The Rectory

by Ivan B

  Yolande was strangely quiet and just sat looking out of the window leaving her magazine untouched. She was wearing a close fitting red woollen sweater and faded red denim jeans cloaked by an overcoat that even a tramp would have had second thoughts over. With the coat, her scrawny face and her short hair she looked more like a young boy than ever. Eventually I could bear the silence no more and tried to strike up a conversation only to receive monosyllabic replies. Finally, after purchasing some coffee from the trolley service, I asked her if she was OK. She nibbled her bottom lip.

  “Last time I went to London by train was for David’s funeral.”

  “David?”

  “My brother.”

  “Oh.” I strove for something to say.

  “Why was he buried in London?”

  “He asked to be buried with his grandparents so that we wouldn’t go maudlin around his grave.”

  I realised that she was on the verge of tears. To be honest initially I was annoyed as I had brought her on this trip to give her the money for the bearer bond and she was destroying my happiness. However, compassion prevailed and I tried to get on her wavelength.

  “That must have been difficult.”

  She looked out of the window to avoid my eyes.

  “Bastard killed himself and then denied us a grave to visit.”

  There was no answer to that, so I stayed silent. I remember that we were silent from Marks Tey to Romford. Eventually she said, “You knew he committed suicide.”

  “I’d heard.”

  “He was always selfish. He knew that he was dad’s golden boy and he used the fact to get away with murder. He’d never share his toys, never play a game he didn’t want to, always wanted his own way. He never grew out of it and even at college he had the reputation of being an arrogant pig. Then in one week he gets a double distinction in his exams, has his first sexual encounter, a £1000 prize for most inventive student project and boils his brains with heroin because he was on a roll. Never thought about the grief he’d leave behind, never considered us, it was all about him; his high, his feelings, his choices.”

  She couldn’t disguise the bitterness in her voice and I could only imagine the shock it must have been. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “And he never said goodbye. He just got up that Tuesday morning, had his breakfast, hogged the paper and went out without a word. Next thing is we find police on our doorstep and none of us could believe it.”

  She turned her wet eyes onto me.

  “And do you know the final indignity? He’d already given all his personal possessions to the dog’s home charity shop and didn’t leave us one thing. Not one damn thing! I had to buy back his teddy bear so that mum had something of his to cling to.”

  Families I thought, who’d have them?

  “I expect your parents took it hard,” I mumbled.

  She nodded as she wiped her eyes.

  “I think dad would have gone under if I hadn’t said that I’d join the business.”

  “Not your first choice then?”

  She shook her head.

  “Wanted to be a teacher. I’d taught in the Sunday school and knew from when I was about thirteen that that was want I wanted to be – PE and maths.”

  I imagined here in a gymslip, whistle in mouth, roaring up and down a hockey pitch, somehow the image seemed to fit.

  “Any regrets?”

  She blew her nose.

  “Not now. College was fun – I was the only girl – and I don’t live up to David’s image, of course, but I love it now. There’s a sort of satisfaction in a job well done.”

  “How’s your dad now?”

  She made a facial expression I couldn’t understand that involved bony cheekbones and sucked in cheeks.

  “OK. I know that I’ll always be second best to him, but I’m happy and he’s happy.”

  She destroyed a tissue by twisting it to pieces.

  “But I still miss David, funny isn’t it? He nearly destroyed our lives, but I still miss him.”

  Once again I had absolutely nothing to say, thankfully she didn’t seem to notice and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands.

  “I suppose you come from a normal family,” she said flatly.

  My family, normal? I shrugged.

  “If you call an elder brother that lives in a mobile hippie commune, he’s somewhere in Italy at the moment; a step-mother who can’t stand the sight of me and told me so on the day of my father’s funeral and three step sisters who wouldn’t be out of place in the opening scene of Macbeth. If that’s all normal, then yes I have a normal family.”

  Thankfully she couldn’t ask any more questions for we pulled into Liverpool Street station and had to disembark.

  Chapter 9

  Mini-Excursion

  DeMills Bank proved to be in one of those little hidden squares off of London Wall. From the outside it looked more like an up-market solicitor’s practice than a bank, inside it was all oak paneling, leather furniture and sober suits. The receptionist gave us a penetrating stare when we had the temerity to enter and disturb her peace. She glanced down at a list, a hand-written list not a tawdry computer generated list, and looked at me with fresh eyes.

  “Mr Holmes and Miss Cranstone?”

  She made our names sound like an illicit liaison behind a cow shed. I nodded. She flicked a finger towards some chairs, “Please take a seat.”

  It wasn’t a request, it was a command. We hung our topcoats on a traditional coat stand, Yolande’s woollen three-quarter length top coat that looked like a cast-off from Oxfam and my tatty parka, and sat down like obedient schoolchildren, Yolande whispered to me.

  “She reminds me of our school secretary, she could wither roses with one look.”

  A young woman in a royal blue two-piece suit entered and walked over. She had the deportment of a Swiss finishing school and a face plastic surgeons would strive to reproduce.

  “Miss Cranstone and Mr Holmes?”

  I noted the name reversal as I stood up. She gave a microcosm of a smile.

  “Follow me please.”

  We followed like lambs via two doors with digital security locks and a state of the art metal detector which bleeped as soon as Yolande walked through it. From seemingly nowhere a granite faced security guard was by Yolande’s side. He held out his hand for her shoulder bag and passed it back through the detector, it didn’t respond. Yolande held up her arms, “Frisk me if you like.”

  The guard didn’t hesitate and ran his hands up her sides and under her arms, he murmured, “Have you any idea why…”

  She said brusquely, “It’s personal.”

  The guard didn’t bat an eyelid, he just smiled and handed her back her shoulder bag. We continued our journey until we were shown into a small room that looked more like a lounge than a bank interview room. Yolande and I sat on the settee and the woman left. I looked at Yolande and raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t ask,” she said to my unasked question, “Just don’t ask.”

  So I didn’t.

  We waited for ten minutes and I was beginning to get annoyed when an old man aided by a thirty-something woman of curvaceous proportions entered the room. They were both wearing dark blue suit, hers of the feminine variety of course, and were obviously the people we were due to meet. The man eased himself down into a chair and wheezed an introduction in perfect BBC English; he was politeness personified.

  “Good morning,” he intoned. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting, but I’m not as swift as I used to be. Let me introduce ourselves, I’m Mr Bruno DeMill and this is my granddaughter Tasmine. She really runs the shop now but humours me from time to time by letting me see real customers.”

  He gave a dry wheezing laugh and Tasmine smiled politely, I guess she’d heard the joke a thousand times. He held out his hand.

  “I believe that you have some bearer bonds.”

  I passed over my small briefcase that I had been clutching, or sitting on, since I’d left home.
He opened it and glanced at the bonds and passed them to his granddaughter. She smiled professionally.

  “I’d just like to go and check these under our spectrometer, please enjoy your coffee.”

  Her voice sounded like wind rustling gently through pine trees on a summer’s day. She left, coffee arrived and old Mr DeMill peered at us over his glasses.

  “I don’t suppose that you’d humour an old man and tell me how you came by these?”

  Humour him! I had the feeling that he had a mind like a supercomputer.

  “I inherited them from a Mr Grant.”

  He nodded, “Grant of Grant radios, I thought as much.”

  Now it was my turn.

  “Can I ask you a question. I couldn’t help noticing that the first and last of the bonds are twenty numbers apart, did he buy a batch?”

  He rolled his eyes, “Oh I couldn’t possibly answer that.”

  Yolande suddenly sprang into life and gave him a smile good enough to charm the birds from the trees.

  “May I ask why the interest? I’m sure that you don’t take such an interest in every transaction.”

  He sat for a moment gentle drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  “I’ve been around a long time,” he mused. “And I thought that I’d seen everything, but the day before I retired I had the most peculiar transaction.”

  He rolled his eyes up to look at the ceiling.

  “Just giving you some tit-bits to pass the time you understand.”

  He resumed his story.

  “I remember it clearly even now. It was the last day of February and we’d put out an communication saying that we were going to offer some 3% twenty year bearer bonds and that the issue was limited to 250. We had to raise a two and a half million in rather a hurry you understand. Well this chap walks into my office and asks for twenty bonds. I told him quite clearly that the issue couldn’t happen until March 1st, but he just opened his briefcase and in it was £200,000 in sequentially numbered brand new twenty pound notes. He then told me that it was already the first of March on the other side of the world and to consider him living in the middle of the Pacific.”

  Yolande smiled at him again and I could swear I could hear birds hitting the ground.

  “What did you do?”

  He smiled fondly.

  “Checked out the notes of course and then sold him the bonds.”

  Yolande looked at him like a dewy eyed child.

  “And have all the 250 bonds been redeemed?”

  He gave a rasping laugh.

  “You can check it out in our accounts, but as of the beginning of the year only 130 had come back. That’s the thing about bearer bonds you see, the longer you make the term the less your likely to get them all back.”

  I was amazed

  “But just under half the issue, that’s astonishing.”

  He nodded.

  “Hence my interest.”

  He looked around the room again.

  “I did hear mind you that 100 of the bonds were in the penthouse suite of that Chinese tower block that caught fire in Hong Kong.”

  Yolande closed her eyes for a few seconds.

  “That was in 1990, so did your coupon payments go down after that?”

  He rolled his eyes again. “

  “That’s classified information young lady, but if you study our accounts closely you will see that we’re holding around 1.3 million pounds in reserve against bond redemption on that particular issue.”

  My mind started the whirr.

  “How much is each bond worth now?”

  He answered without hesitation, your bonds, including the coupon interest are worth “£14,817.63; we had a number of good years where we paid more than 3%”

  I did a quick estimate.

  “That’s probably enough for enough for 120 bonds.”

  “Oh is it,” he said innocently as Tasmine re-entered the room and came to sit down. She poured out the coffee we hadn’t touched yet and said to her grandfather.

  “I hope you haven’t been boring our customers with tales of your past.”

  “Would I?! He said innocently.

  Tasmine turned to me.

  “We’ve no doubt the bonds are genuine, can I tempt you in another issue?”

  “Not at the moment, but I’ll keep you in mind.”

  She smiled, but her eyes said ‘thought so.’ She passed a cup to Yolande.

  “How would you like the money, we can give you a cheque or we can transfer it directly into your accounts.”

  Like a pair of automatons we passed over our bank details. She stood up.

  “I’ll get £118,541.04p transferred to Mr Holmes account and £14,817.63p transferred to Miss Cranstone’s account immediately, it will be there by midnight you have our word on that.”

  I felt like a heel, but I distinctly remember replying.

  “Thank you for that, but I’d also like a record of the transactions and a receipt for the nine bonds.”

  She gave me a tolerant professional smile, “Of course.”

  An hour later we were sitting in a hamburger bar. I had calculated that I now had around £348,000 in my bank account and Yolande was fingering her transaction receipt as if it were manna from heaven. I finished my burger.

  “What do you want to do now, go shopping?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “I want to think.”

  “Any idea what you’ll do with it?”

  She half shrugged.

  “Give £1500 away and use the rest with care.”

  My conscience suddenly screamed at me that I’d not even thought about giving some of my money to charity. I studiously ignored the screams. She wiped her tomato sauce ringed mouth on a paper serviette and I wondered why she never wore lipstick. “Could we go to the Tate, it will be warm and peaceful there.”

  “You mean the Tate art gallery?”

  “Yes.”

  I could think of nothing worse and yet I didn’t want to be parted from her. Not because I felt some affinity to her or a sense of protection, rather the reverse as it was me who needed the reassurance. You see I hate cities, they make me feel vulnerable and insecure; so I stayed with Yolande to satisfy my own insecurities and not for any other reason.

  Despite my misgivings the Tate proved to be a marvelous place. Cities might make me insecure, but this art gallery made me feel safe. I parked Yolande in front of an oil-painting of a vase of flowers and went off to look at the special exhibition of Danish painters. Nearly two hours later I returned and Yolande was still sitting in front of the same picture as if superglued to the bench. I sat next to her and after a minute she smiled and looked at me. I whispered.

  “Have you seen anything else?”

  “No, I’ve been quite happy here, I’ll save the rest for another time.”

  At this rate she’d take a hundred years to get round the gallery. When we left it was the rush hour and my insecurities returned with a vengeance such that I held Yolande’s hand all the way back to Liverpool Street Station.

  As we hadn’t eaten we chose to have dinner on the train, an experience I had never had before and am unlikely to repeat. It wasn’t the food, it was the motion; if I’m going to try and get food into my mouth using a fork I’d rather everything was stable. As we passed Stratford Yolande looked up from her soup – so far she hadn’t spilled so much as a pinhead of the stuff – and made eye contact.

  “You were telling me about your family.”

  Oh no I wasn’t, I’d made an offhand quip about them in the knowledge that she couldn’t follow it up.

  “Nothing to say really.”

  “Are you in contact with your elder brother?”

  I gave up on the soup, “On and off. I have an e-mail address and he sends me vague messages from time to time. The last one said that he was working in a vineyard to the south of Rome.”

  “And that’s all?”

  I watched her delicately wipe her lips on a napkin.r />
  “He also said that he was still with Effie.”

  “Who’s Effie?” She responded at the speed of lightening.

  “Effie is the reason he left home. She comes from Glasgow, has an incomprehensible accent and dad hated her. He called her brash, brassy, brainless and brazen amongst other things.”

  “But your brother loves her?”

  I shrugged, I really didn’t want to discuss my brother.

  “To be honest I don’t know what he thinks, he never talked to me much, always seemed to blame me for the death of our mother; she died giving birth to me when he was six.”

  Yolande opened her mouth for a follow-up question, but fortunately the waiter arrived with our main course so for the next few minutes we were absorbed in eating out meal. Well Yolande ate her meal, I tended to drop mine off of the fork. When she had nearly finish clearing her plate and I had the feeling that she was about to restart her interrogation my mobile phone bleeped and allowed me to become absorbed in a message from Barney. This allowed me to change the subject, I hoped forever as my family’s machinations were definitely off-limits. “That’s my friend Barney, his wife has been delving into the history of the rectory, apparently she wants to reveal all over Sunday lunch.”

  Yolande delicately speared a pea that was rolling to freedom across her plate.

  “Sounds fascinating, places like that always have an interesting past.”

  “Why don’t you come along then, I’m sure Millicent won’t mind.”

  I was sure that Millicent would mind; the trouble with recently married women is that they think all single men should enter into the same union. I had been to Sunday lunch four times with Millicent and Barney, each time she had provided a female to make up a foursome and, she hoped, provide a match for me. Taking Yolande would both scupper that and provide me with a safe lunch-time companion. Yolande raised her eyebrows.