Chapter Six

MRS WITTS LOOKED somewhat alarmed when Adam burst into the kitchen the next morning before breakfast, and well she might.

He had not shaved and, after a sleepless night, he imagined he must present a somewhat wild aspect. He ran a hand through unbrushed hair and asked her to sit down.

‘What’s this about, vicar?’ She paused in the search for a frying pan from the cupboard and leant against the work surface, a picture of reluctance.

‘Please, sit. I want to talk to you.’

She sat at the farmhouse kitchen table.

‘’Bout what?’

‘Evie.’

‘Ah. Our Evie.’

‘That – thing yesterday at the maypole. What was that?’

‘Village tradition. Every year, the May Queen has to accept the tributes. It’s for luck, you see.’

‘I don’t see. At all.’

‘If she is generous with her favours, then so will Mother Nature be.’

‘What utter …’ Adam lowered his forehead to the table and knocked it a few times before sitting back up. ‘This is what Saxonhurst is, then? Flagrantly pagan? You seem to have no – shame.’

‘What’s to be ashamed of? We don’t harm no one.’ 

Evie’s old refrain.

‘You harm your immortal souls!’

‘Oh, them.’ Mrs Witts shrugged. ‘We don’t know about them, do we? Who sees them? Who knows they’re really there? No. What’s really here is our bodies, vicar, and our minds and everything around us. That’s what’s real in Saxonhurst.’

‘But why the incessant fornication?’

Mrs Witts laughed out loud.

‘Why not, love? Life’s short and full of pain and trouble. We must take our pleasure where we can.’

‘I don’t think you’re a suitable person to be working in a vicarage.’

‘Now don’t you think about sacking me! I’ll have you at a tribunal faster’n you can thump your Bible, mister. You can’t discriminate on the basis of my religion – or lack of it.’

He took a moment to calm his mind and accept the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which counselled against taking this woman by the scruff of the neck and hauling her out of the front door. Besides, he hadn’t asked the crucial question yet.

‘Where does she live?’

‘Who, love?’

‘Evie.’

‘Why? You want to ask her out?’

‘I want to know where she lives.’

‘In the village.’

‘Where in the village?’

‘Out at Witts Farm, just a little way up the Parham road. There’s a sign for the farm shop right out front – you can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you.’

He turned to leave.

‘What about your breakfast?’

‘I’ll forego it this morning. Thank you.’

He got his bicycle out of the shed and set off on another fine, warm May morning through the sleepy roads.

After the excesses of the May Fair it seemed everyone was sleeping in, their curtains still drawn against the sun. The hedges were strewn with discarded streamers and on the green the maypole still stood, its ribbons now tightly wrapped around it.

It seemed like some grotesque erotic dream now and Adam almost wondered if he’d hallucinated it all. Maybe there was something in the Saxonhurst water.

Then his front wheel squashed over the abandoned clutch of willow wands, and he knew it was real.

The cottages thinned out on the road to town and Adam found himself freewheeling through lush green and yellow until he rode past a chalkboard offering a range of pick-your-own fruits and vegetables at Witts Farm. He slowed down, spotting a cluster of buildings a few yards further on that must be the place.

A hand-painted sign advertised the farm shop, selling eggs, honey, free range chickens and every kind of fruit or vegetable known to grow in the valley. Asparagus was popular at this time of year, and the strawberries and other soft fruits were just coming into their own.

He turned left into a small gravelled car park and hopped off his bike, looking about him at the well-kept farmhouse and its collection of outbuildings, including a whitewashed single-storey cabin that must act as the shop.

It was closed, but he could hear frantic clucking from the back of the house, indicating that chickens were being fed.

He walked around to the back yard and found a woman in a headscarf flinging grain at a large collection of different poultry. He watched their mindless pecking for a while, waiting for the woman to see and acknowledge him.

When she looked up, she started, then walked over.

‘The new vicar, isn’t it?’ she said.

She didn’t sound pleased to see him.

‘Adam Flint,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘I won’t,’ she said, indicating the basin of chickenfeed. ‘Bit dusty. What’s this about?’

‘Pastoral visit,’ he said. It sounded unconvincing as soon as the words passed his lips.

‘Pastoral? We don’t keep sheep here. This is arable land.’

‘But my flock is human.’

‘Oh, right. I still don’t really understand what you’re doing here.’

‘Excuse me, but are you a relative of Evie Witts?’

‘Yes, I’m her mother.’

‘Would you mind if I came inside and spoke with you about her? Is she here?’

Evie’s mother waved a hand at one of the curtained upstairs windows.

‘She won’t surface till midday. Out for the count, she is.’

‘I can’t say that surprises me. So?’

The woman grunted ungraciously. ‘S’pose. I’ll put the kettle on. My husband’s out in the fields or I’d get him in too.’

He followed her across the yard, dodging bantams that squawked and ruffled their feathers in his path, then passed through a door curtain into a rather old-fashioned kitchen, all exposed brick and white wood cupboards with catches. In a huge Belfast sink, an array of blackened pots and pans were stacked up. A bluebottle buzzed around an open jam jar and the place smelled of dog food and grease.

Perhaps, thought Adam, such domestic laxity had sunk into Evie’s soul and morphed into sexual licentiousness. A dirty mind begotten by a dirty house.

Her mother hauled a kettle of water on to the range and found some clean cups from a dusty cupboard.

‘Were you at the maypole last night?’ Adam opened, watching the woman fuss with teabags and milk bottles.

‘Me? No. We goes to bed early here. I know what our Evie gets up to and, not saying I disapprove, but I don’t much want to watch it.’

‘How can you bear it?’

The words came out so emphatically that Evie’s mother wheeled around in surprise, drops of milk spilling from the jug she’d been pouring it into.

‘Bear what?’

‘Your daughter – your precious child – used in that way by all and sundry?’

She shook her head.

‘Listen, vicar. There’s a reason none of your kind has lasted long around here, and you’re giving a good account of it right now. You don’t understand our ways, and you don’t try to understand them. You can’t change us. We are what we are and we’re happy with that. Milk? Sugar?’

‘Er, a drop of milk,’ he said after a pause. ‘How long has she been – like this?’

‘There’s been a wild Witts girl every generation of the family since the 1600s, Mr Flint. It’s in her genes. She can’t help it no more than you can help having dark hair.’

‘You expected this?’

She sighed. ‘I thought long and hard about marrying Jim Witts, truth be told. In a way, it’s a bit of a curse. You know it’s going to happen. You try and protect her but as soon as she hits 18, there’s nothing you can do to stop it happening. She’s a grown woman, Mr Flint. And she’s happy. That’s all I care about. As long as she’s happy, I can’t complain.’

‘So you put all this down to biological determinism?’

‘Biological whatamism?’

‘You think it’s inevitable that she will have an ungovernable sex drive? It’s part of her DNA?’

‘It’s her heritage.’

‘When did all this start?’

‘Same as with her grandmother, and her grandmother before her. She was fine as a child, just a happy little soul like any other. Then, when she finished her GCSEs, she got this wild eye for the boys. I tried to keep her in, tried to stop her hanging around the village bus stop at all hours, but it was like she was mad for them. And she’s such a beauty, they weren’t going to ignore a girl like her, were they? Funnily enough, that’s when her gran started to settle down. About time too, coming into her 60s.’

Evie’s mother folded her arms under her bosom, shaking her head.

‘So your mother-in-law …?’

‘She was just the same. Settled down now, mind, with an insurance salesman from Parham.’

‘Are Evie and her grandmother close?’

‘Thick as thieves, always were. Peas in a pod to look at too.’

Adam took the mug of tea that had been thumped down in front of him, looking for clarity in its muddy depths. Evie and her grandmother, and the Victorian Evangeline Witts – all these madly sexy women in one family. It was like a sick, twisted fairy tale. What was the meaning of it?

It made more sense to assume that Evie had been heavily influenced, to the point of being led astray, by her wanton grandmother. That seemed to hold more water than her mother’s bizarre theory of genetics.

‘Where does she live?’

Evie’s mother shifted in her seat. Her evasive body language irritated Adam.

‘You know I can always ask your sister-in-law – my housekeeper.’

‘She’s on holiday right now. Not back till the end of the month. But she lives at Honeysuckle Cottage, if you must know. By the green.’

‘Thank you. Mrs Witts … I wonder if I could ask a favour of you?’

‘Depends what it is. We’ve always got eggs to spare if you’re short.’

‘No, I don’t need – eggs. Would you try to influence your daughter away from her excessive lifestyle? At least talk to her about it …?’

‘There’s nothing I can do, vicar.’

Mrs Witts’ face was stony.

‘She’s your daughter.’

‘Nothing I can do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to open up the shop.’

The tea was vile anyway, and leaving it undrunk was no hardship. But Adam wondered why his parishioners were so intractable and mysterious. What was all this “Saxonhurst way” nonsense he kept hearing about?

On his way round the farmhouse to retrieve his bicycle, his attention was caught by the rattling of a sash window and a voice calling to him from upstairs.

‘Morning, vicar!’

Evie’s head appeared beneath the sash, hair wild and unbrushed, a broad smile all over her sleepy face.

He stopped beneath her, looking up at the apparition.

‘Evie.’

‘To what do we owe the honour?’

‘I wanted to speak with your mother.’

She yawned. ‘Sorry. Heavy night. I’m aching all over, you can’t imagine. What did you want with our mum?’

‘I worry about you, Evie.’

‘Oh, don’t fuss your head. I’m fine. Are we still on for tonight?’

‘On? For …?’

‘Bible study. Don’t tell me you forgot. Don’t you love me no more?’

Her raucous laughter mocked him all the way to where he’d left his bicycle. He rode it through flapping, clucking chickens, scattering them across the forecourt until he was away from that fetid-smelling place and back in the pure country air.

Honeysuckle Cottage was indeed empty, the shutters closed and a build-up of advertising bumf visible through the porch window on the mat. Adam spent a few moments looking around at the garden, which was somewhat overgrown and tangled, before heading back out of the front gate, only to bump straight into Julia Shields.

She was in the company of a good-looking young man with an expensive camera around his neck, talking so animatedly to him that she didn’t notice Adam looming in her path.

‘Oh! Vicar!’ she exclaimed. ‘You might want to help us with this.’

‘With?’

‘This is Trevelyan. He’s an investigative journalist. He’s come up from London to try and get a story on the pornographers in my ancestral home. We’re going to make it into a big story, national exposure, maybe get it into one of the high circulation magazines like Tea Time or Isn’t It Crazy?’

‘So you’re going to – interview them?’

‘No, no, we’re going through the hedge to get a few decent shots. Or rather, indecent shots.’ Julia’s laugh was like a polite bray.

‘You’re going to trespass?’

‘Yes, like you did. Remember?’ She wasn’t laughing now. She looked furiously determined.

‘Do you think they’ll be filming after last night’s extravaganza? I imagine they might take a break.’

Julia’s eyes narrowed.

‘Good point. Let’s change plans. Trevelyan, why don’t you go and doorstep them – try to get a couple of quotes. We’ll do the photographs when Miss Evie Witts has recovered from the maypole.’

‘Recovered from the maypole?’ Trevelyan looked intrigued.

‘Never mind,’ said Julia hastily. ‘Go to the manor and try to get an interview with the filth-mongers. I’ll be waiting for you in the Fleece. There’s unlimited drinks for you if you get them to say something scandalous.’

‘Unlimited? Right.’ Trevelyan sauntered off towards the manor house leaving Adam and Julia behind.

‘Tell me about Saxonhurst ways,’ said Adam, watching the young man’s behind disappear along the distant driveway.

‘You’re finding them out for yourself, aren’t you? None of the other vicars ever stopped to watch the maypole. Some of them tried to stop it. But you just stood there gawping like a child in a sweetshop.’

‘It’s some kind of tribute to pagan gods of fertility?’

‘In essence. Throughout the hard times, the droughts, the poor harvests, Saxonhurst has always continued to produce abundantly. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the rituals, but would you risk finding out now, after all these years?’

‘Why must all this fall on to Evie’s shoulders?’

Julia hee-hawed again. ‘Does she look as if she minds?’

‘I mind,’ said Adam vehemently. ‘And so should we all.’

‘God, it’s so tedious. She only has to look at a man … Anyway, I’m getting the drinks in at the Fleece. Are you coming?’

‘No. No, I have – a sermon to write.’

‘Keep telling yourself that,’ said Julia with derision, striding away up the village street.