“I need help.” Sally bursts into tears.
“It’s okay,” Corinne says. “I’ll help you.”
12
Up until that point, Mum’s experience of Corinne Sullivan had been limited. Corinne had almost made a hermit of herself in Swaffham Tilney since the determined duo of Michelle Hyde (Number 22, the Green) and Jemima Taggart (Meadowsweet, the Drove) had waged a campaign to turn village opinion against her. They claimed she was a fake with no conscience (personal or social) and no integrity, who flat-out lied about being a philanthropist.
Mum had no idea if these accusations had any substance behind them, though she knew from Googling that Corinne was a successful businesswoman who had founded, grown, and then sold three companies so far and did indeed describe herself as a philanthropist, passionate about helping those less materially fortunate than herself.
Mum had watched an interview on YouTube in which Corinne had given the impression of not being a liar, and almost alarmingly honest: She’d talked quite openly about the reason she’d divorcedher husband: “I could say something that you’d find less reprehensible,” she said, “but the truth is, I left Ronan because he was insufficiently entrepreneurial. If that sounds crazy to you, ask yourself: Could you stay married to a slaughterhouse worker if you were a principled vegan? Or to a hangman, if you were passionately opposed to the death penalty? I bet you couldn’t.”
Mum couldn’t bear, and didn’t trust, either Michelle Hyde or Jemima Taggart, but she strongly suspected neither of them had the imagination to come up with the precise story they told (eagerly, to anyone who would listen) about how and why Corinne’s “philanthropy” was the opposite of what it claimed to be. Surely both were incapable of inventing a lie with such a strong flavor of surely-she-can’t-be-serious-but-actually-oh-wow-she-is—the very same flavor, Mum thought, as Corinne’s reason for leaving her husband. It all seemed to fit.
As she followed Corinne to her house on 17 June, Mum decided she didn’t care what else Corinne was, apart from willing to help now. She’d said, “I’ll help you,” without qualification. There was no “within reason” or “as long as…” or “if I’m able to spare the time,” just an unconditional offer of help, no questions asked. Corinne was rich too, which was an Enjollifying thought. Not that Mum’s plan, as she’d envisaged it up to that point, was beyond her own budget. She didn’t need any of Corinne’s money, but she was aware that rich people often had all kinds of power to make otherwise out-of-reach things happen. If Corinne was willing to use some of hers to help save Champ’s life, then Mum was ready to love her and pledge allegiance to her forever. She was so grateful, she wished she could start up the book-club row againjust so that she could take Corinne’s side in the most outspoken and vehement way.
Why hadn’t she at the time? She’d agreed with Corinne’s point of view more than the opposing one, but there was something unnervingly “To the death!” about the way Corinne had approached the whole matter, as if what was at stake was the survival of the whole world, not which direction a village reading group with twenty members should take in the future. And when one considered that only eight of the twenty attended all the meetings and read all the books…
Mum liked to tell the Book Club War story to people who weren’t from our village, who never believed it until she’d said at least five times, “I swear, that’s what happened. I’m not exaggerating. If anything, I’m toning it down so as not to shock you.” Part of the reason she liked to tell new people was to convince herself that it had really happened. Her mind seemed determined to keep doubting it, though she’d been there at every meeting, seen and heard it all firsthand. Yet somehow the world felt as if it made more sense when one believed, or at least considered the possibility (which wasn’t one), that it couldn’t have happened.
Sadly, too much damage was done—everyone agreed about that—and, as a result, Swaffham Tilney’s book club voted itself out of existence. For a few months afterward, there were whispers about starting a new one, but they were generally shut down with a hushed “It’s too soon.” And for at least a year after the Book Club War ended, everyone made sure not to utter the name “Agatha Christie” while in Swaffham Tilney, not even to ask if anyone had caught the wonderful Peter UstinovDeath on the Nileon BBC2 last Saturday afternoon.
You see, the book club was specifically Agatha Christie–themed. It hadn’t always been, but one day someone said, “Don’t ask me to choose what we’re reading next! I’d just pick an Agatha Christie every time.” Someone else chimed in, “Oh, me too.”
Deryn Dickinson, whom everyone regarded as the group’s leader even though there was no leader, said, “There’s no need to sound so self-deprecating about it, ladies. I think Agatha Christie is a significantly underrated writer. Everyone says her plots are good, but she’s so much better and deeper than that. Her work has layers.”
Corinne had agreed. “Christie was a genius on every level,” she said. “Most people are too thick to see it. They think she just wrote disposable mysteries because that’s what they’ve heard other people say they think.” She’d straightened up in her chair at that point—looked around the village hall and clasped her hands together. “Why don’t we do something to change that?”
By the end of that evening, the Swaffham Tilney Book Club had become the Agatha Christie Book Club (ACBC for short). Corinne took over the arranging of refreshments from Beth Trevarrow (whose approach was unpopular anyway—on one occasion, the only tea available had been a fancy banana-flavored kind called “Monkey Chops”) and the book chosen for the next meeting was an ingenious stand-alone Christie mystery calledTowards Zero, which both Deryn and Corinne declared was “top-five material.”
Things went brilliantly for several months, until Maureen Gledhill suggestedThe Rose and the Yew Tree, one of the few novels Christie published under the name “Mary Westmacott,” for the club’s next read. “Don’t be silly, Maureen,” said Deryn Dickinson. “The Westmacott novels aren’t mysteries. They’re romances, Ithink. That’s why she published them under a different name. She knew Agatha Christie fans wouldn’t be interested in them.”
“Wrong. She just didn’t want anyone to know they were hers,” said Corinne, and in the history of the Agatha Christie Book Club War, that moment—Corinne correcting Deryn Dickinson—is generally agreed to be the equivalent of the First World War’s shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
“You know what? We should doThe Rose and the Yew Treenext,” Corinne went on. “It’s in no way a romance, and there’s as much suspense in it as in any crime novel. Actually, I’ve always thought it kind ofisa crime novel, though in a very hidden and subtle way—but the reader has to work that out for themselves. Great suggestion, Maureen.”
Maureen Gledhill beamed. Deryn Dickinson felt victimized and ganged up on. “No,” she said. “This is an Agatha Christie Book Club. We agreed, remember? We only read Agatha Christie books.”
Corinne laughed, then stopped when she saw Deryn meant it.
(Was I there? No. Then how do I know all this? Sure, I’ve heard Mum talk about it, but how do I know the level of Maureen Gledhill’s excitement? Mum didn’t. She could have guessed, but I’m not guessing.I know.Remember I told you before that there’s something I’m withholding? Well, it’s that—the thing I’m keeping secret is also the explanation of how I know everything I’m telling you is true. Also, I want to put it on record here that I’m not enjoying keeping certain things to myself for now. In fact, I hate it, partly because it means I can’t communicate straightforwardly, which is a faff, but mainly because it feels like a betrayal of someone who means the world to me. There’s someone I love more thananything, and I can’t mention their name. I have to sort of write this as if they don’t exist, and it’s killing me. I wish I could be entirely open about everything, but I have a powerful reason for not doing so—one you’ll hopefully understand in due course.)
Mum agreed with Maureen Gledhill and Corinne, but she didn’t speak up even before it got heated, mainly because Corinne was doing such an excellent job of putting forward the pro-Westmacott case, which was as follows: Those novels were of course Agatha Christie books because they were written by none other than Agatha Christie. And the ACBC rule was “Agatha Christie books only.” That was it: the full extent of the agreed restrictions, the club’s entire constitution. No one had ever said anything about “crime-genre books only.”
Deryn disagreed. “A book published under a different name, in a completely different genre, isn’t what anyone means when they say ‘an Agatha Christie novel,’” she said, her bottom lip trembling. “And that’s not just my opinion; it was Agatha’s too. She was the one who deliberately published her Westmacott books under a pseudonym. Why? Because she very evidently wanted themnot includedin Agatha Christie’s oeuvre.”
“Deryn, that’s crazy,” Corinne said patiently. “The most recent editions of the Westmacotts are published with ‘Agatha Christie’ in massive letters on their covers. And since those are the editions we’d read if we read them—”
“Well, that’s not what Agatha ever wanted!” Deryn insisted. “That’s what her publishers have decided to do after her death. Without her permission!”
“I mean, if you want to take it to that level…” Corinne sighed,finding it implausible that she was wasting her precious time on such nonsense. “The publishers couldn’t have done anything without her family’s permission, presumably. If she’d wanted to, Christie could have left a will depriving her family of all future control over her work, but she didn’t—which means she chose, of her own free will, to let them make all the decisions about her oeuvre after her death. Therefore, the Mary Westmacotts being added to the official Christie canon is very much, albeit indirectly, a Christie-approved move.”
After two hours of wrangling, there was a vote. Corinne, Mum, and Vinie Skinner voted in favor of defining the Mary Westmacott novels as Agatha Christie books for the purposes of the book club. Deryn Dickinson, Jemima Taggart, and Beth Trevarrow voted against. Two other members abstained: Ruth Sturgiss and, surprisingly, Maureen Gledhill, who was terrified by the time they got round to voting that she’d caused serious trouble and would never be forgiven. She kept saying that she could “absolutely see Deryn’s point, of course I can.”
A hung jury was announced, after which views and votes were solicited from the twelve members who never came to meetings (a proper number of jurors this time, so hopes were high). The opinions offered in this round included “I don’t want to get involved,” “I’m not taking sides,” and “Blimey! Book groups are supposed to be fun, aren’t they?” This last one also had a more earnest, brow-furrowed twin: “There’s just no need for all this unpleasantness and conflict. Why is everybody so intent on keeping it going? Why can’t the fighting just stop?” Then there was the apathetic “What does it matter either way?” contingent, and a couple of women (the bookclub was all female) who said completely different things depending on whom they were talking to.
Mum had been impressed by Avril Mattingley’s response when news of it finally reached her: “They’re all the same,” Avril had apparently said one day to Michelle Hyde. “Deryn, Corinne, all of them. There’s not the slightest bit of difference between them, and they can’t see it.”
Thanks to Michelle’s efforts, this cryptic statement was soon the talk of Swaffham Tilney (because who did Avril think she was? She had no more special insight than anyone else). A few weeks later, and unknown to Mum (it’s impossible to overstate the extent to which, if she’d known, she’d have gone elsewhere for help on 17 June), Avril clarified what she’d meant by those mysterious words, in a bid to stop people shooting disdainful looks at her across the seesaw on the village green. She told the Farmer she’d only meant that all involved in the book club dispute were equally selfish in failing to realize that some people were beleaguered by small children and husbands who never helped with the drudgery, and those people, like Avril herself, for example, didn’t have time to be pestered about stupid reading-group rows.
