The Art of Standing Still Read online

  ‘No comment,’ Fry snapped.

  ‘Well, in view of local and national protests and evidence from environmental groups . . .’ Jemma pressed.

  ‘I said, “No comment.” ’

  Fry strode past her and steered his faltering wife towards the exit. Jemma couldn’t help wondering if Amanda Fry’s unsteadiness was entirely due to her footwear.

  She shrugged and tucked her notebook back into her bag. Opportunities are there to be seized. Too bad if they slip out of your grasp.

  She located the man she assumed to be Bram Griffin, the organiser of the event, leaning on a gate. She picked a path across the field, skirting round the cow pats and narrowly avoiding the gossip-laden attentions of Mrs Grimsby-Johnson and her Bell Ringers Social Group.

  Bram Griffin was wearing a green gilet and wellies. Rather incongruously he was also wearing a large white cowboy hat. She suppressed a grin. He looked like Horse and Hound meets the Village People.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Griffin.’ She held out her hand, hoping this time for a friendlier response. ‘Jemma Durham, Monksford Gazette.’

  ‘Delighted, Miss Durham. Are you enjoying the contest?’

  ‘I can truly say I’ve never attended anything quite as – ’ she searched for the right word ‘ – extraordinary.’

  Bram Griffin beamed with delight. ‘Of course you know the best technique to get the cow pat to go the farthest?’

  Jemma shook her head. She didn’t know, and she didn’t wish to know.

  He told her anyway. ‘You see, you got to lick your fingers first . . .’

  Jemma shuddered and pretended to write it down.

  Saffy scuttled over and started to set up her monopod. ‘Why can’t she get a proper one with three legs?’ muttered Jemma. ‘Excuse me, Saffy. I haven’t finished.’

  ‘Oh, oh . . . I’m sorry!’ Saffy fumbled with her lens cap. ‘I’ll . . . er . . . come back when you’re . . . um . . . done.’

  She dropped the lens cap and went down on her knees, still clutching her monopod in one hand, and fumbled in the grass. Bram Griffin looked heavenward as if checking for signs of rain that might spoil his white Stetson, then shuffled his feet, replacing a clod of earth with the rubber heel of his boot. Jemma sighed. Poor Saffy, clumsy, socially inept, and what a start in life when your parents decide to land you with the name Saffron Walton. Jemma quickly dismissed the thought that Saffy’s parents might once have spent a night of abandon in North Essex.

  Jemma said, ‘Let me hold that,’ and took the camera.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Saffy said. ‘Just one moment, I’ll be out of your way.’ She snapped the muddy lens cap back in place, a few blades of grass poking out like flower petals. Finally, she tucked her monopod under one arm and scuttled off to find someone else to annoy.

  ‘Mr Griffin,’ Jemma cooed. ‘I’m so sorry for that interruption. Now if I might ask you where you got the idea for a cow-pat throwing contest . . .’

  Monksford Gazette

  Thursday September 8

  A PAT ON THE BACK FOR LOCAL FARMER

  By Jemma Durham

  A local farmer has found an unusual use for the by-products of the 200 plus dairy cattle on his farm – a cow-pat throwing competition. Bram Griffin, 55, welcomed the public to his Monksford farm last Saturday to compete for the £100 prize and a Golden Cow Pat trophy.

  The cow pats are dried in the sun, then thrown, the winner being the person who tosses the cow pat the farthest.

  ‘I got the idea during a trip to Oklahoma last year. After all, we have enough of the raw material lying around,’ Mr Griffin said.

  ‘There are several techniques, including throwing it like a Frisbee and pitching it like a cricket ball.’

  The event also benefited local children’s hospice charity, raising over £300 from entry fees and a charity auction.

  Mr Griffin said, ‘It was a great way to have fun and do some good in the community at the same time.’

  Overall winner, Joshua Wood, 32, intends to donate his prize to the hospice.

  There are plans to make the contest an annual event.

  Scene Two

  RUTH WELLS RUBBED HER EYES AND STRAIGHTENED THE KINK IN HER ACHING back. It was getting dark, and she reached across the desk to switch on the anglepoise lamp, trying not to send the piles of sermon notes, parish council agenda, and back issues of Church Times cascading onto the floor. Dimitri, startled by the noise, quit his spot on the filing cabinet, jumped down, and after a long, luxurious stretch of his stripy back, rubbed around her ankles.

  She glanced at her watch. It was getting late. Three hours had flown by, and she needed to feed Dimitri, snatch a bite to eat, and bring in the washing before tonight’s meeting. Working on the plays wasn’t supposed to take her this long. It was only supposed to be a bit of fun, a hobby, a diversion, not something that would take over her life. She had originally planned to modernise all forty-eight plays in the cycle, then halved that number when she realised how long it would take. She concentrated on her favourites, those she could imagine being performed, but even that venture had taken her the best part of two years.

  Dimitri seemed to think his supper was still an over-optimistic flight of fancy, closed his green eyes, and settled by the door for another forty winks.

  Ruth stared at the screen. Just one more stanza, then she would prepare for the Deanery meeting. Ruth studied the manuscript and almost wept at Mary’s words.

  Sich sorow forto se,

  My dere barn, on the,

  Is more mowrnyng to me

  Then any tong may tell.

  Ruth typed slowly, stopping often to flick to the glossary at the back of her copy of The Canterbury Tales, regretting she hadn’t paid more attention during her English class. Middle English, like Latin, seemed pointless when she was at school. Now she realised how much she would have benefited from both.

  Such sorrow do I see,

  My dear child, on you,

  Is more mourning to me

  Than any tongue can tell.

  She clicked on the save icon. That would have to do for tonight. She would allow herself half an hour before breakfast to try to make it scan and read properly. She had long ago given up on forcing the lines into rhyme, simply to coax them into making sense to the contemporary ear. She had made a point of reading the modernised texts of the York plays and was startled at the similarity to the Monksford text. She wished she had the expertise, scholarship, and dedication of Beadle and King or good old Canon Purvis, but all she had was the will to do her best. After all, this was only Monksford, where nothing ever happened and a lost cat would make the news.

  She shut down the computer and went into the hall to put on her coat. She picked up the newspaper from the doormat, glancing at the headline before she tucked it straight into the recycling bin. A sudden weariness overwhelmed her, and she flopped onto the antique pew that ran the length of the vicarage hallway. She saw her reflection in the mirror, and she felt old and dowdy. Her ginger hair, which Mother used to call strawberry blonde, was cut into a practical bob, and her round face made her look friendly and approachable, the sort of person others could confide in. And people were always telling her what a lovely bright smile she had. She would be forty-eight next birthday but people said they couldn’t believe she was out of her thirties.

  Unless, of course, people were lying.

  Ruth had never felt young, slim, and attractive, even when she had been. Now she saw a dumpy middle aged woman with ginger hair and frumpy clothes and empty eyes.

  ‘Dumpy Frumpy sat in the hall,’ she sang to herself, then laughed out loud. Dimitri turned his back. She followed him to the kitchen and opened a tin of something purporting to be rabbit and game. He didn’t complain. She went outside and threw her notebook, directions to the church in the village of Leaton Maynard, and her Bible onto the passenger seat of her battered Ford Fiesta. She returned to the house, turning the key in the oak door but leaving a light on in the hall, ‘fo
r the burglars’ as her mother used to say. Ruth hoped the burglars would be grateful.

  She eventually found St Gregory’s Church, through a graveyard, up an alley, down an unlit country lane in a village in the middle of nowhere with totally inadequate signposts.

  She was late as usual. Everyone was already sitting down in the pews, and heads turned as she came in. She hurried to a side table with an electric kettle and a stack of biscuits on a plate. She poured lukewarm water on some instant coffee granules – nothing was going to prevent her from getting her caffeine fix – then reached automatically towards the biscuits. Scottish shortbread petticoat tails, her favourite. But then, everything was her favourite. She pulled her hand back. If she was already feeling dumpy and frumpy, biscuits certainly wouldn’t help. She hesitated a moment. The secretary gave a little cough. Ruth’s hand shot out and she took two. Oh, who cares if I’ll never look like Jerry Hall, she thought.

  An ancient priest in a dusty black coat, who looked as if he had been resurrected for the occasion, opened the meeting with a solemn and sonorous prayer, then got down to business. Ruth glanced at the empty pews. Even the promise of free coffee and biscuits had not been sufficient to lure most of the local clergy from their sofas. The agenda itself looked less than scintillating, and the pervading smell of damp and musty hymnbooks made her wrinkle her nose in aversion. She smiled briefly at Canon Gregory Grindal, who was sitting, as usual, as far away as possible from the female clergy. Perhaps if he ignores us, he thinks we will cease to exist, she thought. She squirmed to find a comfortable position on the pew. Finally she settled with one elbow on the pew back and her cheek resting on her hand. The discussion of youth work around the parishes just about held Ruth’s attention, but when it came to the treasurer’s report and the feedback from General Synod, Diocesan Synod, and Bishop’s Council, she could feel her eyelids drooping. The coffee wasn’t doing its job.

  The next thing she knew, a hand gently touched her shoulder.

  ‘We occasionally offer shelter for the night, but I really can’t recommend the pews. And I’m sure your bed is much more comfortable.’

  Ruth sat up and wiped her hand across her chin, worried she had been dribbling. She recognised the man who stood over her: The new Deanery secretary.

  ‘I’m so sorry! It wasn’t as if I was bored or anything, it’s just that I’ve been working quite hard, and I’m translating this play in my spare time and . . .’ Ruth realised she was burbling and stopped. The man was smiling at her.

  ‘I know the feeling.’ The man’s smile widened, and a little place in her heart warmed. He had kind blue eyes under bushy eyebrows.

  Ruth quickly gathered up her agenda and notebook. The pages were still blank. Her report back to the church council would be interesting.

  ‘I’ll see you to your car. It’s a bit gloomy out there.’

  Ruth was an expert at getting to her car alone in gloomy churchyards. Since St Sebastian’s one security light got vandalised last winter, it could win awards in Gloomy Churchyard of the Year competitions. But it was nice for someone to care enough to volunteer to walk with her. For a moment she thought he was going to offer her his arm, but he didn’t. She waited in the porch while he extinguished the lights and locked the church door. A harvest moon hung in the sky, and a tawny owl shrieked as they picked their way along the rough gravel path.

  ‘So, you’re writing a play?’ he said.

  ‘Not writing it; just translating.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Middle English. It’s the Mystery Play Cycle they found. Didn’t you read about it in the papers?’

  He shook his head. ‘A mystery play, eh? Does anyone get horribly and brutally murdered?’

  ‘Not that kind of mystery.’ Ruth smiled. She wasn’t sure if he was serious.

  ‘Oh, you mean the “Mysteries of God”.’

  ‘Yes, that’s more like it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries many towns acted out stories from the Bible and other religious drama. York, Wakefield, Coventry, Chester . . . all had them.’

  The man smiled and nodded. She still wasn’t sure if he was serious. She carried on anyway.

  ‘The city folk performed them in the streets, usually on the feast of Corpus Christi. The local guilds would take on different plays in the cycle: shipwrights building the ark, bakers being responsible for the Last Supper – all masters of their crafts – “mastery” plays, which is where the word “mystery” comes from.’

  ‘I see,’ he said.

  Ruth was on a roll. Usually she could see a glazing of the eyes, a stifled yawn, when she reached this point, but he seemed fascinated. ‘Turns out Monksford had its own cycle of plays. They think the manuscripts were hidden in the abbey until it was ransacked during the Reformation, then transferred to St Sebastian’s where they’d lain for more than three hundred years. I’d heard the plays existed, but no one knew where the manuscripts were.

  ‘Even if they had survived the dissolution of the monasteries, they were lost. They were rediscovered in the 1850s after a fire at St Seb’s. The manuscripts were then kept in a vault in the old council chambers, near the town hall. The chambers were emptied a couple of years ago – just before they were demolished to make way for the new ring-road.’

  He smiled. ‘Actually, I’m pulling your leg. I was there when they found the manuscripts. Recently, I mean, not in the 1850s.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘You were in the chambers?’

  ‘Yes, I was supervising the removal of old documents. I’m on the Town Council.’ He held out his hand to her.

  ‘Alistair Fry,’ they said in unison.

  Ruth realised that she had seen him in photographs in the local newspaper. He had stood virtually alone to object to plans to build the road through Monksford farmland. The groundswell of public opinion was enough to earn him the honour of being hailed as a local hero. Victory for the anti-road campaigners seemed assured but a last-minute vote by the other council members had reversed the decision, and the road went ahead. Fry and his supporters had been devastated, and work on the road had started.

  ‘Sorry about the road,’ Ruth said, not quite sure why she was sorry.

  ‘Yes, I can’t believe they all turned on us at the last minute. There’s another bit of rural England interred under asphalt. Puff!’ He waved his hand like a conjuror. A flash of pain crossed his face, as if he had knocked an old injury. Ruth felt a surge of compassion. She wanted to reach out to comfort him, but she didn’t. He shrugged. ‘C’est la vie!’

  Ruth studied him in the moonlight as best she could without tripping on the rough ground. She had always imagined that moonlight softened the features, but it seemed to cast shadows on Alistair Fry’s face, roughening his complexion, brutalising his features. He was wearing a tailored dark suit and a camel coat. His briefcase looked like Italian leather, not that Ruth knew what real Italian leather looked like, but this was how she had imagined it. Whenever she dreamed about having a husband, this was how the fantasy looked: rugged, dependable, and prosperous. Lawyer, Town Councillor and secretary of Deanery Synod – here was a man who liked to sit on committees.

  Ruth also remembered that Councillor Fry had a wife. Mrs Fry was as much the household name as her husband but for very different reasons.

  Her cheeks warmed as she realised she was staring at him. He smiled that smile again, and her heart gave a little flip. Was he deliberately flirting? Ruth couldn’t tell. But she knew that he was married, and she was a priest so there was nothing doing either way. They had reached their cars; his near the lych gate, hers several yards down the lane. He started walking with her, but she dismissed him with a wave.

  ‘I’ll be all right now. Thanks.’

  ‘The pleasure has been all mine.’ He turned back to his car. ‘Good luck with the play.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ruth called after him. She unlocked her car and sank into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. The loneliness overwhelmed
her. She was grateful that it was so dark. No one could see the tears burning down her cheeks.

  Scene Three

  JEMMA ARRIVED EARLY AT THE OFFICE ON FRIDAY MORNING. SHE WANTED TO make a good impression. In fact, she would be happy to make an impression of any kind. Since that slime-ball Richard dumped her and crawled off to his cesspit – who cared where – with some little heifer . . . Jemma took a deep breath and started again. Since Chief Reporter Richard Sutton moved on, there was a vacancy, along with a pay rise, just waiting for the right person. And only one little exam away. One little exam that would be another rung on the ladder, another step nearer her dream job.

  It wasn’t that Jemma had a problem with Mohan Dattani; it was just that he treated her as if she were invisible. At first she had thought he treated everyone that way. Then she noticed he went out for drinks with the subeditors, invited the advertising department to his birthday party, and even allowed drippy Saffy Walton to simper around him at pubs and parties. But not once had he invited Jemma.

  Then there was Richard. Mo and Rich had been best pals. Mohan was almost as upset as Jemma had been when Richard left. Almost, but not quite. Jemma couldn’t possibly replace Richard as Mohan’s drinking buddy, and Mo obviously thought she wasn’t good enough to fill Richard’s shoes as chief reporter.

  She would show him.

  When a young father lost his wife and two of his children in a house fire, who was it that sat for hours in the coroner’s court, listening to all the stomach-churning details? Who went to interview him when no one else would do it because they couldn’t bear to face the raw grief and turn it into a sympathetic article? Who suggested the campaign for Christmas presents for him and his remaining child, an act that resulted in them being showered with gifts, even a Caribbean holiday? She was more than a journalist; she had helped rebuild two people’s lives and had given a whole community the opportunity to feel good.

  By the time Mohan and the rest of the department arrived, Jemma had convinced herself she was a cross between Gandhi and Lois Lane.