‘What did you say?’ she asked him.
Patiently, Martin repeated it. ‘I was saying,’ he began, as though she had a hearing problem and not that she hadn’t been attending, ‘that Mrs Hibbert said she couldn’t imagine why the bishop had sent the Rev. Maddox to St James’s.’
‘Why shouldn’t he have?’ asked Ida, instantly sensing an insult. ‘What’s wrong with St James’s?’
‘Mrs Hibbert says he’ll have no intellectual stimulus there.’
‘Intellectual stimulus?’ shouted Ida. ‘What on earth does that mean? He’s a vicar.’
‘I think she meant nobody like himself to talk to,’ Martin said, nervously. ‘He’ll be a fish out of water.’
‘Well, that’s his fault,’ snapped Ida.
They drove on for a while, and then Martin said, ‘Mrs Hibbert’s met him.’
‘Oh, has she indeed,’ said Ida, longing to know how, since Mrs Hibbert never went near the church, but not wanting to show that she did.
‘At St Mary’s,’ Martin obligingly added, ‘a committee meeting of the Friends. He’s going to be associated with them.’
‘Big of him,’ said Ida, and ‘Associated!’ she sneered, but not too sarcastically, because she wanted Martin to carry on. Usually, after three ‘Mrs Hibbert saids’ she told him to shut up.
‘Seems Mrs Hibbert crossed swords with him, but she was impressed, she thinks he is a good man, for all his faults.’
‘Good?’ Ida felt she was choking. ‘Good?’
‘That’s what she said. And she knows how to judge character.’
Ida laughed, loudly. ‘How do you work that out?’ she said.
‘She took me on,’ Martin said, ‘without references.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Ida exploded. ‘She took you on because she’d seen you working in Mr Lonsdale’s garden opposite her and that was reference enough. And she’d have got rid of you quick enough if you hadn’t lived up to her expectations, or if you hadn’t turned up when she wanted you to. She’s ruthless, that woman, all her family were. They got rid of my Nan soon enough.’
Martin was quiet. He knew that to be quiet was the best way to encourage Ida to continue. But they arrived home and she went into the house without speaking again, her former cheerful mood apparently gone. Something he’d said had upset her, banishing that smile she’d had when he drew up in the car. He should have known better than to mention Mrs Hibbert at all. The rest of the day, he observed Ida carefully. There was something different about her, some atmosphere surrounding her that he couldn’t quite grasp. It wasn’t that she didn’t speak – that was common enough – or that she seemed abstracted, but that she seemed to be concentrating on something. She stared hard out of the window, and he looked himself, following her gaze, but there was nothing to see so remarkable that it held the attention. He did risk asking, ‘Penny for them?’ but she shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
Ida found it hard waiting for Sunday to come. She imagined the scene when the vicar saw his ex-parishioner, Lucy’s sister Janet, over and over again. He would be bound to notice her. He’d be shocked, wouldn’t he? Knowing she knew about his nervous breakdown and almost certainly its rumoured cause? But maybe not. She reminded herself that Manchester was a big place and that congregations in churches there were possibly much larger. Janet might have been only one of many, indistinguishable from others. Besides, the Rev. Maddox was the sort of man who never really looked at anyone properly. He wouldn’t have looked at faces closely enough to remember them. Instead of looking people in the eye, he employed the evasive tactic of looking just above their head, or over their shoulder, as though seeing someone else far more interesting. God, maybe.
When Sunday at last arrived, Ida dressed with exquisite care. She always tried to look her best for church, but this Sunday she wanted to be really smart. She had a bath when she got up and dressed in clean clothes from the skin outwards. The effort exhausted her, but when she saw herself in the long mirror on the wardrobe door, she felt gratified. She had on her navy costume, and navy always made her look slimmer. The waist of the skirt was hellishly tight, even though she’d left the top two buttons undone and fastened it with a large safety pin (nobody would see, the jacket came over it) but she was more than prepared to put up with the discomfort. Nobody these days wore hats or gloves to an ordinary morning service, but she was wearing both, a navy straw hat, nicely trimmed with a darker navy ribbon, and white gloves to match her white blouse. Only her shoes let her down but there was no alternative. She couldn’t get into the navy court shoes that had once gone with this outfit because her feet were so swollen, so she had to wear her flat, black Ecco shoes. Still, she looked good enough to be going to a wedding (which was precisely how the navy costume had come to be bought).
Martin was digging in the garden as she left. He stopped digging to tell her how nice she looked. He liked her to look ‘nice’ and she knew why – he interpreted it to mean she was feeling better. If she’d bothered to dress up, then she couldn’t be in a panic. He didn’t realise the reason could be the precise opposite. She often used the need to get dressed smartly for church to force her into controlling herself, and the struggle was always tremendous. The battle to select clothes and put them on in the right order would make her head pound, and she would break out into such a sweat she wanted to tear them all off again, and throw herself on the bed and stay there. It was often touch and go whether she would or she wouldn’t. But this Sunday she’d felt wonderfully calm. Although it tired her, getting ready had in other ways been almost a pleasure. Her short walk to the church was as a consequence quite stately. She passed someone she knew and she could see them noting how well turned out she was. It struck her, as she entered the church itself, that if asked she would have to say that she felt well.
She sat where she always sat, in the sixth pew from the front, on the right-hand side. Only Mrs Gibbon and Mrs Hardy sat in front of her. Across the aisle, she could see Dot, on her knees, praying. Behind her, she heard the Teasdales – mother, father, daughter – file in, the father coughing, as usual. The Proudfoots would rush in at the last minute and sit right at the back. Nine of them, so scattered about that the church looked even emptier than it was. The Rev. Barnes, whose congregation was always twice, sometimes three times, this number, used to urge everyone to come together, and for a while everyone did, filling the front pews on both sides, but then, over the following weeks, they would drift apart again and he would once more have to remonstrate with them. But Ida had the feeling that the Rev. Maddox actually preferred his congregation to be as spread-out as possible. It made them less threatening, easier to ignore. The church might be small, but when he was in the pulpit there was no sense of intimacy as he preached. His manner and delivery were more suited to a cathedral – he pitched his voice to carry a great and unnecessary distance. Maybe his Manchester church had been huge and he had not yet adapted to St James’s dimensions, but that was the kindest explanation and one Ida did not believe.
She wondered where Lucy and her sister Janet had chosen to sit, but was determined not to turn round to see. Patiently, she sat through the service, singing the hymns lustily as she always did (and aware that no one else did). The sermon was about harvests but, though it began with the harvesting of corn, it moved on to souls and she was lost. Her mind wandered hopelessly as she stared at the Rev. Maddox, trying to see him in a mental institution in a strait-jacket though, of course, she knew perfectly well he would probably have been at home taking sedatives. She dressed him in the linen slacks she’d found in the carrier bag unpacked at the Save the Children shop and put him in one of the lilac shirts. They suited him, but the hat, the panama hat, didn’t, so she took it off. He’d combed his hair very carefully this morning, as carefully as she’d combed hers. It was dark and thick and the parting on the left side very neat. He’d looked in a mirror to get that parting, which suggested he was vain. He wasn’t as young as they’d all thought he’d be. It was
just that he had the sort of skin which aged well, but now she was scrutinising him she could see lines where she hadn’t noticed them before. He was 50, at least, she was sure. He was very clean-shaven, his chin and upper lip without the faintest hint of any growth, and he had dainty lips, prettily shaped . . .
She didn’t fall asleep but staring so intently at the vicar she felt she’d hypnotised herself and had to shake her head to clear it. The service over, the Rev. Maddox strode to the door, looking neither to right nor left, and positioned himself there dutifully. The first week, he hadn’t done this. He’d stayed at the altar till everyone had left. But he’d been tactfully told that the custom at St James’s, and surely at most churches, was for the vicar to bid farewell at the door to each and every one of the congregation, saying a few appropriate words every time he shook, a hand. The trouble was that though he had thereafter followed this custom, he had difficulty finding any words at all. His awkwardness made his congregation feel awkward and they were coming to dread the mumbling which ensued, and had started rushing out with unseemly haste so that the handshakes had already become perfunctory. Ida didn’t hurry. She wanted to be last out so that she could study the effect that seeing Lucy’s sister had on the Rev. Maddox. But she saw, as she stepped into the aisle, that Lucy had not attended the service. She knew all eight of the people ahead of her and none of them were Lucy and Janet. Her disappointment made her gasp ‘Oh!’, and Dot, in front of her, said, ‘Ida?’, and she had to pretend to cough. But as she made her way behind Dot to the door, she clung on to the fact that even if Lucy and Janet had not shown up she still knew about the vicar’s nervous breakdown and she meant to let him know that she knew. She held herself back a little, giving Dot, who followed on after the Teasdales (only the father shook hands) plenty of time. She could hear Dot twittering on about Adam’s birthday and the special roast cooking at home, and then she had scuttled off. Ida moved slowly forward, consciously trying to look dignified.
He flushed dark red. There was no mistaking it – red from the neck up. He could hardly get out the words, ‘Nice to see you, Mrs Yates, how are you this fine morning?’ Ida had intended to be magnificently cool and remote, but she couldn’t manage it. ‘Never mind me, Vicar,’ she said, with what she hoped was unmistakable emphasis, ‘how are you? Well, I hope?’ She was going to add ‘Quite recovered, I trust’, but didn’t. He had his hand sticking out but she hadn’t yet taken it. She took it now, and squeezed it. Her hand was strong, her grip firm. She held his hand until he had to free it, with difficulty. For once, he was meeting her stare, but his eyes didn’t have in them the expression she had expected and looked for. They were sad eyes. ‘Quite well, thank you,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Good,’ Ida said. Something was slipping away from her, all that lovely power she’d felt, and she wanted it back. ‘Good,’ she repeated, ‘because I heard you haven’t been well.’ He raised his eyebrows, and Ida knew this meant that he wasn’t surprised, that he was well aware the whole parish had known he hadn’t been well, which was why he had taken up his position so late. He seemed to be pondering how to respond, and she was not going to help him. ‘A friend,’ Ida said, ‘in Manchester . . .’ and then it was her turn to blush. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘I see,’ and he nodded. There was nothing she could do but nod back, and say good morning, and walk away, but she couldn’t walk as quickly as she wanted to because her legs were stiff. She felt suddenly dreadfully ashamed, and then resentful that she had to acknowledge this – it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t how things should have turned out. All she’d been looking for was for him to have been made ashamed of how he had treated her.
Martin was still digging. ‘Good service?’ he said, cheerily. She didn’t answer. She felt ill.
13
Awaiting Events
THE WEEKEND OVER, Rachel was, as ever, perfectly happy to be going to work, even though she loved the Sunday gliding lessons. She liked her office. It was small but not cramped, and it faced south so that it got any sun going, and she’d made it a pleasant place, with David Hockney reproduction prints on the walls and always a jug of flowers on her desk, natural-looking flowers, not stiff stems, lilac in May, scented stock later on. Mr MacAllister had let her choose the carpet five years ago when all the offices were being refurbished and she’d chosen a self-coloured jade green which looked pretty. The one easy chair, for clients to sit on, was covered in a green and white material, tiny white daisies on a green background. Her office, she considered, was a soothing place, a surprise to visitors, and it contrasted markedly with the austere atmosphere of the rest of the building. Walking up the dark staircase with its panelled walls and dark grey carpet, Rachel looked forward to the burst of light as she entered her own room.
Miriam, the young work-experience girl, niece of one of the partners, came in. ‘Good weekend?’ she said. Rachel said, yes, very enjoyable. ‘What were you up to, then?’ Miriam asked, in that old-fashioned chatty way, which was somehow disconcerting in one so young. Rachel smiled. Miriam amused her. She was the only one in the building who had any curiosity about other people. It had been so easy, three years ago, to take a month off work to cover her operation and treatment, and pretend she was going on holiday. If Miriam had been there, she would never have got away with it – there would have been questions about where she’d gone, questions about what the weather had been like. Without Miriam, there had been no questions. A couple of colleagues had said, ‘Good holiday?’ and not stayed for an answer. No one had noticed that she was pale and didn’t look as though she’d had a holiday at all, and she had felt relieved. There had been no need to invent any holiday history.
She told Miriam she was learning to fly a glider, a piece of information received with intense interest which then had to be curbed – Miriam would talk for hours, if encouraged. She was such a bouncy sort of girl, her very walk was jumpy, and Mr MacAllister himself was reported to have complained that the floors of the old building could not stand much more of Miriam’s elephantine movements. Once she’d bounced out, Rachel worked steadily all morning, and then at lunchtime she walked into the town centre to buy a sandwich and take it to eat at her desk. On the way back, she met the only other woman solicitor in the practice, Judith Holmes. ‘Keeping well?’ Judith asked, and ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ and then ‘I must rush, bye.’ She rushed. Rachel followed slowly behind, thinking about how people so often asked if others were well without seeming to appreciate what a difficult and complicated question it was. Sitting in her office again, eating her sandwich and looking out of the window over the tops of the chestnut trees, she wondered if she was really, as she’d replied to Judith, keeping well.
How could she know? She’d always been well until she was told she was not well. She’d been superbly fit and healthy until she was pronounced disease-ridden. And she had had to accept and believe the verdict without, to her, any proof. Doctors had the proof. They’d explained, they’d drawn diagrams, they’d produced pathology results, they’d given her leaflets to read, but none of it had made sense. She’d felt absolutely fine until they started giving her treatment and then she’d felt ill. So, how did she know, when the Judiths so lightly inquired, if she was keeping well? She might be, she might not be. It was important, she’d been told, to be optimistic and have a positive outlook. Why? They didn’t seem to know, beyond having some theory that cancer might be either caused or encouraged by a fatalistic attitude. Such rubbish. She only had to think of many optimistic, strong women who had succumbed to the disease, to know there could be no truth in it. This hint that a patient could influence the progress of her cancer by her mental and emotional approach to it made her angry.
All she felt she could do was eat well, take exercise, stay calm. And it was as she was reminding herself of this that she felt a stab of pain, just a little stab, gone in a second. Cautiously, she put the wrapping from her sandwich into the waste-paper basket. Probably indigestion, probably she’d eaten too fast (but she knew she hadn’t). Sitting down again, thi
s time back on the swivel chair behind her desk, she composed herself and took deep breaths. Fine, she was fine. But she remained quite still for a good few minutes before reaching for the folder in front of her. No pain at all. Starting to read the papers in the folder, she had to force her mind to concentrate. She succeeded. Fifteen minutes later, clear of anxiety, she bent to the right to open a drawer. This time, several quick, sharp, fleeting pains all along her breastbone. No mistaking them. Her whole body tightened, her right arm quite rigid, with her hand gripping the drawer handle. It took an effort to straighten up and sit back in her chair. Her heart was racing and she felt not so much dizzy as vague, as though she were not really present. She slipped her hand into her shirt and felt along the bone, pressing lightly with her fingers. Nothing. No lumps or bumps, no pain.
Is There Anything You Want? Page 26
