Mary Daulby was not a bad person but she had a secret: she was a stalker. Mary had been stalking Anthony Settlefield for the past two years and she knew everything there was to know about Anthony. She even knew which colour toilet paper his wife preferred.
Mary had not set out to be a stalker. She was a very decent woman who never wished anybody any harm nor ever intended to cause anyone any hurt.It all happened innocently at first when she would drive her son to school each morning and pass Anthony’s house. He was always walking to work dressed in the same navy blue suit and a white shirt sometimes with the pink tie sometimes with his light blue one. So she began to pay attention, and for months she observed the little things, even down to how he walked and how he avoided the puddles near his house
Mary learned his name when she had had to take Michael to the Doctors. She was waiting to be called in when she saw him coming in to book an appointment and she heard the receptionist repeating his name aloud: ‘Anthony Settlefield.’
Anthony was a man of habit and if Mary was running late, she would find out something new about him; like the way he always kept his fingers pressing the button on the traffic lights while he waited at the crossing on Sandgate High Street.
On Tuesdays, before he left for work, he always placed the blue recycling bag, full of shredded paper, carefully positioned on the left of the black box containing several empty plastic bottles of lemonade and green bottles of Ravenswood wine – she recognized her favourite brand one day when the traffic was very slow and she stopped right outside his house.
On his days off he attended his garden. Anthony seemed a happy man and was always smiling, and if she knew him she would have thought he was smiling at her. His garden used to be a mess but he had slowly made it look very pretty, with bushes of the most beautiful pink roses that she had tried so hard to cultivate but somehow never managed.
She didn’t mean to stalk him but every time she saw Anthony she would learn a thing or two about him. Like in the sports centre where Michael had swimming lessons every Wednesday, early in the evening. She waited through Michael’s hour long lesson, sitting in the café, from where she could see her son and anyone else who was in the swimming pool.
That was how Mary found out that Anthony swam ten lengths at a time before he had a one minute break then would go back to swim ten more. When he was done he would dry himself with the black towel he had carefully placed on the table at the side of the pool, with his glasses on top, and leave just before Michael was ready. She had been bringing Michael to the swimming pool for years and had never noticed Anthony before until she started paying attention to him. She knew she would have to be careful or he would think that she was interested in him.
One day when she was about to go into her favourite sandwich shop she saw Anthony crossing the street and going in. She didn’t want to follow him but she was running late and she couldn’t afford the time to go anywhere else for.
“Morning, Tony. The usual?”
“Yes, please Carol.” Mary had never heard Anthony speak and she was pleased to hear that he was well spoken and very polite.
She stood in the queue, two spaces behind him, with her head down, hoping no one would recognize her as the lady who baked Gold Cakes for the shop a couple of years previously. While she listened to the conversation, she watched the lady behind the counter making a ham and salad sandwich – brown bread with margarine not butter - with a blob of mayonnaise and a pinch of salt on the salad. No pepper.
“How are Ellie and Tommy?”
“They’ve both had a virus, I am afraid to say. They caught one of the bad ones and Jane thinks we should not go camping next week”
“A bit of fresh air will do them good, Tony!”
“That’s what I thought but Jane thinks we shouldn't go camping in case they get worse when neither Jane nor I speak French.”
Mary felt so guilty of spying on him that she left the shop without buying her sandwich. She really didn’t mean to stalk him.
On the Saturday before Easter she found out even more about Anthony. Mary went to Sainsbury’s for some last minute shopping and as she grabbed a trolley she saw Anthony getting out of his car with his wife and a couple of little children – a boisterous boy and an adorable little girl.
Mary wasn’t usually nosy but she could not help wondering what type of things he liked and as she moved around the shop she heard his wife asking the children if they could see any peach toilet paper and when they couldn’t find any she seemed quite disappointed “I think we should go back to do our shopping in Tesco’s.”
Mary didn’t mean any harm, she was just curious. When she reminded herself that she was intruding into someone’s privacy she headed for the check-out, without buying all the things she needed; paid for her goods and left. She felt ashamed and embarrassed for deliberately listening to his family conversation.
Fate didn’t really help Mary much because that day, in fact just a few minutes after, when she was coming out of the petrol station, just on the way out of the shopping complex, Anthony came out of the supermarket car park and she ended up driving behind him. She didn’t intend to do that but the road she could use as an alternative route was closed so she followed him until they reached and he entered an alley behind his house. She had never noticed the alley before but, now that she knew about it, she wondered if she could see his back garden from there. Did they have as many roses as he had on the front? Were they also of the fragrant kind?
Mary tried very hard to avoid thinking about Anthony but living in a small town she had no choice, especially when it came to events like the school fairs. She always ran the cake stall and anyone buying a cake would come to her stand. At the Summer School Fair, he turned up with his children, but no sign of his wife. “One banana cake for my Dad and two cookies for me and my brother.” the little girl explained.
Mary was secretly pleased that he liked the banana cake. It was her own recipe and she was flattered when the boy came back for “Another delicious banana cake, please.”
As the weeks passed Mary was beginning to worry about her “addiction” to spying on Anthony and every time she saw him her heart jumped and she felt a wave of heat through her face. She couldn’t tell anyone about her obsession with Anthony because they would think she was weird. Mary was so concerned with her fixation that she became quite forgetful and somehow, no matter how important the task was, her thoughts would wonder to her problem and she would stop paying attention to what she was doing.
She began to lose things. First they were only garden tools. She must have bagged them with all the weeds. Then she lost one shoe of her favourite pair but it wasn’t until she thought she had lost a library book only to found out that she had returned it to the library that she realised how bad things really were.
She rang the doctors and arranged for an appointment. The doctor told her that sometimes these things happen and if she worried too much it would increase the tension and create a vicious circle. He asked her if she wanted to be referred her to a counsellor but she declined. She didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy and living in such a small town someone was bound to find out that she was seeing a shrink.
Instead, she started writing a diary where she explained how she felt about things. She could not help feeling like a bad person.
Just before Christmas Michael’s school announced they had been selected to sing in the and Michael would be doing a solo performance. On the day of the service she went along and, as she entered the church, she noticed Anthony sitting on a pew at the far left with his daughter and son. She sat not far behind them and she noticed how lovely his singing voice was and how he knew all the lyrics of the hymns. She was almost envious and regretted not having learned them before as she had received the order of the service a few days earlier. She imagined that he was a regular church goer; a good man. He didn’t deserve her stalking him like that.
Things came to a boil on Christmas Day when Mary and her family went for a walk on Sandgate beach to recover from the rather lavish Christmas lunch. As they walked along the beach she heard Anthony’s voice. She looked around but couldn’t see him. She could swear she had heard him singing Jingle Bells. Mary was so upset with herself that she claimed to have a head ache and walked back home on her own, leaving Michael with Simon and his parents.
On New Year’s Eve Mary made a resolution to stop stalking poor Anthony. She knew her curiosity and fixation with the man was getting out of control and she had to stop. Michael was in his last year at Primary School, so she thought it would be for the best if she gave in to his increasingly insistent request of walking to school on his own.
Mary felt very lonely and the long hours in the house, deliberately avoiding Anthony, were somewhat depressing. Don’t get me wrong, she didn’t miss Anthony. She missed being able to go out and be free to come and go as she pleased but unless she controlled her fascination with the man, she would not be really free. But she was a good person and she would do whatever it took to stop stalking the man like that.
As the days passed, Mary started feeling lower and lower and, to get her out more often, Simon bought them a dog which she had to walk twice a day. Having the dog didn’t help though because although she took him out after Anthony had left for work, the last walk was always in the evening and she didn’t want to bump into Anthony and go back to her stalking days.
Twice he had overtaken her on his way to the Ship Inn, the local pub, and she was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
Then, Valentine’s Day was a disaster. Someone left thirty three roses at her house with a note saying: “For all the years I missed not being with you”. Simon was very jealous but eventually dropped the subject when she pointed out to him that she was thirty five so the roses were obviously not meant for her and someone had got the address mixed up.
She knew it was her fault that Simon was so suspicious. He knew her too well not to realise that something was going on and it was bothering her. It was an awful Valentine’s Day and on the following Sunday they had yet another fight. After almost an entire day crying she decided to take the dog for an extra long walk just after Sunday dinner. She walked all the way up the hill, avoiding Anthony’s house then all the way up to the woods. Mary was quite unlucky because at the end of her hour long walk, as she turned back onto the footpath that crossed the woods, on her way back home, she saw his car parked on the secluded car park on the left.
Mary’s curiosity was immediately roused and, looking through the trees, she saw Anthony walking in the woods, taking photographs. For all the hours she had spent thinking about Anthony, he never struck her as a keen photographer. She reminded herself of her New Year’s resolution and walked faster hoping the dog didn’t bark at the light of the flash.
Mary tried not to dwell on it but couldn’t help thinking about what she had learnt about Anthony that day: he was obviously a nature-lover because only someone who loved birds would spend so much on a good pair of binoculars like the ones she saw hanging around his neck. She also thought he must have had more money then she had initially thought as his camera looked rather expensive with one of those big pricey lenses attached to it.
She went home feeling even edgier than before. She considered telling Simon about her awful secret but eventually decided against it. Things were bad enough as they were. They were both too tense and confessing would only make things worse. Besides, Simon would not understand that there was no sexual motivation behind her behaviour; it was just plain curiosity. Nothing more, nothing less.
That evening when Simon offered to take the dog out for its last walk, Mary was relieved. She laid in bed thinking about her diary and contemplated writing about how she fell but she was determined to stop stalking the man and the best thing to do was not to think about him at all. So, instead, she made herself a cup of tea and watched the news. She really meant it this time; she wasn’t going to stalk Anthony ever again.
After that, Simon started taking the dog for its last walk of the day every day, unaware that he was helping to release the pressure that Mary was under.Steadily their relationship began to improve.
At the beginning of May, Simon told her he was taking her on a romantic weekend to . Simon wanted to celebrate their wedding anniversary in style and told her to go and get a new dress and some pampering so she started preparing for the trip. She had spent too long in the house and had also put on almost a stone in weight.
On the week before leaving for , Mary had a new hair cut, a manicure and bought a new dress that fitted her a little bit better. On the day before the trip she went out to buy some new underwear. As she was about to pay, she saw Anthony crossing the shop towards the counter but she controlled herself to not look back and find out where he was going, what he was wearing or who he was with. She continued to chat to the lady serving her in the counter telling her all about the trip to and forgot about Anthony.
When Mary got home back from the shops, she made herself a cup of tea, sat on the sofa and holding her old diary she began to tear page by page, throwing each one of them into the fireplace, watching while they burned. Her days of stalking Anthony Settlefield were over!
That night, when Simon was out with the dog, and while Mary drove Michael to stay with her in-laws while they were in , stones were thrown at the back windows of her house, breaking several panes of glass and one of the large panels of the patio door. The police were called and they suspected of a group of youngsters wondering around the houses in Sandgate causing trouble. They asked Simon to install a light at the back and maybe grow a tall hedge at the back.
“They usually deter intruders.” They explained.
Simon was so upset that he didn’t want to leave the house on its own. They never made to and instead had a romantic weekend at home.
The weeks passed and she did everything she could to avoid having a situation where she was compelled to find out more about Anthony. She was successful too, because in the following months, apart from one time at the Summer Fair, she didn’t see Anthony again.
Months passed and Mary slowly forgot about her fixation with Anthony Settlefield. Then, one afternoon, Mary heard the front door bell ring, seemingly with more urgency than usual.
“Mrs Daulby? Mary Daulby?” The two police officers stood on her porch.
“Oh my God, did something happen to Michael or Simon?” Mary saw the pity in the policewoman’s eyes.
“It is not related to them, Mrs Daulby.” The lady sounded sympathetic.
“Can we come inside, please?” Her male colleague sounded serious.
Mary could not think what would the police want with her and as she had not thought about Anthony for such a long time, her guilty conscience never imagined that the police were there because of Anthony Settlefield.
“This is about Anthony Settlefield, ma’am.”
Suddenly Mary felt her face burning and her throat closing and she knew she was about to cry. She had thought she had put Anthony Settlefield behind her.
“Don’t worry, dear.” The policewoman sat next to her and put her arm around her. “We know all about what he has been doing to you.”
“You should have called us sooner.” The policeman said.
“I didn’t realise…” Mary sobbed.
“I know… most people don’t realise that we can do something about stalkers.” The policewoman interrupted.
A glass of water appeared in front of her. “You will be alright.”
Mary slowly sipped the water trying to understand why the police were being so nice about her stalking Anthony.
“Stalking is a serious offence, Mrs Daulby.” The male officer passed a box of tissue to Mary.
“He has been arrested now, dear.” The police lady pulled a tissue out of the box and handed it to Mary. “He has been arrested and we have thousands of photos and items that we believe to be yours in his possession.”
Mary stared at the policeman. “What are you saying exactly?”
“By the evidence in his garage and shed, he must have been stalking you for over four years. If he plays guilty, which we think he will, you won’t even need to see him in court.”
Word count: 3120 words
