The
village of Oakvale-On-Roe is in
the north of the relatively small English county of Downshire, situated between
the old market Town of
Nettlebridge,
and their more affluent neighbour Roespring, and in the Old Coopers Farm area
to the north of the village was Stone Bridge Lane where Brendan Healey lived at number 13.
There weren’t a lot of Dwellings in the lane, a
converted barn unimaginatively
named “The Old Barn” then there were 15 terraced cottages, Ten Acre Farm,
another converted barn called Small Barn and Ironsides Farm.
The cottages were of a decent size, having been
enlarged many years earlier by knocking two of the old labourers’ cottages into
one, it was too big for a man living alone, but he liked it, it was his castle.
He worked hard for the post office and had
reached a senior level and when he got home to Oakvale, he liked to get inside
and pull up the drawbridge behind him.
He had no family left, his circle of close
friends was small and dwindling, so very few people made it past the
drawbridge, and most of them were tradesmen or domestics.
Maggie and Lyndsey Atkins lived in a flat over
the Greengrocers, and it had just been the two of them since Lyndsey was seven
when her father died.
When he died, he had no life insurance, no
savings and left them with debts.
They were very hard working, and both had
multiple jobs, since Lyndsey was old enough to do so she did her share and she
had to forgo higher education even though she was more than capable.
Fifty-three-year-old Maggie Atkins was primarily
a cleaner, and cleaned all over the village, private addresses and businesses,
she cleaned Brendan Healey cottage every Friday Morning.
Lyndsey was principally a server at The Roebank,
worked shifts at the Supermarket and helped her mum with the bigger cleaning
jobs, in addition she did ironing, and one of her clients was Brendan.
After Lyndsey finished her Saturday morning shift
at the Supermarket, she mounted her bike and peddled off to her first ironing
session of the day in the affluent Shepherds Row area of the village.
It
was a lovely warm and sunny late August day as she peddled up the hill, dressed
for the weather in loose-fitting pale blue shorts and a white sleeveless top.
She
was neither tall nor
short, her hair was blonde, but of an indistinct shade, which was short and
curly, she thought she was vaguely attractive with an average figure however
other people of course saw her differently as she cycled around the village.
It was lunchtime when she remounted her bike and left Shepherds Row and headed home for a
quick sandwich.
While she was home, she changed her top for a
pink one and then was back on her bike peddling towards Stone Bridge Lane all knees and elbows,
her blonde hair blowing around her head.
She crossed the stone
bridge and passed a converted barn on the left, opposite a row of ten terraced
Houses, then just after the road leading to Ten Acre Farm, was her destination,
number 13.
Brendan Healey was a surly thirty-six-year-old
career Postal worker who worked in the Nettlebridge Sorting Office as a senior
manager, still a very capable worker even on his bad days but his surliness
seemed to be getting worse with every passing week, and he was divorced, and
childless.
Lyndsey was fast
approaching her thirtieth birthday and had been doing Brendan Healey’s ironing once a week for around 9 months.
and for the first three weeks he certainly lived up to his surly reputation but
over the months he had slowly mellowed with her and from June onwards he had
been very chatty.
By August they had progressed to enjoying a glass
of wine after she’d finished her labours, and on that Saturday of the bank
holiday weekend, as it was such a warm day they had two glasses and were
halfway through the second when he asked a question which changed their lives
forever.
