Saxonhurst Secrets

‘Fuck me, Evie,’ someone said. ‘You get dirtier by the day. We’ll have to find a number seven for next year.’

Her laughter was raucous and free.

‘Maybe make it Charlie Stack. He’s filling out nicely.’

‘Well, I can’t see as Robin Goodfellow has anything to complain about there. We should have an even better harvest this year.’

‘Lush.’ Evie. That was her name. ‘Come on then, what we waiting for? I’m gasping for a drink. Is the pub open yet?’

Adam held his breath, maintaining his prone position under what remained of the barn’s eaves. Surely they would see him as they passed? His career in this place was over before it had begun.

But the heavy footsteps of the men paraded by him at a distance of mere feet without the passing of any remark. Her lighter tread came last. He smelled her, her scent stronger than that of the parched grass that tickled his nose. Such an aroma, of vegetation and sex, each element as strong as the other. Adam felt a kind of dissolving in his stomach. That fragrance would stay with him forever.

Their careless voices faded, shouts and giggles flying up into the sunshine.

They hadn’t even dressed before they left.

Adam waited a long time, maybe ten minutes after the final distant yell, before lifting his face and squinting out at the scene of the dissipation. His head ached and the bright green wheat giving way to the brilliant yellow of the rape beyond and the overarching gleam of the sun was too much. He returned to the comfortless dark of the ground.

Had it, in fact, really happened?

The hammering at his temples led him to hope that perhaps this was some kind of vision, a hallucination brought on by many sleepless nights praying that his ministry in Saxonhurst might soften the hearts of the villagers and bring them back to the church.

‘And I had no breakfast,’ he murmured into the scrappy tufts, before braving another look up. ‘Lord, are you showing me something? Are you showing me the challenge I have to face? People steeped in sin, needing your humble proxy to help them on to the true path? Is that it, Lord?’

He pushed himself back onto unsteady knees. The shameful chill of the slime in his pants almost made him fall face-first in prostration once more.

‘Forgive me, Father,’ he whispered. It was a dream, one of those that the devil puffed into his brain with his demonic bellows. He couldn’t be held accountable for what happened in his sleep.

He rose to his feet and dusted himself off. After shaking some life into his cramped limbs, he took a few steps down to where “it” had happened. The vision. The hallucination.

The wheat lay flat in patches.

‘No,’ muttered Adam. ‘No, this is for some other reason. It was already flat when I arrived here. Village kids playing at making crop circles. That’s all.’

Retrieving his hat and putting it back on his dusty head, he looked up at the ragged outline of the ruined barn. It seemed to him to have a human quality of malevolence, as if the spirit of the long-ago killer inhabited its dead wood.

He would stay away from this place in future. And he would write that letter to the council.

His walk back to the vicarage was accompanied by bitter thoughts. He knew why the diocese had appointed him to this backwoods parish – they were embarrassed by his old-school evangelism and this was effective banishment. True, Saxonhurst, with its infamously empty pews, was only one of three villages under his pastoral care and the other two had stronger congregations, but there it remained. He was exiled, in what the clerical grapevine called “the most godless village in England”.

In an attempt to put a positive spin on the appointment, he had told himself that it was his unique blend of moral strengths that had led to him being chosen for the role. God moved in mysterious ways, and His purpose would soon become clear. And what a coup it would be for him, if he could transform the moribund church attendance and have the pews full by Christmas.

His step grew sprightlier as he began to plot his campaign. He would need a big opening event, something that would lure the villagers by appealing to their baser natures. Something with prizes, perhaps, or some kind of silly talent contest, since they were so popular these days. A youth club, of course, and perhaps a parent and toddler group.

By the time he reached the heart of the village, he was too preoccupied to even think of peering into the pub win

dows to check for green men and naked women. He turned the corner into the vicarage grounds, enjoying the crunch of gravel beneath his feet and the sweet smells of the flowers in the borders. Birdsong and the swish of leaves in the light breeze conferred a glow of well-being that lasted through the door and into the living room.

Which was not empty.

‘Visitor for you, Reverend,’ called his housekeeper, Mrs Witts, from the kitchen.

‘So I gather. Good morning.’

The visitor sat on a chair, in that kind of folded-up stance that suggested she was trying to take up as little space as possible.

On seeing Adam, she rose and held out a hand.