Twelve Drummers Drumming

by C. C. Benison

  “Not eating?” he asked.

  Julia shook her head. “It looks very good … well, except for that bit—”

  “Apparently Dora Speke’s casserole went walkabout.”

  “Ah.”

  Tom edged his fork into a sausage roll. “Revelation Choir was splendid, don’t you think? And you were wonderful, too, of course.”

  “Mmm.”

  Tom glanced at her. She caught the glance and seemed to struggle with something to say.

  “Your eye …”

  “A bit of best British beef on it and I’ll be right as rain.”

  “I think Alastair would tell you putting bacteria-laden meat on a mucous membrane would be a poor idea.”

  “Joke.”

  “Oh.” Julia downed the rest of her sherry, then clutched the glass to her chest. An uncharacteristically awkward silence ensued. Behind him, Tom could hear people murmuring and greeting one another, their collective drone broken by the occasional titter or mutter. Over Julia’s shoulder, through the French window, Thornridge’s shimmering lawn beckoned in the middle distance, a haven from the polite and artificial society of the funeral tea.

  “I think we’re sinking into small talk,” he said finally.

  Julia deposited the sherry glass on a table by the window. “I’ve been thinking about what you said in the vestry earlier.”

  “Which bit?”

  “Several bits, really. You’re not my priest. But perhaps you can be my rabbi of a sort in this instance.”

  “Why don’t I simply be—at the very least—your brother-in-law?”

  “Priestly garb lends detachment.” She traced a finger along his dog collar and looked into his eyes. Tom started. Lisbeth would make this same gesture from time to time, at odd moments, and her eyes would crinkle, as if marriage to a priest were both deliciously preposterous and utterly wonderful. Such was usually a prelude to a kiss. But there could be no such thing here. This was no flirtation. Julia, the more serious of the sisters, wore a wan expression which tugged at his heart.

  “Do you think it would be rude if we went outside?” she asked. She didn’t wait for an answer, pushing open the French doors and stepping out onto the partially glazed pergola that overlooked the pool garden. Tom set his plate down and followed. They walked in silence past the ornamental pool, then down a soft grassy path through a garden of shrub roses towards a bank of beech trees. Julia plucked a chaste white bloom from a heavy stem that blocked their way. A thorn grazed the flesh of her finger. She licked at it, then held the ring of petals to her nose and breathed deeply as they passed into green shadows.

  “You know,” she said at last, “about the child Alastair and I lost three years ago.”

  “Of course, yes.” The news had come via Johanna, his mother-in-law. Deeply saddened, Lisbeth had phoned Julia, heralding a thaw in the sisterly glaciation, but the gesture had not been well received. Perhaps Julia was too addled by grief, Lisbeth had concluded when she set the phone back in its cradle. But she had behaved as though Lisbeth, the mother of a healthy child, had called to gloat.

  “We did try again.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “No one did. It was too heartbreaking.”

  “Julia, I’m so sorry.”

  “In fact,” Julia continued, head bent, “Alastair and I can’t have children. Or, rather, we mustn’t. We’re genetically mismatched, you see. I’ll miscarry any child we have together.”

  “You were tested, I presume.”

  “Alastair can be very thorough when he wants to be.”

  Tom released a moan. “I’m lost for words.”

  “Lisbeth chose wisely. If she had married Alastair, the same thing might have happened to her, the same genetic mismatch.”

  “Now there are no words.”

  “I’m not being bitter. I’m simply stating a fact—or at least a very strong possibility.”

  Julia turned away and moved through untrimmed grasses towards the crest of land over the river estuary. Here, the breeze was constant, filled with clouds of gulls coiling and twisting into the sky. But Tom paid scant attention to their noisy flight. His eyes were on Julia’s slender figure, on her shoulders sagging in the black suitcoat, on the way the rose, held by the end of its stem, trailed along her leg.

  “There’s more,” she said when they’d reached the cliff edge. High on the hill opposite, between the seams of hedgerows, defined against the skyline, a crop sprayer travelled a steady course. “I did become pregnant.” She tossed the rose over the cliff’s edge. Tom watched it absently as it floated in the air then tumbled against a hollow in the cliff, his mind racing ahead. There could only be sorrow here.

  “And you had a termination,” he intoned as he watched a gust of air lift the rose again and dispatch it further down.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Well,” he began gently, “I know it’s a very sad thing, but I can’t see you would have had any other choice, Julia, given the likely outcome.”

  She shot him a quick glance, then looked away. “It wasn’t Alastair’s,” she said, her tone flat.

  “Oh” was all he could think to say. He wasn’t shocked; no novelty attended disclosure of adultery to a priest, but he was dismayed to his very bones that Julia was complicit in this most tawdry of human failings. One question burned in his mind, but he put it off. Gently, he asked instead, “Did this happen recently?”

  “No, though it feels like yesterday. I had the termination shortly before your visit with Miranda last year.”

  “Julia, you should have put us off.”

  “And what excuse would I have given? What excuse would I have given to Alastair? He was actually looking forward to Miranda’s arrival. He likes children, you know. He wants children. And …” Her voice dropped. “I can’t give them to him.”

  “And he knows nothing of this?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  There was a heartbeat’s hesitation. Tom turned to her. “You are sure.”

  “Yes … absolutely. Well, I had one worrying moment. I went to a private clinic in Exeter, just off Queen Street. The appointment was for Saturday morning, which seemed the best time, since Alastair would think I had gone up for synagogue. However, when I stepped out of the clinic afterwards, I crossed paths with Tamara Prowse—Jago’s eldest—and Sybella.”

  “Sybella?”

  “I taught Tamara at school. She’s a lovely girl, and so we chatted for a bit. She’d gone up to look around the campus, since she was going to be attending the University of Exeter in the autumn. I guess Sybella had gone along for the ride, since her driving licence was still restricted then. I’m not sure the two were really friends. Anyway, Sybella didn’t have anything to say, but I could see her peering at the clinic’s sign and giving me one of those cunning looks of hers. But the clinic has a wide range of women’s services and its name declares none of them, so …”

  “She might have looked on the Internet.”

  “And found I may have been there for a Pap test. Anyway, nothing came of it. Sybella never said anything to me. And if she said anything to anyone else, it didn’t get back to me.”

  “I can almost imagine her saying something to Alastair. I feel she fancied herself a bit of a slyboots.”

  “Then he would have said something to me. I know he can brood, but if he knew I had gone to some private medical clinic, he would have worried. He would have asked me about it.”

  “And what would you have told him?”

  Julia fell silent. Tom glanced down at the sun glinting off the waters of the estuary and let the light dazzle his eyes for a moment. “I said something in the vestry to that reporter about letting sleeping dogs—or sleepy villages—lie. Perhaps I should suggest the same thing to you, Julia. Are you wanting to confess to Alastair? Is this why you’re telling me this, now?”

  “Good God, no! I don’t want him to ever know. I am … fond of him, Tom.”

  “Only ‘f
ond’?”

  “I don’t know. Our first years together were wonderful. I know Lisbeth always thought there was something insidious about our alliance. But there wasn’t, really. I had just ended a relationship when I ran into Alastair. He had just finished with Lisbeth. I suppose it was misery loves company, but we fell in love. Our marriage only began to fall apart after the second miscarriage. He was very supportive and understanding after the first.” Julia paused. “It’s hard for Alastair, in a way. He’s always had this perfect life mapped out for himself, and I’ve as much as thrown him a googly. He doesn’t take to googlies. Cricket was never his game. I don’t know why he sticks me really.”

  “Because, like your sister was, you’re beautiful and full of life.”

  Julia smiled wanly. “He could find another woman to have a child with. We hardly seem to live together as man and wife anymore. I’m sure you noticed the sleeping arrangements when you were here last year. They haven’t changed.” She shrugged. “We go about our routines. If he isn’t working, he’s golfing. I busy myself with school routines. We have the occasional meal with his golfing mates and their wives. Earlier, we had talked about other solutions—adopting, egg donation …”

  “Sperm donation?”

  Julia demurred. “I rather think Alastair is certain he would want it to be his child. Anyway …” She trailed off, setting her eyes on the Totnes ferry, which had come into view on the water below. Someone on the top deck spotted them and raised a hand in greeting.

  Tom waved back robotically, his heart constricted by anguish for his sister-in-law. “As commonplace as this sounds,” he began, despairing of his inadequacy, “could I suggest professional counseling? I can’t really counsel in this situation, if that’s what you’re thinking. You being family—”

  “I know. That’s why I’m talking to you in your ‘rabbinical’ role. Yes, I have a rabbi in Exeter, but I haven’t been going to synagogue long and I don’t know him very well. Besides, he’s a little forbidding, and I need to talk to someone. I’d been able to keep a lid on things, but the events of this week … and then that reporter stirring things up. I’m frightened about what might happen.”

  “Julia …”

  “Who can you talk to in this village without it being someone else’s business within hours? Who is most likely to keep his counsel?” Her eyes beseeched him. Then she looked sharply away. “That’s why I confided in Peter in the first place.”

  Tom started. “Peter?”

  “I was wretched after the second miscarriage. He could see I was miserable when I came to choir practice. He was very sympathetic. One evening, after practice, we sat in a pew and talked … and it all came tumbling out.” She glanced at him miserably. “You might imagine the rest.”

  Tom did. It was an old story. A marriage falters and a woman hears warm, affirming words from a priest. A hand squeeze or a genial hug follows. Sometimes the priest is unaware of the effect he is having. But from what Tom had gleaned, the late Reverend Peter Kinsey had not been marked by naïvety. He asked:

  “Whose decision was the termination?”

  “Mine, of course.”

  “Yes, Julia, I am aware of women’s views on these matters, but what I meant was, how was the decision arrived at? Did you tell Peter you were having his child?”

  “I was such a fool.” Even in profile he could see the grim set to her mouth. “I so misread him. I thought he was in love with me. We talked about my divorcing Alastair—in my mind I rationalised that this would give him a chance to remarry and have a child—then, after a decent interval, Peter and I would marry. But I realised I was the one making all these silly plans. I was fantasising. He was being agreeable, simply to keep me sweet. When I told him I was pregnant, he was horrified. Clearly, I had to be either unstable or untrustworthy or manipulative. There was no question I was to get rid of it.”

  “And that was the end of the affair, I expect.”

  Julia nodded. “And I couldn’t very well go through a charade of passing the child off as Alastair’s. Since the second miscarriage, we had hardly been sleeping together. And since my chances of carrying his child to full term were so unlikely, he would be suspicious.”

  Tom watched the Dartmouth-bound ferry round the bend and fade from view. He brimmed with grief for Julia’s losses, but just as much he abhorred Kinsey’s cowardly default to self-preservation, an attitude reprehensible in a priest.

  After a moment Julia continued: “I suppose one could ascribe irony to this. Me, falling for a priest—just like my older, smarter, stronger sister. It must be a family pathology. Celia would be able to run with this.” She laughed mirthlessly. “I caught her talk at the WI on the psychology of sibling relationships. She said those second born often accept second place. They emulate their older siblings because it’s comfortable. Someone else has already sort of carved out the path—haven’t they?—and you simply follow along. Look at who I married. He was Lisbeth’s first, wasn’t he?”

  “Sometimes,” Tom responded, jolted by Julia’s observation, for the sisterly parallel outside of their shared love of music had not crossed his mind, “a cigar is just a cigar. Birth order isn’t fate.”

  “Perhaps.” Julia looked up at him with wet shining eyes. He felt a terrible urge to take her in his arms, to comfort her, poor suffering creature—and sensed that she, too, sought comfort, for the air between them had become feverish. But what surged within him was another feeling, one on the unholy side of the ledger. Julia’s vulnerability and her physical attraction—her resemblance to Lisbeth—were dangerously alluring. He half smiled and turned away, feigning an interest in the crop sprayer now vanishing over a rise in the field it had worked. After a moment, he said:

  “I wonder how you could bear to be near Kinsey after …”

  “If I abruptly resigned as assistant organist and choirmaster, it would have been a signal that something was amiss—”

  “Something was amiss.”

  “—and Colm was taking his family to Mauritius for a week for a getaway. It was early April. And then a day or two before the Parrys returned home … Peter vanished, though we didn’t know what had happened at the time, did we? You were there at the start of it all.” Julia paused. “There was a moment, after some weeks had gone by and Peter hadn’t reappeared, that I thought he’d run off because of me. I was torn what to tell the police who were investigating his disappearance. But it hardly seemed in character—Peter was so adept at appearing caring. He was an extremely good actor, really—and Sebastian suggested I keep it to myself.”

  “You talked to Sebastian?”

  “He’s the one person—layperson, I mean—in the village who can keep a secret.”

  “He has secrets of his own, I daresay. But why would you confide in Sebastian?”

  “He knew Peter. They had some past association.”

  “Good heavens! Are you sure? What was it?”

  She shrugged. “I did ask. But Sebastian wouldn’t say. You know what he’s like. And Peter was simply … smug about it, whatever it was. Simply wouldn’t tell. I thought perhaps they’d been at the same school or something. Anyway, like most in the village—except your Mrs. P.—I long ago stopped being curious about Sebastian. In any case, I confided in Sebastian because … well, because he knew about Peter and me. You see, we would sometimes meet at the verger’s cottage.”

  “Where Madrun happened to see you.”

  “And got the wrong end of the stick. Of course, if she had guessed correctly—that I was meeting Peter there—then it might have come out when the police were looking into his disappearance.”

  “I’m a little surprised Sebastian would permit his home to be …”

  “Violated?”

  “I didn’t say that, Julia. But he guards his privacy so fiercely.”

  “Somehow Peter was able to sway him. The verger’s cottage is ideal. There’s a spare key tucked into the door frame. The door opens into Poachers Passage, not onto Church Walk. There’s
the churchyard wall across from the door. No window overlooks the passage—”

  “—And if you think someone might be nearby, you can simply keep walking up the passage until you get to The Square.”

  “Precisely. The chances of anyone seeing you are negligible.”

  “Almost.”

  “Almost. But better Madrun’s imaginings than the truth.”

  But, Tom thought, looking down the cliff face to where the rose, now a white dot, had fallen, with Peter’s body unearthed, a pathologist’s report indicating head trauma, and, no doubt, an inquest in the offing, truth will out. He turned back to Julia. Her face, pinched with misery, told him she was thinking the same thing.

  The Vicarage

  Thornford Regis TC9 6QX

  31 MAY

  Dear Mum,

  I expect by the time you’ve got this letter, you’ll have got through Saturday’s papers. As of this writing, which is very late in the morning for me, I haven’t seen any yet! Daniel Swan is always behind with his deliveries at weekends. When I complained once he told me he had a right to a bit of a lie-in on Saturdays and Sundays. A right, mind you! And then he had the cheek to tell me I shouldn’t get up so early. Those Swan children just seem to run wild. Anyway, I’m interested to see what pictures have been printed. Likely there won’t be any in the Telegraph, but I’m sure one of the other papers will have it. The “it” I’m referring to is of Oona Blanc slapping Colm right by Sybella’s grave when Mr. Christmas had started into the committal. A photographer pushed his way through to get a picture of it, and he got a picture of Mr. Christmas, too, as Oona jabbed him in the eye—Mr. Christmas, that is, which I don’t think she intended. It was an accident of sorts, but Mr. C. looks a bit worse for wear, and maybe his picture will be in the papers, too. I hope it explains how he got the black eye. I wouldn’t want the whole country to think our priest is a pugili is a loutish sort of character. At least Oona didn’t get up to any mischief at the gathering in the church. She came with this young man who might have thought to shave before a church service, but he wore a very smart suit and was very attentive to Oona. I thought he might be one of those celebrity minders, though he wasn’t big enough to be a proper one, but Roger said he made his living modelling underpants and did very well by it and was famous in his own right. At least in certain circles, Roger added. I was sitting in the seventh pew from the front, so I really couldn’t see Oona very well. You could hear Colm, though. He was quite overcome, and that and the choir—Revelation Choir, from London, who performed with Colm on one of his albums back when—was really magnificent. There was hardly a dry eye, Mum. Which was odd in a way because I’m not sure how well most folk knew Sybella, but she was barely more than a child and so I’m sure everyone was thinking about their own children and how awful it would be to lose one. I couldn’t help thinking about Tamara and Kerra, for instance, or little Miranda, and, of course, how it’s been such a frightful week in the village and everybody feeling strained and wondering what on earth could happen next. I sat with Karla and Roger and his mother, and in the same pew were the Drewes. Yes, both of them. I’ve never seen Liam inside the church! His parents are apparently Pentecostals of the most extreme sort up at Cheltenham so he had taken against all religion and certainly never had a good word for Mr. Kinsey, which I’ve probably mentioned before, but there he was in church as pretty big as you please. He didn’t join in the prayers and responses but he was wearing a proper suit and was holding Mitsuko’s hand when they were seated—this after the great row they’d had Thursday evening, which I told you about, with Mitsuko all but accusing Liam of doing Sybella in, which I had thought about going to the police about, but perhaps it was just words after all and I needn’t worry. Anyway, I’d have thought those two were headed to divorce, but they seem to have patched it up. Mr. Christmas conducted himself well. He’s getting on decently at the job, I think, though Karla has her reservations—but you know Karla’s contrary nature! I think she just likes to keep them on their toes. Mr. Christmas saved the day for her at Ned’s funeral, after all. And of course it was Mr. Christmas’s name she and Roger and the others put forward to the Bishop to appoint anyway. At any rate, in his sermon, Mr. Christmas was very good at turning vice into virtue presenting Sybella as a spirited young woman, which I suppose she was in a way. It made me think of when I was her age and went up to London to study at Leiths School that year it opened. Do you remember? I think that was fairly spirited of me, don’t you think? Especially as Dad thought catering college at Exeter would do. He Mr. Christmas said Sybella was a daredevil and high-spirited and how she was finding her way in life down here in the country and that she was proving herself gifted in art. He talked about her mischievous side with some story I didn’t catch about when she was a little girl, though I said to Karla later that Sybella always looked like she was up to some sort of mischief in the village, and she agreed and told me Mr. Christmas’s story reminded her that the Saturday of Bank Holiday weekend, Sybella had been in the post office buying stamps for a quantity of envelopes, and that she couldn’t help noticing they were all addressed to people at the papers and TV stations in London. She said Sybella seemed to be quite keen to ensure Karla noted the recipients, but then, after affixing the stamps, she didn’t leave the envelopes with Karla, and she didn’t post them in the box outside, either! Karla watched to make sure. I said what was really odd was a young person using the post. I thought they only texted these days. Karla said she had a mind to go to the police about it, but I said surely if the papers had received a letter from a murdered girl it would have been all over the news by now. Unless, of course, it’s in today’s papers, which as I mentioned before are very late. During one of the Readings, it occurred to me that perhaps Sybella’s murderer was among us—right in the sanctuary! There were a number of people I’d never seen before—relatives of the Parrys, I was able to gather later—but some others didn’t look like they really belonged. Still, Mum, you mustn’t worry about things you read in the papers. I’m sure the local constabulary has everything well in hand. Though they did rather let us down when it came to the churchyard, letting this photographer barge in and all. Which brings me back to Oona. Some phrase in the committal set her off, which I couldn’t quite hear. But Oona herself could certainly be heard. Terrible language for a churchyard! And then she slapped Colm and nearly tipped into the grave. The underpants modeller fetched Oona off down the path towards the millpond and calmed her. Poor thing, she was shaking, and I felt quite sorry for her in the end. Colm set onto the photographer who hopped it smartly. I guess he’s had experience in the past with these nuisancy people, and then we stood about in dead silence for a time waiting for Oona to recover. No one knew what to say and no one wanted to spoil further spoil the solom solemnity of the occasion. I couldn’t help thinking what a splendid day it was and how it was sort of heartless of nature to be that way. Thornford is so lovely in late May, with everything so green and fresh. I think we stand a good chance of winning the Village in Bloom competition this year. Finally, Oona returned and the rest of the service went without incident, though I did think Mr. Christmas looked a bit peculiar. He stumbled over the “my own eyes have seen the salvation” part in the Dismissal, which isn’t like him as he used to be a stage performer, after all. I could hear Karla make a disapproving grunt beside me. But then, Mum, we went up to Thornridge House! I remember going up there once with you. I must have been all of five, and it must have been just before old Mr. Northmore sold it, but I can’t remember what we were doing there. You must remind me. It’s not really my sort of place, not cosy the way the vicarage is, but it was marvellous to look at. Celia has had it done up all sort of modern and airy with creamy walls and these great swagging draperies mixed with lovely bits of old furniture and smart new things. There was a large painting in the drawing room of a mother and child in a renee renaisen sixteenth-century style that so reminded me of those little paintings in the Lady chapel. Do you remember them? They were tak
en down a while back when the sanctuary was repainted and I’d quite forgotten them. I was rather fond of them, though I know Karla wasn’t. I asked her where they’d gone and she said they’d been sent out for restoration and she wasn’t sorry it was taking so long. Karla is funny—she can get sort of Bolshie, very much like her dad would, only in a different way, of course. At any rate, I must say everyone was rather thrilled to be at Thornridge, especially as many had never seen the inside, but of course it was a funeral tea and so everyone was on their best behaviour, though after a while folk did get a bit chirpy forgetting why they were there in the first place, especially after Colm disappeared upstairs to deal with Oona, who was too distraught or the like to come down and meet people. Celia looked put out, but I can’t say I blame her, having her husband’s troublesome ex-wife installed in the house. The oddest thing happened when we were leaving Thornridge H., though. Mr. Christmas was to drive us back to the vicarage—with Julia Hennis, I might add, with whom he had had a very very long conversation in Colm’s garden—and we were walking down the line of cars outside the gate when we noticed Mairi White, who had been minding the gate with a few others from the local constabulary and some other very large men that Colm must have hired, tugging at something at the bottom of the hedgerow. She had thought the hawthorn was blooming oddly, but it turned out it was cotton batting, and the batting was from a quilt, or at least part of one! There was cotton batting everywhere as Mairi had pulled a little too hard. Apparently one of Mitsuko’s quilts from the v. hall that I was telling you about yesterday had gone missing, and this was it—or at least it had to be as finding a quilt in a hedgerow is like finding a tea tray in the sky, isn’t it? I forgot to tell you in yesterday’s letter how each quilt featured a big photograph of Thornford R in the centre framed by squares of what looked like fields of corn and such. Well, this one was missing most of the photograph. It had been cut away, and quite neatly, too! It was very curious, everyone thought, that the quilt was in the hedgerow along the lane going up to Thornridge House. It’s not a connecting road after all. The only people who go up it regularly are the Parrys and Sebastian and the postman, the Sainsbury’s delivery van, cleaners, and maybe BT, if the phone’s out. Anyway, Mum, another mystery to be solved! Now I must go down and mail this and if Daniel Swan has managed to rouse himself perhaps I’ll find the papers! Cats are well. Love to Aunt Gwen. Make sure you stay well.