Faithful unto Death

by Caroline Graham

  She would never go anywhere with him. In spite of his dire financial state, Gray had asked her out for dinner. And, when this offer was refused, to a movie or the theatre with much the same result. Once or twice they had been for a drink at the Goat and Whistle but mainly they just sat talking in the garden.

  This present Saturday morning they were discussing—who wasn’t?—the Hollingsworths. Gray was sitting on a rather battered sofa sipping a small cup of bitter Javanese coffee. Sarah was looking at her watch.

  “My theory,” said Gray, “for what it’s worth, is that she has hied her to a nunnery.”

  “Simone?”

  “Having finally realised how meretricious are the sybaritic luxuries of this sinful world.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  “Have you been in their sitting room?”

  “Yes.”

  “The perfect setting for a poule du luxe, wouldn’t you say?”

  “What makes you think I’d know?” Sarah shook her watch and held it to her ear.

  “I can just see Mrs. H, gold-sandalled feet on a fluffy pink footstool, Malibu plus ice and a little parasol on her onyx side table eating chocolate truffles, varnishing her toenails and reading Jackie Collins.”

  “She wasn’t that dextrous on my course.”

  “A sugared almond on legs.”

  “What were you doing at Nightingales anyway?” Sarah came over, collected his cup and saucer, stacked it on top of her own and took them to the kitchen. “Delivering the ass’s milk?”

  “We were friends, him and me. Well, sort of.”

  “I knew you were business partners.” Standing in the doorway she gave him a strange look. Interested, curious but without a trace of sympathy. “It was on the—”

  “Front page of the Causton Echo.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I trusted him.” Gray shrugged. “The more fool me. When money comes through the door, friendship, it seems, buggers off through the window.”

  “Did you really beat him up?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you lost everything?”

  “Not quite. I haven’t lost my negative equity—around fifty at the last reckoning. Or my debts. Or my dog—she’s still hanging round. So let’s look on the bright side.”

  “You’re taking it better than I would.”

  “I’m suing the bastard for all he’s got. That’s how I’m taking it.”

  Sarah put on some music, “Di,’ cor mio” from Alcina, and started to peel a damp muslin cloth away from a mass of clay on a marble slab. A narrow elongated male head with a long nose and a thin-lipped, down-turned mouth emerged. It was eyeless and appeared mutilated to Gray even though he knew the piece was in the process not of being destroyed but created.

  Gray picked up his jacket and prepared to leave as he always did when he sensed his time was up. He was determined not to push his luck. As it was, he had a very strong feeling that the minute he was off the premises she forgot his very existence.

  He turned at the door. Bending closely over the table, Sarah pressed her thumb hard into the clay, moved it slightly, took her hands away.

  Suddenly, although it was merely an empty socket, intelligence sprang into being, informing the face. Giving it life. And Gray wondered how, with one simple movement, such a thing could be.

  As this conversation took place, something else was happening which, though not directly connected with the Hollingsworth mystery, nevertheless prompted a response that drew the attention of a slightly wider world to Simone’s disappearance.

  Ostlers, the village store (Prop: Nigel Boast) was situated in the main street of Fawcett Green. This ran, like the bar on a capital T, across the top end of St. Chad’s Lane. A note on the door informed children that their presence was welcome one at a time.

  This stern directive had cut down petty pilfering considerably but there was still a certain amount of leakage. Mr. Boast, who watched his young customers as would a hawk a fledgling dove, could not understand this. It never occurred to him or Doreen, his “good lady wife,” that the culprits might be grown up.

  The shop was very Tudory. The price tickets were written in Olde English, as was the notice behind the till: Pray Do Not Ask For Credit As Ye Refusal Oft Offends. Originally all the s’s had been f’s which was, as Mr. Boast tirelessly explained, authentically correct. But no one was impressed by this conceit. Customers kept winking and asking for “a pound of foffages” and “fome tomato foup” so, after a while, Nigel and Doreen reluctantly reverted to more contemporary Elizabethan.

  Cubby Dawlish, who was encouraged by Mrs. Molfrey to sell surplus produce from her garden to eke out his pension, came in around half past ten with several pounds of broad beans. Handing over the laden wooden tray, Cubby forbore to haggle over the going rate, even though he was aware the eventual mark-up would probably be three times as much.

  While the beans were being weighed, Cubby looked about him at the whitewashed walls and wooden beams. The latter, though artificial, were nothing like as false as the beam in Mr. Boast’s eye as he offered ten pence a pound, there being a glut at the moment. There was always a glut. Or an unexpected surplus. Cubby sometimes thought if he came in during the depths of winter with freshly picked raspberries some miraculously cheap source of such a delicacy would only that second have franchised itself to Ostlers.

  While putting the coins in his pocket and commenting pleasantly on the sweet and balmy weather, he was asked, in his capacity as a very near neighbour, if he knew how Mrs. Hollingsworth’s mother was prospering after her stroke.

  Cubby begged the shopkeeper’s pardon and, when the question had been repeated, asked if it was in fact the case that Mrs. Hollingsworth’s “sick relative” was, in fact, her mother.

  “Verily,” replied Mr. Boast who often slipped into high Tudor, especially after a session with the Civil War Society. “Alan told the vicar in person.”

  After declining to spend his earnings on some reduced Jamaica ginger cake, Cubby made his way back to Arcadia where his first task was to make a cup of banana-flavoured mineral-enriched Vita Life for Elfrida’s elevenses. Whilst getting out the remains of the lemon drizzle, he passed on this snippet of information. She stared at him for a long moment in complete surprise.

  “This is most disturbing, Cubby.”

  “Why is that, my love?”

  “Simone doesn’t have a mother.”

  “Doesn’t . . .” He stood, a scoop of the vitamin supplement tilted near the opalescent beaker.

  “You’re spilling some.”

  “Sorry.” He sprinkled in the rest of the powder. “How do you know?”

  “It’s all over the draining board.”

  “I mean,” Cubby blew the spillage into the sink, “about Mrs. Hollingsworth senior.”

  “Simone told me herself. I was in the greenhouse a few weeks ago dividing some narcissi and she came wandering by. You know what she was like, poor girl. Always looking for something to do.” Mrs. Molfrey spoke in the uncomprehending tones of someone who had so far been vouchsafed eighty-three years and had not found them nearly long enough to pack in all that she wanted to do.

  “More to make conversation, I suspect, than out of real interest, she asked what I was about. When I explained, she said narcissi had always been her mother’s favourite. And that she—Simone, that is—had ordered a wreath, a harp I think it was, made entirely of Pheasant’s Eye, on the occasion of her mother’s funeral.”

  “How extraordinary.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I should have thought a harp entirely suitable under the circumstances.”

  “I meant—”

  But Elfrida was retreating to her favourite armchair. Cubby followed, carrying her drink and his own, a mid-morning pick-me-up of elderflower cordial, freshly squeezed lemon and English clover honey.

  “So,” said Elfrida as she rested her thin, trembly shanks against the embroidered unicorns and dragons and roses with golden thorns, “
Alan Hollingsworth has been deliberately lying. Hmm.”

  Cubby put the beaker carefully into Elfrida’s hand, gently pressing her fingers round the glass, then sat down himself in a large, Chinese basket chair. He knew what was coming and the pointlessness of attempting any diversion.

  “This would explain why she went the long way round on the bus and took no luggage. After all, even for the briefest of visits, one hurls some cologne and a few unmentionables into a Gladstone. There was no journey, as such, at all. She was simply going into Causton, either to shop or meet someone. So where is she now?” Elfrida paused for breath and a swig of her drink. “It’s all very slippery-snakery.”

  “But not necessarily sinister, dear.” Cubby hesitated, unsure how to continue. The truth of the matter was that this sort of situation was not unfamiliar. Ever since he had persuaded Elfrida to buy a television set almost five years ago she had been passionately addicted to all programmes, whether fictional or no, which had even the most slender connection with crime. Her dearest wish was to assist the police with their inquiries and if she had so far failed to do so it was certainly not for want of trying. Cubby had had great difficulty, after Elfrida’s last foray, in saving her from an assault charge.

  It had all come about after she had seen an Identikit portrait on Crimewatch and became convinced that the miscreant, who had held up a building society with a sawn-off shotgun, was none other than Fawcett Green’s relief Christmas postman. She had been dissuaded with great difficulty from contacting the authorities and had agreed only on the condition that Cubby be present at the cottage from that day onwards at delivery time.

  Once, he had been a few minutes late. Elfrida, quaking with panic, had armed herself with a broom handle. When the postman attempted to insert tidings of comfort and joy into the letter box, she had thrust the handle violently back. Emerging from his caravan, Cubby had discovered the poor man staggering blindly round the garden, bent double in agony.

  “The quinces are ripening up well,” Cubby said now, very firmly. “Would you like me to make some lemon and japonica jelly?”

  The attempt was futile as he knew it must be. Being firm with Elfrida was like speaking to someone in a completely alien language. She could hear that your voice had got rather louder than usual (providing her box was switched on) and that you were standing four square in a very sturdy sort of way. She just didn’t understand your problem.

  “All this talk of jelly is by the by,” said Elfrida. “The point at issue surely is what we are going to do about Simone.”

  “I don’t see why we have to get involved at all.”

  “Bosh! Show some gumption, Dawlish.”

  “What do you think we ought to do then?” asked Cubby, anticipating and dreading the reply.

  “It’s plain as a pikestaff.”

  “I was afraid it would be,” he sighed and put his cup down. “Righto. I’ll bike over to Ferne Bassett and—”

  “Forget Ferne Bassett!” cried Elfrida. “Ferne Bassett is small potatoes. We’re almost certainly describing a serious crime here. Mark my words, that man has done away with his wife. And with calumny of such magnitude there’s little point in pussyfooting around with the infantry. It’s not the local boys in blue we’re after. It’s the top brass.”

  “But Elfie—”

  “On the blower hotsy totsy, Dawlish, and order a Hackney carriage.”

  At the sound of the taxi drawing up, Brenda Brockley’s heart pounded. Ignoring her parents’ disapproving glances she rushed to see what was happening and immediately afterwards rushed straight upstairs, thus avoiding any discussion or lecture on her odd behaviour.

  She locked her door and went over to her pretty little writing desk which was placed in the large bay window. The chair on which she sat was pretty too. It had a tall, narrow back: two upright slats and a crossbar made of varnished papier-mâché inlaid with mother-of-pearl. An amber silk cushion patterned with silver fleur-de-lis was tied to the seat with narrow velvet ribbons. Facing her, on the sill, was a vase of deep red carnations.

  These two pieces of furniture were deliberately different from anything else in the room. It was not that Brenda thought the other things boring or tasteless—though they were—but that she recognised their absolute unsuitability to play even the most humble part in a scene in which her grand illusion would be allowed to hold full sway.

  She took a tiny gold key from a box covered with shells, unlocked the desk and rolled back the lid. From the interior she removed a large, shagreen-covered book labelled with the word Diary and filled with unlined pages of creamy yellow paper. Just inside the front cover was Sellotaped a photograph of Alan Hollingsworth which she had obtained in the spring of the previous year.

  One Sunday afternoon when Reg and Iris were out buying a large supply of Paraquat from their nearest garden centre, Brenda, fortified by a schooner of sweet sherry, had approached the Hollingsworths over the larch lap divide. Explaining that she had just one shot left and Shona seemed to have quite lost interest, Brenda asked if she could take their picture. Somewhat surprised, they agreed.

  Brenda adjusted the viewfinder with great care and got exactly the snap she wanted. A clear head and shoulders of Alan and no sign of Simone.

  Brenda would have liked to have framed the photo. It deserved a beautiful silver one like those she had seen in antique shops; all flowing acanthus leaves and arabesques of lilies. But she was afraid that one day she would forget to lock it away in her desk. And that such a time might coincide with one or the other of her parents popping their heads in while she was having a meal or in the bath, to sneak a quick look round.

  She wrote in her diary only at the weekends when there were enough hours to do it justice. Sometimes, and this was more exciting by far, she actually spoke to Alan. The smaller window in her room overlooked the forecourt of Nightingales and, when he was due to arrive home, she would open it with trembling fingers, lean out and call, “Good evening.”

  Brenda had pondered to an agonising degree as to how frequent these greetings should be and had finally decided on a ratio of one to ten. More frequently and she feared he would guess that her appearance was not accidental. Less and the fear was that she would be unable to bear the waiting.

  The occasions of her calling out were carefully marked by an asterisk in her shagreen book with a special pen, the sort used at Christmas for labelling parcels. Filled with powerfully smelling runny liquid, it dried shining silver like a snail’s track.

  Once a month she and Alan actually conversed. These stomach-churning encounters were marked with a golden pen of the same type with the asterisk surmounted by a red felt-tipped drawing of a heart.

  The conversations could only be brought about by a certain amount of artificial loitering which involved hanging around the front garden sniffing the roses and pretending to weed or playing outside in the lane with her dog. As Alan closed the garage door, Brenda, nauseous, her skin prickling with nerves, would toss a casual “Hullo” in his direction.

  He replied of course but the ensuing conversations were necessarily brief. How many responses were there after all to a suggestion that today had been uncertain/awful/wonderful/changeable? Or that the news didn’t seem to get any better. She would follow through with, “And how are things at Nightingales?”

  Alan would then assure her that things were fine. Although he only rarely asked how matters at The Larches were faring, Brenda was never unprepared.

  Recognising that her replies must not only be short and lighthearted but, hopefully, amusing, she would practise them right up to the last minute, a throwaway almost negligent style being her aim.

  There was no one to whom she could sing her love. At work, where her shyness was mistaken for slyness, she had no friends. And the thought of telling her parents was utterly appalling. Even thinking of it chilled her bones. They had always seemed to Brenda antiseptically unaware that such a thing as romance existed. She had never heard a sound smacking even remotely o
f eroticism from their bedroom. The only rhythmical vibration occurred when the alarm clock went off. Sometimes, regarding the straining hospital corners on the chaste, single beds, Brenda wondered if she was a changeling found under a gooseberry bush.

  Like everyone else in the village, but to an intensely more passionate degree, Brenda’s thoughts were engaged in the matter and manner of Simone’s disappearance. Plainly she had been forcibly abducted. Or lured away, perhaps by a false message purporting to come from her husband. Obviously no woman lucky enough to be married to Alan Hollingsworth would leave home voluntarily.

  It might be thought that Alan’s newly unyoked state would fill Brenda with wild hope and delight but such was not the case. It was the stable impenetrability of the Hollingsworths’ lives that held Brenda’s dreams together. Now that background had been torn apart the whole tapestry seemed about to unravel. She dreaded what the future might hold. Overwhelmingly paramount was the fear that, if Simone did not return, Alan might decide that Nightingales held so many unhappy memories he could no longer bear to go on living there.

  For the first time she found herself regretting her parents’ reclusive existence, her mother’s finicky revulsion against any sort of close relationship. If only she had been the sort to run around with a dish of something sustaining. And what then would be more natural than that her daughter should call to collect the empties.

  Brenda had even, shaking in her shoes at the thought of such audacity, imagined going round alone. Alan hadn’t been out for two days now and must surely be in dire need of assistance. In her imagination she placed a wicker basket on his table and lifted a snowy cloth to reveal French bread and rosy apples, a honey pot shaped like a beehive, crisp frilly lettuce and a wedge of cheese wrapped in waxed paper. Finally, a long-necked dark green bottle of wine.

  Alan would be sitting, sad and solitary, staring at the wall. She would need to speak two or three times before he became aware of her presence. It might even prove necessary to touch his arm.

  Brenda sighed and returned to a worrying present. She unscrewed the cap from her fountain pen, mottled tortoise-shell with a gold nib. It had been bought especially and at great cost for inscribing her private thoughts and was never used for anything else.