Redemption Song (3 page)

When he returned there was no sign of Saffron. He walked back to the street and noticed that the front door was ajar. After rapping the knocker, he gave the door a push. It swung open to reveal a wide hallway with a black and white tiled floor. He called out but remained on the doorstep.

Saffron appeared within seconds, waving him in. She’d removed her duffel coat and Joe noticed she wasn’t entirely devoid of curves. Still way too skinny though. He waited while she closed the door behind him, feeling uncomfortable and regretting his offer to give an explanation to her mother. It was awfully dark in there. It smelt of damp and old wood. He noticed a barometer on the wall and tried to read it. She stomped past him – the clumpy boots clattering on the tiles – and led him past a telephone table and into a cosy kitchen-diner thick with steam. The only notable feature was a huge Yves Klein print over the fireplace, its modernity out of character with the rest of the room.

Whatever Joe had expected Saffron’s mother to look like it was nothing like the woman who turned from the Aga to greet him. Shorter than Saffron by maybe four inches, she was all smiles, curves, and tumbling blonde curls. Although it was mid-February she was dressed in a floral skirt and bright orange V-neck jumper. The only similarity in style between mother and daughter was a pair of ugly leather boots poking out beneath the hem of Rain’s skirt.

And she was young. Youngish. Mid-forties at the most, he guessed, or very well-preserved. She must have been a very young mother, though presumably not a single one? Did vicar’s wives do that sort of thing? Maybe she’d had Saffron before she met her husband? Did vicars marry single mums? Joe’s head spun.

‘This is my mother, Rain,’ Saffron flicked a hand in Rain’s general direction and back again to Joe. ‘Rain, this is Joe Jones, though everyone calls him JJ. He rescued me. The car conked out on Devil’s Rise.’ Joe could have sworn she rolled her eyes as she said JJ.

‘Lovely to meet you, JJ.’ Rain reached forward and took Joe’s hand in a firm grip, shaking a little too enthusiastically. As she rattled his arm and shoulder, he noticed a plain cross on a chain nestled between her breasts. ‘Thank goodness you were around. Imagine what she’d have done if you weren’t passing by!’

‘Walk, I imagine,’ he replied, fixing his eyes on hers to avoid glancing down at her cleavage.

Rain laughed and Saffron snorted.

‘Well, yes. Never thought of that! How silly,’ Rain said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just filled the pot.’

Saffron pulled a face and Joe accepted Rain’s invitation; Saffron wanted him to leave, so he’d stay. She wasn’t the only one with a belligerent streak. And it wasn’t every day he found himself in the company of attractive women. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in the company of one woman, and there was no chance of getting close or anything else remotely dangerous. A vicar’s wife and her daughter. Perfect. He’d enjoy a nice cup of tea and possibly even a slice of cake – he eyed the fruit cake sitting in the centre of the table – and then return home, never to see them again, if he could possibly help it.

They sat round the table and Saffron poured the tea while Joe gave a brief low-down of what happened on Devil’s Rise. Rain cut a generous slab of cake and passed it to Joe. ‘For you, Saff?’

Saffron shook her head.

Joe stroked the table’s surface; it was warm and smooth. ‘Oak’s beautiful, isn’t it?’

Rain nodded and said, ‘Family heirloom. How come you recognise the wood?’

‘I’m a carpenter.’

‘Like Joseph!’ She put her hand to her mouth and laughed. ‘JJ, Joe … Joseph.’

Saffron stared at her hands resting on the table and picked at the skin around her nails; pink flooded her lily-white cheeks. Joe thought Rain was charming and pretty, though she didn’t intrigue him. Her daughter did.

Aware of the silence and the women staring at him expectantly, he coughed and said, ‘Sorry?’

‘Where are you working?’ Rain said for, he guessed, the second time.

‘Over the valley, across the border, on a school. They’re expanding. Bucking the trend, there’s been a rise in the birth rate and they need more places for September. Apparently.’

‘And you were coming up Devil’s Rise because …’ Rain’s question trickled away. ‘Sorry, that’s so nosy of me.’

‘I live here.’

‘Where?’ Rain asked.

Why the hell did I tell them?
‘On the outskirts of town,’ he said, hoping this would satisfy Rain.

‘In Upper Coed Mawr?’

He moved his head, vague.

‘But you’re not from round here?’ Rain smiled knowingly. ‘Despite the surname.’

Great. She moves from one line of interrogation to another.

‘Not originally.’ He didn’t want to say precisely where and hoped Rain would drop this particular line of questioning. He really shouldn’t have come in.

Saffron was clearly more interested in her fingernails because she was now bent over her hands. With her hair obscuring her face, Joe studied the top of her head. She wasn’t a brunette. Not naturally. There was a trace of fair roots. So she was her mother’s daughter after all.

‘Have you been here long? We’ve not seen you about; we’re quite new here ourselves, but we thought we’d met just about everyone. It’s a tightly knit place, after all.’

‘I’m not about much. Always working,’ he said.

‘You should come to church. It’s a good way to meet people. And there’s little else to do on a Sunday. Unless you fancy one of the boozers. The Nag’s Head’s supposed to be the best. Not that I’m an expert!’

‘Mum,’ Saffron said.

Rain turned back to the Aga sharply, and Joe watched her blonde curls swinging across her back; she really did have very pretty hair. She grabbed a spatula and vigorously stirred a pan of something delicious-smelling. ‘I’m not trying to convert JJ, Saff. Anyway, you’re in my bad books for the absence of a phone call earlier.’ Though she tried to make light of Saffron’s embarrassment, Joe detected an undercurrent: irritation, guilt, he couldn’t be sure which. Rain turned back and addressed Joe, ‘Not much to ask, is it?’

‘It was my fault. I kept your daughter talking.’

‘Come to a coffee morning if you prefer. Every Saturday. Ten till eleven thirty. The WI provide the cakes and they’re bloody gorgeous.’ She returned to stirring the contents of the saucepan and Joe took his cue to leave.

He’d protected her, made excuses for her. Why would he do that? It was nice, but she was nothing to him. While Rain’s back was turned, Saffron peered at Joe through her heavy fringe, sneakily, hoping he wouldn’t notice. A slippery feeling in her lower belly startled her. It wasn’t hunger, even though she’d not eaten since breakfast. Saffron couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt hungry, not really hungry.

‘Right. Better go. Thanks for the tea and cake.’ He slapped his palms on the table, and stood. ‘If I take the car key now, I don’t need to trouble you at some ungodly hour – sorry – in the morning.’

Despite turning her head a little when Joe stood, Saffron didn’t have a clear view of her mother’s face, but Rain sounded disappointed. ‘It’d be no trouble. I’m up early most mornings. Don’t find it so easy to sleep. And please don’t apologise for swearing. I can eff and blind with the best of them!’

‘He didn’t swear,’ Saffron said, standing up so quickly stars flashed in her peripheral vision.

Her mother turned to face her, shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

‘It’d be easier if I didn’t have to drop by,’ Joe said. ‘I have to go to work for a few hours first and I don’t find it easy getting out of bed. I’ll sort her out on the way home.’

‘Of course you must take them.’ Rain took Saffron’s keys where they sat on the dresser on the far wall and battled with the bunch, struggling to remove the car key.

‘I’ll take good care of her, I promise,’ he continued, as he pushed the key into the front pocket of his jeans.

Rain showed Joe to the door; Saffron lagged a few metres behind. ‘Thanks again for rescuing my daughter. It’s so lovely to meet you. Our door is always open.’ She extended her hand and he took it, placing his left hand over their interlocked grip.

Saffron experienced a strange twinge at her core; a sensation so unfamiliar that she didn’t recognise it at first. Lust, or jealousy? Or both?

‘I’ll leave the car out front and push the key through the door. Save bothering you,’ he said.

‘Do knock. I’m usually about and you could have another piece of cake for your trouble.’ Her mother was forever shoving food at people.

He nodded, non-committal, and then he was gone.

Rain leant against the closed door. ‘Well, he seems nice.’

Saffron turned and ran up the stairs without a word.

Chapter Three

Back in the kitchen, Rain put a lid on the pan of stew and wiped the kitchen counter, though it was already spotless. There had been no need to stir the stew, it had been simmering away perfectly well by itself; she’d needed an activity. Unused to the company of young men, she’d been nervous. How ridiculous.

Rain had rambled in JJ’s presence, especially when she’d talked about meeting people and suggested he come to a coffee morning. He must think her an absolute nut-job. How she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She glanced at the terracotta-tiled floor and decided it needed a good clean.

After she’d filled a bucket with soapy water, she grabbed the mop, dunked it in the water, wrung out the excess and swept away at imaginary grot on the floor until her lower back ached. It had been good to have male company other than seventy-year-old parishioners who wanted to talk endlessly about the finer details of the Easter Fayre and whether or not the WI should be allowed to run the bring and buy sale on the same day as the men’s chess club.

And what a male. Tall, well-built, handsome. With the most gorgeous eyes imaginable. One brown and one green. How unusual. Just thinking like this brought on a rush of guilt so great that Rain thought she might cry. Instead, she plunged the mop into the bucket and without squeezing out the excess slapped it back onto the tiles. Water slushed everywhere, splashing the legs of the table, the leather of her boots. She snatched a cloth from the sink and dabbed at the puddles. It was no good; the kitchen looked as if it’d been flooded; only newspaper would absorb it now. An evening edition of the county’s daily rag lay open on the table, a photograph of a middle-aged woman with hair like Saffron’s climbing out of a limo in the middle of the page.

Rain wished Saffron wouldn’t dye her hair; her natural colour was beautiful, and just like her father’s. Stephen. The stabbing sensation across her skull began as she tried, and failed, to conjure the image of him as he was in her mind’s eye. But all she could see was the shell of a man with a passing resemblance to the love of her life laid out on the mortuary slab.

When the doctor had first pulled back the sheet she’d blown out a puff of air, a breath she’d been holding on to for goodness knows how long, opened her eyes for a second, shook her head and said, ‘No, that’s not him. That’s not my Stephen.’ The other professional, the one standing next to her, had taken her hand and said, ‘Are you sure, Mrs de Lacy? I know it’s hard, but please do look.’ She opened her eyes and stared at the body; she didn’t take her eyes off it, even though she longed to, but she couldn’t look at the face. There was something familiar about it. She could see it in the reflection of the glass window in front of her. Something about the cut of the jaw, the unusual tip of the nose.

She forced herself to focus on the body, not the reflection. Her eyes crawled along the exposed shoulder to the neck. There was a small scar, a white snail trail in the delicate groove behind the shoulder bone where it joined the neck. It held her attention. Stephen had spoken of a childhood accident. Playing Blind Man’s Buff he’d walked into a tree. A broken branch, with a jagged edge, had speared him. ‘There was so much blood,’ he’d laughed. Children didn’t play games like that any more, she’d thought. It was then she admitted the body before her was, after all, her husband. The doctor went to pull the sheet back over Stephen’s face, but Rain had stopped him. She leant over and ran her index finger over the scar, surprised to find the body still warm. Later, much later, Saffron had explained that it takes hours for a body to go cold.

Mist descended and Rain gripped onto the kitchen table to prevent herself from falling. She closed her eyes and counted to twenty, aloud, just as the doctor had instructed her.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Psalm 107:6

Once she felt normal again, she took the newspaper and threw its pages across the floor, watching the water leech into the words and photographs, distorting them until they were no longer readable. Her mind flipped back to JJ and Saffron. Had she seen a smile flash between them as she’d turned to attend to the stew? Did Saff like this man? Like, like? Rain’s stomach clenched. It wasn’t possible. She crouched to the floor and scrunched a sopping sheet of newspaper in her hand and threw it into the bin behind her.

Don’t be silly. He’s not Saff’s type.

He seemed nice, but … But. There was something about him. She couldn’t pinpoint it.

It’s too soon, even for Saff. But it would be nice for her to get out a bit … And if he came to church, or a coffee morning, Saff might come along too?

Much as Saffron rejected any notion of faith, Rain couldn’t help but believe it could bring her daughter comfort, if only she would allow it.

Satisfied she’d cleared the excess water, Rain stood and stared at the floor. With the heat from the cooker and the natural process of evaporation soon you’d never know that the floor had even been wet, let alone flooded. Everything repairs, she thought, aware of the now-steady thump of her own heart. We must see more of the handsome carpenter; I need to inject some youth into the congregation and Saffron needs to make friends nearer her own age.

Rain decided she would make it her mission.

What are you playing at? You idiot.

Joe slammed the Land Rover door and revved the engine, skidding on black ice as he swung out onto the road, away from the chapel.