The Rectory

by Ivan B

  “Just hold on there a moment, just how much did your firm take from the estate as executor fees?”

  She became all smooth and politician like.

  “As you are the heir and not the original owner of the estate we have no need to tell you.”

  My ire began to rise.

  “Well I would estimate that you took around £180,000, which is extortion in my book, especially as in the probate papers the rectory is valued at circa £400,000 and you knew that it was unsellable at that level due to the planning application for the airport.”

  She became frosty.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting that the lack of payment of the bill is your mistake and that you will pay it from the extortionate fees you took from the estate.”

  She laughed and I nearly lost my temper. However I retained control.

  “How does a complaint to the law society sound? Or an article in the Solicitor’s Review? Once it gets out that you rip-off clients your name will be mud and your work will dry up.”

  “We’d sue you for libel.”

  “Wouldn’t be libel would it, not if I’ve got the figures right. That is unless you wish to refund me some money.”

  Another thought occurred to me.

  “And perhaps I should contact Bitten and Jay, after all they are the real legal executors, maybe their charges would be lower.”

  “I’ll talk to Mr Bladdel,” she snapped before slamming the phone down so hard my ears hurt.

  Just as I was considering going to bed I noticed a police car coming down the drive. A minute or two later they knocked on the garage door and I went down expecting some remarks about giant black cats, instead it was a pair of very serious looking traffic police. The taller of the two stepped into the garage first, eyed the Land Rover and smiled.

  “Good evening sir; is this your Land Rover?”

  I agreed it was, his smile broadened.

  “Then would you care to accompany us to the station sir?”

  The police station was the last place I wanted to go and I became wary.

  “What for?”

  “You were clocked at over 100mph on the M25 this morning sir.”

  I laughed, maybe I shouldn’t have, but I laughed. Eventually I got my breath back and patted the Land Rover.

  “You have got to be joking, I haven’t been anywhere near the M25 and if you can do 100 in this you’re a better man then me, I can’t get it over 60mph and that’s flogging it to death.”

  The second policemen entered the garage, inspected the Rover, went outside again and started to use his radio. The first policeman looked at the Metropolitan.

  “Unusual car sir, is it yours?”

  “No, it’s my girl-friends. It was mine but I gave it to her.”

  He made a note of the registration number of Miranda and Fiatimo and also went outside to talk on his radio, I began to get a sinking feeling. Policeman number two arrived back first.

  “Seems your in the clear sir, the Land Rover clocked for speeding this morning was a Land Rover Discovery, looks like someone has stolen your registration ID. I’ve checked with Swansea and this registration number is definitely for a Series One Land Rover.”

  “So now what?”

  He shrugged, already losing interest.

  “There are two ways of handling this sir. One; sit tight and in the end we’ll catch the blighter, that is if he doesn’t change the registration again. Some of these offenders make a habit of changing the registration plates every week. However, if you adopt that course of action you may find yourself snowed under with parking fines etc., every one of which you will have to disclaim individually. On the other hand you can always change your registration number, legally that is, and the problem is then Swansea’s not yours.”

  “And how easy is that?”

  “I believe you can do it on the Internet these days sir and then send your registration book to Swansea to ratify the changes.”

  Policeman number one re-entered the garage and smiled.

  “Your other two cars are OK sir, except that the Metropolitan is still registered to you.”

  “I only gave it away recently and I’m still waiting for the log book to return from the vehicle being registered to me.”

  They nodded in unison and number two looked at his notebook.

  “That’s the first reason for our visit sir, the second is from a Mr Blain, who claims that you broke his windscreen with a beer-keg.”

  It took me a moment to orientate myself into what he was talking about.

  “Was that a Ford XR3 in the car-park of the Dolphin and Ferret?”

  “It was indeed sir.”

  I raised my hands.

  “Not me guv, but you could try the chap who used to be barman. He accepted a bribe from the XR3 owner to spike a young woman’s drinks and lost his job over the affair.”

  They turned to go and then turned back

  “By the way sir, have you seen a big black cat around here? We keep getting reports of a panther in this area.”

  I replied in the negative and shut the doors to go to bed, only to find it occupied once again by a very wet and bedraggled fluffy white cat.

  Chapter 21

  All Change

  Saturday morning brought six items in the mail. First of all there were the registration documents for the Rover and the Metropolitan. I duly sent them back to Swansea to change the Metropolitan to Yolande’s ownership and the Rover to a personalised number-plate, well not very personalised as I’d just chosen any old number from the right era. Secondly there were three CDs from Sam and finally the change of ownership documents for the church fields, which I duly checked to make sure that the Lay Chancellorship was included before I signed. Next I talked to my vicar on the phone, first of all to tell him about the fields and secondly to talk about marriage in hospital. After five minutes he summerised his understanding of what I had told him in his droll flat voice.

  “So your brother and his Buddhist wife want to get legally married in England before he goes in for a major operation or dies of kidney failure.”

  “I don’t think she’s a Buddhist, they just wanted to get married and were in a part of Bhutan where only a Buddhist service was available.”

  He made some sort of non-committal noise.

  “Exactly how ill is he?”

  “A kidney transplant is his only hope, even then the doctors aren’t sure that it won’t suffer the same disease, it all depends if they’ve managed to pump enough of the right antibiotics into him.”

  He made a funny humming noise.

  “OK, I’ll go and see him and see what I can do. He’ll need a special licence, but Lambeth Palace is geared up to this sort of thing.”

  He put the phone down and I took a trip to the nearest sub-Post Office to post off my documents. Feeling very self-satisfied I returned to find Yolande and Effie inside the rectory. Effie gave me a haunted look.

  “They’ve turned me out the visitor’s accommodation.”

  She looked so forlorn that I really felt for her.

  “How’s the cough?”

  She gave a small smile.

  “Slightly better, they’ve given me some antibiotics and some linctus.”

  She went to explore upstairs and Yolande took me off to one side.

  “I think she’d rather be in the flat over the garage.”

  “But that’s minuscule for one and incredibly cramped for two.”

  “I don’t mean when Mark is with her, I mean now. She is obviously overwhelmed by the size of this place and doesn’t fancy sleeping here alone and frankly I can understand that.”

  She snuggled up to me, “I know it’s a lot to ask, but…”

  She didn’t fancy sleeping here? What about me?

  “What about their furniture?”

  “At least ten days away if she’s lucky.”

  So my fate was sealed. We spent Saturday buying a single flat-pack pine bed, bedding, cha
irs and suchlike. I lost count of how many trips we did into Felixstowe, but by the evening I was installed in bedroom number five on the top floor. This may seem strange, but the room was small enough for us to lay carpet tiles and large enough for me to have a bed, wardrobe and armchair in ridiculous comfort. In Yolande’s grand plan it would eventually become a spare bedroom, so nothing was lost by my moving there now. All in all by the time I went to bed I was as tired as hell, but somehow happy that Effie could sleep soundly.

  Effie may have slept soundly, but I did not. Despite my tiredness the various sounds of the house kept me awake. For starters the wind blowing around the house made the column of air in the stairwell resonate unless you propped open the doors to either bedroom three or four. Secondly the house creaked. I had been warned by the floorboard firm that the boards would take time to settle and may creak for a while as the house warmed up and cooled down; they were right. In addition the plumbing worked fine and didn’t gurgle, but in the empty house the sound of the either of the two pumps was magnified and every time they turned on you could hear a low hum. On top of all that the rustling of the trees out front seemed deafening and in my dozing moments I was sure that at least one of the trees would fall over soon.

  All in all I didn’t get to sleep until after dawn, the result of which was that I overslept and didn’t wake up in time for church. In fact I spent Sunday morning painting the walls of my bedroom and then went to check on Effie. In contrast she had had a wonderful nights sleep, especially as she’d had the company of a friendly fluffy white cat.

  Sunday late afternoon and evening I spent with Yolande and her parents. They seemed more than happy now that we were engaged, but I had to suffer nearly two hours of looking through their own wedding photographs and those of various holidays. Still I suppose that meant I was becoming one of the family, after all they wouldn’t impose that on total strangers would they?

  Sunday night was a repeat of Saturday night in that I couldn’t sleep. If it wasn’t the floorboards creaking it was the trees rustling or the wind under the rafters. On top of all that the sheer size of the rectory made me feel lonely.

  Monday brought four unexpected happenings. First off Effie volunteered to do some painting, room painting that is. She didn’t want to work while Mark was so ill, but she couldn’t bear to be idle when it was out of visiting time, hence she’d rather paint walls that sit on her hands. This was fine with me, I had another seventeen rooms to paint. The second happening happened at exactly 10:15am. Yolande, Effie and I were gathered around the radio waiting for the allotted time of ‘record of the week.’ Eventually, after some banal piece of manufactured pop, the DJ came on the air. “Well now that was Fire-place with his latest song entitled ‘Down by the root canal’ I’m sure it will do well. Now for our regular spot of record of the week. As promised we are playing tracks from an album called ‘An evening with Yolande and Richard Holmes.’ Last week I played Love Letters from this album and got a fantastic number of e-mails saying was it available, well I am pleased to say that it is. I have been reliably informed that it is out this Wednesday on the – wait for this – MaddPunk label and is disc numbered MPL-YRH001 and should be available from your record shops at £4.99; I hope that their printing enough as I’m sure it will be popular. Now today’s track is that old favourite, ‘Baby it’s cold outside,’ and believe me it is.”

  I inwardly groaned, we’d only managed to practice this twice before we sang it and the timing between us was terrible. A few seconds later the music started and our voices filled the kitchen. Halfway through I realised that Sam had cleaned up the timing impeccably and we were both now coming in on cue; praise be to multi-track digital recording technology! The music finished and the DJ came back on, “Wasn’t that good? I’ll bet you’ll be humming that all day. Now our next… Yolande turned off the radio.

  “Sounds a lot better on the radio that when we sang it.”

  “Sam recorded our voices separately from the piano, he must have tweaked the recording a bit.”

  She sniffed, “Sounds like cheating to me.”

  “It’s not cheating, give us enough practices and we would sing like that.”

  She didn’t seem convinced, but I slipped two CDs onto the table, “Voila, ‘Yolande and Richard Holmes sing the songs of the fifties’ and ‘An evening of popular hymns with Yolande and Richard Holmes.’”

  Effie picked up the CDs and frowned.

  “The covers are in black and white.”

  I opened up the CD case.

  “And it only gives minimal information on tracks, copyright, authorship and so on. It keeps the cost down, a full colour cover would cost more than the CD itself.”

  Yolande picked up the discs.

  “Has Sam used everything?”

  “Just about, but these will never hit the streets if the first one doesn’t sell.”

  Yolande smiled causing my heart to go into overdrive.

  “Why MaddPunk?”

  “It’s the label one of his friend owns, it gave us a quick route to market once he knew we were going to be record of the week. He said we needed to strike while the iron is hot.”

  Effie stood up and picked up her paint-brush.

  “When you’re famous, don’t forget I painted your loo.”

  Once Effie had gone Yolande gave me a hard look.

  “You look dreadful.”

  I explained about the house and it’s noises expecting her to laugh, instead she said matter-of-factly.

  “You need a dog.”

  I reached out and held her hand.

  “I need a wife.”

  She smacked my hand.

  “All in due course, but for now a dog would do.”

  So we had a run in Yolande’s van to the local Blue-Cross and RSPCA dog rescue centres and settled on a three year old Bouvier. He was very similar is size and looks to an Old English Sheep Dog, except that he was of Belgian origin and totally black. We were assured that it was only in the rescue centre because its owner had moved to the States and that it was fully trained. We were told that its name was Calvin, which as it seemed appropriate for a rectory we kept. However, I should have heeded the warning signs on the way home. It seemed very affectionate and responsive to both of us, but I had a sneaking felling from the second it got in the van that it preferred Yolande, especially as its previous owner had been female. Once home, via the pet centre, we set about installing Calvin in the house and it immediately became apparent that he liked cats. In fact we met the fluffy white cat on our way in as it was sitting on the doorstep and instead of giving it the fright of its life, as I hoped, it merely sniffed and passed by; so much for the dog-cat enmity from ages past.

  But Yolande was right, the presence of a dog in he house did make a difference and I slept soundly, or I would have done except for two phone calls. The first was at 5am from the hospital. They informed my that a kidney had become available for Mark, that was the good news; the bad news being was that it was in Switzerland and although the kidney was free it would cost £3000-£5000 to transport it to Ipswich. I immediately gave the go ahead and went to be sick in the bathroom feeling like a heel. I was glad to pay, not because it would help my brother, but because it meant I wouldn’t have to give him one of mine. The second phone call was at 6.30am from the vicar, the result of which was that half an hour later Yolande and I were a witnesses of a bedside wedding as Effie and Mark were married by the vicar in what seemed an incredibly moving, and surprisingly short, service. Watching my brother as he said the vows and gazed into Effie’s eyes told me two things, firstly he loved her very much and secondly he didn’t expect to survive the operation. I must admit that looking at his match-stick like frame and parchment disposition neither did I.

  Chapter 22

  Worries

  Following the wedding Yolande and I left Effie to talk to Mark prior to his operation, both secretly thinking that this might be the last time they ever spoke to each other. We wended our way to the hosp
ital staff canteen and sneaked in for a fried breakfast. Yolande ordered and brought over two of the largest fried breakfasts I have ever seen, nothing that could be fried seemed to have been missed. We started to tuck in and chatted about anything and everything, that is anything and everything that didn’t have to do with Mark’s operation and our unspoken agreement that we didn’t expect to see him again, least not in this world. Yolande was approaching the breakfast finishing line when her mobile phone went off. She guiltily took the call (mobile phones were banned from the canteen unless you are a doctor on call) and then shook her head.

  “They’ve got trouble with the stand-by generators again, why they can’t just get us to replace the hand-over system is beyond me.”

  She stood up.

  “I’ll have to go.” She said earnestly before blowing me a kiss and walking out.

  I finished my breakfast, thought about my brother and promptly felt very very sick. One bathroom visit, and the loss of one large breakfast, later I wandered back to the ward to find Effie sitting forlornly on a padded bench seat in the day-room like a bundle of flesh covered bones waiting for her world to fall apart. I joined her and was immediately at a loss what to say, after all we’d not held a real conversation for years. She was dreadfully worried about my brother (as was I) and conversation openers were a bit of a problem. I toyed with a few openers, such as, ‘what will you do when…’ and gave them up as a bad job, fortunately Effie came to my rescue.

  “Yolande’s nice,” she said before looking at me with her baggy doleful eyes. “Is she coming?”

  I realised that Effie needed comfort and wondered what the hell I could do?