‘It’s mine!’ piped up a little boy with golden curls, holding up his hand.
‘You’re right,’ agreed Bernie, remembering that Daniel Brooke’s birthday was on Christmas Day. ‘And you share a birthday with a very special person called Jesus and he’s the reason we’re able to enjoy this Christmas party today!’
Rosamunde sat back in her chair, enjoying the little service that ensued. At the end of the service, just before the tea was to be served, there was the sound of sleigh-bells.
‘Now hang on, everyone,’ said Bernie. ‘Can anyone hear that noise?’ All the little heads bobbed up and down. ‘I think that could be sleigh-bells,’ Bernie remarked and the next thing they knew Father Christmas, dressed very shabbily and with a beard that was now more yellow than white, entered the hall with a sack over his shoulder.
‘Ho ho ho!’ came the booming voice behind the beard. The children were frozen with fear and delight.
‘Have we all been good children this year?’ asked Benedict, as he took a seat at the front of the hall.
‘Yes!’ promised the children.
‘Well, in that case I think you should come and get a small present each from me, just to keep you going until Christmas Day.’ The children raced up to him and Benedict was besieged.
‘Form an orderly queue now, ducks,’ Mrs Garfield told them and soon Benedict’s job was done. He escaped to change whilst Rosamunde and Mrs Garfield brought out the food. As predicted, Benedict’s buns were a popular choice. As the children devoured their treats, the entertainer began to blow up balloons and twist them into the shapes of various animals and, when the children seemed to lose interest in that, he began some magic tricks. It was halfway through a particularly interesting trick that Daniel Brooke started to look a little green.
‘I feel sick,’ he said, before throwing up all over his plate.
‘Me too,’ said his neighbour and soon most of the children were throwing up their hastily consumed tea.
‘What on earth have you given them to eat?’ asked Mrs Brooke, as she grabbed hold of Daniel.
‘I’m so sorry,’ apologised Mrs Garfield. ‘I’ve no idea what could have gone wrong.’
‘Erm, actually I think it could be my fault,’ admitted Benedict as he surveyed the mess around him. ‘I made those buns,’ he said pointing to one of the garish creations. ‘And they hadn’t finished cooking by the time I needed to leave so I took them out early to ice them before coming here. They could be a little undercooked.’ Mrs Brooke grabbed one of the buns and ripped it in half. The bun was half sponge and half uncooked goo.
‘A couple of the eggs may have been slightly past their best too,’ Benedict continued, flinching.
‘Utterly irresponsible,’ Mrs Brooke declared before marching off with Daniel in tow. The children’s entertainer – who Rosamunde had been certain would make a play for Benedict before the day was up – now looked at Benedict as if he was a kiddie poisoner and left without another word.
Soon the poorly children had been taken home and Bernie, Mrs Garfield, Rosamunde and Benedict were left to clear up the remains of food, party poppers and sick. Kizzie would have remained to help but Harriet was one of Benedict’s victims and was vomiting all over the place.
‘Good job, Benedict,’ Rosamunde told him, unable to suppress a smile at the disastrous event. Benedict looked suitably hangdog and no one could be cross with him for long, especially as he’d managed to blow his chances with the children’s entertainer.
‘Shall we go for a drink?’ suggested Bernie, when the hall was finally clean and spruce.
‘Best idea I’ve heard all day,’ replied Mrs Garfield and the four of them made their way to The Dragon’s Head, giggling now at the horrors of the afternoon.
‘I think the drinks had best be on me,’ said Benedict sheepishly.
‘I’d better keep an eye on you, though,’ said Rosamunde teasingly. ‘After all, we wouldn’t want you to poison us.’ Benedict looked at her, hurt, and she gave him a hug. Poor Benedict. Such a disaster. But she must have mellowed over the years as, instead of him driving her mad, all she could feel for Benedict was affection.
16.
MARCH 1987
Rosamunde was chopping carrots in the warmth of the kitchen when her life changed forever. Mrs Garfield was making supper with Rosamunde’s help and Rachel was at the kitchen table reading a Seventeen magazine. Bernie was fiddling with the radio, trying to find Radio 2. Having tuned it in, he joined Rachel at the table with his diary, with a view to reminding himself of the various events taking place that week.
The kitchen clock hands gradually crept towards eight o’clock, just as the news began to be delivered from the radio. It wasn’t on especially loudly but suddenly it was as if the volume had increased, all of its own accord. As Rosamunde stood, frozen, she seemed to hear only every three words: ‘Zeebrugge . . . ferry . . . return . . . Dover . . . capsized . . . feared . . . dead.’ She began to speak over the newsreader.
‘Stephen,’ she said. ‘Stephen went to Zeebrugge today with his parents. They’re on a day trip from Dover. There was an offer in the paper.’
Rosamunde saw a flash of panic wash over her father’s face before he spoke calmly, reassuringly.
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine, darling. There are probably lots of ferries doing that trip today. Even if they are on this one, I’m sure everyone will be fine. The rescue operation has already started.’ But Rosamunde knew. She knew from the moment she heard the news broadcast that he was dead. She felt it in every inch of her frozen body.
‘Heavens above, she’s gone quite blue,’ fussed Mrs Garfield as she grabbed Rosamunde’s cold hands. ‘Let’s get you into bed where you’ll be warm. I’ll bring you up a tray. There’s no point trying to call his house tonight. They won’t be back until late. You get a good night’s sleep and we’ll call in the morning. He’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.’
Rosamunde allowed herself to be steered upstairs, where Mrs Garfield dressed her in pyjamas and tucked her into bed. Half an hour later she brought up a tray of food, which she collected later in the evening, finding it untouched. Rosamunde sat up against the pillows, her eyes wide open, completely still. She remained in this position until dawn when she got out of bed, crept downstairs and dialled the number she knew by heart. There was no answer.
The hours that followed were the darkest she had known since her mother’s death. She was protected from hearing the news reports, but was updated by her father and Mrs Garfield, who made endless enquiries. It appeared Stephen and his parents had indeed travelled on the fated ferry – the MS Herald of Free Enterprise – that had capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on its way back to Dover. However, it seemed impossible to find out if they had been rescued. Rosamunde found herself existing in a strange bubble of numbness as frenzied activity took place around her. Her father spent most of the day on the telephone whilst Mrs Garfield made endless cups of tea that sat beside Rosamunde, steaming at first and then cooling until an orange rim formed on the insides of the mugs. She couldn’t bring herself to allow anything past her lips.
Anxious glances were passed between her sister, father and Mrs Garfield as it became more and more likely Stephen had not survived. By the next morning Bernie had managed to ascertain from Stephen’s grandmother that he and his parents were missing, presumed dead. Rosamunde had known this in her heart, but the confirmation from her father packed like a physical punch. She actually found herself falling to the floor, her limbs caving in under her. Then she heard a noise, a strange wailing sound like nothing she’d heard before. It took several moments before she realised this strangled sound of grief was coming from her own lips.
Within such a short space of time Rosamunde had found herself hurled from a life in which she happily pottered along in an unexciting yet fulfilling pattern of school, homework, chatting with Stephen, supper and bed, to a world in which a new, unhappy pattern had taken over consisting of tears,
anger, numbness and a broken sort of sleep in which she was teased with blissful, momentary dreams of Stephen. She barely ate. She couldn’t get out of bed. When she hadn’t washed her hair for three weeks she received a visit from Granny Dupont.
As Rosamunde continued to stare vacantly out of her bedroom window Granny Dupont sat on the edge of the bed, her leather driving gloves clasped in her hands.
‘I know you think of me as an old battleaxe who knows nothing about life,’ she began. ‘But I was young once, you know. I was in the Air Transport Auxiliary – the ATA – during the war.’ Rosamunde kept her gaze fixed on the trees outside.
‘It was terrifically exciting. Women had never before had such opportunities. I was lucky – my father was an absolute aeroplane fanatic and taught me to fly when I was only sixteen. So when I was recruited to join the ATA during the war it was the most thrilling time of my life. Us girls were split into two groups, really – the head girls and the glamour girls. Which do you think I was in?’
Rosamunde looked at her grandmother. She spoke, her voice husky from lack of use. ‘The head girls,’ she said, almost certain. Granny Dupont laughed.
‘Wrong. I was a glamour girl. I must show you some photos. I wasn’t bad looking back then and I always wore red lipstick – much like Rachel does now. I remember I used to apply my lipstick after I’d landed, before I emerged from the plane. There were always so many dashing men around. One could never be sure when one was going to meet the man of one’s dreams.’
Rosamunde found herself astonished. ‘What sort of planes did you fly?’ she asked.
‘Oh, all sorts. Hurricanes. Mustangs. But Spitfires were my favourites.’
‘You flew Spitfires?’ Rosamunde was amazed. How did she not know this?
‘Oh yes. So much fun to fly. Dangerous, though. Our job was to deliver them from the factories to the RAF bases. The worst thing was the weather. There was no radio system. I had three close friends in the ATA and two of them died when their planes crashed in bad weather.’
‘What happened to the other one?’
‘Ah, Maggie. She was my very best friend. Her plane caught fire on the runway. I watched her land and was bursting with excitement to tell her about a date I had lined up for that evening. I watched the plane go up in flames.’ Granny Dupont looked pensive. ‘There was nothing I could do.’ She took a breath. ‘So you see, I may seem hard and cold to you, my dear, but I know what grief is like. I know what it’s like to be young and full of hope and then young and full of despair. Maggie wasn’t the last person I loved who died back then, but her death was the one I felt very badly.’
‘What did you do?’ Rosamunde asked. ‘How did you cope?’
‘I got in my plane that afternoon and then I went on my date that evening. He turned out to be your grandfather.’
The next day, with clean hair, Rosamunde returned to school. She was battered and bruised emotionally, but she’d found a reserve of strength within. If her grandmother could fly a warplane after witnessing the death of her best friend, then Rosamunde Pemberton could take a maths test.
17.
MONDAY 8TH DECEMBER 2014
It was the sort of gloomy December day that never seems to get light but Rosamunde was happily sitting at the scrubbed kitchen table with a steaming mug of tea writing her Christmas cards when Bernie bustled in from the village with various pieces of news.
‘Here,’ he said, simultaneously switching on the kettle and yanking off his dog collar. ‘Guess who I saw in the newsagent’s?’ This was a rhetorical question, as they both knew Rosamunde could be there all morning trying to guess the answer.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Who?’
‘Bert Clarkson from Clarkson, Petty & Partners. He asked after you.’
Rosamunde smiled. She’d worked at the firm soon after qualifying in law, having decided to pursue a gentle career in the quiet town of Harbourton, an easy half-hour car journey from Potter’s Cove, rather than join her fellow students in their ambitious pursuit of jobs in City law firms.
‘How was the old boy?’ she asked, remembering fondly how delightfully old-fashioned he had been. Every day at noon his secretary had brought him a glass of sherry and a small bowl of dry-roasted peanuts; meetings were to be conducted strictly in the mornings (and then only after 10 o’clock), and he left on the dot of six every single evening. He was an excellent lawyer – meticulous and thorough – but very much part of a dying breed in the legal profession.
‘He was well. A little redder in the face. Purple really. But seemed in good spirits. He said he’d always have a job for you if you were interested.’
Rosamunde put down her fountain pen and thought about it. Could she ever go back? Could she somehow manage to locate that legal brain of hers she hadn’t used in fifteen years?
‘That’s sweet,’ she said. ‘But when I gave up law all those years ago I never intended to go back to it.’
Bernie frowned and made himself a coffee. She knew he thought she was making a mistake – he’d been so proud of her job as a lawyer – but he knew better than to try to dissuade her.
‘Do you know what you will do?’ he asked, sitting himself down in the large pine chair at the end of the table.
‘I do have an idea, actually,’ Rosamunde replied. ‘You know I did a lot of work in wildlife sanctuaries when I was away?’ Bernie nodded. ‘Well, I felt like I’d really found my vocation. So I’ve arranged an interview at Harbourton Wildlife Park. I know I don’t have any official qualifications but I’m hoping my experience will count for something. I did a lot of work with orang-utans in Borneo, so that should help.’
Bernie sighed. He knew all about pursuing a vocation. He’d worked in a bank prior to training as a vicar and although his career decision had made him poor in material wealth, it had enriched his soul no end. He understood.
‘They’d be fools not to snap you up,’ he declared. ‘Now I’m off to see Mrs Croft about her daughter’s wedding.’ He stood up and pulled on his voluminous coat again. He’d just stepped outside the back door when Rosamunde spotted his dog collar on the kitchen worktop.
‘Wait!’ she shouted as Bernie reached the end of the path. ‘Your dog collar!’
‘What would I do without you?’ Bernie asked as he took the collar gratefully from Rosamunde and ruffled her hair.
As Rosamunde hurried back into the warmth of the Vicarage she thought about her prospective post. It would be good to have the structure of a proper job again if she was lucky enough to get it. But for the rest of today – while she was free as a bird – she decided she would have one of her ‘being days’. She had learnt about these when travelling in the Far East. A fellow traveller she met in Thailand had explained how Western culture was almost exclusively focused on doing whilst Eastern life made time for just being, whether this involved meditation, prayer or simply people-watching by the side of the street. Since this revelation she’d decided to indulge herself with such a day intermittently and found it almost always brought a sense of peace and direction to her life.
She started by lighting the fire in the sitting room. No sooner had she done this than the sun began to break through the murky clouds outside and sunshine started to stream through the French windows. She lay down in a pool of light on the carpet and relished the warmth of the sun on her face and the sound of the whooshing flames in the fireplace. Soon she heard another familiar, comforting sound as a loud purring started up beside her. There was a lot Rosamunde could learn from Gladys, who, as far as she could tell, had nothing but being days.
She didn’t think about anything in particular as she lay there. She just focused on her breathing and the scents and sensations around her. She was immersed in a feeling of utter relaxation when she suddenly heard a loud sound outside. Immediately both she and Gladys were alert – eyes open, ears pricked. Then the doorbell rang. So much for her day of peace and quiet.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Rosamunde but I seem to have crashed the
Land Rover into the garden wall.’ It was Benedict. ‘I’m sure I can fix it, though,’ he added quickly.
‘Well, that’s okay, then,’ Rosamunde replied archly. ‘Did you have any particular reason for coming here and destroying the place?’
‘No, not really,’ Benedict admitted. He clearly wished he had a suitably noble reason that would in some way make the garden wall incident a small blip by comparison. Then his face lit up as if he’d had a brainwave.
‘Actually, there was something. I know Bernie’s looking for recruits for the choir. I was coming to offer my services.’ He seemed proud of his quick thinking but Rosamunde was bent over as if in pain. When she managed to stand up again he saw she was crying. With laughter.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Benedict, but really, you’re tone deaf. Remember that Christmas the Cubs were asked to sing at the carol service? It was just before you were thrown out, I think. And you had to sing a verse of Away in a Manger all on your own? The whole church was fidgeting as they tried to contain their laughter. It was dreadful.’
Benedict looked hurt.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, come in!’ she told him, hauling him into the kitchen. She’d think about the wall later.
It transpired that Benedict was at a loose end and hadn’t thought about having a being day himself. He didn’t have any shifts at the pub and his inspiration for turning pots had yet to re-emerge. Even his set building for the nativity play was done. He made various suggestions about what they could do for the rest of the day but Rosamunde decided instead to introduce him to the philosophy of just being. They lay on a sofa each in the sitting room, chatting and then not chatting, peeling satsumas meticulously and savouring the scent of Christmas just around the corner. Eventually, they decided to get some fresh air so they went for a stroll down to Inner Cove, where they perched on rocks and looked out to sea.
Christmas at the Vicarage Page 8