That evening Honor enquired as to whether Miss Sumpter had or had not mentioned whether the many dismissed servants who had littered her life turned up in the joyous throng who escorted her from this life to the next.
‘No,’ I said, shortly, regretting the initial impulse which had led to confide in my wife things better kept from her, in the interests of the ‘mystefaction’ so loved by the pinner priests. I now saw their point.
‘I’d like to know,’ said Honor. ‘Perhaps you can ask her when next you’re closeted with her.’
‘My dear,’ I said, ‘she’s a re-wind. Hard to be closeted with a ghost!’
We both had some more borage tea, our favourite. We were as near to a quarrel as either of us could remember. I explained that I could not ask questions of a re-wind directly; but only on occasion through what is called the Overflow Reaction Effect, alter the pattern of the re-wind’s thought processes to dovetail with my own. Much of the pulp priests’ art was a matter of selective interpretation.
‘You mean you make the whole thing up!’ she exclaimed.
‘That is preposterous,’ I thundered, and the borage tea trembled in the cups, reminding me that I had not so much as sipped mine, although Honor, sensing my mood, had been to so much trouble to make it.
‘I am so sorry,’ I apologised, and she apologised as well, and presently, after we had drunk our tea and not merely stared at it, we were able to resume our discussion more rationally.
‘My dear,’ said Honor, ‘since I know you like to talk about Miss Sumpter, and have told me how particular she is about her laundry, tell me at least this – how did it happen that on the night in question the two men in her life were wearing badly washed shirts?’
‘She was very young,’ I replied, in Gabriella’s defence, but this scarcely seemed an adequate answer. ‘Or perhaps when she talks about shirts some greater symbolism is intended than I have been able to record. She is in the next world: I am in this. I do my best but perhaps my best is inadequate.’
‘My dear!’ exclaimed Honor, ‘no one could do better than you,’ and I knew our quarrel was over.
‘Certainly,’ I went on, warming to my dear wife, ‘when Gabriella Sumpter refers to soiled shirts, it is as if they were an omen of bad luck. To not properly look after artefacts, objects or clothing, is likely, in her account of her life, to lead to chaos and distress. In which I daresay she is right!’ Only yesterday Honor brushed a cup from the table with the sleeve of her cardigan. She had the grace now to look ashamed. She should not have put it so near the edge, and then the accident would not have happened. Nor, I imagine, would Gabriella ever have worn such a garment – pale blue courtelle, stretched shapeless by too hot a wash.
Nevertheless, Miss Sumpter’s view of the world is faulty. Honor is right. There is a preoccupation here with trivia which can only appear luxurious, in the old sense of that word. The times are out of sympathy with those who live off the fat of the land and never do a hand’s turn in their lives. I am more than ever opposed to the GNFR’s determination to go public with the Sumpter re-wind. What do we want? A whole nation of washerwomen, firm in their belief that cleanliness is not only next to godliness but will lead to immortality? There is no shortage of re-winds from which to choose – up and down the country the graveyards are noisy and tumultuous with spirits demanding to be heard.
Later, Honor said in bed that in her opinion the Day of Judgement had been and gone, unnoticed by the living: that the Christian era had now passed formally and not just informally away. The GNFR has become the established religion of the land, rather to its own surprise; now surely it must conduct itself with due regard to its responsibilities, as must its priests.
‘My dear,’ I said, ‘I have no intention of doing otherwise. You may rely upon me to do the right thing.’ And we composed ourselves for sleep, to be woken by a rather disturbing telephone call – in every sense of the word – from our dear grand-daughter. She had only just arrived in Carlisle, and was staying overnight in the Counselling Compound, before proceeding to Edinburgh the next day. Apparently the coach had been held up by a murderous gang of self-styled Retribution Vigilantes against AIDS, and the armed guard only just been able to put them to rout. The poor girl was quite distraught.
‘Praise be the GSWITS!’ I comforted her. ‘Press play and record! Consent!’ and presently she felt better.
Honor and I were upset in spite of ourselves. The Edinburgh colony is a cheerful and positive place, but the month’s statistics, just out, show a mortality rate of eighty per cent within five years for four of the five varieties of HL virus currently with us, and the fifth is still unknown. Not good news, in spite of the GNFR’s insistence that to re-wind a life young is no bad thing. Sometimes faith falters. It was a relief to return the next day to Gabriella’s soft, eternal voice and regain that faith.