She lined up the children on the sofa in front of the television and sat herself down too. They watched quietly, once they’d eaten their crisps. Shamso suddenly fell asleep, the bottle plopping wetly from his mouth. He was on Mary-Margaret’s bad side, the side of the injured wrist, so she reached over and hoisted him onto her lap, where he could rest more easily. He did not wake. She cradled him gently in the curve of her arm, his head was heavy on her breast. She buried her face in his corkscrew curls; he smelled of cereal and Twiglets and something sugary—she thought of brightly colored boiled sweets. Mary-Margaret kissed him lightly. This child sleeping trustfully on her, the warm and solid weight of him, his sticky mouth, his minute sneakers, made her so happy that it felt like heartache.
Felix Morrison drew a cross through Wednesday on his chart. Seven more days to go. The week would creep on as slowly as an injured tortoise, Felix knew, but at least it would creep on, and then his mother would be there to take him home. From where he was at present, in the form room, it was hard to picture home. He could visualize his bedroom, the garden, or the kitchen, but he couldn’t feel them, or feel what it would be like to be inside them, with their particular textures and scents. And yet, oddly, when he was at home, he could summon up the experience of school quite easily. He had only to open his school trunk, to breathe in its blue and gray interior the mingled smells of fish and cold and ink and people, fear and polish, disinfectant, gym mats, wet socks and muddy boots that were the essence of his school. A thing he noticed was that nowhere in the school was there a trace of softness. It was a place of angles, corners, unforgiving surfaces; concrete stairs, unheated corridors, Astroturf, the sharp edges of metal beds.
Softness must be girlie, Felix thought. Home was soft. His sister’s pink bedroom, his pile of cuddly toys, carpets, the flowers his mother put in every room. His mother was soft. He pushed her from his mind, hunched himself up on his chair like a vigilant bird and licked his knee to have the tang of it, his bruised knee bone. Any minute now the bell would go, and his prep was still undone. Columbas deis sacrificant, he wrote. They sacrifice doves to the gods.
Have you heard from Fraser? Father Diamond asked Mrs. Armitage, after mass on Thursday morning, when she was beginning the weekly clean. Indirectly, as it were, she said. Steph read us out the letter that came for her yesterday. He didn’t say a lot, mind, except that he’s looking forward to getting home. The lads put on such brave faces, don’t they, but it takes its toll, the time out there.
I’m sure it does, said Father Diamond; he is always in my thoughts.
And it was true, almost. If not Fraser himself, whom Father Diamond hardly knew since he was not a churchgoer like his parents, then all the others, the fresh-faced young men in desert camouflage, for whom Fraser was a symbol. Every single day brought news of them. But not news that could be welcomed. One after the other they appeared, relegated by now to news in brief; ordinary-looking, smiling boys under their regimental berets. Or in coffins, covered with the Union Jack. Sometimes the reports included testimonials by commanding officers or the words of wives or girlfriends left behind. How were these sad words made known? Father Diamond often wondered. Did reporters go round to the homes of the deceased and solemnly set down their threadbare, heartbreaking epitaphs: born a legend, died a hero, the best son in the world?
At a railway station a few months before, Father Diamond had come across a group of these young men, transacting with a ticket seller. In uniform, with kit bags, their names sewn on and on their shoulder flashes the letters ISAF. Among the other would-be travelers in their unremarkable clothes these dappled boys stood out like young stags in a concrete wasteland, eagles in a nest of doves. Father Diamond felt a peculiar need to touch one, to tug a thread from a uniform and keep it safely, to write their names down in his notebook, to hold on to something of them before they began their journey to the other world. It was morbid, he knew, to fear that they would never use the return halves of their railway warrants and yet he did fear that as, he supposed, onlookers had feared that Theseus would not make his way back from the monster at the center of the maze.
Boys dream of being heroes and when he was a boy, Father Diamond dreamed too. In his teens, more realistically, he resolved to be a professor of mathematics. As such he would possess a permanent license to explore the marvelous world of symmetry, proportion, symbol, ratio, equilibrium; a world that appeared to him as a series of interlocking rooms carved out of pristine whiteness. But at university, in the Faculty of Mathematics, he began to see that he was not in fact the author of his life. He fought that realization, at the start. He got his first and then his master’s; he gained his doctorate. Cambridge offered him a lectureship. And then, helpless, he gave in to the pressure that had been growing inside him like a teratoma and embarked on the gradual process of becoming a priest.
It is usual to talk of a vocation to the priesthood. Father Diamond experienced something that was more like a violent shove than a gentle call. He was like a man walking along a cliff-top path who thinks he knows where he is going but is constantly blown off course by an enormously strong wind. After a while, it was too exhausting to resist. And dangerous as well. If he did not let the wind take him where it willed, it might blow him off the edge onto sharp rocks. He had to accept that his chosen destination was a mirage; the oasis was somewhere else.
This was not a thing of which Father Diamond could speak. He did not understand it yet himself. One day, he hoped, that irresistible force would make its purpose clear to him but so far it had not, and the oasis was still a long way out of sight. In the meantime Father Diamond stumbled on, head down, collar turned against the rain.
As a novice he had thought of missionary work. There were heroes in that field, to be sure. Priests who risked persecution, illness, even imprisonment, to be porters of the word of God. Within his own order, men had been taken hostage by militants or killed on official command for championing the poor and the oppressed. His superiors, however, had other plans for him. As a solitary spirit with a tendency to arrogance he had to have his sharp edges buffed appropriately smooth. What better mill to grind him in than an inner-city parish?
Even so, after a decade and more, Father Diamond could still find himself yearning for a different plot, another route, an unanticipated ending to his story. Those warriors in their clumping boots and separateness stopped him in his tracks. I should be there too, he thought. Shoulder to shoulder with these men whose forced obedience to a higher power was not unlike his own.
The church was quiet today. Only Mrs. Armitage and the other regular parishioners had been at mass, and there was no sign of the crowds of earlier that week. All the crosses and the statues were correctly veiled; things were back in their rightful order and Mrs. Armitage’s mop swished soothingly across the floor, leaving the odor of red polish in its wake. It seems to have calmed down, Father Diamond remarked to her.
I told you it would be a three-day wonder, she replied.
Did you actually have a look at the crucifix last week? he asked. After Mary-Margaret’s fall?
No I didn’t. Not that I recall. It was a bit of a panic, wasn’t it, with her bleeding head and all. I do remember making sure that everything was tidy. But I didn’t specifically check the cross because I could see that there was nothing wrong with it. Should I have done? Why?
No, no, he said, hastily. I was just wondering. That’s all.
Mary-Margaret came in just then, through the main door, holding a feather duster. Mrs. Armitage stopped polishing and looked at her doubtfully. Should you be here? she asked.
Why not? said Mary-Margaret. My head is better. I had the stitches out, that’s why I’m a bit late this morning. And I only need one arm to dust.
That’s good, dear, said Father Diamond. Good of you to come. We do appreciate it, don’t we, Mrs. Armitage? But please don’t go climbing up on any chairs now, will you? We don’t want another drama!
Mary-Margaret laughed. Nee-naw, nee-naw, s
he said, and scuttled off to dust the pulpit. Like a demented hen, Father Diamond thought, watching her shake russet feathers back and forth. He apologized in silence for the thought.
As far as she could see, Mary-Margaret was doing nothing untoward, but Mrs. Armitage resolved to keep a firm eye on her. She finished the floor, and Mary-Margaret dusted down the pews. The usual routine was for her to polish the altar rails with Brasso while Mary-Margaret gouged candle wax from the stands. Then they would have a cup of coffee in the sacristy with Father Diamond, if he was still about. But this morning Mary-Margaret was in a rush. She had to get to the shops and make lunch for her mother before two, when she had promised Mrs. Abdi she would look after Shamso. The little pet had taken quite a shine to her. When Mrs. Abdi got back yesterday to a scene of calm and the tot sleeping, she had been so pleased that she scrabbled around in her purse and found a fiver, which she tried to give Mary-Margaret. Mary-Margaret waved it aside. My pleasure, she told Mrs. Abdi. I’ll come round again, if you like.
When Mrs. Armitage went round the back to empty the bins, Mary-Margaret nipped into the Chapel of the Holy Souls. Hello, she said. It’s me, O Lord. I’m back.
There was no audible response but she had not really expected one. How was He supposed to speak, all muffled up as He was, poor thing, in that nasty cloak of purple? Yet He would know that she was there. She pictured Him, beneath His shroud, His beautiful clean body. Closing her eyes, she saw Him inclining toward her from the cross, pulling one hand free to bend down and stroke her hair. She felt His hand, gentle against her scar, tender in spite of His own grievous pain. He pushed the hair softly from her face. She seized the hand and pressed it to her lips. Her mouth against His skin, against His tightened sinews.
Mary-Margaret fell to her knees. Dearest, she said softly. Please don’t think you are forsaken. I’ll be back, I promise. The rocks may melt and the seas may burn if I do not . . .
What do you think you’re doing? Mrs. Armitage demanded. You know this chapel is out-of-bounds. Mary-Margaret started, awkwardly turned round. Mrs. Armitage saw that there were tears streaming down her face. Come on, lass, she said, more kindly. Be a love and put the kettle on while I put away the mop.
Mary-Margaret went meekly. There was no one in the sacristy. She filled the kettle at the sink. Above the sink was a wooden panel with a row of key hooks, each one labeled in Father Diamond’s meticulous handwriting. Fuse box. Garage. Sacristy. Organ. Shed. There were two sets of keys on the sacristy hook. Mary-Margaret took one and put it in the pocket of her fleece.
Stella stroked a velvet bud. Most of the buds had already opened to release their star-shaped flowers; the tree was heavy with them, and their fleeting scent. Magnolia stellata. Rufus had given it to her as a sapling when they bought this house. Wherever we live we’ll have one, he had said; this plant that has your name. Other flowers were beginning to hatch in the fresh sunlight: primroses, anemones, the early clematis. Tomorrow her son Barnaby would come back from his field trip; in exactly one week’s time it would be Felix’s end of term. Why had she consented to send Felix to boarding school? She thought of Mrs. Armitage; her son in such danger, and so far away.
Would her sense of being incomplete without her children lessen when all three were fully grown? People had told her she was fortunate, when Felix went away. It’s like a second honeymoon, a friend had said. You fall in love with your husband all over again when you have more time to spend with him, time alone together.
A robin sang a scolding song from his sentry post in a trailing branch of ivy. Stella laughed. Are you telling me it’s time I went inside and left you in peace to feed the brood? she asked the bird. You’re right. She rubbed a strand of rosemary between her fingers for the scent of it on her way in. Cock Robin, with a nest of gaping beaks. The memory came to her of babies at the breast, their tiny, frantic mouths when newly born and panicking lest they be left to starve. It took weeks until they found the confidence to wait even for a minute in the expectation that, having been fed before, they were likely to be fed again. Before that the least delay caused them to cry as if their hearts would break and break again in the lonely desolation of their hunger.
Later, when they were a few months old, the babies learned the pleasures of anticipation and of gratified demand. Each, though, kept their individual style. Barnaby was leisurely, would break off to have a look around, to pat the obliging breast with his small paw, would twinkle up at Stella in mid-gulp as if he shared a wordless joke. Felix dedicated more care to the process. Women in the main tend to stay silent on the pleasure of the slow letdown, the soft pink gums, the sense of power and purpose as the sated infant falls asleep all of a sudden at the breast.
In the kitchen, Stella looked at her watch and saw with a jolt that her guests would be arriving in two hours. She was giving a supper party, one of a series, to be held each Thursday during this parliamentary session. It was a scheme of Rufus’s. He wanted to create a contemporary model of the “At Homes” of the thirties, when society hostesses gathered thinkers and politicians in their drawing rooms, creating a stage on which the brilliant could shine and afterward record their bons mots in their diaries. Realizing that no one nowadays would know how to respond to an At Home invitation or rise to the occasion of a salon, Rufus had decided that the modern equivalent was the kitchen supper. Every week he and Stella would invite a mixture of old friends, the more attractive neighbors, political colleagues, journalists and anyone else who had influence, was likely to be flattered, and would respond to Rufus. Kitchen sups, he told them all. Spag bol. No need for your best bib and tucker.
This evening Stella was cooking a fish stew. She had already pared the peel from an orange and left it to dry slowly on the Aga. Now she began to work out the time it would take to complete her preparations. She should have begun them earlier; she would have to rush, there was no time left to wash her hair.
She shook mussels from the bowl in which they had been resting into a basinful of water. They imparted a faint breath of the sea. Some clamped their shells more tightly shut when they felt the impact, one or two gave up the ghost and sagged forlornly open. Stella remembered Felix’s mingled horror and amazement when he discovered mussels were alive. Alive even when you cook them? he had asked. Well, yes, but only for a minute or two, she’d said. That’s so mean; you ought to kill them properly first. That night she had found a mussel sequestered in a mug of water by his bed. She knew that Felix would have given it a name.
Such beautiful things, she thought, these mussels. Their sleek shells gleaming in the water, pearl-tinged at the hinges, a darkness that was full of color—green and gray and bronze. It was their ordinariness that put them beyond remark. As with many other things—the iridescent feathers on a drake’s neck in the winter, so startling a green; the buds of a magnolia; the high polish of a newly released conker—the mussels were too familiar to be a real cause of wonder. We look out for the rare and the exotic. The magnificence of a peacock’s tail, the flash of diamonds in a seam of coal. And yet what could be more exotic than a cock pheasant in a field of frozen turnips on a winter morning, his ruby markings and his emerald green head?
Beautiful though they might be, it was hard work to clean these mussels. She scraped away their cargo of barnacles, her fingers cold and swollen. There was still squid to clean, fennel to chop, and garlic. She must lay the table, fetch ironed napkins from the linen cupboard, find fresh candles, make aioli, and whip cream for the apple tart.
Rufus got home just before the guests arrived at eight o’clock. Did you put the Prosecco in the fridge? he asked. Good girl. I’ll go and shave.
Stella pinned up her unwashed hair with a silver clip and hoped it would pass muster. In the bathroom mirror she saw a stranger’s face, older than her own, with sadness in the eyes. Get a grip, she said out loud, and brushed on a quick coat of mascara.
A beautiful woman, Rufus thought, but did not have time to say. Azin Qureshi thought so too, when Stella opened the
door to him and his wife. He had not met her or Rufus before; his wife, an editor at The Economist, was the intended guest, and he had only been invited for the sake of politeness. He noticed the tendrils of hair, the fine bones of her face. With a professional eye he noted too the signs of tension round her mouth.
Sparkling wine beside the fire in the drawing room; the kitchen table laid with silver, lit by candles. Rufus beamed around the table at his guests. They had come downstairs to a kitchen warm with the scents of garlic and tomatoes; they were comforted by Stella’s game terrine and Rufus’s fine claret. Between the fish stew and the apple tart, Stella served a perfectly ripe Roquefort and conversation flowed. It centered for the most part on the dire financial state the country had suddenly found itself in, apparently to everyone’s complete surprise. We are on the edge of a cliff, a banker said. And the trouble is that no one knows how far we’ll have to fall.
Stella listened to the chatter with half her mind on refilling glasses, clearing plates, offering more food. She understood, of course, that the economic situation was important, but she had heard an identical conversation the previous Thursday, and the week before. No one particularly sought her opinion; she was left to produce dinner and consider the assorted guests. The banker; the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, with her partner; a headhunter; Jenny McCann from The Economist and Azin Qureshi, her husband, who was sitting on Stella’s left. He was a community psychiatrist at St. Elizabeth’s. From time to time the others solicited his views on the effect of the crisis on mental-health care or the Health Service more generally but, like Stella, he did not have much to offer the debate. Instead, like her, he listened.
The Translation of the Bones Page 7
