11. POLICE CONSTABLE PLODNOSE

Bad news is bad news even when it isn't bad news....

It had been quiet in the shop that morning. Quiet, that is, after the Jones and Smith matriarchs had moaned their say and gone back to their homes to scrub their doorsteps.

There had long been a sort of unofficial competition to see which family rejoiced in the smartest and cleanest doorstep. Sort of, because nobody was ever declared to be the winner. Unofficial competitions don’t need winners or losers, just competitors. But doorsteps were important. They always had been, a public reminder of inner cleanliness, and mothers and matriarchs alike took huge pride in them.

I sometimes think this is a waste of my life, thought Ursula as she leaned on the counter and stared about her at where evrything was very orderly and in its place. She had tidied the counter, restocked what needed restocking, counted the change in the till drawer at least three times and always got the same answer and listened for Old Aunty Emmett to call down the stairs for this or that piece of assistance.

Old Aunty Emmett was growing older and more arthritic every day and now found the stairs to be a problem. They were steep and there was only a handrail on one side, and that wasn’t the side where she needed it. The building had been erected in olden times when handrails weren’t considered to be important because, truth to tell, back then very few people grew to be old enough to be frail, and the nett result was that the old shopkeeper was largely a prisoner in her upstairs rooms.

Old Aunty Emmett had been quiet so far that particular day. Maybe, thought Ursula, she was asleep. She slept quite a lot and left most of the worrying about the shop to her very able assistant. And she did know that and Ursula often received more remuneration than had been agreed when she took the job, which was only fair,

It had been above a week since the boy had delivered the present from Jingo’s and only that day had Ursula deigned to wear it. She was uncomfortable about it because she didn’t want to be showered with expensive gifts.

“A lad can’t buy favours from me out of the blue,” she had said to Ma or her father or anyone who cared to listen, or

“If I wanted a watch I’d have bought one,” she had muttered when the subject of watches was mentioned, or

“I always know what the time is, so what good is a watch?” she had asked of anyone who heard her, but mostly of herself.

The trouble was, she liked the watch. It was beautiful and its near silent tick tick tick was reassuring. And it told her the time which, despite her assurances to herself, she often didn’t quite know.

But this was a boring morning, watch or no watch. Even a squabble between a Taylor and a Pumpkin would have been welcome, when the shop door opened with the familiar ring of the small bell that nestled against it, and Ursula looked up, grateful for a chance to wile away a few minutes with a customer.

It was the village constable, Peter Plodnose. He popped in every so often for half an ounce of Vintner’s Shag, his own preferred brand of coarse tobacco. He smoked a pipe, and the stink of its smoke warned one and all that he wasn’t so far away.

But today he wasn’t after tobacco. He was on police business, and because he was an all round gentle soul who wouldn’t trouble anyone without good reason he was far from happy about having to pop in. The telling of bad news was one of his functions, some thought it was his only one seeing as Swanspottle was generally a law-abiding village full of law-abiding souls. But news of accidents and deaths and injuries and all sorts of unpleasantness had to be conveyed by someone, and that someone was almost always him.

“Ursula,” he mumbled. That was a bad sign, when P.C. Peter Plodnose mumbled.

She smiled at him brightly, and he blushed because that sort of smile went straight to his heart, and then he frowned with an ever so small frown.

“Is it your shag?” asked Ursula, guessing wrongly that it was.

“I’m sorry, lass, but I’ve got bad news,” he said quietly. “You’d best take the weight off your legs and sit in that seat.”

She sunk onto the rickety chair that was her only comfort behind the counter.

“Is it Ma?” she asked, fearing for her precious mother’s soul as an icy hand seemed to caress her young heart.

“No. Not your Ma,” comforted Plodnose. “She’s well, like she always is.”

“Not my dad?” Tears were pricking her eyes. If it wasn’t her mother then it had to be her father. They were the only two people on the planet who meant anything to her. Oh, she had a few friends, lasses from her school days, but almost without exception they were seeking out lads and getting in the family way and getting married, sometimes in that order and sometimes not.

“No. He’s on Farmer Bismuth’s top field with the fencing,” muttered the Constable.

“Fiddling with it?” Ursula allowed the slightest twitch to amuse her mouth as she said that.

“No, lass, I’m sorry, but it’s your intended, and he’s gone with the angels,” explained the good Constable in a burst of words.

Ursula was astounded, then flummoxed, then relieved.

“But Constable Plodnose, I haven’t got an intended,” she said, and added, “I never have had. I’m only sixteen and I’m waiting for the right lad to come along, and he hasn’t yet, not by a million miles he hasn’t.”

“But…,” and Peter Plodnose frowned, “it’s all around the village, everyone knows, you and that driver fellow from the Squire’s mansion, he’s your intended...”

“What? Him? Tony Nonesuch? He never is!” declared Ursula.

“But didn’t he send you a silver watch from Jingo’s? And didn’t you accept it, to seal your troth?” asked the policeman.

“I never wanted any watch and most certainly never sealed anything … anyway, what’s happened to send you here to plague me with false accusations?” demanded Ursula.

“You’re sure he’s not your intended?”

“I said, didn’t I? I couldn’t be plainer than saying!”

“He’s dead,” sighed the policeman. “Last night, in the early hours, he was out in that limousine he drives, without permission it seems, and he hit a brick wall full on. Hit it so hard that it shook his bones so hard that he passed away with broken bones and blood everywhere. And it’s going to cost a penny or two to fix that limousine, too, which won’t please the Squire.”

“Tony’s … dead?”

“That’s his name, miss. Dead as a dodo, that’s what he is, all smashed up and … dead.”

“Oh.”

Ursula was at a loss for words. She hadn’t given him more than the odd thought, had never even seen him as sharing any part of her life, but Tony dead? It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Is that fancy watch you’re wearing the one as set the tongues wagging about him being your intended?” asked Constable Plodnose, pointing at her wrist. “It’s a fair beaut, it is, as seen from here, a real first class beaut.”

Ursula glanced at her wrist. And she nodded, acknowledging the question.

But she noticed something.

“It’s stopped,” she said, her voice shaking, “I must have forgotten to wind it up. It’s … stopped. The time’s all wrong...”

© Peter Rogerson 20.07.18

Reviews

[Great Aunt Astri]

Easy to read story which keeps one's attention. Interesting about the wrist watch stopping, because your story is very much about time --the setting is in the past, the old lady upstairs, Ursula wanting a customer to 'pass the time with', and then the death. A young man's end of time. I have heard of clocks stopping when someone dies. I enjoyed this story, thank you.

[Peter Rogerson]

You've pointed out more references to time that I was aware of! And if you haven't reached the next part yet, it carries on!

[Great Aunt Astri]

Look forward to it.