‘A what?’ Impossible to keep the surprise from his voice. That grumpy, edgy woman was a … blimey.
‘Well, she didn’t mention that,’ he said, ‘but if she is a psychiatrist, she wouldn’t be allowed to talk about her patients with anyone, it would be —’
‘I’m not a patient. I just see her sometimes.’
‘Right.’ Harry found himself nodding, as though he understood completely. Which he didn’t.
‘Are you the new vicar?’
At last, familiar territory. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m Harry. Reverend Laycock if you want to be formal, which very few people ever are. I think it must be the shorts. And you are …?’
‘Did Alice tell you about me?’
‘Alice?’ Was it him? Had his brain just decided to take the day off?
‘Alice Fletcher. From the new house.’
Light dawning. Are you Gillian?’ he asked.
The girl nodded.
‘She did mention you. I’m so sorry about your loss.’
The girl’s face contracted, grew smaller, her thin lips almost disappeared. ‘Thank you,’ she said, as her eyes left his face and drifted somewhere over his left shoulder.
‘How are you coping?’ asked Harry.
Gillian took a deep breath and her eyes opened wider, momentarily losing their focus. Stupid question. She wasn’t coping. And she was going to ask him why God had taken her child. Out of all the children in the world, why hers? Any second now.
‘I was about to make tea,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve got a kettle in the vestry. Will you join me?’ Gillian stared at him for a second, as though tea was something out of her normal experience, then she nodded. He led her through the ruins of the abbey church and up the flagstones towards St Barnabas’s, trying to remember what Alice had told him.
Gillian – Rogers, Roberts, he couldn’t quite remember – had lost her daughter in a house fire three years previously. She spent her days walking the moors and wandering round the town’s old streets, almost like a living ghost. Alice had met her in the abbey ruins and invited her home for coffee. It was the sort of kind, impulsive and not terribly wise thing that Alice would do. Gillian had accepted and had stayed most of the morning, half-heartedly answering Alice’s attempts at conversation but mainly just watching the children playing.
The church felt chill and damp after the autumn sunshine. ‘You’re cleaning this church by yourself?’ asked Gillian as she and Harry walked up the side aisle.
‘Thankfully, no,’ replied Harry. ‘The diocese arranged a team of industrial cleaners. They’ve just finished. I’m just sorting out cupboards, finding out where everything’s been stored, putting the building back to rights. Alice and the children have been helping me.’
Harry pushed open the door to the vestry and allowed Gillian to precede him inside. He would have to get some chairs in here, maybe a small table. The kettle was still warm, he’d just switched it on when he’d heard the doctor yelling at her horse. By the time he’d found teabags and mugs it had boiled. He poured on hot water, conscious of Gillian hovering just behind him, and added milk and sugar without asking whether she took either. She clearly needed both. Alice had brought over a jumbo packet of chocolate digestives earlier that day. Bless her.
He held a cup out to Gillian. She reached to take it but her small, white hand was shaking violently. The skin above her wrists was crisscrossed with scars. She saw him notice and her face flushed. He withdrew his hand and passed her the biscuits instead.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ he suggested, before leading the way back into the nave. He sat down on the front bench of the choir stalls. She joined him and at last he felt confident to hand over the hot drink. He sipped his own gratefully. It was thirsty work: cleaning churches, rescuing foul-mouthed psychiatrists and consoling grief-stricken parishioners. If the day continued along the same lines, he’d be breaking open the communion wine before sun-down.
‘I haven’t had a drink for eight days,’ said Gillian, and for a second, he wasn’t quite … Of course, Alice had mentioned Gillian had been to her GP, that she’d been referred to an alcoholics’ support group, to a psychiatrist specializing in family issues. Who must, of course, be the lady he’d just met. Dr Oliver.
‘Well done,’ said Harry.
‘I feel better,’ said Gillian. ‘I really do. Dr Oliver gave me some pills to help me sleep. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to