Think of Me Read online

  THINK OF ME

  Frances Liardet

  Copyright

  4th Estate

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  HarperCollinsPublishers

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  This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2022

  Copyright © Frances Liardet 2022

  Map illustration by David Lindroth

  Cover image © Arcangel/Collaborations JS

  Frances Liardet asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Information on previously published material appears here.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

  Source ISBN: 9780008432270

  Ebook Edition © February 2022 ISBN: 9780008432294

  Version: 2022-01-18

  Dedication

  To Pippa and her loving family

  Map

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s note

  Sources

  About the Author

  Also by Frances Liardet

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  April 1943, Tunisia

  Sunrise, and the encampment is awake. Pans rattle in the cookhouse, grunts and murmurs issue from the rows of tents. Close by, boots crunch over gravel. None of these sounds impinge on the vast silence of the desert.

  Two long shadows are flung across the ground. The first is my Hurricane fighter aircraft, motionless and hawk-like. The second, approaching with a lanky stride, is myself. A harnessed and helmeted human, twenty-four years old, in love.

  The cockpit of a Hurricane is a wooden kennel situated directly behind a fuel tank. There is a firewall, but it lies between fuel tank and engine, not between fuel tank and pilot. On account of this and many other perils, I say a daily prayer before I press the ignition. ‘Dear Lord, please spare me, James Acton, so that I may return to Egypt and marry Yvette Haddad.’

  I always use our full names to God, so that He is absolutely clear, through the blizzard of prayers He must receive every morning of this war, exactly who it is I’m talking about.

  Yvette is small, lively, Alexandrian. Loyal. Beautiful. Brave. I don’t know if I’ll live to see her again.

  But what a life we will have, if I do.

  ‘Amen,’ I say, as my heart is shaken in my chest by the engine’s splattering roar.

  1

  July 1974, England

  ‘There’s only one remaining question, Mr Acton.’

  The man who has been interrogating me leans forward with his heavy arms on his knees, big boxer’s knuckles on fingers strictly interlinked. As if each hand has been detailed to keep the other out of mischief.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Whether you’ll go out of your mind.’

  His tongue appears too large for his mouth, it lumbers from side to side as he speaks, getting in the way of, rather than forming, his words. A man trying to articulate through a mouthful of flannel. When he finishes, the tongue hangs over his bottom teeth, just inside a slack lower lip. His name is Frobisher.

  ‘Go out of my mind? Why?’

  I’m slow on the uptake, having been rather mesmerised by Frobisher, his way of speaking, the bulkiness of his limbs. It comes to me that this man, despite his somewhat distracting appearance, has had years of training in winkling out harboured information. He can probably, like a police dog at Customs, simply smell it.

  ‘Why do you think?’ Frobisher chortles. ‘Boredom, man! Look at you, you were an RAF pilot. A prisoner of war.’

  ‘That was thirty-odd years ago!’ I can’t disguise my astonishment. ‘It’s hardly relevant now.’

  ‘I beg to disagree.’ He rocks back in his seat, enjoying himself. ‘I’ve seen so many like you. You’re one of a whole generation, all ex-services, who signed up for the priesthood at the end of the war, and what were you doing? Arming yourselves to fight another good fight. Think of theological college – all that cold water and discipline and ardent celibacy. Certain similarities to a military training camp, no?’

  He’s not wrong: both places featured, in varying proportions, muddy cross-country runs and prayer. The prayers shorter and more fervent in the field of battle than in the pew.

  ‘Actually, Archdeacon, I was ordained before the war. And by the end of 1945 I was married.’

  ‘Of course you were. Girl you met in Egypt, I believe?’

  His beady little eyes track over me. He doesn’t ‘believe’: he’s learned my file by heart, memorisation being a tool of our trade, and so he’s simply prodding me now. I can’t think of anything I want to say about Yvette. Not now, not to him.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘My late wife was from Alexandria.’

  There follows a tense silence while the instant coffee cools in the cups, the ginger biscuits soften in the humid late-summer air. From beyond the leaded window a pale sunbeam does what it can to make Frobisher’s bald head gleam. As far as I’m aware he hasn’t blinked.

  ‘Archdeacon,’ I say at last, ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  He stretches his lips into a broad grin. They have no shape, these lips, being the same thickness all the way along, and no colour to distinguish them from the rest of his face. ‘My dear man. Nothing was further from my mind. Nevertheless here you are, all set to leave the West Country at rather short notice after, oh, it must be more than twenty years, just when all your work at your current parish is bearing fruit, and come here to Hampshire, to Upton, which for all—’

  ‘Upton and Barrow End. I believe they’re quite particular about that.’

  ‘And Barrow End –’ the grin becomes ferocious – ‘a community which, for all its good points, is hardly the most challenging environment. For a man of your experience, that is. And you’re not yet sixty.’ He hunches forward, once more a pugilist. ‘Is it burn-out? I mean, from what I’ve read about Fulbrook – the signs in pub doorways saying No Knives, goodness me—’

  ‘In fact they’re pictures of knives with an X over the top. For the unlettered.’

  ‘Well, there you are. I wouldn’t blame you for searching out a sleepy village to have a nice quiet breakdown in.’

  ‘I assure you I’m not another Blakemore.’

  The Reverend Charles Blakemore, previous vicar of Upton and Barrow End, collapsed in harness four months ago, mentally unstrung. He’s the reason we’re all here – myself, and the other shortlisted candidates waiting behind the imposing oak door. We’ve managed to clear the hurdles set in our way, the applications and panel interviews and parish visits. Upton – and Barrow End – was all I hoped it would be, a village and neighbouring hamlet settled on the chalk before Domesday, the people at long last cautiously prosperous, not given to show, the handshakes friendly but conditional in a way I perfectly understood. And now it’s down to this odd, unwieldy man with his clumsy tongue and his direct questions. In all honesty, I can’t say it’s going well.

  ‘Please continue.’ Frobisher is suddenly curt. Perhaps he’s already thinking about the next candidate. Or his lunch.

  ‘In fact …’ I clear my throat, take another run at it. ‘In fact, it was this very situation that attracted me. Mr Blakemore’s illness was gradual, so the parish may have been fairly rudderless for some time. I’d like to help them get back on course. Bring some cheer, comfort. Guidance. When I visited, I came away with the sense that I could win their trust.’

  Frobisher lifts his chin. The strengthening sunlight catches the solid black frames of his glasses. Desperation spurs me on.

  ‘Archdeacon, I’ve been a widower for ten years. My son’s a student now, on the other side of the country. I’ve spent over twenty years at Fulbrook, they need someone new. And I need a fresh start.’

  ‘Ha!’ His big hands release each other and each one begins to rub a meaty knee. ‘We got there in the end.’

  ‘Got where?’

  ‘It’s all very well saying what you can give to Upton. But what I needed to know was’ – his words now emphasised
by a pointed forefinger – ‘what Upton will give to you. And now you’ve told me. A fresh start. Thank you, Mr Acton. You should expect a letter in a few days.’

  We both rise to our feet, Frobisher’s relief evident in the stretching of his cumbersome frame. I steel myself for the clammy grapple of his handshake. As he releases me he suddenly says,

  ‘Remind me, where was your first parish? The one you served immediately after the war?’

  He knows perfectly well that my first parish was Alver Shore, a battered port town on the Hampshire coast. I repeat the name to him obediently.

  ‘Ah, yes. No great distance from Upton, is it. Half an hour’s drive, hmm? I only mention this in relation to your making a fresh start. Some might suggest it might more aptly be described as going over old ground.’

  Alver Shore. A place of crowded brick terraces cratered by air raids, children swarming over the bomb sites. Waif-like young mothers who scrubbed and baked and carried home the coal, and fell asleep darning socks of an evening. Old men, backs bent under the sea wind, mining the black mud of the harbour for cockles and clams to add to a family diet consisting largely of bread and potatoes and fresh air.

  ‘The Alver Shore of 1946,’ I say, smiling, ‘is a far cry from the modern-day Upton of 1974.’

  ‘A far cry. Of course.’ He gives a strange, unnerving little chuckle. ‘I must say, Mr Acton, that is very well put.’

  It began one evening in early May, less than three months ago.

  The dusk was draining from the sky and I was sitting at my desk writing a sermon in candlelight, something I’d learned to do over the decade since Yvette died, so effectively did the small flame cast the world, even if only for an hour or so, into shadow. A few days previously I’d said goodbye to my son Tom who, having completed his first year at university, was off to fruit-pick his way across France until the autumn. I was well used by now to Yvette’s absence from my bed, and I was even taking my student son’s increasingly sporadic visits in my stride, but that evening the house seemed especially empty. Safe in the candle’s soothing glow, pen in hand, I happened to glance at the latest issue of the Church Times which lay just within the light’s perimeter; my eyes, wandering down the Positions Vacant column, came to rest upon the phrase rural parish, Hampshire. It didn’t even register properly at the time.

  But later that night, as I started my usual prayers before sleeping, I felt a tension inside me, a pulling – or was it a push? Was it coming from outside or was I the one seeking? I couldn’t be sure. By the following morning the feeling had formed itself into a statement so urgent that it woke me up.

  It’s time to go.

  Tom and I had been glad to stay in Fulbrook after we lost Yvette. A working Somerset town half an hour from Bristol, it was the only home Tom had ever known. He was ten when his mother died: we both needed to cling to the tossing life-raft of familiar surroundings and daily routine. Now he was a tall ruck-sacking student with his whole life unfolding in Norwich, on the other side of the country, leaping up the steps of the National Express bus. He didn’t need Fulbrook anymore. And now, suddenly, in spite of all the memories, the achievements and the many deep friendships, neither did I. And all because of this startling, almost animal urge that had materialised on that still evening out of the candle flame. I couldn’t even explain it properly to myself, let alone my archdeacon. You see, sir, I happened to catch sight of the job ad, and, well, that same night I got this feeling …

  That would have cut no ice with Frobisher.

  A fortnight after my interview, a long white envelope with The Reverend James Acton inscribed on it in austere black capitals, arrives.

  8 August 1974

  Dear Mr Acton,

  I have pleasure in informing you that you have been successful in your application to the post of Vicar of the Anglican Church of St Peter in the Parish of Upton and Barrow End within the diocese of Winchester.

  You will be expected to take up your post on or before the first of October of this year.

  All pertinent documents will be sent under separate cover in the next week.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ronald Frobisher, ArchD.

  I am, as my curate Rick puts it, ‘gobsmacked.’

  A month later, Fulbrook has found a new vicar. He’s young, extremely cheery, plays the guitar during his services, and enjoys rock-climbing. The people involved in this choice are all awfully pleased with themselves. I sense a certain embarrassment: now it’s happened, in spite of all their kind words, they quite want me to be gone.

  One day in mid-September I’m packing hand over fist when another significant piece of mail arrives. It’s a postcard of the city of Cahors: the arches of a mediaeval bridge skimming a wide river under the sunshine of southern France. The stamp, however, is English.

  Hi Dad. Back in the UK. Just moved into house in Norwich. 12 minutes from uni on bike. Vines were hard labour but got some dough plus a cool tan! And now have phone but old tenants left without paying bill >> might get cut off soon.

  So ring me asap!!

  A phone number, and then Love, Tom.

  Immediately I dial the number. I should be thinking about the bible study group which I’m due to host in a matter of minutes, but I can’t help myself.

  The ringing tone stops. ‘Allô?’ The voice is young, French and female. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, startled. ‘May I speak to Tom Acton?’

  ‘One moment. I will fetch him.’

  A creaking, rumpling sort of sound, and a lot of gruff throat clearing. It doesn’t sound as if the young woman has to go very far to find him.

  ‘Hello?’ says my son, deeper, hoarser, but recognisably him.

  ‘Tom, dear boy!’ I burst out. ‘You’re back!’

  ‘Dad!’

  A shout of delight. My heart sings.

  ‘Is this a convenient time?’ I say, still smiling.

  ‘That was Florence,’ says this husky young man of mine. ‘She’s … she’s with me.’

  ‘She has an excellent telephone manner.’

  ‘Yes. That was the first thing that struck me.’

  ‘Tom …’ I can hear my front door opening, a hubbub in the hallway. Curate Rick is admitting the bible study crowd. ‘While you were away, I … I decided to leave Fulbrook.’

  ‘Leave – Dad, is everything okay? They haven’t defrocked you for stealing the silver?’

  ‘No, I’ve got a new parish. A village called Upton, in Hampshire.’

  He whooshes a long breath of surprise into the receiver. ‘Hampshire, that’s miles … that’s a different whatchamacallit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Diocese, yes. I’m moving in a couple of weeks.’

  A pause. Behind him I hear the muffled, beseeching tones of Florence.

  ‘Look,’ he says finally, ‘we’ve got to split … Tell you what. Term doesn’t start ’til October. I can help you. Pick me up at Southampton and we’ll go to your new place together. You helped me, after all.’

  He means, when we drove to the University of East Anglia a year ago, at the beginning of his first term. Two hundred and fifty miles eastwards with a shiny kettle and crisp new duvet in the back of the car. I was all for blankets but he insisted on a duvet. Nobody had blankets anymore, apparently.

  ‘That’s very kind, Tom …’

  ‘Come on, Dad. It’s the least I can do.’

  Suddenly magnanimous. We’re two men now, I understand. Equals.

  Towards the end of my time in Fulbrook I gather my friends and colleagues together, open many bottles of wine. They leave late, a little tipsy, with torrents of kind words and embraces. ‘You are a rotter, James,’ says one dear, wild-haired female friend, hitting me softly in the chest with a jingle of bracelets. ‘An absolute rotter, to leave us all in the lurch.’

  ‘There’s no lurch about it, Maureen,’ I reply, laughing, because the parish is in such safe hands.

  ‘Oh, yes there is,’ she says, and wanders unsteadily away down the path.

  On the eve of my meeting with Tom in Southampton, I load up a hired removal lorry with the help of curate Rick and a couple of burly parishioners. We set about our task, starting with the most cumbersome objects. It’s a job and a half.

  ‘Bloody thing,’ I say to Rick as we push the sofa across the floor of the van. ‘I don’t remember it being so heavy when I moved in.’