Strange Stories (27 page)

In repose on the groundsheet, they were a handsome pair: trim; effective; still, despite everything, expectant. They wore sweaters in plain colors and stained, familiar trousers. In the symphony of Milli- cent’s abundant hair were themes of pale grey. Winifred’s stout tow was at all times sturdily neutral. A poet lingering upon the bridge might have felt sad that life had offered them no more. Few people can pick out, merely from the lines on a map, so ideal a region for a friend’s grief. Few people can look so sensuous in sadness as Millicent, away from the office, momentarily oblivious to its ambiguous, paranoid satisfactions.

It had indeed been resourceful of Winifred to buy and bring the half bottle, but Millicent found that the noontide wine made no difference. How could it? How could anything? Almost anything?

But then —

“Winifred! Where have all these mushrooms come from?”

“I expect they were there when we arrived.”

“I’m quite certain they were not.”

“Of course they were,” said Winifred. “Mushrooms grow fast but not that fast.”

“They were not. I shouldn’t have sat down if they had been. I don’t like sitting among a lot of giant mushrooms.”

“They’re quite the normal size,” said Winifred, smiling and drawing up her legs. “Would you like to go?”

“Well, we have finished the picnic,” said Millicent. “Thanks very much. Winifred, it was lovely.”

They rose: two exiled dryads, the poet on the bridge might have said. On their side on the shallow, marshy, wandering river were mushrooms as far as the eye could see, downstream and up, though it was true that in neither direction could the eye see very far along the bank, being impeded one way by the bridge and the other by the near-jungle.

“It”s the damp,” said Millicent. “Everything is so terribly damp.”

“If it is,” said Winifred, “it must be always like it, because there’s been very little rain. I said that before.”

Millicent felt ashamed of herself, as happened the whole time now. “It was very clever of you to find such a perfect place,” she said immediately. “But you always do. Everything was absolutely for the best until the mushrooms came.” “I’m not really sure that they are mushrooms,” said Winifred. “Perhaps merely fungi.”

“Let’s not put it to the test,” said Millicent. “Let’s go. Oh, I’m so sorry. You haven’t finished repacking.”

Duly, the ascent was far more laborious. “Tacky” was the word that Millicent’s stepfather would have applied to the going.

“Why do all the cows stay clustered in one corner?” asked Millicent. “They haven’t moved one leg since we arrived.”

“It’s to do with the flies,” said Winifred knowledgeably.

“They’re not waving their tails about. They’re not tossing their heads. They’re not lowing. In fact, they might be stuffed or modeled.” “I expect they’re chewing the cud, Millicent.”

“I don’t think they are.” Millicent of course really knew more of country matters than Winifred.

“I’m not sure they’re there at all,” said Millicent.

“Oh, hang on, Millicent,” said Winifred, without, however, ceasing to plod and without even looking back at Millicent over her shoulder, let alone at the distant cows.

Millicent knew that people were being kind to her and that it was an unsuitable moment for her to make even the smallest fuss, except perhaps a fun-fuss, flattering to the other party.

They reached the wilful kissing gate at the bottom of the churchyard. It made its noise as soon as it was even touched and clanged back spitefully at Millicent when Winifred had passed safely through it.

Millicent had not remembered the gate’s behavior on their outward trip. Probably one tackled things differently according to whether one was descending or ascending.

But —

“Winifred, look!”

Millicent, so carefully self-contained the entire day, had all but screamed.

“None of that was there just now.”

She could not raise her arm to point. Ahead of them, to the left of the ascending craggy path through the churchyard, was a pile of wreaths and sprays, harps wrought from lilies, red roses twisted into hearts, irises concocted into archangel trumpets. Commerce and the commemorative instinct could hardly collaborate further.

“You didn’t notice it,” replied

Winifred uopn the instant. She even added, as at another time that day she certainly would not have done, “Your mind was on other things.” She then looked over her shoulder at Millicent and smiled.

“They weren’t there,” said Millicent, more sure of her facts than of herself. “There’s been a funeral while we were by the river.”

“I think we’d have heard something,” replied Winifred, still smiling. “Besides you don’t bury people in the lunch hour.”

“Well, something’s happened.”

“Last time you just didn’t notice,” replied Winifred, turning away and looking ahead of her at the weedy path. “That’s all.”

The challenge was too much for Millicent’s resolutions of mousiness. “Well, did you?” she enquired.

But Winifred had prepared herself. “I’m not sure whether I did or didn’t, Millicent. Does it matter?”

Winifred took several steps forward and then asked, “Would you rather give the church a miss?”

“Not at all,” replied Millicent. “Inside there might be an explanation of some kind.”

Millicent was glad she was in the rear, because at first she had difficulty in passing the banked-up tributes. They all looked so terribly new. The oblong mound beneath them was concealed, but one could scarcely doubt that it was there. At first, the flowers seemed to smell as if they were unforced and freshly picked, not like proper funerary flowers at all, which either smell not, or smell merely of accepted mortality. But then, on second thoughts, or at a second intake of Millicent’s breath, the smell was not exactly as of garden or even of hedgerow flowers either. After a few seconds, the smell seemed as unaccountable as the sudden apparition of the flowers themselves. Certainly it was not in the least a smell that Millicent would have expected or could ever much care for.

She noticed that Winifred was stumping along, still looking at the battered bricks beneath her feet.

Millicent hesitated. “Perhaps we ought to inspect some of the cards?” she suggested.

That must have been a mischievous idea because this time Winifred just walked on in silence. And, as a matter of fact, Millicent had to admit to herself that she could in any case see no cards attached to the flowers, and whatever else might be attached to them.

Winifred walked silently ahead of Millicent right up to the church porch. As she entered it, a sudden bird flopped out just above her head and straight into Millicent’s face.

“That’s an owl,” said Millicent. “We’ve woken him up.”

She almost expected Winifred to say that for owls it was the wrong time of day, or the wrong weather, or the close season; but Winifred was, in fact, simply staring at the wooden church door.

“Won’t it open?” enquired Millicent.

“I don’t really know. I can see no handle.”

The awakened owl had begun to hoot mournfully, which Millicent fancied really was a little odd of it in the early afternoon.

Millicent in turn stared at the door.

“There’s nothing at all.”

“Not even a keyhole that we can look through,” said Winifred.

“I suppose the church has simply been closed and boarded up.” “I’m not sure,” said Winifred. “It looks like the original door to me. Old as old, wouldn’t you say? Built like that. With no proper admittance offered.”

Gazing at the door, Millicent could certainly see what Winifred meant. There were no church notices either, no local address of the Samaritans, no lists of ladies to do things.

“Let’s see if we can peep in through a window,” proposed Winifred.

“I shouldn’t think we could. It’s usually pretty difficult.”

“That’s because there are usually lookers-on to cramp one’s style. We may find it easier here.”

When they emerged from the porch, Millicent surmised that there were now two owls hooting, two at least. However, the once- bright day was losing its luster, becoming middle-aged and overcast.

“God, it’s muggy,” said Millicent.

“I expect there’s rain on the way. You know we could do with it.”

“Yes, but not here, not now.”

Winifred was squeezing the tips of her shoes and her feet into places where the mortar had fallen out of the church wall, and sometimes even whole flints. She was adhering to ledges and small projections. She was forcing herself upwards in the attempt to look first through one window and then, upon failing and falling, through another. “I simply can’t imagine what it can look like inside,” she said.

They always did things thoroughly and properly, whatever the things were, but it was not a day in her life when Millicent felt like any kind of emulation. Moreover, she did not see how she could even give assistance to Winifred. They were no longer two schoolgirls, one able to hoist up the other as easily as Santa Claus’ sack.

Unavailingly, Winifred had essayed two windows on the south side of the nave and one on the south side of the chancel, which three offered clear glass, however smudgy. In the two remaining windows on that side of the church, the glass was painted, and so it was with the east window. Winifred went round to the north side, with Millicent following. Here the sun did not fall, and it seemed to Millicent that the moping owls had eased off. En route the churchyard grasses had been rank and razory.

But here the masonry was further gone in decomposition, and Winifred could jump up quite readily at the first attempt.

For a surprisingly long time, or so it seemed, Winifred stared in through the easternmost window on the northern side of the nave, but speaking no word. Here many of the small panes were missing. Indeed, one pane fell into the church from somewhere with a small, sharp clatter even while Winifred was still gazing and Millicent still standing. The whole structure was in a state of molder.

At her own rather long last, Winifred descended stiffly.

She began trying to remove the aged, clinging rubble from the knees of her trousers, but the dust was damp too, on this side of the church particularly damp.

“Want to have a look?” Winifred asked.

“What is there to see?”

“Nothing in particular.” Winifred was rubbing away, though al most certainly making matters worse. “Really, nothing. I shouldn’t bother.”

“Then I won’t,” said Millicent. “You look like a pilgrim: more on her knees than on her back, or whatever it is.”

“Most of the things have been taken away,” continued Winifred informatively.

“In that case, where did the funeral happen? Where did they hold the service?”

Winifred went on fiddling with her trousers for a moment before attempting a reply. “Somewhere else, I suppose. That’s quite common nowadays.”

“There’s something wrong,” said Millicent. “There’s something very wrong with almost everything.”

They ploughed back through the coarse grass to the brick path up to the porch. The owls seemed indeed to have retired once more to their carnivorous bothies.

“We must get on with things or we shall miss Baddeley,” said Winifred. “Not that it hasn’t all been well worth while, as I hope you will agree.”

But —

On the path, straight before them, between the church porch and the other, by now almost familiar path which ran across the descending graveyard, right in the center of things, lay a glove.

“That wasn’t there either,” said Millicent immediately.

Winifred picked up the glove and they inspected it together. It was a left-hand glove in black leather or kid, seemingly new or almost so, and really rather elegant. It would have been a remarkably small left hand that fitted it, Millicent thought. People occasionally remarked upon the smallness of her own hands, which was always something that pleased her. The tiny but expensive-looking body of the glove terminated in a wider gauntlet-like frill or extension of rougher design.

“We’d better hand it in,” said Winifred.

“Where?”

“At the rectory, I suppose, if that is what the place is.”

“Do you think we must?”

“Well, what else? We can’t go off with it. It looks costly.”

“There’s someone else around the place,” said Millicent. “Perhaps more than one of them.” She could not quite have said why she thought there might be such a crowd.

But Winifred again remained silent and did not ask why.

“I’ll carry the glove,” said Millicent. Winifred was still bearing the rucksack and its remaining contents, including the empty half bottle, for which the graveyard offered no litter basket.

* * *

The carriage gate, which had once been painted in some kind of blue and was now falling apart, crossbar from socket, and spike- work from woodwork, offered no clue as to whether the abode was, or had been, rectory or vicarage. The short drive was weedy and littered. Either the trees predated the mid- Victorian building, or they were prematurely senile.

The front-door bell rang quite sharply when Winifred pushed it, but nothing followed. After a long- ish, silent pause, with Millicent holding the glove to the fore, Winifred rang again. Again, nothing followed.

Millicent spoke: “I believe it’s open.”

She pushed and together they entered, merely a few steps. The hall within, which had originally been designed more or less in the Gothic manner, was furnished, though not abundantly, and seemed to be “lived in.” Coming towards them, moreover, was a bent figure, female, hirsute, and wearing a discolored apron, depending vaguely.

“We found this in the churchyard,” said Winifred in her clear voice, pointing to the glove.

“I can’t hear the bell,” said the figure. “That’s why the door’s left open. I lost my hearing. You know how.”

Millicent knew that Winifred was no good with the deaf: so often a matter not of decibels, but presumably of psychology.

"We found this glove,” she said, holding it up and speaking quite naturally.

“I can’t hear anything,” said the figure, disappointingly. “You know why.”

“We don’t,” said Millicent. “Why?”

But of course that could not be heard either. It was no good trying further.