‘And how are things in the bedroom department?’ Sandra had suddenly asked. Mrs Hibbert was so appalled she had said, ‘I beg your pardon,’ with no hint of any interrogative in her intonation, but Sandra had chosen to interpret the exclamation as a question all the same. ‘With Francis,’ Sandra had said, ‘between you and Francis, everything lovey-dovey in that respect?’ And then, presumably to encourage confidences, ‘I remember when Bri and I were first married, I had the most awful cystitis every time we’d been at it – oh, the agony! But then maybe, being older, you haven’t suffered like I did?’
The vulgarity paralysed Mrs Hibbert. She sat quite motionless, silent in her rage, with Sandra’s needles clicking and the fire spluttering. ‘Well,’ Sandra said, at last, finally realising she would get no response, ‘I’m glad everything’s fine, that’s good. It’s nice Frank has got married at last. I wish our mother was still alive. She was desperate for him to bring a nice girl home, she could never understand why he didn’t when he was so handsome and clever. He just used to laugh and say he hadn’t fitted the slipper to his Cinderella yet.’ Mrs Hibbert got up. She said she was sorry but she had a dreadful headache and was going to have to retire to bed even though it was so early. Sandra was all sympathy. She jumped up straight away and went off to find some aspirin. Then she insisted on making some cocoa, which Mrs Hibbert did not want, and filling a hot-water bottle which she mysteriously claimed would cure a headache if held to the stomach once she got into bed. The bed was a double one. She and Francis had already been obliged to spend one night in it and very uncomfortable it had been. It was only 4 feet 6 inches, wide and when they turned over in the night they kept banging into each other. Francis had apologised, and said that, as there was only one spare room in the house, he hadn’t been able to ask Sandra for separate rooms, and anyway . . . His voice had tailed off and she had known exactly what he meant. There was nothing wrong in his wanting to keep up appearances, and she’d felt sorry for him.
She lay there seething when Francis came tiptoing in two hours later. She feigned sleep. In the morning, he made no comment about the sleeping arrangements, nor did he mention that his sister had said anything. They were both glad to leave. Francis said that next time, they would stay in the pub, which had perfectly comfortable rooms, but there never was a next time. She never told him what Sandra had asked her, not wanting either to admit that she had been upset, or to upset him. All the way home, she had thought of all kinds of rejoinders which she could have made to Sandra’s question, and had tormented herself with what her sister-in-law must have made of her silence and hasty withdrawal. She ought simply to have smiled and said, ‘Fine, thank you,’ and that would have been that.
No one else ever dared to ask her how things were in the bedroom department, not even in a roundabout way. And yet, in resenting Sandra’s curiosity, Mrs Hibbert was nevertheless aware that she was not so innocent herself. She would never pose the question Sandra had posed, but she speculated privately all the same and despised herself for doing so. She wondered about what went on in the bedrooms of people she knew and did not like the images which forced themselves into her head. Assuring herself that it was natural to wonder what went on didn’t quite work. Was it natural? Did everyone speculate in this unseemly fashion? She didn’t know, and wouldn’t have dreamt of trying to find out. But it did strike her that if it was not natural it might be rather significant. It might mean sex was more alive in her than she allowed. There were some slight indications that this might be true. Sometimes when Francis gave her a cuddle and their bodies were briefly entwined she felt a frisson of something which she had told herself she would never again feel. It was horribly confusing, this sensation. Whenever she experienced the strangeness of it, she felt shaken for ages afterwards, but it was uncontrollable. ‘What’s wrong?’ Francis would say, seeing her face (and she wondered just what he did see). ‘What’s the matter, Mary, are you ill?’ And for simplicity’s sake, she would say yes, she felt faint, she felt ill, and allow him to go and make her a cup of tea, after which she would recover.
They had all disappeared, these disturbing feelings, when Francis died. She’d been freed of them. Nobody had touched her since. On Sundays, she felt the loss most acutely, the loss of what had been within her, buried deeply but nevertheless there. She felt a deadness, a dryness, a hopeless realisation that everything was over and that indeed it had hardly lived. They had been married such a short time. It had left her bitter towards Francis, which she knew was not fair, but the circumstances of his death increased this bitterness, though she never let anyone know of it. She wished that in her will she could have let those who would read it know that what it contained was not the sum total of what she had been, or of what she had felt. It listed her goods and chattels, it itemised her wealth, but it gave no clue to the riches she had once possessed. Why it should seem important that others should have some inkling of another being who was not the Mrs Hibbert they knew she had no idea. She hated the assumptions made about her and wanted to correct them but could find no way to do it.
She was always so relieved when Mondays came.
12
Happiness is Activity
ON MONDAY, IDA couldn’t decide whether to go and see the new vicar or not. If the Rev. Barnes had still been there she would have had no hesitation in seeking what he called pastoral care. She would have gone straight away, without letting a weekend intervene. She’d gone to him on many occasions, often in a complete panic, and he had never failed her. She could just turn up at the vicarage and if he was there he would stop what he was doing and usher her in. She’d sometimes half run to the vicarage, lumbering along with her breath coming in great gasps and her heart pounding alarmingly, and when she got there she was in such a state she hardly had the energy to stagger up the steps and ring the bell. The moment the Rev. Barnes had opened the door, she’d begun to calm down – his arm went round her shoulders at once and he led her into his study, closing the door firmly behind them and ignoring his wife’s shout of ‘Paul! At least finish your dinner!’ He’d made her feel so important, worthy of his time, and that in itself was comforting. They had prayed together, down on their knees, and gradually her fear had always lessened. ‘Everyone is afraid of dying, Ida,’ he had said, ‘but we all have to die. We have to trust in the Lord and He will see us along the path and through to the other side.’ Ida had immediately visualised a grassy path, and a fence, and a stile, and herself being helped over it into a beautiful meadow. By the Rev. Barnes.
But the new vicar was different. It hadn’t taken her long, in fact, to mark the Rev. Maddox’s card and find him wanting in most respects. He was a poor preacher, for a start. His first sermon was highfalutin, his second plainer (had he twigged no one could understand him?) but dreary, and his third hopelessly rambling, with him losing the thread and having to fumble with his notes for an embarrassingly long time. She knew she was not the only one to be disappointed. The church was quite full on the first occasion, with thirty-two parishioners present, most of them women, of course, and there just to look at him. The number was down to a more usual fifteen the second week, and on the third Sunday only the faithful few attended, the hard core of nine who were always there unless ill or on holiday. Nine people, listening to the incomprehensible and smothering yawns. It was a relief to recognise the hymns. But he was over their heads, this new vicar, and his air of aloofness offended them.
He didn’t know how to be friendly, either. He turned up, during his second week, at the Women’s Fellowship meeting, advised, probably, to show his face by someone on the church council. Show his face is exactly what he did – he looked round the door of the church hall where they were all gathered and said, ‘I’m just saying hello, ladies, don’t want to disturb you, carry on.’ They all automatically stood up, and Dot Nicholson, of all people, urged the vicar to step inside and be welcomed. He’d been obliged to come into the hall properly and take a seat in their circle, and there he had remained, cl
utching his knees, while the subject for the monthly competition was decided. A shadow of a smile, hastily controlled, had passed over his face when it was agreed that they would compete to see who could arrange the prettiest wild flowers on a plain white saucer. Ida knew he was sneering, and that he had failed to appreciate that this competition was only a bit of fun, and that they all saw the joke too. His expression had reminded her of Mrs Hibbert’s. After five minutes, he’d said he had work to do and must be going. Everyone agreed he was nothing like the Rev. Barnes, who had had no side to him and knew how to jolly everyone along. All that the Rev. Maddox had in his favour was that he was much better looking, and a bachelor. No one said out loud what this might signify. No one had to.
Ida knew that she would never get the warmth from the new vicar that she had received from the old. Rev. Barnes had made her feel brave, too, though she knew she wasn’t, telling her how he admired the way she had borne her illness, and it was he who had suggested that she did a shift in the Mental Health Research charity shop when his wife had had to drop out of the rota. ‘Happiness is activity, Ida,’ he had told her. ‘If you stay at home all the time brooding and worrying you’ll only feel worse. It isn’t enough only to go to church, you need something more. It will help, being in other surroundings once a week, and you’ll have the satisfaction of doing a service. Try it.’ She had, and he’d been right. She’d trusted him to be right. She didn’t trust the Rev. Maddox, but then she hadn’t tried him on a one-to-one basis, in private.
She decided to go after all and prepared herself carefully, wanting to appear calm and composed. She walked to the vicarage in the afternoon, taking her time so that she would not be sweaty and red-faced when she got there. Mercifully, she met no one and arrived at the door relieved and remarkably cheerful. There was a long pause after she’d rung the bell and she was just beginning to think that the Rev. Maddox was out when she heard his footsteps and then the creaky old door opened. But not very far. ‘Ah,’ the vicar said, and ‘Yes?’ ‘Sorry to trouble you.’ Ida said, feeling immediately at a disadvantage, ‘but could I talk to you? It’s personal.’ The door did open a little wider, but the vicar took a step back. ‘Ah,’ he said, again. ‘I wonder if you could come back later? In half an hour? I’m rather busy, I’m afraid.’ Dumbly, Ida nodded, and backed away from the door, very nearly falling down the first step. Before she had turned round to negotiate the steps properly, the door had been closed again. She felt both humiliated and at the same time outraged – busy? He was busy? With what? One of his awful sermons? The Rev. Barnes had never been busy if she had needed him, even when he was busy he wasn’t too busy.
She almost didn’t bother going back at all. What could such a man ever do to help the likes of her? She shuddered to think of going to him in the state she’d been that awful day, or on one of those nights when she’d felt the cancer eating its way through her flesh, gorging on her insides and sucking her into its embrace. He’d be worse than useless. And yet, half an hour later, during which time she’d wandered aimlessly across to the churchyard and round it and back again, she found herself ringing the vicarage doorbell once more in a mood of defiance. He thought he’d got rid of her? Well, he hadn’t. It was his duty to listen to her. This time the door opened promptly and was flung wide. There was even an attempt at a welcome – unconvincing, but at least it was made, a hand was extended in greeting and he said, ‘Do come in.’ He didn’t take her into the study, where the Rev. Barnes had always taken her, but into the sitting-room. The chill of this room hit them as he led the way in and he made a performance of lighting the fire. It was a coal fire, and she could see at a glance that it would be hard to get going, with so little paper and no kindling showing underneath the coal which had just been chucked on any old how. He fussed with matches, using six, one after the other, and, when some smoke appeared, snatched the leather bellows hanging beside the fireplace and vigorously pumped them. The smoke died down. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘do take a seat. I’m sorry about this.’ Then he saw an electric fire in the corner and rushed to plug it in. It gave off an acrid stench as the elements showed red but he was delighted – ‘Warmth at last!’ he said, and then, when he’d sat himself down opposite her, ‘Now, what was it you wanted?’
It was a simple enough question, one she supposed he was entitled to ask, but she didn’t like the way he had phrased it. ‘Wanted’ made her sound greedy. Why couldn’t he have put it differently? Why couldn’t he have asked how he could help her? And she didn’t like the way he sat, looking so unfriendly, so official somehow, so far away across the whole width of the shabby brown carpet – he’d positioned himself as isolated from her as possible, as though she had a bad smell. There was a bad smell, too, all round her, coming off the cushions on the battered sofa where the Barnes family’s cats had peed. His stare unnerved her and she couldn’t think what to say. He was waiting, like a headmaster confronting a pupil, sent to him for chastisement, and it made her remember a teacher she had once had who had terrified her. She licked her lips and gave a little cough, and she saw him surreptitiously looking at the clock on the mantelpiece. It wasn’t working. Its hands showed a quarter to six and it couldn’t be more than two-thirty. ‘I get frightened,’ she managed to say, her voice sounding hoarse. He tilted his head on one side, but said nothing. ‘Panic,’ she said. ‘I panic, I feel cancer eating me.’ She touched her chest and his eyes became riveted on her breasts. An expression she couldn’t quite interpret crossed his face, but she thought it near to disgust, and suddenly she began to cry, not hard, just a few tears escaped. He stared at her, his features rearranged so that he looked simply impassive, and then he sprang up and turned his back on her and began walking about, touching the furniture and talking rapidly. She strained to take in what he was saying. Something about help coming from prayer, and prayer conquering fear, and being on the look-out for help arriving in unexpected ways, and God loving everyone and working in mysterious ways . . . it went on and on, and he was never still and never once looked at her. Struggling to haul herself out of the smelly depths of the old sofa, she said she was sorry to have troubled him and that she’d better go. He didn’t move from the window, where he’d finally stopped his pacing. He was watching her as she walked towards the door. She felt dizzy and there was a thudding in her ears – he might have been saying something else, but she couldn’t hear it. Putting a hand out to steady herself on the small round table she was passing she touched a lace mat underneath a china bowl full of pot-pourri and brought it crashing down. The table was spindly and couldn’t take the weight she put upon it and keeled over on top of the smashed china, taking her with it. She lay in a heap, stunned, the table across her legs and the musty pot-pourri round her head. She closed her eyes to try to stop the spinning in her head, and when it subsided she gave a little sob and tried to get up. She rolled onto her side, cutting her arm on a shard of the broken china bowl, and pulled her knees up from under the little table, but she couldn’t lever herself up. Turning, she looked for the vicar, hating him for what he had just witnessed and hating him more for not having rushed to help her. ‘I can’t get up!’ she shouted. ‘Can’t you see? I can’t get up!’ She stretched out a hand, but still he didn’t move. He had his back to the light, he was in shadow, but she could tell he was transfixed, rigid. Groaning, she rolled away from the table towards the sofa. It seemed so far away and she had to roll over again, her fat unwieldy body refusing to roll easily and needing to be forced painfully, inch by inch. Her dress had ridden up, and her pink slip tore as it caught on the table leg, but she had reached the end of the sofa and grasped the edge of it to help her up. Panting, she got herself half-upright and paused for the last big effort, and at that moment the vicar moved, advancing towards her, his arms outstretched. ‘No!’ she shouted. ‘I’ll manage, leave me! I don’t need you! I don’t want your help! Stop!’ He stopped. She was on her feet, but leaned against the sofa to rest a moment. Her head and back hurt, and her arm where she’d
cut herself was bleeding, but all she wanted was to be out of the vicarage, away from that man.
‘Mrs Yates,’ he began, as she stumbled to the door, ‘Mrs Yates, please, wait, I . . .’ but she wouldn’t wait, or speak to him, or look at him. She got through the door and into the hall safely, but the front door defeated her. She tugged and pulled but couldn’t open it and he came behind her and she had to move aside to let him open it for her. ‘Mrs Yates,’ he said again, ‘Mrs Yates, this is all most unfortunate, I’m so sorry, I can’t think what . . .’ but she was out, careering down the steps dangerously, at last away from him. He didn’t follow her. She half ran down the drive, only slowing to a walk once she was through the gates. She would never go to the Rev. Maddox again. She’d made a fool of herself, but that was not what concerned her most, it was the fact that she’d gone to see him at all when she should have known better. She’d exposed herself and her fears to a man who couldn’t understand them and was repelled by her, a man without compassion who couldn’t cope with emotion. Martin couldn’t either, but he was of more use, or he tried to be. Now she would have no one to run to when everything became too much, she might as well just wander the roads as she had done that other day and suffer the humiliation of being picked up by Mrs Hibbert.
Is There Anything You Want? Page 24
