Night Frost

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The old lady’s name was Mrs Haynes — Mary Haynes, but no-one had called her Mary for years, not since her husband died. She was seventy-eight years old and she stood on the doorstep trembling with fear.

She had just come back from the churchyard. She went there every Sunday, weather permitting, to tidy up her husband’s grave and put fresh flowers in the cut glass vase that had once stood on the dark oak sideboard they had bought the first year they were married and which was now in the unused back room. Today, when she reached the churchyard the vicar was waiting for her, his face grim. ‘I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for a shock, Mrs Haynes.’

When she saw what they had done to the grave she thought she was going to pass out. The headstone she had saved for so carefully was desecrated with purple painted graffiti. A crudely drawn skull and crossbones and words she couldn’t bring herself to repeat defaced her husband’s name. The vase had been hurled against the headstone and smashed to pieces.

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