CHAPTER 1
Burning Questions
There is a certain kind of calm which will descend upon and pervade an English village on a certain kind of summer's day; a stillness which creeps into peoples' thoughts and into their homes, under chairs and behind cupboards, and which affects the way that people go about their daily business; the way that they make coffee, the way that they make love, if they do, the way that they speak to each other. All of these things are different on these days. The passing traffic will sound muffled in the heavy air, the birds are silent once the dawn has passed and the sun has risen, hot, into the eastern sky. The people will not say that it is too hot; the memories of cold winter are still too new, and the chill of autumn is too near at hand. No, they will not speak of it, as they open windows in vain to catch any breeze which may come. They will not complain; they are English, and they will bear it as they have borne the vagaries of their climate for centuries. In these same, ancient houses a pauper will have died of the cold, a crop will have failed and the people will have gone hungry at harvest time. To keep what little grain there was for the next sowing or to make bread to eat; to feed the horses or let them take their chances in the cold, hard, winter fields. These are the questions which would have been asked. So why would they complain, these new people; the trials of their forebears have sunk deep into the collective psyche. For shame they will not complain. And yet they feel it; they feel the stillness and the sapping heat of noon in an English village on a certain kind of summer's day, and so it was on this day in the village of Middlewapping.
And there will perhaps be an exaggeration of temperament; those of withdrawn or quiet nature become still more withdrawn and quiet, whilst those of a more volatile disposition will tend towards greater volatility, for we are as we are, whatever has made us so.
* * *
'Bloody bugger it!'
'What's the matter, honey?'
'I can't get this bloody computer to do what I tell it.'
Emily was at home, working on an accounts program which she would need for her new job. She had been to the town the day before in search of clothes. She had made do hitherto, with the exception of occasional self-indulgence, with clothes from second-hand shops, or shops which sold clothes for an English pound, but now, although they could scarce afford it on the money which Will earned from his job at the Garden Centre, she needed to update and improve her wardrobe. If she was to become a working woman, she needed a working woman's attire. Will had agreed, of course. The hurricane which was Emily Cleves and which had blown through the young life of Will Tucker these past few months since their first kiss in the darkness of Jacob's Field was blowing strong again. She had been becalmed by circumstance; the wretchedness of the killing of the man from London had stopped her in her tracks, for a while. But that was over now. It had been over since she had thrown the flowers over the cliff, and Meadow had said the strong, sweet words as only she would know how; she who had brought calm with her calmness and understanding. And since then Will Tucker had been carried along in the new-found energy of his beloved Emily, and that energy had borne good fortune, as it sometimes will, and she had found a job.
'Well, it's sort of a job' she had said when she broke the good news to Will over a glass of cheap red wine one evening. 'It's kind of half a job, which will turn into a proper job later.'
'I see, so it's one of those kinds of job.' Will had said, understanding none of that which his beloved was saying.
'Yes' Emily had said 'It's one of those kinds of job.'
The good fortune had in fact been the result of conversations and circumstances which had their roots further back in time. Further back indeed than need be considered or written of here, but recent events had conspired to lead to an agreement between Emily and a certain other person, which had occurred some weeks previously.
* * *
On this sultry, summers' day, at the same time, another conversation was in process between Victoria Tillington, only daughter to Lord and Lady Tillington of Middlewapping Manor, and another young woman, who's name was Rebecca. The conversation was taking place in the back garden of a certain house very close to number seven, The Green, where Emily was attempting to bring her accounts program to heel. It was a conversation which, once again, could be traced back to its' vague and uncertain source during the time that these two women were about to be reunited; when their love was about to be reborn, or woken from its' long, enforced sleep. If the conversation at its' beginning was general and non-specific, it built to a subject and a point in time which neither had spoken of since it's occurrence, but which Victoria Tillington badly wanted to understand, indeed needed to understand. Had she known what the consequences of this need would be, or her attempted satiation of it, she would perhaps have left the words unspoken, but if hindsight is the companion to wisdom, then foresight can oft times be its' enemy.
'So how were you there?' she said
'What do you mean?' said Rebecca
'You came to find me in hospital when I was ... when I was still asleep.'
'Yes, you know I did; I told you.'
'Yes I know you were physically there, that much I understand, but you were with me; in my dreams, if that is what they were.'
'Was I?' said Rebecca 'It was only a dream, dear one.'
'Ohhh, you drive me crazy! You know what I'm talking about; you were there, on the cliff by the sea, not as you are now but as you used to be when we were younger, you sang to me when I was.... I can't remember everything, it's so frustrating, help me to understand.'
'Perhaps I don't understand either,' said Rebecca 'have you ever thought of that? How the hell do I know everything that goes on or was going on in your head? You were in a coma, for Christ's sake.'
'You know more than you're telling me; that much I know.' said Victoria.
'Then let it be so.' said Rebecca. 'You got better, we found each other again, just let it be.'
'I can't.' said Victoria. 'I want to understand how it was possible; how you could do what you did. I just know that without you.... without you I would never have made it back.'
Rebecca was silent. She smiled at her beloved Victoria, but said nothing more. Whatever she knew, she would not tell her; not yet, and perhaps never. She would live to regret her silence every bit as much as Victoria would regret her words, but the power to foresee is in the end a mythical beast which lives and breathes only in our imagination.
'You know what they are saying, don't you?' said Victoria, after a few moments of silence had elapsed.
'What are they saying?' said Rebecca.
'They say that.... they say that you are a witch.'
Rebecca choked on her tea.
'Do they?' she said, when she had recovered herself sufficiently. 'Do they indeed? I wonder what I did to give them that impression. Maybe I left my broomstick lying around; how silly of me. Anyway who are 'they', who know so much about me?'
'Oh I don't know, just people. Damn it Bex, is there anything that you're not telling me; I mean anything really important?'
'No, sweetheart' said Rebecca 'There's nothing, really. There's nothing that I can tell you. We found each other and we love each other, that's what really matters, isn't it?'
'Of course.' said Victoria 'Of course it is. You do drive me crazy though.'
'T'was ever thus, was it not?' Said Rebecca 'Now stop worrying about it, it's too hot to consider such matters anyway. I wonder if it's cooler upstairs.'
'You want to find out?' said Victoria.
'That's better.' said Rebecca 'You look better when you smile.'
* * *
For the past two or so years the holiday rental business had been, to say the least of it, slow, the house was becoming a liability and reluctantly David Thompson had decided that it had to be sold. He knew, of course, that it would sell quickly; after all how often did houses around the Green in Middlewapping come up for sale; seldom, indeed. He also knew that such houses held their value even at such times of economic stagnation. Nevertheless to sell such an asset when the housing market was still at the bottom of a slump went against all of his better instincts, but the decision had to be made, however reluctantly. In the event the sale went through even more quickly than he had anticipated; even before the photograph and details were in the Estate Agency window word had somehow been passed around, and a young lady had come to the agency in the morning and made an offer of the full asking-price. Mr Thompson had been taken aback somewhat when he discovered the identity of the buyer, and her circumstances, ('Well well; I never would have imagined ...') but within days the deposit was paid and awaiting clearance, the mortgage had been arranged, a contract was drawn up and signed, and only a matter of weeks later the same young lady had walked into the agency to take possession of the keys. So it was that on a certain summers' day not dissimilar to this, Victoria Tillington walked through the front door of number one, The Green; the house where she had made herself dead, and which now was to be her new home.
'Are you quite insane?' Rebecca had said to her on a previous day when Victoria had expressed her intention to purchase the house, if she could. 'Does the house not hold dem.... Is it not a place of horror for you, after what happened there?'
'No.' Victoria had said 'I can't remember much about, you know.... And if there are demons there, I have to expunge them; there can be no regrets, no looking back; can you understand that? If I can turn all of that; everything which happened before into a happy place to live; for us to live, then I will feel as though we will have won, in a way. Anyway these are my people now, they are my friends. I love them, and.... and I want to live amongst them. This kind of opportunity may not come again; it has to be now. In every way it feels like the right thing to do.'
And so, for now, the resting place of Victoria Tillington, the house where she would find comfort, which she would fill with her own self and her own possessions, where she would brush her teeth and comb her hair every morning and live out the vagaries of her life, was the house where she had before discovered and been to the place where a human soul can go no further; where the battle had been lost. She had been carried out of the front door on a stretcher by the ambulance men, her life ended, and now she would walk back through the same door, a young woman with a life before her.
* * *
And there were reactions, of course. The first time in recent history that Victoria had come to the village Green she was in search of; in search of what? Superficially the Delicatessen; at a deeper level perhaps she was searching for something else, however deeply in her subconscious that search had begun. On that occasion she had touched the minds of certain residents of the Green. Her second visit when she had been to her now new home for the first time set in motion a chain of events which had moved the emotions and lives of some others of the people in the most profound way. And now she was back, and this time it would be a more permanent residence, and so of course, there were reactions.
Captain Caruthers from number two The Green, had had a conversation with Daphne Pouffe from number six.
'Seems like a nice young filly if you ask me, what?' he had said 'Raise the tone of the place, I daresay. Most charming, most charming; jolly good to see somebody bounce back from that....' Captain Caruthers was a man of the world.
Daphne Pouffe, who had been at the death scene, and who had taken it upon herself to break the news of her daughters' illness to Lady Tillington, was absolutely delighted, of course.
'I'm absolutely delighted, of course'
What she was less convinced about was Victoria's choice of house-mate; she had heard some things, and when all was said and done she was by no means a stupid woman.
'I see that the ever-enigmatic Rebecca has also taken up residence. I mean I'm sure she is nice enough when one gets to know her, if one is ever given the opportunity, and I'm sure they will have separate bedrooms, of course, but do you think it is all quite proper?'
Daphne's suspicions in relation to the profession of a certain Rose Ireland who was now by happenstance the owner of number seven had grown ever stronger of late, William and Emily had moved into the same house out of wedlock, and now there was this; two young women moving in together under these circumstances was something which did not fit easily into her world-view; into the way that things should be done. To Daphne, the village was her life, and she began to think that the moral standards of the place were beginning to disintegrate around her. She would temper her reaction to her new close-neighbours until she was more certain of their circumstance, however delighted she may be.
Via a network of casual conversations, everybody had gained foreknowledge of the impending, permanent arrival of Victoria in the small, tight community around the village Green, however Sally from number three was absent from the village when she actually moved in two doors away. She and Percival had reluctantly put Lulu into boarding kennels for the first time, and for the first time had taken a holiday together. In truth Percival had never been much interested in holidays of which the point was to relax, they seemed to him to be ultimately pointless; he quickly bored of resort-life, had no interest in darkening his skin colour, and was less comfortable with heat than most despite his partially southern-European ancestry. Nevertheless Sally had arranged a Caribbean holiday for them, she being quite content to laze by swimming pools drinking cocktails with small, plastic umbrellas in them, and she felt as though she hadn't had a decent suntan in years. For girls like Sally, of pure Anglo Saxon extraction, who's ancestors had travelled southwards from colder climes in search of new lands and new trading opportunities, skin-tone was important and needed to be worked at; Percival got a suntan without trying, or wishing to do so. And so, in order for the holiday to go ahead to the satisfaction of two such disparate individuals, however in love they may be, they had reached a compromise; Percival would bring his lap-top so long as he restricted his work to certain specified number of hours in a day; she would have a certain number of days by the hotel swimming pool and on other days they would find other activities. In the event things worked out perfectly; the hotel had an on-site SCUBA centre and Percival learned to SCUBA dive. This took him away from the hotel on the dive-boat for a few hours most days and gave him an interest and a focus. They would meet up in the late afternoon, sleep for a couple of hours and enjoy the evenings and nights together. In this way, aside from Percival's maritime excursions, they rarely left the hotel compound, an arrangement which suited Sally perfectly, and the lap-top remained unopened throughout apart from the occasional checking of and responding to e mails.
'You think she's going to be okay?' said Percival one evening as they were enjoying pre-dinner drinks in the Sunset Bar which overlooked the calm, azure blue Caribbean water. 'It's going to feel strange for her at first.'
'Who ...?'
'Lulu'
'Of course she'll be okay.' said Sally
'I mean it's not as though we're away for long, is it, and these places, well they're good at looking after dogs, aren't they?'
'Of course they're good at looking after dogs; it's what they do.' Sally smiled to herself; despite the persona which Percival presented to the world he was like new putty when it came to a still small, furry animal. The dog had been her gift to him, and so officially she was Percival's dog although they took a roughly equal share in her care, and she was equally at home at number three as she was at Percival's cottage which lay at the end of its' own lane slightly away from the village Green. In Sally's view, certain dogs were suitable to certain people, and German shepherd dogs, despite their fearsome reputation and their potential to fulfill this inbred characteristic could be gentle, devoted and faithful if carefully handled; in her view it was the only dog for Percival. Every morning at about the same time, before breakfast but not before his first strong cup of coffee of the day, Percival would take her out for her walk, and what he called her 'training sessions' although it seemed to Sally that the dog could do pretty much what she wanted, and on the whole seemed less than responsive to his commands.
