Latchkey kid
WHAT MERRILY NORMALLY did on the Sunday after a funeral was to invite prayers for the family.
It usually helped if the family was there to hear the first one.
Even a fragment of the family.
The stained-glass ripe apple glowed unseasonally in the window on her right, as, during the second hymn, she looked down from the lectern at the elderly regulars and the families – two couples who’d dragged their kids away from the Xboxes and taken away their phones in the hope that the seed of something worthwhile might take root during a period of being bored out of their skulls. She looked at James Bull-Davies, hands behind his back, who came because generations of his squirely ancestors had come on the Sabbath to occupy that same front pew.
About twenty-five people altogether – normal for a sunny winter Sunday when there was coffee afterwards.
And not one of them called Lloyd, unless…
Just one person she didn’t know. A black-haired young woman dressed for the weather in a bulky black woollen coat, who had arrived ten minutes after the start of the service. Sometimes you’d get visitors or second-homers who never went to a church near their first homes, but they were nearly always couples.
This woman just sat there, not far from the doors, didn’t sing or respond to prayers, remained blank-faced through the parish notices, and then slipped away – bugger – towards the end of the final hymn.
Merrily slipped away, too, pulling off her surplice, while Jim and Brenda Prosser from the Eight Till Late were serving the tea and coffee from the vestry. She left the surplice screwed up on a bench in the porch and went out into the churchyard in her cassock, cutting across the grass, looking from side to side.
Ah…
She’d reached Lucy’s stone, its moss limelit by the cold sun, when she saw that the woman was standing by the small tump that was Aidan’s grave, looking out across Iestyn’s field.
Merrily stepped off the coffin path.
‘Erm… I don’t normally chase people like this, but… are you a relation of Aidan’s?’
The woman turned. Early thirties. A lean, concave face, grey eyes, the black hair below her shoulders.
‘Just someone who decided she ought to know him… a lot better than she thought she did.’ A glance back towards the apple trees. ‘Did they tell you to play it down? At the funeral?’
‘Were you there?’
‘In the church. For a while. Stayed at the back. Didn’t attend the burial. Or the tea.’
‘That was the general feeling, was it? That it was played down?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t talk to anyone.’
‘I’m not too happy with the way I conducted that funeral. And I’m not blaming anyone else. Should’ve been more… curious. That is, I was curious, but I didn’t know the family and I get worried about treading on people’s—’
‘I suppose they told you he was stoned most of the time,’ the woman said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘And that when the accident happened he was probably doped to the eyeballs, didn’t know he’d even come out of the field.’
‘While the tea was taking place, I went into the bar instead. You only had to keep your ears open.’
‘Look, I’m sorry, I don’t know your…’
‘Rachel. There’s no reason you should know me. I’m the woman who wasn’t sleeping with him.’
Merrily said nothing.
‘In the strictest sense. If I had, I might’ve known more about him. The significant things you learn when you spend the whole night with someone and wake up with them. You know? And I never saw him roll a spliff.’
‘Listen,’ Merrily said, ‘my vicarage is just over that wall. Give me fifteen minutes to wind things up at the church, put some stuff away—’
‘No…’ She looked uncertain suddenly. ‘I’d rather not do that.’
‘Rachel, I’ve been told about the cannabis, for what that’s worth, but nobody’s mentioned you, or any woman, in connection with Aidan Lloyd. No reason they would, but…’
‘He never stayed the night, you see. I used to think he must have had a wife somewhere. Wife and kids. I didn’t really care.’ Rachel frowned. ‘No, that’s wrong. Of course I cared. I just cared more when I found out he didn’t have a wife. If he didn’t have a wife, then why did he never stay the night?’
‘Where did you meet him? Do you mind if I ask?’
‘In a pub. After a talk, in Hereford, about the theory of universal consciousness. Wasn’t very interesting, as it turned out. Amazing how some people can turn universal consciousness into something not very interesting, but there you go. I was with some friends and we went to a pub afterwards and he was there, and I remembered he’d been at the talk, so…’
‘What was he like?’
‘Ah, well…’ Rachel very nearly smiled. ‘… that’s it, you see. Do I really know what he was like? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? He was a quiet, sweet guy, hard to have a row with him, he didn’t argue. And he… was different to any man I’d ever met – and I’ve met one or two – and I still don’t quite know why.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a doctor. GP.’
‘Oh.’
‘I was quite surprised to discover he was a farmer, which was a bit pompous and patronizing of me, but there you go, I don’t know much about farmers. I only see them when they’re ill, and not many. I’m in a city practice.’
‘What did you hope to find by coming here today?’
Something, definitely.
‘Only I’m a stranger,’ Merrily said, ‘and you’re telling me all this private stuff.’
‘I Googled you.’ Rachel smiled at last. Kind of. ‘You’re the woman who investigates hauntings and things. I didn’t know the Church did that. But you believe in all that stuff, obviously.’
‘Some of it. And, as a doctor, you…’
‘I’m not saying I don’t. I just wasn’t sure whether I wanted to talk to someone like you. Still not sure, really.’
‘It’s usually nurses who tell me the stories.’
‘In hospitals. Yes. We hear them, sometimes. Mine, however… all right, mine happened at home.’
‘Oh?’
‘What if I was to tell you Aidan came… came in last night?’
‘Then I’d ask you again if you wanted to come over to the vicarage,’ Merrily said softly. ‘Or across the square to the Swan. Or anywhere.’
The Kilpeck number was scrawled sideways on the lyric pad, next to some phrases for a new song, a winter song. The pad was next to the phone. Lol was sitting there, touching nothing.
But then, if he didn’t make the call, Jane would only do it, and Jane was not always subtle and, in her present state of mind, might say anything.
Should’ve told her mother weeks ago about Samantha Burnage. He could understand why she hadn’t at the time, and now the time had passed and telling her wouldn’t be so easy.
Sam. How it had all arisen out of gratitude.
Sam: the woman who’d taken her side against some of the archaeologists in Pembrokeshire who’d sneered at Jane’s passion for folklore and earth-mysteries. Sometimes, Jane seemed to be living on parallel levels, the so-called real world and a numinous place where everything was interlaced, conditioned by the past.
Suppose I kind of worshipped Sam, like when you have a crush on your teacher.
Inevitable that an attachment would form, Jane on her own amongst qualified professionals, thinking she had only one friend. At the end of the dig, they’d got drunk together and Jane had woken up in Sam’s bed, not entirely sure what, if anything, had happened in it. Back home, she’d actually approached Gus Staines, the friendly half of the gay couple running Ledwardine Livres, to find out if she might be a closet lesbian – like just so she knew. Gus, after quizzing her about the sex of her teddy bear, hadn’t thought so.
Lol picked up Jane’s phone and reread the email she’d left for him.
See what you think.
Hi Jane
How are you?
Listen, I have good news. A university
archaeology dept. with sudden money
to spare is looking for a project. Doesn’t
happen too often any more.
I’m thinking of proposing your henge.
Wanna talk about it? In depth?
I can probably come over quite soon.
much love,
Sam.
In depth, huh?
She’s, you know, a nice woman, Jane had said once. I’m convinced she really does share my values. You’d like her.
All right, then. What the hell.
He picked up the phone.
She’d cleared up at the church, made her apologies for disappearing so suddenly, collecting a reproving glance from Uncle Ted, senior churchwarden. She rang Jane, explained she could be late, why didn’t Jane just get herself some lunch. A familiar scenario. She could’ve sworn Jane seemed almost glad.
When she made it to the Swan, the bar was crowded; she wasn’t sure that Rachel would have waited. But there she was behind either a tomato juice or a Bloody Mary, at the most discreet table for two, under a small, milky mullioned window. She hadn’t taken off the big black coat.
Merrily sat down. Too conspicuous in the cassock but it was Sunday.
‘Often part of the parting process,’ she said. ‘But I expect you know that.’
‘A stressful time,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve had patients who… anyway.’
Shook her head dismissively.
‘Huw,’ Merrily said, ‘the guy who advises me, has taken to calling them the Latchkey Kids.’
‘Let themselves in?’
‘Someone you know very well who lets him or herself in. For a while. More properly, the Bereavement Apparition.’
‘I think I prefer latchkey kid. It certainly makes you question your— not your sanity, but your state of mind. I felt the need to talk about it with someone who wouldn’t give me the psychobabble. Just wasn’t sure I wanted it to be a vicar. I had a patient who was a woman vicar, and I certainly wouldn’t have told her. A touch too mumsy. I suppose I watched how you took that service and came to the conclusion that you probably couldn’t easily do happy-clappy.’
‘Not happy enough. Would you like something to eat?’
‘No thank you. I won’t stay long. I was… against my will, becoming serious about Aidan. Never the intention. A farmer? Me?’
There was the sense of them being in a hollow in the crowded bar, the chat and laughter shifted back.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘It was a truly awful thing to happen. I’m afraid I didn’t know him. We just… it’s a big village, growing all the time, and our paths didn’t cross. I wished they had.’
‘He didn’t spend much time here, did he? He went to work on his father’s farm. He went to work. Had what amounted to a bedsit there – live-in accommodation rather than a home. He told me all this, but never talked much about this village. Only about the one where he grew up. He did take me there once.’
‘Just to get this right, you and he were…’
‘An item? You’d say that, yes.’ She looked into the mottled blue light of the mullion window. ‘You’d have to say that now.’
Merrily didn’t ask.
‘It was an unusual arrangement,’ Rachel said, ‘but with my job I suppose it suited me. For a while. At first I thought I must be using him, you know?’
‘How long?’
‘Nearly a year. His death… I haven’t really had anyone to talk to about it. Or him. Nobody knew about him. My parents live down in Berkshire. They didn’t know about him. My partners at work, they didn’t know about him. Mainly because I didn’t know about him. Most men, they can’t tell you enough about themselves, can they?’
‘We talked a lot, eventually. But not about personal issues – or at least I didn’t think they were personal. Now I think perhaps they were. Issues verging on philosophy. I’d see him twice a week, three times lately. He was a quiet man, shy, but you became aware of… I can only describe it as an underlying energy. I don’t really mean physical, although he was stronger than he looked.’
‘You’re talking about an inner…?’
‘Oh, powerfully inner. A lot going on inside him, and I don’t mean emotional turmoil, he was usually very calm. I’m not sure what I mean, but that was… that was what I saw, when I awoke this morning.’
‘This morning?’
‘It was strange. Because we’d never spent a night together, I never awoke with that empty-bed feeling. So what I saw – it was him, and… Oh God, I saw the energy of him. It filled the room.’
‘You saw it…’
‘Vividly. I saw him, very briefly, but the energy didn’t go away for some minutes. The longest minutes of my life. Or perhaps it was only seconds. If someone came into the clinic and told me that, I’d have to write them a prescription.’
‘And that was the first time…?’
‘No. The first time was in the night. After the funeral.’
‘Oh.’
Rachel looked down into her drink then pushed it away.
‘Not good. I thought that was me. I’d done a lot of crying that night.’
‘Did you feel anything at the grave, just now?’
‘Nothing at all. It’s not his place, is it?’
‘Graves seldom are. This morning – were you frightened?’
‘No. Not while it was happening. Afterwards I was frightened. But that’s normal, isn’t it? You’re frightened something’s wrong with you.’
‘You said this was not his place. What is his place, Rachel?’
‘Kilpeck,’ Rachel said. ‘Oh God, yes. If he talked with any enthusiasm about anywhere, it was Kilpeck.’