Late of This Parish

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘Oh yes, there are moral decisions that even I am faced with,’ he said, looking at her with a kind of pitying understanding. ‘For instance, what should one do if one comes into possession of some potentially damaging information – which could destroy a person – but if not revealed could be equally damaging to others? Where does one’s duty lie then?’

  He knows, she thought, motionless with shock. Somehow he’s found out. No, not found out. Specifically learned from Bernard Quentin who was a Fellow of the same Cambridge college David had recently belonged to.

  It would be better for everyone, himself included, said a voice in her head, if he were to die now. The thought came unbidden into her mind, clear and fully formed. Appalled, it took her a moment or two to admit that in its unrealized state it had been there before, not once, but many times.

  CHAPTER 3

  Wyvering was asleep, its lights extinguished. Below, dark as silk under the moon, the river flowed silently in the broad valley. Down in the beech hollow further along its course six badgers – a boar and a sow and four cubs – came out of their sett one by one and began to make for the clearing where the garden ended just above the river.

  Still and patient through long practice, Catherine Oliver leaned her elbows against the sill of the summerhouse, watched and waited. Disregarding the stiffness in her joints, wrapped in many layers of clothing, a Thermos of hot soup to hand, she had spent many similar nights watching the badgers and other night creatures, just looking, committing to her unfailing memory the lines of their bodies and their movements so that she could later draw them.

  The moon rose higher and an owl swooped silently to the ground. A small animal screamed in death. A few moments later the badgers arrived, lumbering like so many amiable old drunks, grunting and snuffling over the bread and milk, dried fruits and nuts she’d left out for them, a regular source of food they’d come to expect. But tonight the exquisite pleasure of watching them was marred by the thought of the badgers found dead last week. Shot, the RSPCA had said. It was an offence against man’s laws and against nature. She suspected that old Willard was at the bottom of it, that the deed had been done at his instigation, but how could that ever be proved? Inoffensive creatures, the badgers were not rooting up his lawn for spite, only for food, for the leatherjackets and worms under the turf. How could he hate them so? But he did, and he had a gun; he shot grey squirrels from his wheelchair.

  Another thing – how could Denzil Thorne have been such a crass fool as to tell Willard she fed them? Knowing as he must that it was calculated to enrage him?

  Catherine Oliver was generally regarded as an unassuming and forgettable woman (when she was thought of at all as a separate entity from her husband), careful about voicing her opinions, as befitted a clergy wife. There was a gleam in her eye and a twist of irony to her unpainted lips that might have warned her detractors if they had but taken the trouble to look so far. At the moment her mouth was set in a hard, uncompromising line as she watched the badgers. Normally peaceable and tolerant, there were some things about which she was inflexible.

  A sound fell on the night air. Only a soft footfall, but the badgers froze, and then they were gone. A figure in dark rollneck sweater, jeans and tennis shoes appeared in the clearing.

  ‘It’s only me, Ma.’

  ‘Seb! Oh, Seb, you’ve frightened the badgers away.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather see me than the badgers?’

  ‘Not at this particular moment. You’re supposed to be asleep in bed.’

  He laughed softly as the old childhood remonstrance came from her, as though he were still twelve years old. He stood for a moment silhouetted in the moonlight before coming into the summerhouse, a handsome, slimly-built figure just under middle height, the smile on his curly mouth showing very white teeth, his eyebrows winged above his slanting eyes. ‘Thought I’d like to talk to you on your own, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ Catherine said, but she sighed as he entered. ‘Would you like some soup? It’s homemade.’

  He said very kindly, ‘No, thank you, I’m not hungry,’ and forbore to shudder as she poured viscous unnameable brown liquid from the flask for herself. Leaning back against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, he watched her as she sipped. ‘Well, what’s all this about this book, Ma?’

  She stayed with her hands clasped round the plastic mug for a long time before raising her eyes and speaking. ‘Philly, I suppose. It was Philly who told you.’ Philly also worked in London, for a publisher of children’s books, wore very tight, very short skirts and was reported on occasions to use language that would have made a sailor blush. ‘I haven’t told you because I didn’t want it generally known, not just yet, not until nearer the publication date.’

  ‘You don’t want God to know is what you mean, isn’t it, Ma?’

  This was an inadmissible joke, not for any irreverence to the Deity but because Lionel Oliver’s second name was Godfrey. But Seb was unrepentant, his black eyes dancing, full of wickedness. In the moonlight, with his dark sculpted curls and his faun’s ears, he looked pagan, lacking only the cloven hoof, reed pipes and pair of little horns to complete the picture.

  Where had he come from, this clever, charming, unknowable child of hers? Catherine had asked herself time and again. Which errant genes of hers and Lionel’s had shaped him? They were questions to which there was never an answer. From babyhood, when he’d arched his back and screamed and spat out food he disliked and then turned on his mother a toothless smile of heart-melting sweetness, there had been no coping with him. It was no better as he grew older, during several years at the expensive school where he was predictably popular but never did more than the minimum required work, disappointing his father unbearably. From which school he had been expelled for allegedly failing to respond to authority. In what way this had occurred remained shrouded in mystery; the headmaster had been evasive and Seb uncommunicative and apparently uncaring, and even Lionel had been unable to get to the bottom of it. A faint suspicion had crossed his mother’s mind that Seb had engineered the whole thing for reasons of his own but she dismissed this as unworthy.

  Nevertheless, he had left school without regrets and then, amazingly, proceeded to land himself a job in the City which paid him an enormously inflated salary. He now had an expensive flat in the Barbican, wore beautiful suits and shirts and, being Seb, owned a motorcycle – not much ridden – instead of the mandatory Porsche. Catherine was vague about what he actually did, except that it was to do with money. She loved him to the depths of her being, tried to understand him, and despaired of him. His father also loved him but had given up trying to understand him years ago.

  ‘Why don’t you want him to know?’ Seb pressed now. ‘No, don’t answer that, I think I can guess. He’d be jealous, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Sebastian, you are not to say things like that!’

  ‘But it’s true, isn’t it? Admit! He’s the only one allowed to be the big wheel around here.’

  ‘I am not,’ she answered, trying to be severe, ‘ever likely to become a big wheel, or even a small one. I’ve written a little book and illustrated it with some of my drawings, that’s all. That’s hardly going to make much of a stir.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that, Ma. It’s been very well received, according to Philly.’

  ‘Has it really?’ She was transformed.

  And a little afraid. Because it was going to take Lionel – and everyone else, of course, she qualified – a little time to adjust to the idea that she’d been even moderately successful at something that was uniquely hers. That she wasn’t just the Rector’s wife, the unobtrusive woman who wore neat shirtwaisters and her brown hair cut in a short, easy style that she could manage herself.

  ‘You’re going to be rich and famous, me old darlin’!’ He threw a careless arm around her shoulders and kissed her.

  Delighted as she herself was, both by the news he’d given her and his unwonted display of affection
, she smiled. ‘I shall be neither, silly boy. Certainly not rich,’ she added ironically, and told him why.

  Seconds passed. Sober now, he let his hands rest on her shoulders. ‘You’re a dark horse and no mistake,’ he said at last. "I only hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh I do, I do.’

  ‘Well then, that’s it,’ he answered awkwardly, dropping his arms and changing the subject. ‘It’s terrific news, really, Ma. I’m over the moon for you. Promise I can have the first signed copy?’

  ‘Darling, of course you can. But there’s months yet before publication.’

  Several months’ breathing space which in fact she’d been counting on. But if Phyllida Thorne knew already, everyone else soon would. Now she’d have to tell Lionel. Well, after the weekend. She began to pack up her things, ready to return to the house. The night was ruined anyway.

  Sebastian began to help in a desultory way. ‘You know, he couldn’t have been responsible for having those badgers shot. Old Willard, I mean,’ he said suddenly, looking up from fiddling with the cap of the Thermos, returning voluntarily to the topic he’d found himself up to the ears in as soon as he came home. ‘He’s not like that.’

  ‘Isn’t he? He shoots squirrels.’

  ‘Grey squirrels. Tree rats. That’s different. They were brought into this country and now they’re doing tremendous damage to the environment. Not to mention spreading diseases.’

  She eyed him for rather a long time before answering. ‘Is that what he wanted to see you about this afternoon? To indoctrinate you further?’

  ‘No. I was the one who wanted to see him.’

  ‘Is anything wrong, Seb?’

  ‘No,’ he said again, his tone noticeably cooler. ‘Should there be?’

  ‘I’ve had the feeling, since you came home ...’

  ‘Of course there’s nothing wrong. You’re just being Mumsy.’

  ‘I expect so.’ She sighed. 'Anyway, it’s very good of you, darling, to take the trouble to visit an old man like that.’

  'I just happen to like the old boy. He’s never wishy-washy in his opinions, he sees things so directly, without sentimentality.’

  ‘Without feeling, you mean. Even for his daughter.’

  ‘Has it ever occurred to you that Laura might rather enjoy playing the martyr?’ he asked, with unexpected perception. ‘After all, nobody can make her stay with him. She could make provision for him if she wanted.’

  Catherine, however, was a woman who saw things in black and white. She couldn’t understand how Willard, a clergyman whose life was presumably dedicated to truth and integrity, should find it possible to be so devoid of charity, and not only on the subject of Laura’s freedom. ‘That’s hardly fair to her,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ He picked up a bit of dry stick and began breaking pieces off, tossing them into the clearing, then walked ahead of her up the steep path with his springy, athletic stride, her satchel of belongings over one shoulder, the flask under his arm. This part of the garden, which she had created and looked after herself, was a small area of peaceful seclusion, uniquely beautiful to everyone except Lionel, who deplored its untidiness. Skillfully combining nature with art, it had a romantic wildness which pleased the eye and made it a habitat suitably natural for the wild creatures she encouraged – if sometimes impractical from the human point of view. When he came to an awkward bend in the path where an artistically-placed cotoneaster posed a threat to life and limb he stopped and turned, offering her a hand to negotiate the steep step up. ‘Sorry about all that, Ma,’ he said when she stood beside him. ‘I know you’ve got in for the old boy, which isn’t like you, but you’re wrong about him, you know, dead wrong.’

  She shook her head, smiling, to put an end to the argument and being occupied with her own thoughts said nothing more as they toiled on. It wasn’t until they reached the top and were walking across the moonlit lawn to the house that she spoke again. ‘You’ve become very friendly with Philly lately, haven’t you?’

  He laughed. ‘If you mean are my intentions serious, the answer’s no. Nor are Philly’s. She’s got other fish to fry. She wouldn’t consider a decadent like me. She thinks I’m a broken reed, that my life’s devoted to money and pleasure. Though I’ve never pretended to be intense about everything, like her.’

  Catherine was deeply indignant that anyone should think her son a broken reed, while reluctantly admitting there might be a grain of truth in Phyllida’s assessment. She often wished he had it in him to be intense about anything. But who was Phyllida to accuse Sebastian? Catherine couldn’t see what he had meant about her – if anyone was more frivolous than Sebastian, it was surely Phyllida Thorne.

  The following morning, Saturday, Philly was having breakfast alone in the kitchen, her mother having attached herself to the hall telephone where she was likely to remain for some time, when her father threw open the door and burst in with Taff, a bright-eyed and chunky Welsh corgi, at his heels. In an instant there was pandemonium. As the dog bounded noisily into the kitchen the cat, spitting, leaped like a performing flea on to Philly’s knee. She was a very old but by no means moribund black Persian called Florence whom Philly had had since she was thirteen, and who hated Taff with a loathing which was fully reciprocated in every way. They could never be left alone in case either one of them killed the other.

  Taff was commanded to shut up and sit and eventually did so, though with great reluctance. Florence subsided warily under Philly’s stroking hands. Order temporarily restored, Denzil proceeded to scoop muesli into a pottery bowl for himself and a similar-looking concoction into a not dissimilar bowl for Taff, only just avoiding taking the wrong one for himself.

  ‘What was the fuzz doing here, earlier on?’ Philly asked, as he eventually sorted things out, sat down and began pouring milk.

  ‘The police? Oh, just someone to talk to me about increasing safety precautions at the Institute.’

  ‘Haven’t they found who put that bomb there yet?’

  Her father, his mouth full, shook his head.

  ‘They must have some sort of lead, surely? Well, no, even if they had, I don’t suppose you’d know.’

  Denzil hoped he had imagined the stress on the ‘you’. He sometimes felt his status here in this house was about on a par with that of Florence and Taff, only just above that of the inanimate furnishings, and about as much use. He’d have been the first to admit that he was hopelessly inefficient about the small details of everyday living but the fact was that neither his wife nor his daughter had any idea what went on in his mind. This didn’t much trouble him. It suited his purposes, in fact. As his alter ego at the Institute he cut an altogether different figure. There, he was well-liked and though easy-going and friendly, was respected for his abilities and had authority. Philly was correct, however, in assuming he didn’t know much about the police inquiries or how far they’d progressed. Even if he had known, he would never have dreamed of passing on what he knew to anyone else.

  ‘Bloody fuzz, you’d think they’d have come up with something by now,’ Philly said scornfully and seemed about to add a few more choice adjectives but changed her mind. It was no fun when he remained unshockable. The last time she’d displayed the extent of her vocabulary it was his turn to shock her rigid when he’d responded in like manner, using words that even she’d hesitated over. She’d been more circumspect since then.

  ‘They’re doing their best. Not much to go on,’ Denzil said pacifically.

  She turned impatiently but then said seriously, ‘The trouble with you, Pop, is that you’re so bloody long-suffering. Hasn’t it even occurred to you that you might have been killed?’

  Her voice had taken on a rough edge and he reflected with surprise that Miriam could have been right after all in being ready to believe that the reason Philly had come home so unexpectedly was because of a belated need to reassure herself that he was all right after his near miss with the bomb. Belated indeed – the bomb outrage had occurred alm
ost a month ago – but he pushed aside a more unbearable thought as to why she might be here. All that had happened long ago, it was all over. If Miriam was right in her supposition, it pleased and touched him out of all proportion to the act. Philly was clever and had her mother’s energy and, like her, her life seemed to be organized to a T and full to overflowing with things unimaginable to him. At any rate, there was normally no room in it for spontaneous, unplanned gestures of affection.

  ‘Killed? What gave you that idea?’ His bright-eyed smile lit up a face as ingenuous as a baby’s. His hair was wispy. He was going bald. His figure was sagging into a paunch and he never ceased to be surprised that he could have produced so spectacular a daughter. He never ceased to worry about the life she lived in London, either – perhaps because neither he nor her mother had been privileged to be told anything much about it. But she was secretive by nature and always had been and was unlikely to change, so there was little to do but accept the situation. ‘I was nowhere near the place,’ he said.

  ‘Only by good luck. Mum says you were there only about ten minutes before. Why were you? So early on Saturday morning? Easter?’

  ‘My dear child, like a few more people who had equally lucky escapes, I’d certain things I had to do, work to see to ... the Institute can never really close completely. But let’s not talk about that.’

  Their eyes met. He wondered what she was thinking, if she remembered. It suddenly occurred to him that she probably thought it irrelevant whether her parents approved of her lifestyle, since there was so much she didn’t approve of in theirs. She held the cat cradled to her, watching him as he spooned in the last of his muesli. She was rather like a bedraggled little kitten herself, one that had been out in the wet, with those startlingly blue-green eyes in her sharp little triangular face, her spiky, gelled dark hair, claws sheathed at the moment but ready he knew to scratch at any time.