Between the Regions of Kindness

by Alice Jolly

  Lara walks up the aisle, hearing her office shoes click on the floor, staring up at the lectern, in the shape of an eagle with its wings spread. A grimy picture on a distant wall is crammed with falling angels, moving gracefully down through the air, feet first, eyes rolling heavenwards. The smell brings back those other churches of her childhood. Cross-stitch kneelers, incense, Sunday school palm crosses, slack-mouthed old women singing out of tune, endless smiling strangers. Mollie liked churches so she and Lara went every Sunday in whatever town they were living in. But it couldn’t be just any church – Mollie picked them carefully, choosing those that were ancient and atmospheric, thick with incense and bleeding plaster saints. So many churches in so many different towns.

  Lara moves through the shadows, pushes open an arched wooden door into the Community Centre. An aerobics class is taking place and a light shines up the stairs from the peace protest office but once again there is no sign of Oliver Stanmore. Lara has been told by Martha that he would be here this evening and so she sits down to wait. She checks her phone and finds two voice messages. The first is from Annabel. Listen – I just read this magazine article about water in rivers in the Middle East. This bug – you’ve no idea you’ve swallowed it until worms bore deep inside your intestines. They even dig out through your skin so you must warn—

  Lara slams her finger down onto the red phone, heads back to the church. The next message is from the phone at the Windsor Guest House. Rufus’s voice is so loud that Lara imagines the mobile exploding in her hand. She imagines him – six foot, flaming red hair, booming voice. Like a dormant volcano or a ticking bomb. When he’s in the room there isn’t enough air for other people to breathe. Usually Lara hates him but Jay’s departure has left her with no energy for the normal hatreds. I have decided, he bellows, that I must go after him and bring him home safe. It’s the only way. Your mother agrees, she’ll come with me. Not this week, of course, because of the play. And your mother has been in touch with this guy Greg Marsden, son of an old friend, journalist, out in Iraq. So once the play is over. It’s the opening night. You know that, don’t you?

  Rufus is Biblical, Shakespearean. And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s Day. Of course, Rufus doesn’t actually say this but Lara imagines he does. And he is magnificent. It would bring tears to your eyes, if you didn’t know better.

  That’s the problem with all this, Lara thinks. It’s so easy to be swept up in it. Because at least what Jay is doing isn’t small. It’s extravagant, it’s bold, it’s courageous. Even Lara feels the draw, finds herself tempted by the luxury of life being narrowed down to a single purpose – stop the war, bring Jay home safe. So much easier to do that than carry on in the drab and dreary little days of the journey to work and back and the decision as to whether it should be moussaka or lasagne for supper. She could become the mother of a saint, the brave woman fearlessly sacrificing her son to the noble cause.

  But despite the grandeur of Rufus’s voice – and he does have a fantastic voice – Lara is not suborned. Years ago, around the time that Jay was born, she understood the importance of keeping things small. Jade tiles rather than emerald. This isn’t Henry V at Agincourt, it’s a mentally disturbed boy on a bus somewhere in Italy or maybe Turkey, about to blunder into one of the most complicated political situations possible.

  A man emerges from that arched wooden door which leads to the Community Centre. His eyes immediately fix on her and he moves towards the chancel, stands in front of the altar. He’s tall and solid but well-proportioned and strangely light on his feet. Although the space he occupies is large, he nevertheless seems to fill it. With his heavy shoulders, thick neck, big head, there is something of the bull about him, of the Minotaur in the labyrinth. And yet he’s nervous, uncertain.

  His clothes are unexceptional – jeans and a dark T-shirt which he wears under a loose denim shirt – but somehow these clothes seem inappropriately modern. Should he not be wearing a robe of some kind? He’s neat and clean and yet he has the hidden desperation of a derelict, a down-and-out, the kind of person you might find sleeping in a doorway, or begging outside a shop.

  Lara knows – although she can’t say how she knows – that this is Oliver Stanmore – the man who, in the twenty-first century, apparently has no landline, no mobile and no email. The man who might be a vicar, a churchwarden, a caretaker, or some kind of alternative healer – but no one seems quite sure.

  Good evening. Are you Mr Stanmore? Lara speaks loudly and definitely, wishing to emphasise that she’s not in the least intimidated – although that isn’t quite the case. The truth is that Oliver Stanmore isn’t at all what she expected. In Lara’s view, church people are usually unattractive, misfits, failures. There’s something odd about this man – but he’s none of those things.

  I am Oliver Stanmore, he says. His voice is strangely sonorous. He says the words as though he finds it difficult to confess to his own name. It’s clear that he doesn’t wish to speak to Lara, or anyone else. His eyes are unpleasantly direct, dark and unmoving. Lara puts her hand on the side of a pew to steady herself. Mr Stanmore’s eyes move to her knuckles – red, cracked and raw. She pulls her hand away and conceals it inside the pocket of her coat.

  I need to speak to you about my son, Jay.

  Ah yes. Of course. Perhaps we could find somewhere rather quieter?

  Yes.

  I’m sorry, he says. The hall is in use and the café is closed. Would you mind if we went into the office? At least it will be quiet there.

  She follows him back through the door to the Community Centre. The door which leads to the stairs and the peace protest office is open and Lara hears voices from down below. She has spent the last three days in Barcelona and so she hasn’t spoken to anyone in that office. Even if she had been in England, she probably wouldn’t have spoken to them. Aerobics has changed to ballet. Feet shuffle and thud in time to rattling piano notes. Lara follows Mr Stanmore up a short, steep flight of stone steps and through another arched wooden door into a room with high arched windows, a dark wooden desk, filing cabinets, a box of keys on the wall. Mr Stanmore moves towards a chair, indicates that they should sit down.

  No thank you, Lara says. She isn’t interested in a comfy chat.

  Oliver Stanmore sits down and watches her closely. I think I know your mother? She runs the Guest House next door?

  Yes, she does. And I know that you met my son – that you spoke to him?

  Yes, I did speak to him on two or three occasions.

  So you knew that he planned to go to Iraq?

  I’m afraid that the contents of my conversations with your son are private.

  Lara had not expected to be so clearly and firmly rebuffed. This man unnerves her and the strange silence he carries with him makes her uncomfortable.

  But you knew he planned to go to Iraq?

  No. Iraq was never mentioned.

  Then what did you speak about?

  As I just said, my conversations with him were private. However, I would say that he did seem rather upset when I last saw him. He seemed to find things very – noisy.

  Noisy?

  Yes?

  What? So you’re telling me he went to Iraq to get a bit of peace and quiet?

  Oliver Stanmore is silent again but the quality of the silence has changed. Lara is aware that, at some deep level, he is angry. His will, which has been so firmly bent towards kindness and reason, is beginning to fail. She’s frightened by his anger, but determined not to let that show.

  You love your son? Oliver asks.

  Lara stares at him coldly. Only a man could ask such a stupid question. How could he possibly understand? Understand what it is to be eighteen and unmarried and pregnant, abandoned and under pressure to have an abortion. But she’d refused to do that and she’d brought up her son and made money and bought him everything. Sent him to private
school, spared nothing in order that he should have something better than she had. She’s close to tears. Oh God, she says to herself – I’ve become such a cliché. I didn’t want to become this person saying – where did it all go wrong?

  She looks at Oliver and realises that she hasn’t answered his question. He’s making a fool out of her. With a sudden weariness, she says, Of course I love my son.

  Sometimes if you love someone then you have to watch them making mistakes.

  No. That may be your version of love but it isn’t mine. I’ve fought long and hard for Jay. And I’m not prepared to see him throw it all away. Jay has suffered from serious depression but I got him through that, and I helped him to get a place at university. To me, that’s what love is.

  She expects him to argue but instead he nods his head as though he understands. Lara realises she should keep quiet but knows also that she can’t resist this man, will surrender to him, even though he doesn’t sympathise, would rather not hear.

  Even now I’m trying to understand him, she says. But I just don’t know why he’s doing this to me, why he is so ungrateful. Why does he have to do something so thoroughly self-dramatising? The situation in Iraq doesn’t have anything to do with us. I spoke to a psychologist about this, a professional, and he said that of course people care about other people’s suffering but they have to have some limit on that. They have to realise that some things aren’t their responsibility.

  Rubbish, Oliver Stanmore says, rubbish. He pronounces the word definitely, spitting it from his lips. Of course, what’s happening in Iraq has to do with us. The truth is that we’re all much too good at deciding that something isn’t our responsibility, too good at cutting off from other people. The whole way in which we live, here in the Western world, depends on the suffering of others.

  Yes but if we all cared about everything then our hearts would break.

  Then they should break, Oliver says.

  But…

  Overhead, the strip lights go out with a click and the office drops into darkness. Lara hears a shout from the corridor. Around her the space is suddenly limitless even though a dull light gleams in from a high window. Feet clatter and a door bangs. Lara stretches out her hand, hoping to find the back of a chair, but her fingers fish through emptiness. She can sense Oliver Stanmore, a patch of darkness, blacker than the other darkness.

  Oh no. Not again. I’ll just go down and deal with the fuse box.

  She feels him move and then something feathers against her cheek. She brushes at it but it touches against her again. She backs away – what can it be? A moth perhaps? She feels Oliver Stanmore pass her in the darkness and hears the door open. Surely now some more light should come into the room? But it doesn’t. An image flashes in her mind, an image she saw earlier in the day on the internet. A cancer ward in a hospital in Baghdad, a place where they have no drugs, no equipment. A child blown up like a balloon and one of his legs black and twisted. She tries to push the image away but it won’t go, she presses a hand against her mouth, turns, uncertain now where the chair is, the door.

  Again that feathered flutter but against her lips this time. She flaps her hands through the darkness, stops herself from calling out. Feeling her way forward, she stumbles against a chair, finds her hand gripping wood. This must be the door frame. Below her she hears voices and sees a haze of light, which shines through the glass entrance door. She stretches her foot forward into the darkness, and begins to feel her way down the stone stairs. Her hand scrapes against the wall and she winces. Her foot wavers, searching for the next step, but it isn’t there. She loses her footing, pitches forward. For a moment, she’s connected to nothing and that moment seems to go on and on. She has a vision of herself going over the side of a cliff, falling and falling into the darkness, gliding down the air. She lets out a cry as her arms flail.

  But then unseen hands grip her and break her fall. She stumbles against him and it’s like hitting a tree trunk or a brick wall. As she tries to right herself, his hand grips hers. She winces, ready for the pain from the eczema on her knuckles, but the hand which holds hers is strangely fluid and she feels no pain. She pulls away and stands straight again. The lights flash on. All that has happened is that she has fallen down four steps. And yet the shock on Oliver Stanmore’s face suggests that she fell from a great height. It’s as though some great salvation has taken place. For a moment they might hug each other and shout for joy. But it was only four steps so both of them look away, embarrassed. Lara straightens her blouse and jacket. Oliver moves his hands swiftly to the side as though to brush the whole incident away.

  He knows it all, Lara thinks. Everything. He knows about the drugs, and the doctors, and the shame, and the way that she hates Jay yet can’t stop loving him no matter how hard she tries. And she can never be free of him, never, and none of it was her fault really, and she has tried so hard to make it right but nothing has ever been enough. He knows all of that and so Lara raises her hand to shield herself from him.

  He is staring at her hands. She steps away, peers down at her fingers. His eyes meet hers and his face is shocked, appalled. She pushes her hands down into the pockets of her coat and keeps them there. She pushes the door to the church open and hurries away from the angels and the lambs and the sickening smell of incense, her shoes clicking down the aisle, her head bent down, looking at nothing. Pushing open the door, she emerges into the space of the night and snatches a deep breath, which becomes a sob. As she passes the Guest House the lights are on but she doesn’t slacken her pace. She’s at the end of the street before she stops and turns back to look at the church. In some part of her mind, she expects to see Oliver Stanmore staring at her from the steps. But, of course, he isn’t there.

  She walks on to where a street light draws a fuzzy circle of yellow onto the pavement, the brimming rubbish bin, then she draws her hands out of her pockets. She wants her hands to be red and covered in scabs – as they have been for the last twenty years, ever since Jay was a baby. Creams, diets, supplements, soya. Nothing has had any effect but now her skin is perfectly smooth and clear, golden in the light from above. Tiny hairs on her fingers glitter white. Mr Stanmore has healed people with terminal cancer. She looks back at the spiky outline of the church on the hill, remembers the strange silence in the office. She can still feel his fingers touching hers. She stretches her hands up to the street lights and they float through the darkness with the gliding grace of white swans.

  9

  BEFORE

  Rose – Coventry, March 1939

  Sunday lunch at 34 Warwick Road – and spring has arrived today. The light of the sun is white and wavering but already it’s drying the grey-green grass of Greyfriars Green. Birds hop on the park railings, sing loud and uncertain, unable to trust that the winter might finally be ending. A breath of wind catches at the grass, rustles through hedges and the bare branches of trees, but then is still.

  Rose slows her bike and comes to a halt outside the house. For a moment she looks up at the towering façade – columns, long sash windows, curling iron balconies and a great many chimney pots. Then she crosses the red-brick tiles, passes the stone lions and steps up to the front door. As she raises her hand to press the bell, the door swings open and Violet is there. Half of her hair is twisted into pin curls and secured by bobby pins but the other side hangs loose. Her freckled skin is powdered and touched with a blush of pink.

  Oh disgusting. Violet rolls her eyes. You even smell of socialism.

  Rose laughs, drops her bag onto the red-tasselled chair beside the hall table and kisses Violet. The chessboard floor tiles enclose their miniature territories. The Chinese vases still stand beside the sitting-room door but have lost their power to deceive, humiliate. The stuffed eagle winks at her from his perch inside the glass dome.

  And pray what does socialism smell like?

  Violet shudders and crumples up her nose. Drains, coal houses, lard.

  Rose raises her hand to give Violet a pan
tomime slap, then kisses her again.

  Red Rose. Violet’s voice is a mixture of contempt and affection. Briefly Rose remembers that first night, shut in the wardrobe together, sneezing among the fur coats. Violet had decided they would become best friends that night and so it is – although Rose has never quite understood why.

  Mr Whiteley shuffles out of his study on his sticks. As always, he wears a stained green-velvet smoking jacket which has gone shiny on the lapels and cuffs. Good morning, my dear. Good morning. Rose goes to kiss him, feeling his whiskers against her cheek, tasting his smell of hair oil and decay.

  And Happy Birthday. Twenty today – isn’t that right?

  Father has a present for you, Violet says. Well, I bought it but it’s really from father. She produces a package from the drawer of the hall table and hands it to Rose. Rose’s fingers close around the rustling pink tissue paper. Violet always manages to choose the best presents. A pale blue cardigan slides out of the tissue paper and lies in Rose’s hands as soft as clouds. The edges of it are lined with turquoise silk ribbon and the buttons are covered in velvet of the same colour.

  Put it on, Violet says.

  Rose pulls off her own cardigan and her arms slide into the cloud. She pulls the new cardigan straight, then turns to smile at Mr Whiteley. She would not have chosen pale blue for herself – too much fine summer’s day and not enough thunder – but still the cardigan is perfect. Quite different from the only two she has, which are covered in pills and darned around the cuffs.

  Just right, Mr Whiteley says. Just right.

  Thank you, Rose says. She kisses him again and feels his crabbed hand touch her back, pulling her towards him. She yields to him and kisses his cheek once again.