Frances Gilbert, Author

Salmon for Breakfast

January; crisp frost on the lawns and hedges; a cold, clear, blue sky.  Leila looked out of her bedroom window. Everything  looked clean and sharp like a picture postcard; no one about, no insanitary dogs, no sign of the spandex jogger, no nosey tourists.  The village was getting back to its proper, ordered, peaceful self. After breakfast she would do her rounds.

She went downstairs and checked her pantry. No bread; no milk in the fridge either. Leila frowned breakfast was becoming a problem. There was no more liberating from next door since her appalling neighbor had moved into town to live with her daughter; no breakfast prayer group or coffee mornings either since the minister had moved away, and with her, it was rumored, that interfering social worker.  May be there was a swig of sherry left, that would be enough to start her rounds and if the village shop was open on the way back, Gladys might give a her a free coffee. She usually made one for the bus driver, but often he hadn’t popped in so she gave it to Leila, “Shame to waste it,” she always said.

There was just an inch in the sherry bottle, Leila swallowed it down and swilled the bottle out with water for a second taste.  She pulled on her boots and her old sheepskin coat and, taking her plaid shopping bag, set out. Her neighbor’s cottage had a ‘For Sale’ sign propped against the hedge. Leila had pulled it down twice already, now she wrenched it down again and carried it round to the back where she shoved it into the untidy forsythia hedge that separated the properties. She was hoping her friend Monica would be able to move in.  Monica, always generous with sherry and meat pie suppers, had often spoken of moving to the village. The rest of the gnomes had gone from the front garden, thank goodness; perhaps Helena, from the village committee, had got someone to remove them.  She made her way across to Helena’s lovely house standing back from the end of the green. There was a big blue car parked on the gravel drive. Her husband must be home again.  Leila checked the basket hanging on the gate post where Helena left money for the paper boy. No money, but yesterday’s paper, good, something to read anyway.  Leila tucked it into her shopping bag and moved on. She crossed the stream and went up the lane. According to Gladys, people had just moved in to one of the two new houses at the top. The place had a haphazard air – no curtains, boxes stacked on the porch.  A jumble of bikes sprawled between the house and the garage. Leila was alarmed. Bikes usually meant youths and youths meant trouble – she would have to keep an eye on the situation.  A cardboard box lay by the gate post full of potatoes and onions. Leila helped herself to several potatoes and an onion; lunch taken care of. She stowed them away in her bag and headed back down the lane turning left on to the graveled path that ran in front of the cottages on this side of the stream.

These cottages had been the original village street, together with the pub, the church, the vicarage and the old smithy which was now the village shop. Leila never had to worry about these cottages, they were always well kept, gardens ablaze in the summer with flowers and ancient twisted fruit trees. Leila respected them and had only ever helped herself to an apple or two, nothing else. She passed old Margaret’s blue front door remembering how Margaret had made such a fuss last summer saying someone had broken in and been in her bed too!  Poor old thing.  She turned up the track to the older buildings at the back. They had been small stone barns at one time and were now let out some times to holiday makers, but Leila was not in favor of that. That nosey social worker had rented one. Leila wondered if she had left anything behind. She went round the back and looked in the kitchen window the table was covered with piles of crockery and pans. She pushed open the door, it stuck on the uneven tiles, but Leila wriggled around it. She looked in the pantry, empty, not even a tin of cat food. Leila shrugged, you couldn’t always be lucky. She rather liked the mugs on the table though, they were pretty, little village scenes. She took two, one for her and one for Monica. When the weather got better they could have coffee in the garden. She didn’t bother going into the other cottage, it was being done up and there was building material piled up in front. She didn’t want to get caught by early workmen.

The shop wasn’t open yet. She could see a light in the back, they must be getting ready, Gladys and Agnes. She would go up the lane opposite the bus stop and look at Jennifer’s house and then come back past the bungalows. Sometimes Ron, next door to the Harrison fellow who was so ill, would be in his garden, he often gave her a handful of beans or peas, but of course it was way too early in the season for that.

She walked round past the war memorial and the bus stop and looked up the lane.  She didn’t approve of Jennifer’s house. It was one of four stylish new builds in the grounds of a bigger, demolished house,  fortunately on a bend screened by hedges and shrubbery from the old garden.  Mostly Leila tried to ignore them, but she couldn’t ignore Jennifer; she was becoming quite a problem in Leila’s opinion, always having parties loud with flashy young people, or weekend guests who filled the pub, shrieking and screaming, playing ridiculous quiz games and crowding out the proper villagers. Leila remembered the red headed musician from last year who had been a frequent weekend guest; she had had to deal with him.

She reached the house; the gate was open, the garage door too and the car gone; the front door ajar; Leila stepped in. The hall was a mess, boots all over the floor, jackets and scarves tossed onto an old oak pew.  Leila sniffed, typical, dashing off somewhere. She supposed Gladys’ mother Joan would be in later to tidy up, but perhaps she, Leila, should just check there was nothing left on in the kitchen. She pushed open the swing door; maybe she could liberate something for breakfast.

“Doing your rounds are you?”  Ron from the bungalows was standing behind the island.

“What are you doing here, where’s Jennifer?”

“Gone on holiday, I’m just unblocking her sink for her, Gawd, knows what she puts down it.”

Leila looked at the state of the kitchen; Jennifer must have been having one of her gatherings. There were glasses and china stacked together messily on the draining board and the island held several foil covered platters. Jennifer’s little cat crouched over one whiskers twitching.

“Get off you little scavenger!” Ron swiped at it with a dish towel, “Salmon that is, she can smell it a mile away. Go on get off!”

Leila’s mouth watered. She peeked under the edge of the foil. Dainty quarter sandwiches of smoked salmon on brown bread.  “So wasteful,” she sniffed. Her fingers crept out, perhaps she could quickly liberate just one or two.

“Here take a few,” Ron was wrapping a pile of the little sandwiches in foil, “might as well, Joan will only throw them out, and have a bit of this.” He hacked off a lump of cheese from another platter added a handful of crackers and wrapped them in a piece of kitchen paper.

“Poor old thing,” said Ron to his wife later that morning, “She looked half famished, twitching at the salmon just like that cat.”

“She gets by,” said his wife, “I saw her coming back from the shop with her coffee, Gladys always has one for her, we see she’s alright.”

Back home Leila neatly documented the day’s rounds in her notebook. She unwrapped the sandwiches and opened the bottle of wine she had liberated from a crate in Jennifer’s hall and smiled with satisfaction.  Potato fry up for lunch, cheese and wine for dinner – the village never let her down.

Leila had been planning to do away with her neighbor for a while now. The woman was just awful, sweat pants and plastic shoes, gnomes in the garden, a wheezy, fat, smelly dog who wore a sweater and slobbered all over people’s legs. She really let down the village, it couldn’t go on. Summer was coming bringing visitors for the garden fete and the best kept village competition, and the big house open day. What would people think? Leila had removed several of the gnomes, and pepper sprayed the dog whenever she could, but the woman was still there.

Leila had desperately wanted her friend Monica to come into the village and live so conveniently next door with her sherry and her lovely meat pies which she never minded sharing.  So after that last dreadful coffee morning she had started her planning.

She had loved coffee mornings. The vicar’s wife, dear Sylvia, made excellent coffee and served delicious scones, and sometimes little sandwiches, and they played games at which she was quite good. Last month she had been forced to sit with her horrible neighbor so hadn’t been able to stash the sandwiches into her bag for lunch as she usually did. It would be such a relief not to have to suffer the woman, so loud and shrill, asking why they didn’t play Bingo. Bingo at the vicarage? She had to go. Leila made her plans.

Today she sat in her front window and watched her neighbor set off down the road to the bus stop. She worked a few days a week with the old people in a nursing home in town. Leila always watched for her to leave. Today was  Monday, that was a bonus, it meant that she could start her week ‘in the clear’ as she put it. She would have three days to conduct her life without the awful possibility of meeting her neighbor in the village shop or walking that horrible old dog on the green.

She gave herself a small sherry in celebration and set about her arrangements. First she carefully noted the time the woman had come out of her front door, so irritatingly close to her own, and then jotted down the clothes she had been wearing; her usual nylon work clothes that barely contained her plumpness and today since it was so mild out, a shaggy, stretched green cardigan instead of the awful puffer jacket she had worn all winter and the dreadful, really, really, dreadful, blue plastic shoes with little holes all over the top and pink tags on the heels. They would have to go.

Drawing her curtains over the front window so no one could see in and anyone would hesitate to knock, thinking she must be still asleep, Leila pulled on her boots and a pair of latex gloves and took her bottle of pepper spray.  She opened her backdoor and stepped out. Untidy shrubs and hedges marked the boundary on her neighbor’s side, the fence having long since fallen down.  Pulling back a bushy mess of forsythia she slipped into the neighboring garden. She took the key from inside the bird house on the kitchen wall and let herself in. The dog, ancient, fat and smelly was just beginning to tremble into wakefulness. She gave him a quick spray and he sank back into his basket without even a yip. And then she got busy.

She opened the refrigerator and took out butter and milk, setting them on the counter in the sun; she went in to the hallway and took the phone off its base; she went into the front sitting room and rumpled up the hearth rug and moved a small table away from its chair. Upstairs she used the toilet and didn’t flush, gathered up several dirty towels and turned the bath tap to drip.

In the main bedroom she smashed the glass on the wedding photograph and turned it face down on the bed –first pulling back the bed covers.  She picked up slippers and placed them on the stairs as she went back down, dropping the towels at the bottom.

There, that was enough for today, just enough to sow unease and doubt. Satisfied, back in her own house she took off her working gear, as she thought of it and dressed herself carefully; her best tweed skirt, a rather smart knitted jacket she had liberated from the bring and buy donations  last year, and her good shoes. She crossed the green and walked along the graveled path to the vicarage entrance. The coffee was good, and dear Sylvia had made delightful little sandwiches again; when no one was watching she wrapped several into her napkin and stowed them away in her bag, she could have them for supper. She helpfully carried the cups and saucers into the kitchen and liberated a bar of chocolate. Excellent, she would eat well tonight.

On Tuesday Leila got out her journal and recorded her neighbor’s leaving time and her outfit; today a blue plastic raincoat, it was showery, and wellingtons. From behind her curtains Leila watched as the woman turned to speak to her dog before closing the door. She seemed to be upset and there was a bruise on the side of her face. The slippers maybe, or the rug?  Good.

She pushed back the forsythia and slipped through.  She selected a handful of stones, from the graveled path, took the key out of the bird house and let herself into the kitchen. The old dog barely raised his head; he seemed more wheezy than usual and sank back into his basket when she sprayed him without a sound. Opening the fridge she liberated three nice brown eggs, a half packet of bacon and a bunch of radishes; she left the fridge door ajar. She turned the oven on and set it at warm.  In the sitting room she moved all the china ornaments from the mantelpiece to the window sill, and scratched the paint with the door key, she took a glass and two bottles of sherry out of the cabinet, tipping sherry on to the seat of the chair and leaving one bottle and the glass on the floor.  In the hallway she liberated a few pound coins from the change jar by the front door and replaced them with the stones.

Upstairs in the front bedroom she looked in the wardrobe, there were some men’s clothes hanging there; she took them down, folded them neatly and stowed them away under the bed in the second bedroom.  She moved the bedside rug to the top of the stairs. She went back down into the kitchen. She looked by the back door for the plastic shoes, but didn’t see them, she would have a better look tomorrow. The dog was breathing heavily and he didn’t move when she took down a shopping bag from the back door and put the eggs, bacon, and radishes and sherry into it.

On Wednesday she went to church early, really just a small prayer group, but there was the communion wine and often the doctor would invite the group back to her house for coffee and her husband would warm up a couple of quiches and there was usually fruit.  She always liberated a banana for her lunch. Sometimes the doctor gave her the last slices of quiche too, to take home, such a lovely woman. She looked for her neighbor at the bus stop as she crossed the green, but there was no sign of her.  Leila frowned, had the woman stayed home today? Had an accident on the stairs maybe? She wondered how she could find out. She entered the church and took her seat.

The doctor wasn’t at the prayer circle –“Been called out,” said one of the newer members, a social worker she was, and very interfering – she had actually asked Leila once if she ate enough, and if she was able to manage on her own – “it’s that neighbor of yours, fell downstairs, apparently, she seemed very confused, Claire’s called the ambulance, she’s over there now waiting with her.”

‘Claire’?  Who was she to call the doctor Claire?  Leila hardly listened to the prayers and the discussion, she was puzzled. Why hadn’t she seen the doctor coming to the next door cottage? She might have been caught.  Taking out her note book and she looked through the entries – yesterday – yes, she had noted the woman’s return, and when she took the dog out, she seemed all right then.  There was a note about her television; she had it on from eight thirty until after eleven, too loud as usual.  Then Leila had seen the lights come on in the bathroom at the back of the house, so she had opened her front door and, leaning over the wall between the gardens, plucked up another of the gnomes. Funny, there didn’t seem to be so many today. This one had a bottle of beer in one hand and a rake in the other and his pants hung much too low, really dreadful. Leila quickly wrote him into her journal, with the date and time. He was the third one she had taken. She put him in the cupboard under the stairs with the others.

The social worker was talking again. “Since Claire is held up why don’t you all come to me? I can do coffee and biscuits, and may be Claire will call with some news about Leila’s neighbor.”

The women followed her back to her house, one of the cottages behind the pub whose tenants seemed to come and go. Wasn’t this where that girl had lived, the one with the little dog and the awful tights?  Really dreadful, thank goodness she had left the village. Leila hadn’t had to work on her, though. She apparently just took herself off, when was that? Wasn’t it about the time that the parish councilor’s husband had taken a job far away?  Leila got out her journal to check – yes, here it was, that was back in September, just before the rash of break- ins.

The social worker was approaching with coffee. She handed the biscuits around and didn’t leave the plate out; irritating, no chance of liberating anything for lunch today. They were on a second round of biscuits when the doctor came back.

“She’s fine, just a bit of bruising and a sprained ankle – she is going to her daughter for a few days. But she seems to think that someone’s been in her house, taking things and poking about. Her ex husband she thought.”

“Rubbish,” said the social worker, “someone would have seen him hanging about, and what has she to take anyway? There’s nothing of value in that poky little place. “

There was a silence.

“I’ll get you some fresh coffee, Claire.” The social worker hurried off into the kitchen. Leila looked at her in amazement, where was her professional cool manner now? She seemed quite rattled. She followed her into the kitchen.

“Can I help?”

“Oh, yes I …  yes,  just pass the sugar would you? Need to top up the bowl.”

Leila looked around for the sugar.

“On the counter.”

The sugar container sat on the counter next to a jolly gnome, the one with the pipe.  On the floor next to the back door, surely those were blue plastic shoes that she had so despised on her neighbor… with the absurd tags … in fact the self-same shoes.