Chapter 4

Colour ch-ch-ch-ch-changing. On houses, of course, fading by the weathering. But also the colours over the fields. On clothes. Eyes. The colour in the eye is an omen to the soul, I think. And it shifts in the light, it ch-ch-ch-changes in the shadows. I have always wondered about my own eyes, a mixture of brown and green with a pinch of yellowish, they say. Depending on the day. And the eye-doctor told me once that my iris is full with moles. As a galaxy is with stars or a river with rolling stones. How many, I don’t know. Don’t want to, either. If you want my opinion, I have never seen more disturbing eyes than Avner’s. Don’t ask me why, but they are pale and grey and every time he set his milky glare on me, it’s like needles piercing on a voodoo doll. But let us leave Avner’s eyes behind as well as the boat and the tree-house and the concrete/grey colour place and get finally to number 107, Main Street, a house owned by Mrs. Harrington.

It is a greengrocer’s whose façade used to be grey. Not grey as when my parent’s place was left without colour, but real, painted grey. As you are probably aware by my words —yellow for the boat-house, concrete/grey colour for the trauma house which used to belong to my parents and will be legally mine in a month or so, when it’s my birthday—, every colour means something here in Northgate.

I hope you have read ‘used to be’ using the right tone. Italics are on purpose. They have to do with Seamus Harrington’s disappearance and with the gossiping in town and those two interpretations Northgathers are dealing with as I speak.

I know, I know: bloody gossiping. I hate it even more than words can express, believe me, ‘cause I have been right in the spotlight myself before. But before getting sentimental let me ask you something: How could in the name of God a juicy conundrum like Mr. Harrington’s not become the main dish at every Northgate table? Even if you hate gossiping as much as I do, no one is free of the irresistible impulse of engaging in other people’s businesses. However, and before spilling the tea and entering the vast territory of rumours, let’s take a look at the store.

As you can see, Mrs. Harrington is currently getting her façade painted. I should add that I am fascinated by the vibrant new colour she’s chosen for her house. I am pretty sure too that, at this point, it is not necessary to say that I hate greyness and all those Agatha Christie’s mystery-plots the Northgaters are so fond of. Being said that, I should also mark that changing it to acid-green is no good at all for Mrs. Harrington’s reputation either.

At this stage, it’s no use saying that wall painting is a great deal for the village. Unless it’s submitted to public confrontation in the first place, no new colour whatsover is to be applied on a Northgate wall. You can imagine that Mrs. Harrington —being in the middle of these controversial moments— hasn’t asked anybody. And I don’t want to imply that she needs a permission, but it’s little wonder this is going to cost her a lot of troubles.

Once I’ve managed to get through the heavy scaffolding the painters are using in the front, I step inside and stand still, waiting for her to get out the store room and show up behind the counter. I take out my white blackboard —this is the way I’ve chosen for communication: let me tell you how happy I am about nobody caring a bit about it here in Northgate— and write ‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Harrington, how are you today?’ Please note that, without even thinking about it, I am already looking for a pack of tissues in my bag. Apples are coming. I know it for a fact.

Yes, apples. Italics, too.

‘Hi, there! Welcome, dear! Such a pleasure to have you here, darling. I am perfectly fine, and I can see by your smile that you are as well. Lovely, lovely. What can I do for you, my girl? Some apples, maybe? You know an apple a day keeps the doctor…’

Apples are always about to sprout in her lips. As soon as she or anybody around happen to mention the word, you can hear a gulp in her throat. In no time, tears show up. It’s obvious that Mrs. Harrington has gone through a lot lately and that it’s very useful to have tissues at hand when you pay a visit at her place. I think it has something to do with the place she comes from, somewhere up in the countryside, where you can find a lot of fruit trees and a river. And no sea, of course.

‘Oh, please, don’t cry, Mrs. Harrington. It’s such a beautiful day, no matter what’s the weather like. Today I have to cook a very special dinner and I don’t need apples, but your best raspberries and blueberries and some of these other berries whose name I can’t remember’. That’s what I would say if I could speak. I write on my white blackboard my usual slender message instead: ‘Need berries. Special dinner. Aubergines and mushrooms, too’.

‘Of course, of course, my darling’, she answers, wiping the teardrops from her eyes with the corner of the tissue I’ve handed over. She smiles and I know she’s processing the last couple of words in her head while she is looking for the berries and packing them up in tiny acid-green parcels. Yes, I know for a fact her attention will be cast to the special dinner piece of information any minute now, so I take a diversion, before she starts asking. News are already out there and I am afraid she already knows about Helen’s visit and the fact that Avner is selling old Pat’s boat-house and everything. Secrets are hard to keep in a place like Northgate-on-Sea.

So I write ‘Beautiful wrapping paper’ as quick as I can and show a big smile. As you are imagining, what I would like to say is ‘I love this brand new wrapping paper of yours, Mrs. Harrington. I really do. It matches the new colour of the building and anyone can tell you are starting over after Seamus is out of your life. By the way, did you kill him?’, but expressing all the things you mean on a small portable white blackboard is difficult. I fire on, though, raising my archaic pad.

‘Hired London painters’.

Which means ‘I couldn’t help observing you’ve hired a paintwork company from the city, since nobody would do it for you here, no matter how much you pay’. You will get used to my white blackboard shortcuts, I hope.

Her face. You should see her face.

‘How…?’, mumbles she.

‘Oh, Avner told me’.

Waters run deep here. I should mention that Seamus Harrington, her husband, shared an obscure past with Avner. They used to be best friends, but something happened and they are not anymore. Of course I am well aware that you must be thinking that I am engaging in the gossiping now. But I swear upon God’s word that it’s not what I mean. Nor being rude. It’s just that Mr. and Mrs. Harrington’s case is worth to be stated, even more once you see the perfect new order she has accomplished in her store now that he is not here. And your mind goes back and recalls the lousy image of the old dusty shelves and the crates of fruit distributed randomly everywhere, when her husband was around.

Back to her face, I can tell she is startled by my remark. She knows I know. Her eyes are wide open now and she is avoiding mine and trying to rest her gaze on the ocean.

OK, I’ll do the talking then. I should say, to be more accurate, I’ll do the writing.

‘Is Mr. Harrington not getting back any time soon, then? I really miss his sense of humor’.

And there it is.

Can you hear the silence?

Yeah, this silence.

Avner says that I should learn to hold my writing while I am in Northgate-on-Sea soil. I answer him back that I ain't no bloody Northgater and that I don’t have the obligation to undermine people with those significative silences you Northgate people produce, dude, I don’t care how much of your territory I am treading. Ok, maybe I just write a ‘I am not a Northgater, remember?’, but I think he knows me after all our conversations. Yes, Avner is used to my white blackboard shortcuts.

Speaking of which, one day I should tell Avner that it’s better posing the bloody question about Seamus Harrington’s absence rather than gossiping around behind someone’s back. And I know I am right about this, no matter if that’s Avner’s opinion or the King of England’s.

As to confirm my thoughts, silence is all I can hear of Mrs. Harrington. That Northgate absence of sound, whatever it means. And don’t get me wrong, I am not bitching about it; silence is my dearest friend, as dear for me as old for Simon and Garfunkel.

Back to the present tense: more tears and there she goes, Mrs. Harrington is nowhere to be seen. She’s gone to the back storage area, leaving nothing behind but an empty room full of silence and acid mystery and a couple of green parcels with the groceries I had ordered.

In the meantime, let me cast a little light upon this Harrington affaire and tell you what I know about it: it happened a month ago or so. I remember it was a chilly morning and Northgate woke up earlier than usual, in a rare pre-winter mist, just to learn that Mr. Harrington had disappeared. Everyone was shocked, ‘cause young Seamus Harrington had been one of the most valuable pearls of the community for years. He was known to be a convivial fellow with a remarkable tendency to spend his time in the local pub surrounded by people who need talking or understanding or caring. He had always a book on the table —or a miraculous memory— and he would find a nice quotation that would suit you. If you had any kind of trouble or you were feeling blue, people would say ‘Go and ask Seamus, he will cheer you up’. And he did public readings on Friday nights and he even had a reading club where Northgaters talked about literature and culture and everything.

It’s my understanding that Avner and him used to be best palls back in the nineties and that they had big dreams together, at least until Olivia barged in their lives. She came from somewhere up in the North, where the land is greener and no trace of an ocean is to be seen. Anyway, something happened, some kind of quarrel or maybe there was this love triangle —some in town pointed that way, who knows. The fact is that Avner decided to leave Northgate and that Seamus stayed and married the girl and… I don’t know what happened then. Nobody knows. Some people say they were like the three musketeers back when they where young, at high-school, but I guess that can’t be true, ‘cause I’ve never heard a word about Seamus pronounced by Avner.

Anyway, whatever happened, it was ages ago, so I guess the truth is no longer available for the rest of us. There’s no point in speculating about it. As far as Seamus and Olivia are concerned, it is said that once married she was the one in charge of taking the wind out of Seamus’ sails. So… what were his dreams? What happened between them, really? Why have Avner never talked about his best friend? How come Olivia and Avner have never seen together, if they used to be friends, too?

The only fact that we can be sure of is that the Harringtons opened a shop and that nobody in town ever knew what kind of goods were sold in it. I heard Seamus wanted to trade books and records, while Olivia was more a grocery girl. A battle was set, in any case.

God only knows what happened in their marital life and how Seamus became such a complicated man who showed no mercy with those ‘dumb arseholes’ he had as neighbours, as he used to say openly right in front of anybody’s face. Of course, rumour has it that Mrs. Harrington was behind that change, maybe because she was an earthly woman —nothing to do with the watery condition natural in a good Northgate citizen— and she never found her place here. She said once she really missed her apple trees back in wherever the place she grew up. I assume one day Seamus forgot his dreams of owning a bookshop and gave in for a grocery store with apples to make her wife happier or, at least, to avoid things getting bloody. And in return —was it true? Was she this sad?— she forbade Seamus going to the pub and to get involved with the community and even reading, which was said to be Seamus’ truest passion.

With such a negative energy, there will be no surprise in this Harringtons’s store not being the most fashionable place in Northgate. Setting aside it’s located in number 107, which means that half town would have to walk a couple of miles to reach the spot —and Northgaters can be anything but uncomplaining walkers—, if you’d set your foot inside just the day before Seamus Harrington’s disappearance, you could have guessed immediately the reason why. You would have found a morbid grey Mr. Harrington staring at the sea, noticeably sighing, tethered by his elbows on the countertop, with his enormous belly on the brink of touching the floor. Your nose would have detected a subtle smell of things about to rot. He wouldn’t have talked to you or even raised his eyebrows when you entered the store. His eyes would have been fixed somewhere on the floor, where all his expectations in life were, probably. And even when Mrs. Harrington would have been very helpful and all that jazz, you would have noticed her apron was grey and would’ve felt a menacing shadow casting all around, as a kind of ghost undermining them and mumbling around how silly and pointless life in Northgate-on-Sea was.

I guess time went by and by and, well, you could tell they were not a happy couple, of course, but who the hell could imagine that things would get as far as Seamus disappearing. Against all odds, ‘cause some bets were  made on how long Olivia Harrington would last in Northgate-on-Sea, given his apple fixation and the fact that she is an outsider. In my opinion, things like that happen for a good reason and Olivia is very fortunate to have a chance to give a try and live without the burden of grey Mr. Harrington, as I used to call him. On the other side, I might’ve been taking sides on Olivia —she is a foreigner, like me— when Seamus could be a great guy. After all, nobody knows anybody.

Moreover, as I said somewhere before, waters run deeper here and I know for a fact that Avner had something to do with this Harrington’s affair. Dunno how, why or when, but, believe me, Avner’s shadow is somewhere behind. There’s a strange coincidence, too. Avner came back to Northgate just the day before Seamus disappeared.

Be as it may, and back to the present tense, it’s obvious too that Olivia is not aware about the fact that things are getting better for her without Mr. Harrington. Maybe she’s starting to open her eyes, considering she is changing colours of the house. Maybe that’s a reason for the easy crying, too. Or maybe she’s totally faking it and that’s precisely the point for all the gossiping in town. ‘Cause, as you are supposing, every coin has two sides and Northgaters are already divided in two factions: one, the vast majority, seeing Mrs. Harrington as guilty of murdering his grey grey husband; two, the suicide version, which is the minority group. But let’s face it: suicidal tendencies are always a trending topic socially speaking.

Anyway, it’s time for me to take my groceries, leave a tenner and write a quick note on the countertop ‘Bye, Mrs. Harrington, I will see you again soon!’.

As I open the door to show myself out, I hear the clinging sound of the bell and Olivia’s voice saying: ‘Say Avner hello for me, please. What a pity, girl, what a pitiful thing is this life we are all in.’

So out am I and to 103 Main Street I go.

And, yes, her words stay with me.

You know, two sides in each coin you flip in the air.

© Enrique Armenteros Caballero, 2025

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