When I entered the hall on my way to supper, I found Father Godfrey waiting for me.
‘Oh dear! Sorry about your foot. How did you do it?’
I told him and he shook his head. ‘You must be a very vigorous digger! Be more careful next time.’
‘Pretty stupid, wasn’t it? Typical, I’m afraid. I do rather go at things like a bull at a gate.’ Trying to be flippant, making a joke.
‘Well, you’re in good hands, at any rate, so come and enjoy your supper.’
He put out his hand to usher me forward.
‘We’re very lucky, very lucky indeed to have Brother Guy to look after all our little aches and pains. We shall be sorry to lose him.’
I know I stopped for a moment. ‘Is he going somewhere, then?’ But he continued on into the refectory and didn’t seem to hear.
I was getting used to the silent meals and the bland faces and less shy about looking around. I could study them as they ate, for they seldom took their eyes off their plates. A large, puffy-faced, bald-headed man was reading that evening. He read in a slow, singsong fashion, enunciating his words as if he were spitting out cherry stones. I thought him pompous. Joseph was bent double over his plate as he sorted through his food and when I caught his eye, he ignored my smile. I was a bit hurt, actually. I thought we were kind of friends. The spotty youth was sitting next to him, but I couldn’t look because I knew I would feel sick. His good-looking companion who had helped find the spade was on the top table and I wondered how the places were chosen. Did every place have a special meaning and, if so, what meaning could be attached to mine? A place for the mad, perhaps. I tried to avoid looking at Guy, but somehow he looked over and raised his eyebrows, intimately I thought, asking about my foot. I gave a slight shrug and went back to my salad, but I could feel myself blushing.
After supper, he waited for me outside and smiled broadly when he saw me. He seemed so relaxed and I felt so tense. I don’t know why.
‘How is it?’ he asked
‘OK.’
‘Still hurting badly?’
‘No – it’s better.’
‘Good. Well, come on, then. Let’s get it over with.’
I wasn’t sure what that meant. Did he want to get rid of the task, get rid of me? I decided I wouldn’t take one more minute of his time than absolutely necessary.
I sat on the chair as before and again he pulled up his chair close to me. He pulled off my shoe, which was so tight around the swelling that it had cut a deep red trench into the puffy skin.
He laughed. ‘The shoe’s doing more damage than the fork. Haven’t you got anything better than these sandals? You must have slippers.’
‘No, nothing. Nothing here. I travelled light.’
He lifted my foot and examined the marks and the swelling, prodding really gently. ‘Sorry! But this won’t do. I think I’ll have to lend you mine. This foot’s so swollen it should fit my slippers perfectly.’
‘Slippers? I don’t need them both.’
‘One’s no good to me. Might as well have them both for the time being, until we can get that swelling down.’
He undid the dressing and tossed it into a pedal bin under the table. He had nice hands. Long-fingered and sensitive. Mine, I thought, were rough in comparison and my nails chipped in places. Probably bitten down. My foot was blackish-blue, but the bleeding had stopped and the hole now looked rather insignificant.
‘I think we need to put on some ice,’ he said. ‘I’ll get some from the kitchen. Won’t be a minute.’
I just sat there. It was quiet without him, just the battery clock on the wall faintly clicking. I wished I could be relaxed like him. Why couldn’t I be easy and laid-back and cheerful? Really cheerful, not pretending all the time. I wanted to be easy. I wanted to accept his kindness and his care. But I was afraid. Had I always been this complicated? Difficult, my mother used to say. I was brought up to believe that in some way I was difficult, although I was never sure in what way. Outspoken? A bit too direct? Stubborn? Is that being difficult? Peter didn’t think I was difficult, until the end, of course. Or perhaps he did and never said. Perhaps people have never said. And the children? Surely not. Surely they didn’t find me difficult.
Was Guy’s cheerfulness because he knew my story? I guessed Father Godfrey had filled him in. So Guy was especially kind and caring not because of me, Rose, me the person, but because of what had happened. That was all.
He came back with a pudding basin filled with ice cubes and a tea towel over his arm. He gave me the bowl. ‘Hold some on for as long as you can. Look, here’s a tea towel.’
He took back the bowl and wrapped ice cubes into the cotton tea towel, knotting it from corner to corner.
‘Stop some of the drips.’
Gosh, the cold on my foot was painful! But I held it like a brave child, like the brave child I had been with my father, so he would be proud of me.
Meanwhile, Guy fetched more bandages and cream from the cupboard.
‘Where are you going?’ I didn’t know I was going to ask; I just asked. ‘Father Godfrey told me you were leaving here.’
‘Did he, now?’
‘Yes. Do you mind my asking?’
‘I think that will do,’ he said, as if to change the subject, and took away the bowl and began wiping my foot dry with some lint before putting on the cream. All the time he had my foot on his knee. I was very conscious of that. He rebandaged it and put my foot down.
‘I’m going back into general practice. Does that meet with your approval?’ He laughed again.
I said it wasn’t really for me to approve or disapprove; it was up to him, but why did he come in the first place?
He told me he had found general practice rather frustrating at times, and was disappointed with what he could achieve. He was amazingly honest, I thought; it couldn’t have been easy for him to say all that.
‘It’s bad enough with the older patients, but with the chil—’ And he stopped.
So then I knew he knew. He wasn’t laughing and he looked away from me for the first time.
He picked up a roll of sticky tape and fastened the bandage.
‘So, you gave up?’ It was an unkind challenge. Completely unnecessary, I see that now, but I could hear Fleur with hands on her hips. ‘Don’t give up, Minch, don’t give up.’
He didn’t answer and I thought, I’ve blown it. I’ve gone too far again. That’s it. Why should he bother with me now?
But suddenly he turned in his chair, arms folded. ‘You can call it that if you, like,’ he said. ‘Some people would undoubtedly think so.’
His mouth tightened and his lips had a kind of tremble. Was he angry? Somehow, I was afraid of his change of mood; it made me want to cry, but I didn’t. I persisted but more gently. I spoke softly; I know I did.
‘Did you come here because you are religious, then? Rather than, say, go overseas to Africa, for instance, where it seems good doctors are so badly needed? Just wondering.’
‘Life is not quite as simple as that.’
I could see he was uncomfortable so why did I go on?
But he did answer, sort of. He just said something like, ‘You’re right, I could have gone to work abroad, but there are many questions to try to answer and I decided I might find some answers here.’
‘And did you?’
I was so pleased when he laughed again, but he turned away and said. ‘Well, let’s put it like this: I’m learning to accept my limitations.’ Adding with another laugh, ‘And there are quite a lot!’
He had been almost a year at the abbey, he said.
‘Tell me,’ I asked, ‘honestly, do you think all this prayer business does any good at all? Or is it a complete waste of time? I mean God, or whatever it is, doesn’t answer prayer. Doesn’t bring rain to drought-ridden places, didn’t protect those terribly abused children in Romania. Oh, my God, how awful was that? And we all prayed and prayed. Bloody useless.’
He waited, his arms folded while I exploded. So childish. But I could see in his eyes that he knew I was thinking about my kids. About myself. All the anger directed somewhere else. And he was a doctor and I needed help.
He had finished tidying up, finished turning away, and sat quite purposefully in his chair, facing me.
‘As a matter of fact, I do think prayers, meditation, just thinking sometimes, can work, but not at all in the way we hope. I don’t think God can stop wars or make the sick well, the sorts of things we all want.’
He was beginning to make me angry again. He was not saying what I wanted to hear.
‘So, you do think whatever’s out there is powerless, then? Or not there at all, of course. What do you honestly think, because I think that, whatever it is, it’s powerless. It’s taken me all this time to understand how conned we were as children, conned by the Bible stories, just as we were conned by the ‘happy ever after’ fairy stories. Cinderella did not go to the ball; she spent the rest of her life as a drudge, doing the cleaning and whatever. It was the ugly sisters who went to the ball and ended up marrying lords and princes. The frog prince remains a frog and the ugly duckling was pecked to death.’
His face! I couldn’t help bursting out with laughter. And he laughed, too. We both laughed.
‘I’m afraid, Guy, faith never, ever moved mountains. It really is the most awful load of cobblers.’
‘In that way, I am sure you’re right,’ he said. ‘But—’
I interrupted him: ‘But isn’t it depressing, this powerlessness? Powerlessness is the most awful thing. I can understand how you feel when you can’t make someone better. I really do.’
There were some footsteps and low voices outside, so he leaned forward to speak.
‘The thing is,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the ideas, you see. It’s called inspiration. In spirit, you see. But we have to make them work, the ideas. It’s up to us in the end.’
‘Up to us what?’ I was getting angry again.
He hesitated. ‘To do our best, I suppose. Just to do our best. Simple as that.’
The noise outside had faded. We didn’t need to speak quietly any more.
‘Simple as that!’ I repeated. Inside was a small edge of relief that I didn’t recognise at the time. Just that I felt less battered.
‘The problem is,’ he was saying, although I was hardly listening, ‘that we know so little still, so very little, and we can’t do what we don’t know. It’s not our fault, of course – shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it, because it’s like expecting a young child to be able to understand higher maths or argue about philosophy. They can’t because they’re not ready. Might well be able to when grown up, though, if you see what I mean.’
I was beginning to see what he meant. I’ve thought about it a lot since.
‘But there is this hope, you know. After all, many people are living healthy lives who, years ago, would be dead. In the meantime, I share your frustrations.’
‘So, we’re alone?’
‘No, not at all. Look, we have each other.’
But it wasn’t enough for me and it was patronising and a platitude. I wanted anger then, and a kind of revenge.
We still hadn’t spoken about the children. Why was he deliberately avoiding it? He was the doctor, after all, and I was the patient. I had come here to find some kind of healing. He didn’t mention my memory problems. Damn him, I thought.
And then out of the blue he said, ‘Oh, by the way, changing the subject completely, would you like a day out tomorrow? I think it would do you good. No walking, just a ride in the car to fetch stuff from the farm and, well, we could even treat ourselves to a cream tea. Would you like that? After all, you can’t do any more gardening!’ He laughed.
Of course I would like it. I tried not to look too pleased, but suddenly felt a flicker of joy, happy that he had asked. I liked him. I thought he could really put me right and be there for me. I had felt so lonely for such a long time.
‘That would be nice,’ I said.
‘Good!’ He was quite matter-of-fact. ‘Ten o’clock outside the front. OK?’