Ann Cleeves - Burial of Ghosts

Jess had been looking out for me. ‘Lizzie, pet, there you are. You’ve got ten minutes to change before the mini-bus gets here.’

I must have looked blank.

‘The ceilidh, the engagement party. You’ve not forgotten?’

She looked so disappointed that I lied. ‘Of course not. I’d just not realized there’d be a mini-bus.’

She beamed. ‘Ray laid it on so we could have a few drinks.’

‘Great,’ I said. I had to shout. A fat bearded bloke was sitting on the table and playing a penny whistle in my ear. ‘Great.’

The lassie who was getting engaged lived on her parents’ farm in the hills and the ceilidh was held in a real barn. I mean, there were stalls down one side and bales of hay, and the sweet smell of cows, but it wasn’t so mucky that I felt uncomfortable. I’m a town girl at heart. I’ve always thought the countryside’s full of things to catch you out – bulls and electric fences and piles of shit.

The barn was as tall as a church and you could see right up through the rafters to the slate roof. Swallows had nested there. Someone must have been in during the day with a long ladder, because there were bunches of garden flowers tied to the beams and along the wooden railings of the stalls. A low stage built from pallets stood at one end and that’s where the musicians played. There was a young woman with long straight hair on the Northumbrian pipes and two old geezers on guitar and accordion, and often one or two of Ray’s friends joined in. The guests were of all ages. There were elderly couples in their Sunday best and little kids in party clothes. Not many teenagers. Perhaps they’d slink along later when the pubs closed. A shared supper was being laid out. Women ferried in stuff from their cars in relays – bowls of salad and cold meat covered by cling-film, Tupperware boxes of fancy cakes, flans and quiches, and dishes of fruit.

It all seemed too good to be true. A townie’s dream of country living. The community coming together in celebration, the sort of event the incomers from Newcastle in their barn conversions would brag about to their friends over dinner. And perhaps it was too good to be true. I had the same feeling as when I’d looked at Joanna’s photos. This was a fiction and we were all colluding in it. People in the country aren’t any nicer than everyone else. They don’t get on any better. But I’m a cynic and why shouldn’t they cover over the cracks to give the young couple a good party? We can tell the story of our lives whichever way we want.

I had a good time. I’d imagined myself sat against the wall cringing with embarrassment, but once I let go of the crap about Thomas Mariner and had a few drinks, I really started to enjoy myself. Ray’s friends were nerds, but they were harmless nerds. They asked me to dance and swung me around the floor until I was breathless, but none of them tried anything on. They didn’t expect anything more from me. Jess had probably warned them I’d been through a bad time and ordered them to treat me with kid gloves. When I took a break from the dance floor it wasn’t because I was being snotty about it, but because I was exhausted. I didn’t spend ten miles walking over the hills every weekend in big boots. I didn’t have their stamina.

I sat out next to a little elderly man with bright beady eyes and an almost impenetrable accent. They say Ashington people are impossible to understand but I’m used to those. After a while, though, I tuned into his voice and I didn’t miss much of what he was saying. It was clear he loved to have an audience, especially an audience of a woman younger than himself. He must have been a real charmer in his day. And it seemed then that there was no escape from Thomas Mariner, because as the old man talked about growing up in the valley, gossip mostly about personalities, I realized that this was where Stuart Howdon had lived as a boy. The characters I’d been fretting about all day returned to haunt me.

It started off with the old man shouting to a friend, who seemed to be sleeping, ‘Did you see in the paper that there’s talk of Howdon standing for Parliament? Someone’s got to speak out for the farmers, he says. And what would he know about that?’

The friend stirred but didn’t respond, and the old man turned his attention to me. ‘He’ll stand as an independent, they say. Or representing that Consortium.’ He snorted.

‘Do you not think much of them, then?’ Interested despite myself. I’d have thought he’d be a supporter.

‘You’re not one of that bunch, are you?’ He looked at me warily.

I shook my head. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

‘They’re out for themselves.’

‘In what way?’

‘Money and ambition. What else is there? Howdon getting himself to London and mixing with the folk he’s seen on the telly. That’s what this is about.’

‘The Consortium’s got people talking, though.’ It seemed strange to be defending them here. I’d have thought it would be the other way about.

‘Rallies and marches. What good will that do?’

‘They always get a good turn-out.’

‘Of course they do. If the squire hires a coach and says take the day off and go to London, you’ll go.’ He hesitated. ‘They’ve attracted a right bad crowd. And even the decent people seem to lose their reason. They’ve had a hard time round here and they want someone to kick out at. The Consortium plays on that. It fires them up and lets them loose.’

‘How do you know Stuart Howdon?’

‘He’s a local lad.’ The old man fixed me with his tiny birdlike eyes. ‘Are you sure you’re not one of them?’

‘Na. Promise. It’s not my sort of thing.’

The old man stood up and carefully set down his pint. He wore a shiny old suit and a threadbare shirt. His shoes were so highly polished that they reflected the lamps swung from the rafters. ‘Now, young lady, why don’t you take my hand. I want these people to see me with the bonniest lass in the room.’ He pulled me to my feet and swung me into the dancing.

I’m not sure what time it was when we finished. We’d all drunk too much, but no one was sick and no one started a fight. Perhaps that’s what it means to be grown up. Ray and Jess hadn’t moved away from each other’s side all evening. I’d talked to Ray’s friends and found them to be all right. Normal, funny people with a strange taste in music. They had other lives. One was a teacher, I remember, and there was a doctor too.

At last the music stopped and we all went outside. Jess and Ray were snogging somewhere in the shadow. It was a clear night with a full moon, and because there were no streetlights and only a scatter of house lights in the valley, the stars shone really brightly. It had been a good evening, but all at once I felt lonely again. I wanted someone to share the night and the view with. Jess and Ray emerged with bruised lips and starry eyes and I was so jealous of them I wanted to cry. I understood what the old man had been saying when he talked about the Consortium. When you’re feeling miserable you want to kick out and the target doesn’t matter much. I loved Jess to bits but I couldn’t be glad for her. Because I was feeling so miserable I couldn’t bear anyone else to be happy. I understood why Stuart Howdon felt bitter and angry, married to someone he couldn’t care about. In a mood like that you want to smash someone’s face in. You feel like committing murder.

I hadn’t even taken my mobile to the party, but when I got in, too wired to sleep, too tactful to sit in the kitchen drinking cocoa with the middle-aged lovebirds, I checked the messages. I don’t know what I was expecting. Something from Kay perhaps. I’d given her my number and told her to call if she felt like talking. What I hadn’t expected was the child’s voice. Dickon. A bit muffled, as if he was talking from a mobile too, or was trying to speak softly so he wouldn’t be overheard.