The Vows of Silence (4 page)

Melanie laughed at herself as she picked up her handbag and keys. Being happy because you’re going to the supermarket in the middle of the day—” How sad is that?” as her teenage stepsister Chloë would say.

Chloë. Who would have thought that Chloë would have looked like that as a bridesmaid—her hair up, skin glowing and a smile like half a melon. Chloë, who had sworn she would die rather than wear sugar-almond pink and who had behaved like an angel and seemed to have grown up to become a stunning young woman—for the day, at least.

Melanie laughed again as she went out.

The street was quiet. The sun had made the inside of her car too hot and as she didn’t have anything so fancy as air conditioning, she opened the windows and door and waited for it to cool down. It was while she waited that she saw him, loitering along the opposite
pavement, in the shade. He stopped to light a cigarette, his head turned away from her.

It struck her that she might have forgotten to doublelock their front door. There had been burglaries in the area, a spate of them, though mostly of the detached houses and ground-floor flats. Had she double-locked it?

God, was she going to turn into one of those women who had to go back nine times to make sure they’d turned the gas off and another three to double-check that the light wasn’t on in the bathroom?

No, she was not.

She started up the engine and when she looked again the man had gone.

In the supermarket she picked up a copy of the local paper to read over tea in the café. And there it was. She hadn’t even remembered they had sent in the details.

The photograph was quite large on the page because there were only two other weddings. It was the one of her looking adoringly at Craig, the one which Gaynor had pronounced “Yuck.” But Mel liked it. Her dress looked its best, the silver beading shining and the silver quills in her hair looking as original as she had hoped. She had never seen anyone else wearing them. Pity about the lilies which the florist had foisted on her. They looked huge and stiff, the stalks too long, and she hadn’t known how to hold them, up or down or what. They weren’t like flowers, they were like something man-made. In the newspaper photograph they jumped out at you. Otherwise, though, it was nice. It was very, very nice.

Melanie Calthorpe and Craig Drew

The marriage took place, conducted by Senior Registrar Carol Latter, between Melanie, elder daughter of Neil Calthorpe of Lafferton, and Mrs Bev Smith of Lancaster, and Craig, youngest son of Alan and Jennifer Drew of Foxbury. The bride wore a strapless dress in white jersey crêpe with a bodice encrusted with crystals and silver beading and silver quills in her hair, and carried a bouquet of calla lilies. She was attended by Gaynor Calthorpe, bride’s sister, Chloë Calthorpe, bride’s stepsister, and Andrea Stannard, bride’s friend, who wore burgundy off-the-shoulder dresses and carried posies of ivory roses with silver-ribbon accents. Lily Mars, bride’s god-daughter, was the flower girl in a silver satin and tulle dress and carrying a basket of burgundy rosebuds. Mr Adrian Drew, bridegroom’s brother, was best man, Carl Forbes and Peter Shoemaker, bridegroom’s old school friends, were ushers and the reception was held at the Maltdown Hotel. The couple honeymooned in Gran Canaria and have made their home in Lafferton, where the bridegroom works as an estate agent with Biddle Francis and the bride as a receptionist for Price and Fairbrother, Solicitors.

She read it twice, read it again, and on the way out bought six more copies of the paper. In the car, she sent a text message to Craig and then drove home feeling as she had felt when her father had pushed her on the park swings so high she had thought that if she let go of the chains on either side she would simply fly up and up to heaven.

She came out of the brightly sunlit street into the dark hall of the flats and could barely see. The light on the first-floor landing had gone again. Individual flat owners were responsible for keeping the lights working on their own floor, changing the bulbs when necessary. Mel was annoyed. The people on this floor always seemed to be leaving their landing in darkness and it was dangerous. She would have to ask Craig to tackle them about it again.

It was only as she reached her own floor that she realised she had left the newspapers on the back seat of the car. She paused. Go on in, put the shopping away and get them later? Go back now? No, go on in, dump the shopping and then run back down again.

She unlocked their own door. The hall was bright from the late-afternoon sun streaming in through the window of the kitchen opposite. She set the bags down. She would cut out two of the newspaper articles and post them straight off to Nan and to little Lily’s family. Cut one out for her wedding book. She’d have time to do that later while she was waiting for things to cook.

She went out of the flat and down the stairs at a run, almost tripping on the top step of the landing without a light. She had found a parking space a few yards up the street. Fished out keys. Newspapers. Yes, on the back seat. Waved to the elderly lady who sat in her chair at the window of the bungalow opposite for most of the day. Locked the car. She was out of breath. Unfit. The swimsuit had better come out again. There had been so much to do in the run-up to the wedding
she had let her daily swim go—and she felt the difference.

Back to the house. She reached up to the keypad. But the front door was ajar. The people in the bottom flat often forgot to make sure it was properly shut and it made her mad. What was the point of having a front-door security lock to which everyone had the pass number if half the time it was not properly shut?

She trudged up the stairs. Along the unlit landing again. On up to their own floor.

She wished she hadn’t had those calla lilies, they just over powered the photographs, great stiff waxen things. It wasn’t like her to be bullied, but she had been at the end of her tether, trying to find the right shoes all day, and somehow the florist had found a chink. Maybe she got a special deal on calla lilies. There certainly seemed to be an awful lot of them about. She had hated them on sight, but it was too late then and of course they didn’t spoil the day. They did spoil the photographs though.

“Oh get over it,” she said aloud.

Had she left the door of their flat on the latch?

It was odd.

When she pushed it open.

In that split second, Melanie Drew registered that it was odd. Minutes ago, when she had dropped the bags there, the sunlight had been flooding from the kitchen directly into the hall. Now it was blocked by something. There was a darkness. A shadow. There was no sunlight. Odd.

As she went nearer to the kitchen she registered that
it was a figure blotting out the light. Then everything was brilliant in an instant, brilliant, shattering light, with a noise that exploded in the centre of it.

Then nothing.

Nothing at all.

Six

“Cat! I thought it was you.”

Cat turned from locking her car. Helen Creedy was a few spaces away in the Cathedral Close.

“It’s good to have you back—the altos have sounded pretty thin without you.”

“I don’t think! But it’s good to
be
back.” Cat looked around the old buildings of the close lit by the lamps that lined the paths. At the top end, the house in which her brother had his flat; down here, the east front of the cathedral towered over them. “I haven’t sung anything for nearly a year.”

“How was it?”

“Exciting. Challenging. Strange.” They walked together towards the door that led to the New Song School where early rehearsals always took place. Tonight, the first of the new season, they were making a start on Bach’s
Christmas Oratorio
, a favourite of Cat’s.

“What have you been up to, Helen? How are Tom and Lizzie?”

“Oh, fine. Actually …” Helen hesitated in the half-open doorway. “There’s something … do you think …” She was confused, not knowing exactly what she wanted to say.

“Am I a doctor here?”

“God, no—if I wanted to see you like that I’d come to the surgery. No—look, forget it, let’s find our places.”

“Helen …”

But she had gone on into the rehearsal room, crossing to the far side, hurried, embarrassed.

The Song School filled up, and Cat was greeted with shouts of welcome from right and left. They queued to get their music.

St Michael’s Singers rehearsals always ended with a drink in the nearby
Cross Keys
pub, but as Cat made her way along the cobbled lane she noticed that Helen Creedy was slipping off down the snicket that led to the close.

“Helen, aren’t you coming for a drink?”

Helen turned. “I ought to get back.”

“Lizzie and Tom not old enough to put themselves to bed? Come on, live a little.”

Helen laughed.

“Live a little.” She squeezed into a space next to Cat on the bench. “Funny you should say that.”

“You were going to tell me something.”

“Yes.” Helen took a slow drink of lime and soda. “I
don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I want to say.”

Cat looked at her closely. “Helen?”

Helen’s face remained composed but her neck flushed scarlet. A roar of laughter came up from the group of tenors at the bar.

“You guessed,” she said, “sort of. Only I’m confused, I don’t know what’s happening … I think it’s OK, but I need reassurance maybe.”

Cat sipped her ginger beer. She had known Helen Creedy for some years as a patient she rarely saw and as a pharmacist she occasionally had to consult by phone. She knew her best in the context of the choir. But she had also seen fourteen-year-old Elizabeth in the first stages of near-fatal meningitis. She remembered it now, walking into the house expecting to see a feverish cold—and summoning the ambulance within three minutes, praying for it to be quick. Lizzie had made a full recovery and Cat had seen little of Helen since, other than on these choir evenings. She was a nice woman, but unconfident and reserved. Not someone Cat felt she was ever likely to know well.

Now Helen said in a low voice, “I’ve met someone.”

“Helen, that’s great! How long’s this been going on?”

“Well, that’s the thing … no time. Just the other night. It isn’t what I expected, Cat. It was Lizzie really—she pushed me into it. She kept telling me I should …”

“Get out more?”

Helen smiled.

“She was right.”

“If I told you what I did, please don’t laugh.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Does it matter how people meet? I met Chris over a corpse in an anatomy lab.”

“Can’t compete there. I went to a sort of agency. On the Internet … it’s called peoplemeetingpeople.com.”

“And you did.”

“I never expected anything … well, maybe a few new friends.”

“Was this the first one you followed up?”

“Yes. It just all clicked. But I feel as if it should have taken much longer, that I should have met half a dozen others first.”

“That’s like saying you want half a dozen people to look round your house and not make an offer before a buyer comes along.”

“I never thought of it like that.”

“Well, you should. I’m pleased, Helen. Friend or more than friend—it’s good.”

“You don’t think it’s a bit … I mean—doing it this way. I haven’t told anyone else.”

“Why should you? No one else’s business.”

“It isn’t, is it?”

“Are you going to tell me about him?”

“We’ve only met once. And he phoned just before I came out tonight to ask me out again. We’re going to the theatre tomorrow. It just seems to be rushing away with me.”

“Don’t you want it to?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s worrying you?”

“Nothing. I suppose I hadn’t even thought I’d meet
someone local—he even lives in Lafferton. I don’t know.”

The choirmaster was pushing his way through the crowded bar to greet Cat. She said, “Well, if you want to talk about it again ring me or we can meet. Sounds to me as if you just need someone to tell you you’re doing the right thing.”

Driving home, Helen played a tape of the Dixie Chicks which Elizabeth had given her for her last birthday, “to keep you up to date, Mother,” and recalled the phone call from Phil. “I really enjoyed myself. Can we meet again soon? Can I take you to the theatre tomorrow?”

Yes, she had thought, but not said. Hesitated. Pleaded a possible meeting with an old friend. Would have to check. Would ring him back. Had put the phone down and immediately decided she had been too cool, put him off, pushed him away. She wanted to go but did not know if she should.

When Elizabeth had asked if she was all right she had snapped; when Tom had made a joke about her evening out, she had rounded on him.

She turned into Dulles Avenue, taking a shortcut. A house halfway down was floodlit. Police vehicles and white vans were parked up and the whole of the front was cordoned off behind tape. Helen slowed instinctively, glancing to see what was happening. A policewoman standing at the gate peered at her.

She sped away as the Dixie Chicks sang of a travelin’ soldier.

Seven

He remembered the day. He remembered everything about the day. But the bonfire that had flared inside himself he remembered most of all.

“When can I go out on a proper shoot?”

“When you’re twelve.”

And then he was twelve. He was twelve.

It was cold. His head ached with cold. His face felt as if he had lost a layer of skin because of the cold. His ears burned with cold. He was aware only of being cold and blissfully happy.

They had been walking since a little after nine, the spaniels running ahead, and they had an hour or so more before they would stop for lunch. They paused. There was a brief silence. A shot rang out. Another. The rooks rose in panic from the tops of the trees ahead.

You remember this, his father had said. This is the most dangerous form of shooting you’ll know, until you get to shoot driven grouse. You’re walking up and firing together. If you don’t know what’s
behind
what you’re shooting at, you leave it be. Keep to the line. Watch and wait.