Village Fete

By Michele Deppe

Going back home is sometimes the way to move forward.

Defeated, divorced, and obliged to leave London, Simon Whiston returns to the small English village to which he vowed never to return, and to the sister with whom he never got along. But he soon discovers that he isn’t the only one in need of a fresh start. As sum

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michele Deppe
• Release date: Sep 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990699507

Michele Deppe

An Adams Media author.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The old white van squeaked as it mounted the narrow stone bridge, its headlamps bouncing beams across the road as it came down the opposite side. Grumbling over cobbled streets, the vehicle rolled past the Twinns , an ancient pair of Tudor cottages on King Street. The cottages huddled behind a granite wall, which bore the name of the village, Burleigh Cross, in antiquated script. An otherwise insignificant village, Burleigh Cross kept a toehold in England’s history simply for standing there, for time immemorial, amongst forgotten fields.

Burleigh Cross, Simon Whiston liked to say, had seen him born and bred and soonest fled. But here he was returning home like a waster.

Dusk was rapidly giving way to night, and it was too late for anyone to be about as he skirted the green, his van rumbling loudly in the late summer evening against the tall, dense trees. Standing at odds were the crumbling old church and the George & Dragon pub, which had always closed early on Mondays, and apparently still did. A weak light glowed in the post office. An end-of-season sale board was propped in the window of Goodchild’s shop. Then came the half-empty row, a handful of shops and offices in the old mews.

Unexpectedly, Simon warmed with affection as he drove by the familiar shopfronts, but he smirked at the abandoned estate agents. The village’s stone cottages, expansive Victorian houses, and farms all sheltered, more or less, the same families as they’d always done. London commuters bound for Victoria or Waterloo East station were efficiently based in Maidstone, a dozen country miles distant.

In a blink, he’d driven through the village. Grinning, he shook his head. Growing up his whole world had been encompassed here, barely a wide spot in a road used for going somewhere else.

Leaving the village proper the road lengthened up a hill, towards a thick border of beech crowned by the expansive night sky. As Simon’s headlights swept around the first bend, his memory filled in Stanley Pugh’s apple orchard, hidden in shadows beyond the hedge.

Instantly, the familiar scene changed.

Simon stood on the brakes. The tyres screamed into the darkness, the van’s bumper scarcely missing a white, wolf-like creature that darted into the road. The silvery beast crossed the lane and disappeared into a break in the opposite hedgerow.

Then, something even more fantastic.

A woman appeared, running in the creature’s wake. The van’s headlamps shimmered against her scarlet gown, her long blonde hair was glazed by moonlight.

In a suspended moment, both the wolf-like creature and the woman were gone.

‘What the…’ Simon sat motionless, his mind replaying the scene. Baffled, he shifted the van and drove on.

Simon’s vehicle crept between the winding, grassy verges. As the road levelled, his eyes swept back and forth, lest a wild animal pursued by an equally wild woman should again materialise in his path. A curve to the right, a soft left, and then the old farmhouse swung into view. He turned onto the gravel drive, followed its arc away from the house, and parked the van beside his father’s old workshop.

The lantern by the farmhouse door spilled out a weak golden pool of light, but the house stood quiet. Simon eased slowly out of the driver’s seat, his torso retaining the shape of a prawn. As his feet touched stone, he steadied himself by gripping the steering wheel. Best to come back later for his kit. His body clenched in pain, but he sucked in a deep breath and forced his shoulders to straighten. The drive from London had been a bit much. Nonetheless, no stooping allowed.

He shuffled, his hips sending hot shards of complaint up and down his sides. Simon stopped for a moment. Twenty-nine, but feeling nigh on 90, he’d learned the value of moving slowly on bad days. Having to go at a pensioner’s pace flooded him with a sense of defeat, but his body quieted, the pain stabbed a little less sharply, and he imagined he was walking quite normally as he came to the front of the house. Trudging onto the low porch, he drew his childhood key from his pocket, turned the lock, and stepped through the old oak door.

The house wasn’t slumbering as he’d thought. His sister sat at the heavy, scrubbed wooden table that had belonged to their grandmother. He could tell by the look on her face she’d witnessed his plodding procession through the room’s far window, which framed a view of the workshop.

‘Lorna.’

‘I thought you said the new medication was helping. You look fairly crippled to me.’‘Lovely to see you, too, Sis.’Avoiding the firm chairs with woven-rush seats that stood around the table, Simon aimed for the soft, archaic, dark-gold velvet sofa in the sitting room that was as welcoming as a fat granny’s lap. The late summer warmth had burned away hours ago, leaving the room chilly. Tiny arrows of pain shot upwards through his back and neck as he sank down onto the sagging cushions.

‘I am sorry, Simon. It’s really awful to see you like this. I thought those new tablets would do you a treat. You said you’d be all right, didn’t you? But obviously not.’

He’d expected as much. Simon hadn’t seen his sister for two years or more, before everything in his life went reeling. He’d hoped to have this scene with her in the morning, when he felt less depleted from dealing with his creaking body all day.

Lorna Whiston pulled a face, brows weaving together. Her expression was familiar, and Simon braced himself. Her disappointment was easier to endure than the onslaught of empathy that was about to ensue. ‘I didn’t expect you to look so poorly, Simon. That’s cruel to say, I suppose, but you are quite changed, you know.’

The cold room caused Simon to shudder. The truth was, he shared his sister’s bewilderment. He’d studied his face in the mirror not a few times lately, feeling oddly remote as he noticed the gaunt curve beneath his cheekbones. There was no hint of the old fire he used to possess, and he had the odd feeling of not recognising himself. Perhaps worse was trying to fill his days without work.

His misfortunes came in rapid succession. First, the lawsuit came against him, crushing his business as well as his spirit, followed by the mysterious pain. His mind cast back to the night, two years ago, when illness abruptly took him hostage. He had gone to bed early, he and his wife both supposing that Simon was suffering from flu.

That night, in the space of a few hours, the pain throughout his body went from achy to agony. Clearly not the flu, he remembered telling his wife. Dominique’s fear had been palpable. He remembered the wail of the ambulance, and how it took him a while to work out that it was coming for him.

Dominique hadn’t come to the hospital during the days that followed. She wasn’t with him when a specialist gave him the diagnosis. Simon’s hip was full of fluid, he was told, which was pressing on his sciatic nerve, thus the pain; the long-term impact the arthritis would have on his life was uncertain. He was advised to rest, eat properly, and, above all, avoid stress. When he’d come home after four days in hospital, his wife wasn’t there. So much for avoiding stress, he’d thought as he wandered the rooms of their large house, his footsteps echoing on the cold tile floors of the starkly decorated, modern rooms. That’s when the truth came to him quite suddenly. His wife didn’t love him any longer—and she hadn’t for quite some time. Dominique hadn’t encouraged him to spend more time at home. Why was that? He knew she was terribly independent, but he wondered how she’d filled her evenings. He couldn’t remember her ever getting around to answering those sorts of questions when he’d asked them.

The divorce papers arrived with the legal bills; his business, his health, and his marriage all failed in the same breath.

He’d held out for as long as he could, and then phoned his sister. Simon told Lorna that he needed a place to stay. His money had run out, and he had to leave his flat. Here he was back in the village he’d sworn he’d never return to, trying to explain the whole bloody mess to a sister with whom he’d never gotten along.

‘The medication was helping a bit, over the last year and a half. But recently the meds became worthless. I saw the doctor about a fortnight ago. As it happens, he had a new medication. So I gave it a go.’

Simon looked away from his sister as he explained his latest calamity, resenting the kick that came when he was already down. ‘The thing I haven’t told anyone else—is that I’d heard from a friend that Dominique had been having an affair when we were married. Honestly, I could hardly blame her. I was so seldom home. She had always been telling me how critical it was to keep the large orders coming in, how the first five years of laying a foundation for a business often determines one’s success. I knew she wanted, more than anything, for me to be successful. She never talked about wanting anything for us—never mentioned kids, she never wanted to plan holidays; always steering me towards making the business work. Not to mention, she was spending money like water. I didn’t really believe it before, that stress can make a person ill, however the doctor seemed to imply that had a lot of bearing on my condition.’ Lorna’s eyes welled with tears.

‘I am sorry.’

‘No, don’t apologise, Simon,’ his sister said. ‘I want to hear it all. Go on.’

‘Well. Two weeks ago, I was desperate for some relief. I’d only taken one dose of the new medication—from a sample packet given to me at the doctor’s surgery. A few minutes later, I collapsed in front of my flat. I couldn’t breathe. Someone passing by found me and rang for help, and I was taken to hospital. They said it was a reaction to the drugs. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out my priorities, breathing being rather important, so I quit the medication, as well as the other tablets that weren’t helping.’

Lorna stared at him. His sister was rarely speechless, but she was coming to understand he’d been severely ill, more so than he’d let on during the several phone calls that had passed between them in as many years.

Simon cast about for something encouraging, but came up empty. Losing his wife, his business, and his health had been hell. He didn’t particularly want to talk about the last 24 months, but he owed her an explanation. They had never been close. In fact, he’d found Lorna singularly irritating when he’d still been living at home. She returned his antipathy, yet she’d put aside their differences and offered their family’s home to him.

‘I appreciate you letting me come home, Lorna.’

His younger sister absently studied the table beneath her elbows, tracing a circular stain in the wood. ‘Only because you had nowhere else to go. Like an old dog.’ She turned to look down the room at him and grinned.

‘I am glad you’re not angry with me for—well, for cocking up my life, and turning up like this.’

‘Not yet.’ She rose from the table and stretched. ‘But give it a day or maybe less, and you’ll probably have to set up house in the workshop.’

‘What a loving sibling you are.’

‘Naturally, dear Simon.’ She went to the tap and filled the kettle.

‘Had quite a strange thing happen coming on this side of the village,’ Simon said, resorting to casual chat and stifling a yawn. ‘There was a white, wolfish looking animal, and a woman running after it. Utterly bizarre, I can tell you. They passed right in front of me and it was lucky that I was quick with the brake.’

Lorna lobbed sugar into both teacups. ‘That’s our resident witch.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

The kettle whistled and he watched as Lorna made their tea. He ought to walk over to claim his tea and join her at the table. But he just couldn’t muster the courage to set his body ablaze again.

His sister seemed to sense this and brought their tea to the small sitting room. Simon was grateful for the kindness. She set his tea on a table in front of the sofa, then sat and tucked her feet beneath her, settling in like a contented cat on a navy blue and white winged chair opposite him. It was a chair he’d made, one of the first he’d upholstered; very ambitious given that it was a striped fabric and thus more difficult to match up at the seams. It had been a present for their mum on Mothering Sunday. Even now, he felt rather proud of having made it.

‘Well I am serious, and it would seem you’re hardly in a position to argue with me, now you’ve seen her haunting the lane.’ Lorna sipped her tea. ‘She came to Burleigh Cross two, maybe three, months back. Hung out a shingle at the old surgery, what used to be Dr. Cleweley’s before he moved closer to Maidstone. Calls herself a healer and uses herbs or something.’

‘And she’s the resident sorceress, hmm? Potions and the like?’ Simon took a deep quaff of tea. Mercifully, his sister had given him a mug, which was easier for his stiff fingers to embrace. His hand and wrist throbbed from holding the heavy ironstone, but the steam enveloping his face and sweet warmth on his tongue was worth the bee sting in his joints. The old sofa held him lovingly, and he grew more relaxed.

‘Not only that. There were some odd rumours floating about. Hardly anyone’s been to her lair to report what goes on there. The white dog’s rather real though, I’ve heard it barking. It seems to escape a lot. She’s forever running after it and bringing it home.’

‘Home?’

Lorna cradled her delicate china cup in both hands. ‘She’s our neighbour. The Grahams’ cottage was to let when she came. They’re so often in the City now, what with the company he works for expanding offices in every possible direction.’

Simon reflected on the Grahams, whose cottage stood across the road. He was at school with David, who’d gone off to university and become an architect. David had made lots of upgrades to the cottage after his parents left to move closer to David and his wife in London. The Grahams hired Simon on to restore the charming old staircase, whose steps had worn away like broken teeth. Stair climbing had been effortless for Simon in those days.

‘Finley and Peony are excited you’ve come. They’ll be all over you in the morning, you know.’ It was touching to hear Lorna regard him with affection, particularly with regards to sharing her children’s enthusiasm for their uncle. He’d always enjoyed an easy relationship with Lorna’s kids on the few occasions they’d met. Simon would swoop down to the floor to play with them, while his French wife had stood by, distracted, silent, and evidently eager to return to London.

‘I am looking forward to seeing how much they’ve grown.’ Simon’s eyes began to water with fatigue.

‘I went to Vandersteen’s shop and traded some things for a storabed.’ Lorna gestured towards the tiny spare room at the back of the sitting room, the top of its doorway sliced across one corner where the stairs sloped up to the ceiling. ‘I know it’s little more than a box room, but, mind you, you knew how it was going to be. I can’t very well chuck the kids out of their rooms, or give up mine, you know.’ Her voice sharpened with a defensive edge.

‘No, no, of course not, Lorna. I am glad of a roof over my head till I can get sorted. Cheers.’

He remembered what Lorna had said, almost two years ago, when Dominique had gone. She’d thought her brother was a fool, letting his big house in London go to his wife in the divorce, not asking her for so much as a pound or an apology. Somehow, he still didn’t regret that, even though without Lorna’s hospitality he’d be homeless.

Lorna sighed, and