Instances of the Number 3

by Salley Vickers

  ‘Write to me, mind,’ Sister Mary Eustasia had instructed, as Bridget left, and a month or so later, after she had written with the address of the hostel she was staying in, a packet had arrived which on opening proved to be the red-leather-bound Shakespeare, with a line written in a neat hand in the front:

  ‘…the readiness is all’ Hamlet V. ii.

  and under it:

  Joyce Mary Eustasia, with warm good wishes

  In her sitting room, which looked out on the westering sky, Bridget remembered the nun whom she had seen only once since that first leave-taking.

  She had returned to Limerick the year after marrying Peter, and had gone in search of her former teacher. Sister Mary Eustasia, she learned, had retired from the school and was now part of a closed order, further west in Clare. Bridget had driven down to see if she could find the place and, after some negotiation on the phone, an interview had been granted by the Reverend Mother to the Sister’s old pupil.

  As she drove down steamy, fuschia-lined lanes, Bridget had pictured to herself the nun’s eyes, witty as ever. But the eyes of the face which received her were closed fast and Bridget learned, from the nursing Sister, that her former teacher was dying of cancer. The sickness seemed unlikely to detain her long.

  During the drive, Bridget had speculated that this was the last time she was likely to see Sister Mary Eustasia, and that she should attempt to voice gratitude for the debt she owed. In her imagination Bridget saw herself fumbling to find the right words, ‘I’ve never really acknowledged…’ and her imagination also supplied the words with which she would be interrupted.

  ‘“To be acknowledg’d, Madam, is o’er-paid”—Kent!’ Sister Mary Eustasia, who liked the minor characters best, would say. ‘You had a fine mind, Bridget. It’s not often you find that in a country school in the back of beyond and you could not know how much that did for me—so there’s no thanks needed, if that’s what you were on about!’

  The thanks were never given, for Sister Mary Eustasia was beyond speech and lay with a dribble of saliva at the corner of her mouth. Bridget had wiped away the saliva with her handkerchief, and, briefly, the grey eyes had flicked open. But they had glimmered only a second in the dying face; if Sister Mary Eustasia had had any idea of who Bridget was—never mind King Lear—it would have been a miracle. So the acknowledgement was never made.

  Yet there remained the need for it, Bridget reflected, as the rooks returned to their ink-blot nests in the elms, for it is out of such gossamer threads of chance that we are saved…

  24

  Peter was not conscious that there was a connexion between his drifting into the Brompton Oratory and the meeting with a fellow officer from the Malaya days.

  ‘I say, Pum Hansome!’ The word erupted in his ear in the middle of the Brompton Road, and stopping to look back at the man who had uttered it, he saw Atkins.

  ‘Pum’, a corruption of ‘Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater’, was Peter’s army nickname. He and Atkins exchanged convivialities. They owned to wives and children, a pair each on both fronts, and agreed they must call each other and fix a chance for a longer chat. That neither followed up this threat was hardly surprising: they had had little in common all those years ago in a far country—no reason to suppose that time and home would have caused them to grow close.

  But for Peter at least—we know nothing of Atkins’s thoughts or history—the meeting was sufficiently unsettling that, moments after, passing the Oratory, he turned and entered the church, near to tears. Churches provide a certain hospitality: for all its domed height, there was a consoling privacy within the quiet blue and gold space where Peter sat and composed himself before going on his way to the lunch he was off to.

  It was weeks later when, making his way towards a venue in the same part of town, he again went inside the church and many weeks before he dared to approach a priest. This was long after his marriage to Bridget and the liaison with Frances.

  Peter was always grateful that Frances had received the news of his Catholicism with the unassertiveness he found attractive in her. Though you could never call Bridget interfering it was as if you knew that, should she choose, she could stretch out her powerful arm and knock your life into disarray. That she did not choose only added to the slight fear that she induced.

  Frances had none of that scary quality. Peter had never enquired into her beliefs but if he had bothered to think about it he might have guessed at a gentle agnosticism.

  Frances had toyed with religion after the death of Hugh; that she had not persevered in visiting churches, lighting candles—even, on one or two occasions, going so far as to kneel on hard stone floors—was an aspect of that tentative part of her character Peter found appealing. There was something in Frances which brought out in men either the sadist or the knight-on-white-charger; sometimes—these configurations being merely different sides of the same coin—both. She was without Bridget’s invincible strength; but for this reason she listened more.

  Frances wondered if the fact that there was no experience equivalent to the terrible migraine with which she had been visited when Hugh died, maybe indicated that her love for Peter was a lesser love than that for her brother. And perhaps it was; impossible to measure degrees of human love, though we are always attempting it: Do you love me? How much? Is it more than him or her? being the kind of subliminal questions with which most relationships are freighted. If Frances was unusual it was because she did not ask such questions of other people but only of herself. Therefore, Did I love my brother more than my lover? became a question she was not afraid to pose.

  One consequence of her posing it was that she considered carefully how she should mark Peter’s death—not for herself but for him. She had no strong opinion about the afterlife; but even had she been sure ours was the only existence, she would have respected the different view of one who was now existenceless. This is how it happened that Frances travelled to Paris, and made her way along by the Seine, where the swirling autumn mists bore quite a funereal aspect.

  25

  As anyone who has visited Paris knows, the slow, green river which divides the majestic city is lined on its left bank by covered stalls, where even today the Parisians buy books—for in Paris, at least, reading is still a requirement of a cultivated mind. Among these old paperbacks are also to be found books on art, books on architecture, books of photography, and the altogether tasteful erotica which the French preserve as part of their reputation for culture.

  At one such little booth Peter and Frances, wrapped in that exciting, invisible tissue which is an element of the erotic, enjoyed—at first sneakily, then, seeing that the other wasn’t shocked, more heartily—the representations of the various configurations which the human mind has invented to extend the pleasures of sexual congress. In one thick-yellow-papered volume there was a drawing of a young woman whose breasts Peter insisted, were the ‘dead spit’ of Frances’s. Closer inspection revealed that the ‘young woman’ was a hermaphrodite, replete with a vigorous-looking member. ‘I suppose it’s getting the best of both worlds,’ Peter had said; and Frances riposted, out of character—as unlike Bridget she wasn’t given to frank curiosity—‘Then would you like me to have had a penis too?’

  After that they had crossed the Seine to the Louvre, where she showed him the Leonardo of St Anne, the Virgin’s mother, with her daughter in her lap and her young grandchild, on his mother’s knee, playing—in a small patch of freedom—with a lamb.

  St Anne’s feet, with their long toes, were planted firmly on the pebbled ground, while the foot of her daughter was entwined with the lamb’s hoof. But the boy’s fat foot…Frances wanted to reach out and pinch it. ‘Look at his grandmother’s expression,’ she said, repressing another thought. ‘You wonder if she knows what’s going to happen.’

  On the day that Peter’s mortal remains were shunted into the powerful modern incinerator to be reduced to a cupful of ashes, Frances returned to the old gallery to find the painting of the
holy family by the acknowledged master of the enigmatic. St Anne, her hand on her left hip, the mysterious azure mountains behind her, gazed down as before at her daughter. The lidded face, with the strange, calm smile in which compassion blends with anguish, had not altered, but its meaning for Frances had. Looking now, she could see that the Virgin’s mother knows what her daughter cannot yet afford to know, as all her maternal being is directed at the small boy, who, pulling at the ears of the struggling lamb, stares back at his mother in ordinary childish defiance. Yes, Leonardo’s St Anne is aware of what her family is going to have to bear: that small, mean, brutal tragedy, which was ordained to ensure a larger cosmic end—the ultimate salvation of the human race. She must have wondered, St Anne, Frances thought, passing quickly out of the room to avoid the diluting sight of other paintings, if it was worth it. How could you set the loss of your heart’s dearest against any objective, however universal? It was too theoretical—a woman would have known that. Sensible Leonardo had ensured that in this trinity at least it was the women who counted.

  Outside Frances walked through the florid, selfconsciously ornate courtyards back to the river and across the bridge where she and Peter had walked as lovers nearly five years before. Paris had hardly changed—only become a little grubbier; as with everywhere there were more cars, more complacent signs of multinational interests, but better than most races the French knew how to hang on to their own.

  By the bridge which leads on to the Îla de la Cité, the most ancient quarter of Paris, Frances halted with the air of looking for something over whose existence she might have been in doubt. Then, tucked into a corner of the bridge, she saw it—the flower seller. That, too, hadn’t changed: the Parisians still bought flowers before politely visiting their God.

  Notre-Dame, with its twin tall towers, stands within a courtyard space of its own, and there Frances stood a while too, looking at the honey-coloured, intricately carved portal before venturing through one of its doors. Inside she wandered purposelessly in the lighted dimness—it was many years since she had been inside a cathedral—but light from a vast rose window made her stop again and look upwards. The sapphire and amethyst window Peter had talked of. She sat down opposite it and rested her head on the chair before her.

  Peter was gone; there was nothing to be done about it—nothing that could be done. Having no prayers to say she didn’t pray—there was nothing she could ask, nothing that could be granted. He was gone and she was here and all she had to be glad about was that, unlike St Anne, she had been spared the foreknowledge. That and the sapphire ring Peter had left her.

  Lifting her forehead from the hard wooden rail of the chair, Frances looked at the ring again, tilting the plane of her hand until the superior light of noon, playing through the window behind her, caught the jewel, making a tiny echo of that high, other extraordinary blue within its square heart. Those anonymous men who had fashioned the stained glass and set it for the glory of their God, they were dead and gone too. But the glass remained. Then did death matter? She didn’t know. All she knew now was that this was where Peter had come after they had made love and it was the closest she would ever again be to him.

  The bunch of anemones lay beside her on the seat, like some humble paid companion, too polite to interrupt, yet anxious to be about her own particular duty. Figures were moving about the cathedral, coming and going in its indistinct roominess—tourists, local worshippers come to light a candle or say a rosary, parties of pilgrims—nobody seemed to be bothering about anyone else’s business: there was a kind of splendid anonymity there still.

  Frances rose and walked deliberately towards the high altar. Ducking under the corded rope she placed the anemones by the statue of God’s mother, then turned and walked quickly down the aisle and back outside.

  Afterwards, she wondered if she should have thrown the ring into the Seine; but on balance decided that this would have been excessive.

  It was this act of Frances’s which first summoned Peter from the place of windy dark. He travelled back to Waterloo on the Eurostar with Frances, and, recalling the earlier journey, regretted the whisky, and the brandy and dry ginger, he was no longer at liberty to purchase.

  26

  It was the Easter bank holiday and Bridget had stayed up in London to serve in the shop on Saturday. Tilly, the girl who helped out, had an eye infection, suspected to be caused by the punch with which she had had her eyebrows pierced. Anyway, the season of the Resurrection was a boom time for garden furniture; it was as well, Bridget thought, that she be at the shop herself.

  Trade was brisk; a row had broken out between two women who had laid simultaneous claim to a thirties cane table, and by the end of the day Bridget was tired. She had planned to drive straight to the country but the prospect seemed daunting. Better go home and set off early the next morning instead.

  The question of Zahin paying rent for his room had never been discussed. He appeared to have decided that his contribution to the Fulham household should consist of his keeping it straight. And this arrangement—if something so unilateral could be called an ‘arrangement’—suited Bridget. Although Bridget would not have called herself house-proud—rather the reverse—it had to be said it was pleasant to come home to the smell of polish and piles of neatly folded ironing. Even the sheets! She was able to dispense with the services of the laundry, which seemed to rip sheets like some serial killer. It was a change to live in a house which had so little to be done in it—almost like staying in a hotel.

  ‘Zahin, however did you get to be so domesticated?’ she asked once.

  ‘By watching women, Mrs Hansome. No, really! My aunties as well as my mother. I liked to be there as they scrubbed and cooked. Sometimes when they washed themselves too…’ A sly smile.

  Ignoring this, Bridget had said, ‘You should train to be a chef.’

  His cooking was remarkable: subtle, delicate.

  ‘I regret my family wish me to be a chemical engineer.’

  ‘Have you thought that might be a waste?’

  Bridget, who abhorred proselytisers, was careful not to communicate her views on family life to her guest. Observation had taught her that what people wanted for others was usually based on what they wanted for themselves. This reflexiveness, however, might equally be true of a point of view. She didn’t want to seem to undermine ‘the family’ who figured so largely in Zahin’s plans and motives. Maybe—who could tell?—he would make an excellent chemical engineer.

  Somehow, though, she doubted it. Zahin appeared punctilious in his studies: he attended his college regularly and retired to his room after supper where he worked diligently, so far as she could judge, until the ten o’clock news. Then he would generally come down to the sitting room, and tea and KitKats were produced. Beyond the domestic he appeared to have no interests or hobbies.

  It is usually possible to tell if a house is empty. Standing in the hall Bridget felt this was just the moment she could do with one of Zahin’s appearances, like a solicitous genie from a bottle. But tonight it looked as if the genie had other fish to fry.

  The evening had turned cold and Bridget, who had been working in an unheated shop, shivered. She had annoyed Peter once by suggesting that the proof of God’s existence could be deduced from the bad weather which so frequently attends bank holidays. Occasional ‘digs’ at topics about which Peter had been stuffy had been one of her ways of keeping her end up. Quite why he had objected to this particular ‘dig’ she hadn’t bothered to consider. But the recollection now of how she had liked to disarm her husband left her feeling forlorn. Well, there it was; she had never pretended to be easy.

  The chilly house and the even chillier lack of company prompted a change of plan. Her packed bag was already in the boot of the car. She would do as she had originally planned, leave now, stop on the way, perhaps for fish and chips, or even a hideous motorway meal; then she would have the whole of Easter Sunday to recover at Farings.

  The car was parked round the
corner and halfway to it Bridget turned back. Was there milk at Farings? She might as well fling together the bits and bobs from the fridge.

  As she rounded the corner she saw someone by the front door and her spirits lifted. Zahin home! Perhaps she might delay her departure after all.

  But it wasn’t Zahin. A much older man was at the door—a man about her own age.

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I’m wondering if I have the right address.’ A welldressed, urbane man—he might have been one of Peter’s business associates who still appeared from time to time, to condole, or be consoled.

  ‘I’m Bridget Hansome. Was it my husband you wanted?’

  The man seemed to hesitate. ‘D’you know, I think I’ve made a stupid mistake. What is this address?’

  The number was clearly before them on the door so Bridget gave the name of the road.

  ‘Ah, that’s what it is. It’s “Gardens” I wanted. My wife says I’m hopeless at directions—she always reads the map. I hope I didn’t frighten you?’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Bridget said. ‘You don’t look to me like a crook or a rapist.’

  The man gave an uneasy laugh. ‘I hope not!’ He seemed pleasant enough and for a second Bridget entertained a wild idea she might ask him in for a drink. As if sensing this the stranger hurriedly went on, ‘I’d better get going…Once again, I’m so sorry to have been a nuisance.’

  The mistaken encounter produced a further drop in Bridget’s spirits. The long day at the shop had frozen the marrow of her bones; what she needed was a scalding bath and a cup of tea—that would set her up. It would be better, later, anyway, when the traffic had thinned, driving to the country.

  Bridget took off her coat and boots, filled the kettle and stripped out of her jersey and skirt. She padded upstairs to run a bath. But the door when she turned the handle was locked.