Sidney Chambers and The Persistence of Love

by James Runcie

  ‘That’s not fair, Anna. That’s absolutely not fair.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean . . . I . . .’

  Sidney started to cry. He knew he shouldn’t. Not in front of his daughter. Not at a time like this.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  What was he doing? Why did he have to collapse like this rather than look after her? Who was the child now?

  Anna held on to her father and told him he was going to be all right. It had to be. There was no other choice.

  Then she ran out of hope. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Love each other,’ said Sidney. ‘No matter what.’

  Later that evening, the doorbell rang. Sidney did not want to answer but felt he had to. Everyone knew he was in. Where else would he go? In any case, it could only be another well-wisher, a parishioner bringing flowers, steak and kidney pudding or baked goods in Tupperware. He and Anna had so many reusable containers they could have opened a shop.

  It was Vanessa Morgan offering her help.

  ‘I didn’t know you were back.’

  ‘The dean telephoned. I know I may not be the right person.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody is. Come in.’

  She held out her hand. Sidney shook it. What was this woman doing here?

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sidney. ‘Everyone is. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll make it.’

  ‘It’s no trouble.’

  ‘I thought I could do things for you,’ Miss Morgan went on, ‘let people know about the funeral, for example; organise the reception afterwards if you want one. You can’t be telling everyone about everything yourself. You need some protection.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Other people’s kindness. After my mother died, I found their compassion so tiring, but I couldn’t say anything because it would have seemed ungrateful. Unchristian even.’

  ‘I think I know what you mean.’

  ‘People want to talk about their losses too; everyone who came to me ended up talking about their own experience of death, what it meant to them and how it had affected them. My loss gave them permission to relive their bereavement. And, look, I’m doing the same to you now. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Sidney. ‘It’s helpful.’

  ‘I’m not sure it is. I also wanted to make it up to you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For being horrible.’

  ‘You weren’t.’

  ‘I was. I was arrogant. I think I must also have been jealous. I thought you had an easy charm and now I know that it wasn’t that easy after all. You were performing.’

  ‘You have to keep cheerful.’

  ‘I had a bit of a breakdown, if I’m honest . . .’

  ‘I think I knew.’

  Why was this woman telling him now?

  ‘But my faith helped me through as it should help you too, although there’s no guarantee of that. You’re either resilient or you’re not. Sometimes you just have to give in to it all.’

  ‘It’s too much to think about.’

  ‘You don’t have to think about it.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything else.’

  All Sidney wanted to do was lie face down on the bed he had shared with his wife and smother himself with her loss.

  Hildegard’s sister Trudi came for the funeral. She was on her own. Her husband had to look after their children in Berlin; her mother was too infirm to make the trip.

  Sidney found it hard to cope with a woman who was an echo of his wife and yet, at the same time, not like Hildegard at all. She was more serious, careful with emotion, as if she didn’t quite trust it not to reveal too much about herself, preferring instead to keep active enough to disguise any vulnerability.

  She showed Anna how to make pumpernickel, proper German bread that was rich and dense and slightly sour, with an aroma of fennel and caraway seeds. As she did so, she told her niece stories from her mother’s childhood: their first party game (Schokoladenessen, in which Hildegard had definitely cheated), their grandmother standing in her best apron and teaching them exactly how to make Leipziger Lerche, their first boyfriends (not Günter, as Anna had thought, but Ulli, who was Jewish and had got out of the country just in time) and even Hildegard’s first husband, Stephen Staunton.

  Anna was surprised how casually this was mentioned. ‘I only found out recently that Mum had been married before.’

  ‘I don’t think children have to know everything about their parents.’

  ‘I think I should know something.’

  ‘He was Irish. She wanted to leave Germany after the war and he took her away. He might as well have had a white horse. She was very excited and he was so charming. Dark hair. Strong, how do you say, jaw? Like a movie star. Your mother loved him as best she could, but he drank too much and he was unfaithful and then one of his lovers killed him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I assumed you knew that.’

  There was a silence, filled only with the sound of their preparation. The two of them began to stir three different flours in a bowl, wholewheat, rye and strong white, before scooping out a third of it and then adding the bran, the caraway and the fennel seeds, salt and finely chopped shallot. Why did family truths come out like this, Anna wondered, and how much more was there to know?

  Trudi added two different mixtures, one of yeast and one of molasses, into the bowl and asked Anna to fold everything together as best she could. ‘Your parents were protecting you.’

  ‘I don’t like it when other people know more about my family than I do. What do you mean, “one of his lovers”? There were more than one?’

  ‘I think so. But it was a long time ago. And it was how your father met your mother. So good things came in the end. Like you.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m a good thing.’

  ‘You’re the best thing. Believe me.’

  ‘And I don’t like secrets.’

  ‘You don’t have any of your own?’

  ‘Yes. But I know what they are.’

  Trudi fetched a damp tea towel to cover the bowl and left the bread mixture to rise for thirty minutes. If the conversation went on like this, they were going to have a good punch-down when the dough was ready.

  ‘We all need secrets,’ she said, ‘although I’m not sure your mother believed in them. If I asked her anything directly she’d always tell me. She said it was why she never wanted to go back to the East. There, the difference between what you know and don’t know makes you vulnerable. Power is knowledge. But my sister believed that if you lived openly, you had nothing to fear.’

  ‘Do you think she loved Rolfe?’

  ‘Are you asking me what I think you’re asking?’

  Anna put down her wooden spoon. ‘And will you tell me the truth if I ask?’

  Trudi started to clear away the packets, seeds and scales. ‘It was friendship. Nothing more.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I would have known, Anna. I’m her sister. She felt sorry for him. She knew he adored her and she was flattered. It also amused her that Rolfe annoyed your father so much. It was a way of getting him to pay attention.’

  ‘A game.’

  ‘Perhaps. I do the same with my husband. It’s nice for a woman to feel she’s still attractive. It doesn’t happen so often these days.’

  ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘I think you’ll feel differently when you’re my age. Kinder, Küche, Kirche. Your mother was very good at all of that.’

  ‘Only one child.’

  ‘But what a child!’ said Trudi, kissing her niece on the forehead. She moved the bowl by the oven. ‘We need to leave this in a warm place. Perhaps we could make a cake too? I thought about an Eierlikör Torte. Your father would like that but I’m not sure if you can get all the ingredients in England. Do you have any eggnog?’
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  ‘Women bring him cake all the time.’

  ‘They’re being kind.’

  ‘Do you like Amanda?’ Anna asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. Do you?’

  ‘She’s always been very kind to me. She’s my godmother. Sometimes she tries too hard to be my friend. I don’t always like it but I feel sorry for her. Dad says she’s made a mess of her life.’

  ‘Your mother liked her.’

  ‘She did?’

  ‘Why would she not?’

  ‘Perhaps she was jealous.’

  ‘No, she always knew your father loved her best. She never doubted that, even when he was difficult to live with.’

  ‘She told you he was?’

  ‘She didn’t need to tell me. I can see for myself. You only have to spend five minutes with Sidney to understand that he’s not the saint everyone thinks he is.’

  ‘I thought it was me.’

  ‘We all know. We just let him think he’s wonderful. He’s not.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘He’s a very good man. But we all have our flaws. And that’s a good thing. Otherwise we’d be impossible.’

  ‘I don’t know, Aunt Trudi. My dad’s not bad at being impossible.’

  Sidney knew that he had to be brave in front of his daughter but everything he did or thought reminded him of his wife.

  Cecilia Richards came from Cambridge with a cottage pie. Trudi said they were coping, they didn’t need any more food, they could manage perfectly well, she and Miss Morgan were sorting everything out between them, but Cecilia insisted that Sidney would want to talk to someone who had also experienced sudden death.

  She had lost her beloved over ten years ago – murdered by mistake, they had meant to kill someone else – and she had been left on her own with a young child: Charlie. He had been six years old at the time.

  If Sidney wanted to talk to someone who had already been through it all, then Cecilia said that she would be happy to listen. People were very kind at first, she said, very sweet, but they couldn’t ever understand and then they had to get back to their normal lives. They returned to that everyday place where the bereaved were no longer welcome. It wasn’t their fault, she said, it wasn’t anyone’s, but somehow the grief-stricken were no longer allowed in. They could never be normal again.

  Her husband, Orlando, had arranged all the music at Sidney and Hildegard’s wedding. Now she offered suggestions, if Sidney wanted, for the funeral. Bach obviously – ‘O Welt, ich muss dich lassen’, ‘O world, I now must leave thee’ – Mozart probably, or a bit of Brahms, such as ‘How lovely are thy dwellings’. There was even a seventeenth-century German song by Paul Fleming: ‘An Anna aus der Ferne’ – ‘To Anna from afar’.

  ‘I think that might be a bit much.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as too much grief, Sidney.’

  ‘But we have to continue with our lives. Hildegard would have wanted that. Although sometimes I can hear her telling me off, complaining that we never gave her this much attention when she was alive.’

  ‘I still talk to Orlando. I imagine him by my side.’

  ‘How is Charlie?’

  ‘Seventeen now. Taller than you. He’s in his last year at school. He wants to be a cricketer but he still keeps up with his music. Do you remember how, at Orlando’s funeral, someone had given him a set of comedy beards and moustaches and he couldn’t stop putting them on, pretending to be different guests each time? He kept going up to people and interrupting their conversations. I told him to stop but now it’s the only thing anyone remembers about the funeral; a little six-year-old boy and his moustaches. You have to let your children find their own way of grieving and then, amazingly, I can never quite believe how, they recover more quickly than you do; or at least they find a better way of not showing it.’

  After her husband’s death Cecilia said that she had been to see a bereavement counsellor who had told her to concentrate on three words: tears, talk and time. They had read the Book of Lamentations together. There was, she said, a liturgy of grief, and that repetition was a form of cure. Sidney shouldn’t feel guilty if he wanted to go over everything that had happened again and again. She would be happy to listen at any time.

  He asked if she wanted to stay for supper but Cecilia said no, she really had to be getting back, and she shouldn’t intrude – what would his sister-in-law say?

  ‘I don’t think you need to worry about her.’

  ‘It must be hard.’

  ‘She’s very different to Hildegard. I think we’re having some ham and potatoes with red cabbage. Anna is staying the night with her friend Sophie. I might suggest we try some of your cottage pie instead.’

  ‘And leave the ham? That’s not going to go down well.’

  ‘I can have it at lunchtime tomorrow. I’ve stopped minding what people think because I no longer seem to have any opinion on anything at all. But I’d like something hot. I feel so cold all the time. Do you think it’s grief?’

  And so, that evening, Trudi heated up the cottage pie and her brother-in-law checked as he started to eat to see if it contained baked beans. It had been the start of a stupid argument several years ago when he had offered to make Hildegard a Monday-night dinner and he had added baked beans to the filling (as his mother always did because it pleased them all and bulked out the meat for the five of them). But his wife said the base was too liquid and that it tasted ‘all wrong’. Why couldn’t Sidney follow the recipe she had left? Then he had lost his temper and said that if all his wife could find to complain about was the fact that he had added baked beans to a cottage pie there couldn’t be much wrong with him and then she had shouted back that this was only the beginning of all the things that were wrong with their marriage, the tiniest tip of an enormous iceberg of Sidney’s faults, and they had gone on, arguing and arguing, until Hildegard had suddenly burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of what they were both saying.

  ‘Which other couple,’ she had said, ‘argues so much about baked beans?’

  Now he missed even that. But he could not fall apart. He decided to seek out Geordie and have a drink with him, even if talking to his friend made him collapse all the more.

  It was a bloody bugger of a thing, Geordie said, but Sidney noticed how tactfully he avoided talking about God or fate. He had thought Cathy might have been the first to go, what with the cancer and everything, but she was on the mend, she’d had another check-up, it was all clear, yet now this had happened it proved that you couldn’t predict anything at all. Fate was like a dark cloud or a wolf in the road; there was always something waiting to get you if you ever relaxed and thought you had the business of life under control.

  A wolf in the road? Sidney wondered if he had heard his friend correctly, and tried to picture death as a predator; not Father Time, but a beast with yellow eyes emerging suddenly out of a forest.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ Geordie asked. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re not. I’ll keep prattling. You just let me know if you want anything.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want. Or I do, but it’s the one thing I can’t have. I don’t know whether I’ll ever stop wanting her or if this feeling will ever go away.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to go away. You will have to learn to live with it. I don’t know. I can’t imagine. But I can get you involved in a case to distract you when you’re ready. After the funeral, of course.’

  ‘Do you have something in mind?’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of things on the go. And with you around, Sidney, there’s always the unexpected.’

  ‘It’s just that neither of us ever thought the unexpected would turn out to be this.’

  Sidney let Anna choose the coffin: light oak veneer, brass handles, a nameplate.

  As well as her letter, she put in her book of pressed wild flowers and a photograph from her fifth birthday with her mother clapping her hands and laughing as her daughter blew out the candles on the cake. They decided on the flow
ers together; a wreath of white lilies for the coffin, and a posy of violets, freesias and gypsophila for Anna to hold.

  It was All Souls’ Day. Sidney wanted to have the funeral in the Lady Chapel but the dean promised there would be too many people for that. Hildegard had been greatly loved. There were all her piano pupils, their parents, the cathedral congregation, the musical community, people from Germany. It had to be held in the nave.

  Sidney didn’t think they needed a car and asked for the coffin to rest in front of the altar, raised high, with standing candles on either side, already in place as the congregation arrived. They came just before eleven thirty in the morning, in dark suits and winter coats, protecting themselves against the wind and rain outside and the first autumn chill within.

  Sidney sat on the end of the front row, with Anna by his side, then Trudi, his parents, his sister Jennifer, Johnny, Louis and Dan, his brother Matt with yet another new girlfriend (Roxy?), and then behind them were Geordie and Cathy, Amanda, Leonard and Simon, Helena Mitchell – Malcolm was taking part in the service – and Cecilia Richards. Sidney had not checked if Rolfe von Arnim was there and thought briefly about how he would greet him afterwards but told himself very firmly not to consider such a thing now. His job was to look after Anna. He took her left hand as she clutched the special posy of violets in her right.

  The dean stood under the great Octagon and announced that people were here today to express their sorrow, proclaim their faith, and give thanks for all they had received through the life of this, their friend, the dearly departed, whom they had known and loved from the very first time they had met her.

  It was the same welcome Sidney had given so many times on behalf of others and the words were harder to receive than they ever had been to say.

  ‘O God, Lord of life and conqueror of death, our help in every time of trouble, comfort us who mourn, and give us grace, in the presence of death, to worship you, that we may have sure hope of eternal life and be enabled to put our whole trust in your goodness and mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.’

  The opening sentences from the Book of Lamentations seemed irredeemably bleak, but Sidney knew that his wife would have wanted the darkness as much as the light, the old language, the tough heart of faith. He remembered Cecilia’s words: tears, talk and time.