Fete Fatale Read online

  Mary was peering through a crack in the door.

  ‘Oh dear—look at Roote. How vexatious. He has no idea of how to prune. Men simply shouldn’t be allowed to do it—they’re nowhere near ruthless enough. Will you tell him as you go by, Helen: cut closer. Tell him he won’t do any good by being so timid.’

  It was typical of Mary, and typically aggravating, that she should have a gardener called Roote, that she should pay him less and get more work out of him than any of the rest of us in Hexton, and that she wasn’t even pleasant to him.

  ‘I suppose I can try, though I don’t think Roote will want me telling him his business . . . Well, goodbye, Mary. I’m glad you’re getting over things, and beginning to take an interest. I do hope you will come round and have a little supper with us when—’ I wanted to say ‘when the statutory period of court mourning is over’, but I concluded lamely: ‘when things have sorted themselves out for you.’

  ‘I shall love to. Of course at the moment I’m still feeling Mother’s loss . . . terribly.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘But I mustn’t forget that in the future I shall be freer, freer to do more. And freer to take an interest in the town. Mother’s going was a release for her, but in a way it was one for me too. Now that she’s gone, I can really be myself.’

  Contemplating the new Mary as I walked down the driveway, I wondered whether that was really such a good idea.

  CHAPTER 2

  CHRISTIAN SPIRIT

  It was brought home to me in the following few days just how little Mary’s ability to organize outrage was impaired by the exigencies of Hexton’s mourning customs. It was the week before Easter, and perhaps that put religion into people’s minds, though really the spirit in which they went about it seemed more akin to the people who cried ‘Crucify him!’ than to anything I would care to call Christian. In the places where people met in Hexton they appeared to be talking of little else, and with a relish for the fray that seemed to recall the days of bare-fisted prize-fighting.

  Hexton-on-Weir is a town of stone houses, most of them very old and slightly cramped, centred around a town square which is not a square, but a highly irregular form unknown to geometry. In the centre of this square is a church, a fine building which has fallen into disuse as a place of worship, and has been turned into a museum to a famous regiment whose barracks are a few miles out of town. The present parish church is now a smaller one, in a hollow to the east of the town centre. The other most notable architectural feature of the town is the castle, situated on a promontory, surrounded by a path, and overlooking a steep descent to the river and the weir. The castle probably had some military purpose at the time it was built, but if so it has never served it. Its only brief importance in seven hundred years was when Mary of Scots bed-and-breakfasted there during her English imprisonment. From the path around the castle, a favourite with dog-walkers and, in the evenings, with courting couples, one can see the meadows, where many sporting events take place, and where various social and horticultural functions are held in the summer months. For the rest, the old part of the town meanders up and down hill, in streets that are called ‘wynds’—thigh-torturing streets they are, too, to the tourists who are not used to them, though they seem to produce in the residents a certain hardiness which no doubt contributes to their longevity.

  The classes mingle, in Hexton, but in an aware, slightly prickly way, such as used to be common, my parents told me, in wartime. Hexton is, in its modest way, an anachronism, which the modern world intrudes on cautiously. Tourists come in summer, but as they rarely stay longer than overnight they make only a passing impact. The barracks, eight miles away, sends its high-spirited, loud-voiced youth into town at weekends, to drink, play billiards, and chat up such local girls as there are. My husband once told me that in the gents’ loo in the centre are scrawled various suggestions as to how ‘lads’ can earn £5 to £10 in a simple and undemanding way; but whether they ever take advantage of these offers—and who makes them—I have no idea. In general, Hexton takes the military in its stride, though it grumbles and calls them names; and at moments of national crisis, such as the Falklands affair, they readily cover them with a halo of patriotic warmth, and talk about ‘our gallant boys’, where previously they had been ‘those hooligans’.

  Similarly with racial minorities. Black or brown faces were seldom to be seen in Hexton, but many of the corner shops on the outskirts were owned and run by Indians or Uganda Asians, and ‘men of colour’ also ran one or two of the restaurants and takeaway food places, as well as the splendid delicatessen on the square. These immigrants were all so quiet and obliging, and were so respectful in their demeanour, that they were unhesitatingly voted an asset to the town, and gave the middle-class residents a quite delicious sense of après-Raj.

  It was in the delicatessen owned and superbly run by Mr Ahmed Hussein that I first realized the extent of the trouble that Mary Morse was brewing up. Hexton is full of off-licences and undertakers, but Mr Hussein’s is the only delicatessen, and he is generally found to be quite indispensable—especially at such a time as Easter, when modest entertainments are planned, and something a little special is called for. As usual, Mr Hussein stood behind his refrigerated counter, beaming over the cheeses, the pâtés and the salami at Mrs Nielson, a widow recently arrived in Hexton; while in the self-service part of the shop stood Mrs Franchita Culpepper with her Rottweiler puppy Oscar, brought in in blithe disregard of the ‘No dogs PLEASE’ notice on the door. Oscar was built like a tank, but gazed out on the world with eager amiability, ever ready to wag his rump and the stump of his tail. Mrs Culpepper could also, as she surged through town, put one in mind of a tank—but in her case a more aggressive variety, for she usually showed a ferocious eagerness for the fray—any fray.

  ‘I hear Mary’s going to nobble your Marcus,’ she brayed at me, baring her splendid array of teeth as she waded straight in, as was her wont. ‘And quite right too. Never heard such a silly proposal. The congregation simply won’t stand for it.’

  Mrs Culpepper was to my certain knowledge an Easter communicant and not much more at St Edward the Confessor’s, our parish church. But though I had a sneaking fondness for her, I also had the general awe, and I did not remind her of this.

  ‘I must say I can’t work up any great enthusiasm for the cause,’ I said.

  ‘That I heard, too,’ boomed Franchita. ‘You’re wrong, you know. I wouldn’t trust one of those celibate clergymen an inch. First thing you know, he’ll be arrested for feeling up a plain-clothes policeman in a Soho club. Or he’ll want to do a drag act at the church social. No, no: it just won’t do at all.’

  ‘Aren’t you rather prejudging the poor man?’

  ‘Not at all. Once upon a time gentlemen used to go into the church, if they hadn’t any money and couldn’t do any better for themselves. Not any more. There are so many weird types getting ordained these days that you’ve got to be damned careful if you’re going to get one who’s half-way sane. If it’s not sex, it’s nuclear disarmament or poverty in the Third World. What we want here is a good, safe, sane, middle-of-the-road man, with a nice, dowdy wife who wears hats.’

  She looked around in irritation at the counter, where Mr Hussein was patiently holding out his hand.

  ‘No, Mrs Nielson, three pounds forty. Here is only three twenty. That’s right now. Who is next, please?’

  ‘Me,’ bellowed Franchita. ‘Howard—how much are the tinned mussels?’ I had not realized till then that, lurking in the shadows in the corner, was Howard Culpepper. ‘Seventy-five? No—put them back. They’re cheaper at Goodfayre. Right now, Mr Hussein, I’ll just have four ounces of the Bel Paese. Oh, Oscar, naughties!’

  Oscar, bored, had bopped down in the middle of the linoleum floor and let forth a stream of primrose liquid.

  ‘Oh, Mr Hussein, do you think Mrs Hussein could—? Splendid! How much is the Bel Paese? Sixty-three? Christ, what a price! Well, here you are. Come along, Howard!’

  And Franchita
Culpepper charged out of the shop, leaving behind sixty-three pence and a pool of dog pee. Mr Hussein’s smile gained a certain accretion of steel: thus must the merchants of Pankot have smiled at the English memsahibs at the approach of Independence Day, nineteen forty-seven.

  A flustered-looking Mrs Nielson had retreated from the counter, and had accosted me. She was a once-handsome woman in her fifties, who also ignored the notice about dogs, but at least had the grace to carry her poodle, Gustave, in her arms. We gazed at the firm set of Franchita’s shoulders as she departed, followed by Oscar on an actual lead and Howard on a symbolic one.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mrs Nielson, ‘Mrs Culpepper does seem to be spoiling for a fight.’

  ‘She always sounds like that, even if she’s just complaining that the wrong newspaper’s been pushed through her door,’ I explained. And I added, because I thought it was true: ‘It’s mostly noise. She’s not an ill-natured woman.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure . . . I wasn’t suggesting . . . I’m so new here, I don’t really catch the nuances,’ explained Mrs Nielson.

  ‘Mrs Culpepper keeps a hat shop and a husband,’ I informed her. ‘The hatshop doesn’t make any money, I don’t suppose, but it gives her an interest. We all buy hats there now and then, probably because we think that Franchita with an interest is a lot more bearable than she would be without one. Hexton-on-Weir must be one of the few places left that can support a hat shop. There are certain occasions when a hat is de rigueur here.’

  ‘And the husband?’

  ‘I believe he was retired early from a university somewhere or other. I think they simply stopped doing whatever it was he taught. He says “Yes” and “No” very prettily, and that’s about all I know about him. He has a pension, and she has a bit of private money, so they manage quite nicely. But her enthusiasm in this new vicar business is quite spurious. She hardly ever comes to church—and never in the winter, which according to Marcus is the real test.’

  ‘I’m only an occasional attender myself,’ Mrs Nielson said, and added in a rush of confession: ‘More to get to know people than anything else. That’s rather terrible, isn’t it—using religion like that. Actually, I happened to be there for the last sermon of the previous priest—the Reverend Primp, wasn’t that his name? I suppose it wasn’t a fair test, he being so close to his heart attack, but he wasn’t very exciting.’

  ‘He never was. Dull as ditchwater. That’s what they want here: someone who’ll confirm all their existing ideas. An exciting man would never fit in, not in Hexton. Perhaps that’s what they’re afraid of with Father Battersby. Maybe they think his celibacy would make him exciting.’

  By now Mrs Hussein had brought a newspaper and a bucket and cloth, and evidence of Oscar’s visit had been removed. I went up to the counter to make my purchases, and I put the matter out of my mind.

  Nobody else did, though. I was aware, wherever I went during that week, that nobody was talking about anything else. Buzz-buzz it went, in the off-licence, the draper’s, the Mary Rose Tea Shop and over the privet hedges. So that when Mrs Culpepper rang me up to ask us round for drinks on Good Friday, I knew it was to thrash about in the subject yet again—though, adept at killing two birds with one stone, she barked, ‘And tell Marcus to bring the stuff for Oscar’s last injection,’ before she banged down the phone.

  When we got there, Franchita Culpepper was celebrating the crucifixion of Our Lord with a gin and tonic. Howard, her husband, seemed to have something beery tucked away somewhere, but he could only get to it in the intervals of being barman for everyone else. True, his services were not much called for by the Mipchins—she a dowdy, sharp-eyed creature of Scottish extraction, who ostentatiously demanded an orange squash, he a retired tax inspector with a Crippen moustache and a sense of humour, who was allowed to clutch at a single sherry that must have got warmer and warmer every time he took his occasional sips. Mrs and Colonel Weston, on the other hand, knocked it back cheerfully, the Colonel in particular, and so, I noticed, did Marcus, when he came in from the kitchen where he had been giving Oscar his jab. Both, of course, were getting up Dutch courage—something warming before the enemy attacked, a good solid breakfast before being hanged. We all settled down in the Culpeppers’ drawing-room, stacked with the ’thirties memorabilia which they collected, and waited for the attack.

  ‘You’ve been to see Mary?’ barked Mrs Culpepper genially at Marcus. I rather liked Franchita Culpepper: she must have been a funny, sexy lady in her prime, and much of her bossiness now came from being bored. ‘I hope she won you over?’

  ‘Ah—you ladies! Always trying to win us over!’ said Colonel Weston, in as feeble an attempt at gallantry as ever I heard. Mrs Culpepper shot him a glance of friendly contempt.

  ‘Which means, I suppose, that you’re intending to do damn-all about it?’

  ‘I let Mary talk the thing through,’ said Marcus, in his slow, comfortable way, which was his method of defusing a situation. It worked better, I always thought, with the animals of Hexton than with the human beings. ‘I hope that she feels better about it now. I expect she was taking things a little too much to heart, after the death of her mother.’

  ‘Poppycock,’ said Franchita Culpepper.

  ‘You seem to forget,’ said Elspeth Mipchin (née MacIntyre) in her prim, still faintly Edinburgh tones, ‘that there are matters of principle at stake.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Marcus, puffing a veil of smoke around his face, perhaps to hide his expression. ‘Surely we buried all that High Church-Low Church rivalry long ago, didn’t we? I hope so, because it did us a great deal of harm. We’re all Anglicans together now, eh, Colonel?’

  ‘Eh? Oh yes, yes. All Christians too, what?’

  There was a brief silence, as we sipped and considered this.

  ‘I never did go much for this ecumenical spirit,’ Franchita Culpepper said, at last. ‘It always savoured of mushiness, you know. Everyone who went on about it always sounded so wet. The good old “Onward, Christian soldiers” spirit has always meant fighting other Christians, hasn’t it? Give me a good fight any day of the week, rather than a warmed-up basin of ecumenicalism.’

  ‘Blurring around the edges,’ pronounced Mrs Mipchin, ‘is positively dangerous, when there are matters of faith involved.’

  ‘And are you hoping,’ asked Franchita with heavy irony, ‘that Mary is just going to let the subject drop?’

  ‘I certainly hope that when she’s thought things over a bit, and when she can get out of the house more, take up her old interests, she’ll see that this isn’t worth making such a fuss about,’ said Marcus.

  Franchita Culpepper’s comment was a whoop of laughter.

  ‘Hope springs eternal,’ she said.

  ‘What I cannot understand,’ said Elspeth Mipchin, fixing the Colonel with firing-squad eyes, ‘is why the position here was not made clear to the Bishop in the early stages.’

  ‘Oh, Frank did his best,’ loyally put in Nancy Weston, a fleshy lady with social pretensions, who made unwise attempts at a fluffy prettiness. ‘After all, the Bishop is his CO, in a manner of speaking, so there are limits to what he could do. The Bishop’s the one that in the last resort is going to lay it on the line . . . ’ She spoilt this spasm of marital solidarity by adding: ‘Anyway, I never knew Frank convince anyone of anything.’

  Colonel Weston held his peace. He had early on in his retirement to Hexton found out that if he spoke he put his foot in it, and I had rarely heard him say an unnecessary word in company. As a matter of fact, I knew through Marcus that what Colonel Weston had said to the Bishop was: ‘Whatever you do, don’t upset the women.’ If the Bishop had consciously gone against this, it was no doubt for reasons of his own, and with the thought that it was up to the Colonel and the other lay dignitaries to fight their own battles with the women. Little did he know that they had long ago raised the white flag.

  ‘And so,’ summed up Franchita, ‘due to the spinelessness of our menfolk—’ she shoved forwa
rd her glass hand—‘refill me, Howard—we are to be landed with a celibate vicar. My God!’

  ‘I never knew,’ I said, to lighten the atmosphere, ‘that sexual prowess was a criterion for promotion in the Church of England.’

  Only Marcus laughed.

  ‘The thing is,’ explained Nancy Weston, ‘that he’s celibate on principle. That’s what nobody quite likes.’

  ‘Do you mean that nobody would object if he were merely celibate in practice?’

  ‘Well, it would make it a damn sight more difficult to have a fight over it,’ said Franchita, with that genial honesty that often endeared her to me.

  ‘What I thought,’ said Marcus, in his slow, country way, ‘was that I would suggest to the Bishop that he send Father Battersby over to pay us a visit.’

  There was an immediate pricking up of ears. Thus must the Bacchae have pricked up their ears when they heard that Pentheus was in the vicinity.

  ‘I thought that if he came here,’ went on Marcus comfortably, ‘and people could see he wasn’t such a rara avis, and he could get to know us—well, then half the battle would be over.’

  Dear, optimistic Marcus! But he had successfully defused the situation, I had to give him that—the situation, I mean, in Franchita Culpepper’s drawing-room. The trouble with Marcus was that he believed that his defusings were longer-term than they really were, and that he had made the problem go away for good, when in reality it was merely quiescent, and waiting to erupt again with redoubled fury. For the moment, though, the combatants were silent, to consider their future conduct, and the men actually got in a few words together about the problems of the Yorkshire Cricket Club.

  As a matter of fact, we drove over to Ripon on Easter Sunday, and after the service in the Cathedral Marcus went and had a word with the Bishop. I had taught ancient languages at a girls’ school in Ripon, and I found plenty of friends to chat to after the service. So it was only that evening, after a substantial high tea, that I remembered why we had gone.