The Shift Key (16 page)

Besides, people he detested were bound to corner him and ask after his loathsome father.

He dithered most of the morning until Peter Lodd, who delivered groceries for Mr Jacksett, arrived on his bicycle, puffing and panting after ascending the hill. The Goodsirs bought most of their provisions in Chapminster and Hatter-bridge, and luxuries were sent from London, but they made a token show of patronizing the local shops.

‘I’m surprised to see you up here,’ Peter said cheekily. (But Cedric had promised himself he would grow out of that sort of response, and be a true egalitarian.)

‘Why so?’ he returned.

‘The village is full of your old mates. The ones you got so chummy with in the summer. Been asking after you!’

Well, in that case …

Summoning his courage, he wheeled his own bike out of the garage it shared with his father’s Mercedes and his mother’s Fiat, and they rode down the hill in company.

When he reached the green, he was indeed saluted as a friend, and plied with questions about what had been happening in the village. He had trouble answering; he hadn’t even heard about Mrs Ellerford yet, let alone Miss Knabbe’s death or the set-to in the church, so he wound up learning more than he had to tell.

Eager to flee his embarrassing predicament, he glanced at his watch and discovered it was nearly one o’clock.

‘What say we move in on the Marriage?’ he proposed.

Chris and his friends exchanged meaningful looks.

‘The landlord’s been turning our lot away ever since he opened,’ Rhoda said. ‘It’s this bit about the Devil. None of his regulars are showing up today, and he thinks if he lets us in they’ll stay away for good.’

Cedric blinked, but spotted a way out. He jumped up.

‘I’ll go and have a word with him!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s probably against the law!’

‘Isn’t it your dad that makes the law round here!’ one of the group murmured, intending to be overheard.

‘Funny kind of law, in that case!’ said another.

‘Sorry about that, Ced,’ Chris muttered. But Cedric shook his head.

‘Heard about him wanting to bring back the gallows for people who steal sheep, did you? So did I! And I have to bloody live with him, you know!’

Not waiting for the obvious counter – ‘So why not quit and come with us?’ – he turned away.

‘I’ll sort out the Jeggses!’ he promised, and strode off towards the river.

On the far side of the green he found Stick laying rake and shovel on his barrow, about to quit for lunch.

‘Stick!’ he exclaimed. ‘Got time for a jar?’

‘Sure! Just let me find my sandwiches …’ He bent to retrieve a plastic bag slung underneath the barrow. ‘Colin doesn’t exactly love people who bring their own nosh, but by all accounts he ought to be grateful to sell anyone a drink today. Last night he seemed normal enough, but …’

‘Is he really not getting any custom?’

‘I could list by heart the people who make for the Marriage as soon as it opens, and then stay there. Plus the ones who drop in for a quick one before lunch. Plus the others who
sometimes drop in after lunch. Plus …’ He spread his empty hand as he fell in beside Cedric. ‘But today, not a one. Not a one. Besides, he’s turning customers away! The – uh – the visitors, I mean.’

‘So Chris and Rhoda told me,’ said Cedric slowly. ‘You know, I really begin to believe that something weird is happening, and it isn’t just a trip. In the summer he was glad enough to take their money, wasn’t he?’

‘There might not have been much of it,’ Stick concurred. ‘But what they could, he and Rosie took. Today, though, the only people I’ve seen coming out of the Marriage were those two reporters.’

‘Reporters?’

‘Didn’t you know? From the
Banner,
or so they said. The guy chatted me up a bit, and I mentioned you. Didn’t he get in touch?’

The phone at the Court had rung an hour or so ago … but Cedric had been thinking about other matters. He shook his head.

‘If he did, he must have spoken to my
belovèd
mother. What’ll you have?’ – as he pushed open the door.

‘Cider, please.’

‘Pint?’

‘Pint.’

They drank under the baleful glare of Colin, which grew even sourer when Stick unwrapped and ate his sandwiches. Cedric’s order of a pasty and salad mollified him, but only slightly.

‘Know something?’ Cedric said after long consideration.

‘What?’ Stick brushed crumbs from his beard.

‘I promised Chris I’d have a word with Colin about not letting the pilgrims in. Think I dare?’

‘You can always try it on. I mean, he’s not likely to bar you from the place, is he? And if he does,
you
can always go over the road.’

‘I know,’ Cedric said unhappily. ‘That’s what’s wrong with this bloody country … Excuse me! Colin! My-uh-my friends Chris and Rhoda said you aren’t letting them in here, or the people who’ve come with them. But you never minded back in the summer, and it’s more or less the same lot, you know.’

Colin exchanged glances with Rosie, then advanced to lean on the bar with folded arms.

‘Back then,’ he said, ‘we didn’t know what was going on. Now we do!’

Cedric jerked his head, for the words hit him like a slap. He said feebly, ‘I don’t understand!’

‘We do. We’ve been working it out. Now we’ve been here five years. It’s our third pub, and we’ve done well in all of ’em. We bought this one in good faith, knowing it had a brisk summer trade and a steady one, at least, in winter. And for the first two years it was like that – wasn’t it, Rosie?’

She nodded until her much-powdered dewlap wobbled.

‘But lately it’s changing. Trade’s dropped off. We don’t get half the casual custom that we used to, nor half the regular neither. Do we, Rosie?

‘And we’ve been thinking back, working it out. The drop began just about the time these – these pagan folk that you’re so friendly with started arriving on their ungodly so-called pilgrimages!’ A snort. ‘No thanks to Mr Draycock for suggesting that that’s what they call ’em!’

Cedric’s mind filled with counter-arguments: inflation, unemployment, the impact of television, the opening of a drinks counter in the back room of Jacksett’s, more young people owning cars so they could go to pubs in Chapminster or Powte or Fooksey where there were discos or other entertainment … He was too slow, for Colin was saying with immense deliberation, ‘It’s been like a leak.’

‘A – what?’ Cedric ventured.

‘A gas leak!’ Rosie said, pushing her ponderous body off
her stool and coming to stand with one arm across her husband’s shoulders.

‘That’s exactly it,’ Colin said. ‘We’ve been discussing it, working it out. First you get the odd smell, and you don’t know what it is. Then the leak gets worse. Then, if some expert doesn’t come and tell you, you find out the hard way, don’t you? Everything blows up!’

‘And Mr Phibson had told us what’s going on,’ Rosie stated firmly. ‘And I’ve been saying to Colin: we should have listened to Joyce Vikes before!
That’s
why we’re not letting in your pagan chums!’

There was a dead silence. Eventually Stick and Cedric met each other’s eyes and by mutual agreement drained their tankards and headed for the door.

On the threshold, though, Stick turned back and said in the mildest possible tone, ‘There’s just one point, Colin.’

‘Yes?’

‘Rosie said you ought to have believed Joyce long ago.’

‘Yes!’

‘How do you square your complaint about declining trade with her calling your pub a den of vice? Are we to take it that you’d have been happy keeping it that way so long as your turnover stayed high? Come on, Ced. Leave them to work it out.’

And he slammed the door with quite un-Sticklike force.

Why did I never have that damned drive tarmac’ed? The grind of wheels on gravel gets on my nerves!

Fuming, Basil Goodsir flung wide the front door of the Court and strode out to confront the driver of the Sierra that was pulling to a halt.

‘Who are you and what the blazes do you want?’

‘My card, sir,’ said the driver as he got out. ‘Donald Prosher, of the
Globe.
This is my associate Mr Spout. It will make him blush as red as his hair when I mention it, but you
may recall that last year he won a major award for his photography. Would you by any chance be Basil Goodsir?’

Basil had been about to order them off the premises. The
Globe,
however, was one of Britain’s three most highly regarded Sunday papers, albeit not the one he read himself. Taking the card, he admitted, ‘As a matter of fact, I am. But’ – he recollected something Helen had said earlier after answering the phone – ‘I thought it was that rag the
Banner
that had sent reporters to Weyharrow!’

‘Well, one never wishes to decry a colleague,’ Don said in a tone of deprecation. ‘But … Yes, I’m afraid you’re right. And some of the other – let’s be blunt – the other scandal-sheets also have plans to invade this lovely village. I’m just hoping against hope that something can be done to prevent it being smeared nation-wide.’

‘Really?’ Basil growled.

‘Yes, really! The way some of our contemporaries are likely to exploit a parson who has claimed from his pulpit that the Devil is at work hereabouts …! Why, it beggars belief, doesn’t it? That’s why I’m appealing to you. My paper, as I trust you know, doesn’t deal in that kind of crude sensationalism. But we do have a first-class record of investigative journalism. I’m much afraid that in tomorrow’s press there will be at least a scattering of ill-founded rumours about Weyharrow … My editor sent us here with an eye to setting the record straight on Sunday. An extra twenty-four hours ought to lend the necessary perspective to what’s going on. That is, of course, provided we can obtain sufficient information to counteract the absurd rumours that no doubt you’ve heard.’

He waited, smiling. He could read Basil’s face like a four-column headline. It was no surprise when he turned indoors, beckoning them to follow; nor when he met a thin fair woman in the hall – that would be his wife Helen, an ex-model, some of whose pre-marriage photos survived on the file, including a few nude shots – and said, ‘These gentlemen are from the
Globe.
They want an interview!’

The woman’s expression had been glacial. At once it melted.

‘Come into the drawing-room!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ll ring for coffee. Or would you care for something stronger? I remember from my modelling days …’

Don suppressed a sigh. It was going to be one of
those.

But he forced a smile, that broadened when Marmaduke limped from one of the rooms leading into the entrance hall, stick thumping on the stone-flagged floor, demanding what the row was all about.

He’d heard about Marmaduke. He wanted to know more. What a shame that the boy Cedric, on inquiry, proved to be elsewhere. Still, this lot between them should be good for most of the background data that he needed.

His smile threatened to become a grin. He substituted a look of gravity befitting an underling permitted access to the haunts of his superiors, and followed the effusive Helen, recorder at the ready.

Unfortunately Marmaduke proved to be a dreadful letdown.

This morning Vic Draycock had missed the excitement caused by the arrival of the hippie bus and the planting of tents on the village green; this was because he and Carol lived across the river on the Chapminster road, and he drove to work in Powte while she walked Tommy to Weyharrow primary school.

But he found out, as of the moment when he called the roll and asked why Harold Ellerford was absent.

His question was met with giggles.

‘Didn’t you hear?’ one of the pupils said eventually. ‘His mum’s gone off her rocker!’

Someone else said. ‘Serve ’em right! Him and that horrid Paul!’

‘Know what Eunice Hoddie said to Paul?’ interjected a third voice – a girl’s – and the entire class rocked with laughter.

When he had sorted out a bit of sense from the kids, Victor felt duty-bound to inculcate a trace of social empathy instead of concentrating on the next stage of Britain’s conquest of Canada. He had never approved of imperialism, even though probably three-quarters of his pupils would still have liked to celebrate Empire Day.

That was how he found out about Mrs O’Pheale’s accusation concerning Miss Knabbe, and Tom Fidger driving on the wrong side of the road, and Eunice’s put-down of Paul Ellerford …

Feeling as though he had spent the past day on another planet (and perhaps he might as well have done), he swallowed his initial fury and asked for further information.

He obtained it, but he didn’t like it. Although of his over-large class only those who had so far spoken hailed from Weyharrow, the rest, while they shared the common detestation of the Ellerford boys, were already
au fait
with the scandal. They knew the parson had gone crazy, knew about Ken Pecklow fighting Harry Vikes, and Mary Flaken throwing eggs all round the Blockets’ kitchen, and the rest. And they declared it was no more than Weyharrow deserved because it was full of wicked people.

‘What makes you say that?’ Vic challenged, expecting to hear that these children had been indoctrinated thanks to the publicity accorded to last summer’s drug-arrests.

But the answers amounted to:
we’ve always known it.

Gradually Vic came to the conclusion that he had tapped into a folk tradition. His pupils must have been told that Weyharrow was a scene of evil-doing long before they came to school. That meant the tradition must go back to the earliest incursion of Christianity!

The bell rang.

Exultant, during the morning break and over lunch Vic tried out his theory on his colleagues, most of whom were local, or had at least been in the area much longer than himself. Far from impressing them it was rebuffed by sour ripostes. Had he not considered the prosperity of the Slaking House and the jealousy it must have generated, for instance at Trimborne when the once-rich mill was falling into disuse? Had he not thought about the impact of the manor being inherited by Reverend Matthew, that notorious bigot from the distant north, who wanted to deprive the local people of their ale and cider? And how about the fact that Weyharrow had formerly been the highest navigable point on the Chap, so that it marked the limit where smugglers could dispose of foreign goods brought from the coast by water?