Double Vision (3 page)

The door bell rang.

She almost knew who it was. The name was on the
tip of her tongue, but to be on the safe side she put the chain on before she opened the door and peered through the crack.

‘Hello?’

‘I believe you’re looking for an assistant.’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Alec Braithewaite sent me. I used to do the churchyard last summer, do you remember?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She released the chain and opened the door. Light streamed on to the path, catching his glasses so that for a moment he looked blind. ‘Come in.’

He stepped over the threshold, bringing with him a smell of wet hair and wool, and began stamping his snow-clogged boots on the mat, shaking off thick curds of white. Snowflakes caught in his hair and on his shoulders dissolved as she gazed.

‘I didn’t realize it was still snowing.’

‘It’s not.’ He smiled. ‘I knocked a branch and got a shower. I think I’d better take my coat off. I’m only going to drip all over your carpet. And these,’ he said, looking down at his feet.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’

‘Peter Wingrave. Look, would you like to ring Alec and check?’

‘No, it’s all right. He did mention you.’

She was thinking it was no wonder she hadn’t recognized him. Last time she saw him he’d been suntanned, stripped to the waist, wielding a scythe on the long grasses between the headstones. She’d bumped into
him once or twice as she was walking across the churchyard on her way to the shops, and they’d exchanged a few words about the cull. ‘Isn’t it awful?’ they’d said in passing, as people did who weren’t directly involved. There was no ignoring it. Clouds of oily black smoke from the pyres dominated the skyline. The smell of burning carcasses had hung over the village for weeks.

The cull was the reason for his presence. Until last summer the grass had been cropped by sheep imported for the purpose. Black sheep – she suspected Alec of a clerical joke. They kept the grass down and their droppings, even when deposited on a grave, were not too offensive – or at least nobody had complained. ‘Cows, now,’ Alec had said, ‘I don’t think we could go as far as cows.’ The great thing was they fed themselves and didn’t need to be paid. But then the men from the Ministry came and carted them off to be killed. Peter was more expensive than the sheep, but also, she couldn’t help thinking, more decorative. She remembered him clearly now, sweat glistening on his arms and chest, his jeans slipping further and further down his hips as he swung and turned. As a young single woman, she’d have been seriously tempted. Even as a happily married middle-aged woman, she’d paused to admire the view.

He stood up, flushed from the effort of getting his boots off, wriggling his toes in their damp socks. The boots were old and obviously leaked.

‘Come through,’ she said, hobbling ahead of him into the living room.

‘Oh, a real fire. That’s nice.’

An educated voice, deep, pleasant. She wondered how he’d ended up doing unskilled jobs – but that was his business. And anyway, she thought, gardening isn’t unskilled – it’s just badly paid. He’d shown plenty of skill with that scythe. ‘Do you know, I think you’re the only person I’ve seen using a scythe.’

A small shrug. ‘I grew up in the country.’

‘Oh, whereabouts?’

‘Yorkshire. My grandfather used to use one. But you’re right, I think he was the only person I ever saw doing it. Though it’s not difficult, once you get the rhythm.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Yes, please.’ He looked around for clues and spotted the whisky bottle on the table. ‘Whisky’ll do fine.’

She poured two large glasses. ‘Well,’ she said, lowering herself cautiously into the armchair, feeling like a frail old lady in contrast with his obvious strength and vigour. ‘Alec said he was going to have a word with you.’

‘Yes, he rang a couple of days ago. I left a message on your answering machine, asking if I could call round.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got to the answering machine yet. I only came out of hospital this afternoon. So you’re a gardener?’

‘Mainly, yes.’

‘Must be pretty lean pickings at this time of year?’

‘Awful. Basically it’s dead between November and March. There’s very little.’

‘So how do you manage?’

‘Do a bit of tree surgery. And I’m trying to specialize in water gardening, because actually this is the best time of year to dig ponds. If you leave it till Easter, you’ve missed half the season. And then if it gets too bad, I give in and get a job in a restaurant.’

‘Cooking?’

‘No. Chopping veg and loading dishes.’

‘Sounds pretty dire.’

‘It is, yes, but it’s only for a few months. As soon as the grass grows the phone rings.’

He had a charming smile.

‘Did you train as a gardener?’

‘No.’ A pause. ‘No, I read English.’ He raised the glass quickly to his mouth, hiding his lips.

All right, she thought, no personal questions. Well, that suited her. The last thing she wanted in the studio was chatter.

‘I can give you references. People I’ve worked for.’

He fished in his pocket and produced a sheet of paper, folded twice and slightly damp. Five people were listed on it, four of whom she knew fairly well. ‘Fred Henderson. He’s got that big place just outside Alnwick, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I did his water garden. He went in for it in a big way when he retired. In fact I think it’s the biggest job I’ve ever done.’ He smiled. ‘What can I say? The patio’s level. The ponds don’t leak. The waterfalls work. And the stream’s full of fish.’

She smiled back at him. It was impossible not to like
him. ‘Shall I tell you what I want first? Then you can judge for yourself if you can fit in with it.’

He nodded, watching her intently, rocking the whisky from side to side in the glass, amber lights darting across his fingers. He had big hands.

She sensed he was desperate for work, that chopping veg and loading dishes might be looming, so she didn’t bother making the hours attractive. Eight till four, five days a week. Saturday mornings would be great if he could manage it. ‘And I’ll pay whatever Fred paid. Is that all right?’

‘Fine.’ He looked at her – perhaps he sensed desperation too. ‘You haven’t said what you want me to do.’

‘Driving, lifting, making an armature…’ She waited.

‘I know what it is. I’ve never made one.’

‘I’ll show you.’ It hurt her to say it, to think of other hands on her work. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘Alec said it’s a statue of Christ. How big?’

‘Fifteen feet.’

‘
Fifteen?
’

‘Yep.’

He was looking at her, assessing the extent of her disability. ‘How high can you raise your arm?’

She pulled a face. ‘Shoulder height.’

‘You’ll need a scaffold. I can’t see you shinning up a stepladder’ – he nodded at her stick – ‘with that.’

‘Could you make one?’

‘Yeah, it’s not difficult.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah, no problem. Anyway, I’ll bounce up and down
on it first, so if anybody breaks their neck it’ll be me.’

‘Might be as well.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t think my neck could take any more.’

‘How long do you have to wear the collar?’

‘Another month at least.’

‘But you will get the mobility back?’

‘So they say.’

A pause. ‘So how shall we leave it?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to check with Fred first?’

‘No, I need to get started. How about tomorrow?’

‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’

‘I’ve got to be.’

‘Well, if you don’t feel up to doing much, I can always be making a start on the scaffolding.’

She felt relieved beyond measure. It had all happened so quickly, so easily. Her first job tomorrow morning must be to ring Alec and thank him. It was a bit late tonight, she thought, glancing at her watch.

Immediately, Peter put his glass on the table and stood up. ‘No, don’t get up,’ he said, seeing her reach for her stick. ‘I can let myself out.’

She heard him pulling on his boots, grunting with the effort, and then went to the window to watch him go. The security light flicked on again as he crossed the beam. He seemed to sense her watching and without turning round raised his hand as he disappeared into the dark tunnel of rhododendrons.

A moment later she heard the car start. The noise was distorted, as every noise here was, by the wall of trees. He reversed, turned, and then she heard the hum
of the engine diminishing into the distance before being swallowed up by night and silence. Then there were only the trees, and a few flakes of snow shuddering on the black air.

Three

The following morning, after seeing Peter start work on the scaffold, Kate accepted Angela’s offer of a lift into the village and went to see Alec Braithewaite.

It was a cold, clear day, the grass around the headstones rimed with frost. A trail of muddy, trampled snow led up to the rectory door. She rang the bell and heard it clang deep inside the house, a vast, draughty Georgian mausoleum of a place. She wondered why Alec didn’t protest to the bishop and insist on being given somewhere more sensible to live. Justine was only left at home because the wretched glandular fever had kept her back for an extra year, and Kate found it impossible to imagine what it would be like for one person living here alone.

Justine’s mother, Victoria, had left eight years ago, in a scandal that rocked the parish, though as far as Kate knew no other man had been involved. Alec, pursuing her down the garden path, was supposed to have asked, as she heaved her suitcases into the waiting taxi, ‘Is there anybody else?’

‘Yes!’ Victoria had roared, at the top of her voice for the whole village to hear. ‘
Me
.’

Angela deplored this behaviour, which she regarded as unforgivably selfish. Kate secretly applauded. Everybody
had thought that Alec would leave the parish as soon as another living could be found, but he’d elected to stay, mainly for Justine’s sake – the local girls’ high school had an excellent reputation and Justine had been very happy there. But she’d now left school, and Alec still showed no inclination to move on, though he often talked wistfully about his desire to do more obviously valuable work in some inner-city parish. Like opening his door in the middle of the night to kids off their heads on crack, Kate thought. He was probably safer here. She rang the bell again. The last time she’d spoken to him about his plans he’d seemed to feel guilty that his life had settled into an undemanding groove, ministering to the spiritual needs of what Angela called ‘green-wellie Christians’ – weekenders who wouldn’t have dreamt of attending church in the city, but who in the country dropped in to morning service on their way to the Rose and Crown, as if – Angela again – God was thrown in as a job lot with Labradors and waxed jackets.

There were the locals, of course, but they turned up only two or three times a year: Easter, perhaps, Harvest Festival and the Christmas carol service. All dates at or near the main pagan festivals, as Alec cheerfully pointed out. She rang the bell again, thinking she might as well be waiting for some little Victorian maid ninety years dead to get up from her grave and answer the door.

Instead she heard the slap of bare feet on lino. A disgruntled voice called, ‘All right. I’m coming.’

The door opened and there was Justine, flushed from
sleep, big-breasted inside a too-tight Snoopy T-shirt, yawning, showing the pink cavernous interior of her mouth as uninhibitedly as a cat. ‘Dad’s in the church, I think. Do you want to come in and wait?’

Looking at Justine’s bare feet on the coconut mat, Kate said, ‘No, it’s OK, thanks. I’ll have a walk across.’

She trod carefully across the cattle grid at the entrance to the churchyard – put in, at some expense, to contain the sheep – clinging to the railings because there was nowhere to put her stick. She missed the mournful clanking of the sheep’s bells as they moved between the graves. Slowly, carefully, up the path, one step at a time. It was a struggle to turn the iron ring and push the heavy door open. That didn’t bode well – she must be weaker than she thought. She shuffled, in her new three-legged state, into the cold, hassock-smelling interior, with its fugitive glints of multicoloured light on the stone flags.

Alec was kneeling at the altar rail. He didn’t look round as she closed the door quietly behind her.

A sulky central-heating system, just turned off after Holy Communion, distributed the smell of warm dust evenly around the church, without making any noticeable difference to the temperature. Shivering, she looked up at the crucifix above the chancel arch and beyond that at the rose window: Christ in Majesty, surrounded by concentric circles of apostles, angels, prophets, patriarchs and saints. At the moment she hated all representations of Christ, impartially and with great venom. If they were good, they underlined the
folly of her thinking that she had anything new to contribute to a tradition that had lasted 2,000 years. If they were bad – like the painting in the Lady Chapel of Christ in a chiffon nightie, its diaphanous folds failing to hide the fact that there was nothing to hide – they seemed to invite her mockingly to add to their number.

She tiptoed down the aisle, away from Alec, who had still not looked up, and concentrated on the engravings of Green Men that decorated the roof bosses. What faces: savage, angry, tormented, desperate, sly, desolate. She’d noticed them first at Ben’s funeral and had been paying them regular visits ever since. Images of the Green Man were everywhere these days. A secular world sifting through pagan images, like a rag-and-bone man grubbing about for something – anything – of value. A symbol of renewal, people said, but only because they didn’t look. Some of these heads were so emaciated they were hardly more than skulls. Others vomited leaves, their eyes staring, panic-stricken above the choking mouth. No, she thought, wincing with pain as she craned to look at them, they were wonderfully done – some anonymous craftsman’s masterwork – but they were figures of utter ruin.

Looking up like this made her go dizzy. The faces filled her whole field of vision, a horde of goblins. Alec came up behind her, and she was glad to hold on to him and close her eyes until the walls stopped spinning.