Twelve years on, Vincent could still summon, at will, the mounting, joyous certainty of that day; the peace that at long last re-entered his heart, the sense that God was watching, as, of course, he always had been, not laughingly, but tender and glad. The sight of Connie on his doorstep in her rumpled black overcoat, her face grey with fatigue, and the strain of having missed him, as she immediately, shyly confessed, almost came as no surprise. Of course Connie had been there, waiting for him. Of course. This was his path in life, requiring only that he acknowledge and commit to it. Four months later they were married.
‘Vincent?’ Connie’s eyes blinked slowly.
‘Hello, my darling. I let you lie in.’
Vincent approached the bed, Mrs Owen’s clumsy words of interference still ringing in his ears. He marvelled at the calmness of his wife’s face in repose, at how little change over a decade and two children had wrought. Her looks astonished him still, the dusting of freckles across the high bridge of her cheekbones, the violent blue of her irises, the neat indents of her knees and ankle bones. But she had got thin. That in itself was a bad sign. Quite apart from the other signs, the ones that had propelled him to get them out of London.
‘Did you?’ She struggled upright, digging her knuckles into her eyes. ‘Oh no. What’s the time? Where are the girls?’
‘The girls are fine. I have given them a job in the garden. The veg patch. I found an old trowel and fork in one of the sheds. They are digging, clearing the weeds. Eleanor is in charge, as she likes to be.’ He smiled, sitting on the bed and crossing his legs. It felt good to be free of the cassock for once, in jeans and an old grey sweater. It was one Connie had patched at the elbows during the early days, using squares of leather and tight neat stitching, which she said she had learnt in Domestic Science at school. ‘I’m keeping today simple,’ he said. ‘A visit to Tony Mossop’s widow this afternoon – otherwise I’m taking it off. I thought I might get some paint.’
‘Paint?’
‘For Eleanor’s new bedroom.’
‘Oh that. Yes.’ She flopped back against the pillows. ‘Are you sure she wants it?’
‘Of course she wants it. Look, I made you some tea.’ He nodded at the mug he had left on the bedside table, watching with satisfaction as she grabbed it with both hands and drank deeply. The lilac smudges under her eyes were growing darker, Vincent observed. She had never been an easy sleeper, not even during the good years, fighting the bedclothes, taking trips to the bathroom. It was one of the things he had hoped the countryside might improve, fill her up with good health, good air. ‘We need to talk, Con.’
‘Oh really? What about?’ She swigged more tea, half hiding her face.
Vincent’s heart twisted at the sight of her absorbing his challenge. Though motherhood had initially provided an anchor, it had gradually lost its purchase, so gradually that it had taken him a very long time to notice. Too long, and for that he blamed himself bitterly. She was so adept at concealment, that was the trouble, hiding not just the bottles, but the wherewithal to buy them. Even now, safely away from all her old haunts and under his greater control, she somehow managed. She was canny, calculating, strong-willed, her own closest ally, as well as her worst enemy. Vincent wished Connie could understand how such contradictions only made him love her more. He was her rock, Vincent reminded himself. Without him she would be adrift.
‘You can’t leave the girls on their own.’
‘On their own?’
‘Con, I’ve just had Mrs Owens on the phone. Last Saturday she rang the house and got Eleanor. I was doing Tony Mossop and you were seen in town. I knew anyway because Eleanor told me, but hadn’t wanted to make a fuss.’
She slammed the mug down on the bedside table, slopping tea onto her pack of contraceptive pills. ‘I needed… some space.’ She bunched up her knees, hugging herself.
‘Connie.’
‘Fuck off, Vincent.’
‘Connie, look at me.’
‘I said fuck off. You’re getting people to spy on me now, are you? Nosy neighbours? The girls? And all you are really worried about anyway is whether I am screwing anybody else. Isn’t that right? I could drink myself into oblivion and you wouldn’t mind. It’s my body you care about, isn’t it? Not my health.’ She tore back the sheets and threw herself out of bed, fighting off Vincent’s efforts to put his arms round her. ‘I need to fucking pee.’
‘Okay, my love, okay.’ Vincent stayed where he was, studying the backs of his hands. The veins bulged. He waited for the clank of the loo flush, a long chain, ancient like all the vicarage fittings. ‘Better?’ he said when she returned, but she didn’t smile.
‘I need to get dressed.’
‘Con.’
‘And I don’t require an audience, thank you.’
‘Con, talk to me.’
‘I’m not some poor sod in a confessional box, Vincent, needing to spill their miserable innards for absolution… Hey – stop it. Stop it. Let me go.’
Vincent had taken hold of her shoulders. ‘No, I am not your confessor, Connie,’ he whispered urgently, ‘nor anyone else’s for that matter.’ He squeezed her slender frame more tightly, aware of his own strange excitement, building as it always did. ‘I am your husband. Your husband. And if the worst stuff is starting again, then I need to know the extent of it, so that I can help—’
She swung at him, elbows and fists. It took all his strength to keep her in the vice of his arms. For her safety, he told himself, for her safety. Somehow, in spite of the squirming, he swivelled her round to face him. She was so small. He always thought that when he held her tightly. The fight went out of her suddenly and she stared up at him. The specks of black in her eyes had spread, darkening the blue. Like a cat’s, Vincent thought, when steadying itself to pounce.
‘Help me?’ she said quietly. ‘Help me? Like the way you helped me by bringing me to this godforsaken place.’
‘It was time for me to try a new parish—’
‘Like hell it was. It was time to get me out of London, more like. Wasn’t it? Lock me up and throw away the key.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous—’
‘To make me your prisoner.’
‘You are not my prisoner. There is a good life for you here, if only you would see it. Connie, I’ve been… I am… so worried about you.’
‘Worried that I might have a good time? Too good a time? Because that’s what you mean by the “worst stuff”, isn’t it? The danger that I might remember how to enjoy myself. Maybe even talk to other men?’ Her black-blue eyes glittered.
‘I don’t call drinking yourself stupid having a good time.’ Vincent spoke slowly and heavily, doing his best to imbue the words with the weight of his sorrow rather than admonition. At the back of his mind meanwhile hovered images her accusations had conjured, the ones that cut as deeply as she intended: her nakedness in the embrace of another man. Such imaginings came at him all the time, searing his brain. There had been evidence of such goings-on in London, the bruised look to her lips, the times in the night when he woke to find her gone, just to the spare room she said, and he had never caught her out. But he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything.
‘Oh, well thanks for the hot tip,’ she sneered. ‘I’ll bear it in mind, oh Wise One, oh Servant of the Lord who has all the answers.’
‘Connie, don’t talk to me like that. Stop this, please.’
She had started twisting again and he had to hold on harder, more roughly. He tried to call on God, to ask the voice for help. When no answer came, he wondered suddenly if Connie’s taunts were justified; whether all he had was the desire for faith rather than faith itself. Connie certainly had lost faith in him. He was a sham, she liked to claim now, a control freak masquerading as a priest. Her own show of early religious zeal had shrunk to the occasional charade, for the sake of the girls, she said, rather than the outside world. During one of the recent late-night arguments, triggered by his plea that she attend church, she had snarled that the
outside world could go fuck itself and then taken the eiderdown and her pillows into the bathroom for the night, sliding the bolt across when he tried to come in.
‘You are not yourself,’ Vincent said hoarsely as one of his elbows caught her chin, knocking her head back. If only she didn’t fight so hard. ‘I know you are not yourself.’
‘Oh yes I am. This is me, Vincent. Me.’ She spat the word, flinging specks of spittle onto his cheeks and eyelids. His elbow had left a small red mark on her jaw. ‘The woman you married.’
Vincent flinched but clung on. They became one creature, locked and wrestling. He used his greater strength to steer her towards the bed. When it was behind her, he pushed with all his might, falling heavily on top of her as she hit the mattress. ‘Connie.’
She thrashed her head from side to side. He had to wait for the right moment to kiss her, biding his time, like a boxer watching when to throw a punch. When his mouth found hers, she fought more fiercely, pushing upwards with her hips, but then relented suddenly as he had known she would. He put his knee between her thighs, forcing her legs apart. She fell silent and he knew he had won, that she was his again, for that morning at least.
8
Eleanor reversed slowly away from her parents’ half-open bedroom door and ran downstairs, not stopping until she was back by the shed where her father had taken her and Kat to choose gardening tools that morning.
All she had been able to see was her mother’s arms and legs, sticking out from under the bulk of her father as he lay on top of her. The arms and legs had looked small and oddly floppy, as if she might almost have been asleep. But her father had been moving – rocking – saying her mother’s name and holding her as if he never meant to let go. He had all his clothes on, but his trousers were loose, halfway down his pants, the belt undone.
Her mother was sick, Eleanor reminded herself, slowing to a walk when she reached the path from the shed to the patch where she and Kat had been digging. She was sick and needed special looking after, as their father had lately grown so fond of telling them. It was why he had recently made Connie throw all the cigarettes he had found onto the fire and why she wasn’t to drive the car again, he explained, not until she had got her strength back.
The ants’ nest which had scared Kat and made her run for help was still spewing its angry red inhabitants. Like a miniature volcano, Eleanor decided, crouching down to poke at the mound with her trowel, watching, mesmerised, as the larva of insects glowed brighter.
The thickness of the silence crept up on her slowly. Where was Kat?
She straightened, looking about her properly. ‘Kat?’ she called crossly, thinking how typical that her sister should create a stir and then be fine. ‘Are you hiding? Come out if you are.’ It was only then that she noticed the gate into Mr Watson’s field hanging half open on its big rusty hinge.
Eleanor ran through into the impenetrable jungle of thick green stalks that had recently burst into being. Too high to see over, they shimmied and swayed in the morning sun, as if riffled by giant invisible fingers. She stumbled through them, calling Kat’s name, fighting her way to the stile that led into the next field, the one she and Kat had been forbidden from exploring because of its proximity to the railway line.
Her wellingtons made it hard work; clods of mud glued themselves to the soles, weighing her down and making her feet slide off balance. Within minutes, her socks had rucked into uncomfortable tight rolls round her toes, leaving the thin bare skin on her heels at the mercy of the boots’ rough lining. At every moment, she hoped to see Kat, squatting over some object of fascination, or maybe even lying on her back as she did in the garden sometimes, claiming to be watching for when the door to heaven opened, granting her a peek – she said – of an angel. But Kat liked running even more than lying on her back, Eleanor reflected unhappily. She had been famously speedy since toddlerhood – nippy and up to mischief – as their parents had often observed fondly; not a clodhopper like her big sister.
At the stile, Eleanor clambered onto the top plank, looking out rather than down, which she knew would make her dizzy. Using her hand as a visor, she peered back the way she had come, half fearing, half hoping that one or both parents would come into view. But the only sign of movement was a flash of ginger as Titch scooted out of the tall green shoots and into the hedge, on one of his urgent private missions.
The wood of the stile was damp and Eleanor slipped getting down it, grazing her arm. She lumbered on, heading towards the section of fence that overlooked the railway line, the panic swelling inside her. As she ran, she pictured what she would find: Kat at the bottom of the embankment in a bloodied mess, limbs twisted, a ghost of recrimination in her open, glassy, lifeless blue eyes. She had a vivid imagination, that was her trouble. It had already been remarked on by Miss Zaphron, her new English teacher. ‘Your mind takes off,’ she had declared in front of the whole class, before going on to demonstrate the fact by reading out one of Eleanor’s compositions, publicly awarding Eleanor a top mark for it and putting the seal on her already manifest lack of popularity.
Reaching the railway fence at last, it was with a sort of curiosity that she wriggled underneath. What would Kat look like dead and mashed to pieces?
Eleanor peered over the edge of the siding. Her little sister came into view at once, not bloodied or dead, but crouched awkwardly on the slant, her skirt bunched up, having a pee. ‘Kat, what are you doing?’ she yelled. ‘People will see.’
‘Only if there’s a train,’ Kat shouted back, tugging unevenly and inexpertly at her pants, which had got hooked over her wellingtons. ‘And there isn’t.’
‘Get back up here,’ Eleanor shrieked, the bubble of worry bursting into anger.
‘No, Bossyboots.’ Kat stuck her tongue out, but then started to climb back up the bank anyway.
‘You should never just run off,’ Eleanor scolded, grabbing Kat’s arm and giving it a shake. ‘We’re not allowed here, Dummy. Remember what happened last time? Which means we have got to run back home, fast as we can.’ She burrowed back under the fence and Kat followed, but then stayed lying on her belly.
‘I’m tired.’ She plucked disconsolately at the sparse grass.
Eleanor stared down at her sister in disbelief. The sting of the hairbrush was still vivid, a memory of humiliation as much as pain; being commanded by her father to roll onto her stomach and pull her pyjamas down, baring her bottom. Her innards went liquid just thinking about it. ‘We’ll get told off again,’ she reminded Kat with queasy urgency. ‘Punished. You don’t want that, do you? We’ve got to hurry.’
‘It didn’t hurt.’
‘Of course it hurt.’
‘Did not. It didn’t touch.’
‘What? Get up, come on.’ Eleanor yanked Kat onto her feet and then set off back towards the stile at as brisk a pace as she could manage, dragging her along behind. ‘What do mean didn’t touch anyway?’
‘The brush.’
‘The brush didn’t touch you?’ She stopped, dropping Kat’s hand.
Kat shook her head importantly. ‘Daddy did pretend hitting.’ She darted on ahead suddenly, reaching the stile first and riding it piggyback until Eleanor caught up with her. ‘I’ll say you looked after me, Ellie,’ she offered, perhaps reading some new heaviness in her sister’s step. ‘If we get told off. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Don’t be cross, Ellie. I don’t like it.’
‘If Dad asks, just say we walked as far as the stile, okay? Here.’ Eleanor thumped the top plank. ‘To the stile. Nothing more.’ Her voice was a croak. She felt hollowed out.
‘Nothing. More. Nothing. More.’ Kat cawed the words, flapping her arms as she leapt off the stile into the lake of shimmering green, ploughing through it like a small, rogue wave.
By the time they reached the garden, Vincent was back, digging at the overgrown beds with his hefty fork, whistling. Eleanor braced herself. Kat was too young to be trusted with a lie, too young to know about cons
equences. But when her father looked up, he was grinning.
‘Bad girls, playing in Mr Watson’s fields.’ He winked, resting on the fork to wag a chastising finger. His eyes looked shinier than usual, Eleanor noticed, and the bit of his face above the edges of his beard was bright pink, like when he was sunburnt.
‘Is Mummy still in bed?’ Eleanor plucked at a tall grass stem, pretending to study it closely. The glimpse through her parents’ open bedroom door slid back into her mind. She thought of how crushed her mother had looked under her father, how tightly he had been hugging her and wondered how that could really help with getting her strength back.
‘Yes. She’s especially poorly today, as I’ve already told you. So you have to be extra good and grown-up.’
‘Gardening, you mean?’ Eleanor ventured more brightly, retrieving her trowel, the relief at not being told off starting to take hold. Days with her father at the helm were always smoother; no sofa-lying or false-start expeditions to swimming pools; no false promises.
‘Gardening, yes, and shopping. We shall go to the supermarket and stock up the fridge, so poor Mum doesn’t need to leave the house this week. And we’ll buy the paint for your new room, get cracking on that.’
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