Based on my experience of village life, I am serialising my book, The Mysterious Disappearance of Marsha Boden, in Rosy’s Ramblings. If you have any comments, please get in touch. Enjoy!
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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The thing about villages is that everybody knows everybody, and everything about them. As a newcomer to Little Twichen, Marsha had learnt how to adapt. Or so she thought. Once the round of dinner parties had dried up (locals getting to know the new incomers and, in the process, gleaning as much info about them as they could), she sensed she was still an outsider and perhaps always would be.
Being the wife of a Funeral Director, or Undertaker – which she always thought was an odd term – came with its fair share of raised eyebrows. Guy was perfect for the job. Serious and compassionate, he dealt with bereaved people calmly and sympathetically without being in the least patronising, which Marsha always thought was a real skill which he got just right. She always thought he would have made a good clergyman. He had a lot of dealings with the clergy so the juxtaposition was a perfect marriage.
A book-keeper by trade, she had never really had to work and once the boys married and left home, she took it up again, part-time, fitting in with what suited her. That’s how she became so close to Lloyd. She had started out by ‘doing his books’ and one thing had led to another. She hadn’t been happy at home for years but she carried on, thinking things would improve but they never did. She and Guy tolerated each other and because the funeral business is so unpredictable, holidays never happened. When Lloyd showed an interest in her, she felt as though she had been re-awakened.
It was difficult disguising her sparkly eyes and lightness of step when she returned from one of her trysts. She concentrated on acting as though nothing unusual had happened, all the while thinking about the amazing physical union she had just enjoyed. Guilt washed over her at times and others, it ran off her like rain from a Barbour jacket.
On her way to buy a delicious home-made cake at Tidmarsh’s (but everyone affectionately called Tiddy’s), she was accosted by Helena Moorcroft.
“Morning, Marsha. Nice day for it, isn’t it?” she asked cryptically.
“Yes, Helena (careful to pronounce it Hel-a-nah after she had been berated for the wrong pronunciation early on) it certainly is.” She tried to avoid the nosey neighbour but somehow, Miss Moorcroft sensed her discomfort and made a bee-line for her whenever she spied her in the village. Once, she even accosted her when she was out shopping in the nearby town of Mudlowe and try as she might, she failed to avoid her, even side-stepping into a new vaping shop.
“Have you heard the latest in the village?” Miss Moorcroft pressed on.
“No, Helena and if you’ll excuse me, I really must be getting on. I have a mountain of things I need to do before lunch.” She marched on carrying her wicker basket and left the spinster stranded in the middle of the pavement, her mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.
Marsha had never had time for village tittle-tattle. Perhaps it was because she was a ‘townie’ at heart and she really couldn’t care less what her neighbours got up to. Within reason, although she did enjoy hearing about the wife-swapping episode in Fletchingley recently, although she had her doubts about its authenticity. It did seem terribly far-fetched to have a vicar’s wife cavorting with a car salesman who then got involved in a threesome with the local barmaid. Seemingly, the vicar was oblivious to his wife’s antics and Marsha often wondered why the person closest to the deviator was the last to know. She was confident that Guy was completely in the dark about her relationship with Lloyd and that’s how she intended to keep it.
No sooner had Marsha broken free from Miss Moorcroft’s clutches than she was ensnared by Bert Humble on the gravel pathway of Tiddy’s bemoaning the proposed new housing development. Yes, she thought it was dreadful but as she pointed out to Bert, people had to live somewhere.
“But why put ‘em ‘ere in this beautiful village?”
“I think you have just answered your own question there, Bert. Try not to get too upset about it. Why don’t you make a formal objection to the proposal?”
“Huh! Fat lot o’ good that would do. Besides, it’s all that online stuff now and I can’t be bothered with all that nonsense.”
“Why don’t you have a word with someone on the Parish Council, then? I’m sure they would be very helpful and point you in the right direction of someone who could help you.”
Bert didn’t seem convinced but as Marsha had honestly told Miss Moorcroft earlier, she really did have a pile of things to do before the day was out, and one of them was to take some of Mrs Tidmarsh’s famous walnut cake to Lloyd to enjoy with his afternoon tea. Guy had a big funeral in Fletchingley today; a local lad, just 26, had been killed in a hit-and-run incident, so he wouldn’t be back for ages.
It was probably because Marsha had so many other things on her mind that she didn’t notice Lloyd’s pick-up parked discreetly at the side of Wisteria Cottage; she was so focused on other things and she had to make sure she had enough time to finish off the accounts she was working on for a new client who had heard about her through a mutual friend, although she was yet to find out who that was. Referrals were always the best way to gain new customers and she was squirrelling away a fair-sized nest egg for a rainy day. She left the shop with a full basket of goodies and a spring in her step; she had even treated herself to a bottle of rhubarb vodka and some Fever Tree tonic.
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The mums waiting at the school-gates were clustered closer together today, tighter-knit than usual. They were a mix of young mums stuck in the benefits cycle from the small council estate off High Street and the upper-class yummy mummies, who had their own little clique off to one side. Kate was walking stoically with her head in the air, a child at the end of each arm and a slightly flushed look on her face. The women stopped when they saw her and turned, one by one, as if daring her to do a walk of shame between them. All credit to the Headmistress; she didn’t flinch.
Robbie and Chase must have sensed something was going on. A preamble to a playground fist fight perhaps or a slanging match between the mums from the estate. Robbie had seen one once as he crouched behind the bike shed hiding from Chase one lunch-break playtime. He didn’t know what the women were arguing about but there were a lot of swear words and shouting. He remembered hearing the word ‘tart’ a lot and wondered why they were getting so angry about a pie.
Kate received the same icy reception at the surgery. She dropped off the boys and left them in the capable hands of the Practice Manager, only just managing to hold it together in front of her children before bursting into tears outside in the car. She put her mobile on speaker phone and asked Siri to dial, ‘Mum’.
“Darling, what is it? You sound dreadful.”
Unable to speak momentarily through the sobbing and tears, Kate explained that she was on her way to stay for a few days and would tell them everything when she arrived. In her haste to get away, she had forgotten to pack a bag and didn’t even have a toothbrush with her. But that was the least of her worries.
Pulling into the drive of her parents’ home an hour’s drive away in Oswestry, it felt like another world. Calm and business as usual. She didn’t know where to start.
“Try at the beginning, Kate,” her father said firmly, handing her a large tumbler of whisky. “You look like you could use it.”
Kate took the tumbler hesitantly and looking from her Mum and then to her Dad said, “Nigel and I are separating. I’ve been seeing someone.”
To be continued.
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(The beautiful image at the top of this post is Dan Blackburn on Unsplash)
Well, I never heard of Fever Tree tonic but now I know that I can get it at Wal-Mart! Getting hooked, Rosy!
I grew up in a very small town...I know how everything that happens is everyone's business. I am enjoying your story!