Tuppence To Spend (11 page)

‘I want to look in the grave,’ Brian said. ‘I saw old man Barford digging it yesterday but he chased me off.’

‘It was ever so hard to dig,’ Keith chimed in. ‘Mr Corner was talking about it and he said the ground was so frozen Mr Barford couldn’t get his spade in. They thought they were going to have to keep Mr Sellers till it got a bit warmer.’

‘But he’d have gone bad,’ Tim said. ‘Like that dead fox we found in the ditch. I bet he’d have smelt horrible, too.’

‘Well, they got it dug anyway,’ Brian said, ‘and I want to see it before they put Mr Sellers in.’

They decided that there would just be time to do this if they set off quickly enough, and finished tying Moss to the tray. Keith sat on it and Tim shouted ‘Mush’, startling the dog so much that he leapt into the air and began to run in circles, frightened by the tray which clattered after him. The washing line got tangled round his legs and Keith fell into the snow and scratched his arm on a hidden branch. He yelped almost as loudly as Moss, who began to lick his face, tangling the line further as he did so.

‘He thought I was shouting his name,’ Tim said, convulsed with giggles as he tried to unwind the rope.
‘Stand
still
, Moss, while I get it off your legs. And stop yelling, Keith, you’re not hurt. It’s only a scratch … I don’t think we’ll bother with a sledge. We’ll be an advanced party. But we’ll still have to take the husky, of course.’

Once again they set off, with Moss now freed from his bonds and trotting beside them. He knew the boys well now and was especially attached to Tim. They plunged into the little wood where Tim and Keith had collected nuts and mushrooms with Reg Corner, and climbed the hill to Top Field. From here, they could see down into the churchyard.

‘They’re all inside the church,’ Brian said. ‘The funeral’s at two.’

‘It’s five past,’ Tim said, screwing up his eyes to look at the church clock. ‘We’ve just got time to get down and look at the grave. How long do funerals take?’

‘Oh, about two hours, I think,’ Brian said. ‘Mr Knight said they’d be back by four, for milking. They’ll be in there for ages, singing hymns and praying. You have to do that or the person goes to hell.’

‘Mr Sellers wouldn’t go to hell,’ Tim argued. ‘Mrs Corner says he was the nicest man you could ever wish to meet and he always had dog biscuits in his pockets. Sweets, too, sometimes.’

‘Just because he liked dog biscuits—’

‘He didn’t eat them himself, stupid. He gave them to dogs. It just shows what a nice man he was, that’s all.’ Tim was growing tired of the argument. ‘Anyway, are we going to go and look or not? I’m getting cold.’ He dragged the tin tray into position at the top of the slope. ‘I’m going to toboggan down.’

‘That’s not fair –’ Keith began, but Tim was already careering down the hill, yelling at the top of his voice, with Moss racing beside him barking wildly. The other two followed, Keith still grumbling because he’d been the one to carry the tray all the way from the farm, and Brian scowling because he hadn’t thought of bringing one
himself. At the bottom of the slope the tray hit a stone and tipped Tim sideways into the ditch, where he lay, rubbing his head and trying to stop Moss licking his face.

‘Serves you right,’ Brian said unsympathetically. ‘Come on, we can climb over the wall here, where it’s a bit broken down, see.’

‘I bet I’ll have a bump as big as an egg,’ Tim said to Keith, but the smaller boy shrugged and turned away. They followed Brian into the churchyard and across the snow-covered hummocks to the newly dug grave, and stood looking down into it. From inside the church came the sound of muted singing, and the doleful tones of the organ.

‘It’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?’ Keith murmured, moving a little closer to Tim. ‘I mean, there’s going to be a dead body down there soon.’

‘There’s dead bodies all over the place in here, you twerp,’ Brian said, a little over-loudly. He glanced around at the headstones, as grey as the clouds that loomed above. ‘Tell you what, they look a bit like dead bodies themselves, don’t they? All wrapped up in shrouds, waiting to jump on you …’ He raised his arms, bending his hands forwards in imitation of a ghost, and began to moan. ‘Ooh-ooh … I’m coming to get you … Oooh-ooooh …’

Keith shrieked and stumbled backwards. Tim shouted out in alarm, and Moss barked and cavorted around them as Keith, with an even louder shriek, lost his balance and toppled into the grave. Tim stared in horror, then grabbed Moss and smacked his nose to stop him barking. Brian let out a guffaw of nervous laughter and the two boys peered down, half expecting to see Keith’s dead body lying at the bottom of the hole.

‘You all right, Keith?’ Tim asked anxiously after a moment.

To his relief, Keith’s voice replied, sounding more cross and frightened than hurt. ‘No, I’m not! I’m at the bottom of a grave and it’s miles deep and they’re going to put Mr
Sellers in here soon, on top of me … Get me out, Tim, get me
out
!’

His voice rose in panic and Tim looked around helplessly. The grave was at least six feet deep, its sides hard and slippery with ice, and Keith’s face was like a pale, scared moon staring up at them. He had no idea how they were to get Keith out, and the thought of his still being there when the coffin was carried out of the church made him feel dizzy with fear. Reg and Edna won’t want us any more, he thought. We’ll be sent back home, and Dad will go mad. He’ll
kill
us. And then, because his sense of humour always came to the surface at the worst possible moments, we might as well stop here in the grave anyway …

‘We need a ladder,’ Brian Collins said, jerking him out of his stupor. ‘There’s one in old Barford’s shed, I saw it one day. Come on, before they come out of church.’

‘Don’t leave me here by myself!’ Keith shrieked as they turned to go. ‘It’s horrible! I might get buried alive!
Tim
!’

‘I’ll have to go. Brian can’t carry the ladder by himself. I’ll leave Mossy here on guard. Stay,’ Tim ordered the dog, but Moss didn’t have the respect for Tim that he had for Reg Corner and bounced after him, ignoring Keith’s frantic cries. He leapt about the two boys, barking joyously and getting under their feet as they ran over to the shed in the corner of the graveyard, and Brian cast an anxious glance towards the church.

‘Can’t you shut that dog up? Someone’ll be out in a minute.’

‘Quiet!’ Tim hissed, but Moss ignored him. As far as he was concerned, Tim and Keith were no more than puppies and this was a holiday afternoon full of fun and games. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, and when a dog was enjoying himself he just had to bark.

To their relief the shed door was unlocked and they found the ladder, lying along one side. They dragged it out
and back across the graveyard to where Keith was in tears, convinced that they had abandoned him to be buried alive. As soon as the ladder was lowered into the hole he scrambled out, muddy and tear-stained, and got as far away as he could from the rim.

‘I’m never going to be buried, never. It was horrible down there.’

‘You’ll have to be, when you’re dead. Unless you want to be cremulated.’ Brian and Tim began to haul the ladder back out of the hole. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get this back in the shed before anyone comes out.’

‘What’s cremulated?’ Keith, determined not to get near the grave again, made no move to help them.

‘Burnt,’ Brian said tersely. ‘My grandad had it done. They put you in a big sort of furnace and set light—’

‘No! No!’ Keith screamed and put his hands over his ears. ‘Stop it! It’s not true, you’re making it up. I don’t want to be cren—cren—’

The sound of the organ’s playing sounded suddenly louder and Tim glanced across at the church. ‘
They’re coming out
!’ Panic-stricken, he dragged at the ladder and it jerked up out of the hole. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get this back before they see us! Come
on
, Keith! Oh, I wish we’d never done this – I wish we’d gone to the South Pole instead, like I wanted to – I wish …’ Half sobbing, the three of them stumbled across the graveyard, with Moss repeating his delighted performance and the ladder catching on the headstones so that they tripped and fell. Tim looked back again and gave a sob of terror. ‘The vicar’s coming out! I can see the coffin! Oh – oh –
oh
!’

‘Leave it here,’ Brian commanded. ‘They won’t see it on the ground. Let’s just get away – we’ll go round behind the church, we can get out that way – nobody’ll ever know it was us. Come on!’

Tim grabbed Keith and they scuttled out of sight just in time, as the mourners came solemnly out after the coffin.
Behind the church they stopped, clutching each other and breathing hard. Keith was still crying.

‘I don’t want ever to come here again. It’s all your fault, Brian Collins, pretending to be a ghost. Tim, I want to go home.’

‘It’s all right. They didn’t see us and you’re not hurt, and Brian’s not a ghost, he’s just a stupid twerp.’ Tim and Brian had never liked each other and this was the sort of talk that usually ended in a scrap, but for once Brian didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he gave Tim a sly look.

‘What did you do with that old tray? Did you leave it in the field?’

Tim stared at him. He glanced around, as if expecting to see the tray come round the corner of the church by itself. Moss, panting but still joyous, leant against him. Briefly, he considered sending the dog to retrieve the tray and immediately rejected the idea.

‘I must have dropped it by the grave.’ He stared at the other two, the picture of dejection. ‘They’ll know it was us now.’

Brian grinned evilly. ‘They’ll know it was
you
,’ he pointed out. ‘It wasn’t
my
tray.’ He began to walk off, swaggering a little and pretending to whistle. ‘Wouldn’t be in your shoes when they finds out. And it won’t be no use sneaking on me, see – I’m too much use round the farm.
I
won’t get sent back to Pompey!’

Left alone, Tim and Keith looked at each other miserably.

‘Well, we can’t go and get it now,’ Tim said. ‘We’d better go back home. Maybe we could start the milking or something, to get Reg in a good mood.’

‘I don’t care what happens,’ Keith said, still sniffing. ‘Just as long as I don’t have to go and fetch the tray. I tell you, Tim, I’m never going near a grave again – not as long as I live!’

*

‘He’ll be sorely missed,’ Joan Greenberry told Ruth as they walked slowly away from the graveside. ‘They don’t make many like that any more, you know.’

‘That they don’t,’ agreed Mr Knight, the farmer Joe had worked for, coming up on her other side. ‘Reckon they broke the mould when old Joe was born. Mind you, your brother-in-law doesn’t do a bad job,’ he added with a small wink as George Travers came to take his sister-in-law’s arm. ‘And young Terry, too – chip off the old block, he is.’

Ruth sighed. Terry was away now doing his basic training and it didn’t look as if Ben was going to be a farmer. She looked at him, walking beside his mother, very tall and slender in his dark suit. He’d taken the day off school for his grandfather’s funeral but he’d be back on the Southampton bus next day, his satchel bulging with books. Sometimes Ruth thought he overdid his studying. You hardly ever saw him round the village with the other lads now.

Once this war was over, she hoped that Lizzie and her Alec would be able to settle down properly and raise a family, so that there might be more sons to follow on in the farming life.

‘Whatever was all that noise in the churchyard?’ Jane asked. ‘It sounded like a riot – people yelling and screaming, dogs barking. And the snow was all trampled too – heaven knows what was going on out there.’

‘It was some of those evacuee children, I’ll be bound,’ Aggie White said. ‘Ours are all at school – anyway, they’d have more respect. Shouting and yelling round a church-yard when a funeral’s on – or any time, come to that. For two pins I’d tell the policeman, if we knew who it was.’

Edna Corner heard her and looked guiltily at the tin tray she’d picked up not far from the grave. It was hers, she knew it by the picture of a bowl of roses and the dent in one corner, but how it had got into the churchyard was a mystery – a mystery she felt could probably be solved by
Tim and Keith. And that had sounded very much like Mossy’s bark she’d heard, too.

I’ll find out what they were up to, she thought, but whatever it was I don’t believe it was lack of respect.

‘Will you come back to the house for a glass of sherry or a cup of tea?’ Ruth asked the vicar. ‘I’ve made a bit of fruit cake – not that there’s much fruit about these days, but people have been ever so kind letting me have some of their own rations and one or two have brought some leftover Christmas cake – and there’s a cut of ham off the joint Mr Knight sent round. Joe would have liked to know you’d be there.’

‘I’ll be very pleased to, thank you, Mrs Purslow,’ Mr Beckett said. ‘I want to pay my respects in the proper way.’ He smiled down at her. He was tall and thin, with long arms and legs like a stick insect. ‘It’s time I had a word with that parrot of yours, too. I suppose he’s still got plenty to say for himself?’

‘Too much,’ Ruth said wryly. ‘He’s even learnt a few of the words Dad’s been coming out with lately.’ She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. ‘Things that didn’t make any real sense, you know. I suppose I ought to be used to it, but it seems really queer, hearing him say Dad’s words. And he’s got the voice off to a T. Sometimes I really think it’s Dad himself, and then – then I remember.’ Her voice shook a little and she wiped her eyes again. ‘I’m sorry – it just comes over me at times.’

‘Of course it does,’ Joan Greenberry said. ‘You were with your dad a long time. You’re bound to feel it.’

They reached the cottage and went indoors. Lizzie had come round to help her aunt tidy the cottage and set out the sliced ham, with some pickles and chutneys made from Joe’s own onions and tomatoes, some bread freshly baked in Jane’s Rayburn, and the fruit cake. Glasses of sherry were ready for the mourners, who stood at the door stamping the snow from their boots and pulling off their gloves. Lizzie,
her eyes red, took their coats and Ruth went out to the kitchen to put the kettle on.