Part Sixteen – Andy: Stookey Hill’s Postie

Today, meet Andy – again! This time, we see into his life a wee bit and learn more about the goings on at Stookey Hill!

Andrew Keith Raymond Peter Taylor was of semi-noble descent. At least that’s what his mother had told him. It explained, she said, the many names he had been given at his birth. Although during his own foray into tracing his ancestry, Andrew wasn’t sure most men of the ruling class had the middle names of Keith and Raymond.

He had also, to his chagrin, discovered that his family tree was an assortment of unusual fellows. Most of them had spent time behind bars and those who hadn’t, it seemed, were only successful in evading it. Lack of jail time was not an indicator of lives lived within the boundaries of the law.

“Ma,” he had said, one Saturday night. He had done a long shift that day and arrived home with two fish suppers, “when you say semi-noble, what do you mean by that?”

His Ma, Elspeth Taylor, sniffed, tipping her tray of chips on to a pink melamine plate.

“It means what it means, Andrew,” she said, her tone disdainful as though he was stupid for asking.

Andrew, however, was far from stupid. He was a thinking man. That’s why being a postman suited him so much. Plenty of time to think. And then, with his thoughts, he would spend his days off in the library, scouring the internet and microfiche newspaper reports.

“I just can’t seem to find any evidence of anyone from anything but the working class,” Andrew flicked through the television channels in search of a documentary. It would, of course, herald the onset of the same fight they had every Saturday night. While he preferred something beneficial and educational, Elspeth preferred something entertaining and humorous.

“You ain’t lookin’ right, then,” Elspeth frowned over her glasses. She hadn’t enjoyed the last thing he had made her watch on the perils of the North Sea fishing industry. She wanted to watch Ant and Dec.

Andrew hadn’t pursued it any further.

And that was the cycle. Andrew investigated, quizzed his mother, she responded with either disdain or irritation and then they watched ‘The Chase’.

But that didn’t mean it had left Andrew’s mind. He thought about it all the time. So, as he pushed his red wagon up and down Stookey Hill five days a week (six closer to Christmas) he pondered the possibility – probability even – that Elspeth Taylor was lying.

“Mind yourself!” he heard Mrs Dorado mutter as she pulled her wonky, wheeled shopper through the door of the camera shop. She looked irritated and while she was a busybody, she was usually a pleasant one at least.

“What’s with her?” he asked Mr Owens, pulling a pile of letters squeezed tight with an elastic band from his red shoulder bag.

Mr Owens shrugged. He also seemed exasperated.

Andrew (or Andy as he was known to those who inhabited the street) smiled, handed over Mr Owens’ post and left the camera shop, heading to Harry’s. He saw Mrs Dorado cross the road. But the old dear didn’t look properly, dragging herself into the path of oncoming traffic. Thankfully, as usual, everything was crawling along at a snail’s pace. Still, the car she stumbled in front of beeped its horn and Mrs Dorado shook her fist at the driver. Andy smiled. Feisty old bird, he thought.

Harry’s Shoppe was quiet. As was the way these days. The big supermarkets with their small, affordable urban options had near enough decimated the local businesses. Harry was a determined fellow, however, and swore he would die in the shop before he closed it down. Andy thought that was ridiculous. He would sell up and retire rather than beat himself into the ground over a failing enterprise.

“Horses for courses!” his mother would say when he reported back that Harry likely had endured another day of dismal sales and minimal profit. It was one of her favourite sayings. She was a woman of idioms and axioms.

Nonetheless, Andy felt some sympathy for Harry as he handed him a pile of letters, also pinged together with an elastic band. It didn’t escape his notice that the top one had a red stamp that announced in bold, capitalised letters: FINAL REMITTANCE. There had been a few like that in recent weeks. Andy wondered if Harry was in debt.

Ordinarily, Andy left the post with Harry, said a brief hello and then carried on. But that day, something struck him. Something felt different. In the atmosphere. He couldn’t place it and he wasn’t given to supernatural tendencies so all but ignored it.

“Can I get you something?” Harry pulled the elastic band off his letters and went through each one. Opening none of them, he pulled a bin from under the counter and dropped them all in.

Andy raised his eyebrows and Harry smiled.

“All junk!” he said brightly.

Andy didn’t think so. One of them had been from a bank and one was a handwritten letter.

“Sometimes it’s good to open them and check!” Andy tried to be breezy. He wasn’t one to dispense advice, but he found it almost intolerable to see unopened mail dropped into the rubbish with such abandon.

Harry ignored him and repeated his earlier question.

“Can I get you something?”

Andy shook his head. No, he would leave Harry to is own agonies. He had a job to do. Sifting through his bag, he looked for his next address, but as he did so he found a rogue letter. Andy sighed. This was a nuisance. He hated when this happened. He prided himself on being meticulous. But, as Elspeth would tell him: to err is human.

“Harry, do me a favour,” he said, turning back, “can I nip out the back to get this letter to Pamela?”

Most people, or posties, might just have doubled back. Not Andy. He couldn’t be seen having made a mistake. Someone would notice if he was zigzagging and they would make comments and he would be mortified. No harm, no foul, Elspeth would say. Andy felt differently, however. He couldn’t retain his reputation as a meticulous postman if he was incapable of actually being meticulous.

Harry nodded and waved him on. He was distracted. Andy hoped it was because he was going to fish his letters out of the bin once Andy had left.

Slipping out of the back door, Andy smiled to himself. He had evaded detection. At least, that’s what he thought. But as he made his way along the back of the shops, in reverse to his normal order, he was aware of a small group of people walking towards the drying green. Sighing, Andy slipped into the small doorway just beyond Bobby Shaw’s shop. He hadn’t wanted to be seen by anyone.

The huddle of individuals stopped just short of where he was, deep in conversation. Andy couldn’t hear any of it. Although he didn’t try either. Instead, he decided to look through his red bag and check there was nothing else in the wrong order.

The voices continued, and while exasperated by their presence, Andy was too busy congratulating himself on making only one minor and, thus far, undetected slip up.

The voices drifted and as Andy peered out, he saw the figures disappearing back. But just as he was about to continue on, he saw Bobby Shaw’s head appear from his back door. Alarmed, the two looked at each other. Bobby was white as a sheet and Andy was beetroot red – one from what he had heard, the other from being caught.

“Bobby,” Andy said, putting his head down to pass the man.

Bobby said nothing. And while that was not like Bobby, Andy didn’t care. He wanted to avoid having to explain why he was out the back of Stookey Hill where there were, in fact, no letterboxes.

Andy, feeling triumphant once more, went to pull out Pamela’s letter when he froze. One of the figures ahead of him was Mark Dorado.

Strange, he thought, he’s been all over the street today! What’s the man doing?

Andy regretted that thought, because before he had time to follow Mark Dorado into the alleyway to Pamela’s front door, he felt the cool press of steel on the back of his neck and a hand gripped his shoulder.

“Don’t move,” said a woman, stern and controlled, “I would hate to have to shoot.”