The Torso in the Town

by Simon Brett

  On the other side of the division was the pitifully small collection of memorabilia from Graham Chadleigh’s wartime life. There was a letter written to him in the trenches by his father. There was a cap-badge and a service revolver. That was all that had been recovered.

  It was the totality of his absence that could still shock visitors to Bracketts at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Like many others in the muddy holocaust of Passchendaele, Graham Chadleigh had just vanished off the face of the earth, literally blown to smithereens. That was why his brother’s famous poem carried such emotional impact. ‘Threnody for the Lost’ was a powerful evocation of bereavement, particularly the pain of the mourner left with nothing tangible to mourn.

  No grave, no lichened tombstone, graven plaque,

  No yew-treed cross beneath its cloak of moss,

  No sense but absence, unforgiving dark,

  The stretching void that is eternal loss.

  No one of Carole Seddon’s generation could have got through school without having learned those lines, and the revival of interest in the Great War towards the end of the twentieth century had ensured that the name of Esmond Chadleigh was not forgotten.

  But, as was being made clear at the Board of Trustees meeting that autumn afternoon, though his name was familiar, it was not familiar enough. The teetering finances of Bracketts required the profile of Esmond Chadleigh to be a lot higher than it currently was. Without a substantial injection of cash, closure of the estate as a heritage site was a very real possibility.

  Gina Locke spelled out the reality in typically uncompromising style. ‘Unless something happens, Bracketts might be closing at the end of October for the last time.’

  Gina was mid- to late thirties, slight and dark, but with undeniable charisma. Carole had met her at a dinner party in the nearby town of Fedborough, and been immediately taken by the enthusiasm with which she talked about her new job as Director of Bracketts. It was that enthusiasm which had carried Carole into her current position as a Trustee, and which made her feel guilty for her recent thoughts of escaping the role. (But then a suspicion that was hardening into a reality made her feel less guilty. She was increasingly certain that she’d been taken on board – and indeed on to the Board at Bracketts – to provide more support for Gina Locke’s personal agenda. If the Director thought she was going to get subservience from Carole Seddon, she couldn’t have been more wrong.)

  ‘Aren’t you being a little bit alarmist there?’ The languid voice that challenged Gina Locke’s pessimism belonged to Graham Chadleigh-Bewes, one of the two Trustees who were blood relatives of Esmond Chadleigh. He was the great man’s grandson. Chubby, in his fifties, with a round body which threatened to spill out of the chair in which it sat, Graham Chadleigh-Bewes had one of those faces whose babyishness is only accentuated by the advance of wrinkles and the retreat of hair. His permanent expression was one of mild pique, as though someone else had just appropriated a treat he had been promising himself. Apparently he had had some minor literary career of his own, but most of his energies were now focused on perpetuating the image of his grandfather.

  The other Trustee from the Chadleigh family was Graham’s Aunt Belinda, the younger of Esmond’s daughters. (Her sister Sonia, Graham’s mother, had died of a brain tumour in 1976.) Though not yet seventy, Belinda Chadleigh behaved as though she were a lot older. She never failed to attend the Trustees’ Meetings, but always failed to make much impression once she was there. She was a few lines behind the general discussion and on the rare occasions she spoke it was usually to clarify something she had misunderstood. Once she had had the point spelled out to her, the unchanging vagueness in her bleached blue eyes suggested that the explanation had left her none the wiser.

  ‘I don’t think I’m being alarmist,’ Gina Locke replied coolly to Graham Chadleigh-Bewes’ interruption. ‘I think I’m being realistic.’

  Lord Beniston cleared his throat testily, unwilling to have even that amount of conversation not conducted through the chair. ‘It would be useful, Gina, if you could give the Trustees a quick overview of the current state of Bracketts’ finances.’

  ‘Exactly what I was about to do.’

  This reply, though not overtly rude, still didn’t contain the amount of deference Lord Beniston would have liked. He harrumphed again and said, ‘Let’s hear the worst then.’

  ‘Right.’ Gina Locke picked up a sheaf of papers in front of her. ‘You’ve all been circulated copies of the last six months’ accounts, which I think are self-explanatory. If there are any details you’d like to pick up on, I’m more than happy to give you fuller information.’ She allowed a short pause, but no one filled it with any enquiry. ‘Basically, as you’ll see, there is a worrying shortfall between income and expenditure.’

  ‘Couldn’t a lot of that be put down to the foot-and-mouth epidemic? Keeping the visitors away?’ The new voice was marinated in Cheltenham Ladies College and money. It belonged to Josie Freeman, whose husband John had started a very successful car-parts franchising operation in the late nineteen-eighties. His shrewdly calculated marriage had been the first step in a gentrification process which had recently been crowned by an OBE ‘for services to industry’. Josie brought to their partnership the class her husband lacked, and by way of gratitude he passed on to her the responsibility of channelling a part of his considerable income into the kind of good causes suitable to the status towards which he aspired.

  Her acceptance of a Trusteeship at Bracketts was a part of that process. Josie Freeman had access to a whole group of equally well-groomed and well-blonded wives of the wealthy, just the kind of essential fund-raising contacts that Carole Seddon lacked. Because of her status, Josie was constantly approached by the outstretched begging-bowls of heritage sites, theatres, hospitals, hospices, animal charities and a thousand-and-one other worthy causes. The skill with which she selected those to whom the Freeman endorsement should be granted or withheld, and her masterly control of her calendar of charitable events, would have qualified her for a diplomatic posting in the most volatile of the world’s trouble-spots.

  ‘Foot-and-mouth had an effect,’ Gina Locke replied crisply, ‘as it did all over the heritage industry, but it only exacerbated problems which were already established here at Bracketts. A place like this can never be kept going by the money from visitor ticket sales alone.’

  ‘It used to be,’ said Graham Chadleigh-Bewes with some petulance. ‘When it was just run as a family concern. Before management experts were brought in.’

  Gina ignored the implied criticism in his emphasis. She was too shrewd an operator to get diverted into minor squabbles. ‘Bracketts was a much smaller operation then. And staffed almost entirely by Volunteers. Now that it’s a real business with professional staff, obviously the outgoings are much greater.’

  ‘But what about the atmosphere of the place?’ asked Esmond Chadleigh’s grandson, in the mumble of a resentful schoolboy wanting to be heard by his friends but not the teacher.

  Again Gina didn’t let it get to her. The Trustees’ Meetings every couple of months were just part of the Director’s job, a boring part perhaps, but something she had to get through. If she was polite, kept her temper and made sure that the Trustees could never complain that they didn’t have enough information, then she could soon get back to running Bracketts the way she wanted.

  ‘So,’ demanded Lord Beniston with the aristocratic conviction that there must be an answer to everything, ‘where are we going to get the money from? I’ve forgotten, what’s the state of play with the Lottery?’

  ‘Come to the end of the road there, I’m afraid. After all that work we put into the application, the answer came back last month and it was a no.’

  ‘What was a no?’ asked Belinda Chadleigh, picking up on the word and making a random entrance into the discussion.

  ‘The Lottery.’

  ‘Ah, I’ve never won anything on that either,’ she said, and retired back into her s
hell.

  From long experience, the Trustees all ignored the old lady’s interpolations. ‘Any reasons given for the refusal?’ asked Lord Beniston.

  ‘They didn’t reckon the Bracketts project offered enough “ethnic diversity and community access”.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Graham Chadleigh-Bewes agreed bitterly. ‘And no doubt all their literature budget has been paid out to one-legged black lesbian story-tellers.’

  Gibes of that sort about British arts funding’s predilection for minority groups were so hackneyed that his words, like his aunt’s, prompted no reaction at all amongst the Trustees.

  ‘Any other grant applications out at the moment?’

  Gina shrugged. ‘Trying a few private trusts, as ever, but I wouldn’t give a lot for our chances. That kind of money may be available for big projects, new buildings and so on – not for the kind of continuing financial support we need here at Bracketts.’

  This prompted a response from a short man whose curly hair and pepper-and-salt beard were a reminder of those Victorian pictures which still look like a face whichever way up they’re held. ‘Surely our plans for the Esmond Chadleigh Museum qualify as a big project – and as a new building, come to that?’

  Carole had been introduced to him at the previous meeting. George Ferris, former Assistant County Librarian. In his retirement, he had become involved in a variety of literature-related projects, including writing a book with the catchy title, How To Get The Best From The Facilities Of The County Records Office, of which he was inordinately proud. George Ferris had been asked to become a Trustee of Bracketts on the assumption that he would bring some literary know-how to the group. On the evidence Carole had seen so far, all he had brought was a nit-picking literalness.

  This mention of the Esmond Chadleigh Museum wrought a change in the Board of Trustees. There was a soft rumble of recognition and anticipation. Members shifted in their chairs or straightened agendas. The proposed Museum was a thorny issue, and one which the meeting could not avoid discussing. Though architectural plans had been drawn up and work started on clearing the old kitchen garden where the structure was to be built, the project did not yet have the full support of all the Trustees.

  The Museum polarized the differences between two schools of thought on the committee, because it was intended to broaden the appeal of Bracketts beyond Esmond Chadleigh himself. The collection would incorporate exhibitions about other Catholic writers of his period, and there would also be a strong South Stapley local history element. The Museum would also have a Visitors’ Centre, incorporating an academic library, a coffee shop, a new relocated gift shop and a performance space for literary events.

  Those in favour of the scheme were certain that this development would increase the appeal of Bracketts to tourists and scholars alike. Those who opposed it – led with ineffectual vehemence by Graham Chadleigh-Bewes – saw the very idea as a betrayal of all that Esmond Chadleigh had stood for. The appeal of Bracketts should be its focus on his life, not that of his contemporaries. (His grandson’s hypersensitivity on the subject was perhaps inherited. During his lifetime, Esmond Chadleigh had always had a chip on his shoulder about what he perceived as neglect by the literary establishment, and the greater interest universally shown in his more illustrious peers. For Esmond Chadleigh, in common with most writers, paranoia was never far below the surface.)

  Gina Locke had been prepared for the subject of the Museum to be raised, though a slight tug of annoyance at the corner of her mouth suggested she’d wanted to be the one who raised it. But she quickly recovered and began her pre-emptive strike on the matter.

  ‘Thank you, George. Yes, we had indeed hoped that the Esmond Chadleigh Museum would attract a substantial grant – indeed, that was the basis of our Lottery application – but I’m afraid we didn’t get it, so we’re still looking elsewhere for funding. This is the kind of project for which we need a very big sponsorship. But it’s important that we separate the funding needs of the Museum from the financial requirements for the day-to-day running of Bracketts. I think we—’

  Gina Locke was stopped in her tracks by the clattering open of the dining room door. An impressive woman of about sixty stood in the doorway. She was nearly six foot tall, with dark blue eyes and well-cut white hair; she wore a black trouser-suit. Her wedding finger was clustered with rings. Under one arm she carried a sheaf of cardboard folders; under the other a black leather briefcase.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, everyone,’ she announced in a breezy, cultured accent.

  ‘Ah, Sheila,’ said Lord Beniston, half-rising from his seat in welcome. All the other Trustees seemed to know her too.

  But the person on whom the new arrival had the greatest effect was Gina Locke. All colour drained from her face and through the tight line of her mouth, she hissed, ‘You have no right to be here. You’re no longer a Trustee!’