The Loney Part 15

Miss Bunce wafted the smell away with her hand. 'I thought that fish shouldn't smell at all if it was fresh.'

'No, that's beef, isn't it?' said Mr Belderboss.

'Chicken,' Mrs Belderboss replied. 'Is it beef or chicken?'

'Look,' said Mummer. 'We've bought fish from that stall for years and it's never done us any harm, has it?'

She looked at Farther.

'No,' he said. 'It's always been very nice.'

'Well, I'm not having any of it,' Miss Bunce said.

'Well then you'll be hungry,' said Mummer.

'And I'll be glad,' said Miss Bunce. 'We ought not to be eating at all today.'

Mummer rolled her eyes. 'That rule only applies to meat, Joan,' she said. 'Fish is fine, isn't it Father?'

'I think we might risk it, aye,' said Father Bernard as he changed gear and slowed down to take a hairpin bend in the road.

'That's just as well. I'm not sure I'd last until tomorrow with nothing inside me,' Mr Belderboss laughed from the back seat.

Around the corner we came across someone walking on the edge of the ditch.

'That's Clement,' said Mrs Belderboss. 'Slow down, Father.'

Father Bernard pulled in a few yards ahead and wound the window down. Clement stopped.

'Can I give you a lift?' Father Bernard called.

Clement looked around him and then came to the window, peering at us all and then at Father Bernard.

'Nay, you're alright,' he said.

'It's no bother to take you home.'

'I've not far to go,' Clement said.

'Well how about I at least take you as far as Moorings?'

Clement looked up into the rain. 'Aye, alright,' he said. 'Take me to Moorings and I'll see me sen right from there.'

Clement wedged himself between Hanny and I on the back seat. His wax jacket smelled of dried up bodily excretions and damp straw. An astonishing, curdled smell that had subtle layers of foulness for the nose to explore.

He didn't say a word all the way back, but stared straight ahead and I got to know his profile intimately: a mangled ear stuck on the side of his head like a lump of bubble gum; a nose that had, like his cheeks, turned purulent with end-stage rosacea; a few stray wiry hairs around his lips that the razor had missed several times. When he went to scratch his nose, his sleeve slipped down and revealed a swallow tattooed on his forearm. He saw me staring at it and covered it up.

There was a rumour that he had done time at Haverigg, though whether it was true or what he was supposed to have done, I didn't know.

When we arrived back at Moorings, Clement waited until everyone had gone into the house and there was only Father Bernard and I coaxing Monro out from under the seat where he had been sleeping. Monro yawned and ambled down the steps and into the house. Father Bernard watched him go and then turned to Clement.

'Are you sure you won't let me take you back to the farm?'

Clement shook his head. 'I'd rather walk from here.'

'Alright, well you take care of yourself.'

Clement walked away and then stopped and came back.

'I don't know if I should say anything, Father,' he said. 'But I'd not forgive mesen if I didn't give thee a word of warning.'

'Oh? About what?'

'Stay indoors as much as you can.'

'With the weather, you mean?'

'No, I mean keep thaselves to thaselves.'

'What makes you think we were going to do otherwise?' said Father Bernard with a small laugh.

'There are folk around here who aren't that happy that you've come.'

'Like who?'

'I'd rather not say.'

Father Bernard smiled faintly to himself. He knew who Clement was talking about.

'Well, I'm sure we won't do anything to upset them, Clement. And in any case, it didn't seem like that to me.'

Clement frowned. 'How do you mean, Father?'

Father Bernard glanced at me.

'Well, I stopped in the Bell and Anchor the other day to get out of the rain and someone very kindly bought me a drink.'

Clement looked as though he had swallowed something nasty.

'Who was it?'

'Mr Parkinson, the butcher. Why?'

'And did you return the favour?'

Father Bernard shook his head. 'I hadn't time to stay.'

'I don't mean a drink, Father.'

'I don't follow you, Clement.'

'I mean, did you invite him up to Moorings?'

'I don't recall ...'

'He has a way of making folk feel obliged to him, you see,' Clement cut in.

'Well, I didn't feel like that,' said Father Bernard. 'Like I say, it was just a drink.'

But Clement wasn't listening. He clutched Father Bernard's arm.

'Because if you were to invite him, he wouldn't just take it as a pleasantry. He'd come and bring them all with him.'

'Who's all?'

'It's just better if tha keeps away from him.'

'But there must be a reason, Clement.'

'Aye, plenty.'

'Such as what?'

'I can't say.'

'Clement?'

'I'm sorry, Father. I must get back to Mother.'

Clement looked at Father Bernard and then down at his feet, as though he had failed in some way. Then he walked to the lane, paused while he looked around him again, and then went off through a gate and over the fields.

Chapter Thirteen.

Clement's odd behaviour was all everyone talked about once he had gone.

'He's always been a little eccentric,' said Mrs Belderboss.

'It's not surprising living out here,' Mr Belderboss added. 'Stuck with his mother day in, day out. It's enough to make anyone go a bit strange.'

'I'm sure he doesn't think of her as a burden, Reg.'

'Oh, I didn't mean that. I meant he focuses so much of his time on her that the rest of the world, the real world, sort of gets pushed to the sidelines.'

Everyone seemed to agree, and perhaps it was this consent that made Father Bernard dismiss Clement's warnings as easily as he had obviously wanted to.

Perhaps they were right. Maybe Clement was just paranoid, but he had seemed so serious, so genuinely concerned.

Mummer and Mrs Belderboss went into the kitchen to prepare the fish while the rest of us waited. Miss Bunce and David sat together on the sofa. She was back with her Bible and he was reading a battered d.i.c.kens novel that had pages like tissue paper. Mr Belderboss snored in an armchair, Father Bernard went to his room to pray, and Farther sat at a table, looking at the nativity set he had found in the little room next to the study.

A new wave of rain swept in off the sea and made its fingertaps on the windows. Mummer came in from the kitchen and handed me a box of matches.

'Here, make yourself useful and light the candles,' she said and shooed me off around the room, distracted by Farther's coughing.

It had got worse and there was a soft wheeze every time he breathed.

'You ought to stay out of that room,' said Mummer. 'It's not doing your chest any good.'

'I'm fine,' said Farther.

Mummer looked at the figures on the table. 'I hope you've cleaned those,' she said. 'TB can live on for years.'

'Of course I have,' he said, setting a shepherd down next to a lamb.

'I really think you ought to have left them alone.'

'Why?'

'I don't know,' said Mummer. 'It just doesn't seem right going through people's things.'

Farther ignored her and rooted amongst the tissue paper that the little figurines had been wrapped in.

'Funny,' he said. 'There's no Jesus.'

The meal was brought out and placed in the centre of the table among the tea lights Mummer had brought from the shop. On each jar was a portrait of a blond haired Jesus blood-streaked from the crown of thorns and pointing to his huge blazing heart. We ate quietly, the rain hitting the windows and slithering down. Miss Bunce would only eat the vegetables. There was no dessert. Only water to drink.

Afterwards, Hanny was excused from the table and he went off to play in our bedroom, while the rest of us prayed again, thanking G.o.d for the meal.

'I thought I'd go for a walk up the field to the woods and back,' said Miss Bunce, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. 'If anyone wishes to join me.'

Mummer looked out at the dusk. The rain had stopped but the wind shuddered against the window.

'I'll give it a miss,' she said. 'It'll be bitter out there by now.'

'I know,' said Miss Bunce. 'It's a penance.'

Mummer looked at the window again. The wind got in through a gap in the frame and made a sound like cattle. She looked back at the table full of dirty plates and dishes.

'You go,' she said. 'I'll devote the washing up to G.o.d.'