Chapter 24

Jack Thorburn Attends Church

 

 

Anna was waiting up for her back at the cottage, Cass could see the light of the downstairs window shining down the alley and Anna unlocked and opened the door for her as she came up the path.

‘Did you have a good -’ Anna began to ask her, and from the redness of her eyes Cass suspected that she had been crying, but before she had a chance to ask, suddenly Anna froze, looking down the alleyway over Cass’s shoulder.

‘Cass, can you see that?’ she hissed. Cass turned and saw clearly what Anna was looking at. A figure behind them in the alley, a woman in a shawl standing on the corner where Windrush Cottage jutted out, her back to them in the darkness, looking silently out to sea. She hadn’t been there seconds ago when Cass had passed Windrush Cottage on the way up the alley.

In her hurry to get Cass into the house, Anna dropped the door key she had been holding and it fell onto the doorstep with a loud ringing noise. Anna knelt and scrabbled on the doorstep, hands shaking trying to pick it up again from the icy stone.

‘Here, let me!’ Cass joined her, feeling around on the ground, trying not to look behind her, trying not to see, hoping that the shawled figure was not moving, not gliding closer and every moment expecting to feel an unearthly chill on the back of her neck.

‘Got it!’ Anna gasped, pulling Cass inside as she forced the key back into the lock, slammed the door and turned the key with a scrape. For a moment, they looked at each other in silence.

‘You saw that. You saw it, didn’t you? You saw her?’ Anna’s eyes were huge as Cass switched on every light switch that she could find, illuminating the whole house so that there were no shadowy corners left. She could only nod.

‘She’s getting closer, Cass, the Maiden’s getting closer. It’s me she wants. She wants to take me with her.’ She spoke intently and quietly, with a grim certainty.

‘You mustn’t think like that. It’s just a shadow, it’s not here for anything or anyone, it’s just a shadow, that’s all.’ Cass wasn’t sure who she was trying hardest to convince, herself or Anna.

‘Cass, don’t let her in. I don’t want to go with her, don’t let her get in!’ Anna had grabbed onto her like a scared child and Cass took Anna’s hands in hers, trying to calm her down. It wouldn’t help if Anna saw that she was unnerved too. She risked a quick glance out of the window; but it was difficult to see into the darkness outside with all the lights on inside the room.  She couldn’t see if the figure was still there. Perhaps she should go out and check - but she didn’t think she wanted to go out right now. It was too cold, that’s all. Not because of the ghostly figure, just because of the cold and the dark.

‘She’s not going to get in. I won’t let her. Maybe there was nothing there at all. We imagined it. That’s all. A trick of the light. I bet there’s nothing there now.’

‘We didn’t imagine it. You saw her too; you know you did.’

Anna was shaking and she sat down on the sofa, letting go of Cass’s hands.

‘Then maybe it’s me she’s come for. Perhaps it’s me, not you, that she wants.’

Cass wanted to make Anna see things more logically, perhaps if she made Anna see what a ludicrous idea THAT was she would calm down. She sat beside her.

‘Then do you hear the voice at night?’ Anna asked, low and intense.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘The voice at night. The voice from under the sea. Do you hear it?’

‘You mean in your dream?’

‘It’s not a dream, that voice. Do you hear it?’

‘Do you?’ Cass was growing increasingly concerned about Anna. ‘Do you hear a voice?’

‘More and more. I hear her every night. She wants me to go.’

Cass took a deep breath. ‘Anna, I’m worried about you. I think you need to talk to someone. A doctor.’

‘No! No, I don’t, Cass, I’m fine!’

No, you’re not, Cass thought, you’ve just told me you hear voices from under the sea. That’s not fine at all. And you hardly eat anything at all, that’s not fine either.

‘It wouldn’t hurt to make sure.’ She had her vicar’s voice of reassurance turned up to eleven.

‘I need to get away from here, that’s all. I should never have come back.’

‘Why did you really come back?’

‘Because being away didn’t help. I thought if I was somewhere else that I could let it all go, move on, forget everything, start again. But it’s not like that, I can’t move on, I can’t forget, I can’t let it go so I ended up back here, chasing shadows that won’t let me rest. I need to get rid of them, face them and get rid of them, not run away from them. But now … now I see Rob around every corner. Hal understands that, he’s the only one who understands what it's like, how guilty I feel, how I let him down …’

‘Oh, believe me Anna, he’s not the only one. I promise you, he’s not the only one who understands guilt.’

 

Cass didn’t stop worrying all night and she slept lightly, half an ear out to listen for her housemate stirring with more nightmares and she barely slept at all. She didn’t hear anything from Anna in the night, and when she dragged herself out of bed early the next morning ready for eight o’clock service, she already felt like she had done half a day’s work. Eight o’clock service at the little old church of St. Stephen, then home for a quick breakfast before she had to be up at St. Peter’s in New Rawscar for ten o’clock communion, then eleven thirty Morning Prayer at Langbarnby, the last Sunday before Christmas. She was starting to get used to leading the services without believing a word of what she was saying; her heart must be hardening, she told herself. Anna, who had been asleep when she left, was out at the Christmas market by the time she got back, she was busy and looked better than Cass expected, there was even a bowl in the sink, implying that Anna had had some breakfast today, so she relaxed and turned her mind to other things.

It was her candlelit evensong at St. Stephen’s tonight and she had to make sure that everything was ready; the flower guild would have been at work to decorate for the service so she called in at the little church on the way back down the hill. It was dim inside; even at noon the light was not strong enough at this time of the year to illuminate the church properly without candles. The church had a different scent today; beeswax polish, candle smoke and greenery overlaid the damp and dust of the centuries.

Cass stared round her in growing disbelief at what the flower guild had done. She couldn’t fault them for effort - every single inch overflowed with foliage, the green boughs overflowing in messy abundance. It looked like the result of an explosion in a forest. It wasn’t going to go down well with most of her congregation who liked their religion from books, their music to be suitably devout and their flowers most definitely in vases. And Charles, on health and safety duty, was going to have a field day; nearly every candle was dangerously close to some combustible sprig of greenery.

There were only a few hours left before the service, and there was only one thing she could think of to do, one person who could help her put it right. Twenty minutes later she was knocking on Graham and June’s front door.

 

It was amazing how quickly and deftly June had the church organised. She had filled a basket with scissors, secateurs, ribbons, florists’ wire, oasis and string – of course, she knew exactly where to find all these supplies in her nicely ordered utility room. She had no sooner got through the church door than she had begun to organise the large pile of holly and evergreens that appeared to have been randomly dumped in front of the altar from a small wheelbarrow. She had trimmed and shaped and tied it with red ribbon into a rustic arrangement, perfectly in keeping with the ancient church. Next the windowsills and shelves were quickly tamed so that the greenery surrounded the candles rather than the candles being covered with branches. The little old harmonium re-appeared from the shrubbery that had been placed on top of it, stopping the lid from being opened or the pedals from being used, and June had Cass and Graham making little bunches of the branches that she had trimmed away, tied with red-and-gold ribbon, to hang on the end of the pews. They worked companionably together in the dim light for a couple of hours, the time sped by and at the end of it, the church looked like something out of a Christmas fairy-tale rather than a woodland horror story.

‘June, you’re a genius. She’s a genius, your wife!’ Cass said to Graham happily. It was perfect.

Above them all, the old ship’s wheel chandelier hung, bedecked with all the choicest branches that June could find – the best bits of the holly with gleaming red berries, old fashioned scented herbs – rosemary, lavender and bay leaves – and right in the middle, a generous bunch of mistletoe entwined with a ribbon.

‘She is that,’ Graham smiled proudly at her, and June smiled back at him. He glanced up, saw the bunch of mistletoe above them, and, with a grin, he kissed his wife.

‘You old softy!’ she grinned back at him. ‘You can’t do things like that in church!’

‘I don’t see why not,’ Cass said. ‘I think Jesus would be all in favour of it, myself.’

‘Come on Junie; let’s get ourselves home. Got to get our dinner before we’re back here for the service!’

Cass had never heard Graham call his wife “Junie” before, and she had never seen that soft little smile on his face either.

‘Would you like to come to the service, June? It would be lovely if you could,’ Cass said as they turned to leave.

‘Oh no, Vicar, I don’t believe in any of that,’ June said quickly. ‘I wouldn’t fit in.’

‘Lots of people come to church at Christmas who don’t believe,’ Cass said, wondering for a minute if any of them would be able to tell that she was one of the non-believers right now. ‘There are plenty who just come for the carols, and lots of people will want to talk to you about the flowers, I’m sure.’ She crossed her fingers and hoped that the ladies of the flower guild weren’t going to make a fuss about June’s re-arrangement of their work.

‘You know, I think I will. It looks so pretty, doesn’t it? I’ll come and see what they think. Look, Vicar, if you ever need a hand with flowers like this again … Graham and I would love to help, wouldn’t we, Graham?’

‘Oh ay, we’ll help!’

And they left the church, hand in hand, like a pair of newly-weds. Cass felt a little glow of satisfaction. Whether or not her advice to Graham had had anything to do with it she didn’t know, but something had brought them closer together and she was happy to see it. If only she could do the same for Anna and her father. Just for a moment, she let herself imagine what it would be like if Hal looked at her like Graham had just looked at June, if Hal took her hand and lead her out of the church, taking her home. She indulged herself for just a moment in a fantasy about the man she couldn’t and shouldn’t desire, as she turned to look one last time around the church before she locked the door.

In the half light, the maidens’ garlands hung like ghosts at the back of the church and Cass’s gaze was drawn straight to Polly Allinson’s and a chill went through her. The tiny curling paper shapes and faded ribbons looking wan and sad surrounded by the robust and flourishing bunches of holly. How lost she must have been to walk into the water with stones in her hands. How desperate without her Henry Thorburn. Now suddenly she found herself picturing Hal lost in the waves like Henry Thorburn before him, or like Rob and a cold fear constricted her throat. She didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to lose him, never to see him again, never to be able to speak to him again. Which is when the truth hit her like a storm wave. It wasn’t just lust she was encountering for the first time in her life, this was more than the heats of desire.

This cold, sharp pain was love.

 

 

‘Jack, Marian, how nice to see you both.’

Cass stood at the door of St. Stephen’s to say a formal farewell to each of her congregation, just as she did every Sunday morning when she held the weekly Communion service at the Parish Church of St. Peter in New Rawscar. It was rare to have this many people in the little old clifftop Church of St. Stephen, which had been packed for her candlelit service.

‘I’m glad we came,’ said Marian. ‘A long time since we came to church, isn’t it, Jack?’ she looked hopefully up at him.

‘Ay. Well.’ He looked away from them both.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Cass said, noting that Jack’s eyes were fixed on the ship’s wheel chandelier in the middle of the church. Perhaps his ancestors had steered the very whaling ship that the wheel had come from; maybe that’s what had caught his attention.

‘I liked them old words better than the new ones,’ Jack said thoughtfully. ‘Makes you think of all of them that have gone before you, doesn’t it?’

‘It does,’ Cass agreed.

‘And nice to see so many of the old village here. Not those bloody tourists and incomers. They’ve no bloody place here.’

‘Language Jack! You’re in a church! Anyway, if we had to make do without the tourists and whatnot, we wouldn’t have no pub at all!’ Marian, who only came up to his shoulder, was looking up at him in the flickering light of the candles, which guttered and smoked in the cold draughts that came in every time the old oak door opened.

‘Still. I’d rather have to make do without them. Keep things the way they were.’

At the front of the church, the organist was still playing away on the wheezy old harmonium, the footplates bumping and thumping more loudly than the tune, which was The Holly and the Ivy. At least it wasn’t Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

‘Now come on, let’s get home!’ Marian said. The resigned tone of voice with which she spoke implied that this wasn’t the first time she had heard her husband express those sentiments. ‘It’s been a nice bit of peace, coming up here.’

‘Maybe you’ll come again one day?’

‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Jack?’

Cass couldn’t quite catch Jack’s muttered reply, which was probably a good thing.