The vicarage was empty. Mara had been picturing her mother’s greeting – the smile, and ‘Darling you’re home! You should have phoned. We’d have collected you from the station.’ After a moment’s thought she was glad to have the house to herself. It gave her a chance to make it her own again. She put a kettle on the Aga and stood warming herself. Tomorrow the smells of Christmas would fill the kitchen. Even now everything would be standing ready in the larder. She went to look, as she had always done as a child.
There was the turkey defrosting on the large willow-pattern platter. Two pheasants hung from a hook. The Bart had been, then. The traditional gift of dead wildlife from gentry to clergy. The shelves held rows of bottled fruit and jars of jam. Things to give away. Did the postman ever eat those apricots in brandy? Did the dustman mutter, ‘More bloody marmalade’ as he trudged down the path? ‘Why don’t they just give money?’ And on the floor stood the ranks of bottles which people had given to her father. Port, ginger wine, whisky, brandy. Why? Some received wisdom that all clergy from fat prelate down to humble priest are wine-bibbers and gluttons? But her father seldom drank. Maybe there were pewfuls of Johns ancestors forbidding it. He gave the bottles to rural deans and archdeacons when he was invited out to dinner. And they in turn probably gave them to deans or bishops. She saw the bottles slowly ascending the church hierarchy until at last they found their way to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
There on the fridge was the Christmas cake, already iced and decorated. It stood like a little snowy landscape – house, trees, a robin (bigger than the house) and Santa Claus stuck on to his sleigh with a blob of icing. The sleigh was being pulled by an odd assortment of reindeer of different sizes and colours. They formed a chain which ran halfway round the cake. Mara smiled. This was how she and Hester had always done it, taking turns, adding one decoration at a time. Her mother had done the same as though it were a sacred family tradition.
The kettle began to boil and Mara turned and left the shadowy pantry. She stood with her coffee thinking about the cake. Snow was brushing the vicarage windows now. It must be getting quite deep. She put down her empty mug and went to the sitting-room, where the French windows opened on to the garden. She unlocked them and stepped out.
Behind her the brightly lit room shone out on to the lawn. She stood in a doorway of light with her face upturned. All around the snow sifted down, filling the spiky holly leaves, muffling the whole world. The flakes burnt as they melted on her cheeks and lips. Another shadow joined hers in the snow. She turned. It was her father. He must have been in his study all the time. They stood together in the silence watching each other. I will talk to him. I will really try. But she could find no starting place.
After a while he spoke: ‘Did you have a good term?’
‘Yes.’ How short her answer sounded, as though in her anxiety she had snipped it off. ‘Yes,’ she tried again. ‘It was OK.’
‘Good.’ They might have been speaking into nothing at all. The world and its sounds lay deep in snow.
‘Well, it’s a beautiful city.’ He spoke formally, as though she were a parishioner.
‘Oh, yes,’ she agreed.
‘And your course is going well?’
‘Yes. I think.’
‘And you get on well with your tutor?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Silence. The sky shed its snow. How could she talk to him now, after more than ten years of hiding from him everything she thought or felt?
Suddenly she said: ‘I’ll miss my friends.’ There was no mistaking the significance of this simple statement.
‘Fellow students, are they?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Some are undergraduates.’
‘Mmm.’
‘And some are training for the ministry.’
‘At Coverdale?’
‘Yes.’
Silence closed round them again. Then from behind them in the house came the sound of the front door opening.
‘I’m back, Morgan!’ Her mother came into the room and caught sight of Mara. ‘Darling! How long have you been here?’ They came in from the snow, and Mara went to hug her mother.
‘You smell of oranges,’ Mara said.
‘I know. We’ve been making Christingles for the crib service. The vestry is awash with orange juice. Have you eaten? I’ll make you an omelette, and you can tell me all about your term. Have you had a wonderful time?’ Mara’s father left without saying anything. He doesn’t want me here. She felt that old hollow desolation, like homesickness, except that she was at home. She followed her mother to the kitchen, but as she went, a thought struck her: That’s what I do. I walk out without saying anything. ‘Goodbye, Mara,’ her friends would chorus pointedly. And what if her father had been thinking, She doesn’t want me here now her mother’s home?
Mara watched her mother as she cooked. She was so young-looking that people often mistook them for sisters. She had married early, and in some ways she seemed not to have grown up. Her policy was that life should be fun. No matter how grim one’s existence was, fun would be had. Mara felt old and crabby by comparison. Her mother talked as she chopped the onions and mushrooms. Her conversation was like her letters, and required about as much response. This is why we are friends, thought Mara. Our relationship relies on her saying a lot, and my replying occasionally; the conversational equivalent of a postcard. This shed light on her friendship with Maddy and May. Mara ate while her mother talked about Grandma Flowers.
‘She’s as cheerful as ever, but she gets so confused. Oh, I meant to say she’s coming for Christmas lunch. I’m picking her up before church. She’s worked out that she’s in a nursing home now, and not a hotel, so in some ways she’s improved, I suppose. They’ve been trying to assess the extent of the damage done by her last stroke. And they ask questions to see if she’s going senile – what year is this? who’s on the throne? and so on. She knows all that, but she’s no idea why they’re asking. She said to me the other day, “That young Doctor – such a pleasant young man – but do you know, he did not know the name of the prime minister!” And the psychiatric nurse has been checking for aphasia by showing her everyday objects and asking what they are. But she – the nurse – is Indian, and Grandma thinks she’s forgotten the English for “teaspoon”.’
Mara finished eating. She pictured Grandma helping the medical staff with their basic English vocabulary.
‘She said to me, “It’s perfectly all right, you know. They know the names of all the medicines.” I shouldn’t laugh. It’s all been rather difficult, though. At least the house has been cleared.’ And just for a moment Mara thought her mother seemed old. One day I will be looking after her and saying, ‘It’s all rather difficult.’
There was a silence, and then Mara said, ‘I wore the black dress.’ Her mother’s face lit up.
‘Wonderful! It fits you? When? Where? You went to a party?’
‘The college ball.’
‘Darling – you said you were washing up! Oh, you joined in afterwards? Did you have a marvellous time? Who was your partner?’
‘I just joined a group of friends.’
‘Well, I hope you’ve got a photograph, so I can see what you looked like.’
‘Somewhere,’ said Mara vaguely.
‘Well, find it, darling!’ And Mara went straight to the pocket of the bag where she knew she had put the photographs, and handed them over with a smile.
‘Darling, who are they?’ She watched her mother’s eyes flicking from one to the other, overwhelmed by this embarrassment of male splendour. Mara suppressed the urge to say, ‘I’ve no idea – I just stopped the two best-looking men I could find and asked them to pose with me.’
‘Well?’ Her mother looked up. ‘The dress looks wonderful,’ she added a shade too late.
‘They’re both students at Coverdale.’
Her mother nodded brightly. Nothing wrong with marrying a parson. ‘What are their names?’
&nbs
p; ‘The fair one’s Rupert Anderson.’
‘Anderson. Not Gordon and Jean Anderson’s son?’ she asked, as Mara had known she would. She nodded, ‘They were good friends of ours when your father was training. Gordon was curate at the university church. My, my. What a good-looking youth. Still, his father’s terribly attractive. And who’s this?’
‘Johnny Whitaker.’
Her mother was stumped. He was nobody’s son that she knew of. She had noticed the slight blush, however, and knew which one to praise. ‘What extraordinarily handsome friends you seem to have. I think I prefer the dark one. He looks like a rogue. Is he a bit of a rough diamond?’
Honestly, mother. And this is Mara’s fiancé – something of a rough diamond, but we’re terribly fond of him. ‘Well . . . I suppose . . .’ began Mara.
‘Oh, wonderful. I do like unsuitable men. It’s the raggle-taggle gypsies syndrome, I suppose. Oh, what care I for a goose feather bed, with the sheets turned down so bravely-o,’ sang her mother.
‘When I can sleep on the cold hard ground, along with the raggle-taggle gypsies-o,’ thought Mara, her eyebrows rising in astonishment.
‘Your father was deeply unsuitable, of course. Which is why I ran off with him. You look shocked, darling!’
‘No, no.’ Yes.
Mara had never before delved into the mystery of her parents’ attraction to one another. A startling answer to this unasked question now suggested itself. She straightened her knife and fork on the plate. Good God – didn’t they know that the only function of parental sex is procreation? This recalled something Mara had been meaning to say, knowing it would amuse her mother.
‘Do you realize that you wrote in your last letter that this will be your twenty-second wedding anniversary?’
‘Well?’
‘Well, I’m twenty-two in May.’ She looked at her mother, waiting for the penny to drop.
Her mother looked back at her with a smile, as though she were standing in front of another slot machine waiting for a different coin. Then the truth burst in. Mara’s mouth fell open.
‘I thought you knew,’ said her mother. ‘It’s not supposed to be a secret.’ Mara smoothed her hand over her hair, unable to meet her mother’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I honestly thought you knew.’ No you didn’t. You never told me. ‘We weren’t trying to keep it from you.’ Mara could think of nothing to say. At this point her father entered the kitchen. Mara blushed. There was silence. He looked from one to the other.
‘Mara’s just discovered the disgraceful circumstances of our marriage.’
‘Has she, indeed?’ His tone was cold, but Mara glanced at him in time to see a smile flash and vanish. In her mind she saw the wedding again – rows of dour Johns faces on one side, and the gracious smiles of the Flowers family on the other.
‘Was it terrible?’ she asked.
‘I think we rather enjoyed it,’ replied her mother.
‘The wedding, I meant.’
‘So did I.’
Her father appeared unconcerned. He had wandered to the table and was looking at the two photographs. In Mara’s eyes they, too, had become tainted with the embarrassment of the moment. If only she could whisk them away. Her father pointed at one of them.
‘That’s the Anderson boy. You know, Jean and Gordon Anderson’s son,’ said her mother. ‘The other one’s called Johnny Whitaker. They’re both training at Coverdale.’ She never forgot a name. When she got to heaven she would be able to introduce the entire glorious company of the elect to one another without turning a hair. You must meet Basil the Great. Basil, darling, do you know C.S. Lewis? Clive, this is Basil.
Mara watched her father pick up the other photograph. Her whole body tensed. Why do I still care so much for his approval? She tried to appear nonchalant. At last he looked up.
‘Are his intentions honourable?’
‘He’s celibate.’
Their gaze met for a second; two pairs of ice-grey eyes glancing off one another like steel blades. Mara looked at her mother, who was studying the picture of Rupert with renewed interest.
‘Celibate, is he?’ said her father, putting down the photograph. He had a Marines-telling expression on his face.
Mara flushed with anger. He thinks I’m a little innocent.
‘Shall we open a bottle of something?’ asked her mother.
‘Not for me,’ said her father, snuffing out the celebratory impulse.
They remained in silence like actors on a stage who had forgotten their exit lines. Then Mara rose abruptly, unable to bear it for another minute. Her father reached out and picked up the picture of her and Rupert. She stopped.
‘I’d like to keep this. If I may.’ He sounded like a police detective appropriating a piece of evidence to use against her.
‘What for?’
He laid it down again. ‘Not if you want it.’
She pushed it towards him. ‘Have it.’
For a moment it looked as if this would become a battle: shoving the thing backwards and forwards. Then he picked it up again.
‘Thank you.’ He left the kitchen, and a moment later she heard the study door close. The other photograph lay on the table.
‘It’s like all those ancient family portraits,’ said her mother. ‘It really ought to go in a heavy silver frame, of course.’
Mara held up the silver glass ball before hanging it on the tree. She saw her face swimming in it, and the room behind her. I might be trapped in it for a thousand years like a ghost in a bottle. I look like someone else. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, and she was wearing a red dress. She fixed the ball on a branch, dislodging a sprinkling of pine needles. The ball bobbed and came to rest. Mara smoothed her dress. It was from Grandma’s attic hoard. Maybe Aunt Judith had worn it one Christmas, looking at her reflection in silver spoons and candlesticks. I think I like it, she thought. When did I last wear bright colours?
Her mother was thrilled. ‘It looks wonderful. That colour, like those beautiful dark peonies – perfect for your complexion. But you must wear your hair down with that shawl collar.’
Her face stared at her now from a green ball. She remembered how she and Hester used to make goldfish faces in it. A record of Christmas carols was playing as it had always done. ‘In the bleak midwinter, long ago . . .’. The decorations were as old as she was. She lifted them one by one from their paper nests and arranged them on the branches. Christmas, Christmas, whispered the paper and the faint sound of pine needles dropping. ‘Noël, noël,’ sang the choir. Spices drifted in from the kitchen – mulled wine and mince pies for the callers at the vicarage.
The fire snapped on the hearth, and Mara turned to look at it. It flickered and spat again. The log basket was nearly empty. It had become the focus of a family waiting game. Who was going to chop the wood? Mara’s mother was waiting for some nice strong parishioner to call in so she could enlist his help because the vicar had a bad back. Her father was waiting for her mother to pop out on some errand, so that he could chop it himself. And Mara, who was quite capable of chopping wood, was waiting till they were both busy so that she could sneak out like the son they never had to the wood pile. ‘Peace on earth and mercy mild . . .’
The doorbell rang and Mara’s father emerged swiftly from his study to intercept any potential choppers. Mara continued to decorate the tree. There was a conversation in the hallway as she stood with a red ball contemplating the gaps. Hester should be here to tell me where it should go. She shut the thought out and leant forward to fasten the bauble on the nearest branch.
‘A visitor for you.’ Mara continued to look at the tree, not realizing her father was addressing her. There was a laugh. She whirled round.
‘Johnny!’ Joy to the world! ‘What are you doing here?’ He was walking towards her, and she, not knowing what she was doing, went to meet him, smiling as though he had come back from the dead.
‘I happened to be passing.’ He kissed her cheek.
‘Passing?’ No
one passes this village.
‘On my way north from Rupert’s party.’ Don’t go getting ideas. You’re nobody special, said his expression. Her joy was doused like a light. She stood turning the glass ball round and round in her fingers. Her face burnt, and suddenly she became aware of her father again. An exchange of glances like sniper fire had gone between him and Johnny, which she had all but missed.
‘How are you, flower?’
‘All right.’ She made an awkward gesture. ‘I was just doing the tree.’
‘Carry on.’ He went over to the hearth where her father was standing – stiffly because of his back – and leant against the mantelpiece. Mara hung the ball on the tree. It was the last one. Only the star now. She reached to fasten it on the top then stepped back to admire her work.
‘Beautiful,’ said her father a little austerely.
‘Yes,’ agreed Johnny. Mara turned and smiled at him. ‘I could stand here all evening watching, in fact.’ She eyed him suspiciously and he laughed. Even her father’s lips twitched. But at this point her mother entered the room.
Angels and Men Page 13
