Redemption Song (16 page)

Get a grip, Rain de Lacy. Stop being so desperate to please. It drives her away.

‘Welsh Rarebit. Croissants with freshly brewed coffee – milk and sugar. Crumpets – done under the grill,’ she nodded towards the cooker next to the Aga, ‘cereal – the usual, cornflakes, muesli, porridge … Must be the sunshine!’

‘What?’

‘Brought out your appetite – this glorious morning, after all the rain last night.’

‘A croissant would be nice – plain, not butter or jam – and a coffee. But I can make it. Let me make breakfast for us both. I never cook,’ Saff said, moving towards her.

‘You never eat!’

Saffron stopped.

You bloody fool, Rain.

‘It’s why you’re so lovely and slim,’ she drew the outline of a small, curvy frame in the air with flat hands. ‘You look great in those jeans. I could do with taking a leaf out of your book.’ She slapped her rear.

Saffron pulled the corners of her mouth downwards, half smile, half grimace, and looked, imploringly, at Rain. ‘Too slim?’

Rain focused on remaining neutral, unsure whether to agree and risk spoiling what could be a wonderful start to the morning: breaking bread with her lovely daughter. ‘You’re beautiful.’

‘And so are you.’

Rain stepped aside to allow Saff the simple pleasure of preparing the meal and moved over to the table, picked up the mock-up of the latest parish newsletter and began to proofread it, ready to lay it aside immediately should Saffron wish to talk.

‘Here you are, madame. Continental breakfast á la de Lacy.’ Saffron placed the tray of coffee, croissants and condiments in front of Rain.

‘How wonderful! Thank you, darling.’

Rain locked fingers and pulled her fist under her chin. ‘For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly, madly, deeply grateful. Amen.’

Saffron giggled at Rain’s small joke and joined her on ‘Amen.’
Truly, Madly, Deeply
had been a favourite film of Rain’s before the accident and she had often inserted it into grace, much to everyone’s amusement and, after overuse, exasperation. Saff’s laughter pleased Rain more than it should have.

‘Shall I be Mum?’ Rain said, reaching for the mugs.

‘If the boot fits …’
Toy Story
had been one of Saffron’s favourite films as a child. Animated features remained a guilty pleasure.

‘I hear the cinema is showing the new film by that Japanese fella – whatshisname? We could go together. I’ll book tickets.’ Rain ran with her advantage. Saff was amenable.

‘Yeah, why not?’

‘When would be good?’

Nail her while you can.

‘Lemme get back to you on that.’

‘OK,’ Rain said, brightly, keeping the disappointment from her tone. ‘Milk, sugar? You won’t want it black. It’s rather bitter, I’m afraid. They didn’t have our usual so thought I’d try this. Never again!’ Rain waited for the objection but it never came. She stirred in a heaped teaspoonful of sticky brown sugar and poured in the cream of the milk. She loved that a milkman – and it was a man – still did doorstep drops in Coed Mawr. It was so reassuring to find the bottle waiting each morning, even if the birds did take off the top.

She watched her daughter sipping the coffee, holding the mug with both hands, eyes cast downwards, and Rain wondered if it tasted thick and rich compared to her usual black, if the silkiness of the cream coated her mouth and teeth. She popped a croissant on a plate and pushed it in front of Saffron. Saffron looked up, her blue eyes wide. She opened her mouth to speak, but changed her mind and nodded her thanks instead.

Rain longed to ask if everything was OK but didn’t want to break the mood and nodded silently instead. She took a croissant and tore it open, the interior stretched and yielded. Puffs of steam rose carrying the buttery scent into the air. She scooped up a large dollop of jam, dropped it into the pastry, and took a bite. Butter and jam oozed out, running down her fingers. She licked them clean rather than taking a tissue from the box Saff had thoughtfully placed on the table.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ she moaned. ‘Right this minute, who cares about calories?’

‘Did you know, when you met Dad, that he was … the one?’ Saffron said, gazing intently at her mother. It was one of ‘those’ Saffron stares; a look that unsettled Rain in its intensity.

She laughed, a short, snappy kind of laugh, more a harrumph than a laugh. Where was this question leading? For she knew it was leading somewhere. Saffron didn’t do idle chatter. Not often. ‘Like love at first sight?’ Rain said.

‘If you like.’

‘I think so. It was a funny time for me. I’d not long been reborn, less than a couple of years. I was totally, truly, madly, deeply in love with Jesus.’ She checked herself. ‘I still am. But it was the honeymoon period. Your dad chased me. More than I did him, at least.’ She wished she hadn’t demolished that croissant so quickly, she felt a little nauseous all of a sudden.

‘But how did it feel?’ Saffron stressed the ‘feel’.

Rain laughed again. What was the matter with her? ‘The usual. Butterflies in the stomach, weak knees. All those awful clichés. Though love seemed to increase my appetite rather than diminish it, more’s the pity!’

‘Quit with the fat thing, Mum. You’re not. Though you might consider your cholesterol levels occasionally. Is it OK to talk about this?’

The queasiness increased. ‘Yes, yes. Happy memories. Happy.’ Rain lifted her mug to her mouth only to find it empty. ‘But you know how it feels.’

‘I’m not sure I do. Did.’

Rain looked at Saffron, waiting for more.

Saffron paused. ‘Ignore me.’

What does she mean?

Rain remained silent.

Saffron picked up her croissant and took a large bite.

Conversation over then, thought Rain, relieved.

Chapter Fifteen

The key wouldn’t open the door to the church hall. Rain couldn’t understand it. Only days ago it was fine. She kicked and heaved against it to no avail; the door wouldn’t budge. She checked her watch. There were twenty minutes before the prayer meeting was due to begin. She had to drag the chairs from the store cupboard herself – the members were far too decrepit to help – and turn on the recently fixed heating to take the chill off the air. She didn’t want any of them to die of hypothermia. Congregation members were in short enough supply as it was without her inadvertently bumping some of them off. In one final, desperate attempt she launched herself, shoulder first, at the door. It always worked for the police in crime dramas. The door remained steadfast. Furious, she stomped to the chapel. JJ would be able to help, she felt sure.

But there was no reply when she hollered his name into the rafters. All of the slates had been removed and what looked like a thin tarpaulin covered the skeleton of the roof. Surely, he must hear her through that? She cupped her hands around her mouth and called again.

‘He’s not here. Gone to the wood merchants. Is there anything I can help you with, Reverend?’ It was Eifion, all smiles, and she noticed that his teeth were straight and white. Quite a contrast with his swarthy complexion, gained after years of working outdoors in all weathers she presumed. ‘I hope so! I’ve a prayer meeting in less than ten minutes and I can’t get into the hall. The blasted door’s stuck.’

‘It’ll be all the damp weather. Wood swells.’

‘But it opened the other day. I don’t understand it,’ she said, exasperated, clapping her hands together.

Eifion turned towards the exit and said, ‘Right then. Let’s be having it.’ He marched off with Rain in tow.

The prayer meeting members waited on the path while Eifion removed the entire lock mechanism. Rain had suggested they wait in the chapel, or the manse kitchen, though there weren’t enough chairs for them all to sit, but they had ignored her pleas, content to watch the drama of the jammed door unfold. Their lives must be very dull indeed, she thought. She tipped her eyes to the sky and mouthed, ‘Sorry. Bad morning.’

Eifion pushed open the door, lock barrel in hand, and the group applauded and traipsed in. ‘Thank you so much,’ Rain said. ‘Without you, we’d have had to cancel the meeting and that would have been an absolute calamity for some of us.’ She nodded towards Mary Campbell. Mary had no one, nothing, in her life bar the church.

Eifion smiled and she noticed that he did so with his eyes as well as his mouth. What a good, kind man he was. He pointed at the gaping hole in the door and said that he would ask JJ to pick up another barrel while he was out. ‘I’ll fit it as soon as I have it, so no need to fret about all sorts getting in.’

‘I wonder what broke it?’

‘Probably you, thumping the door and rattling the key. It’s bent, you know.’ He held the key aloft. ‘Don’t know your own strength.’

‘Oh, I’m not strong, far from it,’ she said, making her way through, conscious her members would be waiting in the cold, still standing.

‘You’re stronger than you think.’

‘Hey, man, how you doing?’ There was lots about Simon Joe liked – really, really liked – but he didn’t like the Americanised lingo and accent Simon affected whenever he was on the phone. He didn’t speak like that in person, in court, or anywhere else, as far as Joe could tell. Simon was a Home Counties boy, Hertfordshire, and mostly he spoke as you would expect.

‘OK. You?’

‘Cool. Look, I’m calling because I figured you’d wanna know Allegra is looking for you. I mean, seriously looking for you. She’s out and she’s hired a private dick and all.’

‘Seriously? No way.’ Joe stopped dead and another pedestrian almost collided with him.

‘Yup. She asked me outright if I could recommend anyone, given my line of work.’

‘Jesus. She got parole?’

‘Yeah, good behaviour.’

Joe remembered the strange car in the lane weeks ago, the man who’d been asking questions at the school building site and wondered if the PI had made progress. ‘When’d she hire one? Why?’

‘Seems to think she’s got the power to lure you back. Crazy chick. She said she’d tried one guy, recommended by Freddy, but he was kinda useless.’ Simon wheezed and paused to drag on a cigarette. A roll-up was almost permanently attached to his fingers, which were stained a dark brown as a result. So she was in touch with Freddy. That would please him, no doubt. But this could work for Joe, this delusion, this arrogance. Could he get to them both in one fell swoop?

‘Thanks for letting me know. Keep me in the loop, yeah?’ Joe replied, hoping the next man Allegra hired would draw a blank as the first clearly had.

‘Sure thing, bro.’

‘Simon, I like you, but I am not your bro. OK?’

‘Sure. Sorry.’

Joe hung up and looked around the high street. Lower Coed Mawr was almost deserted, no sign of anyone, let alone suspicious looking strangers. And perhaps this new guy wouldn’t come up this way regardless. After all, Joe had left no trace. Still, he’d have to be careful. No more popping down here for lunch. And he needed to think; he still didn’t have a plan. There were lots of fantasies, but nothing he could actually execute. Allegra’s career was over; there was no scope for professional ignominy, not short-term, and she didn’t have a boyfriend.

Her father. He’s a shit, a duplicitous, amoral wanker.

Allegra was a daddy’s girl. Perhaps that was Joe’s route in – disgrace by association, with the added benefit of an emotional blow. The sound of a car backfiring made him jump. Thinking about Allegra and PIs made him nervous. He caught sight of the entrance to the shopping arcade in his peripheral vision.

Has Saffron started work yet? Get a grip. Grab a sandwich, get out of here.

He stepped towards the bakery on the corner of the arcade, kidding himself he was tempted by the smell of hot sausage rolls.

He was making his way back to the van when he saw Saffron. She was some distance away, but moving down the sweep of the main street. Her lope was unmistakable. He slowed his pace, lingering outside shops, peering in without seeing the wares on offer, more interested in what the reflection might reveal. She neared. He stared into a ramshackle charity shop.

‘Hi. Fancy seeing you here,’ he said, casually.

‘Fancy.’

‘You’re early for work. Grabbing lunch first?’

‘Er, no.’ She stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her duffel coat. It was warm for the time of year and he thought she must be hot. Her cheeks were flushed pink.

‘Looking for something?’ he said.

She furrowed her brow.

‘Shopping,’ he explained.

‘I’m not much of a shopper. I was heading for the beach.’ She looked past him and shrugged. ‘Join me if you like.’

He almost dropped the paper bag he held in one hand. It contained a sandwich and a sausage roll. ‘Got your eyes on my Coke, eh?’ He lifted the condensation-drenched can in the other hand. She smiled and his heart soared.

On the beach they walked westwards, kicking pebbles and lumps of mangled seaweed as they went. ‘I love being so close to the sea,’ she said after a period without conversation. He liked that about her; she was comfortable with silence. ‘It’s liberating. I feel free, even though I know I’m not. I’m as trapped as the next person. But when I look at the skyline,’ she pointed to the wispy clouds beyond, ‘there’s a sense of how big the world is, how infinite, how explorable.’ She laughed at herself and he liked that about her too. The gentle breeze whipped her hair off her face, revealing her profile. Hers was a strong nose, long and straight. Noble. No upturned button nose like those on dolls or cartoon women.

‘Why do you dye your hair?’ he asked, focusing on the shingle.

She stopped, compelling him to do the same. ‘You’ve asked before.’

‘You didn’t answer.’

‘I fancied a change. Don’t you like it?’

He didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it. ‘So when did you dye it?’ he asked instead.

‘Before we came here.’ She carried on walking.

‘A new you?’

‘If you like.’

‘I’d like to see your natural colour.’ Had he overstepped the mark? It was personal and almost flirtatious, and he’d said he wasn’t going to go there. But he’d seen her face from the upstairs window of the manse, the way she’d looked at him. He’d felt her before he saw her. He’d almost fallen backwards from the force of her scrutiny and he’d sat down on the ridge so that he could be within her gaze for longer. God knows, he hated being on that roof for any longer than he needed to be, but he’d forced himself. Because of her. He’d not imagined that look, had he?