A Hovering of Vultures

by Robert Barnard

  “A nice little bunch,” Gerald Suzman thought, with the part of his mind that was not commenting on the weather or pointing out landmarks from the Sneddon novels to perfect strangers. “I wouldn’t mind betting we shall have sixty or seventy, and there’s a fair number who are only arriving this afternoon. Ah—a member of the ethnic minorities: that always looks good. Young too—in fact it’s generally a gratifyingly young lot.” By which he meant that there was a scattering of genuinely young people, and that there were more under-sixties than are generally found in such societies. “What’s that—German? No, not guttural enough. One of the Scandinavian languages, I should think. Oh—very nice! Young, but not too young, lovely long blonde hair.” He was stirred by an unmistakeably lascivious urge. Mr Suzman had been a notable womaniser in his time, and his time was not yet up. He suppressed the urge as suitable neither to the time nor the place, but mentally registered an intention to engineer a time and place that was suitable. And the place wouldn’t be a hedgerow or a barn, he told himself. “Down, Gerald,” he said mentally to dampen his ardour. “Look at her legs. Not graceful. And her bearded boyfriend looks very capable. Why boyfriend? Why not husband? Scandinavians marry sometimes, I suppose. But he doesn’t look like a husband, so I will hope . . . Ah—she’s meeting up with another young girl. I suspect that may be the—what is it? Parker, Parkin, something like that, woman. Writes long letters full of questions, and very interested in the manuscripts. No doubt a future contributor to our journal. To be encouraged, but not allowed too close. Ten minutes to go. Yes, a very nice little group indeed. Perhaps we should all be moving inside.”

  As he himself began the move back to the door and into the hall people gathered around him obediently and followed: his photograph had been several times in the Batley Bridge Advertiser, and recently in the Yorkshire Post. He moved down towards the platform and his seat in the centre of it, and from it he sat surveying the people assembling. Most of them were coming down for good seats at the front, though he noticed that the young black man had taken one in the middle of one of the back rows. Diffident, he thought to himself. I must try to bring him out, bring him forward.

  It did not occur to him that only from the back could one see everything that was going on.

  • • •

  Charlie Peace had had an early breakfast—a full Yorkshire one, with endless toast and tea—and had chatted to his landlord and landlady while he was getting it down. When they asked what had drawn him to Susannah Sneddon he said that a girlfriend had introduced him to the novels. The girlfriend had gone, but the interest had not. When they asked him what he did, he said: “Security work.”

  “Really? Wouldn’t have thought there were many men in Security who were readers,” Mrs Ludlum had said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Charlie. “Some of my mates can sit around all day with the Sun.”

  Careful, he said to himself. His sardonic humour had more than once got him into trouble when he had used it at inappropriate moments.

  When he’d finished his fried feast he decided that the only thing to do after that kind of meal was to take the hill path up to Micklewike. He thought to himself that he would regard it as his daily training over the weekend, his means of keeping himself in condition. And he had to admit that, second time round, it had become easier, because you knew what you were in for.

  He had prepared for his first view of Mr Gerald Suzman by remembering the various photographs he had been shown at the Yard, so the sight of the man, as he emerged from the door of the village hall at the same time as Charlie joined the group milling around outside it, was no surprise. But though the man was unmistakeable the impression made was very different: none of the photographs he had seen were informal snaps, or taken when he was off-guard, and as Gregory Waite had said the day before, a posed photograph is always the imposition of a desired impression, with greater or lesser success. In the flesh, publicly performing, Gerald Suzman was busy, ingratiating, plausible, but Charlie told himself that even if he had been watching him “cold” he would have had doubts about—what?—his sincerity? His honesty? He simply did not give the impression of a man of integrity.

  He strolled nearer to him, but he caught nothing but commonplaces from his conversation with the various conferees. At first Gerald Suzman then the rest began the movement into the hall. Charlie noticed the girl he had talked to at High Maddox Farm the day before: he gave her a wave and a meaningful look and got an instant response. But she seemed firmly attached to her father and mother, and was shepherded by them to a seat in the second row. Charlie had no intention of missing what went on in the main body of the hall just for a close view of Gerald Suzman, and took an uncharacteristically inconspicuous seat at the back.

  The meeting began with Gerald Suzman explaining with disarming (if you were readily disarmed) self-deprecation that he had constituted himself chairman for this inaugural meeting, and that more formal arrangements could wait until a small committee for the Fellowship had been elected and a provisional constitution adopted—of which a draft would be found on every seat. That would take place at a formal meeting on Sunday morning. Meanwhile what he hoped for from this morning’s meeting was an expression of what those potential members assembled there—and how welcome they all were, and how gratifying the large number!—wanted from the Society, how they each hoped to contribute to it, how they felt the Society could best honour the memory of Susannah Sneddon—not forgetting Joshua!—and raise (to use a convenient cliché) their profile in the literary world.

  So far so boring, Charlie thought. As members in the body of the hall showed signs of wishing to speak, Mr Suzman gracefully gave way and the discussion became more general. Mr Rupert Coggenhoe got up and spoke “as a writer myself, and from a writer’s standpoint.” He contrived to introduce the name of his novel Starveacre, and the pseudonym he had written it under, three times in the course of his contribution (all those rehearsals in his mind of what he would do when he became a chat-show regular thus paid some small dividends). When he sat down Charlie was hard put to remember anything he had said. A dumpy lady in a bright blue coat and hat got up and announced she was from the Shirley country, bemusing Charlie, who began speculating where that was in relation to Herriot country, Brontë Country and Last of the Summer Wine country. The lady suggested that it be written into the constitution of the Society that High Maddox Farm was never to be added to or built on to without express permission of a majority of Society members.

  “An excellent idea! Capital!” enthused Mr Suzman. “Though I think we must say that the farm is never likely to be a shrine in the way that Haworth Parsonage has become, nor Micklewike the tourist attraction that Haworth is.” He rubbed his hands. “And a very good thing too, many will say!”

  That gave Charlie to think, and he thought about it during the other early speeches. So Mr Suzman did not expect the farm to become a shrine, if he was to be believed. His mind was not on large sums of tourist money from entrance fees, from postcards or tasteful souvenirs (replicas of Joshua’s axe, perhaps?). What then was behind this? Where was the scam?

  Charlie surfaced again during the speech of a lady who remembered Susannah Sneddon being pointed out to her in the main street of Batley Bridge when she (the speaker) was a girl of three—“And six months later she was dead.” Next came a lady who said she’d discovered the novels of Susannah in ancient, unused copies in the Halifax Public Library in the ’fifties, and therefore claimed some sort of superiority over those who had only cottoned on to her since the feminist revival of interest in the books. Soon a gentleman was making a plea for Joshua’s novels which managed to make them sound totally unreadable. Charlie began to divide the speakers in his own mind into those who simply wanted to declare some kind of witness and those who were making a bid to get elected to the Committee. But all of them were staking claims, whether large or small, in the Sneddons, their books, their lives and their fate. Each of them swooped down and bore off their gobbets of f
lesh.

  He perked up when arrangements for the afternoon were announced. There were to be tours of the farm arranged at twenty-minute intervals, so that there were never to be more than ten in the house at any one time. This was “to preserve the intimacy and privacy of the atmosphere there, the feeling that this was a place where writers worked,” as Mr Suzman put it. Mrs Cardew, the lady taking minutes, would be at the door at meeting’s end, registering everyone into a conducted tour at their preferred time in the afternoon if that was practicable. Mr Suzman hoped that would help to break the ice, as would the party in the farmhouse in the evening (admission three pounds, with wine and cheese served, and some tickets still available). As the session began to break up Charlie came up behind Lettie Farraday, who had sat silent during the meeting, apparently not craving any brief moment of limelight by revealing her connection with the Sneddons. In her, it seemed, the predatory instinct was weak.

  “Enjoy it?” he asked.

  “A real hoot,” she said, with a touch of sourness. “When are you going on this tour?”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “Whenever. Say two, just after lunch? Do you want the support of my strong right arm?”

  “It would be welcome to get up there, Dexter. But don’t let me cramp your style.”

  When they had registered for the two o’clock tour and emerged into sunlight now stronger and warmer, Charlie said:

  “Talking about my style, I’ve got a date at the Black Horse. Coming?”

  “To the Black Horse, yes. To play gooseberry, no. You had more than enough of me yesterday.”

  “Have you rung the Home yet?”

  Lettie grimaced.

  “I got the number from Enquiries. I tried to ring after breakfast, but nobody was answering. Probably busy spooning porridge down the old people’s throats.”

  “You’ve not softened at the prospect?”

  “I have not! But I’m still torn two ways: downright hostility to the idea on the one hand, and greedy curiosity on the other. Neither of them very attractive emotions . . . There was a pay phone at the Black Horse, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes. In the little hallway near the loos. As private as you can expect in a country pub.” They had come through the maze of uneven back streets and stood surveying the place, now thronged with casual drinkers standing outside in the sun with jackets and cardigans over their arms. “Especially on a day like this.”

  “I’ll cope,” said Lettie, tottering through the entrance. “Is your date here?”

  Charlie peered through the haze of the Saloon Bar.

  “She is. And her father came too.”

  • • •

  “Eventide Home. Can I help you?”

  The voice was strong and sensible sounding. Lettie took heart.

  “I hope so. My name is Lettie Farraday. I believe you have a . . . a patient there called Martha Blatchley.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Well, I’m . . . this is difficult . . . I’m her daughter.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “Oh.”

  “Precisely. I went to America long ago . . . before the war . . . and we haven’t kept in touch. To tell you the truth it’s a shock to find she’s still alive.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It’s difficult to know what to do. I needn’t say that we weren’t close. Frankly, we didn’t get on.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “Is she still . . . is she still in control of her faculties?”

  “Yes. I think I can say she is that.”

  “Ah . . . But if that’s the case, I don’t know that she’d welcome a visit from me. I don’t suppose you’d have any idea whether she would?”

  “I can’t really say. Generally speaking the old people here regard having children, and children who visit, as a bit of a status symbol. On the other hand, your mother . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, she doesn’t always think the same way as the others. Doesn’t usually, to tell you the truth. And I have to say I’ve never heard her mention you with affection.”

  “I’ll bet you haven’t!”

  “On the other hand that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t welcome a visit. The days are long, and she doesn’t watch television like the others do.”

  “Oh, she doesn’t doesn’t she?”

  “Says it’s a matter of principle.”

  “I thought it would be something like that. A matter of cantankerousness, more like.”

  “Well . . . I could mention that you’re in the area and see what the reaction is. We wouldn’t want a scene, of course.”

  “You wouldn’t get one. I can rein in my cantankerousness, I promise you that.”

  “I’m sure you can. Well, shall I do that? And where could I contact you?”

  “Maybe it’s best if I ring you this evening. Will you still be on duty?”

  “I will. Ask for Mrs Clandon, will you? Because there are one or two others on the staff who—”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, frankly, they practically refuse to have anything to do with your mother.”

  “Oh my! Am I looking forward to this meeting!”

  • • •

  And her mother came too. Too.

  Holed over by the wall was the girl Charlie had his date with, intimidatingly fenced in by the figures of her father and mother, who seemed to be acting as some kind of familial Praetorian guard. They were all holding glasses, so Charlie elbowed his way to the bar, bought himself a pint, and then went over.

  “Hi,” he said.

  The girl brightened immediately.

  “Oh hi. Mother, father, this is—”

  “Charlie Peace,” said Charlie, holding out his hand. It was taken reluctantly by the father, hardly more warmly by the mother, who seemed always to take the lead from her husband. Rupert Coggenhoe was posed to present a leonine profile to the common herd, but his eyes glowered with a quite naked suspicion.

  “You know my daughter?”

  “That’s right. How did you think this morning went?”

  “Oh, you were at the meeting?”

  “Yes. I thought your contribution was very interesting. It was good to hear the viewpoint of a present-day writer.”

  God damn me for a liar, he thought. There was an infinitesimal thawing in both of the pair.

  “I did try to use that perspective to put over thoughts that might not otherwise get an airing. You think I made my point?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “How did you and my daughter get acquainted?”

  “We met up at the farm yesterday and got talking.”

  “Talking? What about?”

  My God! thought Charlie. This sort of inquisition would probably be inadmissable under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

  “Oh, the Sneddons, what else?”

  “You’re interested in their books?”

  “Of course. That’s why I’m here. In their books and their lives.”

  “Which books have you read?”

  “Daddy!”

  “I’m in the middle of The Black Byre. I’ve read Orchard’s End and The Barren Fields. But as I say I find their lives fascinating too.”

  “What aspects of their lives?”

  Charlie would like to have conveyed to the girl that if she would plead a visit to the loo he would pretend to get himself another drink and they could both disappear somewhere. But he couldn’t think of any delicate pantomime to suggest this, and in any case the fiercely inquisitorial paternal eyes were fixed upon him.

  “Oh, how all this creative power seems to have sprung from such a deprived background. And of course their deaths.”

  “Oh?”

  “We were discussing the deaths yesterday and wondering—”

  “Do you think I might interrupt?”

  That blessed American accent! It was Lettie, riding to his rescue as a return for his favours of the previous day.

  “I was very
interested in what you were saying about your own books, and in particular—what was its name?—Starveacre?”

  “Starveacre, yes.” He said it loudly.

  “I wonder now, what name did you say you used in writing that book? And would it be currently available in the States?”

  She had his complete attention. The girl, perhaps quick from long experience, murmured something about the loo, while Charlie drained his glass and said he could just about manage another. In minutes they were back in the main street and heading for one of the few places where they might reasonably hope to be alone on that particular day—the scruffy back lane by which Charlie had first come into Micklewike.

  “Now you know why I sometimes feel like Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” said the girl bitterly. She jumped up to sit on a stone wall and Charlie lounged alongside her.

  “I think it might be an idea if you told me your name,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  A Tour of the Shrine

  It was, it turned out, Felicity, and in the course of the next hour or so they learned a good deal more about each other than their names. Charlie liked what he learned, though he was bewildered by the sort of control her parents seemed to exercise over her. He resisted the impulse to probe, however: there had been girls in his life who had complained that he couldn’t stop being a policeman. Even without probing, though, Charlie received the impression that Rupert Coggenhoe was a tiny talent with a monster-sized ego—and a burden of grievances against a world which did not accord him the recognition which he thought was his due. Exploration of this topic left them no time to go into Charlie’s background, which was exactly what he intended.