MASQUES OF SATAN (32 page)

‘Do you golf?’ Major Brudenell asked Max.

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Ah . . . Sail?’

‘Not really.’

‘Play Bridge?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Hmm . . . You’ll find it very quiet round here, then.’

‘I hope so,’ said Max. There was a pause while Major Brudenell tried to make sense of this peculiar point of view.

‘So what is it you do with yourself then?’ he said at last.

‘I’m a composer.’

‘Ah . . . Ought I to have heard of you?’

Max had a stock answer to this question which was: ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you if you haven’t.’ He gave it.

‘I wasn’t going to,’ said Major Brudenell irritably, beginning to stride off ahead of him. Feeling that they ought not to part in acrimony, Max caught up with him and asked about Judy, whose grave they were to visit.

‘Ah. Yes. Judy.’ Major Brudenell was silent for a moment. It was clear that he did not find it easy to place Judy. ‘Quite a decent sort, I think. She was very useful to Madge, you know, on the parish council and that sort of thing. Librarian. Bookworm, you see,’ he concluded. Max wondered for a moment if he was referring to a rare disease. Silence followed. The Major seemed about to add something, but then thought better of it and abruptly began to march away ahead of Max.

They had crossed two moonlit fields of grey-green stubble and were approaching the River Sterne whose wide estuary, dotted with little archipelagos of reed-crowned mud banks against which small sailing dinghies leaned at drunken angles from the receding tide, shimmered under the silver disc of the moon. Smuggler’s Path, on which they now embarked, ran parallel with the river, and was flanked on both sides by bushes and trees which sometimes arched over the track, almost completely obscuring the sky. Max liked the sense of solitude and concealment it gave him, qualities no doubt also appreciated by its original users. He dawdled in the darkness, maintaining his bearings by keeping his eyes on the torches of other walkers, flashing ahead of him.

It was in these solitary moments that Max first began to feel that he was not alone. Someone was keeping pace with him in the undergrowth to his right, the non-river side, like the moon that flashed along beside him behind the trees. He attributed his impressions to a vulnerable imagination, but occasionally the snap of a twig, or the shifting of a shadow out of the corner of his eye, gave his feelings some sort of external reinforcement. He quickened his pace and found that he had caught up with Tim Calder, a man of middle age who had rather run to seed. For the walk he had dressed himself in the regulation country gentleman’s uniform of a green Barbour and Wellingtons, as if for a pigeon shoot; but the loudness of the check cap he wore cast doubt on his pretensions.

‘Have you seen Harriet, my so-called better half?’ he asked.

Max shook his head.

‘Hope she’s all right. Last time we did this midnight walk she got lost. She’d had a skinfull as usual. I think I’ve managed to ration her booze this time.’

‘Did you have to send out search parties?’

‘No. Judy went back and found her, of course. You never met Judy, did you?’

‘Before my time.’

‘Don’t believe all they tell you about her, by the way. I knew her better than most. When my mother was still alive and living with us Harriet left me for a bit. Couldn’t cope with my mother’s Alzheimer’s, and that sort of thing. Obviously I wasn’t able to handle it on my own because I was out at work. I’m a freelance management consultant; had to bring in the bacon. Fortunately, Judy was on hand and stepped in to the breach. Used to go in and give mother her lunch, that sort of thing. She worked just across the way in the library, so it was very little bother. Actually, Judy and I had a tiny bit of a ding-dong going for a while. That would surprise some people here who think she was just a buttoned-up spinster. Only a brief fling, though. Nothing serious. On my part anyway. Do you know, I honestly believe I was Judy’s first and only. Well then, we — or rather Judy — managed to find a home for mother to go into, and Harriet came back.’

‘How did Judy feel about that?’

‘Oh. Judy didn’t mind. In fact she encouraged it, went to see her, persuaded her to return. It suited Judy’s book, and I went along with her. I think Judy got a bit of a kick out of organising other people’s lives, you know. So it wasn’t all a one-way street. Not by a long chalk. For instance, I taught her all she knew about wine. Couldn’t tell a Medoc from a Chambertin before she knew me. Mind you, don’t get me wrong, but she was always a bit of a mouse, if you know what I mean.’

Just then a branch, somewhere in the darkness on their right, cracked, and a clammy breath of wind swept across them. This gave Max an excuse to shiver and say that he would walk a bit quicker to get warm, leaving Tim to continue at his own more leisurely pace.

The damp of the night was beginning to invade him, so for a short while Max jogged along the path until he caught up with the group ahead of him which consisted of Dick the Vicar, and the Hoopers. Dick greeted Max effusively as if he were glad of the excuse to be out of the Hoopers’ company.

‘I see you’re a fast walker like me!’ he said, and they strode out ahead of the Hoopers. Only Major Brudenell and Dr. Bartleet with his flickering torch were in front of them.

Dick Seely, the vicar, was a tall, smooth man with an ingratiating tone. He reminded Max of the better kind of public school prefect, a person whose greatest gift was for managing his own limitations. He subjected Max to a barrage of questions about himself, listening to the answers with polite attention. Max wondered if this was done out of pastoral duty or because Dick suffered from the common delusion that all artists are self-obsessed and therefore liked talking about themselves. He suspected the latter, and dealt with the unintended insult by making his answers as bland and uninformative as he could. When Dick began to ask about his late wife, Max, wishing to change the subject, asked him about Judy.

‘You never knew her, did you?’ said Dick. ‘I think, in a way, I suppose I knew her better than anyone, perhaps because I see it as part of my job to get to know my “flock”, as they say. Judy was a very quiet, retiring person. She came to church, often to early communion. Very devout. Sat towards the back of the church. I used to wonder what was going through her mind. I felt I had a responsibility to bring her out, if you know what I mean. As it happened my wife Daphne — she’s a musician, you know. Harpist. You’ll meet her — was suffering from a severe clinical depression at the time. So she was rather incapacitated, as you can imagine, and with the kids still at home in the school holidays we were finding it a little difficult to manage. So I thought this was a marvellous opportunity to involve Judy, and I got her to come in and lend a hand occasionally. I told her it was her “parish work”. We had a little joke about that. I think it helped her, too, to be part of a real live family with kids, you know, because she didn’t have any of her own. She started to come out of her shell, and we got her to give up smoking, which was a big plus for her. Then in the natural course of time, Daphne recovered from her depression and we had no need to call upon her so much, but we stayed firm friends with Judy of course. I’m so glad she had had the chance to be part of a household where books were read and music was played and serious things were discussed. I think that’s terribly important, don’t you?’

‘How did she die?’

‘You know, that was the funniest thing. She had been away for a couple of weeks, as far as we knew on holiday. Then someone told us — I forget who — that she was in a Hospice just outside Ipswich. Inoperable cancer, apparently. Lung, with secondaries in the pancreas and liver. No one in the village knew. She’d told nobody. Well, we rallied round, but by this time she’d been taken to Ipswich General. She was in a coma and died a couple of days later. It was very sad. I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead because Judy was a dear, but I do feel rather hurt that she kept her condition to herself. We’re a very supportive little community here, as you may have gathered, and we would like to have been there for her. People are funny, aren’t they?’

‘How old was Judy when she died?’ Max asked.

‘Do you know, this is terrible, but I’m not at all sure. Forty? Fifty? Middle aged anyway. Too young to die, too old to, well . . .’ Dick’s voice trailed off. Momentarily he had lost his confidence and seemed almost embarrassed. Then suddenly he grasped Max’s arm.

‘Max! Do you see that? Glow worms!’ He stopped and pointed down at the ground to the right of them on the path. A dozen or so points of faint bluish-green light were visible through the undergrowth. When Max bent down to touch one the light vanished.

‘I’ve never seen a glow worm before,’ said Max.

‘Aren’t you glad you came with us, then?’ said Dick who had regained all his old patronising confidence. Just then Max saw one of the glow worms move. It was about five or six feet from the path and only just visible, but he was sure of what he saw. It appeared to wave to and fro in a way that reminded him of someone smoking a cigarette in the dark, except that the cigarette end was not a fiery orange but cold and blue.

‘Do you see that?’ said Max pointing.

‘What?’

‘There’s a glow worm over there that seems to be moving. Waving around. Almost as if it’s flying.’

‘No. Can’t see anything,’ said Dick. ‘Anyway, glow worms don’t fly and they move very very slowly. Must be your imagination.’ Dick showed an annoyance which Max put down to the fundamental irascibility of the dogmatic mind. He did not pursue the matter, and the moving light vanished. As they stood there contemplating the glow worms, Mrs Brudenell strode up to them flashing a huge torch.

‘Now then, vicar,’ said Mrs Brudenell heartily. ‘No dawdling!’

The three of them walked on together while Mrs Brudenell harangued Dick on the subject of the church organ and tried to enlist Max’s support, but he was only half listening. All at once they emerged from the deep shade of Smuggler’s Path into a misty field over which the moon hung huge and low, a pale apricot colour. Above it the stars were sharp as needles. For a moment Max was dazzled.

Beyond the tree fringed meadow Max could now make out the shadow of St. Mary Magdalene’s Renhall, their destination, one of those absurdly large Suffolk churches, built in the fourteenth century out of piety and the proceeds of the wool trade.

The church was on a little hill, with the graveyard on the slopes below it. Dick went ahead with a large key to open the door. Presently the lights went on inside the church, a welcoming sight for Max who suddenly felt very tired.

When Max walked into the church it was dimmer than he had expected. The artificial light lacked glamour and warmth. He sat in a pew and was given a polystyrene cup of cherry brandy by Mrs Brudenell while the rest of the walkers came in. Last of all were Tim and Harriet Calder, who entered the church arguing with each other in fierce undertones. Harriet was blonde with a faded beauty and allure which still flashed from her occasionally in wild, predatory bursts. Max avoided her glance with the instinctive self-protectiveness of the convalescent.

Presently Mrs Brudenell clapped her hands and summoned them all outside, where Dick was waiting to address the company in the churchyard. He was standing in front of a shiny modern headstone, which Max presumed was Judy’s, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and rubbing his hands. When the party was assembled and quiet he spoke.

‘I’m not going to make a big speech, but I just want to say a few words about Judy, to whose memory this little expedition tonight is dedicated. Incidentally, I’m sure she would have approved of this way of remembering her.’ The assembled walkers responded with a sound that was half murmur, half laughter. ‘You all — most of you — knew her well, so I don’t need to tell you about her. But I will say this. She was a valued part of our little community, and I think that is what really made her special. She was one of us.’ There was another sound from the walkers, this time more affirmative.

Dick turned and lit two fat white candles which had already been placed on the grass in front of the gravestone. As he did so Max, who stood some yards apart from the others, and at an angle to them so that he looked towards the church while the rest faced Judy’s grave, saw a woman with a small Celtic harp come round the East end of the church and creep behind the gravestone. This presumably was Dick’s wife Daphne, the harpist who had recovered from depression.