Twelve Drummers Drumming (32 page)

Thornford Regis TC9 6QX

31 M
AY

Dear Mum
,

I expect by the time you’ve got this letter, you’ll have got through Saturday’s papers. As of this writing, which is
very
late in the morning for me, I haven’t seen any yet! Daniel Swan is always behind with his deliveries at weekends. When I complained once he told me he had a right to a bit of a lie-in on Saturdays and Sundays. A right, mind you! And then he had the cheek to tell me I shouldn’t get up so early. Those Swan children just seem to run wild. Anyway, I’m interested to see what pictures have been printed. Likely there won’t be any in the Telegraph, but I’m sure one of the other papers will have it. The “it” I’m referring to is of Oona Blanc slapping Colm right by Sybella’s grave when Mr. Christmas had started into the committal. A photographer pushed his way through to get a picture of it, and he got a picture of Mr. Christmas, too, as Oona jabbed him in the eye—Mr. Christmas, that is, which I don’t think she intended. It was an accident of sorts, but Mr. C. looks a bit worse for wear, and
maybe his picture will be in the papers, too. I hope it explains
how
he got the black eye. I wouldn’t want the whole country to think our priest
is a pugili
is a loutish sort of character. At least Oona didn’t get up to any mischief at the gathering in the church. She came with this young man who might have thought to shave before a church service, but he wore a very smart suit and was very attentive to Oona. I thought he might be one of those celebrity minders, though he wasn’t big enough to be a proper one, but Roger said he made his living modelling underpants and did very well by it and was famous in his own right. At least in certain circles, Roger added. I was sitting in the seventh pew from the front, so I really couldn’t see Oona very well. You could hear Colm, though. He was quite overcome, and that and the choir—Revelation Choir, from London, who performed with Colm on one of his albums back when—was really magnificent. There was hardly a dry eye, Mum. Which was odd in a way because I’m not sure how well most folk knew Sybella, but she was barely more than a child and so I’m sure everyone was thinking about their own children and how awful it would be to lose one. I couldn’t help thinking about Tamara and Kerra, for instance, or little Miranda, and, of course, how it’s been such a frightful week in the village and everybody feeling strained and wondering what on earth could happen next. I sat with Karla and Roger and his mother, and in the same pew were the Drewes. Yes
, both
of them. I’ve never seen Liam inside the church! His parents are apparently Pentecostals of the most extreme sort up at Cheltenham so he had taken against all religion and certainly never had a good word for Mr. Kinsey, which I’ve probably mentioned before, but there he was in church as
pretty
big as you please. He didn’t join in the prayers and responses but he was wearing a proper suit and was holding Mitsuko’s hand when they were seated—this after the great row they’d had Thursday evening, which I told you about, with Mitsuko all but accusing Liam of doing Sybella in, which I had
thought about going to the police about, but perhaps it was just words after all and I needn’t worry. Anyway, I’d have thought those two were headed to divorce, but they seem to have patched it up. Mr. Christmas conducted himself well. He’s getting on decently at the job, I think, though Karla has her reservations—but you know Karla’s contrary nature! I think she just likes to keep them on their toes. Mr. Christmas saved the day for her at Ned’s funeral, after all. And of course it was Mr. Christmas’s name she and Roger and the others put forward to the Bishop to appoint anyway. At any rate, in his sermon, Mr. Christmas was very good at
turning vice into virtue
presenting Sybella as a spirited young woman, which I suppose she was in a way. It made me think of when I was her age and went up to London to study at Leiths School that year it opened. Do you remember? I think that was fairly spirited of me, don’t you think? Especially as Dad thought catering college at Exeter would do.
He
Mr. Christmas said Sybella was a daredevil and high-spirited and how she was finding her way in life down here in the country and that she was proving herself gifted in art. He talked about her mischievous side with some story I didn’t catch about when she was a little girl, though I said to Karla later that Sybella always looked like she was up to some sort of mischief in the village, and she agreed and told me Mr. Christmas’s story reminded her that the Saturday of Bank Holiday weekend, Sybella had been in the post office buying stamps for a quantity of envelopes, and that she couldn’t help noticing they were all addressed to people at the papers and TV stations in London. She said Sybella seemed to be quite keen to ensure Karla noted the recipients, but then, after affixing the stamps, she didn’t leave the envelopes with Karla, and she didn’t post them in the box outside, either! Karla watched to make sure. I said what was really odd was a young person using the post. I thought they only texted these days. Karla said she had a mind to go to the police about it, but I said surely if the papers had received a letter from
a murdered girl it would have been all over the news by now. Unless, of course, it’s in today’s papers, which as I mentioned before are
very late.
During one of the Readings, it occurred to me that perhaps Sybella’s murderer was among us—right in the sanctuary! There were a number of people I’d never seen before—relatives of the Parrys, I was able to gather later—but some others didn’t look like they really belonged. Still, Mum, you mustn’t worry about things you read in the papers. I’m sure the local constabulary has everything well in hand. Though they did rather let us down when it came to the churchyard, letting this photographer barge in and all. Which brings me back to Oona. Some phrase in the committal set her off, which I couldn’t quite hear. But Oona herself could certainly be heard. Terrible language for a churchyard! And then she slapped Colm and nearly tipped into the grave. The underpants modeller fetched Oona off down the path towards the millpond and calmed her. Poor thing, she was shaking, and I felt quite sorry for her in the end. Colm set onto the photographer who hopped it smartly. I guess he’s had experience in the past with these nuisancy people, and then we stood about in dead silence for a time waiting for Oona to recover. No one knew what to say and no one wanted to
spoil
further spoil the
solom
solemnity of the occasion. I couldn’t help thinking what a splendid day it was and how it was sort of heartless of nature to be that way. Thornford is so lovely in late May, with everything so green and fresh. I think we stand a good chance of winning the Village in Bloom competition this year. Finally, Oona returned and the rest of the service went without incident, though I did think Mr. Christmas looked a bit peculiar. He stumbled over the “my own eyes have seen the salvation” part in the Dismissal, which isn’t like him as he used to be a stage performer, after all. I could hear Karla make a disapproving grunt beside me. But then, Mum, we went up to Thornridge House! I remember going up there once with you. I must have been all of five, and it must have been just before old
Mr. Northmore sold it, but I can’t remember what we were doing there. You must remind me. It’s not really my sort of place, not cosy the way the vicarage is, but it was marvellous to look at. Celia has had it done up all sort of modern and airy with creamy walls and these great swagging draperies mixed with lovely bits of old furniture and smart new things. There was a large painting in the drawing room of a mother and child in a
renee renaisen
sixteenth-century style that so reminded me of those little paintings in the Lady chapel. Do you remember them? They were taken down a while back when the sanctuary was repainted and I’d quite forgotten them. I was rather fond of them, though I know Karla wasn’t. I asked her where they’d gone and she said they’d been sent out for restoration and she wasn’t sorry it was taking so long. Karla
is
funny—she can get sort of Bolshie, very much like her dad would, only in a different way, of course. At any rate, I must say everyone was rather thrilled to be at Thornridge, especially as many had never seen the inside, but of course it was a funeral tea and so everyone was on their best behaviour, though after a while folk did get a bit chirpy forgetting why they were there in the first place, especially after Colm disappeared upstairs to deal with Oona, who was too distraught or the like to come down and meet people. Celia looked put out, but I can’t say I blame her, having her husband’s troublesome ex-wife installed in the house. The oddest thing happened when we were leaving Thornridge H., though. Mr. Christmas was to drive us back to the vicarage—with Julia Hennis, I might add, with whom he had had a
very very
long conversation in Colm’s garden—and we were walking down the line of cars outside the gate when we noticed Mairi White, who had been minding the gate with a few others from the local constabulary and some other very large men that Colm must have hired, tugging at something at the bottom of the hedgerow. She had thought the hawthorn was blooming oddly, but it turned out it was cotton batting, and the batting was from a
quilt, or at least part of one! There was cotton batting everywhere as Mairi had pulled a little too hard. Apparently one of Mitsuko’s quilts from the v. hall that I was telling you about yesterday had gone missing, and this was it—or at least it had to be as finding a quilt in a hedgerow is like finding a tea tray in the sky, isn’t it? I forgot to tell you in yesterday’s letter how each quilt featured a big photograph of Thornford R in the centre framed by squares of what looked like fields of corn and such. Well, this one was missing most of the photograph. It had been cut away, and quite neatly, too! It was very curious, everyone thought, that the quilt was in the hedgerow along the lane going up to Thornridge House. It’s not a connecting road after all. The only people who go up it regularly are the Parrys and Sebastian and the postman, the Sainsbury’s delivery van, cleaners, and maybe BT, if the phone’s out. Anyway, Mum, another mystery to be solved! Now I must go down and mail this and if Daniel Swan has managed to rouse himself perhaps I’ll find the papers! Cats are well. Love to Aunt Gwen. Make sure you stay well
.

Much love
,

Madrun

P.S. Do let me know when the doctor schedules tests for your leg
.