A Hovering of Vultures (7 page)

Charlie surfaced again during the speech of a lady who remembered Susannah Sneddon being pointed out to her in the main street of Batley Bridge when she (the speaker) was
a girl of three—“And six months later she was dead.” Next came a lady who said she'd discovered the novels of Susannah in ancient, unused copies in the Halifax Public Library in the 'fifties, and therefore claimed some sort of superiority over those who had only cottoned on to her since the feminist revival of interest in the books. Soon a gentleman was making a plea for Joshua's novels which managed to make them sound totally unreadable. Charlie began to divide the speakers in his own mind into those who simply wanted to declare some kind of witness and those who were making a bid to get elected to the Committee. But all of them were staking claims, whether large or small, in the Sneddons, their books, their lives and their fate. Each of them swooped down and bore off their gobbets of flesh.

He perked up when arrangements for the afternoon were announced. There were to be tours of the farm arranged at twenty-minute intervals, so that there were never to be more than ten in the house at any one time. This was “to preserve the intimacy and privacy of the atmosphere there, the feeling that this was a place where
writers
worked,” as Mr Suzman put it. Mrs Cardew, the lady taking minutes, would be at the door at meeting's end, registering everyone into a conducted tour at their preferred time in the afternoon if that was practicable. Mr Suzman hoped that would help to break the ice, as would the party in the farmhouse in the evening (admission three pounds, with wine and cheese served, and some tickets still available). As the session began to break up Charlie came up behind Lettie Farraday, who had sat silent during the meeting, apparently not craving any brief moment of limelight by revealing her connection with the Sneddons. In her, it seemed, the predatory instinct was weak.

“Enjoy it?” he asked.

“A real hoot,” she said, with a touch of sourness. “When are you going on this tour?”

Charlie shrugged.

“Whenever. Say two, just after lunch? Do you want the support of my strong right arm?”

“It would be welcome to get up there, Dexter. But don't let me cramp your style.”

When they had registered for the two o'clock tour and emerged into sunlight now stronger and warmer, Charlie said:

“Talking about my style, I've got a date at the Black Horse. Coming?”

“To the Black Horse, yes. To play gooseberry, no. You had more than enough of me yesterday.”

“Have you rung the Home yet?”

Lettie grimaced.

“I got the number from Enquiries. I tried to ring after breakfast, but nobody was answering. Probably busy spooning porridge down the old people's throats.”

“You've not softened at the prospect?”

“I have
not
! But I'm still torn two ways: downright hostility to the idea on the one hand, and greedy curiosity on the other. Neither of them very attractive emotions . . . There was a pay phone at the Black Horse, wasn't there?”

“Yes. In the little hallway near the loos. As private as you can expect in a country pub.” They had come through the maze of uneven back streets and stood surveying the place, now thronged with casual drinkers standing outside in the sun with jackets and cardigans over their arms. “Especially on a day like this.”

“I'll cope,” said Lettie, tottering through the entrance. “Is your date here?”

Charlie peered through the haze of the Saloon Bar.

“She is. And her father came too.”

• • •

“Eventide Home. Can I help you?”

The voice was strong and sensible sounding. Lettie took heart.

“I hope so. My name is Lettie Farraday. I believe you have a . . . a patient there called Martha Blatchley.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Well, I'm . . . this is difficult . . . I'm her daughter.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Oh.”

“Precisely. I went to America long ago . . . before the war . . . and we haven't kept in touch. To tell you the truth it's a shock to find she's still alive.”

“I suppose so.”

“It's difficult to know what to do. I needn't say that we weren't close. Frankly, we didn't get on.”

“I can understand that.”

“Is she still . . . is she still in control of her faculties?”

“Yes. I think I can say she is that.”

“Ah . . . But if that's the case, I don't know that she'd welcome a visit from me. I don't suppose you'd have any idea whether she would?”

“I can't really say. Generally speaking the old people here regard having children, and children who visit, as a bit of a status symbol. On the other hand, your mother . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, she doesn't always think the same way as the others. Doesn't usually, to tell you the truth. And I have to
say I've never heard her mention you with affection.”

“I'll bet you haven't!”

“On the other hand that doesn't mean she wouldn't welcome a visit. The days are long, and she doesn't watch television like the others do.”

“Oh, she doesn't doesn't she?”

“Says it's a matter of principle.”

“I thought it would be something like that. A matter of cantankerousness, more like.”

“Well . . . I could mention that you're in the area and see what the reaction is. We wouldn't want a scene, of course.”

“You wouldn't get one. I can rein in
my
cantankerousness, I promise you that.”

“I'm sure you can. Well, shall I do that? And where could I contact you?”

“Maybe it's best if I ring you this evening. Will you still be on duty?”

“I will. Ask for Mrs Clandon, will you? Because there are one or two others on the staff who—”

“Yes?”

“Well, frankly, they practically refuse to have anything to do with your mother.”

“Oh my! Am I looking forward to this meeting!”

• • •

And her mother came too. Too.

Holed over by the wall was the girl Charlie had his date with, intimidatingly fenced in by the figures of her father and mother, who seemed to be acting as some kind of familial Praetorian guard. They were all holding glasses, so Charlie elbowed his way to the bar, bought himself a pint, and then went over.

“Hi,” he said.

The girl brightened immediately.

“Oh hi. Mother, father, this is—”

“Charlie Peace,” said Charlie, holding out his hand. It was taken reluctantly by the father, hardly more warmly by the mother, who seemed always to take the lead from her husband. Rupert Coggenhoe was posed to present a leonine profile to the common herd, but his eyes glowered with a quite naked suspicion.

“You know my daughter?”

“That's right. How did you think this morning went?”

“Oh, you were at the meeting?”

“Yes. I thought your contribution was very interesting. It was good to hear the viewpoint of a present-day writer.”

God damn me for a liar, he thought. There was an infinitesimal thawing in both of the pair.

“I did try to use that perspective to put over thoughts that might not otherwise get an airing. You think I made my point?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“How did you and my daughter get acquainted?”

“We met up at the farm yesterday and got talking.”

“Talking? What about?”

My God! thought Charlie. This sort of inquisition would probably be inadmissable under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

“Oh, the Sneddons, what else?”

“You're interested in their books?”

“Of course. That's why I'm here. In their books and their lives.”

“Which books have you read?”

“Daddy!”

“I'm in the middle of
The Black Byre.
I've read
Orchard's
End
and
The Barren Fields.
But as I say I find their lives fascinating too.”

“What aspects of their lives?”

Charlie would like to have conveyed to the girl that if she would plead a visit to the loo he would pretend to get himself another drink and they could both disappear somewhere. But he couldn't think of any delicate pantomime to suggest this, and in any case the fiercely inquisitorial paternal eyes were fixed upon him.

“Oh, how all this creative power seems to have sprung from such a deprived background. And of course their deaths.”

“Oh?”

“We were discussing the deaths yesterday and wondering—”

“Do you think I might interrupt?”

That blessed American accent! It was Lettie, riding to his rescue as a return for his favours of the previous day.

“I was very interested in what you were saying about your own books, and in particular—what was its name?—
Starveacre
?”

“
Starveacre,
yes.” He said it loudly.

“I wonder now, what name did you say you used in writing that book? And would it be currently available in the States?”

She had his complete attention. The girl, perhaps quick from long experience, murmured something about the loo, while Charlie drained his glass and said he could just about manage another. In minutes they were back in the main street and heading for one of the few places where they might reasonably hope to be alone on that particular day—the scruffy back lane by which Charlie had first come into Micklewike.

“Now you know why I sometimes feel like Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” said the girl bitterly. She jumped up to sit on a stone wall and Charlie lounged alongside her.

“I think it might be an idea if you told me your name,” he said.

I
t was, it turned out, Felicity, and in the course of the next hour or so they learned a good deal more about each other than their names. Charlie liked what he learned, though he was bewildered by the sort of control her parents seemed to exercise over her. He resisted the impulse to probe, however: there had been girls in his life who had complained that he couldn't stop being a policeman. Even without probing, though, Charlie received the impression that Rupert Coggenhoe was a tiny talent with a monster-sized ego—and a burden of grievances against a world which did not accord him the recognition which he thought was his due. Exploration of this topic left them no time to go into Charlie's background, which was exactly what he intended.

When they got back to the Black Horse at about a quarter to two he braved the lowering looks of her parents with an insouciant wave and gave his arm to Lettie Farraday for the walk up to the farm. She took it demurely.

“Thanks for the rescue,” he said. “I hope you didn't have to endure him all through lunch?”

“I managed to edge away when they started getting worried about their missing chick,” she said. “On the grounds that I'd ‘taken up too much of his valuable time.' Before that I had to endure a lot of horse manure on the subject of ‘the writer's craft.' ”

“The man's a bore.”

“And a petty tyrant. Watch out for him.”

“I'm not poised to propose marriage to the girl,” Charlie pointed out. “Want to stop for a rest?”

“No. I'm getting used to this street. Again.”

Around the gate to High Maddox Farm a little knot of people were gathering, with others strolling further along the road and stopping to get a view of the farm from a different angle. Mrs Cardew, the lady who had taken their names at the meeting, was installing herself beside the gate, and as they approached she began with a tight smile to let the tour people on her list through the gate, waving them unnecessarily in the direction of the farm. Among the group Charlie registered what he (like Mr Suzman) had already put down as the Scandinavian couple, and Gillian Parkin, from the evening before. Otherwise there was a motley collection of elderly couples, the odd young enthusiast, and one Japanese woman, birdlike and eager. As they straggled towards the farm's main door their hands were shaken by Gerald Suzman, who introduced them to an ample, motherly woman.

“Mrs Marsden, our excellent curator.”

Mrs Marsden was friendly and welcoming. When she registered from Lettie's “Hello” that she was American she shot her a glance, but she merely said: “It's good to know that Susannah Sneddon is being read in America.”

“To a degree,” said Lettie cautiously. “To a degree. You'll know about the article in
Time
magazine, I guess.”

“Yes. Mr Suzman was delighted with that.”

Now the group was assembled, and Mrs Marsden smiled and ushered them through into the farmhouse. In spite of the sunny day outside the interior was dim. Charlie realized that, as with many old rural buildings, the windows were too small for such a large room. Not much reading done in such buildings in former centuries, he concluded. He blinked, and stood for a moment close by the door to get accustomed to the poor light.

“I'm here to answer questions, if I can,” said Mrs Marsden. “If anyone wants information or explanations, just come along to me.”

“You go round at your pace, Dexter,” whispered Lettie Farraday to Charlie. “And I'll go round at mine.”

Which Charlie interpreted quite rightly as a wish to be on her own.

He sauntered round, his eyes beginning to be accustomed to the gloom. As furniture and other objects came to be seen more clearly the impression started to form of something decidedly artificial. It was all superficially accurate, but dead, like those fake streets of Victorian shops that some museums have: altogether too posed and pristine to present any real feeling of the visitor having strayed into another century or another way of life. On a rough wooden table in the kitchen area of the barn-like room there was a rolling-pin, a floury surface and an appearance of pastry being made: only he knew that if he touched it, it would not turn out to be pastry. Nor would the fire in the range turn out to be a real fire, so that the kettle on the hob beside it would never boil. There was not enough dirt, not enough muddle. The floors should be gritty and muddy, not swept clean.