Seven Tales of Sex and Death by Patricia Duncker

Author:Patricia Duncker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408872673
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

4

MOVING

I knew who they were as soon as I heard the address: Ellis Williams and his wife. Her sister lives with them now. They were very religious people, the last of the faithful left praying when the Baptist chapel closed its doors. The old father used to be the minister. My wife tells me that he was famous for his hell-fire sermons. Anyone who went to a rock concert was damned for ever. Ellis Williams had to wait fourteen years before the old man gave him permission to court his younger daughter. She must have been a dutiful child. Any normal woman would have told her father to get stuffed and made a dash for it. That chapel was a bleak place. Mount Zion they called it. And all around there was nothing to see but the blue hills, the upland marshes and the stealthy mist.

My wife was a Baptist. She used to go there in the old days, until her family moved down into town. They’re local people. It doesn’t matter how long you live here, if you’re English, you’re an outsider. I went into the family removal business when my father-in-law retired, but I never learned to speak the language properly. My fault really. I’ve picked up a few words here and there, but it doesn’t come naturally. My wife’s a native speaker. She always apologizes to me before easing herself back into nattering with her Mam or her friends. I always say, ‘Don’t mind me, love. Carry on.’ It’s a little ritual we have. She was brought up never to speak her mother tongue in front of English people, but that seems silly when I’m the only one there. Anyway, she’s much more at home speaking her language. It’s as if she’s snuggling her feet into her slippers and making herself comfortable.

Well, Ellis Williams rang up and told me they had decided to come down the mountain at last. They’d lived there all their lives. And at first it all sounded very sensible. They’re all three of them getting on. It’s been twelve years since the old hell-fire preacher was called to his immortal reward. His wife had died before him and old Farmer Evans, the elder sister’s husband, had put an end to his days with his own shotgun. It was given out as an accident, but I heard otherwise in the local shop. A tragic accident. To spare the family. Ellis Williams and both his sisters were suffering from arthritis and one of them was booked into Bronglais for the hip operation. They were rich people. They owned several properties in town. When the lease fell due on one of the bigger properties, they decided to tidy up the wallpaper and move in themselves. I can’t say I blame them. The winters up there are unimaginable. The wind cuts you in half. There are no trees. Just the old house and the chapel surrounded by boggy graves: Mount Zion.

Not that he told me all that. My wife knows all the local gossip.

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