Chapter Nine
The church was crowded, which Bryony decided was probably to be expected, if a well loved—or disliked for that matter—stand in for the vicar was making his last appearance. When she got the chance, she must ask Maddie if it was a normal, an ‘ohh dear, no, we will miss him, he is great,’ reaction, or a ‘thank goodness he’s going, lets cheer him on his way’ turn out. For all she knew, this was the normal congregation. It was she supposed, shameful she didn’t have a clue, so she really ought to discover that as well. Was she the only resident of Little Brindish who wasn’t a regular churchgoer? Surely not.
An unknown man handed her a hymnal and stared at her intently. It made her wonder if she had a black mark on her cheek—she’d checked Lottie’s handprint had faded—or a spider in her hair.
‘So lovely to meet you at last,’ he said, as he shook her hand with a grip so tight, she wondered if she’d have any unbroken fingers left. ‘Giles Henderson.’
‘Nice to meet you. Er… Bryony Bennett.’
‘Oh, I know,’ He beamed. ‘It’s excellent to put a face to the name. Although, I had expected to see you here earlier, but I’m sure we will see a lot more of you now.’
He was? She had no answer to that but luckily someone else came to take his attention and she was able to move on. Actually, she thought, as she glanced around the building, she was a regular church goer. Christmas Eve every year. That was shameful. She wasn’t anti church, far from it. She didn’t even have the excuse of having worked on a Sunday, because her boss at the bookshop was a regular churchgoer every week and didn’t open the shop on Sundays. It had been, Bryony supposed, a habit of a long walk with Mop, a coffee at the café in the park—outside weather permitting—and a day to catch up with the washing, ironing, and papers. Plus, if she were honest, her local church had been a bit too highbrow for her, and not really full of Christian charity. The vicar had been a brilliant theologian but not a brilliant Christian. Maybe now she’d change her habits, who knew?
Bryony took note of several tombs and one rather beautiful stained-glass window and decided she would have to come back soon and have a good, and unencumbered, look around. But for now, she had better find her seat. Ahead of her, Maddie waved in a wide sweep of her arm from a pew near the front of the church, and beckoned Bryony to go and join her. Bryony fixed a smile on her face and made her way up the aisle towards her friend. It was the strangest stroll ever. She wanted to run so people stopped staring at her but knew if she did they would stare more. Never was she more pleased than when she reached Maddie’s side. She had intended to arrive a bit earlier, to scout out the interior, discover what it was like and if it was a long walk down the aisle—she sounded like a prospective bride there—to where she assumed Maddie would sit. Somewhere near the front, and boy was she right there. However, a howling Mop had soon put paid to that idea. He sat outside the bathroom door, so when she came out she almost tripped over him. He then followed at her heels into the bedroom and watched her dress. It was unnerving to feel you were a voyeur show for a dog. She almost broke into a rendition of ‘the stripper’. A swift glance at her watch stopped that idea in its tracks. She needed to get moving, and not via tripping over Mop.
In the end, she’d bribed him with a bone as well as her bedroom to stop in, and vowed she needed to get hold of a dog psychologist or something, before too long. It was getting beyond a joke. He used to cope when she was at work, so why not now? However, he was the reason she’d had to dash back indoor for some ‘collection’ money then hurry up the lane and reapply deodorant and lippy, before she took several calming breaths, mentally girded her loins and entered the building.
The noise level was something she had never experienced in church before. Adults gossiped over the back of the pews, children shouted and giggled as they dodged around people’s feet, and teens texted as if their lives depended on it. Every word and shout echoed, and the general atmosphere was more like a party than a church service to be. If someone started to conga down the aisle she bet no one would blink or comment. Clothes ranged from the staid, to the exotic, and all things in between—there were even hats more suited to Ascot on Ladies Day—and it looked as if most of the village, if not half the surrounding countryside had turned out. It was, she decided, a happy feel.
Dario, however, was conspicuous in his absence. Evidently Maddie’s three line whip hadn’t worked on him, or her husband.
Mrs Cherry beamed as Bryony passed by and nudged the man beside her. Mr Cherry? She’d have to ask Maddie. Another two ladies stared in a pointed way and then grinned, and three teens giggled as she walked by. Why were so many people fixated on her? She hadn’t attended before, but she hadn’t been in the village that long after all. Did they not give you time to settle in? What if she wasn’t C of E? What then?
On the opposite of the aisle to Maddie, Lottie Monk—Botte—whoever—scowled when she saw Bryony. Bryony did the half incline of the head, half smile thing so many others had done and moved to sit next to Maddie. Lottie was one of the Ascot hat brigade and looked at Bryony’s clean, but boring no doubt in her eyes, unsuitable outfit with disfavour. After her visit of the other day, it was a wonder she didn’t just turn her back, or brain Bryony with her handbag. Designer of course. Bryony made a note to indulge in the Mulberry she’d coveted ever since it came out. If Maddie was going to sell hers like she intimated, maybe it would be okay to buy it? She’d have to find out if Maddie would mind.
‘Why are so many people grinning and nodding to me?’ she asked Maddie under her breath once she closed her eyes and said a quick prayer and hoped not to hear a clap of thunder or the roof caving in. ‘Instead of glowering, or putting pins into my effigy? Do I have a bogey hanging out of my nose?’ It might be noisy, with everyone talking at the tops of their voices, but to her you spoke in an undertone in church. Anything louder would have been shushed. ‘Have I got my skirt caught in my knickers, or last night’s spinach between my teeth? It’s all a bit unnerving to say the least.’
Maddie shrugged her cashmere-clad shoulders and didn’t meet Bryony’s eyes.
‘No bogey. You look perfect for…well for here.’
What was she hiding?
‘What?’ Bryony demanded. She poked Maddie in the ribs. ‘Tell me. What is going on?’
‘No idea,’ Maddie said. Bryony wasn’t convinced. ‘Probably glad to see someone else swell the congregation.’
‘It seems pretty swell from where I’m sitting.’ Bryony half turned her head and glanced around. The organist began to play a soft piece of music that worked well in the shadowy, echoing church and people shifted about to take their seats in a slow moving procession. Outside the bells started to ring. Bryony swirled around again and had that perfect sense of peace you sometimes got when in a church. Life was good, even with Lottie scowling on the edge of her vision.
The choir came in, three angelic looking boys whom she suspected were real terrors once they got let loose, and an assortment of older people of both sexes. Behind them, the vicar—lay reader—his robes flowing, followed. Bryony turned like most of the congregation to watch and started. She dropped her handbag, picked it up and sod it, dropped it again, ignoring the titters from the row behind, and the glare from Lottie across the aisle.
The vicar, she couldn’t think of him as anything other than that, drew level with her and winked. Winked for goodness sake. In church. His hair was in a tiny bun, and his ear stud shone brightly in the shadowy building.
Dario? Dario bloody Monk. A preacher or whatever? What the hell? Oh, shoot I oughtn’t to say hell in church. Now she’d done it twice.
If you committed murder, of a vicary type person, in church would you be able to use diminished responsibility as a plea?
It might have been a good few years since she’d done the Anglican bit, but even in her agitated, I want to kill him state, Bryony found much of the service came back to her. Not that she enjoyed any of it, which annoyed her, because inside she seethed, and she felt cheated out of something that could have meant a lot. Why had it been so important not to tell her who he was? Not just him, but the whole village it seemed had been in on the ‘keep Bryony in the dark’ scenario. Even Maddie, and if she were honest it was that which upset Bryony the most. How hard was it to say, “Dario, my ex, the stand in for the vicar.”? How hard was it to be a sort of a vicar and divorced anyway? What exactly was a lay reader? Was he ordained or what? So many questions, and at that moment, no one to give her answers. Surely there’d been a loosening of what could and couldn’t happen over the last few years, so why was it all so secretive? On automatic she stood, sang, sat, and closed her eyes when necessary. Then sat back, shut her eyes so she couldn’t stare at Dario and folded her arms for the sermon.
Why not tell me? The question went round and round in her brain. Ten words. ‘By the way, I’m the stand in for the vicar.’ Then add, ‘see you in church?’
She could feel the concerned glances Maddie shot at her and ignored them. Darn it, if she could have walked out without causing offence and no doubt the biggest uproar in the village since Great Brindish stole the maypole in 1878 she would have done. The sense of being let down was, she supposed, much greater than the purported crime, but by heck it hurt.
This lead her to the question of who bl…flipping Dario was—or was not—now? She didn’t even know if he was retiring, moving on, or moving up. If she didn’t think it would be a big black mark against her, and an arrow on her checklist pointing down, she would have mentally sworn—again.
Luckily, before she succumbed, a nudge from Maddie brought her back to her surroundings, and she realised how much of the sermon she must have missed. Dario, aka ‘the vic’, was finishing with a smile and a few words thanking everyone for letting him serve them again, albeit for a short time.
Again? What had she missed?
‘And I’m sure all of you will support The Reverend Jason McGuffy when he joins us next week. Plus, I won’t be far away, and I’m on stand in duty if needed, so no talking about me behind my back,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye as the congregation, with the exception of Bryony, erupted into laughter. He could shove his stand in and cassock in his pipe, and smoke it for all she cared.
‘But Jason is great, and I’m retired, so I won’t know any of the answers,’ Dario said, as the hilarity died down. ‘My garden and the fete are now top of my list of to dos.’
Okay, she could have found out who the vicar and his stand in were, if she wanted she guessed. Plus, no doubt who the lay reader was. The parish magazine had been on her hall window ledge since she arrived along with a ‘welcome to St Michael’s’ flyer. However, rightly or wrongly, it had been the last thing on her mind. She’d always subscribed to the theory that whatever you believed in, you didn’t need the trappings to follow that belief. She’d have got round to visiting the church eventually.
As Dario followed the choir down the aisle he looked in her direction. She turned her head and stared at the stone slabs beneath her feet. The sigh from Maddie was enough to flutter the pages of the open hymn book on the shelf in front of them. As the churchgoers filed out, Maddie grabbed Bryony’s arm to hold her back. Luckily, no one else was in their pew to ask to get by, or worse stop to eavesdrop on any conversation that might go on. Even though it must appear somewhat odd for them both to be stood there like spare parts, the rest of the congregation did their - admittedly poor - best to ignore them.
Maddie turned Bryony around to face her. ‘You hate me, don’t you?’ She asked, in a doleful voice. ‘Despise me. Wish me down there.’ She pointed at the floor.
Bryony shrugged. ‘Don’t I have cause to? I can say without telling a lie, neither you or Dario ‘whatever he happens to be now, but why tell Bryony, let’s keep her in the dark and have a laugh at her expense’ Monk, are my favourite people at the moment. You - and he - made a fool of me. Everyone else knew who he was. No wonder grotty Lottie came a-swinging for me.’
‘She what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ Bryony brushed the question aside. ‘Why was it so bloody hard to tell me? Mr Grumpy, the moonlighting estate agent, my ex, is the vicar’s stand in. Just so you know. Why didn’t Mrs C when I went into the shop? No wonder he wants my house. Kicked out of the vicarage now, is he? Well, sod the lot of you.’ She was so angry she had to brush away a tear and stave off an incipient attack of hiccups. ‘Where’s the back way out?’
‘He doesn’t have the vicarage. He’s a lay reader not the vicar.’
‘Oh, whatever. I don’t know what it means.’ Bryony held her hand up as Maddie opened her mouth. ‘Nor do I want to. I just want to leave.’
‘Noooo, you can’t do that.’ Maddie tried to pull her in for a hug, but Bryony braced herself not to move. She was holding on to her composure by sheer strength of will.
‘It’s coffee, cake and chat after,’ Maddie said, in a hurry.
‘Watch me. And coffee, cake and chat would choke me. I swear I will swear out loud, in here, in the churchyard wherever, on hallowed ground or not, if I have to have any interaction with anyone in this village, including you or your sodding ex right now. Go out there and pretend everything is hunky dory? Not in a million years.’ She picked up her handbag and slung it over her shoulder. ‘Through there?’ She pointed to a door at the side of the chancel.
‘So, you’d sneak off and let everyone think you’re not a good sport?’ Maddie did her best to look sorrowful, and in Bryony’s mind failed by a country mile. She just looked annoyed. She wasn’t the only one. Bryony was ready to, as Maisie would say, spit tacks. ‘Anyway, it’s stuck shut,’ Maddie said. ‘Has been for years.’
‘Good sport?’ Bryony ignored the rest of Maddie’s statement and homed in on the bit that annoyed her most. ‘Oh, believe me I’m not. Never have been.’ It was true, Bryony admitted the ‘good sport gene’ passed her by.
‘Then you’re a coward?’
Was she? Bryony knew Maddie was goading her, but a coward? That was one insult too far. ‘You know, sticks and stones and all that. Your choice.’
‘Ohh, Bryony,’ Maddie wailed. ‘Don’t be a mardy arse. It wasn’t malicious. Just…’
Bryony wasn’t about to hang around and listen to excuses. ‘F...sod you. I thought you were my friend.’ If she couldn’t get out via the vestry she’d just go right out of the front and keep on going. She shrugged off Maddie’s touch, strode up the aisle, out of the door, and tried to slide around the last few parishioners queuing to shake Dario’s hand and wish him whatever they intended.
She might have got away with it… almost did, except two people moved to one side and Dario’s hand shot out like a bullet from a gun and took hold of hers in a vice-like grip. Beside him, Lottie the leech did her clingy act and stood close enough to stop anything, or anyone short of a stick insect, being able get in between her and her brother. Next to her, a tall ruddy-faced gentleman did his best, without success, to pull her back a little.
‘Ah Bryony, so glad you could make it.’ Dario’s expression dared her to say something provocative. ‘Nice to see you join our flock. I hope I can expect you in the congregation next week to welcome Reverend McGuffy?’
As ever, her not often found, but when it emerged ‘stand back and shake if you were in the firing line’ temper made her take up the challenge. ‘Really, Mr, “I’m the vicar’s stand in”?’ she drawled, in her best imitation of someone her mum called, one of those ‘too posh to push’. ‘Ah well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?’ she added, as she unsuccessfully did her best to get him to release her hand. ‘I hear the service on the sands is popular. They don’t have cliques or keep secrets from people.’ She dug her nails into his palm, and as his fingers relaxed took the opportunity to get free and move two steps back from him. ‘Now, if you excuse me, I’ve got things to do.’ Better things her tone inferred. Like watching paint dry.
He smiled. ‘Of course. Perhaps I’ll see you later. Don’t forget refreshments in the church hall.’
Perhaps you won’t. Bryony didn’t bother to answer.
‘Bryony, wait up.’ Maddie’s voice floated to her over the clack of the damned uncomfortable shoes Bryony had forced herself to wear, deciding old crocs or rope-soled espadrilles didn’t go with the dress. The dress she loved and right now wanted to stuff in the nearest rubbish bin. If the sight of her in her skivvies wouldn’t really set her beyond the pale, she might well have done.
‘Oh glory, I really have upset you, haven’t I?’ Maddie said remorsefully, as she caught up with Bryony. She twisted her designer bag between her fingers. ‘Damn, now I’ve mangled Mulberry. I’d better take it off eBay, and I’ve had a darned good offer for it. Look, at first, I honestly didn’t know you didn’t know, and then, well I thought it might be fun for you to find out this side of him. Dario had no idea I hadn’t told you, or that no one else seemed to have either. He’ll kill me.’
‘Well, it’ll save me doing it then, won’t it? Do you know what a fool I felt? Everyone looking at me and smiling like I was an oddity.’
‘Well, in one way you are. Dario’s never shown any interest in anyone since he and I spilt.’
‘Geez thanks. Adds oddity to list of descriptions of poor deluded woman, me. Pining, is he?’ Bryony asked nastily. ‘Poor him, tell him to build a bridge and get over it.’
‘Anything but. I reckon I put him off marriage for li… for ages.’
‘Say life, be honest for once.’
Maddie winced. ‘I guess I deserve that.’
‘I guess you do. And how, anyway,’ Bryony went on. Now she was on a roll she might as well get everything off her ample chest. Except, as she was still in the village, her bra. That would have to wait until she got through the doorway at home. ‘If you’re both from Italian families, how come you’re not Catholic?’
‘Not every Italian is you know. Ours aren’t. Look, come over to the church hall. There’s refreshments, and Dario has to be there, so he can’t follow you and tell you what he thinks of me and anything else. He’s mad at me enough as it is without me scaring you away.’
‘Maddie, you haven’t scared me away.’ Much. ‘Anything but. However, will I go back and put up with all the rubbish that seems to attach itself to me like I’m flypaper? In your dreams.’
‘But…’ Maddie dropped her handbag on top of the grave of one Josiah Coombe ‘died aged 78 and much loved by all’. She put her forehead to Bryony’s. ‘Oh God, Dario won’t be happy.’
‘Good, because you know something? Neither am I.’ Bryony drew back and sighed. ‘Not at all. Nor am I good company. Go and do your thing, Maddie, and I’ll do mine.’
‘But I thought you and D were getting on so well now?’
That was the hellish sad thing about it all. ‘Yeah, so did I. Guess we were both mistaken. Now I better go and see a dog about a pee.’
‘How did you keep him in?’
‘I’m not sure I did.’ Bryony caught the bundle known as Mop as he bolted towards her. ‘I’m going home, Maddie. You go and do what you have to.’
‘Make your apologies?’
‘Not in a million years.’
At least Lottie would be happy.
‘Poor you.’ Lou handed her a large glass of Greywacke and poured one for herself. ‘So, you were in the dark right up until he did the processional, or whatever you call it down the aisle?’
Bryony took a healthy swig, glad she’d left the car at home and indulged in a taxi for her and Mop. The three of them sat in Lou’s gorgeous garden, which faced south and over looked the estuary. True to her word, Dunc, Lou’s partner had taken their son to a play session, and left them to, as he said, have a good old chinwag.
‘That’s about it. So, there I was, all eyes on me, with the world and his wife waiting for my reaction, or non-reaction, depending on whether they thought I was in the know or not, and then someone muttered something about having to move away because of me.’
‘Eh? Why?’
Bryony shrugged and moved her feet restlessly. Mop stirred, opened one eye, decided there was nothing to worry about and shut it again. Doggy snores followed. ‘If I knew that, maybe life would be a bit simpler. I know it’s hard for people to get on the housing ladder and there’s not a lot of affordable housing around, but this sounded personal. Vindictive. She gave me the evils when I went past her and said my sins would find me out. I thought maybe she was a “Dario is too good for the likes of Bryony disciple”, but now I wonder. And that’s not all.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’ve not told Maddie or Dario or anyone else this, but when I got back from taking Mop for a walk yesterday, my rubbish bin had been upended, the bags broken open and the contents strewn all over the garden.’
‘Dogs?’ Lou asked doubtfully. ‘Cats, foxes, rats?’
‘It can’t be opened without flicking a catch. Rats of the human kind maybe. Someone had tried to break the lock on the sheds, thank goodness without success. And the back door had a so-called eviction notice on it. Then,’ she took a hefty swallow of wine, ‘the house phone, which is only really there for the internet, rang every hour all through the night. After the first two calls I didn’t answer… there’s only so much heavy breathing anyone can take. But the answerphone picked up the lot. Disguised voice telling me to sell up, and yeah, the heavy breathing. Not pleasant.’
‘Then you need to tell someone. That’s not on.’ Lou gave her a hug. ‘It’s harassment. Dunc’s a detective in the local force. Tell him.’
Bryony shook her head. ‘Nah, it’s just stupid.’
‘Nah,’ Lou mimicked. ‘It is not. Stop for tea, tell Dunc, and let him take you home and look at the note. You did keep it, didn’t you?’
‘Oh, yes. I was tempted to leave it where it was, so it looked as if I’d not seen it, but then all those Vera’s and Miss Marple’s I’ve watched came into mind. I didn’t want to get back and find it gone. It’s here in my bag.’ She’d felt stupid, all cloak and daggery, but had accepted it was the correct thing to do.
‘Good. Ah I hear the dulcet tones of my beloveds. Plural. Now we’ll have jambalaya to eat, wine to drink, and skullduggery to accompany them.’
Bryony laughed, as she knew Lou wanted to her to. Deep down though she wanted to cry.
After speaking to Dunc, showing him the mess and ignoring a call from Maddie, one from Dario, and crying herself to sleep, she knew what she had to do.