Notwithstanding: Stories From an English Village Page 12

  It all went very well, though it was mildly disconcerting for the Rector to be giving communion to someone who knew the service even better than he did himself; Sir Edward was quite obviously reciting the sonorous words of the Book of Common Prayer to himself as they were being read. He grew positively excited when being delivered the bread and wine, and afterwards recited the Lord’s Prayer with gusto. He accepted the blessing with sighs of satisfaction and pleasure, so much so that the priest thought it almost indecent.

  Afterwards, over tea and crumpets, Lady Gemma, the Reverend Freemantle and Sir Edward discussed the weather, the state of the church roof, the best way to get rid of moles, the daunting prospect of having hundreds of relatives to stay over Christmas, why it was that the little crowd of teenage carol singers who came round every year only knew two carols, and the possible identity of the mysterious old lady. Sir Edward proposed that she must be some old biddy with bats in the belfry, and this proposition received the general assent of the company. ‘Never mind,’ exclaimed Sir Edward, ‘it was terrific fun to have communion in the study. Godfrey, I am so grateful.’

  The Reverend Freemantle then gathered his paraphernalia together, collected a Christmas peck on the cheek from Lady Gemma, and had his hand shaken vigorously by Sir Edward, who repeated, ‘Tremendous fun, marvellous!’ a great many times. They waved from the porch as the Rector departed in his Singer, to call in first at the church, where he returned some of his things to the vestry. Thence he went back home, and resumed his desperate perusal of old sermons, eventually finding an appropriate one in a volume compiled by a certain Reverend Colin Sykes, late of St Andrew’s College, Berkshire.

  On Christmas Day it began to snow just as everyone was leaving church, and by the afternoon three inches of glistening blanket had settled on the lawns and meadows of the village. With the brilliant whiteness, there arrived a wondrous hush.

  Just when all was utterly quiet, the steady tolling of a single muffled bell in the church tower began. It rang three times, paused, rang three times more, paused, and then three times again. After a few moments it began a steady, slow mournful tolling, as if thereby something were being counted. Some people in their warm houses wondered what it might possibly mean, but most, illiterate in the reading of bells, thought nothing of it at all. Down in the rectory, in his armchair, the Reverend Freemantle awoke from his nap after lunch and listened. ‘Now, what’s that?’ he asked his wife, who had challenged herself to a solitary game of pelmanism and had spread cards all over the coffee table.

  ‘It’s the bell, dear,’ she said unhelpfully. He listened, and for some reason he felt a heavy sensation in the pit of his stomach. ‘It’s a passing bell,’ he said, ‘I’m sure it’s a passing bell.’

  ‘A what, dear?’

  ‘A passing bell. The Striking Out for the Dead. I’ve heard it before somewhere. I’m sure that’s what it is. It’s what they always used to do.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said his wife, who of course had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Oh why? Do you have to? It’s awfully cold, and the road’ll be frightfully skiddy.’

  ‘I’m going, I really think I ought to be going.’ He went into the hall, and swathed himself in scarf, hat and gloves. He went to the back door and fetched his wellington boots, just in case the car couldn’t manage and he was obliged to walk back.

  It was frightening in the extreme trying to get the Singer up the hill, but fortunately there had been no other cars using the road since this morning’s service, and so the snow had not yet been packed into ice. In first gear, and with one or two alarming reverses, he made it up the slope, frequently wiping the condensation from the windscreen with the back of his driving glove. It was freezing up again the moment he got it clear. Leaving the engine running so that the demister could get to work on the glass, he crunched his way through the virgin snow to the door of the church, and pushed it open. It seemed far colder inside than it had been out in the fresh air. The tolling of the bell ceased, and a second later someone emerged from behind the curtain that separated the bell tower from the nave.

  The old woman in the long black dress with the white lacy collar approached him, and brushed lightly past. He caught a scent of mothball and lavender. She turned at the door, and looked at him imperiously for a few moments, as if appraising him steadily. She nodded, and said simply, ‘Sir Edward.’ He watched her go, looking in wonder and stupefaction at the ground beneath her elegant laced-up ankle boots. She opened the gate, waved and smiled courteously, and set off down the hill without the slightest regard to the snow.

  After another frightening and erratic journey, the Reverend Freemantle found the Rawcutt house in turmoil. Lady Gemma answered the door, her face pale and her lips trembling, exclaiming, ‘Oh Godfrey, thank God you’re here. How did you know?’

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked.

  Sir Edward, dressed in a dinner jacket, bow tie, red cummerbund and wing collar, was laid out on his back on the drawing-room floor, with his lips blue, his florid complexion vanished away, his eyes staring and his mouth wide open. He had a sprig of holly in the lapel of his dinner jacket, and a gold paper hat lay beside him on the floor. He was plainly dead. ‘Oh God,’ said the priest, dropping to his knees beside the body. He bent down to listen for a breath, and then sat back on his heels. Without knowing precisely what to do, he made the sign of the cross on the dead man’s forehead, and said, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’ Then he sighed, and said, ‘Goodbye, old fellow. Bon voyage.’

  ‘We’re waiting for the ambulance,’ said Lady Gemma. ‘We tried the kiss of life, and everything, and the ambulance’ll never get here with all this snow. Oh Godfrey, it’s just too awful.’

  ‘It’s too late for an ambulance,’ said the priest. ‘We should all just take this chance to say goodbye.’

  Reverently they formed a kind of ring around the dead man. Two sons and a daughter, their spouses, Lady Gemma, the Rector and the family dogs. Those who were not sobbing were waiting numbly for the tears to come. From the doorway peered in the confused white faces of four small grandchildren, all of them dressed in their best party clothes.

  ‘What happened?’ asked the priest.

  ‘We were playing “Are You There, Moriarty?”’ said Lady Gemma. ‘It was his favourite game, he loved it. It’s so silly, it was right up his street.’

  ‘“Are You There, Moriarty?” I know that one. He made me play it once. Well, it’s good to know that he died having fun. Good old Edward.’

  It was a highly energetic and hilarious game in which blindfolds were placed on the two contestants, who were then laid down on the floor, facing each other and holding the other by the left hand. In their right hand, each one held a rolled-up newspaper. They took it in turns to ask ‘Are you there, Moriarty?’ in the strongest and most bogus Irish accent possible, whereupon the other would have to reply ‘Here I am, to be sure!’ and then move out of the way to avoid being struck by the rolled-up newspaper. The first to achieve ten successful strikes was the winner.

  ‘Did he win?’ asked the priest.

  ‘He always won,’ said Lady Gemma, smiling through her tears, ‘he was a grand master.’

  ‘He died laughing,’ said his daughter, ‘he was doing his victory dance, and then he just went straight down.’

  The Reverend Freemantle remembered Sir Edward’s victory dance very well. He had been known to perform it on the cricket green, and beside the eighteenth green of the golf course, right in front of the clubhouse. He did it even if he had merely won a prize in a tombola. It was a flamboyant business, involving much whooping, cavorting, prancing and stamping which he swore he had learned from a Cherokee, whose acquaintance he had once made in Dorking during his rugby-playing days.

  It turned out to be the saddest Christmas in the parish since the year that almost an entire family had perished on the night of St Stephen’
s Day, in a fire brought about by candles on a tree. It was a melancholy time, doubly remembered still for its beautiful mantle of snow and for the entire village turning up to the funeral, during which the Reverend Freemantle had wept throughout his entire oration, but without any break in his voice.

  At the drinks and canapés party after Sir Edward’s burial, the Reverend Godfrey Freemantle found himself, glass in hand, standing before a large portrait facing the staircase. He gazed at it for some minutes, and then called to Lady Gemma, who was passing by with a small silver tray loaded with cocktail sausages. She was pale, but very becoming in her black dress and hat. She had been making conversation and smiling bravely, even though she felt that really now there wasn’t much to live for. It was doubly difficult to lose a man who had been well loved by so many, because the nice things they were saying made her want to cry.

  ‘Who’s this?’ asked the Rector, indicating the portrait with his glass.

  ‘Oh that,’ said Lady Gemma. ‘It’s Edward’s grandmother, Jenny. She absolutely adored him apparently. She called him Tedda and told the most marvellous stories. He’s got a drawer somewhere full of all the toys she gave him when he was tiny, and every year on her birthday we went to her grave and put flowers on it. I think he loved her more than he loved his mother, to be honest. She’s in the churchyard in Chiddingfold.’

  ‘Do you know much about her?’

  ‘Only what Edward used to tell me. I never knew her; she was before my time. Why?’

  ‘I wondered where I’d seen her before,’ said the priest. ‘Of course, it was this picture. I must have seen it every time I came here, and never really noticed.’ He smiled at Lady Gemma, raised his glass and said, ‘Here’s to the old lady.’ He took a draught of the champagne, and said, ‘I know something about Grandmother Jenny that you don’t.’

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, I certainly do.’ He fell silent, took another sip from his glass, paused, and said, ‘She leaves no footprint in the snow.’

  THE HAPPY DEATH OF THE GENERAL

  THE GENERAL, MC, DSO, veteran of Burma and the Malayan Emergency, late of Sam Browne’s Cavalry and the 9th/12th Lancers, goes out into his garden at half past seven in the morning and inhales the air deeply. Across the de Vico fields comes the cuckoo call of Miss Agatha Feakes as she summons her menagerie, and from behind the row of council houses comes the splutter of John the gardener’s secret motorcycle as he sets off to work on the stud farm of the ever-absent Shah of Iran.

  The General flexes and stretches the muscles of his arms, and then squats down and bounces against the elastic sinew of his thighs. It would be clear to any observer, should there be one, that here is a man who has been strong and healthy all his life. He is barrel-chested, solid and hairy. There is something faintly simian about both his body and his face. His eyes are small, round and black, and the skin of his back is dark brown from years under the sun both in the tropics and in his Surrey garden, where he cultivates azaleas and hydrangeas in the acidic soil. The General believes in cold showers, the Englishness of God and the civilising effect of the Empire. He loves his country, his wife, his walking stick, his pipe collection, his old black Labrador and his Rover P4. He has had them respectively for eighty-five years, fifty years, forty-five years, forty years, twelve years and ten years. His wife has recently died, taken off by cancer’s cruellest devising, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in yet, and he still makes two cups of tea in the morning, uncomplainingly removing hers from her side of the bed as soon as it goes cold. He improvises strange crude suppers for both of them, and eats her portion cold for lunch on following days. He has attempted to use the washing machine and has now, on maximum temperature, shrunk all of her old jerseys and cardigans, folding the felted, miniaturised versions back into the woollens compartment of her chest of drawers. Now that she isn’t wearing them, it seems a good opportunity to get them all clean and ready.

  Anyone observing the General’s robustness as he deep-breathes in his garden in early summer, amid the blooms of his azaleas, would find it easier to do so on account of his nudity. He has emerged in a state of nakedness out of sheer innocence, and now he goes back indoors with the fixed intention of driving to Haslemere to buy something, although quite what he does not yet know. He scrutinises himself in the hall mirror, and beetles his brows in puzzlement. ‘Dear me, old boy,’ he says to himself at last, ‘you’ve forgotten your tie. Letting yourself go. Can’t have that. Have to give yourself a good dressing-down.’

  He strides upstairs, reaches a regimental tie from the wardrobe, realises that he needs a collar around which to tie it and fetches a shirt from its hanger. He then understands that the ensemble is incomplete owing to the lack of a waistcoat and blazer. He calls his ancient dog. ‘Bella, Bella, old girl!’

  Bella is deaf, but she is already waiting by the front door, her tail wagging on her portly rump. Her dugs are blotchy, dark and pendulous after three litters (one of them accidental), and her muzzle is silver. The wrists above her front paws are swollen with painful arthritis, and she waddles breathlessly when she walks. She is the last and the best of the General’s gun dogs, but, like him, she has given up shooting. Now, like him, she just likes to go out in the car.

  The General opens the door of the Rover, and Bella puts her front paws up on the back seat. The General bends down, grasps her rear legs, and propels her into the interior. This is how they have managed it for the last two years, ever since Bella seized up.

  The General starts up the car and guns the accelerator. It feels peculiar, and he realises that he has forgotten to put his shoes on. He goes back inside and wanders about until he looks down at his feet and remembers what he was after.

  Bella and the General go the back way to Godalming, a town once famous for being the first to have street lighting, and for being the home of Mary Tofts, who was frightened by rabbits in the spring of 1726, and consequently gave birth to a litter of eighteen of them in November. Nearby, and less explicably, the ghost of Bonnie Prince Charlie strolls beneath the trees of Westbrook.

  The General motors up Malthouse Lane, past the convent. He passes the hedging and ditching man, who, in the attitude of Hamlet cradling Yorick’s skull, is waist-deep in the verge-side ditch, inspecting the freshly excavated hubcap of a Riley 1.5. The General drives past the Glebe House, through Hascombe, and finally parks his car behind the new Waitrose. He sets out past the public conveniences, past the Christian cafe, and out into the high street, where he pauses in puzzlement. It all looks wrong. He scratches the top of his head in bemusement. He stops a middle-aged woman and asks, ‘I say, please do excuse me, but is this Haslemere?’

  She looks at him in horror and alarm, says ‘Godalming’ and hurries away. ‘Damn and blast!’ exclaims the General. Now he can’t buy whatever it was that he intended to get in Haslemere. Never mind, he will go to Lasseter’s instead, because a man can never have too many nails and screwdrivers and clothes pegs and whatnot. He might go and look in the window of William Douglas, too, because he has never lost his love for the things of boyhood, such as cricket balls, catapults and airguns.

  He is but halfway there when he is accosted by a police officer. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ says the latter, in that portentous tone much favoured by the British police, ‘may I have a word?’

  The General trusts and approves of anyone in uniform, and he smiles delightedly. He thinks that no doubt the policeman has some weighty issue to deal with, and feels the need to take advantage of his wider and deeper experience. The policeman ushers him gently into the alleyway beside the pub where Peter the Great once stayed, when Godalming was on the main wool route to London. ‘Do you realise, sir,’ asks the officer, ‘that you have gone shopping without your trousers on?’ Sensitively he refrains from mentioning the lack of underwear. Fortunately the tails of the shirt are long, and any indecency is sufficiently concealed in shadow.

  The General looks down, but sees only the polished toes of his shoes. He r
aises a knee and beholds the nakedness of his leg. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Damned embarrassing. Can’t imagine … so sorry. Have to keep an eye on that, eh? Can’t be having that, can we? Definitely not cavalry. Damned embarrassing. No socks either. Whatever next! Have to give myself a rocket!’

  ‘May I ask your name, sir?’ enquires the policeman. ‘Then we might be able to help you.’

  The General puts his hand to his eyes, and thinks hard. ‘Remember my number,’ he says at last. ‘Always remember my number. In case of capture, you know. Second Lieutenant, um … 734 …’ he begins, but then stops. ‘Damn it! Damned if I haven’t forgotten. Won’t do at all.’

  ‘I think you’d better go home and put some trousers on,’ says the policeman. ‘Do you think you can find your way? Perhaps you can tell me your address?’

  The General reflects futilely, and offers, ‘Used to have a place in Simla. Little bungalow. Hot season, you know. Unbearable anywhere else. Wives and children always sent to Simla.’

  The policeman sighs, and then asks, ‘And where did you leave your car, sir?’

  ‘Is this Haslemere?’ asks the old soldier.

  ‘Godalming, sir,’ says the policeman.

  ‘Blast it,’ says the General.

  The policeman takes the General by the arm and they walk around the car park looking for his car. The policeman has radioed into the station and they have advised him of the probable identity of the old warrior and his vehicle. This has happened several times recently, but the General usually recovers in between. Social services have been informed, the children are making arrangements and wheels are in motion.