Enigma of Fire

by Marilyn Leach

  “Laundry?”

  “I found a laundry parcel in the truck when I used it to go to visit Chad. It’s right here.” Berdie reached behind Lillie’s seat and pulled the desired object to her lap. She tore the paper to expose the uniforms. “I know we’ve not a proper changing room, but we can give it a go.”

  Lillie observed the blue work overalls. “You’re serious?”

  “You’ve always fancied blue.” Berdie gave an overall to Lillie, who shook it open from its folded state.

  “They’re huge.” Lillie held it against her slender body. “If I don’t drown from the rain, I’ll drown for the overall.”

  “Think of the size as a bonus.” Berdie measured a uniform sleeve along her arm. “The bottoms will cover your shoes. Besides, you can’t be a fashion plate one hundred percent of the time, you know.”

  Lillie’s disgruntle was swept away with one giggle. “Oh, why not? This could turn into a real lark.”

  “Come on then,” Berdie goaded.

  Between laughter and struggles to get the silly things on over their clothes, Berdie and Lillie at last alighted from the van, covered in blue button-up work overalls, with Butz and Sons Electrics written on their front top pocket and across their backs in large letters.

  “No umbrellas?” Lillie’s hair was already losing its shape.

  “They’ll just be in the way.” Berdie scanned the top of the hedgerow. There was a long stretch between the two farms, a good half-mile, Berdie reckoned, but a straight line of sight. “Lord have mercy,” she whispered.

  “I’ll go this way.” Lillie pointed toward the bottom of the road. “You go the other direction.”

  “We’ll wave with both hands and yell, if we see anything,” Berdie agreed.

  She laughed to herself, watching the trudging Lillie, who nearly tripped over the long end of the uniform legs, hands hidden by the sleeves. Berdie knew she too must present quite a sight. But then, who would see them all the way out here?

  Whilst staying close to the hedgerow, Berdie moved along in the opposite direction to Lillie, taking in every detail.

  Apart from their task, Berdie enjoyed the hedgerows that were abundantly foliaged and profusely decorated by flowers and undergrowth this time of year. Some of the hedges were hundreds of years old. Bushes and trees had been set in place long ago, nourished, and clipped, to create natural, sturdy boundaries between fields. Hedgerows actually had their own distinct habitat, even today. When woodlands were cut down, many creatures that inhabited them took up living in the hedgerows.

  Berdie trudged on, stopping now and again to look for a track. If it was overgrown, as Mrs. Carlisle said, it would take a keen eye to spot it.

  Right now, Berdie didn’t have a keen eye at all. She used her finger to wipe raindrops off her glasses. She decided to take them off and clean them with the overall sleeve that hung over her hand.

  “Berdie.” Lillie’s distant call sounded an alert. “Look.”

  Startled, Berdie fumbled her glasses, which caught on a button at the sleeve’s edge and then spun into wet vegetation.

  “Oh, really.” Berdie’s poor sight hampered her chance of spotting the glasses amidst the undergrowth. “My dear Lord…” She bent over and used her hands to sieve the sedge and grass at her feet.

  “Berdie,” Lillie yelled again. “What are you doing? Look!”

  Berdie rose up from her treasure hunt. “You’ve found the gate?”

  “Berdie, can’t you see? There’s something coming our way across the field.”

  Berdie felt a kick of panic. “I’ve lost my glasses, Lillie,” she yelled at the top of her voice.

  “You’ve what?”

  Berdie wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard laughter spring from her best friend’s lips.

  “How does one lose their glasses whilst walking a hedgerow?”

  “Easily, actually, when others yell out with alarm. Can you make out what it is that’s coming?” Berdie could see the shape of Lillie down the lane “as a tree walking” of sorts, but when she looked across the field, she saw only a mobile black dot, and she only saw that by squinting. And it was well downfield from them.

  Lillie walked toward Berdie. “Some kind of motorbike perhaps?”

  “Motorbike?” Berdie said to herself. She felt her pulse pick up. “This could be a divine juncture. Lord, where are my glasses?” She bent back down and continued her search.

  “Have you found them?” Lillie’s words were salted with chuckles as she made way toward Berdie.

  Just then, Berdie’s ears heard the distant roar of the motorbike’s engine. She looked up. The black dot was advancing toward the lane like a wild hare. “Lillie, stay on the motorbike.”

  “What do you mean, stay on the bike?” Lillie was only yards away.

  “Stop. Go back, Lillie. A motorcycle means a driver, a driver who might have information we need. You’ve got to chase the bike, Lillie.”

  “Me?”

  “They have to stop and open the gate.” Berdie was on her hands and knees now. Rain pelted her back as she felt along the ground. “Ask for directions, stall them.” She lifted her head to see Lillie motionless. “Don’t just stand there, go, run. I’ll catch you up.”

  “But my shoes…”

  “Now,” Berdie yelled.

  Lillie grabbed the baggy trouser legs and lifted them, gripping them in her raised hands, nearly knee high. Had a gust of wind come along, she may have become a large blue Butz and Sons Electrics kite. But instead, she began a dash that looked to Berdie more a trot, like someone entered in the sack race at a Sunday afternoon fete. She would have rolled over in the wet with laughter if this wasn’t a critical moment that could easily slip through their fingers.

  “You owe me a new pair of shoes,” Lillie called as she hastily waddled off.

  Berdie, still on hands and knees, made her way along the hedgerow by moving her knees one at a time.

  The sound of the motorbike grew louder, but it wasn’t too loud to drown out the cruel crunch Berdie heard from below her knee. She froze. “Oh no.” She backed up and ran her hand through the vegetation by her left knee. There they were, but her tortoiseshell glasses were definitely rearranged. The ear stems looked as if they had done battle with a great horde and lost. Berdie tried to gently bend one stem back to the proper shape while her wet hair dripped onto the unaffected lenses. The ear stem wasn’t having it. “Blast.”

  The howl of the approaching engine screamed lost opportunity in Berdie’s ear. She couldn’t let that happen.

  She stood and planted her feet, then rammed the glasses on, as they were. She felt one ear stem riding far above her left ear against her head, skewing the frames cockeyed, while the other stem felt to lie flattened across the middle of her other ear. She struggled to put the eyeglasses in their proper place, but they didn’t yield.

  “You won’t get away,” she yelled with gusto as her instincts told her to forego any concern for decent appearance and simply run like a madwoman.

  Even though the rain was beginning now to ease, Berdie felt the resistance of the wet overall as she sprinted in the middle of the lane toward Lillie and the approaching rider. She held the damaged glasses with one hand and pumped her free arm in time with her feet to help her speed along. She could only imagine that if there were hedgerow rodents creeping about, they would shut themselves away at the sight of her.

  The motorcycle slowed when it neared the hedgerow. Lillie raced toward the rider.

  Berdie, as best she could see through the skewed glasses, watched the rider, clad in a dark leather jacket, helmet, and gloves, come to an abrupt halt at the spot that had to be the gate. The person glanced toward “the blue kite” that flew closer and appeared completely taken aback, staring in paralyzed wonder.

  “Hello,” Berdie could hear Lillie call in cheerful voice as she continued her flight forward.

  The rider kept the transport running whilst dismounting and approaching the well-hidden gate. Vine
-covered was putting it mildly. It was a mobile thicket. The rider kicked at it, then, feet braced, pushed with both hands, finally heaving the thing open.

  “Hello there,” Lillie called again.

  Berdie continued her sprint while rain continued to ease.

  The motorist remounted the engine and pulled forward to the road, alighted, and worked to swiftly close the gate.

  “Come on, Lillie. Get there,” Berdie prompted.

  “I say, can I have a word?” Lille shouted with panted voice.

  The rider sat on the bike and raised the helmet’s visor. “Blimey, you electrics people are keen to service.”

  Berdie could just make out the rather-mumbled words.

  “Service?” Lillie halted just a couple yards from the idling motorcycle. She dropped her “wings,” the trouser legs rumpling downward. “Oh, yes, service.” She ran a hand through her dripping hair. “The best electrics service indeed,” she breathed between gulps of air.

  Berdie gathered her own breath. “Hey there,” she trumpeted. “We need your help.”

  The motorcyclist threw the visor down, revved the engine, and thrust the thing in motion, springing onto the lane.

  “No,” Berdie yelled, hands flailing, and threw herself into the path of the transport.

  The motorbike nearly spun out of control when the rider slammed on the brakes and stopped just short of crashing into Berdie.

  “Are you daft, you silly woman?” the motorist raged and flipped the visor up.

  Berdie stared into flared, angry, blue-shadowed eyes, mascara laden, and somehow familiar.

  “You’ve already had one accident”—she thrust an arm in the direction of the van—“and now you’re creating another?”

  An accident? Berdie suddenly realized her skewed glasses, drenched hair, being wet through and on foot, plus a stopped vehicle up the road read as trouble to the young woman.

  “We need your help,” Berdie puffed.

  The damp leather saddlebags that hung at the rear of the motorcycle stood in contrast to the tight, upright way the slim female sat on the motorcycle.

  “I’ve got to push on,” the woman yelled above the engine noise.

  “Please, can you tell us how to get to the summer cottage, the one in the wood? I daresay, the one you just came from?”

  The woman’s eyes went into a squint as she tightened her grip on the handlebars. “You’re calling to service electrics there?” She lifted her chin. “No, I’ve no idea of any summer cottage.”

  “Yes, you do,” Berdie challenged her. “You do know. In fact, you live there.”

  “I’ve got to get to work.” The woman revved the motorbike and thrust her upper body forward.

  Berdie kept her feet firmly planted on the road in front of the motorcycle. She braced her back and refused to move from in front of the vehicle, hands on hips. “Answer my question.”

  “Look,” Lillie shouted and threw her index finger toward the road, where a small, well-worn car squeezed round the distant van on the lay-by.

  “Mother,” the rider declared.

  The car, though the rain was now light, splashed its way on down the lane toward them. And it picked up speed, not the best for tiny, waterlogged country roads, Berdie reasoned, even more so when she spotted two youngsters in the backseat.

  She glanced back at the bike rider, who bit her scarlet lip.

  “Your mother, you say.” Berdie looked the biker in the eye, as best she could with her cockeyed glasses. “Does she live with you as well?”

  “No.” The word dripped with venom.

  “So, you do live there.”

  “Please, get out of my way,” the rider bawled.

  The car was upon them now and stopped dead in the center of the road. The driver door flew open, a woman sprang out, leaving the little ones behind, and didn’t bother to close the door.

  “What’s going on, Jenny?” The older woman, gray hair in a knot, stood ramrod-straight, taking the situation in, despite the light rain that fell upon her.

  “These electrical workers are looking for the summer cottage.”

  “There’s no need. The electrics are fine,” the woman told Berdie, her mouth almost motionless as she spoke.

  “Mrs. Limb,” Berdie spouted with recognition.

  “Yes, who wants to know?” The woman eyed Berdie’s dripping-wet hair that lay flat on the scalp, glasses at an angle, the too-big overalls, and despite it all, recall dawned on her face. “The vicar’s wife?”

  “Vicar’s wife?” the young woman now known as Jenny questioned with disbelief. She ran her eye over Lillie. “And who are you? The Lord Mayor?”

  “Choirmaster, actually,” Lillie answered through wet lips.

  “This requires an explanation.” Mrs. Limb pressed her thin lips together.

  “Yes, it does,” Berdie fired back. “It’s a simple misunderstanding never intended as a masquerade.” She threw her shoulders back. “And I require an explanation from you as well, you who live secreted away in the wood and tell lies in front of your little ones about visiting the dentist,” Berdie parried.

  Mrs. Limb swallowed, and then stared at the ground. She took a deep breath, putting her hand to her chest as if pain raced through the very heart of her. “Oh, my dearest heaven,” she said with a tremor, “we’ve been found out.”

  “Mother, you don’t need to say anything,” Jenny warned.

  “Get on to work, love. You’ll be late.” Mrs. Limb’s eyes grew moist. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”

  “I’m going nowhere until I know what these women are about.” Jenny turned the bike engine off.

  “I think you know what we’re doing here,” Berdie retorted. “What is it you’re hiding, or perhaps what are you hiding from?”

  “Nanna”—Max leaned forward from the backseat of the car as he yelled out the open door—“how long will we be in the road? When will we see Daddy?”

  “Not long. We’re just talking a moment,” Mrs. Limb called back.

  “And Daddy lives at the cottage house too.” Berdie was becoming impatient. She felt heat rise to her face as the question that plagued her could no longer be held back and flew off her tongue. “Why did you call my husband last Saturday afternoon, Mrs. Limb?”

  “She didn’t.” Jenny’s words were landed punches. “I did.” Her face took on the red of anger-tinged humiliation. “Mum was delivering Max and Emmy to the safest possible place she could think of, or so she thought! We needed her back here, or she would have never left them with you. Who could have ever imagined that something as horrible as a blast could happen at a vicarage?”

  Berdie realized she was told two conclusive things in that blistering statement. First, for some reason, at that moment on Saturday, Max and Emmy needed to be in a safe place, and second, Mrs. Limb and her daughter were in no way connected to the blast.

  “I’m sorry they experienced that chaos.”

  Jenny frowned, as if to fight back the tears that gathered in the corner of her eyes. “My little ones are resilient.”

  Mrs. Limb choked and brought a rigid finger to her nose. “Bless them. They’ve been through so much.”

  Lillie broke in. “Even though something monstrous happened, your grandchildren were in caring hands that afternoon. You both need to know that.”

  Berdie’s severe attitude began to take on the quality of mercy. She stepped just to one side of the motorbike. “Why was the children’s safety jeopardized?”

  Mrs. Limb’s gaze caught her daughter’s eyes, and then looked to Berdie. “Why must you know?”

  “Innocent people are in harm’s way. We need the truth, Mrs. Limb.”

  “Can we trust you?”

  “Of course,” Berdie answered.

  Mrs. Limb nodded toward her daughter, who began to speak.

  “My husband suffers bouts,” Jenny said. “He’s a good man, a loving husband and father that came home from overseas military action carrying the scars of war. He
deals with depression, PTSD, if you like.”

  “I have a small basement flat just outside Aidan Kirkwood,” Mrs. Limb explained. “When necessary, Max and Emmy stay with me there, and my husband stays here with Jenny and Alec.”

  “My father, as well as Mum, know how to calm Alec.”

  “But why all the secrecy?” Lillie asked.

  “Our home was near Birmingham,” Mrs. Limb informed, “but our son-in-law had”—she paused—“some difficulties, let’s say, that involved the law. One overnight stay, but no arrests. It was best for all that we leave.”

  “My husband needs a safe, peaceful place to recover,” Jenny finished.

  “So you rented the cottage, came here,” Berdie surmised, “stayed cloistered under the radar. But when your Jenny’s husband had one of his turns, instead of asking for police or medical help, you sought out the vicar.”

  “That was Mum’s idea.” Jenny rubbed her gloved hands cross the handlebars. “She found out at church that your husband used to be in the military. She felt he would understand the situation and be discreet.” Jenny pursed her lips. “But he never came. Mum said she saw him leave that day for somewhere, but it wasn’t here.”

  “It was,” Berdie defended. “He came to Old Barn Road, but he couldn’t find your place. He had no return phone number. And look round you”—she thrust her hand out toward the hedgerow—“it’s a one-in-ten chance that he’d have spotted this gate. You can’t put the blame entirely at his door.”

  “Water under the bridge, really,” Lillie spouted. “Misunderstandings that belong in the past.”

  “Where did you find the mobile phone?” Berdie delved.

  “It was among the sedge grass near the gate.” Jenny nodded at the hedge. “I found it when I picked up the groceries that were delivered that morning.”

  “Why didn’t you return it to the greengrocer? You had to know it must have been his.”

  “The intent was there,” Mrs. Limb jumped in. “We’re not thieves, but after Jenny used it in the emergency, I told her, for Alec’s sake, to throw it in the rubbish.”

  “Never,” Lillie declared.

  Jenny thrust the bike’s kickstand down and got off. She opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out a mobile phone. “Here.”