‘Yes,’ Alex said. ‘But think how much worse it could have been.’
‘Are you OK?’ Tamsyn asked Jed, once Alex and the others had left. He had seemed remarkably calm, considering the amount of wreckage to his beloved church. Tamsyn didn’t know how she knew that it was beloved to him, only that it most certainly was. He ran his hands along the fallen pews as he righted them as if they were old friends, and pressed his palms against the walls, looking for all the world as if he were offering them a gesture of reassurance. Every line and angle of his body told her how much this building, and what it symbolised, meant to him.
‘It’s just bricks and mortar, glass and a door,’ he said. ‘And a lot of really smelly river mud, but it’s not so bad, and besides, wherever there are two or more people coming together in the name of God, then you have your church, no matter where it may be. This is just a building, although I will admit to it being one that I have grown to love. No one has been badly injured or killed, and you were in the right place at the right time to make sure that little girl wasn’t under that tree. I can only be grateful for that.’
Tamsyn nodded, ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you are allowed to be upset by what’s happened, the unfairness and stupidness of it all, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Jed looked at her. ‘It’s just that I’ve witnessed a great deal worse in my life. This’ – he made a gesture all around him at the ruins of his church – ‘is just inconvenience. Isn’t Mo due a feed?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ said Tamsyn.
‘Come with me, then. I can pick a few things up from the rectory, maybe make you a cup of tea, see how big the hole is and hopefully be able to make some calls, if I can get a signal. I’ll need a tree surgeon to sort the tree out, a builder, a stained-glass expert – but obviously, as this is Poldore, we’ve got about five of those.’
Tamsyn couldn’t help but smart a little at the way he’d brushed off her good-natured concern, but she followed him back through Kissing Alley and next door to the rectory. He paused for a moment, looking up at the damage caused by the cedar. ‘Looks like it’s more of a graze than anything. The building still looks structurally sound, so that’s a blessing.’
‘Engineer too, are you?’ Tamsyn muttered under her breath as he opened the front door of the rectory.
‘Yes, actually,’ Jed told her. ‘I did a degree in it before I became a priest.’
That shut her up as he led the way down a cool, tiled hallway and into a surprisingly light and airy kitchen at the back of the house. It was nicely fitted with everything that a family house needed, centred around a small, oddly orange, ancient-looking table with round corners and legs that splayed outwards. It must have been the height of fashion once, back in the 1950s Tamsyn guessed, and would cost a lot of money if it ever found itself on sale on the Portobello Road.
‘Right, the kettle’s there,’ Jed said. ‘And here’s a jug, to warm the bottle in, teabags, milk in the fridge, obviously. I’ll be back in a second. I just want to see how the upstairs is holding up, make a call or two.’
And he was gone, leaving Tamsyn and Mo, who was still sleeping peacefully on her chest, without showing even the slightest sign of wanting to wake up, standing alone in the kitchen. Tamsyn went to the cupboard above the kettle and opened it, but it was empty. And then she went to the next one, and the one after that. All empty. The smallest cupboard right at the end of the row offered up six mismatched mugs, a jar of instant coffee and a Tupperware box full of what Tamsyn hoped were teabags. She opened the fridge to look for milk, and realised when the light didn’t come on that the power must still be out. They’d been spoilt up at Castle House with the backup generator, but here in the town there would be no cups of tea made in the traditional way. Or bottle warmers, for that matter. The hob was electric too, not gas, so she couldn’t even attempt to light one of the rings.
Wondering how to break the news of the lack of power to Jed, Tamsyn looked around the kitchen again. What she had taken to be a minimalist style statement was actually just a room bare of any of its occupier’s personality. There were no pictures, no photos, not even a pot plant. And yet Jed had been in Poldore for over two years now, he’d said. Curious, she wandered back out into the hallway. She could hear Jed’s voice somewhere upstairs, which she hoped meant he’d got through to someone on the phone, and not that he was chatting to someone he’d once murdered and stuffed like a dead dog in this strange, empty house. Hesitantly, she pushed open a door at the front of the building, thinking it should lead to a sitting room or a study. The room was empty, whitewashed, clean. It was furnished with nothing but a small model of a wooden boat, which Tamsyn was fairly certain had always been in the rectory window, even when she was a little girl. Closing the door softly behind her, she checked the room opposite and the other room to the left of the stairs. They were all the same: absent of any sign that anyone lived here. Tamsyn stood for a moment at the foot of the stairs, gazing upward. Maybe Jed wasn’t the vicar; maybe he turned up two years ago, murdered the old vicar and now he was pretending he was the vicar and had sucked the whole of Poldore into his dastardly scheme to … be really nice and take care of people. Nope, it didn’t quite fit into the psychotic, evil genius pigeonhole.
‘Jed?’ Tamsyn called up the stairs, as Jed had stopped talking. Well, she told herself, she could always just pretend that she was looking for a bathroom. She climbed the stairs as noisily as possible, humming as she went, and when she got to the landing called his name again.
‘In here!’ he called her from the front bedroom. Tamsyn was quietly relieved to see that this room looked like a normal person actually lived in it. It was lined with photographs, had a bookshelf full of books and a desk in the corner, where Tamsyn supposed he wrote sermons, perhaps in his pyjamas, gazing thoughtfully out of the windows, an image that gave her cause to remind herself that she was not a character in
The Thorn Birds
.
‘Oh good,’ she said out loud, looking around the room.
‘“Oh good” what?’ Jed asked. He was standing by the window peering into a small notebook. The strong sunlight picked up the gold in his smooth, straight hair, and Tamsyn was sure that if she happened to run her fingers through it, it would be silky-soft to the touch. ‘I left my bedroom window open and can you believe that the only thing to get soaked was my address book?’
‘You still have an address book?’ Tamsyn said. ‘And it was an “Oh good you do have at least one furnished room in your house, so maybe you aren’t a crazed psychopath after all”.’
‘Oh that,’ Jed said. ‘I always forget that people find that weird, but I don’t know why. I’m one man; why would I want to fill up empty rooms with things that I have no need for? Truly this house is too big for me. I asked them to let me have a cottage, and to rent this out to a local family at an affordable price, but there’s some sort of covenant in the deeds that means it has to be the vicar of St Piran’s that lives here. It’s such a waste. I really want to use the rooms for something purposeful. I’ve been on at the bishop about it since I arrived, and I’m making progress, slowly.’
‘But you don’t even have a living room?’ Tamsyn asked him, looking around. ‘Not even a telly?’
‘I’ve got a laptop, if I want to watch a movie,’ Jed smiled. ‘No, this is the first house I’ve ever lived in as an adult. I don’t think I will ever get used to it.’
‘Where did you live before?’ Tamsyn exclaimed. ‘Institutions? Prison?’
Jed grinned. ‘I did flat shares at university, and then … well, in the army I was in barracks.’
‘The army?’ Tamsyn repeated to herself. Jed gestured towards a photo on the wall of a group of young men in dress uniform. ‘That’s me, and some of the guys. I joined up as a padre; they make you an officer at the same time. It seemed like the logical thing for me to do. I’d just been ordained, and I was full of fiery passion. I wanted to be somewhere where I felt I could really be of use and help people. Iraq was my first post.’ He paused for a moment as he looked at the photo. ‘Then Sierra Leone and Rwanda, and finally Afghanistan.’
Tamsyn didn’t really know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. Instead she stared for a long time at the faces of the young men in the photograph. Jed was still exceptionally good-looking, back then, his hair as golden as his tan, but there was something entirely different about him. In the photo he was laughing, and there was this light in his eyes. He looked at ease with the world, and there was a kind of surety about him that wasn’t there now, despite the quiet strength he seemed to exude. Perhaps he missed his life of adventure; rattling around in a house that was too big for him in sleepy Poldore was about as far from anything interesting as any person could be, unless a person was very interested in crocheting.
‘So, how did you end up here?’ she asked him.
‘I left the army, and the church thought this was a good spot for me.’ Jed shrugged, peering at his address book. ‘I wonder if that’s an eight or a zero …’
‘You didn’t want to work in an inner city, or a prison or something?’ Tamsyn asked him. ‘After the things you’ve seen, isn’t all this … “niceness” a bit boring?’
Jed looked thoughtful, bowing his head.
‘It’s not boring,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s just as real a life as any.’
‘But does it fulfil you, I mean?’ Tamsyn asked him.
Jed looked back at his soggy address book, and Tamsyn noticed how his grip on the object tightened slightly, along with the muscles in his jaw. What had she said to elicit that response, she wondered? She was fairly sure she hadn’t said anything that offensive.
‘You know what? I think I’ll ask Sue. Sue has the name, address and, more often than not, front-door key to almost every house in the town. She’ll be bound to help me get sorted.’
‘OK,’ Tamsyn said, taking the hint. ‘I just came to tell you, the power is still out, so I’ll take Mo back to Castle House to feed her there.’
‘Oh, OK,’ Jed said. ‘I need to sort a few things, so …’
‘Right, well, bye then,’ Tamsyn said.
‘Bye.’ Jed turned back to look out of the window, though when Tamsyn looked up as she passed the house on her way back, he was no longer there.
There was no time to reflect on the abrupt change of mood of the vicar when Tamsyn got back to Castle House, as there was an official-looking reception committee waiting for her in the kitchen. Sergeant Dangerfield was sitting at the table with a mug of tea and a large plate of sandwiches in front of him. Another woman, who Tamsyn guessed straight away was the social worker, was sitting next to him, but as Mo had now decided in earnest that she was hungry, they both had to wait as Tamsyn made up her bottle, conscious all the time that she was being watched and judged. She warmed the bottle, performing what now seemed like a regular ritual of wafting Mo from side to side at the same time as jiggling her up and down, while she did it.
‘So,’ Tamsyn sat down with Mo in her arms, ‘any news?’
‘About the mother? Not yet,’ Sergeant Dangerfield said, regretfully. ‘But the team in St Austell have been on to the local news, and there’s a film crew hoping to get here today, as the main roads through are already improving. So they’ll do a little film of you, and appeal for the mother to come forward and get help. And the recording will go out on the radio too.’
‘Good,’ Tamsyn said. ‘Except the power is still out, so I’m not sure how anyone will be able to listen in.’
‘They’re working to get the power back on today,’ Sergeant Dangerfield told her. ‘Oh, and this is …’
‘I’m Tess Jameson.’ The woman, who had a pleasant, kind face, stretched her hand out across the table, and then, seeing that Tamsyn had her own hands full, withdrew it again. ‘Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Ms Montaigne.’ She blinked. ‘A lot.’
‘Ah, Sue,’ Tamsyn smiled. ‘I hope at least some of it was good?’
‘Oh, she’s very impressed with you,’ Tess assured her. ‘So first of all, thank you for taking Baby on. I know it must have been quite a responsibility for you, to be landed with her like that.’
‘Well, it was a shock,’ Tamsyn admitted. ‘But what else was I going to do?’
‘Why are you here?’ Tamsyn looked up and saw Kirsten in the doorway. She didn’t look as if she had slept a wink last night, but it was Tess she was focused on. ‘Are you here about me?’
‘Hello, Kirsten.’ Tess obviously knew the girl. ‘No, love, we’re not due a meeting for another couple of weeks, are we?’
‘Well, why are you there then?’ Kirsten advanced another step into the room, glancing briefly at Tamsyn. ‘Is it about Chris?’
‘No, the baby.’ Tess nodded at Mo.
‘You met her last night, remember?’ Tamsyn asked Kirsten.
‘You’re going to take it away?’ Kirsten asked. ‘Into care?’
‘Well …’ Tess looked uneasy. Obviously she didn’t really feel like she could continue the conversation with Kirsten there, but she didn’t have a reason to send her away. Tamsyn watched the teenager closely, the way her shoulders were turned ever so slightly away from her, the way she couldn’t bring herself to look at Mo. Last night she hadn’t had any reaction at all to the baby, but today, she seemed both interested and frightened at the same time.
‘Well,’ Tess focused her attention back on Tamsyn. ‘The good news is that the roads are clear, although we don’t have any suitable foster-carers available to take Baby right away …’
‘Mo. She’s a she and her nickname is Mo,’ Tamsyn said, feeling herself unexpectedly bristle with irritation. Kirsten took a few more steps into the room and opened the fridge.
‘That’s sweet,’ Tess’s smile was warm and kind and Tamsyn had no doubt that the sentiment was genuine, yet she found herself rapidly cooling to the other woman, her hold on Mo tightening just a little. Tess continued, ‘So anyway, to cut a long story short, I will be able to take Mo off your hands today. Now, actually.’
‘Now?’ Tamsyn asked. ‘Like, right now?’
‘We’ll wait till she’s finished her feed,’ Tess chuckled. ‘Oh, can you make a note of what brand of formula you’ve been giving her, so we can make sure we use the same one?’