Then, as was the way with dreams, she was suddenly in the study, trying to force the drapes shut. Only, try as she might, she couldn’t close them fully. There was a telltale gap where the material wouldn’t meet; she was afraid to pull too hard in case the whole lot came crashing down.
She woke, with a sleepy feeling of receding sadness, and some muddled notion of ringing Liz and Pat to explain that Noah wasn’t in fact present in her husband’s study. Shifting into wakefulness she became aware of another sensation, both welcome and unfamiliar. She was chilly. Getting out of bed she padded over to the curtains, stirring in a wafting breeze, looking outside at clouds, blessed, big fluffy castles and continents and galloping horses, billowing lazily over Ripon and St Bega college. At long last, the heatwave had broken.
Dressed and waiting for the kettle to boil, Thelma became aware that the memory and sensations of her dream had in fact stayed with her … That sadness wandering the corridors of the school … The need to conceal Noah’s location … Why? She took her camomile tea and sat in her favourite wing chair; taking up her prayer journal she began to jot down the details …St B closing … Sadness – with staff – watching Noah on Zoom … he’s in T’s study, have to hide this – curtains won’t shut.
She stopped; pen poised. All at once she was convinced that somewhere, just beyond conscious coherent thought, lurked something very, very important.
‘Guide me in your truth and teach me,’ she said quietly to the grey morning. ‘You are my saviour and all my hope is in you.’
But nothing happened. No thought, no revelation, just Snafflesstanding plaintively at the French windows as if to say, ‘Are you going to let me out or what?’
Opening them she drank in the cooler air. Maybe the garden was duller, maybe the sunflowers and hollyhocks weren’t as enamelled, perhaps the cobwebs weren’t bejewelled but all the same there was a blessed quality to the cool cloudy morning drenched in the whistles and chirps of birdsong.
But still her dream niggled.
If anything, it was growing in its intensity.
Ten minutes later saw her crossing the playing fields, fists clenched in her cardigan pockets. As the soothing noise of soughing trees filled her mind, Thelma recalled and replayed her dream – the empty school, the Zoom call, the frantic tugging of the curtains.What did it mean?
As she crossed Trinity Road, a spike of sun hit the red brick frontage of Ripon and St Bega college, turning the windows gold. Even though it was barely six, there were signs that Ripon was waking to face another day: Myra Bennett’s son was delivering papers, that friend of Contralto Kate was kneeling discreetly by her labradoodles, hand swathed in a plastic bag. Behind each window, kettles and showers and electric toothbrushes were doing their work to a background of theTodayprogramme or Georgey Spanswick onRadio York.
But Thelma was still lost in her dream. That sense of there beingsomethingjust beyond her thoughts, was like the clouds, swelling and billowing.
She hadn’t any particular destination in mind, so it was with mild surprise she found herself approaching the benign Georgian edifice of St Catherine’s church. The door wasn’t locked. Dot and James, the church wardens, had fallen into the habit of ‘forgetting’ to lock the building in order to afford some of the local homeless a place to sleep on the strict understanding they didn’t leave any sort of mess. Whether there had been any such visitors last nightThelma couldn’t tell. The narthex was swept and tidy as it always was.
With a feeling of relief, she slipped into her favourite pew (left-hand side, halfway down) breathing in the comforting scents of the church, paper, must and lavender furniture polish.
‘Father,’ she said aloud. ‘Father, if it be your will, give me guidance. There is something my mind is trying to tell me, but I don’t know what it is.’
She took the prayer journal from her cardigan pocket and again read the words aloud.
St B closing … Sadness – with staff – watching Noah on Zoom … he’s in T’s study, have to hide this – curtains won’t shut.
As was her practice, she sat back, breathed deeply and allowed the cool peace of the church to soothe her tangled thoughts.
Neville, his foolish, smug grin – confronted in anger, doing so much damage – Annie’s school, Son’s partner, the people Chloe cared for, the community Caro Miranda was part of. Four people who would have felt no sorrow at the man’s death.
And yet all of them too far away, each with an immutable alibi …
But then, was Neville’s death even connected with the school? As Annie herself had pointed out, that shout of ‘Pity Me’ could have been misheard … that paper flower Liz found, just a coincidence.
Father, guide my thoughts …
All at once she was back by Annie’s bedside, struggling to hear those whispered words …the truth important … Son was wrong …
Annie. Thelma opened her eyes. Blinking in the dim light, she walked to the iron stand of candles to the left of the altar rail. Retrieving the green plastic lighter that lived there, she rasped a flame into life and lit one of the plain white tea lights.
‘Father,’ said Thelma quietly. ‘Father, bless your child Annie Golightly. Hold her hand and take care of her.’
At that moment, a beam of pure, clean sun, as powerfulas a spotlight, hit the east window, bringing the cross and the assembled saints into brilliant, glowing life and scattering bright jewels of colour – ruby, sapphire, emerald – across the altar steps and Thelma’s upturned face.
Thelma stood bathed, haloed by the coloured lights winking across her glasses.
Image after image, word upon word, came crowding into her mind …
Like an angel … A yellow line … vivid red and orange …
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun …
