The Shift Key (20 page)

And all he’d done, really, was conjure up a few simple dishes from what he found in store: a Chinese ‘soup for the gods’ with chopped spring onion,
spaghetti alla carbonara
which called for pasta plus ham and eggs of which there were plenty, coriander mushrooms (luckily he had a good stock of button mushrooms and they took literally minutes to prepare), every vegetable he could lay hands on, cut small and stir-fried, and lots of salads with his own favourite dressing that included mustard and horseradish …

It was the first time since he went to work as a chef that his appetite had really felt tempted by his own productions.

And Nigel Mender had boomed as he returned from seeing off the last of the customers, Tim, my boy! You’ve worked wonders tonight!’

Tired, but very pleased with himself, Tim smiled across a pile of dirty pans.

‘I try to do my best, sir –’

‘Name’s Nigel, old chap! We’ve known each other long enough! I think you deserve a bonus! When you’re through in here, pop into the bar and have a drink on me!’

For a long second Tim imagined that was to be the bonus: just a drink.

But Mr Mender – Nigel – chortled.

‘If all the customers come back who said they would I’ll up your pay. Here’s an extra fiver to be going on with.’ He fumbled out his wallet.

‘That’s very kind of you –’

‘Kindness has nothing to do with it! If you hadn’t come up to scratch … Well, you can imagine how embarrassed I’d
have been. Come on and have that drink. A brandy?’

Tim slept extremely well that night.

But Ella Kailet spent all night awake. She had been fired. Tomorrow she would have no work to go to.

Distraught, in the grip of powers she could not control, she left her London flat – she didn’t even pack a bag – and walked the mile to the Chiswick roundabout where traffic divided on the main routes to the West Country. She had on a raincape over a short dress, with high-heeled shoes. As she had hoped, a good few lonely men pulled up for her. To each she said, ‘Weyharrow?’

‘Never heard of it!’ was the routine reply. ‘But if it’s anywhere near –’

She couldn’t recall where it was near. They left her in the cold, frightened by her lapse of memory., scarcely able to see for the rain that smeared her glasses.

Not until two long hours had passed, when traffic had thinned, did it dawn on her confused mind that she did now remember where Weyharrow was near. Names drifted back out of mental mist: Trimborne, Hatterbridge, Chapminster …

‘Chapminster?’ said the driver of an open pickup holding second-hand furniture under a plastic sheet, halted at a pointless stop-light – pointless because the other entries to the roundabout were vacant. ‘Yes, I’m going that way.’

‘Do you pass Weyharrow?’

‘I suppose so. There’s a sign … Jump in. Be quick! The lights are changing. No need to feel scared. I’m over fifty and I have four kids. But hurry!’

Ella obeyed.

Having made one stop and fed her on baked beans and chips and hot sweet tea, he left her at the promised sign. By then the rain had reduced to drizzle. She walked the rest of
the way, hating the shoes she had put on, not knowing why she wanted to be where she was going.

An hour or so past dawn she fell in with the hippies camping on Weyharrow green. On learning her name they pestered her with questions, but when they realized how tired she was they gave over. They hung her cape to dry, shared their breakfast with her, offered her a threadbare blanket, and left her to sleep in the back of their bus, promising to say some sort of prayer on her behalf.

She felt indescribably grateful. She was terrified of going mad.

So too had Mary Flaken been. How
could
she have done that awful thing to her best friend Hannah? How could she have imagined she was actually married to Bill Blocket, when she’d been Philip’s wife for more than two years? She had kept saying over and over, ‘It was like a dream! I can’t have been myself!’

Fortunately the Blockets had been very understanding – more, she thought, than she could say about Phil. He was still snapping at her every chance he got. When they at last went to bed, he did the same as last night, even though he hadn’t been out to the pub this time, and turned his back without so much as a good-night kiss.

She lay awake a long while, staring into darkness, hoping against hope that at tomorrow’s meeting some explanation would be offered that would make sense of her terrible experience.

She shared that hope with many others: Tom Fidger, breaking out in a cold sweat each time he remembered how he had driven a busload of passengers on the wrong side of the road; Harry Vikes when he recalled turning his cows into the turnip field; Ken Pecklow on wondering again about the new chemical spray Harry had bought and he had not been able to afford …

And Jenny Severance, when she thought about the last public meeting she had been sent to cover, and the incredible nonsense she had seemed to recollect from it.

The whole episode now felt unreal. But for the appalling vividness with which it burned in memory, she could have believed it never happened.

The Reverend Mr Phibson, who had prayed more desperately than ever in his life, likewise found his memory of Thursday’s ghastly morning service vague and distant. He wished he could have felt the same about the anathema he had pronounced on Mrs Judger, who had rallied loyally to him, cleaned the house and served his supper as though nothing had occurred amiss. He was very ashamed of himself, and wondering whether he should apologize for the anathema, or whether it was best left unmentioned, inasmuch as she had no idea he’d spoken it.

Up at the Court, Basil Goodsir felt more and more helpless in the face of Helen’s sarcastic taunts, for how could one rebut what one was now convinced had not been real in the first place?

It was no use saying so, of course. Helen and Marge Grewsam were clearly in cahoots, and their joint efforts were winning round that bloody lawyer, Haggledon …

At the hotel Wilf Spout slept well and deeply. In the adjacent room, however, Donald Prosher lay awake and worried, thinking of the Ellerford boys. Presumably they’d gone out, to a friend’s house no doubt, even though there had been a light behind the front room curtains; he had heard no noise. In the morning he must call again.

He had never said as much to anyone, and didn’t intend to start talking about the matter now, but there was a good chance that the younger boy, Paul, was not Ted Ellerford’s son, but his, fruit of a short and casual affair. Ursula had never tried to pin paternity on him, but after leaving Hong Kong he had seen a birth announcement in
The Times,
and
counted backward month by month, and …

But he had other, more important considerations to contend with.

At the other end of the building, in bed with Lisa, who like Wilf was contentedly asleep, Wallace Jantrey tossed and turned and fretted. This Weyharrow scandal should have been tailor-made for the
Banner’s
readership! He had come down here with high hopes, intending to arrive ahead of the rush – he knew Jenny had phoned other papers as well as his.

What rush, though? Where was everybody else? Where were the people from the
Sunday Trumpet,
for example, or
The World on Sunday?
(He scarcely thought of the
Globe
as competition.) Almost, he had mentioned their absence when he phoned his editor this evening, but decided not to. There was a story here, he was certain of that, even if it wasn’t of the kind he had expected … Why weren’t the locals nailing crosses to their doors to keep away the Devil? Why weren’t they besieging the church to pray for forgiveness? Why hadn’t they attacked the hippies? Why was Don Prosher looking smug?

Suppose he had laid out fifty quid in drink for some of the local layabouts; could he not have talked them into overturning the hippies’ tents? He should have thought of that before. Maybe tomorrow night, if the meeting was as dull as he expected …

He drifted into uneasy dreams.

Downstairs Nigel Mender was belatedly confronting a problem. Who was going to take charge at the hotel while he was chairing the meeting in the parish hall? He’d meant to sort that out earlier, but the sudden rush of customers had distracted him. He had a couple of extra waitresses and an extra barman organized, but he needed someone authoritative and responsible to stand in for himself. The hotel was going to be packed out; he had taken four
more bookings this afternoon, which left only two vacant rooms.

He snapped his fingers. Of course! Jack Fidger would be perfect – Tom and Fred’s father. Before taking over the garage from his own father, Jack had had it in mind to go into the licensed trade, and had actually worked for a while at the Marriage. Of course, that had been a long time ago, but he was an affable type and would no doubt do a favour for an old friend.

Assuming he wasn’t planning to attend the meeting …

Nigel glanced at his watch. It was far too late to ring the old man up. But first thing in the morning –! And if not him, maybe Tom’s wife, or Fred’s … Something could be arranged.

Nonetheless, he had to calm himself with another stiff brandy before he could relax enough to go to bed.

Sleepily Yvonne called out, ‘Is that you, Joe?’

Shaking the wet from his cape, PC Book assured her that it was, and joined her in the sitting-room where she was drowsing over a late film on TV.

‘Is everything okay?’

‘All quiet on the Weyharrow front,’ he said around a yawn. ‘Mr Chade promised to send a car by a couple of times during the night, but I told him there wouldn’t be any trouble. Not unless our lot start it.’

‘Think they will?’

‘Not with it streaming down like this … Film any good?’

‘Not much. I’ve been dozing half the time, anyway. Lost track of what’s going on.’

‘I’ll turn in, then. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.’

‘You got to go to this meeting?’

‘’Fraid so. Sounds like most of the village will be there.’

‘Think I ought to come?’

‘Up to you. But …’ Joe hesitated.

‘But what?’

‘It could be,’ he said slowly, ‘kind of a major event.’

All during Saturday the atmosphere of Weyharrow was … Strange? Peculiar? Out of the ordinary? All of those, and something extra it was hard to put a finger on.

It wasn’t just that people were exaggeratedly courteous to one another, as if afraid they might have given offence even though they could not recall having done so. That entered into it, but it wasn’t the whole story.

Nor was the way they closed ranks against the outsiders – ‘foreigners’, be they from as near at hand as Powte or Fook-sey – who came into the village on this non-working day ready to poke fun or gather scandal. Even Philip Flaken and Bill Blocket – even Ken Pecklow and Harry Vikes – joined forces to rebuff these sensation-seekers, first with scowls, then with insults and at last with threats, until by lunch time they were retiring disappointed … though others, unfore-warned, tried the same again during the afternoon, and met the same hostile reception.

By contrast, their treatment of the hippies was out way polite, almost as though, having been here before, the latter had become honorary citizens. That too was odd. But once more it wasn’t what counted the most.

Perhaps the real key to the strangeness of the day was to be found in everyone’s determination to make it as ordinary as possible.

That, at any rate, was how it struck Steven. He said as much to Jenny when they crossed paths after morning surgery and went together for a drink at the Marriage. The customers were returning to the pub, somewhat shamefacedly, and no more reference was being made to sinks
of iniquity.

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she muttered. ‘I got up early and went to see if anything special was happening at the church. It was an ordinary service, except that Mr Phibson sounded extremely tired. There weren’t many more people there than usual, though: about a dozen. Later on I bumped into Don Prosher, coming away from the Ellerfords. He said when he went there last night he couldn’t get an answer, but he saw the boys this morning. Said they both looked ghastly. Got at Ursula’s drinks-cupboard last night, apparently, and overdid it. I suppose you can’t really blame them … But he said he was going to take them to see her at the hospital, which I thought was nice of him.’

‘Last night,’ Steven said caustically, ‘you were more inclined to think of him as speaking with a forked tongue. Did you find out where he spent yesterday afternoon?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘He clammed up when I mentioned it. I think he’s on to something … Steve, you know something? I don’t think I’m cut out to be a reporter. I don’t have the right kind of – of antennae.’

‘Isn’t it something you’ve always wanted to do?’

‘Oh, ever since I was about thirteen. But …’ She shook her head, looking doleful. ‘I seem to be still treating it as though it were some kind of school exercise. Almost as though I expect to have my work marked, with corrections in the margin! And I can’t go on doing that for ever, can I?’

Her wide blue eyes fixed on Steven’s face. He found himself at a loss. Instead of answering directly, he said, ‘And what about the people from the
Banner?’

‘Oh, they’re around somewhere.’ Jenny shrugged. ‘I met them earlier, but they seemed mainly interested in chatting up the yobs – Damn. I mustn’t say things like that, must I? It’ll turn them off for good, and I need to stay on the best of terms with everybody … Maybe that’s what I’m not good at. What do you think, Steve? You seem to have made a
tremendous hit in just a few days. I’ve been here over six months, and I don’t seem to have made any real friends, and – and I’m annoyed with myself. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m behaving like the Ellerford boys, giving the impression that I’m too good for a place like this and only want to use it as a stepping-stone to Fleet Street.’

‘Speaking clinically,’ Steven said after a pause, ‘isn’t that true?’

‘I suppose it is, really … Well, thanks for the drink. The
Trumpet
hasn’t sent anybody down from London after all, but when I rang him earlier the editor said he is still interested in a story from me. So I’d better draft one. See you this evening … Oh, if only today weren’t turning out so ordinary, like you said!’