stands out. It will always stand out. It’s unique: a banned story, one they have tacitly agreed never to mention to one another and one that, as a result, they probably dwell on far more than they would if they were allowed to discuss it freely. It is certainly the most intriguing story the family owns – a mystery that seems unlikely ever to be solved. No progress has been made towards solving it in seven years, and the reasons why this is the case are almost as interesting as the mystery itself.
What sort of mind would invent something so bizarre, and why? If I’m pretending, for now, that the story – the legend – is a lie from start to finish, then that’s a question that has to be asked of every event, every utterance and every emotion within the overall sequence – asked, and if possible, answered.
First, though, we must look at the sequence. Which is a practice we’ve grown unused to, ever since Little Orchard acquired legend status. When a story becomes a legend, our mental shortcut phrase tends to evoke not what actually happened, stage by stage – that would be far too labour-intensive – but a convenient wrapping that covers the whole. For Little Orchard, several obvious wrapping concepts spring to mind: ‘We’ll probably never know’, ‘It only goes to show that you can never truly know a person, however close to them you think you are’, perhaps even the treacherous ‘We’re better off not knowing’, since many people collude with whoever is attempting to pull the wool over their eyes.
Do you see what I’m saying? How a memory loses itself within the hard shell of a story, and how a story is then further twisted out of shape and consolidated in its most easily consumable form when it becomes a legend?
I want to take the Little Orchard legend back to the level of story. Treating it exactly as I would a work of fiction, I’m going to tell it as if I don’t know any of the characters in it – I haven’t met any of them yet, and so I trust no one character more than the others. I’m also going to bring to the story the same expectation I would bring to a work of fiction: that I can and will find out exactly what it all means, that any other outcome would be an outrageous betrayal on the part of the storyteller. Like all mystery stories, this one must have a solution. Not knowing, never finding out, is unacceptable. I am stressing this before I start to describe what happened; in doing so, I am signalling to the solution that I know it’s there and I expect it to reveal itself when the time is right.
December 2003: Johannah and Neil Utting, a married couple in their mid-thirties, splash out on hiring a big house over Christmas, one that can accommodate all their relatives. It will be their Christmas present to everybody. Their own house is too small, with only three bedrooms.
After searching on the internet, Johannah, known as Jo, chooses a house called Little Orchard in Cobham, Surrey. It has five double bedrooms and four twins, which is perfect. The whole extended family is invited, and everybody accepts: Neil’s brother and sister-in-law, Luke and Amber; Jo’s mother Hilary, Jo’s sister Kirsty and her brother Ritchie; Neil’s parents, Pam and Quentin; Jo and Neil’s nanny Sabina, their five-year-old son William and their newborn baby, Barney.
On Christmas Eve, Sabina stays in with William and Barney while everyone else walks to the nearest pub, the Plough, to have dinner. Everybody seems to have a good time. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. At about ten thirty, the party returns to Little Orchard. William and Barney are fast asleep. Pam and Quentin, Neil’s parents, are the first adults to go to bed, shortly followed by Sabina, the nanny. Neil, Luke and Amber decide to call it a night half an hour later. Amber and Luke hear Neil say to Jo, ‘Are you coming to bed?’ and see him look puzzled when she says, ‘No, not yet.’ Amber and Luke are surprised too. Neil and Jo
What sort of mind would invent something so bizarre, and why? If I’m pretending, for now, that the story – the legend – is a lie from start to finish, then that’s a question that has to be asked of every event, every utterance and every emotion within the overall sequence – asked, and if possible, answered.
First, though, we must look at the sequence. Which is a practice we’ve grown unused to, ever since Little Orchard acquired legend status. When a story becomes a legend, our mental shortcut phrase tends to evoke not what actually happened, stage by stage – that would be far too labour-intensive – but a convenient wrapping that covers the whole. For Little Orchard, several obvious wrapping concepts spring to mind: ‘We’ll probably never know’, ‘It only goes to show that you can never truly know a person, however close to them you think you are’, perhaps even the treacherous ‘We’re better off not knowing’, since many people collude with whoever is attempting to pull the wool over their eyes.
Do you see what I’m saying? How a memory loses itself within the hard shell of a story, and how a story is then further twisted out of shape and consolidated in its most easily consumable form when it becomes a legend?
I want to take the Little Orchard legend back to the level of story. Treating it exactly as I would a work of fiction, I’m going to tell it as if I don’t know any of the characters in it – I haven’t met any of them yet, and so I trust no one character more than the others. I’m also going to bring to the story the same expectation I would bring to a work of fiction: that I can and will find out exactly what it all means, that any other outcome would be an outrageous betrayal on the part of the storyteller. Like all mystery stories, this one must have a solution. Not knowing, never finding out, is unacceptable. I am stressing this before I start to describe what happened; in doing so, I am signalling to the solution that I know it’s there and I expect it to reveal itself when the time is right.
December 2003: Johannah and Neil Utting, a married couple in their mid-thirties, splash out on hiring a big house over Christmas, one that can accommodate all their relatives. It will be their Christmas present to everybody. Their own house is too small, with only three bedrooms.
After searching on the internet, Johannah, known as Jo, chooses a house called Little Orchard in Cobham, Surrey. It has five double bedrooms and four twins, which is perfect. The whole extended family is invited, and everybody accepts: Neil’s brother and sister-in-law, Luke and Amber; Jo’s mother Hilary, Jo’s sister Kirsty and her brother Ritchie; Neil’s parents, Pam and Quentin; Jo and Neil’s nanny Sabina, their five-year-old son William and their newborn baby, Barney.
On Christmas Eve, Sabina stays in with William and Barney while everyone else walks to the nearest pub, the Plough, to have dinner. Everybody seems to have a good time. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. At about ten thirty, the party returns to Little Orchard. William and Barney are fast asleep. Pam and Quentin, Neil’s parents, are the first adults to go to bed, shortly followed by Sabina, the nanny. Neil, Luke and Amber decide to call it a night half an hour later. Amber and Luke hear Neil say to Jo, ‘Are you coming to bed?’ and see him look puzzled when she says, ‘No, not yet.’ Amber and Luke are surprised too. Neil and Jo
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