Adam grabbed him around the neck, yanking him back, before punching him hard in the face.
‘Adam!’
Evie looked down at the man’s inert form.
‘You’ll get yourself arrested.’
‘You … You …’ Adam was having no more luck with coherent speech. He stared at Evie, who stared back.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said at last.
The felled man managed to push himself into a sitting position.
‘Sorry, vicar,’ he said. ‘I suppose I asked for that.’
‘You ain’t going to tell, are you, Dan?’
‘No. I’ll get off now, then.’
‘Go and bathe that cut lip, lover.’
‘Yeah.’
Adam simply watched the man shamble off. His eyes wouldn’t seem to stop popping and he felt trapped in something; a thick, oppressive air that stopped up his breath and roared in his ears.
Evie touched his arm. The action brought him back to life and he fended her off before turning to the church wall and resting his head against the cool, rough stone, letting his legs bend until he had slid down to a crouching position, in which he rocked and moaned.
‘Why? Why? Why me, O Lord? Why?’
‘Adam,’ said Evie nervously from somewhere behind him. ‘I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t think anyone not from here would. But there was a reason why I had to do that. I didn’t want to. I’d rather wait for you. But something – something means I can’t do that. Oh God, if you can’t forgive me, we’re all lost …’
He turned, sitting with his back to the wall, staring up at her with tear-leaking eyes.
‘What do you mean? What is making you do this? Evie, once and for all, just tell me the truth.’
‘You won’t believe me.’
‘Try me.’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Evie!’
‘But I can show you. At the Harvest Festival. I’ll show you what makes me this – sex machine.’ She laughed miserably. ‘And once we’re married …’
‘Married?’ Adam screwed his eyes shut in a futile effort of resistance against the tears. ‘I’m a laughing stock. You have made me a laughing stock.’
‘If you don’t want me, I can’t make you,’ she whispered. ‘But that’s up to you. I’m leaving it all up to you. Goodnight, lover.’
Through blurred and squinting eyes, Adam watched her back as she swayed up the path to the lych gate.
Everything he wanted in life was contained in those curves, but she had corrupted herself beyond his endurance now. She had
been unfaithful to him, and would probably continue to be so. He should never have come back.
Chapter Fifteen
MRS WITTS HAD excelled herself, and so had her gang of village cronies. The trestle tables in the church hall were thick with produce, the snowy cloths barely visible underneath it all. Huge baskets of fruit and vegetables, tureens of soup, plaited loaves, giant cakes, gargantuan pies – plenty as far as the eye could see.