The Wicca Woman
Page 29
As the labourers moved towards the corn field, Mr. Spark was shaking Gilly against the kitchen sink in spite of himself.
‘Gilly, the truth now! How could she have broken her neck? She’s a damn good climber and you know she is!’
‘Yes, Mr. Spark, she was a better climber than me, she was! But she swung out on one of them big boughs—right out! She kind of spun in the air, and then mashed her head in the grass—she screamed horrid—she screamed...!’
Anna’s face tightened. She wanted to ask so many questions about her little sister but the words wouldn’t come. Gilly stuttered on as Mrs. Spark’s eyes glittered like light on a carving knife.
‘Now, what really happened, Gilly? The real truth? Who killed her? Who?’
‘No one! No one! It happened just like I said, Mrs. Spark! Honest, it did! She swung out on one of those boughs...!’
With the sun behind her black hair, Mrs. Spark gripped Gilly’s wrist.
‘Come on, Gilly, the truth! Truth!’
Quickly Mr. Spark realised his wife’s intentions and removed Gilly from her grip.
‘All right, Gilly it’s all right. I believe you—even if my wife doesn’t. Are you sure she’s dead, Gilly? Are you?’
‘Yes, Mr. Spark?’
‘Are you?’ insisted Mrs. Spark.
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
There was a pause. They were numb. No one knew what to do.
Finally Mr. Spark said quietly, ‘Will you show us where it happened, Gilly? Will you? Please?’
He did not cry. He wanted to, but the water wouldn’t come to relax the corners of his eyes.
‘Please, Gilly...’
Slowly Gilly nodded her head as the tears dripped from her eyelashes. She remembered the blood on Dian’s lips, the flowers pinned to the tree, the monkey’s head, the wind—and the sea plucking the pebbles just beyond hearing. And far away the strange high sound of the flute.
Suddenly Mrs. Spark cut into the girl’s day dreams.
‘Did men—and you know what I mean—did they take her to a fire? Did they dance her? And you know what I mean...!’
‘No, no, no! There was no one there but us! No one!’
Mrs. Spark’s green eyes seemed to widen across her face to midnight emeralds. Gilly felt her childhood was being devoured.
‘Tell me, Gilly! I recommend you do! Or sleep will be hard for you. Nightmares easy! Tell me!’
Gilly couldn’t take any more. She poised her head on a long scream and ran into the street. The rhythm of running came back to her with pains in the thigh muscles and hot saliva in her throat. Mrs. Spark had terrified her—as usual. She hadn’t gone far, when behind her she heard running feet, but she didn’t dare look to see who it was. Then the feet caught her up and out of nowhere a hand clamped on her shoulder. She squealed as a bald head wedged itself between her and the sun. It was Mr. Spark. But she continued to squeal until she saw that he was crying, then she relaxed into a wet sniff. She put her arms round his neck to comfort him. In return he patted her pale hair. Crying came easy to them. When the tears subsided, he lifted her into his arms and carried her towards the Police Station. She was heavy but he didn’t notice.
Curtains of cottages edged back as Mr. Spark’s bald head bobbed down the High Street with Gilly buried against his shoulder. And then the whispering began. Whispers which crowded the cottages, waiting for the future to hear them. And the roses listened intently.
It was half an hour later when Gilly ran out of the trees, followed by Mr. Spark, the local police sergeant and a policeman. As soon as she reached the oak tree, she indicated the body. The crow was still there and squarked his disapproval. Gilly shooed him away. And Mr. Spark tried to hug his dead daughter to him.
‘No, please, don’t touch her, sir!’ interrupted the sergeant. ‘We’ve got to examine the body—I mean, we’ve got to examine your daughter.’
Mr. Spark moved away as the sergeant bent over Dian. The policemen noted the absence of foot or finger prints, other than the dead girl’s and Gilly’s. After a few moments, the sergeant addressed the crying shape of Mr. Spark.
‘It looks like natural causes, sir. An accident.’
As he said this, a young man in a beige raincoat sidled from behind a beech tree.
‘Hey, you!’ shouted the sergeant. ‘We can do without any hawkers or circulars, thank you very much!’
The young man thumbed a Press Card into view. Reluctantly the sergeant accepted him. Then the intruder produced a small camera from his mac pocket and took a quick photograph of the body.
‘Now, don’t think you’re going to print that, young Smiler,’ said the sergeant, ‘Cos you’re not, see!’
‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you, sergeant? Notice the garlic flowers in the girl’s hand?’
The sergeant hadn’t noticed.
‘Of course I had! So what?’
The young man grinned.
‘Good. Then you know why I’ll print this photograph.’
The sergeant didn’t.
‘Over my dead body, young Smiler!’
The crow winked from the oak tree, waiting for the humans to go. He preferred them dead or gone. He was very hungry.
The monkey’s head and the garlic flowers had disappeared from the tree trunk. Gills noticed this but she said nothing.
2
The photograph of Dian Spark plus her bouquet of garlic flowers appeared a day later in the local paper. Gilly Rowbottom’s account of the accident was set out in medium print below and that was the end of that.
Apparently copies of the paper reached London, Manchester and Birmingham and it was even mentioned fleetingly by the News of the World.
Dian’s funeral took place two days after her death. The clear English sun came out to encourage the mourners as they stared at the coffin. Mr. Rowbottom was dreaming of Midsummer Eve, and his wife registered distaste as she allowed her eyes to wander from coffin to church spire. She scowled behind her veil as Pastor White signalled the coffin to be lowered into the freshly dug grave. Opposite her Squire Fenn, poverty stricken, now living in a cottage near the sea, hummed quietly, ‘Ring a ring a roses’. He was in his fifty-fifth year, and very interested in early English music and other things.
Lawrence Cready, retired actor, caught his eye and blew him a sticky smile. Cready was on his way to death, heart trouble, knew it and was experimenting with pleasure before the scythe came.
He was very satisfied with life which was hardly surprising as he had bought the Squire’s Manor from the Squire. Unperturbed by this, the Squire began to hum a falsetto version of ‘The Last Post’. After all, it was a funeral.
Mr. Spark was closed in behind his eye lashes. Won’t it ever be over? We’re only doing the ceremony for us. Dian doesn’t care. She would have liked the dolls I bought. Six bob each. With squeaky joints. After all, I have to make a living, don’t I?
A flake of clay dropped into the grave. Without any warning he found himself throwing a handful of earth onto the coffin. Then everyone seemed to be hurling earth onto the coffin. The sun was impassive as ever.
Mrs. Spark focused her two liquid emeralds on Pastor White and hated. Then on Mr. Cready and hated. Then on Squire Fenn and hated.
Leaning against a yew tree, Jeremiah, the grave-digger, carefully pulled slivers of old wood from the haft of his spade. He wanted his lunch although it was only eleven in the morning. He had to admit funerals no longer had the attraction they had in his youth. The pageantry was gone. No one had dug up a new grave on a midnight to steal a corpse for years now. The churchyard had deteriorated. Each year the children grew less afraid of him in his battered cottage in Hangland’s Wood. Now they called him names or ignored his power. As he stood there that Tuesday morning, he felt he would dearly love to go berserk with his spade, split open a few greasy heads, rape the odd lady, and conduct a mass burial with the priest on the top. Only for a second, though. He wanted his dinner even more. And he was not a violent man.
Anna Spark had not come.
One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! heads appeared over the churchyard wall, unobserved by the mourners. Children! The Gang! First James and John, the six year old twins, followed by Susan and Joan, not twins or even sisters, eight years a piece. Then little freckled Bert, the five year old menace, and with him Gilly Rowbottom, and last of all their feared leader, ten year old Fat Billy, and metaphorically ten yards wide. The children giggled. It was two days since their friend had died. And already she was gone from their minds. Only Gilly remembered flute notes, a monkey’s head, and a blood trickle. But even Gilly was unsure what she remembered or why. Except Dian owed her three rainbow marbles and a skipping rope.
*
Whilst the funeral was taking place, a London train streaked through the Cornish landscape. A man wearing dark sunglasses sat in one of the compartments alone. With a sharp penknife he was whittling a piece of white wood. He paused for a moment and checked his watch. It was eleven o’clock. Nearly there. Once more he carefully applied the penknife to the wood he was holding. Expertly he winkled out a perfect circular shaving. A minute dragon’s head was taking shape. He was carving a paperknife. Minute by minute he chipped with precision, stopping occasionally to adjust his sunglasses. Perspiration bubbled down the bridge of his nose. He looked about forty, and he was hungry for something other than food.
Outside the carriage windows, Cornwall shimmered in the sun. White rocks and the sea.
Soon be there, the man thought to himself. Then we’ll see.
*
The mourners left the dead, and the dead continued decomposing six feet under.
The children, led by Fat Billy, performed a balancing act round the perimeter of the church wall. Suddenly Pastor White appeared and told them to return home and not to desecrate religious property. Fat Billy screamed his tubby defiance.
‘What you on about? God only lives in the church! Ghosts and spooks own the graveyard! If God was in this rotten graveyard, he’d stop the ghosts coming to get us at night!’
‘Look, Billy...’
‘My Dad says priests are crooks!’
Followed by his gang, Billy vaulted over the church wall and disappeared down the main street. Pastor White found himself shouting at the tomb stones. The children had gone. The priest shook his head in the direction of Dian’s grave. He was tired and wished he could afford a glass of port, well, two glasses. He trundled towards ‘Green Fingers In My Hair’.
Tuesday dragged its way to midday. The sun searched its white splinters into the narrow streets. The streets were empty. No, not quite. A yellow butterfly danced in the hot light. It danced its fire against the white cottages and drifted into the ice shadows of the alleyways. The butterfly owned Thorn Village.
Mr. Spark pulled himself into his shop doorway. As he stared into the street, the butterfly brushed its honey wings against his chin. He didn’t notice. He moved away from the shop door and began arranging pink dolls in rows around the sweet jars. A heavy lorry bumped over the cobble stones. He looked up and noticed it was carrying Liquid Chemicals.
*
The train from London drew into Thorn Station. The man looked for the third time at the photograph in his right hand. He was playing beach ball on a summer lawn with a little girl. The little girl with her pale hair looked not unlike Dian Spark. In the photograph she was laughing and he was grinning. But, in reality, he was crying behind his sunglasses. Slowly, unhurriedly, he was crying.
The train had been stationary for two minutes now. With a shunt, it started to move again. The man read the words ‘Thorn Station’ through the window, grabbed his belongings, and even though the train was gathering speed, swung himself with a jolt through the door onto the asphalt. He bruised his knee. The train noticed nothing as it hurried to the sky line. The station master appeared, impressive in his excess blubber, and helped the man to his feet.
‘Dangerous, that, sir! Inviting a funeral, that!’
The man smiled a thank you for the warning and assistance, handed the station master his ticket, checked he was carrying his large briefcase, his wallet and the photograph and moved towards the exit barrier. The station master chugged up behind him. ‘You, er... dropped your paper, sir...’
‘Thank you,’ said the man, taking the newspaper and folding it deliberately in two so the photograph of the body of Dian Spark caught the station master’s eye.
‘Oh, beg pardon, sir, it can’t have been your paper, can it? I mean, it’s yesterday’s. Someone else must have dropped it.’
‘No, it’s mine all right! Do you know where this little girl was buried!’
‘Do you know her, then, sir?’
‘Sort of,’ nodded the man. ‘In a way I did. Do you...?’
‘St. Peter’s Church, sir. Nice and quiet, I understand it was going to be. The funeral. Nice people, her folks. Well, her Mum, Mrs. Spark, well, she’s a bit, erm... well... you know, different... but you probably know all that. Perhaps I’m talking out of turn.’
‘Oh, no, you’re not. I’m only her brother,’ said the man, beaming.
‘Oh, blimey! Really?’
‘No, not really. Just my little joke. Thank you for your help. Would you accept this for your trouble?’
He handed the station master a half-crown. The station master handed the half-crown back.
‘Sorry, sir, I can’t accept it for information concerning the dead. The dead can get a bit uppity about that kind of thing. Even hysterical, sometimes.’
Without taking his glasses off, the man fiercely rubbed his eyes and moved towards the village.
*
Dian’s grave was surrounded by the Gang, who were studiously going through the motions of a funeral. Billy was conducting the service.
‘Well, I hope the ghosts don’t get you. We’ll bring you flowers on Sunday—if we can remember. And we’ll go on with our Nature Rambles with your sister—and we’ll do all the things—you know what we mean, don’t you, Dian?’ With his chubby chin pointing towards the church spire, he addressed the Gang. ‘Right, men, we’re all going to sing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers, Marching As to War’, in memory of our friend. One! Two! Three!’
He conducted the children as they sang ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. And the children meant everything they sang. After the hymn they threw various articles onto the grave which they’d collected during the morning. A petal-less rose, two toffee papers, three aniseed balls and a rainbow marble. Then they pretended to lower an imaginary coffin on top. Billy and Susan made various abortive attempts to sing ‘The Last Post’. Susan, a pretty green-eyed child, had a clear voice but sang all the wrong notes. Billy sang all the right notes but in the wrong order. Obviously Pastor White was well entrenched in the pub, otherwise he would have swooped on them like Moses with the Ten Commandments. The children completed the funeral by heaping fresh soil over the wild rose and the toffee papers. James and John, the twins, retrieved the aniseed balls and gobbled them down without bothering to wipe the graveyard off them. And Billy pocketed the rainbow marble, which of course was Gilly’s. She sensibly said nothing. There was no doubt at all the funeral was a complete success.
With a swing of his arm, copied from various films concerning the United States Cavalry, Billy summoned his troops to follow him out of Dead Canyon. Then the Cavalry wheeled round at the churchyard gate. Each soldier picked up a pebble from an adjacent grave and hurled it in the direction of the church. The pebbles ricocheted from the buttresses. Billy’s stone lanced off a stained-glass Jesus.
Without warning, G
illy ran towards the church. She lugged open the Saxon door and zig-zagged into the ice light. The door clanged behind her.
The children did not wait for her return but left the churchyard. They began a game of hop-scotch down the centre of the street as the stranger, briefcase in hand, approached them. As soon as they saw him, their good humour edged into aggression. Billy winged a pebble at the stranger’s feet.
‘This is our street! Get off it!’
The stranger ignored the pebble and moved toward the graveyard. Another stone twinked the lock of the gate as he was about to open it. The stranger turned.
‘Come here, boy.’
‘No!’
‘I said, come here! And I meant it!’
Warily Billy approached, prepared to dodge the deserved clip on the ear, which did not come. The stranger looked down at the boy, then reached in his trouser pocket and handed him a sweet.
‘Beads for the Indians.’
‘You what, mister?’
As he said this, Billy snatched the sweet from the stranger and stuffed it in his mouth without even removing the wrapper. He chewed it over twice, then mumbled through it.
‘My Dad says never take sweets from strangers. You never know where they’ve been.’
Billy then spat the wrapper out, followed by the sweet, in the direction of the stranger, and ran off.
Fortunately for the stranger, unlike James the labourer, Billy was a very inaccurate spitter, so his trousers were preserved. The Gang followed their brave leader. So, the Indians were proving troublesome. Whatever were the settlers going to be like?
The man brushed a thin streak of hair over the balding spot in the centre of his scalp, and walked into the graveyard. He decided on a circular tour. It took a good five minutes before he sighted Dian’s grave some three hundred yards away.
Suddenly he saw a small figure helter-skelter between the grave stones. Running after her, he was lashed across the eye by a yew tree. His sunglasses flipped onto the grass. The sun’s prongs jabbed at his eyes. Blinded by the light, he crunched his head against the tree. Gums grazed, the tang of bark in his mouth, and temporarily blinded, he crouched to his knees. Then, using his hands as feelers, he probed for his glasses. It took over a minute to locate them. He carefully fitted them onto his nose and adjusted the plastic behind his ears. He looked round the graveyard. The grave dancer had gone. Blood tasted pleasantly salty on his lower gums. Picking up his brief case, he moved to Dian’s grave.