Such Men Are Dangerous
Page 21
“What a dopy girl you are! And how strenuous you make it sound.”
“For myself as much as you, please note!”
“You know what? I’m not certain that in the long run it wouldn’t be easier if I simply paid the bill.”
“Oh, Simeon! Where’s your spirit of adventure?”
36
On the Tuesday morning it was raining. Mrs Madison, after a night in which she’d hardly slept, drove Simon to the church.
“Darling,” she’d said at breakfast, “I wish I wasn’t such a coward. But you know me: if I walk to the end of the road I feel I’ve been on a good hike. After the first half-hour you’d all have to take turns to carry me.” She’d produced a piece of paper from her pocket. On one side it said, ‘Infirm’ and, further down, ‘Remarkably infirm’. On the other side: ‘And desperately ashamed’. He saw the tears begin to glaze her eyes and wordlessly took her hand. He had known she wouldn’t come.
She went and fetched more sugar, glad of the pretext this gave for turning her back a moment.
“But, no, you shouldn’t treat me gently. I’m not a special case, you know, because I happen to be your mother. I am all those ghastly things you said.”
“What ghastly things?”
“Apathetic, lazy, selfish, parasitic. How dare I call myself a Christian?” Having filled the sugar bowl she moved to the refrigerator and opened it to show several large packets wrapped in greaseproof paper. “However, I do make lovely sandwiches.”
He smiled. “Blessed are the sandwich-makers. For their children shall be filled. But I hope I’m not being especially gentle with you, even though of course you are a special case. Because I don’t want to be ungentle with anyone.”
She was pouring their coffee. “This isn’t an excuse,” she said, “because I know I’m all the other things, but—how dare I call myself a Christian? Quite honestly, I never have. Not in my heart of hearts. Naturally, when your son becomes a vicar, you have a certain front to keep up. You can’t go round telling people, ‘Oh, gracious, you didn’t ever imagine that he caught it from me?’”
“I hope you’re not expecting this to be a revelation.”
“No. But I’ve never actually mentioned it. I thought it might seem like letting the side down.”
He said: “Without you there’d have been no side to let down.”
“Fiddlesticks!”
“And I don’t know why you should think that because I’d decided to give my life to God people would somehow expect the same of you. I can assure you I never did.” He paused. “However, like it or not, I very much believe you are a religious woman. Which doesn’t mean—no, not at all—that you’ve had to accept Christ as your saviour. There are many roads round the mountain.”
She answered cautiously.
“Well, I’m not saying that after spending nearly a quarter of my life with a theological student, and a curate, and a vicar, a little of it mayn’t have rubbed off. But Simon. It’s really such a relief to be able to talk like this. And while we’re at it there’s something else I’ve never quite been able to ask. What made you decide to give your life to God like that? Was it Ginny?”
“Yes.” The word was delayed; slightly clipped.
“And all along you’ve believed it was your own fault, haven’t you? Oh, you more than foolish child! But you’ve never let me comfort you.”
“Joel would now have been fourteen. Do you realize that?” The child, stillborn, had been a boy.
“Of course I do. There’s scarcely a day when I don’t think about them both. Him and Ginny.”
“In any case,” he said, “the guilt I felt, it really doesn’t matter whether it was rational or not. Perhaps I should have gone to a psychiatrist. Right now I’m glad I didn’t.”
His mother put another slice into the toaster.
“If that’s for me I couldn’t eat it.” This morning she had made him a cooked breakfast; insisted he had three eggs, three tomatoes, three rashers of bacon—mercifully, only one piece of fried bread.
“Frank Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade,” she said. “I got it specially.”
“Then Frank Cooper must possess his soul in patience.”
“But for how long? That’s the question.”
“God knows.”
“Oh dear.” She stared for an instant towards the window. “And why does it have to be raining? God may know all right but sometimes, it seems to me, God doesn’t go out of his way to make things any easier.”
“Hey!”
“How do you feel about it all?”
“You mean…now that the big day has actually arrived? I feel…well, okay.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes. Certainly nervous. Very nervous. It would be a little strange if I didn’t.”
“But you truly did manage to sleep? That wasn’t a kind story?”
“No, I truly did manage to sleep. And when I didn’t I was resting.”
“Praying?”
“If that’s what you want to call it. Thinking. Remembering. Feeling grateful.”
“Me, I just had a bad night.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t mind my talking to you about Ginny?”
“No.”
“I only wanted to say…” She looked down at the table.
“What?”
“Well, that while you’re walking to London, whatever the problems, however great the discouragement—”
“You don’t need to finish. I know that. Wherever I happen to be. Whatever I happen to be doing. I know that.”
She smiled, waveringly. “More of it must have rubbed off than I’d thought! Who would have guessed it: I’m a religious woman!”
He laughed—also a little waveringly. Bit his lip. Got up from the table.
She said more practically, “Have you remembered to pack plenty of these things?”
“Mother, I’m travelling down to London, not into the wilderness. In the wilderness, I grant, there aren’t too many corner shops. On the road to London you can certainly buy tissues.”
“Darling,” she said, with a sudden sharp and urgent note of warning. “Please. Please don’t hold out too much hope.”
“What? Of corner shops, or tissues?”
“Of there being lots of people waiting at the church.”
“My love, I’m not naive. My words from the pulpit may have made me seem so, but—in this rain? Especially in this rain, I ought to say. Twenty? Even if there are only twelve, that wouldn’t be too bad. In fact, tolerably auspicious.” He thought it must have helped prepare him that having sent off a score of letters to his and Ginny’s friends he hadn’t received one reply that had basically done more than wish him luck and his whole fantastic enterprise success. (Or mind-blowing or worthy or admirable, whatever.) “Anyway, give me a few minutes and we’ll go to find out,” he smiled. “Thank you for the breakfast. And once again—thank you for the money.”
The previous afternoon she had withdrawn five hundred pounds. He had accepted it, gratefully.
Now he went to the lavatory, cleaned his teeth and put some final items into his haversack—including the sandwiches and a large vacuum flask which made the straps almost impossible to fasten. And through all of this he prayed, as he did, too, during their brief car journey. It was all going to be all right. Even the fact of his mother not coming was providential: with Alison and Dulcie gone she’d be able to keep a watchful eye both on Sharon Turner and on others. Not so long ago he’d wondered if he could really leave these people; but now things had changed and although of course he recognized an element of rationalization it was in fact perfectly true that nobody was indispensable. While he was absent his duties would be covered by the vicar and the curate of St Lawrence’s, also by the vicar of All Saints. These were willing, sympathetic men, and he was pleased it hadn’t been necessary to foist additional problems onto the rural dean. But praise the Lord: it was still as well his mother would be staying.
Th
e first people he saw when he got out of the car were Alison and Dulcie. They stood beneath the same umbrella.
“Simon,” said Alison, without preamble. “We’ve just heard something unfortunate. About Tony.”
“What about Tony?”
“Well, as it was raining he went to pick up the Heaths. Skidded on the way back. All that’s happened is that he and Bill have mild concussion plus a few cuts and bruises: they hit a lamppost. Dawn and Mick were sitting in the back and luckily weren’t hurt—just a little shaken up.”
“Are Tony and Bill at the hospital?”
“The ambulance took them all. Dawn’s husband went as well.”
“Was he in the car?”
“No. But I don’t know why not. There’d have been room.”
“What about April?”
It was Dulcie who answered this.
“Jack’s run her up to the hospital. Her and the babies.”
“Well, at least then it could have been worse.” He looked about him, dully. “Not what you’d call a massive turnout.” Apart from the two women in front of him and his mother at his side there were four. “Still, it isn’t yet nine.”
“Simon,” said Dulcie. “Jack and me aren’t coming.”
“What?”
“I only turned up so that I could let you know. We talked and we talked about it—and—well, you see, it’s like this, sort of…” She glanced at Alison for assistance.
“I’m afraid I’m not, either,” said Alison.
His eyes moved slowly from one to the other. With his lips, however, he said nothing.
“Simon, don’t look at us like that. At least we’ve had the guts to come and tell you. On Sunday you made it sound so simple. It isn’t simple. We’ve got homes and we’ve got families. We’ve got jobs. And once you lose a job these days—”
“Jobs,” said Simon.
“Yes. You don’t know what it means—”
Again he interrupted her. “Also, it’s raining.”
“Darling,” said Mrs Madison, reaching out to touch his arm and then holding onto it lightly. “Not ungentle—you remember?”
“Yes, and also it’s raining,” went on Alison, better able to cope with aggression than with pathos. “Simon, we all think the world of you, we really do, you’re the best thing that ever happened to this parish. And we’d like to be fully behind you, every one of us, but this, Simon, dear”—she briefly laid a hand on the other sleeve of his oilskin—“this really isn’t the way to do it. It’s a gallant gesture, it’s a marvellous gesture, it shows how very, very much you care. But it’s just quixotic, it won’t accomplish anything, and as Robert says…”
“Oh, yes? And what does Robert say?”
“He says it’s better to leave it to the proper ecclesiastical channels—quietly, correctly, without the rabble-raising element—to do that and…and to put all one’s trust into the good sense of the Church…and into…well, obviously, he says, the power of prayer.”
“Oh, has Robert suddenly become a believer, then? Great! But supposing you tell him that as a matter of fact I have been putting all my trust into the power of prayer? And at the same time you could try asking if he’s acquainted with that little phrase about a person’s stepping out in faith…? Excuse me, though, I’d like a quick word with the others.”
Easily pulling free of his mother’s restraining grip and leaving the three women standing at the kerbside he hurried to the church porch. He’d been surprised to see that Paula was one of those hanging back out of the rain—and at first even she had difficulty about meeting his gaze.
She appeared more breathless than ever. The problem was: she had an arthritic mother who said she couldn’t cope on her own and that, no, she didn’t want to have Cousin Rosie in the house, much less any stranger. Paula knew that—if she had to—her mother could have managed perfectly well.
“What do you say, Simon? If you tell me it’s my duty to come along, support you, that’s all I need to hear. I would come with you anywhere; yes, to the ends of the earth if you’d let me. I’d even…” But then she recollected herself and he suddenly saw she was Pitiful, not Pious, this podgy woman with the porous, over-pancaked complexion that looked about to crack up—crumble in the wet weather—and he half lifted a hand towards her in a vague gesture of comfort.
He said, “Paula, I told you from the pulpit that anyone who had to take care of the elderly or the sick was automatically exempt.” But he wasn’t sure whether it was gratitude or disappointment he noticed in her eyes or whether it was rainwater or tears he witnessed on her cheeks.
“What time do you make it, Paula?”
He’d long since realized that the three others in the porch were made up of a photographer and two journalists. It struck him with faint irony that there weren’t any TV cameras or radio microphones. The media had shrunk a bit since Sunday.
“It’s after nine,” she said. “It’s really quite surprising that your Saints Alive group isn’t out in force.”
“I imagine you’ve heard about Tony?”
“Yes. Poor Simon. You mustn’t take it as a sign.”
“I don’t.”
“Myself, I just don’t see how people could have stayed away. It was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. I told you that, didn’t I? And afterwards over coffee everyone was talking about it. Your mother said she felt like clapping at the end. And I agreed with her. How is Mrs Madison this morning?” Paula’s voice had grown a bit unsteady.
“She’s standing over there. I suggest you go and ask her.”
“I think she’s so courageous.” She was taking a thickly folded wad of papers out of her handbag. “I took the liberty of preparing a few hymn sheets, Simon. I only did about three hundred. I thought that everyone could share them.”
He transferred them to an inside pocket of his waterproof. “Thank you, Paula.”
She took out something else, which was wrapped in gold paper and tied with red ribbon. “Simon, I hope you won’t be offended: I bought you six bars of fruit-and-nut. The large ones. I believe they ought to be sustaining and in none of the shops—not even Binn’s—could I find any Kendal Mintcake, like I’ve read all the mountaineers take on their expeditions.”
Simon—sincerely appreciative of such thoughtfulness and generosity, albeit a little embarrassed—caught a whiff of Bluebell as he accepted the heavy gift. The smile he summoned up felt as though that, too, were made of plaster and starting to crack beneath the pressure of the infiltrating damp.
“And you’re really determined to go ahead with it?” she asked. “Just you and your dear mother?”
“My mother isn’t coming, Paula. I’m sorry—I think these men are waiting to speak to me.”
“Well, yes, sir, if we could trouble you with one or two more questions…?” Both the reporters were local: one from the Telegraph, the other from the Star.
While he was answering them as civilly as he felt able and while the photographer was energetically lining up a shot of Paula and his mother and Alison and Dulcie, another journalist, this time a woman, and this time, he knew, from one of the national dailies—well, formerly so at any rate—stepped out of a taxi that had just pulled up; and, having settled with the driver, lifted her brand new knapsack off the back seat.
Yes. Formerly so at any rate. Geraldine had both handed in her notice to the Chronicle (and it wasn’t everybody who could resign upon a Sunday afternoon!) and then had to say she didn’t intend to work it out, either.
Geoff had told her not to be a bloody fool. This was hardly unexpected. She had held the receiver some distance from her ear and even at one point put it in her lap (she was sitting on the hotel bed) and smiled at it benignly.
If she wanted to join in this demonstration he had said…well, that was entirely all right; just to phone in her copy in the usual way; she was back on the assignment. He had apparently found it incomprehensible that she should wish to take part in the march completely free of professional commitment.
“Yes to the first—though I don’t quite recognize your description. No to the second—though as you’re speaking from experience you clearly think yourself the better judge.”
“Listen, I can’t talk now,” he’d told her, urgently. “Come back to London, we’ll thresh this thing out properly, you’ve had these crazy whims before. Perhaps they’re even, I shouldn’t say this, in some way a part of your appeal.” Why did this remind her of the endearing charm of Fleet Street? “And as to our never seeing each other again—not merely absurd but patently out of the question: what about my bathrobe, my dinner suit, my electric razor?”
She suddenly remembered how she had spoken about this man to Josh Heath.
“Oh, I’ll take them to a charity shop,” she reassured him. “Don’t worry. Hard though it is to imagine, there could even be somebody somewhere who may shortly bless your name. God moves in a mysterious way…” (She thought Dawn would be pleased with her.)
“Always the joker!” he said. “Besides. I’ve been going a little more deeply into this question of divorce and I really think that now—”
“Goodbye, Alex,” she said and put down the receiver, uncharitably enjoying the idea of leaving him a little more deeply into this question of divorce. (In fact, it had been his wife who had answered the telephone. This was the first time Geraldine had spoken to her. Only a few words, obviously, but actually she’d sounded nice.) Then she began to remember how much she’d loved him at the start and to think of how kind he’d often been; began to think of some of the silly things they’d enjoyed doing together and of how he had sometimes reduced her to a positive ache of laughter. She remembered, too, how he’d occasionally made her body lift to his in a passion of ecstasy which although she could now recall it only intellectually she knew at the time had seemed utterly unsurpassable…and she abruptly regretted their affair should have had to end this way in bitterness. She felt a sense of loss along with liberation.