‘James is going to hate it,’ said Agatha gloomily.
‘James will just have to get used to it. Bill is a good friend. If I were you, I would grow some sort of green plant in it, you know, one of the ones with trailing branches and big leaves. It would hide most of it and Bill would be pleased you were putting it to such artistic use.’
‘Good idea,’ said Agatha, brightening.
‘And so you’re off to northern Cyprus for your honeymoon. Are you going to stay in a hotel? I remember Alf and I stayed in the Dome in Kyrenia.’
‘No, we’ve taken a villa. James used to be stationed out there and he wrote to his old fixer, a man who used to arrange everything for him, who sent him photographs of a lovely villa just outside Kyrenia and down a bit from the Nicosia road. It should be heaven.’
‘I actually came to help you pack,’ said the vicar’s wife.
‘There’s no need for that,’ said Agatha, ‘but thanks all the same. I hired one of those super-duper removal firms. They do everything.’
‘Then I won’t stay for coffee. I must call on Mrs Boggle. Her arthritis is bad.’
‘That old woman is a walking case for euthanasia,’ said Agatha waspishly. Mrs Bloxby turned mild eyes on her and Agatha flushed guiltily and said, ‘Even you must admit she’s a bit of an old pill.’
Mrs Bloxby gave a little sigh. ‘Yes, she is a bit of a trial. Agatha, I don’t want to press you on the matter, but I am a little taken aback by the fact that you didn’t want to be married in our church.’
‘It all seemed too much fuss, a church wedding, and I’m not exactly religious, you know that.’
‘Oh, well, it would have been nice. Still, everyone is looking forward to the reception. We would all have helped, you know. There was no need for you to go to the expense of hiring a firm of caterers.’
‘I just don’t want any fuss,’ said Agatha.
‘Never mind, it is your wedding. Did James ever say why he never married before?’
‘No, because I didn’t ask him.’
‘Just wondered. Do you need anything from the shop?’
‘No, thank you. I think I’ve got everything.’
When Mrs Bloxby had left, Agatha debated whether to go back next door and prepare breakfast in a wifely way. But James always made breakfast himself. She adored him, she longed to be with him every minute of the day, yet she dreaded doing anything or saying anything that might stop his marrying her.
The fine weather broke the next day and rain dripped from the thatch on the roof of Agatha’s cottage. She was busy all day supervising the packing. Then Doris Simpson, her cleaner, called round in the late afternoon to help clear up the mess left behind. Bill’s elephant stood behind the kitchen door.
‘Now that’s what I call handsome,’ said Doris, admiring it. ‘Who gave you that?’
‘Bill Wong.’
‘He’s got good taste, I’ll say that for him. So you’re marrying our Mr Lacey at last, and all of us thinking him a confirmed bachelor. But as I said, “What our Agatha wants, our Agatha gets.”’
‘We’re going out for dinner, so I’ll leave you to it,’ said Agatha, not liking what she felt was the implication that she had bulldozed James into marriage.
Dinner that evening was at a new restaurant in Chipping Campden. It turned out to be one of those restaurants where all energy and effort had gone into the writing of the menu and little into the cooking, for the food was insubstantial and tasteless. Agatha had ordered ‘Crispy duck with a brandy-and-orange sauce nestling on a bed of warm rocket salad and garnished with sizzling sauté potatoes, succulent garden peas, and crispy new carrots.’
James had a ‘Prime Angus sirloin from cattle grazed on the lush green hillsides of Scotland, served with pommes duchesse, and organic vegetables culled from our own kitchen garden.’
Agatha’s duck had a tough skin and very little meat. James’s steak was full of gristle and he said sourly that it was amazing that the restaurant’s kitchen garden had managed to produce such bright-green frozen peas.
The wine, a Chardonnay, was thin and acid.
‘We should stop eating out,’ said James gloomily.
‘I’ll cook us something nice tomorrow,’ said Agatha.
‘What, another of your microwave meals?’
Agatha glared at her plate. She still fondly imagined that if she microwaved a frozen meal and hid the wrappings, James would think she had cooked it herself.
She suddenly looked across the table at him as he pushed his food moodily about on his plate and said, ‘Do you love me, James?’
‘I’m marrying you, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, I know, James, but we never talk about our feelings for each other. I feel we should communicate more.’
‘You’ve been watching Oprah Winfrey again. Thank you for sharing that with me, Agatha. I’m not a talking-about-feelings person, nor do I see the need for it. Now shall I get the bill and we’ll go home and have a sandwich?’
Agatha felt so crushed, she didn’t even have the heart to complain about the food. He was silent as he drove them home and Agatha felt a lump of ice in her stomach. What if he had gone off her?
But he made love to her that night with his usual silent passion and she felt reassured. You couldn’t change people. James was marrying her, and nothing else mattered.
The rain-clouds rolled back on the day of Agatha’s wedding. Sunlight sparkled in the puddles. The rain-battered roses in Agatha’s garden sent out a heady scent. Doris Simpson was to look after Agatha’s cats while she was on her honeymoon. Her cottage stood empty now. Only the elephant and her clothes had been transferred to James’s cottage.
Agatha, sitting down to make up her face on the great day, wiped off the liberal application of a brand-new anti-wrinkle cream and then stared at her face in horror. She had come out in a red rash. Her face was fiery. She rushed and bathed it in cold water, but the redness remained.
Mrs Bloxby arrived to find Agatha almost in tears. ‘Look at me!’ wailed Agatha. ‘I tried that new anti-wrinkle cream, Instant Youth, and look what it’s done.’
‘Time’s getting on, Agatha,’ said Mrs Bloxby anxiously. ‘Haven’t you any thick make-up you could put on?’
Agatha found an old tube of pancake make-up and put a heavy layer over her face. It left a line where her chin ended and her neck began, so she applied the stuff to her neck as well, and then a layer of powder. Eyeshadow, blusher and mascara followed. Agatha groaned at the resultant mask-like effect. But Mrs Bloxby, looking out of the window, said the limousine to take Agatha to Mircester had arrived.
So much for the most important day of my life, thought Agatha dismally.
The day was fine but with a blustery wind, which snatched Agatha’s hat from her head as she was about to get into the limousine and sent it bowling along Lilac Lane, where it settled in a muddy puddle.
‘Oh dear,’ mourned Mrs Bloxby. ‘Do you have another hat?’
‘I’ll go without one,’ said Agatha, fighting back a sudden impulse to cry. She felt that everything was suddenly turning against her. And she dare not cry. For tears would channel runnels through her mask of make-up.
Mrs Bloxby gave up trying to make conversation on the road to Mircester. The bride-to-be was unusually silent.
But Agatha’s spirits appeared to lift when the registry office came in sight and James could be seen standing in front of it, talking to his sister and Bill Wong. Roy Silver was also there, feeling virtuous now that he had done nothing to wreck Agatha’s marriage, or so he told himself. If Jimmy Raisin wasn’t dead, he soon would be. He might have mentioned to Jimmy that Agatha was getting married and lived in Carsely, but Jimmy had been so drunk, so sodden, that Roy was sure the man hadn’t really taken in a word he said.
And so they all went into the registry office, James’s relatives, and, on Agatha’s side, the members of the Carsely Ladies’ Society.
Mrs Bloxby took a spray of flowers out of its florist’s box and pinne
d it on the lapel of Agatha’s white suit. She noticed that some of Agatha’s make-up had stained the white collar of her suit but did not like to say so, thinking that Agatha was already feeling low enough about her appearance.
Fred Griggs, Carsely’s village policeman, was unusual in that he liked to walk about the village, instead of patrolling it in the police car. He looked with distaste at the shambling figure of a stranger entering the village by the north road.
‘What’s your name and what’s your business here?’ asked Fred.
‘Jimmy Raisin,’ said the stranger.
Jimmy was sober for the first time in weeks. He had bathed and shaved at a Salvation Army hostel, and then had begged enough money for the bus fare to the Cotswolds. The Salvation Army had also furnished him with a decent suit and a pair of shoes.
‘Relation of Mrs Raisin, are you?’ asked Fred, his fat face creasing in a genial smile.
‘I’m her husband,’ said Jimmy. He stared about him at the quiet village, at the well-kept houses, and gave a little sigh of satisfaction. His sole reason for seeking out his wife was to find himself a comfortable home in which to quietly drink himself to death.
‘Can’t be,’ said Fred, the smile leaving his face. ‘Our Mrs Raisin is getting married today.’
Jimmy drew a much-folded and dirty piece of paper from his pocket, his marriage lines, which he had somehow held on to over the years, and silently handed it to the policeman.
Appalled, Fred exclaimed, ‘I’d better stop that wedding. Oh, my! Wait right here. I’ll get the car.’
The registrar did not get as far as pronouncing James and Agatha man and wife. They heard a commotion from the back of the room and then a voice shouting, ‘Stop!’
Agatha turned slowly around. She recognized Fred Griggs, but he was with a man she thought she did not know at all. Even though Jimmy might have been drunk when she left him all those years ago, he had been a handsome fellow with thick curly black hair. The man with Fred had greasy grey hair and a bloated face with a swollen nose and his thin shoulders were stooped. In fact, his figure looked too frail to carry the weight of the large swollen gut which hung over the waistband of his trousers.
Fred went quickly up to her. He had planned to take her aside, to break the news to her tactfully, but Agatha’s horrified, mask-like face unnerved him and he blurted out in front of everyone, ‘Your husband’s here, Agatha. This is Jimmy Raisin.’
Agatha looked about her in a bewildered way. ‘He’s dead. Jimmy’s dead. What’s Fred talking about?’
‘It’s me, Aggie, your husband,’ said Jimmy. He waved his marriage lines under her nose.
Agatha was aware of the shocked rigidity of James Lacey beside her.
She looked at Jimmy Raisin again and saw beneath the wastage of the years the faint resemblance to the husband she had once known.
‘How did you find me?’ she asked faintly.
Jimmy turned around. ‘Him,’ he said, jerking a thumb in Roy’s direction. ‘Turned up at my box, he did.’
Roy let out a squawk of fright, took to his heels and ran.
One of James’s aunts, a thin beanpole of a woman with a loud, carrying voice, said clearly, ‘Really, James, to have avoided marriage all these years and then to get involved in a mess like this!’
It was then that Agatha snapped. She looked at her husband with pure hate in her bearlike eyes. ‘I’ll kill you, you bastard,’ she howled.
She tried to get her hands around his neck, but Bill Wong pulled her away.
James Lacey’s voice cut through the shocked exclamations of the guests and relatives. He said to the registrar, who was standing with his mouth hanging open, ‘Take us into another room.’ He put his hand under Agatha’s arm and urged her forward to follow the registrar. Bill Wong brought Jimmy Raisin along after them.
When they were all seated in a dusty anteroom, James said wearily, ‘Naturally, the marriage cannot go ahead.’
‘Of course not,’ agreed Bill. ‘Not until Agatha here gets a divorce.’
‘Agatha can get a divorce if she likes,’ said James savagely. ‘But it won’t mean marriage to me. You lied to me, Agatha. You disgraced me and I will never forgive you. Never!’
He turned to Bill. ‘Try to sort this mess out. I’m off. There’s nothing for me here.’
‘I was afraid of losing you,’ whispered Agatha, but the slamming of the door as James left was the only answer she got.
‘Seems like you’ve still got me,’ leered Jimmy.
‘You have no claim on her,’ said Bill Wong. ‘I suggest you get a lawyer and take out an injunction to prevent your husband from approaching you, Agatha.’
‘You’ve done well for yourself, Aggie,’ whined Jimmy. ‘How’s about a bit o’ cash to see me on my way?’
Agatha wrenched open the clasps of her Gucci handbag, pulled out her wallet, extracted a handful of notes and thrust them at him. ‘Get out of my sight!’ she yelled.
Jimmy grinned and shoved the money into a pocket. ‘Give us a kiss, then,’ he said.
Bill hustled him to the door and pushed him outside and then returned to Agatha.
‘Really, officer,’ said the registrar, ‘I must insist you bring him back as a witness. It appears to me that Mrs Raisin here should be charged with attempting to commit bigamy.’
‘The misunderstanding arose like this,’ said Bill. ‘I was present a year ago when Mrs Raisin received a letter from an old friend in London telling her that Jimmy was dead. Is that not true, Agatha?’
Despite her misery, Agatha was shrewd enough to see the lifeline being thrown to her and nodded dumbly.
‘So, as you can see,’ said Bill, ‘there was no intent to commit bigamy. Mrs Raisin has received a bad shock. I suggest we all go home.’
‘Well, since I know you to be a respected officer of the law in Mircester,’ said the registrar, ‘I will say no more about it.’
Agatha returned to her own home. There was nothing in it but Bill’s china elephant and her suitcases of clothes. James had a key to her cottage. He must have carried all her stuff from his cottage and left it. She had asked Mrs Bloxby to tell them at the village hall to have a party instead of a wedding reception. She phoned the removal firm and told them to bring back her furniture and belongings. They said it could not be done that day, but she swore at them so savagely and offered to pay so much that they agreed to be around with the goods as quickly as possible.
Agatha sat on the floor of the empty kitchen and hugged the china elephant and let the tears come at last, carving lines through her make-up. Dimly she was aware that the weather had broken and rain was dripping from the thatch. Her cats sat side by side and looked at her curiously.
The doorbell rang. She did not want to answer it but then heard the vicar’s wife calling urgently, ‘Are you all right, Agatha? Agatha?’
She took out a handkerchief and scrubbed her face and then went and opened the door.
‘Where’s James?’ asked Agatha.
‘He’s gone. His car’s gone and he left his house keys with Fred Griggs.’
‘Gone where?’
‘He said something to Fred about going abroad and said he didn’t know when he would be back.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Agatha, her voice breaking on a sob. ‘I could kill him.’
‘James?’
‘No, Jimmy Raisin. Drunken swine. The first good thing I did in my life was to walk out on him.’
‘I think if I were you I would feel more like killing Roy Silver,’ said Mrs Bloxby ruefully. ‘But just think, if it had all come out after you were married, it would have been even more of a disaster.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Agatha wretchedly. ‘Perhaps by that time James might have loved me enough to stand by me.’
Mrs Bloxby fell silent. She thought Agatha had behaved badly, and yet sympathized with her motives. And James Lacey should have stood by Agatha. Middle-aged bachelors were always difficult creatures. Poor Agatha.
Mrs Bloxby and Agatha sat down on the floor beside the elephant. The doorbell went again.
‘Whoever that is, tell them to go away,’ said Agatha.
Mrs Bloxby got to her feet. Agatha heard the murmur of voices, then the closing of the front door. Mrs Bloxby returned. That was Alf,’ she said, meaning her husband, the vicar. ‘He wanted to offer you some spiritual comfort, but I told him this was not the moment. What will you do now?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Agatha wearily. ‘Take this cottage off the market, rearrange my stuff, go away somewhere until I feel I can face the village again.’
‘There is really no need to run away, Agatha. Your friends are all here.’
‘You’ll start me crying again if you go on like that. I think I’d like to be alone for a bit. Could you tell everyone not to call on me?’
Mrs Bloxby gave her a quick hug and then left. Agatha sat on the floor beside the elephant, staring into space. Three hours later, when the removal firm arrived, she roused herself and let them in. She signed an enormous cheque, tipped the men generously, and then drove to the all-night garage on the Fosse Way outside Moreton-in-Marsh and bought a few groceries.
She wondered whether to call in at Thresher’s in Moreton and buy a bottle of something and get drunk, but finding herself suddenly exhausted with misery and emotion, she returned home, bathed and went to bed and plunged into a nightmare-ridden sleep.
She awoke at five in the morning, knowing that sleep would not return and feeling like the character in Ruddigore who was glad the awful night was over. She decided to go for a long walk and see if she could tire herself out and so be able to return to bed and sleep some more of the misery away.
Carsely lay silent under the grey light of a watery dawn. The rain had stopped and the air was chilly. The village consisted of one main street with little winding lanes running off it, like Lilac Lane where Agatha lived. With no cars on the roads, the village looked much as it must have done a century ago, with the thatched cottages nestling under the shadow of the square Norman tower of the church. Agatha quickened her step and strode up the hill. She could not think of James Lacey yet or wonder what he was doing. Her mind flinched away from the very thought of him. As she walked on, she began to feel she was walking away from some of her misery and grief.
Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage Page 2
