“I’m not betraying any confidences,” the vicar began, laying down his plate with the half-eaten croissant. “Anything that I tell you is something Theresa is quite open about. You saw her just now, in the cemetery.”
Alfie pictured the weeping figure, bending to tidy the grave.
“Poor woman,” said Philip with a sigh. “You’ll understand better than most. Her husband was killed in a car crash. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever get over it.”
Alfie stiffened. And how would Philip describe him to Theresa? That’s Alfie. You won’t understand at all. The love of his life scarcely cold in her grave and he’s off with other women. Didn’t take him long to get over it. The only thing he had in common with Mrs Alcott was that they had both been bereaved through a road accident.
“They ran a small business together in Cheltenham, a gents’ outfitters, which was jointly their home and a shop. They lost the property when Robert was killed, but ironically he was well-insured – ghastly that someone can be worth more dead than alive, isn’t it? Theresa couldn’t have afforded anything in Cheltenham, but she’s been able to buy a little cottage in Bunburry.”
He sighed. “So many deaths on our roads every year. Dreadful statistics, tens of hundreds, and every one a tragedy.”
Alfie gave a grim, tight smile. “I wonder if I’m a statistical anomaly. I didn’t just lose Vivian in a car accident. Did you know my grandparents were killed in a crash as well?”
“I’m so sorry.” There was no doubting Philip’s sincerity. It reminded Alfie of Oscar. No over-the-top outpouring of shock, but genuine sympathy. “No, I didn’t know. When was that?”
“Before your time, when the previous vicar was still here.” Alfie could still remember the grim-faced incumbent who didn’t suffer the little children to do anything except sit down and shut up. “Thirty years ago, when I was twelve. It was on one of the narrow roads just outside the village. They were in a head-on collision with a boy racer in a sports car who had just passed his driving test. You might recognise his name – Charlie Tennison.”
Philip gave an exclamation of disbelief. “The Charlie Tennison?”
“The very same. ‘Teflon’ Tennison, grandee, crook, philanderer and, in the court case after he killed my grandparents, perjurer. He claimed it was all my grandfather’s fault, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, the forelock-tugging jury believed the posh boy.”
He took a bite of croissant to indicate that this had all happened so long ago that it no longer affected him. But he had only recently found out about the case, and dreamed of forcing Tennison to face justice at last.
“My mother used to send me to spend the summer holidays here with my grandparents, because she worked full time in London,” he said. “She was a single parent.”
Philip said: “I’m sorry I never knew any of them.”
The vicar could be no help in Alfie’s quest to find out more about his father. He would only be able to offer sympathy, not information. Marge had been about to tell him something, there was no doubt about it, but Liz had intervened to silence her. Liz was normally the placid, self-effacing member of the duo, but on the rare occasions when she imposed her views, Marge obeyed.
Who else could he ask, with his grandparents gone, his mother gone, Aunt Augusta gone? Losing his grandparents had put an end to his visits to Bunburry. And then, when he lost Vivian and couldn’t face life in London without her, the unexpected legacy of Aunt Augusta’s cottage had brought him back to the Cotswolds. It had a strange circularity.
“Anyway,” he said, swallowing the last mouthful of croissant and wiping his fingers on the piece of kitchen towel that served as a napkin, “that’s all ancient history. You were telling me about Mrs Alcott.”
“Theresa and her husband, Thomas, they were childhood sweethearts,” Philip resumed. “I don’t think they ever spent a day apart – they not only lived together, they ran a business together. And to lose Thomas so suddenly and in such tragic circumstances – Theresa had a complete breakdown, tried to take her own life.”
Yes, Alfie recognised that. He had never attempted to kill himself – he had no energy to do anything after Vivian died, Oscar practically had to spoon-feed him – but he remembered wishing that he could go to sleep and never wake up.
“She had to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital, which was where I got to know her,” Philip went on. “But I’m happy to see she’s building a new life for herself here in Bunburry. She’s working part-time in the tea-room, but I think that’s more to occupy herself than anything else. She’s in her late fifties – it’s sad to think that she’ll be alone for the rest of her life.”
Alfie felt himself bristling at the remark. “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” he said. “She could have years ahead of her. Why shouldn’t she find someone else and be happy with them?”
Philip nodded thoughtfully. “Good point, well made. And someone in his very early forties may have even more years ahead of him. Why shouldn’t he find someone else and be happy with them?”
Alfie sucked his breath in. “You set me up,” he said.
“Not at all. You came to your own conclusions. You can see how awful it would be for Theresa to be consigned to a future of nothing but mourning. If you had died and Vivian had been left, would you want to think of her never daring to smile again?”
Alfie shook his head. “Of course not.”
“Then stop being so hard on yourself.” Philip got to his feet and picked up Alfie’s jacket from the arm of the sofa. “You know, long before Trainspotting was ever thought of, Moses said ‘Choose life.’ Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19. Something to think about.”
Alfie found himself being gently but firmly ejected from the vicarage. The coffee and croissant were intended to put him in the right frame of mind for meditating, so he dutifully returned to the church. It was empty, and he sat in one of the side aisles, feeling strangely liberated.
He couldn’t fault what Philip had said, but the situation had actually resolved itself. Betty was no longer around, he had no idea when or if she would return, and it was more than likely that she would have no memory of the kiss.
And he had managed not to give himself away during her disparagement of the beauty salon. He used to think exactly the same as she did, and had been stunned to hear about Oscar’s regular spa visits.
“Honestly, you should try it,” Oscar kept saying. “Why should girls have all the fun? A French facial, a bit of body brushing, and a salt scrub. It’s time you became a fully paid-up metrosexual.”
Alfie shuddered. “Never. It’s not natural.”
One day Oscar insisted that they go to the new exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. As the taxi made its slow progress through the London traffic, Alfie said: “This isn’t the way to the Courtauld.”
“Roadworks,” said Oscar blandly. “We’re having to take a circuitous route.”
But their destination wasn’t the Courtauld.
“No,” said Alfie as they stood on the pavement outside Oscar’s spa. “I’m not going in there.”
“I’ve already booked you in,” said Oscar. “I’ll still have to pay if you’re a no-show. You wouldn’t want me to lose my money, would you?”
Money was scarcely the issue. Oscar had once related an apocryphal story about the Greek oil tycoons Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis. They were passing a car showroom in Monte Carlo that displayed gold-plated Rolls-Royces. Onassis decided he wanted one. Niarchos decided he wanted one too and said he would pay for both.
“I can’t let you do that,” Onassis protested.
“But I must,” said Niarchos. “It’s only fair. You bought the coffees.”
“That’s like us,” Oscar had said.
Alfie grimaced. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick to buying the coffees.”
Their close friendship was an unlikely one, born through a mutual interest in amateur dramatics. They had starred together in a production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and Alfie suspected that Oscar de Linnet imagined himself a reincarnation of the great writer.
Oscar’s wealth was inherited. He had exquisite taste, which he indulged to the full without thinking about it. Alfie might now be a multi-millionaire, thanks to the sale of his start-up, but he had been brought up in Hackney by a single mother. He had taken to wearing handmade suits and shirts from Savile Row, and fine Italian leather shoes. He lived in a two-storey apartment in a block of luxury flats overlooking the Thames. But some things still seemed to him a wanton extravagance, and going to a spa was one of them.
“Come along,” said Oscar. “You’ll be late for your appointment.”
“Appointment for what?” asked Alfie uneasily. “I don’t want anything waxed.”
“Oh, stop fretting.”
Oscar frogmarched him to a suite of luxurious cubicles and made him change into a large towelling dressing gown and disposable slippers, Alfie protesting the whole time.
“You’ve travelled all over the world, up for any new experience,” said Oscar. “And then you turn timid in London – can’t you just pretend you’re in Uzbekistan?”
“Believe me, this is nothing like Uzbekistan,” Alfie muttered as he was dragged to a reception area where a muscular blond man was waiting.
“Alfie, this is Ingvar,” he said. “Ingvar is Swedish. Ingvar, this is Alfie. Alfie is terrified.”
Alfie laughed to show that this was a joke. Ingvar didn’t laugh. “Follow me, please,” he said, opening the door to a small room containing a large reclining chair.
“It’s his first time,” Oscar called after them. “Be gentle.”
Alfie laughed some more but Ingvar remained unamused.
Oscar was sitting waiting in the reception area when Alfie emerged an hour later. “Well?”
“Amazing,” croaked Alfie. “Incredible. I’m walking on air.”
“So, you’ll be back?”
“Just try to stop me.” Alfie sank into the jade velour armchair next to Oscar and closed his eyes. “First, I had to put my feet into a sort of mini-Jacuzzi,” he said, counting the stages on his fingers. “Then I had an exfoliating rub. Then he massaged my feet with clary sage essential oil before giving them a paraffin wax wrap. My feet have never felt so light. I feel as though I could sprint up Mount Everest.”
“What colour did he paint your toe-nails?”
Alfie’s eyes snapped open. “What?” He tugged off one of the disposable slippers to check and was relieved to find his toe-nails unaltered. “Funny.”
“I knew you’d enjoy it,” said Oscar. “Feel free to thank me any time.”
And so Alfie started booking himself in for regular pedicures, although he point-blank refused to consider any other treatments.
It must be a year since his last pedicure. But Debbie presumably offered them. He must call in at the salon and ask.
And then he jumped up with a smothered exclamation. He had been so distracted by the events of the morning that he had completely forgotten the fudge delivery.