For Rye by Gavin Gardiner

Author:Gavin Gardiner [Gardiner, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Burton Mayers Books
Published: 2021-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

15

‘Look after your brother, Rennie.’ Her parents huddle around their son, patting down a spring of curls here, smoothing a crease in his jumper there. He is a prize trophy and, tonight, the girl is that trophy’s minder. ‘Get him to bed by eight o’clock and make sure he’s warm,’ her mother continues, smile wooden as ever, hair a sculpture of perfection. ‘You know where the extra blankets are if he needs them. And I want this place as clean and tidy as we left it when we come back.’

Her father crouches by the boy. His tremors are getting worse. ‘If you need anything, son, you tell her.’

‘Me and Lenata have fun!’ squeals the child. The woman’s eyes shine with adoration. The man’s lips curve in a rare smile.

The cool summer’s night is perfect for a stroll into town with Samson – a stroll which, seven years ago, before the boy’s arrival, the girl couldn’t have imagined occurring any more than her father’s acceptance of the new church. That’s what’s happening tonight, a meeting at the town hall for everyone to vent their rage at the modern facility due to replace the church across the fields. ‘It’s a tragedy,’ Mr Lawson, a physician from Millbury Peak Community Hospital, had declared after service two Sundays prior. To everyone’s amazement, even Mr Crawford’s wife, the mousy librarian (forever ‘Mr Crawford’s wife’, never ‘Mrs Crawford’) had, for the first time in history, spoken up, denouncing the decommissioning of the old church as sacrilege and – yes, indeed – ‘a tragedy’. The school’s head teacher had expressed his disapproval by way of a series of grunts, while Mrs Cunningham wept her agreement that the act could be called nothing less than – you guessed it – ‘a tragedy of the highest order’.

And so tonight was the night for strategizing the fighting of this gross injustice. Their efforts would fly in the face of a decision already made like a bluebottle in the face of a train. The old church would rot, cursed to serve only two purposes: its clock tower would continue to toll the noon and midnight hours, and its cemetery would continue to swallow the town’s dead. Nevertheless, tonight they would gather while the precious Wakefield boy would be left in the care of the not-so-precious Wakefield girl.

Tonight, true tragedy will reshape the Wakefield family.

The girl watches from the living room window as her parents set off, her father stopping to buff the navy paintwork of the Ford Cortina lined up to perfection in the driveway. She feels a gaze from behind like a ghost’s embrace. She turns to Noah.

He points through the open door of the kitchen to the bucket and spade. ‘Wolms,’ he says.

‘No worms,’ the girl replies. ‘No digging tonight. You’re staying in.’

The boy lowers his hand. To her relief, he shuffles over to an abandoned toy fire engine and begins rolling it back and forth on the carpet by the fireplace.

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