Trevor lived in an old detached house on the corner of Pickwick Lane and the A4. Although it was on the main road between Chippenham and Bath there was a high stone wall surrounding the property which kept it cocooned away from the traffic noise. Trevor had moved there in the early Seventies while he was still teaching at Bristol University, when property prices were more affordable in the countryside. Living on his own, as he'd done since his wife had died, he'd got used to looking after himself and Arnold was surprised how tidy the place was. The house was far too large for one person and he could now understand why Trevor had been so effusive in offering him somewhere to stay, as he could no doubt feel lonely in such a large place all by himself. In front of the house was a gravel courtyard where Trevor parked his old Rover 3000 and at the back there was a garden. Arnold noticed how dark the house was once he got inside. The original leaded windows were small and nowhere in the house did they let in enough light, meaning lights had to be kept on throughout the day regardless of what the weather was outside. Arnold was apprehensive seeing all the leaded windows but then noticed the beautiful dark parquet flooring everywhere and perked up. He followed Trevor up a staircase and along a corridor where he was shown into a bedroom.
‘There you are, Arnold. Hope you'll be comfortable in here. I'm at the end of the corridor. There's fresh sheets on the bed for you and luckily for you the central heating's working in this room. Nice view of the garden from here, I always think. South facing. Bathroom next door. Get yourself unpacked and I'll be downstairs. I'll fix us some lunch. Pork pie and pickle any good to you? It's Bowyer's?’
Trevor left Arnold and he looked at what he could see from the window. Housing constructed in the last twenty years had destroyed what originally must have been a lovely view south to Ditteridge. After the garden and the original high perimeter wall all he could see were modern houses with small strips of garden that constituted Pickwick. He hoped Trevor had a washing machine as most of the clothes in his suitcase were dirty from the cruise. He realised he must telephone Hermione to tell her what had happened and that he was now staying with Trevor.
He went downstairs and found Trevor in the kitchen preparing lunch. Arnold discovered he was famished and was happy to accept another slice of pork pie when it was offered. After they'd eaten and were drinking some coffee Trevor asked him:
‘How are you feeling, old chap? Bit of a shock, what? Last thing you expected after a holiday. How did he seem to you? The last time you saw him?’
‘He seemed well enough. He dropped me off the day I left, in Corsham...’ He stopped himself then, as if he'd let slip some piece of information that he shouldn't have. He needn't have worried, though, as Trevor picked up the thread:
‘And how was the cruise, may I ask? Oh, no need to worry, Arnold. I may be old and stuck-up, but I've had a pretty good idea of what's been going on between you two for a while. There's not that much happens in Corsham that escapes my knowledge. But mum's the word, old chap. I'm very glad for you. Very glad. She's a lovely woman. No doubt about that.’
So Arnold relaxed and went into some detail of the places they'd visited. Trevor was especially interested in Catania, being a church lover himself. Arnold obviously didn't divulge what had taken place at the Mercouri winery, but he was happy to have someone to share the rest with, someone who hadn't been there. He asked if he could call Hermione, and was shown into Trevor's library where an old fashioned black Bakolite telephone sat on a leather topped desk.
It took a couple of attempts to get the number right as his fingers didn't quite fit properly in the dialling holes and slipped out several times, so at first he dialled a few wrong numbers. Then he got through:
‘Hello, Hermione? It's Arnold.’
He was glad Lucy hadn't answered. If she had done he wouldn't have known what to say.
‘Hello, pet. How are you?’
He told her what had happened and that he'd taken up Trevor's offer to stay. He could tell she was disappointed to hear this.
‘Oh dear....but you should have come here.’
‘I don't think so, not with Lucy still there. I would have felt uncomfortable. It's fine here, it really is.’
He agreed to let her drive him to Chippenham police station when his statement was ready for signing and he said he'd call when he knew about that. They said goodbye and when he'd replaced the receiver it felt strange going back to their separate existences, after having spent the last ten days together. It struck him there were good and bad aspects to it. Like most things, he was discovering.
He spent the afternoon being shown around the house by Trevor and was relieved to discover a washing machine in a room behind the kitchen. Despite the lack of sunlight inside, the house was of decent proportions and it didn't take long for him to start feeling at home. He was surprised how easy going Trevor was. He'd always given the impression of being regimental whenever Arnold had come across him in the past. It made life brighter for Arnold to discover things can turn out better than expected. He did all his washing and found himself seeking Trevor out for some company. The sheer size of the house meant two people could quite easily live there without necessarily bumping into one another and Arnold liked that. He wandered through the rooms and found Trevor in an armchair watching cricket on television. Arnold was confused as he thought cricket was only played in the summer. Trevor burst out laughing:
‘That's funny, Arnold. No, old chap, you see, they're playing in the West Indies and this is broadcast via a satellite. Live as it's happening. But they're in a time zone five hours earlier than us, so it's ten o'clock in the morning there.’
Arnold found it difficult to understand this concept fully and he offered to make some tea so that he could think about it some more. No wonder there was difficulty finding a place in people's lives for religion when there was all this satellite communication going on all over the world. As he made the tea he could see it was conceivable for man to believe he was indeed God. He could quite literally make most things happen that he could imagine in his mind.
One thing he had always found hard to believe in the Bible was the concept that God created man in his own image.... didn't that mean that he was, in fact, God? It also followed that God was different for each individual man and woman, come to think of it. There was no logical reason why God couldn't be a woman, rather than a man. No reason at all. He noticed he'd let the tea brew for far too long. He poured out two extremely strong cups, which he weakened by pouring some away and topping up with boiling water, and wandered back in with them to sit with Trevor. Arnold didn't understand cricket very well and couldn't see much was going on and judging by the multiple rows of empty seats surrounding the field he concluded the locals felt the same way. He remarked this to Trevor, who replied:
‘Ah, but Arnold, that's the whole point. Each game takes five days to complete so the pace is much slower than most spectator sports. There's a remarkably subtle balance of power between the two teams that constantly shifts during each session, and it's truly fascinating. The fact that there's not many people at the ground is neither here nor there. There's people like me watching this all over the world.’
‘Sounds a bit like chess to me, but sort of in 3D?’ Arnold offered.
‘Yes, it is. I like that analogy.’ Trevor approved.
They whiled away a couple of hours sitting in front of the cricket and Arnold noted what a pleasant atmosphere there was in the room. They chatted about various things and he took the opportunity to confess how out of touch he felt with the modern life he'd encountered since he'd left the church.
‘Well, old chap. That was bound to happen.’ Trevor began, ‘I can sympathise totally. I feel it the same but obviously to a lesser degree. Life is moving faster and faster, and I don't think it's just to do with me getting older. People have more and more unsolicited rubbish thrust upon them and they're ending up with no proper time to think. And no time to themselves.’
Arnold was happy to get to bed that night. There were no curtains in his bedroom and the light of a full moon fell across his bed and took the image of Stan hanging as he'd found him from his mind. He turned on his side and pulled the sheets up over his head and quickly fell asleep. The next morning he was woken by the noise of a barking dog. He checked the time in the darkness and found it to be only six thirty and tried vainly to get back to sleep by putting the pillow over his head. This failed to keep the dog out of his ears as it had been joined by others further away, so he found a tissue and made two earplugs to use, as well as the pillow. He had no idea what had set the dog off at that hour and he wondered if it had sensed a prowler, or just another animal in the area. But he had no luck in getting back to sleep and finally gave up the effort and got up at about eight. He went to the window and opened it despite the cold of the morning air, to see if he could discover where the dog was located but could see no animal in the vague direction he thought the noise was coming from. Over breakfast he raised the subject with Trevor who couldn't shed much light:
‘Sorry about that, old chap. Heavy sleeper myself, so it's never bothered me. Wife used to be a heavy snorer, bless her cotton socks, so I can sleep through bloody anything these days.’
Later that day the Chippenham police telephoned to say his statement was ready for signing so he arranged to go in with Hermione the following day. Afterwards they went for a walk by the mere and discussed meeting up once Lucy left for Durham. He was relieved Hermione seemed to be approaching her old self again and she made no reference to her argument with Lucy, so he tried to forget about what had happened at the Mercouri vineyard. When he got back to Trevor's he remembered the letter from the Halifax and while it was fresh in his mind he decided to call them up. He got Mr. Scott on the phone and made an appointment to go to London the following month for a meeting at their offices in Faringdon. He was asked to take his passport and his birth certificate along to substantiate his identity plus the original Halifax deposit book.
January passed uneventfully in Corsham and the odd couple got used to one another in the house. There was a small memorial service for Stan, which Arnold arranged at St. Bartholomew's, and a handful of people attended, most of them long-standing clients. Arnold spent a couple of nights away each week at Hermione's and ended up there at the weekends if Lucy wasn't down from Durham. One thing was proving an irritation, the blasted dog barking in the early mornings. It was so regular Arnold got to waking up before it had started in anticipation, and he'd just about got to the end of his tether. He'd managed to locate it in the garden of an adjoining house but had no idea what he could do. He'd made a studied observation of the owners and concluded they were the kind of people he would be unable to communicate with. He could imagine the exchange between them....
ARNOLD: Excuse me, but your dog is barking every morning at six thirty and is preventing me from sleeping. I wondered if you were aware of this, and could you perhaps take steps to keep it inside the house until a later, more reasonable time?
OWNER: What, my dog? No, you must be mistaken. My dog never barks, especially at that time of the morning. It must be some other dog.
The trouble with people like that is they don't acknowledge the truth, even if it stares them in the face. They live in a world of denial. Perhaps because they hate their job and spend their life denying that fact? It would never occur to them to take the dog out walking for exercise, as they are always far too busy. Arnold came to the conclusion their garden must constitute a health hazard with the amount of dog litter in it.
He'd taken to riding his bike around Corsham every day for exercise, and one day he found himself entering by accident the Leafield Trading Estate and passed by the factory of Teague Precision Chokes, the shotgun manufacturers. He'd noticed Trevor had an antique gun cupboard in one of the downstairs rooms and he was sure he'd seen a shotgun inside the glass. He started to entertain the idea of putting the dog out of its misery. As he rode back to Trevor's house he realised a shotgun was something he would never be able to get the hang of. Besides, it was far too noisy. But perhaps something lighter....like an air rifle?