An Affair to Remember (23 page)

Clarrie continues: “I know it sounds a bit hazy, but it’s hard to put into words. Sel has been on to the local archivist about the legend, which is still well known in the area, although the locals tend to keep it to themselves because of the rather unsavoury connotations. He said it was a monk sometime in the twelfth century who first wrote down the story, and there have been a number of cases since then of girls being ‘taken’ as it were, in much the same way as Beatrice. The first officially recorded victim was burned as a witch sometime in the seventeenth century, and nearly all subsequent ones, until comparatively recently, have come to sticky ends.”

At this point Sam, trying not to shudder, can stand it no longer and, draping the bath towel decorously round him, retrieves his packet of cigarettes from the bedside table. “I hope you don’t mind?”

Clarrie, well into her theme, shakes her head impatiently and continues, “Apparently Granny Bogg’s Great Aunt Ali’s case was quite a local
cause celebre
at the time. In fact Mr Smith says the then vicar of Kimbleford wrote a privately printed treatise on the subject, complete with lurid drawings of Ali and her predecessors being ‘visited’ by Tavey. The legend itself, he says, was turned into a melodrama in the early nineteenth century and played to packed houses for many years.”

“And I’m the joker in the pack, the fall guy. I can’t wait.”

“Not at all,” Clarrie says soothingly, “quite the opposite; you’re the hero. You see the point I’m trying to make is that not once in all the legends, folk lore, whatever, that have grown up since Tavey dumped Brian and knowingly or unknowingly had their baby murdered fifteen hundred odd years ago, has a man ever figured in any positive way. It was a female slave who killed the child; it was a female, Brian’s mum, who laid down the curse and was only prevented from taking the baby and giving it Christian burial by dropping down dead herself. Tavey’s dad and her prospective husband are really only peripheral to the story.”

“The prospective husband killed Brian, didn’t he? I wouldn’t call that peripheral.”

“If your dream is right, yes. But quite honestly, Sam, unlike you, Brian does seem to have been a bit of a wimp. I know it wasn’t his fault he got himself killed by the boyfriend, but he didn’t put up much of a fight, did he?”

Sam, unconvinced, feels an obscure and, on the face of it, totally irrational desire to stand up for his sex. “I suppose not. But perhaps as a Christian convert he felt he shouldn’t – fight I mean.” Clarrie doesn’t reply for a minute and there’s a stillness about her he finds a little unnerving. In fact the silence between them goes on for such a long time he begins to think he’s managed to put his foot in it in some way. “Have I said the wrong thing?” he ventures. But Clarrie shakes her head and, much relieved, he sees she’s smiling.

“No, you idiot, of course you haven’t; in fact I think you’ve hit the bloody jackpot!”

“Hit the jackpot?” He looks at her in bewilderment.

“Yes. What you said about Brian being a Christian. His Mum was too, we know this, it’s an important part of the legend. Brian and Tavey’s baby was never baptised and died unshriven. I know the nurse buried the cup with the Chi-Rho symbol on it with him, but that obviously wasn’t enough and I’m pretty sure now that it’s your task to put that right. Once you have, the curse comes to an end.”

“You mean I must locate the baby’s body, and somehow get it christened?”

Clarrie nods, “Yes, that’s just what I do mean. Only you won’t have to do the digging, will you, we can leave that to the experts…”

*

“So this is how the other half live,” Sid says as he negotiates the Mini Clubman through the narrow gates of Brown End. “Looks like a bloody building site to me, they must be spending a fortune on the place.”

“I’ve no doubt they are, and good luck to them,” Emmie gives her face a quick once over in the mirror as the car draws up at the front door, “but we’re not here to gawp.”

Before they’ve had time to ring the bell the front door’s opened by Sel, who’s been watching out for them. Everyone else in the place being occupied – Pippa and Ron, having rustled up a bus load of students due to arrive at midday; are busy planning the forthcoming dig; Juan, Clarrie, and Mrs Bogg are preparing a buffet lunch for unknown quantities of people in the kitchen and Izzy Moss, who’d arrived earlier than expected having cancelled his morning meeting, is upstairs having a preliminary run-through with Sam before seeing Beatrice – Sel is, for him, in the unusual position of being surplus to requirements.

“Here we are at last, Mr Woodhead,” Emmie says, using, Sid notes with a wry smile, her posh voice, “and this is my friend Mr Parfitt, I told you about on the phone…” Introductions suitably gone through, Sel ushers them into the sitting room.

“Lovely place you have here, Mr Woodhead,” Sid looks about him with interest, “I’ve been away in Australia for the last few years and forgotten how beautiful the old UK can be.”

Sel smiles abstractedly, “It has its moments. Now, Mr Parfitt, perhaps you’d like to wait here, while I take Mrs Mallory to my office for an update on what’s been happening. I’m afraid I don’t think we can manage coffee, there’s to be an influx of students at midday, and it’s all hands to the pump in the kitchen. Is it too early for a drink?”

Sid is about to say no, it isn’t too early for a drink, when Emmie, looking determined, intervenes, “Mr Parfitt is here as my adviser, Mr Woodhead, and I should like him to be present at any discussions we may have. I would also like to see my, er… Sam as soon as possible. Even if he doesn’t recognise me, I might –”

“Of course, dear, of course. And there will be no question of your husband failing to recognise you. This morning, I’m glad to say, he appears to have returned to normality. And as you’d like Mr Parfitt to be present at our discussion, we might as well stay here in comfort, and I’ll do what I can to put you both in the picture…”

Up in Clarrie’s bedroom the phone rings. Dressed now, and about to descend to the kitchen again, she turns back to answer it.

“Yes?”

“Mrs Woodhead, Millie at the surgery here. Dr Hardcastle has had to go out, but he’s asked me to ring you. Just to confirm that the test was positive and everything is absolutely as it should be. One thing though, Mrs Woodhead, your pregnancy turns out to be several weeks more advanced than you thought. In fact, and I hope this isn’t too much of a shock, or if it is it’s a nice one; all being well, your baby should be with us in time for Christmas.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure, Mrs Woodhead…”

The conversation finished, Clarrie, her legs about to give way under her, sits down on the bed. She doesn’t quite know what she feels; on balance she thinks, excited. If the baby’s due in December, it had to have been conceived in March. She and Jack Fulton didn’t start their affair until June. Ergo, the baby isn’t Jack’s. If the baby isn’t Jack’s, then… there was only one answer to that; it had to be Sel’s. But it couldn’t be Sel’s, he’d been given the chop.

Or had he? That day, the day they first visited Brown End and made love in the great barn, it had been something special, surprised them both: in some way it was that that had made them decide to buy the place. Even Sel, most practical of men, had for a brief moment been caught up in the magic.

Remembering, she gets off the bed and wanders over to the window. Across the yard, high above the great barn, Tavey’s tree reaches into the sky, a swirl of rooks fluttering round it – something must have disturbed them, she wonders idly what. After a minute or two they begin to settle again, returning noisily to their rickety platforms scattered through the branches, until the tree, before a vivid green against the sky, is now blotched and smudged with sooty black.

Oh gosh, says Clarrie to herself, oh bloody gosh….

*

“I don’t believe a word of it,” Emmie says, looking pale and a tiny bit frightened. She and Sid are alone in the living room at Brown End sipping gin and tonics, Sel having left them to check if Izzy Moss had finished with Sam. “It’ll all be turned into one of that man’s TV programmes, you mark my words, and it’s my husband he’s messing with – as to that girl…”

“But Sam isn’t you husband, dear, is he?” Sid interrupts. “Never was and never will be. Facts, sooner or later, have to be faced. You were a bit of a naughty girl, Em. Not without provocation I grant you,” he adds hastily, seeing Emmie about to expostulate, “but in the eyes of the law you’re a bigamist.”

“And who caused me to be, may I ask? Who buggered off to Australia leaving me in the lurch? After that first letter from Melbourne, not a dicky bird. What was I supposed to do? You don’t know what it was like being on my own all those years, not knowing…”

“I behaved badly, Em, I behaved like a heel, I admit it.” To emphasise his point Sid goes down on his knees beside her, takes her hand. “No excuses. But somehow I’d just had it up to here with things: that dead end job at the Co-op, never having quite enough to make ends meet, old Jim Bigglesworth’s letter telling us about that job in Oz and you saying you wouldn’t go. Then to cap it all you carrying on with that Henry what’s-his-name at the supermarket, well I just couldn’t take it anymore.” Just as Emmie’s about to interrupt with a disclaimer that she had not been carrying on with Henry from the supermarket (well she hadn’t had she, not really), Clarrie appears in the doorway.

“Your husband’s ready for you now. Mrs Mallory, if you and your friend would like to come up. Dr Moss has just finished his medical examination and everything’s fine.” Even in jeans, T-shirt and no makeup, Clarrie looks pretty good; Sid, scrambling to his feet like a guilty schoolboy, certainly thinks so. “By the way,” she goes on, holding out her hand, “I don’t think we’ve met before, or not properly; I’m Clarrie Woodhead.”

Emmie, her eyes cold as stones, gives her the once over, before she too rises to her feet. She’d love to say they had a mutual friend in the person of Jack Fulton, but feeling it’s hardly the time or place to do so, has to be content with “Pleased to meet you,” uttered in such a way that no one could be in any doubt she meant precisely the opposite, and a limp handshake.

Clarrie, a little surprised by the sudden chill in the room, smiles politely at the now rather sheepish Sid, and unable to think of anything else to say, leads the way upstairs; where Sam, shaved, showered and fully clothed, having endured what he feels a totally unnecessary medical going over by Professor Moss, who quite frankly he doesn’t think much of, awaits them with some trepidation. How this Sid Parfitt had got himself into the mix he can’t imagine. No doubt he’ll soon find out.

“Sam, dear, it’s your Emmie. Do you recognise me?”

“Of course I recognise you, why on earth shouldn’t I? However, I don’t recognise this gentleman, I can’t quite understand why –”

“A friend of mine, dear, Sidney Parfitt, just back from Australia; he’s helping me out in the shop, on a temporary basis of course, while –”

“But why is he here?”

At this point Sid decides to intervene: “Now Emmie, dear,” he places a restraining hand on Emmie arm, “no more pussy-footing, it’s time we came clean. Mrs Woodhead says Sam’s perfectly fit to talk.”

“Of course I’m fit to talk. Look, what is all this about?”

Sid clears his throat, looking at Emmie and with only the faintest tremor in his voice, tells him.

For a moment Sam can’t believe what he’s hearing. Was this some kind of strange aberration on the part of his wife; to add to all the other aberrations that seemed to be taking place in his life, or even – and it had to be said this was not beyond the bounds of possibility – he himself had started to hallucinate? He looks across the room at Sid, who with a mixture of guilt and defiance on his face, is looking across at him, plainly awaiting some sort of response; Em, herself, standing a little behind him, appears to be studying a framed watercolour of the front at Torquay on the wall opposite, while fiddling with her hair (the latter a sure sign she’s nervous) and realises with a rush of joy mixed with relief that what he’s just heard is the truth. His first impulse is to embrace the bearer of this joyful news, fall at his feet, kiss him even. However, as such behaviour would be neither seemly nor possible, in as firm a voice as he can muster under the prevailing circumstances, he asks: “Are you saying we’re not actually married?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Sam turns to Emmie: “Is this true?”

“Yes, dear, I’m afraid it is. It was wrong of me I know, I should have told you.” But Sam, to her surprise, not to say annoyance, is looking at her with a smile of pure happiness on his face.

“Oh Em,” he says, his eyes filling with unmanly tears, “please, please don’t be sorry. No one’s to blame – I’ve been a heel, I know. And we both made a stupid mistake. Now all I can say is I’m so very glad for you that Sid has come back to you.”

“Spoken like a gentleman!” Sid steps forward and shakes his hand. “As to the little legal matter, I’m sure we can sort things out.”

Sam nods, “I’m sure we can.”

“You’re taking it very well, I must say.” There are two spots of red on Emmie’s cheeks. “Anyone would think you were pleased.”

Sam smiles apologetically, what does it matter now what he says? “In all truthfulness I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“Come on, dear, it’s time we left,” Sid says, taking the affronted Emmie firmly by the arm and leading her to the door, “there’s nothing more we can do here.” Emmie allows herself to be gently propelled from the room, but once out in the passage, turns angrily on Sid.

“See what I mean? I knew we shouldn’t have told him. That Dr Moss is talking through his hat, my Sam’s gone clean off his chump.”

Beatrice lies on her bed, Izzy Moss seated in a chair drawn up beside her. “Now, Miss Travers – Beatrice,” he says in a voice developed over the years for soothing the fears of depressed and/or neurotic ladies (it has never, for some reason, proved so effective with men). “I’m now going to give you a small injection: this won’t hurt, but will make you feel relaxed and drowsy and not frightened or angry anymore.”

Beatrice looks at him pleadingly, “Oh God, must you? I feel so woozy and full of drugs as it is, and I’m worried about what’s happened to Sam; where is he and why can’t I see him?”