The Chorister at the Abbey Read online

  ‘What? On time? Holy shit! Hicksville! So we’ve got about an hour to get it all done. Not being ready is not an option,’ snapped Wanda. ‘Just get your finger out, will you? The oven trays are there. I’m going to sort out the ice and the champagne.’

  ‘Ooh, very a-la-posh,’ mumbled the cleaner, and she started to open the packets, painfully slowly. Wanda switched on the oven with an angry flick of her wrist. The bloody thing had better heat up fast!

  When she’d finished racing round, the living room of the cottage did look rather nice, Wanda thought, because she had bought dozens of hothouse flowers which she arranged, Mediterranean-style, in kitchenware, with buckets and jugs all round the place. A giant modern oil painting was propped on the mantelpiece and all the tatty chairs and needlepoint cushions had been relegated to the spare bedroom. Coats could go on the pegs in the porch – she had dumped Freddie’s huge fake Barbour and massive new cycling cape in the blanket box, where a fabulous arrangement of lilies and peonies balanced scarily on the top in an asparagus steamer.

  ‘Well, hello! Here we are!’ announced a booming voice.

  The Johnstones were the first to arrive, fifteen minutes early, bringing a tired-looking box of Belgian chocolates which Wanda imagined they’d received for Christmas. But as far as she was concerned this confirmed that they were filthy rich. Everyone knew the rich were mean. She gushed over them, pouring champagne into flimsy flutes.

  ‘Cheers! Such a pretty . . . er . . . lounge,’ gushed Pat.

  But the Johnstones didn’t want to talk to Wanda. They were clearly waiting to pounce on the college Principal. David Johnstone was involved in putting forward some sort of tender to sell college land. He really was a mover and shaker, Wanda thought. And he was donating money to ensure that proper programmes were printed for the Stainer concert with the names of benefactors in full, along with the Johnstone logo.

  The cottage slowly filled up with couples. It had amused her to embarrass Edwin Armstrong by demanding loudly, in front of the Principal, that he brought a guest. One of the few bits of local gossip Wanda had picked up was that Edwin was alone after being dumped a few years ago. Strange! He wasn’t Jude Law but he wasn’t bad-looking – in fact she might have quite fancied him herself with his thick dark hair, square jaw and quiet manner – but there was a withdrawn, slightly superior quality about him which irritated her.

  So who would he bring to the party? She could hardly wait to find out.

  * * *

  The day after receiving Edwin’s invitation, Alex had left work early, come home, called a contract cleaning company in Carlisle and arranged for them to blitz the bungalow. It was easy if pricey, but the one thing she had was money in the bank – booze was relatively cheap and she hadn’t bought much in the way of Christmas presents this year. She’d had an orgasmic time in Yellow Pages, calling window cleaners, gardeners, a plumber to sort out the drains in the bathroom and a gas installer to come and sort out, once and for all, why the kitchen always smelt as if fifteen big cats had peed in the sink.

  Then she’d taken a deep breath and called a hairdresser. The effort of making the appointment had made her long for a whisky, but she’d told herself: no drink till she had lost a stone. The scales in the bathroom were grey with fluff and dust, so she had to take her glasses off and stoop to peer at the result – which was an unbelievable one hundred and eighty pounds. She had never been more than ten stone before. She started taking her clothes off, throwing shoes, socks, trousers, a fleece, a blouse and a hideous vest to the four winds till she was naked and had lost four pounds. She was going to get this down. She had never been slender but she had always been curvy. Now the curves had amalgamated into one large round ball. But the skin tone wasn’t bad and the boobs could be heaved up into place. She had good basic bones, and she suddenly caught sight of herself in the greasy mirror on her mother’s bathroom cabinet. She was smiling. For a moment Alex saw herself as she had been twenty-five years ago, in this same bathroom, before she had gone to London, to university and marriage.

  I had a life before I met my husband, she suddenly thought. My mum loved me and told me I was beautiful, and my older sister said I had talent. She was right. I earned a living through my talent which is more than most people do. I was a happy person, in my own right.

  She remembered her mother saying: ‘You get away from here, girl. You go to university. We’ll always be here if you need us.’ So she had gone to London to study, and then slowly and carefully worked away at her hobby until it had become a real job, and she had been successful. She had never looked back – till now.

  Her mum had already been in decline when Alex had returned to Norbridge. That was what made Alzheimer’s so strange and cruel. It wasn’t just holes in the brain. The person changed. Everything became cruder and narrower. Her lovely mum, who had been so optimistic, so adventurous without ever living anywhere but Cumbria, had been reduced. And of course Alex had been reduced with her. Living with her mother, in what should have been the warm womb of the bungalow, she had really been in a box with her, buried alive.

  The idea made her shudder. Being trapped was one of her greatest fears. Then she thought, I may have claustrophobia but I haven’t got dementia. I’m going to survive, like I told Edwin.

  So here she was now, in Wanda Wisley’s cramped little sitting room, trying not to sneeze because of all the pollen from Wanda’s absurd flowers, flicking back her new shiny auburn hair from her plump but less flabby features. She was wearing a long black slinky skirt retrieved from the suitcase full of London clothes. The zip didn’t quite do up but it was covered by a deep red shirt with beads all over it, which she had bought in one of those wonderful cottage-industry craft shops you could find only in Cumbria. She had even bought a matching lipstick.

  And Edwin had said, ‘Oh! You look rather exotic. But where are the knickers for your head?’

  ‘Darling, don’t tell anyone but I’m not wearing them!’ To her relief, Edwin had thrown his head back and laughed. It was a good sign.

  ‘I thought you were a good churchgoer,’ he said.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, more seriously, ‘I’m an agnostic really. I go to church through habit. Any faith I had, I lost when I was divorced. Does that bother you?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Edwin said. ‘It’s interesting.’

  I am interesting, Alex thought for the first time in years. So here she was, orange juice in hand, making conversation with the great and good of Norbridge. And only once had she caught herself straining to see her husband who wasn’t there.

  But someone else was. Across the room Alex saw Robert Clark. It hadn’t occurred to Alex he would be here at a Music Department party. But Norbridge was a small place and she should have realized everyone socialized with everyone.

  Bugger. She had to behave normally. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, uncertainly.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Robert said to Lynn Clifford.

  ‘Oh, that’s Alex. You know her – she found Tom Firth with Morris’s body. Now she’s joined the Chorus. I think she usually wears her hair tied back and sits at the dark end of the stalls.’

  ‘Oh, I know who you mean. I just didn’t recognize her. Big woman. Grey!’

  ‘Well, she was!’ Lynn laughed. ‘She’s certainly made an effort today. I used to think she was rather negative but she’s got quite a sense of humour. It always helps.’

  It certainly does, Robert thought. He felt rather low. At the last minute Suzy had been commandeered to take Jake to the Fellside Fellowship so he had come on his own, much to Wanda’s irritation. He was missing Suzy’s commentary on the guests. But that wasn’t all. In this awful, dreary month, with such a formal coolness between them, he longed for her jokes and the old cheeriness of their unlikely love affair. But he had been the one who suggested cooling it. And he had to stick with that.

  He looked across the room again, as Alex moved to talk to the Johnstones. For a minute he thought . . . It was ridiculous. But h
e felt as if someone had walked across his grave. Or Mary’s.

  The Cliffords left the party early. Neil had a christening at three o’clock and Lynn was busy. She would be working all the next week, helping out at Uplands School. Sometimes she ran the church office, sometimes she helped at the Deanery, and once she had done a few weeks in the Abbey shop. It wasn’t the career she had expected but being a rector’s wife satisfied her in a way she had never thought possible.

  The phone rang and she put down the laundry basket.

  ‘Mum.’ Chloe’s voice sounded tight. Lynn felt a frisson of alarm.

  ‘What is it, darling?’

  ‘Mummy, I want to come home.’ Chloe was crying – ugly, snuffling noises.

  ‘What on earth is wrong?’

  Since her New Year’s Eve trauma, Chloe had changed. She had been quiet and unassuming, staying in and working on her revision, until she went back to university in January. Poppy had called once, but Chloe had told her she had too much work to go out.

  Mother and daughter had talked more, though not with the intimacy that Lynn craved. She was aware that Chloe was holding back, and it worried her. Lynn was painfully conscious that she had had no mother of her own, and felt hampered and awkward in her reactions to her daughter. Her relationship with Chloe was so vital that she felt she ought to play it down to keep it in proportion. It would have been good to discuss this with another mum, but there was no one she felt she could talk to without somehow betraying Chloe or even Neil.

  She had seen Jenny Whinfell in the shopping centre in Norbridge, and had toyed with the idea of asking her for a coffee and having a heart-to-heart. Chloe had babysat for the Whinfells and had said how ‘cool’ Jenny was. And she was a vicar’s wife. But Jenny had been in a hurry, with the baby in a buggy, and her manner had been rather distant. So Lynn had been left, adrift, wondering how to deal with the new Chloe.

  Then her daughter had gone back to Leeds, and Lynn had genuinely thought Chloe was feeling much better. But this was a new crisis.

  ‘You’re in the middle of exams, darling.’

  ‘No, I’m not! Don’t you listen to anything? The exams finished on Friday.’

  ‘So did you go out? To celebrate?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to celebrate. I hate it here!’

  The sound of sobbing came bursting down the landline. Oh dear, Lynn thought. Chloe had always been a bit of a party animal in the past.

  ‘Darling, if you really feel bad, you can come home just for a week. Get the train tomorrow.’

  The sobbing lessened enough for Chloe to say miserably, ‘But what about the train fare?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose you’d better use your card and I’ll give you the cash.’

  The little voice was instantly brighter. ‘OK, Mum, I’ll be on the eleven twenty-five tomorrow morning.’ She’s all organized, thought Lynn. She’s planned this. But why is she so desperate to come home? And what will Neil say?

  18

  Oh be joyful in the Lord all ye lands; serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song. Psalm 100:1

  At the same time, Suzie Spencer was still waiting at the back of the Fellside Fellowship chapel for Jake. She was missing Wanda’s party but the kids had to come first. Jake was one of a group of boys with a mixture of instruments, playing from messy sheets of music on a variety of tatty stands. Above them a huge screen hung, with words on it which Suzy couldn’t quite read.

  She was getting more used to Jake’s musical ventures. There were usually hours of messing around when nothing much happened, except for self-important men in tight T-shirts bustling about doing technical things. The boys would suddenly burst into life with a few seconds of very loud noise and then sink back into sloping around the stage sipping cans of something.

  She had brought a book to read, partly because she was genuinely bored and partly because she didn’t want Jake to think she was watching him.

  ‘Hi?’

  She turned to the end of the row, where a good-looking blond man was standing. She realized he was one of the older musicians from the stage.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee or something?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, that would be very nice. I’m one of the mums.’

  ‘I guessed so. I’m Mark Wilson, secretary of the PCC and chief dogsbody round here. Most of the other parents just drop them off and come back.’

  ‘But it was my son’s first time actually playing . . .’

  ‘And he thought he might not like it? So you were on standby for a quick getaway?’

  She smiled, slightly embarrassed. But he just laughed. ‘We make the coffee in the kitchen area round at the side. It’s a bit more comfortable and you’re out of the way of the racket.’

  ‘Thanks, I’d be much happier there.’

  And Jake won’t be able to see me and feel awkward, she thought. She followed Mark down the chapel and through a side door into a surprisingly large, bright kitchen area with a few tables, café style.

  Suzy looked round her appreciatively. She’d had her ups and downs with the Church of England. But there were times when she still found it comforting. To have discovered a church which Jake might enjoy made her feel better. As did the coffee Mark Wilson brought over. He’d put a home-made biscuit on the saucer.

  ‘I see you can read minds. As well as fetch coffee.’ She smiled.

  ‘If only!’ Mark had a pleasant smile and a trendy haircut. Suzy guessed he was in his early thirties.

  ‘D’you live in Fellside?’ she asked, to keep him talking. It was more fun that sitting by herself.

  ‘I certainly do. It’s not the National Park but it’s near enough. I used to work in the Midlands but I took a job with Norbridge Borough Council. I liked the idea of the place, but I didn’t expect to be in the Fellside branch office!’

  ‘Well, Fellside is a bit drab but the Fellowship is a local asset.’

  ‘It certainly is. I came for the music. I play guitar, but not that well. To tell you the truth I’ve not had much formal musical education.’

  ‘Me neither. You have to have the right sort of background.’

  Mark laughed. ‘My family weren’t into music at all. Do you think think it matters? Our vicar, Paul, is bonkers about genealogy.’

  ‘It’s the new craze, isn’t it? Trying to find out what might make you what you are. I don’t know where Jake gets it from. I’m not musical and his dad’s completely tone deaf.’

  Mark Wilson looked surprised. ‘But doesn’t he sing in the Abbey Chorus? I’m a tenor there. Haven’t I seen you with him? Robert?’

  Suzy said quickly, ‘Oh, that’s not Jake’s father. We’re separated. The children and I are living with Robert at the moment. We’re having a bit of a housing crisis.’ She felt momentarily disloyal. She was playing down her relationship. But then again, that was surely fair? After all, Robert was the one who had wanted to cool it.

  ‘Well, don’t move away, now that you’ve found us! It’s good to see you at the Fellowship. Paul and Jenny Whinfell are wonderful people.’

  They must be the famous Rev Paul and his wife. Suzy had seen Paul Whinfell on the stage with the band – a tall, very thin man in his early thirties with an anxious manner despite his trendy baggy jeans and sweatshirt.

  ‘It’s nice to talk to you,’ Mark said. ‘Will we see you next week?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Suzy with more enthusiasm than she expected. She had been cross at missing Wanda Wisley’s party, and worried about the increasing distance between her and Robert. But for once, childcare had had its compensations. Mark Wilson really was rather nice!

  On the way home from Wanda’s, Edwin pulled into a pleasant country pub on the outskirts of Norbridge and suggested that he and Alex had a drink.

  ‘It must be a real bore not driving, when you live somewhere like Fellside,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. I spend a fortune on Burns’ Taxis or I struggle on the bus. That’s how I came across Morris Little. I used to change buses outsi
de his store and sometimes popped in for a bottle of wine or three.’

  Edwin laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ she said, ‘Morris Little was rather a nasty piece of work. He mocked me a few times in front of people. But I didn’t care. Then.’

  But now things had changed. She felt better. She wanted to stay in her new outfit as long as possible and she’d been really pleased with the way the hairdresser in Carlisle had styled her hair. It had been months since she’d had it cut, and years since she’d had it coloured. The auburn was new, but it suited her better than the raven streaks she’d had for many years before she went so grey. Her skin was a good colour and could take the brighter look, and she’d bought a pair of new, trendier glasses. She might even go back to contact lenses before too long. It had all worked very well, except for seeing Robert Clark. But he hadn’t stayed long at Wanda’s and, after he’d gone, Alex had felt light-headed with relief.

  It had made her more outspoken, and when David Johnstone had said nastily, ‘Oh, on the orange juice, are we?’ she had replied: ‘Absolutely. Have you found anyone else with a drink problem to exploit?’

  He had mumbled something about prices stalling and people losing opportunities, and turned rudely away, using his big shoulders to force her out of the conversation. Alex didn’t care. She’d found sweet Lynn Clifford next to her, asking in a soft voice how she was.

  ‘I thought you managed so well after finding Morris like that,’ Lynn had said quietly.

  ‘Oh, well . . .’

  ‘Mein Gott!’ Freddie Fabrikant had appeared at their side, dwarfing even Alex. ‘You know, I hear you! I have very sharp ears!’ His loud voice had attracted the attention of most of the people in the room. ‘So you found poor Morris, you and the boy. Tell me, do you really think those terrible Frostie youths did the deed?’

  ‘Well, the police seem to think so –’

  ‘The police! What do they know about anything? They certainly don’t know all about me!’ Freddie had started to laugh in his infectious but strangely high-pitched way.