Tottle Brook

Casper lamented the fact that his great-grand-daughter Alice could not walk the full length of Tottle Brook, as he had done 60 years before, but they would walk as much as they could, as he done with her mother and grandmother and Anne, his beloved Anne. In unison they had cautioned him, the words ‘Bun, Dad, Pops’ all overlapping.

He had been 12, the day warm and with not a cloud in the sky when he set out from his home in Dunkirk, the university, council estates and Wollaton Vale yet to be built and only the Beeston and Derby roads to be crossed. His Tottle Brook walk would end when he reached the canal, then he would return home the same way.

The day before he had gone to the City Library and found the map section, where he copied the line of Tottle Brook into a notebook he had taken from school, removing the cover just in case it fell into the wrong hands and he was accused of stealing.

With a satchel, some bread, cheese, a couple of apples and a bottle of ginger beer, he had set off on his walk along Tottle Brook and had since done it twice more, with his daughter Avril and grand-daughter Aileen, now it was to be with Alice. In his book Anne didn’t really count since she had joined him, uninvited, 60 years ago and had been by his side ever since.

Casper had been at about where Brook Road is now when an imperious voice said ‘What are you doing?’ and he looked up to see  a squirt of a girl in a pinafore frock and wellington boots looking down at him. She was carrying a fishing net and a jam jar, no doubt fishing for minnows and sticklebacks if she was lucky. ‘I’m walking the length of Tottle Brook’ he replied.

The girl’s next question was ‘Where do you live?’ as if to say ‘This is my territory and you need my permission before you can pass.’ ‘Dunkirk’ was all Casper was going to give her, before adding as slowly as he could ‘All the steams, brooks and rivers in England, just like the sea, belong to the King and he  says all can freely traverse them  if they do not offend fishing rights and, as you can see, I have  no fishing net or jam jar, so I am  respecting your rights’. 

The girl, now standing beside him and nearly as tall as he was, studied him for a minute, although it seemed like an age, before saying ‘Very well, I’m Anne and I had best come with you just in case’ and that was how they had begun, her just 10 and always the leader. ‘Like a dog on a lead’ he had heard his grandmother say as they walked down the aisle past her. ‘Disgusting’. 

The policeman met Casper and Alice as they were about to leave Tottle Brook and cross Brook Road before scrambling through a hole in the fence on the other side. ‘What are you doing Sir?’ 

Casper stopped, stood where he was and began to tell his story… and in that moment Alice looked every inch like Anne all those years ago who, as if by magic, arrived on the bridge with Avril and Aileen. ‘The cavalry’ Anne said to the bemused policeman in her magistrate’s voice before he could ask.

An unwelcome visitor

 Mike Applebee was sitting in The Doughmother bakery and café, talking to Houlia, its owner, eating one of her brownies and  enjoying a black Americano, on a day off and he was glad of it. Life in The Fields had been hectic of late, with the death of Saffron Carter and the subsequent investigation, of which he was a small but important part. Then there was his wife, Kirsty, now home after a week in hospital, where she had been taken with appendicitis. Fortunately, and uninvited, her best friend Wanda had come to the rescue. They were coming to join Mike later for a light lunch, followed by a walk around the park. He was just bringing Houlia up to speed when the door of The Doughmother crashed open and two grown men collapsed onto the floor of the bakery, wrestling and punching one another as they did. 

Mike was up on his feet and pulling them apart before the two men did too much damage. ‘Clem, lay off him’ he shouted and Clem stopped and quickly climbed to his feet, whilst the other guy stayed down, who he recognised as Saul Gregory. ‘A bit off his turf’ Mike thought to himself. For now Saul Gregory was staying where he was — on the floor. ‘Outside. Both of you!’ Mike ordered.

Once standing outside, Saul regained some of his confidence and said ‘Are you going to arrest him for attacking me?’ Mike turned to Clem and said ‘Did you?’ ‘Yes’ came back Clem without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Are you really going to make it easy for me to arrest you?’ It was then that Saul said ‘You’re  not in uniform’. ‘I’m still a copper’ Mike replied, sensing that Saul didn’t like Clem’s willingness to be arrested. ‘So you’re having second thoughts about me arresting your assailant?’ Mike saw the hesitation in Saul’s eyes, like a man caught between a rock and a hard place. It was then he noticed Saul’s bulging pockets, with the tops of what appeared to be leaflets sticking out. ‘What are they?’ Mike asked. ‘What?’ came back Saul, instinctively placing his hands over the pockets to belatedly cover them up.

Out of the corner of his left eye, Mike caught Clem’s smile, as he volunteer a leaflet without saying a word. ‘PROTECT OUR TOWN FROM INTRUDERS – VOTE PHIL GREGORY – PEOPLES PATRIOTIC PARTY – THURSDAY 9TH NOVEMBER’.

‘Ah’ said Mike, now understanding everything. He was glad that the PPP thugs couldn’t find anyone on the Fields Estate to do their dirty work. Charging Clem would do him no harm, as he just happened to be the Eco Alliance candidate and could claim he was defending himself after he had been attacked by a racist, but to charge Saul with assault would help confirm a growing belief among voters that the PPP were no more than fascist thugs. He looked between the two men, before commanding Saul to empty his pockets and place all the leaflets in the litter bin close to where they were standing. Once Saul was out of sight he would cover the leaflets with wet leaves from the gutter. ‘We will forget that this ever happened’. Saul opened his mouth but said nothing. 

When Saul had gone Clem asked Mike why he let him go? ‘Think about it. There’ll be very few PPP leaflets delivered here. They won’t try again and Young Saul will have to explain his black eye to his brother. You in court would do no more than provoke them and we’d soon have a pitched battle on our hands. No thank you. Not on my watch’.  

Please help me

I saw her come into The Oasis Café and look around. I like to sit at the four seater table at the far end of the counter with my back to the kitchen wall. To my left is the door to and from the kitchen. I am surrounded by the smell of food, especially the bacon cooking on the griddle. 

If I’m lucky, Shirley is wearing a skirt and I can see her calves. I know she lives alone in the flat above the café, because she has told me more than once. The first time I recommended a decorator and the second was to ask me if a home office was tax deductible,  as she had no need of a second bedroom, volunteering that ‘No one visits because I have no family, now my father’s dead’. I told her it didn’t seem right that such a lovely person should have to live alone to which she replied ‘I manage’. It was probably then that she hooked me, but I’ve spent the past three months since trying to do a final edit on my latest book, with Sebastian, my publisher, breathing down my neck, so I’ve done no more than look at Shirley’s legs and her pale, sad, face.

The problem is I’ve started on another story and that keeps interrupting. It didn’t help when the woman I started telling you about came into the café and saw me. She then walked the length of The Oasis, past four empty tables and rested her hands on the top of the chair across from where I was sitting. She could see I was holding a pen, poised to write in the notebook on a page I had already half filled. I was on a good run. ‘Can I sit here?’ she asked. ‘If you have to’ I replied, hoping the sharpness in my voice might be enough to change her mind and she’d go and sit at one the empty tables but she didn’t.

What struck me, when I saw her just after she entered The Oasis, was that what shape she had was masked by the voluminous fawn raincoat she was wearing and her face similarly lost under a matching rain hat made from the same fabric. My first thought was ‘Mrs Paddington Bear’, which brought a smile to my face, and now she had spoken I knew she was from the Scottish Highlands, a soft accent without the roughness of the Central Lowlands, an accent I find equally attractive because of what I can only describe as its ‘raw energy’. She was now sitting down and taking her gloves off. I put my pen down and looked at her again. ‘You’re from somewhere between Inverness and Aberdeen’. ‘Elgin’ she volunteered, ‘I’m impressed’. Her compliment appealed to my vanity and aroused my interest.

 ‘I spent my summer holidays in Grantown-on-Spey until I started work’ I replied, continuing ‘Why have you come to my table, when there are four, no five, empty?’ She gave me a penetrating look and said ‘I’m being followed, can we swop coats?’ I didn’t argue. I took my Barbour from the chair beside me and handed it across to her, dodging my coffee and the remains of my custard tart as I did. In its place I put her Burberry and thought these are the best two coats The Oasis will see this week, with a guilty smile of smug self-satisfaction, which I hoped the young woman opposite wouldn’t recognise for what it was. I then watched as she removed her woollen jumper and how her breasts moved freely as she did, comparing them with Shirley’s. I wanted to apologise to both of them but I was too ashamed of my thoughts to admit them to anyone.

‘By the way, what’s your name?’ I asked. ‘I’m Carson Willard, short story writer, The Observer Sunday magazine, just after the crosswords’. She put out a hand, ‘Mairi McEwan, what are you going to do with me?’ I looked at her and pondered her question before giving her an honest answer. I haven’t made up my mind’. I could now see fear in her pale blue eyes, ‘Christ, does this mean they’re going to get me?’ It was my turn to reach across the table and take a hand. I looked into her eyes, so wanting to feel the thick red red hair on her head, and said ‘I promise that won’t happen’ and closed my notebook. I would give Mairi a safe, good life. I owed that much, not that I told her.

I stood up and stretched my back. Shirley saw me. ‘Another coffee?’ ‘Yes please’ I said and walked the three steps to the counter and, looking over, watched her put the froth onto Mrs Green’s cappuccino, who saw me and smiled. I then carried the coffee across for Shirley and returning to the counter I said what I should have said three months ago. ‘I’d like to cook you lunch on Sunday. Nothing fancy, plaice with butter, oven steamed in foil, plus roasted aubergines and peppers, followed by rhubarb crumble. One o’clock’. My stomach was knotted as I spoke the words.

‘Sounds lovely’ Shirley came back, her face looking more beautiful than I had ever noticed before, ‘but, be warned, if you treat me too well I might not want to come home’. I smiled back and kept the words ‘That’s what I’m hoping’ to myself.