by Milly Adams
‘Then Pauline can partner him.’
Stella whispered, ‘Oh, please; she clumps about like an elephant, and I am having you in this, come hell or high water. We need you, my lovely. Your voice, your dancing, your presence, so you’re not getting away with training everyone and then hiding out at the back.’
The Fletchers were still standing there, panting. Stella stood. ‘The vicar had to drop in to see one of his parishioners, not to escape you two.’ Those who were chatting behind them laughed. She continued, ‘We love your act, and we have great plans. Rehearsals start in earnest next week; there will be three a week, if not more as time goes on, because time is short, and practice is all. We have to be ready for the twentieth of December. Can you manage that? We’ll be having some rehearsals in the daytime too.’
The Fletchers smiled at one another. Now Kate saw Olive Fletcher off to the side, nodding gently, a determined look on her face. As Adrian and Susie left the stage, Kate wound her way through the gaggle to Olive’s side. ‘A talented couple.’
‘Yes. They’d forgotten that part of their lives, but this should kick-start it.’
‘You’re a clever woman, Olive Fletcher.’
‘You’re not so bad yourself, young Kate. Mind you, I always thought well of you, when there was all that nonsense being said. It’s good to have you back, and Sarah’s lucky to be able to share it with you. You’re not doing a bad job with Mrs B, either. You need to do your tango, you know. I heard tell it’s something special.’
Kate was about to turn away, but stopped. ‘You did: who from?’
‘Young Mr Moorhouse told us – you know, the one who holds our wills in his office in Yeovil. He saw you at the Blue Cockatoo. It made him go back the next night. He said he felt right proud to know you was a local girl. Right proud.’
Kate felt ridiculously pleased, but her back wouldn’t withstand a tango now, not after all the washing, the turning of the mangle, the beating of the rugs. She was finding sleeping difficult, because the ache had become teeth-grindingly painful over the weeks. She just smiled. ‘We don’t need me, with your two.’
Mrs Fletcher patted her arm. ‘Oh yes, we do, but there’s time.’
Stella called, ‘Earth to our singing-star producer. Get over here, please, Miss Katherine Watson.’
Mrs Fletcher laughed. ‘You’re wanted.’
Pauline’s voice came over to her, loud and clear. ‘Yes, her Burlesque Club must be missing her, when honestly …’
Stella’s voice was even louder. ‘Do shut up, Pauline; you’re out of date, and no-one wants to hear what you have to say until you say something helpful. Come on, Kate, we have the Bacon twins playing the spoons. I think they could actually be part of the band. What do you think, Emily and Frances?’ The two twelve-year-olds were onstage and replied, ‘If we’re good enough.’
‘Then let’s see.’
Stella pointed to Kate’s chair. She sat, obediently, while the spoons prepared. After that it would be time to take the little ones through the rudiments of tap dance. It wasn’t something that exactly thrilled Kate, because she wasn’t sure she was much of a dance teacher.
The spoons began and were something the like of which Kate had never seen or heard, but after a whispered conversation, she and Stella suggested they should also be part of the band. The twins were thrilled. Stella finished her notes, while Kate changed into her tap shoes, then herded the children onto the stage. She called down to Mrs B, sharing her thoughts on the tap-dancing chorus, which she wanted to perform while the Fletchers led ‘Anything Goes’.
Mrs B said, ‘I think that would work very well. But how are you going to even get them started, let alone confident enough?’
Kate laughed, ‘Look at them, they’re clever – aren’t you, girls, and you two boys?’
The children grinned. One of the boys said, ‘Not ’alf, Miss.’
Kate set them up in a line, mid-stage, then talked them through the chorus requirements as she saw them. ‘Now, when we get to the bit where the Puritans land on Plymouth Rock, you will all look up, shocked, with your hands to your mouths, and Mr and Mrs Fletcher will then move between you to take a place at the back and continue singing. Shall we try that?’
She sang, while Mrs B played until Kate held up her hand. Mrs B stopped and now Kate showed them how to toe–heel. ‘You see, you toe–heel four times to the right, then four times to the left. Let’s see you do it.’
Mrs B came in at the right time. Again, up went Kate’s hand. Again the music stopped.
‘Now, stand. So let’s run through that again.’ They did. She smiled, applauding them, but missing Lizzy and worrying about her. ‘You see, it’s not so hard, and let me tell you: we professionals rehearse just like this. Now shall I show you the other steps that I will be asking you to do?’
The children shot up their hands. ‘Yes, please, Miss.’
Kate asked Mrs B if she had the time, and the puff, to run through ‘Anything Goes’ from start to finish. Pauline was watching, almost with interest, so perhaps she tap-danced? If so, that might make her feel happier, which would help everyone.
Mrs B began and, as Kate danced, she explained to the children what it was that she was doing. ‘Hand-to-mouth in shock, toe–heel, count out how many times?’
They counted aloud, ‘Four to the right, four to the left. Stand. Move toes.’
‘Now, make sure you stand casually, like this.’ She put a hand on her waist and slouched. ‘Now, step back to the right, tap, spring, tap. Stop, all change twice.’
She swung her arms; her head was up, looking ahead, to the far wall. The clock said eight thirty. She ignored the sharp and penetrating pain in her back, keeping her smile in place.
‘Right, now follow me, shuffle, shuffle.’ The people in the hall were looking as she tapped. She swung her arms. ‘Pick up.’ Tap-tap. Pain, pain. Her back should be healed, surely. She had always washed clothes for heaven’s sake, but in the sink, and wrung them out, not heaved them on a mangle, lugging them out to the washing line, feeling the weight pull at her back, then stretching and bending to peg them on the line, with the pegs that Andrei’s family and friends had made. ‘Toe–heel, walking left, hear the tap. Mr and Mrs Fletcher will be singing, and so will you.’ She heard the groan.
Stella laughed.
‘Salute. Repeat that again.’ She swung her arms. ‘Now, star-jump.’ She made herself do it and almost collapsed as the pain shot through her. It must just be a tightening of the scar. She kept upright, pushed her shoulders back. ‘Salute. Shuffle, shuffle, twice.’
She nodded to Mrs B, who ended on a roll that would have done a jazz player proud. The children clapped, and in that moment Kate realised how much she missed performing, and how she had felt real, for a brief moment.
Chapter Seventeen
Tom dawdled through the village on his way to see little Lizzy. It was good to be free of those bloody women, even though he was cold, and there was so little moon that he had just walked into a cart heaped with aluminium pots, waiting to be taken to the collection point in the morning. He should have brought his torch.
He had prayed, but he hadn’t been helped to forgive Kate, or ever trust her again. Should she be working with children? He tugged his scarf tighter, pulled his woollen hat down harder. Damn and blast the lot of them!
Why was Pauline still here anyway? She should have work to go to, but she said she had taken more leave. ‘Compassionate?’ he had queried when she arrived. ‘I told you, I’m fine.’
‘No, just leave.’ Well, she had a lot of leave, that was all he could say; and he must do something about this engagement business, because he’d decided he’d had enough of the lot of them, and Pauline’s nonsense was just making fools of them both.
He turned towards Melbury Cottage. There was a chink of light showing through the sitting-room window. Percy would be after them. He paused as he was about to step up onto the porch feeling furious again because he missed the knock that Kate
used to give him. But now he made sure that his blackout blinds were drawn properly.
He knocked. Mrs Summers opened the door. Tom stepped into the darkened hallway. ‘I’ve come to see if I can help.’
Mrs Summers said, ‘Yes, that’s usually the role of men of God.’ Her voice was neutral. Well, he had been difficult at the auditions, he knew that, and clearly, so did the rest of the village, but there was only so much a bloke could take, and who was this woman to criticise? ‘Vicar?’ Mrs Summers was closing the front door behind him.
He shook his head. ‘So sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Just … Well, just …’
She led the way into the sitting room. Lizzy sat on the sofa, a colouring book on her knees, busy turning the dots on a clown’s costume red.
Tom said, ‘May I sit with you, Lizzy?’
She shrugged, not looking up. He sat. On the table there was the stub of a pencil. It had a rubber on one end, a sharp point on the other. He reached across. She shouted, ‘Leave it – that was Dad’s. His friend brought it back to me. His friend, do you hear?’
He let his hand drop onto his thigh. ‘Your Aunt Kate told us the news. I came to say how sorry I am, and to see if there is anything you want?’
She continued to colour carefully, not going over the lines. The fire was crackling. He supposed they had been to the woods for logs. The woods …
He pushed past the image of Kate, and the lie. ‘Anything?’ he repeated.
Mrs Summers sat opposite. The wireless was chattering quietly on a shelf. She said, ‘I’m waiting for Germany Calling. Lord Haw-Haw is good for a laugh. I imagine myself punching him on the mouth.’
Tom looked up, startled. He couldn’t imagine Mrs Summers punching anyone.
She nodded. ‘Oh yes, that would be my part of the war effort, Tom. Sometimes people need a good slap, you know.’
Lizzy lifted her head. ‘Anything?’ she asked him.
He forced a smile. Mrs Summers’s words were resonating, but surely she didn’t mean him? He turned to Lizzy. ‘If I can.’
‘Then stop being horrid to Kate, just because you’re marrying that Pauline, who doesn’t like any of us anyway. You used to be Kate’s friend, just like Sergeant Jones was Daddy’s friend.’
Mrs Summers said nothing, just looked from one to the other.
Lizzy went on, ‘Aunt Kate’ll be in the hall, working hard. She left her life to come here, and now you’ve made her miserable. I know you have, because she’s quiet, like she was when she came. The second “Anything” I want is for you to go now.’
Mrs Summers moved to the sitting-room door. She held it open. Tom rose. There was really nothing else he could do, because they didn’t know what he knew. He traipsed out into the hall. Mrs Summers moved ahead of him to the front door, opening it. She said nothing, just waited for him to leave. The moment he was clear of the porch, she shut it, quietly.
Well, that was him told; and he wished more than anything that he’d never read the damned notebook, and that he was a better man of God. Damn it to hell, Mrs Summers was right. He was behaving badly, but he couldn’t help it. He had been so disappointed in Kate, since he’d learned of her slandering Dr Bates. And then since they’d had that disagreement in rehearsals, the atmosphere hadn’t thawed. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t prayed to God to help him separate the sin from the sinner, but nothing had happened.
He called into the vicarage on the way back and barged into the snug. It was cold, but he’d chuck the damned notebooks on the fire. It was time they were burned. He flashed on the light and rooted in the drawer. Two were there, but not the third. What on earth had he done with it? He checked the time. He ought to get back to the hall, but first those damned books must go. He carried them to the chair and lit the fire he made up himself in the morning, because Pauline and Mrs B knew better than to enter his lair.
He leaned on the mantelpiece, looking at the flames as they curled around the logs he had collected from the woods. He had never searched for the clearing where the encampment had been, and he never bloody would. He banged the mantelpiece, remembering Lizzy’s words. Well, he too had thought he’d found a friend, someone who seemed to really understand him. So it wasn’t one-sided, like the child thought.
He returned for the notebooks, but then saw the third. It was resting on the arm of the second chair. There were two bookmarks. He looked from the notebook to the drawer. He would never have left it out. He picked it up and read the pages where the first bookmark was lodged. He saw it was the part about Kate’s lie.
He sat down, appalled. Pauline must have been in here and read these notebooks or, if not all, at least this one. How could she? He’d said no-one was to enter; it was his snug, his sanctuary. Yes, it must be her, Mrs B would not have so … The fire hurled out heat. He tore off his scarf and hat and shrugged out of his coat.
What would Pauline say to people – to Kate? He shivered. This was his parish, these were his people; and there were so many of Hastings’s secrets that must now roost in that awful woman’s head, for suddenly that’s how he saw Pauline.
He flicked the notebook open again. What else had Pauline discovered, only to find a moment to blurt it out? He read as far as the second bookmark. There was little of interest beyond the affair that the previous postman had with a woman in another village, and both families had now moved. Fletcher was still abusing his wife, though Hastings had spoken to him. Tom read of births, including Sarah’s arrival home with Lizzy, which Hastings felt was a satisfactory outcome. Hastings also applauded Reginald Watson’s decision to give Kate some money for a head-start and encourage her to remain in London, never to return.
There were marriages and deaths, including that of Reginald Watson, who had a stroke. Tom had now reached the bookmarked page and threw both bookmarks onto the fire, but couldn’t put the notebook down. He wanted an excuse not to return to the hall, or to Pauline, or Kate.
Three pages later he read Kate’s name again. Hastings had written, ‘Kate’ – just the one name, on one line. Beneath it Tom read:
Today the Bishop telephoned me. He impressed upon me the confidentiality of what he was about to ask me, which was, ‘Have there ever been complaints of a sexual nature against Dr Bates?’ My heart didn’t stop, though it should have done. Instead, it leapt almost into my throat. Apparently Dr Bates, now settled in his new ‘parish’, had visited a girl while her parents were out. He had, it was claimed, undone her clothes. He had said he would examine her. He had raped her.
She had told her parents. They had believed their daughter and asked the neighbours if they had seen the doctor’s car. They had.
The Bishop explained that he was asking the question of all those parishes served by the good Dr Bates. So far, there were three more cases.
I will telephone immedia—
Nothing further was written. Tom checked the date that headed this entry. It was the day the Reverend Hastings was found dead of a heart attack. The following pages were blank.
Tom closed the notebook and laid it on his lap, the shame threatening to drown him. He was no better than all the others who had not accepted Kate’s truth. He said aloud, ‘And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders.’ Never before had he said these lines with such feeling.
Tom walked to the village hall, his head pounding. He entered into the light and the sound of happiness. There was Kate onstage, singing ‘Anything Goes’ as she tap-danced, but she was pale and was moving awkwardly. He saw her falter. He started forward, but she recovered. He watched for a moment but she seemed fine.
Mrs Woolton called out as he passed the sewing corner, ‘We really do need another male tango-dancer, Vicar. I know you said no, unnecessarily firmly, but all hands to the pump, eh? We have Susie and Adrian Fletcher. They’re just so good. There is whisper that you are a tango-dancer, and we so need a partner for our Kate.’
He watched the costume-makers as they cut material, with pins in their mouths. Two
women were tacking sleeves to bodices. Finally he said, ‘Mrs Woolton, I’m not nearly as good as Kate. I’m not to her standard at all, in anything.’ He could hardly speak the words.
The parents of that other girl had immediately believed her. Kate’s father had not believed her; the vicar had not, Sarah had not, but worst of them all, he had not. They had all accepted the appointments diary of a nursing home without question. Before coming out this evening, Tom had replaced the diary in the drawer, then telephoned the nursing home, which is why he was so late. He had begged them to check their diary, and indeed Dr Bates’s appointment was written down for his usual time. Tom had implored them to check the sign-in book, if they had one for all those years ago. Thankfully they had. The woman on duty was bored, so she checked. Dr Bates had not signed in until an hour later than usual.
Tom had then telephoned the bishop’s office, insisting on talking to the Bishop, though it was late. The bishop remembered the case clearly. It had been pursued, but without the need for involving the police, at the victims’ request. ‘Why?’ Tom had asked, though he had guessed. The bishop replied, ‘Because some had borne children, and how could these children be told they were the result of …?’
Apparently, the bishop explained, Dr Bates had ‘retired’ through illness. His wife knew nothing. A close eye had been kept on him and he had soon become disabled with a stroke, so everything had been satisfactorily concluded. ‘For some,’ Tom had said, thinking how fitting it was that both Bates and the verger had been dealt the same fate, a stroke; it was a very unchristian thing for him to feel.
The bishop had been sympathetic. ‘I agree that “satisfactorily” is a misnomer. For those who are the victims, there is a legacy.’
Tom had replaced the receiver. Dear God, there was so much for him to learn. Part of it was to understand that God couldn’t wave a magic wand; most of it was up to him, and whatever vestiges of humanity he possessed. Perhaps in time it would lead him to self-improvement.
