Cold to the Touch (3 page)

He was halfway over the fields with his air rifle and knife before a white van sped round the corner and slewed to a halt with the wheels inches from the body.

Someone had nicknamed that bitch ‘Jess’.

Not a good start to the day.

The man halfway over the fields thought he would so much rather fish than hunt. Fish blood was cleaner, somehow, although it was just as red.

T
he backbone of the village consisted of one long narrow street, twisting and turning downhill towards the sea and at first it looked as if that was all there was. A lane of different-shaped, differently styled houses either on the road or standing back politely behind competitive front gardens. Turnings off or turnings on led away from the main thoroughfare. The gradient down to the coast was gradual until the last turn, where the road wrenched round to a short steep hill, with a glimpse of the sea through the trees from a car window before the route went inland again. Flat coast became cliffs in a mammoth upheaval reflected in the contours of the road itself since one side was lower than the other. The street was entirely devoid of any views except the next bend. Even the sea was a hidden feature to any but those with the houses boasting an outlook in the higher reaches of the turnings off and on. A place for privacy, with the last conspicuous signpost announcing its presence at least a mile away on the main road. Turn right for
Pennyvale and nowhere else, because at Pennyvale the road ran out.

That was the secret of the place, Sarah thought, looking down at it from halfway up the cliff path. You could never see the whole of it from any given point. From here she could see tantalising glimpses and part of the twisty street. It had no obvious centre, no flat communal place, and although it had veins and arteries leading somewhere and a single lane, marked unsuitable for heavy traffic, leading to the next town, it had developed and eclipsed in a random way that left no throbbing geographical heart, apart from the three shops. You would see even less in summer than in winter from up here, because of the trees. For a place so close to the sea it was impossibly verdant, much more at home with the green hinterland, turning its back on the waves as if it did not need them. Those who lived here ate more meat than fish.

On the coastal path, on her now traditional morning walk that took a different route each time, Sarah was thinking of village concerns and wondering how much the geography of the place affected the attitudes of the inhabitants or how much choice it left them. The location was smug and snug because apart from the two rows of houses right next to the shore and the ribbon of dwellings leading away south they were safely uphill from the sea and sheltered in the lee of the cliffs. They could grow almost anything in their gardens and they were not isolated as long as their cars functioned and they could get away. It would have been different without at least one car per household; then they would have treasured their village hall, the street would be thronged and the church more than useful ornament. They would have been far more open to inspection if they had not been able to close their doors, order in their own entertainment and drive away from
home. The parking of cars, the disposal of cars, the manoeuvring of cars in a main road built for nothing more than horses seemed to be the greatest source of conflict. From her vantage point up here Sarah could see two shiny motor cars in a stand-off, refusing to give way to each other. Doors slammed; there were distant voices. The slow progress of the rubbish-collection lorry three mornings a week caused mayhem, goods deliveries in large white vans were troublesome and anyone moving house could block the artery for a whole day. Moving house seemed to happen often; it was either a local hobby or an obsession and as the place was otherwise perfect in a picture-book kind of way Sarah wondered why. She had no intention of moving away herself yet – she had scarcely arrived – but she had been there long enough to notice that houses changed ownership frequently, or maybe that was only now in the springtime of the year.

Going to church on the Sunday before last had been one of many novelties. Sarah could not remember when she had last been to church apart from the occasion of a wedding where the marriage had not lasted a year despite the ceremonial blessing. It had seemed like a good idea to go to church here in order to prove a certain willingness to integrate – although she only wanted integration on her own terms. Sunday service had proved to be an invigorating experience because of the eccentricity and uncertainty of the vicar. Any vigour and colour in the chilly Victorian church of St Bartholomew was provided solely by the vicar’s robes and his evident enjoyment of them; he was clearly a priest who made a sartorial effort on duty. He conducted a mercifully short morning service with a deal of panache and waving of arms, addressing his remarks and his readings to the small children who were encouraged to monopolise the
front row and lead the ragged singing. Andrew Sullivan had a fine voice and an almost comical enthusiasm for conducting this orchestra and their unruly overexcitement had been a pleasure to see. Don’t worry about the words, he whispered to them; just make a noise. They did: a big shrill echoey din.

It was somewhere to park them for an hour on a Sunday morning, she thought with a cynicism which could have been unfair, while noting that the rest of those present were old. The vicar was at ease with the children, camping up the proceedings like a pantomime dame for their benefit, but otherwise seemed painfully shy with the rest of his small congregation as he exhorted them to return to the vicarage for a cup of coffee if they wished. It was such a humble, halfhearted invitation that Sarah wondered if he really meant it or if he was merely being diffident to save himself the humiliation of refusals. She herself had got as far as the open front door of the vicarage, turned into the hideous hallway, and then turned back abruptly after she had peeked into the receiving room at the front of the house. There was something pathetic in seeing a man on the youthful cusp of middle age fiddling anxiously with teacups in a gloomy room occupied by a sole visitor who was criticising the way he ran the service.
Can we have proper hymns?
and him saying, No, Mrs Hurly: if there are children we simply have tunes. Sarah had backtracked without being observed, regretted it later. An opportunity lost, but she had been seized with shyness and the elegant woman visitor had reeked of irritable loneliness and it was not the right time. Yes, she wanted to meet the woman, but preferably alongside others in a less depressing room and as for the vicar, she thought he was a kind, well-meaning soul whose best would never be good enough, even
when he smiled, which he might not have done sufficiently often. That was a shame, because it transformed him. Perhaps he was like herself, not belonging – as if anyone truly belonged here.

The squat church at the turn of the hill was not going to introduce her to anyone else she wanted to know, except him, perhaps, and that was because of a particularly delicious moment during the service when he had lost his place in the Bible because of the pages sticking together in the middle of his reading a crucial piece about Charity.
He was not charity is nothing but a tinkling cymbal
 . . . and then the vicar’s whispered
Oh BUGGER
had reverberated around the church as loud as a bell, leaving the children giggling and their elders pretending not to have heard.

S
arah was sitting with her back against the signpost that directed walkers towards the cliffs, admiring what she could observe of this secretive idyll and ignoring the spectacular sea view straight ahead. Perhaps it was wasted on her simply because, like the rest of them on a Friday morning, she was far more interested in the bustle of humanity than she was in the inspiration afforded by landscapes or seascapes devoid of people. She had never understood Wordsworth, nor anyone to whom Nature was a primary source of solace; it could be secondary, but primary, no: a backdrop to humanity, that was all, a vivid reminder of how small one was and how arrogant was the attempt to control the uncontrollable. Flowers were pretty, and green was green and the sea was the most perfect view of all but it still did not compare with a crowd of interesting faces. There was nothing motherly about Nature. She took a last glimpse to see if she could identify the rooftop of her own tiny house, at least a hundred yards uphill on one
of the veins that led away from the artery of the main street. Just. It had a red-tiled roof, but then so did most of the rest. Then she turned her face towards the sea and opened the post.

Sarah had been in her new, old house for less than a month and still came out of doors every morning to open the post. She had secured a six-month rental on this particular house through an introduction hurriedly made through her friend Jessica Hurly. Jessica’s mother owned the house: there was a rental vacancy and it had all happened very fast. She had been handed the keys by Mrs Hurly’s agent, and had yet to meet her landlady, although she knew her by sight because Mrs Hurly had been the discontented woman in the vicarage living room, haranguing the poor vicar about the service. She was a woman who complained a lot, the sign of an empty life.
Approach with caution, and only as a stranger,
Jessica had said.
She’s a very unhappy woman. I’ve given her plenty of cause. I’m trying to make it right in my own way, but I can’t, yet. Mummy stopped laughing a long time ago, but she used to laugh.

Jessica had not elaborated, clammed up, said it would wait and Sarah could find out only if she wanted, never mind. There was plenty enough time to creep up on Mrs Hurly in a sideways motion, at the hairdresser’s, perhaps, or better still, encourage Mrs Hurly to approach her. It was clear from conversations in the butcher’s and from that single sighting in the vicarage that Mrs Hurly required deference, at least. Too much else to do.

Sarah thought of Jessica increasingly often, wondering what her friend had let her in for, because it was only Jessica’s love of the place that had led her here, via the route of the fulfilment of her own dreams of living in a cottage with honeysuckle and roses round the door. A place that did not
smell of an old, malicious fire and made her feel free to breathe.

Almost none of the post was addressed to her, which made it all the more interesting. The mysterious previous occupant had failed to have his mail redirected and had left no forwarding address. She would have been happy to oblige and forward it all for as long as it took, but since she was denied such an opportunity to be helpful she regarded his post as hers to open and examine by right. He had practically invited her to do it.

Sarah was thinking that the role of a postman was not quite what it had been, with far fewer privileges than in the old days. Once upon a time the postman would know details about every household for as long as he remembered what he delivered. He would know who was away and who was at home, the state of their finances, the identity of their correspondents. He would deliver all the bills and all the birthday cards, invitations, cheques, parcels, et cetera, and would therefore be able to guess, if he chose, who had sent them and what was inside. It was a job she would have liked herself. Electronic communication surely took half the fun out of it, made people’s habits less open to a postman or anyone else. Still, there was plenty left to chew on in Mr J. Dunn’s post.

It was chilly on the cliff path, would probably be awful in winter. Sarah’s plan to own a dog was under review when she considered the obligation of walking it in all weathers and also because Mr J. Dunn had definitely kept a dog. There had been copious evidence of that in the house he had vacated. The house Sarah had rented stank of dog and desperation and she had visualised a tired old man living there until her examination of the post revealed someone far
younger. Not a large dog, the butcher told her. Poor thing, it went mad in there, never got enough exercise, he drove away and left it all day: you could hear it barking. She guessed Mr Dunn had not been popular. I wouldn’t know, the butcher said, never knew him to talk to, he shopped here, a bit for bones and I would see him drag that dog out occasionally, not often enough, even though he loved it to death. Neglected dogs like that can get vicious. Then they get feral and no one can catch them, not even Jeremy.

She had met Jeremy, the butcher’s assistant, once. Jeremy was plain, surly and vulnerable, the type she warmed to at once. He was another sort of male creature who touched her soul, like the hapless vicar, although the vicar was blessed with infinitely superior looks. The butcher’s shop was the real heart of the village. Sarah had seen his white van creeping downhill from the fields beyond, disappearing into the trees and out again. Since the recent demise of the Post Office/Newsagent, the butcher and the next-door hairdresser were the pivotal information points, surely, but the butcher most of all.

She read J. Dunn’s letters with interest, resisting the temptation to let them fly away in the breeze. The first was a notice of a medical appointment; the second a communication informing J. Dunn that he was on a debtors’ register for non-payment of something and the third was a handwritten envelope containing nothing and addressed to
J. DUNN DECEASED
. The postman had still delivered it.

Ah, my dears, Sarah said to herself. It’s as well that I need you more than you need me. I do not wish to be needed. Wanted? Interested? That was another matter. I have a slight unofficial mission to begin to reconcile Jessica with her obviously estranged mother whom she has not seen since she
left, and although she has not specifically asked me to do that I have a feeling that it’s what she wants me to do. She wants me to find out things she cannot tell anyone, and yet she can’t demand it. Otherwise I have no moral obligations to do anything other than to BE. Thus there is only one family I want to know about and that’s Jessica’s lot. No, I lie: I want to know about them all, but they are slow to tell me. One moves slowly here and there is plenty of time, especially when you have made a vow only to look at your e-mail once a week and rely on verbal communication. I’m doing fine, fat and lazy. Sarah’s dear, anarchic friend Mike, who had carried her here, reluctantly, in a borrowed white van had said she would never last the hectic pace.
You’ll go mad, doll.
She missed him most of all, more than any of the other lovers; missed his reckless and nicely opportunistic way of life as well as his knowledge of an alternative world, but she was determined to prove him wrong.
Call any time, doll. I’m always there for you.
She had not called. He was one of the reasons she had wanted to leave, because she was at risk of needing him. It was confusing to need someone you could never quite trust.