Ordinary People: Part Iii

Table of Contents

Chapter  1  Burning Questions

Chapter  2  Faith

Chapter  3  Midnight Glow

Chapter  4  A Very Important Day

Chapter  5  Wild Horses

Chapter  6  A Man Of Integrity

Chapter  7  Delicate Negotiations

Chapter  8  The Burning

Chapter  9  Winners And Losers

Chapter  10  Bird Watching

Chapter  11  Learning To Swim

Chapter  12  Arrivals And Departures

Chapter  13  Significant Leaves

Chapter  14  Smoke

Chapter  15  Tuesday

Chapter  16  The Contemplations Of Percival

Chapter  17  Dead Man’s Shoes

Chapter  18  The Escort

Chapter  19  Thin Ice

Chapter  20  Hope

Chapter  21  London Calling

Chapter  22  Confessions

Chapter  23  The Bastard Daughter

Chapter 1

BURNING QUESTIONS

There is a certain kind of calm which will descend upon and pervade an English village on a certain kind of summer’s day; a stillness which creeps into peoples’ thoughts and into their homes, under chairs and behind cupboards, and which affects the way that people go about their daily business; the way that they make coffee, the way that they make love, if they do, the way that they speak to each other. All of these things are different on these days. The passing traffic will sound muffled in the heavy air, the birds are silent once the dawn has passed and the sun has risen, hot, into the eastern sky. The people will not say that it is too hot; the memories of cold winter are still too new, and the chill of autumn is too near at hand. No, they will not speak of it, as they open windows in vain to catch any breeze which may come. They will not complain; they are English, and they will bear it as they have borne the vagaries of their climate for centuries. In these same, ancient houses a pauper will have died of the cold, a crop will have failed and the people will have gone hungry at harvest time. To keep what little grain there was for the next sowing or to make bread to eat; to feed the horses or let them take their chances in the cold, hard, winter fields. These are the questions which would have been asked. So why would they complain, these new people; the trials of their forebears have sunk deep into the collective psyche. For shame they will not complain. And yet they feel it; they feel the stillness and the sapping heat of noon in an English village on a certain kind of summer’s day, and so it was on this day in the village of Middlewapping.

And there will perhaps be an exaggeration of temperament; those of withdrawn or quiet nature become still more withdrawn and quiet, whilst those of a more volatile disposition will tend towards greater volatility, for we are as we are, whatever has made us so.

‘Bloody bugger it!’

‘What’s the matter, honey?’

‘I can’t get this bloody computer to do what I tell it.’

Emily was at home, working on an accounts program which she would need for her new job. She had been to the town the day before in search of clothes. She had made do hitherto, with the exception of occasional self-indulgence, with clothes from second-hand shops, or shops which sold clothes for an English pound, but now, although they could scarce afford it on the money which Will earned from his job at the Garden Centre, she needed to update and improve her wardrobe. If she was to become a working woman, she needed a working woman’s attire. Will had agreed, of course. The hurricane which was Emily Cleves and which had blown through the young life of Will Tucker these past few months since their first kiss in the darkness of Jacob’s Field was blowing strong again. She had been becalmed by circumstance; the wretchedness of the killing of the man from London had stopped her in her tracks, for a while. But that was over now. It had been over since she had thrown the flowers over the cliff, and Meadow had said the strong, sweet words as only she would know how; she who had brought calm with her calmness and understanding. And since then Will Tucker had been carried along in the new-found energy of his beloved Emily, and that energy had borne good fortune, as it sometimes will, and she had found a job.

‘Well, it’s sort of a job’ she had said when she broke the good news to Will over a glass of cheap red wine one evening. ‘It’s kind of half a job, which will turn into a proper job later.’

‘I see, so it’s one of those kinds of job.’ Will had said, understanding none of that which his beloved was saying.

‘Yes’ Emily had said ‘It’s one of those kinds of job.’

The good fortune had in fact been the result of conversations and circumstances which had their roots further back in time. Further back indeed than need be considered or written of here, but recent events had conspired to lead to an agreement between Emily and a certain other person, which had occurred some weeks previously.

On this sultry, summers’ day, at the same time, another conversation was in process between Victoria Tillington, only daughter to Lord and Lady Tillington of Middlewapping Manor, and another young woman, who’s name was Rebecca. The conversation was taking place in the back garden of a certain house very close to number seven, The Green, where Emily was attempting to bring her accounts program to heel. It was a conversation which, once again, could be traced back to its’ vague and uncertain source during the time that these two women were about to be reunited; when their love was about to be reborn, or woken from its’ long, enforced sleep. If the conversation at its’ beginning was general and non-specific, it built to a subject and a point in time which neither had spoken of since it’s occurrence, but which Victoria Tillington badly wanted to understand, indeed needed to understand. Had she known what the consequences of this need would be, or her attempted satiation of it, she would perhaps have left the words unspoken, but if hindsight is the companion to wisdom, then foresight can oft times be its’ enemy.

‘So how were you there?’ she said

‘What do you mean?’ said Rebecca

‘You came to find me in hospital when I was… when I was still asleep.’

‘Yes, you know I did; I told you.’

‘Yes I know you were physically there, that much I understand, but you were with me; in my dreams, if that is what they were.’

‘Was I?’ said Rebecca ‘It was only a dream, dear one.’

‘Ohhh, you drive me crazy! You know what I’m talking about; you were there, on the cliff by the sea, not as you are now but as you used to be when we were younger, you sang to me when I was… . I can’t remember everything, it’s so frustrating, help me to understand.’

‘Perhaps I don’t understand either,’ said Rebecca ‘have you ever thought of that? How the hell do I know everything that goes on or was going on in your head? You were in a coma, for Christ’s sake.’

‘You know more than you’re telling me; that much I know.’ said Victoria.

‘Then let it be so.’ said Rebecca. ‘You got better, we found each other again, just let it be.’

‘I can’t.’ said Victoria. ‘I want to understand how it was possible; how you could do what you did. I just know that without you… . without you I would never have made it back.’

Rebecca was silent. She smiled at her beloved Victoria, but said nothing more. Whatever she knew, she would not tell her; not yet, and perhaps never. She would live to regret her silence every bit as much as Victoria would regret her words, but the power to foresee is in the end a mythical beast which lives and breathes only in our imagination.

‘You know what they are saying, don’t you?’ said Victoria, after a few moments of silence had elapsed.

‘What are they saying?’ said Rebecca.

‘They say that… . they say that you are a witch.’

Rebecca choked on her tea.

‘Do they?’ she said, when she had recovered herself sufficiently. ‘Do they indeed? I wonder what I did to give them that impression. Maybe I left my broomstick lying around; how silly of me. Anyway who are ‘they’, who know so much about me?’

‘Oh I don’t know, just people. Damn it Bex, is there anything that you’re not telling me; I mean anything really important?’

‘No, sweetheart’ said Rebecca ‘There’s nothing, really. There’s nothing that I can tell you. We found each other and we love each other, that’s what really matters, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’ said Victoria ‘Of course it is. You do drive me crazy though.’

‘T’was ever thus, was it not?’ Said Rebecca ‘Now stop worrying about it, it’s too hot to consider such matters anyway. I wonder if it’s cooler upstairs.’

‘You want to find out?’ said Victoria.

‘That’s better.’ said Rebecca ‘You look better when you smile.’

For the past two or so years the holiday rental business had been, to say the least of it, slow, the house was becoming a liability and reluctantly David Thompson had decided that it had to be sold. He knew, of course, that it would sell quickly; after all how often did houses around the Green in Middlewapping come up for sale; seldom, indeed. He also knew that such houses held their value even at such times of economic stagnation. Nevertheless to sell such an asset when the housing market was still at the bottom of a slump went against all of his better instincts, but the decision had to be made, however reluctantly. In the event the sale went through even more quickly than he had anticipated; even before the photograph and details were in the Estate Agency window word had somehow been passed around, and a young lady had come to the agency in the morning and made an offer of the full asking-price. Mr Thompson had been taken aback somewhat when he discovered the identity of the buyer, and her circumstances, (‘Well well; I never would have imagined…’) but within days the deposit was paid and awaiting clearance, the mortgage had been arranged, a contract was drawn up and signed, and only a matter of weeks later the same young lady had walked into the agency to take possession of the keys. So it was that on a certain summers’ day not dissimilar to this, Victoria Tillington walked through the front door of number one, The Green; the house where she had made herself dead, and which now was to be her new home.

‘Are you quite insane?’ Rebecca had said to her on a previous day when Victoria had expressed her intention to purchase the house, if she could. ‘Does the house not hold dem… . Is it not a place of horror for you, after what happened there?’

‘No.’ Victoria had said ‘I can’t remember much about, you know… . And if there are demons there, I have to expunge them; there can be no regrets, no looking back; can you understand that? If I can turn all of that; everything which happened before into a happy place to live; for us to live, then I will feel as though we will have won, in a way. Anyway these are my people now, they are my friends. I love them, and… . and I want to live amongst them. This kind of opportunity may not come again; it has to be now. In every way it feels like the right thing to do.’

And so, for now, the resting place of Victoria Tillington, the house where she would find comfort, which she would fill with her own self and her own possessions, where she would brush her teeth and comb her hair every morning and live out the vagaries of her life, was the house where she had before discovered and been to the place where a human soul can go no further; where the battle had been lost. She had been carried out of the front door on a stretcher by the ambulance men, her life ended, and now she would walk back through the same door, a young woman with a life before her.

And there were reactions, of course. The first time in recent history that Victoria had come to the village Green she was in search of; in search of what? Superficially the Delicatessen; at a deeper level perhaps she was searching for something else, however deeply in her subconscious that search had begun. On that occasion she had touched the minds of certain residents of the Green. Her second visit when she had been to her now new home for the first time set in motion a chain of events which had moved the emotions and lives of some others of the people in the most profound way. And now she was back, and this time it would be a more permanent residence, and so of course, there were reactions.

Captain Caruthers from number two The Green, had had a conversation with Daphne Pouffe from number six.

‘Seems like a nice young filly if you ask me, what?’ he had said ‘Raise the tone of the place, I daresay. Most charming, most charming; jolly good to see somebody bounce back from that… .’ Captain Caruthers was a man of the world.

Daphne Pouffe, who had been at the death scene, and who had taken it upon herself to break the news of her daughters’ illness to Lady Tillington, was absolutely delighted, of course.

‘I’m absolutely delighted, of course’

What she was less convinced about was Victoria’s choice of house-mate; she had heard some things, and when all was said and done she was by no means a stupid woman.

‘I see that the ever-enigmatic Rebecca has also taken up residence. I mean I’m sure she is nice enough when one gets to know her, if one is ever given the opportunity, and I’m sure they will have separate bedrooms, of course, but do you think it is all quite proper?’

Daphne’s suspicions in relation to the profession of a certain Rose Ireland who was now by happenstance the owner of number seven had grown ever stronger of late, William and Emily had moved into the same house out of wedlock, and now there was this; two young women moving in together under these circumstances was something which did not fit easily into her world-view; into the way that things should be done. To Daphne, the village was her life, and she began to think that the moral standards of the place were beginning to disintegrate around her. She would temper her reaction to her new close-neighbours until she was more certain of their circumstance, however delighted she may be.

Via a network of casual conversations, everybody had gained foreknowledge of the impending, permanent arrival of Victoria in the small, tight community around the village Green, however Sally from number three was absent from the village when she actually moved in two doors away. She and Percival had reluctantly put Lulu into boarding kennels for the first time, and for the first time had taken a holiday together. In truth Percival had never been much interested in holidays of which the point was to relax, they seemed to him to be ultimately pointless; he quickly bored of resort-life, had no interest in darkening his skin colour, and was less comfortable with heat than most despite his partially southern-European ancestry. Nevertheless Sally had arranged a Caribbean holiday for them, she being quite content to laze by swimming pools drinking cocktails with small, plastic umbrellas in them, and she felt as though she hadn’t had a decent suntan in years. For girls like Sally, of pure Anglo Saxon extraction, who’s ancestors had travelled southwards from colder climes in search of new lands and new trading opportunities, skin-tone was important and needed to be worked at; Percival got a suntan without trying, or wishing to do so. And so, in order for the holiday to go ahead to the satisfaction of two such disparate individuals, however in love they may be, they had reached a compromise; Percival would bring his lap-top so long as he restricted his work to certain specified number of hours in a day; she would have a certain number of days by the hotel swimming pool and on other days they would find other activities. In the event things worked out perfectly; the hotel had an on-site SCUBA centre and Percival learned to SCUBA dive. This took him away from the hotel on the dive-boat for a few hours most days and gave him an interest and a focus. They would meet up in the late afternoon, sleep for a couple of hours and enjoy the evenings and nights together. In this way, aside from Percival’s maritime excursions, they rarely left the hotel compound, an arrangement which suited Sally perfectly, and the lap-top remained unopened throughout apart from the occasional checking of and responding to e mails.

‘You think she’s going to be okay?’ said Percival one evening as they were enjoying pre-dinner drinks in the Sunset Bar which overlooked the calm, azure blue Caribbean water. ‘It’s going to feel strange for her at first.’

‘Who . . . ?’

‘Lulu’

‘Of course she’ll be okay.’ said Sally

‘I mean it’s not as though we’re away for long, is it, and these places, well they’re good at looking after dogs, aren’t they?’

‘Of course they’re good at looking after dogs; it’s what they do.’ Sally smiled to herself; despite the persona which Percival presented to the world he was like new putty when it came to a still small, furry animal. The dog had been her gift to him, and so officially she was Percival’s dog although they took a roughly equal share in her care, and she was equally at home at number three as she was at Percival’s cottage which lay at the end of its’ own lane slightly away from the village Green. In Sally’s view, certain dogs were suitable to certain people, and German shepherd dogs, despite their fearsome reputation and their potential to fulfill this inbred characteristic could be gentle, devoted and faithful if carefully handled; in her view it was the only dog for Percival. Every morning at about the same time, before breakfast but not before his first strong cup of coffee of the day, Percival would take her out for her walk, and what he called her ‘training sessions’ although it seemed to Sally that the dog could do pretty much what she wanted, and on the whole seemed less than responsive to his commands.

‘I mean I’m not worried about her at all, of course.’

‘No, no of course not.’ said Sally.

‘It’s just that, you know; I really felt like we were getting somewhere; with the training sessions I mean. We had really started to connect.’

‘Yes, I’m sure you had.’

‘These are the important months in a dogs’ life; it’s now you have to imprint patterns of behaviour which the dog will keep for the rest of their lives.’

‘Oh absolutely, I couldn’t agree more.’

‘And I just hope that, you know, my being away won’t mean that she’ll forget everything that she’s learned so far.’

‘Oh I’m sure she won’t forget.’

‘Well I hope… . Are you taking the piss out of me?’

‘Percival my love; as if I would do such a thing . . . .’

They laughed, she the more enthusiastically, she changed the subject,

‘Victoria must be moving in about now; she may even be in residence as we speak.’

‘Yeah, that’s a good one; that should shake the village up a bit. I wonder what they’ll make of it all; the rich girl and her lover moving onto the Green.’

‘I would imagine that certain people will have some trouble getting their heads around it; homosexuality rearing its’ head in rural village England. Daphne will go apoplectic.’

‘She’ll get used to it, even assuming that she gets what’s going on in the first place.’

‘She’ll get it alright, she’s probably already got it; she’s a woman, after all, when all’s said and done. Anyway you’ve changed your tune about her; once upon a time she was the antichrist.’

‘She’s not as bad as she looks from the outside; she just presents a certain face to the world because she feels that she has to.’

‘Like somebody else I could mention.’ Said Sally into her cocktail straw.

‘What?’

‘Nothing, dear heart; well I’m glad you two are seeing eye to eye these days; I never thought I’d see the day.’

‘We’re not exactly soul-mates, but you know; you just have to take people as they are; we all come from somewhere different.’

‘My god I’m going to have to take you away to exotic locations more often! Is this the new age of tolerance for our fellow man?’

‘Something like that, I guess.’ They smiled. Sally considered for a moment that perhaps Percival and the woman in question had more in common than either would ever admit.

‘Anyway I approve.’

They were silent then for a few moments; the red orb of the sun disappeared slowly over the horizon; Percival ordered a beer from a passing waiter.

‘I know I’ve said it before, Perc, and I know I reacted badly, but it was very brave what you did; going off to rescue Rebecca.’

‘Oh that; well like I’ve said before, it didn’t feel brave at the time. Stupid, perhaps… . Anyway it wasn’t just me; we all played our part; Keith, Ron, Emily, they were all magnificent in their way.’

‘Well she was a very lucky lady. And you still don’t think there’ll be any repercussions? You really don’t think that these people, whoever they are, will come looking for her, or for you?’

‘I doubt it’ said Percival ‘After all it must be clear to them by now that we didn’t set the dogs loose on them. They probably wouldn’t risk being exposed. I doubt if they’d take Keith on again anyway without much soul-searching; that man and his cricket bat are invincible.’

‘So what about Rebecca; they came for her once before.’

‘Same thing applies, really. She’s better established away from the place now; she would be ready for them if they tried it again, I’m sure. Whatever else that woman is, she’s not stupid. I have a feeling that in the end they, or at least some of them, were just glad to be rid of her; it didn’t take much convincing for them to let her go; not really.’

More silence followed. There were nights, Percival would have to admit, when he woke up in a cold sweat at the thought of how differently things could have gone when they went for her. If the least thing had gone against them, if events and circumstances had altered but a little, then who knew what might have occurred. He had exposed his friends to greater danger than he had been prepared to admit at the time. He had been reckless; there were no other words for it. But still, it had all worked out for the best, and Percival was not a person who was much given to looking back; his life and the way he had lived it had made sure of that. And as to the matter of whether they would return for her; whether sometime, perhaps soon, they would put the pieces together and seek her out, he was not convinced even by his own rhetoric that they would in the end let her go so easily.

‘Anyway I guess she’s going to be okay.’ he said finally ‘she’s started to make friends in the village already.’

‘Who are we talking about now, Victoria or Rebecca?’

‘Actually I was talking about Lulu.’

Meadow had not been much involved in the business with Victoria or Rebecca, at least not in a direct sense. She had supported Keith in his vital role in the rescue of Rebecca, and it was she who had first encountered Victoria when she came to the village on what was to prove to be that fateful day, when she had struggled across the village Green with her two dogs, and had struggled to make her purchase. Since then, however, she had had little part to play in events as they had unfolded. As things transpired her role in the business of helping Emily to finally come to terms with the killing of Vincent had been her primary and vital contribution. Will and Emily had come to the bus one day, there had been a few moments of awkwardness and she had had to help them to ask, although after a previous, stumbling conversation with Will she believed that she knew why they had come.

‘Okay you two, you’re here for a reason; if we can help in any way you know you only have to ask.’

And so it was that Emily, Will, Meadow and Keith had travelled to the coast on an early summers’ day, and Emily, with Meadow’s help, had finally put the matter to rest. Through Meadow, with her spirituality and understanding, Emily had been able to carry out the last rites; to complete the exorcism which Will had taken so far with his love and his young patience. The ghost of the man from London was gone, and would haunt Emily’s thoughts no more.

On this still, hot day Meadow watched now as Victoria walked once again across the village Green towards the Delicatessen, this time from the direction of number one. And this time she looked like a different person. Sure, this time she wasn’t struggling with the dogs, and the day was not bitterly cold as it was on the first occasion that these two had encountered one another, but the way she looked, the way she bore herself, all lead Meadow to believe that this young woman had been through her hell; that she had since then and finally felt the wind in her face, and that it had blown her better fortune.

The two of them had been together since their first meeting; they had spent the day by the coast on the day of the picnic and had exchanged a few words then, but for Victoria, this meeting would be of some significance. Her memories of her breakdown were confused and incomplete, and yet she had remembered Meadow, in the end; the woman who lived on a bus. She who more than anybody had put her own life into perspective; Victoria had everything that anyone could wish for from a material point of view, and yet it seemed to her at that time that her life was so pointless, empty and devoid of meaning. And this woman who would take such care with what little money she needed had everything which Victoria lacked. It was in part the pain of this knowledge which had taken her to the darkest places in her soul; a place from which she could find no way back. Only the love of the people amongst whom she would now live had brought her to a place from where she could feel her life again, and feel the joy of walking across a village Green on a summers’ day.

‘Hi’ said Meadow as Victoria walked through the open door.

‘Hi’ said Victoria.

‘I suppose I should say something like ‘welcome to our village’’.

The two women smiled at each other; it was a smile of understanding, a smile which needed no words to explain it. Sometimes words are best left unspoken.

‘Anyway, what can I do for you this morning?’

‘Actually I need bread’ said Victoria.

‘Bread we can do,’ Said Meadow ‘whole-meal, granary or white?’

‘Do you know I’m not sure… .’ Said Victoria ‘you’d better give me one of each, I suppose.’

Meadow wrapped three loaves in paper.

‘You must think me rather stupid.’ Said Victoria

‘What? No, not at all, why would I?’

‘Every time I come here I seem to make rather a hash of things.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Meadow ‘setting up home with somebody for the first time; one often forgets or overlooks the simple things. It’s the sign of an intelligent mind, at least that’s what Keith tells me. He tells me that nearly every time he forgets or overlooks something, which is fairly often; sometimes I almost believe him.’

The two women smiled again.

‘I’ve yet to really meet Keith’ said Victoria ‘I would love to spend time with him; with you both, sometime; I’ve heard people speak very highly of him.’

‘Well don’t let him hear you say that’ said Meadow ‘I’ll never hear the last of it.’

‘And of course I owe him so much, in the same way that I owe most of the people here.’

‘You owe him nothing’ said Meadow ‘Keith did what he did because… well because he’s Keith. I’ve given up trying to understand him.’

‘I think you understand him perfectly.’ Said Victoria

‘Well anyway it’s always open-season at the bus; why don’t the two of you call over and see us when you’re settled in? We would both love that; so would the children.’

‘Yes, the children… .’ Said Victoria ‘we’ll be sure to do that; come over, I mean.’

‘Good’ said Meadow ‘You’ll always be welcome. Anything else I can get you?’

‘Um, no, I don’t believe so, for now thanks. I’m sure we’ll need other things over the next couple of days, once we get ourselves organized, but for now we just need bread, I think.’

‘Well then’ said Meadow as she handed Victoria her change. ‘I’ll see you again soon, and you know; good luck with everything.’

‘Thank you.’ Said Victoria

She smiled once more as she took her loaves and made her way back to her new home. Meadow watched as she crossed the village Green, then she leaned on the counter and waited for the next customer.

‘Sometimes all of us just need bread.’ She said to herself.

Following their reunion in the ruined summerhouse which ended their ten-year forced estrangement, Victoria and Rebecca had met secretly each day for the next three days. Each day they would bring cigarettes, food and a thermos of strong coffee, and each would ply the other with questions regarding each other’s lives since they had been so suddenly and unexpectedly torn apart when they were still at school, and their love for each other had been young and largely unspoken. After all, what did they know at the age of seventeen? In all of the confusion of youth they knew with simple clarity that they loved each other, but what did that mean? They went about their daily lives; they studied, they took examinations, they read magazines, they enjoyed the attention of young men, they had boring weekends at home with their parents, they went to parties and danced and flirted, they made love, they fought and had rows, but they had no sense of a longer-term. They were in a sense the back-drop to each other’s lives; a place to come to when they were having bad days, or good days. Sometimes they did not want to see each other, and would be estranged for days or even weeks; they were each repulsive to the other, and they would reject their feelings and throw them to the four winds. After all, this was not what other people did, this was not how it was supposed to be; this was not what happened in the stories which they read in the magazines. Then at other times they would love and hate each other with roughly equal passion; out of sheer spite they would spend nights in the company or the beds of others, but always when they met again whether by accident or design, the anger and the passion would be stronger than before.

And they would have their gentle days, when they would laugh and take a boat out on the water, or simply sit for hours, hardly speaking, discussing fashion or the deeper things of life. They assumed with youthful simplicity that they would always be there for each other, whatever else would happen in their lives; whatever always was to be, and no matter how often or with how much venom or determination they would pretend that their love did not exist. And so it was something unspoken, for what need had they of words? Indeed how can anything this shallow and yet this deep be spoken of? There were no words, it was like breathing the air; it just was.

And then the letter fell like a bombshell onto the floor of the Manor House and into the life of the young Victoria. Suddenly and without warning the back-drop was gone, there was no longer anywhere to go, anybody to hate or to love, and Victoria felt for the first time in her life how it was to be utterly alone. At first the feeling had been superficial, in a way; her love would come back to her, somehow. Gradually however the realization dawned on the horizon of her life that perhaps this really was the end, and the feeling of loss went deeper, to a place from which she could not recall it or give it solace. She had made enquiries as best she could; she had spoken to her mother and father who refused to discuss the matter, whatever may have transpired between them and Rebecca’s parents. And so what else could she do? She continued her education, she went to university, she worked in the gallery, and slowly but inexorably the blackness began and would follow her; the dark moods and the hollow emptiness would creep up on her however much and however else she tried to fill her life. They were always just behind her, waiting.

And so they sat for three days, in secret, just as their meetings had often been before. Only now they were older, and wiser, perhaps, and they could and would declare their love to the world, when the time was right. All that they needed to do was to peel off the years of neglect, to let wetness of their tears wash the dust away. Where had Rebecca been? What had been her life? How had she lived alone for so long? There were so many questions, and each answer begged new questions, and needed time to absorb before the next shock came. There were things, many things, of which Rebecca could not speak; she had sworn an oath, after all. Not to the people from the temple; not to those people; those oaths she would break, but to the others; to those whom she owed so much and yet had also betrayed, in a way. And of the people who had taken her in and become her torment she could not speak either, perhaps for fear that the howling beast of her hatred would become unchained and beyond her power to control or keep silent. She would tell her beloved Victoria as much as she could, or as much as she dare, but no more; even their love was not ready to face the full, naked and brutal truth.

And so Victoria’s intended visit to the village, to say thank you to everybody who had shown her such kindness during her illness, would be further delayed by the more pressing need to discover on what terms she would face the world once again. Where was their love now? What form would it take, and how would it find expression? What was to be their future? If they were to face it together then they needed first to understand; to be one again, and that would take time, and courage.

And there were questions relating to parts of the saga which had been Rebecca’s recent life that even she could not answer. She could not say how or why she had been rescued in the end; that would have to be discovered elsewhere, and it became clear to Victoria that the only person who could provide answers to these questions would be Emily Cleves, who lived on the village Green. Victoria had met her, of course, during her visits to the hospital when she had been ill, but Emily had then just been another visitor; just one important person among other important people. Only slowly did she begin to see the significance of Emily’s role in the re-making of her life. She would have to meet with her.

Lady Tillington became aware during these days that Victoria was spending longer periods away from the Manor House during the day. She was at pains not to press her daughter; to appear to be overly intrusive or protective, she knew well enough where that would lead. Any hint of polite enquiry as to her whereabouts met with the predicted response, and she knew that she was walking on thin ice. And yet she knew her daughter well enough to know that something was happening; that she was meeting with someone. Rebecca had not come into her thoughts for many years, not since soon after the last time that they had met with her parents, and so she had no reason to suspect that she had come back; the idea would not have even occurred to her. Rebecca had been a part of her daughters’ youth, a part of her growing-up; an unfortunate mistake which could be overlooked and consigned to history. But something was going on, and Victoria was so recently ill, and she worried for her. The first time that Victoria announced that she was going out in the evening, her mother was therefore less than happy, but told herself not to be stupid; her daughter was better, after all. She would shortly be returning to work, and she seemed happier now than she had seen her for the longest time. She didn’t take the car; she must be walking somewhere. Whomever she was meeting must be coming to her.

In fact Victoria was going out alone. She walked by the roads, by torchlight, into the village, and sat on the bench on the village Green where she had sat once before. She smoked cigarettes and looked around at the glow from the front windows of the ancient houses, and listened to the sounds of laughter from the village pub. She looked at the death house, which was dark now, and empty. She still knew little of the inhabitants of this small community which was to hold such significance for her. She saw what must be Daphne’s house, the largest of the houses, and she knew that Emily lived at number seven. Rebecca had stayed there for two nights after her rescue and before she had disappeared once again. To this day Victoria did not know where her lover was sleeping, and she would not tell her. That much had changed about Rebecca; she had become secretive and guarded. But that was not the business of the evening. She counted the houses around from number one, inhaled and exhaled deeply, put out her cigarette and walked across the darkness of the village Green.

The day that Rebecca had collected Lady from Percival’s cottage and announced that she had things to do and would be leaving, Will and Emily breathed a collective sigh of relief. On the day following their arrival home when Rebecca had still been unconscious, she had eaten and slept a good deal, and obtained detailed answers to all of the many questions that she had, particularly regarding her rescue. On the second morning she announced herself to be feeling much better, and indeed seemed remarkably well and none the worst for her ordeal. She thanked Will and Emily once again, said that they would be seeing her soon, and left.

‘I wonder what she has to do.’ Emily had said.

‘No idea,’ said Will, ‘but let her go do it somewhere else.’

They both liked Rebecca despite her rather guarded demeanor and apparently devious behaviour, and despite the circumstances of their first meeting with her, and they would have given her sanctuary for longer had she asked, but her departure marked the end of their responsibility towards her; they had bought her back, she was fine, and would from that moment on be her own woman once again. Whatever matters she had to attend to were strictly and officially her business, and Will and Emily could begin to once more get on with their own lives.

Rebecca called to see Percival, which was their first meeting with them both conscious since she had made her clandestine nocturnal visit to the cottage before the latest dramas had unfolded, and before she had breathed in the chloroform.

‘Hello again.’ she had said as Percival answered his side door to her once more.

‘Well hello; you look much improved since the last time I saw you.’

They smiled at each other, he let her in and Lady was exceeding glad to see her mistress.

‘I suppose I owe you a huge ‘thank you’’. She said

‘Yeah, I guess you do’ Said Percival ‘but let’s not make too much of it, I was never one for overdoing the formalities.’

‘No, don’t suppose you were.’ She smiled again.

‘So; what now . . . ?’

‘What now indeed…’ Said Rebecca ‘let’s just say I have unfinished business to attend to, shall we?’

‘Yes, let’s just say that. You want some coffee?’

‘No, thanks; I’ll save that for next time, if I hang around I’ll probably start saying thank you again.’

‘Well then, until the next time.’

‘Until the next time’

She took Lady, although it would be more accurate to say that Lady was out of the door before Rebecca had turned to leave.

‘And look after that dog of yours,’ said Percival ‘were it not for her we would never have found you in time.’

‘I look after her; she looks after me; that’s the deal.’

‘Well it’s a good deal.’ Said Percival

They smiled once more and Rebecca was gone. Percival closed the door behind her, lit a cigarette and wondered when the next time might be. He made a conscious decision not to dwell for too long on what her unfinished business might be; had he known, he would have tried to stop her, to persuade her along a very different path, but he did not have that foreknowledge, even in his imagination.

When the door knocker sounded one evening a few days later, Will and Emily exchanged glances; it wouldn’t be her back, it was probably Percival or a friend arriving unannounced. Nevertheless glances were exchanged. The true identity of the caller would not have occurred to either of them; Will answered the door, and there stood Victoria Tillington.

Will had not in fact met Victoria at this time, and so the woman standing at the door was a stranger to him, but he took a wild guess as to the caller’s identity. Aside from the physical description that Emily had given, her clothes and the way that she bore herself were instantly indicative of her standing in human society. Something was bred into such people that they could not disguise, even if they were aware of it, and even if they wished so to do.

‘Hi’ she said ‘I’m so sorry to call unannounced, but I was wondering whether Emily was in? My name is Victoria; Victoria Tillington, and you must be Will?’ Victoria extended her hand.

‘Err, yeah, sure, pleased to meet you; come in.’

They shook hands briefly by way of formality and Victoria entered number seven, The Green, for the first time.

‘Hello Emily’ said Victoria ‘I’m really sorry to turn up like this, if it’s not a convenient time I can call back . . .’

‘Um, no; no not at all’ said Emily ‘we were just… we weren’t doing anything actually. Come in; sit down. You want a drink of anything? We’ve got beer, and some wine, I think, although it’s not very good, or we’ve got some Tequila that needs finishing off.’

‘Nothing thanks; well perhaps some tea would be nice.’ In fact the doctor had advised Victoria to avoid alcohol for the time being, and in any case she had never been much of a drinker, except at parties or social occasions, and this was neither of those.

‘I’ll put the pan on’ said Will ‘here; let me take your jacket.’

Victoria sat in the arm chair; Emily was on the settee, wearing her pajamas. This was not the attire that she would have chosen for this meeting, which she had known would have to happen sooner or later; in fact they more consisted of very short pajama bottoms and a low cut strappy kind of lacey top which Will and Emily had bought together the previous weekend. (‘I can’t wear those, there’s nothing to them’ ‘Sure you can, nobody’s going to see you in them except me, and you probably won’t have them on for long anyway’). She was thus more dressed for sex than for serious conversation, but she would just have to make the best of it. Will had to smile to himself as he made tea and prepared large Tequilas for himself and Emily; he figured she would need it. He considered fetching her a dressing-gown, but thought this might just draw attention to the matter of her apparel. Anyway when it came to the politics of women’s clothing he was in way over his head. Whatever he did would probably be wrong, so better to do nothing.

‘The thing is’ Said Victoria ‘So much has happened lately, and, you know, I hear reports of events which have taken place, but nothing’s really clear, to be honest, so I was wondering whether you might be able to answer some questions for me.’

‘Sure; happy to.’ Said Emily ‘What exactly did you want to know?’

‘Well I’m not exactly sure; that’s the problem. As I understand things, you and Will were solely responsible for finding Rebecca, would that be correct?’

‘Well yes, actually’ said Emily ‘more or less anyway.’

‘I see.’ Said Victoria ‘And then subsequently you, as it were, rescued her after her abduction?’

‘True, also’ said Emily ‘although we had some help that time; I didn’t actually do much rescuing, I was more the navigator, and Will stayed behind as a kind of fall-back position.’

‘So who instigated the rescue?’

‘Well, yes, that was me.’ said Emily

So it was as Rebecca had told her, and as she had supposed and suspected. This young girl was responsible for everything. Victoria was by now quite convinced in her own mind that Rebecca had somehow brought her back to her life, and without Emily there would have been no Rebecca. And even then, when she was able to make the final steps to her recovery by herself, Rebecca would have been lost to her forever.

‘So how… I mean . . .’

It took somewhere in excess of two hours and three cups of tea, or in the case of Emily and Will, several shots of Tequila. Emily and Will took Victoria through the entire adventure, or at least the relevant points thereof, up until the day that they arrived back in this very house with the prone, still unconscious body of Rebecca. To say that information overload had occurred would be to understate the case by some degree. When the final pieces of the mystery had been laid out before Victoria she was silent for a few moments. Emily and Will exchanged looks.

‘Do you know what?’ she said finally ‘I think I would like that drink now.’

Will brought a third glass, filled it generously and handed it to their visitor, who took a large mouthful.

‘I will never be able to repay you, of course.’

‘Well then don’t bother to try.’ Said Emily

‘What I still don’t understand is why; why would you do all of that for me; for us?’

And here we come to the part which Emily had omitted from her account; the killing of Vincent which had been a prime motivating factor in their attempts to discover the whereabouts of Rebecca, and bring her back if they could. And then a determination not to be defeated; that it should all have been worthwhile.

‘Well, you know’ said Emily ‘sometimes it’s good for the soul to help other people.’ She then laughed at the crassness of her remark, but she couldn’t do any better at the time.

‘Well then your soul must be in good shape.’ Said Victoria ‘It was dangerous, what you did, was it not? Did you not consider that?’

‘Well yes it was I suppose, and no we didn’t; not really. We didn’t know, of course, whether we stood a cat in hell’s chance of finding her either time, or what we would find with her if we did find her. Things just worked out, I suppose.’

‘Indeed they did…’ said Victoria, thoughtfully. ‘And of course I also owe a great debt of gratitude to the others; to Percival, Ron and Keith. I really don’t know what to do with that . . .’

‘Then again I suggest you do nothing; Percival will just be embarrassed and laugh it off, Ron will say ‘buy us a beer sometime’ and Keith will probably have forgotten all about it by now. It really isn’t anything you need to worry about, you just concentrate on getting better; not that you’re not better already, I mean… Sorry; me and words, you know, we never were very good together.’

‘I think you do very well.’ Said Victoria ‘Anyway I’ve taken up quite enough of your time, oh Christ that sounds somewhat inadequate too, doesn’t it, after all you two have done. We’re not doing very well are we?’

They laughed then, a laugh of friendship and understanding. Victoria got up to leave, Will fetched her jacket and they said goodbye. The interview was apparently over, at least for now.

‘I’m sorry’ Said Victoria ‘It’s just so much to take in, but you know if there’s ever anything I can do for you, anything at all, you only have to ask.’

‘Well then, let’s see how things go, shall we?’ Said Emily

After Victoria had gone, Will and Emily poured out the last of the Tequila.

‘Well that was bloody embarrassing.’ said Emily.

‘In what sense?’ said Will.

‘In the sense that I was sitting here half-naked during a very important conversation; I didn’t know where to put myself half the time. You might have got me a dressing gown or something.’

‘Yeah, I thought about that.’

‘Well thanks for the thought. Anyway dodgy dress-code aside I think it went rather well, don’t you?’

‘She owes you one, big time.’

‘Will Tucker, how can you think in such a mercenary way?’

‘Yeah, like the thought has never entered your head, right?’

‘What must you think of me; mind you, you… . What are you looking at?’

‘What? Oh nothing, I was just looking at the logo on your pajama top.’

‘There isn’t any logo on my pajama top.’

‘Funny that’s just what I was thinking; there isn’t any logo on your pajama top.’

‘Unhand me with your eyes, sir. Christ I’m tense, if you don’t make love to me in the next ten minutes I’ll probably have to do it myself.’

‘Well then’ said Will ‘let me save you the trouble.’

As she walked back across the village Green, a hundred answers to burning questions fought for ascendency in Victoria’s mind. She believed that she now at last had as complete a picture as she was likely to get of events surrounding her eventual reunion with Rebecca. Making sense of it all would take a little longer. The way that Rebecca had lived her life