by Lis Howell
Had someone been holding the door open, ready? But if that was what had happened, wouldn’t they have seen her walk up the street towards the residential end? It didn’t make sense. Even if she’d turned straight into the Co-op, they’d have seen her come out or caught up with her when they went in themselves.
But she must have gone somewhere, mustn’t she? And if he could work out where, he could message Poppy all about it, on-line. Because despite everything, he could tell that Poppy was worried about her friend. And it was catching. Now he was worried, too.
‘Ash Wednesday.’ Robert had got out of bed and opened the curtains. ‘But it still looks wintry out there. I’m coming back to bed for five minutes.’ He snuggled down besides Suzy, whose nose was almost the only bit of her showing.
‘Brrrrr . . .’ she shivered. ‘And to think, a few weeks ago I thought spring was here.’ She lifted her head up just high enough for Robert to slip his arm underneath. ‘That’s better.’ She cuddled into him. ‘What have you given up for Lent?’
‘Not that!’
‘I hope not! No, seriously?’
‘I thought about alcohol but nowadays we’ve got such a lot to celebrate I don’t want to do it! Jake and Molly doing well at school – and Nigel seems to be leaving you in peace . . .’
‘Is that all?’ Suzy said, pinching him.
‘Ouch! Well, there’s also the fact that we’re friends again.’
‘Too right! I never want to go through an ice age like that again. Thank goodness we’ve sorted things out.’ Not totally, she thought. But it wasn’t bad.
They lay there enjoying the warmth of each other. A few minutes later she said: ‘Are you going to church tonight? If you are, we’ll need a babysitter. I’m working late and missing the Bible study.’
‘I might go to the Abbey at lunchtime then. The one here at All Saints is in the evening.’
‘Is that where you get ashes smeared on your forehead?’
‘No! That’s a very High Church idea. I think it’s rather nice in a symbolic way but it’s straight out of Roman Catholicism. Some Anglicans do it, but they’re more likely to be in city churches with High Church traditions rather than round here. I don’t think anyone in the Norbridge area goes in for that.’
Suzy glanced at the clock on the bedside cabinet. ‘Seven fifteen. Time to get up. At least we’re ahead of the radio news coming on and setting a note of doom for the day!’ The alarm was set for seven thirty, but that always meant a mad scurrying around the house to get Jake on the school bus and Molly ready for the current car rota.
She put her toes out of bed and swung the rest of her body to follow them. It wasn’t so bad once you made yourself do it. The Briars was an old house with high ceilings and big rooms. The bedroom had an unused fireplace which Suzy had encouraged Robert to open up. It had a pretty Victorian surround which looked great, but the draught was noticeable. That’s typical of me, Suzy thought. The visuals are everything so we all have to freeze because it looks nice.
That reminded her. ‘Mary’s rug cleaned up well. Did you notice it was back in Molly’s room?’
‘It’s not Mary’s rug, Suzy. It’s our rug. That’s all in the past.’
‘OK, OK. So you’re fine and living in the present. But do you think the same is true of Edwin?’ Suzy was on her way to the bathroom, but stopped to hear his answer.
‘I wonder. His affair with Marilyn was the talk of the town, you know, and it must have been horrendous for him when it ended. Mary was taken ill at about the same time, so I don’t remember much about it.’
‘This Marilyn seems a bit of an oddity. Or is it just Edwin’s usual dark manner?’
‘No.’ Robert was out of bed too, but he sat on the edge, thinking. ‘Nobody ever mentions her. And it is strange that Marilyn’s not more involved with her brothers. But then again, her family isn’t exactly the Waltons, is it? I mean, she might just want to put as much space between her and them as possible.’
‘Do you think Edwin really will get in touch with her? Will she meet with us, d’you think?’
‘I don’t know. And that might be hard for Alex.’
‘What? Meeting her new boyfriend’s former lover?’
‘Exactly.’ He paused. ‘Oh . . .’
‘Well, I did meet your former lover, Robert. And we survived. But you and I have had two years and a lot of drama together.’
‘And Alex is a bit less easy-going than you are.’
‘You should know.’ Suzy made for the door, but Robert caught her by the arm.
‘You’re the only one for me, Suzy. I really love you.’
‘I know,’ she answered. ‘But I just hope it works out as well for our friends. Having Marilyn Frost bursting on to the scene might alter everything.’
* * *
Tom had caught the bus to Uplands and was astonished to find it was half full. As a student he was rarely out before nine o’clock and that seemed early to him. He’d imagined that only a few strange mole types would be poking their noses out of their holes to get to work in the morning before eight o’clock. He was surprised to find two of the Fellside Co-op assistants were on the bus, plus a couple of the council workers whose head office was up there, and a smattering of builders’ labourers and farm workers. His breath steamed up the window and he was suddenly blinded by the rising sun as the bus swung a dramatic turn eastwards and dropped into the village. In the west behind him was the still-dark coast, sloping down the steel draining board of the wintry shore. Ahead were the fells.
The bus stopped a few yards downhill of the Co-op. Tom leapt off the bus first and then watched where the people went. The two women made for the shop. Two builders started to mooch down to the council estate – probably doing more improvements to the council houses, Tom thought. The farm labourers walked straight off down Scafell Street.
Weird, Tom thought. He wasn’t sure which way to turn. For the sake of it, he walked downhill, passing the car park for Fellside Fellowship at the side of the old St Luke’s. It was a completely ring-fenced gravel semicircle which would hold about ten cars. The chapel was closed, the windows grey and blind. Nothing was happening there this morning and there was no reason to think anything had been happening there the previous Saturday when he and Poppy had followed Chloe.
The village petered out, with the turn-off to the twenty or so council houses to Tom’s left. He turned around and walked back up the village, past the Co-op and to the end of the street. Then he turned again and started to walk down to bus stop, past the council offices.
It was then he realized he hadn’t seen the council workers since getting off the bus. The council offices had taken over a section of the terraced houses. The houses had gated passageways between them leading to the back yards. Suddenly Tom understood: now the houses were offices, there was one narrow public passage between them, leading to the rear of the buildings.
Feeling self-conscious, he turned sharp right, down the passageway, as if he knew where he was going. Behind the council offices, the old back gardens had been concreted over and a couple of cars were parked there. The rear garden walls had been knocked down to allow the cars in, and the yard opened out on to a parallel road.
Tom crossed the yard and found himself virtually in open country. He could see the old convent, over the fields to his left, and to his right a lane seemed to sink deeper down into the hillside. He followed the lane downhill, past a Gothic-shaped door cut into the opposite wall, and then saw he was traipsing further into farmland. The lane seemed to wind away from Fellside; then it turned at ninety degrees towards Workhaven and the coast. Tom had heard about David Johnstone’s road accident, and he wondered if this was the spot. The car would have careered straight on, missed the turn, and hit a big tree which was there on the corner.
So had Chloe sneaked between the houses into the council office yard and out here? But why? There was nothing doing here. There was no point in going further into the countryside. Tom could see that there we
re no buildings ahead, not even a byre or barn. He turned around once again and walked up the hill back towards the village, his calves feeling the pull. He walked straight through the council offices’ car park and out through the narrow passage between the strips of terraced houses, into Fellside’s main street. So much for his detecting ability. He still had no idea where Chloe could have gone that Saturday.
And then he saw her. For a moment he thought he had imagined it, but it was her. She was walking down the hill in front of him to the bus stop. He could hardly believe it, but it was definitely Chloe in that silly headscarf, wearing a long shapeless coat and clumpy shoes. No one else in the neighbourhood looked like that.
His first instinct was to follow her, hanging back to see where she went. But that was ridiculous. She was obviously going to the bus stop. And where else could he be going? He had to think of something to say if he bumped into her, and to gain time he went into the Co-op. Maybe the bus would come when he was in there and he could avoid her.
The two women on the till stared at him. There was no one else in the shop and he felt stupid. He couldn’t hang around in there for ages waiting for the bus to come and go. He would look like a plonker. He scanned the newspaper rack and saw one tatty copy of the previous week’s Cumberland News. Great, he thought. I’ll buy this. If Chloe asks me what I’m doing here I’ll say I’ve been looking everywhere for this newspaper for a project I’m doing – and the last one left was in Fellside.
He paid for his paper and leafed through it. There was a feature on Sandy McFay’s books, one of his favourite authors. That was OK, then. He could say he wanted to get a copy of this article.
He walked out of the Co-op to the bus stop. Chloe Clifford was the only person there. For a minute she looked as if she wished she hadn’t seen him, but it was too late.
‘Hey, Tom! What are you doing here?’ She sounded like her old bossy self. Trust her to ask the questions, he thought, though she kept her face ahead looking for the bus.
‘Er, I’ve come up here to get this last copy of the Cumberland News for last week, still on sale in Fellside. Bit behind The Times here, you know!’ He laughed noisily at his own joke, hoping Chloe wouldn’t rumble him. ‘And what are you doing up here yourself?’ he asked, trying to sound nonchalant and take the initiative.
‘Oh, me? I just came to see someone. If you see my dad, don’t mention it. You know what a fuss they make. Sooo irritating.’
‘Yeah, totally.’
Tom moved from foot to foot. He was really cold now. Chloe hadn’t actually looked at him. She stared forwards, tensely waiting for the bus, which came into view and bounced down the hill to pull up abruptly. He followed her into it and plonked himself down beside her. Chloe gazed out of the window. Suddenly annoyed and demeaned, Tom poked her on the arm.
‘Have you been in touch with Poppy? She really needs to talk to you.’
‘Don’t tell me what my friends need!’ As if suddenly unguarded, the old Chloe turned angrily to face him.
To his surprise, Tom noticed a big grey smear across her forehead.
36
Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing praises lustily unto him with good courage. Psalm 33:3
Paul at the Fellowship didn’t hold an Ash Wednesday service. That sort of thing was for bigger and more traditional parishes, he argued. But this year Jenny had challenged him.
‘You should take a communion service for the start of Lent,’ she had said. ‘I’m sure Mark agrees. He would help at it.’
‘But we’ve got Bible study tonight. The start of the real Lent course. That’s enough.’
These days, every time Mark was mentioned Paul felt uncomfortable. He was aware of Mark’s popularity and his easy intellectual processes. Mark could argue for anything and make it sound right. But am I just jealous? Paul asked himself. I’m such a poor fish, Lord, he would pray. Sometimes it seemed incredible that he had come as far as this, and then he had to acknowledge that much of his success had been because of Jenny. She was the one whose faith was solid and whose support had brought him through his own crises, time and again.
But now that support wasn’t there. Jenny was still tired, still distant, and she increasingly looked at him as if he had crawled from under a rock rather being one. He was spending ever more time at the computer, trying to find out more about Quaile Woods and the Whinfells, as if that would give him the foundation he needed.
And it was so interesting! He’d started to delve into the whole system of church patronage in the nineteenth century. He’d been fascinated to find that Uplands, the mother church, had been in the gift of the Cleaverthorpes. Then the father of the current Lord Cleaverthorpe had transferred his rights as patron to the Bishop. But he’d insisted that the family should still be consulted when a new incumbent was appointed. It was archaic, and a million miles from the straightforward suburban churches in Bristol and Manchester where Paul had served his probation as a curate.
But it harked straight back to the man Paul believed was his ancestor. Quaile Woods had come to the north after a childhood in Middlesex and an education at Oxford where he’d met the elderly Pusey. According to Henry Quaile Whinfell’s biography of Quaile Woods, he’d also met and befriended Cleaverthorpe’s son, which is how he had got the living. He must have come north aged thirty in 1860, brimming with almost missionary enthusiasm – but from a High Church perspective.
Paul, on the other hand, had qualified as a teacher after doing his first degree in geography. That’s how he’d met Jenny; her uncle was a vicar and he had helped them navigate through the system. But during the three years of his training for the ministry, Paul had never been anything other than a straightforward evangelical. One of his great strengths had been the geographer’s ability to assess the information on the ground and get on with it!
Despite their faith, there seemed little relationship between him and his putative great-great-grandfather. It was like reading about another world. He had been fascinated to find that Quaile Woods had been chaplain to the convent in Fellside. These women’s orders had sprung up like mushrooms in the nineteenth century. They supposedly accommodated the surplus single upper-middle-class women. Their male equivalents had been following the flag to the outreaches of Empire. Paul had done some research. At one point there had been over twenty thousand Anglican nuns in Britain. The Whinfell book referred to the order at Fellside as the Fellside Holy Sisters. Like most of them, it was a completely independent, local order. This one was fuelled by the passion of Sister Clementina, a Cleaverthorpe daughter who had dedicated herself to prayer and good works. Interestingly, in his biographical book Whinfell referred to the order as ‘Quaile Woods’ Order’ as if the vicar had somehow owned it. But all female orders needed a male priest – without one they couldn’t have the sacraments.
Paul looked at his watch. It was midday. He was still in his pyjamas and he’d forgotten his Bible study for the morning, which he did instead of reading the daily office. He had no idea where his wife was. He still hadn’t told her about the notion which was bumping around in his head like an unmoored boat.
He pulled his dressing gown round him and bumbled into the hall, feeling as if he had been in another world. ‘Jenny!’ he shouted. She was in the kitchen. He could almost sense her fury, although she didn’t answer him. She was bent over the high chair, feeding the baby.
‘Jenny, we have to talk. I want to tell you about an idea I’ve had.’
Jenny turned on him. ‘You want to discuss ideas with me, do you? Well, that’s new. You’ve spent three hours this morning in that study of yours without even getting dressed. What’s happened to you, Paul? Are you having some sort of breakdown?’
‘No.’ But even as he said it he wondered. He had spent the whole morning in the nineteenth century. ‘No! Listen to me, Jenny.’
‘Why should I listen to you? When was the last time you listened to me? Joseph is completely overtired and not eating properly. When was the last time you playe
d with your own son? You’re too busy playing with your computer. I’m going to take him out in the buggy. He needs fresh air.’
She hauled the still-howling baby out of the high chair. She would change him later and anyway he smelt OK. She strapped him into the buggy, aware that Paul was hovering over her uselessly, trying to say something.
‘I’m going out,’ she snapped. She hurtled out of the house and into the street, head down. For a moment she had no idea where she was going.
And then the buggy almost ran over somebody’s large feet. A man’s. Dressed in dark clothes, he was big enough to hide the sun for the moment when she saw him. Looking into the light, it took her a moment to focus.
‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly calmed. ‘It’s you. What are you doing here?’
Edwin saw Tom loping ahead of him in the corridor later that day. ‘Tom!’ he called.
The boy turned, his fresh face open, but it crowded into a frown when he saw Edwin. ‘Yeah?’
‘Have you got a second?’
Tom looked around suspiciously, but none of his mates was in the corridor so he followed Edwin through the doors into the Music Department, head down and face pulled into a grimace. What was Mr Armstrong after? Was he in trouble for something? For a minute he wondered if Edwin knew he had told Chloe about the psalter. But what harm could that do? Even so, these things weren’t rational. Tom had learnt from his father after his lacklustre performance at school that it was always best to expect a bollocking and to meet it with either aggression or dumb insolence.
Edward was unlocking the office door. ‘Step in,’ he said. He was rather embarrassed about what he had to offer Tom, so he seemed more saturnine than usual – with the result that Tom hung back looking truculent. The moment of hysteria over Morris’s death which had brought them together was long over.