The Crow Folk Page 2

  It was nearly nine and Faye and Bertie had missed the whole practice. The tower gently rocked from side to side as the bells rang and Faye wavered with it, wondering about turning around and heading back to the pub to help her dad, but the ringers would all congregate there in a minute anyway, so she might as well show her face and make her excuses.

  She squeezed through the arch into the ringing chamber, staying close to the wall and giving a meek wave to Mr Hodgson as he led the rounds. Bertie appeared behind her, still carrying his trug of elderflowers and slightly out of breath.

  Even by the strange standards of Woodville Village, the bell-ringers were an odd lot. There was Faye, who no one could quite figure out, not least herself. Miss Burgess had more affinity for the chickens on her allotment than people, and her nails were never clean. Miss Gordon was kindness incarnate and a dead-shot archery champion. Mrs Pritchett had become quite tiny in her dotage and had to ring while standing on a box, though her concentration was as sharp as ever. The ringers were rounded off by the Roberts twins, two elderly gents, rotund and gentle in nature, who communicated with little nods and murmurs. They were known in the ringing world as the Bob Doubles, an in-joke that always got a chuckle at the County Society Annual General Meeting and polite bafflement everywhere else. They were all led by their tower captain Mr Hodgson, the Scout leader who wore knee-length khaki shorts whatever the weather. Indeed, it was said one could predict the weather by the colour of Mr Hodgson’s knees. This evening they were the shade of Cox’s Orange Pippin apples. Rain overnight with a slight chance of drizzle in the morning.

  The rounds were ending and they began to ring down. This was Faye’s favourite part of any practice. After rounds, the bells needed to be left safely mouth down and they were gently coaxed into position by the ringers. They began to ring closer and closer together, clattering into one another in what was often described by Faye’s dad as ‘a bloody racket that wouldn’t be allowed nowhere else if it weren’t for the bloody church’. But then something wonderful happened. From the chaos came a harmonic humming. It swirled around them, resonating off the ancient stone of the tower, vibrating the wooden floorboards and rattling the windows. Faye’s mum used to say it was like angels singing, and when the ringers got it right, there was no other sound like it.

  The ringers continued to gently hold and release the sallies with their right hands while coiling the ends of the ropes in their left. Faye closed her eyes in bliss, the hum of the bells all around them now.

  The harmony was broken by a call from Mr Hodgson. ‘Miss and catch in rounds after three. One… two… three. Miss and catch!’ With a final round of chimes, the bells fell silent.

  Faye opened her eyes to find Mr Hodgson scowling at her.

  ‘And what time do you call this, you two?’ he huffed at Faye and Bertie.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Aitch,’ she said. ‘The day just got away from me.’

  ‘Did it indeed? Did you give any of us a second thought as we stood around waiting for you to arrive? Wasting precious time twiddling our thumbs when we could have been ringing, hmm?’ Mr Hodgson always found it unfathomable that one’s day did not entirely revolve around ringing practice. Though even by his standards, he was unusually snippy this evening.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Aitch, I cycled as fast as I—’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you did. Where have you been?’

  ‘I was… doing stuff. Saucepans for Spitfires and all that. I won’t be late for Sunday. I promise.’

  There were murmurs and intakes of breath from the other ringers and their eyes darted furtively.

  ‘There won’t be any ringing on Sunday,’ Mr Hodgson said, his upper lip trembling. The other ringers all looked as glum, pouting as they tied up their ropes.

  ‘What… what’s wrong?’ Faye asked. ‘Who died?’

  ‘It was on the wireless,’ Bertie said. ‘Paris is occupied by the Nazis. Terrible news.’

  ‘Worse, Bertie, worse,’ Mr Hodgson wailed. ‘No more bell-ringing. Banned till after the war!’

  ‘Banned?’ Faye’s voice went up an octave. ‘Who banned it? They can’t ban it? Can they?’

  ‘Word has come from the diocese and the War Office. All church bells to be suspended until further notice,’ Mr Hodgson said, and then added with a roll of his eyes, ‘with the exception of air raids.’

  ‘But what about the quarter peal on Sunday? For Mum?’ A quarter peal of bells was a long session, almost an hour, which required experienced ringers and were rung to celebrate special occasions. Faye had never done one before, but she was ready, and Mr Hodgson had suggested a quarter peal to honour the anniversary of her mother’s passing. Faye hadn’t been sure – she didn’t like it when other people made her think of her mum – but Mr Hodgson insisted and she caved in.

  ‘Off, I’m sorry to say,’ he said.

  ‘No, no, it can’t be. It-it’s my first. That’s not fair. They must be able to make an exception for one little quarter peal, Mr Hodgson, please.’

  ‘An exception? Why is it the young believe the rules do not apply to them, hmm?’

  ‘I don’t want to break any rules, Mr Aitch, but look, I’ve…’ Fay lowered her voice and looked around as the other ringers filed out of the room and began the perilous descent of the spiral steps. ‘I’ve found a new method.’

  Mr Hodgson’s face twitched with anticipation. New methods weren’t unusual – he had concocted a few himself – but he was always keen to try something fresh. ‘You have? Where?’

  Faye noticed Bertie loitering by the narrow stone entrance to the ringing chamber. ‘Bertie, can you tell Dad I’ll be along in two shakes?’

  ‘Oh, uh, yes, yes, of course,’ Bertie said with a blush before turning sideways to squeeze through to the spiral stairs.

  Faye felt a pang of shame in sending Bertie on his way, but if he saw any of what followed then he would know there was more to Faye’s book than jam roly-poly. ‘One moment, Mr Aitch,’ she said as she unbuckled her satchel, took out the book and flicked through the pages until she found the slip of paper. ‘Here.’ She handed it to him and he narrowed his eyes as he played the method in his head.

  ‘The Kefo… Kefa…’

  ‘Kefapepo,’ Faye said. ‘Don’t ask why it’s called that, cos I don’t know.’

  ‘Most peculiar,’ Mr Hodgson said, his voice baffled and intrigued. ‘In all my years of ringing I’ve never come across anything quite like it, I must say.’

  ‘Well, no, you wouldn’t have.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’

  ‘It was my mum’s.’

  ‘Ah.’ Mr Hodgson flexed his lips. ‘Certainly explains a few things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Forgive me, Faye, but it’s simply bizarre. It’s just the bells dodging over and over again. Nothing more than noise, I’m afraid. Fine if you were trying to hypnotise someone, but quite un-ringable. And what’s this at the bottom? I break the thunder, I torment evil, I banish darkness. Oh, I say, this is most peculiar. If we were to go ahead, I would have suggested a simple quarter peal of twelve-sixty of Plain Bob Triples, but alas, we are forbidden until further notice. Perhaps the best thing is to wait until all this war nonsense is over and then stick with tradition, hmm?’

  ‘But, Mr Hodgson—’

  ‘I’m sorry, Faye, I truly am.’ Mr Hodgson’s face crumpled sympathetically. ‘Your mother was a marvellous ringer, but we shall have to find some other way to honour her memory, I’m afraid. No more ringing until this blasted war is over.’

  3 THE GREEN MAN

  The rain had escalated beyond mere cats and dogs and was lashing ferociously against the walls of the pub by the time Faye and the ringers arrived at the Green Man. The pub was built in 1360 and had been in a state of constant disrepair ever since. It was almost as old as the bell tower, and this was no coincidence. Bell-ringers varied in their levels of devotion to the church – there were a surprising number of agnostics and atheists to be found among their numbers – but for c
enturies the great majority of them had shared a true passion for local ales and ciders.

  The hand-painted sign with the Green Man’s foliage face creaked in the gale as they barged through the door in their hurry to escape the rain and reach the bar. Few would get in their way. Two old fellas were playing dominoes in the corner and a bloodhound was asleep by the fire. By Woodville Village standards this was quiet for a Friday night, but the hammering rain and the blackout kept most regulars at home by the hearth and the wireless.

  Faye’s spectacles misted up as the warmth of the fire washed over her, and she was grateful as they hid the few tears she had shed between the bell tower and here. She sniffed, blinked them away and squinted through the fog to make out her father Terrence cleaning pint glasses behind the bar.

  The tobacco-smoke air of publican life had given Terrence’s face the texture of a saddlebag. Receding white curls sat atop his head like clouds on the horizon, but he was as sharp as ever. This was his pub, and he knew every villager by first, second and middle names. His eyes darted to Faye as she came in and he looked at her through the bottom of a pint glass like Nelson peering through a telescope.

  ‘Ahoy there! Here come the village’s finest campanologists,’ he said, gleefully using a word only ever used by non-bell-ringers who had found the noun for bell-ringers in a dictionary and wanted their bell-ringer friends to know that they knew it.

  ‘And the thirstiest,’ Faye said, the leather strap of the satchel pinching her shoulder, weighed down by her mother’s book. ‘One tick and I’ll give you a hand,’ she told him, gripping the satchel’s buckle and scurrying into the narrow hall behind the bar. She checked her dad wasn’t looking as she slipped the satchel into a little nook by the penny jar where it wouldn’t be seen, but she couldn’t resist one last peek at the wonders inside. Faye took out the book and opened it at a page full of runes and magical symbols and a sketch of a witch riding a broomstick.

  ‘What you got there, girl?’ a new voice asked, startling Faye. She snapped the book shut and found Archibald Craddock had silently emerged from the lavatory, without flushing or washing his hands. Craddock had a body sculpted from a lifetime of ale, pie and mash and the great outdoors. Bald under his cap, he was cloaked in a poacher’s long coat which crumpled as he squeezed past her in the hall. His grin was three pints crooked.

  ‘It’s a book,’ she said, sliding it behind the penny jar. ‘It’s called None of Your Beeswax, Archibald Craddock and it’s by me. I reckon it’ll be very popular.’

  For a heartbeat it looked like Craddock might shove her aside and grab the book, but he had little interest in childish things, let alone reading. Instead, he wheezed a boozy cough, scruffed Faye’s hair and returned to his regular haunt at the end of the bar.

  Faye got her breath back, wiped her specs clean on her blouse, adjusted the clip in her hair, hid the book away in the satchel and took her place behind the pumps with her father.

  ‘Terrence, have you heard the awful news?’ Mr Hodgson asked Faye’s dad, raising his arms as if proclaiming from on high.

  ‘The Nazis have got Paris, Mr Aitch,’ Terrence replied. ‘Bad business.’

  ‘No, no, no, that’s not it at all,’ Mr Hodgson wailed, thumping a fist on the bar.

  ‘Er… They’re talking about putting another penny on a pint to pay for the war effort?’

  ‘No! All church bells to be suspended until further notice, with the exception of air raids. It was on the wireless. Did you not hear?’

  ‘Oh.’ Terrence had worked in this pub since he could walk. Long ago, he taught Faye it was easier to allow the customers to vent their spleens, then sell them a pint or two. Disagreeing with them or pointing out that the bells were a bloody public nuisance would only lose custom. ‘Oh, that’s… terrible. In’t it, Faye?’

  ‘Come on, Dad, don’t pretend this isn’t the happiest day of your life.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, girl. I know how much the old ding-donging meant to you and your mother. Weren’t you going to do one of them extra-long ding-dongs for her this Sunday?’

  ‘Quarter peal.’ Faye’s voice cracked. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, Faye,’ Terrence said, resting his hand on Faye’s shoulder. ‘No, really. You was looking forward to it, weren’t you, girl?’ Faye, caught off guard by her father’s sudden and genuine sympathy, thought she might become a mess of tears there and then. Of course, he had to go and ruin it: ‘Does that mean I get a lie-in?’

  ‘Dad.’ Faye snapped as she poured Mr Hodgson a pint of his usual.

  ‘I can’t say I’m happy about it, of course,’ Mr Hodgson said. ‘But we have a duty and we must do by it.’

  The other ringers grumbled in assent, and Bertie piped up, ‘As Mr Churchill said, we must never surrender.’

  ‘Cobblers.’ Craddock’s gravelly voice came from the other end of the bar and all heads turned.

  Faye watched as Bertie’s face went white as milk. The lad looked down at his pint and waited for a hole to open in the Earth and swallow him up. Mr Hodgson, on the other hand, spoke up with the bravery of a man who had fought valiantly at the Battle of Mons in 1914.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ the tower captain asked.

  ‘I said, cobblers, bollocks, balls and what a load of old toot,’ Craddock replied, not looking up from the bar. ‘Never surrender, my arse. We got stuffed at Dunkirk, the Frogs got stuffed today. The Poles, the Dutch, Belgium, all done for, and we’ll be next. Hitler’s Blitzkrieg can’t be stopped, and Mussolini and the Eyeties just declared war on us, too.’ Craddock took a long drag on his roll-up. ‘We should never’ve got involved.’

  ‘This is treason, Mr Craddock,’ Mr Hodgson said. ‘I should report you.’

  ‘It’s common sense, you old fool,’ Craddock said, wreathed in smoke. ‘We should stop now and make a deal before they send more of our boys to die. In the meantime, they expect us to farm the land with naught but women, cripples and pansies.’

  ‘And which one are you?’ Faye asked, flashing him a smile.

  Bertie snorted and blushed, though the other ringers looked at her in horror.

  The big man snarled and got to his feet, the chair scraping the floorboards with a noise like a wounded animal. ‘What did you say…?’ He moved towards Faye, the pub floor creaking beneath his weight.

  ‘Easy now, Archie,’ Terrence said. ‘She didn’t mean nothing.’

  ‘Oh, I did.’ Faye stood her ground, all the time wondering if having the bar between her and Craddock’s hulk would be enough to keep her safe.

  ‘Faye, pop a cork in it.’ Terrence had known Craddock with his short temper and quick fists his entire life. Faye had heard all the stories, of course, but lacked the experience of witnessing Craddock in his full-blooded rage, smashing a bar to splinters over little more than a spilled pint.

  Faye steadied her voice and folded her arms. ‘All I’m saying is, if you don’t like it, then maybe you should go off and fight the Nazis, too?’

  ‘He’s too old,’ Bertie blurted.

  Terrence gave him a glare. And you can belt up, too!

  Craddock turned on Bertie. ‘I went to war last time round,’ he said, and the boy shrank. ‘I’ve done my bit and I ain’t going again. I’ll stay here with the women, cripples, pansies… and witches.’

  Faye tingled with guilt and just about stopped herself from sneaking a glance at the book hidden behind the penny jar. But Craddock wasn’t looking at her or the book. He’d turned his head to the woman sat next to the two old fellas playing dominoes. Faye’s hair stood on end. She could have sworn the woman hadn’t been there just a moment ago, but now there she was, ensconced in the armchair under an old sepia photograph of some hop-pickers.

  Charlotte Southill’s hair was cotton-white, her face pale, lipstick blood-red. She was smoking a clay pipe and reading an unmarked black book; her big eyes reflected the light of the fire as she returned Craddock’s glare with an enigmatic smile.

  Faye watche
d as Craddock tried to stare Charlotte down. His face began to tremble and beads of sweat appeared on his top lip. The woman gently closed her book, stood and glided to the bar, slender as a rose stem in her fur-lined coat. Faye’s specs started misting up again.

  Charlotte Southill slapped some coins on the bar. Charlotte didn’t come to the Green Man often, but when she did, she always had a bit of Mother’s Ruin. Faye nodded and poured her a gin.

  ‘Evenin’, Miss Charlotte,’ Terrence said cheerily. ‘Didn’t see you there.’

  Charlotte offered no reply, keeping her eyes on Craddock.

  The poacher leaned so close to Charlotte that Faye wondered if he was going to kiss her. ‘I ain’t afraid of you,’ he said, curling his lip then adding, ‘witch.’

  No kissing, then. Faye placed the gin by Charlotte’s elbow.

  Charlotte’s hand was a blur as she reached for it.

  Craddock flinched.

  It wasn’t much. A twitch in his eye and a spasm in his arm, but they all saw it. The ringers nudged each other. Charlotte’s smile widened as she downed the gin in one.

  Craddock pulled his coat tight and, with a wordless mumble, strode out into the rain, slamming the door behind him.

  For a moment, the only noise was the crackle of the fire, then Miss Burgess ordered a half of pale ale and the friendly hubbub of chatter returned.

  Faye’s mind whirled as she tried to recall every bit of gossip she had ever heard about Charlotte Southill. The witch thing was a common rumour; others said she was descended from Romany gypsies, and the most ridiculous one came from Mr Loaf, the funeral director, who reckoned Charlotte was over three hundred years old, a direct descendent of Mother Shipton, who had survived the plague and made an immortal pact with the Devil. Mr Loaf would have been less than delighted to learn he was closer to the mark than most.