A Twist of Lyme

by David Ruffle

  “Wouldn’t Prince Maurice have taken his dead away when they withdrew? Wouldn’t the families want them back?”

  “Only the highest ranks. Remember, Jude, both armies were full of mercenaries as well as nobility.”

  “Death the great leveller.”

  “Yep. I’ll go and see the vicar tomorrow morning.”

  “Mike, it will be Sunday morning, he may be tied up.”

  “Can’t they get de-frocked for that?”

  “Frequently, no doubt.”

  “Oh ye of little faith!”

  “Right, I’ll go and round the girls up while you sort the breakfast my little kitchen maestro. What will it be?”

  “A huge pile of toast!”

  “My kitchen hero!”

  Michael was as good as his word. He often was. There was indeed a huge pile of toast adorning the dining table. True, a slight faux-pas was committed when Michael brought the first slice to his mouth.

  “Daddy,” shouted a thoroughly alarmed Katy.

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “You are eating the curly end first, that’s bad isn’t it Mummy?”

  “Yes, very bad,” agreed Judy.

  There were certain rules of dining etiquette that Judy had established that quite reasonably she expected her family to adhere to. Chief among these was that toast should be eaten straight edge first and woe betide anyone who opted for the curly end option. There are various other rules and guidelines which includes the licking of spoons, the licking of forks and especially the licking of knives and if such licking precedes the placing of various items of cutlery back into various jars or bottles then Michael and the girls knew they could expect to receive that look. Along with the mantra, “It will be liquid by morning.”

  The girls having been fed, the huge pile of toast eventually devoured with due reference to etiquette, the washing-up having been done and Michael’s shoelaces tied with the minimum of giggling from his family, they set off for the sea front. There was the stiffest of breezes blowing from the south-west and within moments of leaving the house they could hear the sea. The waves rolled in sounding like liquid drums, a constancy of crescendo and lull. The seagulls added their own voices to this music of nature. A wagtail curtsied to them, then flew on, darting from bank to bank. The ducks swam in formation, in perfect symmetry in the sparkling river. The resulting effect was one of peace, a perfect state of harmony.

  The girls thought it a little unfair that they had to carry their own buckets and spades, was there to be no benefit at all in being young? Their thoughts were already turning to ice-cream in spite of the recently devoured toast. Ice-cream was a rare treat indeed in Surrey, but here by the sea, it was compulsory, a fact they took advantage of even at their young age. The car parks were already almost full, it was going to be one of those ‘everybody heads to Lyme days’. Some came for the views, some came for the beaches, some came for the history, some for the atmosphere, but all went home happy.

  “How long are we staying?” asked Katy.

  “I’m not sure, Daddy might know.”

  “But have you brought sandwiches in case we get hungry?”

  “You have only just had breakfast, young lady.”

  “Katy always wants more doesn’t she, Mummy?”

  “Yes she does, Annie, but then so do you don’t you?”

  Annabelle considered this for moment before deciding that her mother was absolutely right, although privately she thought Katy was much worserer in that respect.

  “Right, who needs help with a sand castle?”

  “Me, Daddy,” they both cried.

  Sand castles were not his thing by any stretch of the imagination. Add it to the list of non-talents. His castle towers invariably collapsed, if not the moment the bucket was upturned then very soon after. True to form, this day proved to be no exception and the girls very soon decided that the building should be an adult-free activity or to be more accurate, a Daddy-free activity.

  “Never mind, Mike. You can’t be good at everything or indeed...”

  “Yeah, yeah...”

  Judy reached in her bag for a book she had picked up in the charity shop, (50p) a saga of tennis players and espionage, tournaments and spies.

  “Hmm,” observed Michael.

  “Hmm?”

  “Even you could write something like that.”

  “Even, Mike? Even?”

  Michael retreated a foot.

  “Did you not bring a book?”

  “Nope, clean forgot.”

  “In that case why don’t you go and see the vicar today? It won’t take long and we are happy enough here...without you!”

  “Well, I guess it won’t do any harm. Girls, are you sure you don’t need any help there?”

  “We are very sure,” said Katy firmly.

  Michael trudged up Broad Street competing for footpath space with the tourists who were heading in the opposite direction. The Vicarage lay off Silver Street, just a ten minute walk for a reasonably fit man. It took Michael seventeen minutes. Knees. Fortunately, the journey was not wasted and the vicar was home and received him.

  The Reverend Timothy Norfolk (no relation) was intrigued to put it mildly by the story that Michael related to him. No one had ever consulted him about ghosts before and it was an area he was especially interested in. Everyone in Lyme had ghost stories, but none that they felt they wanted to share with their vicar.

  “Have you made contact with them or tried to make contact with them?”

  “No, the closest contact was when the man I described seemed to mock my dodgy knees. I think that contact was enough for me.”

  “Interesting. And your wife has seen one man, possibly the same man and you are certain your daughters have seen more than one of these men?”

  “Yes, correct.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Fascinating I agree, but what’s to be done? Do we hold a séance in the garden and ask them politely to clear off? Do we point their troubled souls towards the light, wherever that may be, and ask them to toddle off, there’s good fellows?”

  “The first thing we have to do is to establish contact and it’s all a bit more hi-tech these days, not a Ouija board in sight. You have come to me at exactly the right time...”

  ‘10.30?’ thought Michael idly.

  “...there is a bit of an expert in this field in Lyme next week. He arrives on Monday and is giving a talk at Uplyme Village Hall on ghost-hunting in the modern world. His name is...well, I had it here somewhere...er...Chris somebody anyway. The point is I can bring him up to you on Monday evening if you wish.”

  “If that’s what you think the first step should be then let’s go for it.”

  “Excellent. To celebrate, I have a bottle of my home made Parsnip wine handy; I’d be interested to have your opinion on it.”

  Had Michael been writing a review of the wine, it would have been as unprintable as the wine was undrinkable. But as he wasn’t, he had to make all the right noises, pull all the right faces and say all the right things. Besides it was only right to be polite for the Reverend Timothy Norfolk was coming to their rescue and had not even uttered those immortal words, ‘can’t say that we have seen you in church before, Michael.’

  “Thanks...rev...er...your...”

  “Tim will do fine, Michael. I don’t think I have seen your family in church yet have I?”

  “No, you wouldn’t have done,” said Michael and beat a hasty retreat. The wine may have been undrinkable, but the contents of the glass he had been forced to swallow had gone straight to his legs, by-passed his dodgy knees and landed in his feet. He made his erratic way back to the beach where the girls had now made for themselves a fortress surrounded by a moat, with crenelated towers, a drawbridge and a working k
eep.

  “My daughters, the master-builders,” he said.

  Michael gave Judy the run-down on what had transpired at the vicarage/distillery.

  “Don’t you feel better now, Mike as well as a little pissed?” Judy said, laughing.

  “I’ll maybe feel better Monday, depending on what our ghost-hunter has to tell us.”

  “I know just what you need!”

  “So do I, but not here surely.”

  “Silly man. You need fish and chips and funnily enough, so do we, so off you go.”

  “I’m getting them am I?”

  “Apparently.”

  He kissed her, it seemed the appropriate response.

  The fish and chips were divine and so was the sleep they all had. Books, sand castles and ghosts forgotten. The sun yet again had remembered what summers were for and the assembled throng of tourists were showing their gratitude in various pubs, shops and fast food kiosks. A kaleidoscopic afternoon, a blaze of colour from every quarter. It was the hottest September day anyone could recall. In fact that Saturday, Lyme Regis was deemed to be hotter than Calcutta. It was, everyone agreed, the hottest September day since the last hottest September day. In essence, none of that mattered, what mattered was actually enjoying the sunshine as opposed to analysing it.

  Ice-cream all round on the way home. Singles (pistachio, honeycomb, chocolate) for Judy, Katy and Annabelle. A double (toffee fudge and lemon meringue) for Michael who was very much in touch with his inner sweet tooth. A perfect day, perfectly spent in perfect Lyme Regis.

  Far away, a bespectacled and slightly nerdy looking man was loading up his car with his latest invention, in truth, his only invention. He had laboured over the notes he had prepared for his talk in Uplyme and was confident that both he and it would be found to be most interesting. It was all he had ever aimed for, but had frequently fallen short of that goal. Still, that was Monday. And the two days spent in Winterbourne Abbas with his new assistant would give him yet another chance to be...interesting. If she let him.

  33 I’ll explain later.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dark Days

  There were rumours of illegal trading, of insider trading. Such rumours were commonplace in the city however and fingers were rarely pointed, axes rarely fell. One dark day, the finger was pointed and an axe fell.

  Tom Kennedy, something big in the city swiftly became Tom Kennedy, something under suspicion in the city. His fellow directors were quick to put out a statement expressing their complete faith in Mr Kennedy and confessed themselves to be bewildered by this turn of events, but they were behind Tom all the way. Absolutely. Wholeheartedly. They suspended him all the same. For the good of the company, Tom. A temporary measure.

  Disks, files, laptops all confiscated and sent away for analysis, his office locked and out of bounds. The same scenario played out at his East Molesey home, his rarely seen neighbours now lined the pavement watching the procession of policemen carrying out their bundles.

  An emergency committee meeting was convened at the Molesey boat club to which Tom was not invited although he was the subject of the heated discussion. Arguments raged back and forth. The reputation and standing of the club debated. Although Tom was not invited to air his views or in any way defend himself, he was sitting by himself in the bar awaiting the verdict. He did not have to wait long. The arguments and debates had lasted all of thirteen minutes.

  If the chairman, Nigel Boycott, had a black cap available, he would have donned it. Passing sentence with all the gravity of a High Court judge, (which he wasn’t, he owned a piggery) he announced the verdict of the committee.

  “Sorry, Tom, I hate having to do this, but for the good of the club we have to suspend your membership for the time being. A lot of folk will say there’s no smoke without fire, but we are not saying that, all we want to do is protect the reputation of the club. It’s nothing personal, Tom and when all this has blown over you are welcome to come back. I’m sure I speak for all the committee (heads were nodded) when I say we believe in your innocence completely, utterly, but we have to do what we have to do. Regardless of how this will pan out, please remember we are your friends. Have you anything to say, Tom?”

  Tom did.

  “Bastards.”

  The cricket club would treat him differently he was sure; the members of the committee there were much more his friends. He had known them longer, had spent many good times with them, with and without alcohol. They were his kind of people. Yes, the cricket club would be different.

  He waited patiently while the committee deliberated. He gazed at the signed photographs of Tom Graveney, Geoffrey Boycott (no relation to Nigel), Ray Illingworth, Ken Higgs, Gary Sobers and Wasim Akram[34], all of whom had one thing in common; none of them had appeared in any capacity at Molesey cricket club. Tom idly wondered whether they had been pilfered from other better connected cricket clubs. These deliberations lasted for only seven minutes, surely a good sign.

  The committee chairman, Tim James, a fine off-spin bowler in his prime which was a long time over, poured Tom a pint. Surely another good sign.

  “It’s like this, Tom...”

  “Bastards.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Don’t waste your breath explaining, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel, Tom. And that is your final word on the subject?”

  “No, this is my final word. Bastards.”

  He was convinced Ray Illingworth flashed a smile at him as he stormed out, never to return. Bastard.

  There were whispers in the corridors of power in the Molesey WI. How will all this affect Elspeth? Should some kind of action be taken? How will Elspeth cope? Will Tom go to prison? The questions remained unanswered, but Elspeth was sought out by her fellow committee members for a quiet word. An ominous sign surely. The suggestion was made that it may be better for all concerned (but especially the committee) if Elspeth were to maybe take a step back from the day to day organising, rein in her activities just for now until everything has calmed down. The suggestion was put to Elspeth who retorted with a suggestion of her own that the committee members may well have found anatomically impossible.

  Tom Kennedy who had been something big in the city was now something quite infinitesimal in leafy Surrey. A pariah, pointed at in the streets. No smoke without fire. No wind, no waves. Shorn of a meaningful occupation he was in limbo and his life which had been lived in the financial fast lane had slowed to aimless day to day living. Some days even the very act of dressing was beyond him. Some days even the act of getting out of bed was beyond him. Some days all he could do was sit in front of the TV. He watched countless antique shows, he learned nothing. He watched innumerable cooking programmes, he learned nothing. He did however learn something from the talk shows, namely not to watch them again. He did not see his retreat from the world as depression. He did not even consider depression an illness; he considered it a weakness, nothing any grown man should allow himself to be afflicted by. Elspeth’s efforts to help him were rebutted, she was pushed away. Yet she suffered as much as he, the only difference was that she knew it, but he was not even dimly aware of it. He had retreated so far into his shell that he was almost impossible to see, to reach. Yet, he would deny it. He could not see the eggshells scattered around the deep-pile carpet (Axminster’s finest) that Elspeth, Fay, Judy and Michael tip-toed around.

  The investigation into the alleged insider trading dragged on and on. The wealth of material to be sorted, analysed and acted on was huge, a bottomless pit of figures, balance sheets and electronic communications. There could be no quick fix for the case or Tom. And Tom needing fixing, desperately.

  Tom Kennedy ‘celebrated’ his birthday at home of course, but not alone. He received his presents with a stony silence which matched his unshaven, stony count
enance. He stared at the card that Elspeth had selected for him; a simple heart on the front and inside she had written, ‘Come back to me’.

  Tom excused himself. Upstairs, he locked the bathroom door and stood in front of the mirror. Looking back at him he saw a grotesque parody of himself. He ran the hot water and dropped his razor into the basin. The shaving gel mingled with the tears he could not control. He was shaking so much his face became a criss-cross of minor cuts. But now the mirror was telling a slightly different story, Tom was in there somewhere, all he had to do now was to coax him out.

  The effect that he had hoped this simple (if only) first step would have on his family was somewhat compromised by the seven scraps of bloodied toilet tissue adhering to his face. His smile was hesitant, but sincere. His request even surprised himself.

  “Would anyone care to take me to the doctor’s?”

  They all cared to do so because they all cared.

  It may be that Tom never really mended, but he became Tom again. He found work. In a florist, where he became the master of the bouquets, the genius of the pot plants, the doyen of the gift baskets. (In Mitcham, where the gossiping tongues had not reached).

  It was to be another six months before he was completely exonerated and cleared of all charges brought against him. He didn’t feel much like celebrating; too much of his life had been stolen from him. He was invited back to take up his directorship in the city one more. No thank you, he told them. He was now something big in floristry.

  Nigel Boycott invited him to the Molesey boat club where all the members were overjoyed at the news of Tom’s innocence having been proved. The cricket club members were equally in raptures over the news too. Tim James was of the opinion that Tom’s innocence was never in doubt. Two sets of invitations were issued forthwith, inviting Tom to take his place once more within the ranks. Tom had to agree it was quite a gesture from both clubs and he deliberated for a few seconds before sending his one word answer to both committees.

  Bastards.