by Clare Ashton
“I’m going to miss our little chats, Mrs Goodman. You’ve heard the news?”
“Yes. Is it really for sale?”
“I’m afraid so. Ludbury can’t support two congregations and the car park at St Lawrence’s is a draw for many.”
“What will happen to it? It can’t be developed surely.”
“I believe the old stables and outbuildings are the major interest.”
Maggie peered past the sparkling lawns of the cemetery to the timber-framed courtyard down the hill, and beyond the gardens that ran as far as the river. It was a beautiful spot.
“I’ve heard,” the vicar continued, “the whole block is to be developed into a luxury residence.”
“But what about the church?”
“It may be sold off separately as another luxury renovation project.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” Maggie winced inside. There was nothing like avoiding the really offensive profanities in front of the vicar to bring out the blasphemies.
“But this is the heart of the town,” Maggie said. “This is where everyone comes at Christmas and Easter. This is where the school play is performed. My son was in the choir, which I must apologise to your deity for.”
Maggie had taken Jude and Eli to the Kristingle service every year. It was under the pretence of broadening their knowledge of faiths and traditions, although secretly she enjoyed every minute of it, despite her firm atheist beliefs.
It would be sad indeed for the heart of the town to stop beating, turned into a private home with two Range Rovers outside, rarely inhabited by the owners who would work all hours in the nearest city.
Ludbury had remained vibrant owing to its hippy contingent and tiny streets and houses, too small to renovate into luxury homes, but it lacked the energy it had just twenty years ago. Maggie would hate to see it wither into one of England’s silent towns – well preserved and maintained and deserted, the residents either too old to venture outside or absent in city jobs, the young priced out of the town entirely.
“My sentiments exactly.” The vicar sighed. “But the maintenance of two churches of this size is beyond the diocese’s budget.”
It was an uneasy and unfamiliar world Maggie woke to these days. Sometimes she missed the old institutions and beliefs, even if she disapproved of them. It had all been replaced with a confusing matrix of politics and beliefs and an overwhelming sense of greed. She shouldn’t have minded the dwindling presence of the Christian faith, but she did at the expense of a distasteful display of money and luxury development where the town’s soul should be.
“You know it’s funny you find it so troubling.” The vicar smiled, and Maggie realised she’d been frowning at the church tower. “It’s to be bought by one of the congregation. Strange how you feel its loss more than a person of faith.”
Maggie didn’t know what to say and unease writhed inside. She offered, “I will never believe in your God, or any other. But I think a strong moral compass at the heart of a community is essential for its health.”
The vicar frowned and reached for Maggie’s arm, before being interrupted by the piercing cry of “Pooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“Oh Jesus,” Maggie said. Oh crap. And she sent an apologetic look towards the vicar.
“Mrs Goodman, you really should indulge your extensive vocabulary in my presence, rather than taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
Maggie chastised herself again then looked to her nephews who were running at full pelt towards them.
“Poooooooooooooooooooooo!” Mathew shouted. “I need a poo!”
“I’m sorry. Nature calls,” Maggie said.
“No matter.” The vicar smiled. “Divinity calls,” and she waved over her shoulder. “The café is the nearest. Should be open,” she said before turning into the church.
“I need a poooooooooooooooooooo!” Mathew yelled, his eyes scrunched tight.
And after considering dashing home to let Mathew defecate on Mrs Petty’s front door step, Maggie grabbed her nephews and raced towards the square.
Chapter 11.
“Sorry, Auntie Maggie.” Mathew smiled sweetly.
A red-faced, sweating, heart-palpitating Maggie led her nephews away from the café. She’d swept the boy into her arms and up the stairs as soon as he’d exclaimed that holding in was no longer possible. And he’d been heavy. She remembered the days where she could carry Jude on her hip and Eli in her arms. But now picking up a four-year-old seemed as ludicrous as attempting to carry an elephant.
It felt as if her thumping heart could burst. And after such a heroic effort the young boy had leapt on the loo only for a whistling noise to emit from his rear. A relieved and happy face had announced proudly, “Just a fart,” to Maggie’s chagrin.
“They’ll be the death of me one day,” Maggie muttered. Face burning, she smiled down at her nephew. The little bugger.
She wandered through the square, which clanked with the sound of the assembly of market stalls in the early morning. The two boys drifted and blew around, their hands tied to the wheezing Maggie. She felt no better by the time they’d crossed the square and arrived at a little Co-op supermarket.
“Sorry boys,” she said, “I need a quick rest.”
She slumped in a seat before the tills and next to foodbank collection boxes. The boys had the easy familiarity of young relatives and without asking piled on. Liam first, crushing enough on Maggie’s legs, then Mathew perched on top. The boys leaned back, Mathew with his thumb in his mouth, and Maggie could feel the love, if not her thighs anymore.
“My lovely boys,” she wheezed. She didn’t have the heart to tell them she couldn’t breathe properly.
She stared, recovering, cheeks still blazing, at the newspaper stand. It was a topsy-turvy world when the Guardian had a favourable piece about the Royals on the cover. Maggie shook her head. A few years ago she could have predicted the headlines: the Daily Mail with a tribute piece to Princess Diana or a Tory puff piece, the worst winter forecast in the Express and the end of the world in the Independent.
Now, it was the Daily Mail eviscerating a banker and Tory MP and the Guardian displaying a glowing picture of the Royals. Maggie, even as a devout socialist, had developed a fondness for Prince Harry. Topsy-turvy indeed.
But her heart sank as customer after customer picked up a Daily Mail, shaking their heads at the headline, “Muslim Lesbian Drives on Wrong Side of Road”. This was the kind of thing Jude never understood about Abby being a lesbian. See, you couldn’t even make the mistake of turning down a one-way street without an element of society blaming your sexuality and apparently your religion, if it was the wrong kind.
Maggie groaned. What was the world coming to? Then she groaned again because she’d become the kind of person who said just that.
“Kwee have some of those?” Mathew said, pointing at a packet of Jammy Dodger biscuits in the foodbank collection. Maggie recognised the pile of contributions. It was from her last shop before the weekend. Rice, curry, tinned peas, custard and a packet of Jammy Dodgers. She’d bought the biscuits for Jude then thought better of it. Her daughter would have accused her of infantilising her again, even though they both knew Jammy Dodgers were still Jude’s favourite.
Apart from Maggie’s donation, the box was empty. Not one person had donated the whole weekend. In this town of culinary excellence, with a Michelin-starred restaurant by the river, an ethical whole-food café on the hill, a well-heeled population of pensioners and ageing hippies, not one had spared a tin of baked beans.
“It’s a foodbank.” Maggie sighed. “We never used to need them.”
“Are they bad things?” asked Liam.
“Yes and no. It’s good because we’re helping those who are hungry. Bad because in a rich country like the United Kingdom there should be food and shelter for everyone. That’s what the government should be doing – making sure it’s available fairly.”
“Is the government making rich people richer and poor people
poorer?”
“Yes, it is. Well remembered, clever boy.” Maggie had forgotten her previous chat with Liam about austerity versus thriving corporations. She never shied away from any topic with her nephews. Of course this led to awkward moments, like when they’d asked their grandmother if she had a vulva, but in general Maggie thought it healthy to tackle every subject in a matter of fact way.
“Yes.” Maggie continued. “And it’s no longer about being richer or poorer. People are dying because of it. Thousands of people have died because of government rules. Thousands of people are told to get a job when they have a matter of weeks or even days to live.”
“Will they go to prison?”
“Who?”
“The government.”
Maggie stared.
“Because they’re killing people?” Liam pressed on.
“No,” Maggie said, shocked. “No, they won’t.”
“Why?”
And for the first time she didn’t have an answer, only a very heavy heart. “I don’t know,” she said weakly.
It was overwhelming, sitting under a warm pile of loving children, despairing at their future and the direction of the world. The disparities seemed Dickensian at times – the homeless man being kicked out of town while others gorged on delicacies in the town square. And no matter how much she ranted, things only got worse. Fewer people listened, fewer people cared. Even Richard dismissed her efforts – “What are you going to do? Give away your worldly goods until you live in a hut with sewage water to drink?”
As she sat, a young man rifled through the food bank, filling a green crate from its sparse contents. It took Maggie a few seconds to look past the fluorescent jacket and food bank badge to recognise the now-broader face.
“Dean?” she said. “Dean Thomson?”
“Hello, Miss,” said a voice much deeper than she’d remembered. “I didn’t see you there under the pile of boys.”
Liam and Mathew giggled.
“Well how are you, Dean?” Maggie asked. He must have left school two years ago and she always remembered him as a kind lad.
“I’m well, Miss.”
“What are you up to these days?”
“I’m a builder. I work for my dad.” He grinned. “What I always wanted to do.”
Yes, she remembered that, although she tried to impress upon him that a sensitivity to history was important for that trade and he should still listen in her lessons.
“Are you enjoying it?” she asked smiling.
“I am. Plenty of work to keep us busy.”
“But,” she frowned confused. “You work at the food bank too?”
“Volunteer, yes,” Dean said, holding the crate in front of him. “I’m getting these before work and taking them to the unit. My dad lets the food bank use his for storage.”
“I’m sorry there’s not more to collect,” Maggie said, looking sadly at the box. “We’ll add more meals shortly. In fact we’ll put in a week’s worth for someone.”
“Thank you, Miss. It’ll go straight away. The only time it’s full is Christmas. People forget folk get hungry all year round. You wouldn’t believe how many need it these days.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You remember my mate Gary from school? He has to use it all the time. He works like crazy but he’s on one of those zero-hours contracts, isn’t he. So when the work dries up he’s got nothing coming in. People don’t live zero-hours lives, do they.”
“No, they don’t, Dean. I couldn’t have put it better myself.”
He grinned, pleased with himself.
“Good for you,” Maggie smiled. “Good for you helping out.”
“Got to look after everyone, haven’t you,” he replied. “We’ve all got to live together and no-one’s happy when people are on the streets begging for food or stealing to stay alive.”
“Well, yes,” Maggie agreed.
“It’s like you said, Miss.” He squinted skywards trying to recall. “You said, ‘The best way to look after yourself is to look after everyone.’”
Maggie laughed. She’d remembered saying it in one of her lessons – a trite remark she’d spouted in rage at the latest figures of thousands dying within days of being declared fit to work by the Department for Work and Pensions.
“Quite right, Dean.” And she was tempted to say, “God bless you.” That damned enlightened vicar. She could make Christianity sneak into your psyche when you were adamant it shouldn’t.
Maggie contented herself with, “You have a good heart, Dean.” And the young man glowed with pride. She missed that. Being able to help a child shine at school. Being useful. Being needed.
“Better get going, Miss.”
“Yes. Don’t let me hold you up.” And the young man carried the crate out of the shop.
“Well,” she said, squeezing her two young nephews. “Perhaps there is hope after all. Come on,” she said. “Let’s get some breakfast, luxury pudding and a week’s worth of food for another. Sitting here feeling useless isn’t going to feed anyone,” she muttered, more to herself.
And Richard could be damned if he said the luxury pudding cost as much as the week’s food. At least she was doing something and, with people like Dean Thomson around, maybe the world had time to right itself yet.
Good God. That run with Mathew had taken it out of her. Maggie’s face was still glowing in the chilly morning air and her chest wheezing when they’d finished their shop.
But if that wasn’t another good soul over there to cast some cheer on the day. Abby waved from across the square, the tiny Mrs Malady clinging to her arm.
Dear Abby, dealt such a harsh blow with her mother but fate had smiled kindly on Maggie the day it brought Abby into her life. The conversation with Mrs Malady seemed to be over as the frail woman waved to the good doctor and Abby crossed to meet them.
“Maggie! Boys!” Abby shouted.
Mathew and Liam jigged on the spot until Abby had crossed the square then nuzzled into her belly as she hugged them.
“They always love you,” Maggie said.
“It’s because my clothes smell of cake,” Abby replied grinning at the two cheeky faces. “I spent most of the weekend baking chocolate buns.”
The two boys seemed happy to cling to Abby’s arms and rock back and forth. They must be getting tired.
Abby was another one who looked tired. Her usually rosy face was pale and drawn and anxious.
“Is Mrs Malady OK?” Maggie asked, wondering if she was the cause of concern. The old lady had been the cleaner at school, in between caring for her parents and bringing up her boy Billy, whom Maggie had taught.
“She’s overwhelmed with stress, poor thing.”
“What’s the latest?”
“Losing the roof over her head.”
“Isn’t she in a council house? She used to share one of those concrete blocks by the station with her parents.”
“She was moved out when they bulldozed the site for the new town houses. The council moved her to private accommodation, assuring her that housing benefit would make up the difference, but now that’s capped and there’s nowhere affordable to live.”
“Christ.” It was the last straw in this morning’s disappointments. “It just doesn’t stop, does it? Everything keeps changing, nothing for the better. Not even us.”
Abby looked puzzled.
Maggie actually blushed, a rarity in one used to airing her every opinion. She had Richard and her relationship uppermost in her mind. Together for thirty years and, granted, drifting apart but at such a glacial pace it seemed like stability. Then six months ago, out of the blue, Richard had suggested a formal split, then divorce. Maggie, she insisted on telling herself, had been perfectly happy with their slow, cordial disintegration and wasn’t sure why it had to change. But seeing Abby’s alarm she deflected with, “Look at the children.”
“Jude? Eli?”
“Who’d have thought, before Friday, that Eli would be intended for married
bliss and Jude would be in crisis?”
Abby looked confused, rather shocked.
“Of course, it’s lovely to have her home.”
In fact with Eli and Selene, the two boys, her mother not yet in hospital and Jude staying for a few days, it was rather nice to be needed as mother, daughter and aunt again. Yes, what a contrast to Friday. At least dear Abby was a source of constancy.
“Jude’s home?” Abby stuttered.
“Well, yes. Didn’t you know?”
Abby twitched with the slightest shake of the head.
“She and Bill are taking a break. I’ve never seen her this distraught. She’s been withdrawn the last couple of days. So unlike her. You know how well she copes with everything life throws at her. But this? It’s really set her back. Did she not tell you?”
“No.” Abby was white. “She’s not said a thing.”
Chapter 12.
Jude stared from the bedroom window, the sweep of lawn, swirling river, reds, greens and ochres of the wooded hill beyond blurring in her vision.
She shivered and pinched the dressing gown to her neck. She’d stirred all night, a victim to her chaotic and cyclic thoughts. She’d showered at some unearthly hour in the morning, only to wrap her naked body in the comfort of a dressing gown and return to her room.
The knot that wrung tight in her belly hadn’t eased for a moment since Friday night. She didn’t know how long she’d stood immobile in the garden, reeling from Eli’s revelation. Though some part of her cried denial, a chill settled deep inside, dreading it might be true.
“Fucking hell, Jude.” Bill’s voice had shaken her from her trance. It was loud in the empty garden. “What the hell was that about?”
“Not now, please,” she whispered. “I need to find Abby.” Abby had to deny it. She couldn’t be in love with her.
“That was fucking embarrassing.” Bill smoothed absent hair over his scalp. “You made an absolute dick of me in there. Why didn’t you say something? Just one word, Jude. That’s all you had to say.”
