AS SHE HAD warned, Paula did not return to London in time for Prayer Clinic on 3 June. She rang Vivienne at midday from a restaurant in Picardy. The weather was glorious. The restaurant had a Michelin star. She and Hartley hadn’t even started on what they’d ordered, although the waiter had brought round flamiche – an upmarket kind of leek tart – as an appetiser. She said she could see lunch taking rather a long time and then Hartley would need a snooze in a field, before driving on to the Channel tunnel. That would take them until, say, six o’clock at the earliest and they still wouldn’t have left France. Vivienne sighed when she put down the phone.
She arrived at Hilly’s flat at about six thirty. A few of the group were already installed. Cushions had been set out in a circle on the floor and, although it was sunny outside, the blinds had been pulled down and tea lights had been set out in saucers and placed around the room. Hilly had no piano but Jennifer Patterson had brought her son’s recorder along. Another woman, Dawn, who was fairly new to the group, was singing along to it, as she went round lighting the tea lights with a taper: ‘’Tis the gift to be simple,’tis the gift to be free. ’Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be. And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ’twill be in the valley of love and delight.’
Vivienne sat down on a tapestry cushion and waited for everyone to arrive and settle. Jennifer Patterson carried on playing and Dawn sang quietly. She had now joined the circle on the floor. ‘When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed. To turn, turn, will be our delight, till by turning, turning, we come out right.’ Hilly had left the door of the flat ajar so that people could walk in without using the doorbell. Shoes were left by the door. The tradition was that there were no greetings, though nearly all the women smiled as they entered. Eventually, when most of the cushions were occupied, Hilly shut the front door and sat down herself. Jennifer brought ‘Simple Gifts’ to a close. There was silence.
This was the part of the evening that Vivienne liked best, after the music had ended and before anyone spoke. The room and the candles and the faces arranged themselves in an impersonal pattern. There was a freedom in the moment that promised nothing. She was reluctant to disturb it; to unleash goodwill into the silence. Wasn’t there something coercive even about goodwill – the need to manipulate, to change? She let the minutes pass without any precise sense of time and, since no one fidgeted, for a little longer still. She heard the lift called to the next floor of the building and then descend. She opened the session with a short prayer and offered the meeting to Jesus.
They began with Becky, who had an eating disorder. She was the daughter of one of Hilly’s friends. Then Dawn’s parents, who had recently retired and were getting on each other’s nerves. Ross, who had the rare cancer, and his wife Julia. They progressed through illness, divorce, financial difficulties. There was an underside to life even for prosperous people. Some of the information given was quite specific and first names were used. Vivienne felt unsure about some of the petitions relating to third parties – whether they weren’t a betrayal of trust. She herself, at a previous meeting, had prayed for her next-door neighbour, Lynette, the one whose husband had left. Even as she had spoken she had regretted it. She had thought that she should have changed the name and some of the details but that had seemed wrong too – to give Jesus inaccurate data. Though, of course, He knew it all anyway. He knew everything.
Gaps eventually opened up between prayers. At this stage certain women spoke for the sake of speaking and it was better to call a halt before that happened. On the other hand there might be someone in the circle who had been summoning up the courage to give voice to a particular problem. Vivienne waited. In two days’ time she would be in Sussex. She hadn’t revisited the subject of Richard travelling down separately. His diary had accumulated even more dinners. He was out at one now. She thought of him, standing by the window during what she thought of as their quarrel after he had kept the girls waiting at the tennis club. She had tried to read his profile; the eye on the visible side of his face moving, scanning the sky – for what she didn’t know. A rescue helicopter, perhaps. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. The advice seemed not to apply to her enquiries, or at least not to the finicky questions she had asked Richard. Vivienne was prepared to believe that other people managed things better. Paula, for instance, at that very moment returning from Normandy, would have known what to say to Hartley. She would have launched into the conversation in total confidence and in no time they would have been laughing together.
Vivienne cleared her throat. She had to recall all the people they had prayed for and name each one again. She decided that when she reached the end of the list, she would add Richard, out at his business dinner. It seemed to her that she hadn’t been quite fair to him, resenting that he hadn’t taken time off on Friday. She was lucky he was coming to Sussex at all. She felt renewed sympathy for Richard and suddenly – quite separate from the sympathy, sharply disconnected from it – a queasy feeling of love. The silence continued. Vivienne realised that she should speak, should probably have spoken some minutes earlier. She began the closing prayer, but something obstructed her train of thought. For the first time since she had been married, it occurred to her that Richard might not be where he said he was. As she said ‘Heavenly Father’, the words ‘business dinner’, which for her entire life she had regarded quite neutrally, stuck in her throat. Vivienne stopped in mid-sentence and swallowed hard. She saw Richard’s hands resting on a white tablecloth and another woman looking at them. She raised her head and glanced around the circle. She saw Bellsie opposite her, her billowing skirt spread round her, concealing the cushion. Her eyes were wide open, reflecting the candlelight and she was looking at Vivienne with compassion.
Hilly had laid on wine and a selection of carrots, crisps and celery to dip into hummus and taramasalata. She began to bring the dishes through to the living room. The group had resolved to keep the post-prayer catering simple. It was so easy for canapé-making to become competitive. Vivienne usually stayed to socialise but she made her excuses and said goodbye. She found her shoes in the hall and slipped her feet into them. The women were talking and laughing. She went out and shut the door behind her without calling goodbye again. In the lift, she took out her phone and checked her messages. There was one from Paula saying she and Hartley were having dinner at a château in the Pas de Calais. Vivienne erased the message and tried calling Richard but his phone was switched off.
Henka was reading a novel and eating an apple when Vivienne returned. The girl looked isolated, sitting alone on one of the bench seats, with a straight back. All the ceiling lights were on.
‘Henka, you should have made yourself comfortable in the sitting room. You don’t have to stay in the kitchen,’ Vivienne said.
‘Here it is more cosy,’ Henka said.
‘Is that a good book?’ Vivienne asked.
‘Yes. Very good. It is Polish. I may go now?’
‘Yes, of course you may, Henka. Did the girls get to bed all right?’
Henka was strict about bedtime. Eight o’clock sharp. The girls were tired after school. ‘No problem,’ Henka said. ‘Their homework is complete. It is on the kitchen table.’ She stood up and put on the thin jacket which had lain beside her, ready for wearing. ‘I will say goodbye then.’
‘Yes, thank you so much, Henka.’ Vivienne delved into her bag and took out her wallet. She paid Henka by cheque at the end of the month – babysitting was extra. She put a note in Henka’s hand and wished that there were a less obvious way of making the transaction. Henka looked at the note before placing it in her pocket. As if I might be cheating her, Vivienne thought sadly.
After Henka had left, Vivienne went into the study and switched on the radio – Play of the Month – but she wasn’t listening. Odd phrases slipped through her inattention – ‘You wore that dress when you were with my father in Capri, didn’t you?’ – but she failed to pick up the thread of the story. She went over to the desk and opened it. The contents were inert, conveying nothing, not even giving back to her an awareness of her own intentions. She picked up Richard’s wallet and took out the card printed with the feather. She turned it over, wrote down the telephone number on a scrap of paper and put the card back. It was best to do this thing quickly. Vivienne placed the wallet against her cheek. The deep red clematis was flowering, spilling out from its supporting wires; its blooms black against the edge of the window. Lynette’s boys were on the trampoline in the next-door garden. Vivienne heard the thuds and every few seconds the top of a head appeared over the fence. As she breathed in the smell of old coins and leather, she wished she had stayed in the kitchen . . . read a novel . . . eaten an apple.