‘We went out for eighteen months.’
Silence. Evi looked at her watch again.
‘So what do you think of Heptonclough?’ he asked.
Evi was staring straight ahead, determined to look at nothing but the small flight of steps and the tiny street, hardly wider than the span of a man’s arms, that lay opposite. She had a sudden urge to remove her hat again.
‘Very nice,’ she said.
‘First visit?’
‘First and last.’
An iron railing had been fixed into the wall to allow older, less agile people to navigate the steps. Even using it, Evi would struggle to climb steps so steep. Four steps. They might as well be a hundred.
‘Are you sure you’re not concussed? People aren’t usually this rude when they first meet me. Later, quite often, but not right away. How many fingers am I holding up?’
Evi’s head shot round, already opening her mouth to tell him … he was holding up both fists, no fingers in sight. He made a mock start backwards. She raised her right arm to punch him right in the face and to hell with the consequences and …
‘You’re much prettier when you smile.’
… realized it was the very last thing in the world she wanted to do.
‘You’re very pretty when you don’t smile, don’t get me wrong, I just happen to prefer women when they’re smiling. It’s a thing I have.’
She didn’t want to hit him at all. She wanted to do something quite different. Even here, in the street, where the whole world could see …
‘Shut up,’ she managed.
He drew two clasped fingers across his mouth in a zipping motion, a silly, childlike gesture. His mouth was still stretched wide. She looked away before her own smile could become too … too much like his.
Silence again. Across the road a cat appeared. It sat on the top step and began cleaning itself.
‘I’ve always wished I could do that,’ he said.
‘Aah!’ She raised one finger.
‘Sorry.’
Silence. The cat raised one leg and began licking its genitals. The bench they were sitting on began to shake. It was hopeless. She’d be giggling like a teenager in seconds. She turned to him, because at least then she wouldn’t have to watch the cat.
‘Do you live here?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘No, I just work here. I live a few miles down the hill.’
He had light-brown eyes and dark eyelashes, which were really quite striking with that fair hair. Was it ginger? Given time to think about it, ginger seemed too harsh a word for a colour that in this soft September light seemed more like … like … honey?
Glancing down, Evi caught sight of her watch. The ten minutes were up. She twisted her arm around so the watch faced downwards and she couldn’t see it any more. ‘What’s with the two churches?’ she asked.
‘They’re great, aren’t they? Like before and after. OK, brace yourself for the history lesson. Back in the days when the great abbeys ruled England, Heptonclough had one of its own. Building work started in 1193. The church behind us was built first and then the living quarters and farm buildings later.’
He spun round on the bench, so that he was facing the ruined building behind them. Evi did the same, although her left leg had started to hurt quite badly. ‘The abbot’s residence is still standing,’ he went on. ‘It’s a beautiful old medieval building. You can’t quite see it from here, it’s on the other side of the new church. A family called Renshaw live in it now.’
Evi was thinking back to school history lessons. ‘So was Henry VIII responsible for the abbey falling into ruins?’ she asked.
The man nodded. ‘Well, he certainly didn’t help,’ he agreed. ‘The last abbot of Heptonclough, Richard Paston, was involved in the rebellion against Henry’s ecclesiastical policies and was tried on a charge of treason.’
‘Executed?’ asked Evi.
‘Not far from this spot. And most of his monks. But the town continued to thrive. In the sixteenth century it was the centre of the South Pennine woollen trade. It had a Cloth Hall, a couple of banks, inns, shops, a grammar school and eventually a new church, built to one side of the old one, because the townsfolk had decided the ruins were rather picturesque.’
‘They still are,’ admitted Evi.
‘Then, some time in the late eighteenth century, Halifax emerged as the new superpower in the wool trade and Heptonclough lost its place at the top of the tree. All the old buildings are still here, but they’re mainly private houses now. Most of them owned by the same family.’
‘The new church doesn’t have a tower,’ Evi pointed out. ‘In every other respect it’s like a miniature copy of the old building, but with just those four little towers instead.’
‘The town council ran out of money before the new church could be finished,’ her companion replied. ‘So they built one small tower to house a solitary bell and then, because that looked a bit daft, they built the other three to even up the balance. They’re purely decorative though, you can’t even access them. I think the plan was always to knock them down and build a big one when the money was available, but…’ He shrugged. The money to build a tower had clearly never materialized.
It was no good. Every minute she stayed increased the trouble waiting for her back at the yard. ‘I’m fine now, really,’ she said. ‘And I have to get back. Do you think you could …’
‘Of course.’ He stood up, rather quickly, as though he had, after all, only been being polite. Evi pushed herself up. Once on her feet, her eyes were on the same level as the fair hair peeking out over the neck of his vest.
‘How do you want to do this?’ he asked.
She tilted her head back to look at him properly and thought that she really wouldn’t mind being carried back down the hill again. A stab of pain ran down the back of her thigh. ‘May I take your arm?’ she said.
He held out his right elbow and, like a courting couple from the old days, they walked down the hill. Even with streams of fire running down her left leg they reached Duchess far too quickly.
‘Hi Harry,’ said a small voice. ‘Whose horse is this?’
‘This noble steed belongs to the beautiful Princess Berengaria who is riding back now to her castle on the hill,’ said the man who answered to the name of Harry, and who seemed to be looking at someone on the other side of the wall. ‘Do you want a leg up, Princess?’ he asked, turning back to Evi.
‘Could you just hold her head still?’
‘Spurned again,’ Harry muttered as he loosened the reins and passed them back over Duchess’s head. Then he held the nose band as Evi lifted her left foot and placed it in the stirrup. Three little bounces and she was up. She could see the small boy, about five or six years old, with dark-red hair. In his right hand he was holding a plastic light-sabre, in his left was something she recognized.
‘Hello,’ she said. He stared back at her, no doubt thinking that she really didn’t look much like a princess, certainly not a beautiful one. Being a small boy, he was probably opening his mouth right now to say exactly that.
‘Is this yours?’ he said instead, holding up the whip Evi had dropped and then forgotten about. ‘I found it in the road.’
Evi smiled and thanked him, as he clambered up on to the wall and held it out. Harry was still holding Duchess’s nose band. He led her down the short, steep hill until they reached Wite Lane. As they turned into the lane she saw the cat was following them, stepping lightly along an old wooden fence. Glancing back, Evi saw the small boy was watching them too.
Harry seemed to have run out of things to say as the cobbles became unkempt and the houses less uniform. They came to the gate at the end of the lane and Harry opened it for her, finally letting go of the nose band.
‘How long will it take you to get back?’ he asked. Behind his head, berries shimmered like rubies in the hedge.
‘Twenty minutes if I trot most of the way and canter the last hundred yards.’
He
made a stern face, like a headmaster addressing an unruly class. ‘How long if you walk sedately?’ The heather at his feet was the colour of mulberries. She’d forgotten how beautiful September could be.
She wouldn’t let herself smile. ‘Thirty-five, forty minutes.’
He looked at his watch, then fished in his pocket and pulled out a card. ‘Phone me by four o’clock,’ he said, passing it to her. ‘If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be calling out the emergency services, the armed forces, the coastguard, every livery yard in a ten-mile radius and the National Farmers Union. It will be embarrassing, for both of us.’
‘And very expensive for you,’ said Evi, tucking the card into the pocket of her shirt.
‘So call.’
‘I’ll call.’
‘Nice meeting you, Princess.’
She squeezed with her right leg, flicked the whip and Duchess, instinctively knowing she was heading for home, set off at an active walk. Evi didn’t look back. Only when she was far enough away to be sure he wouldn’t see her did she sneak the card out of her shirt pocket.
A man she’d just met had insisted she call him. How long since that had happened? He’d held her in his arms. Called her beautiful. She’d wanted to snog him in a public street. She looked at the card. Reverend Harry Laycock, B.A. Dip.Th., it said. Vicar of the United Benefice of Goodshaw Bridge, Loveclough and Heptonclough. There were contact details at the bottom. Duchess walked on and Evi put the card back in her pocket.
He was a vicar.
There simply weren’t words.
11
HARRY LEANED AGAINST THE WALL FOR TEN MINUTES watching the woman ride away. Only when she and the grey horse disappeared into a copse did he turn and walk slowly back to the church. As he passed the new house he could see Alice Fletcher in her sitting-room window, talking on the telephone and watching Joe in the garden. She saw Harry and waved.
He walked through the old gateway and found someone waiting.
It was a young woman, with the grey, prematurely lined face of a heavy smoker or drinker. She wore jeans and a faded long-sleeved T-shirt and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. Above the restraining band it was a greasy mouse-brown, below it stuck out at angles like straw that had been left too long in the sun.
‘That was Dr Oliver, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Was she talking about me?’
Harry looked back at the girl. No make-up. Clothes that weren’t too clean. So, had he missed the first few seconds of this conversation? The bit where she’d said who she was and that it was nice to meet the new vicar?
‘Well, she didn’t mention her name,’ he said after a moment. ‘But now you come to mention it, she did say she was a doctor. Hi, I’m Harry Laycock.’ He held out his hand, but the girl made no move to take it.
‘What did she say about me?’ she demanded to know.
There was something going on here that he wasn’t keeping up with. The woman on the horse had said it was her first visit to the town, hadn’t she? First and last.
‘Why are you smiling? What did she tell you?’
He needed to focus for a second. This girl had an issue. It was as plain as the nose on her very unhealthy-looking face.
‘She didn’t talk about anyone,’ he said. ‘She’d fallen off her horse and she was in shock. But if she’s a doctor …’
‘She’s a psychiatrist.’
‘A what?’ Impossible to keep the surprise from his voice. That grumpy, edgy woman was a … blimey.
‘Well, she didn’t mention that,’ he said, ‘but if she is a psychiatrist, she wouldn’t be allowed to talk about her patients with anyone, it would be —’
‘I’m not a patient. I just see her sometimes.’
‘Right.’ Harry found himself nodding, as though he understood completely. Which he didn’t.
‘Are you the new vicar?’
At last, familiar territory. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m Harry. Reverend Laycock if you want to be formal, which very few people ever are. I think it must be the shorts. And you are …?’
‘Did Alice tell you about me?’
‘Alice?’ Was it him? Had his brain just decided to take the day off?
‘Alice Fletcher. From the new house.’
Light dawning. Are you Gillian?’ he asked.
The girl nodded.
‘She did mention you. I’m so sorry about your loss.’
The girl’s face contracted, grew smaller, her thin lips almost disappeared. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as her eyes left his face and drifted somewhere over his left shoulder.
‘How are you coping?’ asked Harry.
Gillian took a deep breath and her eyes opened wider, momentarily losing their focus. Stupid question. She wasn’t coping. And she was going to ask him why God had taken her child. Out of all the children in the world, why hers? Any second now.
‘I was about to make tea,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve got a kettle in the vestry. Will you join me?’ Gillian stared at him for a second, as though tea was something out of her normal experience, then she nodded. He led her through the ruins of the abbey church and up the flagstones towards St Barnabas’s, trying to remember what Alice had told him.
Gillian – Rogers, Roberts, he couldn’t quite remember – had lost her daughter in a house fire three years previously. She spent her days walking the moors and wandering round the town’s old streets, almost like a living ghost. Alice had met her in the abbey ruins and invited her home for coffee. It was the sort of kind, impulsive and not terribly wise thing that Alice would do. Gillian had accepted and had stayed most of the morning, half-heartedly answering Alice’s attempts at conversation but mainly just watching the children playing.
The church felt chill and damp after the autumn sunshine. ‘You’re cleaning this church by yourself?’ asked Gillian as she and Harry walked up the side aisle.
‘Thankfully, no,’ replied Harry. ‘The diocese arranged a team of industrial cleaners. They’ve just finished. I’m just sorting out cupboards, finding out where everything’s been stored, putting the building back to rights. Alice and the children have been helping me.’
Harry pushed open the door to the vestry and allowed Gillian to precede him inside. He would have to get some chairs in here, maybe a small table. The kettle was still warm, he’d just switched it on when he’d heard the doctor yelling at her horse. By the time he’d found teabags and mugs it had boiled. He poured on hot water, conscious of Gillian hovering just behind him, and added milk and sugar without asking whether she took either. She clearly needed both. Alice had brought over a jumbo packet of chocolate digestives earlier that day. Bless her.
He held a cup out to Gillian. She reached to take it but her small, white hand was shaking violently. The skin above her wrists was crisscrossed with scars. She saw him notice and her face flushed. He withdrew his hand and passed her the biscuits instead.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested, before leading the way back into the nave. He sat down on the front bench of the choir stalls. She joined him and at last he felt confident to hand over the hot drink. He sipped his own gratefully. It was thirsty work: cleaning churches, rescuing foul-mouthed psychiatrists and consoling grief-stricken parishioners. If the day continued along the same lines, he’d be breaking open the communion wine before sun-down.
‘I haven’t had a drink for eight days,’ said Gillian, and for a second, he wasn’t quite … Of course, Alice had mentioned Gillian had been to her GP, that she’d been referred to an alcoholics’ support group, to a psychiatrist specializing in family issues. Who must, of course, be the lady he’d just met. Dr Oliver.
‘Well done,’ said Harry.
‘I feel better,’ said Gillian. ‘I really do. Dr Oliver gave me some pills to help me sleep. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to sleep.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Harry. He sat, his best patient-and-interested look on his face, waiting for what she was going to say next.
‘Do you hav
e faith, Gillian?’ he asked, when he realized she wasn’t going to talk again. Sometimes it was best to get right to the point.
She stared at him as though she didn’t quite …’ You mean, do I believe in God?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ he said. ‘Losing someone we love is very difficult. Even the strongest faith will be tested.’
Her hand was shaking again. The tea would scald her. He reached out, took the mug from her and placed it on the floor.
‘Someone came to see me, after it happened,’ she said. ‘A priest. He said Hayley was with her father in heaven and she was happy and that should comfort me, but how can she be happy without me? She’ll be on her own. She’s two years old and she’s on her own. That’s what I can’t get my head around. She’ll be so lonely.’
‘Have you lost any family members before, Gillian?’ he asked. Are your parents alive?’
She looked puzzled. ‘My dad died when I was small,’ she said. ‘In a car accident. And I had a younger sister who died a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry. What about grandparents? Do you have any?’
‘No, they all died. What…’
He was leaning forward, had taken hold of both her hands. ‘Gillian, there’s a reading that’s given often at funeral services, you may have heard it. It was written by a bishop about a hundred years ago and it compares the death of a loved one to standing on the seashore, watching a beautiful ship sail out of sight on the horizon. Can you picture that for a second, imagine blue sea, a beautiful carved wooden boat, white sails?’
Gillian shut her eyes. She nodded her head.
‘The boat’s getting smaller and smaller and then it disappears over the horizon and someone standing by your side says, "She’s gone.
Tears were forming in the corners of Gillian’s closed eyes.
‘But even though you can’t see her any more, the ship is still there, still strong and beautiful. And just as she disappears from your sight, she’s appearing on other shores. Other people can see her.’
Gillian opened her eyes.
‘Hayley is like that ship,’ said Harry. ‘She may be gone from your sight but she still exists, and in the place where she is now there are people who are thrilled to see her: your dad, your sister, your grandparents. They will take care of her and they will love her, unconditionally, until you can join her again.’
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