by S J Bolton
It was no good. Every minute she stayed increased the trouble waiting for her back at the yard. ‘I’m fine now, really,’ she said. ‘And I have to get back. Do you think you could…’
‘Of course.’ He stood up, rather quickly, as though he had, after all, only been being polite. Evi pushed herself up. Once on her feet, her eyes were on the same level as the fair hair peeking out over the neck of his vest.
‘How do you want to do this?’ he asked.
She tilted her head back to look at him properly and thought that she really wouldn’t mind being carried back down the hill again. A stab of pain ran down the back of her thigh. ‘May I take your arm?’ she said.
He held out his right elbow and, like a courting couple from the old days, they walked down the hill. Even with streams of fire running down her left leg they reached Duchess far too quickly.
‘Hi Harry,’ said a small voice. ‘Whose horse is this?’
‘This noble steed belongs to the beautiful Princess Berengaria who is riding back now to her castle on the hill,’ said the man who answered to the name of Harry, and who seemed to be looking at someone on the other side of the wall. ‘Do you want a leg up, Princess?’ he asked, turning back to Evi.
‘Could you just hold her head still?’
‘Spurned again,’ Harry muttered as he loosened the reins and passed them back over Duchess’s head. Then he held the nose band as Evi lifted her left foot and placed it in the stirrup. Three little bounces and she was up. She could see the small boy, about five or six years old, with dark-red hair. In his right hand he was holding a plastic light-sabre, in his left was something she recognized.
‘Hello,’ she said. He stared back at her, no doubt thinking that she really didn’t look much like a princess, certainly not a beautiful one. Being a small boy, he was probably opening his mouth right now to say exactly that.
‘Is this yours?’ he said instead, holding up the whip Evi had dropped and then forgotten about. ‘I found it in the road.’
Evi smiled and thanked him, as he clambered up on to the wall and held it out. Harry was still holding Duchess’s nose band. He led her down the short, steep hill until they reached Wite Lane. As they turned into the lane she saw the cat was following them, stepping lightly along an old wooden fence. Glancing back, Evi saw the small boy was watching them too.
Harry seemed to have run out of things to say as the cobbles became unkempt and the houses less uniform. They came to the gate at the end of the lane and Harry opened it for her, finally letting go of the nose band.
‘How long will it take you to get back?’ he asked. Behind his head, berries shimmered like rubies in the hedge.
‘Twenty minutes if I trot most of the way and canter the last hundred yards.’
He made a stern face, like a headmaster addressing an unruly class. ‘How long if you walk sedately?’ The heather at his feet was the colour of mulberries. She’d forgotten how beautiful September could be.
She wouldn’t let herself smile. ‘Thirty-five, forty minutes.’
He looked at his watch, then fished in his pocket and pulled out a card. ‘Phone me by four o’clock,’ he said, passing it to her. ‘If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be calling out the emergency services, the armed forces, the coastguard, every livery yard in a ten-mile radius and the National Farmers Union. It will be embarrassing, for both of us.’
‘And very expensive for you,’ said Evi, tucking the card into the pocket of her shirt.
‘So call.’
‘I’ll call.’
‘Nice meeting you, Princess.’
She squeezed with her right leg, flicked the whip and Duchess, instinctively knowing she was heading for home, set off at an active walk. Evi didn’t look back. Only when she was far enough away to be sure he wouldn’t see her did she sneak the card out of her shirt pocket.
A man she’d just met had insisted she call him. How long since that had happened? He’d held her in his arms. Called her beautiful. She’d wanted to snog him in a public street. She looked at the card. Reverend Harry Laycock, B.A. Dip.Th., it said. Vicar of the United Benefice of Goodshaw Bridge, Loveclough and Heptonclough. There were contact details at the bottom. Duchess walked on and Evi put the card back in her pocket.
He was a vicar.
There simply weren’t words.
11
HARRY LEANED AGAINST THE WALL FOR TEN MINUTES watching the woman ride away. Only when she and the grey horse disappeared into a copse did he turn and walk slowly back to the church. As he passed the new house he could see Alice Fletcher in her sitting-room window, talking on the telephone and watching Joe in the garden. She saw Harry and waved.
He walked through the old gateway and found someone waiting.
It was a young woman, with the grey, prematurely lined face of a heavy smoker or drinker. She wore jeans and a faded long-sleeved T-shirt and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. Above the restraining band it was a greasy mouse-brown, below it stuck out at angles like straw that had been left too long in the sun.
‘That was Dr Oliver, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘Was she talking about me?’
Harry looked back at the girl. No make-up. Clothes that weren’t too clean. So, had he missed the first few seconds of this conversation? The bit where she’d said who she was and that it was nice to meet the new vicar?
‘Well, she didn’t mention her name,’ he said after a moment. ‘But now you come to mention it, she did say she was a doctor. Hi, I’m Harry Laycock.’ He held out his hand, but the girl made no move to take it.
‘What did she say about me?’ she demanded to know.
There was something going on here that he wasn’t keeping up with. The woman on the horse had said it was her first visit to the town, hadn’t she? First and last.
‘Why are you smiling? What did she tell you?’
He needed to focus for a second. This girl had an issue. It was as plain as the nose on her very unhealthy-looking face.
‘She didn’t talk about anyone,’ he said. ‘She’d fallen off her horse and she was in shock. But if she’s a doctor…’
‘She’s a psychiatrist.’
‘A what?’ Impossible to keep the surprise from his voice. That grumpy, edgy woman was a… blimey.
‘Well, she didn’t mention that,’ he said, ‘but if she is a psychiatrist, she wouldn’t be allowed to talk about her patients with anyone, it would be -’
‘I’m not a patient. I just see her sometimes.’
‘Right.’ Harry found himself nodding, as though he understood completely. Which he didn’t.
‘Are you the new vicar?’
At last, familiar territory. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m Harry. Reverend Laycock if you want to be formal, which very few people ever are. I think it must be the shorts. And you are…?’
‘Did Alice tell you about me?’
‘ Alice?’ Was it him? Had his brain just decided to take the day off?
‘Alice Fletcher. From the new house.’
Light dawning. Are you Gillian?’ he asked.
The girl nodded.
‘She did mention you. I’m so sorry about your loss.’
The girl’s face contracted, grew smaller, her thin lips almost disappeared. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as her eyes left his face and drifted somewhere over his left shoulder.
‘How are you coping?’ asked Harry.
Gillian took a deep breath and her eyes opened wider, momentarily losing their focus. Stupid question. She wasn’t coping. And she was going to ask him why God had taken her child. Out of all the children in the world, why hers? Any second now.
‘I was about to make tea,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve got a kettle in the vestry. Will you join me?’ Gillian stared at him for a second, as though tea was something out of her normal experience, then she nodded. He led her through the ruins of the abbey church and up the flagstones towards St Barnabas’s, trying to remember what Alice had told him.
Gillian – Rog
ers, Roberts, he couldn’t quite remember – had lost her daughter in a house fire three years previously. She spent her days walking the moors and wandering round the town’s old streets, almost like a living ghost. Alice had met her in the abbey ruins and invited her home for coffee. It was the sort of kind, impulsive and not terribly wise thing that Alice would do. Gillian had accepted and had stayed most of the morning, half-heartedly answering Alice ’s attempts at conversation but mainly just watching the children playing.
The church felt chill and damp after the autumn sunshine. ‘You’re cleaning this church by yourself?’ asked Gillian as she and Harry walked up the side aisle.
‘Thankfully, no,’ replied Harry. ‘The diocese arranged a team of industrial cleaners. They’ve just finished. I’m just sorting out cupboards, finding out where everything’s been stored, putting the building back to rights. Alice and the children have been helping me.’
Harry pushed open the door to the vestry and allowed Gillian to precede him inside. He would have to get some chairs in here, maybe a small table. The kettle was still warm, he’d just switched it on when he’d heard the doctor yelling at her horse. By the time he’d found teabags and mugs it had boiled. He poured on hot water, conscious of Gillian hovering just behind him, and added milk and sugar without asking whether she took either. She clearly needed both. Alice had brought over a jumbo packet of chocolate digestives earlier that day. Bless her.
He held a cup out to Gillian. She reached to take it but her small, white hand was shaking violently. The skin above her wrists was crisscrossed with scars. She saw him notice and her face flushed. He withdrew his hand and passed her the biscuits instead.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested, before leading the way back into the nave. He sat down on the front bench of the choir stalls. She joined him and at last he felt confident to hand over the hot drink. He sipped his own gratefully. It was thirsty work: cleaning churches, rescuing foul-mouthed psychiatrists and consoling grief-stricken parishioners. If the day continued along the same lines, he’d be breaking open the communion wine before sun-down.
‘I haven’t had a drink for eight days,’ said Gillian, and for a second, he wasn’t quite… Of course, Alice had mentioned Gillian had been to her GP, that she’d been referred to an alcoholics’ support group, to a psychiatrist specializing in family issues. Who must, of course, be the lady he’d just met. Dr Oliver.
‘Well done,’ said Harry.
‘I feel better,’ said Gillian. ‘I really do. Dr Oliver gave me some pills to help me sleep. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to sleep.’
‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Harry. He sat, his best patient-and-interested look on his face, waiting for what she was going to say next.
‘Do you have faith, Gillian?’ he asked, when he realized she wasn’t going to talk again. Sometimes it was best to get right to the point.
She stared at him as though she didn’t quite…’ You mean, do I believe in God?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what I mean,’ he said. ‘Losing someone we love is very difficult. Even the strongest faith will be tested.’
Her hand was shaking again. The tea would scald her. He reached out, took the mug from her and placed it on the floor.
‘Someone came to see me, after it happened,’ she said. ‘A priest. He said Hayley was with her father in heaven and she was happy and that should comfort me, but how can she be happy without me? She’ll be on her own. She’s two years old and she’s on her own. That’s what I can’t get my head around. She’ll be so lonely.’
‘Have you lost any family members before, Gillian?’ he asked. Are your parents alive?’
She looked puzzled. ‘My dad died when I was small,’ she said. ‘In a car accident. And I had a younger sister who died a long time ago.’
‘I’m sorry. What about grandparents? Do you have any?’
‘No, they all died. What…’
He was leaning forward, had taken hold of both her hands. ‘Gillian, there’s a reading that’s given often at funeral services, you may have heard it. It was written by a bishop about a hundred years ago and it compares the death of a loved one to standing on the seashore, watching a beautiful ship sail out of sight on the horizon. Can you picture that for a second, imagine blue sea, a beautiful carved wooden boat, white sails?’
Gillian shut her eyes. She nodded her head.
‘The boat’s getting smaller and smaller and then it disappears over the horizon and someone standing by your side says, "She’s gone.
Tears were forming in the corners of Gillian’s closed eyes.
‘But even though you can’t see her any more, the ship is still there, still strong and beautiful. And just as she disappears from your sight, she’s appearing on other shores. Other people can see her.’
Gillian opened her eyes.
‘Hayley is like that ship,’ said Harry. ‘She may be gone from your sight but she still exists, and in the place where she is now there are people who are thrilled to see her: your dad, your sister, your grandparents. They will take care of her and they will love her, unconditionally, until you can join her again.’
The girl’s howl tore at his heart. He stayed where he was, watching her thin body sob and her tears fall on to his hands. For five, maybe ten minutes she wept, and he held her hands until he felt her pulling away from him. He didn’t have tissues but somewhere in the vestry there was kitchen roll. He walked quickly back to the vestry, found it beside the sink and, returning, handed it over. She wiped her face and tried to smile up at him. Her eyes, washed by tears, were almost silver. Dr Oliver’s eyes had been blue. A deep, violet blue.
In the pocket of his shorts, his mobile started to ring. He should ignore it, let it go to the answer service, get back to whoever it was later. Except he knew who it was.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’
He walked a few paces down the aisle and pressed Answer.
‘Harry Laycock.’
‘Berengaria speaking.’
‘Did you make it back safely, Dr Oliver?’
‘Now that’s… a bit spooky. How’d you do that?’
Harry glanced back up the aisle to where Gillian was staring at the floor. She was too close, she’d hear everything he said. ‘Like my boss, I work in mysterious ways,’ he answered.
There was a second’s pause.
‘Right, well, thanks for your help,’ came Dr Oliver’s voice. ‘But Duchess and I are both back where we belong and none the worse for our adventure.’
‘Delighted to hear it.’ Gillian was looking at him now. She wouldn’t like the interruption. The bereaved could be selfish. Not great timing, Princess. ‘You take care now,’ he said. ‘And say hello to Duchess for me.’
‘I’ll do that.’ The voice on the phone had fallen flat. ‘Goodbye.’
She was gone. And he had to get back to Gillian. Who was no longer sitting calmly on the front choir stall but was on her feet, staring round in what could only be described as horror. It was as though something had pulled the skin on her face tighter, made it mask-like. She was striding towards him. ‘Did you hear that?’ she demanded. ‘Did you hear it?’
‘I? What?’ He’d been on the phone. What was he supposed to have heard?
‘That voice, calling “Mummy,” did you hear it?’
Harry looked all around, astonished and a little alarmed by the change in Gillian. ‘I heard something, I think, but I was saying goodbye.’ He held up the phone.
‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What did you hear?’
‘Well, a child, I thought. A child outside.’
She clutched his arm, her fingers tight on his bare skin. ‘No, it was inside. It was coming from inside the church.’
‘There’s no one else here,’ he said slowly. ‘These old buildings can be deceptive. Sound echoes in funny ways.’
Gillian had spun away from him, was half running back up the aisle. She reached
the choir stalls and started searching them, peering down the length of first one then the other.
What on earth?
She was crossing the church, dragging out the organ stool, back again behind the altar, pulling up the cloth. He’d almost reached her when she seemed to give up. She sobbed once and almost fell to the tiled floor. Then she drew herself up and opened her mouth.
‘Hayley!’ she screamed.
Harry stopped. He’d heard voices in this church too. And the sound of people he couldn’t see moving around. Why did he have this overwhelming urge to look behind him?
He turned. There wasn’t a soul in the church but Gillian and himself.
‘Let’s get you home,’ he said. ‘You probably need to rest.’ If she gave him the name of her GP he could phone him, explain what was happening, see if he could get her immediate help. He could try and call in on her himself tomorrow after morning services were done. As he reached her she clutched at him.
‘You heard her, you heard Hayley.’ She was almost begging him, pleading with him to tell her she wasn’t losing her grip on reality.
‘I certainly heard a child,’ he said, although in all honesty, he wasn’t that sure. He’d been listening to a change in inflexion in a woman’s voice on the phone and wondering what it might mean. ‘It’s possible I heard the child saying “Mummy,” but, you know, the Fletcher children have been playing around the church for most of the afternoon. It could easily have been Millie that we heard.’
Gillian was staring at him.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get some fresh air, I’ll walk you home.’
Muttering a silent prayer that the Fletcher children, including the youngest, would be outside, Harry led Gillian out of the door and into the sunshine. They were halfway down the path when a toy arrow whizzed past them, making Gillian jump. Harry turned to the Fletchers’ garden on his right and found himself staring into the blue eyes of Joe Fletcher. A few yards away Tom was kicking a football against the wall of the house. Their sister sat on bare earth, digging in the soil.
