The Skeleton Man

‘The MoD tells us the church is not a target and isn’t in danger. But they can’t make any promises. The graveyard, the vicarage, who knows? We all make mistakes, it’s part of being human, so I’m expecting the worst. Everything we can move we will move, to St Anthony’s at Whittlesea, our sister church. They’ve been great about it, so who knows, we may be back in a year and all this will just be behind us like a bad dream.’

A sigh. ‘And perhaps we shouldn’t be too concerned with material loss. I’ve been telling everyone who’ll listen the story of St Swithun…’

Another door creaked and steps echoed, climbing the tower of the church. A gust of wind hit the microphone as they emerged at the top, a seagull screeching overhead.

‘It’ll be my last sermon – but they know it well. My wife says I bang on about it, but it’s relevant, even now, and these days if you want to get something across to people, past the distractions of the TV, and video games, and the rest, well you’ve got to bang on. So – St Swithun, the great bishop of Winchester, said he wanted to be buried out of doors so that, he said, the “sweet rain of heaven” could fall on his grave. There was a deeper message, a political message really…’ Dryden noted how strong the accent had suddenly become, the guttural nasal vowels distinct in the word ‘political’.

‘He was saying that he didn’t want to be buried alongside the great and the good inside the cathedral, all the posh people. He wanted to be outside with us, the also-rans.’

He laughed and Dryden thought how little bitterness there was in the voice. ‘But then of course the people who came after him thought they knew better. They decided to dig up his bones and put them in a fancy tomb inside. And that, of course, is when it rained, ruining their plans, filling the grave as they dug it. For forty days and forty nights it rained, a mark of just how disappointed God was with their attitude, the way they’d forgotten this wonderful lesson they’d been given by Swithun, this great example.’

A cough, a fresh gust of wind… ‘OK. I think the ringers are ready for us.’ The deep note of a tenor bell sounded, being rung down.

‘Bubbly?’ asked Humph, firing another green tennis ball despite the gathering darkness. They watched as Boudicca moved like a shadow over the field, and the cabbie refilled their glasses. To the north, over the cathedral, a brace of US fighters wheeled, the roar of the engines swelling suddenly, rattling the boat’s portholes.

Laura looked towards them, shielding her eyes awkwardly with her hand. ‘Much more now,’ she said, and Dryden understood her. Since the invasion of Iraq the US air bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath were busier; a steady stream of transport planes bringing in fuel and stores for shipment on to the Middle East, while the fighter pilots trained before being posted to the skies over the Gulf.

The tape moved on, through the voices in the belfry to an elderly farm labourer who recalled, beside the slow-crackling peat fire in his cottage, the day the beet factory opened – the steam whistle which marked the shifts salvaged from a transatlantic liner. Then came the village baker, long retired to a cottage over The Dring – the village’s narrow high street flanked on one side by a culvert – where he tended an allotment of berries, the gentle clip of the pruning shears marking his progress along a hedge.

Then the tape filled with static, the irritating clatter of a taxi firm’s radio network.

‘OK, Sam. You picked up yet?’

‘Two minutes. Two minutes.’

‘OK. Next, can you pick up from Peterborough railway station? That’s forecourt Peterborough. Back to the New Ferry, Sam. Back to the New Ferry.’

The static faded. The woman’s voice was throaty and scarred by cigarettes.

‘My name’s Jan Cobley. We’ve run the firm now for twenty-six years, Sam and me. I do control, here, and he’s out in the cab. We’ve got two, and our son’s in the other. He’s worked hard, but these days they expect more, don’t they? We think we’ve done all right, really – there’s a roof over our heads and we get a holiday, that’s more than some here. People said we’d fold, of course. But Jude’s Ferry’s miles from anywhere and when the factory was running we was off our feet. And the bus don’t run at all now, so that’s more trade when it’s about. And we have to do the school runs – primary and for the college in Whittlesea.’

A kettle whistled and there was the sound of a teapot filling. ‘And you’d be surprised where you can get trade,’ she said. Humph blew air out of the tiny bow of his mouth. ‘Take the army. They might get marched out to the gate posts on the range but they don’t mind a lift home.’

She laughed then and Dryden imagined a mouth with wrecked teeth, and cellulite arms.

‘We’ll keep going, move the business, Sam’s got some ideas. We’ll be all right, the two of us.’ Dryden noted that the Cobleys’ son was not included in their plans. Clearly running a mini-cab wasn’t top of his career ladder.