'Steady Pop, just take it ve… ry steady.'
'No, leave me, please, I'll be fine, if I can just…'
'God, I never realised. How could you let it get to this and say nothing? How could you?'
Hans hissed, 'Shut up!' with a savagery that shocked her. He pulled away and ducked into the church porch, and Cathy was left staring at Our Sheila who was grinning vacuously, both thumbs jammed into her gaping vagina.
Cathy turned away and saw why her father had been so abrupt: a large man was bearing down on them, weaving skilfully between the gravestones like a seasoned skier on a slalom.
'Catherine!' he roared. 'How wonderful!'
'Joel,' Cathy said wanly.
'So. You've come all this way for Matt Castle's burial. And you're looking well. You're looking… terrific. Now.' He stepped back, beamed. 'Did I spot your esteemed father…?'
'In here, Joel.'
He was slumped on the oak bench inside the porch looking, Cathy thought, absolutely awful, the pain now permanently chiselled into his forehead. Joel Beard didn't appear to notice.
'Hans, I've been approached by two young chaps with guitars who apparently were among Matt Castle's many proteges in Manchester. They say they'd like to do an appropriate song during the service, a tribute. I didn't see any problem about that, but how would the relatives feel, do you think?'
Cathy's father looked up at his curate and managed to nod.
'I'll… Yes, we must consult Lottie, obviously. Perhaps, Cathy…'
Cathy said, 'Of course. I'll ring her now. And I'll come and tell you, Joel, OK?' Why couldn't the big jerk just clear off?
But, no, he had to stand around in the porch like some sort of ecclesiastical bouncer, smiling in a useful sort of way, his head almost scraping the door frame.
'Can we expect any Press, do you think? Television?'
Cathy said, 'With all respect to the dead, Joel, I don't think Matt Castle was as famous as all that. Folkies, no matter how distinguished, tend to be little known outside what they call Roots Music circles.'
'Ah.' Joel nodded. 'I see.' With those tight blond curls, Cathy thought, he resembled a kind of macho cherub.
'Staying the night, Catherine?'
'Probably. The roads are going to be quite nasty, I gather. Black ice forecast. In fact,' she added hopefully, 'I wouldn't hang around too long after the funeral if I were you.'
'Not a problem,' Joel said. 'I have accommodation.'
'Oh?' Damn. 'Where?'
'Why…' Joel Beard spread his long arms expansively. 'Here, of course.'
Hans sat up on the oak bench, eyes burning. 'Joel, I do wish you wouldn't. It's disused. It's filthy. It's… it's damp.'
'Won't be by tonight. I've asked the good Mr Beckett to supply me with an electric heater.'
'Hell,' Cathy said. 'Not the wine-cellar.' It was a small, square, stone room below the vestry where they stored the communion wine and a few of the church valuables. It was always kept locked.
'Ah, now, Catherine, this is a latter-day misnomer. The records show that it was specifically constructed as emergency overnight accommodation for priests. Did you know, for instance, that in 1835 the snow was so thick that the Bishop himself, on a pastoral visit, was stranded in Bridelow for over two weeks? When he was offered accommodation at the inn he insisted he should remain here because, he said, he might never have a better chance to be as close to God.'
'Sort of thing a bishop would say,' said Cathy.
'Ah, yes, but…'
'And then he'd lock himself in and get quietly pissed on the communion wine.'
Avoiding her father's pain-soaked eyes, but happy to stare blandly into Joel Beard's disapproving ones, Cathy thought, I really don't know why 1 say things like that. It must be you, Joel, God's yobbo; you bring out the sacrilegious in us all. The digital wall-clock in the admin office at the Field Centre said 14.46.
'Er…' Alice murmured casually into the filing cabinet 'as it's Friday and Dr Hall's not likely to be back from that funeral and there's not much happening, I thought I might…'
'No chance,' Chrissie snapped. 'Forget it.'
Alice's head rose ostrich-like from the files. 'Well…!' she said, deeply huffed.
Done it now, Chrissie thought. Well, bollocks, she's had it coming for a long time. 'I'm sorry, Alice,' she said formally, 'but I don't think, for security reasons, that I should be left alone here after dark.'
Alice sniffed. 'Never said that before.'
'All right, I know the college is only a hundred yards away and someone could probably hear me scream, but that's not really the point. There are important papers here and… and petty cash, too.'
She'd caught one of the research students in here when she returned from lunch. The youth had been messing about in one of the cupboards and was unpleasantly cocky when she informed him that he was supposed to have permission.
'Nothing to do with him, of course.' Alice smirked. 'Because you're not silly like that, are you?'
'I beg your pardon?'
'Him! In there. The one with no… personal bits.'
'Don't be ridiculous,' Chrissie mumbled, head down so that Alice would not see her blush. How stupid she'd been the other night, thinking…
'It was just a thought,' Alice said. She opened the bottom drawer of the smallest filing cabinet and brought out her make-up bag.
… when obviously it couldn't have been… what you thought. You were just more frightened than you cared to admit, going in there on your own…
'Going anywhere tonight?'
… it was just the way the thing was lying, and the projecting… item was just some sort of probe or peg to hold it together…
'What? Sorry, Alice…'
'I said, are you going anywhere tonight?'
'Oh, I thought I'd have a night in,' Chrissie said. 'Watch a bit of telly.'
She didn't move. She was still aching from last night. Roger had taken her to dinner at a small, dark restaurant she'd never noticed before, in Buxton. And then, because his wife was on nights, had accompanied her back to her bungalow.
Roger's eyes had been crinkly – and glittering.
His 'stress', as experienced at the motel, had obviously not been a long-term problem. Gosh, no…
'I wonder,' Alice said, 'if Mrs Hall will be with him at the funeral.'
'I think he likes to keep different areas of his life separate,' Chrissie said carefully. Lottie said, shaking out her black gloves, 'To be quite honest, I wish he was being cremated.'
Dic didn't say anything. He'd been looking uncomfortable since the undertakers had arrived with Matt's coffin. For some reason, they'd turned up a clear hour and a quarter before the funeral.
'I don't like graves,' Lottie said, talking for the sake of talking. 'I don't like everybody standing around a hole in the ground, and you all walk away and they discreetly fill in the earth when you've gone. I'd rather close my eyes in a crematorium and when I open them again, it's vanished. And I don't like all the flowers lying out there until they shrivel up and die too or you take them away, and what do you do with them?'
Dic, black-suited, glaring moodily out of the window, his hands in his hip-pockets. Lottie just carried on talking, far too quickly.
'And also, you see, in a normal situation, what happens is the funeral cars arrive, and they all park outside the house, with the hearse in front, and all the relatives pile in and the procession moves off to the church.'
'Would've been daft,' Dic said, 'when it's not even two minutes' walk.'
'Which means… I mean, in the normal way, it means the coffin doesn't leave the back of the hearse until it reaches the church door. Not like this… it's quite ridiculous in this day and age.'
The two of them standing alone in the pub's lofty back kitchen.
Alone except for Matt's coffin, dark pine, occupying the full length of the refectory table.
'But I mean, what on earth was I supposed to say to them?' Lottie said. 'You're early – go and drive him around the reservoirs for an hour?'
The relatives would be here soon, some from quite a distance, some with young children.
'I keep thinking,' Dic said, his voice all dried up, 'that I ought to have a last look at him. Pay my respects.'
'You had your chance,' Lottie said, more severely than she meant to. 'When he was in the funeral home. You didn't want to go.'
'I couldn't.'
Her voice softened. 'Well, now's not the time. Don't worry. That's not your dad, that poor shell of a thing in there. That's not how he'd want you to remember him.'
God, she thought, with a bitter smile, but I'm coping well with this.
Of course, half the Mothers' Union had been round, offering to help with the preparations and the tea and the buffet. And she'd said, very politely, No. No, thank you. It's very kind of you, but I can look after my own. And the old dears had shaken their heads. Well, what else could they expect of somebody who'd turn down Ma Wagstaff's patent herbal sedative…
Yes. She was coping.
Then Dic shattered everything. He said, 'Mum, I've got to know. What happened with that nurse?
Lottie dropped a glove.
'At the hospital. The night he died.'
'Who told you about that?' Picking up the glove, pulling it on, and the other one.
'Oh, Mum, everybody knows about it.'
'No, they don't,' she snapped.
'They might not here, but it was all round the Infirmary.
Jeff's girlfriend knew, who's on Admissions in Casualty.'
'They've got no damn right to gossip about that kind of thing!'
Dic squirmed.
'God, you choose your bloody times, my lad.'
'I'm sorry, Mum.'
'Not as if she was hurt. She had a shock, that was all. He didn't know where he was. He was drugged up to the eyeballs. She was a young nurse, too inexperienced to be on a ward like that, but you know the way hospitals are now.'
'They said he attacked her.'
'He didn't attack her. God almighty, a dying man, a man literally on his last legs…?'
Dic said, unwilling to let it go, 'They said he called her, this nurse, they said he called her… Moira.'
Lottie put her gloved hands on the pine box, about where Matt's head would be, as if she could smooth his hair through the wood, say, Look, it's OK, really, I understand.
'Leave it, will you, Dic,' she said very quietly. 'Just leave it.'
'She's not corning today, is she? The Cairns woman.'
'No,' Lottie said. 'She's not.'
'Good,' said Dic. Cautious as a field mouse, little Willie Wagstaff peeped around the door, sniffed the air and then tiptoed into the dimness of Ma's parlour.
The curtains were drawn for Matt, as were the curtains in nearly all the houses in Bridelow, but at Ma's this was more of a problem, the place all cluttered up as usual with jars and bottles and big cats called Bob and Jim.
He crept over to the table. In its centre was a large aspirin bottle, the contents a lot more intriguing and colourful than aspirins.
The principal colour was red. In the bottom of the bottle was a single red berry, most likely from the straggly mountain ash tree by the back gate. All the berries had vanished from that bugger weeks and weeks ago, but this one looked as bright and fresh as if it was early September.
Also in the bottle was about a yard of red cotton thread, all scrimped up. One end of the thread had been pulled out of the bottle and then a fat cork shoved in so that about half an inch of thread hung down the outside.
The bottle had been topped up with water that looked suspiciously yellowish, the tangle of red cotton soaked through
'By the 'ell,' Willie said through his teeth. 'Nothin' left to chance, eh?'
'You put that down! Now!'
Willie nearly dropped it. Ma's eyes had appeared in the doorway, followed by Ma. Too dim to see her properly; she was in a very long coat and a hat that looked like a plate of black puddings.
'Bloody hell, Ma, scared the life out of me.'
'Corning in here wi'out knocking. Messing wi' things as don't concern you.'
'Me messing!' He gestured at the bottle. 'I bet that's not spring water, neither.'
'Used to be!' Ma glared indignantly at him. 'Been through me now. That strengthens it.'
'Oh, aye? I thought you were losing your touch.'
Ma stumped across to the table, snatched up the bottle and carried it over to the ramshackle dresser where her handbag lay, the size and shape of an old-fashioned doctor's bag. She was about to stow the bottle away then stopped. 'Who's carrying him, then?'
'Me. Eric. Frank Manifold Senior. Maybe young Dic.'
'That Lottie,' Ma said. 'She's a fool to herself, that girl. If she'd let the Mothers' Union give her a hand, we'd all be sleeping easier.'
'Eh?' He watched Ma passing the aspirin bottle from hand to hand, thoughtfully. 'Oh, now look, Ma.. – just forget it. I am not… Anyway, there'll be no chance, Lottie'll be watching us like a bloody hawk.'
'Aye, p'raps I'll not ask you,' Ma said, to his relief. The thought of opening Matt's coffin turned his guts to jelly.
'And anyway, why d'you need a thing like that? I thought it were all sorted out.'
'You thought' Ma was contemptuous. 'Who're you to think, Willie Wagstaff?'
'Ma, I'm fifty-four years old!' Willie's fingers had started up a hornpipe on the coins in the hip pocket of his shiny black funeral pants.
'And never grown up,' Ma said.
'This is grown-up?'
Ma bent and put the bottle down on the edge of the hearth. The fire was just smoke, no red, all banked up with slack to keep it in until Ma returned after the funeral.
She straightened up, wincing just a bit – not as sprightly as she was, but what could you expect – and faced him, hands clamped on the coat around where her bony old hips would be.
'It's like damp,' Ma snapped. 'Once you get an inch or two up your wall, you're in trouble. If your wall's a bit weak, or a bit rotted, it'll spread all the faster. It'll feed off… rot and corruption. And sickness too.'
'Ma…' Willie didn't want to know this. He never had, she knew that.
Ma picked up his thoughts, like they'd dropped neatly in front of her dustpan and brush. 'Comes a time, Willie Wagstaff, when things can't be avoided no longer. He were a good man, Matt Castle, but dint know what he were messing with. Or who.'
'Probably dint even know he were messing wi' owt.'
'And that wife of his, she were on guard day and night, nobody could get near. He were crying out for help, were Matt, by the end, and nobody could get near. Well…'
'Matt's dead, Ma,' Willie said warningly.
Ma picked up the aspirin bottle. 'And that,' she said, ramming the bottle deep into the bag, 'is why he needs protection. And not only him, obviously. This is crucially important, our Willie.'
'Oh, bloody hell,' said Willie. It had always been his way, with Ma, to pretend he didn't believe in any of this. Found it expedient, as a rule.
'A time ago, lad, not long after you left school, we had some trouble. D'you remember? Wi' a man?'
'I do and I don't,' Willie said evasively. Meaning he'd always found it best not to get involved in what the village traditionally regarded as woman's work, no matter how close to home.
Ma said, 'He were clever. I'll say that for him. Knew his stuff. Knew what he were after. But he were bad news. Wanted to use us. Had to be repelled.'
Willie did believe, though, at the bottom of him. Most of them did, despite all the jokes.
'What about him?"
Ma's lips tightened, then she said, 'They're allus looking for an opening, and this one stood out a bloody mile. And Matt Castle dint help, chipping away at it, making it bigger.'
'Eh?'
'This musical thing he were working on. T' Bogman.'
'Oh…aye…'
'Another way in, Willie. Weren't doing that on his own, were he?'
Willie went quiet. He knew Matt had been consulting with some writer, but the man never came to Bridelow, Matt always went to the man. Until the final few weeks when he couldn't drive himself any more.
He looked at his mother with her big, daft funeral hat and dared to feel compassion. She didn't need this, her time of life.
'Look, don't get me wrong, Ma…'
Ma Wagstaff's fearsome eyes flared, but they couldn't hold the fire for very long nowadays.
'… but you've bin at this for a fair few years now…'
'More than fifty,' Ma said wistfully.
'So, like… like I were saying to Milly… don't you ever get to, like… retire I mean, is there nobody else can take over?'
Ma straightened her hat. 'There is one,' she said biblically, 'who will come after me.'
'But what 'asn't come yet, like,' Willie said, stepping carefully. You could push it just so far with Ma, and then…
The eyes switched from dipped to full-beam. 'Now, look, you cheeky little bugger! When I need your advice, that's when they'll be nailing me up an' all.'
Willie held up both hands, backed off towards the door.
'Which is not yet! Got that?'
'Oh, aye,' said Willie.
Outside in the hard, white daylight, he looked across at the church.
'On me way, Matt,' Willie said with a sniff and a sigh, rubbing his hands in the cold. 'I hope they've nailed you down, me old mate. Good and tight.'