A Fatal Winter (8 page)

“Mrs. Hooser, have you seen the shirt that was tucked on the top shelf of my closet?”

She knew right away what he meant. “It needed tossing out, dinnit?” she replied, proud of her proactive approach to housekeeping. “But I figured I’d get some good use of it first. I used it a few days ago to polish the silver.”

“To polish … the…” he began, then said, sharply: “Show me, please.”

She led him into the kitchen. There, under the sink, a fire hazard in the making, was what was left of Paul’s shirt. It had been cut into bits, and some of those bits were dark with tarnished silver.

Max was aghast. For the first time in their relationship, which consisted of many calamitous mishaps, much broken crockery, and gallons of spilt milk, Max was angry, actually trembling with rage. He struggled to control himself, to conceal his anger—how could the woman be expected to know? Still, the collar was intact, the double layers of material too thick to be of use for her polishing job. But still …

“Mrs. Hooser.” He drew a deep breath, then tried again. “Did you not wonder why it was on the top shelf of my closet, wrapped in plastic, and not stuffed into a drawer? Or on a hanger? Why—?”

But he broke off. What was the use? Gently, he took the garment from her.

“I thought it were to be throwed away. I—”

Somehow he couldn’t bear to listen. He said, “I’m putting what’s left of this shirt in a plastic bag and I’m putting it back on the shelf in my closet. It is never to be touched again, Mrs. Hooser. Never for any reason. Do you understand?” Seeing her confusion, he added gently, “It’s very important that this shirt not be touched again. Do you understand?”

She nodded, still puzzled, but the message seemed to get through. He was “her” vicar and she’d do whatever he said, no matter how barmy it seemed to her.

*   *   *

He left early for his meeting with Awena, in part wanting to take a stroll around the serene village and use the time to collect himself. The memory of that shirt, horrid memento of his worst day, stayed with him. He knew he should get rid of it but also knew he never could.

To calm his mind, he breathed deeply of the winter air, fragrant with the mixed scents of leaden clouds and bread baking at the Cavalier Tea Room and Garden. A misty winter light spread across the village, puddling at the feet of passersby, making them appear to float toward him.

In its perfection, Max often thought there was something magical about Nether Monkslip; it soothed his spirit just to walk around the familiar streets and lanes, past the well-known shops, now alight against the encroaching dark.

The other evening Max had walked by the Village Hall and heard familiar voices raised in song:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?

He had hummed along to the old hymn, pleased at this sign the village and particularly the Women’s Institute had returned to some normalcy after what was delicately referred to as the “recent unpleasantness.” It had been the first time he’d felt the enchantment of the village reasserting itself.

The recent demise of a villager by violent means had left a void in the spite and gossip categories and Max, knowing that nature abhors a vacuum, had feared someone would rise up to seize the throne so recently vacated. But so far no one had. While the unsavory episode had left the villagers in a state of shock for some time, there was no arguing that the village, despite the usual carefully nourished grievances and mild skirmishes, was now a friendlier place.

Max stepped briefly into his jewel-like church, St. Edwold’s, which he imagined was what stepping into a large Fabergé egg would be like for a tiny harvest mouse in a children’s tale. The sacred space beneath the vaulted ceiling and carved bosses shone with artistry and antiquity; it seemed to say men needled by doubt could be, if not won over to God’s ways, at least seduced by the beauty of what mankind could create, swayed by the dedication of the stonemasons and craftsmen who had lived many centuries before.

He stood in the nave looking to his left, at the image that had appeared there on the wall. Mrs. Hooser’s small son Tom had been the first to notice the face of a long-haired man, eyes closed, strongly resembling the face on the Shroud of Turin. The image was emerging through the whitewash again and he’d have to get Maurice on it yet again. He didn’t need a load of miracle tourists and day-trippers pouring in to view what was surely no more than some weird by-product of the perpetually leaking roof.

Now as he walked away from the church, the sound of its ringing bells counted out the hours of the village, as they had always done, even though now a recording was substituted for all but special occasions. He felt that something had been lost in the quality of the sound, but who, after all, would elect to have his own personal Quasimodo swinging from the bell tower?

Nether Monkslip’s economic and social life, like that of most villages in England, orbited around the sun of the shops of the High Street. Shopping for the day’s supplies of food, drink, and home and kitchen accoutrements was largely a matter of popping in and out of the various establishments, although most villagers did their monthly “big” shopping in Staincross Minster or Monkslip-super-Mare. Over the centuries, various lanes and alleys and byways had sprouted off the High, footpaths and grooves in the grass hardening by use and tradition into appendages of the main route through the village. Since Nether Monkslip had remained remarkably free from pillage, raid, and plunder, it had not evolved like many English villages in a cluster around a large building for defense or even around a common green. Water, too, had been available in abundance, in the form of the River Puddmill. All of these factors affected how the village had grown. It seemed haphazard, even slapdash, but the logic was there once one knew where to look for it. The one universal “rule” was that the church had long occupied a central position, physically and psychically, in the lives of the villagers, as had the pubs—Nether Monkslip was anchored by the Hidden Fox on one end and the Horseshoe on the other.

There was no flower shop—in Nether Monkslip nearly everyone grew and arranged their own flowers, and shared any excess with neighbors. Similarly, many cottages had a vegetable patch, and nothing that could be shared ever went to waste.

Also central to village life was the post office, which had survived a wave of government closures even while hundreds throughout Britain had succumbed. Along with the church, this was where villagers met to deal in the coin of news and speculation. The red telephone kiosk, itself a throwback to an earlier time, sat like a beacon outside, and at night was lighted to cast a reassuring glow over passersby.

The village store which contained the post office even offered organic wine, milk, and cheeses, although faced with stiff competition from
La Maison Bleue
, which sold
real
cheese, according to proprietress Mme. Cuthbert. Max’s steps took him past the shop now, with its white ceramic pig with red collar which served as a doorstop. The pig was usually accompanied by Sadie, a fine-looking (and real) bichon frise. The store was operated by Mme. Lucie Cuthbert, wife of local historian and aspiring author Frank Cuthbert. Mme. Cuthbert viewed her husband’s scribbling in his off-duty time with an amused Gallic detachment, as did most of the villagers, seeing it as a harmless hobby along the lines of stamp collecting or brass rubbing.

Looking in the shop window as he passed, Max saw Mme. Cuthbert was branching out into selling imported French oddments like dish towels, stationery, and artisan soaps and toiletries. Max knew she also sold many of her oils and soaps via Awena Owen’s shop, Goddessspell. Mme. Cuthbert was from the Channel Islands and was a frequent traveler to France, where she went to stock up on supplies. Tonight she was organizing a wine tasting, according to a sign in the window of her shop. Seeing Max, she stepped outside to greet him.

“A blizzard is on the way,” she informed him. She pronounced it with the accent on the first syllable:
blee
-zar. “I wonder how many will brave it tonight for a wine tasting.” She shrugged. “If this were France, I would have no worries.”

“A blizzard?” said Max. “How extraordinary. We rarely get much snow in this part of the world.”

“I know,” she said, an indefinably Gallic look of satisfied gloom on her face. Just then there came the sound of breaking glass from within as Frank knocked over one of the little tables Madame had so charmingly dressed for the tasting with red checkered tablecloths. He appeared at the door of the shop wearing his usual beret, now looking like a sheepish member of the French Resistance. Mme. Cuthbert’s air of doom deepened. She was clearly holding her fire until Max had passed, which he hastily did now.

Tara, the yoga instructor who rented space at Awena’s Goddessspell, came sprinting by on her daily run, copper-red ponytail swinging out behind her like a metronome. The chill in the air barely impeded her progress as she shot past, aiming a friendly wave in his direction. At the same moment, Mrs. Hooser’s daughter Tildy Ann ran across the High, clearly on her way to lessons at Mlle. Chevalier’s in a bouncing pink tutu and ballet slippers. Her younger brother, unusually, was not with her: She rarely let Tom out of her sight. Tildy Ann’s ballet lessons were being paid for on a barter system—Mrs. Hooser swept out the studio on occasion, an open area more amenable to her havoc-wreaking housekeeping methods than was the crowded little vicarage.

He turned off the High into River Lane, near the starting point of the yearly duck race, where the river slowly churned and eddied its way to the pastel pink and blue houses of Monkslip-super-Mare on the English Channel. Still early to meet Awena, he slowed his pace to walk by the river, frozen now at its edges. Eventually he doubled back toward the Maharajah, where he was politely shown a table to await her arrival.

*   *   *

Awena always made rather an entrance—part of the fascination of knowing her, Max thought, was that one never knew what blazingly jewel-like creation she’d show up wearing.

The restaurant was a favorite of hers—she and the owner Mr. Vijay were friends. Awena had spent some time in his country on a spiritual sojourn and had a rudimentary grasp of the language. His English, however, was precise and idiomatic: “It remains to be seen,” was his frequent, cheerful reply to any queries about the state of his health, his business, or the world.

“Namaste,”
she said as she entered, pressing her palms together and giving him a slight bow of respect, which he returned. Only Awena, thought Max, could do this sort of thing with unself-conscious grace. She then waved to him, sitting at a corner table by the fire, where a pile of heavy logs was being blackened by colorful flames.

He was not disappointed in her costume. She came billowing over, draperies flying. She wore a long emerald-velvet cloak over a gown of burgundy satin; the hood of the cloak glittered with semiprecious stones. She removed and carefully draped the cloak over a nearby chair. He saw that her thick dark hair, remarkable for the plume of white at her forehead, was caught up in some sort of jeweled clasp at the back of her neck. She might have been headed for a night at the opera, although this was pretty much Awena’s usual attire. She had told him once she thought of adornment as a way of showing gratitude and pleasure for the gift of her life.

Above the portrait neckline of her dress her face shone, handsome and serene in profile, warm and animated as she turned from attending to her outer wrap.

Max thought she looked rather like a queen awakened in a fairy tale, an image reinforced by the stately way she always carried herself.

“How are you?” she asked, sitting across from him. She folded her hands on the table. “And how are you and Luther getting along?”

“Luther is getting along fine,” Max told her. “I don’t think he cares how I’m getting along.”

“Luther,” she said solemnly, “is a very old soul.”

“Humph,” said Max. “Well, the old soul has an odd habit of trying to climb the phone cord, especially when I’m talking on the phone. It is a very good thing he has nine lives. I think he’s on his eighth right now. It’s Thea I’m worried about.”

“Luther has always put the ‘cat’ in ‘catastrophe.’ Thea will be fine; she’s an even older soul. If dogs could talk, I think Thea would be saying, ‘The greatest prayer is patience.’”

“Do you? I think she’d also be asking when Luther is due to leave.”

“May I offer you the white table wine if you’re having a curry?” said a lilting voice at his side. “It’s a new arrival recommended to us by
La Maison Bleue.
” Mr. Vijay’s wife having died some years before, his daughter Prema had moved to the village to help him with the restaurant. It was she who stood there, reed slim and attractive, to take their drinks order. She and Awena shared some discussion of the night’s vegetarian specials. Awena always asked how things in the restaurant were prepared so she could try to duplicate the dishes at home.

Once Prema had taken their drinks order, Awena turned back to him and said: “You collect strays, Max. Mrs. Hooser, Thea, now the cat. You’re hopeless—thank heaven.”

“Never hopeless. As soon as Luther leaves, all hope will return.”

The arch look from her fine eyes said as clearly as words:
It remains to be seen.

“One more life for Luther, remember?” he said. “And I promise it will be a long one once he can be returned to the church. I think he’s really just bored.”

She smiled and looked around. The restaurant had been converted from one of the old houses on River Lane and resembled an old pub run by a former memsahib of colonial India, with statues, prints, and hangings in every bright or pale color of the rainbow. In summer, each table would hold small vases of flowers from the garden in back of the restaurant. In this season, Mr. Vijay had artfully arranged twigs and branches in a winter arrangement.

Prema returned with their wine and they ordered fried pakoras to share. Awena chose a main course of grilled eggplant and tomato, Max the chicken tikka masala.