Alfriston Black

ISBN-13: 9781535125079 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 400 str.

Errol Tompkins

Opis

As the final hours of 1922 swill away, and winter storms usher in 1923 Councillor Sticks dies. His former associates, The Men of the Board, plan the plundering of his influence and of his assets. He has a daughter: but what does that signify? Unless she should have a son, born in wedlock, within a year and a day of the Councillor's death they will get everything that they desire. Vicky Sticks is the thirty-fourth most attractive marriageable women in a community that has only nineteen eligible men. The interests of The Men of the Board seem safe enough. As Councillor Straddle remarks concerning the late councillor's daughter: 'I'd rather shag a dog.' But Ha'penny George has seen Vicky's shoulders go back and her head go up: he has seen her run - and seen her leap into the Cuck to drag a child from the claws of Bloody Bones: Vicky Sticks will give The Men a run for their money. She will not be diddled: she decides that she will get a son - and a husband. Vicky draws up her list of eligibles and makes her plans: aided by Annie. They are watched over by Blackberry - late sergeant of Sussex Light Infantry and the shade who brought home the remnants of the Alfriston Platoon - those men who were exterminated on the Marne in 1918. What kind of bargain will Vicky have to make: what price will she be prepared to pay to get a husband and a son? Anyway, The Men of the Board can afford to pay the local witch, Maddy Warren, a fortune to ensure that Vicky's first-born is not a boy. As Vicky struggles to achieve her ambitions the life of Alfriston unfolds. It is observed by the dead men that Blackberry brought home, by Maddy Warren, and by the Friston Cerpent. Other struggles, besides Vicky's, take place in the village. The Boyes, descendants of the Midnight Men (smugglers and machine wreckers) battle their hereditary enemies - self-appointed authority in the shape of The Men of the Board - and grind their beloved gunpowder, Alfriston Black, in Quants Barn. At Burnt House, Daisy Dove struggles to keep out of the clutches of Burgess, the Butler. Their employer, the Colonel, makes ready a home for the Booth's Particular - a punt gun of extraordinary size. As the seasons come round, in their turn, power waxes and wanes: the living have their preoccupations - as do the dead. Miss Brewer's love of cats precipitates a riot; Blackberry tries to assassinate Satan for pissing on his favourite blackberry bushes; horse trainer Ted Turner's horse wins the Oaks: his mother falls in love with the blacksmith; and, Vicky Sticks's husband-hunting leads to a flurry of matrimony making. Meanwhile, Bloody Bones lurks in the Cuck waiting to devour the village's children - as he has done for centuries. The Bonfire Boyes, whose power is on the slide, decide that they will free the Cuckmere of his menace. It will be one last, Pyrrhic, moment of glory for Alfriston Black.