The Shape of the Leaves

 ***mentions of murder, suicide and sexual abuse***

I do hope Arthur’s going to put those pellets down. It’s all very well his not wanting to poison the birds, but picking out slugs one by one, and in this rain, I ask you!

With a hand on the edge of the brown velvet drapes, and her slender, mouse-like body concealed behind them, Amelia Entwistle, sixty-two years of age, addressed her lifetime companion, the slightly older, taller and stouter Christine Borthwick, without once taking her eyes off the scene outside. Her gaze was fixed, as it often was, through the loose-weave but durable white cotton nets which, on the day of them taking up residence, had been meticulously starched and pressed, and had since festooned not just the living room window but those of every room in the house – bar the bathroom, of course, with its frosted glass panel and blind. Not that their absence there mattered, for frosted glass aside, due to the close proximity of the thicket, there wasn’t much to be seen from that angle. No clues to be uncovered, no evidence to support what she believed she already knew.

Alright, Ames, come away from that window and stop watching the man’s every move. Remember, it was you who told him to keep everything the same within reason. And if he didn’t use pellets before…

Which is all very well, dear, but don’t you agree that when one has the means at one’s disposal, when one has been fortunate enough to receive it as a gift, a swift solution to a problem is always best? Of course, one mustn’t fail to consider the extent of the collateral damage...

 Oh, what was the point? Christine knew all too well that in spite of what she said, in Amelia’s mind the slugs and the pellets were as irrelevant as one another. As long as she’d known her – and that would be going on forty years – Ames had spoken in metaphors, and her metaphors lately, or rather since she’d first read the headlines in the paper when they’d shared their city home, had been rooted in the self-same, all-consuming subject: Joe Patterson’s murder by his daughter, Rosie, and how unjust her life sentence had been, for as her mother, Betty, had testified, the girl didn’t have all her faculties, and something much worse than her father’s accidently causing the death of her dog must have occurred for her to have lost control of herself to such an alarming extent. The girl needed help, not punishment, and she, Amelia Entwistle was determined she get it.

With hands buried deep in her black trouser pockets, Christine, with her dark horn-rimmed glasses and her short grey back-combed hair, stood her ground and sighed. With every passing day Ames was becoming more obsessed. In spite of what the jury had decided, and the overwhelming evidence against her, she alone remained convinced that the girl she’d taught some years before, in that special school west of Edinburgh, just couldn’t have committed such a heinous crime unless something massive had occurred to push her over the edge. She simply wouldn’t have been capable. She’d been a loving child, extremely fond of her parents in spite of their flaws and rough edges, and they’d always appeared to have her interests at heart. Certainly, Joe had a bit of a temper, but she would have known if he’d abused her, physically or otherwise; there would have been marks, signs; she’d seen them in others. And yes, Rosie would have been distraught about the dog. Nevertheless… Every plant on the planet grows taller, but the leaves will always retain their shape.

So, on reading the reports, Ames had done what she always did when it came to news of her former pupils; she had studied the article intently, cut it out, stuck it into her scrapbook, and made up her own mind as to whether or not what the journalists wrote rang true. She’d even sat in the public gallery during the week-long High Court trial, and she hadn’t liked what she’d heard at all. There was something about that butcher, Andrew Dawson whose car Rosie had used to end Patterson’s life, and, celebrity or not, there was something about Rosie’s employer, Netta McIntyre, too. Something cold. Still - one sheep bleats, and so do all the rest - from the moment Rosie was convicted, her lawyer’s pleas for leniency on the grounds of diminished responsibility, overruled, there was no distracting Amelia from this line of thought, or her subsequent mission. She would sell their Edinburgh home (which she had every right to do since it was her name on the deeds) and move to Gillirig. The Patterson house was up for sale and Netta lived within a stone’s throw. Just think, Chris, we’ll have the peace and quiet of the countryside to retire to…

She’d been handed her pellets, and all that remained was to figure out how to feed them to the slugs without causing harm to the birds – or put more plainly, themselves.

Keeps himself to himself, Arthur, doesn’t he? But I wonder, just how much does he tell his wife? You do know he works for Netta McIntyre too, and he might have seen or heard something. We should ask them round for dinner sometime...

 Amelia spoke as if to herself, and not for the first time Christine thought back to when they’d first met as newly qualified teachers, and how some years later, working together in that village school after war had been declared, they’d become even closer. Good friends in the eyes of the people who knew them, lovers behind closed doors, they’d rented a house with two bedrooms, one of which they'd seldom used, and lain in bed night after night, caressing and sharing their dreams, hers to change the world for the better by encouraging kindness and acceptance in those young and impressionable minds for whom fate had dictated she be responsible, and Amelia’s much the same, but with the added, somewhat outlandish, ambition to one day leave the ‘altogether-too-safe’ little country hamlet behind her and ‘do her bit for King and country’ by becoming an Allied spy. Of course, she hadn’t a clue how to go about it, but she’d humoured her nonetheless, then silenced her time and again with her kisses. And, oh, those kisses were sweet! For years they’d each worn a shade of the same brand of lipstick unique to themselves, hers a rich dark wine, Ames’s (she called her that, although in their more intimate private moments it would be Aimee) pink as the Horace Pippin rose on the left-hand side of their favourite bedroom print. Their ‘daze of wine and roses’. It had all but ended now.

They still shared the same bed, were still tender with one another once they’d turned out the lights, and of course they still maintained the respectable front – separate bedrooms furnished for show, talk of companionship, a lifetime of classroom and staffroom memories shared, and should they throw in the old adage ‘two can live as cheaply as one’, who would dare question these respectable elderly spinsters, one of whom they believed had never got over the loss of their sweetheart, a journalist killed in the Spanish Civil War, and the other who’d been so wholly committed to her career that she’d missed the boat completely when it came to finding a husband? All too late for having children. What a shame! ‘Free love’ as people knew it, did not extend to women their age, nor did it even enter your average Daily Telegraph reader’s head that these ‘all too frequent musical-chair-like acts of pre- and extra-marital sex’ might sometimes exclude men.

Amelia would chuckle at this, just as she’d chuckled throughout the war when, wearing the pendant heart which matched her own, and which, regardless of other necklaces worn, they’d both kept concealed beneath their clothing, she’d accepted invitations from soldiers on leave and later a string of GI’s who’d taken her out to the pictures and dances, and who, once or twice, she’d allowed a chaste kiss, although as she’d explained to them and everyone else at the time, it was impossible for her to fall in love again, there had only ever been one man for her, and he'd been taken from her. She’d called him Christopher, partly as a mark of loyalty to herself, but more, she’d laughed, as a way of ensuring she didn’t forget his name. After all, dear, to call him Bernie one day and Bertie the next would seem a little suspicious, would it not?

She’d never doubted Amelia loved her, but even then, Christine had wondered, if the world had been different, if people had been accepting of their relationship, would she have stayed and remained so enthralled, or was it simply the cloak and dagger which had attracted Ames in the first place and served to hold her attention? She’d always been one for mysteries, both fictional and real – their bookcase was testament to that - and like a little girl, with or without her wigs and costumes collected from decades of playing alongside the children she’d taught in school productions, she still took pleasure in ‘dressing up’- role-play Dr J.L Moreno had called it when it extended to life beyond the stage - and now this, this obsession with Rosie Patterson. It was getting so it was starting to come between them, for not only did she speak of little else, whether her words were veiled or not, she had also started putting on her wigs and following people around, eavesdropping into their conversations. Netta, and the butcher in particular, but also Jean Jenkins and her husband Tim who just happened to live in the lane and had nothing to do with the case at all. And Jean was heavily pregnant. She’d got on the bus and accompanied her to the butcher’s once when Dawson’s young niece had been in. Top of the Pops is on tonight, Uncle Drew. You gonna dance with me again? A perfectly innocent interaction as far as she was concerned, but as Amelia put it, ‘abuse could sometimes look like dancing’.

She’d felt sorry for her then.

So, what do you think, dear? About dinner? Arthur and his wife and maybe the Jenkins. After all, the more wine that flows, the more likely that some will be spilled.

And soaked into our tablecloth.

I’m talking figuratively, Chris.

And so am I.

Always, always, Ames would get like this. If only she’d turn around, have a proper conversation, listen to reason. Her pupils in her final year had hit the nail on the head when they’d called her Miss Marple, for at times she was more author’s invention than real flesh and blood - just like when she’d seen herself as the next Mata Hari. Besides, even if she did invite these people around, and she did happen to hear something which might further support her theory and send her running off to police - or, God forbid, the press - it would no longer be the Pattersons making the headlines, it would be her. Them. Tabloids journalists these days liked nothing better than digging around in order to dish the dirt, and Former Teacher on Quest to Free Gillirig Killer would soon become Love-Nest Lesbians Back Blood-Bath Rose.

A means to an end, Ames had said, when she’d expressed similar concerns. She’d merely told her ‘Be careful what you wish for’. One wrong word and their lives wouldn’t be worth living. Dawson and Netta McIntyre with their connections would have them ostracised, done for slander, and the vile graffiti and bricks through the window would come. This wasn’t some meticulously-planned murder-mystery in which all loose ends were tied up when the bad guy got his comeuppance at the end of however many tens of thousands of words, this was life, a life in which those with money, power and polish could wax lyrical before the bench, and grease their way up through the mire, while those without would be used as pawns and scapegoats, and whether guilty or not, inevitably condemned by their peers. Mud stuck, or as Amelia had put it herself, ‘you see a black sheep in a field and everyone points it out, but who misses it when it’s gone?’

Ames, come and sit down. Tell me, what this is really about.

At last, the drop of the hand from the curtain, the tear of the gaze from the window, the turn of the head.

How can you ask possibly ask that, Chris? You know what it’s about. What it’s always been about. Getting justice.

Justice, yes, but for whom? Joe? Rosie? Or Dorothy…? There. She’d said it.

Silence. She could hear the rain now. It was getting heavy.

Amelia sniffed. Time we were getting dinner on, don’t you think, dear? Lamb chops tonight, some new potatoes, a little mint sauce. Parsley. Arthur tells me there’s some to be found at the back of the garden, did you know? Strange how often people don’t see what’s right under their noses, all too busy sniffing the flowers.

Ames!

But she’d gone, stridden off into the kitchen, closing both doors behind her. Was she crying? If she was, it would, at least, be a start.

Amelia had only spoken of Dorothy once, and that had been a long time ago, about ten years after the incident had occurred. 1924. The first world war was over, women had not long since got the vote, and girls were beginning to find their voice, becoming more rebellious. Ames and her friend had been fourteen at the time, and precocious as they were, bobbing one another’s hair and (when out of sight of their parents) styling themselves on the Flappers, so when those boys, sons of the local gentry - not much older than themselves, but older nonetheless - had suggested a summer picnic in the cornfields, they’d been keen to go along, keener still to show their daring when one of the boys suggested they all take off their clothes. Their parents would never know and it would be such a lark! They’d never seen a boy stripped naked before, didn’t know their bodies were any different. What was that long and dangly thing? Was it what they widdled through? How they’d giggled…

It had to be you, it had to be you… They’d brought along a wind-up gramophone and a couple of 78’s... Come and dance, and we’ll show you… Ames hadn’t known what was happening, didn’t understand even when it did. She’d thought the boy had widdled between her legs – which was bad, so bad, but still exciting, so she’d widdled a little bit too and he’d laughed. Then she’d watched Dorothy and her boy dancing. Up against a tree in the distance. So long and so close. She’d been alright, but Dorothy hadn’t. Four months later, when her tummy began to get large, and they’d been out walking, she’d climbed onto the side of a railway bridge and thrown herself off, killed outright by the 2.15 from Waverley to Glasgow. Amelia had looked and screamed and ran. She’d told no one. Said she hadn’t been with Dorothy that day, didn’t know of any boyfriend. To safeguard her own reputation, she’d denied her friend. However, she had often wondered, when those boys had read the headlines in the local paper, did they ever stop to think? Did they even remember Dorothy’s name?

From teatime onwards, there was no more gazing through windows, no talk of slugs and pellets or wine being spilled, no mention of leaves or sheep. They cooked and ate together, Christine washed up and Amelia dried, then seeing the rain had eased off, they took a drive to the Mossbank Estate on the Selhope Road and had a wander around the grounds. The cherry trees were in bloom and they saw the conifer saplings which Arthur had recently planted around a clearing tabled to become an adventure playground. Then, on the way back, with Christine behind the wheel, Amelia had spotted Andrew Dawson driving towards Gillirig.

Chris, look! We’ve got to follow him, see where he’s going. It’s Thursday so he might be with his niece. Put your foot down, Chris, quickly!

Christine ignored her, turned into the lane.

What are you doing, Chris? He’s getting away. We need to see, find out…

She parked outside the house, stepped out of the car and walked around to the passenger side. Ames, come out of the car… Ames… She tugged at the handle as Amelia stubbornly pulled it back. And again. A repetitive ongoing action. What was she? Christine asked of her, but a sixty-two-year-old woman acting like a child.

Who’s that? Ames demanded as Doctor Rothchild drove by and he and Christine exchanged a solemn nod. But it was only later that she answered her, when they had at last got into bed and her ‘Aimee’ had lain her head against her breast, that she explained about the appointment she’d made for tomorrow, and to which, at length, she persuaded her, it really was vital she go.