by MARY HOCKING
She shook her head jerkily, disposing of this suggestion as she might flick away a fly. ‘You don’t understand Samantha. She doesn’t look for invitations, she regards herself as having right of entry. And once she has a foot in the door, nothing will move her until she herself decides to go. And that will be when she has caused as much mischief . . .’ Her voice was spiralling shrilly.
He held up a hand. ‘But you can’t lock yourself up in your house as if it was a fortress, now can you, my dear?’
He saw her eyes darken and go cold when he said ‘my dear’ and himself regretted the words which, said without compassion, betrayed masculine impatience with a tiresome woman. His head was aching so much he could find no way of improving matters. He said, ‘Will you think over what we have said during the next week and then talk to me again? As you know, I hear confessions at the church at six o’clock on Friday evenings. Why not come then?’
She said dully, ‘Yes, of course.’
‘And in the meantime we will both pray about this.’
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Thank you. Oh, thank you for that.’
He was disconcerted by this late show of humility and after she had gone spent some time in prayer until Valentine came to the window, arms full of hawthorn blossom. ‘You are to say how beautiful it is,’ she commanded gaily, ‘and to assure me that it is a silly pagan superstition that it must not be brought into the house.’
Chapter Five
‘And so,’ the voice came breathlessly to the difficult part. ‘I know you’ll understand if I say I can’t come this week.’
Hester said, ‘Bloody hell, Veronica!’ She could see the whisk resting on the side of the bowl where she had set it down to answer the telephone. She could smell the lemon juice.
‘I know you won’t have made too many preparations as it’s only me,’ the voice continued, gaining strength now that the worst was past. ‘I’m as disappointed as you are, but I really can’t go away and leave the old aunt.’
‘She’s got neighbours, hasn’t she? And Nurse.’
‘But it’s always me she wants at such times, poor old love.’
‘So, you’re not coming?’
‘Hester, how can I? There is no one I want to see more than you at this moment, things have been pretty bleak lately and I was longing for one of our lovely long walks and a good talk in the evening and . . . But this is duty.’ A pause, rather a long one. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Standing to attention.’
‘I’ll come next month, if that’s all right with you. She’ll be better by then.’
‘If she hasn’t broken the other one.’
‘Even if she has, Nurse will have to cope.’
So why can’t Nurse cope now? Hester wondered. She stood asking the phone this question after she had put down the receiver. ‘The answer,’ she said aloud, ‘is that I am Veronica’s oldest friend, but I am not a duty – in fact, I am in the nature of a temptation. Friendship has an element of pleasure in it, so it is never wrong to put it to one side when duty calls. And quite right, too. All very proper and praiseworthy.’ Yet how it stung, this assumption that one had no needs. But Veronica has others to consider, she told herself as she turned back to the kitchen, others more important than I. Tears pricked her eyes. Oh, the pain of never being at the centre of another’s life! It was largely her own choice, of course, but that didn’t mean she did not sometimes grieve over it, that path not taken.
‘This is tosh!’ she said, whisking more vigorously, the white of egg spattering the wall. When she was not writing, thoughts raced through her mind like undisciplined children who could not understand that while they might be welcomed and encouraged during one period of her day, they must behave themselves in more seemly fashion when she was not at her desk.
Later, as she came to terms with the clutter in the sink, she thought: how fast life moves! It doesn’t allow us time to savour the joys of the present moment, and when we are old, we turn back, hoping to recapture the treasures we left undiscovered. And we get maudlin, unable to take small disappointments, such as the last-minute defection of a loved friend. She thought of the things she had never done – slept under canvas or gone to live on a barge. She would never do these things now. Why did they sound so much more interesting, the dramas of a vagrant life, than the long process of making a home in a particular place? It’s the sending down of roots, she thought, as she put the last of the pans away, such a lengthy business it doesn’t make for interesting chat. She looked round the room, rubbing her hands on her apron. I haven’t slept around, either, and the man I loved I haven’t seen for years and can no longer recapture my feelings for him.
She could not bring Harry’s face to mind, but she saw her sister Sylvia as she had so often seen her in the past, standing across the table from her in this very room; the accomplice of childhood enterprises, the loving friend whose understanding had steered Hester through the less innocent adventures of maturity, the dear mother of Michael. It was Sylvia, not the defaulting Veronica, for whom she wept.
‘It’s me that should have died,’ she said across the table. ‘You were needed by so many people.’
No, no! She walked to the window and beat on the sill with her fists. ‘We will have no self-pity.’ Then she saw that there was not going to be much call for gladness, either. For here, approaching the back door with uncertain tread, was Andy Possett.
Andy Possett had a remarkably thin face with a fine, pale skin and soft pink lips and whenever she looked at him Hester was reminded of a flower pressed between the pages of a book. There was even a faint smell of squashed roses about his person. He lived in a small house for young men with psychiatric problems who had been released into the community because the regional psychiatric unit had found them too disruptive of its particular community. The home was run by a retired missionary, Mrs Hardacre, and loosely supervised by Social Services. Mrs Hardacre maintained that Andy was working through his problems. As Freud saw sexual implications in every object, so Mrs Hardacre, having wholeheartedly espoused the cause of Andy’s recovery, was able to interpret even his more bizarre actions as symptomatic of progress. Recently he had appeared at St Hilary’s wearing his underpants over his trousers and while most people regarded this as a deterioration in his behaviour, Mrs Hardacre would have none of such pessimism. ‘People react like that because they have been troubled. The fact that he has decided to challenge them, to make himself noticed, is a sign of health,’ she had insisted to Valentine who had duly reported the conversation to Hester. ‘And, of course, the symbolism of pants over trousers is an acknowledgement on his part that the hidden depths must be brought out into the open.’
Hester was glad to see that on this occasion he had suffered a regression in so far as underclothes were concealed. He wore odd shoes, but this was understandable since Mrs Hardacre bought the odd shoes left over at jumble sales and distributed them to her charges.
Hester’s friend Annie Cleaver, who was by way of being a saint and a constant source of discouragement to Hester, said that she did not mind Andy in the least and found him quite pleasant to have about the house because he did not want to talk all the time. Hester found him disturbing. She did not like situations over which she had no control. She did not object to the mentally unbalanced because they were different but because she did not know how to handle the problems which they presented. In a tight corner, Hester liked to know which way to jump.
She hoped that Desmond would not decide to put in an appearance in the garden. A constellation in which Andy was in conjunction with Desmond was one which she could only regard as ominous.
‘I thought it was next week that you were coming,’ she said.
He did not think this worthy of a reply. She wondered what would have happened if she had found it necessary to insist that this was not a convenient time for him to fix a shelf in the spare bedroom. When she was tired or upset her mind delighted in presenting her with a series of doom-laden scenarios
.
‘As it happens,’ she said, leading him upstairs, ‘my friend can’t come this week, so it has really worked out quite well.’
He made no comment and she had not expected one. The remark was intended to discourage any further melodramatics on the part of her mind.
An hour later Charles Venables, who had just returned home from school and did not want to see another human being for a year, and certainly not within the hour, opened his front door to Hester.
‘May I use your loo and then can I have a word with you?’
‘Please.’ He waved a hand towards the stairs and stood biting his lip, hoping Mrs Quince had put out a spare toilet roll. Even if it was not immediately required, he had pointed out more than once that it should always be reassuringly in evidence.
‘I couldn’t use my own,’ Hester said when she joined him in the hall, ‘because I can’t get into it.’
‘The door has jammed?’
‘Andy Possett has taken possession.’
‘Andy Possett,’ he repeated, screwing up his eyes.
‘Don’t bother. If you knew him it wouldn’t take a split second to bring him to mind. He does odd jobs around the town and he suffers from some kind of mental disorder which has never been specifically explained – to the layman, at least.’
‘I see,’ Charles said, in order to gain time. ‘Mmmh. And what does he say?’
‘Nothing. As far as I can tell, he isn’t breathing. I have tried to get on to the home where he stays, but the telephone is off the hook – not an uncommon occurrence.’
‘The doctor?’ Keep calm, keep calm, Charles told himself.
‘I rang my own doctor and his receptionist gave a sort of eldritch screech and conveyed the impression that at the moment he was on a trip to Outer Mongolia. I was to call back in seven years if Andy hadn’t moved by then.’
Charles, fighting back rising panic, said, ‘The police, then, I suppose.’
‘I don’t think I could do that to him. And, anyway, they know about him and I suspect they would despatch a constable to my house by way of the moor.’
Charles looked at her glassily, but she was a determined person and once her mind was set to some purpose she knew no shame. ‘I’m sorry about this, Charles,’ she said briskly, ‘but I wondered whether you would go up my ladder and look in at the window. Just to make sure he hasn’t done himself a mischief. Or . . .’ since he looked as if he in his turn might suffer some kind of attack, ‘would you hold the ladder for me?’
‘No, no, of course you mustn’t,’ he said desperately. ‘Oh no, no! I will, er . . . provided,’ he snatched at a wisp of comfort, ‘provided the ladder is long enough.’
‘It’s a roof ladder – the one your workmen often borrow from me.’
‘It’s not the sort of job for the fire brigade, I suppose?’ he asked weakly when, after some trouble, they had the ladder up against the wall.
‘It may well be, but not until we know what has happened to him.’
Charles had a bad head for heights and this, added to his dread of what he would find when he reached the window, made the ascent quite terrifying. Half-way up he was convinced that he was suffering a heart attack. In the hope that one fear might cancel out the other, he told himself that if this were the case he would undoubtedly fall from the ladder and be killed, or so seriously incapacitated that he would have to go into a home. He paused, resting his brow against the rung of the ladder and the first breeze of evening wafted a quite heart-rending smell of honeysuckle to his nostrils. He could see Hester below, looking impatient. At the door of a house further down the terrace a woman was shouting at the milkman, ‘We haven’t had that much wind to blow my note away. I’m not going to pay for what I didn’t order.’
‘Keep going. Don’t look down,’ Hester commanded. ‘I can’t have you stuck half-way up a ladder to add to everything.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said faintly. ‘I can’t move. Not at the moment.’
He closed his eyes. Far below a brewery van was being loaded; the jarring of heavy crates sounded like distant gunfire. Charles clenched his hands on the sides of the ladder. A gate creaked and steps sounded on the path below.
‘Having trouble?’
Beneath him Charles could hear Hester making explanations.
‘Poor chap.’ Such a nice voice, warm as hot syrup and just as soothing. ‘I came to see how Desmond was getting on working for you. A good thing, wasn’t it?’
‘If you can do something, it may well be.’ Hester sounded very cross.
‘I’ll bring him down and then I’ll pop up and have a squint at Andy.’
Charles felt the ladder move beneath another weight, then a hand grasped his right ankle. ‘I’ve got hold of you.’ The voice was so reassuring that he was convinced against all common sense that her hand on his ankle would make him as near immortal as Achilles. ‘Now, put this foot down on to this rung, slide your hands down a little, that’s right. Now the other foot. Good! Keep going, easily, slowly, I’ve got hold of you, just keep going. Right foot now. There we ARE!’
He turned to see a robin-red face atop rounded curves of emerald and crimson. She seemed to be all the colours of the rainbow and he thought her the most radiant creature he had ever seen. It was quite some time before he realized it was only Shirley Treglowan wearing an exotic track suit that was too tight for her. He sat down on the grass and put his head in his hands. Hester leant on the ladder while Shirley went up. She did not even ask him how he felt. The milkman, recognizing a situation in which something strenuous might be demanded of him, walked briskly past.
‘Well?’ Hester called.
Shirley peered, tapped on the window pane, made ‘Yoo-hooing’ noises, then came briskly down. ‘He’s just standing there, right up against the door as though he had been turned to stone. It happened once in the Major’s garden.’
‘How long did it last that time, do you remember?’
‘About three hours. The Major said he was quite resigned to having Andy as a piece of sculpture, peering at visitors through the rose bushes. I tell you what. I’ve got my bike. I’ll go round to the home and get Mrs Hardacre to come along. I don’t suppose she can bring him round, but at least she’ll be here to take him home when he comes out of it.’
‘Better still, I’ll go in my car, if you and Charles wouldn’t mind standing guard here.’
‘I could go in my car,’ Charles said wearily.
‘You don’t know Mrs Hardacre. And, anyway, you don’t look fit to drive.’ Hester felt she had treated him badly. ‘Come into the house and I’ll put out the whisky bottle and prepare a snack for you both before I go.’
Charles and Hester were so tired and confused by now that it did not occur to either of them that Shirley Treglowan could probably have unearthed Mrs Hardacre by the time Hester had produced the snack. Shirley did not repeat her offer because she was quite excited by the prospect of having a talk with Charles Venables.
‘I am so looking forward to your lecture,’ she told him as they consumed chicken sandwiches in Hester’s sitting-room.
Her eyes shone with such eager anticipation that a man less sure of his ability might have feared to disappoint her. What misgivings Charles had, however, were concerned with the shortcomings of his audience. ‘Really? I am beginning to wonder why I agreed to do it. How many people in this town will have read Anna Karenina?’
‘Well, I have and I think it’s a wonderful book. It’s all gone, lost to us, isn’t it? That world, I mean. People giving up everything for love.’ The Russian revolution had produced the Soviet state, but it was the giving all for love which seemed to her to be the important change. He was not disposed to criticize her for this. ‘You can have love whenever and wherever you want it now – and suddenly it’s not around any more. There were boundaries then. Do you think you can only have love when there are boundaries? I mean, do we need forbidden territory stretching away beyond the frontier?’ She asked these questions as though it r
eally mattered that they should be answered.
It was quite apparent to Charles that here was a young woman who was thirsting for improvement. If her enthusiasm was a little raw and her questions betrayed too close an acquaintance with the cinema, she must nevertheless be dealt with kindly. Undoubtedly there was here an understanding to be awakened, a mind which might respond to proper guidance. This was more than could be said for most of the boys whom he taught. Charles was no pedant. Literature to him was a living thing and while Shirley might thirst for improvement, he yearned for evidence of sensitive appreciation.
‘I think you can only have great art when there are boundaries,’ he said cautiously. ‘And perhaps passion needs a framework of a kind. I don’t know about love.’
She looked at him sympathetically. ‘I don’t know about it, either,’ she said sadly. It occurred to him that at this stage of her aesthetic development she was prone to the temptation to identify in too personal a way with works of art – something which he had noted tended to happen to people whose interest was not entirely cerebral. He decided that it would be wise to say something brisk and sensible about his lecture.
She was looking at him in a way that made him feel she had wrongly interpreted his silence. People rarely looked at Charles with sympathy. He did not project himself as a person in need of sympathy – self-sufficient was the way in which he saw himself. Yet now he experienced that sense of the organs of his body loosening their control that he had had as a child when his mother said to him, ‘I want a word with you.’ He had always felt an immediate guilt, even if he had not offended against any of her household rules. He was very suggestible. Quite suddenly, he felt himself in some obscure way to be unfortunate and in need of consolation. As he looked at Shirley Treglowan he could not think of anything brisk to say about his lecture. She had a good colour naturally and either her earlier exertions or the whisky had heightened it so that her face seemed blazingly bright and he was reminded of the sleigh ride in War and Peace and thought that this was how Natasha must have looked, exhilarated, rushing headlong downhill. He said, ‘I haven’t thanked you for so gallantly coming to my rescue.’
