“Where’s Derek?” said Lois, suddenly needing his comforting hug.
“Upstairs,” said her mother. “He’ll be down in a minute.” As she spoke, Lois could hear Derek’s footsteps on the stairs.
He came straight over and put his arms tight around her. “Don’t say nuthin’,” he said. “It was the way you opened the door. Here, Douglas,” he added, “get the you-know-what.”
“But – ” said Douglas.
“But nuthin’ – just get it.” Douglas disappeared and came back holding a large bottle. Lois saw that it was champagne, and began to laugh. Derek said, “That’s more like it,” and opened the bottle with a satisfactory crack. He poured out the fizzing liquid into glasses Josie had set out on a tray, and handed one to Lois. “My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen!” he began, and Josie giggled. “A toast! A toast to our Mum. We don’t want no cops in this house, do we, kids?” Even Jamie had a taste, and then Derek refilled Lois’s glass and her Mum’s, saying it was the best day’s work Lois had ever done. “God, the relief,” he said, pretending to mop his brow. He looked at the champagne speculatively. “Not bad,” he pronounced, “but give us a pint of Best any time. Now,” he said. “What’s for tea?”
“I’ll see to it,” said Lois, “else I’ll not be wanted here, either.”
¦
Later that evening, when Derek was ready for the pub, she helped him on with his jacket – not a Barbour, of course, but a cheaper imitation. It reminded her of Long Farnden, the Vicar and the Prof, and Gloria Hathaway. She remembered that the Prof was usually very careful about his clothes. Probably wasn’t him, then. “Here!” she said, peering closer. “You’ve got some, too!”
“Some what?” said Derek. He hoped his stomach could take a pint or two on top of all that champagne. Lois certainly wasn’t making sense.
“This mark, look…” She rubbed at it with her hand.
“Oh, that,” he said. “It’s a working jacket, that, so what d’you expect? Bye, love.”
“Don’t be late,” said Lois, kissing his cheek. “Not likely,” said Derek, and disappeared into the night.
? Murder on Monday ?
Seven
The long, narrow street that gave Long Farnden its name had become a muddy track as the Reverend Peter White stepped like a miserably-hunched stork, standing first on one leg and then the other, trying to avoid the heaps of dung and straw which had fallen off a muck trailer travelling at speed through the village that morning. The heavy, incessant rain had leached greenish streams from the mounds, and it was difficult to avoid squelching into it in his old, leaky black shoes.
Vocation? he said to himself. Is this what I was called to endure? A dreary, self-absorbed village in the Midlands, populated with a few real rural oafs who have been here for generations and think they own the church and the right to dictate its progress, and a growing intake of urban idiots who have convinced themselves that they are living the rural idyll they read about in the Sunday supplements: “Arabella’s all-white garden!”
“Timothy weaves an arbour from the living willow!”
“Charles’s wild-flower meadow!”
Weedy field, more like, with thistles and nettles taking over, strong and persistent, resisting even the predations of ‘Jemima’s darling rescue donkey, George’. Vicious brute. It had nearly taken his fingers off last time he offered it a Polo mint.
No, theirs wasn’t country life. Real country life was that of the few small farmers who remained to fight their corner in a world of huge, landowning conglomerates, arable technocrats, and contract farmers who hired out themselves and their giant, foundation-shaking, verge-destroying machines, to disturb the village at all hours of night and day.
So thought Peter White as he gave up all hope of dry feet, and splashed dismally through wet and weather towards Gloria Hathaway’s cottage. He tapped lightly on her door and, seeing a light behind her leaded diamond panes, knew that she was at home. The door opened fractionally, and her small, frowning face appeared. Without make-up and her metal-rimmed glasses, she was a soft, watercolour version of her usual self. Pale eyes, pale lashes, pale skin revealed at the open neck of a pale pink dressing gown.
“Ah, vicar…” she said, in a cool voice.
“How are you, Gloria?” Peter began, shaking dripping hair from his eyes. She opened the door a little wider, and he could see a bright fire of logs in the grate. Small lamps gave a rosy glow to the room, and he longed to burst in and settle himself in all that warmth and comfort.
Gloria Hathaway looked him up and down and said with a touch of humour, “I’m all right, but how are you? You look like a drowned rat…better come on in. You won’t catch anything. That is if you don’t mind my state of undress…” she added in a neutral voice. She indicated the dressing gown and fluffy slippers, which he shrugged away with a grand, worldly gesture, and entered Rose Cottage with grateful alacrity.
“You’d better take off your, filthy shoes.” Gloria indicated his sodden, mud-caked feet, and he quickly removed the offending shoes, trying unsuccessfully to conceal the large holes in his socks.
“Enough potatoes there to boil for dinner!” said Gloria, eyeing the socks speculatively. She fetched her work- basket. “Sit down and take them off. I’ll mend them, and then we can dry them by the fire.” She sounded unusually motherly, and he sighed deeply. He thought of his own mother and remembered a warm bed, hot drinks, a night- light, and a bosomy pillow for his head.
“Oh, please, no, no…they’ll only be just as wet again by the time I get home. No, no…don’t worry about me. You’re the invalid, Gloria. I should be waiting on
Gloria allowed herself a wry smile, and sat down opposite him in a low armchair. Her dressing gown fell apart at the knees, revealing sturdy, shapely legs, and he had trouble dragging his eyes away. She was aware of this, and was slow in hiding away temptation.
Peter White gathered his wits with some difficulty and chatted in his light voice about village matters, which he hoped might interest her. The project to make new kneeler covers for the church was not progressing as quickly as he had hoped. She said some critical things about certain members of the congregation, and promised to speed up her sewing so that she might manage two kneelers by the spring, when they were due to be unveiled and blessed with a special service. He told her of the disgusting state of the street, and the dawn chorus of starlings under his roof which woke him every morning. He did not tell of his desperate efforts to go back to sleep before he should weaken and open the laundry basket.
She finished one sock, and then disappeared to make coffee. He looked happily around the room. Small paintings of children, charming children dressed in Kate Greenaway bonnets and boots, were arranged neatly either side of the window. A watercolour of Farnden church and its surrounding yews hung over the fireplace, and as Gloria returned with the coffee he asked who had painted it. “An old friend,” she said briskly. “It was a present…did him a favour once…”
“Let me help,” said Peter White, his pale face colouring and his manner suddenly rather agitated. He leapt up to take the tray from her, lavish in his appreciation of the steaming coffee, the jug of cream and slices of shortbread in triangular segments on a rose-splashed plate.
Gloria smiled, abandoned the old friend, and obligingly changed the subject to the difficulty of turning-out shortbread without cracking it into small shards. She settled him again by the fire, and he toasted his bare feet whilst she sewed quickly and efficiently, finally hanging his slightly smelly socks by the fire to dry.
“I have some you can borrow,” she said, and added with a catch in her voice, “they were my father’s, and nearly new. I couldn’t bear to throw them away, though they are much too big for me.” She smiled bravely then, through a hint of tears, and Peter thought how vulnerable she looked, her expression softened and her cheeks warmed by the cheerful fire. Here was one of his parishioners who merited his continuing protection and care.
When he could no longer ignore her glances at her watch and heavy hints of things she must be getting on with, he stepped out again into the persistent rain and lightly touched her hand with his lips. “Thank you so much for the coffee and socks! And do take care, my dear. You are much needed in this parish,” he said with emphasis, as she slowly took away her hand and shut the door without a sound. Halfway down the path, a loud, deep cough, seeming to come from an open bedroom window, caused him to turn his head. So she wasn’t completely better, he worried, and made a mental note to mention it to Dr Rix.
