Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck Read online

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  The Missing Piece

  Arnold Matson had found it surprisingly straightforward to steady Edith Moseley’s lurching ship and steer it clear of breaking up completely amongst the approaching rocks. Three days ago he would never have believed that the old lady who had arrived on his doorstep and who, judging by her persona that day, may as well have been carrying a banner above her head declaring ‘I hate the world and all it stands for,’ could possibly be the same person as the one sitting in his upstairs living room clutching a medicinal bowl of brandy and trembling like a wheat field. Arnold had fully expected Miss Moseley to capsize completely when he had gone to put his arm round her as a crumb of comfort in the downstairs lounge, but she showed no resistance whatsoever and indeed clutched onto Matson’s arm as he led her gently through to his living quarters, where, he figured, it wouldn’t be quite so capacious and would, therefore, make a much cosier confessional once the poor old thing had regained her composure.

  He added a drop more brandy to Edith’s warming measure and there was no more resistance from his guest than there was from Arnold himself as he sploshed another inch of much-needed cognac into his own glass.

  Shock has an unerring knack of ageing people almost instantly, and the Edith Moseley that had breakfasted with Arnold barely three hours ago seemed to have put on about ten years in the last fifteen minutes.

  She had remained silent ever since Arnold had sat her down and made her comfortable in his favourite armchair, but every so often her lips showed signs of movement and Arnold could detect a hissing, repetitive mantra.

  ‘Sixty-four…’ she kept saying, ‘sixty-four…sixty-four…sixty-four years.’

  The greater part of thirty-minutes dragged by and slowly elapsed before Edith Moseley’s mental fog and inner-sadness showed any sign of lifting.

  She finally spoke with an unlikely warmth and clarity…

  ‘I never meant to hurt you. You know that, don’t you?’

  Arnold looked at the old woman but he wasn’t quite on the trail.

  She quickly went on, ‘what I saw in the bar the other evening…what I heard…’

  ‘It’s all forgotten,’ said Matson, as calmly as he could muster, ’let’s just leave it shall we?’

  An unfamiliar, long, silent pause of mutual respect flowed between the pair.

  Arnold Matson has had plenty of time to assess the situation since Edith Moseley opted to stay on for a chat and he didn’t believe for one moment that this woman, who had broken down so uncontrollably earlier, was here for any small talk concerning the spiritual world. She was here for much more selfish reasons. She needed to talk and more importantly, she needed someone she could trust to listen.

  Edith Moseley’s vision of the apparition of Arnold Matson’s mother had paved the way in her own mind that this man was hurting in a way she could recognize and identify with. This man could be trusted with the biggest secret in Edith Moseley’s long and lonely life.

  Arnold Matson instinctively knew that the next sentence this woman conveys would be the one which releases her human pressure valve and lifts the darkest veil that has descended on her troubled soul and twisted it beyond all recognition.

  He put down his glass, went slowly across to Edith and pulled up a nearby chair. He gently took the old woman’s hands in his own and looked into the sad pools of her eyes. The question formed in Matson’s mind but Edith Moseley had answered before Arnold could ask her what was wrong.

  ‘I’m his mother,’ said the old woman quietly…’the vicar of this parish…the Reverend Colin Wheatsheaf…’ She drew in a huge breath of courage and relief…’he’s my son, Arnold. He’s my little baby...’

  Matson stared and his heart more or less stopped in its tracks.

  ‘I’m his mother…and I’ll never be able to tell him.’