Felburgh

by Ivan B

  She stopped and took another sip of the lemonade.

  “I’m sorry I can’t drink this, can I have a tea instead, this is ghastly.”

  Peter laughed and went inside and made her a cup of tea. When he took it out she looked away.

  “I own you an explanation.”

  “You don’t owe me anything”, he replied. “You don’t have to say anything”.

  Jo put two sugars in her tea and stirred it lazily. They sat in silence as she drank her tea, then she started talking and didn’t stop.

  “I was brought up on a farm and dad had a Land Rover just like yours, same series, same colour, and same canvas back. I went to school in it, got taken to the shops in it and as soon as I could reach the pedals I drove all over the farm in it. Eventually my dad died in it.”

  She poured herself another cup of tea as she continued talking.

  “My dad had farmed all his life and I doubt that he ever went more than twenty miles from the farm in all the time I can remember, except once when he took mum on holiday to Germany when I was seven. My mother came from Freiberg, a little town in West Germany just north of the Swiss border and East of France. She was ten years older than dad and I have no idea how they met. They never talked about it; in fact they never talked about any time before their marriage. But I had a wonderful childhood, growing up on the farm and enjoying the freedom that it brought. Mother spoke four languages, German of course, but also French, Italian and English. She also had a smattering of Czech and Spanish. She was proud of her linguistic skills and was desperate to pass it on to me. We used to have what she called cosmopolitan days; Mondays we spoke nothing but French, Wednesdays nothing but German and once I reached high school Fridays was Italian. She needn’t have worried; I loved languages and eventually took A-levels in French, German, Italian and Latin. I guess I inherited her skill of being able to switch between languages. I intended to take a year out and then go to University to study languages, but that summer I got a job as translator with a shipping company at Felixstowe. I eventually decided to stay there after I met a man named Philip at a young farmer’s dance.”

  “Life was fine and by the time I was twenty I was deeply in love with Philip; I loved my job and was still living on the farm. Then my mum died: she had a heart attack in the kitchen and dad found her dead on the floor. The light seemed to go out of his life and it never came back on; he went into deep depression. I thought that it was mum’s death that was causing this and that was partly true, but there was more to it; much, much more to it.”

  “Anyway, I had my twenty first birthday and dad laid on a super bash for me, marquee, band, and outside caterers. A week later my life fell apart. I came home from work and the farm was silent: this wasn’t too unusual as dad was an arable farmer, but we did keep a few goats and they had gone. On the kitchen table was a note address to me, it contained a hundred pounds in cash and a postcard of Tower Bridge; on the other side of the postcard was a short message, ‘Sorry, remember I love you, Dad’. I couldn’t find him anywhere and then I noticed that the Land Rover was missing. He’d driven to Dunwich heath and blown his brains out with his shotgun.”

  Jo paused for a moment and took a large swig of tea.

  “The funeral was two weeks later and when I arrived back at the farm there was a large van in the yard; it was from a firm of London Bailiffs. They said that they had a legal notice to recover what they could from debts my father owed to a firm of seed merchants. I threw a wobbly and told them I had just buried my father and could they please go away. The bailiff was actually quite kind, he took me inside, made me a cup of tea and waited for Philip to arrive. Then they left. I found out later that they could not have exercised their court order anyway as the estate was in probate. Dad owed them £150,000. I couldn’t believe that dad was in debt so much, but as the weeks went by more and more debts came to light. Dad owed just about everyone money, £7000 to the fertilizer company, £1000 to the marquee hire firm, £50,000 to the firm that sold him a tractor and so on. I stopped counting at £250,000. I couldn’t concentrate at work and my boss, far from being sympathetic to my plight, started proceedings to have me dismissed through what he called non-culpable inefficiency.”

  “Philip turned out to be as much use as a stuffed pony. He couldn’t cope with me, and he could not cope with the idea that I was sole inheritor to a bankrupt farm. Then one evening at a party some supercilious Pratt made a remark that farming was a dead industry and ought to be put out of its misery by the government. He also made some remark that every farmer that committed suicide was one less they’d have to pay compensation to and laughed. I sandbagged him and apparently tried to claw his eyes out; I’m glad to say I did put him in hospital. Later that evening Philip dumped me: he had ambitions to be a politician and said I would be a liability. When I got indoors there was a letter on the doormat, delivered by hand, and saying that I had been sacked. After that I lose track of time.”

  She paused again and looked at Peter as if weighing up whether or not to go on.

  “I’m told that three weeks later another bailiff firm arrived and they thought the farm was deserted. They didn’t wait for the nicety of finding anyone and started to move furniture out of the front room. Apparently I scared the hell out of them. I appeared from the kitchen swearing at them in four languages and throwing crockery. The bailiffs ran for their van, locked themselves in and phoned the police. By the time the police arrived I was standing on the van’s front bumper and smashing my head against the windscreen.”

  “The policewoman who arrived was my Auntie Margaret and she realized instantly that something was deeply wrong and called out my GP. The long and the short of it is that I had had a major nervous breakdown and I ended up in the local mental hospital. I was an in-patient there for well over a year, a regular outpatient for two years after that and I’ve been back for counseling from time to time since. I doubt that I would have got through it if it wasn’t for my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Sid, and my friend Anna-Marie. My aunt and uncle sort of adopted me. Uncle Sid sold the farm and paid off the debts, he took the shipping firm to court for unfair dismissal and won some compensation. Auntie Margaret visited me in hospital, bought me clothes, had me for weekends and generally looked after me as if I were her own. They both loved me back to reality.”

  Jo paused as if considering what to say next, and then continued:

  “Anna-Marie was the only one of my so called friends who came to see me in the hospital. She came two or three times a week and when I was eventually discharged I moved in with her. She didn’t know it then, and I doubt that it would have made any difference, but she was pregnant at the time. Eight months later she gave birth to Danielle.”

  Again Jo paused, and this time did not continue but stirred her tea.

  “So Danielle is not your daughter then,” said Peter.

  “Not then; she is now.”

  “When Danielle was three, Anna-Marie died. We knew she was going to die as she had cancer of the liver and they couldn’t do a transplant. We’d brought up Danielle together and I promised Anna that I would look after her. I was worried that my medical history would mean that social services would deem me unfit to look after her, but we hatched a cunning plan. Anna’s parents live in French Guyana and she held a French Guyana Passport. She got her parents to appoint me as Danielle’s legal guardian in the Guyana courts and they had the ruling notified to the Home Office in London. They gave permission for Danielle to remain in my charge, and in this country, until she is eighteen. I doubt that the local social services know I am not her mum; as guardian I receive the family benefit and it is not unusual these days for parents and children to have different surnames.”

  “Clever” commented Peter

  “That’s not the half of it. Danielle’s Father comes from Eire and Anna insisted his name be on the birth certificate; so Danielle has dual nationality. When she’s eighteen we’ll get her an Irish passport and the Home Office cannot then ask her t
o leave.”

  “Very clever” said Peter. “But it could not have been easy.”

  Jo nodded.

  “At the start I thought it was going to be impossible. But it turned out that in all the trauma of Anna dying we had missed one vital point: Danielle was going blind. We thought that she was just clumsy, but in fact her eyesight was deteriorating.”

  “So what happened” asked Peter, who had seen Danielle in the church, obviously able to see.

  “I thought something was wrong when every night Danielle would feel my face with her hands and burst into tears. We had tried to explain to her that mummy was dying, but there is only so much a three-year-old can understand. I took her to my GP who did a simple eye test and immediately referred us to Moorefield’s eye hospital in London. It was very fast, I took her to the GP on a Monday and by Tuesday afternoon Danielle was seeing an eye specialist. He diagnosed Optic Neuritis: it’s an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord and can, in rare circumstances, follow measles. Danielle had had measles two months before Anna died. The specialist assured me that we had caught it early and she would probably recover full sight in a couple of months, but she had to avoid stress - avoid stress; her mother had just died! Then during Mass the following Sunday I had an inspiration. Anna was into body piercing in a big way, I had a few holes in my ears and a couple of discrete tattoos, but Anna had gone for the full Monty. I donned one of those clip-on nose-rings and that night as Anna felt my face I could tell she was uncertain, but in the end she did cry. The clip on ring was excruciatingly painful, so next day I pierced my face in an identical manner to Anna. That night I wore Anna’s French perfume; Danielle felt my face and did not cry. Don’t get me wrong, I have never tried to fool Danielle by pretending to be Anna and Danielle knows I am not her biological mother. Danielle’s sight returned slowly over the next few months and happily she eventually made a full recovery. It was all ten years ago, but it seems like yesterday.”

  Jo fell quiet, but Peter was curious, and could not resist asking a question.

  “But you still wear the face jewelry; surely Danielle doesn’t need it now?”

  “No, but I do. I’ve got used to it and don’t feel dressed, or safe, unless I’m wearing it. Call it my mask if you like, but it’s helped me to be me.” She grinned, “If other people don’t like it that is just tough.”

  Peter laughed .

  “And is Danielle OK now?”

  Jo went quiet for a minute and replied.

  “Yes, but I do have a problem. Anna asked me to bring Danielle up in the church. For her the Church meant the Catholic Church and I did take Danielle there until she was nine, but her friends went to St Nathaniel’s Sunday school and she felt left out. She pleaded with me and eventually I let her come here. But it is on my conscience, do you think I did the right thing?”

  Peter thought for a moment.

  “If I’m honest, Jo, I think denominations are a blot on the Christian landscape; we waste so much time talking about our differences that we forget what we have in common. We also forget that being a Christian is about having a relationship with God not wearing a label. Anna asked you to bring up Danielle in the church; I think that if you are giving Danielle the opportunity to meet God and work out her own faith then you are fulfilling her wishes”.

  Jo nodded, and then suddenly looked at her watch.

  “Oh Hell” she exclaimed, “I’m supposed to be taking Danielle to the dentist in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll take you,” Peter responded and and they both walked briskly to the Land Rover. Aquinas as usual miraculously appeared from nowhere and jumped into the back. Peter and Jo climbed in. As Jo put her seatbelt on she paused.

  “This isn’t a series one Land Rover! It’s got seat belts and three comfortable seats not a bench.”

  Peter laughed and drove her to the school.

  “In my last parish,” he said. “ I tended a parishioner who was dying of Asbestosis. I visited him for four years and he was a classic car enthusiast. The month before he died I took him to a rally in Chester - he was that keen. He had six classic cars and when he died he left me his Jowett Javelin. I had no idea what to do with it; it was a beautiful car, but it was in concourse condition and I could never have maintained it to that standard. Another one of the church members owned his own garage and also loved classic cars; I passed the Jowett onto him. He asked me what would be my dream car, I said ‘a Series One Land Rover with Range Rover comfort and good windscreen wipers.’ Six months later he turned up with this. It is a series one chassis, but strengthened to accommodate modern running gear. It has all the safety aids such as ABS and power steering, and I have no idea how he managed to shoehorn a diesel turbo engine into the small engine bay, but he did. I have a suspicion that the only authentic part is the log-book and that he really built it entirely with spare parts from the Rover catalogue; but he was very, very coy about its parentage.”

  As they arrived at the school Danielle was waiting outside with that totally bored look that only a thirteen-year-old can manage.

  “Shame about the colour though,” Jo said quietly as they stopped.

  Danielle looked at the Land Rover then looked at her mum, who had moved over to the middle seat, and climbed in.

  “Hi mum, Hi vicar” she said, “Didn’t say you were taking me to the dentists in a mobile shed.”

  When Peter got back to the house he had some lunch and read the paper; for once the local paper had some items of interest for him. A small article on page three announced that the inshore lifeboat pull had been a great success and collected nearly £1400; this was over £750 up on last year and everybody involved was very pleased. An equally small article buried at the bottom of page seven informed him that Jim Groves, who used to be a locksmith in Felburgh, had died in Norwich prison of a brain hemorrhage. There would be an enquiry into his death, but as he had a brain hemorrhage in the past there was no foul play suspected. Peter wondered how Muriel would cope with that, and made a note in his diary to visit her. Finally, Hannah had come up trumps: there was a full exposé of Claude’s Funeral business. It covered four pages and had photographs of the cheap coffins and the straps inside. Somehow she had got hold of the letter from the clergy to the head office, and the gobbledygook reply. She had also interviewed the head office and Claude; both were entirely unrepentant. But the coup de grâce had been the fact that Claude personally made £45 out of each of his package funerals; this was because he owned the company that provided the cheap coffins and had extra generous commission rights. Peter sat back and wondered if this would make any difference; probably only time would tell.

  When Peter eventually reached his study to try and start work on next Sunday’s sermon, he stopped dead; Bunty and Harriet were marching up his drive. In the short time Peter had been at Felburgh he was sure of one thing, and that was that Bunty plus Harriet meant a purpose. Members of the congregation referred to the pair as ‘The Harriers’; Peter was not sure if this related to the Jump-Jet or their technique, but one thing was sure; if both Bunty and Harriet were together on a task someone was in for a hard time. The last time he’d seen them work together was on Kimberley’s housing benefit; this had initially been refused, but one visit by them to the housing department had got the ruling immediately rescinded. He studied them closely, they might both be ex-headmistresses he decided, but when together they often looked like a pair of naughty schoolgirls. He opened the door before they rang the bell and let them in; he showed them straight into the lounge.

  “Seeing you two together always makes me nervous,” he said.

  Harriet and Bunty both giggled and glanced at each other. Harriet started.

  “You know Kimberley and Sarah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course you do! They both go to the meeting at the pub. Did you know she’s still staying with Bronwyn and Taffy?”

  “Yes, she talked to me last Saturday.”

  Bunty took over.

  “Yes, she has
entitlement to reduced housing benefit, but can’t find any suitable accommodation in Felburgh and she doesn’t want to move to the big city.”

  Peter smiled.

  “Ipswich is hardly a big city.”

  “Well she wouldn’t know anyone there and it would take her away from her friends here.”

  Peter was not sure where this was going.

  “So why come and see me?”

  Again they giggled like a pair of naughty schoolgirls caught reading unsuitable magazines.

  “We were wondering about your studio flat?”

  Peter relaxed.

  “Not my gift to give. The house is owned by the Diocese and managed by the Diocesan Housing Department.”

  Bunty smiled.

  “We know, we made enquiries.”

  Peter’s suspicions were immediately aroused.

  “Made enquiries?”

  Bunty replied.

  “Yes we asked them the procedure for renting it out. They were very helpful; they even sent us a rental agreement and agreed to set any rent at the direct level of Kimberley’s housing benefit.”

  Harriet took up the cudgel.

  “They said they would be very happy to rent it out as it would offset some of the costs of running the vicarage.”

  “So they agreed?” asked Peter.

  Bunty and Harriet both smiled sweetly at him in unison.

  “With one proviso.”

  “That I agree?”

  “Yes.” They both said.

  Peter realized that he was being neatly and effectively stitched up in the nicest of ways: the housing department would be grateful for the money, and Kimberley would be grateful for the flat.

  “But it’s so small.” He almost bleated.

  Harriet laughed.

  “We’ve seen the plans. There is a bedroom big enough for an adult and a five-foot square room, which is quite big enough for a nursery; Sarah is still only in a cot. The lounge/kitchen is quite big enough; she’s not searching for Buckingham Palace.”