A Habit of Dying

by D J Wiseman

  The Water End Country Hotel met Lydia’s requirements exactly. It was comfortable in a somewhat faded way, friendly without intrusion, had a small dining room and even smaller bar, but a big welcoming drawing room with large old-fashioned sofas, a few shelves of books and a writing table. She’d ordered an evening meal for her arrival, and after a little freshening up, chose to walk in the neat gardens, contemplating her stay between sips of an expensive glass of inexpensive red wine. In part her plans depended on the weather, but in essence she intended to complete her checking of graveyards before any other recreation. She’d not much idea of how long it would take her, even though it seemed that there may be very few burial grounds within the area she had decided upon. There was no point in leaving her search for eighty-something year-old spinsters who were buried in the 1980’s and might have a first name beginning with B, until the last day. The very thought of what she had embarked upon struck her as faintly ridiculous even as she stood on the threshold of doing it. Having deemed it unnecessary to mention the details to anyone, she was determined that it would remain as her private secret, at the very least until she had answered her own questions. Perhaps then, success or no success, she would be able to laugh at her own foolishness. To all enquiries she had answered quite truthfully that she simply fancied a break in the Lakes.

  The following day dawned as fair as had been promised. An indulgent breakfast, a hotel breakfast, far bigger than anything she would have prepared for herself, was tucked away as an insurance against missing lunch. Then through the lanes to Cockermouth where, armed with a town map from an estate agent’s office, Lydia set about her task. She had identified seven possible churches and two local authority cemeteries as prime targets, but she well knew that her list might not include all the possible sites. Many churches had closed in the last twenty years and these might not be so easily referenced by the simple web search that she had done. So, to her nine identified sites Lydia would add anything of interest that she might find as she walked the streets of Cockermouth or the villages of the immediate area.

  It was easy to become distracted from her purpose, looking and listening to the Saturday morning bustle of the little town. Walking down the rather prosaically named Main Street, her mind wandered to the journal and the words describing the visit by its unknown author. ‘ A tiny room with cold beds, cold at the height of summer, at the back of the hotel where the sun never shines and the damp of winter lingers until autumn.’ Passed the Globe, the Wordsworth and The Fletcher Christian she wondered if he could have been referring to any of those places, if he had walked down that very same pavement, walking beside S, a hand half looking for hers. Or the Trout, surely too upmarket to be described in that way, but then again, perhaps more than twenty years ago it had been much less than it appeared now. Lydia quickly reminded herself that the journal was only one side of the story, and a very peculiar side at that. And then another thought struck her, one that she would need to check when she was back at the hotel with her precious laptop. Did the journal not also add at that point something about leaving the churchyard and walking round the streets where B had lived, where S had spent holidays as a child? Why had she only just thought of this, when it surely meant that her search would be a short one, and that if anything was to come of her quest then the answer most likely lay within a mile or so of the place where she stood.

  Just as she had anticipated, she was quickly able to cross off the United Reform Church and St. Joseph’s, both without any sign of a burial ground. At Christchurch Lydia found even less encouragement. Not a single gravestone, or sign of there ever having been a burial in its mainly tarmaced grounds. Resting for a moment in the entrance Lydia questioned her criteria and her sanity. At this rate her search would be over by Sunday evening without a single name to which she could attach the slightest hope. From Christchurch she walked along South Street towards All Saints, up Lorton Street to take in the equally barren Methodist chapel, then wound round to Kirkgate. The Friends Meeting House was also grave-free, as she had expected, but at last she saw gravestones in the churchyard of All Saints. It took no more than a minute to realise that nobody had been buried there in modern times. So much for a short search, so much for relying on the journal in every detail. The dark thought that none of it might be accurate, the whole concoction might be pure fiction, re-entered her head. She fought back the thought. Had she not already found the evidence that it was real? No, she must simply interpret what might be a way of speaking, from that which might be used as evidence to investigate. Nonetheless, her journey was becoming more foolish with every moment that passed. The picture that Lydia had drawn from the words of the journal was clearly wrong. There was no churchyard that fitted the description that she had worked from. For a few moments she stood undecided about what to do next, the disappointment hanging heavily around her. Yes, she had other paces to visit, she had a list of them already made, but in her mind’s eye they were not supposed to be needed, she was supposed to have found the elusive ‘B’ in a churchyard right there in Cockermouth.

  The drive to the cemetery in Lorton Road was shorter than she’d imagined, and she was surprised to discover it was really a part of the town, not separate, as she had supposed. Two things struck her immediately upon entering; the driveway was a gorgeous blaze of colour from the late summer flowers, and, more relevant to her mission, that this was a large cemetery which more than compensated for the scarcity of burials in the town. There seemed to be miles of pathways through the carefully tended grounds, and so many inscriptions to study that from being depressed at the absence of information, Lydia became equally despondent at the size of the task before her. But this was what she had come for, this was exactly what she wanted to find, even if it was not a churchyard. To allay that thought, right in front of her were twin chapels, one either side of the arch. One of these might easily be referred to as a church and this cemetery as the churchyard. Even if it was a stretch too far, the thought consoled her. She set about her task, methodically walking each path, looking in vain for a name and dates that met her criteria.

  After half an hour or so there was a single entry written on her notepad: ‘Beatrice Alexandra Grant 1902 – 1984’. Unfortunately, also written on the page was the additional note ‘and her husband!’ She had added this comment as a reminder of her own folly. Lydia sat to rest awhile, and to contemplate her task, to question if it was even the right task. It had seemed so much the right thing to do, and she remembered it was the only real line of enquiry left open to her, all else had failed. If she widened the date range and made allowance for ‘in her eighties’ to mean between, say, seventy-five and ninety-five, and then also allowed ‘spinster’ to mean ‘widowed a long time’, it would certainly net some extra names. But then again perhaps it would be better to keep the spinster aspect and ignore the need for a first name that started with B. She sat a little longer, taking in the deep sense of peace and tranquillity that pervaded the place. Changing the criteria would mean that she must re-visit the paths already travelled. She smiled to herself at the thought that at least there was only one part of one cemetery that would need revisiting.

  The pause and the rest served her well. She turned over the whole investigation in her mind, reasoning with herself, reassembling her arguments and evidence that were in such disarray before she’d found that spot overlooking the bubbling stream below. Around her the unmistakeable tints of autumn had started to creep across the trees, the smell of the earth hung in the air. A place of stillness, a place to weigh and consider. Perhaps the journal writer had written in cipher after all, perhaps he had simply misremembered the name of the town where he had driven so far to go to a funeral, perhaps, perhaps. It was all perhaps. But if memory served her right, the journal was quite sane at the point of the funeral entry, the writer had not only driven there but also booked a hotel, and his wife had spoken of childhood holidays spent there. She and her husband might have stayed in Cockermouth, walked round the streets where s
he holidayed with her ‘B’, but they could quite easily have attended a funeral somewhere else, somewhere beyond the confines of her arbitrary search area. And there were other places yet to be visited. The afternoon had worn on and Lydia was tired, her legs aching from unaccustomed walking. She decided on a new tack; all her research had been done via her laptop, but this was not a virtual world in which she stood, this was the real world. With her slightly revised criteria she would make one more visit today, to Brigham. But first she would walk back into the town and purchase a proper detailed map that she would put to good use later.

  The parish church of St Bridget’s was easy enough to find, and no more than a few minutes drive. Now that she had revised the supposed events of the day of the funeral, it fitted quite easily into the picture, and Lydia’s spirits rose as she wandered round the overgrown graves in the churchyard. For the most part they were far too old to be of relevance and there seemed to be little order to them. Tucked in a corner down a slope she found some more recent burials, but none that came close to adding to her list of one. In the warmth of the late afternoon sun her chosen task was pleasant enough now that she had freed herself of doubt, now she began to sink into the feeling of place, of lives long passed. Right next to the churchyard, almost as an extension to it, was a newer municipal burial ground. Before she walked the neat rows with their polished headstones, Lydia sat in the cool shade of a beech. Her eye was taken by the line of the grass cuts to the row of cypress with St Bridget’s tower peeking above them. Somewhere to her right in an unseen field beyond the stone wall, the bleating of sheep floated above the distant hum of traffic on the main road.

  By the time all the inscriptions had been inspected Lydia was content to find that she had no less than three additional names in her notepad. ‘Beryl Jane Poulton 1903-1978 Beloved Wife and Mother, Much Missed’ satisfied the ‘B’ and the extended dates if not the spinster element, as did ‘ Brenda Simpson 1906-1986 wife of Michael Simpson 1904-1988 who also lies here’. She was careful to make a note of not just names and dates, but the whole inscription, knowing it would be of value later. Of more interest was the simple dedication ‘Betty Ann Garth 1902-1982’, although in the absence of any additional information, there was nothing to indicate spinster, wife or widow.

  After her evening meal she took advantage of the empty drawing room and spread out her new map. She had not studied one with such detail since she had been at school and had paid it little attention then. Now she needed to re-acquaint herself with the scale and the symbols, to understand the differences between contour lines and paths, between power lines and railways. With her notepad beside her, she slowly worked outwards from the centre of Cockermouth, marking the map and writing the details in her notepad. Each symbol for a church or a cemetery acquired a circle and a number on the map, each number was listed together with the location. Deep in concentration she’d been unaware of another guest entering the room.

  ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’

  Lydia’s head shot up and she looked directly into the face, into the dark grey eyes of a man.

  ‘No. I mean yes. Well not really, just places to visit.’ She was flustered, caught off guard.

  His eyes did not leave hers as he smiled a warm and open smile. ‘I would be happy to help if you should need any. I’m not a native but I have some knowledge of the area.’

  ‘No. I mean, no thank you.’ For no reason that she could think of she felt the colour flood her cheeks and the more she felt it the hotter they became. ‘I mean that’s kind of you, thank you, just a little project that I have, that’s all.’ Suddenly she felt like a schoolgirl again, awkward and inexperienced in speaking to an older man. And he was, she thought, a much older man, perhaps twenty years her senior, although in her confusion she could not be sure.

  He took her embarrassed rejection of his offer with ease, simply adding that should she change her mind she should feel free to speak to him. ‘Free to speak to him?’ What an odd way to put it, Lydia thought afterwards, surely most people would have said ‘feel free to ask’, or more likely simply closed the conversation.

  He settled himself in the corner of one of the sofas and opened a book. Lydia had almost completed her list of places to visit but she pretended to study the map a little longer than was strictly necessary. It gave her the opportunity to glance sideways at the stranger, to gain a better impression of him. He appeared completely relaxed, sunk into his book. It seemed to be a novel, or rather, it was a paperback and she assumed it was a novel. Although she would never have openly admitted it, Lydia realised that she was checking to see if he was actually reading and not just sitting there secretly studying her. But his eyes flickered over the print and he turned a page at regular intervals, his interest in her apparently at an end. After a few minutes, shame got the better of her and she went out into the garden to catch the last of the evening. She was satisfied with the improvement to the plan that she’d left Oxford with, but disconcerted by her childish reaction to a casual exchange of words with a stranger. She felt quite odd, but did not recognise the oddness nor see any reason for it.

  After a more modest breakfast on Sunday, Lydia checked her route one more time before heading to Lamplugh on the first leg of her zigzagging journey through the rolling countryside west of the fells. Again the sun shone on her throughout the day as she travelled through the little villages scattered across the landscape. On several occasions she found no need to stop as she passed a chapel that was no longer a chapel. Her greater wonder was that so many of these out-of-the-way buildings were still used for their original purpose. At Bridekirk she thought better of wandering the churchyard while a service was in progress and postponed her visit in favour of Great Broughton where the smell of the coal-field hung in the breeze. She paused a while to watch the bubbling Derwent, clear and swift beneath the bridge at Isel, and was blessed by a glimpse of a kingfisher as it flashed under the arches. From there it was but a few yards walk to the tiny St. Michael and All Angels, as peaceful a place as was imaginable, and likely had been for a thousand years or more. An inscription in the perfectly groomed churchyard of St Philip’s, parish church of Mosser, caught her eye. It wasn’t relevant to her search but seemed worthy of anyone’s attention. ‘In Loving Memory of A Dearly Loved Lady ENID MAUREEN McLEAN’. What a lucky woman, Lydia thought, to have such a memorial. Who could want for more than that?

  There wasn’t a single place where Lydia stopped that she didn’t meet a friendly face and a friendly word. Most enquired if she was ‘doing her family history’, to which she replied that, yes, it was something like that, and they would fall in to brief conversation about such-and-such a name or family. Recollections of a Norwegian wedding, the number of parishes with woman priests, the tidiness or otherwise of the churchyard; these subjects and many more were touched upon. At Lorton a biker, leatherclad with helmet beneath his arm, stood alone and silently wept, lost in memories of a loved one who lay at his feet and oblivious to any other person. Having approached more closely than she might have otherwise done, Lydia saw his grief and slipped away as unobtrusively as she could. Curiosity as to whether it was mother, wife or child that brought him to that place went unsatisfied, for she could not bring herself to go back and look at the grave to hazard a guess. It was a public place but the tears were private.

  Lydia drove back to her hotel tired but content with her day. The notebook at last had some entries in it, even if some were unlikely. It had been all too easy to lose the focus of her quest in the tranquillity of the hidden places she’d visited, but she’d changed from being driven to being relaxed, enjoying the task and all it had brought. And now she had a clear plan to complete her search. The Lorton Road cemetery she would leave until last, now she knew exactly the extent of the work involved there. It would not be difficult, just lengthy and she would need to concentrate on the job in hand and not get sucked in to reading every word etched on the stones. She’d leave Lorton Road until Tuesday or a
llowing for poor weather, the next reasonably fine day. For Monday, Lydia had decided that she would explore the last of her churchyards, the one at St Bartholomew’s, just down the road at the other end of Loweswater. She would make a visit there as part of a gentle stroll right round the lake, treating herself to lunch at the village inn enroute. For two days running she had missed lunch altogether, although she’d had the benefit of a full English to keep her going. Monday would be almost a rest day, a day of holiday, one she felt she could afford now that she had a better picture of the remaining work in her search for ‘B’.

  As she exchanged a few words with the hotel owner, the man with grey eyes also returned.

  ‘Have you met Stephen Kellaway?’ she said, introducing him. ‘This is Lydia Silverstream. Stephen is one of our regulars, how many years is it now? Ten or more I should think.’