The Perfectly Imperfect Woman

by Milly Johnson

Marnie’s curiosity was piqued.

  ‘And how was it? When did you find out?’

  ‘I was young, maybe six,’ Herv answered. ‘They didn’t make a big deal about it. I saw a pregnant woman and I must have asked an awkward question. Mum said that she didn’t grow me in her stomach, she grew me in her heart. It made me feel more special if anything. I was happy, I was loved.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever try and trace your real parents?’

  ‘No. Mum and Dad were my real parents, as far as I was concerned,’ said Herv. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I was found in an abandoned caravan,’ replied Marnie. ‘The only thing I know is that some Irish travellers had lived in it and that they were the ones who probably tipped the authorities off that I was there. Not really much to go on. I’ve always figured that I was surplus to their requirements.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Herv mused, ‘but who knows why people give up their children. I think maybe often it is something they do because they have to rather than choose to.’

  She shouldn’t have started this conversation. It was taking her mind where it didn’t want to go.

  ‘Sometimes it is best to let the past settle and not try to rake it up again,’ Herv continued. ‘Plant flowers in it instead and let something good grow from it. That’s why I didn’t want to trace my birth parents. My life was a good garden.’

  It was a nice way to think of things, a beautiful way. If you grew up in top-quality soil and not rocks and dry sand, of course.

  ‘I bet your parents are proud of you,’ said Marnie. Herv would be a perfect son, she would bet anything on that. The antithesis to her – the imperfect daughter.

  ‘I hope so. Pappa died when I was eighteen. He was a teacher. I followed him into the profession because I wanted to make him proud, through some kind of misguided grief. It was okay but it wasn’t me. Mamma died just after my marriage ended, it was a very sad time. She knew I wasn’t happy in Norway, she told me to stop living for other people and so I came here and was introduced to Lilian and within the half hour I had changed my whole life.’

  ‘You came over as an exchange teacher or something like that, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right. I worked for a little while at the same school as Ruby Sweetman.’

  ‘She likes you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Herv, with an awkward frown. ‘But I . . . I don’t . . .’ He struggled to put his feelings into words and she knew that he was trying not to be discourteous.

  ‘I understand,’ she nodded.

  ‘We . . . er . . . went out once for dinner. I wanted to say thank you. I didn’t realise . . . what she felt . . . I was stupid. I didn’t see it.’

  Well, Herv, you must be either really thick or the world’s biggest innocent, that voice inside Marnie said. She imagined that Ruby must have thought all her Christmases had come at once when Herv asked her out for that meal. She felt momentarily sorry for her.

  ‘It was an odd one for me,’ said Herv, brow creased as he recalled what had happened. ‘I’m usually the one who loves too much. It was strange that . . . for once it was the other way round.’

  I’m usually the one who loves too much. Could he see inside her head or was this one of those ‘sensitive man’ lines designed to loosen her knicker elastic? If she’d been a fly sitting happily on a web, she’d be detecting a subtle vibration now warning her to flit off because a spider was on its way. Or maybe, just maybe, she was doing that spider a disservice and he was simply happy for the company and didn’t want to eat her and spit her out. Maybe that spider was actually one of the good guys with his kind, blue eyes and scent of pine forests.

  ‘Coffee?’ she said. She needed a break, food, some serious fresh air and a cold shower. Not necessarily in that order.

  They had lunch at the table: Herv made a mountain of cheese and onion toasties and they must have been great brain food, because Marnie started making major headway on the deciphering of the accounts. But she half wished she hadn’t because the news wasn’t good. She found that the estate owned a farm between Wychwell and Mintbottom, leased to a Josiah Helliwell and no rents had been collected on it for over thirty years. Not only that but she discovered that an estate loyalty bonus of two thousand pounds had been paid annually to Mr Helliwell. Marnie couldn’t remember reading anything about a farm in the book of Wychwell that Lionel and Lilian had co-written. She wondered, in that case, if they’d even known about it.

  ‘It looks as if the estate has been paying this farm and the pub and the post office an annual amount to compensate them for having such little business. Who in their right mind does that?’ said Marnie, scratching her head. ‘Well that’s going to stop right now and I’m going to instruct Mr Wemyss to collect all that back rent.’

  It was bad enough that the most anyone paid to lease a house in Wychwell was twenty pounds a month, and that was the Wych Arms, but for the estate to be paying businesses for merely existing was ridiculous. And it got worse: Titus Sutton, she found, was given a ‘family stipend’ of ten thousand pounds a year and he paid absolutely no rent at all. And, if that wasn’t enough fiddling, he was also paid handsomely for doing the accounts. It didn’t need a financial expert to see that the Suttons had been ripping the Dearmans off for at least two generations. The estate had paid for all Titus’s house furniture too – top-notch stuff – and the E-Type Jag he drove. Herv also found records of loyalty bonuses being given to two businesses that didn’t even exist. No wonder Wychwell was on its knees. Marnie was furious.

  She caught accidental sight of her watch and saw it was after seven o’clock. Herv had been hard at work recording the floor areas of the cottages so she could work out fair rents. His dark blond brows were lowered in concentration and Marnie had to call his name twice before he heard her.

  ‘I didn’t realise it was so late,’ she said. ‘We should stop before we go blind.’

  ‘I was really into it. I can’t believe what I’m reading,’ said Herv, a yawn claiming his voice. He stretched and Marnie tried not to look at the chest muscles pushing against his moss-green T-shirt.

  ‘Thank you for your help, Herv.’ She could have carried on for much longer, but she needed an early night because she had a cheesecake order to make first thing in the morning. And she needed to call on Derek Price and get that job out of the way – although, on second thoughts, maybe she would leave that until she felt braver.

  ‘Same time tomorrow?’ Herv asked.

  ‘I have something to do in the morning. What about after lunch? One-ish?’

  ‘Aw, you don’t like my toasted sandwiches,’ Herv said, feigning upset, curling his bottom lip into a little-boy-hurt shape.

  ‘They were wonderful, but I can’t be here first thing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Herv. ‘I’ll meet you at one.’

  Herv lived in The Bilberries, a cottage just around the corner from Emelie Tibbs. She was looking out of the window when they passed and waved at them to stop. Seconds later she appeared at the door with a brown paper bag.

  ‘Marnie, I went into the woods today and there are lots of wild strawberries. I thought you might like these for your cheesecakes. They are ripe and ready to be picked.’

  The strawberries were tiny but very sweet. Marnie thought immediately of suggesting a new flavour to Mrs Abercrombie. The word ‘wild’ instantly made it something more desirable than bog-standard strawberry.

  ‘Thank you, Emelie,’ said Marnie. ‘I might go and harvest a few myself at the weekend.’

  It might have been the fading light of the day, but Emelie looked frail.

  ‘Emelie, if you ever want to come up to the manor and walk around the gardens like you used to do with Lilian, please do,’ Marnie invited.

  Emelie clapped her hands together and beamed. ‘I would like that so very much. And if you want me to show you where I found the strawberries, I’d be happy to.’

  ‘That would be brilliant, thank you.’

  Emelie went back inside then and Herv and Marnie r
eached the bottom of the hill where Herv would go left and Marnie would cross the green to Little Raspberries.

  ‘Well, cheers, Herv,’ said Marnie. ‘I don’t think I could have made half the headway if you hadn’t been there today.’

  ‘Well, I can think of a way you can thank me,’ said Herv, his eyes twinkling. ‘I’m very partial to cheesecake.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll make you one.’ She was surprised to find that she’d hoped he would have asked for more. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight, Marnie. See you tomorrow.’

  It was only when she was halfway across the green that she began to wonder how Emelie knew about the cheesecakes.

  Chapter 29

  The next morning, Marnie made an extra cheesecake to the ones on her order – a wild strawberry one – to share with Herv that afternoon. When the van arrived to take them away, Marnie noticed Kay Sweetman hovering at the end of the lane. No doubt the regular van trips three times every week were tickling local curiosity. If asked, she’d say that she made pies, just like Jessie did, for a bakery. If asked by someone like Kay, she’d tell her to mind her own sodding business.

  Marnie slept for three solid hours, then, showered and with cheesecake in her bag and a note to push through Derek Price’s letterbox, she set off up to the manor. By a stroke of luck, before she could post it, she saw the man himself walking towards the church and she called to him.

  He loped towards her, big friendly smile wide in greeting.

  ‘Good morning, Marnie. And how are you today?’

  ‘I’m good, Derek, but I wondered if I could have a word with you at some point in private. Up at the manor.’

  ‘Well I’m a bit busy until this afternoon, but I should be free by four if that’s any good. I’m not sure about Una though. She’s—’

  ‘No,’ Marnie interrupted him. ‘Just you. It won’t take long but best done formally I think.’

  ‘Sounds ominous,’ said Derek, raising his brace of woolly eyebrows.

  ‘Not at all, please don’t worry,’ said Marnie, quick to reassure him. At least, it wasn’t ominous for him.

  Cilla was dusting the staircase when Marnie walked into the manor. She said hello but her usually smiley face had an anxious cast. Marnie remembered then what Herv had told her.

  ‘Look, Cilla, can I put you at your ease about something. Your job is totally secure, Zoe and Johnny’s jobs are totally secure, and your home is totally secure. The manor is always going to need good staff.’

  Marnie hadn’t anticipated that Cilla would burst into tears. She had, it seems, been out of her head with worry. Marnie led her into the kitchen and made her sit down whilst she put on the kettle.

  ‘Griff was worried that the new owner would slap a great big rent on us or turf us out. He feels so guilty that he can’t work any more,’ Cilla half-hiccupped, half-sobbed.

  ‘The house is part of your wage though, Cilla. You wouldn’t be expected to pay rent.’

  ‘But when I retire, that’ll all change, won’t it? I was forty-two when I had Zoe . . .’

  Marnie did the maths. Then she remembered something that Ruby Sweetman had told her about Zoe wanting to go off to university and she wondered if the girl felt obliged to stay working for the manor so she could keep a roof over the family heads.

  ‘Cilla, I shall make the strongest case possible that you can stay in your cottage for life. Lilian would have wanted to look after you. No doubt Johnny and Zoe will be ready to flee the nest one day but don’t worry that when you retire, you’ll be out on your backside. That cottage must be cramped with four of you in it. I bet it’ll be a relief when they find a place of their own.’

  ‘It’s cosy, I’ll give you that,’ said Cilla, with an attempt at a laugh. ‘I think Johnny will stay around here, he’s as happy as a pig in muck trailing around after Herv, but I know Zoe wants to go to university.’ Marnie noticed Zoe appear in the doorway and then do a double-back out of the way when she saw that her mum wasn’t alone.

  ‘You should let her go then, Cilla,’ said Marnie.

  ‘It’s the money though, isn’t it,’ said Cilla, blowing her nose on a disintegrated tissue that she’d taken from her apron pocket.

  ‘Somehow most of them manage,’ replied Marnie, pulling a new packet of them out of her bag and handing it to Cilla.

  ‘Thank you, Marnie. We’d have been all right for money, you know, if we hadn’t been silly with it. A few years ago, we invested in one of those sure-fire schemes. We shouldn’t lose, he said, no one had before. But we had to accept that it was a gamble and there was a tiny chance we might. Anyway, we were unlucky and we lost everything we put in.’ Cilla shrugged. ‘It wasn’t his fault, it was ours because that’s what you get for gambling. He was so sorry, though, he felt so bad . . .’

  ‘Who was this?’ asked Marnie.

  ‘Titus,’ Cilla replied.

  Marnie was livid when she walked into the dining room. She slammed the box with the cheesecake in it down on the middle of the table and made a deep growl of frustration. Herv was already there, poring over a ledger.

  ‘My goodness, what’s happened?’ he asked.

  ‘All roads lead to Titus sodding Sutton in this village,’ said Marnie. ‘I am going to have a great deal of satisfaction in cutting off his financial oxygen.’

  ‘Can I buy a ticket to watch?’ Herv grinned.

  Marnie only answered with another growl.

  ‘I’ll go and get a knife and plates,’ said Herv, rubbing his hands together. He returned with them minutes later along with two cups of coffee. Marnie had just about calmed down by then.

  ‘I started at nine,’ he said. ‘You won’t believe what else I found.’

  ‘Oh, I would,’ said Marnie.

  ‘Titus has been also charging his golf membership to the estate.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Marnie threw her hands up in the air. ‘I thought Lilian was supposed to be a good judge of character, so why didn’t she see what he was doing under her nose?’ It didn’t make sense to Marnie.

  Herv cut himself an enormous piece of cheesecake. ‘My, this looks so good. What I think is she had no interest in money at all. In the days of her father there was plenty of it, so all the little swindles could be well hidden. But Titus is really greedy and hasn’t stolen a tiny amount which wouldn’t be noticed, he’s bled the bank dry. He started looking after the accounts thirty-one years ago. Up to then, I found the Helliwells had been paying rent on the farm. I think they still are and Titus has been syphoning it off for himself.’

  Every page of those ledgers brought sighs of despair of varying degrees. Titus had been like a kid in a sweet shop, it seems. Stealing the odd thing from the penny tray, then on finding he could get away with that easily, nicking the whole tray. Then upping his game until he was raiding the shelves in full view of the shopkeeper who appeared to be blind to it all. Had he inherited the manor as he thought, he might not have been able to sell it but he would have stripped it completely and sold all the portraits, even the panelling from the walls. Goodness knows what he would have tried to charge everyone in rents to finance his lavish lifestyle. He obviously didn’t give Hilary any of his money because the last time Marnie spotted her, she’d recognised her beige stripey raincoat as the one on the Asda George TV advert.

  Herv left at three-thirty with the rest of the cheesecake which he claimed ‘for services rendered’. He was going out that evening with one of the teachers he’d befriended when he first came over to England, he said. He didn’t say what sex that teacher was and Marnie hadn’t asked but wished she had because, for a reason she was reticent to admit to, she would have liked him to have confirmed it was a male one.

  The meeting with Derek cut out the teacher-gender second-guessing for a while at least. She was nervous about what she had to say to him, nervous about what carnage it might trigger. He arrived exactly on time. Cilla showed him through to the dining room. The smile was firmly back on her face after the talk she’d
had with Marnie hours before.

  ‘Take a seat, Derek,’ Marnie said.

  He sat awkwardly as if he had no right to be there. He was visibly tense, but not half as much as she was. It’ll be okay, said a voice inside her. As if he’d take up the offer. He’d refuse and it would all go quietly away because he wouldn’t dare let anyone know about it. She didn’t know how to begin the conversation, so dived straight in and hoped for the best.

  ‘Er, Derek. The new owner has asked me to ask you –’ Oh God ‘– if you would like to move into the old gravediggers cottage. The rent would constitute part of your wage as churchwarden.’ There, it was done.

  Derek rolled the suggestion around in his mind, as if it were a toffee in his mouth and he were trying to determine the flavour. ‘The old gravedigger’s house. No one’s lived in there since Diggory Hoyle died.’ Could there have been a more convenient name for a gravedigger than Diggory Hoyle, Marnie thought. Doug Hoyle, maybe?

  ‘That’s right.’

  She hadn’t seen inside it herself but apparently it was quite habitable. For a single occupant.

  Derek’s eyeballs looked as if they were vibrating inside their sockets. It was a pretty clear indicator of the activity going on behind them. Then he said no more than the one word:

  ‘Oh.’ But that word was loaded with obvious meaning. It was the sort of ‘oh’ that a child might say when told that Santa had just landed on his roof.

  ‘Yep,’ said Marnie, waiting for more, which eventually came.

  ‘Only one person can live in that house.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d move out of the cottage I share with Una and go into there, that’s what the owner wants me to do?’

  ‘Well, he – or she – wants to know if that’s what you would like to do.’

  This was getting more awful by the second, thought Marnie with an inward groan. She was handing him an axe to smash up his marriage, that really couldn’t be right.

  ‘Me and Una would split up if I did that.’

  Marnie gulped. She couldn’t think of what to say to that. Then she saw Derek’s mouth change from a tight moue of contemplation to a tentative twitch of a smile then on to a cavernous open mouth of delight.