It was Matthew Crane who seemed to glow in her eyes each time she stared at me in that challenging way. A reminder of my feebleness; my mistakes. During the past month, she’d grown in every way. Went to bed with cloth curlers in her hair and mentioned Stanley more times than she should. Been given the new dresses she’d asked for and just days ago, borrowed my lipstick without asking. And there was something else, just as worrying. My monthlies still hadn’t come.
*
Ten minutes later, after a hurried, subdued late lunch, Will, Mollie and Walter Bulling went over to the Dutch barn to check the pigs weren’t frightened by what seemed like artillery fire from above. Fierce lightning and deep, bellowing thunder, the like we’d not known for three years when a grove of fine elms in the New Forest had been struck, and several cattle killed.
I stayed in the kitchen with my son who sat listlessly at the table using a wet forefinger to gather up crumbs.
“Buck,” I began gently. “It would help me if you could answer this question honestly. Does Mollie ever speak about wanting to see Stanley Bulling again?”
He looked up with surprise on his equally brown face, so like his father before that crowded troop ship had borne him away.
“What if she has? He’s alright.”
My heart seemed to falter and not simply because of his opinion, but his tone. Ever since he and his sister had met that good-for-nothing, both had become insolent. Rude, almost unrecognisable from our days in Swayhurst.
“I’m glad you think so, now please answer my question.”
“In her sleep, she does. All the time if you must know. Keeps me awake.” He pushed his overgrown, tousled hair off his forehead. Poked at both nostrils then sneezed.
My “bless you,” was automatic. Shamefully, I didn’t mean it, and was tempted to say so when a commotion from outside made us both jump up. A man shouting over the storm.
“Where’s Stanley Bulling?” he demanded. “Where are you hiding him? Because if so, that’s a criminal offence.”
Just then, three dripping wet figures entered the kitchen. All except one sloughed off their coats as the stranger, a thin, middle-aged man, stood in the doorway, wiping his spectacles with a handkerchief. I took Mollie’s and put it over the back of my chair. A growing tension in the air.
“No use accusin’ us! Stanley’s a grown bor.” Walter Bulling shouted in return. “And good riddance.”
“What’s he been up to now?” his wife barked from the top of the stairs.
“Now isn’t the right word. For the past month, there’s been neither hide nor hair of him.” The man returned his spectacles to his nose, moved a little more into the kitchen. “And the longer he’s missing, the worse things will be.”
“Please, what’s your name?” I butted in, alarmed by his obvious distress. Wondering too, what on earth Will was doing.
“Dr. Lovell from Myrtle Villa,” said Anna Bulling. “And the day he brings us good news will be an odd day indeed.”
“And you are?” he faced me. A man with surprisingly kindly eyes. Interest in his voice.
“Mrs. Sarah Parminter, and this is our daughter Mollie and son Buck. My husband’s still outside. We’ve been working here almost a month.”
“I said, what’s Stanley been up to now?” His mother barked again.
“I could start with how he’s just killed my dog as I was giving him a lift to Telfer Cross.”
“He’d never do anything like that,” interrupted Mollie. “He was really kind to me and Buck.”
Dr. Lovell ignored this intrusion, and before I could tell her to be quiet, added,
“but the more urgent matter is that he’s diseased and most likely with the generalised Lepromatous. But there is the tuberculoid form and borderline dinomorphous with the same characteristics as…”
Leopromatous? Leprosy? What else?
“Speak English,” Walter Bulling broke in rudely as I shivered.
“Hadn’t you noticed Stanley’s runny eyes? The mucus in his nose? Heard it in his throat? And as for that leg, if it doesn’t get treated soon, the nerves will fail, and it may have to be removed.”
“Runny eyes? Mucus?” My arm went around Buck’s heaving shoulders. “Are you sure? Really sure?”
Will suddenly appeared, hatless. Hair like sealskin against his head, eyes roaming from the doctor to the rest of us, then fixed on me. “Just another stick to beat him with when he can’t answer back. His name’s mud already. Why make it worse?”
“She’s jealous,” said Mollie, eyeing me then ducking behind Will. “Why? Because she knows we like him.”
I felt my cheeks begin to burn. I let go of Buck and was about to step forwards when Dr Lovell did it for me. Fear and anger on his bird-boned face. Will, not she, his target.
“Mr. Parminter, you have a wife and young family here,” he said. “They could be in the gravest danger if Stanley Bulling has unwittingly or otherwise infected them…”
Or otherwise?
A sudden, violent thunderclap seemed to rock the farmhouse. Ann Bulling let out a frightened cry and crouched down on the top stair accompanied by a a trickle of urine darkening the wood.
“And as for you, Mr. and Mrs. Bulling,” he went on, “you don’t have youth on your side. Any of you who’ve been in close contact with him, should come to Vesper house tomorrow first thing. It possesses - how shall I say - facilities which the Church is, for the time being, allowing me to use. I’ll keep the morning clear for you, and we can go from there.”
“My place is here,” Will puffed out his chest, deliberately avoiding me. Pointing at the children. “Same for them.”
Blood leached from my face. My heart slowed down. This kitchen with its meat hooks, stained tiles and stone flags had become the home of nightmares.
“Buck’s had a blocked nose and runny eyes for two weeks now. It’s getting worse,” I said. “And you know it.”
“No, it isn’t,” piped up Mollie, still shielded by Will. “As I said before, he’s a baby and just likes attention.”
Doctor Lovell turned to me. Strain in his eyes. “Bring him, and yourself, and your daughter. Also,” he looked around at everyone. “Should the elusive Stanley re-appear, I’m ordering that you tie him up and call the police. If you don’t, in a year’s time this farm will be deserted.”
*
Forgetting I’d no coat nor umbrella, I ran out after him, under sizzling lightning and the Heavens still crashing overhead. I stopped by his car where, for some reason, he was peering in through the rain-streaked window at the back seat.
“Max my dog used to sit there,” he whispered. “For the past ten years, he’d come everywhere with me. Stanley Bulling killed him. I’ve rarely seen such callousness and hope never to again.”
“I’m so sorry. And you can see how our twelve-year-old daughter is so taken with the brute.”
“Indeed. But she’s young and impressionable. Try not to worry about such childishness. It’s her physical health that needs safeguarding.”
“That was a terrible thing to say before you left,” I said, aware of my wet skin beneath my clothes. “Did you mean it?”
He half-turned, enough for me to see in the poor light that he’d been crying.
“It was, and I did. Look, Mrs. Parminter, I’d ask you to get inside out of the weather, but Stanley Bulling sat on that passenger seat and there could still be contamination, even though I’ve disinfected it several times. I can only assume he was infected by Angelid Menelos, the murdered Mauritian, because despite the Bullings’ denial, he’d worked for them for a month. I’ve a reliable local witness who’s also spoken to the Reverend Beecham.”
“Why a Reverend?”
An uncomfortable pause followed, filled with yet another burst of turmoil from above. I was soaked through, but barely noticed.
“His church has sustained Vesper House for seventy-five years. There aren’t many of them left in England now.”
“Them?”
“Leper Houses.”
*
Those two words entered my heart like two spears and stayed there while the downpour continued to drum on the car roof, on our heads, on the ground where yellow-brown rivulets gurgled down towards the farm’s open gate. In the distance, I could just make out Will with Walter Bulling walking heads bent, towards that wretched pit in Parson’s Field.
“What if Buck and Mollie are victims?” My voice thin, pathetic. “I should have been a better mother. Kept my eyes and ears open, instead of feeling sorry for myself all the time…”
He patted my arm.
“I wish more mothers were like you. And as for tomorrow, please bring yourself and the children to Myrtle Villa first, then the others.”
“My husband and the Bullings?” I cut in. “They’ll just dig their heels in even more. You saw how Will was.”
“While they have heels, perhaps. But meanwhile, Leprosy is a public health matter, taken very seriously by His Majesty’s Government. They could be forcibly isolated maybe somewhere far away. Vesper House has currently only six beds.” He peered at me. Touched my arm again. “Do the arithmetic, Sarah. Someone is bound to lose out.”
“Me?”
“Not if I see you tomorrow.”
“And you?”
Another pause, equally uncomfortable.
“I’m waiting for tests to come back from London any day now.”
*
The doctor shook out his dripping mackintosh, opened his driver’s door and seated himself by the steering wheel. Will had talked more and more of buying such a car for us, especially on pay days with a clutch of worn bank notes in his hand. I’d tried to argue we could start a business in Diss. A small, friendly town with opportunities for sale. But no, he wanted the sun on his back. The wind in his hair, and the longer we stayed here, the less possible any alternative seemed.
Besides, a creeping danger had entered our lives. Not only in the form of an incurable disease, but a matter I couldn’t put off any longer. As the doctor began to drive away, I ran alongside, knocking on his window. He stopped, keeping the engine running. Wound down the glass a couple of inches.
“Yes?
No.
“I’m sorry. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
But that was a lie. Matthew Crane’s child beneath my tight corset, had begun to form. Like his daughter, impatient to enter our world. Instead, I asked the doctor to look out for a big-boned, young man, new to the area, with distinctive fair hair and a slight northern accent. Someone like Stanley Bulling, with a black, busy heart.
50. NICHOLAS.
Tuesday 15th November 1988. 9 p.m.
Fuck that bloody old woman. She had to survive, didn’t she? To have given the Fuzz an even more detailed description of me before she was supposed to. And George Chisholm wasn’t here, was he? A career in ruins? Oh no. I was the ‘fall guy.’ Fallen alright. In a custody cell at Diss Police Station.
How demeaning was that?
As for my solicitor, a Freemason like Chisholm, I was better off representing myself. Another thuggish Midlander called DS Morris who’d soon relieved me of the Browning, disagreed. How my ‘belligerent’ attitude could land me twenty years in ‘The Scrubs.’ Charming.
And what about that butter-wouldn’t-melt sister of mine? The cunning vixen. I again wondered where the one who’d had the misfortune to call her mother could be. And why had nobody, not even Stephen ever told me or Vivienne about his real identity?
Just then, he glided into my mind like a shark moving towards its prey. A black fin parting the murky waters, coming closer and closer…
Would he be delivering the coup de grȃce with his perfect teeth as well? Given how our relationship had changed, putting me in yet another tricky situation, I wouldn’t be surprised. I then prayed no-one would find the copies of Alpha Male and Gays to Go that I’d hidden in the back of my bedroom wardrobe. He’d been happy enough to experiment with various coils, ropes, and incense-scented lubricants, but I’d read enough about young homosexuals to know how they jump like grasshoppers from one bed to the next, with HIV all part of the Russian roulette.
I’d been discarded.
“Why hide your own sister in an unheated lock-up?” The Thug had quizzed me the moment I’d first been holed up in here. “And why try and kill a harmless old woman in such a callous way? I want to hear it for myself.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand a wolf in sheep’s clothing when I see one.”
“That’s defamation and you know it.”
He’d then ordered me to remove my crucifix. “We can’t be too careful. And your tie and shoelaces if you please.”
Idiot.
“At nine o’clock you’ll be coming with us to Norwich Community Hospital so that not only can Miss Olive Thompson make a formal identification, but then on to the morgue in the Norfolk & General.”.
“Morgue? Why?”
“And perhaps on the way, Reverend,” he ignored me, “we can find out exactly who’s pushing you from behind.”
*
There’s no respect any more. The way he’d said’Reverend’ proved it. If he’d said ‘Imam’ or ‘Rabbi’ in that same tone, he’d be where I was. Fuck him too. And my short-sighted grandfather, cutting dangerous corners.
Along came supper, but how could I eat anything, knowing that George Chisholm would be finalising his notes for tomorrow’s meeting with the Bishop? Another shark in the water.
“Best keep yer strength up,” remarked the rat-faced peasant who’d slapped down my tray, slopping the faintly yellowish water out of its clear, plastic cup.
Having to face that nosy old crone who’d betrayed me was bad enough. As was…
“Ready?”
*
The Thug applied handcuffs as though he’d done nothing else with his life.
“One is never ready,” I said, stepping out into the gloomy night. The handcuffs were too tight. The black van waiting by the door too black, smelling of fart and fear.
Like me.
Tomorrow morning, Chisholm’s meeting would be starting. I could already see his twitching lips. That mean smile while delivering the news of my complete unsuitabilty for any further role within the Anglican Church, let alone haul a Bishop’s robe over my head. I’d failed to deliver what he’d wanted. Failed to name him as my persecutor. Failed in every way. I felt old and tired.
Come unto me all ye who heavy labour, and I will give you rest…
Fuck Him too…
*
I’d been to the Norfolk Community Hospital in Bowthorpe Road on a number of occasions to deliver Communion and offer words of comfort to those of my parishioners who’d found themselves there whilst on holiday or for other reasons. To see the familiar faces of of doctors, nurses and other staff as I passed by, made my bowels begin to loosen.
“I need the lavatory.”
“Everyone says that,” said The Thug.
“I’ll take him,” offered the rat-like Fuzz still attached to my left hand. “Could do with a leak myself.”
“No. I will. My privilege. Especially since we found several items of a serious pornographic nature at your home. My, my, Reverend,” he let out a sick chuckle. “Were you donor or recipient, I wonder?”
Sicko.
“We also found your Fiesta missing from the barn. How do explain that?”
“Ask Piotr Polanyi.”
“Your nephew.”
“If you must.”
He began to change places with the Constable. His right hand and wrist twice the size of the unimpressive minion. His aftershave more pungent, bringing me to touch cloth inside my trousers. But before he could click the cuff shut over his bigger wrist bone, I ducked round him and made for the nearby lift.
Its wide door still lay open. But no thanking God this time. He was nowhere.
The door closed, shutting out the shouts and fists banging against metal.
Up, up…
> …and on the third day He rose again into Heaven…
I was soon out on the wet, flat roof, littered with the parerphanalia of air conditioning and other structures - all wire, concrete and flickering security lights like the aftermath of some catastrophe. I’d always liked the sound of that particular word, and here it was, made real with warm shit running down my thighs, thinned by the soft rain as I mounted the parapet facing west, taking in a glimpse of this and that. Pockets of green subsumed by housing, and beyond these, the lit-up cathedral, the castle and its rotunda. Streets full of winking lights.
“Stop there!”
Footsteps running.
Don’t look round.
“Let’s talk, Nicholas”
“What about?”
For I was empty, save for the worn, church key in my hand. The yellow-brown stuff sticking to my shoes, smelling earthy, organic, like the soil around Wombwell Lodge. A waiting grave.
My grave…
There it lay. Ready and waiting, with all my enemies gathered round. Even Christ as he’d come to me in dreams, wagging a stern, brown finger.
“Nicholas? Don’t!... Don’t… Don’t!” Came a voice from somewhere, but
suddenly, once I’d spread out my arms and jumped into the dark, all was lightness. All peace. I was finally free of my grandfather’s sins. Of ‘King George’s’ grinding weight on my back. Free as air.
Forever…
51. STANLEY.
Monday 13th December 1920. 11.50 p.m.
‘Cept for its windmills, Holland had straightaway felt like more like home than I’d expected, what with all them same flat fields and canals. But with more people around, mostly older than me, wearing wooden clogs and mostly fair or grey-haired. Plenty of wooden pipes too, and cigars, which I’d soon made up me mind to sample.
Thanks to another old farmer, I’d fetched up at a plain litle village called Vechthaven where I’d found work at the local woodyard on the banks of a river called De Vecht, whatever that meant. If you asked me to draw a map of where this were, I wouldn’t have the foggiest. What I did know were that Amsterdam were near where Seth Barker’s boat, Gladsome Gal had dropped me. Penniless
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