The Water Tower - Books 1-3

Chapter 3-4

And yet some things had stayed the same. Iris had seemed undefeated; undeterred by the grief that had suddenly infused her life. She’d outlived both her sister and her niece. Yet she’d been compelled to go on; to never allow death to stop her from being the woman she’d wanted to be.

But he had changed. The loss had made him more world-weary for a time, as he’d tried to come to terms with the unalterable absence of his parents – parents who, over the course of his life, he’d found himself increasingly distanced from, sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. It had changed him in other ways too; perhaps imperceptibly at first. He’d been determined to hold on more tightly to the people who meant something to him. To his friendships; including the ones he’d maintained even after dropping out of his Postgrad studies.

Like Jake and Melanie, who’d got married last year. Just like that, a whole life together spun out of a kiss in the corner of a darkened room.

If only we were all that lucky…

If only we were all that lucky…Now, here he was. 29 years old, still the reluctant journalist, standing in the village that had defined his childhood. A place he’d left behind to try and carve a future for himself, unsure of precisely the shape that future would take or even the direction he wanted to travel in. Not the man he’d once been, but not yet the man he wanted to become.

Realising that he couldn’t spend the entire afternoon standing on the Square reminiscing, Adam indulged in one last look around, sucking in a deep breath that filled his lungs.

Home…

Home…The fields were as green as he remembered them. Soon, the annual Summer Fete would blanket the Square, the way it did every year. The WI, he assumed, would still be gossiping in the Village Hall.

All was well.

Adam turned away from the Tower, the Green, and the War Memorial, beginning his meander along the Parade, which boasted an alluring array of shops and eateries that ran parallel with the western side of Market Square. A small row of parking bays, partially obscured by some sculpted shrubberies, sat unobtrusively between the two.

The Parade was the beating heart of Little Bassington. From the outside, in their facades and frontages, the various shops and establishments still had the appearance of the family homes they had once been, back when the village was first built, sometime in the late 18th century.

In the Square’s southern corner, the Bricklayers Arms seemed to be doing a fast trade. People were congregating around the tables outside, supping ales and soft drinks in the afternoon sunlight. If the shops and businesses were the beating heart of Little Bassington, then the Bricklayers Arms was its soul. The village pub was set back from the Square along a short cobbled path. Painted black knee rails were positioned along its boundary and, adorning its entrance, hanging baskets seemed to bloom across the seasons. On the third Saturday of every month, the Bassington Farmers Market would take over the Square, its customers and stallholders retreating to the Arms after the day’s sales had ended.

Bricklayers Arms Bricklayers ArmsArmsWith a slightly too overt sense of pride, a waitress placed servings of what looked like Anthea and Ray Woolgrove’s steak and kidney pie before a group of customers at one of the outside tables. The Arms, as locals knew it, had once appeared in one of those “50 Greatest British Pubs” guides that supplemented newsstands and tourist information centres around the county.

Arms“50 Greatest British Pubs”The shops that lined Market Square were, in hindsight, nothing extraordinary; they were much the same as those which could be found in any English village. Adam had always hoped that, one day, someone would have the foresight to open a bookshop along the Parade. The style and outlook of the shopfronts seemed, he’d thought, to lend themselves to one. But no one ever had.

As he walked, a deep breath treated him to the smell of rich pastries and freshly cooked breads from Morgan’s, the artisan bakery owned by Hugo and Elaine. The aroma of freshly-prepared dough hung like a curtain over the entrance, to be inhaled by anyone who passed. Croissants and pain au chocolat sat in baskets next to the till like an open invitation to customers, the shelves behind the counter lined with oven-baked loaves.

Morgan’spain au chocolatThe café next door – Florentine’s – with its slightly upmarket, cosmopolitan air, appeared to be bustling with activity. There were couples leisurely drinking overpriced lattes together, and congregations of gossips had gathered around the pavement tables to exchange their latest ration of rumours from across the village.

Florentine’sHugo and Elaine had expanded the business when Adam was young, purchasing the then-empty unit next to the shop, which had once been a video rental store. The rental store had quickly gone out of fashion – and business – with the onset of the digital age, and so the Morgans had converted the space into an eatery. A spray of wrought iron tables and chairs were stationed beneath the parasols overhanging the pavement, so that the nosiest and most inquisitive of Little Bassington"s residents could sit and watch the world go by, amidst the hub of community gossip.

Two doors up, The Olive Tree delicatessen (by far the largest of any of the businesses lining the Parade) was observing a steady afternoon trade. Its owner, Sarah Laycock, was perched behind the counter, remonstrating in her typically brusque and obstinate manner as she provided the women she was serving with generous helpings of sliced meat and cheese. Iris had often complained that the prices in The Olive Tree seemed to increase weekly and, with no other outlet available (lest she make the effort to catch the bus into town), suggested that these unseemly price hikes were being done just to spite her; a theory made all the more plausible in her mind when considering the finely-balanced relationship she’d held with Sarah Laycock.

The Olive TreeThe Olive Tree Further along the Parade, Adam passed the newsagents, still run (he assumed) by Moira Reynolds, a short, diminutive woman whose face he could picture, staring at him over the counter, wearing those thick-rimmed glasses of hers. Mr Spencer had been the newsagents" previous owner; he’d gone down in the annals of Little Bassington history when he’d been discovered by Arnie Newton in the public toilets next to the Bowling Green with a man half his age. Spencer had left the village swiftly after, in the wake of what had only been referred to after as “the incident”. Although the pavilion had remained in use, the public toilets adjacent to the Bowling Green had since been closed, much to the consternation of the local team, whose Tuesday afternoon matches resumed, otherwise uninterrupted and unmarred by scandal. When he’d once been feeling especially mischievous, Adam had reminded Hilda that, for fluke of chance, she might have been the one to have caught Spencer in the act; whenever she’d gone out walking, she’d always favoured the route that took her that way.

Next to the newsagents stood Little Soles, its vibrant, colourful frontage both bizarrely out of keeping with its surroundings, yet somehow entirely fitting. The children’s shoe shop – which had served the village, the town and the Whitechapel estate for nearly two decades – was managed by Rene Sandwell and his wife Ella, who’d lived in the flat above ever since taking over the business as a growing concern. Theirs was, as far as Adam knew, the only flat above any of the shops that was still occupied; the rest had been converted to stock rooms and used as storage for the businesses below. He’d often wondered how the shoe shop managed to survive, when so many other enterprises fell by the wayside. As if on cue, he heard Iris"s voice like an echo in his mind, chastising him lightly: “It’s not as if there’ll ever be a time when children won’t need shoes, is there? They can hardly walk to school in their bare feet, can they! Lord knows you went through enough pairs when you were that age.”

Little Soles“It’s not as if there’ll ever be a time when children won’t need shoes, is there? They can hardly walk to school in their bare feet, can they! Lord knows you went through enough pairs when you were that age.”He paused beneath the red and white striped awning that hung across the entrance of Sweet Meats. The butcher’s shop, owned by Herbert and Vanessa Hughes, had been a staple of village life long before Adam had ever set foot in Little Bassington. The Hughes family – who had run the business for three generations – considered themselves to be the beating heart of the community. Peering through the window, Adam could see Herbert – still overweight, sweating in the sunlight and smearing grease in streaks onto his red apron – immersed in a discussion with one of his regulars. There was no sign of Vanessa. A burst of hearty laughter echoed from inside the shop. Feeling his stomach rumbling at the sight of the pork pies stacked beneath one of the glass counters, Adam realised he was subconsciously eager to offload his travel bag and resolved to make his way back to Sweet Meats as soon as he had finished at Orchard House. The shop on the train had been practically emptied before he’d boarded and he’d had nothing to eat since setting out.

Sweet MeatsSweet MeatsAs he left the Square behind him, Adam tried to avoid making eye contact with the last shop on the Parade – The Gallery.

The GalleryThe Little Bassington Art Group met every Wednesday in the Village Hall and their annual open house exhibition was frequented not just by patrons from Bassington and the other nearby towns, but by collectors from as far afield as London. Their work was always unveiled with a confident artistic flourish, and watercolours by some of their longer-standing members fetched as much as £1,000 apiece. When the Art Exhibition wasn’t drawing in crowds, their paintings were sold in The Gallery, alongside items of interest by other local and not-so-local artists.

The GalleryThe little painting shop would be his second destination of the afternoon. He had someone to visit there. He had a debt to repay.

Resting on the junction that led out of the Square was the Bassington Pharmacy. Crossing the road, Adam realised that he would need to stock up on some essentials for as long as he was going to stay. He looked over the Pharmacy’s pale green door and smiled to himself. Well, I suppose there’s no time like the present to catch up with an old friend, is there?

Well, I suppose there’s no time like the present to catch up with an old friend, is there?If “friend” was the right word.

He couldn’t help but love Sally Lloyd – who, as far as he knew, still worked there. It had been that way ever since he was young; although he knew that Iris hadn’t exactly been keen on his decision to cultivate that friendship. Sally was, what, eight or nine years older than him? She’d come bounding into his life, after she’d moved to the village from Whitechapel with her mum, that dark brown ponytail swinging behind her. She’d always been exuberant; vivaciously squeezing the best out of everything life had to offer.

It had taken a while to catch on to her reputation. He couldn’t remember if it had been Iris or Hilda who’d spelled it out to him eventually, but he wasn’t about to forget the severity with which they’d laced their words. Sally Lloyd was not the kind of girl that either of them had wanted him to associate with.