Chapter Fourteen

 

I returned to Belgravia... to the infamous flat on Wednesday evening after having stayed with Aunt Martha for over a week. I had to do the shopping again but was more able to carry it myself this time and I was feeling very much better after my rest and my introduction to the new and totally loveable Aunt Martha and her family. The flat looked desolate after the ‘excitement and activity’ of my week at the Manse and I was sorry that I ever had to return to it at all. In my heart, I knew that I was in a place... a situation, that was totally alien to me and I wanted to throw up. I glanced at the ring on the fourth finger of my left hand and I felt a fool... a fraud, if you like. Was this marriage... I wondered... I don’t think I even liked the word... and I was paying dearly for the few stupid seconds it took to say, ‘I do,” when I never really DID.....I set about tidying the place and threw out the flowers from the lounge that stunk of death and the stale water made me want to puke. I also found a note from the window cleaner on the mat, asking for his money, which I hadn’t paid for the last month. The cleaning lady also left her note but she would be round on Friday and I could settle up with her then. She came twice a week. The neglect was entirely my fault. I should have advised all concerned but then, you don’t think of that when you’re called away suddenly... after a thrashing... do you?

I was glad to do the cleaning myself... anything to keep my mind off the return visit of my spouse... and I remember having such wicked thoughts as that he might have an accident on his way home... he could fall down the stairs... or under a bus... preferably a Double Decker… I was beginning to hate him and could understand very clearly now why Aunt Martha had chosen to remain celibate. Would they take me at the Tyburn Convent, I thought... and then I laughed. Me a Nun... the thought amused me as I called to mind a certain American priest who would have laughed with me... I felt sure. I had never had such thoughts as these before in my life. Maybe I should get myself a cat... or a parrot …another Marigold perhaps? ?

I thought again of what Aunt Martha had said as I was changing the dining room curtains for her because I was bored doing nothing and I could hear Marigold squawking as she spoke.

“Montague Blythe-Summers was always a strange character, even as a child. He is a good banker and he knows it, but his methods are shrewd and ruthless. I remember as a young boy, he used to pull the wings off little birds and bring them home to play with, before he killed them... and his parents would laugh. “It’s childlike” they’d say, “Sweet boy.” I never knew him to give me a direct answer and I swear he’d make an excellent politician. He would never say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to anything.”

When I had asked Aunt Martha why she had him in her house and why she did business with him, she replied that they ‘used’ each other. He looked after her investments and her money and she benefited by his expertise in the excellence of his job. He could strike a bargain and ‘make -a -kill’ like no-one else she knew... but so could a scorpion, I thought...

 

***

 

That evening I went to bed on my own and looked out at the sky, through the partly opened window where the curtains blew gently in the wind. It was very warm and I got up to open the French doors as I stood for a few moments on the balcony outside. It was cool and the air was fresh and I could see the dark blue velvety blanket sprawling above me with its host of stars beckoning me to get back into my virginal couch and sleep... but they were unconcerned for the problems that were mine and I could not sleep. I lulled myself into a euphoria and tried to put the thoughts of the morrow behind me... and then I thought of Father Garry... what was it he had once said to me... something that St. Paul had written somewhere... wasn’t it... “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof... “ My thoughts went from my priest friend to the desert with its pale dry evening sands and I strolled in thought through the evening with the cool draft caressing my face and Darius by my side. My life was overcome with peace as I saw him... and the space between the cap and the mask, showing those magnificent eyes. My thoughts were full and jangled, but they were beautiful... because I could see again the one person in my life who was real to me and who alone could fill this gap of hatred that I had in my heart and turn it into peace and love.

I cried myself to sleep... not because I was sad, nor because my Lord and Master would return with all his fury in the morning, but because I was in love... and it hurt.