CHAPTER 7

No Rooms In Rawscar

 

 

Cass had got through the weekend somehow, without using any unauthorised coasters in June’s living room, and without Twiggy disgracing herself on the back-door mat again. Several vicars from neighbouring parishes had been over to offer their sympathy in various practical and not-so-practical ways. Stephen from the parish of Saddleton had brought her sympathy and a large bottle of wine, Paul from Sneatly-with-Snarlby had brought her sympathy and chocolate, and Sylvia from St. Mary’s Ormsborough had brought sympathy and a hamper of baked goods made by her Mothers’ Union. Gavin from St. John’s Ormsborough had brought a whole minibus full of eager parishioners on the way back from a day of prayer in Whitby, who leapt enthusiastically out of the minibus and offered to pray with her over the spot where the vicarage had once stood, but not one of them seemed to notice that Cass’s prayers went unheard by the Almighty. After that, she went back to June and Graham’s and drank the bottle of wine and ate the chocolate.

She had even managed the Sunday services, all three of them, without anybody seemingly noticing that God wasn’t speaking through her today. It did make her wonder how many of the congregation sitting in front of her were similarly empty. What about old Mrs. Pease, head bowed lips moving in prayer; was there anything except barren words coming from her mouth? Jim Carr who sang the words to the hymns so vigorously, did he mean what he sang or was it only the music that moved him?  And Charles Dawnay, eyes cast down in furious concentration, was his soul communing with God? Were any of them? Or was each one of them in their own little whirl of doubts and silence?

Now it was Monday morning, Cass was in the church office waiting for the parish administrator to arrive for a meeting when the phone rang.

‘What do you mean, Saddleton? I can’t live right the way over there, it’s more than twenty miles over the moors!’

Jean from the Diocesan Property Department had finally phoned her with some news. It wasn’t the best news that she had ever heard.

‘It’s just for a few months until we can find a replacement property to purchase closer to Rawscar,’ Jean said. She had a calm, cool voice, nothing seemed to bother her. Cass wondered if she was a close friend of Call-Me-Ken.

‘But it’s November! It’s going to be Advent Sunday in a couple of weeks. How can I possibly run a parish from twenty miles away over the moors – what if it snows? It does that you know, at Christmas up here, it snows up on the moors! I’ll be fighting my way through snowdrifts to get to morning service! It’s bad enough trying to get from Rawscar to Langbarnby when it’s frosty some days, and that’s only five miles away!’

‘It’s been a surprisingly mild winter so far, don’t you think? I’m sure you won’t have any problems.’

‘It hasn’t been that mild! No, Jean, I can’t do it. Saddleton is too far, it’s not possible.’

‘Then if you want to find some alternative accommodation in Rawscar or Langbarnby yourself, I’m sure your P.C.C. can help you find somewhere to rent if you ask them?’

But Cass didn’t want to have to ask them; she knew it would inevitably lead to fussing and arguments. She always managed to start Parochial Church Council meetings with talk of her grand aims for improving ministry to the elderly or missions to youth but they always descended into lengthy and argumentative discussions of trivialities. She didn’t want to ask the P.C.C. to help with her housing problems - but she did know just the person she did want to speak to about it …

 

A couple of hours later she was in the little office above the fish-and-chip shop from which Hal ran the holiday cottage business. Hal sat the other side of the desk, flicking through screens on his computer and checking something in a large book.

‘I’m sorry, Vicar,’ he said as he was going through a spreadsheet of bookings on the screen in front of him, ‘we’ve got plenty of scope for mid-weeks in December, and after Christmas, no problem. I could let you have one of our cottages from January the fourth right through until February half term, but the run up to Christmas is very busy, and Christmas and New Year are fully booked now. There was only Maidensbower that didn’t have a booking over Christmas, and even then I had to transfer a couple of weekend bookings to free it up.’

‘Oh. Well, never mind. I’ll try some of the other cottage firms,’ she said with a sinking heart.

‘Rawscar gets really busy over Christmas,’ Hal sounded apologetic.  ‘It starts with the Blessing of the Boats weekend, then there’s the Victorian Christmas Festival - sometimes we get more bookings that weekend than we do in the summer.’ He looked up from the screen and gave her a grin of sympathy. She stood up slowly and started putting her wet coat back on; it was raining heavily outside and though she had draped it over the back of her chair to dry when she came in, it was still cold and damp to her touch.

‘Look, wait a minute, don’t go yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a couple of contacts with other firms that have properties in the village, I’ll make us a cup of coffee and give them a ring, see if either of them can suggest anything for you.’

He had pushed up his sleeves and she was looking at his arms, which had several tattoos, an elaborate dark Celtic band on his right wrist and some nautical-looking tattoos on his left: an anchor and a faded mermaid. She had never been a great fan of tattoos, but on Hal’s strong arms they somehow looked right.

‘And there’s nothing up in New Rawscar either?’

‘No. Most of our cottages are down in the old village, tourists don’t like New Rawscar that much.’

‘It’s not as picturesque, I suppose,’ Cass said, watching his hands as he skimmed through a list of cottages belonging to another firm. As he used the mouse, the marks where Twiggy had bitten him caught her eye; they still looked sore and red. From there her eyes were drawn to the intricate interlacing of his wrist tattoo, like the Book of Kells or the Lindisfarne Gospels, no beginning and no ending. She found that she wanted to reach out and follow its lines with her finger and told herself to stop being so stupid.

‘I liked it up on the cliff,’ she said. ‘It had a bit of space, a bit of light. Old Rawscar feels …’ she stopped herself. She had been going to tell him that she found it claustrophobic, being hemmed in by so many tightly packed cottages and their inhabitants, but he was from one of the old village families, he might not take it very well. ‘Well, it’s hard work getting up and down the hill all the time, and I did want to be nearer the church in case of emergencies,’ she finished lamely.

‘Do you have many church-related emergencies?’ he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow that made her feel as if he was sharing an intimate private joke with her. She looked away from him, feeling her face flush in a way it hadn’t done since she had been a teenager.

‘Well, not many emergencies as such. Not here. In my last parish, more often.’

‘Where were you before?’

‘Central Ormsborough. People needed me there.’

‘And you think you’re not needed here?’

She looked at him; he had stopped searching the computer and was looking directly at her. Oh Lord, those blue eyes!

‘Not so much,’ she admitted, looking right back at him. It should feel like an admission of her own failure, telling a parishioner that she didn’t feel needed, or wanted, but the way he was watching her, it was as if he already knew her answer, as if he understood.

‘I don’t like it down there,’ he said slowly. ‘The old village. I hate the way all the cottages look into one another, that everyone knows everyone else’s business. There’s always some tourist peering into your window, always someone gawping, always someone listening the other side of the wall. It’s claustrophobic, it stifles me down there.’

He was echoing exactly what she had been thinking.

‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘It feels like the village itself doesn’t want me, sometimes.’

He had taken his hands off the keyboard altogether.

‘And yet most people think it’s wonderful. Quaint. Precious.’

‘But you don’t.’

For a long moment they simply looked at one another, assessing, wondering. There was suddenly … something.

 ‘Go on,’ she said softly. ‘I’m listening.’ She waited quietly for him to speak.

‘I hate it,’ he said at length. He stood up; he was a tall man at his full height. ‘I watch them, you know, in the summer with their seashell necklaces and their crab sandwiches, their buckets and spades for their “proper old-fashioned seaside holiday”,’ he mimicked the middle-class accent of the typical holiday-cottage-dweller. ‘They come to play with the sea like it’s some toy, some kids’ game. They tell me how lucky I am to live here, how wonderful it must be to wake up every day by the sea, how soothing, how fucking soothing it must be -’ He turned away from her so that she couldn’t watch his eyes, but he didn’t stop talking. He walked over to the window, from which the grey sea was visible in the distance at the end of the street.

‘But I wake up every day and I see this, this, monster with teeth that tear down everything, that kills and destroys whatever gets in its way. You understand that now, it took your home. I am not lucky, we are not lucky, living here, we are cursed. But I can’t leave it, I can’t get away …’ he trailed into silence, breathing heavily, as if speaking had been a huge effort.

‘You lost a brother, didn’t you?’ Cass asked quietly, crossing the room to stand beside him; she wanted to reach out to him, to touch him but she didn’t dare.

‘Oh, it’s more than that, Vicar. I’ve lost more than that. The sea killed my brother but it’s taken so much more from me. And every day it reminds me that it should have been me …’

She held out a hand to him, he didn’t seem to notice. He took a couple of deep breaths, his shoulders heaving, then he turned back to her.

‘I’m sorry, Vicar. I shouldn’t have said all that. Forget it, please. I don’t know why I said that. Something about that dog-collar I guess, made me want to confess!’ He suddenly seemed ill at ease, he was trying to sound jokey, light-hearted but the bitterness was still there underneath.

‘I’m always happy to listen,’ she said, reaching her hand out to him again, ‘it’s my job and I don’t judge. If there’s anything …’

But she didn’t finish offering her help and support, because the office door behind Cass was flung open and Anna burst in with a swirl of velvet.

Instantly, Hal was strong, composed, stepping towards his visitor. Today she was wearing a sweeping, floor-length garnet-red coat with a huge fur-lined hood; she looked slender, diminutive, ethereal - beautiful. Cass was suddenly aware that her shoes were ugly, her hair was untidy and the smell of her damp waterproof coat was filling the office. Anna didn’t even notice that she was there for a moment.

‘It’s no good, Hal. I can’t stay there,’ Anna said. ‘Oh, sorry Vicar. Didn’t see you.’

‘What’s wrong? It’s not the drain in the shower-room again is it? I’ll give Graham a ring to add it to his list of jobs.’

He was back behind his desk in an instant, picking up the phone.

‘No. No it’s not that.’

Anna looked ill at ease. She put down the hood of her coat, a flood of dark red hair tumbling down her back and looked awkwardly over her shoulder at Cass. Cass could take a hint.

‘Look, I’ll be going. Don’t worry about the cottage, I’ll ring round myself.’

‘No. Vicar, could you stay please. You might be able to help,’ Hal said, glancing at Cass, as if he was enlisting her support.

Cass couldn’t think of anyone less likely than herself to be able to help with blocked shower drains or whatever other problems the holiday cottage had developed.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Hal said, crossing back to his desk. ‘It’s the ghost, isn’t it?’

Anna nodded mutely as Hal brought another chair for her from behind his desk, and shaking off that incredible velvet coat she sat down. She looked tired, Cass realised, and she was pale. Well, she was always pale, it was a Goth thing, but today she wasn’t wearing any make-up and she was still pale.

‘It’s why we have such problems renting that cottage out, that’s why it doesn’t have many bookings; it got a terrible write up on Trip Advisor. The only people who want to stay there seem to be ghost hunters these days,’ Hal said. ‘And then they complain if they don’t experience anything.’

‘What can I do, Hal?’ Anna turned her beautiful dark eyes to Hal.

‘Well, I was telling the vicar, there isn’t anywhere else free over Christmas. I can’t move you. But I was just about to ring that other firm, North Yorkshire Coastal Cottages, to see if they’ve got anything going in Rawscar. Perhaps they’ll have more than one.’

Anna looked instantly downcast.

‘No, that’s fine. I suppose I should be grateful I’ve got somewhere to live at all. Mainly it’s nothing but a vague uneasy feeling, but I wake up in the night, scared, and I have bad dreams, always about the sea, about going under the waves.’

‘You’ve had a shock, Anna,’ Cass said. ‘It’s probably nothing more than a delayed reaction to the cliff fall. I’ve been having odd dreams too.’

But Cass did not believe in ghosts and her dreams were of an entirely different nature.

Anna looked down at the floor and then shook her head. Although she was answering Cass’s question she was speaking to Hal all the time.

‘It’s more than that. I know this is going to sound stupid, but it feels like they’re not my dreams, it’s like I’m dreaming someone else’s dreams. Then there are noises in the night, voices, muttering and calling.’

‘Probably the shower drains,’ Hal muttered darkly.

‘I’m scared, Hal,’ Anna said, eyes still fixed on the floor in front of her, she looked young and fragile and vulnerable and her voice was choked with tears. ‘I can’t sleep, and when I do I dream terrible things. I can’t stay there on my own.’

Hal was round beside her immediately, holding her small slim hands protectively between his.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he assured her.

Cass didn’t believe for a single moment that Maidensbower Cottage was haunted, but looking at Anna it was easy to believe that Anna herself was haunted by something. She needed help and she needed her mind putting at rest. Maybe if she believed that there was no ghostly presence in her house it would help her to heal.

‘Look, if it would help, Anna, I could bless the cottage for you.’

‘Do you mean an exorcism? Get rid of whatever it is?’ Anna looked at Cass for the first time since she had entered the room.

‘No, no, no! Nothing as dramatic as that, I’m not an exorcist, just an ordinary vicar. It would just be a kind of … spiritual cleansing. To put your mind at rest and invoke God’s blessing on the house.’ It sounded plausible, and even though Cass didn’t for a minute believe it would achieve anything other than reassurance for Anna, that was all that was needed. Anna had to believe it would work.

‘Thank you,’ Hal mouthed to her privately above Anna’s head, a secret shared between the two of them.

 

So, as the sun was setting the next afternoon, Cass headed down the hill to Maidensbower Cottage with a phial of holy water and a candle to perform her somewhat home-made service of blessing. It didn’t matter what she said and what she believed right now, but Anna had to be convinced. She called at the office for Hal on the way down, who had offered to be there to test out his theory about the shower room drains rather than for any religious reason.

‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ he told her as they walked down the hill together. ‘I’ve tried three different cottage firms, they’ve all got bookings at either Christmas, New Year or both for all their properties, and they wouldn’t be prepared to compromise on the price, so they’d be way out of your budget.’

She groaned. ‘Never mind. Thanks for trying.’

‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have said all that.’

‘Hal, I’m a vicar, it happens all the time.’

‘Not to me it doesn’t! It’s a long time since I’ve talked to anyone about … oh, you know, all that. It meant a lot that you listened. Thank you for doing this when I know you don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘How did you know that?’  She stopped and turned towards him, surprised that he had picked up on that when she had so carefully kept it to herself.

‘It was what you didn’t say.’

He had stopped too, a couple of steps further down the hill so that they were on the same eye level. ‘I’ve learnt the hard way how to tell a lot from what a woman doesn’t say.’

‘You’re right – I don’t believe in ghosts.’

Cass started to walk down the hill again; there was something about his knowing proximity that unnerved her.

‘So why are you doing this?’ He walked by her side again.

‘Because Anna does believe in them and I want to help her. She seems so sad, and I don’t think it’s just a Goth thing.’

‘No. She’s had more than her fair share of troubles, has Anna. She needs other people and yet she cuts herself off all the time, pushes them away – living up there on Widows’ Row, all by herself, shutting herself away from everything, friends, family - life! She should be out there – I mean, when I was her age I had such a great time; I used to have ... well, you don’t want to know about that!’ he added hurriedly, shoving his hands into his coat pockets with a slightly embarrassed sideways glance which made Cass very curious about exactly what kind of a great time he used to have back then. With his strong, solid good looks she could imagine that it involved having a great time with women. ‘I worry about her sometimes,’ he finished.

‘Well, I’ll see what I can do to help.’

They had reached the quay, and turned up into Maiden’s Yard, Cass leading the way, Hal following a few paces behind her. She did wonder for a moment if Anna would be expecting her to wear full robes instead of jeans and a waterproof coat.

Anna welcomed them both into the cottage; she had been waiting at the front window for them. The cottage felt cold and barren. Cass had expected a cosy atmosphere with dark wooden panelled walls, a coal fire and gleaming brass, but the cottage was decorated for summer holidays with white painted walls, pale wood furniture, soft furnishings made of nautical striped cotton and driftwood sculptures on the windowsills. Anna looked out of place there in her sweeping black clothes – and maybe that was part of the problem.

As she went around the house with her holy water and prayers, every room felt the same – it felt unloved, as if the heart had been sucked out of Maidensbower cottage with its last permanent inhabitant. Cass went through all the rooms one-by-one, starting with the draughty sitting room. Although Anna had moved in several days ago there was hardly any evidence of her presence in the living room, no more than if she was here on a week’s holiday: a tablet charging on the window seat in the living room and a pair of lace-up ankle boots near the front door were the only indication that anybody lived here at all. Cass moved through the house saying a prayer at every doorway; the dining kitchen at the back, then up a steep, narrow twisting staircase to the first floor. The cottage had three bedrooms, two on the first floor with the bathroom and one on the attic floor with the en-suite shower room and its dodgy plumbing. It smelt damp – particularly the little shower room off the attic bedroom which had a certain odour of drains – and the furnishings although relatively new and perfectly clean and tidy, looked cheap and mass produced and somehow didn’t feel as if they belonged here.

Anna and Hal followed behind her around the cottage and they said Amen and bowed their heads when she spoke. When she had been in every room, she lit a small candle in the living room, and found herself saying some of the advent words from the old Book of Common Prayer.

‘Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light …’ which gave her an idea. Once all the prayers were done, and Anna had made her a cup of tea, the three of them sat in the living room to drink the tea, slightly awkward with each other.

‘What you could do,’ Cass suggested gently, ‘is bring some light and warmth into this place. Candle flames, particularly at this time of year, are a welcome symbol of the light of Christ coming into the world, overcoming the darkness.’

Dear Lord, she sounded like Bishop Call-Me-Ken at his most sanctimonious!  ‘And,’ she added quickly, in an attempt to sound more human, ‘they’re pretty. So, celebrate Christmas. Bring that light and warmth into this cottage, bring it back to life, and I’m sure it’ll feel like a whole different place!’

‘I don’t like Christmas,’ Anna said quietly, staring into her cup of tea. Cass had to fight down an urge to hug her and tell her that she didn’t like Christmas either, but it was Hal who spoke, with a wink in Anna’s direction.

‘Me neither. Too much fuss and tinselly bollocks!’

‘And I guess tinselly bollocks must be uncomfortable!’ Cass joked and the pair of them turned to stare at her as if she had suddenly grown two heads.

‘What? I’m a vicar, not a nun!’ she said, and they both laughed. The mood in the cottage seemed to grow slightly lighter with the sound of their laughter.

‘Are you going to the village meeting tomorrow, Vicar?’ Hal asked, changing the subject.

‘Tomorrow? Village meeting? I didn’t know there was a meeting tomorrow - Or at least, I probably did, but my calendar went over the cliff. Remind me, Hal?’

‘At the pub, eight o’clock tomorrow night. Function room upstairs – about the arrangements for the Blessing of the Boats and the Victorian Christmas Festival and everything – anyone can come. I’ll be working.’

‘Oh yes, that rings a bell,’ Cass said, although it didn’t. As so often seemed to happen, the locals all knew about these things and nobody bothered to mention them to her – Graham tended to forget about them until reminded to attend by June, and Charles, who seemed to be the chairman of most of them, assumed she knew all about them. She drained the last of her mug of tea and put it down on the coffee table with its stencilled images of crabs and seahorses swimming across it. At least here she didn’t have to worry about a coaster. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow!’ She stood up to leave.

‘Anna, why don’t you come?’ Hal asked. ‘It would do you good to get out; see a few people.’

‘Will my Dad be there?’

‘He’s chairing the meeting.’

‘Then no, thanks Hal. He won’t want me to be there.’ She swirled the last of her tea around in the bottom of the mug.

‘You could give it a try?’ He said it calmly, but there was an edge to it. She turned on him.

‘Fuck off, Hal! Sorry, Vicar, no offence.’

He stood up, raising his hands.

‘OK, OK Anna. None of my business. Come on, Vicar, let’s get going.’

He picked up her clammy coat from where she had hung it on the post at the bottom of the narrow twisting stairs and handed it to her. As he held it out, she noticed again the tattoo on his forearm; an ornate dark blue anchor, covered in seaweed. Perhaps he felt her looking, because he pulled his own jacket on, covering it up again from her gaze.

His tattoos were none of her business – though just for a moment she found herself imagining where else on his body she might find some.