One
of those unusual days in October - hot with the occasional white cloud over a
deep blue background. In the church’s porch, he sat on a wooden bench and
watched the group of people dressed in black, or grey. The vicar’s voice came
through in patches as the coffin was lowered. There were howls of pain from the
wife of the man now in the grave.
The
man in the porch shook his head slightly and loosened the tie, undid the neck
of his white shirt, patted the pockets of his new suit jacket and took out a
pack of cigarettes, lit one and stood, finished it and put out the stub in a
small circle of the gardens. He went back into the church, its smell of an
ancient building, its coldness on a hot day, the echoing of his leather shoes.
He pulled open the stiffened door that led to the bells. It initially was darkness.
There was a spiral of steps that rose clockwise round a stone tower. He felt
his right leg begin to hurt in the thigh. He used his cigarette lighter to give
him sight of the stairs as he slowly rose. Halfway up there was a slit of
sunlight from a small hole. He stopped climbing, put out his lighter to cool it
slightly and rubbed the throbbing thigh muscle. Of the 39 steps there were 19
remaining. From darkness there was now a glimmer of light falling from the
bottom of yet another door at the top of the bell tower. He opened the door and
the sun glowed into his eyes making him squint. Between the five bells were
beams he stepped along as he held on to the bell supports. A wooden door gave
access to the roof and the castlement. He held the door handle for a short
while and then opened the creaking old door upon the surface made from lead and
the castellated stone edges.
There
was a light breeze on the rooftop. He walked around the edge until he could see
the graveyard. It was the time, for the mourners, to move away gradually. Some
hugged others, some stared at the ground. He pulled himself on to the
stone-edge and stood with pain from his right thigh, stabbed by the pulled
muscle on the spiral staircase. He looked below his feet and saw, many feet below,
old grave-heads at different angles. Someone looked up and yelled ‘Be careful!’
Others sucked in air and released loud sounding sighs. There was a woman he
knew well, only too well, and wife of the man in the grave. Her right arm
slowly bent upwards with an open hand inviting him to jump down.
He
glanced at his shoes. He put his right foot out a few inches from the wall,
then brought it back causing the sighs to be repeated, but louder. A
black-suited man ran from the grave area to the church porch. The man standing
on the wall looked again at the woman whose arm and hand still slowly moved. He
kept his eyes on her as he tilted forwards, reached a falling angle and dropped
at increasing speed on to a gravestone.
It’s
unlikely that you will believe me. In a way it’s important that you don’t.
My
name is Tom Gadd. I am, or was, a freelance designer. I decided to move from
London to a village in Suffolk with my wife Jacqui and our daughter, Nelly. The
purchase of our 1860 house included an old chapel about a hundred yards from
the cottage, a row of empty piggeries like nissen huts, a horse stable and a
neglected vegetable garden. It was in the middle of a large glebe field. Apart
from the loud rustling of the trees and bird chirping that surrounded us, it
had an unusual quietness. That is apart from the occasional sound of the two
trail bikes screeching round the farmer’s fields.
I
worked on a magazine called Living
containing health, diets, exercise, buying from the adverts. The readership was
mostly female and Jacqui wrote intros, edited the text and did most of the
photo research including taking photographs. It was not a huge mag. It had a
small market, but it made money from the advertising. The death of Jacqui’s
wealthy aunt passed on sufficient money for us to buy this odd Suffolk
property.
Jacqui
was once a teacher in a London primary school in Hackney and was now the home
teacher of Nelly.
I
spent a lot of my time working on the house and scratching the paint off its
old beams. It had a coach store attached to one side that was falling apart. When
we first moved in it had two bedrooms with only one accessible through stairs. If
Nelly needed the loo during the night she had to pass through our bedroom and
always woke us up. This was the first
job I got done by having a second set of stairs up to Nell’s bedroom. We had a kitchen with an Aga that was
heated with small logs, two living rooms each heated by yet more logs. Outside there
was an old loo, rows of garden for vegetables, the one-time piggery and a fence
to stop our dog running wild. Beyond our rear garden was a small wood with a
wonderful mixture of deciduous trees while at the front was where we had
flowers, shrubs, a pond and path to a fence. The house had a long narrow road through
the farmer’s area down to a small driveway gate. The farmer, Ian Holmes, seemed
all right, but rarely moved his lips. He was married to Stella, a small blonde
in her fifties.
The
day after we moved into our new home, Church Cottage, I walked down to our car
entrance and up the farmer’s muddy driveway to say hello. The farmhouse looked
a similar age to our cottage, but much bigger, and covered by ivy. I rang a
bell, then again and then once more. The door slowly opened and there was a lad
smoking a cigarette.
‘Yep?’
he asked.
‘Just
moved into Church Cottage. Thought I’d say hi.’ I held my hand forward. He
looked at it, put his cigarette in his mouth and grabbed my hand. He didn’t
shake it, just squeezed it. He gave me an angled smile.
‘I’ll
get dad to see ya.’ He shut the door. After waiting a few minutes I started to
walk away from the door. There was a loud call from someone to the side of the
house. ‘Aye…aye!’ He was plump, about six feet tall, had short, grey and black
hair and was about 50. I knew a bit about him and the story about the chapel
and the storm – and the death of his mother.
‘We’ve
just moved in. I thought I’d say hello and shake your hand.’ I held out mine.
He slowly offered a hand as rough as sandpaper while staring at me through
squinted eyes.
‘You’re
name is Gadd, yeah?’
‘Tom
Gadd. My wife is Jacqui and my daughter Nelly. We’re pleased to have moved
here. We’ve come from London and…’
‘I
wanna talk to you ‘bout the chapel. I wan it back, Mr Gadd, I wan it back.’
