and Julia, a cup
of coffee, will you my dear?”

“
Of course,
dear.”

“
OK,”
announces Mary. “To business. The musical festival.”

For a second
everyone is disorientated, then we settle into the free chairs, and
the sofa where Mary and I sit.

“
Georgina,
have we got the field yet?”

“
Most
certainly. And we don't have to pay for it.”

“
Well done,
Georgina.”

The meeting
goes well. Much progress has been made. Several semi-professional
nephew-tenors have been tracked down, as has a cousin-soprano. The
local band will play some jazz. There is even a comic who is
willing to compere, although Mary is not so sure about that. “He is
very good,” Hilary reassures her. “He did our Kate's wedding ten
years ago. He had us in stitches. Nothing out of place.”

“
Well, we can
approach him,” confirms Mary. “We can decide later.”

The event is
to be run for the fifth year as a benefit for multiple
sclerosis.

Mary does
voluntary work for many good causes - breast cancer, the lifeboats,
the RSPB. She prefers charities patronised by members of the royal
family. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International
unsettle her. “They are so aggressive. Quite
unnecessary.”

Most of the
women are of an age. Only my Mary and Georgina work full-time.
Hilary is a receptionist two days a week at the local GP practice.
Claudia helps out at the village school with reading tuition and
singing.

Without
appearing to do so, Mary Knightly is watching us. Is it us, or is
it me? Has she heard that I have been invited round to Sam James'?
Does she pick up on those vigilant social antennae of hers that
Mary and I are more intimate than anyone in the room, and the
village, would find acceptable? She personally finds lesbianism
abhorrent (what do they do in private?), and she certainly does not
want her good name tainted by it. She can imagine what Samantha
James would say. “Mary Knightly and her lesbos……..” It would be
hard to recover from that.

How does Mary
Knightly perceive me? Long dark hair, a still expression, and a
neat, slim body, to contrast with my Mary's more voluptuous and
up-front frame and disposition? Am I a threat? Or am I simply a
nobody, a stranger to her and the village she need not trouble
herself with, yet?

“
Have you
seen Tom, Mary?” Hilary asks La Knightly.

“
Yes, Hilary,
I did see him the other day, wrestling with an apple tree that he
was going to plant in the garden.”

“
Did you ask
him for his p.a. equipment?”

“
Oh damn, no,
I forgot.”

George glances
quickly at his wife. It is unusual to hear Mary Knightly swearing
on official occasions, although in private there are certain words
she considers acceptable, and even cultivated - damn(ed), darn(ed),
bugger and shit.” The rest are beyond the pale.

I cannot wait
to go. I am eager to return to bed with the body sitting warmly
beside me. My Mary may be relatively new to lesbian gymnastics, but
she is catching on fast (and for Mary Knightly's information, there
are many adventurous things to do if you have the imagination and a
few pieces of equipment).

I am expecting
the festival to be naff - amateur singers, a ramshackle band and an
unforecast downpour of rain. I will be surprised. Mary is an
excellent organiser.

* *
*

“
There is
something I think you should know, Mary.”

“
Come in
Hilary.”

They both
enter the drawing room. George is asleep in his chair, snoring
softly with a newspaper across his knee and his glasses askew on
his face.

“
George,
dear. George, dear. GEORGE!”

George stirs.
“Yes, dear?”

“
Hilary would
like a private word with me. Do you think you could make us some
tea?”

“
Of course,
dear”

George gets up
from his chair, carefully folds his newspaper into the brass
journal rack, and shuffles off towards the kitchen.

Mary and
Hilary sit down in adjacent chairs, knees pointed towards each
other. “What is it, Hilary?” asks Mary.

“
Well, I was
just walking back from the practice for lunch, as I always do, and
I was passing Mary Maloney's house, and I saw that new Julia's car
in the driveway.”

Mary waits
expectantly, a pussy-cat look on her face.

“
Did you
notice the way Julia and Mary were sitting together on the sofa
when they were around here earlier?”

“
No,” Mary
lies.

“
I thought
that they were looking overly-familiar with each other. Anyway, I
walked into the driveway, thinking I would drop in and say
hello………..”

(“Snooping,”
Mary thinks to herself.)

“……
..and I
had rounded the corner to approach the front door, when I noticed
there was a window open. And you will never guess
what…….”

(“Sex,” thinks
Mary. “Got them!”) “No, what?” she says.

“
There was a
moaning coming from the window. For a second I thought that Mary
had hurt herself, so I was rushing to the front door, ready to
knock it down if necessary……..”

(“Well, you
are built for it,” Mary thinks to herself.)

“
Then I
realised that it wasn't a distressed moaning, but a passionate one.
When you have been in the medical profession as long as I have, you
can tell the difference.” She smiles proudly.

(“What a
boring way to find out,” thinks Mary, scornfully. The medical
profession? She is a receptionist.)

“
I know what
distress sounds like. So I hesitated for a second, and retreated
back to the street. I was totally shocked.”

“
I cannot
think what Mary is thinking of,” responds Mary. “I cannot imagine
that she is usually like that, not in all the years I have known
her. Frank is perhaps not the best company for her with his fishing
and his hours spent down the Hanburgh Arms, but he is very
dependable and he gives her a good living.”

“
I have, of
course, come across lesbians before……………….”

George enters
the drawing room with a tea set carefully laid out on the tray, and
hears the word “lesbians” which sounds a much more promising topic
than interminable finer detail discussion of the arrangements for
the music festival.

“
Thank you,
George,” says Mary. “You are a dear. How you look after me. You can
go now and enjoy yourself in the garden.”

“
Yes,
dear.”

“
I have come
across lesbians before, but I never expected any of my friends and
acquaintances to join them.”

“
No, it is
most unfortunate.”

“
It is not
seemly for our organising committee to have those two billing and
cooing over each other all the time.”

“
No, it is
definitely not.”

“
So what do
we do, Mary?”

“
They will
have to leave the committee, frankly, before Samantha hears about
it and generates a major hoo-hah. But how?”

“
I'll ask
Henry,” suggests Hilary. “He is very good at this sort of thing.”
Henry, Hilary's husband, is an undertaker. He is about to become a
busy man.

Mary and
Hilary discuss the game plan, and Hilary leaves the house to
consult with her husband, Henry. He in turn mentions our
relationship to young Becker, his assistant, who tells his
girlfriend Charlene (normally known as Charlie). Charlie tells
everyone in the village.

My Mary is,
naturally, the second to last to know. Frank is the last. Nobody
wants to disturb his tranquil hours spent lazing on a river bank,
nor create an ugly scene in the pub. For all his studied calm,
Frank has a violent temper.

When she
finally finds out, warned by her good friend Kate, she tells me
that perhaps we had better cool it. She loves me, she adores my
body, but the gossip is flying around and it is not fair on Frank.
Besides, she does not know how Frank will react, what he will do to
me and what he would do to her. She lies awake at night panicking
about this, as Frank grunts gently beside her.

I tell her I
understand. It is a pity, but I understand.

I am mad at
her cowardly betrayal. Is her commitment to me literally only skin
deep, a hand across my body, a kiss on my lips, her finger inside
me, declarations of undying devotion, then starting like a rabbit
at the first hint of scandal? “I love you but I don't want to see
you. You are a freak. Leave me alone.”

At this
moment, I could kill her.

* *
*

I go
immediately around to see Tom Willows.

He is in, and
apparently caught off-guard to find me on his doorstep.

I am in no
mood to mess around. He has a reputation for womanising, so he can
womanise with me. I want revenge, this instant.

It does not
take me long to get his clothes off. After all, I am very
attractive.

Tom is very
skilled in bed. I appreciate that. He smells sweetly of the outdoor
fragrances of summer leaves and freshly-cut grass, he caresses me
lightly with his hands, and licks firmly but subtly with his tongue
over every crevice in my body. He hops on me lightly, without ever
squashing or pinching me, rhythmically riding me until he is led to
believe that I have climaxed, whereupon he follows suit.

To be fucked
by Tom is to be fucked by a master.

I get dressed
slowly, chatting away to him. Tom lies back on the bed. He almost
enjoys watching me getting dressed as much as undressed. Smoothed
back into shape, I kiss him, lie back down beside him for a minute,
kiss him again on the forehead, and let myself out of the
house.

That is the
first and last time I sleep with Tom. Shortly after I leave, Tom
goes downstairs to get a bowl of cereal, and sits at his desk
eating it while reading the newspaper.

A shadow
appears behind him, and there is a faint whoosh, and an almighty
crack. Tom's head is cleaved almost in two by his own double-handed
long-shafted axe. The murderer is protected from the spray of blood
by one of Tom's large bath towels which is immediately lowered over
his head. The murderer has left no footprints, finger prints, or
sightings.

I, on the
other hand, have been seen by several people in the village leaving
Tom's house around the time of the murder.

Which is why
you came to see me, Inspector, the first time we met.

* *
*

I am sitting
across from you in that hell-hole of a police station. I cannot
bear the smell. I cannot bear the paint in its chronic despair. I
cannot bear the flattened echoing sound that the corridor makes,
the position of the door handles, the x-ray neon
lighting.

And I cannot
bear the sight of you.

I have
resolved to hate you from the moment I woke up on the sofa this
afternoon.

I imagine that
there are rumours flying around the village that I have murdered
Tom Willows. They will be standing grouped in the shops, they will
be gossiping by the beck, they will be commanding a
shock-enraptured audience at the Hanburgh Arms. “You don't say! She
was only staying right here a few weeks ago! We could all have been
murdered in our beds!” I arrived, I bought, I killed. What will
they fabricate as my motive? Jealousy, rage, refusal, rejection,
the humourlessness of lesbian wimmin?

What I could
not have guessed at this moment is that those same rumours are
accompanied by another set implying that I may also have AIDS,
caught off Tom. Vilified as the village lesbian, I am the unwitting
victim of salacious irony.

I watch you
with my careful eyes, and an iced-down heart.

“
Did you know
that Tom Willows was probably suffering from AIDS, Miss
Blackburn?”

I smile at
your impertinence.

“
Oh dear. Did
you ever sleep with him, Inspector?” I ask.

“
What?” you
reply, cocksure aggressive.

“
If you
haven't, then you have nothing to fear.”