And he went on, ‘I may have been dismissive of the power of healing in the past but—’
‘“Dismissive”?’ said Carole. ‘One of your descriptions of it I remember was “a load of old cobblers”.’
‘Ah well,’ said Ted awkwardly. ‘One can be wrong about things.’
‘The truth is always out there,’ said Brandie. ‘And it will be there whenever a person comes to it.’
Carole seethed inwardly. Was every pronouncement of Brandie’s going to take the form of a gift-shop motto? Maybe Lauren Givens could start printing them on ceramic toadstools …? There’d undoubtedly be a market for them. There were, in Carole’s view, enough stupid people out in the world to buy any old rubbish.
‘You’re so right, Brandie,’ said Ted. ‘So many of us go through life, seeing only the surface of things, totally unaware of their spiritual dimension.’
Carole caught Jude’s eye and saw that her neighbour was having difficulty suppressing giggles. Though she treated her healing with great seriousness, and might share comparable thoughts with like-minded friends, she could recognize how incongruous they sounded coming out of the previously unreconstructed mouth of Ted Crisp.
Brandie smiled serenely. ‘That’s it, lovie.’
‘Lovie’! Carole’s mind echoed in appalled silence.
‘I’ve been introducing Ted to mindfulness,’ Brandie continued. ‘Haven’t I, lovie?’
‘Yes, lovie. I’m not quite there yet,’ the landlord admitted. ‘I’m getting myself better at living in the moment, you know, being aware of the present, but my mind does keep wandering to the past and the future.’
‘Early days,’ said Brandie. ‘You’ll get better at it, lovie.’
‘Yes.’ Ted looked earnestly at Jude. ‘I’m trying to learn mindfulness and meditation kind of … hand-in-glove.’
‘Often the best way,’ she reassured him.
‘And I’m learning to repeat a tantra.’
‘Mantra, lovie,’ Brandie corrected gently.
‘Yeah, right. I keep getting those two mixed up.’
‘You’ll catch on quickly,’ said Brandie, ‘if you just hang loose and let your thoughts flow free.’
The imminent implosion of Carole Seddon’s brain was prevented by the arrival in the Crown and Anchor of Vi Benyon.
Vi without Leslie Benyon was a revelation. She’d been garrulous on their previous encounter in the Crown and Anchor but, Carole and Jude realized now, she had only been going at half-speed. Without her husband’s restraining presence, she was a real motormouth. And she seemed to gain energy from being the centre of attention.
That was not the only change. When Carole offered her a drink, rather than the modest half-pint she’d made last for the whole of her previous visit, she asked for a large Scotch ‘with some ice, no water’.
Once the three of them were ensconced in one of the bar’s alcoves (mercifully out of earshot of spiritual endearments from the two ‘lovies’ at the bar), Vi started talking. In a way that suggested she had no intention of stopping.
‘I wanted to contact you two as soon as I heard about Harry Lasalle’s death. Terrible business. And in his own boat. Harry’s Dream. He loved that boat, built it up from just a shell, you know. And he knew it inside out. I can’t see him dying by accident in a boat he’d designed and built himself.’
‘No,’ said Jude.
‘There’s been talk round Fethering – heard it from one of my neighbours in Allinstore’ – the village’s uniquely inefficient supermarket – ‘that Harry topped himself.’
‘That’s certainly what his family seem to believe.’
‘Oh?’
Jude told Vi what she’d heard from Veronica and Roland Lasalle. ‘And when we last spoke on the phone, you were about to tell me who came on to Anita Garner in Footscrow House. Was it Harry?’
The old lady nodded. ‘That was the rumour I heard. As I say, I was so caught up with Mum’s final illness that I didn’t have much time to think about it, but that’s what people were saying.’
‘Veronica Lasalle came to see me …’ said Jude.
‘Lucky you. I’m sure she found something to bawl you out about.’
‘Certainly did. She accused Carole and me of driving her husband to suicide.’
‘Oh. Well. I suppose that’s quite a major accusation. But she would have found something else if she hadn’t had that. Veronica’s one of those women who can always find fault with everyone.’
‘But what she did tell me,’ said Jude, ‘was that Harry couldn’t have come on to Anita at Footscrow House because she was there. She, Veronica, was running the care home with her husband, so he couldn’t have got up to any hanky-panky with her there.’
‘Huh.’ Vi Benyon wasn’t persuaded by that. ‘Then she underestimated the deviousness of men … or particularly the deviousness of Harry Lasalle.’
‘Are you suggesting,’ asked Carole, ‘that he had a bit of a reputation for coming on to members of his staff?’
‘Yes, he did. But, of course, coming on to Anita Garner was especially cruel.’
‘Oh? Why?’
‘As I say, I heard a lot about Anita from my mum. They talked a lot, you know, during the last months. And the thing Mum kept saying to me was how young Anita was. Not young in age but young in experience. Wide-eyed and innocent. What’s that French word beginning with “n”?’
‘“Naïve”?’ Jude suggested.
‘That’s the one. “Naïve” – that’s what Anita was. Partly it was the Catholic thing. Her dad was very strict about all that stuff. Old-fashioned, like someone from fifty years before. If Anita had told him that she was having sex before marriage, or having an affair, he would have literally turned her out of the house. That’s why I said, if Harry was coming on to her – and the general view seemed to be that he was – it would have been very cruel.’
‘So,’ asked Carole, ‘Harry had always had a reputation for that kind of thing?’
‘I think it got worse as Roland got older. Happens with some men. They see their son working his way through girlfriends, without a care in the world, and they get kind of antsy, stuck with the original – and, it has to be said, ageing – wife. Basic jealousy. I know Leslie got a bit strange when Kent started having girlfriends.’ She chuckled throatily. ‘I had to use all my feminine wiles to make him realize nothing out there was as good as what he’d got at home.’
Carole and Jude joined in the chuckles. Neither had expected quite such frankness.
‘I believe,’ said Carole, quoting some survey that she’d once read in a colour supplement, ‘that men – and women – who’d grown up before the pill was available got very jealous of the sexual freedom enjoyed by their children’s generation.’
‘I’m sure they did,’ said Vi, ‘but I hope you’re not including me in that category.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m not that old. The pill was certainly around when I got to my teens. And I took full advantage of it. Let me tell you, there were a good few – very enjoyable – dry runs before I ended up tying the knot with Leslie.’
Jude grinned. Carole looked slightly shocked. Both reflected on how easy it is to write off the old and treat them as if they were always that age, showing no interest in the people they had been before. Vi Benyon hadn’t always looked like a cottage loaf. In her time, she had clearly been something of a little raver.
Jude had a thought – a long shot but worth asking. ‘Vi, going off at a complete tangent, do you remember which room your mother was in while she was at Footscrow House?’
‘Of course I do. I spent enough time visiting her there.’
‘Was it at the front of the building or the back?’
‘Front. Nice sea view. Mum appreciated that. She knew she was on the way out and kept saying how grateful she was that she’d go with the sight of the sea in her eyes. She enjoyed the whiff of salt and seaweed. Had always lived by the sea, always in Fethering.’