Old Walls - Part 8

 

Simon eventually slept deeply after waiting up for Roz, then lying awake and angry for an hour or so but in the morning something disturbed the fug of his dream. He was in the woods, dressed in his camouflage attire and holding a torch, together with some of the men from the village. They were involved in some sort of night-time operation. A rescue perhaps, he felt useful, heroic even, all within the comfortable envelope of his John Lewis goosedown bedding.

 

There it was again, rattling. Simon was awake now, the setting of the dream dissolved. He sat up very still and listened. It was windy outside, there were other sounds consistent with blustery weather but there was something piercing about that rattle and he held his breath until he heard it again.

 

And there it was, rattle rattle, longer this time and accompanied by a sort of flapping. He’d heard it before, he was quite sure of it, some time in the past. Carefully, he got up and walked over to the window, pulled back the curtain and looked out. The sun was rising but a low layer of thick cloud was restricting light to the mere status of gloom.

 

Roz was still sleeping and he was reluctant to disturb her. He had a sense of needing her, of needing friends, allies. It was something he’d experienced before and it wasn’t because he was willing to acknowledge any wrongdoing, moreover it was an awareness of the potential isolation of living inside the confines of his own character. 

 

There had been a couple of periods in their marriage where Roz had annexed everything about her husband except for shared domestic comforts; meals, chores, the administration of a home. She’d mentally and emotionally shut him off, only as a temporary measure after he’d pushed the limits of her tolerance.

 

The gloom lifted slightly and something white caught his eye. It was across the road at Old Walls, the leaves were mostly off the trees now and he could see something moving in the wind. And then he realised what it was, it was a flag, white with a red cross, flapping, and it was attached to the flagpole that Alan, the old guy, had erected decades ago in the front garden. 

 

Simon remembered how on occasions, when Old Walls had been empty, he’d gone across the road to adjust that pole and stop it from rattling but there was no flag back then and he cursed himself now for not taking it down when he had the chance. He thought about the box on Jace’s driveway and how he’d removed a large piece of cloth from it and then folded it away and left it in the garage. Now it all made sense.

 

He stood back, drew breath, let the curtain drop back down and crept downstairs. It felt as if everything had changed since Jace moved in. If that was what he thought it was, an England flag then it meant that the whole neighbourhood was altered. He imagined his house price plummeting and how people passing through would respond to such an objectionable thing.

 

In the kitchen there was a clothes airer which had enough dry garments for him to get fully dressed. Timmy was keen for a walk. They slipped out together and immediately crossed the road. Jace’s pick-up truck was parked in the driveway.

 

It’s just so annoying, thought Simon, I wasted my opportunity by looking for that tool in the garage. There was absolutely no way now that he could enter Old Walls again and interfere with the flag. Police would be called, Roz would never forgive him. He’d wasted his chance and the result now was so much worse than losing a pair of loppers. 

 

‘God, I’m so stupid, Timmy,’ he said as they went through the gate into the field.

 

 

It felt inevitable somehow, like a punishment for not listening to Roz and it was so public, almost like a victory flag. He wondered what the other neighbours would think and whether he could get them on side, not that there were many. There was Carol up the road but the others were farther along towards the village green and tended to travel in the opposite direction. He didn’t really know them, only their faces.

 

He walked slowly around the field, stopped slightly with his hands clasped behind his back, head down, the wind causing the strands of his hair to dance chaotically. His walk, a clattergait of suppressed turmoil.

 

Meanwhile, Roz had woken up feeling fragile, the front of her head felt bound and she struggled to remember much of the previous evening except for odd details, stainless steel tongs and pineapple shaped ice-cube trays, Carol making her laugh in the car. She called out to Simon but there was no answer and instinctively she could feel that Timmy was gone too.

 

She opened the curtain a little and could see the figure of her husband wandering across the field in the distance and could tell he was upset about something. An ongoing mood hangover from the previous evening couldn’t be ruled out. The newly erected flag flying across the road didn’t even catch her attention.

 

Simon returned, slamming the front door and decided to try and lighten his mood by making a nice breakfast for both of them. He was no cook but he knew about the physics of an egg, poaching them in particular was something he’d excelled at since university. 

 

Roz had returned to bed after washing down a couple of painkillers with some water from the bathroom tap. She sighed as he came up the stairs but as he entered, her attention was immediately caught by the tray.

 

‘I’ve made you some coffee and poached eggs,’ he said.

 

‘Oh,’ Roz sat up straight and flattened her hair, ‘this is a surprise. Is it my birthday?’

 

‘No. I thought you might need something…to gird your loins,’

 

‘Gird my loins?’

 

‘Yes. The consumption of alcoholic beverages can weaken your system.’

 

‘I feel better already. You know it’s Mel and Annabel’s party this evening at Mellowford Manor.’

 

Simon was standing in the window now, gazing across at the flag. ‘Is it really? I don’t know if I fancy it.’

 

‘You have to fancy it! Everyone will be there. It’ll be fun.’

 

‘The pretentious people and the village people all mixed together in that big OTT house.’

 

‘Well I’m looking forward to it. I’ve got a new dress and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d get to wear it.’

 

‘New dress, new..trifle bowl. We’re not made of money, Roz.’

 

She knew not to waste energy responding to this comment and took another mouthful of poached egg, ‘Mmmmm. Have you had any eggs?’

 

‘Yes I had some downstairs. I was up early. Have you seen the view out of this window yet this morning?’

 

Roz didn’t want to reveal that she’d observed her husband in the wild because at the time, she’d thought about how much he looked like somebody she would never have married. ‘I briefly looked out just to see how windy it is.’

 

‘Yes. And you didn’t see anything across the road at Old Walls, anything of note?’

 

‘No Simon. Nice eggs by the way. What are you on about now? Can’t we just forget about Old Walls for the day?’

 

Simon perched on the end of the bed. ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘you won’t believe what that lout has done now?’

 

Roz laughed. ‘I can confirm, Simon, that Jace is not a lout but in fact, a nice, indeed lovely, and after speaking to him yesterday, I would also say, sensitive young man.’

 

‘He’s put a flag up,’ Simon said dismissively.

 

‘A flag? Oh on the old flag pole that Alan had, yes, I wondered what he was going to do with that. I thought he’d probably take it down but it’s very good quality steel.’

 

‘Good quality steel? What are you, Fred Dibnah?’

 

‘Who?’

 

‘Nevermind. The point is, he’s put up a flag, your lovely man, Jace. It’s all so predictable really.’

 

‘That’s nice. He’s making use of the flagpole. There’s something cheery about a flag flying, don’t you think.’

 

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