Edited by Old Rotorhead

If there was one thing you could say about Emily Jones, and you could say quite a lot, it was that you couldn’t say one thing about her. Whatever you said had to be followed up with some sort of qualification. She was, you might say, an attractive woman, but she always seemed to have the sort of expression on her face that you’d imagine you’d wear if you’d just had a mouthful of vinegar. Or perhaps not when I think about the occasion my dear mother had a mouthful of vinegar.

My father made wine, home made wine from whatever was to hand, and when I called in to see him we would often have a taste of his latest batch. We were standing in the kitchen one day, and I was trying something pink and dry, don’t ask, I’ve no idea, when he passed me another glass that looked quite similar. I put my nose into the glass and removed it post haste. Vinegar! It’s part of a natural process that if left to itself fruit will ferment using natural yeasts. The next part is that flies bring in bacteria or whatever to start the process that turns the alcohol to vinegar, and then something else turns it to water, I can’t remember what. Of course you can stop the process to give you an alcoholic beverage, or vinegar. In this case the flies had got to it and he had pink vinegar. I tried it, it was fairly strong vinegar, certainly stronger than you would buy in a supermarket. We’ll try to forget about the stuff you put on your chips which isn’t vinegar. At this point my mother came in. She had, I think, been out singing for the old folks. Since she was in her seventies this always struck me as a bit odd, but you are as old as you feel.

“What have you there, William?” she demanded of my father.

My father selected a clean glass, looked at me and grinned, and then half filled it from the bottle of ... vinegar.

Mother was no wine snob. The ‘nose’ was irrelevant. What counted was the taste and the alcohol content. Taking the glass from my father she took a good swig. The look on her face was a picture, although to be honest I cannot really compare it to Emily Jones. She returned the vinegar to the glass, and although I know my father was getting on a bit at the time, I was quite sure his parents had been married!

Emily Jones was, I am sure, an intelligent woman. I feel certain, since she didn’t have to work, that she could have done a lot of good. But her intelligence always seemed to be directed to resisting change, rather than guiding it in the best way. Her husband always struck me as a henpecked little chap, always ready to do his wife’s bidding. And that was never good. He seemed to have retired early, either that or he looked younger than he was, and although I have no idea what he had done for a living, I did know that he was a member of the local masonic lodge. Unfortunate for me, because I seemed to have upset some of them. It would not have surprised me if Emily had been a member of the local coven. Not, as far as I knew, that there was one, but there was a local clique made up of people who had moved into the village and believed that they should run it, and they both belonged to that. Thinking about it, I suspect they were all Masons, despite the fact that it was usually me who laid the bricks!

And then there was Tawny Mulligan. As you might guess, she was Irish, a very down to earth lady, with a very sunny disposition. She was what you might call an earth mother, large and lovely, green eyed, flame haired, quite genuine I discovered, and freckled skin. She didn’t live in the village street but had a cottage not far away where she grew all manner of vegetables, herbs, and did a steady line in her own skin care products, soaps, honey and beeswax candles from her own hives. She sold these at local markets. I had got to know her quite well, okay, very well, when Dennis, who we had met in the Mobile Phone Mast, and still at this time chairman of the parish council, and his wife were holidaying at their French villa for a month. This meant, of course, that I no longer had the pleasure of his wife’s company when he was spending his afternoons with a certain lady. Tawny needed various things done about the property, some of which needed two hands, and some expertise that she did not possess. My first encounter with Tawny was on a pleasant and secluded grassy patch in the sunshine, the only problem being that I wasn’t too keen on her wellies drumming on my backside as she enjoyed the proceeding. After that, in lieu of removing the knickers she didn’t wear anyway, I removed her boots. Nibbling her toes was a bit like eating the rubbery cheddar that you get in supermarkets. Rather more flavour though.

The connection between the two ladies, I extend that title to Emily although I had serious doubts as to whether it was warranted, was a fence. Emily kept a horse, in a field which had originally belonged to Tawny’s property, but had been sold off by a previous owner many years before. Now why people will keep a horse in a field all by itself I have no idea. The horse is lonely and bored, they’re herd animals for heaven’s sake. Anyway, the field lay between Tawny’s property and the road where they both had an access. To reach Tawny’s there was a drive bounded on one side by the road, and on the other by the field, with a fence consisting of wooden posts and barbed wire. It chanced that in the course of conversation with another lady from the village, who had called to buy some of Tawny’s wares, that the lady remarked on the fence’s somewhat tatty appearance.

“Oh yes,” said Tawny. “It’s my fence, but Emily Jones is supposed to maintain it. I find it rather difficult to talk to her.”

Of course, this was gossip of the first order, and in no time it was around the village. The upshot of this was that Tawny received a visit from Emily Jones husband, Michael. I’ve already described him as a henpecked little man, and perhaps that was why he was prepared to verbally assault Tawny. Physically, I have little doubt that she could, had she been so inclined, have beaten him to the point where they would just have shovelled him into his coffin. She was, however, a very gentle soul. But it was certainly what I felt like doing when she was crying on the phone telling me about it after he left. Of course without a witness there was little that could be done, the police wouldn’t be interested. What he had done, apart from the verbal assault, was told her that his wife owned the fence, and that if Tawny so much as touched it he would have her charged with criminal damage.

Of course I went around to see her, she needed comforting.

“Am I going to see you after Dennis and his wife get back?” she asked after I had comforted her.

What? How on earth did she know about that?

After a pause. “I suppose like all you conceited men you thought you’d kept it quiet.”