Part Fifteen – Kelly Bruce’s Secrets

Today, the next instalment of Stookey Hill introduces us to Kelly Bruce – and all the things she knows…sshhh!

Part Fifteen – Kelly Bruce’s Secrets

Kelly knew more than most people. Working at the only public house on Stookey Hill ensured she was party to many conversations, many misdemeanours and many, many scandals.

She had learned, through a series of trials and errors, that the less she said, the better. The reasons were two-fold. For one, if she kept her own mind then she stayed out of bother. And two – albeit less honourable – being known for one to keep schtum meant that disclosures from punters were quicker, fuller and far more detailed.

So, as was her way, she would wipe the glasses that hung above the bar while she listened. Wiped, wiped and wiped them again. Sometimes she was being spoken to, sometimes she was being spoken at and sometimes she was merely present when others were speaking. Those were the times she savoured the most: a tongue, loosened with a favourite liquor, dripping with salacity, confiding in an ear or – with Kelly’s passive observance – two.

There were, however, occasions when she felt she knew too much. As a single girl, with a small, poky flat above the pub, she would lie in the darkness of the night, her mind trembling with the thrill of possibility and the terror of knowledge. It was an intoxicating combination.

The day after she had inadvertently told Primrose about the probability of her employment severance being imminent, she had felt quite morose. In part, from lack of sleep – she had lain away most of the night kicking herself that she hadn’t been more careful. And in part because not only had she repeated something she had heard, but had done so without a full story.

Rookie mistakes. Kelly was usually very careful to verify details, or at least ensure she had enough encompassing knowledge, before she passed on any secrets, mysteries or any items of just plain gossip.

Thankfully, she didn’t open before 11am so had time to mope about the bar while Craig, the driver for the local brewery, rolled away empty barrels and delivered new ones.

Tapping her pen absent mindedly on her pad, she decided she just had to let it go. She had told Primmie more than she should have, didn’t understand the situation herself, but so it was.

Eventually, she hoisted herself out of the funk she was in and went to look for Craig.

She had taken a shine to him several years ago. The reasons for this were also two fold. On the one hand, he was remarkably handsome. In a rugged, sweaty kind of way. He had arms like Popeye’s: swollen muscles and oddly placed tattoos. And while she appreciated these weren’t necessarily the obvious signs of attractiveness in a person, she found them just charming.

The other reason was a little more sinister. He had rescued her from a…well, situation, shall we say? She had written about it in detail in her diary, which is printed below since it contains the detail, clarity and sincerity that a general retelling of the tale might lack.

Dear Clarence, (Kelly fancied that the ideal recipient for her personal exposés should be someone likely to attend to the upper-middle class. Not because she was that herself, but because she imagined they would be the most likely of all people to keep secrets since they would be au fait with NDAs, which she would find handy in using her diary to share some of what she knew.)

Something terrible has happened. I made two mistakes tonight. One, I believed Erron Timpson when he said he wanted to meet me for a coffee date. He did not. I sat for three hours at Starbucks over at the retail park.

Three hours is a bit much, I realise. It’s a stupid amount of time. But in that time, I made calls to all the other Starbucks stores on all the retail parks to see if someone was waiting for me. That took about an hour. Mainly because it’s hard to get through. Did you think it would be that hard to call a Starbucks? Well, seems it is.

But I didn’t call anywhere for the first half hour because I thought he might just be late. I also nipped over to that cut price bookstore to buy a notebook so it at least looked like I was doing something. That backfired when the barista came out, all red-faced and anxious and asking me if I was environmental health! I had to show him the inside of my blank notebook to prove I wasn’t. Of all things, too. As someone in the hospitality industry, I should know better than to create that kind of nervousness!

BRB. (Kelly knew these asides were not necessary, but she also believed they added a certain je ne sais quoi to her letters – credibility…? Maybe.)

Back.

Anyway, eventually I left, and yes you know it, I was crying. I cried a lot lot. All the way home. Except, there was an incident. A situation. Oh, Clarence, it was just awful.

(Kelly occasionally slid into some sort of upper class verbiage she believed she had acquired from watching Downton.)

The tears caused momentary blindness and I couldn’t see! I promise, it was because of the tears! And the cat! It came from nowhere. Literally, shot across the street, out of nowhere.

But you know the worst of it? It was the sound! Clarence! The squeal of the brakes, the squeal from the cat…then the smell…actually, maybe that was worse because it was the smell of hot fur and rubber. Have you smelled that before? Do you know what hot fur smells like? Clarence, it’s not good…

An interjection – Kelly spent a good bit of time on the accident itself, so we’ll cut to the chase.

Her rescuer that tear-sodden night? Craig from the brewery.

As it happened, he was driving home that night from a crafting group he attended – one where they made crochet baby blankets for overseas missions. Unlikely, but true nonetheless. At first, he had not been all to willing to explain why there were needles and yarn on the back seat of his car as Kelly had sobbed into her tissues.

Eventually, Craig came to the car and looked at Kelly. He pronounced the cat dead at 22.34 and told her he had buried it.

Horrified, she had looked at him with a startled expression. Although had concluded when he had laid out a number of unappealing options that this was the best of a bad series of choices.

So then, Kelly had a secret of her own. Until that Pamela found out. She was a witch, Kelly was certain of it. She had spread some unsavoury gossip in her time, but Kelly had never been the object of any of them. Until the cat incident.

After that, Kelly had learned that keeping her own counsel was wise. And so she did.

Until that irritating barber from down the street had told her about Primrose.