The Builders (2 page)

But then what did Nan know about finding fellows or keeping them? Hers had disappeared without a word in the middle of the night twenty years ago.

Nan kept quiet on a lot of subjects. So quiet that people didn't expect her to have views any more.

There was a loud knock on the door and there stood the builder.

‘Mr Doyle,' Nan said with a smile. ‘You're welcome to Chestnut Road.'

He was pleased that she knew his name and seemed so friendly, and hoped that he wasn't disturbing her. But he had a problem. The instructions had been to throw out everything that he found in Number Twelve, and yet a lot of it must be of sentimental value. He wondered if perhaps as a neighbour she might know any relative or friends of the people who had once lived there. It seemed a pity to throw such things away.

‘I'm Nan Ryan, come on in,' she said. They sat in the kitchen while she told him about the Whites. They were a very, very quiet couple, who hardly spoke to anyone. Mr White had a job somewhere that involved his leaving
the house at six in the morning. He came back at about three with a shopping bag. His wife never left the house. They put no washing out to dry. They never invited anyone in the door. They would nod and just go about their business.

‘And didn't everyone around here think they were odd?'

Derek Doyle was a kindly man, Nan thought. He cared about these people, their strange life and their private papers still in the house. It was nice to meet someone who didn't give out or complain.

Old Mr O'Brien from Number Twenty-eight would have fussed and said the Whites were selfish to have left so many problems behind them.

Her daughter Jo would have shrugged and said the Whites were nothing people. Bobby would have said
that his girlfriend Kay would call Mrs White ‘a professional victim'.

Pat would have said that the Whites lived like so many people, in fear of their lives from intruders.

‘I didn't think they were odd. I thought they seemed content with each other,' said Nan Ryan. She thought she saw Derek Doyle look at her with admiration.

But she was being stupid. She was a woman of nearly sixty. He was a young man in his forties …

Nan told herself not to be silly.

Derek Doyle dropped in every day after that. He waited until the other men had gone home, before he knocked softly on the door.

At first he used the excuse of bringing her old papers from the Whites' house. Then he just came as if he were an old friend. They called each other Nan and Derek, and indeed he was fast becoming a friend.

They didn't talk much about their families and she didn't know if he had a wife and children. Nan told him little about her son and daughters. And
nothing about the husband who had left her.

He might have seen Jo, Bobby or Pat when they came in on their visits. And then again, he might not.

For a big man he was very gentle. He carried with him plastic bags belonging to Mr and Mrs White as if they were treasures. Together he and Nan went through the papers. There were lists and recipes and handy hints. There were travel brochures and medical leaflets and instruction booklets on how to work old-fashioned, out-of-date objects.

They turned them over hoping to find some understanding of a life that had ended so strangely two years ago.

‘There's no mention at all of their will,' Derek said.

‘No, and nothing about what he did all day at work,' replied Nan.

‘If only they had kept a diary. You'd
think a woman on her own might have done that,' he said.

Nan flushed a little. She had decided to keep a diary of the building work but so far it had all been about Derek Doyle and his pleasant visits. How he had brought a rich fruitcake in a tin, and cut a slice from it for them both when he came in to tea each evening.

How she had taken the bus to the fish shop and got fresh salmon to make a sandwich for him.

How it all gave a sort of purpose to each day.

‘Maybe she was afraid it might be found.'

‘So she could have hidden it well,' he said with a smile.

The builders found the diary a few days later. It was behind a loose brick in the kitchen. Derek carried it in like a trophy.

‘What does it say?' Nan was almost trembling.

He put down five exercise books full of small, cramped writing.

‘Do you think I'd open it without you?' he asked.

She cleared a space on the table. The scones could wait. Now they might discover something about the strange secret life of the Whites, who had lived on the other side of a brick wall for twenty-five years.

They read together about the long days a woman had stayed hidden in Chestnut Road, fearful to go out lest she be discovered. Night and day she worried that the cruel husband she had left would find her and harm her again as he had done so often during their marriage.

Over and over she praised the kindness and goodness of the man she
called Johnny, who must have been Mr White. How he had given up everything to save her and take her away from all the violence.

How her family thought she was dead because there had been no word from her after the night she had run away with Johnny.

‘Imagine all that worry and fear right next door!' Nan's eyes were full of pity.

They ate the scones, and as they turned the pages she made them beans on toast and they had a glass of sherry.

Derek Doyle didn't leave until nearly eleven o'clock. He telephoned nobody and no one called him on his mobile.

That didn't sound like someone with a wife, Nan thought to herself. She knew it was silly but she was glad.

There were still two more books of the diary to read.

Several times during the day, as she heard the sound of drills and hammers, she felt tempted to go back to the table and read them. But somehow it seemed like cheating. She went out and bought lamb chops for their supper. They both felt that there might be something sad and even worrying in the final chapters.

Jo phoned.

‘I might call in tonight, Mother. Jerry's got a meeting. I have to drive him there and pick him up so I could sort of kill the time with you.'

Nan frowned. This was hardly a warm thing for a daughter to say.

‘I'll be out this evening,' she said.

‘Oh honestly mother, tonight of all nights.' Jo was impatient, but there was nothing she could do.

Bobby rang to say he would leave his
washing in. And could she ever have it ready for him early tomorrow. Again Nan felt a wave of anger. She explained that it would not be possible.

‘What will I do?' Bobby wailed.

‘You'll think of something,' Nan said.

Pat rang.

‘No Pat,' Nan said.

‘What on earth do you mean. I haven't
said
anything yet.' Pat was annoyed.

‘No to whatever you suggest,' Nan said.

‘Well that's charming. I was going to go round and check your smoke alarm, but I'll save myself the journey.'

‘Don't sulk Pat. I'm going out, that's all.'

‘Mam, you don't
go
anywhere,' Pat protested.

Nan wondered if this was true. Was
she like poor Mrs White … who of course was not Mrs White at all. Her name was something totally different, but kind good Johnny White had gone out to work in a warehouse — a job he hated — just to keep her safe from harm.

The hours passed very slowly until it was time to take up the story again with Derek. Nan had changed into her best dress with the lace collar.

‘You look very nice,' Derek said.

He had brought her a bunch of roses and she blushed as she arranged them in a vase. Then they read on.

When they got to the bit where dear Johnny had been feeling too sick to go to work but was refusing to see a doctor, Nan began to worry.

‘I don't like the sound of it,' she said.

‘Neither do I,' replied Derek.

They read on, about how his cancer
was terminal, how they knew she couldn't live alone without him. With tears in her eyes Nan read about the plans for the trip to the lakes, and sending their financial details and will to a solicitor.

They wanted their home at Number Twelve Chestnut Road to be sold and the proceeds given to a charity that looked after battered wives.

It had taken some time to sort it out after they had disappeared, presumed drowned in the lakes. The law moves slowly so that was why the house was empty for so long.

Nan and Derek sat as the light faded. They thought about the couple and their strange sad life.

‘They must have loved each other very much,' Nan said.

‘I never loved liked that,' Derek said.

‘Neither did I,' said Nan.

Nan told her children nothing at all about the discovery of Mrs White's diary. She was afraid that they would dismiss it, say that the Whites were boring, mad old people.

She told them nothing about Derek's visits either. Young people were so cruel. They would laugh at her and say she was being silly dressing up, and polishing things so that she could give the builder next door his tea.

But then they hadn't read the everyday thoughts of the woman who
had lived a lonely frightened life until she had been rescued by her Johnny.

A woman who had continued to hide in case a man might find her. A woman who had gone out in the lakes to die with her Johnny rather than face life alone without him.

Jo, Bobby and Pat would never understand how comforting it was to sit and talk to Derek at the end of the day, and how much it had brightened up her life.

Up to now Nan had not wanted to go anywhere, meet anyone, or try anything new. In the year since she had left work she had got out of the habit of going out. She stayed in Number Fourteen waiting there in case the children called in.

Many days, of course, they did not visit but she never minded. They knew she would always be there so it was a
good place for them to ‘kill time', as Jo had put it the other night.

Nan hated that phrase. Why would you want to kill time?You should spend it, enjoy it, savour it.

She went to the art gallery so that she could tell Derek about the exhibition. She went to a theatre matinée. She took a bus tour around the city.

She bought three brightly coloured T-shirts in a sale and wore them one by one under her black cardigan.

‘You look nice,' Derek had said when he saw the lemon or lilac or rose colours.

‘You look a bit like mutton dressed as lamb Mother,' Jo had said when she saw them. ‘Don't you think at your age …?'

Nan was hurt and annoyed.

‘At my age I would like to be able to
do a lot of things, like buy nice clothes in a proper shop instead of buying three T-shirts for the price of two at a street stall,' she said sharply.

Jo was surprised. Mother never spoke like this.

‘You're fine as you are Mother, you don't like change.' Jo tried to pat her down.

‘I don't think those very loud colours suit you, Mam,' Bobby said, as he handed her his bag of laundry.

‘You know where the washing machine is Bobby. Please place your dirty clothes in it and add the powder.' Nan was crisp.

‘Kay was saying you need a job Mam … something to keep you busy,' Bobby said.

‘I had a job for twenty years and kept you fed, clothed and educated,' Nan snapped.

Pat rang her up next morning.

‘The others tell me you're becoming very ratty Mam,' she said.

‘What does “ratty” mean?' Nan asked.

‘I don't know really.' Pat was at a loss.

‘Maybe they mean I've grown a long tail and a pointed nose, and started to scuttle around,' Nan said.

‘I see what they mean, you
have
become ratty,' Pat said.

Derek said that there was a new Chinese restaurant at the far end of Chestnut Road. Perhaps they should try it.

Nan thought that was great. They talked about the Whites and whether Johnny had any family who knew what he had done. They debated what Mrs
White's name might have been. Nan thought it was Victoria. Derek thought it was Maud.