The Lovers of Pound Hill

by Mavis Cheek

  ‘Better sit down with you for a moment,’ said Sir Roger.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Orridge.

  Neither man moved until Dulcima, in a pale green jumper and brown slacks (and looking very normal) accompanied by Marion – who was wearing a neat black frock and slightly heeled shoes (her father, a good judge of hocks, realised for the first time that she had a decent pair of legs) – picked up their coats and exited through the front door. Then both men rose. ‘The ’86 Médoc, St Bernard, I think, Orridge. I’ll be in the smoking room. Bring two glasses.’

  ‘A fine choice,’ said Orridge, hesitantly.

  ‘Second thoughts,’ said Sir Roger. ‘Bring two bottles as well.’

  The vicar, though aware that God Moves in Mysterious Ways, was much taken aback to see Lady Fitzhartlett and Marion walking arm in arm down the high street towards – Good Grief – it looked like the inn. The vicar did not care for the shortening of public house to pub (it sounded common in his opinion) and he felt exactly the same way about the church. People would refer to it familiarly as Ethel’s, which undermined absolutely everything, he thought, about a church and himself as its vicar. He had hoped to revert to the other name for Etheldreda, St Audrey, for what could go wrong with that? But when the Fitzhartletts asked the village if it were a good idea, that know-all Dorcas pointed out that St Audrey gave her name to the word tawdry and did he really want that connection? He thought it might be a joke but on checking he found that it was true, that the saintly woman in her youth had liked to wear cheap market necklaces and that tawdry was the resultant portmanteau word. So St Etheldreda it remained. Ethel’s it was often called, but at least if he had a lower pulpit he would gain a bit of respect.

  The Fitzhartletts had shown decorum over that matter but now here they were, down in the village, and apparently going drinking. He scurried after them and had nearly caught up just as they were passing the alleyway that led up to Chrysalis Cottage, from which Pinky and Susie emerged rather rapidly into his path and they all tumbled over each other. From beneath Susie’s not insubstantial chest, the vicar caught sight of his prey going – yes, actually going – into the door of the inn. He must follow. Perhaps there, in the bosom of the village, it would be a good moment to bring up the subject of the new pulpit again?

  Ungodly words emerged from his mouth as he tried to right himself but Susie was laughing so much, and Pinky was laughing so much, that although the latter was appearing to try to pull his wife up and off, he was really doing a very weak-hearted job. Recently the two of them had begun behaving like silly children, as they had when they were first married. Pinky looked down on his wife – at her voluptuous buttocks, her rolling arms, her round little booted ankles – and heard her muffled chuckles, and loved her. He put his hands on either side of her rear, and pulled. Up she came, leaving the vicar red-faced and puffing but alive. Pinky then put out his hand and attempted to pull him upright. Hard to tell if he’s upright or not, he thought, and burst out laughing again. The vicar glared up at him.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ said Pinky. A suggestion that was somewhat overruled by Susie’s explosion of merriment followed by his own.

  With some dignity the vicar rose of his own accord. Fortunately he was saved from saying what he was about to say, which was very much less than suitable for a man of the cloth, by Pinky’s fiercely shaking his hand and suggesting he join them – ‘We are just on our way to the Old Holly Bush for a drink, vicar’ – and dusting down the little man’s trousers (while trying not to dwell on how little there was to dust down, really). Susie added, ‘Do come.’ Pinky tucked his hand into the vicar’s arm, Susie took the other side, they vowed to make it up to him by way of the purchase of a substantial bibular tribute, and together they marched him towards the inn. He could not protest. Besides, the two foremost ladies of the parish were already ensconced therein, and where they went, he must surely follow.

  Donald had watched it all from behind the curtain (John Lewis ‘Saragon’, 1998 reduced to £6 a metre) in the second bedroom. The world, he thought, had indeed gone mad. There was the vicar, rolling around on the street with Susie on top of him, with Pinky at his side, and appearing to find it hilarious. Now the three of them were in the pub. Madness, all madness. Why, he even thought he’d seen the Fitzhartlett ladies entering the place but he had not had his eye in at that point and could not be sure. They might have carried on, or crossed the road and gone into Hill View. Or perhaps they had called on Mrs Webb to persuade her to remove her new group of gnomes. These six were dancing gnomes, with their hands linked and one leg raised as if they were doing the hokey-cokey – unedifying wasn’t in it. He could see Miles at his upstairs window, staring up at the Hill.

  The vicar, who had also seen Miles at his window, followed his gaze. It seemed to Miles that the Gnome of Pound Hill looked down on those other dancing gnomes with devilish eyes. Foolish fancy, he thought; still, he quickly switched his gaze to the door of the pub. The vicar noted the change in Miles’s interest and, in the way of one who is desperate to restore some kind of order to his universe, decided that the one thing he could predict was that Miles would never enter that place. Even if the aristocracy were in there. He was a man of principle and, as he so often said, he was not given to flinging his money about on drink. With regard to such firmness of intent, thought the vicar, Miles was above reproof. As for himself, unable to remove either of his arms from the friendly embrace of Pinky and Susie, into the den of thieves he went, a most reluctant man of the cloth.

  Donald’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. The vicar appeared to be inebriated and cavorting into the pub. Good God, he thought, the world has gone mad. Mad. Winifred was already in there, along with the Molly girl, whom Donald had rather hoped would be a good influence. But he could not be sure. Not now. A second night, even if they were somewhat apart on the calendar, spent at the public house by Winifred spelt doom in his opinion. He could only hope that she would stop at this vice.

  Gambling could be next. He shivered. He’d had enough women in his surgery in a state of high tension due to bingo bills. Apparently you could play bingo at home with a credit card. Iniquitous. But the women he saw in his surgery who drank and gambled were not usually of the educated classes. They had certainly lost the thread of their domestic duties and so, it appeared, had Winifred. Well, she had not so much lost the thread as lost the whole bally sewing basket. He had tried to heat up the stuff she had left him at lunch – he wanted hot food – but something very peculiar seemed to happen to a ham salad when placed in a saucepan on heat. Why you couldn’t have it hot he could not think. After all, it was only meat and vegetables. And it was all very well for Winifred to suggest he should come to the pub, too, in that take it or leave it voice, but his pride would not let him. Just then his stomach let out a very loud rumble. So loud, in fact, that he wondered if Dryden Fellows, who was walking – or rather slinking – in the shadows below, and also approaching the pub, had heard. But he looked neither to left nor right, and simply carried on. Total madness, thought Donald. Above him, as if to endorse the sentiment, the Gnome shone harshly in the light of the moon.

  Dr Porlock, once a man of humanity, had become a man of little sympathy with humanity. He saw its frailties as weakness, its ill health largely due to its own unedifying ways, and mostly hypochondriacal. What he respected was a proper illness: cardiac arrest or a decent brain tumour or even, at the other end of the scale, the common cold. Winifred said that he was no longer the man she had first met and admired, the man of resourcefulness and goodwill. In his opinion, she was certainly not the wife he had set up home with all those years ago, either. And if resourcefulness and goodwill meant cold food or going to a public house for a pie, no he was not. If Winifred wanted him to cook for himself she should have shown him how to do it. Donald felt very bitter. He decided to stay at the window to take his mind off the mess in the saucepan downstairs. With all this toing and froing, he would not have been at all surprised to see the Gnom
e himself stride down the Hill and into the pub for a pint. Peter Hanker must be doing very well for himself nowadays if the whole village was going there.

  Just as he had that thought he saw another shadowy figure slipping along the shadowy street to the pub. Nigel. He seemed to be following Dryden with the same slinking motion. Perhaps Nigel was worried about his father? His movements certainly looked covert. Maybe he was checking up on Dryden. Why? Was Dryden also taking to drink? Perhaps there was an epidemic of it? The whole village becoming drunkards, with Peter leading them on to their doom like the Pied Piper.

  Nothing had surprised Dr Porlock so far as Dryden Fellows was concerned, ever since the day he had come to the back door looking white-faced, saying that he had seen his Lottie’s ghost and, far from being the amenable little thing she was when she was alive, she had wagged her finger at him and told him off about Nigel. Nigel ought to be happy, was apparently what she wagged her finger about. And Dryden was white as a ghost himself. What rubbish. Donald told him so. ‘Take a pill,’ said the doctor. And prescribed him a very useful placebo of his own making. Later Dryden had pleaded with him when the visitor refused to go away – and Donald told him to take cold baths.

  In they went, the Fellows men, into the the Old Holly Bush, casting backward and fearful glances up the Hill where the Gnome still shone bright against the night. Donald was not one to be fanciful, yet somehow, with that part of his Gnomeliness hidden by tarpaulins, he looked less immense, less powerful, than usual.

  Across the street and looking downwards Donald saw the curtains of Hill View twitch again. He wondered, in a moment of rare amusement, if he and Miles were watching each the other. And he thought, yet again, that the world had gone very odd since the advent of the archaeologist’s granddaughter. Soon he and Miles would be the only ones left at home. The rest of the village would be in the Old Holly Bush by the fire, drinking ale and eating pies and baked potatoes and such hot stuff. Donald swallowed hard. Why, he was even beginning to think he had better go into the pub himself, after all. But he’d be damned if he would have a pie there – no – that would let Winifred off the hook far too easily. He would stand next to her and let his stomach rumble. That’d show her.

  Molly, Dorcas and Winifred were surprised at the number of Lufferton Boneyites who were in the Old Holly Bush that night. Since there were several visitors to the village and several locals from round about, it was all very jolly, if a little noisy for conversation. Between the time that Molly had parted from Winifred and both had made their way home to get a hot shower – or in Winifred’s case a nice old-fashioned hot bath – and then arrived back in the bar – where Dorcas had already bought their drinks and found a table by the fire – the place was packed. Dorcas drew her chair closer to the two women and raised her glass of wine. ‘Here’s to it,’ she said. ‘But to what exactly?’

  Molly drew her chair closer, Winifred drew her chair closer, and Molly said in a low voice. ‘A grave. I think.’

  Dorcas squeaked. ‘A grave.’

  And Molly immediately put her finger to her lips. ‘We can only work on it very slowly but I’m quite sure it does not contain animal bones. I am sure that the contents are human.’

  Dorcas said, ‘Fancy finding a grave buried under that particular bit of the Gnome.’ And laughed.

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,’ said Winifred. Molly looked questioningly at Winifred but she did not add anything else.

  ‘A grave? Are you sure?’ said Dorcas.

  ‘There are bones.’

  Molly looked at Winifred, hoping for confirmation. Irrationally she felt that as a doctor’s wife, she might be more au fait with such things as bones. Winifred nodded. ‘I think so, too,’ she said, ‘but we must be cautious. After all, it might be of very recent origin, the grave, it might be something that we have to hand over to the police.’

  Dorcas squeaked even louder. ‘No!’ she said, feeling a wonderful tremor run up and down her spine. This was absolutely, and literally, thrilling. ‘You mean it might be a murder?’ Her eyes were as round as the table they sat at and Molly, in a somewhat excited state herself, burst out laughing. ‘I don’t really think it’s a case for Midsomer Murders. I’m quite sure that it’s old, very old, judging by the colour of the only bone we’ve seen so far. But until we have removed the layer concealing it, and brushed it all out, I couldn’t honestly say. It’s very interesting that it is under the Gnome. As you say, Dorcas … what a place to choose.’ She produced a pen and drew the phallus, rather accurately, on a beer mat, with an X marks the spot. ‘And under that particular part of his anatomy – exactly.’

  Winifred nodded sagely. She had grown used to the indelicate placing of the trench. But Dorcas had not. As the beer mat was pushed towards her and she looked at what would pass muster as a well-drawn, lewd cartoon, she could not stop herself – and although it came as a total surprise, she started to laugh. ‘It’s like being back at school,’ she said and laughed more loudly. She brushed the palm of her hand under her eyes and laughed – and cried – even more. The drawing was ridiculous. At which point Winifred also saw the funny side. She and Molly had been so absorbed in the seriousness of the task that she had not stopped to think of the smutty aspect, but now she, too, began to laugh and laugh. Looking at the beer mat she suddenly saw it for what it was.

  Molly looked at them both, saw beyond them to the astonished faces of the other Lufferton Boneyites sitting around in the bar, and – never one to find it hard to be amused at anything – she also began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

  And then a very strange thing happened. Even stranger since it began with Julie behind the bar (who had just put the cava on ice for Nigel and was about to ask him why). Julie looked across at Dorcas, Winifred and Molly who were in convulsions of merriment, the kind of laughter Julie remembered enjoying as a child, with her brothers and sisters, where one would begin and then all the others would helplessly follow. Domino laughter, one after the other falling for it, irresistible. And Julie’s mouth began to twitch, her nostrils to dilate, and then out it came in a tremendous series of high-pitched explosions. Peter, also behind the bar, found himself surprisingly doing the same. He looked at that upturned face, entirely reshaped by laughter of the most catching kind – and then it was Peter’s turn. Just the very surprise of seeing Julie laughing at – well – at what? – set him off. Whatever it was, it amused him so much that his baritone began to make deep haw-haw-hawing noises to add to Julie’s giggles. The trio by the fire, suddenly aware of the baritone and the soprano joining in, found this even more funny and renewed their own laughter.

  Marion, sitting very properly with her mother and delicately dipping her chips into a small pot of mayonnaise (as recommended by Julie) found herself beginning to shake as she looked at Peter. A little noise popped out from her – and another. Peter looked over at them and waved a foolish hand in the silliest of ways to indicate that he was beyond speech: that really set her off. Then her mother, a glass of very acceptable Merlot to her lips, from which she had been practising sipping, had to put the glass down quickly as she too found herself smiling rather broadly and unable to stop the smile turning into something more pronounced.

  As if it really were catching Dryden – who had noticed Marion, and then Dulcima, both at it and was relieved to think that if they were it was all right for him – immediately let out his breathy crowing. Something not heard for many a year. As he did so his surprised gaze fell on his son. Why was Nigel here? Had he followed him? But with the laughter overwhelming him, instead of asking the question, he merely nudged his son to join in. Nigel needed very little persuading. Which only left the vicar in their group – and the vicar, who would follow Lady Fitzhartlett to the ends of the earth in a hair shirt in the cause of a new pulpit and her nobility – was swift to see the funny side and laughed considerably louder than his stature might suggest him capable of.

  Dryden both laughed and watched his son laugh, noting that altho
ugh Julie Barnsley kept an eye on Nigel, he did not keep an eye on her. Even a laughing eye. Indeed, his son seemed quite uninterested in Julie except in her capacity as a server of food and drink – which confirmed Dryden’s suspicions. Not so long ago Nigel had been transformed when in Julie’s presence. Either Nigel was up for the Oscars – or he had transferred his affections entirely and utterly to someone else. In between the laughing and the breathing Dryden managed to whisper to his son, ‘Doesn’t Marion look charming tonight?’ But Nigel, always one to go over the top, could only splutter a reply. And sink his head on to the shaking shoulders of Pinky while Susie leaned back on the banquette and held her generous sides. The noise she made could, without doubt, awaken the dead.

  ‘Well,’ whispered Dryden in his son’s other ear, ‘I think she looks charming, charming.’

  Nigel, wet eyed, looked up from Susie’s pneumatic charms straight into the eyes of the laughing Marion – who appeared to wink at him (though it was sometimes difficult to tell with her) which was quite an arresting sight. He winked back at her, almost as an automatic response, and whispered to his father through gurgles of laughter, ‘She looks like Mummy.’ Which had the benefit of shutting his father up immediately. It always did.

  *

  It really was most extraordinary. Measles could not have spread more quickly. Indeed, the entire human content of the Old Holly Bush was laughing. Even the fire perked up in the inglenook and began to crackle joyfully. Peter looked about him in sudden wonder. The place had never seen so many of the villagers, nor had it seen quite so much fun. Nor had he ever seen Julie so out of control. In his opinion she had never looked more beautiful. He threw a drying towel over her head and turned back to serve Pinky who said, ‘Better get one in for the vicar. My wife nearly winded him’, but could form no more sentences for laughing. Susie, his wife, he thought, as she sat collapsed on the banquette was shaking like a large, purple flower in the wind, and had never looked more desirable. Life had become too serious, he realised, over the years. The only problem was how much he hated the colour purple. But she seemed to love it more than ever. So he still couldn’t tell her, of course …