A Dirty Death

by Rebecca Tope

  Beyond the church gates, villagers were gathered in knots. This was in effect the last real chance to have a serious gossip about the event; now that Guy was buried, ten days after his death, the thing was over and there’d be little more to be said. An inquest had been opened and adjourned to some future date, but the Beardons had already been told by a laconic man who announced himself as the Coroner’s Officer that it would probably be brief and undramatic. He mentioned that there was always an excess of formality in the case of an accident with no witnesses, but since the post-mortem examination had found sufficient matter in the lungs to drown Mr Beardon, it would take very little to convince the Coroner that the circumstances were unsuspicious. Nobody would be churlish enough to take matters any further than ‘death by misadventure’. Nobody was unduly keen to dwell on the details of what happens when slurry enters the lungs, either. It was already virtually a foregone conclusion as to what the final verdict would be.

  Guy had died by accident, the official judgement would ordain. He had slipped on the edge of the pit, and fallen in, possibly knocking his head in the process, and blacking out. The stuff in his mouth and throat was more than enough to suffocate him. Gruesome, by general consent, and reason enough to give rise to a knee-jerk demand for special security measures for such pits.

  With the verdict already taken for granted, the villagers felt justified, however, in extensive idle speculations. A stranger passing through might have observed a series of pantomimes, as people enacted their own pet theory of how Guy might have met his death. Lengths of hose lay about the yard – he could have caught his foot. There had been light rain during the night – perhaps enough to make the ground unusually slippery for rubber boots. Or he might have been muzzy with sleep, and just stepped off the edge thinking he was somewhere else.

  The slurry pit was fairly new to Redstone, and Guy had typically not bothered to apply for permission from the Council to build it. Pleased with his own cleverness, he had positioned it at the foot of a natural slope, thirty yards from the big back door of the shippon. At the same time he had reconstructed the floor of the cowshed and the yard outside with channels for the muck, so that it could be sluiced out and straight down into the pit. Strong fencing protected it on three sides, but the fourth was open. In Guy’s usual fashion, safety had been assured by a total ban on any of his family going within six feet of the edge on that side. Everyone obeyed Guy’s edicts, including this one. So compliant was Lilah that she had felt distinctly disobedient when she finally went to the edge of the pit in her search for Guy that dreadful morning.

  Father Edmund watched his parishioners with some cynicism. It seemed that few of his quiet hints as to the probability of suicide had taken root. This was a shame, but at the same time, almost nobody seemed to have seriously considered foul play. How foolish, how naive of them, thought the minister. Did they think such wickedness impossible in their peaceful, forgotten little corner of the world?

  With his customary fixed smile, Father Edmund scanned their faces. Sam Carter, the Beardons’ worker, was driving the family home. Stiff in his dark suit, the man seemed pathetic. His brief exposure to public attention had clearly been uncomfortable to him. Sam had intrigued the vicar for a long time, yet they’d rarely exchanged more than a morning nod in six years. Sam was said to be a professed atheist – the very fact that he had once expressed such a definite position on the matter made him interesting. One day, thought Father Edmund, one day, I shall really get to know that man.

  The group of Beardon family mourners and close friends climbed into an assortment of cars and drove away. Guy’s two brothers and Miranda’s parents swelled the numbers. Father Edmund went back to the vicarage, having politely declined Miranda’s murmured invitation to accompany the family to the farmhouse for some sandwiches. Guy Beardon was really dead, then, he repeated to himself. Who in this small community could ever have guessed it would come to this? No one else, he believed, knew what he knew about the dead farmer. And, knowing what he did, he was entitled to a small complacent smirk when the villagers spoke of accidents.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The funeral wake was typically noisy. Martin, Guy’s elder brother, was a large oafish man in his sixties, who hadn’t been near Redstone for five years or more. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to lift Miranda’s spirits, and he hung around her, a lumpen hand on her arm, telling stories of Guy as a child, always getting into trouble. ‘Stubborn wasn’t the word,’ he chuckled. ‘That boy – sometimes we thought he must be a gypsy child, swapped for our real brother in the pram. Always into something, breaking the rules, getting himself hurt. He’s probably told you about most of it himself.’

  Miranda had to bring herself back from the hazy unreality in which she had spent the days since Guy’s death. She looked up at the strange man who had attached himself to her. What had he asked her? Something about Guy as a little boy … ‘He said his father was always chasing after him with a stick. It sounded a violent sort of upbringing. He never raised a hand to Roddy, to my knowledge.’

  ‘Aye, Dad didn’t stand any nonsense. Never did much good in Guy’s case, though. He always skipped out of range. He must have mellowed in his ways if he’s never thrashed your Roddy. He was still pretty wild in his twenties – and later. I can remember, oh, must have been thirty years ago now—’

  ‘Mum,’ Lilah interrupted without apology, ‘Grampa says he’s got to go in a minute. Something about missing the traffic.’

  Miranda cast a vague look around the crowded living room, hoping to find her friend Sylvia. People stood about with cups of tea and plates full of the food which had been prepared by women of the village. Most of them were dressed in black or dark blue, but with smiles on their faces. Roland, Guy’s other brother, was sitting in an armchair, his thighs spread wide and his shoulders pressed well back, as if the chair was too small for him and he was trying to stretch it. Roddy stood beside him, looking down resentfully at the unfamiliar uncle and proffering a plate of small cakes as Roland chatted volubly to Sam, who perched uneasily on the edge of the sofa close by.

  Miranda’s father, a small, elderly man in an expensive dark suit with worry writ large across his features, stood by the door, obviously hoping for a rapid escape. Hetty Taplow from the village skittered back and forth with trays, acting the part of maid with enthusiasm. She had arrived unasked, as she did at most funerals, knowing she would not be rejected, and knowing too that the stories gleaned would keep her in friendship for months to come. Everyone, including Hetty, considered the Beardons to be remote, almost mysterious, with the mismatched parents and self-sufficient children. Hetty cleaned three mornings a week for the Cattermoles in the big Georgian house in a nearby village, as well as serving behind the bar at the pub on Saturdays. There was very little local gossip that passed her by.

  ‘Where’s Sylvia?’ Miranda asked her daughter. ‘How am I supposed to manage all this without Sylvia? And will you look at the Grimms. What are they doing here?’

  Lilah followed her gaze. Standing together, in crumpled grey suits dating back no less than thirty years, were the Grimsdale brothers, Isaac and Amos – close neighbours in rural terms, their house a little over a quarter of a mile away, on a facing hillside. Miranda had given them their nickname in an attempt to convince Lilah and Roddy that they were nothing to be frightened of. ‘Like the Brothers Grimm,’ she’d explained. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if these two write the odd fairy story, as well.’ But when Lilah told Guy this suggestion, he laughed dismissively.

  ‘Neither one of them can write at all,’ he’d said. ‘Signing their names is just about the best they can manage.’

  Guy had bought the Grimsdale farm, piecemeal, over the years, leaving the brothers in an island of weedy meadow, their stone house slowly disintegrating about their ears. For Roddy and Lilah they had been bogeymen, crazily irascible, always on the edge of their awareness, only two fields away from their own house. But now Lilah would not be distracted. />
  ‘You invited them yourself,’ she sighed. ‘And Sylvia’s away. You know she is. You were supposed to be feeding her animals – remember?’

  ‘Oh, God! They’ll have starved by now!’

  ‘No they won’t. It’s all taken care of. Pull yourself together. Say something to Grampa.’

  But it was Miranda’s mother who next grabbed the widow’s attention. She wore a good dark suit to match her husband’s, and now stared disapprovingly at Lilah’s short skirt and cotton top. ‘Hasn’t she got a proper suit?’

  ‘Of course she hasn’t,’ snapped Miranda. ‘What would a girl like her want with a suit?’

  ‘You must let Grampa buy her one, dear. It’s an awful embarrassment to be caught at a time like this with nothing suitable to wear.’

  ‘Really, Mum, I don’t think people bother about clothes so much these days. It would be a wicked waste of money.’

  Her mother sighed. ‘This is all so terrible, I don’t think it’s sunk in properly yet. I mean, Guy. He was always so full of life. Too full of life, some might say.’

  Miranda just nodded. Her mother was of no help to her; her father was even worse – dithering, talking nonsense a lot of the time. Lilah had been saying for months that she thought he was developing Alzheimer’s, and Miranda could see this afternoon that it might be true. He hadn’t once mentioned Guy, but talked earnestly about the forty-mile drive they’d endured to get here and how he didn’t know how he’d ever get them home again, with so many holiday-makers on the roads, and the car making a very odd knocking sound. Mother didn’t drive, but sat stoically beside him, offering navigational help and soothing reassurance.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to ask Grampa to stay and help with the milking,’ said Lilah, crossly.

  ‘Well don’t,’ said Miranda, with a small giggle. ‘He’d only spoil that suit. Why don’t you ask the Grimms instead?’ Her giggle took on an hysterical note.

  ‘You’ll have to come and see Granny and Grampa off,’ Lilah insisted, firmly. Miranda turned belatedly back to Martin, still with his mouth open, poised to continue his interrupted story. With a little shrug and a smile, she left him, letting Lilah take her place.

  ‘I was just telling your mother about Guy, when he was a youngster,’ Martin began again.

  ‘How much older were you?’ she asked, to be polite.

  ‘I was eight when he was born, and Roland was six. Quite threw us sideways it did, for a bit. Ma was ill having him, which meant half the work didn’t get done, and he yowled all the time. We hated that baby, but he never seemed to mind. Once he could walk and get about outside, he was always as happy as a cricket.’

  Lilah tried to see the images as her uncle was seeing them. The isolated family, on a farm deep in the Devonshire countryside, the little latecomer, upsetting the harmony, going his own wilful way despite all reproaches. She felt a pang of affection for the difficult child her father had been. Martin went on, ‘Left home when he was sixteen, you know. Didn’t see him for years after that. We thought he’d gone into the army, lying about his age, but Roland always said he’d never do that. Too much of a rebel for that. Prison was more like it, he said. Lucky for Guy that National Service finished just as he reached eighteen. We just sort of forgot about him after a while. Ma never got over it, though. He came back two days before she died, as if he’d known. Weird business.’

  Martin shook his head wonderingly, helpless in the face of telepathic magic. Lilah felt a tension between wanting to hear more and knowing it wasn’t the right moment. ‘Uncle Martin,’ she said, ‘I wish you came to see us more often. We should talk. Dad never told us anything about his early life.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me,’ said her uncle. ‘There’d be quite a bit he’d rather keep quiet about. But it’s been good to see you again, though it’s a sad occasion. Makes you think, this kind of thing. Makes you see things different. I never thought our Guy would pitch himself into the slurry. What a way to go!’ He pulled the same disgusted face that Lilah had been seeing on practically everyone since the fateful morning.

  ‘I’ll have to go and circulate,’ she excused herself. ‘It was good of you to come.’

  ‘It was worth it to see you so grown up,’ he responded gallantly. ‘Quite a change from the last time.’

  She smiled and turned to go. She wanted to find Roddy, check that he was all right – he must be feeling lonely amongst all these adults. Apart from her, there was nobody else under thirty. She found him in the kitchen, helping Hetty. Her musical Devon voice flowed constantly. ‘Y’ere, my lover, do you take the plates through,’ she ordered him, giving him two big plates of sandwiches to carry. Lilah waited for him, and took one of the plates.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘’Tis fair mazed I be,’ he quipped. Conversing in pseudo-Devon dialect was a game they had always played. Neither of them could manage the real thing; Guy had worked hard to eradicate it from his own voice and had successfully prevented his children from adopting it. Or so he had believed. The fact that their mother had grown up in a middle-class family in Surrey was overlooked as a formative factor.

  ‘Pity Jonathan isn’t here,’ Lilah said.

  ‘You’re joking. He wouldn’t dare. Dad loathed him.’

  ‘Lots of people didn’t bother coming, when you think about it. Tim and Sarah, the Cattermoles, half the Parish Council—’

  ‘They didn’t like him, Li. They’re just being honest. You have to admire them for not being hypocrites. Most of the people here only came because of Mum. Like the Grimms.’

  ‘She misses Sylvia. You’d think a person’s best friend would cut short a holiday for something like this.’

  ‘Does she know about it?’

  ‘Good question. Maybe she doesn’t. She went off the morning we found Dad. She was probably at the airport before the news got out.’

  ‘Sandwich?’ Roddy proffered his plate to Sam, who had drifted aimlessly into the kitchen, instinctively seeking the two people he knew best. He put up a resistant hand and shook his head. He pulled a pained expression at the youngsters, indicating both discomfort and sorrow.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll soon go,’ Lilah assured him. ‘Then we can get back to work.’

  The sandwiches proved unwanted by almost everybody when Roddy did a dutiful circuit of the living room, so he took them back to the kitchen virtually untouched.

  ‘Silly sods,’ said Hetty. ‘Food for free, this be.’ Alongside her role as information exchange between a small network of villages, Hetty also acted as the focal point for a complex bartering system, so that nothing was ever wasted. Outgrown clothes, surplus plants or animals, second-hand tools and equipment – Hetty always knew someone who was looking for the very thing. She eyed the plates as if trying to remember just who had asked her to watch out for the cheese and tomato in granary, or ham and cucumber without crusts.

  ‘Phoebe!’ she said suddenly. ‘Her’s been poorly and missed work for nearly a month.’ She looked hard at Lilah, and then back at the sandwiches.

  ‘Oh yes, take them,’ said the girl. ‘I didn’t know Phoebe wasn’t well. I haven’t seen her for ages.’

  Back in the living room, Lilah realised that more people were on the verge of leaving. Once the momentum got going there was a barely dignified scramble for the door and within minutes, there were just Sam, Roddy, Miranda and Hetty left.

  ‘Mum, I told Hetty she could take some leftovers for Phoebe Winnicombe. She’s poorly, apparently, and if she doesn’t work she doesn’t get any money. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Miranda vaguely. Lilah wasn’t even sure she’d registered who she was talking about. She smiled at Hetty and was rewarded by seeing her tip almost every morsel of uneaten food on to a tray, to be covered in cling film. Lucky Phoebe, she thought grimly.

  ‘Uncle Martin’s nice,’ she commented later, to her mother and brother. ‘Did you know that Dad left home at sixteen, and didn’t go back
for years and years?’

  ‘That was a long time ago. He was thirty-six when I met him. It was ancient history by then.’

  ‘Funny how you never think much about people’s pasts when they’re alive, and then as soon as they die, you wish you’d known all sorts of things about them.’

  ‘It makes sense, if you think about it,’ said Miranda. ‘It’s easier to hold onto the memory of them if you know as much as you can. It makes them more real.’ Lilah was impressed, but she tried not to show it.

  ‘Well I’m off to help Sam and Roddy. See you later.’

  Miranda sighed. ‘Busy, busy,’ she commented. ‘I can’t wait until we sell this bloody place.’

  Lilah stood rigid, turned to stone by her mother’s words. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Well, we can’t keep it up without Guy, can we? Surely you realise that. It was almost the first thing I thought, when you told me he was dead. Now I can get away from this wretched shitty hole, and live somewhere civilised. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it happens to be true.’

  Lilah realised her mother had been drinking, but that wasn’t enough to negate her words. Possessed with rage, she could hardly speak.

  ‘We are never never going to sell the farm,’ she shouted. ‘It’s my inheritance, and Roddy’s. It’s our home.’ Without waiting for a reply, she swung out of the door and crossed the yard erratically, shaking almost as much as on the morning that Guy died. She knew she was on the verge of war with her mother, and was determined to battle to keep Redstone going, whatever might happen.

  Nothing more was said on the subject that day. They all went to bed very early, drained by the emotion of the day and knowing the business of the farm had to be tackled first thing next morning, and every morning while they remained at Redstone. Lilah thought of the naughty little boy she’d been told about and wondered bleakly for a moment about the passage of time and death and whether any of it meant anything.