A Spell of Swallows Read online

  Susan may have been simple but she was not idle, Edith saw to that. She was quite able to help out with domestic chores and to perform straightforward errands. Friends and neighbours willingly cooperated out of affection and respect for the family. On this particular morning Susan was on her way to the vicarage with a note for the reverend. This was a commission which suited everyone—Susan because Mrs Mariner was very pretty and nice and let her stay as long as she liked, and Edith because her daughter would be safely and happily occupied till at least midday.

  Depending on her destination, Susan followed various prescribed routes around the village—Edith’s encouraging of her independence wisely did not extend to the exercise of too much initiative. The walk to the vicarage took her along Back Street, which ran east-west parallel with High Street. At the end of Back Street, before the Jug and Bottle, she turned right, and joined High Street near Moon’s the bakers. If Mr Moon was in a good mood and not too busy he’d jerk his head to invite her in and give her a bag of ‘bits’ still warm from the oven. Today was not one of those occasions, though Susan dawdled past and gazed hopefully in Mr Moon’s direction. There were several people at the counter and he wore an irritable expression. Edith often expressed her bafflement at why people like Arthur Moon went into the retail business when they didn’t care for the customers, but there it was.

  About fifty yards further along the High Street curved to the northwest, and the buildings petered out, leaving the road to continue to climb its winding way up Fort Hill. On the far, outer side of the bend stood the church, and just beyond it the vicarage. Both of these buildings Susan found rather forbidding, the first because she was occasionally dragged along there for what seemed hours of sitting still, keeping quiet and paying attention, the second because Mr Mariner, architect of her misery in church, lived there, and she sensed (there was nothing the matter with her woman’s intuition) that he was not generally liked. Also the vicarage, a much more recent building than St Catherine’s, was a tall, frowning house made of gloomy grey brick. The front door seemed to crouch in darkness behind its pillared porch, but mercifully Susan didn’t have to use that. Her route took her through the churchyard and the iron kissing-gate into the vicarage garden and hence to the back door, which was perfectly ordinary and led into the province of Hilda, and the nice and smiling Mrs Mariner.

  Susan was utterly dependable. Given a task, she carried it out to the letter. From the moment her mother said ‘Here’s a note for Mr Mariner,’ she carried in her head the picture of herself placing the note into Mrs Mariner’s hands (she rarely saw the vicar) and that became her whole focus until the picture coincided with reality, when she would relax and give herself into Mrs Mariner’s keeping until she in her turn said: ‘Better get along home now’—when she would set off along the way she’d come with the picture of her mother’s kitchen in her head all the way until she got there.

  So it was a surprise when, as she came round the corner of the church, a voice said:

  ‘Morning.’

  Ashe had seen the woman watching him from the vicarage window—he assumed from its position that it was the vicarage. She might have been a maid, or the lady of the house, hard to tell. He was aware of the impression he made and was amused at how rapidly she disappeared when he caught her looking. Just like the girl earlier on. People spying thought they had the advantage over you, but if you let them know you were on to them, then quick as a flash it was they who were at a disadvantage.

  That wasn’t going to happen to him. He’d sat down in a sunny position in the angle between the vestry door and one of the stone buttresses. If anyone walked through the churchyard he’d see them before they saw him. Like this one, stumping along and humming to herself, in a world of her own. Perfect.

  Susan didn’t for a moment think anyone could be addressing her, so she ignored the greeting. But next thing she knew a dark figure reared up beside the church, and she heard the voice again:

  ‘Hallo!’

  She paused, but didn’t look round, and kept her eyes fixed on the gate, now only a few yards away. The man came right up to her and bent his head sideways to look at her. His eyes were dark and bright, adding to the birdlike impression, but she avoided looking directly into them, both from shyness and because there was something frightening about him.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked. His voice was soft and friendly and he seemed to be smiling. Susan, who tended to reflect whatever came her way, smiled too, but kept her eyes on the gate.

  ‘That’s better . . .’ He straightened up. ‘So where are you off to?’

  She nodded in the direction of the house, ‘To the vicarage.’

  ‘Do you live there?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m taking a note.’

  ‘A note for the vicar, eh?’

  ‘For Mrs Mariner.’

  ‘I see.’

  Susan started once more walking towards the gate, but he took a long stride and a turn so that he was walking backwards in front of her, and she stopped, confused. He leaned forward again, getting his face where she could see it. She stared, unhappily. It was a strange face, some of it the same as other people’s, some of it not, but he was still smiling and she was beguiled, and stopped again.

  ‘That’s better. What’s your name?’

  ‘Susan Clay.’

  ‘All right, Susan, would you like to sit down and have some cake with me?’

  With the scent of Moon’s still in her nostrils, it was as if he’d read her mind. Still she hesitated, mindful of her mother’s injunctions not to speak to strangers. But it was sunny here, and she was only a stone’s throw from her destination.

  ‘What sort of cake?’

  ‘Come and see.’ He walked away from her, back to the corner of the church wall, where a canvas bag lay on the grass. He didn’t look to see if she was following, but crouched down, opened the bag, and took out something wrapped in a checked cloth like the ones Susan’s mother used in the kitchen. He untied the corners, and lowered his face, sniffing with his eyes closed.

  ‘Mmm . . .’

  Cautiously, she advanced.

  Ashe was almost ashamed of himself for practising on such an easy subject. He spread the cloth on the ground and stood what remained of the simnel cake upright in the centre, repositioning a couple of the marzipan balls which had come askew. He did all this with eyes downcast in apparent concentration, reeling the girl in. When he’d finished she was there, standing next to him. It was good to know his gift hadn’t deserted him.

  Still without looking up, he said: ‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable.’

  She only hesitated for a second. Till now there’d been no sign of the note, but as she sat down he saw it, pinned inside her skirt pocket. He studied her covertly as he felt in his pocket for a penknife. Simple she might be, but she was not neglected. Though her fat legs covered in downy hair stuck out in front of her, apart, like a doll’s, there was no smell and her hair and clothes were clean. It was impossible to judge her age except that she was no child; she carried her ungainly breasts awkwardly, like a bolster strapped to her chest. None of this prevented Ashe’s usual reaction of revulsion.

  He cut off a small piece of the cake and popped it in his mouth, conscious of the girl’s eyes glued to his every movement.

  ‘It’s good . . . Want some?’

  ‘Yes please,’ She was polite, too.

  He cut off another, larger piece, topped it with a piece of marzipan, and held it out to her on the flat of his hand. She took it carefully and held it in her own cupped hand, gazing with obvious longing first at the cake, then at him beneath her sparse, pale lashes. He realised that she was being well brought up, waiting for him to begin eating again. He popped in another mouthful and she did the same, tucking in with gusto, and continuing in silence until her slice was all gone. Then she dusted busily at her lap, and flapped her floral cotton skirt, shaking crumbs in all directions.

  ‘Food for the birds,’ said Ashe.r />
  ‘Yes.’ She nodded, her moon-face illuminated by a sweet smile.

  He was a nice man, and Susan had enjoyed the cake. A couple of sparrows hopped about in the grass nearby, feasting on the crumbs. Susan peered over her shoulder, checking that the vicarage was still there, and no one was getting cross, but all was tranquil.

  Her new friend leaned his head back against the church wall and closed his eyes in the sun.

  ‘So what’s the vicar like, then?’

  Susan had never before spoken to anyone she did not know, or who did not know her, so a question of this sort was unprecedented and she had to give it serious thought.

  ‘He’s very clever.’

  ‘Is he now.’

  Ashe, self-trained to detect verbal nuances, heard someone else talking through the girl. Whoever looked after her so well, kept her clean and smart and sent her on errands, had no great opinion of the vicar. The best thing you could say of a man of the cloth was that he was good; or kind, perhaps; patient, generous, understanding . . . But clever? The words ‘by half’ hung in the air. Ashe experienced a prickle of curiosity.

  ‘What about Mrs Mariner, is she clever?’

  She shook her head and said, as if the two qualities were mutually exclusive: ‘She’s nice. She lets me stay and help.’

  ‘Make yourself useful, do you, Susan?’

  She nodded, beaming.

  ‘Well . . .’ Ashe stood up and stretched. ‘I mustn’t keep you, then.’

  Awkwardly, she leaned forward and got on to all fours. Her tongue stuck out slightly. Ashe stifled his disgust, and extended a hand.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘allow me.’

  He hauled her up, legs braced—she was no light weight. The effort turned her own face pink. As soon as he let go her hand, she felt for the note in her pocket.

  ‘Thank you.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And thank you for the cake.’

  ‘ ’Bye Susan.’

  Ashe watched her as she waddled away towards the gate. All very informative.

  Saxon was in his study at the front of the house, but the tenor of the voices floating up from the kitchen told him that the Clay girl had arrived, doubtless bringing the bill for her father’s work on the car. The envelope would be addressed to him, delivered to his wife, He suspected the Clays of presuming on Vivien’s good nature, as they could always rely on her to keep the girl amused for hours. He was well aware of how fortunate he was in Vivien. Those aspects of the ministry which came hard to him—social intercourse at every level, little acts of everyday charity involving humour, patience and forbearance—were as natural as breathing to her. His belief was crystal-clear, his faith firm, but they manifested themselves in his relationship with the Almighty rather than with his fellow man.

  Saxon had been acutely asthmatic as a child, and was still mildly so now. It was that as much as his vocation which had prevented him from joining up. As a young man he had been an editor of scholarly works on the world religions, among which were several exhaustive commentaries on the Bible and lively interpretations of Christian teaching. Till then he had been a churchgoer for broadly cultural reasons—he found the music and language of the Anglican liturgy inspiring—but his reading of these works had excited his intellect. To begin with he had seen taking orders as a way of perfecting his faith through study, but experience had shown this to be a naïve expectation. Here in Eadenford his role was not so much priestly as social, and if it weren’t for Vivien he would quite frankly have failed in it. He admired and appreciated her ability to do what was increasingly beyond him—to love his neighbour.

  He heard Hilda come up and begin clattering in the dining room. He closed his eyes; the world was too much with him.

  Once the purse-lipped Hilda had gone—she was ambivalent about the Clays’ daft lump of a girl—Susan began laboriously to unpin the note from her pocket. Vivien watched but knew better than to intervene or offer help. At last it was placed in her hand.

  ‘Thank you. Is that for me?’

  ‘For Mr Mariner.’

  ‘Let me see . . .’

  She knew perfectly well what it was, but to please Susan she opened the still slightly warm envelope, spread the page on the kitchen table and studied the bill, written in Ted Clay’s round, deliberate hand.

  ‘Good—I’ll give this to Mr Mariner in a moment.’ She refolded it and replaced it in the envelope. ‘Can I get you something, Susan? A drink or a biscuit?’

  Susan shook her head, hesitantly. ‘I had some cake.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Vivien smiled. ‘Did Mr Moon have something for you?’

  ‘No—the man out there.’ Susan pointed in the direction of the churchyard.

  With a little pulse of anxiety, Vivien remembered the stranger she’d seen from the window earlier. ‘What man was that?’

  ‘We had a picnic’

  ‘Did you? Did you really?’ Susan nodded. Vivien took her hand. ‘Let’s see if he’s still there.’

  She opened the back door and they walked, still hand in hand, across the corner of the lawn to the kissing gate.

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘There,’ Susan pointed again. ‘He’s gone now.’

  Viven stepped through the gate and took a look around. There was certainly no sign of anyone. She turned back, took Susan once more by the hand, and they returned to the house. Once inside she took her other hand as well, and faced her squarely.

  ‘Listen, Susan. You really shouldn’t talk to strangers. You know your mother and father say the same.’

  Susan blushed guiltily. ‘He liked me.’

  ‘I daresay he did—of course he did, everyone likes you, but—it’s just not a good idea.’ She put her arm round Susan’s plump shoulders and gave them a squeeze. ‘Promise me you won’t do it again. Hm?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘That’s that, then. I shan’t mention it to anyone. Now, I’ve got lots of things to sort out for Eaden Place, will you help me do that?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Saxon, deep in his writing, stifled his annoyance at the discreet tap on the door.

  ‘Come.’

  It was Vivien, with a note in her hand. He caught a glimpse of the Clay girl standing behind her in the hall.

  ‘Saxon, I’m sorry to disturb you—it’s Mr Clay’s bill.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He took the envelope and laid it unopened on the desk. ‘I do sometimes wonder if it’s a good idea sending business documents by means of—’ he nodded at the door‘—that particular Ganymede.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ Vivien gave a snuffling, contained laugh. ‘Susan’s safe as houses.’ She paused, reflecting on a recent exchange and added, a little too emphatically: ‘None safer!’

  She touched her fingers to the back of his neck, and left the room. Saxon reproached himself with having been grumpy, but knew that his wife, if she had noticed at all, would have forgiven him.

  Eaden Place was currently given over by its owners, the Delamaynes, to war-convalescents. Every room except their private quarters was packed with beds and on fine days the terrace, overlooking the broad walk and vista designed by Capability Brown, held rows of wheelchairs and truckle beds, while on the broad walk itself those patients who were able perambulated slowly up and down, on their own, in pairs, or aided by the nursing staff. The magnificent dining hall with its French wallpaper and engraved windows was crowded with unlovely metal-framed tables and folding canvas chairs, and the curtains smelt of overcooked vegetables and Bisto. But great work was done there. Since it had opened two years ago Vivien had organised regular collections of clothes, linen, blankets and bedding, and a couple of times a year, spring and autumn, the station van would carry a load up Fort Hill to the big house.

  The trouble was that not everyone was scrupulous about what they gave. It was essential to sort through the donations in order to filter out items with holes or ineradicable stains, and make a separate pile of those that would simply benefi
t from laundering. When things were brought to the back door they were put in the little back sitting room which served as a general boxroom, and also as Vivien’s retreat.

  She took Susan there now. The sash window was raised a chink, but the first thing she did was to open it wider.

  ‘Phew! Musty!’

  ‘Oh look, puss!’

  A sulky-looking tabby lay on top of a pile of blankets, narrowing its eyes and stretching its legs crossly at being disturbed. Susan scooped it up but it struggled free and disappeared through the window. The cat did not belong at the vicarage, and in fact Vivien had no idea to whom it did belong. She liked the cat and felt sorry for it, but its hairs, drifting through the house, made Saxon wheeze, so she tended to keep quiet about the surreptitious saucers of milk and fish-skin that she put down outside the window.

  Susan went to the window and stared wistfully out. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Vivien. ‘He’s not much of a pet. I suspect he only comes here to escape being made a fuss of somewhere else, But he’ll be back, don’t you worry.’

  She felt in her pocket for her cigarettes and matches, and lit one. ‘That’s better . . . When I’ve had this, we’ll make a start.’

  Ashe took himself on a little tour of the village. The few locals that were about he avoided, looking away or crossing over the road so as not to ruin their day. For the rest, he liked what he saw: a high street with a baker and a butcher; a doctor’s house; a forge and repair shop; a post office; and, most importantly for his present purposes, a couple of decent public houses, the Jug and Bottle and the Waggoner’s Arms. Of these the latter looked the more respectable, and at twelve o’clock he went in and bought a pint of the local beer at the bar, and established there was a room to be had for the night.

  ‘Passing through?’ enquired the publican, with studied casualness. He was a professional, of course, used to dealing with all sorts; only his pallor gave him away.