The Village Fate

by William Hadley

  The Village Fate

  A story of Love, Lust and Revenge

  William Hadley

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  The Reader Club

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  For Liesl and Tierney

  without whom

  I’d never have written this book

  Chapter One

  Day One. Wednesday

  On a warm Wednesday evening in the middle of June Claudilia Belcher left the Wimplebridge village hall with a face like thunder and murder in her heart. The village fete committee had concluded their meeting, and yet again she’d been lumbered with the cake stall; "because you did so well last year," and "you’re a natural darling". And all the other rubbish the committee members spouted to make her take it on. God she so hated that stall. She hated the cooking beforehand; she hated the setting up and she hated the chasing of other bakers for cakes. But most of all, absolutely most of all, she hated being associate with all those calories.

  At fifty-five Claudilia had yo-yo dieted for years, but somehow she had never managed to reach, let alone maintain, the weight and shape those bastards in the magazines said was normal for someone like her. How did they know what was normal for “someone like her”? As far as Claudilia knew there was no-one else “like her”, or if there was she had never met them, … I probably wouldn’t like them even if I did. Claudilia’s body was pear shaped. Generations of well fed and well bred country folk, going right back to the Norman conquest, made her what she was today. Her complexion was best described as “ruddy.” Her hair hung to just above her shoulders but was often tucked under a riding hat. It had started as blonde with a hint of chestnut, but recently the odd bit of grey could be seen here and there.

  Claudilia was an impressive sight atop her horse, Pumpkin, a six-year-old, seventeen hand chestnut gelding …That’s a boy horse whose had his bits done. If he was all there, love grenades and all, he’d be called a stallion. Now keep up or this book’s going to take ages to get started. Like his rider Pumpkin could be a bit fierce at times and needed to be handled with caution.

  Standing five foot two and weighing. ...That's none of your business reader. Let's just say I’m big boned and well upholstered, Claudilia was not to be trifled with. Once, a slightly drunk country gentleman had called her stout. Soon afterwards he met with a tragic accident, the brakes on his ancient Jaguar had failed as he went down Monk Hill. He’d loved that car and often took it to the pub in the evening after a day tinkering under the bonnet. Everyone agreed that the corner at the bottom of the hill was very tight, and it was such a shame about the oil spill. The rest of the tarmac was quite dry, he’d just been unlucky. He’d skidded off the road and gone through the hedge before plummeting into the river Wimple. He was found the following morning by a dog walker. He was still strapped into his seat and the belt appeared to be jammed. The car was upside down and wedged under the bridge. There had been a police investigation, photos in the local paper and a service of remembrance in the small church. The coroner recorded it as an accidental death, and after a few days’ life got back to normal in the village of Wimplebridge.

  Chapter Two

  It was a short walk from the Bridge Inn, where the committee held their meetings, to Claudilia’s little cottage. As she walked she wished she’d not done such a good job the previous year. But damn it, she had wanted her stall to be the best at the fete. When Claudilia did something, she did it to the best of her ability, so she’d spent hours painting signs, baking cakes and making bunting. She’d won best dressed stall by a mile. But Maggie Macintosh .... I call her Mrs Muck, had put a lot of effort into her flower stand. Claudilia had heard that she’d been working on something new all through the winter, something big for the fete is what she’d been told.

  If the gossip was to be believed, Maggie .... Mrs Muck if you please, was going to have a map of the village made from bedding plants and recycled printer cartridges. It was billed as an existential artwork, …whatever one of those is, emphasising old-world village charm, but expressed in materials from the new era of recycling. Maggie was very enthusiastic about recycling. Her husband, Angus Macintosh, had constructed something called an Anaerobic Digester on his farm, just outside of the village on the road to Warwick.

  Claudilia didn't know about anabolic indigestion, but she knew about farms, ...all the way back to William the Conqueror darling, and thought calling the land the Macintosh’s had a farm was a bit silly; It was little more than an oversized garden with somewhere to park the car. The Belcher estate was more than eight thousand hectares, and it encircled Mr and Mrs Macintosh's land. It was a constant irritation to Claudilia that her great great-grandfather, Gabriel Cecil Belcher, had let it be sold out of the estate.

  It had been a gift of sort, to Letilla Arnett, a family friend. Gabriel had always had an eye for the ladies. So when his wife died and left him a spritely bachelor, all be it one in his late sixties, he sold the house and a small amount of land to Letilla for a shilling. She became his mistress and they set about making somewhere nice for Letilla to live. Gabriel visited her there most evenings, until they both passed away some twenty years later. Letilla died with no children and the house passed to a cousin. He immediately sold it. The new owners, an industrialist from Warwick, bought The Manor as a country home. He wanted somewhere for his family, somewhere with clean air, away from the noise and smells of the city, noise and smells his business emitted twenty four hours a day. It may not have been nice for the local people who lived and worked in his factories, but it had made him very rich.

  Claudilia and her brother Hubert, ran the family farms. They had thriving businesses in both agriculture and timber. Around
the estate in areas not good for grazing or arable farming …that means growing crops, there were blocks of trees. Some were newly planted, some were saplings and others were ready to harvest for poles, planks or fence posts. Farming trees is a long-term business, but by having areas at different stages the Belchers always had something ready to cut. Nothing was wasted by the Belcher’s forestry and sawmill. Sawdust was sold to local pet shops for animal bedding and bark was chipped for garden mulch. They’d recently bought a new chipper. It was Hubert’s pride and joy, one that could handle quite thick branches and trunks. He’d said several times it was so simple that even Claudilia could work it.

  Claudilia walked into the garden of Bindweed Cottage. As was her habit recently she cursed Mister and Missus Muck, and then she cursed his tractor drivers and then she cursed the filthy in-digester too. At a parish council meeting some months previously he had promised that his plant would cause no increase of traffic through the village. He’d said that most of his deliveries would come on a specially constructed track, one bypassing the village entirely. So far there was no sign of a bypass, and tractors thundered past her cottage at all hours. They were carrying stinking materials from local fields to the digester. And now, as if things couldn’t get worse, the council had given him a contract to process kitchen waste.

  “No extra traffic my shiny arse,” said Claudilia. She looked at the pile of stones which for two hundred years had formed the border of her garden. The wall was built by workers employed by the Belcher family in the eighteen hundreds, men from one of the farms which made up the Belcher estate had laid each of these stones by hand; and it had recently been knocked down by a big red tractor towing an even bigger green trailer. When Claudilia heard the bang she ran outside and was just in time to see it going around the bend at the end of the high street. She couldn’t see the driver. She’d got on her bike and cycled after it to the unloading area of Macintosh Energy. But when she started asking questions, nobody had seen anything and no one knew about it.

  Claudilia kicked off her shoes, she poured herself a large whisky from the bottle she kept in the kitchen …I can’t be bothered to put the kettle on and anyway, its none of your business what I drink in my own home, and fought her way onto the settee with Max, her flat coated retriever. Max was not supposed to be on the furniture. But when Claudilia went out in the evenings she sometimes had to leave him behind, she always made sure the television was on for company. Long ago Max had discovered that stretched out on the big soft settee was the most comfortable way to watch his favourite programs. He would climb up as soon as he heard Claudilia close the garden gate and most evenings he’d not bother moving when she came home. Sitting like this, crammed onto one end of the seat, Claudilia channel hopped until ten o’clock when the news came on. She too began to doze.

  At eleven thirty Claudilia was jolted awake. Mr Crumble, her piebald tom-cat who suffered from near terminal flatulence, had jumped onto her lap and began to kneed Claudilia’s tummy with his claws. Mr Crumble only came home for food and occasional cuddles. Unlike Max he viewed Claudilia as staff and not as his best friend forever. … I don’t know how I ever got a cat, he just turned up and I started feeding him, not good for anything cats aren’t, won’t even bring a stick back when you throw it. Who ever heard of a guard cat attacking a robber and saving the family. Nobody, that’s who, they’re useless, and they’re made of fur fangs and fleas. Still Claudilia fed Mr Crumble, she took him to the vet when he was sick, and she arranged for him to be looked after if she went away.

  Claudilia turned off the television and put some milk into a bowl for Mr Crumble, she opened the back door and sent Max out for a “busy busy” before bed time. She checked the locks on the doors and windows then climbed the short staircase to her bedroom on the second floor. By midnight her teeth were clean and she was in her pyjamas. She read a few pages of a second rate novel before turning the light off and going to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Day Two. Thursday

  Thursday morning started with a thunderous roar and the bed rattling. The first time this had happened Claudilia had woken with a start and leapt from beneath the duvet. She was convinced they were experiencing an earthquake, it was the only explanation for all the noise and shaking.

  It had been several years since anything had made Claudilia’s bed rattle …don’t be uncouth, you may be writing this story but my love life’s none of your business. But rather than bringing a smile to her face and a rosy glow to her day, the rude awakening had put her into a foul mood. It wasn’t improved by Mr Crumble jumping on the duvet.

  Mr Crumble usually spent the night patrolling the stable yard, and catching small creatures which were not good for his digestion. He padded up and down the duvet looking for just the right place to settle. At last he seemed satisfied with his choice, he circled a couple of times, stretched to his full length then curled up in a ball and lay down. His final action was to release his secret weapon, an almost imperceptible phuff,. The smell was awful and it made Claudilia’s eyes water.

  She grabbed the fleabag, flung open the window and threw Mr Crumble out. …oh, come on reader, it’s not as if I would eject him from the second story if there wasn’t a shed roof for him to land on. Well, there was that time I was decorating my room and had to sleep in the back bedroom, he did his “thing” and, well let’s say he may only have eight remaining lives.

  Coffee, toast and The Times was Claudilia’s morning routine. Then she’d feed Max and get dressed before they walked to the estate office. Her route took her past the stables and she stopped to say good morning to Pumpkin. Pumpkin was her horse and Claudilia loved him unconditionally. Since childhood Claudilia had preferred the company of horses and dogs to people. At this time of year Pumpkin stayed out in his field if the night was warm enough. But Claudilia could be sure he’d be waiting by the gate in the morning, he wanted the apple she always brought for his breakfast.

  “You went to the committee last night?” asked Hubert, as she settled behind her desk. “How was it?”

  “Bloody awful, I got stuck with the sodding cakes again. I don’t know why I said yes. They used flattery, underhand flattery, I couldn’t say no,” replied his sister. She turned on her computer and got ready to work.

  “Who got the coconut throwing thing?”

  “You mean shy; it’s called a coconut shy.”

  “Okay, who got the coconut shy?”

  “After a long discussion, and I mean loooooooong, … a sodding ice age came and went in the time we talked about this one, the Cubs are to have one more chance. Last year they made a packet, and the committee agreed that so long as only a few of the coconuts are glued down it would be okay.”

  The previous year a boy’s father had made a scene. It turned out he was an expert at throwing things …I guess that made him a first class tosser! When the boy complained the coconuts wouldn’t fall off his dad had a go. In an effort to boost their takings, the Cubs had decided that eight out of ten targets would be glued to their cups! It almost got very ugly, but a quick witted cub gave him his money back, and let him have his pick of the prizes.

  “Anyway,” continued Claudilia, “That nice young teacher from the high school’s going to be in charge. All the girls will want a go so they can show off to him. There’ll be no need to boost the takings by cheating. I thought I’d offer a hand when I’ve finished with the cakes. You never know, he might need some help with his big hairy nuts.”

  Hubert spurted coffee straight out of his nose, it went all over his shirt, his lap and the desk. Coffee sprayed across his paperwork, ruining the crossword he’d been doing as well as the seed catalogue he’d been pretending to read. “Claudilia,” spluttered her brother, “if you’re going to say that sort of thing, for God’s sake wait ‘til I’ve put my cup down. I’ve just had a red hot nasal enema.”

  The morning passed with its normal light-hearted banter between brother and sister. They’d worked like this for more than thir
ty years. Apart from decorating the office once or twice, and upgrading the computers, nothing significant had changed. Claudilia answered phone calls, paid a few bills and replied to emails about farm activities. Hubert placed orders for fertiliser and tractor fuel. At eleven their secretary, Sally, who was also office manager and receptionist, came in with more coffee and a few biscuits. Through all this activity Max lay in his usual spot, right in the centre of the carpet, watching everything that went on around him and missing nothing.

  At one o’clock Claudilia had finished all she needed to do for the day, she tidied her desk and collected together the letters for posting. She kissed her brother on the cheek and left the office with a smile and a wave to Sally. Max trotted along next to his mistress, the same as he’d done each day since he was a pup. Claudilia knew she’d been lucky with Max, he was both smart and great company. Claudilia had discovered very early in their relationship that she could tell him anything, and he’d never repeat a word. Max was a good listener and if Claudilia was trying to solve a problem, she found that by explaining it to Max in terms he’d understand, she’d often come up with the solution. Unlike the small number of men she’d known, Max was dependable, faithful and always there.