by MARY HOCKING
The congregation sang. The baby, incipiently musical, listened in silent wonder, but grew restive during the readings. What it really seemed to hate was the sermon during which it gave tongue while heaving about all the weights with which it had been thoughtfully provided. All this, Hester thought, and Valentine to follow! It was most unlike Valentine to invite herself for sherry on a Sunday morning. ‘I simply have to see you,’ she had said. ‘I am sorry, but it can’t wait.’ Hester had looked forward to the rare treat of sitting out in her garden.
Why is it that people can’t come to terms with the facts of their lives? she lamented as she waited to make her communion. All this discontent, the fretting for distant places – if only they could live in Australia, Italy, even the other side of England, they would find fulfilment. Fulfilment was there, waiting, wherever they were not. And then there was the obsession with the wrongs of distant places – Africa, South America, Soviet Russia. So much energy spent on situations which they did not fully understand and could do little to change. And so, she thought, edging forward up the aisle, the particular life they have to live in the place where they find themselves, is neglected, its joys unlooked for, its challenges not confronted, its sorrow building up through the years as steadily and stealthily as an undiagnosed disease. ‘Oh God, forgive me that even here, at your altar, I am unable to compose my mind! I am so worried about what Valentine is up to now. I don’t want to be involved. I am too old for all this. Please, please help me to make her see that if she wants to move yet again there is no way in which I can become involved in persuading Michael.’
Matins followed the family Eucharist so Michael would not be back at the vicarage until just before one o’clock. This would leave Valentine the best part of two hours in which to unburden herself.
‘I am sorry you have to put up with me,’ she said on arrival. ‘If Michael’s mother were alive, I could talk to her.’ She looked very much offended, as though Sylvia had been guilty of a deliberate discourtesy in quitting life’s party prematurely.
The invoking of Sylvia was ominous, not only because she had been much in Hester’s thoughts recently, but because Valentine rarely mentioned her and when she did it was usually a danger signal. Hester had no idea why this should be so since Sylvia had died seven years before Valentine met Michael.
The sunlight glared into the room but, in the hope that Valentine might be persuaded to sit in a shady part of the garden, Hester had not drawn the curtains. Confidences in a garden would be diffused over a wider area, their concentration diminished by the threatening activities of insects, the smell of the compost heap, the blare of other people’s radios and all the other distractions of a summer day. It was apparent, however, that Valentine regarded the open French window not as an invitation but an insensitivity. Hester poured sherry and prayed for the influence of her sister’s more tender spirit. She could smell the meat cooking and hoped she had remembered to turn the gas down to Mark 2. She tried to visualize herself doing this and while she was thus occupied Valentine said, ‘As his nearest relative I suppose you are entitled to learn, before it becomes general knowledge, that Michael is having an affair with Norah Kendall.’
Hester walked across the room, keeping a careful eye on the sherry glass which she had filled generously. When she had placed it on the table beside Valentine, she said, ‘I don’t think I heard you aright.’
‘It’s hardly something I want to repeat.’ Valentine’s features looked brittle as cut glass.
Hester said stupidly, warming her sherry glass in her hands as if it contained the brandy which she now wished she had offered, ‘Norah Kendall! I don’t believe it.’
‘Not very flattering, certainly. So unlikely a love. You can imagine how I feel.’
Hester, who could not imagine it, said, to gain time, ‘But he adores you. Michael has always adored you.’
‘He needs someone to adore and has made do with me.’ Valentine spoke in a high, clear voice which was not at all to Hester’s liking.
‘What nonsense!’
‘Yes, really. He is the kind of man who expects to fall madly in love once in his life.’ Oh yes, yes, Hester thought, seeing Michael’s face sketched in her mind’s eye, the ludicrously vulnerable mouth and exposed chin, he certainly is that. Valentine went on, as though wound up to speak at a certain pace, ‘I am not a passionate person. He made a bad mistake; but it would be unthinkable to admit it. So he set himself to adoring me, much as he would set out to go rock-climbing. There was always the possibility, of course, that one day he would fall madly in love. He hasn’t closed any doors on himself.’ The words made good sense but the unvarying delivery was unnerving.
Hester could see that if she was not careful she was going to respond like those people who, confronted with an unpleasant prospect, keep repeating, ‘What nonsense!’ in the hope that it will see that it is not wanted and go away. She drained her glass and fetched the decanter. ‘Come on. Drink up.’
‘I am in no need of stimulants, I can assure you.’ But Valentine allowed Hester to refill her glass.
‘Now, tell me how you came to this surprising conclusion.’
Valentine recounted without elaboration what she had seen, heard and not heard, in and around the graveyard. Hester did not think there was much to it but was not as relieved as she might have expected. The sunlight sparked from the stones on the patio and combined with the sherry to produce spots before her eyes. She drew the curtain across the side window. ‘Aren’t you making a great deal out of very little?’
Valentine said, staring ahead, eyes unblinking, ‘It’s my own fault. Of course I know that. I should have been someone’s mistress, kept in a back street.’ The violet-grey eyes seemed to consume the pale face; seeing her like this Hester could almost believe that Marguerite Gauthier was within her range. ‘I should have been happy with a man who only came to me once a week. I haven’t the stamina to be a wife.’
‘But Norah Kendall . . . No, it’s not possible.’
‘A woman neither young nor beautiful,’ Valentine said tonelessly. Hester wished she would begin to act a little more, then she herself could play the role to which she was best suited, that of the person who turns the emotional current down to an acceptable level. She had never before realized how much she was dependent on the emotions of others for the exercise of this skill. Valentine was saying, ‘It didn’t matter that I couldn’t love him as he needed to be loved, so long as there was no one else who could. But I feel so diminished, so humiliated. Some of those old tabbies will have the temerity to pity me.’
Hester pounced. ‘Valentine, you are talking as if this affair were common knowledge. And it very soon will be if you behave like this.’
‘It will very soon become known if Michael continues to be so indiscreet.’ There was a tart commonsense in this rejoinder from which Hester took some comfort.
‘Although it seems rather unconvincing to me, I take your word for it that there was a bit of silliness in the graveyard.’ Hester put down her glass. One sherry made her feel liverish, two turned the whole world bilious. Valentine had affected jealousy before, but usually it was the possible affront to her dignity which roused her, rather than any serious prospect of infidelity. Something must have happened to put her in a state of shock. And it wasn’t just shock; the eyes were not so much glazed as splintered by fear. Hester wondered if the fear had always been there, it seemed so natural a part of the face now. It gave her a queasy feeling, an awareness of fear within herself. This was Michael of whom they were speaking, her beloved sister’s beloved son. Sylvia had sat in this very room speaking of her hopes for him, and of her fears, too. Hester addressed herself to the fear. ‘This doesn’t have to be taken too seriously, does it? Our dear Michael is easily moved and Norah is unhappy and overburdened. Give a little thought to what probably happened. At the worst, he tried to comfort her in a way that was unwise.’
‘Why did he go into the graveyard with her in the first place?’
> ‘Hardly in order to commit an indiscretion.’
‘And then, afterwards, to go rushing off like that.’
‘Where did he go, do you know?’
‘No, and I doubt that he does either. He is quite beside himself.
His whole body is singing, Hester. I feel it whenever he is near me.’
Hester could smell the apples cooking on the bottom shelf. She was ashamed that she should be preoccupied with food at such a time. Then, standing there smelling the apples, words came into her mind as they sometimes did when she had lost the thread of a story. The words were often seemingly unconnected, referring her back to an earlier incident which she had failed to give its full value. She said, ‘You implied earlier that you had not been a very satisfactory wife to Michael. I think you are not wholly fair to yourself in that.’ Up to this moment she had thought the criticism entirely fair. ‘You didn’t know my sister Sylvia. She was one of those generous women who seem to have so much room in their hearts that they can accommodate the demands of all those who have need of them. She died of kidney failure before any of us could afford to lose her.’
‘I am quite aware that she died of kidney failure. As for her astonishing goodness – if that is meant as some kind of rebuke, I am in no need of such comparisons.’
‘I am saying this because it may be something you need to know. Her loss inflicted a great wound on her family which has never properly healed.’ That was a fact, though it wasn’t given an airing very often. ‘Michael was only seventeen at the time and he was emotionally dependent on her. His father was one of those men who resent sharing his wife’s affections with a child and he always distanced himself from Michael. This disappointment of which you are so conscious in Michael may not be attributable to a failure in you so much as to the fact that he couldn’t come to terms with the loss of his mother. He has probably always asked rather too much of you.’
Valentine shook her head and put her fingers to her temples, the first really theatrical gesture she had made. ‘I’m sure that is very well-intentioned, but it is all too Freudian for me to take in.’
‘Does he often speak to you of Sylvia?’ Hester persisted, aware of some need to pursue this matter which was not entirely altruistic.
‘You know he doesn’t. Neither do you. It is something from which I have always been excluded. No, no, I am not making this up on the spur of the moment, Hester. It happens. I can remember incidents – one in particular – coming into a room at dusk and seeing you and Michael sitting silent in front of the fire. I had the feeling that a third person was present whom I could not see.’
For a moment neither of them spoke. Fat sizzled in the oven. Valentine said, ‘But I fail to see how this is supposed to be of any help to me.’
Hester, who had been upset by what Valentine had said, lost her patience. ‘Very well, then. Blame yourself. It is a convenient way out and goodness knows you have taken it often enough.’
‘What do you mean “convenient way out”?’ Valentine was startled and angry.
‘One simply says – “I am as I am and so there is no point in trying”. One . . .’
‘Could you put this in your own words instead of talking like the Queen?’
‘All right. You accept the idea of some kind of lack in yourself because it absolves you from making any further effort.’
‘Thank you very much.’ Valentine got to her feet in time to see Charles Venables and Shirley Treglowan coming in at Hester’s garden gate. ‘I must say I have gained little comfort from this morning’s talk.’
‘I’m sorry. I apologize . . .’
‘And as I perceive you have visitors, I will take my leave.’
‘Visitors?’ Hester swung round towards the window. ‘Really, this is too much!’
‘I can see you are having a very trying Sunday morning.’ Valentine swept into the hall and opened the front door. ‘Do come in. I am just on my way.’ She walked down the path, ignoring their protests and leaving her handbag behind.
‘Is this urgent?’ Hester disposed of good manners.
‘Yes.’ Charles could do the same when it suited his purpose.
Hester offered brandy in the interests of dulling her temper and they both accepted. They sat side by side on the sofa, Charles natty in dark blue shirt and pale blue slacks, Shirley in a bright green tentlike structure the hem of which billowed across Charles’s knees. The sun had caught her cheekbones and two livid crescents glowed fierce as war paint on her plump face. She was sweating pungently.
‘Desmond has gone missing,’ Charles explained. ‘Shirley wondered if either of us had seen him.’ Hester detected a rather surprising intimacy in the way he spoke for Shirley. ‘Or if he mentioned anything when last he did our gardens.’
‘I was out when last he did our gardens.’
Shirley said, ‘I had the most bizarre dream.’ She looked at Charles, asking permission to repeat the story. He smiled indulgently into his glass. ‘There was a man on TV talking about the Church and Aids; he said the Archbishop of Canterbury should nail his colours to the mast. And I went to bed and dreamt of the Archbishop on this boat, with a handkerchief knotted on his head and a black patch over one eye, singing “Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine”. There was something obscene about it. I woke up shouting “Desmond, what have you done?” ’
Charles smiled covertly at Hester.
‘He has taken himself off once or twice before, hasn’t he?’ Hester was neither impressed nor amused. ‘Did he leave a note?’
‘Yes. He said it was something important. What does that mean? I’m afraid of what Desmond may think important.’
‘Whatever it may be, I don’t suppose it is abducting girls and taking them to sea,’ Charles said comfortably, revolving brandy in his glass.
‘It was just the Archbishop being like that that made it seem . . . well . . . you could interpret it that the moral universe has gone awry.’
‘I think it undoubtedly has,’ Hester said crisply. ‘But I doubt if Desmond is materially involved.’
‘He probably thinks he is going to land a job,’ Charles said. ‘I expect he didn’t want to raise your hopes until he knew the outcome.’ This seemed eminently sensible as well as being reassuring and Hester wondered why he had not said it in the first place and packed Shirley off home.
‘My hopes aren’t raised that easily,’ Shirley said wanly.
Charles said, ‘Oh, come!’
He is enjoying this, Hester thought, but he has no idea how to bring it to an end. ‘Would you like to stay for lunch?’ she asked. There seemed no alternative if she herself was to eat. Shirley said she must get back to Tracy, but Charles, who was quite shameless about scrounging meals, accepted. ‘I shall be seeing Hoaths tomorrow about Desmond’s obsession with anthropology, so I can take Valentine’s handbag,’ he said, as though the handbag and Hester’s lunch were inextricably connected.
Charles had expected to talk to Michael on his own, but Valentine was on this occasion behaving like a vicar’s wife. Charles had always thought it so admirable in her that she distanced herself from the affairs of her husband and his parish work, her manner conveying that she had matters of greater moment to occupy her. It was a surprise, therefore, to find her presiding over the tea not in the least distantly but as if she expected not only to be privy to whatever disclosures might be made, but an active participant in any subsequent discussion.
Earlier she had surprised Michael when he said that Charles might wish to talk to him privately. ‘Charles cannot have anything to say to you privately,’ she had retorted. ‘He is not a Christian.’
‘I expect atheists have private problems.’
‘But not ones that can’t be discussed with man and wife. We are man and wife and Charles should not expect to come here and be served tea by me as if I were the housekeeper who would meekly withdraw after setting out the contents of the laden tray.’
There had been a faint flush on her face and neck. Although h
e chose to put her evident distress down to incipient ’flu, Michael nevertheless felt obscurely guilty. He therefore addressed Charles. ‘You mentioned a problem. We have been quite at a loss to imagine what kind of problem it is on which you could possibly find it of help to turn to the vicarage.’ The awful facetiousness was as foreign to him as the use of the connubial ‘we’. It was very, very seldom that the Hoaths thought or spoke of themselves as first person plural.
It occurred to Charles that at some time or other he must have said something which had given grave offence. He acknowledged that there might have been occasions when he had spoken unwisely to Hoath on matters religious, or to Valentine on the question of her portrayal of Hedda Gabler. But he could not imagine what subject was peculiarly sensitive to them both. He decided that it was Michael Hoath whom he had upset. Of the two, Hoath seemed to him the more stable and if he was behaving oddly then there must be a reason for it. In Charles’s view, unbalanced behaviour was to be expected in women.
He decided to reply to Hoath in the same vein and succeeded in sounding rather coy. ‘I hope nothing I have said has ever given the impression that I would not value your advice on . . . er . . . indeed on any subject.’
Michael Hoath gazed about him. Charles had noted him doing this several times, his eyes resting on objects which must surely be quite familiar to him yet which seemed to occasion him something which Charles could only describe as astonishment. Had Valentine rearranged the furniture? It seemed unlikely and even more unlikely that Hoath should be disorientated by a change in the relationship of tables and chairs.
During this pause Valentine decided that the two men were waiting for her to leave them alone. She turned angry eyes on Charles. ‘Are we to know this problem?’
Charles, who was by this time feeling extremely foolish, said, ‘I think perhaps I may have made too much of this on the phone. It isn’t really my problem at all.’
Far from clearing the atmosphere, this appeared to make matters worse. Valentine became still as a statue of a particularly breakable kind and Hoath seemed to be holding his breath as he looked into the dregs of his cup.
