‘Good morning. It’s a pound entrance fee but you do get a glass of mead and entry into the raffle to win even more mead.’
His teeth appeared too big for his mouth. Poor soul, thought Marnie. His mother really should have had a brace slapped on those when he was a kid.
‘Okay.’ Marnie fumbled in her bag for her purse.
‘Are you going in like that?’ he pointed to her jeans and she noticed the cadence in his voice and an accent as he said dat rather than that. And, after taking a second look, she wasn’t sure that he was wearing a wig and false facial hair after all.
‘Well I . . . I don’t have anything else.’
‘You’re welcome to dress up. We have some spare tunics here,’ and he pulled one from the sack like a medieval Father Christmas. ‘You’ll feel more a part of it all if you do.’ And he smiled and she tried not to look at his teeth, but they were dragging her eyes towards them as if they contained some strong magnets.
‘Thank you.’ Marnie paid over her money and took the hessian tunic from him.
‘There’s a five-pound deposit,’ said Mr International Tooth Decay.
‘Oh, okay,’ Marnie got out her purse again. The man tore a raffle ticket number from a book of them, ripping a corner off the next one too.
‘The tickets are too small for my big fingers,’ he laughed nervously, and Marnie wondered if he was the simpleton that every village had. He looked a similar age to her – they would both have been the unpopular kids at school at the same time but for different reasons. He should really have had someone to watch out for him more, tell him about the importance of brushing his teeth. She felt a rush of sympathy for him.
‘Thank you,’ she said with a smile.
‘Return it at the end of the day and I’ll refund the money.’
‘Okay, I will.’ She set off walking in the direction of the music but he called her back.
‘Excuse me, are you from around here?’
‘Erm, no,’ she replied. ‘I’m a friend of Lilian Dearman’s.’
‘Oh, right. Ow.’ His hand shot up to his mouth as if he’d bitten his lip. Hard to avoid with those gnashers – poor soul, she thought again.
Marnie crossed a bridge and entered the village of Wychwell and felt as if she’d gone back in time to a far more gentle era than the one that lay outside those tumbledown protective walls. In front of her, elevated above the rest of the village, was the Dearman manor house, which she recognised from images she’d looked up on the net. It was lovely, like a jewel set perfectly on the mount of the hill. To the right was the church with its tall, slightly warped spire and in front of it stood a man with thick salt-and-pepper hair, also in sackcloth, and a dog collar threaded into the black shirt underneath it. Reverend Lionel Temple, she guessed. He was manning a tombola stall.
‘Can I interest you in a ticket?’ he asked with some difficulty. His teeth were quite a mess too. He could have eaten an apple through a barbed wire fence with them. ‘A pound. You could win some Marks and Spencer talcum powder or a bottle of home-made wine, for instance. Every ticket wins a prize.’
The gifts weren’t very tempting. If she won the talcum, she’d let them keep it.
‘I’ll take five pounds’ worth,’ said Marnie, thinking the zip on her purse was getting some hammer today.
Luckily she didn’t win the talc. She won five keyrings. She took one and left the others on the prize table.
‘Thank you,’ said Lionel, or at least she presumed that’s what he said because it sounded like ‘Boc-boo.’ Then something like: ‘All money goes to the church roof fund.’
Obviously, thought Marnie, wondering if there was any church in Britain that didn’t need roof repairs. ‘Do you know where I might find Lilian Dearman?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ he pointed down the road. ‘She’s the bum baking obbo noise onba big brum.’
‘Pardon?’
‘She’s the one making all the noise on the big drum,’ Lionel repeated slowly and carefully.
Marnie thanked him, thinking that the fish didn’t swim very far in this gene pool, and walked towards the percussion sounds. Cottages stood around a large village green, all different, all pretty, if tired. That one could have done with a refresh of paint on its white facade, this one had peeling windows and the gable end needed some serious pointing. There were a few people milling about in peasant costumes and a stout man in the tweedy garb of a country gent holding court. At his side stood a tall, thin, figureless woman and Marnie wondered if these were the Suttons with their pretensions of grandeur and entitlement about whom Lilian had waxed lyrical. She spotted someone who she presumed was the May Queen: a young woman dressed in a floor-length white gown with a dark green cloak over her shoulders and pink flowers threaded into her long blonde hair. From a distance she looked like a shorter version of Gabrielle, which sent a shiver down her back. There was a red and white striped maypole in the middle of the grass; pastel-shaded ribbons hanging from its top were being nudged by the slight breeze and skipping around it with casual abandon was a young man in a step-in horse costume. Marnie did a quick full-circle scan for a giant Wicker Man and a fast-route exit.
‘BARRNNEEEE.’ The noise of the drum stopped as Lilian spotted her. She was dressed as a witch, complete with black hat. She waved and struggled to her feet with the aid of a stick. ‘How boffy bo beeooo,’ she went on, hobbling at her fastest pace towards her young friend, grinning monstrously. She threw her arms around Marnie, then stepped back and reached into her mouth to hook out a rotted-teeth fake cover. ‘We’re all wearing these and none of us can talk properly. Lionel bought them from eBay.’
Marnie snorted with laughter. ‘They’re too effective,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to wonder if toothbrushes were forbidden in these parts.’
‘I’m delighted you came,’ said Lilian, slipping her arm through Marnie’s. ‘Let us cut through the crowds and I’ll show you around.’
She was either joking or delusional, thought Marnie, because apart from a scattering of people wandering about, there was hardly anyone there.
A tall, solid-built man was lumbering towards them, the human equivalent of a Shire horse. He doffed the floppy hat he was wearing as he neared them and Marnie wondered if he was in character or if that was standard practice. He looked like the sort of person who would be polite and reverential.
‘Ah, Derek, come and meet my new friend,’ said Lilian. ‘Marnie, this is Derek Price, our churchwarden. Derek, this is Marnie. We met on the internet talking about cheesecakes.’
Derek smiled and it was an awful sight because he too was wearing the false cover over his teeth. Lilian chuckled. ‘You look quite the part, Derek.’
‘Everyone seems to be moaning about these teeth things, but I find mine surprisingly comfortable,’ he said, grinning again and talking perfectly.
‘Where’s Una?’ asked Lilian, looking around.
‘Oh, she’s having a lie down with a migraine,’ replied Derek, with an accompanying sigh. ‘I said I’d go and wake her up before the crowning. She doesn’t take the sun too well. Or the heat. Or the cold. Or the rain.’
‘No,’ was all Lilian said to that with a polite, but strained, smile. ‘Well, we’ll see you in a little while then, Derek. You and Una.’
Marnie noticed the stave of lines that were carved into his forehead. They looked like a musical score.
‘We’ll be there, don’t you worry.’
‘Poor Derek,’ said Lilian, when he was – just – out of earshot. ‘His wife is a harridan. It’s her that’s put the slump in that man’s shoulders and all those grooves in his forehead. He’s such a gentle soul, too.’
Were there any equal pairings in the world, thought Marnie as they walked on. She could be forgiven for thinking there weren’t, based on her own experiences.
‘You see that house over there,’ Lilian stretched her long arm out towards a very grand three-storey building with a pale yellow façade. ‘That is the Lemon Villa whe
re Titus Sutton and his wife Hilary live. The very very very distant cousins who believe that when I shuffle off this mortal coil, Wychwell will be theirs. They are my only living relatives, you see.’
Lilian said that in the same way that Marnie admitted Gabrielle was her family.
‘I inherited Wychwell when I was thirty-eight and I didn’t want it, I don’t mind telling you that. I was more than happy to let Titus Sutton carry on running the estate.’ She sighed then, and the sound seemed to come from a place deep inside her. ‘I didn’t fall in love with Wychwell until years after I owned it, Marnie. I didn’t realise until it was too late how much it had been neglected. Half the properties are empty, most are in disrepair, four need completely rebuilding from the foundations up.’
Marnie noticed that there was no flaky paint on the Lemon Villa windows, no patches on the roof where tiles were missing.
‘I’m not good with accounts and even if I were I doubt I could have found in the ledgers where it all went wrong. Titus is very . . .’ she tapped her lip as she hunted around in her head for the right word, ‘. . . shrewd. It all looks perfectly above board, but I know it can’t be.’
‘You aren’t still letting him handle your finances if you feel like that, are you?’ asked Marnie.
‘I have no choice. Someone has to do them and he’s the only one who can understand his own bloody writing,’ said Lilian. ‘My father and Gladwyn Sutton pissed in the same pot, as they say. Old boys from the same school. Father couldn’t be bothered with paperwork and he paid Gladwyn handsomely to deal with it all for him. Then when Gladwyn died, his son stepped seamlessly into his shoes. I, as a mere woman, had no say in the matter. I’d go as far as to say my father loved him, as much as a man without a heart could love anyone. Titus was the son he never had.’
The next two cottages were joined together, the second obviously empty, the first covered in just-budding honeysuckle.
‘This is where my housekeeper lives.’ It was really quite substantial yet looked tiny when compared with its huge yellow neighbour. The sign at the side of the door said that this was The Nectarines. ‘Cilla Oldroyd,’ Lilian went on. ‘Her husband Griff used to be the estate groundsman but he retired early after a stroke. He’s getting better, but slowly. Their daughter Zoe helps her mother and their son Johnny is the assistant to my present groundsman, Herv. Johnny is the festival fool today, prancing around in a horse costume. You’ll have met Herv at the gate, the rather striking man who looks as if he’s just walked off a Viking longboat.’
Marnie couldn’t remember the man with the long blonde hair looking anything like a Viking. More like a young Hagrid that had fallen into a vat of peroxide and hard times. Then again her attention had been mostly fixed on those horrible teeth which she now gathered were (at least she hoped they were for his sake) false.
‘Lovely family, the Oldroyds,’ Lilian was saying. ‘You’ll like them. And Herv. Oh my, you will like Herv. Our May Queen is quite besotted by him.’
‘The woman in the green cape?’
‘The very one,’ answered Lilian. ‘Ruby Sweetman. She’s a teacher in Kettlebottom. She lives with her mother in Quince Cottage. Come, Marnie, I’ll show you.’
They walked past a couple more cottages, obviously derelict from their half-absent roofs and glassless windows.
‘I’ve never had a quince in my life,’ Marnie admitted, looking at the cottage, the epitome of twee, complete with fishing gnomes by the door, a metal fairy wind-chime hanging from the porch roof and pink lacy curtains at the windows – very next-door-Melissa style. ‘I’ve always wondered what they tasted like.’
‘You’d think they’d be sweet, wouldn’t you,’ said Lilian and then wagged her finger, ‘but not all fruits are, Marnie. Not all fruits are at all.’
Next to Quince Cottage was a shop with a rustic sign over the front door. Plum Corner Post Office. Even though it wasn’t on a corner. Marnie was having twee overload. Even Snow White would have thrown up at all this schmaltz. Next to this – and on the real corner – was a pub: The Wych Arms, complete with thatched roof and magpie timbering.
‘Nearly there,’ said Lilian, guiding her down a short potholed lane serving a single building. ‘I do so want you to like it. There. What do you think?’
It was a house, thought Marnie as they drew level to it. A small stone house with a dark pink door and bell-shaped pink flowers growing up the crumbly walls. The shabby window frames were also painted dark pink, though much of it had flaked off. The roof was intact but buckled in the middle, as if a giant had sat on it. Marnie couldn’t understand why Lilian was so keen to show it to her.
‘Come inside,’ said Lilian, reaching into a pocket of her black dress for the keys. She opened the door and walked in, knocking her witch’s hat off because the doorway wasn’t full size. Marnie followed and a smell of unlived-in damp greeted her nostrils.
‘Pongs a bit,’ said Lilian. ‘But then it has been empty for nearly a year.’
There was a sofa covered over with a plastic sheet and various pieces of dark wooden furniture dotted around the snug front room.
‘I had it refurbished for Jessie only months before she died. Poor dear was delighted but barely had the chance to enjoy it. She’d never had a TV in her life before that. She developed quite a thing for Craig Revel-Horwood. Look at the kitchen, Marnie.’
The kitchen was long – twice the length and more of the front room and fitted with new oak units masterfully made to look as if they were as old as the cottage itself.
‘Jessie was a wonderful cook,’ said Lilian. ‘She baked the most delicious fruit pies. All from the fruits that grew in and around Wychwell: bilberries, wild strawberries and raspberries, blackberries and apples, peaches and plums. Let me show you outside.’
Lilian unlocked the back door and they walked into the garden.
‘Herv hasn’t had time to keep on top of this as well but he has assured me he will make it a priority to sort it out for the next tenant.’
The grass was overgrown, as were the raspberry bushes and brambles that enclosed the garden but that didn’t detract in any way from a loveliness that made Marnie catch her breath and she didn’t really know why. The lawn sloped gently down towards a curling ribbon of stream and there was a bench situated near the bank so one could sit and watch ducks and geese glide past. There was a bridge – one person wide – across to the woodland on the other side, the probable site of Margaret Kytson’s cottage, Marnie recalled from the book. All unspectacular ingredients of a scene, but together they formed something tranquil and beautiful.
‘There is someone I could let this cottage to, but he’s not the right fit so I’ve been thinking about giving him one of the others. You, however, are,’ said Lilian, resting for a few moments on the bench. ‘As soon as we began communicating via the Sisters of Cheesecake, I thought, Marnie would be perfect for Little Raspberries.’
Marnie smiled, but awkwardly. She wasn’t quite sure what Lilian was saying.
‘I know you can’t remember much of the interchange you and I had that first night, but your typing didn’t indicate you were that inebriated, give or take the odd spello,’ said Lilian with a soft smile.
‘Trust me, I was way beyond drun—’ Marnie interrupted.
‘Please, let me finish,’ Lilian interrupted back. ‘You were speaking from the clear, calm eye of some storm happening inside you. A deeply desperate and distressed place. Don’t ask me why I know that Little Raspberries and you are a match because I have no rational explanation. I just do and I don’t tend to ignore my intuition when it shouts. I felt the same when I heard about Jessie Plumpton needing a place and it was the right decision to let her have it.’
Standing facing her, Marnie was struck by how green Lilian’s eyes were. Cat-green, like her own. They went very well with the witch costume. It all added to the bizarreness of the day.
It wasn’t that Marnie wasn’t tempted. It would be luxury to sleep and not be afraid of being awoken b
y mad Suranna Fox turning up on her doorstep, or to live in a place where she had no chance of bumping into someone she knew from work. But she’d be bored out of her tree living here. She was a doer, not a relaxer. She couldn’t sit in a garden for more than five minutes without having to get out a notepad and scribble down some ideas for how to put Café Caramba coffee in front of an even wider audience of consumers and drive it home to Laurence that he’d been wise to give her a chance at heading up a department.
Laurence.
The name yelled in her brain. Oh lord. What would he have had to say about what had gone on? Not only were two of his workforce involved in an illicit affair, but one of that workforce’s wife had come in and gone all Bruce Lee in front of the whole trading floor. He would be beyond fuming. Could he sack her? Probably not for bonking a fellow executive but he’d find a way of winkling her out of the door. He’d take the man’s side of course and use what had occurred as an excuse not to elevate women to the top positions. She’d done a huge disservice to the sisterhood.
Lilian stood up.
‘If you ever want to get away from the rat race or need somewhere quiet to stay, then come and spend some time in Little Raspberries,’ she said, again linking Marnie’s arm for support.
‘I will,’ said Marnie. ‘Promise.’
‘All is not well behind that smile of yours, Marnie Salt,’ said Lilian, without missing a step. ‘You can’t fool me.’
They walked back through the cottage and whilst Lilian locked the back door, Marnie poked her head into the spacious larder. Mrs McMaid used to have one that led off from her kitchen, stocked to the gills with wonderful things that she hadn’t seen before – clumpy brown sugar and sticky green angelica, home-made butter with salt crystals in it and clotted cream with its rough, crusty top.
The Perfectly Imperfect Woman Page 9
