‘Will, the wedding! You’re late for Fay Holland’s wedding. Had you forgotten? It was meant to start at midday. The bride’s there already!’
Will paled immediately and ditched his bat, making hurried excuses and legging it to the church in his cricket whites. He arrived, panting, and – after apologising profusely to the bride, who was waiting in the churchyard, chewing gum laboriously, her eyes vacant and her expression grim – he scurried into the vestry where he slipped his cassock on over his whites, pads and all.
After that, Will put on a sterling performance and the service went without a hitch, but he was not going to be let off the hook by the Holland family, old gypsy stock and the least forgiving sorts to live in the village. Old Mrs Holland gave him a cold, hard stare as she left the church. She said nothing, but there was a challenge in the way she looked at him. Will felt a sense of dread creep over him.
During the week that followed, a further incident had occurred that had also blotted Will’s copybook. Another influential family in the village were the Huntingdon-Loxleys: an incredibly important family in the village. Or at least, they thought they were. Granny Huntingdon-Loxley, the matriarch, had finally given in to the inevitability of death at the grand age of ninety-seven and her funeral had taken place on Tuesday. The memorial service itself had been just right, but Granny Huntingdon-Loxley had chosen to be cremated, which necessitated a further service at the crematorium in Hastings later the same day. Pete needed to head into town, so after the memorial he cadged a lift. He offered to drive, as Will always found it a little constricting to drive in his cassock. The traffic was heavy, which wasn’t a good start, but eventually they arrived. Will spotted the mourners gathered in a huddle by the crematorium.
‘Won’t be long,’ Will said to Pete. ‘About half an hour, so you take the car and then meet me back here when you’ve finished in town.’
‘Okey dokey,’ said Pete. ‘I only need to pop into one shop. Might just have a quick fag here, before I go.’ He got out, and drifted off to a patch of grass far away from the milling crowd. Will walked towards the group, who looked sombre and forbidding and then, as Will approached, somewhat alarmed. He immediately checked his flies. What’s the problem? he wondered and then froze as his car slowly crept past him down the hill towards the crematorium.
‘Aaargh!’ he cried and ran ahead, desperately trying to open the driver’s door as the car inched forward – he usually kept his car unlocked now they lived in the countryside, but Pete (knowing what criminals could be like) had locked it. ‘Pete!’ Will bellowed back towards his friend and Pete, who’d been obliviously smoking his cigarette, looked up in horror. He raced down the hill towards Will and the crawling car, but he was too late. The car crashed loudly and definitely into the wall, exposing the cremation chamber.
Will had apologised to the horrified family and, once practicalities had been dealt with, he had proceeded (in some fluster) to conduct the cremation. But the Huntingdon-Loxleys were unimpressed and he suspected that – like the Hollands – they held some sway in the village.
When Will saw how thin his ordinarily decent-sized congregation was at church today, he realised just how grave his two mistakes had been. His fears were confirmed in the pub after church as well, when a number of usually friendly villagers snubbed him as he tried to engage them in chatter while he enjoyed his post-service pint.
At lunch, the glum occupants of the Vicarage congregated for a roast in the kitchen and discussed what they could possibly do to restore the villagers’ faith in Will and Serena.
‘How about a youth club?’ suggested Max, who, while not exactly a resident at the Vicarage, had become a part of the family (along with his dogs), joining in with meals most days – particularly Will’s famous Sunday roasts.
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ replied Will, pushing back his hair. ‘The kids are always hanging around in the park or outside the shops, with nothing to do. The hard thing will be trying to get them interested. I remember being fifteen: you’d have had to entice me with serious amounts of money to get me to join any club.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ agreed Pete. ‘You know what they did at the prison though, to get the inmates to join stuff?’
Everyone looked at him, intrigued. Pete was always full of interesting stories about his time inside.
‘Food,’ he announced. ‘Crisps, doughnuts, nothing too healthy. That’ll draw ’em in. And a bit of competition too. You should’ve seen us all one time when the wardens started a tiddlywinks competition. All these grown men desperate to win – and the cheers from my mates when I was the champion . . . It was brilliant.’
Will smiled and took a gulp of wine. ‘You know what? That’s an excellent idea. Let’s do it. We can set it up in the church hall – maybe on a Friday evening. But I’m fairly sure the fact I’m a vicar will put them off if I try to run it. I think I need to find someone a bit younger and less . . . well, vicarly . . .’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Ashna. She’d been quietly listening, but her voice now was clear and sincere. ‘Actually, it will be good for me. Give me something to focus on. Would you trust me to run it?’
‘Of course,’ enthused Will. ‘Ashna, that’s so kind of you. You’ll be perfect for the job.’ He jumped up from his chair and gave her a big hug.
‘Give me one of those too,’ grinned Max, a glimmer of his usual cheerful character apparent again. ‘I’ll help Ashna. Keep all those rowdy boys in check. Even a wimp like me should be able to deal with a few cheeky youths,’ he added, laughing at himself.
‘Seriously?’ asked Will.
‘Seriously.’
Will gave Max a manly kind of hug, involving lots of backslapping, and Serena smiled at them as she started to clear the plates.
She was relieved they’d come up with a possible solution for getting the village back on side, but she was a little worried about the Harvest Supper, which they needed to think about too.
‘What about the Harvest Supper?’ she said, voicing her thoughts. ‘What if we spend masses of money putting on this posh do and then nobody buys any tickets? If things carry on the way they are, everyone will boycott the event.’
‘Has it been popular in the past?’ asked Max.
‘Yes, hugely. Very smart. Champagne, string quartet, the works.’
‘Sounds boring to me,’ Max replied. ‘You know what I’d do if I were you? Change it up. It’s a risk, of course, but it would solve the budget issue if you just did something much simpler and more rustic. You could hang hops up all over the hall and provide proper meals instead of those fiddly things that leave you starving. Then you wouldn’t need to make it a ticketed event either – much more likely to get people coming along if you’re not charging a fortune. Maybe you could just do a whip-round at the end to cover the costs or something?’
‘That’s an amazing idea,’ agreed Will. ‘We could bash out a load of tunes on the piano too, couldn’t we, Serena? Some good old stirring hymns?’
‘Perfect,’ she smiled. The ideas were fantastic – she just hoped the risk would pay off.
They all felt a little more positive by the end of lunch, but Serena had to admit the mood of the house was affecting them not just as individuals, but she and Will as a couple as well, particularly since she’d decided to deal with her anxieties about the curse alone and couldn’t confide in Will about them. It made her feel lonely, surrounded though she was by other people, including her partner.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would start her research. Somebody in the village must know about this wretched curse.
‘Knowledge is power’, she remembered Miss Jones saying once at primary school. If she could just find out a bit more about it, she was sure she’d begin to feel better.
22.
SUMMER 2003
It was the summer and Will and Serena were still living in Hither Green, where life was increasingly busy. In many ways, they were still in the honeymoon period of their relationship, but it wasn’t without its tests. Serena l
oved helping parishioners and was totally on board with the many parish events she helped with, but she was starting to resent the fact that she and Will barely seemed to have a moment to themselves. Hardly an evening went by when they weren’t disturbed at the dinner table by the vicar or his frighteningly bossy wife, ordering Will to take on yet more jobs – always of the least appealing variety, such as fundraising for the church roof, taking the early morning services and recruiting for the choir; not to mention liaising with the French organist Jean-Paul, who was an absolute pit bull.
The stress was heightened by the absence of any pregnancy. Over a period of eighteen months, they experienced increasing frustration, each month involving an exciting two-week wait followed by crushing disappointment. A fortnight before Luna and Seb’s wedding, they finally reached the day of their appointment with a fertility expert.
‘I see from your GP’s letter that you’ve been trying for almost eighteen months now,’ said the consultant, Mr Charterham, a small, precise-looking man who sat neatly in his large chair, his hands together, fingertips touching. His office on this humid July day was hot and stuffy, the only air an occasional warm waft from his desk fan.
‘You’re both very young, so that’s a huge advantage, and it’s not unusual for these things to take at least a year to eighteen months,’ he continued. ‘It’s not necessarily an indicator of any problem. Is there a reason you wanted to see me at this relatively early stage?’
‘Impatience, I guess,’ explained Will. ‘I suppose we both thought that – given we’re so young – it would happen immediately. After about six months or so, we began to wonder if something might be wrong and we just thought it might be better to find that out sooner rather than later.’
‘Very practical, and we can, of course, run various tests for you, but can I try you with my expert, non-medical advice first?’ the consultant asked.
‘Go ahead,’ said Will, and Serena nodded in agreement, twirling a blonde curl around her finger.
‘As soon as you start with investigations, you’re going to be feeding your brain with the idea that there is a problem. The brain is probably the most important aspect when it comes to fertility. My advice would be to go away, keep trying, don’t think about it too much. Relax. See what happens. You have time on your side. What do you think?’
‘I think that makes perfect sense,’ replied Will, with an audible sigh of relief. He hadn’t been looking forward to providing a sample. But Serena cleared her throat.
‘I do get what you’re saying,’ she said hesitantly. Serena was a natural people-pleaser, but not a pushover when it came to aspects of her life she considered of utmost importance. ‘But I just have this feeling, like I know there’s something wrong. For the sake of a few simple tests, I’d rather find out, if that’s okay?’ she asked, looking from Will to the consultant.
‘Of course,’ they both said, although they exchanged a small glance. Serena knew it was good advice, but she’d always had strong instincts, and she knew in her heart a proactive approach would be better. Now they’d actually managed to see the consultant, she couldn’t bear to go away without taking some steps forward.
‘Blood tests for you first,’ Mr Charterham said, scribbling illegibly on a pad and passing the sheet of paper to Serena. ‘You can get these taken on the ground floor of the hospital today. Once we have the results we can go from there. And for you, Mr Blacksmith, a sample pot . . . There’s a room just next door. There are plenty of magazines to look at: Steam Engines Monthly and such like,’ he said wryly. ‘Please return the pot to my secretary. There’s no rush,’ he added, with a sympathetic smile. Will’s face turned the colour of his hair. This was not the route he wanted to take at all, but as he watched Serena head off along the corridor towards the lift he saw a spring in her step. She was so desperately eager for this to happen. And if this was what it took to get them the baby she so badly wanted, then it was what he would do. He sighed and made his way into a small room and its selection of grubby, well-thumbed magazines.
The day before Luna and Seb’s wedding, they received the results.
‘Mr Charterham here,’ explained the voice at the other end of the telephone. Serena felt her heart rate accelerate as she realised this was it: the moment of truth.
‘You have the results?’ she asked. She jammed the handset between her ear and shoulder and searched around for a pen and pad. Will was helping the vicar shift some furniture around in the church and Serena had been scrubbing the bath when the telephone had rung. She’d scurried down the stairs to answer the phone, where it trilled into the narrow hallway.
‘I do. Let me run you through them. First of all, I’m pleased to tell you your husband’s results have come back clear. Nothing wrong with the motility or mobility there. And I can see from your blood test results that you have an abundance of eggs, which is also excellent. The rest of the results are within normal ranges too . . . There’s just one that indicates a possible problem.’
Serena’s heart sank. She stopped scribbling. She’d expected a problem – she’d felt it instinctively – but still, to have it confirmed . . . She took a deep breath.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s the antinuclear antibody test we took . . . It’s come back positive. I think you may be suffering with an autoimmune disorder. We’ll run more tests but it looks like coeliac disease in your case. I’m surprised you haven’t been suffering with any symptoms.’
‘But what does that mean?’ asked Serena.
‘Well, an autoimmune disorder occurs when the immune system becomes confused and generates antibodies that attack the cells of the body even though they’re not foreign invaders – in coeliac disease, the cells of the small intestine. The immune system is designed to detect and destroy foreign substances that enter the body, so a positive result like this sometimes crops up when women are struggling to get pregnant or suffering with frequent miscarriages . . . Look, I know this is a lot to take in,’ Mr Charterham went on, ‘but the good news is, there are medications you can take that usually manage this sort of thing, as well as approaching the problem from a nutritional angle. A gluten-free diet is a must. And . . . well, if these don’t work, there are always other options . . .’
‘Such as?’ Serena asked.
‘IVF, that sort of thing . . . But for now, let’s take it one step at a time. I must say, I’m glad you didn’t take my advice when I saw you. Much better to avoid multiple miscarriages, which I’m sorry to say would almost certainly have happened if we hadn’t tested now. With autoimmune disorders, the body sees a foetus as a potentially dangerous infection in need of removal and develops antibodies to the baby.’
‘That’s something, I suppose. So what do we do now?’
‘I’ll get my secretary to call you next week to make a further appointment. We’ll take some more tests and get you started on a course of medication. I’ll refer you to a nutritionist as well. My dear, one way or another, we will do our best to get you a baby.’
Serena was crushed, but smiled wanly at the consultant’s words. Avuncular was the word for him, she thought, but the call had certainly taken the wind out of her sails. Later, she explained it all to Will.
‘That explains why you always feel grotty when you’ve eaten pasta! And I’ve always thought it’s weird you don’t like bread. Well, thank goodness we found out now,’ he said, concentrating on the parts of the conversation that seemed the least upsetting.
‘Exactly what the consultant said. And we’re going to see him again very soon and get everything sorted, but for now can we just forget all about it and have fun at Luna’s wedding tomorrow? Let’s get really drunk and dance till the small hours.’
‘Definitely,’ said Will, relieved Serena was keen not to dwell on the diagnosis for the moment. Relieved too that they could stop worrying for a little while and enjoy their youth, as they should be doing right now. He couldn’t wait for the party.
The following day dawned bright and cloudless.
Serena and Will, feeling a weight lifted off their shoulders at finally having a diagnosis and a plan, arrived at the church in a state of high excitement. They were ushered to the correct pew, just behind Stephanie, who they kissed – which proved a little tricky as she was wearing an enormous statement hat with feathers on it that trembled when she moved. Serena’s mother was sitting next to her friend, Sheila, and they continued their gossiping while Serena and Will both waved to the groom, who was standing at the front of the church looking suitably nervous.
‘Poor Seb,’ Serena whispered to Will. ‘He looks like a rabbit in the headlights. You’re lucky I’m never going to put you through this.’
Will was giggly, as he always was when he wasn’t conducting or assisting with a service, and his mirth became contagious when he suddenly let rip an enormous fart. It was so loud they heard the Scottish woman sitting behind them chastise her husband.
‘Angus! That’s disgraceful. And in church too!’
‘It was’ne me!’ the poor man replied, but his sharp, dour wife didn’t believe him and Will and Serena looked at each other, hands over their mouths.
‘It’s the pitch-pine pew – it made it echo!’ Will whispered and they could barely stifle their laughter, prompting Will to fart again, much to their hilarity.
Soon, however, their high spirits were quelled by the vicar tapping Serena on the shoulder.
‘Erm, I believe you’re Luna’s sister?’ he asked. ‘Could I have a word in private?’ He wafted a service sheet in front of his nose.
‘Of course,’ replied Serena, hopping up before Stephanie noticed what was going on. She followed the vicar into his vestry.
‘What’s happened?’ asked Serena. ‘Don’t tell me Luna hasn’t turned up?’
‘No, no, she’s here, she’s just arrived. She and your uncle are waiting in the porch. The problem is . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘The bridegroom seems to have disappeared.’
‘Seb? But I’ve seen him. He was here five minutes ago.’
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