Tarnished Read Online Free PDF

her late husband.’
    ‘Really?’ Peg said, her heart sinking down somewhere near her Doc Martens.
    ‘It’s a crying shame that she’s on her own here, without any help.’
    ‘I know, Mrs Cairns, but Nan won’t have anyone else in the house. And at least there’s Julie now, for Aunty Jean.’
    ‘And about time too.’ Mrs Cairns folded her arms across her battleship bosom and settled her chin into her neck.
    ‘I’m working on it, though, Mrs Cairns. I’ll get in touch with the council tomorrow. I promise.’
    Mrs Cairns made a little harrumphing sound.
    ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Peg said, trying to stay brave, trying to hold back the tears of helplessness fizzing in the corners of her eyes, ‘I’ve got a train to catch . . .’
    ‘Yes. I suppose you’ve got a life to get back to up in London , ’ Mrs Cairns said, unfolding her arms and swinging a bag full of scooped poop from her hooked forefinger.
    ‘I’ve got work tomorrow, if that’s what you mean.’
    ‘Well, don’t let me keep you.’
    Peg set off, but before she had got more than a couple of steps, Mrs Cairns spoke again.
    ‘Oh, just before you go, what are your plans for that garden, Margaret? It was a jungle out there in the summer, and it really needs a good tidy.’
    This was one of Mrs Cairns’s favourite themes.
    ‘Poor Mr Thwaites made it ever so lovely,’ she told Peg for the millionth time. ‘And even after he passed away so suddenly, Mrs Thwaites looked after it, kept it neat and presentable. But after you left, she let it drop, you know. And it’s in a right old state now. And all those weeds have seeds, you know. And they blow over my way.’
    Peg nodded, itching to get away. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to tidy things up. But her time was limited and, never having had a garden of her own, she had no idea where to start. Two years ago she had succeeded, during one enthusiastic bout of weeding, in pulling up a whole load of ground-cover geraniums.
    ‘What Frank put in for our fiftieth anniversary,’ Doll had informed her. ‘Just before he passed away.’ Oblivious to the effect she was having on Peg – who had ended up going home and crying until she was sick – she went on to say how the purple flowers coming up every spring had lifted her heart and reminded her of him.
    ‘Well what do you say, Margaret?’ Mrs Cairns said.
    ‘I’ll see what I can do, Mrs Cairns.’
    After the geranium debacle she bought some new plants to put in, carrying them on the train in a soggy cardboard box that leached muddy water through to her jeans. But she planted them just before a late and devastating frost, and they all died.
    ‘I’d be very grateful,’ Mrs Cairns said. ‘I don’t like to nag, but it’s a bit depressing to look at. It can’t do poor Mrs Thwaites much good either.’
    ‘No,’ Peg said.
    Mrs Cairns turned towards her gate, and Peg was finally dismissed. With time now at a premium if she was going to catch the one train she could use with her cheap advance ticket, she set off on the quicker, more dreary walk to the station, past the crumbling chalets of Tankerton, whose streets stood as yet unchanged by the tide of gentrification washing in from Whitstable.
    As she reached the corner of the street, she heard a vehicle pull out in the road behind her. She needed to cross, so she glanced back. It was a white van. There were so many white vans on the roads and they all looked the same. But she had an eerie feeling that she had seen this one not only here in Tankerton, but also several times in the past couple of weeks as she made her way to or from the library. As the van passed, she caught a glimpse of the profile of the driver in the inadequate yellow streetlight.
    And, although she couldn’t place him, she thought he looked oddly familiar.

Three
    Peg endured a tense journey back to London in an overheated train carriage with the bouquet of the bungalow lingering in her nostrils and – she knew it –