The Grace in Older Women Read online

  Not that I wanted to linger. Countryside's grim and horrible. It lies there with nobody much in it, waiting, ticking off the days like one massive timepiece. I'm convinced it only looks pretty the way demons and sirens are said to take on a winsome guise, to lure honest people away from reality. How ruralists have the nerve to stock up with jam butties and tea flasks, then march along lonely riverbanks and ancient trackways enjoying woods and fields, God alone knows. I can't understand. If ever I get the money I'll be out of our remote rusticity and never ever leave the comfort of dense town houses, crammed humanity and shops. Where nature lovers see 'scenery' and conservationists see 'survival', I see only things sinister.

  'I beg your pardon, Lovejoy?' she asked, as we slithered to a stop. 'You said "eating everything".'

  'Ah. Countryside. Everything hunts everything.'

  She opened the car door. That's simply Nature, Love joy.'

  Oh, aye, I thought. Putting a nice word to anything makes it okay then, does it? Assassination, murder, carnage, they all sound respectable. It's only their import chills your spine. I disembarked in the cold wind. She dowsed the motor's glims.

  We were in a narrow lane near a lych gate - modern. The original old gate had gone. There was just enough coming light to see by, the eastern skies shredding black clouds but leaving the pieces there as a warning. More rain due soon. Vaguely I could see the sombre mass of a church thickening the shades beyond the trees. Down the lane, I guessed hopefully, a huddle of houses, cottages, maybe a farm or two. . . ? Until I realized this must be Fenstone, that huddle of vacancies, one of East Anglia's dying villages. In Juliana's careering arrival I'd noticed one or two wattle-and-daub cotts, one shop front, a walled garden, in a blur.

  'This way, please.' Her torch went ahead up the path.

  Incredibly, a vestry light was on. She knocked, and we entered light and dryness. I shut out that widespread malevolence of field and flower.

  'Good morning,' he said.

  'Father Jay Smith, may I introduce Lovejoy,' Juliana simpered. She didn't blush, but it was a near thing. 'Lovejoy, Father Jay.'

  'How do, er, Father Jay.'

  'How do you do, Lovejoy.'

  He was of average height, thirtyish, with springy hair and a pleasant open face, though I never know why we say things like that because all faces are open, aren't they? He wore a cassock, and had been reading his breviary. Juliana went instantly into apology.

  ‘Oh, I'm so sorry! Were you. . . ?' She writhed in abasement

  The priest smiled. 'Just finished my office, Miss Witherspoon. Vest for mass in a few minutes.'

  if there is anything I can ever . . .' She halted in near-blunder. I looked away. Another's pain spreads like ripples on a pond, goes on and on affecting every molecule in the water. I couldn't see the problem. Celibacy's all very well, but it's not gospel, is it? She was gorgeous, he looked hale, so why not get on with it? There's enough problems in the world without inventing more. I joked to staunch the wound.

  'Miss Witherspoon overtook Fangio at Bures.'

  'Miss Witherspoon is kind to trouble.'

  He smiled his appreciation, gestured us to seats. The vestry was spacious, but the furniture was reproduction. Old pock-marked linoleum covered the floor, the flagstone edges making indentations. Cruets of wine and water stood on a small chipboard stand, Woolworth's best glass. This place also felt gutted, breathing as if comatose and with a terrible emptiness. An ancient church all right, but I’ll bet even the pews were sold. It was walls and a roof, and nothing.

  'Where is it?' I asked. If the priest was bound heavenward, I'd have starved to death by the time I reached any grub.

  He went blank, it?'

  'The antique.' I glanced from her to him. Some mistake?

  'Oh.' Eyebrow play, looks darting. The antique?'

  A door in the main church boomed. A shuffle began, some ancient dragging to morning mass. You don't get many papists in East Anglia, so I expect he wouldn't have to struggle to find a pew. In fact, I was rather surprised to find a church of that persuasion still at it. We've hundreds of churches dwindling year by year as congregations empty into modern life. His quizzical smile showed he'd sussed my thoughts.

  'Not being critical,' I said hastily. 'Times are changing.'

  ‘I know, Lovejoy. This church was of a, ah, former denomination. I came three years ago. I think I have found paradise early, so fond I am of this village.'

  'Hard up, eh?'

  'Lovejoy!' Miss Witherspoon in outrage.

  'I'm sympathizing!' I shot back indignantly. 'For Chri . . . Goodness!' I completed piously with a feeble grin. I'd have to watch my language, but you've got to talk, for Christ's sake, or nobody would say anything to anybody. Then where would we be?

  it is true, Miss Witherspoon,' he reproved her sadly.

  She subsided instantly, bowed her head. See? Subservience for him, vituperation for me? I began to regret having come. Not a single antique in the place, from its feel. Sorry, old church, I mentally apologized. But if all your church silver, your ancient pews, fonts, lecterns, misericords, have been ripped out, what did the exquisite Juliana fetch me for?

  She glared hatred, but only because the priest's sad gaze was fixed on some distant sorrow. Miss Witherspoon was truly smitten. She would kill to avoid seeming unpleasant in his eyes.

  He sighed. The world has shrunk, Lovejoy. Less than a dozen parishioners. If it wasn't for Miss Witherspoon, and Mr. Geake, my other churchwarden, I'd not survive. This week three more families leave. Fenstone is dying.'

  'It will grow again, Father Jay!' Juliana cried fiercely.

  ‘We can hope, Miss Witherspoon.' He was suddenly tired. I felt a bit sorry, but not all that much. I mean, I'm always on my uppers. He at least had a roof over his head. He spoke directly to me. 'I've no illusions. Folk see a priest nowadays, and ask why he enjoys such privilege - his keep, rent-free position, security - when they are out there earning their beans, children to clothe, battling for jobs.'

  'Well, that's people.' I smiled to show I didn't think that, I was on his side. Well, he had an antique.

  'This great old church is crumbling. We've tried various schemes but been unfortunate - '

  ‘It's more than misfortune!' La Witherspoon interjected. 'It's a plot!'

  'Look, padre.' Talking with priests makes me uncomfortable, but I had to say it. 'East Anglia's famous for dying hamlets. Young folk want out. They don't want to slog in the fields twelve hours a day. They want town life. In Lincolnshire - '

  ‘I do not claim we are unique, Lovejoy. Only that it's happening to us. y Juliana nodded with vigour even before she'd heard him out. 'Our church appurtenances have been sold. I auctioned our last treasure in Norwich last Michaelmas- an Elizabethan vestry chest. It was stolen on the way. Are you all right?'

  'Fine!' I must have groaned aloud with baulked lust.

  It was photographed for a book on antiques,' Juliana complained. 'A very unusual design.'

  'Then there was the fire. We couldn't afford the rewiring, so I did it myself. It caused a fire in the presbytery.'

  'The antique you want me to guard?' Why I'd come.

  'I will have it collected tomorrow by the auctioneers.'

  'Why not have them collect it today?' I asked. 'You're daft to leave an antique lying around.'

  'Because today's Sunday.'

  'Ah, yes.' I cleared my throat. 'I forgot. I was just on my way to morning service when Miss Witherspoon called.' I stared defiantly at her. I was bloody sick of piety. Because she wanted to ravish this defenceless priest I was out in these wilds starving to death. She could get on with it. 'Where?'

  He raised his eyebrows. 'The painting behind you.'

  'No, it isn't,' I said, fed up. 'If there's a painting behind me, it's a fake.' I rose. 'I'll be going. Thanks for . . .' He hadn't done anything except ruin my dawn.

  'You haven't even looked, Lovejoy!' They said it together.

  'Chance of a lift?'

  'O
f all the. . . !' the bird started up, but the priest must have shushed her. She fell apoplectically mute.

  The painting caught my eye, as paintings will. Even daubs halt you in mid-stride. It was a good forgery. The colours were right, including the woad blue. A woman seated at a window, a little girl in pre-Carolean dress at her knee. They were staring out in sorrow shared. I thought of Frank Bramley's A Hopeless Dawn painting, Tate Gallery, but this was a faker's attempt to do Elizabethan. Little knowledge and mediocre talent. One thing he'd done right, though, was get the pigments correct, which for a forger wasn't at all bad. Most make tragic mistakes with wrong colours. I've even seen Turner lookalikes done in acrylics-and sold! Unbelievable. Except not quite as unbelievable as all that, in an age when forgers openly boast that every thing can be made from any thing (and note those word spaces).

  Woad's funny stuff. It grows frankly as a weed. Rum-looking, even for a plant. When you first see it you're downright disappointed. Especially thinking of those Ancient Brits with painted blue faces attacking Roman legions, that embarrass schoolchildren by reminding them that we were once almost as barbaric as we are now. For a start woad's not blue. And you never see as many branches on a plant. And it's yellow flowering, with green leaves. Only two feet tall. I like to sit on a summer's evening watching insects. They fly at the yellow blossom and pop each flower. Sometimes on a quiet evening you can actually hear the petals pop apart, like whinnymoor broom flowers do. Our old villagers use the seeds for roasting into coffee. (Don't try it. It tastes horrible, and it makes you nod off all the time.)

  The Romans and Greeks, of course, used it. Its flowers dye yellow, but its leaves when festered in water for fifteen days dye the loveliest blue you'll ever see in your life. Not as stark as ultramarine or lapis lazuli, but a gentle mild blueness you can't help but love. Add the two, and your wool dyes green.

  Anciently, whole countries flourished on woad. Like in France, where Toulouse's rich architecture came directly from exporting the stuff in little rondels a bit bigger than a golf ball. Until about 1562, when holiness raised its ugly head and religious wars sent the Protestant woad merchants diving for cover and the industry vanished. Oops. I remembered where I was.

  'Who did it?' I asked. A forger nearly as good as Packo?

  'Some ancient artist long dead, Lovejoy. Anonymous. What's the matter?'

  The pong of linseed oil was the matter. Frankly, the daftness of forgers takes your breath away. Little girls have the best noses. Ask one if a painting smells. She'll wrinkle her little two-year-old conk and go, 'Poooh!' She'll even tell you if it's the same aroma as your linseed stand oil. It takes, I assure you, nigh two years for linseed scent to vanish, so it's a good test. We've all got noses. There's no excuse for getting ripped off.

  'Doesn't feel right. It stinks oil. You've been done.'

  'But. . .' He turned to Miss Witherspoon in perplexity. 'Wasn't it walled up two hundred years?'

  'It certainly was, Father Jay!' she pronounced sternly. 'I had heard this man was honest. Now I can see he's a conniving dealer who wants this painting himself for a song!'

  Patience evaporated. 'I've told you the truth. I've got some rich Americans to see.'

  'Americans?' I swear Father Jay went pale.

  'They want me. For breakfast,' I added pointedly.

  'Oh. Not here, then?'

  'Why would. . . ?' I caught myself. I'd almost asked why anyone in his right mind would want to come to Fenstone. ‘Er, in town.'

  'Please don't have any truck with Lovejoy. He's a crook.'

  That was when I left them to it. I'd had enough. It was barely dawn. I was stuck in the wilderness, hungry as a hunter, no nosh bars anywhere, and a million miles from civilization where Addie, the Yanks, waited - I hoped. In an earlier, more condign, age I would have gone to the nearest church door and knocked, asking for food to stave off my gnawing hunger pains. Not now, not now.

  Naturally, I couldn't resist peering into the church. A stout balding gentleman with a pronounced shuffle - stroke? - was lighting altar candles. He looked vaguely familiar, but it was hard in the gloaming. Then I thought, tweeds, country gent, the auction, Addie Bigmouth explaining why. Otherwise, empty. The poor box beckoned, but with true nobility I walked away, hoping never to see Juliana Witherspoon and her priest ever again.

  8

  There was enough light to see the mighty metropolis of Fenstone was rousing, when I found a bus stop. No bus. Maybe eighteen cottages, once-splendid houses abutting the road, no pavements in rural fashion. The bus shelter was falling. I mean literally, its glass shattered, roof holed. No timetable to show when, if ever, the last train to Marienbad was due. I walked about. The pub was forlorn, announcing a 'good pull-in for travellers' in a flaking, frankly disbelievable, notice. One in three of the cottages was vacant. Faded FOR SALE signs bleached. Fenstone hadn't grown astride a trunk road, so no traffic was through. A man leading a massive shire horse came by.

  We exchanged greetings. 'No caff hereabouts, is there?'

  'Na, son. Ta'll get nothing at the Bull. Closed for good.'

  'Shop, then?' Some sell milk, boxes of orange juice with a straw.

  'Got none now.' He stopped the great beast by leaning back on its chest and slithering his boots until it understood.

  'Bus?'

  'Noon, to Dragonsdale, Tuesdays and Thursdays.'

  He was wondering what I was doing there. I explained, 'Been to your church, and I want to get home.'

  'Left before prayers, then.' He grinned. 'Services to nobody. Empty since Reverend Fairhurst died of his accident. This stranger's not filled it, with his rituals, all smells and bells.'

  I found myself grinning. East Anglia's religious issues were decided by the Civil War, for good. 'Nice bloke, though.'

  'Foreign, they do say.'

  Odd, I've a cracking ear for accents. I'd bet my next meal Father Jay was as indigenous as us. 'He's had troubles.'

  Never question country folk, you'll get nowhere. Leave a space, and answers come a-flowing. Upset over Juliana's crummy forgery, I'd flitted without hearing of their impending robber.

  'Well, churches nowadays . . .' Me, leaving a casual space.

  'He'm Fenstone's bad luck, son.’ He spat a parabola, the grot splattering on a fragment of pane. Tinker had a rival, the Fenstone champ.

  'Bad luck! A holy man?'

  'Aaah.' A local yes, with mistrust. 'With him, Middle Snoring's come nigh to vanishing.' Middle Snoring was Fenstone's old name. 'Post office, gone! Go to Dragonsdale for a stamp. Our lady's farm had a fail lately, all bad luck.'

  'Your farm! Failing!' I tutted.

  'Her got new animals, goo-an-acko. Wool fit for a king, nigh's good as East Anglian sheep. All to nought, that.'

  'Hard luck.'

  'Luck?' He nodded the way Suffolk shows apoplectic rage. 'Took sickness, they. The Ministry come in from Lunnon, closed the herd.'

  'Still, you've got your church.' I was starting to wonder now. It didn't only seem to be Jox that suffered in Fenstone.

  'St Edmund's? How she lasts I dunno. If it weren't for Miss Witherspoon there wouldn't be no church at all. What she makes from visitors wouldn't keep a gnat in beer.'

  'Oh, I dunno.' I was only talking, not really hoping. 'Some villages attract tourists in summer.'

  'Aaah. But who wants their likeness these days? Fenstone's not had a Ringing Day these three years. That Jox tried, but folk're saying it's cursed.'

  A mist was slowly spreading from the fields opposite. A river vale lay there, where the track fell away. The gleam of daylight by the lych gate had gone The faint gold light in the church windows lessened as the mist climbed the buttresses. I tried to ignore it.

  Ringing Day is November Fifth, that folk mostly call Bonfire Plot. A relieved parliament ordered bells rung to celebrate Guy Fawkes getting caught before he could blow everybody to blazes. It's a time of bonfires, fireworks, parkin cake and general wassailing. No more in Fenstone.

  'Can't your
policeman help?'

  He snorted derision. The shire was restless, snorting, not liking the mist. 'Police? We'n't no bobby these nine year.' He looked round. 'Best be off before I'm blinded.'

  'Mist comes every morning, does it?' This sort of thing happens. East Anglia in some areas is flat as a pancake. Village lads wear joke T-shirts, EAST ANGLIA MOUNTAIN RESCUE.

  'And evening, this time of year. Cheers, son.'

  'Morning.'

  Now, likeness' means a painting in old speech. I looked hard at St Edmund's. Its old name, Parish Church of Middle Snoring, had been painted over. Who'd change an interesting old name to a boring new one?

  Which made me start listing failures in Fenstone, apart from Fenstone. Jox's orchestra, antique shop, restaurant, wildlife scheme, estate agency, others I didn't know about. And now some lady's farm of, what creatures, goo-an-acko? What the hell was a goo-an-acko, with its wool fit for a king?

  No cars coming. I started a long lonesome plod, away from Fenstone and its eerie creeping mist, thinking as I went.

  Names are odd things, when you think of it. Women usually hate their forenames, though they tolerate their surnames well enough. Villagers are almost as bad, especially when their village name's a national joke. But when you've grown up in this creaking old kingdom of ours, the laughter of tourists is simply a surprise. I mean, a Canadian lass laughed on hearing of Middlesex. You've got to make allowances. But do Canadians roll in the aisles at Newfoundland's Blow Me Down? Or Americans fall about at Intercourse, Pennsylvania?