Part Thirteen – Nina the New Mum

After a brief holiday, I am back posting the next instalments of my serial Stookey Hill!

Today, Nina, a tired new mum, decides to go out and get herself a treat from the bakery – little does she realise, however, what she might stumble on!

Part Thirteen – Nina the New Mum

Nina was crying when she saw the boy from next door pass the back window. She had her contact lenses in and knew fine well she shouldn’t be crying because they’d get a little bit stuck to her eyeballs which was both uncomfortable and inadvisable. She had seen a video once about a girl who went swimming while wearing contacts. She was now blind in one eye. Keen not to suffer a similar fate, Nina was trying to prise them from her eyes when the gingery-blonde head of Alice’s son went by.

At first, so engrossed was she in trying to stop the tears and remove the lenses, she didn’t realise who it was. The two other heads that bounced past the window – two attractive women with their hair well-styled – she didn’t know. But she ignored them too. It wasn’t going to become relevant for another 5 hours.

The baby was crying. Still. Despite being fed (three times), changed (twice), burped (at least once) she was still lying on her back wailing bloody murder. Nina’s own mother was an advocate for letting the baby, Dinah, cry it out. Nina’s health visitor Shannon was not. Nina, then, felt stuck in an impossible triangle between crying baby, experienced mother and well-educated professional.

Flicking the contact lenses into the bin, Nina made a decision. She usually walked mid-afternoon. That enabled her to avoid Pamela’s narrowed accusing eyes and the school kids before they littered the street with their obscenities. And actual litter. They were a messy bunch.

But, maybe some fresh air would quieten Dinah down.

Nina opened the back door to retrieve the pushchair. She kept it in a tall outdoor storage locker which at least allowed her to regain some space in the house since the baby’s things had taken every other inch of it.

The boy next door – she thought he was called Leonardo – was walking down towards the alley. He was a nice kid, she thought. She wondered where he was going with two women in suits and concluded that he was perhaps doing work experience. Later, she would berate herself for assuming the best. She lived on Stookey Hill, for crying out loud, surely she should always assume the worst?

Dinah had calmed down somewhat and her crying was more tired and plaintive. Nina’s tears had also stopped, but she was aware that her face was blotchy and her mascara was now non-existent.

She hoisted the pushchair in, operated the seven levers it took to get it open, shook it to check it wouldn’t fold itself up again on her four month old baby and then set about leaving the house.

The street was reasonably quiet. The steady train of traffic that came to a standstill at rush hour was now the odd car trundling along. The workmen over the road on the scaffolding at Number 52 were playing a radio, the traffic warden, Petey, was nowhere to be seen (it was likely still too early for him) and there were very few folk walking.

And – as if by some sort of magic – Dinah had stopped crying. Nina sighed with relief, locked her front door and decided to make her way towards the bakery. She’d start there.

However, she had barely made a step forward when Primmie near enough hurtled right into her, tripping on the front wheels of the pushchair and sending herself sailing on to the ground.

Horrified, Nina went to help her up, but Primmie was on her feet too fast. She had grazed a hole in the knee of her black leggings, but shook her hands to free them of some gravel that had embedded itself in the palms of her hands. She was teary but smiled nonchalantly at Nina and darted off.

Nina watched as she pushed open the door of The Frog and Cricket and went inside. Shrugging to herself, Nina turned the pushchair to start towards the bakery.

Quickly, she found herself dreaming of some sort of sugar filled, sugar sprinkled pastry treat. She knew she shouldn’t. The baby weight was already taking its time to come off and now that she was no longer growing Dinah in utero, she couldn’t blame the baby for what had become an insatiable need to eat anything and everything in sight.

She wondered if there were any of those fondant filled pies. She loved those. They were the perfect mix of chocolate ganache, pastry, sugar, butter…

It was a flicker that caused her to pause her stream of consciousness over sweet baked goods. It was almost undetectable, and Nina was surprised she had spotted it at all given that her lack of contact lenses had rendered her eye sight blurry at best. She wondered if it was the light on the glass, or a momentary passing of a cloud lighting up the sky so that there was a glimmer.

Either way, whatever caused her to look, look she did. Straight opposite and into the front window of Mrs Dorado’s house. The movement of two shadows. Back and forth. Another glimmer – another break in the clouds?

Nothing prepared Nina for what came next, however. Just as she was about to dismiss the distraction the glass had caused her, something hit the window on the inside. Nina frowned. She hadn’t been able to make out what it was, but she was sure she had heard the thud it made.

Then, frustratingly, a large people carrier came to a stop right at the roadside in front of her. Quickly Nina scooted the pushchair up the street a little further to try and catch sight of Mrs Dorado’s window. She was just in time to see something again, another thud. She thought it was an arm.

Alarmed, she tried to cross the street. Then, as she glanced left and right and back at the window, she saw a hand pressed against the glass. Even though she didn’t hear this she jumped with fright. She tried again to cross the street. Left, right and back at the window. A steady stream of cars made it impossible. Then, a passenger in one car shouted at her for having the nose of the pushchair over the kerb.

Embarrassed, she pulled the pushchair back and peered in at Dinah who was still fast asleep.

A few more cars wove their way down the street and then she saw her chance. Hurtling into the road, Nina dashed across to the other side before anyone had chance to bang on their horn at her.

But, with this came a new reality. Now, she was outside Number 42. Mrs Dorado’s house. She looked at the window. There was no movement. No arms or hands, no thuds.

Had she imagined it?

She might have. After all, she was sleep deprived and her vision was impaired.

Nina hesitated. Should she knock and check on Mrs Dorado? Or keep going. What would she say if Mrs Dorado answered the door and everything was fine? How would she explain knocking? She wasn’t even sure Mrs Dorado knew who she was!

But, the other possibility was worse – what if there was something sinister going on? What if there was a problem? Some sort of trouble? Law-breaking, even! Nina shuddered and at the thought went straight up to Mrs Dorado’s front door and knocked. She was bold, suddenly, convinced that she might become a local hero, thwarting crooks and saving the elderly!

But there was no answer.

Nina knocked again.

Still nothing.

Sighing, she turned to go. A moment later and she would have seen Mrs Dorado’s panic stricken face pressed against the glass, only to be yanked away with force.

Thinking once more about the sweet treats the bakery had to offer, Nina unwittingly bypassed the second crime she had almost witnessed in less than ten minutes. Pushing open the shop door, she breathed in the heavenly scent of warm pie and fresh bread, just in time to miss the strangled scream that came sailing plain as day out of Number 42 and into Stookey Hill.