The Plague Stones

by James Brogden

  ‘Yes, it’s at least fourteenth century. Some people think it might even have been an Anglo-Saxon moot stone, which would put it at over a thousand years old. Archaeologists excavated around it in the eighties and found coins and the remains of a dagger; isn’t that cool?’ When he didn’t reply she shrugged. ‘Well I think it’s cool.’ He was beginning to get the distinct impression that she was trying to persuade him to like it, appealing to what she thought a fourteen-year-old boy would find interesting, as if she were selling the property, as if it didn’t already belong to his mum.

  ‘Is that why there’s the thing in the contract about not messing around with it?’ he surprised himself by asking.

  ‘The leasehold? Yes, there’s a covenant to prevent anyone removing or damaging the parish stone. It was here long before any of us, and if we look after it properly it will be here long afterwards too. That’s why your mum is an honorary Trustee; it comes with the house, and the house comes with the stone.’ She gave him a sidelong look. ‘I didn’t know you were interested in property law.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I heard about the break-in, of course,’ she said, still looking at the stone, her voice low and neutral as if talking about nothing more unusual than the weather – but his heart was suddenly thumping in his ears all the same. ‘And I know that you were alone when it happened. I want you to know that this place is safe. It’s looked after. It’s… protected.’

  Now she looked at him, but he couldn’t meet her eyes. It was excruciatingly embarrassing. He’d barely said anything about the attack to his parents or the police, much less the school counsellor, and now this stranger was presuming to talk to him about it as if she was his closest confidante?

  ‘Especially from the rats, I guess,’ he said, not really meaning anything by it beyond finding something to fill the awkward silence, but when she spoke again there was a sharpness to her tone that didn’t sit with the reassurance she’d just been trying to project.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. Touched a nerve there, it seemed. ‘Just you’ve got some heavy-duty rat killer lying around. This place isn’t infested, is it?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ she replied, trying to sound like she was breezing it off. ‘It’s just routine. Whenever we clear out a property we like to make sure it doesn’t disturb or attract any unwelcome visitors, that’s all. There’s an old saying that you’re never more than six feet away from a rat, but that’s nonsense. Right then,’ she added, ‘I better go and see how your parents are getting on.’

  She left, and he watched her go, wondering why, of all things, this was the one she should be lying about.

  He chose a room behind one of the oddly angled dormer windows overlooking the back garden. At some point in the cottage’s long past someone had converted the loft space into two rooms, which had probably been intended as a hideaway for a middle-aged husband to play with his train set or his porn collection. It definitely wasn’t designed to be a bedroom: the ceiling sloped steeply in all kinds of directions so that the walls were only a few feet high and there weren’t many places where a fourteen-year-old boy could stand up straight, and his mum wasn’t at all sure that it would be suitable for his ‘needs’ (whatever she thought those were), but Toby was adamant that he loved it, so that was that. He liked its closed-in nature. It reminded him of something he’d read about Indian palaces being built with deliberately narrow passageways so that intruders would have to fight one man at a time to get at the maharajah. So while Ms Markes and his parents went through the last of the paperwork, he sat in the high, narrow window at the top of the house and looked down at the parish stone sitting insolently in the middle of the lawn as if daring him to do something about it. ‘Protected’ it might be, but from up here he would at least have a decent warning if that turned out to be a lie too.

  4

  WELCOME

  THINGS LIKE THIS DON’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE LIKE US.

  People like us is people like them, now.

  Peter’s words kept coming back to Trish all through the afternoon that they spent meeting the other members of the Haleswell Village Trust. It started with drinks in the garden of the rectory of St Sebastian’s.

  People like Richard Nash, Chief Executive of Haleswell Village Trust, whom she made a beeline for first thing, even though under other circumstances she would have found him to be more than a little full of himself. He was well fed rather than fat, with his belly emphasised by a check shirt tucked into mustard-coloured chinos – country golf club smart-casual, though he had a beer in his hand while most of the others held wine glasses. He wore glasses and the perpetual half-smile of a man who appeared to be laughing at some private joke. The sort of man her bosses at the warehouse aspired to have drinks with.

  ‘Peter!’ he beamed, shaking her husband’s hand first before turning to her. ‘And Patricia! And of course this handsome young gentleman, Tobias.’ Right there, she thought, there was the pecking order. She saw Toby rolling his eyes and smiled to herself. ‘Fabulous that you could all make it. How are you finding everything?’ he asked, his attention defaulting back to Peter.

  ‘Wonderful, thank you,’ she said before he could reply. ‘I just wanted to say thanks to you and your committee for everything you’ve done for my family. You’ve been more than generous.’

  ‘It’s a genuine pleasure, Patricia…’

  ‘Trish, please.’

  ‘Of course. Trish. What can I get you all to drink?’ And he led them to a side table loaded with bottles, alongside plates of finger food: miniature sandwiches, pastry savouries that looked like origami, and not a cocktail sausage in sight. ‘Red or white?’

  She surveyed the options. ‘I think I’ll have one of those expensive-looking lagers, thank you, Mr Nash.’

  He laughed like this was the best joke he’d heard all day. ‘Richard,’ he insisted. ‘The only people who call me Mr Nash are the people I can fire.’ The bottles were the kind with a wire contraption at the top which flipped a little ceramic lid on and off again. She and Peter took one each. Nash turned to Toby. ‘And what about you, young sir? What do teenagers drink these days? When I was your age it was a can of Top Deck on the way home from school, though I suppose that doesn’t even exist now. Top Deck, that is, not school. I’m fairly certain that’s still around.’

  ‘He’ll have a lemonade,’ said Trish.

  ‘Absolutely. Plenty of time for the hard stuff, eh?’

  While Nash was sorting this out Toby leaned in close to his dad, and though she couldn’t hear the whole of the murmured exchange, definitely caught the word ‘nob-end’.

  * * *

  People like Anik Singh, the Trust’s director of human resources, who listened with absolute seriousness as Trish embarrassed herself by telling him about her ambitions to train as a mental health counsellor now that she didn’t have to work all hours of the day at her crappy, ironically named ‘zero-hours’ contract.

  ‘What is it that you do?’ he asked. He was quite short and slim, with a dark-eyed intensity that somehow made evasive small talk impossible.

  What is it that you do? The kind of question which she imagined in these sorts of conversations would usually be followed by something like. Oh you know, international finance, hedge fund acquisition, the usual.

  ‘You know those shopping catalogues where you buy handy kitchen gadgets and dodgy jewellery?’ she replied. ‘Well they all get supplied by these great big robot warehouses out in the middle of nowhere. I’m one of the “distribution technicians”, which basically means if something gets jammed I hit it with a stick until it’s unjammed.’

  He nodded as if she’d just told him she was a brain surgeon by day but dabbled a little in rocket science on the side.

  ‘And you?’ she asked

  ‘All the clichés, I’m afraid,’ he said with an apologetic smile. ‘Second generation off the boat, with a pair of pushy parents who I disappointed tragically by be
coming a chartered accountant instead of a doctor.’ He picked a volau-vent off a nearby tray and munched it unenthusiastically. ‘Do you like these things?’ he asked.

  She shrugged, not wanting to offend. ‘I imagine they’re an acquired taste.’

  Singh leaned in conspiratorially. ‘Do you want to know something? My father owns a cash-and-carry business on the Stratford Road. One year when I was twelve we had some bad flooding and he tried to save what he could in the big chest freezer in our garage. We ate chicken Kiev for a month and I put on half a stone.’ He grinned. ‘It was fantastic.’

  * * *

  People like the reverend Joyce Dobson, a tall, angular, middle-aged woman with large hands that seemed to do most of the talking for her. They enfolded both of Trish’s in a warm grip of greeting, flew open in laughter, tapped fingers in thought and clasped solemnly when sympathetic. Trish listened politely while Joyce told her about the voluntary and charity work that the Trust organised to help the more deprived housing estates under their management, and when she finished with ‘I do hope you’ll consider popping in to lend a hand now and then’, actually found herself thinking that she might.

  ‘Would you like a quick tour of the church, while we’re here?’ Rev. Dobson asked. ‘Escape this madness for ten minutes?’

  Trish glanced over at where Peter and Nash were chatting, with Toby at his father’s elbow, sipping his drink and looking bored and restless. She’d ordered him to leave his phone in the car, and he was obviously suffering from withdrawal, but a bit of enforced social without the media would do him good. Visiting a church was the last thing she wanted to do, but it would have been rude to refuse. ‘I’d love to,’ she said.

  A door in the rectory garden’s brick wall let them straight into the churchyard, and onto a short path leading between gravestones to St Sebastian’s church. It was a simple building, and smaller than Trish had been expecting, with a square, four-pointed tower at one end and a half-timbered porch with heavy doors set halfway down its length.

  ‘We’re not exactly Westminster Abbey,’ said Rev. Dobson, as if reading her thoughts. ‘But then congregations are usually so small anyway. I’m not sure what I’d do if my flock actually started turning up.’

  ‘I bet Christmas is fun.’

  ‘Bless the Lord for folding picnic chairs, that’s all I can say.’

  Reverend Dobson unlocked the doors with a huge cast-iron key that looked like it would have been better suited to a medieval dungeon, and stepped into the entry porch. Even from here, Trish could smell it: the heavy redolence of furniture polish, old carpet, and candle wax which was instantly familiar even though she’d never set foot in this place before. It was like smelling the cologne of an old, abusive lover, one you thought you’d said good riddance to and never expected to have to deal with again. Her pulse quickened, and she told herself not to be so bloody stupid.

  What’s He going to do, strike me down with holy retribution?

  Inside there were a few dozen pews and shelves stacked with hymnals, their dark wood set against oak panelling and grey-gold sandstone. On the pulpit a huge Bible lay open at a wide bookmark richly embroidered and embellished with shining pilgrim badges. The altar was modest, even for an Anglican church. She hadn’t set foot in a church of any description for twelve years, but even so she was surprised to find that the urge to approach the altar and genuflect was immediate and strong. I’m sorry, please take me back, she wanted to say, at the same time as No, never again, you bastard.

  In one corner, crayon pictures made in Sunday school were stuck directly to the stone wall next to inscribed plaques commemorating notable parishioners and a table with an honesty box and a wicker tray full of small bottles the same size as hand sanitiser. A hand-lettered sign read:

  WATER FROM ST SEBASTIAN’S WELL, SUGGESTED DONATION £2.

  She picked up one of the bottles for a closer look. Its label read:

  A SIGN OF LIFE AND GOD’S HEALING GRACE FROM HALESWELL, THE SITE OF ST SEBASTIAN’S WELL, A PLACE OF CHRISTIAN PRAYER AND PILGRIMAGE FOR 900 YEARS. PRAY WITH THIS WATER; PASS THIS WATER ON TO SOMEONE AS A SIGN OF YOUR PRAYER FOR THEM; ASK FOR GRACE TO LET GO OF PAST HURTS OR SORROWS WHILE POURING THIS WATER INTO THE EARTH; WASH YOUR HANDS OR FACE IN THIS WATER, PRAYING FOR GOD’S BLESSING FOR YOURSELF AND OTHERS.

  And then in red capitals:

  NOT SUITABLE FOR DRINKING

  Trish laughed.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Rev. Dobson. ‘Oh, I see you’ve found our little holy moonshine operation. I hope you won’t think it too cynical of us. Prayer alone won’t replace stolen lead roofing, unfortunately.’

  ‘No, I just thought it was funny how the grace of God isn’t fit for human consumption.’

  ‘Ah, well there’s the power of the Lord, and then there’s health and safety legislation. Come on, I’ll show you our holy well.’

  Rev. Dobson led her up to the chancel, then turned back to her. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise that you were a Catholic.’

  Trish looked at her sharply. ‘What? I’m not. I mean, I was. How did you know?’

  ‘You just crossed yourself.’

  ‘Did I? Shit. Oops, sorry.’

  ‘No need. Do you mind if I ask…?’

  ‘A little bit, yes.’

  ‘Then the apology is mine.’ Rev. Dobson continued to the altar, with Trish blushing furiously behind. Dammit, was it really that easy? She stared at the image of Christ carved into the glossy wood of the reredos behind the altar. Oh no you don’t. Meanwhile Rev. Dobson had lifted the altar cloth, laying her hand on the stone beneath.

  ‘Despite what it looks like, this altar isn’t a solid block of stone. It’s actually been hollowed out into a trough with a wooden board laid across the top. During the time of the Black Death this stone was placed on the parish boundary and used as a way for the villagers to trade with their neighbours without actual physical contact, to try to prevent the plague spreading. One of the things that Haleswell had to offer was healing water from a spring blessed by Saint Sebastian.’

  At the opposite end of the nave from the altar, under the stained-glass windows in the western wall, there was a shallow stone basin built into the floor, full of water. At first Trish thought it was a particularly odd design for a baptismal font, but then she noticed that the water was actually bubbling up into the basin from underneath the floor and flowing away along a channel through a grated culvert in the wall.

  ‘It was originally in the grounds of the church,’ said Rev. Dobson, ‘but at some point in the seventeenth century the church was rebuilt and expanded to incorporate it as part of the structure. As you can see, it’s quite small. Parts of the church actually date back to the twelfth century and it’s likely that there were people settled here since the Anglo-Saxons. Even then this spring probably wasn’t big enough to supply the village entirely on its own, but that wasn’t why it was so important.’

  ‘I imagine that fresh, clean water coming out of the ground must have seemed like a gift from God,’ said Trish.

  ‘It wasn’t much of a jump for the church to attribute its miraculous powers to Saint Sebastian, who is supposed to defend against plague. People still come here to pray for healing, and so we bottle a little of it for them to take away with them.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s harmless, and it helps towards our running costs.’

  ‘Just as long as they don’t drink it, that is,’ Trish pointed out.

  Rev. Dobson laughed.

  ‘And do you really believe that it works?’

  ‘Are you asking me if I believe in miracles?’

  ‘You’re a priest. It must go with the territory.’

  The vicar smiled wryly, and the look she gave Trish was cool and measuring. ‘Well, put it this way – if someone had told you six months ago that you would be living mortgage-free in a large detached cottage in one of the most affluent neighbourhoods in the city, what would you have called it? Luck? Just that? Or maybe a little more?’

  �
��Fair point,’ Trish conceded. She was beginning to feel that this was a bit more than just a friendly tour – something more like an interview.

  ‘Aha, but you didn’t answer the question,’ Dobson said.

  ‘Aha, but I have no intention of answering the question.’

  Rev. Dobson’s hands folded themselves together, the tips of her forefingers tapping each other as if in conversation. ‘Patricia Feenan,’ she said, ‘if it doesn’t sound too pompous, and I’m sure it does, you have firm inner defences. I like that in a person. And I like you, which is just as well, since we basically have the same job.’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘No, not that one. I mean that you and I are both non-executive Trustees. We retain voting rights even though we have no portfolio as part of the Trust’s day-to-day business.’

  ‘All the privilege but none of the responsibility.’ Trish nodded. ‘Makes a nice change.’

  Rev. Dobson frowned slightly. ‘It’s not quite like that. You are a Trustee because you have the guardianship of the parish marker at Stone Cottage. I, similarly, have the guardianship of this spring. Both are important to the history and heritage of Haleswell village – by which I mean the core of the village, the original parish, not the extended series of estates and properties which the Trust has built up over the years. I’m hoping that as a… er…’

  ‘Lapsed? Recovering?’

  ‘Yes. That you will appreciate that Rogation Sunday is a very important fixture in our calendar.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to remind me about that one. It’s been a while.’

  ‘The Sunday before Ascension Thursday? May twenty-sixth. This year it’s part of the main bank holiday so obviously we want to make it as much of an occasion as we can—’

  ‘Joyce, if I can stop you there? I think I know what you’re trying to say, and it’s okay. Honestly, it’s all fine. Natalie was very good in talking us through all of the small print in the title deeds before we signed the contract. We know that there are various conditions that come with owning the cottage, and we’re more than happy to observe them. Of course we’ll open our garden for the Beating of the Bounds, you don’t have to worry about that.’