‘YOU STUPID COW!’ The resounding crash of tools being dislodged in the back of the van accompanies the squeal of a skid as Kester brakes hard to avoid the woman dashing into the road. His upper body whips back against the seat and he stares out of the windscreen at the face shocked and momentarily frozen in the beam of his headlights before they run on.

‘Helen?’ He fumbles with his seatbelt, sliding back the door and scrambling out. ‘HELEN!’ he yells, looking swiftly from side to side for oncoming traffic before chasing after her.

‘Helen, wait up!’ His feet skid on the mud of the grass verge and he swears as he scrapes his hand on the bark of the tree he grasps to prevent a fall.

‘Leave me…. alone!’ A sob punctuates her words as she hurries into a side street to avoid him.

Kester turns the corner at a run, anxious not to lose sight of her. ‘It’s me….Kester….Kester James…Are you alright?’

‘Leave me alone…’ she gives a low moan as he catches her arm.

‘What’s wrong?’ He asks quietly.

Helen bridles at the intimate tone of his voice. ‘You mean aside from some idiot trying to run me over?’ She struggles from his grip and darts away with her head down, slipping and sliding on the leaf-strewn pavement.

‘You ran straight out in front of me!’ Kester catches her again.

‘Please’ she begs, looking down at the ground as he turns her towards him. ‘If you want an apology, you’ve got one but please, just go away’ her mumbled voice trembles.

Kester unzips his jacket and drapes it around her shoulders. ‘You’re shivering’ he says gently. ‘And this’ He lifts her chin with one hand and wipes tears from her cheek with the thumb of the other ‘is not rain’

Helen turns her head away sharply. ‘How dare you? Let go of me!’

Kester drops his arms; half expecting her to bolt again but she stands with her head lowered, her shoulders hunched in complete desolation as the rain drips from her hair.

‘Let me take you home. It’s a foul night and you’re upset about something…’

She lifts her head as if ready to snap at him and recoils slightly as his fingers comb the strands of wet hair away from her eyes.

‘It’s ok, no questions’ he assures softly ‘you need to be home, that’s all. Come on.’

‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’ Helen raises her chin and clips a response.

‘See sense for God’s sake! I’m getting bloody soaked, here.’ Kester squints against a sudden squall.

Helen snatches the jacket from her shoulders. ‘Here, have it back!’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it.’ He puts the coat around her again, squeezing her shoulders and giving a grim smile. ‘I am safe, you can trust me’ he coaxes ‘If it makes you feel any better, I’ll sit in the back with the rest of the rubbish and you can drive the pigging van! Harriet would never forgive me if I left you here. Where’s your car?’

‘At home.’ Helen admits miserably.

‘What’s it doing th…No, I said no questions and I meant it. Please, Helen, let me take you back, eh?’

She hesitates before nodding dumbly.

‘Good girl’  Helen glares and Kester grimaces ruefully. ‘Lost all those brownie points I might have gained now haven’t I?’ He barely touches her arm as he ushers her back the way they came. ‘So......Who’s driving?’

Woodbury High Street

Bower Lane

‘Will you be alright now?’ Kester asks as he pulls alongside the gate, breaking the silence of the journey to Pennywell.

‘Yes. Thank you.’ Helen replies stiffly, avoiding his gaze by staring straight ahead as she unclips her seatbelt.

‘I’ll see you inside’ he says, swivelling out of his belt and undoing his door.

‘No, thank you.’ She tugs at the finger hold in the side panel in an attempt to open the door.

With one foot already over the sill, Kester turns his head, mildly irritated by her curtness. ‘Hang on. It’s a bit temperamental’ He steps down and walks around the front of the van to the passenger side and slides it back. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can do?’ He holds out a hand to help her down.

Helen shakes her head, pulling her arm from his grip as soon as both feet are on the ground. With her hand on the top rail of the gate, she hesitates briefly, staring towards the cottage before pushing it open.

‘Are you quite sure?’ he asks again, noticing the glitter of fresh tears in her eyes.

‘Absolutely, thank you’ Her mouth sets in a hard determined line.

Kester sighs inwardly. ‘You know where I am.’

‘Yes, I do’

‘Goodnight, then.’ His hand rises slightly, intending to offer a touch of comfort and immediately drops it again as he thinks better of it.

Without a look or a word of thanks, she marches along the path between borders of low evergreen shrubs to her front door.

Kester watches until the light goes on in the front room before getting back in the van. With an exasperated shake of the head, he drives off.

Inside the cottage, Helen sits staring at the unlit fireplace, absently fingering a small plastic ball. As it jingles in her hand, her eyes fix on the empty cat basket at the side of the chimneybreast. She pulls the sides of the jacket around her as she sobs.

25 Piper Street

In the neat sitting room of the small terraced house in Piper Street, Edna Smith straightens the cushions on the beige chenille sofa, allowing herself a little smile of pride at the new purchase as she tidies the room.

‘You can’t be worrying about it no more, Charlie’ she scolds as she carefully lifts precious ornaments from the windowsill to dust underneath them, giving each a quick rub of her yellow duster before replacing them exactly where they had been before.  ‘It ain’t fer you to be getting all worked up over it.’

Charlie folds the newspapers and lays them neatly on the shelf under the coffee table, gathering his spectacle case and a book from the top ahead of Edna’s onslaught with the polish and tucking a half roll of mints, its curl of silver wrapping hanging, into the pocket of his knitted green cardigan. He bends awkwardly to pick up a pair of shoes from next to his armchair and stands with them tucked under his arm. ‘I know but summat’s got t’be done.’

Edna squeezes her husband’s hand briefly as she passes on the way to the kitchen. ‘But it ain’t fer you to be going up there doing stuff. Them times is past and no begger won’t thank you for it.’

Charlie follows to continue the discussion, pausing only to put his shoes in the under stairs cupboard. ‘Rack and ruin’ he grumbles morosely. ‘Some little swine’s put a stone through one a the windows. Before you know it there’ll be squatters an’ all sorts in there.’

‘All you can do is t’get hold a the solicitor an’ tell em.’ The sound of running water as Edna rinses her hands at the sink reminds Charlie he needs the bathroom. ‘They’s got people what’s s’posed to be looking after the place. They gets paid good money an’ all I ‘spect.’ Edna peers into the oven through the square glass panel and dons the oven gloves that are lying on the worktop.

‘But they in’t doing no sort a decent job on it, them gardens is like a wilderness. All them years I…’

‘That’s over now, Charlie, be told.’ Edna interrupts, lifting the first of two trays of scones onto the top of the cooker and moving the second up to the top rack of the oven to brown a little more. She closes the oven door and smiles at him comfortingly. ‘It breaks my heart as much as it does yours but we don’t owe nobody nothing’ she says gently. ‘We done our bit when the missus was alive.’

Charlie lays the book and spectacle case on the corner of the worktop and stands in the doorway, half turned and ready to go upstairs. ‘I can’t understand why it’s been standing empty all this time. Surely they must a been able to find some family or other that it’d belong to be now.’

‘There weren’t that many of ‘em t’start with.’ Edna replies, stacking the washing up next to the sink and wiping the worktops down. ‘That nephew she willed it to were dead afore she were. He didn’t have no kids, yet a wife, and it took ‘em gawd knows how long t’find that out. I reckon they’ll sell it now. There in’t nothing else they can do.’

‘Crying shame, I calls it.’ Charlie’s mouth sets in disapproval.

‘Been in the family nigh on four hundred year.’ she purses her lips ‘T’think this flipping government’s going to get benefit of it now makes me spit.’

Edna turns on the tap leaving it to run hot while she opens the back door and scrapes apple peelings from a chopping board into the pail outside. ‘That’s nigh on full, wants going up the compost’

‘Righto, I’ll…er… just go an’ pay a visit first.

Chapter Two