Simon looked down at the cat, who so well deserved the change in his fortunes. ‘Good,’ he said; ‘good.’ As they descended once more to the ground floor he suddenly realised that the sight of the bedroom, the bed itself, had left him quite unmoved.
She turned into the sitting room, which ran the length of the house, with french windows at the rear. There were a few pieces of furniture in it. ‘I’ve acquired the fundamentals, as you see,’ she said. ‘I’ll pick up the rest bit by bit.’
‘Have some fun with it.’
‘I mean to. See those alcoves?’ He did, one each side of the fireplace. ‘I’ll have to think of something to put in them.’
‘Books?’
She pulled a face. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of statues.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’ll see. And now come and see the kitchen.’
It was long and low-ceilinged, large enough to accommodate a dining table and chairs at one end—where more french windows led to the garden—and had all the latest equipment.
‘Was all this stuff here?’ he asked. There was, for example, a large and very splendid gas cooker.
She put a hand on it and nodded. ‘This is French,’ she said.
‘Someone must have been very serious about cooking,’ he said.
‘Rather wasted on me,’ she said sadly.
‘You’ll just have to get serious yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s the only solution.’
‘I could go to some classes, couldn’t I?’ she said brightly.
Brightly, innocently; seriously. It wrenched his heart.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you could. Good idea. The kitchen can be your study.’
‘Yes,’ she said eagerly, ‘you know I think I really might.’ And she looked almost delighted.
‘That’s settled, then,’ he said; and now he suddenly, after all, wanted her; he took her in his arms. At this moment the knowledge that he loved her possessed him so entirely that silence was painful; he held her very close until the pain ebbed away. Its ebbing was followed by a sadness, almost a sense of desolation. ‘So you’ve managed everything,’ he said.
‘Yes; all sorted.’
‘BT, Electricity, Gas?’ he said.
‘And the Water,’ she said; ‘all on stream, all on time.’
‘Jolly good. These privatised monopolies done got rhythm.
’ She laughed. She looked up at him. ‘Well, do you like my house?’ she said.
‘It’s perfect.’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’
‘I didn’t know what to bring you. For a house-warming present.’
‘Oh, but you’ve brought me yourself.’
He was left for the moment speechless; but then, ‘As it were,’ he said.
‘As it were,’ she repeated.
‘Damn it all,’ he said, and he began to kiss her.
Later on, he saw the orchid that Rupert had sent; several frail white blooms on a long curving stem, growing in a clay pot. He hadn’t realised that Rupert might actually care. Still, he, Simon, had her.
55
The vicar ascended the stairway into the pulpit; he crossed himself, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen, and then he looked around at his congregation, his church, his—our—his Father’s—world; all the misery and the marvel and the mystery of it; ‘Algebra,’ he said.
The silence was absolute. He looked down at them, concern and compassion on his face. ‘Algebra,’ he repeated. Then he raised his hands from the edge of the pulpit and pushing back the sleeves of his surplice slightly raised them into the air, as if writing on a blackboard.
‘Three plus two,’ he said, ‘equals five. Three-plus-two-equals-five. That’s arithmetic.’ Pause. ‘You know where you are, don’t you, with arithmetic? Three plus two always equals five.’ He was holding up five fingers. ‘Good, straightforward stuff. Pretty boring, of course. Not much to get your teeth into. No. Three plus two always and forever equals five. It’s relentless, is arithmetic. No room for argument. It leaves you speechless.’
He paused, and looked down at them again, full of concern and compassion. They’d all suffered from arithmetic, and would again. Then he looked up, and over their heads, towards the organ loft, and beyond it, into the world, the universe.
‘Whereas,’ he said, ‘algebra. Algebra. Ah, now: consider this.’ And he waited for a second, to give the slower-witted time to gird up their loins, and consider. ‘Two,’ he began—and paused for another compassionate, rhetorical second, ‘plus x—two plus x—equals five! Yes! Two plus x equals five: that is algebra. There it is. Two plus x equals five. And we will know, won’t we, in this very simple, very elementary exercise that x here must equal three—we’ll know this almost without having to think, won’t we? If two plus x equals five then x, in this instance, equals three. So far so good.’ He could only trust that it was.
‘But of course, what most of us may remember about algebra is that it isn’t usually so simple. No. We very soon get to the stage of dealing with more complicated propositions: simultaneous equations, and worse teasers still, where we have many many unknowns to find values for: x’s and y’s and even z’s, squared and cubed and multiplied and divided until we hardly know where to turn, and it may not be boring but God knows we might even wish it were, because the fact is, it’s difficult. We have to use our brains as hard as we can, haven’t we? And even then we might not get the correct answer. Boring, no; difficult, yes; even impossible, at least for us, today, if not for someone else, today, or for us, next week, or next year.
‘Because there is a way, isn’t there? There is a method for doing these complicated sums in algebra: you only have to know the method, and apply it correctly, and you will find the answer in the end. The unknowns, the x’s and y’s and z’s, will all be revealed for the quantities they actually are. You’ll have the answer. It may take a long time. It may even take courage; it will almost certainly take patience; what it will very certainly take is faith—yes, faith.
‘You knew I’d get around to that, didn’t you? Some of you have been saying to yourselves, come along, Vicar, you can’t fool us. You can pretend to be talking about mathematics as much as you like but we know where you’re going! So, very well: I’m here: faith.
‘Because you’re never going to start doing that piece of algebra, are you, without the faith that it can be done: that there is an answer; that it’s not just a nonsense, that there is a method, and that if you follow the method correctly, you’ll get the thing out in the end. Even when it’s become so difficult that you feel you never will—you’ll still keep trying. You might put it aside for a while, or sleep on it, or go and make a cup of tea and do something else for a while to clear your head; you might even go to someone else for a bit of advice, just to make sure you’ve got the method right; but you’ll go back to it, and you’ll go on trying to solve it, because you’ve got faith. You know where you’re going and why.
‘Well, I suppose some of you, not to say all of you, already know where I’m coming out now, don’t you? You know I’m going to tell you that life, rather living, is like one of those problems in algebra. It’s not arithmetic, it’s algebra. It’s full of unknowns. There are x’s and y’s and z’s wherever you look, squared and cubed and multiplied and divided; and the people who tell you it’s arithmetic are misleading you. It’s algebra, and sometimes you have to be patient, and courageous. And sometimes all you have, the only thing you have, is your faith.
‘And those are the times when you discover that faith, this simple thing, is enough. Yes. Is enough. Is everything. That the answer, the solution, can wait. That your ignorance is assuaged by your faith. Life, living, the world, is full of x’s and y’s and z’s because God has made it so. These unknowns, these mysteries, are the places where He hides from us so that we may seek Him: for in the searching is the true finding.
‘You see, it doesn’t truly matter whether or not we find all the answers to all the myst
eries. What truly matters is the act of searching— the faithful searching. Next Sunday is the first in Advent, when we begin once again our great search, like the shepherds and the wise men before us, for the babe born in a manger: for the Word made flesh: the great central mystery of our Christian faith. Let us now remember then that in our true and faithful searching is our finding. We may not know the whole solution of this mystery— perhaps we never can, this side of the grave. We are not doing arithmetic, which is boring, and which leaves us speechless. No; we are doing algebra, with all its x’s and y’s and z’s: with all its unknowns. We live with the unknown, and even with the unknowable. But by faith we shall surely attain such knowledge as we can truly comprehend, by God’s grace. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.’ And, having crossed himself once more, he turned and descended from the pulpit.
56
Simon was looking at six-by-eight glossies, with CVs attached, of actresses.
Simon was going to stick his neck out: he wanted some beauties. He was a bit tired of quirky, clever-looking actresses. If only they’d been all as clever as they were said to look, that might have been something. We British distrust beauty, he thought; we’re suspicious even of prettiness. These girls would be nowhere in France or Italy. Just because some of our greatest actresses are plain doesn’t mean that all must be. Or that plain actresses will always be great; or even good. He was going to find some beauties who could act if it killed him. This thing was meant to be noir, wasn’t it? So he needed beauties. Who could act. He was going to put out a red alert first thing in the morning. Meanwhile it was Sunday and he was looking at six-by-eights of quirky clever-looking females who would never do. Not for him; not this time. ‘Have a butcher’s at these,’ he said to Flora. She put down her needlework and held out a hand.
‘Hmmm,’ she said; ‘hmmm, hmmm. I like this one best.’
Simon took the photograph and looked at it again. ‘Imagine that face under a hat,’ he said.
‘Is that the test?’ she asked. ‘Will she be wearing a hat?’
‘Maybe not,’ said Simon. ‘But I want hat faces.’
‘Yes, I see,’ said Flora. ‘Hat faces.’ They thought of all those hat faces of the cinematographic past. ‘Maybe they don’t make them any more,’ she said. ‘Since women stopped wearing hats. Since everyone stopped wearing hats, except for very special occasions.’
‘There must be a few out there somewhere,’ said Simon. ‘And I’m going to find them.’ And he was. ‘Let’s go out,’ he said. The children had all gone out for the afternoon before them.
They went to Kenwood House, and almost forgot when it was time to fetch Thomas. They had to go like the clappers. He grinned at her. ‘That was fun, wasn’t it?’ he said, and she smiled guiltily back at him.
Thomas was waiting in front of the Kensington Odeon, where he’d been taken by the parents of a schoolfriend along with said friend, holding the hand of the female parent, who was looking harried, on the verge of irritation. Thomas himself was looking just a little anxious.
‘Do please forgive us,’ said Flora. Simon was waiting around the corner with the car. ‘We’re abject.’ That did the trick. Point to Mrs Beaufort. Abject. Thomas’s friend’s parents took their child home to a square in echt Kensington thinking that the Beauforts must be okay, really, even if they did live in Hammersmith. And then, it showed a certain self-assurance (just about as much as one ought to have, actually) to be late, just a little late, for a rendezvous of this kind. Furthermore, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Thomas himself. Thomas was a perfect little dear.
57
On the bedside table there was a shiny new copy of Larousse gastronomique. ‘What on earth is that door-stopper doing there?’ asked Simon, wide-eyed.
‘Well, it’s just my bedtime reading; you know.’
‘You’re joking, of course.’
‘No, I’m entirely serious. It’s fascinating. You know I told you I was going to learn to cook.’
‘I thought you said you were going to go to some classes.’
‘Yes, I am, too, but I thought first I’d better just do some limbering-up.’
He couldn’t stop laughing, not for ages. She even began to look a little hurt; he had to make a real effort to stop.
‘I don’t think you’re very kind,’ she said.
He began laughing again. I love you, oh how I love you. ‘Come here,’ he said. But God, oh God, God help him: no: it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough; it wasn’t the same. What kind of terrible paradox was this? That the act was less convincing, less powerful, less real, less true, than the words? How could this be? He held her in his arms, silent, astonished, appalled. My love, my love. ‘Have you actually tried to cook anything yet?’ he said.
‘No; but I will.’
He could have laughed at that, too, five minutes ago, but nothing was funny any more. He felt at the moment that nothing could ever be funny again: that the sadness—almost horror—that he felt now would swamp his spirit forever. ‘You’re a funny girl,’ he said.
She looked up at him. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘Really, I’m not. I’m the least funny girl you ever met.’
That look in her eyes again: as candid, as guileless as those of an animal, or a very young child. He was speechless, truly speechless. He held her in his arms. This was just no good. This was just no effing good. They had reached another stage—without warning, without any prior knowledge that such a state of affairs could even be—another stage: the final stage. He suddenly knew this. There was nothing more beyond this: not for them. Not as things were. He’d reached the end of the ever-finer line, and arrived at a blank wall. There it was, right in front of his nose. So perhaps they could just go on existing in this stage, being together, here, up against this blank wall. Was that possible? It was going to have to be. ‘Shall we go out?’ he said. ‘Shall we go and have a drink in that brasserie?’ There was nothing else, not another damned thing, that he could offer her.
58
Flora was looking happy—he suddenly saw this—for the first time for—how long? months? years? This was, at any rate, the first time he’d noticed it: that she was looking truly happy; she was smiling, laughing, joking with Thomas and Nell while she cooked the dinner. And she looked pretty. She was his own lovely Flora, she was what he’d seen her to be, known her to be, from the earliest moment, at that idiotic ball, years ago.
When all the children were in bed he sat beside her on the sofa and put his arms around her. She went on stitching as best she could. ‘I’m trying to finish this one tonight,’ she said; ‘I’m so close.’ She had just a little more sky to do.
‘Well done,’ he said, ‘well done. Is that the lot?’
She stared at him, appalled. ‘Oh no! there are still three more to go! I’ll be just halfway.’
He laughed. ‘You don’t want to finish,’ he said. ‘You’ll miss it.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll have to begin something else. I don’t want to think about that now.’ No: it wouldn’t do to think about that now.
‘How’s your friend the Mother of God these days?’
She pulled a face. ‘The confinement is due in just over a fortnight,’ she said. ‘As you will have noted.’
‘Yes, I had.’
‘So you must know as well as I how she is.’
‘You never seem to mention the lady these days.’
‘I’m in another stage.’
‘I suppose you would be, at that. So, how’s it going, round at St Thing’s?’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Truly?’
‘It’s nice.’
‘As you said before.’
‘Well, it is still.’
‘I suppose that’s something: still nice, after all these weeks.’
‘Yes, I should have thought so.’
‘What about that vicar?’
‘Freddy.’
‘Freddy?
’ ‘Yes, F
reddy.’
‘I love it.’
‘And his wife’s called Phoebe. He calls her Phoebes, when they’re alone together.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I took some jumble round the other day, to the vicarage. They’re having a jumble sale next Saturday. And he opened the door to me and called her. “I say, Phoebes,” he said, “Flora’s here with some jumble.” So there.’
Simon was laughing. ‘What a set-up,’ he said, and laughed some more.
Flora was laughing too. ‘I’m inclined these days to think that disestablishment would be a real pity,’ she said.
‘The joke would rather lose its edge,’ Simon agreed.
‘And not only that, either,’ said Flora.
‘Ah,’ said Simon. ‘Well, I wouldn’t know about the rest.’
‘Perhaps you don’t know what you know.’
‘Or even what I don’t know.’
‘There you go.’
‘I hope you didn’t give them anything of mine,’ said Simon, remembering the jumble.
‘Of course not,’ said Flora. ‘All the same, if you could find time before the end of the week to sort out anything you don’t really need any more, or never wear—’
‘I need it all. I wear it all.’
‘All right,’ said Flora. ‘Okay.’
‘It’s my jumble,’ said Simon, ‘and I’m going to keep it. So, you’ve reached the jumble-donating stage. There’s Anglican for you. Can’t get in much deeper than that.’
‘You can,’ said Flora, ‘and I have: I’m going to help out at the sale itself. Nell’s going to come with me; Janey’s still thinking about it.’
‘Well, I suppose I’d better plan to do something manly with Thomas, then,’ said Simon, ‘while you girls are jumbling.’
‘That’s the idea. Get him macho-ed up ready for Fergus.’
‘What?
’ ‘The school holidays start next week so Fergus is going to be coming here every day; we’re minding him for Louisa. And for Robert, come to that.’
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