Free Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan

cottage. Some time after nine a woman emerged and locked the door behind her. She was probably in her sixties and neatly dressed. She saw the note first and then, with dismay, the smashed mirror. She read the note and looked up and down the lane. Then she folded the note with what I saw as an air of resolution, got into the car and set off. I ducked as she passed my own car, then followed her. It wasn’t difficult. She was a slow driver and there was little traffic in town. But instead of taking a left in the direction of the old hospital site, she turned right and up the hill, eventually pulling up behind a row of parked vehicles outside St Theobald’s. She was going to church. I might have guessed.
    But in a way this made things easier. I drove home, put the kettle on and found out the times of St Theobald’s services. Then I walked across town to the Pipers. Finding a spot with a view of the Gwyndyrs’ front door wouldn’t be easy, but I knew there was a wooded area surrounding the development, and a pathway where people walked their dogs and which provided a scenic route past local shops and a primary school and cemetery back to the town centre. From here a narrow public right of way cut through the Pipers. It wouldn’t be a good idea to loiter, but if I timed it right I would be able to see the woman if and when she arrived. Last night’s rain had cleared. To kill time I walked slowly to the shops and bought a newspaper, which I pretended to leaf through as I dawdled back along the path.
    I checked my watch. The parishioners would be out of church now. If she was coming at all, she would want to get it over with sooner rather than later. Maybe she needed to go into this encounter spiritually fortified. I waited at the top of the path withmy head in the paper, as if halted in my steps by an engrossing football story. I didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes I saw the woman’s cherry-red car turn into the crescent but then pass out of sight. A car door slammed, and immediately I heard Gwyndyr’s barking voice. And now, as I made my way down the path between the fences of adjacent properties and out into the horseshoe, I could see that the woman’s car was blocking the exit to Gwyndyr’s drive, where his own massive vehicle stood with the engine running. I walked slowly down the side of the street facing the house. I could barely hear the woman’s voice, but I could see she was showing Gwyndyr the note and the damage to her wing mirror. I could tell by Gwyndyr’s tone (‘I can
assure
you, dear lady …’) that her protests would come to nothing. His wife emerged on the doorstep of the house wearing a housecoat and slippers and holding a Siamese cat (a second one peered from between her bare calves), and watched approvingly as her husband dismissed the woman’s claims and insisted she move her vehicle. The woman stood helpless for a moment, then got back into her car, switched on the engine and struggled to make a clean three-point turn while the couple looked on.
    She passed me on the corner, her face pale with upset. My heart went out to her, this elderly woman of the parish. My imagination was already busy conjuring her widow’s habits and domicile – an inglenook fireplace with poker and coal scuttle; a tabby cat curled on the hearthrug; biscuits; a coronation toffee tin containing her savings; a black-and-white photograph of her husband on the sideboard, killed in the course of some noble service.
    What could a mirror like that cost to replace? Just under forty pounds, as it turned out. The unit was available at a local stockist and it wasn’t difficult to find a young mechanic willingto come out and fit it for a generous hundred in cash after his Saturday morning shift at a local auto repair. You might ask how I knew that Mrs Wade would be absent that weekend at her daughter Rachel’s house in Ely (a good train ride away) – or for that matter how I came to know her name. Instead, picture her