An Affair to Remember (16 page)

“And whatever you would like, my dear,” he says to the barmaid, although you could hardly call her that, more a landlady he thinks.

“You live locally, Mrs –?”

“Call me Vera, dear, everyone does. Yes, I live locally – have done all my life in fact. My dad used to be postmaster at Kimbleford, and I was born there.”

“Sidney Parfitt; to my friends, Sid. Funny you mentioning Kimbleford, that’s the place I’m on my way to.”

“Friends there, have you?”

“You could say that. If there’s a village store there run by a chap by the name of Mallory, that is.”

“Major Mallory. As a matter of fact the major was in here a couple of nights ago – there was a bit of a bust-up, and –”

“The one the girl mentioned?”

“Yes. Karen works for the Mallorys, so of course she was interested. I wasn’t here myself, I’m glad to say, I only do lunchtimes, but from all accounts it was quite a ding dong. The major seems to have got in with that telly crowd, and you know what they’re like – too much money, and don’t know how to behave.”

“This Major Mallory, has he a lady living with him?”

“Only his wife, Emmie, as far as I know – they run the shop together.”

“Was she, this Emmie, in here the other night when the bust up –?”

“No. I have seen her in here now and then, though, but not with the major.”

“Ah…” Sid Parfitt, looking as if he’s heard enough, finishes his drink and gets up. “I better be on my way, time flies when you’re having fun, but it’s been nice meeting you Vera, and I hope we meet again.”

“Likewise. And you can’t miss the Mallorys’ shop, it’s on the right half way down the main street. Perhaps they’ll give you a spot of lunch?”

Sid grins, puts some money down on the bar. “Perhaps they will,” he says, “but I wouldn’t bank on it…”

*

“I think it better be notes, dear,” Sel says, “a tape can sometimes upset elderly people, and we don’t want that.”

“But do you really think she’ll be any help? I mean, Mrs Bogg’s over ninety and if she has anything to say, it’ll only be repeating some legend.”

“I agree, dear, I agree, but currently it’s our only lead. Besides which, most legends have a basis of truth.”

Beatrice, however, is beginning to get that hunted look again. “Do you think Sam found anything last night?”

Sel, having stuffed his papers into a briefcase, makes for the car. “I doubt it, dear. Surely we would have heard from him if he had, I must say it’s a damned nuisance his phone being out of order…”

“They’ve probably cut him off on purpose.”

“Who has?”

“The telephone people or – oh I don’t know…”

“Now, dear, have you taken your pill?”

“No.”

St Botolph’s Home for the Elderly turns out to be a pleasant, two-storey building surrounded by a large garden, in the outer suburbs of Belchester. There’s a cedar tree on the lawn (no rooks!) and regiments of scarlet, end of season pelargoniums fill the flowerbeds round the house. Matron, in blue, fizzing with excitement, hands outstretched in welcome, awaits them on the front door steps.

“Mr Woodhead, this is just so exciting. I never miss one of your programmes. My husband says –”

“So kind…” Sel puts his hands on her shoulders, smiles into her eyes; it’s a long time since he’s had a programme, but never mind that. “Simple appreciation is all, to us humble servants of the box; without it, dear, how should we go on?” The question is purely rhetorical of course. Matron quivers. Faces, Beatrice notices, peer at them through the downstairs windows.

“Now, Mrs Stewart –”

“Moira, please…”

“Moira. Mrs Bogg. A short interview is all we need – just to get the feel of her. As I said on the phone, we’re researching for a programme on the over nineties, and time, as always in my particular trade, is of the essence.” Their mutual love-in over, Sel’s keen to get back to business.

“Of course, of course, I do so understand. Mrs Bogg is ready and waiting; in a good mood too, a little bird tells me.” Matron gives a light laugh, and gesturing them to follow her, strides ahead down a long, deeply carpeted passage: doors on either side, sounds of distant hoovering, and a smell of Cross & Blackwell soup, but no one else in sight. They pause at last outside a door at the far end. Matron opens it with a flourish without bothering to knock and waves them in. Sel winks at Beatrice, who smiles bravely back, and with a hint of bravado, gives him the thumbs up sign.

Mrs Bogg’s room, cell-like in size, is bright and cheerful; some might say almost too bright and cheerful. The contrast between the sunlight streaming in through the casement window, the roses on the pale beige carpet, jazzily patterned curtains, and shocking pink cover to the functional armchair on which Mrs Bogg is seated, and the chair’s witchlike occupant herself, is almost too great. However, a framed biblical text hanging above the bed adds a sombre note, as does the faded photograph in a silver frame on the table beside it, of a young man in army uniform. The young man, cap under his arm, stares glassily ahead at the camera. He has, Beatrice notes in wonder, a look of Sam.

There’s something about Mrs Bogg, hard to say quite what. A presence perhaps, the feeling that though old and witchlike, here is a person who knew and still does know what’s what. A long time ago she was probably rather beautiful: her eyes, green, sharply intelligent, faintly mocking, still are. There’s a pale blue crocheted blanket draped over her knees, which she plucks at from time to time with small, claw-like hands. Two rings: one a heavy gold band, the other, ancient looking, silver, engraved with what look like tiny, prancing animals.

“Leave us be,” she orders Matron, giving a sharp look at Beatrice. Their eyes meet across the little room, and Beatrice realises with a sense of shock mingled, oddly enough, with a feeling of relief, that there is already a bond between them.
Mrs Bogg knows
, a voice inside her is saying.
She knows
.

Matron bridles a bit at Mrs Bogg’s tone, but used to the rudeness of the elderly, continues to smile brightly. “I’ll leave you in peace then. Maureen will be along shortly with tea…”

After she’s gone, silence. Beatrice smiles tentatively; Mrs Bogg gestures towards the only other chair in the room; upright, with a shiny red plastic seat. “Come here my pretty and sit down.” Beatrice sits, feels in a curious way, all things considering, at home.

Sel looks from one to the other, his sharp eyes missing nothing. “I’ll take the bed then, Mrs Bogg, if you don’t mind…”

“Not much good if I did, would it,” Mrs Bogg gives a cackle of laughter, her eyes alight with mischief. “Now then Mr What’s-it, have you got me present?”

Sel gestures towards his secretary. “The bottle, dear, the bottle.” After rummaging in her shoulder bag, watched impatiently by Sel and Mrs Bogg, Beatrice produces a small bottle of whisky. At a gesture from Sel, she pours a liberal measure into the water glass on the table beside Mrs Bogg’s chair. Mrs Bogg takes a sip, smiles; looks at them expectantly. Sel clears his throat: “Now, dear, what have you to tell us about the ash trees at Brown End…?”

Mrs Bogg takes another sip of whisky; places the glass carefully down on the table beside her, looks at Beatrice seated on her hard chair, legs neatly crossed, biro poised above her notebook. “You got no man, then?” she asks, gesturing towards Beatrice’s ring-less hands. “What be wrong with ‘ee?” Sel makes the sort of convulsive movement such as kind hearted people often do when they feel someone’s about to be hurt. Beatrice appears unmoved by the question, and simply smiles.

“Perhaps you can give me the answer to that.” Silence again, but something has happened in the little room; a kind of magic. Afterwards neither Sel nor Beatrice herself are able to explain what form it had taken, but the magic was there alright. Mrs Bogg sighs, closes her eyes:

“Have you the mark?”

“Mark…?”

“Aye, the mark. Tis in the form of a little fish, ‘nobut an inch long, between yer legs – there,” she leans forward and places a hand on Beatrice’s left thigh, high up near the crotch. Sel cranes forward excitedly.

Beatrice nods, “I was born with it, they wanted to remove it when I was a child, but decided not to bother. The doctor said it wouldn’t show, not even in a bikini, it’s too far up.”

“Me sister had the mark, and me Great Aunt Ali. She drowned herself, me Great Aunt Ali, over Wigton Bottom – she were a beautiful girl, they said. Never saw her meself, died before I were born.”

“And your sister…?”

“Died in the Asylum.”

“Oh.”

In the silence that follows someone can be heard walking down the passage pushing a trolley; a blackbird chirrups in the Virginia creeper under the window; a lawn mower starts up.

“Now, Mrs Bogg,” Sel tries unsuccessfully to keep the excitement out of his voice, “you haven’t yet told us about the ash trees. Is this, this fish mark, connected with them in some way?”

Mrs Bogg looks at him, takes another sip of whisky, blinks: “They say you be on telly?”

“Yes, for my sins, but what about –?”

“I never seen ‘ee.”

“Well, maybe not.” He’s trying not to sound irritated, knows she’s winding him up.

“You b’aint be in that
Coronation Street
, be ‘ee? I can’t abide that
Coronation Street
.” About to reply that of course he’s never been in
Coronation Street
, he sees Beatrice, in control now, imperceptibly shake her head and mouth the word ‘no’. He shuts up.

“Mrs Bogg,” Beatrice’s voice is soft, soothing, “can you tell me who Tavey and Brian were and what happened to them. Did your sister and great aunt know about them?”

“Not all, but some.”

“And they told you?”

“Me sister did, told me when she were in the Asylum. We all knew the story, or some of it, when I were a child. They used to say if you went up to Browns round Michaelmas, when the moon were full, and knelt under Tavey’s tree, you’d lose yer baby.” A sharp intake of breath from Sel, Beatrice’s fingers tighten round her biro.

“Please, Mrs Bogg, please, please tell me all you know, it’s important – I think, in fact I’m almost sure, that something has to be done. There’s someone else involved, you see and it’s time…”

Mrs Bogg looks down at her hands, half folded in the blue blanket, mutters something unintelligible under her breath; appears to come to a decision. Then raising her eyes, and in the manner of a child reciting an oft-learned lesson, begins her story:

“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, there were this girl called Tavey, lived at Brown End. Her father were a rich landowner – one of them Romans, and she were his only child. Anyway he were away at the wars a lot, and when he were away, her mother being dead, Tavey was left alone at Browns with only an old nanny, the servants, and slaves – they had slaves in them days – to see how she went on. Well, Tavey were a good looking girl, wild with it too, and all the men were after her, but her father wanted her to wed someone as rich as ‘ee, and there were nobody like that round Browns. Nothing but them Ancient Brits, what we used to learn about at school.

“There was someone though, this Brian, the son of one of one of her dad’s tenants. Came from an ancient, well-to-do family, who some said had owned all the land thereabouts before them Romans came and that’s how Browns got its name. Brian and Tavey were of an age, played together as children, and always been friends. But when they began to grow up, as was bound to happen, thrown together as they were, with no one else around for competition, they fell in love and wanted to marry. Of course there were no way Tavey’s dad would have Brian for a son-in-law: he wasn’t a Roman for a start, and he wasn’t rich. But with him being away so much at the wars, and the old nanny letting her run wild, Tavey didn’t care what her dad or anyone else said, and she and this Brian spent all their time together. Then one summer’s day, as was also bound to happen, Brian had his way with her. Tis said in the Grove above Browns on Dog’s Head Hill, but of course no one really knows. Anyways, she said she loved him, and perhaps at the time she did, and promised she would persuade her dad, when he came back from the wars, to give his permission for them to get wed. She couldn’t before that, she told him, even though, after a few weeks, she found she were expecting Brian’s child, because her dad would be so angry he would disown her.

“Brian told his mum – his dad had died a few year back – that he were to wed Tavey, but they must wait until her father returned so he could give them his blessing. His mum weren’t pleased, thought no good would come of it (and she were right) but there were nothing she could do as her husband having passed away, Brian was head of the family. And so they waited.

“The months went by and Tavey’s dad didn’t come. Her time came and still he hadn’t come. The baby were born and turned out to be a fine boy. Black hair and blue eyes, he had. His father, Brian, doted on him and gave him a little silver cup with animals dancing round the rim. Some say the cup was like me ring here, which me granddad dug up one day when he were haymaking in the paddock at Browns and gave me mum.

“The baby were already a few months old by the time Tavey’s dad came home at last. Tavey kept him hidden away – she were frightened of telling her dad, because her dad hadn’t come home alone, he’d brought with him a husband for her: a fine, handsome young man of his own people, rich too, whose home was far away across the sea. And Tavey, being a fickle sort of girl, was really pleased. She liked the young man very much and was glad her dad had chosen him to marry her; she longed to get away from Browns and see the world and if she married him she could. So she never told her dad about the baby, nor how she’d promised to marry Brian. Instead, she ordered the old nanny to get rid of the child, find a home for him on a farm somewhere far distant where he could grow up as a servant, and tell his father the child had died, so there was no need for them to marry. The nanny promised. Well, she didn’t know what else to do; she was frightened that if Tavey’s dad got to know of the child, he would punish her for being too lax with his daughter – turn her away, or even kill her.