One Last Breath. Stephen Booth
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Rebecca said, ‘he won’t come here.’
With an effort, Raymond Proctor smiled and nodded, forcing himself to be pleasant despite the anxiety in his stomach. These people were customers, after all. And customers were too few these days at Wingate Lees. They were a family from Hertfordshire – mum, dad and two kids. Their car stood near the roadway in front of one of the static caravans, ready to go.
‘Where are you off to today, then? Somewhere nice? The weather should be all right for you, I reckon.’
The woman stopped for a moment, ushering her children ahead of her to the car. ‘The kids want to go to one of the caverns,’ she said. ‘We thought we’d visit the one you suggested to us yesterday, Peak Cavern.’
‘Ah. The Devil’s Arse,’ said Proctor, grinning.
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s what they call it these days. I suppose they thought it would be more marketable.’ Then Proctor saw she wasn’t smiling. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s not the sort of language we think suitable for the children to hear.’
Proctor shrugged. ‘I’m afraid you’ll see it on the signs.’
‘Perhaps we’ll go somewhere else, then. There’s Speedwell.’
‘Well, that’s interesting, too. But Peak Cavern’s best. Let me know what you think of it when you get back. Say hello to the guide for me while you’re there. And don’t forget to ask him –’
‘Yes, thank you.’ The woman turned to go.
‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Proctor, maintaining his smile. ‘Of course, if you’re going underground, it won’t matter what the weather’s like, will it? I said, it won’t matter …’
But the woman didn’t answer him. She fussed over the children’s seat belts and snapped something at her husband as she got into the passenger seat next to him.
‘Unless it rains really, really hard,’ said Proctor through gritted teeth, after they’d started the engine. ‘And then the caves might flood, and you could all drown.’
He kicked the head off a wallflower growing in a bed near the phone box, and winced at a twinge of pain in his leg. His arthritis was troubling him this morning, which meant it probably would rain later, after all. Slowly he walked past the shop and the TV lounge, irritated as always by their log-effect façades. The design had been Connie’s idea – she said it would go with the style of the cabins and give the site a theme. But Proctor thought it made the place look like a Wild West frontier town. Just too bloody tacky for the sort of guest he was trying to attract to Wingate Lees.
There was a lot of competition from other caravan parks in the Hope Valley, and Wingate Lees was a bit off the main road for passing trade. People had to turn off the A625 for half a mile, then drive over Killhill Bridge and under the railway line to find his little site tucked into the edge of Win Hill. The nearest village was Aston, but there was no way of getting there from the site except by walking – and nothing to do if you went there, anyway.
The reputation of Wingate Lees was important if it was going to survive. He didn’t have endless amounts of money to spend on marketing, so he relied on word of mouth to get him business. He needed his guests to be happy. Though, God knew, it was difficult to be polite to some of them when what they really deserved was a kick up the backside. A lot of the time, he hardly felt like bothering.
Proctor supposed he might feel differently about the business if Alan were here to run it with him. Having somebody to pass it on to – that was what mattered. But all he had was Connie and her kids, and it wasn’t the same at all. Nothing was the same as your own son.
He stopped to check on the girl who helped in the shop and looked after the coin-op laundry. Then he glared across the grass to where Henry, the maintenance man, was raking the gravel around the hardstandings. He couldn’t find fault with either of them, so he kept on walking, passing along the lines of mobile homes to the touring caravan pitches, and past them to the pond, which his promotional leaflets called a water amenity. A copse of trees lay across the pond, and an area of grass where visitors could walk their dogs. Convenient exercise facilities available for the use of pet owners.
Four old caravans were pitched here, well away from the rest of the site and in the shadow of the railway embankment. He only let these out to visitors when the rest of the place was full – which was a rare occurrence these days – or if he had a bunch of students on the site he didn’t like the look of. If they wrecked an old ’van, it would be a lot cheaper to replace than one of the family units, which had to be in good condition or he’d lose his customers.
This was where Proctor came to get away from the family. He could see the house from here, allowing him advance warning if Connie was on the prowl.
Because there was no demand, he hadn’t maintained the old ’vans properly, and now some of the joints in the shells had developed leaks. The lad who came in to wash the caravans must have noticed, because he hadn’t bothered to clean these two. Moss had started to grow on their surfaces, staining the paintwork green. The heavy rain in the last few days had streaked the dirt, making their deteriorating condition even more obvious.
Proctor was breathing heavily by the time he reached this part of the site. He’d been getting overweight ever since he married Connie. She fed him junk food every day, then told him he ought to get more exercise.
He’d come this far feeling calm enough, but now he felt uneasy as he reached out to try the handle on the door of the first caravan. He rattled it quickly, withdrawing his fingers as if he might get burned. He peered through the orange curtains, using his hands to cut out reflections from the window. Then he moved on to the next caravan and did the same.
‘What are you doing, Ray?’
Proctor jumped guiltily. His wife was standing on the other side of the pond. She was wearing a baggy white sweatshirt and yellow pedal pushers that emphasized the muscles of her thighs. And her feet were shoved into those ridiculous trainers with enormous tongues and lights in the heels. That was why he hadn’t heard her coming.
‘Just checking the old ’vans,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘In case we need them.’
‘Ray, take a look around you – half the site is empty.’
‘You never know.’
Connie stared at him in open disbelief. ‘Really.’
‘I’m making sure everything is OK down here, that’s all. We mustn’t let them get too neglected.’
She looked at the mould and streaks of dirt on the nearest caravan. ‘Neglected? You should have got rid of them years ago. If you want something useful to do, there’s still that leak in cabin six that needs fixing.’
‘I know, I know. I’ll see to it in a minute.’
But Connie stood watching him until he sighed, moved away, and went back through the trees. She would have put her hands on her hips like an old schoolmistress – if she had any hips.
A cement train ran southwards across the bridge, with a long line of Blue Circle tankers coming away full from the Hope works. As they rattled over the stone arch, their wheels rumbled like approaching thunder. The sound went on for so long that Raymond Proctor found it hard to resist breaking into a run.
Down at the cement works, Will Thorpe had watched the line of tankers leave. Now, an excavator was trundling along the skyline, a black outline against the afternoon sun as it worked its way along the edge of the quarry. Beneath Thorpe’s feet, dead bracken branches snapped, releasing puffs of cement dust. Decaying leaves still lay on the ground from the previous autumn, but now they were white, as if they’d been covered in frost.
Thorpe licked his lips. They were dry and cracked from the sun and dust. He knew he should stay away from the Hope works. His lungs