The fire chief took a close look at the tower on Sunday
afternoon. Nothing had changed since his team had left in the early hours. The
collapse was presumably completed. On Monday morning he took care to be present
when the surveyor arrived.
“Quel horreur!” Mr Braine exclaimed several times before
turning to Boris, whose decorative tattoos were exposed thanks to a sleeveless
vest. Mr Braine was no more French than his acolyte was Russian.
“Boris, go inside and take some photos,” Mr Braine commanded,
since those taken by the fire brigade were not suitable for the job of
assessing what it would take to restore the bell tower.
“No, Mr Braine,” Boris retorted.
Mr Braine turned on him with a rather fierce look on his
face that no one would have guessed he was capable of, considering that he
normally presented himself as jovial comrade. He dragged a manicured hand
through his hair, whose careful arrangement to compensate for any bald spots
was immediately and unprettily disturbed.
Boris admired Mr Braine, but he wasn’t stupid.
“I can’t go inside, Mr Braine,” he said. “I haven’t got a
hard hat.”
“Don’t be silly, Boris. Everything that was going to fall
down has already fallen.”
“What if it hasn’t?”
Mr Braine was saved from answering that perfectly relevant question
by the arrival of a team of municipal building workers in a city construction truck.
They were equipped with safety helmets and had brought along some spare ones
that they instructed Mr Parsnip, Mr Braine and Boris to put on. After Mr Braine
had inspected how he looked in his reflection in the truck window, he sniffed
audibly at the offensive headgear, but nevertheless followed the fire chief very
cautiously to the bell tower entrance. The fire brigade had done a good job.
They had cleared away enough rubble to allow the group to get to the door that
had fortunately been left open and adorned with a red and white ribbon to
indicate that it was a no-go area. Mr Braine bypassed the ribbon and inspected
the damage inside the tower and Boris made notes and took photos. Mr Parsnip
looked on anxiously,
“Can I have some prints?” the vicar could however not resist
asking, as if they were on a day out.
On Tuesday the entertainment committee turn to accompany Mr
Braine and were told what had to be done. Everyone attended except Laura Price.
She was still too devastated about the fate of her concert to want to bother
with the cause thereof. Mr Braine had brought along a second architect, a
lugubrious soul he called Monk who shook his head in a constant no-no-no
attitude. It was his job to approve of Mr Braine’s ideas. Eventually, they agreed
on basics. Mr Braine did not think any funds would be forthcoming from the town
hall, so his job would be finished once his report had been compiled. However, Mr
Braine also worked on the side for anyone who would pay him directly and wanted
very much to rebuild the tower and enhance his reputation with the outcome. He
suggested phoning the bishop and getting him involved.
Mr Parsnip was still trying to formulate what he was going to
say to the bishop, when that good and kindly man rang him instead to say a
little bird had told him about the tragedy. He was, to the vicar’s acute
embarrassment, very compassionate and did not even ask why he hadn’t been told
immediately. He would come to lunch next day to discuss the situation.
The entertainment committee was hastily summoned to have
lunch with the bishop, mainly because Mr Parsnip could not conceive how he
would get through the appointment without moral support. Edith made giant
hotpots, one of which was meant for the boys after school, but the luncheon
guests ate it all and devoured the apple crumble to the last crumb.
Edith was extremely flattered by the unanimous praise
awarded to her cooking. She made them all feel guilty, however, by announcing
that they had eaten the boys’ supper. The boys would have to make do with
pizzas from Delilah’s bistro - as if they would mind.
Eventually, since it looked as if the reason for the bishop
being there was being put on the back burner, Dorothy Price told Mr Parsnip to
get to the point. The vicar looked pleadingly at the bishop and the bishop
agreed that it was time to “come clean” financially.
‘We’ve only got the roof fund and the organ fund,” explained
Mr Parsnip, “and those repairs are essential. But if we don’t do something
about getting the tower repaired before the winter, the rain will get in there,
too.”
St Peter’s itself had a longer history than the bell tower,
which was an architectural afterthought. Originally the church had only had one
small bell above its main entrance. The bell tower had been constructed
separately and financed by donations from local dignitaries in return for
commemorative plaques celebrating their lifelong achievements.
The bishop had read all the internal historical notes about the
tower and come across the list of donors, which was headed by a family named
Hartley. The Hartleys did not have a plaque in the bell tower because they had
in the end only contributed a little to its building and anyway, there was no
wall left to nail them onto, figuratively speaking. According to the records,
the Hartley family was extinct.
As it happened, Cleo arrived at the vicarage just then and
heard that about the extinction of the Hartleys.
“I beg to differ, dear bishop," she said. "I am a
Hartley and I am certainly not extinct.”
The bishop was rather put out at this turn of events because
no living Hartleys were registered with the church, but Cleo assured him that
she was genuine, even though dark-skinned, born on the wrong side of the
blanket and not a member of any church at all.
What came next was beyond the imagination of anyone sitting
at that dining table. The secret she had actually planned to keep for much
longer came tumbling out. Being the last living Hartley, she had inherited everything
from her father, the late John Hartley, which was the reason for coming to
Upper Grumpsfield in the first place. But her father had apparently not known
the extent of his own estate.
Cleo told the fantastic story in a few words. Not long ago, she
had discovered that Monkton Priory and the lands surrounding it were also part
of her father’s legacy, though he had not known, either. Up to now she had had
no idea what to do with such a big responsibility so soon after that awful bishop
had nearly managed to dispose of St Peter’s. She had decided not to tell anyone
about her ownership, but now it seemed unavoidable. Someone would have to help finance
the rebuilding of the bell tower, and what would be more logical than asking a
relative of one of the original contributors?
The only problem was the cash flow, which was non-existent.
She would consult the town clerk and surveyor about selling some of the land on
the edge of the estate and donate the proceeds to rebuilding the bell tower.
There were gasps of disbelief all round, generous applause,
and enthusiastic nods from the architect, mainly because he reckoned he would
also get first refusal for any building projects.
“Are you quite sure you want to do that?” the vicar ventured
humbly.
“Of course I am! I love Upper Grumpsfield,” she said.
The bishop rose from the table and assured everyone present
that he would personally see to it that all the mechanisms for rebuilding were
put into place – on condition that there would be another delicious hotpot
waiting for him when he next visited St Peter’s.
When the meeting was over and the bishop had departed, Mr
Parsnip went to his study and said a prayer, kneeling on the embroidered
cushion kept expressly for the purpose and seldom used. Then he settled in for
a prolonged pencil-sharpening session. An anonymous donor had given him a box
of 48 brand new graphite pencils that didn’t even have a starting point. After
that he would apply himself to a sermon on the theme of generosity. He might
even mention the soul, though lately he had had difficulty in defining what
that could be.
“It's a case of one door closing and another opening,” he told
Edith later that day.
“Would that include me?” she asked him.
“Why would you want to open a door?” the vicar wanted to
know.
***
One of Laura Finch's major problems was self-centredness. Another
of her problems was self-pity and a third one was envy. She could not help
noticing that Mr Parsnip was extremely thankful to Cleo for her offer to help
rebuild the bell tower. Laura couldn't have cared less about the bell tower,
but she had enjoyed the vicar's attention and even admiration.
Though her days as a femme fatale were gone, she went to a
lot of trouble with her appearance and now a frumpy half-cast was getting that
special smile she had enjoyed, just because she had inherited the Priory,
probably thanks to some kind of corruption in the Hartley family. Laura was
despondent. Was the humiliation never to end?
Back in her bungalow, which was still in a state of chaos,
she opened a packing case containing bottles of hard liquor she got delivered
from an off-licence in Middlethumpton, took out a couple of bottles of vodka,
found a glass, and proceeded to drown her sorrows.
Between large gulps of straight vodka, Laura tried to accept
that all the rumours put about by her enemies, both real and imagined, were
true. Not only had her chorus ditched her, but those deceitful and treacherous women
had persuaded the unappetizing little organist Gareth Morgan to start a new
venture here in Upper Grumpsfield after they had all claimed mendaciously that
Upper Grumpsfield was too far to travel to Laura’s rehearsals.
Laura tortured herself with the knowledge that no one cared,
forgetting that she had not cared about her anything else but herself. The she
remembered some sedatives she had once been given for anxiety, rummaged around
until she found them, then swallowed the lot before getting into bed and crying
herself into a deep sleep, which elsewhere would have been classed as a coma.
Although Dorothy Price had vowed to avoid contact with Laura
Finch after being so disgusted by the way she had treated her son, she
nevertheless felt responsible for her. After two days during which Laura did
not phone, even to bemoan her cruel fate, Dorothy decided she would have to
make sure everything was all right. She consulted Cleo and Robert, who had
become great friends of hers lately, not least since Cleo had enrolled Dorothy
to help her with her investigations. Cleo thought it would be better if
somebody went with her to visit Laura if she was worried about her. All three
of them walked up Lavender Drive and all round Laura Finch's bungalow without
finding any sign of life.
“She might be ill. Do you think you could break in, Robert?
I've got a very funny feeling.”
Dorothy was so earnest that he agreed to try. But the back
door was not even locked. They tiptoed through the kitchen into the hall,
calling Laura's name.
“Her handbag is on the hall table, so she can't have gone
out. We'll have to search all the rooms,” said Cleo.
They found Laura straight away. She was lying on her bed
clutching a photo of Jason and in a comatose state.
The emergency services came immediately.
“She has drugged herself,” said one of the paramedics as he
opened his medical bag and prepared to check Laura Finch's blood pressure.
“There's an empty vodka bottle on this side of the bed,” he
said, picking it up and throwing it onto the counterpane. “And she's taken diazepam.
Strong stuff: 5 mg per tablet. I don't know how many she has taken, of course,
but this bottle is empty, so we can only hope there weren't many left in it.”
“Oh dear,” said Dorothy. “What a foolish thing to do,”
“You can say that again, Miss,” the paramedic agreed. His
colleague came in.
“Hospital?”
“Yes. On the double. Let's hope we aren't too late. Her
blood pressure is very low, her heartbeat is weak and I can't rouse her. No
reaction at all.”
“How long do you think she has been like that?” Dorothy
asked.
“Overnight, I’d say,” replied the paramedic.
It didn't take long for the two paramedics to load Laura onto
a stretcher and into the ambulance.
“Anyone going with her?” one of them said.
“Yes. I will,” Dorothy offered.
“We'll both go,” said Cleo.
“We'll all go,” said Robert. “I'll follow in the van.”
As hospitals go, Middlethumpton General was quite pleasant,
but hours sitting around waiting for news are tedious anywhere. The magazines
were months out of date, the coffee machine was out of order and there was an
eerie silence everywhere. There was no way of knowing what was happening to
Laura Finch.
“Don't worry about her. She's a tough old boot,” said
Robert, in an effort to cheer them all up.
“I didn't know she drank that heavily,” said Dorothy. “I
know she has a drink problem. Once she even did a spell at a sanatorium up
north.”
“Surely she didn't tell you that,” said Cleo. “She was
usually very secretive about her activities.”
“Oh, it slipped out,” said Dorothy. “I think it was guilt
because she'd started sipping wine again. She had been there to dry out, I understood
her to say.”
“Alcoholics dare not even sip any alcohol if they want to
stay clean,” said Cleo.
“Well, she's done more than sip now,” said Robert. “And
it’ll take quite a long time for her to dry out.”
“If she survives,” said Cleo.
“She had a weight on her mind,” said Dorothy. “Her awful
chorus had ganged up against her and roped Mr Morgan into their scheme.”
“Little skunk. I'll give him a piece of my mind,” said
Robert.
“It wouldn't help,” said Dorothy. “In the state she's in
now, she couldn't direct a chorus to save her life.”
“She'll survive,” said Robert. “They always do.”
“What on earth do you mean by that, Robert?” said Cleo.
Robert did not have time to reply. There was a flurry at the
information desk and who should rush past but Karl von Klippen.
“Hey, what's the hurry?” Robert called after him.
“It's zee babies,”' Karl shouted over his shoulder.
“Where's Clare?”
But there was no answer. Karl von Klippen had sped out of
sight through the swing doors leading to the gynaecological ward.
“Let's go and see what we can see,” said Dorothy, thankful
for the distraction.
“I’d better ask about Laura first,” said Cleo and went to
the information desk.
“No visitors,” she was told. “Go home. She'll be out of the
coma by now. She'll survive.”
“How do you know that if you haven't even asked anyone?”
“Because these old tipplers have nine lives,” retorted the woman
behind the counter and took no further notice of Cleo.
“Well, what about Mrs von Klippen?' Cleo asked.
“What's she got?” the woman wanted to know.
“Babies.”
“I'll ask.”
This time the woman dialled a ward number and inquired about
a Mrs Slip-on.”
“Klippen,” Cleo repeated, knowing exactly how Karl must feel
every time his name was distorted.
“Only two,” the woman told her.
“What do you mean, only two?”
“'Twins. No visitors yet, please.”
And that seemed to be that.
Cleo returned to Dorothy and Robert.
“'Laura is going to survive, apparently, and Clare has just
had twins. No visitors, the woman said.”
“No point in hanging around here then,” said Robert.
“Dorothy, I'm sure you'd like to eat with us, wouldn't you?”
Cleo said.
“That would be nice.”
“Let's go home then,” proposed Robert.
So they did.
