At Hawthorn Time (12 page)

‘There are three really good sets up there, as you know,’ he said – this was flattery, plain and simple – ‘the Hastings, the Bush and the Philco. The Hastings isn’t really my period – it’s post-war, of course, but it’s a nice example, so I’ll make an exception. I’ll give you forty for it. The Bush – you see them a fair bit, but the Bakelite’s in good nick so again, I’ll give you forty. The Philco, well, I’m sure you’ve done your homework. I’ll give you a hundred for it.’

Gary looked briefly surprised. ‘So that’s . . . let’s say two hundred, shall we? Now, what about the rest?’

Howard raised an eyebrow, but conceded. ‘The rest, well, not so good. A lot of them are what I call “car boot” wirelesses; you might get a quid or two each for them at a boot sale. And a lot of them are fifties and sixties, which isn’t my period. I was hoping for some solder, but I suppose that’s gone.’

‘Your mate took that,’ said Gary. ‘What about all the parts and the equipment?’

‘I can probably put you on to someone.’

Gary considered for a moment. Work on the shop was clearly moving on apace, something Howard had taken very much into consideration. ‘So you only want the three?’

‘You should take the rest to a boot sale. On a good day, with a following wind, you might get rid of them that way.’

‘Tell you what. Give me three hundred and you can take the lot.’

‘Like I say, Gary, the post-war stuff isn’t really my thing.’

‘Two fifty.’

‘Got a couple of cardboard boxes?’

Driving back Howard could barely believe what he’d pulled off. In the boot of the Audi were eight pre-war wirelesses – all models he’d be happy to have in his collection – plus two slightly damaged cabinets and a box of valves, knobs, capacitors, batteries and other components. There were sixteen more modern radios that he could probably sell or trade – three in their original boxes – two signal generators, an oscilloscope worth a hundred quid on its own, an avometer and a valve tester. On the seat next to him was a cardboard wavelength calculator, some ancient editions of the
Radio Times
and a couple of old receiving licences. Things like that were worth nothing, of course, but it might be fun to frame them and put them up on the wall of the radio room.

The showers had cleared to leave a warm evening in their wake, and through the windscreen Howard could see a hot-air balloon making the most of the thermals over Babb Hill. Rumour had it that due to some quirk of geography the locals up there sometimes got Radio Moscow coming out of their TVs and radios when the weather was right – although like all such things it was probably a myth.

I’ll get a battery in that Dansette, he thought, and I’ll take it up there one fine, dry night and find out.

Jack was toiling slowly up a path beside the young wheat when he saw Howard’s headlights flash out once as he turned off the Boundway towards the village. The field margins were coming alive around him, and it was the time of day Jack liked best. As the air cooled it was as though the young wheat exhaled, and he could smell the day’s sunshine on its breath.

It made him realise he was hungry: perhaps someone in Lodeshill grew vegetables, he thought, or perhaps the pub left their bin store unlocked. He would sleep in the little wood by the village tonight, he decided, and tomorrow he would visit the farms and find out if the asparagus was ready to pick.

As he reached the top of the rise a church bell began to toll, the old notes rolling out slowly over the darkening landscape. Jack crossed a stile onto a narrow lane that ran between the rectory’s garden and a paddock in which two horses stood as still as statues in the dusk. Ahead, the church spire marked Lodeshill’s position against the sky.

A second note joined the first, increasing in urgency, tolling the living and long-gone villagers in from the fields and farms as it had done for century upon century, gathering them in as night fell. Jack did not want anyone to see him and so he slipped into a quiet garden where he stood bell-struck, eyes closed, feeling the pull of the little church with its porch light and thinking about what it would mean to go in.

After a while the notes became again a single toll, like a passing bell, and then slowed, and stopped. The little village was folded again in silence, and the paths and roads seemed darker than before. Jack lingered until a blackbird scolded him from a magnolia, and when he moved on his face was wet with tears.

St James’s drew a regular congregation of about fifteen, though it swelled quite a lot at Christmas, and a little at Easter, too. But the monthly evensong was a different matter – which seemed a shame to Kitty, as it was by far her favourite service.

That night there were only four other worshippers: the churchwardens Bill Drew and George Jefferies, who rang the bell together; Bill’s wife Jean, who always had some morsel of village gossip for Kitty and would not be dissuaded; and one of the village farmers, a bent man now in his seventies who looked as though he could very well have tied his plough horse to the lychgate outside. They sat together at the front of the darkened church, except the farmer, who always took the rear pew no matter which service he attended.

When the bell’s last note had died away Bill switched the sidelights on and walked up the aisle, turned to them and said, ‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’ ‘The Lord is risen indeed,’ they replied.

The service was short but had a simplicity that moved Kitty in ways some of the grander church occasions never did. It was a coming together of neighbours as darkness fell, and carried with it a flavour of a time when prayer was much more necessary, life’s dangers being so very great. She looked at the familiar heads around her, bowed in prayer, and wondered what these ordinary village people confided to their God in the silence of their hearts, and what answer they received. Once or twice she had peeked at the folded notes tucked into the prayer board at the back of the church; they were never anything but heartbreaking. ‘Pray for Gladys who has cancer’; ‘Please pray that my son will come home safely’; or, simply, ‘Pray for John’.

Now she thought about her fall in the field – the momentary numbness, the frightening sense that her legs had for a moment actually become absent – and tried to imagine writing such a note herself.

Although she did not believe in God, neither could she remain silent when the Creed was spoken. The lovely words had a resonance far beyond their literal meaning, and if the calm that she received from them was not the peace of Christ, it was enough.

The old farmer could recite each service without reference to a prayer book, and she could hear him now, calmly intoning the third collect from the dim pew behind her in his cracked country burr:

‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only son, our saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.’

At the close of the service they sang the
Te Deum
, Bill’s wife giving the first note before their five untrained voices wavered through Britten’s lovely setting. At first Kitty had wondered why they bothered with hymns when the congregation for evensong was so small, but as time went one she’d come to respect the awkward honesty of the few hesitant yet brave voices setting off to do justice to the well-loved tunes, and the way that by the final line they had woven together to carry it to its close in something like triumph.

George Jefferies was in his late seventies and growing too confused and forgetful to lead the services at church. In fact, his duties beyond distributing and collecting up the prayer books were now few; but it was unlikely that he would be relieved of his role of churchwarden, which was not just a duty of his faith but a cornerstone of his life since his wife had passed away. The vicar’s wife called in on him once a week, and it was she and Jean who had arranged his meals on wheels and home help; Christine Hawton had found a local lad to mow his lawn and weed the beds, too.

Like many elderly people, George retained the persona he had presented to the world for his entire adult life – in his case, one of affable jocularity – though the animus that sustained it had shrunk slowly away, so that beyond his habitual friendly greeting he usually had very little to say. Kitty had learned not to push him beyond his capabilities or try to engage him too much in conversation; it was clear, some days, that he wasn’t sure who she was, and on others that, while he was happy enough to greet her by name, his interest in small talk or village happenings had long since receded. So she was surprised when he touched her arm as the little group filed out of the porch and into the soft evening air.

‘You, er . . .’ he began.

‘Hello, George. How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you. Yes.’

‘Would you like me to walk you home?’

‘Oh no, quite all right. Quite all right. I just wanted to mention – that chap, you know, the one who Jean saw at the allotments . . .’

Kitty was momentarily confused. She had had a brief chat with Bill’s wife before the service, mostly about the farm that was up for sale, but hadn’t realised that George had overheard. More importantly, she’d dismissed Jean’s mention of a suspicious man as idle gossip, something Jean always loved to impart.

‘Jean thought someone might be sleeping rough nearby, George, that’s all.’

‘Yes. Now, is it a vagrant of some kind? Homeless?’

‘I’m not sure, George. Why, are you worried?’

‘I saw him as well. Or at least . . . I think I did. In my garden.’

‘In your garden? Are you sure?’

‘Oh yes, it gave me quite a start. For a moment I thought it was Margaret, you know; she had a lovely voice. Did you know my wife, or . . .?’

‘When was this?’ Kitty was trying hard to keep an uncharitable note of scepticism out of her voice.

‘Oh, she passed away . . . some time ago now.’

‘I’m sorry, George. I meant, when did you see the man? The one in your garden?’

‘Earlier on. Or perhaps – no, it was definitely today. Yes, just before the service.’

‘And you’re sure?’

‘Oh yes. Quite sure. And I was wondering, is he dangerous?’

‘Why – what was he doing?’

‘Well, this is it, you see; that’s just it. He was singing.’

Howard was watching the motor racing when Kitty got back from church. She looked, as she came in, almost guilty, he thought; and for a moment he felt guilty himself, that he had caused his wife to feel ashamed of something so harmless as going to evensong. Perhaps if she didn’t give him a hard time about going to the pub now and then, though. Perhaps then he wouldn’t be on the back bloody foot all the time.

‘How was church?’ he asked, and then, ‘I’ll set the table,’ without waiting for her to answer. ‘I’m having a beer. Glass of wine?’

‘Just a spritzer, please. And let’s have the television off,’ Kitty called through from the kitchen. Howard pretended not to hear.

‘That farm sale’s on Tuesday,’ he said, making for the pantry. ‘I had a look in the parish newsletter. They’re doing the house contents too. Culverkeys, it’s called.’

‘Oh yes, I meant to say,’ said Kitty, something in her voice giving him pause. ‘He – it was a suicide. The farmer. Jean Drew told me.’

Howard turned at the pantry door, came back. ‘He
killed
himself? Jesus. How old was he?’

‘Fifty-seven.’

‘How –’

‘I didn’t ask.’

‘No. Of course.’ Howard tried, and failed, to stop himself picturing it: a noose in the barn, a shotgun in the kitchen; one of those things they used to stun cattle. ‘Christ. Same age as me.’

‘I know.’

‘Kids?’

‘Two. And an ex-wife.’

‘Why? I mean – why’d he do it?’

‘It’s a tough life, being a farmer. No money in it.’

‘Oh come on, they’re raking in the subsidies, all of them. Must be more to it than that.’

Kitty sighed. ‘Maybe he missed his wife and kids, Howard. Maybe he had depression – who knows. Anyway, Jean’s worried they’ll put up a lot of houses there – she said that a while back this whole area got earmarked for development.’

Kitty’s default position was to oppose any new building in the countryside, something Howard often needled her about. ‘The population is expanding,’ he’d say. ‘Where are people supposed to live?’ But the news about the farmer’s suicide had left him shaken, and he felt, childishly, that he wanted people to be kind to him, and that he must be kind in turn.

‘Let’s hope they don’t. This is a lovely village,’ he said, drawing a look of almost grateful surprise from Kitty.

‘Are you still going to go to the sale?’ she asked. Howard could tell she didn’t want him to, but he realised, now, that they were in accord.

‘No. I – it doesn’t seem right.’

‘No, I can see that,’ she replied with a nod.

Howard disappeared into the pantry and returned with a bottle of wine. ‘I hope not everyone feels the same, though,’ he said, rummaging in a drawer for the corkscrew; ‘I mean, the family will need people to bid on all that stuff.’

‘Yes, but – we’re incomers,’ said Kitty, articulating the thought with some difficulty. ‘It would be like – like souvenir-hunting, to go over there and carry things off. It’s one thing the other farmers buying things they need, and even strangers coming, people who have no idea at all about what happened. But for  us – I don’t know. It’s just – it’s not our place.’