Before All Else Read online

  Not much given to introspection, that was more Velda’s sort of thing, he did allow himself a cursory check of his emotions as he pulled out behind the van in a break in traffic. Not much to say really, he thought to himself. Funny thing, life, perhaps best summed it up.

  Now, he is feeling becalmed. Gone is the passion and heat of their rows. Gone is the simmering resentment that could just as quickly return to fizzing insult. Gone is the occasional fire of reconciliation. Looking around him, goodness knows, he could do with some of that energy for the task ahead of unpacking and stowing his belongings.

  Marcus wanders from room to room. He’d been lucky to get this flat, or apartment, so the estate agent, Jeremy, had told him. He’d asked Velda if she wanted to view it with him. She’d declined. He drove there and back in a day and agreed to rent it there and then. All at a very reasonable price too, if the emollient man was to be believed. A lot of interest from London these days, what with the commuter trains and all. Then he’d pulled himself up short, a little voice in his animated head obviously reminding him that Marcus was from London and commanded the hefty sort of salary that humble estate agents in the fens could only dream of. “Will you be carrying on working in town at all, sir?” the little creep had asked, overplaying the diminutive ‘town’. Marcus had evaded the question, replying, “Well, you know, who’s to say?” Jeremy had nodded emphatically and sagely.

  Truth is, Marcus doesn’t know what he is going to do. It is all going to take a bit of getting used to.

  “Tea!” he announces to the cooling air, glad to have some purpose, even if only for the next five minutes while he makes a brew.

  Except the five minutes turns into ten and then into thirty while he hunts for the necessaries. “Bloody woman, you’d think she’d have organised it all a bit better,” he grumbles as he searches for a box that might, helpfully, have the ticket ‘Tea Making Things’ or some such. “Bitch!” he mutters as he upturns box after box in search of a kettle, or a saucepan even.

  Where his meagre possessions had been corralled into random pick-and-mix boxes, set hither and thither by the since departed removal men, now they are scattered and smeared throughout most of his new living quarters.

  It is obvious that the heartless woman is going to deny him even the smallest comfort of a cup of tea. Bloody serves her right that he’s left her for a new and better life. She can jolly well go and stew in her own loneliness.

  Blood warmed, heart pumped, Marcus snatches his jacket from where it had landed on a standard lamp, and slams the front door behind him.

  “Good afternoon.”

  Marcus is somewhat surprised when the lady behind the counter in the post office extends her arm over the gaudy chocolate bars towards him. He tentatively slides his hand into hers and wobbles her wings.

  “Madge.”

  “Hello, Madge. Marcus Blatt.”

  “Hello, Marcus. Welcome to Bullenden. Saw you moving in. Am sure you will settle in; we’re all quite friendly.” Madge laughs such that the rollers under her gauze headscarf rattle and skitter. “Aren’t we, Doreen? Friendly. Just telling Marcus here, we’re fri-end-ly,” the syllables extended to allow the person working behind the scenes to hear. A voice muffled by some distance and, Marcus assumes, walls lagged with stock, replies, “Yep.”

  “What can I get you, Marcus?”

  “Er. I’m looking for a box of tea, pint of milk, sugar, saucepan and a couple of mugs.”

  “Cup of tea you’re after, is it?”

  “Yes, you could say that.”

  “Dor-eeeen. Put the kettle on, Dor-eeen. Make Mar-cus a cup of tea.”

  “No, please, I really don’t want to be any bother.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  “No, really, I’ve got a mountain of unpacking to do and I really ought to make a start. Very kind of you though.”

  Madge is clearly disappointed but moves round the shelves, placing Marcus’s items on the counter, perhaps slightly more emphatically than strictly necessary, one by one, naming them as she goes. “Sugar…tea…milk…There you are, sir.”

  Marcus notes that he has been demoted to ‘sir’ again rather than ‘Marcus’ and wonders, briefly, if he has infringed an unwritten but vital code by refusing tea with the Post Mistress. He pays for and amasses his dented packages and leaves the shop.

  Not being offered a bag, and not thinking to ask for one, Marcus drops both the milk and sugar almost as soon as he steps out of the vaguely quaint and disorganised shop and into the gathering dusk. A painful but controlled stoop retrieves the items from the pavement and, ignoring the twinge in his right hip, he resumes his short walk home, uncomfortably aware that his undignified passage is not going unobserved. Balancing one knee against the front door upon which to stack his purchases in size order, he flaps his jacket pocket wildly, in search for the key which must surely be in there somewhere.

  “Hells bells. I don’t believe it!” The wretched keys are inside the poxy apartment. He’s left them on the kitchen drainer. The first of a marriage’s worth of lessons to unlearn. Velda isn’t in. She hasn’t gone out and left the key in its hiding place behind the Green Man. This is it. A man in charge of his own house key. Locked out on his first sortie. Triumph and humility mingle in his breast. He walks back to the post office.

  “Dor-eeeen. Put the kettle on for Marcus, and get some of that lemon drizzle. We can have a good chat while we wait for Mr Edge to come and sort out the lock.”

  *

  Marcus wakes in the grey light of dawn, his chin on his chest. His search for bedding last night had been a little more successful than his search for a kettle. The duvet he had found was only a lightweight single summer one, which he had supplemented by piling coats over his feet. These had slithered to the floor in the night, leaving his extremities blue and exposed. He groans as he elbows himself to a seated position. An urgent leavening of his bladder reminds him of the countless cups of tea forced on him by the doughty Madge of the post office. He walks the crooked few yards to the downstairs toilet, rebelliously leaving the door open and whistling while he relieves himself, watching the yellow stream with some satisfaction, finishing with a flourish. Be damned if he’s going to flush and put the seat down. It’s my toilet. My life!

  “This is Marcus Blot. Moved into old Mrs Fawcett’s place. Artist, he is.” So had he been introduced to a succession of shoppers the previous afternoon.

  “Actually, it’s Blatt, and I’m retired. Never picked up a paintbrush in my life.” He’d tired of these minor corrections to his biography after the fifth telling and resigned himself to sitting out the afternoon on a wooden school chair, balancing an institutional green cup and saucer on one knee and a crumbling yet, it had to be said, delicious cake in the other, rising awkwardly on each greeting to shake hands with an assortment of young and old, men, women, children and, on one occasion, a dog’s paw, longing for Mr Edge, the locksmith, to return from town.

  It is going to be a monumental game of Happy Families trying to reconcile each face, name, history, genealogy, medical record, misdemeanour on further meeting.

  But that is for another time. Jobs for today include, lighting the boiler, unpacking, driving into Aylston to buy provisions and, if there is time after all this, popping into The Red over the road to check out their guest ales before lunch. Oh, and get some keys cut so that he wouldn’t be caught out again like yesterday.

  It had been dark by the time Mr Edge had returned from his mission up country. Marcus hadn’t quite seen what he’d done to open the door, but it had taken mere seconds.

  “There you go, Mr Blot. No, no, have it on me,” he’d said as Marcus made an elaborate show of reaching for his back pocket, as if to say, Let me pay you for your services, my good fellow. “I’m sure you’ll give me a call if you need me again.”

  “Yes, of course. Without hesitation. Thank you. Goodnight.”


  Marcus had closed the front door behind him and, too tired for supper, made his rudimentary bed and fallen into a deep but disturbed slumber.

  Now, it is time for breakfast. He’d seen a box marked ‘Kitchen: Cooking Apparatus’ somewhere. After a brief search, he finds it in the back bedroom. Stupid bloody place to put it. The four flaps release their hold on each other as he pulls. Ah. Marvellous. Inside, a frying pan, kettle, mugs, cutlery and, inexplicably, a pasta maker. Well, who knows? Maybe he has reached a time in his life when he could try his hand at making pasta.

  He carries his trophies to the kitchen before it dawns on him to question why he couldn’t have found these tea-making things yesterday and saved himself an awful lot of bother, sitting around making small talk to half the village and their dog. Never mind, all is well now. Time for a celebratory cuppa.

  Sugar. Sugar. Sugar, he mutters to himself, spinning round looking. Tea? Last night’s lock-out flashes into his mind, together with a memory of where he had stowed his provisions before finding himself at Mr Edge’s mercy. He shakes the kettle, another marital habit, checking for water. Of course there won’t be any. Why would there be? He’ll put the kettle on and then go and retrieve yesterday’s purchases. From the flower box outside.

  Placing the kettle under the tap, he turns the handle. Nothing. He tries the hot tap. Still nothing. What the blazes is going on? Possibly the water had been turned off. Isn’t that what people do when they vacate a house? He rummages inside his memory to think back to what Velda might have done prior to their annual summer sojourn to Shell Island. A vague recollection of her half submerged under the sink comes back to him. Stop tap. That’s what he’s looking for. Stop tap. Nothing to it!

  Marcus kneels slowly and stiffly onto the cold kitchen floor, bracing himself on the swinging cabinet doors to help his descent. Apart from the serpentine plumbing under the sink and a grimy swan’s neck watering can, there is nothing. No tap of any description. He shuffles to the cabinets either side. Still nothing. What in the name of Moses is going on? Shouldn’t places come with some sort of instruction manual?

  “Velda!” he futilely shouts over his shoulder.

  After a series of grunts and heaves, he articulates himself upright again. “Blast. Blast. Blast and blast!” He ponders his options, nursing his fist, having banged it on the counter top with each outburst. His options are severely limited. Severely limited to one. There is only one thing for it.

  Madge would not dream of letting Marcus go back to his cold, empty house. She will call Mr Edge the plumber, and then Marcus is to sit down here and have a nice cup of tea while he waits. It had been so nice yesterday to have somebody new to chat to and there is still so much to tell him.

  Marcus sits reluctantly on the chair, silently willing the multi-talented Mr Edge to please hurry up. It is a skill honed over twenty-seven years with the venerable Velda that he is able to give the impression of listening, actively if required, to every word while only really scanning every utterance for its kernel of meaning and responding appropriately. So while he eyes the Mars bars hungrily, sips weak tea and longs for a long hot bath to soothe his aching joints and muscles, he gives every impression of listening politely and attentively.

  Customers come and go, greeting him like an old friend. They know his name so obviously expect him to know theirs. His hand of Happy Families cards resembles more a game of Pick Up Sticks.

  Finally, around eleven thirty, the door clangs open to admit the one person Marcus could recognise as a familiar and welcome friend, Mr Edge. Hurrah!

  “Can’t find the stop tap,” he responds rather sheepishly to Mr Edge’s enquiry. “Wonder if you wouldn’t mind coming round and, you know, just, you know…” Marcus waves his arms vaguely in their air. “You know.”

  “Sure thing, matey. No problem at all.”

  The two men walk together down the pavement. Mr Edge’s van is already parked outside.

  The bag of sugar is still in the window box, but it has been invaded by a pair of slugs. The box of tea looks intact. Not that Marcus could face another cup right at this very minute.

  Mr Edge stands in the hall, as if planning a route through the strewn debris. “Sorry, it’s all a bit of a mess.”

  Mr Edge nods, as if disinclined to dispute that point. “Right then, matey. I’ll get the water on for you. Expect you’d like me to take a look at the boiler and get that started for you too.” Marcus nods mutely. “I’ll take a look at the radiators. They’ve probably not been bled in a while. Might not be a bad idea if I check the gutters and downpipes. Rain’s on its way. Anything else you want me to look at?”

  Marcus shakes his head, shrugs and sweeps his arm in an arc as if to say, Do it all. Matey.

  The afternoon passes pleasantly enough. It is nice to have some company in the place. While Mr Edge heaves his tool box from room to room, leaving rusty puddles and scrunched-up flannels, spanners, ladders, things that go bleep, drills and footprints wherever he goes, the flat gradually comes to life.

  Marcus wanders aimlessly from room to room, looking for a place for his glass chess set, his guitar, his weights. Welcome sounds independently percolate their way to him – the rush of water into the stainless-steel kitchen sink, the gurgle and tick of warming radiators, the whistle of the gas jet in the grill. He can hear Mr Edge calling out to him.

  “Sorry, what was that?”

  “You can get a half-decent bacon and cheese panini from the mini mart in the garage, you know.” Marcus is about to thank Mr Edge for this piece of local knowledge, when the penny drops.

  “Oh, OK. Want anything else with it?” For gratitude is spreading, unusually, into generosity.

  “Wouldn’t mind a flapjack or something like it.”

  “OK. Be right back, then.”

  “And a Coke? Maybe?”

  Marcus flees the house, before the list grows any longer. Sheepishly, he skulks the long way round the square, lest Madge the Post Mistress should spot him and call him in to finish her tale regarding the late Mr Duckett’s half-niece by his first marriage to the nervy Sandra Jones who went backpacking to Thailand and wasn’t seen for half a year… He groans inwardly at the thought of this endlessly complicated, cat’s cradle of a community, wondering whether he too would wander into its labyrinthine centre and never be seen again or whether it would bounce him, reject him like a sickly, undernourished fledgling.

  Nourishment. Food. An angry roar from his stomach reminds him that, in fact, he hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon and that was nothing of real substance. He looks in at the deli’s windows, wondering how a village of this size could support an establishment selling frangipanes and macaroons and, oh, how wonderful, his favourite, giant coffee profiteroles with crème anglaise. He puts these musings to one side while he enters the sweetly scented shop. No, it isn’t just a shop. It is heaven. Wholemeal bread. Cheese rolls. Roasted vegetable tarts. Black pepper scones. Mrs Somebody’s homemade jam. Piccalilli. Sliced ham with that lovely yellow breadcrumbed edge to creamy white fat. Oh bliss. After a stressful and taxing couple of days, he knows, he just knows deep down in the pit of his stomach, that everything is going to come right. This whole independent living thing isn’t going to be too hard after all.

  And, as if that wasn’t enough, the nice girl behind the counter with two long black plaits, who reminded him a bit of Martha, as she had been in the sixth form, before she went off to uni and came back all weird, didn’t seem inclined to engage him in any conversation beyond what was strictly necessary in the transaction, the exchange of a few delicious items for himself and the hard-working Mr Edge and something for tonight, for money.

  Buoyed by his discovery and the prospect of some delicious savoury food, delighted that it required no more effort than to descend his stairs, turn right into the alley and right again into the market square and sharp right into the recessed, tiled entry of the
food emporium below his flat, Marcus walks painfully straight into the closed and irrefutably locked front door of his flat. He hammers on the door to alert Mr Edge to his plight, checking his first instinct to call out for Velda. An improvement, at least.

  The two men munch their lunch in silence. Satisfaction made all the sweeter by being swilled down by a pot of freshly brewed and mercifully wildlife-free tea.

  Dusk falls on Marcus’s first full day in his new house. Their paths cross and recross as Mr Edge sees to the plumbing and other maintenance jobs and Marcus replaces items for which there is no obvious home back into boxes, promising himself that he would get round to sorting them out. “You don’t do shelves do you, by any chance?”

  “Yes, sure, mate. Just let me know where you want them.”

  Goodness knows why Velda got her knickers in such a twist about things around the house. It is easy. You just have to know the right people to ask.

  “More tea?”

  “Wouldn’t say no.”

  Marcus stands in his kitchen, his back to the sink, waiting for the kettle to boil, full of the simple pleasure of making a cup of tea. A feeling of happiness spreads through him like an ink stain. An almost animal affection towards Mr Edge moves him. Perhaps he should go to the post office for custard creams to go with his tea. No. Emphatically not. Mr Edge, after all, is just doing his job. Wouldn’t do to get too pally, would it?

  Mr Edge works into the evening, Marcus beginning to feel a little concerned that he might have to offer him some of the scrumptious Quiche Lorraine and Pinot that he’d earmarked for supper time. Mercifully, by eight o’clock, Edge is packing up his various boxes of kit.