The Bad Samaritan

by Robert Barnard

  He was looking straight into her eyes. Rosemary nodded.

  “I would like to hear if you get news of your family. I’ll give you my address.”

  “Is not necessary. Is in the book.”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you again. Thank you for so much kindness.”

  He was at the door now. He looked as if he was going to burst into tears again. Rosemary said firmly, “Good night, Stanko,” and he wrenched open the bedroom door and fled out into the corridor. Rosemary heard him running up the stairs to his attic room, but she also heard steps on the main staircase from the ground floor that passed her bedroom and finally went into another room further down the corridor.

  She poured herself another large glass of wine and sat in the armchair, thinking hard. This time she thought things through, and came to the conclusion that it was time for her to go home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Homecoming

  Rosemary fixed her return home for Wednesday. By then she would have been away for ten days, and if anything was going to “happen” (about her loss of faith, of course, not in her relationship with Stanko) it would surely have done so by then. All that had happened, in fact, was that she had shaken down into her agnosticism: it had become more comfortable, like new clothes after a few wearings. The holiday in Scarborough to find herself had in reality been no more than a pleasant break away from home. Now it was time to return to normality.

  Things with Stanko had gone no further. He had seemed a little embarrassed by his breakdown in her room, and at breakfast the next day they only exchanged conventional greetings. Rosemary had an uncomfortable feeling, though, that some eyes in the room were fixed on them. At dinner on Tuesday he had dropped a small, square snapshot on to the table, something that looked like a passport photograph. It was a pretty, dark-haired young woman.

  “Is my wife,” he said.

  “She looks very nice,” said Rosemary, thinking how staid and middle-class she sounded. But it was quite true: she did look nice. Where was she now, and what had the war done to her?

  On Wednesday Rosemary felt no need to hurry home. Paul would be at a Rotarians’ dinner that evening, so there was no chance of eating together. She decided to have a last long walk on the beach and then lunch at Cliff View. This was a mistake. When Stanko came to offer her a choice of braised lamb and cod and chips he bent down and hissed in her ear, “Both is offle.” She chose the awful cod and chips and settled down to read about the last years of the various Sitwells: eccentricity ripening into sheer awfulness. When, at the end of an extremely boring culinary experience, Stanko brought her coffee he said, “You forgive me for Sunday night?”

  “Stanko, there’s nothing to forgive.”

  “Is very not English.”

  “Sometimes being un-English is a very good thing to be.”

  “Un-English. Is good word. I learn.”

  But she felt very English when, as she left, she shook his hand and said, “Keep in touch.”

  He looked bewildered for a moment, as if her words had something to do with touching her. Then he understood and beamed. “Oh yes, I keep in touch,” he said. As she settled her bill she heard him whistling around the kitchen.

  She carried her own case again as she walked back to the station, taking a last look at the shops that sold the sort of clothes she wore—she, the wife of a Church of England vicar in a reasonably well-to-do parish, wearing the uniform of her order. The thought still depressed her a little. The train was fairly empty for the first stretch of the way home, but at York she had to change trains, and as she was walking over the bridge she saw ahead of her the figure of one of her husband’s parishioners, Selena Meadowes. Rosemary slowed down and looked around her airily, as if seeing the beauties of York station for the first time. But as ill luck would have it, just as Selena was about to board the train she looked around at the station clock and in the process she spotted Rosemary.

  “Oh, super!” she said, waving energetically. “Someone to share the journey with.”

  Without a hint of a query to her, Rosemary thought resentfully, as to whether she wanted her journey shared. But then, clergymen and their wives were generally regarded as always on tap, and not to have needs and preferences of their own.

  “Hello Selena,” she said in neutral tones. “I wondered if I would see anyone I knew.”

  Selena breezed ahead, her smile cleaving a way through the bustle of travellers till she found a good double seat facing forward. She was her usual bright, spick-and-span self, all her clothes brightly patterned and sparklingly clean, as if she were dressed for a soap powder ad, and in her usual nice-young-mum style that made the heart sink. She always reminded Rosemary of the heroines in fifties musicals, and she imagined her as anxiously awaiting the return of the dirndl skirt.

  “Here we are,” she said in her bright soubrette voice. “Golly, you do look well, Rosemary. Blooming. Your break away has really done you good.”

  Probing, thought Rosemary. In fact she was aware that she was being watched very closely.

  “Thanks,” she said noncommittally.

  “So what did you do?”

  “Oh, the sort of thing one does at seaside places out of season: walked, read, took in a play. It was an old Ayckbourn—quite funny.”

  Selena looked as if she was not after drama criticism.

  “Well, whatever it is it’s certainly agreed with you, I can see that. Did you, er . . .” Here we go, thought Rosemary. “Did you come back any happier?”

  “I wasn’t suffering from depression, Selena.”

  Selena looked the tiniest bit embarrassed.

  “Oh, I know, but people were saying—Mrs Harridance was saying—”

  “Mrs Harridance says a great deal, as you know, and very little of it is to the purpose.”

  “Oh Rosemary, she means well.”

  Rosemary raised her eyebrows skeptically.

  “When people say that about anyone they usually mean that they blunder about bringing disaster in their wake with the best possible intentions but not an ounce of common sense. I don’t see Mrs Harridance like that at all. Florrie Harridance has one thought and one thought only: herself.”

  Now Selena Meadowes looked shocked. Rosemary had violated a code. One did not make out-and-out condemnations of people if one was a clergyman’s wife.

  “Rosemary! How unkind of you. You’d never have been so uncharitable . . . before.”

  “Wouldn’t I? I’d have thought it even if I didn’t say it, which comes to much the same thing. You were saying that Mrs Harridance said—”

  “Well . . . that you were having . . . problems. Spiritual problems.”

  “You could call it that. I lost my faith.”

  Selena looked terribly concerned, as if she had said that her puppy had disappeared.

  “And the break away didn’t . . . change anything?”

  “No. I never really thought it would. What is that saying about travellers changing the sky above them but not themselves? I don’t see why anyone should expect to find God in Scarborough, in any case.”

  “You must be awfully unhappy,” said Selena soulfully. Since she had just been trying to convey exactly the opposite, Rosemary was annoyed.

  “Not at all. I’m perfectly happy.”

  “But your whole life was centred on your belief in God.”

  “Was it? I think you must have been under an illusion about me, Selena. It had become not much more than a routine. Now it’s gone it’s as if a blanket has been lifted from over my head. Now I can breathe properly at last.”

  “Oh Rosemary!”

  “It’s as well to speak the truth, isn’t it? That is precisely how I feel.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “Do? I don’t see that I’m called on to do anything.”

  “But . . . maybe I shouldn’t say anything.”

  “Do. I’m quite unshockable.”

  “Mrs Harridance feels you shouldn’t pla
y any part in parish affairs as long as you’re an unbeliever.”

  Rosemary smiled grimly. “Back to Victorian values, eh? Ostracise the unbeliever. Well, that will give me a lot of spare time, which will be very welcome. I wonder what I should do with it? Take up macramé, perhaps, or study for an Open University degree. I wonder what Mrs Harridance would advise.”

  “I’m not saying everyone agrees with her, of course.”

  “I should hope not,” said Rosemary, in tones that were becoming positively grim. “I should be sorry to think that the spirit of Mrs Harridance had infected the whole parish.”

  “You are unfair to her, Rosemary.”

  “Could we talk about something else, Selena? I’ll have quite enough talk about this when I get home to Paul.”

  “Oh, I am sorry!” Selena’s face was quite guileless, which showed what faces could do. “I thought you’d want to talk about it. I know I would.”

  “Well, I don’t. And please tell anyone who asks that I don’t. Has anything else happened while I’ve been away?”

  “I don’t think so, Rosemary. Stephen Mills has agreed to talk to the Mothers’ Union on ‘Business Ethics and the Christian Religion.’ ”

  “What would he know about either?”

  “Rosemary! You are changed.”

  Rosemary kept up her brisk, unkindly tone, which she found very palate-cleansing.

  “Now don’t pretend you don’t know there are lots of people in the parish who are extremely suspicious about Mr Mills.”

  “Well, I think they’re very unfair. You shouldn’t be suspicious unless you’ve got good, concrete reasons . . . . And he’s so dishy!”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Well, you can’t deny that. Film-star looks. When he looks me straight in the eye I go positively weak at the knees.”

  “I have a physical reaction, certainly, but not that one.”

  “Don’t tell anyone, will you?” Selena was not listening to anything said to her and gave a tiny giggle. “Me, a happily married woman!”

  “Your secret is safe with me. I’m just glad you’re not one of those whose knees go to jelly at the sight of Paul. I don’t know what it is about a clergyman that gets to some women.”

  “Your husband is awfully attractive for his age.”

  “I’ll tell him you said so. He’ll be terribly grateful. Now I think about it, maybe you’d better keep quiet about some of the things I’ve said today. I don’t want to cause him more trouble than he’ll have from me anyway.”

  “Of course, Rosemary! Silent as the grave.”

  On the way home on the bus Rosemary wondered why she had bothered attempting to ensure Selena’s silence. She belonged to the Florrie Harridance Broadcasting Corporation, and everything Rosemary had said would be round the parish by the next day. By the time she had settled herself comfortably in at home, deciding that it really was nice to be back among familiar things again, she was starting to ask herself why she had said anything to Selena Meadowes at all. She knew what she was like, she had no liking for her, yet she had blabbed to her as if she was discretion itself. Had she got some kind of parochial death wish? Did she see her work with Paul in Abbingley as at an end? If so, Paul ought to have been the first to be told. And when she really got down to hard thinking, she was not at all sure that this was what she wanted.

  Paul was in and out quickly at six, kissing her warmly and saying it was wonderful to have her home, then changing into black tie and decrepit dinner jacket and going out looking infinitely seedier than he would have in a lounge suit or clericals. Rosemary listened to a Nielsen symphony, watched the ten o’clock news with her usual hunger for reports from Yugoslavia, and waited for his return. When she heard the car pull into the garage it was clear he had someone with him.

  “It’s just Stephen,” Paul called as he came through the front door. “Come to get the Rotary Club books.”

  He bustled in and went to his study and over to the bookcase, where the account books had been piled in readiness. Dark Satanic Mills came in to the hall and stood in the living room doorway with his usual smooth confidence.

  “Hello Rosemary,” he said. “Welcome back.”

  He did look handsome, Rosemary thought, against the half-light from the hall. In fact, he stood there posing as handsome, exuding the confidence of handsomeness, broadcasting his handsomeness. He was not tall, in fact he was almost stocky, but he had shiny black hair, each strand immaculately in place, and perfect features set in a sallow skin. Women notice me, his bearing announced. And if they have anything I want, I notice them.

  “Hello Stephen,” Rosemary said.

  “Here they all are,” said Paul, coming through and handing over a small pile of heavy books. “I couldn’t be happier about handing them over. You’ll make a much better job of it than I could ever do.”

  “Nonsense, you’ve done a wonderful job,” said Stephen Mills, hardly bothering to put conviction in his voice. “Now, I’ll make myself scarce. You two will have a lot to talk about, and I’ll only be intruding if I stay for coffee.”

  Which you have not been offered, Rosemary thought, and your mentioning it is your way of drawing attention to the omission. When Paul came in from showing him out she said:

  “The church mouse handing over to the church rat.”

  “The Rotary Club has nothing to do with the Church,” said Paul pedantically. “I will admit that Stephen would not have been my first choice as treasurer, but h—”

  “But he offered. Of course he did.”

  “Don’t make too much of it. I don’t think for a moment he’ll do anything improper.”

  “Nor do I. Too many shrewd financial brains among the Rotarians. But he’ll milk the job for all it’s worth as far as contacts and mutual favours are concerned.”

  “True. But enough of Dark Satanic.”

  “More than.”

  “Is it good to be home? Would you like a nightcap?”

  “It’s lovely! Do you mean an alcoholic one?” Paul nodded. “Is there any red wine open?”

  “There is. I cooked for myself last night and compensated for the awfulness of it with a glass or two.” He went to the kitchen and came back with a half-full bottle. As he was pouring her a glass he said casually, “Situation still as it was?”

  “Oh yes. I don’t think there’s much point in talking about that, Paul, if you don’t mind. It is as it is, and if it changes it does, but it won’t be through anything we’ve done . . . . I met Selena Meadowes on the train from York.”

  “Brightly sparkling as ever?”

  “At least.”

  “Did she say something that worried you?”

  “Isn’t marriage dreadful?” said Rosemary, sipping her wine. “Each partner is the nearest thing to a thought policeman there is . . . . Not worried, exactly, but she did make me think. Apparently Florrie Harridance is spreading it around that since I’m now an unbeliever I shouldn’t play any part in parish affairs or any of the groups and activities.”

  “I’m sure Selena has got it wrong.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Florrie’s a very silly woman if she’s saying that kind of thing. People don’t take kindly to witch hunts these days.”

  Rosemary thought that over seriously.

  “Most people . . . . And actually I’m not even sure that that is true. Witch hunts are what the tabloid press is based on.”

  “St Saviour’s isn’t a tabloid parish.”

  “Don’t you believe it! The Sunday Times delivered, and the People bought surreptitiously while walking the dog. Anyway, the Sunday Times is just a tabloid for the upper-middle classes.”

  “Would it worry you, taking a back seat?”

  “I think what she wants is to push me out of the car. No, not at all. Or not much. I’d been thinking anyway about what I might do, and I was coming to the conclusion that the Open University was made for people like me, whose children have left home. But something in me really dis
likes being pushed.”

  “Good for you.”

  “And I don’t like the thought of the spirit of Florrie Harridance taking over the parish either.”

  “Don’t make a bogey-woman of her, Rosemary.”

  “I don’t need to. She’s done that herself.”

  Paul swerved from the subject.

  “So you’ll fight. I think that’s excellent. You’ll try and stay on as vice-chair of the Mothers’ Union.”

  “It’s not just offices like that. I’m not mad about the Mothers’ Union. They always remind me of a line in a song we used to sing at school: ‘They laugh, and are glad, and are terrible.’ But I am going to resist her, generally. I am going to try to get across what a mean, restrictive, vengeful sort of attitude hers is. Not to say self-promotional.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I’m not sure how I’m going to fight her. It will be difficult to oppose her without saying precisely what I think of her, which would make things difficult for you.”

  “Turning the other cheek is excellent advice, you know.”

  Rosemary smiled at him. He didn’t give up.

  “You’d have to say that,” she said.

  “No, I mean it. If you prefer to put it in worldly terms, it’s a wonderful ploy. It puts the other person so wonderfully in the wrong and gets sympathy immediately on to your side.”

  “How Machiavellian of you, Paul. I’ve never thought of you as that before. You may be right, but turning the other cheek is not something Christians often do, is it? I’ve never seen such a bellicose lot, in general, or such dirty fighters.”

  “It’s not unusual, is it, for people not to live up to their religion? It happens in all of the faiths. Christians haven’t realised yet that returning good for evil, as well as being right, is an extremely clever move. If you stay meek and mild while Florrie Harridance gets more and more dogmatic and extreme, you’ll soon have everyone on your side.”

  “It’s a thought,” said Rosemary. “I’ll consider it.”

  But she didn’t tell Paul that, if turning the other cheek was to be her strategy, she had made a very bad start on the train that day.