Dark Choir

by Paul Melhuish

  Dan mentally reminded himself to get up later tomorrow to avoid having to do all this. He quietly admired Alison’s relaxed, patient attitude. More than once he’d heard the old nurse, Jackie, scream at Lindsey when trying to get her up.

  They went through into the kitchen. Alison took a syringe and syphoned some orange protein mulch called multifibre into the syringe and attached the end of the big syringe to a tube that fed into Lindsey’s stomach.

  His sister had never been able to swallow, so she’d always had her food this way. As the multifibre slid into Lindsey’s digestive system, Dan made himself some toast.

  “What do they call that again? The operation they did on Lindsey?” he asked.

  “Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy.” She reeled the full name of the procedure off the tip of her tongue. “Lindsey has dysphagia which means she is finds it difficult to swallow. Then again, I suppose you knew that.”

  Bloody hell, he thought. She knows her stuff. He hadn’t known the proper name for it and instantly forgot it.

  “Did Diane arrange all this? The new wheelchair? The ceiling hoist?”

  “Oh, no. I did that. One of the conditions of me working here was that I needed adequate manual handling equipment. No one should risk getting hurt by lifting the client.”

  “It must have cost a bomb.”

  “Didn’t cost a penny. I had an occupational therapist from Social Services assess. I must admit, I became a bit of a pest to get them to visit.”

  “So all this is on the taxpayer?”

  “Lindsey has a clinical need. The authorities are legally bound to provide equipment.”

  “Shit.” He sat back in the chair. “I’m in clinical need of a widescreen TV. Will they get me one?”

  “Are you in clinical need of a widescreen TV?” Alison smiled wryly. “It doesn’t work like that, Mr. Hepworth.”

  She finished feeding Lindsey and washed up the syringe. She made herself some toast, made some more for him, then sat down.

  “So, what are your plans for today?” Alison asked.

  “Got to get to the hospital. Pick up Diane’s stuff. I suppose I better talk to a funeral director.” Alison jumped up, returned with some paperwork, and set it before him.

  “You need to ring the bereavement officer. She’ll see you today. Then you’ll need to go to the registry and get a death certificate drawn up. This,” she held up a yellow folder, “is Mrs. Hepworth’s funeral plan. Mr. Sole is expecting you to call.”

  “Soul, the funeral director? Apt name for someone who sends people off.”

  “It’s spelled ‘sole,’ like the sole of a shoe.”

  “Yeah, well. I won’t be around to tread on her grave.” Impressed by her efficiency, he stood up. Dan didn’t have a clue where any of this paperwork was kept. He would have spent all morning poring through Diane’s old correspondence if Alison wasn’t here.

  “Is there a bus from Scarsdale, do you know?” He said this hoping she’d give him a lift in Lindsey’s wheelchair car.

  “Take the Morris,” she said. “You can drive, can’t you?”

  “It’s still going?”

  “Mrs. Hepworth was driving it a week ago.”

  He found the keys hanging up by the front doorway. He briefly wondered if he was insured to drive it but, faced with having to use public transport, decided to take the risk. He fetched his coat from upstairs and prepared to meet the frosty day.

  “What are you two up to today?” he asked.

  “Oh, boring stuff. We’ve got to go food shopping today, so Lindsey and I will go to the supermarket. Sometimes we just go out on daytrips. She likes going to Chatsworth House for tea on Thursdays.”

  “I might still be here then. I’ll join you. You can treat me to a bit of Bakewell tart, eh Linds?”

  Dan left the house and was blinded by the bright sun. He climbed into the car and recoiled slightly. It smelt of his mother’s scent; lavender, but with the windows open the smell began to dissipate.

  He looked back to the large, stone house. Its wide windows and ornate arched doorway. One half of One Farm Road was obscured by American creeper which had turned red with the late autumn season. Looking at it still made him feel queasy, but the presence of Alison and his sister took the edge off of the bad memories somewhat. The empty silences, hard words, and religious madness that had once scarred the atmosphere of the place had been diluted by their presence. He’d never heard Lindsey laugh so much or seem so happy. Perhaps she realised the old witch was dead. Perhaps Alison’s kindness had drawn her from the darkness of the past. Dan started the engine and slipped the old car into gear.

  The day went like clockwork. The bereavement officer met him at eleven and arranged for an appointment at the registry office. He’d driven from the hospital back to Scarsdale to the registry office.

  In daylight, Scarsdale hadn’t changed that much. Some of the shops had closed. On the corner of the hill, The Lamb pub was still there. Lower in the town, a new housing estate had been built by the fast-flowing river. He laughed darkly, thinking of how the river used to flood in winter.

  The buildings were largely made of granite stone, but unlike its neighbours, Matlock and Bakewell, Scarsdale had been allowed to decay. Pound shops and charity shops lined the high street, and most of the buildings seemed to be in general disrepair. The chip shop and Chinese takeaway were still there. The Crown was now an Indian restaurant called Akash. At the bottom of the hill, on the road out of Scarsdale, the small evangelical chapel still appeared to be operating as a church. Dan cursed. He slowed down as he passed the small, brown chapel. The arched door had been replaced with a glass frontage. He could see chairs and a raised platform inside. Far from being neglected, the church had been renovated.

  A slightly sick feeling filled his throat on seeing it. Dan cursed again. He’d hoped it would be closed down by now. The car behind him tooted for him to move on. Dan waved an apology to the woman and sped up.

  Dan imagined some bright trendy pastor had taken it over and turned it into some kind of youth-friendly church like the one he’d once been to with Beverly for a wedding last summer. Widdowson surely couldn’t still be running it. Dan imagined the old pastor would be retired or up at Berrymoor mental hospital, having overdosed on his own fundamentalism.

  Like the house, seeing this chapel, the chapel Diane would force him to go to every morning before he was old enough to rebel against her religious tyranny, caused his skin to prickle with fear.

  Six

  Diane had never invested in a television. As the days were spent sorting out the funeral and going through financial affairs, the evenings could be long and dull. Dan had tried to pull information from Alison about what it had been like for her working here as Lindsey’s caregiver with Diane in the house, but she was being tight-lipped and professional. Silences between them weren’t awkward, but Alison kept a clinical formality between them. She went to bed at nine, so Dan was stuck in the empty silence of the house. By Wednesday, Dan had had enough. He rang Billy Cockayne.

  He’d not really expected Billy to take him up on the offer of a drink, but his old school mate seemed really enthusiastic. Down in London, Dan had found people to be aloof and non-committal. Things were different here.

  “You’ll be okay if I pop out for a bit?” he said to Alison.

  “Of course.” She smiled her bright professional smile, her bobbed hair swaying as she turned to face him from feeding Lindsey. “Going anywhere nice?”

  “Into town for drink. I’m walking so don’t wait up.”

  “I’ll give you a lift there,” she said “You know we have the adapted car so Lindsey can come with us. She’ll enjoy a quick ride out. I can’t pick you up though.”

  Relieved he didn’t have to walk the three miles to Scarsdale, Dan fetched his coat, while Alison got Lindsey’s coat on. Alison used ramps to wheel Lindsey into back of the adapted car and once she was safely ensconced in the ba
ck with her wheelchair buckled in, they sat off.

  Alison said very little as she drove. Lindsey gurgled contentedly in the back. Occasionally, Alison accidently brushed his knee when she changed gear.

  “Do you go out much?” he asked.

  “Never.”

  “What about when Lindsey’s in respite?”

  “I sometimes go and see my father. He lives in New Scarsdale. Out by St. Vincent’s. Mrs. Hepworth used to like me to give the house a good clean when Lindsey was in respite.”

  “Not an easy job with a place that size. Still, should fetch a bit when I sell it.”

  Alison couldn’t see Dan blush slightly. He’d not even broached the subject of Alison’s future employment. The silence that followed was awkward and Dan knew he had to say something.

  “Listen. Alison. What you’re doing with Lindsey. It’s fantastic. I’ve never seen her so well looked after. I need a bit of time to think about what I’m going to do about it all. Where Lindsey’s going to stay.”

  “Won’t she go with you to London?” Alison seemed incredulous that Dan hadn’t even considered it.

  “I live in a pokey rented flat. There’s no way Lindsey could live with me. I work, I couldn’t look after her. Listen, I’ll have a think. A look at the finances. I’d love to keep you on.”

  “I’d love to stay on.” Before he realised they pulled into town. She turned up the hill and stopped outside the pub. “Maybe you’d consider moving up here. You and your wife to be could live in the house.”

  Yeah right, thought Dan. In your dreams.

  “We’ll see. Thanks for the lift.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek then checked himself. He usually did this when Bev dropped him off. Alison looked as if she were about to offer it. “I’ll see you later.” Dan fumbled awkwardly out of the vehicle. Once he was out and had shut the door, it pulled away.

  He’d not been in The Lamb for three years and it hadn’t changed. There was a main bar and a pool room. He nodded to Billy who was playing pool and expected him to nod back. He didn’t expect Billy to shout across the pub.

  “Daniel Hepworth, you posh London bastard!” Billy came over and man-hugged him. Dan could tell he’d had a few already and was looking forwards to catching up with him. Billy bought him a lager and they went over to join Billy and his mates at the pool table.

  Karl Prentice was there, a clever kid from school who never left Scarsdale and worked at a furniture factory. He’d kept his hair long, but it appeared to be thinning a little on top. Mooey Braithwaite was playing against Billy. Dan always remembered him being the first kid at school to get ahold of a porno mag. Not much had changed. The rotund builder had barely introduced himself again when he whipped out his phone and showed Dan a clip of a woman with a dog. He put a quid down and waited for Billy to win. He talked football with Karl for a while until it was his turn to play.

  “So, still support the Rams then?” Billy stated more than asked.

  “Course.”

  “Lost the accent though. You don’t sound posh, but you don’t sound common.”

  “What do I sound like then?”

  Billy potted his first red. “A twat.”

  “Are you staying up at Farm Road?” asked Karl.

  “’Fraid so. Fuckin’ place. Lindsey’s been living there with Diane all along.”

  “I’ve seen her with that nurse,” said Billy. “The one with the nice tits.”

  “Fuck me,” Mooey piped up. “The way she squeezes into that uniform. You shagged her yet, Hepworth?”

  “She’d my sister’s caregiver,” he leaned over the table, aimed and potted a green. “That costs extra. She wants me to move in with my fiancé.”

  “Ohh…fiancé. Listen to him.” Billy mocked him, affecting a hoity-toity accent.

  “Fucking hell, imagine that.” Mooey licked his lips. “She could come upstairs and you could have a threesome with her. Has your missis got big tits?”

  “Not really.”

  “You should dump her then. Get in the nurse. She could give you the treatment, all right. Take a sperm sample. Mind you, she’d need to use fuckin’ tweezers to find yours, eh Hepworth?”

  “You are beyond the limit, Braithwaite, you know that?” Dan took his shot. “You cross the line time every time.”

  “Nah. If I said I’d shagged your sister, that’d be crossing the line.”

  Billy and Karl froze. A slight grin spread across Mooey’s face. Dan stood up, looked him in the eye. “You really like to push it, don’t you?”

  “Yep.” Braithwaite still stood there grinning.

  “We’re not kids now, so I’ll let that pass.” He broke his gaze away. He leaned down to take another shot. “Besides, I’d like to think she’d got better taste than to go near a lardy twat like you, Braithwaite.”

  Time had been called. Billy and Dan sat in the corner with two last pints and a whiskey chaser each.

  “You’ve changed,” said Billy. “I thought you were gonna lump him then. You two were always scrapping when we were kids. Remember that time he called her a retard and you broke his nose.”

  “Yep. A week’s detention.” He took a large swig of his pint. “Did you see much of Diane once I left? Or Lindsey?”

  “No. I had no reason to go up to Farm Road. I used to see her coming in and out of church with Lindsey and the nurse.”

  “Billy,” he moved closer, keeping his voice low. “Is Widdowson still alive?”

  “Course, he is. He’s not that old.”

  “Did he come up to the house, do you know?”

  “Your mum was big into the church, so I imagine he did.”

  “But someone else runs the church now? Don’t tell me he’s still in charge down there.”

  “He is.”

  Dan felt his muscles tighten, as if he were readying himself for a fight. He remembered the newly decorated building, the regeneration it had undergone.

  “There are hundreds going down there on a Sunday morning. My cousin goes. She’s only nineteen. It’s turned her into a real barrel of laughs. No sex before marriage, no alcohol. They’re all like it, but then you know what Widdowson was like.”

  “But there were only a few of them back when I was still living here. The place was dying on its arse. Widdowson’s sermons were so extreme that everyone left. He was trying to exorcise old grannies who came. He tried to drive the devil out of me when I was just a kid and…all that other shit. He drove everyone away.”

  “I remember. Just after you left, he really lost it. Literally no one was going. No one. He would turn up on a Sunday morning and preach to an empty church. For a year, this went on.”

  “What happened?”

  “He went away. Came back and carried on. Someone said he went to America. To the Bible Belt. Wherever he went, he came back a different man. Now he’s got a whole army of people following him.”

  “Fuck,” said Dan. “I really thought he’d gone. That’s pissed me off now.”

  The walk home would be long. He decided to take the footbridge over the river and through the wood.

  Leaving the town behind and munching on hot chips he’d bought in a fit of drunken hunger, he stepped onto the footbridge. On either side, wooden rails drew ahead into darkness. Below, the gushing sound of water over the rocks filled the small gorge. He stopped and leaned over the wooden railing and could make out the white rush of water below.

  He ate his chips, feeling low, mulling about the success of Widdowson’s new ministry. He wondered how such a bastard could fool so many people. As he got to his last chip, he decided it didn’t matter. If people round here wanted to follow a nutter, that was their problem. If Dan wanted to make trouble for the pastor, he had enough material to cause Widdowson a few sleepless nights.

  He screwed up his chip paper and stuffed it into his coat pocket. As he started to cross the bridge, he looked up and did a double take.

  Ten feet away, a tall figure bl
ocked his path. Dan could see pale hands, mere white appendages when viewed in the gloom, gripping the bilateral hand rails of the bridge. The face was a blur but Dan made out a bald white head and deep-set black eyes staring blankly out from a seemingly featureless face. What really unnerved Dan was the stranger’s attire. A dark robe covered the body, tied at the waist by what looked like black rope and fixed tight to the neck and covering the arms.

  Dan stared, unmoving. Long seconds dragged by and the stranger stood, regarding Dan.

  This wasn’t one of the town lads. There were no goths or alternative types in the town he knew of, so this guy must be some kind of nutter. Dan entertained the idea he was just pissed and near catatonic, but his stance and stare were too unswerving for him to be drunk. Dan needed to get going, so he would have to pass this guy.

  “Evening,” Dan called out. The man didn’t reply. Only the sound of the rushing water below could be heard. “Listen, I’m gonna need to get past you, pal. So, if you could just move aside.”

  Again, the man said nothing, did nothing. A stab of fear replaced the shock of seeing this stranger when he didn’t reply and just continued to stare. Now this was weird. Dan had regularly braved the last train from Waterloo to Raynes Park on a Saturday night after a night in London town. He never imagined that facing some nutter on Scarsdale footbridge could be scarier than being stared at by a gang of hoodies in a lone carriage, but here he was.

  He looked back to the town. The last house on the lane appeared dark and unoccupied. The glow of the last streetlamp seemed miles away. He could walk the road, but that would take ages. There was no way he was going to push past the nutter. He didn’t fancy ending up in the river.