But on her first night in a Moroccan youth hostel, she realised how she was using her acrimony towards Jonathan as a way to cloak the weight of unresolved grief suddenly overwhelming her again. A parting gift from yet another American conscientious objector stranded in Portobello had helped her through this wave of pain: The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse. When she started reading it by torchlight on her first night in Morocco, Eva sensed that the novel contained an inexplicable key to her survival. For three days Eva lay in her hostel bunk until she finished the book, surviving on fruit which the young girls sharing her dormitory brought her. She read it in a trance-like state until her eyes ached, then fell asleep and resumed reading immediately after she woke. The Moroccan hostel manager considered it strange for any woman her age to wish to stay in such a place. But the young girls who came and went – many reminding her of Jade – understood her instinctively. Eva knew that many people her own age regarded her as daft but this new generation were on her wavelength. Not that she believed in everything they did. Hallucinogenic drugs held no appeal and nor did she believe in free love in the sense of indiscriminate, mechanical sex. But an era seemed to be dawning when her ideals finally made sense, with the cruel irony being that it was only occurring when she was sixty-five.
Morocco in winter was cheap. When word spread about ‘the Irish grandmother’, she earned some money by teaching English to the sons of ambitious shop owners. The climate and pace of life suited her but after surviving the emotional ordeal of Christmas she longed to return to London, even though nothing awaited her there. She returned in March, touched to discover that the Quakers were true to their word and had kept open the position of caretaker for her. Her room had not even been slept in during her absence: Francis’s trunk full of old diaries and papers still under the bed, waiting to be dealt with.
Two weeks after returning, she glimpsed Jonathan by chance on Kensington Park Road, although the Welshman didn’t see her. Francis’s death had aged him. His back was now stooped like an old man’s. Eva stared at him so intently that for a second it suddenly felt as if she were inside his body, experiencing his grief. In that moment her bitterness abated. Eva recognised that she had allowed anger to grow inside her like a cancer, using Jonathan as a scapegoat for everything that occurred, as a way of whitewashing Francis’s other difficulties with life. Silent and unobserved in a shop doorway, she watched Jonathan climb into a taxi: the orthopaedic surgeon unaware of how in this moment Eva was forgiving him for any unkindness towards her son, knowing that it was what Francis would have wanted.
That evening she was on her way to wander through the streets around Bayswater. This was where she had found herself walking every night since her return, regardless of rain or cold. There was no logic to this search but she was seeking any sign that might release her from the limbo of grief where, when she returned to the Quaker hostel, she could sit up until midnight re-reading every old letter in Francis’s trunk. Eva began to develop different routes for these nightly walks, always feeling that she had only started her true search when she walked along by the wall of Kensington Park and turned up towards Queensway to disappear into the network of smaller streets: Moscow Road and St Petersburg Mews, Chapel Side and the synagogue near Orme Lane. She loved to pause and watch the light spill out from the ancient stained-glass windows of the Mitre Pub on the corner of Craven Terrace, knowing that she could linger across the street from it, utterly anonymous because nobody bothered to notice a woman of her age.
But somebody did notice her on those streets. Late one afternoon, Alan turned up at the Quaker hostel. They sat in the deserted kitchen at the long wooden table where two cats dozed in the twilight. It felt strange to have a visitor at the hostel, but everything about London felt strange after the sounds and rhythm of life in Morocco. Initially she did not know how Alan had discovered she was back, but she was touched by his concern when he mentioned being worried about her.
‘But I’m fine,’ Eva insisted. ‘Can’t you see that I’m coping well?’
‘That’s the problem,’ Alan said. ‘You’re so desperate to show the world how well you’re coping, that you’re letting your pain fester inside you. You’re still blaming yourself and blaming others.’
‘I may blame myself,’ Eva admitted, ‘but I’ve forgiven anyone else involved.’
‘Have you considered going to live with Hazel in Kenya?’
Eva shook her head. She didn’t really know what was happening in her daughter’s life since her divorce from Geoffrey: Hazel having never even confided as to why the relationship had floundered. It was better that Hazel and Geoffrey had parted rather than chugged along unhappily like Eva and Freddie had done. Hazel was never half-hearted in anything she did. But Eva worried about how quickly Hazel had remarried, to another farmer in Kenya whom she claimed that Eva once met in the Colonial Club, although Eva had no recollection of the man.
‘How could I live in Kenya?’ she said. ‘I know nothing about Hazel’s new husband beyond his name. The one time I visited her I hated how the white people drank in their club every night and shouted at servants. Kenyan independence hasn’t changed them. Can you honestly imagine me over there, driving Hazel demented by handing out leaflets against the Vietnam War?’
Alan smiled. ‘No. You get into enough trouble attending marches here. I’m just saying that while I’ll always be here for you along with Francis’s other close friends, there’s nothing else for you in London.’
‘There’s Francis,’ Eva said shyly.
‘Francis is eighteen months dead, Eva. He’s not coming back.’
‘But his trunk is upstairs, all his papers. I loved the Moroccan sun, but London has memories that make him feel close. Maybe all I feel here is his absence but even that is something to hold onto.’
‘Or to let go of,’ Alan said quietly. He paused before continuing cautiously. ‘The reason I knew you were back is that I saw you a few nights ago walking like a lost soul near Kensington Gardens. I was across the street. I said nothing because I didn’t know where you were going, but after a while I realised you didn’t know either.’
‘Where were you going that night?’ Eva asked.
‘You might think it strange but I was going for healing.’
The remark surprised her. Alan was an atheist who always expressed a wry scepticism at her various beliefs. He seemed utterly self-contained. She had never even known him to have a serious lover, claiming to have reached an age where the only man worth taking to bed was Thomas Mann in hardback. Alan studied her face, as if trying to decide how to frame his next question.
‘Have you ever heard of the White Eagle Lodge?’
Eva shook her head.
‘That’s where I thought you were going when I saw you, because it was where I was going myself. The lodge holds a healing service, a laying on of hands. It’s a discreet, tiny church, easy to miss. A casual passer-by would mistake it for just another house on St Mary Abbots Place, a cul-de-sac off Kensington High Street. Its only difference from the other houses is a sign of a white eagle carved in plaster above the door of a small annex to one side.’ He paused. ‘A Mrs Cooke – Mother Cooke some people call her – is holding a service tonight. Would you like me to bring you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Eva said. ‘I can’t imagine liking such a place.’
‘That’s what I thought before I went,’ Alan replied. ‘You know me: normally I don’t set foot inside kirk, meeting house or chapel.’
‘Then what made you go there?’ Eva asked.
He shrugged, an embarrassed sheepishness lending him a boyish look. ‘I think Francis did. Or at least that story you told me about a girl having a dream in which Francis mentioned an address near Kensington Gardens. Dreams are pure nonsense, yet I couldn’t get it out of my head, because what if her dream was meant to convey a real message but she got the details jumbled up? I know it’s ridiculous and maybe even blowing my own trumpet, but I began to wonder if his message might be meant f
or me as well as you. Our friendship goes back to our school days. In Aravon I told Francis things that I’ve never told another living soul … bad things that happened. Maybe it was curiosity that led me to stumble upon that small lodge, or the loneliness that sometimes eats into me so that I need to be out walking among other people. Don’t ask me why, but this winter just passed was a damned lonesome winter after you took off for Morocco.’
He looked around the kitchen, uncomfortable at talking about himself. One cat on the table was studying him with unblinking eyes. Alan reached out a hand. Eva sensed that he wanted to shoo the cat away, but his gentleness would only allow him to stroke the cat’s fur softly.
‘If the girl’s dream was real then she got the location wrong. While the place that I think Francis meant is near Kensington, it’s on the Holland Park side, nearer Edwardes Square. As an atheist I find it pretty damned uncomfortable to countenance the thought that possibly Francis led me there, but for some reason, when walking one evening I turned down a small cul-de-sac off Kensington High Street which I have passed a hundred times before and never paid it any heed. I was admiring a few of the old houses there and fully expected to turn around at the end and walk back. I probably wouldn’t even have spied the sign of the eagle if two women walking in front of me hadn’t each separately entered the small doorway. I noticed a man coming behind me – very ordinary and conservatively dressed – about to follow suit. I apologised for disturbing him but asked what was in there. He replied, very matter of fact, “healing”, and went through the door. I wanted to scoff, like I scoff at most things. Scoffing is my defence mechanism against life. But just then it was as if I could hear Francis’s voice in my head … you know his really gentle laugh, not mocking but chiding me like he often did, encouraging me to live a bit and take a chance. I followed the man into that tiny lodge on impulse, not sure what to expect, indeed not expecting anything. To my deep surprise I found that this healing service fitted my needs in ways I’d never expected, because it was addressing a need deep inside me that I never even knew I had.’
He paused and Eva realised that this was the longest, most revealing speech she had ever heard Alan make.
‘I never thought of you as someone who needs healing,’ Eva said. ‘That was thoughtless of me, too wrapped up in my own pain.’
‘I never knew it myself, Eva, but we all need healing. Maybe someone like me more than most. I know Francis could get over-emotional and fly off the handle and this had dangerous, tragic consequences, but at least Francis was able to express his emotions. I’ve also been let down and hurt so many times, but all my life I needed to suppress my emotions. It’s how I was raised. It wasn’t the done thing for Glenageary Protestants engaged in trade to show hurt or show anything except a brave face to the world. I kept telling myself I was fine, like you now keep saying you’re fine. But I’ve not been fine for years. On my first night in that small lodge I realised that I was a clenched fist, my fingers scrunched so tight that I didn’t know how to let go of all the pain I’ve been holding inside them.’
Eva reached across to lightly touch his hand. ‘Poor Alan. And I never knew.’
‘How could you have known when I didn’t know myself? But say nothing to anyone, please, especially my nieces.’
‘You know I won’t.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Maybe you’d feel nothing at that lodge. It’s not exactly overwhelming. No Indian gurus or Hare Krishna chants. It feels rather English, for all its mysticism. You might want to run out the door the minute you get there. But if you ever wish to go there, tonight or any night, I’ll happily bring you.’
‘Maybe we’ll go,’ Eva half promised, ‘but not tonight.’
The noise of the kitchen door opening disturbed them. It was one of the Americans who was refusing to fight in Vietnam; a young man who had begun to pay Eva such attention that at first she suspected him of being romantically attracted to her. Then she remembered her age and realised he was seeking a surrogate mother in his exile. The young American hesitated, sensing he had interrupted a private conversation. He looked slightly jealous at seeing Eva with a visitor. He went to back out the doorway, but Eva beckoned him in to let him prepare his evening meal. His presence broke the intimate mood and Eva suspected that Alan might never again speak so openly about his emotions to her or anyone.
After Alan left, she slipped up to her room so as not to be disturbed by those troubled young conscientious objectors who found solace in telling her their woes. She needed space to think. The last thing she wanted was to find herself among throngs of Evangelists or Pentecostalists or Charismatics, swaying and speaking in tongues or embracing each other. Eva was wary of overt displays of emotion at public gatherings, where it was often difficult to distinguish between genuine feelings and the collective euphoria of whipped-up hysteria. Her pain was too real and too private for anything like that. She had vowed to avoid any place where her emotions might be manipulated. But that evening, when it came time to leave the hostel for her nightly walk, she knew that no matter what route she initially took, curiosity would lead her to seek out that tiny lodge she had missed on previous expeditions, having been searching the wrong streets.
In a self-protective way to quell her mounting hopes, Eva took the longest possible route to reach Kensington High Street to ensure that it was already late by the time she found the small turning for St Mary Abbots Place. The lodge or church was so inconspicuous that if Alan hadn’t told her about the sign of the eagle above a side door, she would have walked down that cul-de-sac without noticing it. The tall house attached to it was in darkness and the doorway beneath the sign looked so dark and forlorn that Eva suspected that any service held was surely over by now.
Her intention had been to merely locate this building so that she would know where to come if she ever decided to attend a service. But now that she was here she felt so intrigued that she crossed the street to check if the door was locked. To her surprise the wooden door opened. Without giving herself time to think, Eva entered the building and stood at the back unobserved in the narrow space behind the last pew. The small congregation who quietly listened in that small room looked so ordinary that Alan would easily blend in among them; a mix of respectable, middle-aged West Enders and more casually dressed young people. Eva wondered how many admitted to their workday colleagues or perhaps even their families that they attended this healing service. But everyone present must have suffered in some hidden way. This leant them a quiet unity as they stood at the healer’s prompting to sing a hymn while a young girl played the harmonium. When the singing stopped, the healer began to speak. Eva suspected that she was a medium, just from her weight. Mediums needed to eat heavily and be physically strong because they sacrificed so much psychic energy in allowing messages to be delivered through them. Eva instantly liked this white-robed, down-to-earth old woman who reminded her of a plump, gentle pussycat, sincere and unassuming. Tonight she seemed to have no personal messages to pass on to anyone. Instead she delivered a simple meditation on the words: ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.’
Despite her previous misgivings, Eva found herself enjoying this unassuming service. The healer finished speaking and placed her hands on several people who came forward to kneel before her. Eva suspected that people mostly only came here in times of crisis, then moved on with their lives. The woman reminded everyone present that they could write down the names of anyone whom they felt to be in need of absent healing. The image of a white eagle hung over the altar. Alan had explained that this symbolised the apex of spiritual development a person could attain if they allowed their inner light to radiate. But as the woman began to speak again, her sermon was not abstract: it contained sensible advice about coping with life’s problems. Nothing felt phoney to Eva – unlike the two séances she had attended in desperation after Francis’s death.
As Eva closed her eyes, it was Hazel’s face which dr
ifted into her mind. She could imagine her daughter’s amused exasperation at the thought of Eva attending this tiny lodge which seemed to claim to be an invisible bridge between the living and dead. But Eva decided that if she wanted anything from tonight, it was to request absent healing for Hazel’s troubled soul. Hazel never shared her problems and nothing in her brief letters from her new Kenyan address suggested unhappiness. But nothing indicated great happiness either. The healer finished preaching and nodded for the girl at the harmonium to play the first notes of the closing hymn. Eva found herself joining in, knowing how the streets outside would seem colder after the sense of companionship here. When the hymn ended, people drifted towards the exit, depositing contributions in a small iron box. Eva did likewise and paused in the vestibule to watch the healer shake hands with those leaving. Older men addressed her as Mrs Cooke, while some younger people simply called her Grace. When Eva reached her she smiled and accepted the proffered slip of paper with Hazel’s name scribbled on it.
‘For absent healing,’ Eva explained, ‘for my daughter.’
The woman studied the name on the paper and then scrutinised Eva’s face. ‘I don’t think you’re really here for your daughter, are you?’
‘No,’ Eva admitted.
The woman nodded. ‘For months I’ve had dreams about a tiny little woman. At first you seemed a long way away but recently you have felt nearer. Have you been abroad?’
‘Morocco.’
The woman nodded again. ‘I must see these people out. Please wait here.’
Eva watched her bid farewell to the others, then bolt the door. She beckoned Eva through a doorway into a smaller chapel, furnished with just two plain wooden chairs. The healer sat on one chair and motioned for Eva to sit facing her.
An Ark of Light Page 25
