The Stranger House

While the vicar was wittering, God ran up the ladder with the casual ease of an ancient mariner and pushed open the trap.

‘No one up here now,’ he declared. ‘Wind must have blown it shut.’

He slid down, landing easily.

‘You’d need a bloody gale!’ protested Sam.

‘Gales are what we get round here,’ said the man. ‘Did you actually see anyone?’

‘No, not really,’ she admitted. ‘But I did hear something. And he had time to come down and get away…’

She moved away from the support of the font and was pleased to find she was pretty well back in control of her limbs. Standing under the once more open trap, she peered up at the clouds and recalled that sense of a presence just before it slammed shut. No features, just that frightening feeling of being at the focal point of a predatory stare…

‘There was a guy outside digging a grave when I arrived,’ she said. ‘Was he still there when you arrived?’

She directed this at the man the vicar had called Thor.

‘Laal Gowder? Yes, I had a word with him. Why?’

Because I thought it might be him who came in behind me and climbed up to the tower seemed even less sensible an answer than it had a moment ago.

‘Just thought he might have seen someone,’ she said lamely.

‘Coming out of the church, you mean? Well, I didn’t see anyone. And you were coming up the path behind me, Gerry. You see anyone?’

‘No,’ said the silent man. ‘Only Gowder.’

He spoke the name as if it tasted foul on the tongue. Despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm for her own presence, Sam felt maybe they had something in common after all. She recalled that Mrs Appledore had mentioned someone called Gerry Woollass. It came back to her. Not God’s son, but the squire’s son. Same thing round here, perhaps?

Despite beginning to have doubts about her interpretation of events, she wasn’t quite ready yet to give up.

‘He could have gone out that way,’ she said, pointing to another door in the wall opposite the main entrance.

‘Sorry, no,’ said the vicar. ‘That’s the Devil’s Door.’

‘Sorry? What was that? The devil’s door?’

‘Yes. It opens north, which in the Middle Ages was regarded as the direction the devil would come from. In some churches the doorway was actually bricked up. Here at St Ylf’s we’re not so superstitious. We merely keep ours locked.’

The bramble bush smile flashed again, this time definitely a smile, signalling a joke.

Sam thought of checking the door but didn’t. These old farts probably thought she was simply overreacting to the embarrassment of admitting that she, young, fit Sam Flood who held her year’s record for scaling the uni’s climbing wall, had fallen off a ladder. And they might be right!

She said, ‘Look, I’m sorry for the bother I’ve caused. Thanks for all your help.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ said God. ‘I’m Thor Winander, by the way. And this is Gerry Woollass.’

Got you right, then, thought Sam, looking at the vicar who, rather reluctantly, said, ‘And I’m Peter Swinebank, vicar of this parish.’

‘Same as the guy who wrote the Guide? Which reminds me, it must be lying around here somewhere.’

It was Woollass who spotted it. He picked it up, dusted it off and handed it back to her, taking the opportunity for a close inspection of her face as he did so.

‘Good. Well, I’m glad that no real damage was done,’ said Swinebank rather stagily. ‘Once again my apologies. Now I really must get on. People will be arriving for the funeral soon…’

‘Can I have a quick word first?’ said Sam. ‘It was you I was looking for when I started climbing the ladder. Thing is, I think maybe my grandmother came from these parts. Don’t know much else about her except that she made the trip out in spring 1960.’

‘The trip out where?’ enquired Swinebank.

‘Have you got cloth ears, Pete?’ said Winander. ‘I should have thought even a deaf man would have picked up our young friend has come hopping along the yellow brick road from Oz.’

‘Oh, shoot,’ said Sam. ‘And all them elocution lessons my ma wasted money on. Anyway, Vicar, any chance you can help me?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Swinebank. ‘What was your grandmother’s name?’

‘Same as mine. Don’t ask me why. It’s a long story,’ she said. ‘Flood. Samantha Flood. I thought if it was a local family they might be mentioned in the church records.’

The three men looked at each other.

‘No,’ declared Rev. Pete. ‘To my best recollection there has never been a local family called Flood. Right, Thor? Gerry?’

The other two shook their heads.

‘No?’ said Sam. ‘Still, if maybe I could glance at your parish records…’

‘I’m afraid that…when did you say she left? Spring 1960, was it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You’re sure of that? And that it was Illthwaite?’ probed Swinebank.

‘I’m sure of the date, and pretty positive it was Illthwaite or something like it.’

‘Thwaite is a common suffix in English place names,’ said Swinebank. ‘As for the records, I fear we can’t help you much there. You see, the church was broken into a few months back and everything valuable stolen. Fortunately the really old records are kept locked in a safe in the vicarage, but most of the post-war books vanished. But, as I say, I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been a local family called Flood. Now I really must start getting organized for the funeral. Thor, I presume you’ve come to see to the coffin?’

‘That’s right. You can tell Lorna the memorial should be ready tomorrow.’

‘Excellent. Gerry, Lorna’s so grateful you’ve agreed to say a few words about Billy. The sense of a community coming together is so important at a time like this.’

The sense of a community coming close together was very much what Sam was getting. And maybe she was being neurotic, but she felt a sense of relief here too, as at a problem solved or at least sidelined.

She said, ‘I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks again for your help. Have a nice day.’

Not perhaps the most apt form of farewell to men about to screw down a coffin and get ready for a funeral, but if it confirmed them in their Pom prejudices that she was an uncouth young Aussie who stuck her nose in where she wasn’t wanted and fell off ladders, that was OK by her.

Outside she saw that the grave-digger with the odd name—Laal Gowder, was it?—had disappeared, his job presumably completed. It was to be hoped so, as the church gate now screeched open to admit what were presumably the first of the mourners.

The wind had become intermittent, but a sudden gust strong enough to support Thor Winander’s theory sent a chill down her body. She glanced down and realized that the soaking she’d given herself from the font had left her looking like an entrant in a wet T-shirt competition. Not a very strong entrant, in view of her shallow frontage, but hardly what a grieving family might want to encounter so close to the dead boy’s grave.