Chapter 22

The Queen Is Wearing A Yellow Hat

 

 

Cass stood in the lobby of the Old Fishermen’s Hall that evening, waiting for Charles. She had learnt quite a lot about the long, low stone building as she stood there studying the blue plaque that explained the history of the old fishermen’s shelter on the harbour-side. It was where the elderly fishermen used to gather and watch the boats come and go as they worked on little jobs, whittling and fixing. There was a sepia photograph on the wall next to the plaque of a group of old fishermen in the early 1920s, whittling and fixing away, and in the middle of the bearded group was a man who could have been Graham, looking right at home in the midst of his ancestors. It was cold and draughty and Cass had already been waiting for nearly quarter of an hour.

 ‘Evening, Vicar!’ a voice behind her – Jack Thorburn, with a crate of beer bottles. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I said I’d come and help set up, but I can’t get in. I’ve been knocking for a while, but the door’s locked,’ and she took the handle and gave the door a rattle to prove her point.

‘Oh, you don’t do it like that!’ Jack said, moving her out of the way. ‘Here, there’s a knack to it.’

He gave the door handle a twist in the wrong direction, at which point the door swung open with no trouble. ‘Just need to know how to do it, that’s all!’ he said with a grin. It summed up her experience of Rawscar so far. There was a knack to handling things in this village, and she just didn’t know how to do it.

She followed him into the Fishermen’s Hall, which wasn’t much changed since the building had been converted to a village hall in the 1960s, and the Old Fishermen’s Shelter was a symphony in Formica with an overwhelming scent of bad drains and cheap cleaning products. Above the staircase hung a fading photograph of a young Queen Elizabeth with a preposterous yellow hat on her head, which must have been there since the building was opened.

She went up the stairs to the main room with the windows overlooking the harbour mouth; the long, low hall had a folding stage at one end with an upright piano already in place beside it. The ceiling was hung with red and gold and green metallic foil garlands, which looked as if they had been used every year since the hall was built; they spun and swung in the draught from the doorway as she opened it. Charles was muttering angrily; something about how the caretaker should already have done this job.

‘Can I help?’ she offered when Charles noticed her.

‘I don’t think so, Vicar.’ He was sounding at his most condescending tonight. ‘We know how to do this, you wouldn’t understand.’

They were unstacking the red plastic chairs and putting them in neat rows. What was there not to understand? But she wasn’t going to make a scene. She took a deep breath and looked around to see if there was anything else she could help with when she noticed with a stab of adrenaline that Hal’s battered old guitar case was there, propped up against the wall behind the stage. She had to face him sooner or later; living in the same small village they were bound to bump into each other sometime. She had to face him and she had to apologise, to start trying to put things right, calmly and professionally. She sighed again and forced herself to think of something else. The concert. What could she do to help? Her eye lighted on a box of programmes by the door.

‘Should I sell programmes for you, Charles? I could do that?’ she asked in what she thought was her most helpful manner. Charles looked at her askance.

‘Mrs. Randall always sells the programmes!’ he proclaimed with a horrified tone, as if she had suggested that they should sell the Fishermen’s Hall to a Russian oligarch.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Cass asked.

‘No, I think not,’ he replied. ‘You’ve left it a bit late, really.’

He had been chilly before, but since she had moved in with Anna, Charles’ demeanour to her whenever she saw him at church services had been practically arctic; he avoided the vestry altogether and he had stopped calling into the church in the afternoons for his daily complaining session. Perhaps she should have a word with him, try and improve the situation between them; she didn’t want to be seen as taking anyone’s side in an argument that she didn’t understand. But before she had a chance to say anything, the sound of Charles’ phone cut across the sound of scraping chairs, which was a minor miracle in itself as getting a signal down in Old Rawscar was almost impossible. Charles answered, his voice suddenly honey-sweet:

‘Ah, Michelle my dear! We are so looking forward to seeing your Marilyn Monroe tonight. Have you arrived? I shall come up to the main car park myself to collect you …’ there was a pause as Charles listened hard to a voice at the other end of the phone. Cass didn’t think that a Marilyn Monroe tribute act was typically Victorian – but perhaps Marilyn had other qualities! ‘… I’m sorry, where?’ Charles continued. ‘London? But I don’t understand, how are you going to get here in time?’

The helpers began to look at one another.

‘You can’t get here at all?’ Charles said, his voice becoming less-and-less honey and more-and-more vinegar. ‘Well, what do you expect us to do?’

Another long pause, and the distant whisper of the voice on the other end of the line.

‘Well, frankly, Miss Lester, I find your attitude most disappointingly unprofessional. While I understand this is an important opportunity for you, ours was the prior commitment. You could at least have let us know. You can rest assured that Marilyn Monroe will NOT be invited to Rawscar events in the future!’

He turned off his phone with some vindictiveness. If there had been anywhere handy to slam it down, he would probably have slammed it with some force. He turned to Graham, who was one of the chair-moving team.

‘Graham, go and get Jack from the bar downstairs, please; he’s setting it up for the interval. Our Marilyn Monroe, as it would seem, has been offered a job on the television and finds herself unable to attend our concert tonight. Hal! Where is Hal?’

Hal appeared from a door at the side of the hall, guitar in hand. Cass looked out of the window over at the harbour lights.

‘Ah, Hal, there you are,’ said Charles. ‘I shall need you to lengthen your performance. Two more songs from you should be sufficient. We can ask the brass band to lengthen their set, and maybe the Rawscar Fishermen’s Choir could add another couple of carols too. I don’t think we can ask the magician to do any more; he’ll have all his tricks already arranged. So it’s down to you, the band and the choir to fill in for our missing Marilyn impersonator. Ah, Jack. There you are. Be a good man and go over to the pub and tell the band that they’ll need to extend their set?’

Jack looked him up and down.

‘Well now, Charlie, the band have been in the pub most of the afternoon, since they played on the quayside for the Christmas market. I saw them just before I come over here and I don’t think they’ll be in a fit state to extend anything this evening.’

‘Well, they’ll have to. We have no other option,’ Charles snapped.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Jack said slowly, looking at Cass who instantly knew what Jack’s idea was going to be. ‘Why not ask the vicar here? She’s got a fine pair of -’ Oh Lord, what was he going to say? ‘- lungs on her.’

‘I don’t think …’ Cass began to decline the suggestion

‘I hardly think the vicar could …’ Charles said, speaking over the top of her, and Hal got to his feet, speaking over both of them.

‘Maybe she doesn’t want …’ Hal began, but Jack cut them all short.

‘Go on Vicar. You could do some songs for us; you’ve got a fine old voice there. You want to be part of this village? Then you earn it. Sing for us, Vicar!’

Doubt shot through Cass.

‘I haven’t practised! I don’t have a set list or an accompanist and I’m not dressed for a performance.’ How many more reasons could she find?

‘Our Hal’ll accompany you. You’ve got a couple of hours, we’ll put you on in the second half, isn’t that enough?’ Jack said.

‘I couldn’t ask Hal,’ she said awkwardly, not looking in Hal’s direction - speaking as if he wasn’t there being easier than turning towards him right now.

‘You’re not asking, Dad is,’ he pointed out, walking across the echoing floor of the hall to stand beside her, carrying his guitar in his hand. ‘And I don’t mind.’

What did that mean? That he wouldn’t do it if she had asked?

‘Go on, Vicar. You show us what you’ve got!’ Jack said with a grin. The man was irrepressible and it was easier to focus on him than on the unnerving presence of his son standing close beside her.

‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Jack,’ Cass turned to him, a flicker of irritation in her eyes, ‘I’ll be part of the village concert if you’re part of my Victorian evensong in church tomorrow night. You promise to come to the church, and I’ll sing whatever you want tonight.’

She thought that would put an end to the matter. She had heard him proclaim his antipathy to the church on so many occasions now that she knew he would never agree to that.

He huffed. ‘You’ll not get me in any church until you have to carry me into one in a box.’

‘Mam would probably like to go,’ Hal suggested.

‘Your Mam would probably like to do a lot of things; she doesn’t have to have me with her to do them. I’m too busy, and me and God don’t see eye to eye on a great deal of things,’ he muttered.

‘I don’t think you have to commit your life to Christ, Dad, just go and join in the singing, that’s all!’ Jack paused for a moment, and Cass realised he was seriously considering it – so she couldn’t back out now.

‘Is it a deal then?’ Cass said to Jack. ‘I’ll give you a twenty-minute set tonight, and you will come to church tomorrow night.’

‘But you’ll not save my soul, Vicar. Don’t even try it. I don’t believe in God, and neither you or anyone else is going to make me.’

If only he knew the state of Cass’s soul right now, the confusion and emptiness in her heart. If only he knew that right now they were equals in their lack of faith.

‘Right. Vicar, let’s go and sort out your set, then you can go home and get changed and we’ll have a quick run through,’ Hal suggested with cool efficiency as they walked down the stairs together. It felt strange, to say the least. She knew she couldn’t simply carry on as if nothing had happened last weekend.

‘Hal, are you sure this is OK? I didn’t want to ask you …’

‘It’s OK or I would have said no. And you didn’t ask, Dad did.’ He held the bar door open for her and they went to sit down at a table in the corner, keeping a certain distance between them.

‘I don’t blame you for being angry with me after the other night,’ she could hardly bring herself to say it. ‘I shouldn’t have behaved like that. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me.’ Oh no, now she was making it sound worse than ever. ‘I mean, not that you’re not an attractive man, because you are, of course you are, I don’t mean that I wasn’t attracted to you …’ Oh hell, what was she saying now? She needed to stop herself talking. She felt like an awkward schoolgirl! ‘I mean, I shouldn’t have … I should never have …’

She couldn’t quite make out his expression. It seemed to be a mixture of pity and ... amusement? Just for a moment, she was sure she saw a flash of amusement.

‘It’s fine. We all make mistakes. But I don’t think we should talk about it here.’

She felt wretched, absolutely wretched.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cass said.

‘Look, I think we should forget all about it. We were both drunk, we should both have known better. Let’s pretend it never happened. We need to sort out this concert - what do you want to open with?’