Golden Hour by William Nicholson Page A

Thank God you pressed your button. What can Bridget have been thinking? It’s almost ten o’clock. What on earth happened?”
    Mrs. Dickinson is too tired and too cold to speak. She lets her daughter help her get undressed and into her nightie. All she wants is to be in bed.
    â€œAre you sure you haven’t broken anything? Does it hurt anywhere? Why wasn’t Bridget here?”
    â€œShe left.”
    â€œShe’s supposed to help you go to bed. She knows that.”
    Now Mrs. Dickinson is in bed and beginning at last to feel warm again. Funny how cold you can get even in mid-summer. She hears her daughter fussing round her, tugging at her bedclothes, asking her about Bridget, but she no longer has the energy to speak. Elizabeth sounds very angry with Bridget, which soothes the old lady. Yes, she thinks as she lets herself slide into sleep, Bridget abandoned me. She failed in her duty. She wants to tell Elizabeth more, now that at last she’s begun to understand. How Bridget hates her and torments her, and wants her to die. How Bridget has been plotting to steal herhouse. How unhappy and lonely she is. How long the day lasts. How she wants so much to be cuddled. How easy it is to fall. But she says none of these things, not aloud.
    She sleeps.

6
    Dean drives his van up the Offham Road and waits at the junction to pull out onto the main road. A blaze of approaching headlights. Terry’s in the seat beside him. A truck rumbles by.
    â€œDone this before, Tel?” says Dean.
    â€œNot as such,” says Terry.
    Out on the A275 between night trees, the van’s engine struggling, needs retuning. Needs scrapping, more like, but where’s the money coming from for new wheels?
    Dean has a plan, a dream you could call it. Buy a new van, new tools, set up as a Mr. Fixit, come to your house, fix anything. Fencing, walling, drive maintenance, rubbish clearance, all the little jobs the big boys won’t touch. His name and mobile number on the side of the truck:
Dean Keeley, No Job Too Small
. Sheena thinks it’s a good plan, she’s backing him all the way. Not like there’s much work going on the building sites these days.
    â€œYou’re lucky you got out,” he says to Terry, meaning out of Landport. “Nice place you’ve got now.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” says Terry.
    â€œDoing good for yourself.”
    â€œTell you what, Deanie,” says Terry. “Makes no fucking difference where you live, they still treat you like dirt. They’ve got the money and you don’t, that’s what it’s all about. You and me, we could work till we drop, we’d never make that kind ofmoney. And you know how they get it? They’re born with it. They’re fucking millionaires from when they’re babies.”
    â€œBut at least you’re picking up a few jobs round your way.”
    â€œOh, right. His lordship tips me a tenner to chase away his rabbits. Her ladyship never says a word to me, not even a fucking nod. I’m telling you, that woman can’t even see me. And guess where all her money comes from? From her dad. Like I said, fucking millionaire babies.”
    â€œJust luck in the end,” says Dean.
    â€œWe do what we can, don’t we, mate? Even up the odds.”
    Ahead on the left looms the cut into the hillside that’s the old chalk pit. The van’s headlights sweep the high grimy white cliffs. The windows of the Chalk Pit Inn glow bright and cheerful. Half a dozen cars parked outside.
    Terry jumps out.
    â€œGive me half an hour,” he says.
    Dean swings the grumbling van onto the road again and heads back into Lewes. Just before the Neville Estate begins he turns off up the rutted track that climbs the hill to the racecourse. Up here on bare downland there’s not exactly any roads, you just drive. He follows the tire marks in the beam of his lights, careful to stick to the run where others have been.