‘It’s almost indecent,’ said Adam, walking between the aisles. ‘That one village should produce this bounty while elsewhere in the world people starve.’
‘Well, the leftovers’m going to the old people’s home, ain’t they?’ said Mrs Witts. ‘That’s charity.’
‘It seems wrong, somehow, to feast like this.’
‘It’s tradition. A harvest supper. A celebration of how good – God has been to us.’
‘You believe, Mrs Witts?’
Adam stopped pacing and smiled at his housekeeper. She set down the pie she was carrying, took off her oven gloves and passed a hand over her reddened brow.
‘Well, y’know. I can’t say one way or another. I’m on the fence, let’s say.’
‘I hope I can bring you over to my side. Won’t you come to Sunday service tomorrow, at least? Make up your mind one way or the other?’
‘I dunno about that, vicar.’ She went to look through the window, across to the village green which lay beyond the tree-lined walls of the church grounds. ‘They’ll be setting up out there.’
‘Setting up what?’
Adam joined her, seeing heads bobbing up and down, some kind of structure being erected.
‘The after-party. After the feast.’
‘What are they making?’
‘Corn dollies. Giant-sized, like.’
‘Oh. And is this a typical Saxonhurst party?’
He asked, not wanting to hear the answer, not wanting to know that his devout gathering would turn into a bacchanalian orgy, like everything in this village did.
‘I don’t think this one will be,’ said Mrs Witts after a pause. ‘This’ll be different.’ She turned to him and looked behind her to make sure nobody was listening in. ‘Our Evie misses you,’ she said.
‘Don’t. It’s over. I’ve applied for my transfer. By the end of this month, I’ll be gone.’ As long as I don’t see her again. As long as she doesn’t look at me. As long as she doesn’t touch me, I can tell myself I don’t want her.
‘It’s a shame. She just needs someone steady.’
‘She had someone steady.’ Adam tried not to shout.
‘Won’t you at least talk to her? She wants to apologise. Talk to her tonight. She’ll be here.’
‘I’ve nothing to say.’
Mrs Witts clicked her tongue and went back to arrange a wheatsheaf.
Adam watched her, his heart pounding, his brow slick.
Two more weeks and then this is over.
The door opened and Julia walked in. She looked good, in knee-length boots and a short burgundy tweed skirt, pearls looped and dangling to her waist.
‘Adam,’ she said, with an air of getting directly to the point. ‘I need your help with something.’
‘I’m a little busy at the moment, Julia. We start in half an hour. I still need to organise the sound system for the folk group.’
‘It’s a spiritual matter,’ she said.
‘Can’t it wait?’