by Lis Howell
As if finding a dead body wasn’t enough, Nancy thought, Nick had made her daughter feel tainted. He was far too egotistical. Nancy knew little about the Anglican Church. She was a practical person who lived in the present and, for her own reasons, she wanted nothing to do with religion. How ME could square with any kind of loving God, she didn’t know. But she did believe that people who set themselves up as spiritual guides needed to be experts on human nature too, with all the messiness that involved. She very much doubted whether Nick Melling had either the stomach or the sweetness to really love his fellow man.
‘Daisy?’ she called.
‘Morning, Mum. Would you like your coffee?’
‘Thanks, petal. And some of my special bread.’ Nancy’s newest toy from her catalogue was a breadmaker. She liked the bread made with egg, yellow and soft. It reminded her of her childhood in Leeds. She was lucky to be able to afford new gadgets like that and she had noticed Babs Piefield’s jealous glance. Nancy would have preferred not to excite envy, and that was one of the reasons — though not the main one — that she kept Babs out of her kitchen as much as possible. But it would have been silly to deprive herself so as not to provoke her neighbour.
‘Coming up, Mum,’ sang out Daisy.
Nancy pulled herself into the kitchen. ‘You seem brighter this morning?’ It was always a relief when Daisy was happy. She’d been her daddy’s girl and his death had knocked her sideways. Nancy had never really been sure of her.
‘I am. What happened to Yvonne was awful and I will never forget it. But these things happen, don’t they, Mum?’
‘I suppose so.’ Nancy frowned. It didn’t seem right that a violent death could be dealt with so easily. And Daisy had been deeply depressed the day before. After Nick had left on Saturday afternoon, she had refused to talk, and had turned her face away when Nancy had dragged herself up the stairs.
But now she was back to normal. Of course Nick hadn’t been their only visitor over the weekend. Babs had been there on and off, coming back on Sunday evening to tell them how Jake Spencer had disappeared for the day with Matthew Bell, and how cross Suzy Spencer had been.
‘She tried not to show it,’ Babs said smugly, ‘but she was really put out.’
Babs told them about Tom Strickland, too. She’d heard about it at Lo-cost, which was open on Sundays. Daisy had livened up then, saying she’d be back at work on Tuesday, when her next shift was scheduled. She liked working at Lo-cost. It was undemanding and it was in Tarnfield, which was becoming more and more the centre of Daisy’s world. Nancy sighed. It wasn’t what she wanted for her clever daughter.
‘Anyway,’ Daisy was saying, ‘I need to know how Nick is going to cope. He just wasn’t himself when he came to see me on Saturday.’
He was exactly himself, Nancy thought, cold and insincere. But she couldn’t say that to her daughter. Daisy got fixed ideas. If Nancy tried to pour cold water on them, she risked Daisy withdrawing as she had on Saturday night.
‘Have you heard from any of your college friends in London lately?’ Nancy asked carefully. She saw Daisy’s back stiffen as she bent to get butter from the fridge she used for dairy products.
‘Well, no, not for a while.’ Daisy laughed, a tinkling sound. ‘Honestly, Mum, you can be quite obvious, you know. Anyway, they’re all over the place now.’
‘But what about that nice lad you were keen on? Daniel, was it?’
‘Mum! That was in the second year. And anyway . . .’ Daisy said nothing more, but hustled around the coffee percolator. Nancy had a shrewd idea what had been wrong with Daniel. He hadn’t shared Daisy’s growing interest in Christianity. But he had been a nice boy, much more suitable than this Sebastian Flyte character of a vicar.
Nancy deeply regretted sending Daisy to Sunday School. She hadn’t sent her sons, but her ME was already encroaching when Daisy was a child, and she had thought it would do no harm and help keep her daughter occupied. Anyway, Daisy’s father had been quite keen that she should go. He had got more conservative as he got older, and liked the idea of being involved in the church, as many people do, in middle age. Nancy wasn’t the sort to create a rift over something like that. She rarely thought about her own background. It had been overtaken by Tarnfield, the shop and her husband. She had been more than happy to please him. And Daisy had enjoyed Sunday School, but not too much. During her teen years, when so many youngsters become fanatical, she had been relatively relaxed about religion. It was at university that she had become so serious about it, after her father died.
‘I was just wondering,’ Nancy went on, ‘about us having a holiday. We could go down to London and stay with your Auntie Cora.’
‘No!’ Daisy’s voice was sharp. ‘You know how I feel about Auntie Cora’s family. And anyway, there’s a lot going on in Tarnfield.’
‘But Daisy, there have been two deaths here. And a hit-and-run accident. You know how fond you were of Phyllis. And although Yvonne Wait wasn’t a very nice woman, it was still a nasty way to go. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to get away, meet other people, do a show, go to the shops?’
‘I said no, Mum.’ Daisy’s voice was petulant. ‘I’m happy here at the moment. And Nick will have to decide what he’s going to do now Yvonne is dead and Tom’s in hospital. He’ll need my support.’
Will he really? Nancy wondered, as she turned away to sit down heavily at the kitchen table. Daisy was singing again and, to her dismay, her mother realized it was one of those modern songs about Jesus. Oh dear, Nancy thought.
32
The Tuesday after Trinity Sunday
We beseech thee, that thou wouldest keep us stedfast in this faith.
From the Collect for Trinity Sunday
The good weather came late after a few false starts, as it so often does in the North. But once it arrived, every hedge seemed to drip with blossom. The Tuesday of the spring half-term week was almost hot.
Robert took his mid-morning cup of coffee into the back garden. It was looking a bit of a mess. He’d hardly touched it since Easter. He sat down gingerly at the wooden bench Mary had loved so much, by the picnic table, up against the north-facing wall of the house where the ivy grew. The laburnum she had planted was covered in ragged blossom and the clematis and Russian vine were out, though this year they looked stringy.
The flowers reminded him of Phyllis, and she in turn reminded him of Nick Melling. It was odd, he thought, that a snob like Nick was in cahoots with someone like Kevin Jones, but the partnership seemed to excite them both. Yet although it would normally have outraged Robert, this crisis over forms of worship seemed much less important than the unexplained deaths of the two women. Yes, it had annoyed him that Melling had refused to use any of the traditional Trinity hymns like ‘Holy Holy Holy’ or St Patrick’s Breastplate that Sunday, but as he was disbanding the choir it was hardly a surprise. Yet Robert felt distant from the controversy and much more worried about the bigger picture.
He reviewed the events of the last two months. Two women had died in the church, a man had been knocked down, the vicar had instigated huge upheavals, and two boys had taken a mystery tour. Robert had seen enough cases of bullying, child abuse, domestic violence and downright wickedness in his work at the college to be under no illusions about rural life. But although bad things happened in villages as much as in the darkest slums, they didn’t happen all at once like this. It was too much of a coincidence. There had to be some sort of unlikely connection.
He’d taken Jake Spencer to the college the week before and let him use the computers in the IT section, as he’d promised. Robert wasn’t much of a talker and they had been silent in the car on the way there, and chatted a bit about Apple Macs on the way back. Jake had said one intriguing thing. He’d mentioned that Matthew Bell had the latest computer game — but that Jake hadn’t been asked to try it.
‘So you’re not really a good friend of Matthew’s?’ Robert asked.
‘No. S’pose not.’
�
��Did he have his other mates with him as well as you when you went off?’
‘No. The others were paint-balling again.’
The boy turned to look out of the window. Jake had been used, Robert thought, but he wasn’t sure why. He wondered why Matt had called for him and taken him out on his own. Was it because he was younger and more malleable? Was it because his dad wasn’t around? In either case, Robert suspected Matthew Bell had made a mistake in his choice of sidekick. Jake was young, but he wasn’t timid. And Suzy seemed to exert a fair bit of authority. Robert glanced at Jake. He was biting his cuticle. At some point, Robert thought, he would tell his mother what had really been going on.
Now, sitting in the garden, Robert was surprised to find himself thinking that the brief talk with Jake reminded him of conversations with his wife — the waiting for a revelation, the care not to probe or prod, the suspicion that all wasn’t well and the overwhelming sense of responsibility. He had cared for Mary deeply, but he was beginning to understand that much of that love was about protecting her and that for a great deal of the time he had been walking on eggshells.
He thought of something Suzy had said to him. ‘After your first baby, you can’t believe you’ve got enough love for another. You almost have the second one for the first child’s benefit. It’s just “Jake’s new brother or sister”. But before long, you have more than enough love for the next.’
Perhaps romance was like that as well, he wondered. You think you’ve exhausted it, and then someone else comes along. Could that happen to him? It seemed impossible. His wife had drained him, he thought as he finished the dregs of his coffee. He’d better take the cup into the kitchen and wash it up. Mary hated dirty dishes lying about.
He stood up to go inside, but instead he walked over to have a closer look at the struggling wisteria. He really had to get to grips with the garden. For more than a year, all he had wanted was to keep things going as they always had been. It was unimaginable that things could be different. But they were, of course. For a start, the old front fence had gone, where Suzy had run into it. Frank Bell had replaced it with a twisted weave effect. Robert had had no idea what sort of fence Mary would have liked these days. And it didn’t matter. That had been the first time he had made a decision about the garden on his own.
And now, suddenly in the sunshine, he looked back on his marriage and it seemed to be really in the past, like his schooldays or his years at university. He could see it as a section of time with a beginning and an end, and a character. He had genuinely never thought about remarrying because he had still felt married.
But he didn’t any more. It was over despite his huge efforts. It had taken enormous striving to keep the relationship with Mary going, with its complex secrets. For years before she died, he had no energy left for anything else. And then her death had been as exhausting as her life. For the last fifteen months he had still been living for Mary, running on empty but still free-wheeling. Now, it wasn’t just he who was exhausted. The relationship with his wife had run its course.
And did love have to be so enervating? Did it have to be such a one-way street? Say someone was prepared to care for him as he had cared for Mary? The idea was a novelty. It amused him. He was still thinking about it when he went back into the house.
He had left the used coffee mug on the wooden table outside.
* * *
On the same day, Suzy dropped Jake at another music workshop, this time in Carlisle. Then she drove home with Molly, played with her for a while, and started working on a brief for Tynedale TV. But she couldn’t concentrate. The sunlight seemed warm and yellow for the first time that year and the dust motes swirled in it. The computer screen was smeared in the bright light, however hard she rubbed it with the sleeve of her jumper, which felt itchy. In a fit of irritation, she changed into a T-shirt and felt the heat on her bare arms. She thought, I’ll go over to Lo-cost, just to get out. It would be a nice walk. In the sun, she could smell pollen. Molly trotted along with Flowerbabe the doll, not wearing her hooded jacket for the first time that year.
She bumped into Monica Bell at Lo-cost. Normally Monica would have been bursting to talk. But she seemed a bit distracted, and Suzy felt awkward. After the initial hello, there wasn’t the usual rush of chat. Monica clearly knew nothing about her son’s jaunt with Jake, so Suzy didn’t push it. It would be better if Jake’s decision not to repeat the experience resolved the whole matter. He would never forgive her if she waded in with Matt Bell’s mother.
‘I gather Daisy called you, after she found Yvonne?’ Monica said eventually. It was as if she were annoyed about it.
‘Yes. We were planning to meet half an hour later. Poor Daisy. It was awful.’
‘But it was so typical of Yvonne to try and take over the decorating, wasn’t it? No one asked her to go up a ladder, did they? Stupid thing to do.’
‘Well, that’s true.’ Suzy was surprised at Monica’s tone. Then the conversation stalled. Suzy asked about the ladder, and Monica said the police had taken it away. She was edgy, which wasn’t surprising, Suzy thought. For the first time, she wondered about Frank. When had he taken the ladder to All Saints? Monica looked agitated so Suzy changed the subject.
‘Do you know how Tom Strickland is?’
‘Oh, Tom’s OK. Frank called in to see him yesterday and apparently George Pattinson himself turned up at the hospital. He’s been to see Tom a few times.’
‘George Pattinson? I thought he’d gone to ground.’
‘No, it seems he’s up and about again.’
There was a silence, but then Suzy thought, I ought to take this opportunity to find out what’s happening at the church. She had missed Trinity Sunday at All Saints because Nigel had come over to talk to Jake, though he’d got nowhere. The day had been rather a strain.
‘So what d’you think about Nick Melling’s proposals, Monica?’
‘Oh, it’s terrible. What a time to choose! We got a leaflet through the door. Just a scruffy piece of paper! I bet it was delivered by Kevin Jones. I don’t think that’s a very decent way to treat me and Frank after years of working at All Saints. But what can you do?’
‘Write to the Bishop, I suppose.’
But Suzy could tell that Monica didn’t want to get involved in a fight with Nick. Far from it being a bad time to make swingeing changes, it was probably an intelligent move. Everyone was winded by Yvonne’s death, and probably too shocked to fight back. Nick was pretty crafty, Suzy thought. Or so self-obsessed, he’d hit on lucky timing through sheer insensitivity.
‘Will you be staying at All Saints?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. I like traditional things. I think in the end I’ll be looking for another church, though this is our parish, where we live!’
Then Monica’s mobile rang and she grabbed it with relief, rushing off to talk loudly to a plasterboard supplier in Darlington. Suzy felt slightly put out. She watched her hurry to the Bells’ pick-up in the Lo-cost car park, and saw her stop to speak to Jane Simpson who had come hurrying out of Tarnfield House. They put their heads together.
Strange, Suzy thought. She hadn’t realized the two other women were so pally. They were probably talking about the church. But at the back of Suzy’s mind, something tugged. Of course. She had wondered whether the Bells and the Simpsons were friendly when she had been to the wood yard and heard Frank and Monica quarrelling. What had Frank said? ‘Don’t ring the Simpsons about it . . .’
About what? She turned away from Monica and Jane with a sense of being excluded, and felt the warmth on her face. The door of Lo-cost was open, and Daisy waved to her from the check-out. Life was going on, and the sun was out.
After lunch, she took Molly to the long-awaited birthday party of her latest best friend. One or two people mentioned the death in the church a week earlier. Some had heard the item on the local radio news, but the report had sounded bald and matter-of-fact. Most parents were more concerned about the chicken pox cases that had been
reported in Norbridge. On the way home, Suzy felt a heightened sense of normality, as if a light had been turned on in a scary cellar.
But when she got back, she found that words wouldn’t come as she tried to use the keyboard. Fighting national obesity wasn’t something she could pontificate about. She had enough trouble with her own excess pounds. She looked at the grime on her kitchen window. I must spring-clean, she thought, and then smiled. She hadn’t used the word for years. It reminded her of her grandma, and her own early childhood, a lifetime away — when her gran used washing soda, scouring powder and loose tea. The thought of Phyllis’s bungalow came back, with its little pile of coupons and elastic bands, and the stained old-fashioned tea cosy. Who would inherit the bungalow now? Would it have gone to Yvonne if she were alive? And who would get the Georgian house and Yvonne’s beautiful things? It was all in limbo while the police investigated. But there had been no sign of any more activity.
Suzy chewed her pencil, which she was supposed to be using for jotting down thoughts for her memo to the producer at Tynedale TV. She drew a doodle of the hellebore leaves she thought she had seen by Yvonne’s body. But had she been mistaken? It all seemed so long ago, though it was little over a week earlier. Since then, Tom Strickland had been run over, and Jake had caused her all that anxiety going off with Matt Bell. And Nick Melling had dropped his bombshell about reforming the church. All this in a place like Tarnfield, where people thought nothing ever happened. What a joke. But she couldn’t tell any of her neighbours how she felt. They would be offended.
Except perhaps Robert, whom she’d last spoken to when he’d dropped Jake off the week before. She had missed seeing him at church on Sunday. It had been strange with Nigel back in the house for the day. The visit had not been a great success.
Jake’s chat with his father had descended from a potentially useful heart-to-heart, into a lot of horseplay in the garden which re-established their male bond but did nothing to uncover what Jake had been doing with Matthew Bell the previous week. Still, it made Nigel feel good. He told Suzy he thought it had just been a one-off prank, and made her feel silly for fussing. He’d taken them to lunch at a smart pub in Norbridge, and then left as soon as possible for Newcastle. To her surprise, Suzy had found Nigel easier to talk to, but more remote. He’s like a cousin or a colleague, she thought. How could I ever have loved him enough to marry him?
