by Ruth Sutton
‘You are asking to become a Roman Catholic, Mr Pharaoh, not joining a club. I will instruct you in the principles of our faith, and you will learn them. It will not be easy. It is not meant to be easy. You will search your soul and confess your sins. When you are ready, you will be received into our faith.’
‘Will it take long?’ John persisted.
‘Yes,’ said the priest, looking at John with something approaching disdain.
* * *
‘I can’t do it, Maggie,’ said John. ‘It’s no good. He wants me to say I believe it all and I can’t. I don’t believe any of it. I don’t even believe in God, haven’t since I was a kid.’
‘What does Father Pryce want you to say?’
‘That I believe in all the Catholic stuff, you know what it’s about. You grew up with it. I grew up Methodist and stopped going to church after Enid died. That was a relief, it meant I could go climbing on Sundays not mess around in some gloomy place singing and saying things that made no sense to me.’
‘And you don’t believe in God?’
‘No, I don’t.’
Maggie said nothing. They were sitting together on the beach at Fleswick Bay. Before them the sea stretched pale and gleaming in early evening light. Sometimes from there the outline of the Isle of Man was clear against the horizon but now there was nothing to delineate sea from sky; they merged into a shining bowl that enveloped the lovers, and their discussion of the infinite.
‘Look at this,’ she said after a few minutes’ silence. ‘Who made all this?’
‘Was it made? Does it have to be made? Could it not just happen?’
He turned to her, and she raised her face towards him. He kissed her.
‘Does it matter all that much?’ he said.
‘Not to me, but it will to Father Pryce. And to my mother. If we’re not married in church, according to my mam we’re not married at all. We’d be living in sin, and if we have children they’d be bastards.’
‘Like me, you mean?’ he said, smiling.
‘I’m serious, John. Father Pryce won’t marry us if you say you don’t believe, and that’s what Mam’s fretting about. To her it’s a mortal sin. And she won’t change. I know her. She’s stubborn. Drives me dad crazy, but that’s the way she is. Father Pryce has her wound round his finger, and not just her, either. It makes me sick to see them all fawning over him, but they do, and he loves it. So much for humility or whatever it is they’re supposed to have.’
They took off their shoes and stepped awkwardly down the hard pebbles to the edge of the tide. John rolled up the legs of his trousers, Maggie pulled her skirt up short and they ran in and out of the incoming waves like children. When the sun began to dip and cool they walked slowly back to the lighthouse, watched the wheeling birds for a while and then turned towards the farm and home. There was no one around. ‘Down here’ said John, taking Maggie’s hand and pulling her along a path at the edge of a field of green barley towards a stand of oak trees.
In a corner of the quiet field, under oak branches drooping and heavy with leaf, they made love. They didn’t hesitate or speak, following each other in the dance of sex until they lay back, side by side, looking up into the branches. A bird was looking down at them, bigger than a thrush, with a banded chest. The bird cocked its head; they could see its bright round eye.
‘It’s a cuckoo,’ said John. ‘It’s watching us.’ They lay quite still. After a timeless, breathless pause, the cuckoo spread its wings and flew away. They heard its two note call, very close and loud as the bird alighted on its song post. Then it moved away again and the call was muted, like a clock behind a closed door.
For a while afterwards they rested, John asleep, Maggie lying beside him, looking up at the deepening blue of the sky. ‘They’ll be home from Silloth soon,’ she said, as John stirred. ‘I hope Judith hasn’t caught too much sun. Her skin’s like mine.’
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured, turning to kiss her one more time. They got dressed and brushed themselves down. He held her shoulders. ‘I know how important the Catholic thing is and that you’re worried about your mam. I’ll talk to her about it. There has to be a way to do this without lying to everyone. I’ve spent the last ten years lying about myself, because I wasn’t able to stand up to my mother. And what did you think of that?’
Maggie hung her head.
‘You said you couldn’t love someone who didn’t stand up for himself. Well, this is me standing up for myself. I’m not lying about something as big as this, Maggie. I can’t. Why don’t you talk to your dad – or I could? See what he says. Maybe someone could talk to Father Pryce.’
‘Not a chance of that,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ve told you, what he says goes in this parish. Even Dad’s scared of him. Before the accident he’d be out the back door like a rat up a drainpipe whenever Father Pryce came calling. The only person we can talk to is our mam.’
‘You or me?’
‘Oh God,’ said Maggie. ‘Let me talk to Dad first and see. Don’t say anything yet. When do you have to go again, to the church?’
‘Next week,’ he said. ‘I nearly told him there and then that I wouldn’t be back.’ He hesitated. ‘What’s the worst that could happen, if I can’t go through with all this stuff?’
‘He won’t marry us in church, and we go down the registry office and do it there. We’re married, but not as far as the church is concerned.’
‘Could you live with that, for us?’ he asked.
She turned to him.
‘I know what I want,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here before, and what I feel now for you is nothing like what I felt for Isaac. I married him because we’d been going out and he wanted to bed me and that was the only way it was going to happen. So he asked me to wed, and I fancied having my own place and a bairn or two, and he had a job and he was clean, so I said I would. I thought I loved him but I didn’t, I know that now. I love Judith, but this is different. I’m not that fussed about marrying anyone again, but there’s not only us to think of. If we have kids, that’s when it matters.’
‘Do you want kids?’ he said. ‘With me?’
‘All in good time,’ she said. ‘Let’s sort this mess out first. What about your mam? What will she say?’
‘She’s no place to say anything at all,’ he said. ‘Doing what’s right for her, no one else, that’s been her rule ever since I came along. I’m not even sure I want her at our wedding, however it turns out.’
‘Was that my fault, when I went to see her?’
‘Nay, lass, what bothered me was that you didn’t tell me yourself. Made me a look a fool.’
‘She didn’t back down,’ said Maggie. ‘You’d have laughed if you’d heard us. All very proper, no swearing. Has she ever said anything about it to you?’
‘Not much.’
‘I said some hard things to her, and she came right back. Snide though, that’s what I didn’t like. Hinting at things, trying to put me in my place.’
John laughed. ‘Putting you in your place! We could have sold tickets for that. Who’d’ve thought, two women scrapping over me. I was proud of you, deep down, you know. It made me realise how afraid of her I’d got over the years. Now it’s your turn to worry about your mother.’ He paused. ‘You know I was so angry with Jessie the other day that I just stormed out, but we didn’t settle anything. Maybe I should go back and do it properly this time.’
Maggie looked hard at him, gripping his arm. ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’
‘See,’ said John. ‘That’s how I felt. No, I won’t go charging in, but someone needs to. I’ve spent half my life pretending and I’m not going to start my life with you that way. We deserve better than that.’ He got his feet and pulled her up. ‘Come on, it’s cooling down.’
When John walked back to Sandwith alone later in the evening, it was still light enough to hide the stars, and the orange disc of the rising moon made him stop in his tracks and watch as it moved. A blackbird sang close by as if it were the middle
of the day. The conversation with Maggie lingered in his mind. We don’t choose our mothers, he thought. Jessie didn’t bring me up, and doesn’t even know me well. There is no special bond. We are who we are and very different from each other. So why it does it matter to me when she grieves for another young man, someone more exotic than me, more talented?
* * *
It was Sunday afternoon. Matthew had driven from Cockermouth to see Jessie, worried by a note from her in which she mentioned that she hadn’t been well. The note told him very little, and he wanted to see for himself. He didn’t write or call ahead, taking the chance that she would be there. She was taken aback to see his car turning into the drive while she was reading the paper in the sunlit sitting room. She was pleased to see him, but anxious too. Telling him about John was important and necessary, she knew that, but she wasn’t ready to do so.
When she opened the front door he stepped straight in and put both arms around her, holding her tight before stepping back to take a good look at her.
‘You look wonderful,’ he said. ‘You’ve caught some sun and it suits you.’
She smiled. ‘I spent quite a few days in bed, a couple of weeks ago,’ she said. ‘Maybe I needed the rest. And the past few days I’ve been mostly in the garden.’ She closed the door and looked up at him. ‘I’m enjoying the garden here more than I expected to,’ she said, remembering their earlier conversation about her life after teaching. ‘I’ll show you later.’
She ushered him into the sitting room, clearing away the newspaper so that they could both sit on the large sofa.
‘So what was it?’ he asked, ‘What sent you to bed?’
‘It’s a long story,’ she said. ‘Let me make us both some coffee. Agnes brings it from London and it’s really good. Come in the kitchen while I’m doing it. It’s so good to see you.’
Jessie talked as she made their coffee. ‘You remember that tragedy at the camp? It was in all the papers,’ she said. ‘The man who died was one of the ones I’ve been teaching English to. He was a wonderful person, and I was very fond of him. I knew he was sad, and if I’d realised what he intended a bit earlier, I might have saved him. Guilt. It eats away at you.’
‘If he was determined, there was probably no way to stop him,’ said Matthew. ‘What did he do?’
‘He wrapped a heavy cross to his body, put stones in his pockets, and walked into the sea. I watched him drown. It was awful, Matthew.’
‘How dreadful. Poor you,’ he said, putting his arm round her. ‘No wonder you were upset by that.’
She leaned against him. That wasn’t all she had to tell him, but it was all she could manage.
As they drank their coffee, he was quiet. Then he said, ‘Do you remember I told you about Joan dying? There was so much guilt there, too. I’m a doctor, I should have seen how ill she was. But I was so wrapped up in the work at the hospital, with other people, most of them injured. I just took it for granted that my normally healthy wife, with no visible symptoms beyond a sort of ’flu, just needed a few days’ rest. And she never complained, but I should have known. She could have been saved, but by the time I got her into hospital it was too late. By that time her heart had been too strained and it just gave up. She died in my arms, and the girls were there, too. We’ve never really talked about it, not in all the years since. It’s as if they can’t let her go – Ann especially.’
‘Is that why she worries about me?’ said Jessie.
‘Does she?’
Jessie smiled. ‘Can’t you see it?’
‘She’s my daughter,’ he said. ‘She looks so like her mother. It’s hard to deal with your adult children as if they were your friends.’
Jessie realised how true that was. Why did she say such crass things to John sometimes, things that she wouldn’t say to anyone else?
‘Enough,’ he said. ‘Show me the garden. Let’s see what you’ve been up to.’
* * *
It was in the garden that John found them, standing close together among the runner beans, as Matthew took Jessie in his arms and kissed her.
John had noticed the car as he wheeled his bike down the steep drive at Applegarth. He knew it didn’t belong to Agnes, so whose was it? There was no response to his knock on the door, but he could hear voices from somewhere close and followed the sound round the side of the house to the back garden. It took a moment to spot Jessie among the high trellises of sweet peas and runner beans, and a moment more to realise that she was not alone. A man was with her. Neither of them saw him, and as he watched the man kissed his mother.
John froze, wondering what to do. He could feel a blush seeping up his face. Then he stepped slowly backwards, around the corner of the house and out of sight. He retraced his steps to the front porch, hammered once again on the door and this time called out.
‘Hello,’ he called, ‘anyone at home?’
He waited. Jessie appeared round the side of the house, brushing back her hair, straightening the collar of her blouse. She looked surprised to see him. They both stayed where they were, separated by a few yards, and by mutual incomprehension.
‘John! I didn’t know you were coming today.’
‘I was passing,’ he said, speaking the first lie of the afternoon.
‘I’m in the garden,’ she explained. ‘Come round. I have another visitor, he’s been helping me.’
They reached the spot from which John had retreated in confusion. This time the man in the garden was looking in their direction. He looked flushed and was smiling, holding a bunch of sweetpeas in his hand like an elderly bridesmaid.
‘It’s John, Matthew,’ said Jessie. ‘John, you remember my friend Matthew Dawson, the doctor. We’ve been picking sweetpeas.’ She blushed. ‘And talking,’ she added.
‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Hello, Dr Dawson.’
‘We’re finished out here, just heading in for a drink. Will you join us?’ said Jessie.
Questions unasked and unanswered fluttered round their heads like moths as the three of them sat in Agnes’s cool kitchen, drinking elderflower water from the pantry. The sweetpeas lay in the sun on a chair by the door, their soft fragrance creeping in and around them. Jessie was the first to let her curiosity break the awkward silence.
‘Was it me you were looking for, or Agnes?’ she said.
‘You,’ said John.
‘Would you like me to leave?’ said Matthew, scraping his chair on the flagged floor as he tried to stand up.
‘No,’ said Jessie and John simultaneously.
‘So, what is it?’ said Jessie. She remembered the bitterness of their last meeting. Surely John would not speak to her like that in front of someone else.
‘As I said, I was passing, and wondered, you know, how you are. Last time I saw you, you weren’t … very well. The young man from the camp, who –’
‘’Yes,’ said Jessie. ‘I’m feeling better now, as you can see.’
‘Yes,’ said John. He sipped his cordial, wondering what was going on with Dr Dawson and his mother. ‘I told you,’ he said, addressing himself to Jessie, ‘that I’m getting married.’
‘I remember,’ said Jessie, as the bitterness of their previous encounter washed over her again. ‘Have you set a date?’
‘Not yet. There may be a problem with the church.’
‘What’s wrong with the church?’
‘Well, it’s with the priest, Father Pryce. My fiancée is a Catholic, and Father Pryce won’t marry us unless I believe in God, and I don’t.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Matthew.
‘I’ve been going for instruction, as they call it. He looks like a young bloke, the priest, but he treats me as if I’m a child. There’s no discussion or anything, he just lays down the law, like the headmaster when I was at school.’
John saw his mother smile.
‘What can you do?’ said Matthew.
‘Maggie’s mother is a stubborn woman. She’s the one who says we have to do it in church or we’re not properly m
arried, and if we have children …’
‘I see,’ said Matthew. ‘That’s a tricky one.’
Jessie got up. ‘You two have a think about it, and I’ll put those sweetpeas in some water before they wilt.’
John was annoyed. It was Jessie he’d come to talk to, not someone he hardly knew, and the two men sat in silence when Jessie left the table. Suddenly John recalled with absolute clarity when and where he had first met Dr Dawson. It was in this house, the day that he had come to confront his mother for the first time, nearly ten years before. Jessie had cried, and shown him a photograph of his father. And then she told him that they could not be together as mother and son, and his dream of belonging had crumbled away. His mind raced. Ten years was long enough. He had to speak.
‘I remember the first time I saw you, Dr Dawson,’ said John. ‘Ten years ago, when I first came to this house. You were here that day.’ Jessie stood at the pantry door, holding the vase and the bright flowers.
‘John,’ she said, raising her hand. Water trickled from the vase onto the floor.
‘We had found Jessie by the road, Agnes and I, and brought her here. She had hurt her ankle. Agnes sent for you, and you came.’
Matthew Dawson nodded slowly. ‘Joan came with me,’ he said. Jessie didn’t move.
‘After you left, I talked to Jessie,’ said John. ‘I told her that I am her son.’
The vase dropped to the floor. Water and glass and delicate petals splashed and scattered over their feet. Jessie cried out and fell to her knees, scrabbling at the stems with her fingers. Matthew bent and held her hands. ‘The glass,’ he said. ‘Be careful.’
John looked down at them both. He took a deep breath, and stepped back as Matthew pulled Jessie to her feet. She put her hand to her mouth, and blood smeared against her lips.
CHAPTER 25
‘WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?’
Jessie and Matthew were alone again. John had left without another word and his angry presence still hung in the room.
Jessie blew her nose and wiped her eyes. ‘I wanted to. After Piotr died, when I was so upset, I wanted to tell you the truth then, but Caroline had said –’
