by Fiona Walker
‘Right. Look forward to that.’
‘Enough ghosts and ghouls round here already, what with Hallowe’en! Even Kit Donne’s back to do his funny pagan ritual, the salmon-sowing thing. Did you see he’s split up with Orla Gomez? Greta the Vampire.’
‘No, that one missed me.’
‘I was just saying to Petra – you know we’re chums – he really needs someone to look after him. He misses your aunt so much, you can tell. Sweet, really.’
‘Yes, well, if you don’t mind, I—’
‘Petra has us in stitches about the SMC League. Your name was mentioned.’
‘The what?’
‘You’re definitely top of it.’
‘What is the SMC?’
39
It was dark outside when Kit woke, parched and hungry, almost asphyxiated by the smell of Scotch. He hadn’t cleared up the broken bottle too well. Glass crunched underfoot as he went in search of food. All there was to eat were Pip Edwards’s Frankenstein monster muffins. He scoffed three. They were delicious, and he felt a pang of guilt for rebuffing her attempt to welcome him and get the place ready. He should have called ahead, as he’d promised.
He checked his phone, but there was no signal, the screen clock telling him it was past five. He could hear teenagers cackling in the graveyard across the road, emos getting their kicks from Hallowe’en. Kit wanted to storm out there and tell them to get the hell out of his wife’s resting place, but remembered he’d been that Gothic teenager once, travelling to Paris to pay tribute to Jim Morrison, trailing around Père Lachaise saluting Balzac and Molière, Piaf, Proust, Wilde and Bernhardt. Hermia would probably appreciate the company. He had yet to visit her, the flowers a wilting reminder in the sink as he poured a glass of water, then another. His stomach rumbled.
He had no car. Where was his car? Not that he could legally drive it yet.
Pulling on his clothes before shrugging on the red coat, he headed outside and tried to remember the way to the farm shop. As soon as he had a signal, messages rattled in. He ignored them and called Ferdie.
The lecture was predictable, lasting all the way through the church meadows, past the standing stones and across the bridge onto the track through the fields. He’d forgotten how hilly it was, and was soon puffing hard.
‘You need to take more bloody care of yourself, dear boy,’ Ferdie berated him, his voice at its most creamily cattish because he was worried. ‘You don’t eat or exercise, you just drink and fornicate. You’re practically sixty. That’s a heart-attack waiting to happen. Take a sin break.’
‘I am... taking a break... It’s why I’m back... early.’
‘Are you working out?’
‘I’m walking... to the farm shop. It’s sub-zero and pitch dark out here, I’m talking to you on my only source of torchlight, and the going is very – shit – hard underfoot.’ He picked himself up from tripping into a rabbit hole.
‘How gloriously Withnail. Where are you?’
‘The Comptons. The bloody pub’s closed and I need...’ he reeled back as he found his head surrounded by tree branches ‘...food.’
‘Do farms sell Jack Daniel’s?’
‘Ha-bloody-ha. I haven’t eaten since New York.’ He didn’t count the muffins.
‘Humble pie wouldn’t go amiss, Kitten. I told you Orla was a loose cannon. She’s just made a terrible fool of you, I’m afraid.’
‘She’s walked out of the show?’ He was appalled.
‘Not at all. You’re plastered all over social media looking like a camp sofa, but she’s la vie en rose. Last night was her best performance to date, I’m told. Ten-minute standing ovation. She’s tipped for a Tony and they’re talking about extending the run.’
‘My work is done,’ he muttered, picking twigs off his hat.
‘What are you up to now, apart from planning the most brilliant production of Lear ever staged next year?’
‘I thought I might head back to London, have another crack at Sassoon.’ Kit’s dream to turn Siegfried Sassoon’s fictionalised memoirs into a stage production was a long-running family joke, his many attempts at starting the project both here and in London piled up on a high shelf in the Stoke Newington flat.
‘Ah.’
‘Is that a good “ah” or a bad “ah”?’
‘You’re the director. What’s my inflection?’
‘Inflexibility.’ It was an old joke.
Kit had reached Compton Magna Farm Shop at last, tracking down the pumpkin-decked half-timbered barn, now a food hall full of overpriced condiments in gingham-lined baskets. Saint-Saëns was being piped through loudspeakers. At almost closing time, it was empty, apart from a man in a suit by the home-cooked meals and a pair of leggy women dressed in Joules who were wandering about muttering loudly that Daylesford was far better.
‘We’re in Stratford most weekends,’ Ferdie was saying, as Kit plucked up a basket. ‘Let’s all meet for a drink.’
‘I might not be here long. This is just a quick stop-off. Better in London.’
‘You’re far too prickly in London. You should stay in the cottage for a while, Kit. Do you good. Focus on Sassoon there.’
‘I can’t afford the corner shop.’ They stocked Teapigs, not Tetleys. He lobbed a packet into his basket, adding several tubes of artisan crackers, and moved on to a fridge of Bardswolds Dairy Cheeses in bright wax jackets, like colourful ice-hockey pucks, selecting a few at random.
The dark walk alongside Lord’s Brook to the farm shop had lifted Kit’s spirits so much he could forgive the silly prices. It was a pretty play emporium for a little empire of out-of-towners. The Cotswolds never changed, its stunning green terrine of hills still interleaved with crisp new money, old-school ties, hunting stocks and glossy magazine lifestyles. That the shop was owned by Hermia’s family made total sense. The Austens had always lived very richly off the fat of their land and the lean profits of their suppliers.
Sandy might wear threadbare jumpers and drive round in a twenty-year-old Fiat, but he was an acquisitive sod, and his flashy son was even worse.
‘We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.’
‘Hamlet,’ Ferdie recognised. ‘Always a good diet mantra, not that you need one. You look very gaunt in those photographs. For God’s sake, start eating properly and we’ll see you at the weekend. Donald’s going to make you up one of his herb tinctures.’ He rang off.
Kit made his way to a drinks section crammed with local beer, cider, wine, mead, and a whole shelf of small-distillery craft gins. Ferdie had underestimated Bardswolds’ answer to Fortnum’s. There was a trendy single malt from Cornwall that came in what looked like a perfume bottle, but it was unmistakably whisky.
Looking at the price, he almost put it back, but his need was too great. With a mental apology to Ferdie – he supposed he could start cutting down on his drinking by dabbing it on his wrists – he headed for the tills, where the girl serving told him the forecasters were predicting hard frosts. He recognised the Cs tattooed on the soft sides of her wrists, but not from where. She gave him an odd look, then said politely, ‘Coldest winter for years ahead, they say. We’ll be snowed in soon enough, I reckon.’
That suited Kit. Nobody knew he was here, apart from Ferdie. His children weren’t expecting him back on home turf until Christmas, his mobile phone had no reception in the house and the landline was out of service. It was the perfect place to reread the Sherston trilogy. Maybe Ferdie was right. He should stay here longer – he could use it as a base to work on the project.
‘Uncle Christopher! As I live and breathe! I heard you were back! You do know you’re now a local hero only two legs short of Lassie?’
Kit quickly amended his thinking. In a village, everyone knew you were here.
Dressed in a waistcoat and shooting breeks, flamboyant red sock tops poking out of his country boots, Bay back-slapped him into the counter, smile as wide as the bunting above it. ‘Rock that Hallowe’en look, Kit, old
man. Staying long?’
‘A short while.’ He wondered what ‘look’ Bay was talking about.
‘You must come to our little do tomorrow night. Ma and Pa’s usual shooting-season opener. Eight for eight thirty. I’ll add your name to the table plan and rustle up a pretty widow.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I already have—’
‘See you there!’ Bay was marching off, bottle of craft gin in hand, grabbing a lemon from a display crate as he passed.
‘—plans.’ Kit turned back to the girl with the C tattoos to enter his PIN.
‘You’re the stranger from the dark and stormy night.’ She smiled at him.
Looking up, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror over her shoulder and realised his lips were Incredible Hulk green. ‘Just how I want to keep it.’
Nevertheless, as he walked back to the Old Almshouses, taking the lane this time, he grew more enthusiastic about the idea of knuckling down there to put the Sassoon script together at last. The Old Tricks script had been written at a rickety desk wedged between boxes in a tiny attic overlooking Clissold Park, with the capital’s libraries and resources within easy reach, but Middleton’s play was a busy London-based farce, and Sassoon’s was a melancholy journey. Flying into Heathrow as dawn broke that morning, seeing green fields below and longing for Hermia, he’d instinctively needed to come here. Her memory faded with each visit, shrinking into the shadows. If he didn’t hold on to it this time, it would move further away.
She’d helped him work on the idea in the early days, those frustrating hours of head-scratching a narrative structure, books and notepads open amid teenage homework and washing-up, Hermia trying – and usually failing – to hide her exasperation at being unable to articulate her thoughts clearly, knowing it just slowed down her mercurial-minded husband with the wife whose ‘brain had a limp’. Her words. They took so much longer coming, but he loved her words. Now he no longer heard them in his head unless he was here.
He marched alongside the Green.
He could approach it from a different angle now, away from family and London life, a slow, solitary run-up instead of the usual city rush to fit in seminars and private views, theatre and restaurants with friends. In London, Kit had stepped too far away from the man he sought to dramatise. Sassoon had been a devoted horseman, which Hermia had sought to help him understand about the man whose compassion had sprung from the hunting field as well as the battlefield, an idea Kit still struggled with, his view deeply clouded. He would listen to her now, but he would be keeping horses firmly on the page and out of his life while he was here.
As he speeded up, desperate to get home and resume reading, there was a loud clank and one thin handle of the plastic bag gave way, depositing his overpriced groceries on the lane in front of a row of thatched cottages.
A gaggle of children dressed as witches, ghosts and luminous skeletons were coming the other way making ‘whooooo’ noises.
‘Hell!’ Kit stooped to collect his shopping, cramming teabags and cracker packets into his coat, relieved to find the bottle was unbroken. Two of the cheeses had rolled under the garden gate of one of the cottages. He swung it open with a creak to retrieve them, suddenly floodlit by a security light, which helped him track down an ale and mustard truckle under a frost-tipped lavender bush.
‘Wooooaaaaaa!’ A small ghost behind him made him jump.
As he straightened up, the door of the cottage was thrown open. ‘Hello!’ An elderly man in a checked shirt with a cardigan, beamed at him from the step. ‘Our first trick-or-treaters!’ He sprang along the path in welcome. ‘My goodness, it’s Mr Donne, isn’t it?’ He stepped back, peering over half-moon glasses in delighted recognition. ‘Compton Magna’s very own impresario! Brian Hicks, chairman of the parish council.’ He claimed a handshake and looked around the children. ‘You brought some young theatrical talent, I see.’
There was a lot of giggling and a few ‘Wooooooaaaaa!’ and ‘Arrrgh!’ efforts, torches under chins. Kit would have liked to tell his impromptu minstrels to put a bit more bloody effort in. He had a reputation to protect.
But Brian was enchanted. ‘Marvellous! Christine has prepared some warm blackcurrant squash and home-made bonfire toffee. One moment and I’ll fetch some.’
‘Fuck that,’ said a small zombie, as Brian disappeared inside. ‘Let’s go round the holiday cottages. They give out London sweets and hard cash.’ They whooped off, torches swinging.
Hurriedly, Kit retrieved the second truckle, but Brian was back outside before he could beat his own retreat, his small wife carrying a tray behind him. ‘Now, making children disappear is a new one on me!’
‘Smoke and mirrors.’ Out of politeness, Kit took a piece of the bonfire toffee being offered and found his teeth glued together by bitter asphalt.
‘If you’re moving back, can I interest you in joining the council? We’ve a seat free so we can co-opt you straight in. Your late wife’s family have always been most generous with their time.’
‘Hmmaaaaawff.’ He had no intention of socialising with villagers, old friends or neighbours, and certainly not with Hermia’s family, whom he still blamed for her accident.
‘That’s wonderful! I’ll drop off the old minutes and details of the next meeting. The committee will be delighted.’
Teeth still stuck, Kit rolled his eyes, waved a farewell cheese and marched for home. It was absolutely typical of Compton Magna to pop out for teabags and find oneself coming back with invitations, new commitments and loose fillings.
On a whim, he went to the churchyard. The teenagers had gone. He could hear other trick-or-treaters in the distance, an owl hooting close by. ‘I’ll bring you your flowers later,’ he told Hermia’s headstone, sucking the last of the toffee from his teeth. ‘I just wanted to promise you I’ll finish Sassoon this time. And to apologise for Orla, and for not loving your friend at all. Jeez!’ The barn owl screeched past so close he felt the air beat of its wings, caught its wide-eyed white face framed by a heart. The Tudors had called it a love owl, he remembered. Before that, for years, it had been known as the ghost owl. He hurried back to the Old Almshouses.
*
The trick-or-treaters had all retired to the memorial hall by the time Carly caught up with them, squeaky trainer soles sliding around on the polished wood floors as small children threw shapes in the strobe lights to ‘Monster Mash’ and ‘Ghostbusters’. Ignoring the age restriction, older Turner children dressed as terrifying half-deads drank beer and cat-called for thrash metal so they could throw themselves around in self-styled moshing.
Ellis was on a hyperactive sweets overload, trainers constantly alight as he charged around, the ’Splorer Stick flailing. He refused to come home with Carly when she finally caught him by the Batman cloak, fighting to be free. There was no sign of Ash.
‘Where’s your dad?’
He shrugged, jaw set in taciturn loyalty.
‘Who’s looking after you?’
He pointed his duster at one of the teenage half-dead, currently sharing a long face-eating kiss with a voodoo witch-doctor in a top hat. Then, pulling away, he tore off to rejoin the under-tens, by far the smallest and most aggressive of them all.
‘I’ll bloody well kill him.’ Carly thundered outside to try Ash’s number, but he was either switched off or ignoring her call. She could hear a dog howling. Her hands tingled and stung.
‘Pricey?’
The howling stopped briefly, then resumed. Carly looked up at the dog star, Sirius, walking to heel beside Orion the hunter, and wished on it that she was okay.
Back in the hall, Batman had disappeared. She searched the loos and kitchens, asking the beer-drinking half-deads if they’d seen where he’d gone, the response zombie-shrugging indifference.
Outside again, she heard the dog howl and felt the back of her neck prickle, wondering whether Ellis had heard it too and followed.
She knew from asking that Jed Turner kept his many dogs in a run be
hind Apple Rise on a neglected building plot. It was impossible to see or access from the estate, except through his own side gate and out of his rear garden, or via an overgrown farm track that ran through the thicket beyond the allotments and was shut off by padlocked metal gates. Having cut through the villagers’ long strips of veggie patches often on the way to and from school, Carly knew a small, dextrous Batman could probably wriggle under them. There was a way into the allotments from the memorial hall car park.
She hurried through it. A drunkenly listing Frankenstein’s monster was taking a pee beside a garden shed, lurching round in alarm as she raced past to the gates.
Fluffy threads of brightly coloured ’Splorer Stick were caught in the sharp wire at their base.
Carly was slim, but there was no way she could fit under, and the gates were six feet high. ‘Oy!’ she called back to the monster. ‘Give us a leg up!’
‘That’s private land, love,’ came a muffled reply from beneath the rubbery mask.
‘If you don’t help I’ll tell Psycho Pete you pissed against his shed.’
‘I am Pete.’
‘My four-year-old’s gone down there.’
‘You should have said.’
A moment later she was being propelled over the gate like a pole-vaulter.
‘Ellis?’ The track was covered in uneven hard-core, making it like running on bombsite rubble. As she stumbled over it, the howling ahead stopped and she heard whimpering and yelping, then her eldest child’s laughter.
A dim bulkhead light illuminated all of Jed’s dog runs, the shadows of six lurchers criss-crossing them as they barked, raising the alarm. The seventh was hard against the fence with Ellis, both overjoyed to see each other.
His face was pressed to the chain-linking through which it was being covered with excited kisses, Pricey’s back end wagging frantically. When Carly approached, the dog positively twerked in the gloom, a rush of throaty warbles coming from her mouth so like Scooby Doo that she laughed.
‘I found her, Mum!’ Ellis laughed too. ‘I found Pricey!’