Whispers in the Village (26 page)

Greta moved to make way for someone wanting to search the freezer. ‘They say he won’t live. Well, yer can’t win every time and they’ve had a good run.’

‘Doesn’t make it hurt less though, does it? You still love ’em, they’re still yours.’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure. Oops! Time I wasn’t ’ere. Jimbo’ll be looking for me anytime. Two minutes past one! Heck! I’m definitely not ’ere.’ Greta sped away into the back.

Within minutes she heard Gilbert’s voice in the Store. No good, she had to get the latest. She dashed through from the back to offer her sympathy and hope little Roderick was improving. But Gilbert looked at her with eyes that had seen hell. Greta froze. His eyes shocked her to the core and the words died on her lips. ‘Oh, Gilbert.’ A great lump came in her throat and no more words would come.

In a dry, cracked voice shaking with emotion, Gilbert answered, ‘The baby died late last night.’ He hunched his shoulders and spread his hands with deepest despair.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say, ‘Well, perhaps it’s all for the best, with all his problems.’ But she remembered what Angie had said about them all being precious no matter how many you had and instead told him how sorry she was and to give her love to Louise.

Gilbert’s heart was filled with grief but above all with terror, because he didn’t know how he would get through it all. If only he’d been there. Right when he was needed, where was he? Fast asleep in bed. Ron had sent him there at seven o’clock with the children because he hadn’t slept since late on Sunday night and he’d shared young Gilbert’s bed because his in-laws were in his. Ron and Sheila had gone back to the hospital to keep Louise and the baby company. Gilbert slept like a log until the clock reached midnight and Ron had come to wake him.

‘Gilbert. Gilbert. You’ll have to wake up. I’ve come to get you. Louise needs you. Gilbert?’

He’d felt a hand shaking his shoulder, dragging him into consciousness.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m afraid there’s bad news from the hospital.’

Gilbert had sat up. ‘Louise?’

‘No, not her. It’s little Roderick.’

‘He’s …’

‘Gone, I’m afraid. I’d just been for a drink from the machine for Sheila and me, and when I came back, well, he’d passed away.’ Man to man, Ron dared to speak his thoughts. ‘I think perhaps for his sake we’d better be glad. There was too much wrong, Gilbert, the holes in his heart, his hare lip, the cleft palate, his limbs not straight. His life would have been a travesty of what it should be for a little boy. Now get up and go see Louise. I’ll stay with the children, and we’ll be here all day tomorrow, too.’

Gilbert had dressed in a complete daze and gone back to the hospital.

When he got there, Sheila was standing by the incubator, staring down at the baby. They’d taken all his tubes and machines away and he was laid for all the world as though fast asleep, wrapped in a crocheted shawl all the children had used when they were newborn. All she could say was, ‘He’s at peace now. He’s at peace now.’ Time after time, after time. She stood there, rooted to the floor, muttering, ‘At peace now.’

‘If you’d like to hold Roderick to say goodbye, Mr Johns, please do so.’ The ward sister had said this in such a caring tone Gilbert had almost lost control and broken down in tears. So he picked up his son, carrying him for Louise to cuddle in her arms.

Someone came and led Sheila away so they could be on their own.

Standing in the Store, trying to remember all the things they needed, Gilbert couldn’t believe that Sheila could be as lively and patient as she was this morning at breakfast. Last night she’d been out of her mind: this morning, it was as if nothing had happened at all. It worried him because it appeared so odd, but he concluded that grief affects people in all sorts of strange ways. He picked up three loaves of Jimbo’s special wholemeal bread, two pounds of butter, two dozen eggs, a big pack of cheese, some baby food jars for Oliver to make life a little easier, meat from the fresh meat counter, then he abruptly stopped and stood staring into space again, remembering the feel of tiny Roderick in his arms when he’d carried him for Louise to hold for the first and last time. The child, so tiny, so frail, so without hope. He recalled how his heart broke when he witnessed Louise’s painful distress as she cuddled him. Selfishly, the thought occurred to Gilbert that perhaps it was all for the best. Roderick would’ve needed hours of special care that would have meant the other five not getting the loving attention they needed and which was their right to expect. He berated himself for his thoughts, so dwelt again on the loss of his tiny son who’d had such a fragile hold on life and wept inside himself with grief, then decided there wasn’t the remotest possibility that Roderick could have the joys of a carefree childhood, which young Gilbert, Rosalind, Jenna, Emily and little Oliver celebrated every day of their lives. Perhaps it was right what Sheila had said; he was at peace now, free from struggle, free from pain.

Dean, shaken by witnessing Roderick’s tiny coffin being taken into the church for the funeral, went to sit on the seat by the pond to think. Ever since that day in the vestry when he’d pressed Anna’s hand to his lips and been observed by Muriel, Dean had been extremely upset. He’d known at that moment, when he’d realized Muriel’s face was a curious mixture of sadness and disgust, that he could no longer let his life meander on. It had taken hours of deep thought to come to this decision, hours spent wide awake in bed, doodling on bits of paper at the office, long walks through the woods at night and poems galore. Nothing had stilled the raging passions inside him.

In a desperate attempt to calm his inner turmoil, he’d torn to pieces the beautiful, glossy William Morris cover of his book of poems, shredded the pages and furiously brushed away his tears, as the last few lines of his poetry shrivelled and blackened in the flames of the kitchen Rayburn. That was that. His big romance gone up in flames. Given the chance, he’d have married her tomorrow. But at the same time he knew she would never marry him.

She seemed to think he was capable of being more than an accountant in an insignificant office in sleepy old Culworth. Maybe he was. Just so glad of a job when he’d come down from Cambridge, he’d have taken almost any offer in order to qualify. He’d never rise to giddy heights in Neville’s office, though. Comfortably off but nothing more. Besides, both Hugh and Guy Neal would inherit the business and he certainly couldn’t work under those two, with their over-inflated self-esteem. He had to strike out alone.

He heard the mourners coming out of the church, so he quickly sprinted away across the Green, squeezed through a gap in the hedge between Glebe House and the brick wall surrounding the Big House estate, and cut across the field to home.

Grandad was dozing in the chair before the sitting-room fire, and his mother was nowhere to be seen. But she had left a note to say a college friend of his had rung. She didn’t catch his name but he’d given a number to ring. The number was familiar but Dean couldn’t just place it.

When Dean dialled the number he found it was his college friend Rory O’Donoghue on the other end of the line with the offer of a job.

‘Chap just left Pa’s office without notice and disappeared over the horizon with about a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of clients’ money,’ said Rory. ‘This damned blackguard chose his moment to steal and took off when he knew Pa would be abroad. I’m desperate for a compatible right-hand man, who could sort out, as a matter of extreme urgency, exactly how this chap managed to steal it. Got to close the loophole a1 sharp. Be a good chap and come, help me sort out the mess? We always got on well together, didn’t we? Will you answer the call to arms?’

Without the slightest hesitation, Dean agreed to go up to London immediately, and wrote a letter to Neville Neal explaining his hurried departure. Knowing what a stickler Neville was for protocol – and not caring, in fact – he almost smiled at the thought of Neville going ballistic at his lack of notice, and was packing his bag by the time his mother returned. She’d got a car now instead of that wobbly bike his stepfather had bought her years ago and he heard its unique engine noise long before she reached home. Ah! This was going to be hard.

‘Dean! Am I glad to be home. Never ever am I going to a child’s funeral ever again. It’s too harrowing. They were all weeping and Gilbert and Louise looked as though they’ll be next in a coffin. Put the kettle on, there’s a love. It’s been horrific. I stopped long enough for a cup of tea at Sheila’s out of respect and then I left. Is Grandad OK? Put out another cup. He always manages to wake up just as the tea’s brewed and then grumbles when I ’aven’t put out a cup for him. You all right? You’re very quiet.’

Pat slipped off her high-heeled shoes and put her house slippers on. ‘That’s better.’ She sat on a kitchen chair and waited for Dean to serve her tea.

‘Mum, that phone call was from Rory. Rory O’Donoghue.’

Pat thought for a minute. ‘Oh! I remember him. He came here once, didn’t he? Plum in his mouth and as ugly as sin.’

Dean had to smile. ‘That’s the one. He got a double first, he’s very clever.’

‘What did he want?’

‘To offer me a job in London, in his dad’s firm. Big accountancy company in the City. Prestige offices, pots of money, first-rate prospects.’

‘That’s a feather in your cap, then.’ She pondered what he’d said, glad he had a steady job in Culworth, which she was sure he wouldn’t want to leave, well in truth
she
didn’t want him to leave. ‘Pity you can’t go.’

The door opened and in ambled Grandad. ‘Tea on the go? Good, I’m just in time.’ He launched himself into a chair and held out his cup. ‘Strong, that’s right. Thanks.’ He had a drink of his tea and then looked at the two of them. ‘Missed something, have I?’

Dean rushed through the story, unable, as yet, to say his case was already packed.

Grandad looked Dean straight in the eye and said, ‘Take it, lad. Take it. You’ll never get another chance like this. Just go. I’ll be glad to see you out of that Neville Neal’s clutches. He’s a slimy toad.’

‘Dad! It’s none of your business.’ Pat couldn’t believe her ears.

‘It is. Dean’s far too good for that office, and I want him to go. When does he want you to start?’

‘Immediately. He says I can have a room in his flat till I find somewhere.’

‘Pack yer bags and get off. Don’t worry about leaving Neville Neal in the lurch; he wouldn’t think twice about sacking you on the spot if he felt like it, believe me. Your horizons won’t half be widened. London. Fancy. Never thought I’d have a grandson in a City office. It’ll make me right proud, Dean, and not half. As for Mr Fitch! Well, he’ll be like a dog with two tails, when he finds the money he gave you for university has brought such dividends.’

‘I think, Dad, you’d do best to keep your mouth shut. I don’t want him to go.’

‘Don’t hold him back, Pat. He needs to go. Spread his wings a bit.’

Dean stood up. ‘Right, I will.’

‘Stay where you are, Dean, please.’ Pat banged her fist on the table and looked defiant. But Dean left to go upstairs to make a pretence of packing his case.

Quietly, so his voice wouldn’t carry up the stairs, Grandad said, ‘Listen to me, Pat. I don’t think you’ve realized that he’s been pining for Anna Sanderson. He’s been in love with her since the day she came. What do you suppose all the new clothes were about? And borrowing your pyjamas for that party? He’d never have made such a fool of himself wearing them if it hadn’t been for how he felt about her.’

Pat was astounded. ‘Anna? Carrying a torch for Anna? For heaven’s sake, Dad, you must be going senile if you think that. Our Dean? I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true. I know what I’m talking about. It’s been making him ill. He needs to go away to get her out of his system. So untie the apron strings and send him off with a smile. He’s going to a job, he’s got somewhere to live till he finds his feet, he’ll be OK. You see, Pat, we all have to fly the nest sometime, don’t we?’

‘How do you know about Anna? Has our Dean told you?’

‘No, but I have got eyes. Never looked at his face when we’ve been talking about her?’

‘Well, no.’

‘If you had, you’d have seen the glow, but just recently the light’s gone out, so he must have realized it was hopeless. I’m damned sorry for him.’

‘I’d no idea. Anna? But she’s years older than him. Years. What did he think would come out of that? Mmmm?’

‘The love story of the century, I expect.’

Pat drew a pattern on the kitchen table with her finger and eventually said, ‘If that’s the case he’s better out of it. You’re right. I’ll smile. But it’ll break my heart. I wonder, did she encourage him, do you think?’

‘I think she might have been just as friendly and open as she is with everyone else, and that Dean made no progress at all. Anyway, he won’t have to see her now, will he?’

The doorbell rang and a voice called out, ‘Pat? It’s Anna from the rectory. Can I come in?’

Grandad and Pat looked at each other in horror. Eventually Pat shouted back, ‘Of course, you’re welcome. We’re in the kitchen.’

Anna came in. She was wearing the clerical collar with the thigh-length black jacket and narrow black trousers that she’d worn for the funeral. ‘Good morning, Mr Stubbs. How’s the rheumatism? Better, I hope? Morning, Pat.’ She shook hands with them both.