‘Hello, Gladys,’ I said, shaking her by the hand. ‘Joffy here used to bash the bishop so much when he was a boy we all thought he would go blind.’
‘Good, good,’ she muttered.
Joffy, not to be outdone, added: ‘And little Thursday here made so much noise during sex that we had to put her in the garden shed whenever her boyfriends stayed the night.’
I elbowed him in the ribs but Mrs Higgins didn’t notice; she smiled benignly, wished us both a pleasant day, and teetered off into the churchyard. We watched her go.
‘A hundred and four next March,’ murmured Joffy. ‘Amazing, isn’t she? When she goes I’m thinking of having her stuffed and placed in the porch as a hatstand.’
‘Now I know you’re joking.’
He smiled.
‘I don’t have a serious bone in my body, sis. Come on, I’ll make you that tea.’
The vicarage was huge. Legend had it that the church’s spire would have been ten feet taller had the incumbent vicar not taken a liking to the stone and diverted it to his own residence. An unholy row broke out with the bishop and the vicar was relieved of his duties. The larger-than-usual vicarage, however, remained.
Joffy poured some strong tea out of a Clarice Cliff teapot into a matching cup and saucer. He wasn’t trying to impress; the GSD had almost no money and he couldn’t afford to use anything other than what came with the vicarage.
‘So,’ said Joffy, placing a teacup in front of me and sitting down on the sofa, ‘do you think Dad’s boffing Emma Hamilton?’
‘He never mentioned it. Mind you, if you were having an affair with someone who died over a hundred years ago, would you tell your wife?’
‘How about me?’
‘How about you what?’
‘Does he ever mention me?’
I shook my head and Joffy was silent in thought for a moment, which is unusual for him.
‘I think he wanted me to be in that charge in Ant’s place, sis. Ant was always the favoured son.’
‘That’s stupid, Joffy. And even if it were true—‘which it isn’t—there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Ant is gone, finished, dead. Even if you had stayed out there, let’s face it, army chaplains don’t exactly dictate military policy.’
‘Then why doesn’t Dad ever come and see me?’
I shrugged.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a ChronoGuard thing. He rarely visits me unless on business—and never for more than a couple of minutes.’
Joffy nodded then asked: ‘Have you been attending church in London, sis?’
‘I don’t really have the time, Joff.’
‘We make time, sis.’
I sighed. He was right.
‘After the charge I kind of lost my faith. SpecOps have chaplains of their own but I just never felt the same about anything.’
‘The Crimea took a lot away from all of us,’ said Joffy quietly. ‘Perhaps that is why we have to work twice as hard to hang on to what we have left. Even I was not immune to the passion of the battle. When I first went to the peninsula I was excited by the war—I could feel the insidious hand of nationalism holding me upright and smothering my reason. When I was out there I wanted us to win, to kill the foe. I revelled in the glory of battle and the camaraderie that only conflict can create. No bond is stronger than that welded in conflict; no greater friend is there than the one who stood next to you as you fought.’
Joffy suddenly seemed that much more human; I presumed this was the side of him his parishioners saw.
‘It was only afterwards that I realised the error of what we were doing. Pretty soon I could see no difference between Russian and English, French or Turk. I spoke out and was banned from the front line in case I sowed disharmony. My bishop told me that it was not my place to judge the errors of the conflict, but to look after the spiritual wellbeing of the men and women.’
‘So that’s why you returned to England?’
‘That’s why I returned to England.’
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ I told him.
‘About what?’
‘About not having a serious bone in your body. Did you know Colonel Phelps was in town?’
‘I did. What an arse. Someone should poison him. I’m speaking opposite him as “the voice of moderation”. Will you join me at the podium?’
‘I don’t know, Joff, really I don’t.’
I stared at my tea and refused a Hobnob that he offered me.
‘Mum keeps the memorial well, doesn’t she?’ I said, desperate to change the subject.
‘Oh, it’s not her, Doofus. She couldn’t bear to even walk past the stone—even if she did slim down enough to get through the lichgate.’
‘Who, then?’
‘Why, Landen, of course. Did he not tell you?’
I sat up.
‘No. No, he didn’t.’
‘He might write crap books and be a bit of a dork, but he was a good friend to Anton.’
‘But his testimony damned him for ever—!’
Joffy put his tea down and leaned forward, lowered his voice to a whisper and placed his hand on mine.
‘Sister dearest, I know this is an old cliche but it’s true: The first casualty of war is always truth. Landen was trying to redress that.
Don’t think that he didn’t agonise long and hard over it—it would have been easier to lie and clear Ant’s name. But a small lie always breeds a bigger one. The military can ill afford more than it has already. Landen knew that and so too, I think, did our Anton.’
I looked up at him thoughtfully. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to Landen but I hoped I would think of something. He had asked me to marry him ten years ago, just before his evidence at the tribunal. I had accused him of attempting to gain my hand by stealth, knowing what my reaction would be following the hearing. I had left for London within the week.
‘I think I’d better call him.’
Joffy smiled.
‘Yes, perhaps you’d better—Doofus.’
20. Dr Runcible Spoon
‘… Several people have asked me where I find the large quantity of prepositions that I need to keep my Bookworms fit and well. The answer is, of course, that I use omitted prepositions, of which there are a superabundance in the English language. Journey’s end, for instance, has three omitted prepositions: the end of the journey. There are many other examples, too, such as bedside (the side of the bed) and street corner (the corner of the street), and so forth. If I run short I head to my local newspapers, where omitted prepositions can be found in The Toad’s headlines every day. As for the worm’s waste products, these are chiefly composed of apostrophes—something that is becoming a problem—I saw a notice yesterday that read: Cauliflower’s, three shilling’s each… ”
Bowden and Victor were out when I arrived at the office; I poured myself some coffee and sat down at my desk. I called Landen’s number but it was engaged; I tried a few minutes later but without any luck. Sergeant Ross called from the front desk and said that he was sending someone up who wanted to see a LiteraTec. I twiddled my thumbs for a bit, and had failed to reach Landen a third time when a small, academic-looking man with an overpowering aura of untidiness shambled into the office. He wore a small bowler hat and a herringbone-pattern shooting jacket pulled hastily over what looked like his pyjama top. His briefcase had papers protruding from where he had caught them in the lid and the laces of both his shoes were tied in reef knots. He stared up at me. It was a two-minute walk from the front desk and he was still fumbling with his visitor’s pass.
‘Allow me,’ I said.
The academic stood impassively as I clipped his pass on and then thanked me absently, looking around as he tried to determine where he was.