Alerted by the satnav, she took a left turn down a two-way but very narrow lane darkened by the trees that arched above. Wychwell, half a mile. Marnie wondered if she was traversing the wood where the witch lay buried. No wonder they couldn’t find the well; it was huge, dense. Then the trees began to thin and she saw in the near distance a church spire and buildings. With the window down, she could hear a pounding drumbeat and a tambourine-tinkle as she approached what looked like the remains of medieval village defensive walls. There was a large hand-painted sign reading ‘CAR PARK FOR VISITORS’ and an arrow pointing to an area with two vehicles in it and she pulled up in one of the many empty spaces. She walked towards a man sitting at a table where an equally rough sign advertised ‘ENTRY TO THE FAIR’. He was wearing a long gold-blonde wig and a hessian tunic and was foraging in a sack at his side. Marnie waited for a polite amount of time and then coughed to alert him to her presence. His head snapped around and she wondered if the full beard and moustache that matched the hair were false too. He smiled and Marnie took a small involuntary step back in horror. His teeth were disgusting, brown and protruding and she bet that they smelt of cheese.
‘Good morning. It’s a pound entrance fee but you do get a glass of mead and entry into the raffle to win even more mead.’
His teeth appeared too big for his mouth. Poor soul, thought Marnie. His mother really should have had a brace slapped on those when he was a kid.
‘Okay.’ Marnie fumbled in her bag for her purse.
‘Are you going in like that?’ he pointed to her jeans and she noticed the cadence in his voice and an accent as he said dat rather than that. And, after taking a second look, she wasn’t sure that he was wearing a wig and false facial hair after all.
‘Well I . . . I don’t have anything else.’
‘You’re welcome to dress up. We have some spare tunics here,’ and he pulled one from the sack like a medieval Father Christmas. ‘You’ll feel more a part of it all if you do.’ And he smiled and she tried not to look at his teeth, but they were dragging her eyes towards them as if they contained some strong magnets.
‘Thank you.’ Marnie paid over her money and took the hessian tunic from him.
‘There’s a five-pound deposit,’ said Mr International Tooth Decay.
‘Oh, okay,’ Marnie got out her purse again. The man tore a raffle ticket number from a book of them, ripping a corner off the next one too.
‘The tickets are too small for my big fingers,’ he laughed nervously, and Marnie wondered if he was the simpleton that every village had. He looked a similar age to her – they would both have been the unpopular kids at school at the same time but for different reasons. He should really have had someone to watch out for him more, tell him about the importance of brushing his teeth. She felt a rush of sympathy for him.
‘Thank you,’ she said with a smile.
‘Return it at the end of the day and I’ll refund the money.’
‘Okay, I will.’ She set off walking in the direction of the music but he called her back.
‘Excuse me, are you from around here?’
‘Erm, no,’ she replied. ‘I’m a friend of Lilian Dearman’s.’
‘Oh, right. Ow.’ His hand shot up to his mouth as if he’d bitten his lip. Hard to avoid with those gnashers – poor soul, she thought again.
Marnie crossed a bridge and entered the village of Wychwell and felt as if she’d gone back in time to a far more gentle era than the one that lay outside those tumbledown protective walls. In front of her, elevated above the rest of the village, was the Dearman manor house, which she recognised from images she’d looked up on the net. It was lovely, like a jewel set perfectly on the mount of the hill. To the right was the church with its tall, slightly warped spire and in front of it stood a man with thick salt-and-pepper hair, also in sackcloth, and a dog collar threaded into the black shirt underneath it. Reverend Lionel Temple, she guessed. He was manning a tombola stall.
‘Can I interest you in a ticket?’ he asked with some difficulty. His teeth were quite a mess too. He could have eaten an apple through a barbed wire fence with them. ‘A pound. You could win some Marks and Spencer talcum powder or a bottle of home-made wine, for instance. Every ticket wins a prize.’
The gifts weren’t very tempting. If she won the talcum, she’d let them keep it.
‘I’ll take five pounds’ worth,’ said Marnie, thinking the zip on her purse was getting some hammer today.
Luckily she didn’t win the talc. She won five keyrings. She took one and left the others on the prize table.
‘Thank you,’ said Lionel, or at least she presumed that’s what he said because it sounded like ‘Boc-boo.’ Then something like: ‘All money goes to the church roof fund.’
Obviously, thought Marnie, wondering if there was any church in Britain that didn’t need roof repairs. ‘Do you know where I might find Lilian Dearman?’ she asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ he pointed down the road. ‘She’s the bum baking obbo noise onba big brum.’
‘Pardon?’
‘She’s the one making all the noise on the big drum,’ Lionel repeated slowly and carefully.
Marnie thanked him, thinking that the fish didn’t swim very far in this gene pool, and walked towards the percussion sounds. Cottages stood around a large village green, all different, all pretty, if tired. That one could have done with a refresh of paint on its white facade, this one had peeling windows and the gable end needed some serious pointing. There were a few people milling about in peasant costumes and a stout man in the tweedy garb of a country gent holding court. At his side stood a tall, thin, figureless woman and Marnie wondered if these were the Suttons with their pretensions of grandeur and entitlement about whom Lilian had waxed lyrical. She spotted someone who she presumed was the May Queen: a young woman dressed in a floor-length white gown with a dark green cloak over her shoulders and pink flowers threaded into her long blonde hair. From a distance she looked like a shorter version of Gabrielle, which sent a shiver down her back. There was a red and white striped maypole in the middle of the grass; pastel-shaded ribbons hanging from its top were being nudged by the slight breeze and skipping around it with casual abandon was a young man in a step-in horse costume. Marnie did a quick full-circle scan for a giant Wicker Man and a fast-route exit.
‘BARRNNEEEE.’ The noise of the drum stopped as Lilian spotted her. She was dressed as a witch, complete with black hat. She waved and struggled to her feet with the aid of a stick. ‘How boffy bo beeooo,’ she went on, hobbling at her fastest pace towards her young friend, grinning monstrously. She threw her arms around Marnie, then stepped back and reached into her mouth to hook out a rotted-teeth fake cover. ‘We’re all wearing these and none of us can talk properly. Lionel bought them from eBay.’
Marnie snorted with laughter. ‘They’re too effective,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to wonder if toothbrushes were forbidden in these parts.’
‘I’m delighted you came,’ said Lilian, slipping her arm through Marnie’s. ‘Let us cut through the crowds and I’ll show you around.’
She was either joking or delusional, thought Marnie, because apart from a scattering of people wandering about, there was hardly anyone there.