The Chorister at the Abbey (5 page)

8

I am become a monster unto many, but my sure trust is in thee.
Psalm 71:6

Christmas Day dawned dark and dreary. Alex Gibson got up and pulled the thin, cheap brown curtains aside to reveal the view from the picture window of her mother’s bungalow bedroom. She looked down at the rolling scene of beige-green fell. Fellside was not a cute village, and today in the grey dawn it looked especially dreary. A stunted leafless bush framed the panorama. The hillside dropped away to a disused slate quarry which was about as pretty as an inverted slag heap. In the other direction, the crazy turret of the deserted red-brick convent, once home to a dying group of Anglican nuns, punctured the skyline. Alex could see their deserted overgrown garden and the depressing, lurching stone cross.

The window was cold, single-glazed; slimy rivulets of condensation ran down the pane to collect in fat drops on the chipped and warped window frame. The bungalow had been built in the 1970s and the minimum had been done to it since. Her mother’s empty recliner chair cluttered the room, still with the plaid blanket on top of it. To get to the heap of clothes she had dumped there, Alex had to manoeuvre her way between a big, old-fashioned oak veneer wardrobe and a hideous kidney-shaped dressing table with some tatty pink frilled pleats curtaining its spindly legs. Alex had loved her mother, but she’d had no illusions about her taste.

And she missed her terribly this morning. Even last year, when things had been so wretched and Mum was declining, Alex had made a pretence of Christmas being special, trying to be patient.

‘What day is it?’

‘It’s Christmas Day, Mam.’

‘Christmas Day? But you didn’t tell me! What am I going to do for dinner?’

‘It’s all right, Mam. Christine and Reginald are coming. Your other daughter and her husband, you remember? I’ve done the veg already and we’ll put the turkey in soon.’

‘Oh, taking over, are you? You’ve always been bossy.’

‘Have some toast, Mam.’

‘I don’t mind if I do. Put jam on it. What day is it?’

‘It’s Christmas Day, Mam.’

Tears came to Alex’s eyes, but she shook her head. It was all very well to try and pretend she’d been a dutiful daughter, but she’d only come back to Fellside when her own life had fallen apart and she had nowhere else to go. Her mother had already started to deteriorate; it was fitting that the disgraced daughter and demented mother moved in together.

Her sister Christine and brother-in-law Reg had of course been delighted, though there had been an unspoken nervousness on their part that perhaps this would mean losing out on their share of the bungalow. But Alex had been scrupulous about that. In the fallout of her divorce she had been left with half the money for her marital home, and nothing to spend it on, so, of all the horrors Alex had had to face, poverty wasn’t one of them. Not that you would know, looking at the dilapidated bungalow with its leaky gutters, gas-scented kitchen, charcoal-edged carpets and drooping curtains. Her mother had been dead eight months. Since then, Alex had become even more inert.

But how different things had been once! For a second a memory of Christmas before the fall came back to her, like the scene from a film. Buck’s fizz on Christmas morning, carol singing in their fashionable church with her own voice rising high in the descants, and then the kisses and hugs of all their friends in the church porch before drinks at a neighbour’s house where Alex wore her new designer jacket and the jewellery her husband had given her. All very South-West London. All very over.

The dressing-table mirror was smeared but it still reflected back to Alex her bulging waist in one of her mother’s bright blue nylon nighties. Not helped by another bottle of white wine the night before. And a whisky nightcap. Now, after the usual deep drugged sleep, and restless awakening from about five thirty, it was eight o’clock. Only four hours – well, three hours, seeing it was Christmas – before she could start the next bottle of wine.

There was no point having a shower or washing her hair. She wasn’t going to see anyone who mattered. She had told Chris and Reg she was going to the Cliffords’ for Christmas lunch. She suspected they knew she was lying, but were relieved to leave her alone.

She would go to church to fill in the hours before the corkscrew came out. She would attend Fellside Fellowship, with the trendy young vicar Rev Paul, his clever wife, and their wide-eyed, happy young congregation. She would sing choruses and torture herself – and them – with her dumpy, off-message presence. There was no point in actually trying to enjoy anything, and religion wasn’t there to make you feel good. It was there to make you feel bad, like everything else.

Except the white wine. And of course there was the sort of dull relief that Morris Little was dead. A few weeks earlier Alex had made the mistake of visiting Uplands off-licence for two days running. ‘Putting the sauce away a bit, aren’t you, Miss Gibson?’ he had leered. What did he know? Had he guessed? Did she look like an alcoholic? Was that what she was? Usually it was only a bottle in the evening with supper, though of course lately it had perhaps been a bit more . . .

For a minute she was tempted to get a bath, clean up and go down to sing lovely traditional carols at Uplands – maybe the Cliffords would invite her to lunch after all, on the spur of the moment. But she couldn’t stand the thought of Lynn Clifford’s kindness – the confiding remarks about the menopause or pension problems. I’m probably at least ten years younger than you think, Alex wanted to shout. I’ve taken to wearing my mother’s clothes because I’ve got so fat. I’m even wearing her old glasses because I cried so much I gave up on my contact lenses, and my face is grey because I can’t be bothered with make-up or moisturizer, and even smiling seems a waste of muscle power. I only use my mouth to stuff it with food or to gulp drink or to snarl at people. But what was the point? Alex looked and felt like an old bag. And that was what she was.

So she would go and embarrass the scrubbed, cheery kids who came to the Fellside Fellowship. And to the backing of the hackneyed guitar she would try and pray for the soul of the departed Morris Little. But it would be hard.

‘Good to see you. God bless.’

‘Fab talk, Paul. Happy Christmas.’

‘Praise the Lord!’

Rev Paul, as he liked to be called, was an Anglican priest and one of Neil Clifford’s team ministry. He stood with his right-hand man Mark Wilson outside their ugly red-brick church and said goodbye to their communicants. There had been sixty people at the Fellside Fellowship Christmas Morning All Age Worship, which was an all-time record, and most of them were under thirty – as the roar of a dozen high-tuned engines testified.

The Fellside Fellowship was based in a drab chapel, built in the 1850s for the terraced village that had grown up around the Cumbrian slate industry. It had been called St Luke’s, but everyone knew it as Fellside Fellowship now.

‘Great service, Paul. Really cool.’

Rev Paul had revived the place. He had seen that the prettier village churches, like St Mary’s in Uplands and All Saints over in Tarnfield, already had established congregations. So he had set about making the chapel at Fellside something different.

Paul was a good operator and had been careful to work gradually towards something contemporary, without distressing the old guard. After a while there had been no objection from the parochial church council to his idea of a pop-based evensong for local teenagers, and the development of a ‘big band’ of teenage rock musicians on any instruments they could muster, plugged into massive amplifiers. Paul himself played the guitar.

Slowly, more and more local kids came to Fellside. Paul retained a basic communion service every Sunday morning for a sprinkling of older people, but for Christmas Day it had been the beat service.

‘Nice one, Paul. I like a tune to get me going.’ It was one of the pensioners who made no secret of enjoying seeing the girls dancing in the aisles. ‘’Appy Christmas, lad.’

‘Happy Christmas to you too.’

He and Mark stood talking to people leaving the church, and Paul glanced at his most dedicated parishioner. It was brilliant that help, in the shape of Mark, had come along. In the last year Mark had taken on much of the church administration. He was now secretary to the parochial church council, and an assistant at communion. The older people were happy to let him take over the work. And the young ones liked him because he was handsome in a blond, surfing sort of way, and they took for granted that he would do boring stuff like running meetings and taking minutes. Surprisingly, for one so cool-looking, Mark was an accountant, in his early thirties, but with a real common touch. A godsend, Paul thought sincerely.

Not that they were joined-at-the-hip in liturgical matters. Tentatively, almost apologetically, Mark had developed a different sort of approach since first coming to the Fellowship a year earlier. Paul had expected him to become one of the evangelical types who predominated at Fellside, but Mark had started to change. He was becoming much more interested in High Church stuff – crossing himself and kneeling to pray. Which was fine. Two people couldn’t have identical views, and Paul already had his wife’s support. He and Jenny really did think as one.

‘Mark’s such an asset, isn’t he?’ Paul had said to her after Mark had been with them a few weeks.

‘Marvellous,’ Jenny had said, a touch curtly. ‘I must go and see to Joseph.’

Joseph was a joy but he was hard work too, especially as Jenny had insisted on feeding him herself for ten months. Jenny was a brilliant mother, a fantastic sounding-board and a great helpmate, even if these days she was abrupt at times. Paul had to be patient and remember that she had, literally, born the brunt of the new baby. They had waited until their mid-thirties to have children, and Jenny had been such a capable, clever woman that it had never occurred to either of them that having a baby would be more than they could take in their stride. But for Jenny, former secondary school teacher, potential deputy head, now full-time mother and mere parish sidekick, it was tough.

But there was no need to think about that today. After all, it was Christmas, and so far so good. Joseph, exhausted, had let them sleep till six thirty, his stocking had gone down well, the untidiness in the tiny vicarage was under control and the morning service had been a triumph. And now Jenny was coming out of church at last after tidying up behind the little kids who’d been drawing pictures at the back. Joseph was on her hip and she was laughing for once.

She called to them both: ‘I’m running off to see that the turkey’s cooking. I hope you’re hungry, Mark.’

Paul said, ‘It’ll be a bunfight. I could scran a gadgee off a scabby hoss!’

Mark’s face beamed. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I could eat a man on a scab-covered horse. Cumbrian dialect.’ Paul grinned.

His grandfather’s family had come from Cumbria. Paul had been born in Bristol, but he’d been delighted to come back. Since his father’s death just a few month earlier Paul had become hooked on genealogy, sneaking off to the computer when he was supposedly writing his sermons. He had not been close to his dad, who’d been nonplussed by Paul’s vocation, but Paul was sure that somewhere in his genetic make-up there was an ancestor who, like him, had faith. His heritage meant a lot to him and he felt it showed God at work through the generations. He wanted to know what he was passing on to his son. He had told Mark all about it – and his parishioner and friend thought it all rather exciting. Not like his wife, who was a little bit dismissive.

‘Yum! Dinner sounds deee-licious. Can’t wait, Jenny,’ Mark said good-humouredly, with his warm smile.

Thank God, Paul thought, sincerely. He was suddenly filled with a sense of peace. He was brought down to earth by his last parishioner lumbering towards him. Alex Gibson had been left behind in the rush. He wondered for a minute why she was here at the Fellowship. It clearly wasn’t her thing. But he tried to be a good priest and he advanced towards her, extending his hand.

‘Happy Christmas, Alex. God bless.’

‘If you say so,’ she mumbled, shaking his hand with the enthusiasm of a wet dishcloth. She hardly paused in her heavy stride, and walked past him up the hill.

Perhaps I should have been more supportive of Alex Gibson, Paul thought. Wasn’t it Alex who had found Morris Little’s body? The thought made Paul shiver involuntarily and he put the local murder out of his mind. But, watching Alex walk slowly up the hill, past the boarded-up convent and on towards her featureless bungalow, he thought that if he had said anything, she probably would have been her usual ungracious self anyway.

He could hear Jenny and Mark laughing as they walked down to the cramped council house which served as his headquarters. Thank you for friendship, Lord, he thought.

Merry Christmas.

9

Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be alway praising thee.
Psalm 84:4

Three hundred miles away, Wanda Wisley peered over the top of her duvet. The view of the white room was broken only by the slight swaying of an orchid on its thin stem, bobbing almost unnoticeably to the waves of heat rising from the radiator cover. Her head ached in a dull, general sort of way, and she felt nauseous, but, lying there stretching her neck muscles, she willed the mild pain to go. The hum of traffic, always minimal in this Notting Hill cul-de-sac, was almost non-existent today, and the world seemed silent except for the occasional shout from the street below.

‘Freddie,’ she whispered, but he was still out of it. A snore rippled between his rubbery lips. He turned away from her into the pillow, flicking her with his swatch of grey-black hair, still tied back in an elastic band, even in bed.

She had a vague, disturbing memory from the night before. ‘Wanda, I would like to go back up to Norbridge for New Year,’ Freddie had announced.

‘Why on earth do you want to do that?’

‘Oh, you know, it sounds fun. First footing and all that. I would like to try that.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Seriously, Wanda, I miss the cottage in Norbridge. We always go to your friends’ New Year party in Bayswater. Let’s have a change this year.’

‘I can’t believe you mean this, Freddie.’

Is that what had happened? The conversation was the last but one thing before they crashed, muffled by drink and dope. But I wouldn’t be bothered if Freddie took off over New Year, Wanda thought. He wasn’t quite the accessory he had once been.

‘Well, you do what you like,’ she had said. ‘But you’re not getting me back to Norbridge till I have to go!’

‘
Lieblich
, let’s see.’ Freddie had started playing with her, pulling her towards him. ‘Come here . . .’ Wanda had sighed theatrically but had fallen into his arms, thinking, why not? He was different in London . . . less Germanic, less manic even. In Norbridge he was a caricature, which meant sex with him just couldn’t be taken seriously. But here, in the flat, for a few minutes, it had been like old times.

But not for long. In the cold light of Christmas Day, looking at the blubbery mass beside her, Wanda thought that Freddie was welcome to go back to the north for New Year’s Eve, alone. But she would stay put. She lay relishing the idea of being at home in the flat. Then, perhaps because of the contrast, her thoughts rambled back to the grisly cottage.

They had rented what they’d assumed was a vintage gem on the outskirts of Norbridge. But what Wanda had mistaken for cosy charm was a fake. It was a drab nineteenth-century labourer’s home, extended and ‘prettified’ in the 1930s. It was wrinkled with beams and open stonework, inglenooks and fitted shelves. The windows were small, with leaded-light sections of frosted glass. The walls were panelled, and the ceilings were alarmingly low. When the previous tenant had moved out, taking the china animals and costume dolls, the built-in shelves looked stained, ringed and shabby.

To replace the ornaments Wanda had bought some small modern sculptures, which looked as if a collection of unidentified garden tools had been left on the mantelpiece. She had to admit that the cottage just didn’t work.

Freddie liked it, of course. ‘It’s really cute! I think we need to grow some herbs, here at the back where it’s warm near the kitchen. And in the summer there will be tomatoes and beans.’

So far, Freddie was all talk where the garden was concerned. The square of grass at the back was now coated with rotting leaves and the kitchen was a continual swamp. There was a cleaner once a week, but often she didn’t come, leaving an incoherent phone message. And there was no back-up, unlike in London where a proper agency did the job.

Wanda became restless, throwing the duvet about. She hadn’t wanted to think about the north. She just couldn’t relax in Norbridge. And that stupid man getting himself killed in her department was just typical. Everyone would be yakking about it, of course, and there would be some sort of scare about security. What had Edwin Armstrong said? The bloke had been beaten over the head by some local ASBO yob? It was just hard luck it had been in the Music Department. Wanda had gone to Newcastle to take the plane south as arranged, leaving Edwin Armstrong in charge. If he were so at home with the local community, he could take care of this!

Edwin had said on the phone, ‘The police are now pretty sure it was the Frost brothers. They’re well-known trouble-makers.’

‘So they weren’t enrolled at the college?’

‘Not really. They’ve been seen hanging around, though. Years ago one of their older sisters was a student for a time, but she didn’t finish the course. And lots of people use the college. People can go anywhere.’

‘So why did they choose to beat this man to a pulp in my department?’

‘A lot of kids hang about the Music Department, Wanda. You know that. Security’s a huge issue because of that separate exit. The guys in the admin office say they thought they’d seen them earlier that day. Maybe they just spotted Morris and went for him.’

‘So these people walk around with planks of wood at the ready?’

‘It’s the building work. Things like that are available.’

Edwin thought it odd himself, but the police appeared to be satisfied. Wayne and Jason Frost had both been remanded in custody and carted off to Carlisle. At least two people had seen Morris arguing with them in his shop. One witness said he had seen Morris throwing out Jason, who was a little runt. The general view seemed to be that Morris had caught the Frosts shoplifting, and that they’d recognized him in the college and gone for him. There had been a spate of unprovoked attacks all over Britain that winter, with drugged-up hooded youths attacking anyone who tried to argue with them.

The idea of the Frosts killing someone didn’t surprise Edwin. But no one was asking why Morris was in the college. Of course he could have gone there for a number of reasons: to meet someone, or pick up some music, or just to spend time in the library. It was the ‘Community College’, after all. And Robert Clark had only assumed Morris was going to the pub after the rehearsal. Morris must have changed his mind.

But Edwin felt uncomfortable about it all. Morris was an inverted snob who would taunt anyone he thought was intellectually pretentious, yet like many similar people he would show off all the time himself. It seemed odd that he would have business with the Music Department which he hadn’t trumpeted to everyone.

Edwin had mentioned this to Wanda Wisley.

But all she wanted was for the issue to go away so she could have a sophisticated London Christmas.

At The Briars, Christmas Day suddenly fell into place after Suzy’s manic planning. When the last preparation was over, a sense of calm descended and Robert realized that the Christmas he had hoped for was going to happen.

Even so, he had no idea how complex the day’s arrangements would be. With his late wife, Christmas had been centred on the church and on the two of them: midnight mass, late breakfast, matins at eleven, a quiet sherry with Phyllis Drysdale who was Mary’s oldest friend and had since died herself, an exchange of thoughtful gifts and a pleasant evening watching TV.

With the Spencers it was a different world. Midnight mass was followed by racing home to set out drinks and mince pies for Father Christmas, not to mention a carrot for Rudolph the reindeer. Then they were up at six thirty to see Molly open her stocking and throw paper everywhere, her messiness forgiven. Then it was Jake’s turn and, despite his grown-up attitude, he was still thrilled. Then Grandma had to open her stocking.

And finally, to Robert’s surprise and embarrassment, there was a stocking for him, all wrapped and organized by Suzy, but with little presents which either Molly had made or Jake had chosen – who else would have bought him the classic
Little Britain
episodes? Next was a big breakfast with buck’s fizz, then a walk to give the kids some fresh air, and a drink at the neighbours’. Then back for a late lunch which was a huge, jolly, messy affair culminating in a flaming pudding which set fire to the paper napkins. They damped it down by chucking mineral water everywhere amid hysterical laughter, and then followed the crisis by pulling really vulgar crackers.

And after lunch there were presents from round the tree. When it came to the bracelet for Suzy, her eyes filled up.

‘Thank you, Rob. It is lovely.’

‘Well, it’s safe anyway. You can wear it in the bath.’

Later on, the early evening quietened down, but there were still party games with Grandma and a drink with Jake’s friend Oliver and his family who were ‘just passing’. No one had ever ‘popped in’ on Robert and Mary – especially not on Christmas Day!

It was great, but it was completely exhausting. When everyone had gone to bed, Robert and Suzy slumped on the couch.

‘Fancy a nightcap?’ he murmured.

‘I thought you’d never ask!’

‘It’s been great, Suzy. I know how hard you worked.’ He smiled and got up to pour the drinks.

‘Well, we’re very lucky. When you think about what it must be like for people like the Little family . . .’ It was an olive branch from Suzy.

Robert leant on the mantelpiece and looked reflective. The fire was dying down now, a cosy glow. ‘Norma Little refuses to believe it was the Frosts who attacked Morris. She says they had no reason to kill him because he would never have had the guts to report them to the police for shoplifting. She says he let them take drinks and magazines all the time. He was a bit of a wimp in some ways. People who tease and torment usually are.’

‘Interesting . . .’ Suzy tried to sound engaged, but Robert could see that she was tired out. For all the success of the day, there was a drawn look on Suzy’s face.

‘What’s up?’

‘Oh, it’s just poor Nigel. Without his kids or his family while we’re here . . .’

Robert frowned. Suzy was planning to take her mother and the children over to her husband’s before New Year. Then they would all travel to the north-west for a get-together. She had relatives to see, and friends in Manchester to catch up with. Nigel was still staking his claim to his family, and demanding holiday time with them, so it had seemed a good compromise to spend Christmas with Robert and New Year with Nigel. But it wasn’t the best arrangement in the world.

Since the evening when Robert had suggested marriage, he and Suzy had discussed nothing more personal than who should carve the turkey. There was an amnesty on emotions. Nothing was really resolved. But Robert was painfully aware that he wanted it to be. He pulled Suzy to her feet and held her for a minute, feeling her warmth.

Then he kissed her on the nose. ‘We’ve had a great day. You’re seeing Nigel in forty-eight hours. Put him on hold and come to bed with me.’

‘OK,’ she whispered softly.

In Notting Hill on Christmas night, Wanda whispered ‘Freddie’ again, to no response. She wiggled her toes and wondered why she felt irritated. It could be because of Freddie’s comatose sleep, but over the years she’d grown used to his inert body beside her. Strange how something so still and heavy could emit funny noises – little piping snores or great rumbles, booming farts or whimpering sighs.

So what was on her mind? They had had a marvellous dinner party with two local gay friends of hers from the BBC, who were experts on all the latest TV chefs’ recipes, and she and Freddie had been able to walk back to the flat which was so clean and white and chic after the bric-à-brac horror of the Norbridge cottage.

But during the conversation one of the guests had mentioned going to midnight mass, much to the amusement of the others, and it had jogged Wanda’s memory. Whatever her failings, Wanda Wisley was conscientious. She had a nagging feeling that she ought to check her emails. She swung herself out of bed and, naked, padded over to the real beech-wood desk where her computer sat waiting.

What had Edwin asked? Why had that man Morris Little been in the Music Department? With a horrible sense that she might know the answer, she logged on.

Here it was, the correspondence between herself, and a man called . . . shit. Wanda had been so busy and preoccupied, she really hadn’t put two and two together. When Morris Little had started to email her she had just written him off as the church music nutter.

I’d like to talk to someone really knowledgeable about music in
Norbridge
, he had written, flattering her. He had some pet theory about ‘church music with a local connection’. He had emailed her every day until she had given in and agreed to a meeting.

Wanda glanced quickly through the correspondence. Now she knew why Morris Little had been in the Music Department. It was because she had invited him – and completely forgotten about him. The Friday before Christmas, she had suddenly decided she couldn’t bear another minute at work and had left without even picking up her expenses. But would anyone believe her? What a pain! Wanda logged out and padded back to bed.

There was no way she was going to mention this to anyone.