Free Notwithstanding by Louis De Bernières

remove the yellow lichen, and sometimes she brought a small bottle of systemic weedkiller which she had prepared at home, to defeat the brambles, the ground elder and the dog’s mercury. Today she tutted to herself, and peeled away a long tendril of darkest-green ivy that had begun to obscure the writing on the stone. ‘That’s better,’ she said, and straightened herself painfully. For the thousandth time she read:
    Joseph MacMahon
    Dearly beloved husband of Agnes
    5 December 1896 – 15 July 1968
    Underneath was inscribed ‘Behold, I am with you always’, a quotation that Mrs Mac particularly loved and understood, and underneath was carved, in bold capital letters, the single word ‘MAC’.

COLONEL BARKWELL, TROODOS AND THE FISH
    THE VILLAGERS OF Notwithstanding considered that of all the retired officers in the parish, Colonel Pericles ‘Perry’ Barkwell was the most peremptory. He spoke with virtuosic economy, mercilessly pruning unnecessary words from his sentences, and his voice was a rich and resounding baritone that might have excited envy in an actor. When he sang in church on Sunday his voice was so much the most powerful that, over a period of years, the idiosyncratic embellishments to the standard hymn tunes that had been one of the quirkier customs of his former public school had perforce become the generally accepted ones in Notwithstanding. Even Sir Edward Rawcutt, a stickler for the ways of singing hymns and psalms learned at his own public school, had become used to Colonel Barkwell’s versions. On one occasion the Rector had attempted to introduce a new melody to an old hymn, and the Colonel, perennially disgusted by new-fangledness in general, had resolutely sung the old tune over the top of the congregation until the organist had given up and reverted to it. In the responses, when the Colonel replied to the Rector’s ‘God be with you’, his stentorian ‘and with thy spirit’ perturbed the bats in the bell tower, and caused the bronze of the bells to vibrate in sympathy. The congregation felt assured that their communal prayers would be answered, because not even God would have dared to decline a demand from the Colonel. Therefore his presence in the community was conducive to the maintenance of its spiritual calm, despite the disconcerting volume of his crisp sentences, and the abject terror aroused in the breast of anyone who crossed him.
    The Colonel, an old Coldstream Guardsman of heroic height and bearing, had served in several campaigns, some of which had apparently taken place without the knowledge of the British public, and had received both the DSO and the Military Cross. In the village itself his lionheartedness had been a legend ever since he had brained a burglar with a number seven iron, and the jury in Guildford had, despite the clear direction of the judge, resolutely declined to convict him for the use of unnecessary force. Without the knowledge of the judge they had instead had a whip-round for the sum of ten pounds towards the purchase of a new golf club.
    Mrs Barkwell, on the other hand, was an elegant and slender lady with a penchant for blue cocktail dresses, who played bridge regularly with a circle of friends, with whom she liked to sip cold German wine and talk about the latest comedy at the Yvonne Arnaud theatre, and the latest modern drama at the Redgrave in Farnham. She contributed thoughtful verse to women’s magazines, and was an indefatigable collector of money for charitable causes. Some people thought her excessively distant, but those who knew her well found her warm and humorous, seldom calling her by her real name, which was Helen. Instead they referred to her as ‘Leafy’. Almost no one, it has to be said, was known by their real name, and, more often than not, no one knew wherefore any given person possessed the nickname that they did. Leafy Barkwell was, without even understanding it herself, utterly devoted to the Colonel – he had only to enter the