Mary Mary(Barry Doughty) Mary Mary

It’s funny how one’s trivial actions can sometimes lead to strange repercussions. If I had not moved out of my chair that terrible night to close the curtains, I wouldn’t have known how hard it was raining, or that I’d left the coalbunker open. Donning an oilskin, I went out in the back yard to close it. This led me to witnessing Mary, my next-door neighbour at number 8, engaged in her very secretive task on the other side of the fence.

I had always thought Mary was a little strange. I’d tried to talk to her on a number of occasions. Well, living on one’s own, it gets a bit lonely sometimes and Mary certainly was very pretty. I saw her in the village a few times, but she’d always cross the street, pretending she’d not seen me.
Sometimes when opening my back door, I’d get a glimpse of her, tending her garden. Then she’d see me and scurry indoor’s, seemingly afraid that I might speak to her.

Dr Bevan’s wife, who lived the other side of Mary at number 6, put a reason to Mary’s strange behaviour, “It’s her husband,” she said to me one day when she and I met in the village high street. Speaking in a whisper and peering over her shoulder as if Mary’s husband was about to creep up behind her, she said, “He’s terribly jealous, you know, and he knocks her about something awful.”
The gossipy woman must have read the disbelief in my expression because she quickly added, “Oh, you wouldn’t hear his temper, you're at number 10 aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well you’re on the other side of their house, but you see their lounge butts against my lounge and those walls are very thin and my hearing is very good.”

Yes, I thought to myself, and I bet it’s even better with your old man’s stethoscope against it. I wasn’t keen on Mrs Bevan, she always seemed to be slating some unfortunate soul, and so even though I had no reason to disbelieve her story about Mary, I questioned it saying, “But surely, we’d have seen bruises,” I said. “The occasional black eye…leg in a sling!” I said dryly.
Mrs Bevan didn’t smile. “Oh, he’s too clever for that!” she said tucking her chin into her neck and folding her arms in a Les Dawson posture. I expected any minute for her to push up her breast with her forearm. “Oh, he doesn’t hit her where it would leave marks or show,” she continued,
“He’s much too clever, but I saw him hit her in the street once. He didn’t know I was watching them from inside Hillarie’s cake shop across the road. I saw this young chap walk up to them; he seemed like an acquaintance, he chatted to them for just a moment. As soon as he’d gone, her husband pulled her into the side street and hit her in the stomach. I saw her double up.”

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Mrs Bevan’s words came back to me the night I went out back to close the coalbunker. It was pitch black that night, the wind howled, but not enough to drown the noise of torrential rain on my corrugated shed roof. As I closed the coalbunker, I sensed a movement through a hole in the fence. I crept up to it and peered over. Mary was engrossed in her task, and with the thunderous noise the rain was making, there was no way she could have noticed me watching her. I saw what should have filled me with horror, but it was then that Mrs Bevan’s words came back to me: "Knocks her about something awful." Those words somehow lessened the gravity of the scene as I looked at Mary in a saturated dressing gown, up to her ankles in mud, digging for all she was worth. She looked up and saw me. As I looked into her face, I saw her whole world fall apart. She became the epitome of despair. She let the spade fall to the ground, her shoulders drooped and her head fell to one side. I’d never seen anyone look so pitiful. On the path beside her, I could just make out a mound the size of a man’s body.

The next morning, two muddy booted police officers led both Mary and I in handcuffs out of our separate houses. In the street were two separate police cars. Several women, including Mrs Bevan, stood outside their gates competing with their own version of events. I couldn’t remember a more embarrassing occasion. That aside, I was not unduly concerned about what I presumed would be the probable outcome of the situation. After all, Mary had endured a terrible life of abuse, according to Mrs Bevan, and with such a witness for the defence, I was sure any reasonable court would show compassion to this young and vulnerable woman. I, on the other hand, was purely a neighbour who, having learned of Mary’s intolerable existence, took pity on her and decided to help her with her task of burying her husbands already dead body.

It was these thoughts that reassured me as the police officer’s arm guided me along my path toward one of the waiting cars.

Then in the next few moments, my silent deliberations were dashed as I caught a few words from Mrs Bevan’s conversation with another neighbour. They were words that were to have dire consequences for both Mary and I.
“Oh yes, they’d been planning it for ages,” I heard her say. “If I hadn’t gone out back to bolt the shed door, they might have got away with it. How they could do such a thing to that lovely man is beyond me. He was always so good to her. Well Good riddance to the pair of them, that’s what I say. And her, at number 10! Well, no wonder her husband left her. I always suspected she was gay.”

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