The Threlkeld Theory, page 1
The Threlkeld Theory
REBECCA TOPE
Another one for Esther
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Author’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
Copyright
Author’s Note
As with other titles in this series, the action is set in real villages. Threlkeld is generally pronounced as ‘Threkkled’. A few minor liberties have been taken with its layout, as they have with Hartsop.
Chapter One
It happened barely ten minutes before they were due to leave and Angie Straw blamed Russell for it entirely.
‘Better have something to eat,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a while before we get anything, otherwise.’ So she bit down on a crunchy Hobnob and broke a tooth.
It was the small molar next to the eye tooth on the upper left-hand side. It had been mostly composed of filling and when she spat the debris into her hand, it was more black metal than white tooth. Half-chewed biscuit added more colour. She squealed and ran upstairs to the bathroom mirror. Unlike previous occasions, this time it looked worse than it felt. There was a jagged stump, dark brown in colour, the front wall of the tooth having disappeared completely. Even the smallest smile revealed it in all its horror.
‘Does it hurt?’ asked Russell when she went downstairs again.
She shook her head, unable to speak. If she made the attempt she feared she might cry. The day was already destined for high emotion – and now everything was condensed into this sudden calamity, which felt not far off the end of the world.
‘Just keep your mouth shut and carry on,’ her husband quipped, aware of an urgent need to defuse the situation. ‘Nobody’s going to look at us, are they?’
‘Photos,’ she mumbled, trying to speak through closed lips.
‘It’ll be fine. We’ll phone the dentist in a quiet moment and get you seen to, probably tomorrow. Come on now, we mustn’t be late. I’ll drive,’ he added heroically.
She found herself partially consoled, despite his culpability in giving her the fatal biscuit. Russell was solidly on her side at all times. After forty-four years, this was more true than it had ever been. Through sheer good fortune and with no special effort, they continued to like each other.
‘All right,’ she said thickly.
They were going to Keswick, twenty miles north of their home in Windermere, to witness the marriage of their daughter, Persimmon, to Christopher Henderson. It was late July, and the ceremony had been postponed from its original scheduled date in June. Robin, their baby, was now nearly four months old and the light of all their lives. The event had expanded, as such things did, and moved from one town to another as registry offices made difficulties and available bookings turned out to be in short supply.
Christopher had relatives in and around Penrith; he and Simmy lived in Hartsop, which was a lot closer to Keswick than Kendal, which was where they had originally proposed to get married. The Straws lived in Windermere, running a popular B&B business. Logistics and timings had mutated from basic and simple to convoluted and frustrating. All the original arrangements had been changed since April, when the decision to make themselves official had been cemented.
Now the post-wedding party was to be held in Threlkeld, a village close to Keswick, where Christopher’s sister, Hannah, had ordained they assemble at the pub for a meal confusingly known (but with perfectly rational historical origins) as ‘the wedding breakfast’. Nobody seriously challenged the choice of venue. Parking and navigating would both be easier than in the jumbled, tourist-thronged streets of Keswick and the place had a good garden. They could stay all afternoon. It was a Wednesday and none of the usual evening drunkenness was to be expected. Some people would fit the whole thing into a long lunch hour.
‘It’s only a tooth,’ Angie insisted to herself repeatedly during the drive. It did not exactly hurt, although she was aware that every time she opened her mouth the stump reacted to the incoming air. Russell strove to distract her by pointing out various features along the road. Once they had passed Ambleside, the A591 ran unimpeded northwards all the way to Keswick. The unassuming little Thirlmere on Angie’s side of the car was only sparsely dotted with visitors in the scanty parking areas that mostly had to be paid for. The day was dry with hazy cloud.
‘Bicuspid,’ she said suddenly.
‘Excuse me?’ This was a recent affectation on Russell’s part, copied from an American B&B guest. He relished ridiculous idioms wherever he found them, and adopted them as his own in some cases.
‘The tooth. It’s a bicuspid. I’ve been trying to remember the word for the past seven miles.’
‘I thought that was something to do with one’s heart.’
‘Oh. Is it? Now I’m confused.’
‘We can ask Ben to google it,’ said Russell, automatically.
‘Don’t let me smile,’ she begged him. ‘Can we arrange a signal for you to stop me?’
‘I’ll scratch my nose,’ he said. ‘Although I think you can risk a bit of a smirk, if not a fully-fledged grin.’
‘As if a wedding on its own wasn’t bad enough,’ she grumbled. ‘I’ll be remembered forever as the crone at the feast. The wicked godmother at the christening party. There’s one in every fairy tale.’
‘Charlotte Rampling in Melancholia,’ agreed Russell with a happy sigh. ‘How I do love that film. It’s so outrageously true.’
‘Nobody remembers the groom,’ said Angie randomly. ‘I wonder if Christopher is feeling a bit left out.’
‘It comes with the package – the groom being in the shadows, so to speak. But I’ve been wondering the same thing, now you mention it. Where did those boyish smiles go? I haven’t seen him look really unworried for a while now.’
‘It’ll be the job. And the baby.’
‘And getting married. He never was very good with responsibility. Not that I mean to criticise.’
The Straws had known Christopher Henderson from the day he was born. They remembered the little boy and the teenager he had been, before he took off on a prolonged spate of travelling, acquiring and discarding a wife along the way. Now he was back at the centre of their lives, they were enjoying getting to know him again. ‘He might be worrying that he’ll mess up this marriage like the first one,’ mused Angie. ‘Do you think?’
‘I hope not. This time he’s got our girl’s happiness in his hands. He’d better get it right.’
Angie was watching the picture-book scenery and wishing the day was over already and her tooth fixed. ‘I’d actually rather it would hurt more. Then I could demand a bit of sympathy. As it is, nobody’s going to be remotely interested.’
‘Nor should they be. This is not our day, old girl. Just remember that.’
Their daughter was wearing a garment that Angie thought of as a ‘midi-dress’. It went a few inches below her knees and appeared a trifle heavy for high summer, but it made her look tall and slim and carefree. It was a shade of light brown that Angie could find no name for, with flashes of white here and there. Very short sleeves and a low neck gave Simmy a subtly virginal look, which Angie found disconcertingly moving. At forty, it was no longer correct to think of Simmy as a girl, but Angie and Russell were not even trying to shake the habit.
Christopher Henderson, the groom, was an inch taller than his bride, almost as slender and exactly the same age. The two had met on the day they were born. Nobody would dream of using the word ‘incestuous’ about their relationship, but it was undeniable that they had a great deal of background in common. He wore a pale grey suit and a pink tie, which made him stand out amongst the small crowd of guests who, on the whole, had not taken a lot of trouble over their clothes. His hair had been cut shorter than quite suited him, but the subtle flashes of auburn were still there.
Angie remembered her envy at the newborn baby’s impressive quiff that glinted red in certain lights. Now here he was, waiting with the registrar for the business to begin. His gaze returned repeatedly to the window at the back of the room and the fells beyond, as if he needed to steady himself for a coming ordeal. Angie watched him closely, trying to assess his emotional state. Nervous, she concluded, and uncomfortable. As an auctioneer he was well used to being the centre of attention, so it couldn’t be that. No – this was an anxiety about becoming a husband and a parent all at the same time. She sighed impatiently, remembering Christopher’s father and how he had fallen short in so many ways. Was his eldest son doomed to follow the same road? Not if Angie Straw could help it, she decided, squaring her shoulders.
Everyone sat down, looking for Russell to bring his daughter into the room. It’s a parody, Angie thought, to her own surprise. The ceremony struck her as a mangled mashup of the age-old church service with its careful symbolism that fitted so uncomfortably with modern life. The father giving his girl away; the pre-adolescent female children cluste
The registrar gave a few introductory remarks, which included the word ‘contract’ more than once. He was a man of about thirty in a nondescript suit who smiled relentlessly. His nose was peeling as if he’d recently been outside a lot without suncream.
Angie explored her tooth with her tongue every few seconds.
‘Stop it,’ hissed Russell, when he came to sit beside her, having delivered Simmy as required by tradition. ‘Leave it alone.’
Angie tried to distract herself by watching her grandson on the lap of his Auntie Hannah in a row full of Henderson relations. Robin was dressed in an outfit that looked vaguely Edwardian – a sailor suit, perhaps. Nobody had consulted Angie about what the infant ought to wear. He was placid by nature and more than happy to be passed from person to person, grabbing at hair or earrings as he went.
The next stage, which appeared to have no time limit to it, involved a lot of standing about in a courtyard while everybody took photos and chatted. Russell dutifully shook hands with everyone, posed for his picture and beamed indiscriminately at Christopher’s four siblings whom he had known their whole lives. George Henderson looked unwell and mumbled about having to get home for something important. Eddie, the middle son, stood square and respectable, uttering vague phrases about the day being a long time coming. Hannah and Lynn, the two sisters, bustled and bossed and took almost all the photos.
It was Angie who said, ‘Shouldn’t we be getting on? The pub’s going to wonder where we are.’ Which worked rather well, and started a drift to the car park, followed by a procession through the eastern side of Keswick and on to Threlkeld where the Horse and Farrier pub awaited them.
Several people were already there, sitting around tables outside. A hasty welcoming committee was assembled, the couple cheered and more photos were taken. There was an almost indecent haste to get on with the planned proceedings. It was half past one and they had asked for food to be available from one o’clock.
‘Sorry,’ Angie heard Simmy saying to the man in charge. ‘Everything took longer than we thought.’
Sandwiches, cold meat, salads and crisps were laid out on a long table under a gazebo and everybody got a free drink. Guests lined up and filled their plates. Angie had vetoed the making of speeches as one of her very few contributions to the event. But Christopher’s brother, Eddie, would take no advice or admonition and stood up on a chair at the end of the buffet table, as people were milling about collecting the food, and spoke a few words. Red-faced and unoriginal, he uttered the usual platitudes and Angie groaned. Louder than intended, as it turned out, and also badly timed, coming at a pause in the speech, so that everyone heard her.
‘Hush, woman!’ hissed her husband.
Eddie glared and raised a beer glass in a toast.
Simmy went over to her parents. ‘We should have had champagne,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Look at them!’
‘It is rather informal,’ said Russell carefully. ‘But none the worse for that. It’s lucky we chose this pub, with all this parking space.’ He smiled vaguely at all the cars that had fitted themselves into the two areas on either side of the road. His attempt at cheering his daughter was unsuccessful. ‘And the weather’s just what we ordered,’ he tried again.
‘Mum thinks it’s a shambles,’ Simmy accused. ‘Don’t you?’
‘I think no such thing,’ Angie replied. ‘But if the man had to make a speech, why couldn’t he choose a better moment?’
‘He meant well. He’s got a good heart, as Granny used to say.’
‘That’s another thing. I’m the oldest woman here – and I don’t like it. Everyone else is under fifty.’
‘Nonsense. Corinne’s nearly sixty, for a start. And Helen.’
‘Helen’s barely over fifty,’ snapped Angie. ‘She must have been well under forty when she had those twins.’
Simmy gave the special little frown she used when she wanted to imply that her mother was badly awry in her logic. ‘What does that have to do with it?’ she wondered.
‘Take no notice, pet,’ said Russell. ‘Your mother broke a tooth. Show her,’ he ordered Angie, who bared the stump.
Simmy peered into the mouth a few inches from her face. ‘When? How? Have you phoned the dentist?’
‘About two hours ago on a Hobnob. And no, there wasn’t time to phone anybody. We were practically in the car when it happened. It would have made us late.’
‘Does it hurt? Phone them now.’
‘How can I? I don’t go around with the dentist’s phone number in my head.’
Simmy gave her a long look.
‘She wants us to google it,’ Russell explained. ‘Like normal people.’
Angie heaved a sigh. ‘Let’s go and ask Ben to do it,’ she said, having observed young Ben Harkness and his beloved Bonnie sitting together at a table under a tree. A sunbeam had found them, sneaking between two branches and picking them out as the golden couple, rather than the newlyweds. ‘Look at them!’ she breathed with a sudden fond smile. ‘Like something out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
‘Hardly,’ said Russell. ‘That play is pure cynicism from first to last. Especially the wedding scene.’
‘Stop it,’ said Simmy, turning back to look for her new husband. ‘I’ll see you later.’ And she strode down a little brick pathway to where Christopher was talking to both his brothers.
Angie gave herself a shake and set about the task of circulating, taking Russell with her. All the Hendersons were there, and they knew the Straws well, thanks to many shared holidays when they were small. There were also several grandchildren, whose names Angie made no attempt to remember. Eddie had a son they always referred to as ‘Jonty’, she reminded herself, and George had a daughter of about ten whose hair was alarmingly ginger. Lynn and Hannah had three little ones between them, with expectations of one or two more yet to come.
‘Auntie Angie!’ beamed Lynn, the youngest and the only one who applied the technically inaccurate Auntie to Angie’s name. ‘Isn’t this amazing. They’ve really done it. Don’t you think it feels like destiny, somehow? Just such a shame Mum’s not here to see it. You’ve got to be mother to both of them. And father,’ she added, looking at Russell.
The faint suggestion of incest was not lost on Angie, chiming as it did with her own thoughts. Everybody was aware of it – the fact that Simmy and Christopher had been virtually siblings in their earliest years. When they developed romantic feelings for each other in their teens, both sets of parents had been concerned; in Angie’s case because she felt strongly that her daughter should cast her net much wider. As it turned out, both youngsters cast unwisely as well as widely, with collapsed marriages behind them.
‘We should have let them do it twenty years ago,’ sighed Russell.
‘Wrong,’ Angie disagreed. ‘They’d have been constantly wondering whether they’d missed something. And now it’s the best of all worlds, with the baby and everything.’ Everything included Simmy’s florist shop, Christopher’s responsible and lucrative work and a highly desirable house in the northern reaches of the Lake District. ‘I don’t want anyone to think I disapprove. I just hate weddings.’ She sighed yet again, hearing its echo and resolving to stop doing it.
‘Maybe two,’ said Russell with incorrigible optimism.
‘Two what?’
‘Babies, of course.’
Angie allowed herself to relax into cosy reminiscences with Lynn about the vagaries of weather on the North Wales coast where the two families had spent their innumerable family holidays, recounting Christopher’s valiant efforts to barbecue sausages for ten people when he was barely into his teens. But she was also eyeing the wedding guests, with persistent echoes of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ running foolishly through her head. It occurred to Angie decades ago that her whole attitude towards weddings had been coloured by that poem. She found herself uneasily waiting to be collared by a stranger with a long tale to tell.
