Helen Judson guarded to herself only one secret: the route of her afternoon walks. Depending on the weather, and her mood, they were either up through the busy streets of the town to the remains of the battlements, or along the canal towpath. The pleasure of deciding each day which walk she should take was one she kept stubbornly to herself. No matter how much her mother questioned her, on her return, she would only reveal she had been ‘around’, or ‘here and there’. Nothing more.
Only on fine Saturdays were the walks of quite a different kind, and no joy at all. Then, Helen was obliged to wheel her mother along the High Street. The irascible old lady would peer into each shop window and with a squawk of triumph find some new cause for indignation: the price of coffee or shoes, the vulgarity of summer hats. ‘But I suppose you’ve seen all this several times a week, it doesn’t surprise you,’ Mrs Judson would say, considering her manner of probing to be a subtle one. Helen’s response was always of such vagueness as to infuriate Mrs Judson further: still she could not discover where, precisely, Helen had taken her weekday walks, and her daughter’s closed face and impenetrable secrecy on this one subject filled Mrs Judson with inexhaustible rage. Determined to invade this only remaining area of her daughter’s privacy, she planned one day to abandon her tactic of subtle probing and come right out with it. Ask Helen, straight, what she was up to in her hour of freedom five afternoons each week.
Helen was up to nothing more than seeking relief from the tedium of the house. All she desired was a measure of silence after the perpetual nag of her mother’s voice: fresh air after the smell of years of stewed prunes and disinfectant and lily-of-the-valley talcum powder which had permeated every room. Her hour alone each day was a thing to be anticipated all morning, to be recalled during the long, dreary evenings. Neither storms nor snow nor uncomfortable heat would be reason enough to forego its pleasures. In the last fifteen years Helen had only missed three walks, due to some major crisis in her mother’s health, which were clearly distinguishable from the very frequent ones of a minor kind.
On a Wednesday in October Helen prepared herself, as usual, for her escape. She settled her mother in the armchair by the window which looked on to a small, perished garden. She plumped up cushions, refilled water glass, straightened shawl, placed the Radio Times and bag of knitting within reach. Then she lifted Spot the terrier on to Mrs Judson’s chest so that the servile little dog could give its customary lick to the mush of purple cheek and neck. She replaced the dog with some distaste on the floor.
‘You going out, dear?’ Mrs Judson’s assumed surprise never dimmed.
‘Just for a while.’
‘Don’t be long. I’ve this numbness in my leg. I might be heading for something.’
Helen was never long. A precise hour, neither more nor less. Always warned by some new ailment of her mother that to overstay her hour would be fatal.
She could see it was a sharp, gusty afternoon. Helen plucked from a peg in the dim hallway a mauve scarf into which her mother had crocheted many grumbles for last Christmas. She tucked it into the collar of her gaberdine mac and tightened the laces of her walking shoes. Spot panted eagerly at her feet. Afternoon walks were the highlight of his day, too: though no doubt he felt as little joy in Helen’s surly company as she did in his irritating excitement at every familiar corner.
Opening the front door, Helen stood for a moment to feel the dry wind on her face. Spot immediately spurted out into the wizened front garden, yelped in idiot frenzy at the foot of the one remaining standard rose tree whose salmon-pink blooms Helen disliked every June.
‘Shut up, you scabby fawning little bitch,’ she said out loud, releasing the venom of the morning on the dog, ‘or I’ll kick your guts in.’
As if ashamed by the violence of the language it had spewed forth, Helen’s pale worm of a mouth concentrated into a single pencil line, lips indistinguishable from skin. She tossed her head – so many grey hairs, now, among the auburn – and made for the canal.
The water, today, lustreless as the sky, was made flaccid by the wind. It trembled like geriatric flesh. Autumnal reminders of death were a comfort to Helen: her mother could not survive many more years, then she would be free to die in peace herself. Such a thought released the warmth of contentment through Helen’s meagre body. The minuscule speck of sand she represented in eternity was, at least, a polished one: dutiful life untroubled by ambition or surprise or adventure, to be ended by death that would not cause a single person in the world a moment of regret. Ah! she was fortunate, really. Those well-meaning neighbours who advised she should get out more, sacrifice less to her mother, were foolish in their ignorance. Perhaps they did not understand the pleasure of repaying debts – the childhood years when her mother had been constant in her affection, her puddings and her darning, could not be discounted merely because an accident had turned a well-meaning woman into a selfish, bitter old lady. Besides, there was much to be said for narrowness of life. Helen had no desire to widen her horizons. The rigid cage of her days, for all its petty irritations, was safe. Release, when it came, would be alarming.
Helen was alone, as usual, on the towpath. Few people chose to walk along the muddy banks of the canal, spurned by all wild flowers, though thick with willow herb in August and blackberries in September. Often, the water itself smelt dead. Swallows, dipping low for a glance at their reflections, hastily swooped up again into sweeter air. But the trees were handsome: chestnuts, poplar, ash – their leaves beginning to turn. Cold, suddenly, Helen quickened her step. Some way ahead of her Spot was barking at something beneath the bridge. He was always barking. Years ago Helen had grown immune to the urgency of the sound. She felt no responsibility for him on walks, gave him no instructions. If he cared to follow at heel, she made no comment. If he darted about in his irresponsible fashion she would not concern herself. By all rights he should have been run over long ago. Helen was not going to lessen his chances by giving him advice.
So now she ignored his barking but hurried against the cold. As she approached the bridge, Spot turned to her with his stupid grin, yapping all the while. Then he scampered off to a place on the canal bank a hundred yards farther on.
It was there Helen saw an arm sticking out of the water, then a head. They disappeared. Sluggish ripples covered the place they had been. Helen ran.
When she reached the place on the bank where Spot stood barking, the head emerged again. It was a boy of nine or ten, screaming, muddy, apparently unable to move. Helen whipped off her scarf and threw it towards him. The boy’s hand flailed towards it, but missed. He screamed more loudly. Helen flung off her mackintosh and jumped into the water.
Looking back on the events of the afternoon, Helen could never understand why, later, she was to be called a heroine. Certainly she had had no time for heroic thoughts of saving life: it had all happened too quickly for thought of any kind. Acting on instinct, Helen had jumped, and with comparative ease pulled the boy from the water. The hardest part had been climbing back up the steep and slippery bank, aggravated by the boy’s wailing and Spot’s triumphant barking. Once on land, it took some moments to persuade the boy to give Helen his name and address. He lived not far away. Hand in hand, they hurried to his house.
Sam’s mother scolded him for going to forbidden territory – ‘I always told you one day you’d fall in, fooling about with sticks like that’ – but there was relief in her scolding. She repeated her gratitude to Helen, gave her tea and offered to dry her clothes. But now that the boy was safe Helen’s only worry was that she should get home within her allotted hour. To be late would mean abundant questioning, and Helen was determined her mother should know nothing of the small drama.
Mrs Judson, Helen found to her relief, had fallen asleep. This enabled her to change her clothes undetected. As she often did this, after a bath in the afternoon, Mrs Judson did not think anything was amiss. That evening, sitting by the small fire of smokeless fuel while her mother grumbled at the television, Helen went over the events of the afternoon in her mind. She recalled the stab of fear that had made her heart race as it had not done for years: the icy grasp of the water, the vile smell of the mud, the piteous face of Sam and the struggle up the bank. The pictures seemed small and far away. She saw herself acting in them, a detached figure, as in a film. It was only the combined memories of cold, fear and smell that convinced her the rescue had actually happened. By the next morning, the matter was almost erased from her mind.
Two days later she found a small bunch of peonies left on the front doorstep. The attached note said: With many thanks and love from Sam. Unnerved, Helen put them in a jar in her room, a place Mrs Judson never entered. Later that day came a further shock. On return from her walk to the battlements Helen found her mother in animated conversation with a strange young man in the sitting-room.
‘We’ve a visitor, Helen,’ she crowed. ‘How about that? This is Mr John Smith from the Chronicle. And he’s told me all about what you did the other day down by the canal.’
That part of the information was definitely the most interesting to Mrs Judson. Her triumph was total. The pains of the morning were forgotten, her smiles uncontainable.
Helen shook hands with the reporter and sat down, weakly. She saw that he and her mother were drinking tea from the best china cups, and the best tea cosy, slotted with ribbons, warmed the pot. They ate biscuits from a plate of Assorted Cream Centres, normally kept for Sundays or Christmas. Mrs Judson had not been up to such preparations for months, her daughter reflected. But she kept her silence.
‘Yes, well,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Young Sam’s mother put me on to you. And a very brave act it was, too, if I may say so.’
‘Down by the canal,’ added Mrs Judson.
‘We on the Chronicle would like to do a little story about you, Miss Judson, if you wouldn’t mind.’ Mr Smith licked his pencil with a biscuit-covered tongue.
‘I would mind very much indeed,’ said Helen. ‘There’s no story. I only did what anyone would have done in my place. It was neither dangerous nor very dramatic.’
‘Kept it from her mother, all right,’ said Mrs Judson.
‘Quite the silent heroine,’ Mr Smith smiled, thinking of the byline under the headline.
‘Never tells me where she goes for her walks, do you, Helen?’
‘Furthest I’ve ever gone was rescuing a puppy from a duck pond,’ admitted Mr Smith, thinking he would ease Helen’s path by confessing his own experience of heroism. He told the story at some length, leaving Helen to observe the curious way his presence affected the room. It was four o’clock, but the normal peace of that time was shattered by the intrusion of this unwanted stranger. Spot lay unusually still on the mat, the dark wallpaper glowered with a strange menace.
‘So just a little human story for the Chronicle, I’d like,’ Mr Smith was saying, having been congratulated by Mrs Judson on his courage in the matter of the puppy. ‘You wouldn’t mind answering just a few questions, now, would you?’
‘My husband, Helen’s father, and I made the pages of the Chronicle on our wedding day, and then again on our silver anniversary,’ interjected Mrs Judson, who had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for years. ‘Of course, Helen will tell us whatever we want to know. People will like to read a story like that, won’t they, Helen?’
Helen answered the reporter’s unanimated questions as shortly and simply as she was able. Her theory that the story was of little interest did not convince Mr Smith: there was no doubt, he assured her, fame would be upon her now.
It was quite dark by the time he left. For this reason, as Helen accompanied him unhappily to the gate, she did not observe another of the Chronicle’s lively employees hiding behind a hedge: a sudden flash exploded in her face. Momentarily blinded, she stumbled back to the house, slammed the door on Mr Smith’s apologies. He had not thought the photographer would cause her such fright.
‘So it’s down by the canal you go,’ cooed Mrs Judson, ignoring Helen’s distress and still eating biscuits. ‘Knew I’d find out one day. There’s not much you can keep from your mother.’
* * *
The following week a large picture of Helen, startled and open-mouthed, was printed on the front page of the Chronicle, beside a smaller one of Sam. The story was headed ‘The Silent Heroine by John Smith’, who delivered his readers the full range of his journalistic talents in his descriptions of the horror of jumping into a lethal canal to rescue a boy on the point of drowning. His colourful exaggeration caused Helen almost to cry out loud, but she knew any remonstrance would be fuel to her mother’s opinions, which already had been wearingly repeated over the last two days. The part of the story that held the keenest delight for Mrs Judson were Mr Smith’s closing lines. ‘And Miss Judson,’ he wrote, ‘breathed not a word of her great heroism to anyone. She did not even tell her mother.’
‘There,’ said Mrs Judson, ‘see that? What did I tell you? I’m not the only one who thinks your secrecy is peculiar. It agrees with me in the paper.’
That afternoon, walking up through the High Street to the battlements again (she had not so far returned to the towpath) Helen was smiled at by several strangers. In two shops she was congratulated on her courage, and at a pedestrian crossing a child who said he was Sam’s friend shook her by the hand. She arrived home trembling to find four admiring letters from people she did not know, and for several days her walks were interrupted by nods and smiles and words of praise. Haunted by such recognition, Helen decided it was time to return to the towpath. At least, there, she would be alone.
But down by the canal her hopes of a peaceful walk were ended by the presence of a distant figure walking towards her. Helen could see, as he bounced under the bridge, hands in pockets, it was the Reverend Arnold Ludgate, vicar of the parish, a man who in the past had made many a visit to the Judsons to urge them to seek the light of his church, but who had eventually been forced to realise they would never become part of his flock. Spot barked eagerly, alerting the vicar. He looked up, recognising Helen at once, and waved cheerily. It was too late for Helen to turn in the opposite direction. She set her face into an expression of intense preoccupation, hoping it would discourage the vicar from too long a conversation. They approached each other in very different spirits.
A yard or so from the exact spot where the rescue had taken place they met, and stopped. The Reverend Arnold Ludgate was a man of considerable bounce: his enthusiasm, the balls of his feet and his Adam’s apple all bounced in constant unison. Now, at rest physically, an almost visible bounce of spirit danced within him. He smiled his very distinct smile: God had chosen teeth for the vicar that should be his particular cross, and the vicar bore them well, smiling more in a single day than most people manage in a week.
‘Ah! Miss Judson.’ Smile, smile. Helen noticed his sandy hair was turning grey. ‘It must be the good Lord’s will we should meet like this. It was my intention to call upon you this evening and offer my humble congratulations. That was a most brave and courageous act you committed, and we in the parish are proud – ’
‘Thank you,’ said Helen. ‘But it was nothing. It’s been exaggerated out of all proportion.’
‘Just hereabouts, was it?’ The vicar bounced his small hand in the general direction of the canal.
‘Just about here,’ Helen agreed. Scanning the offending patch of water, the Reverend Arnold remained for a few moments in silent contemplation.
‘Very tricky place,’ he said at last. Thank God you were here. He certainly moves in mysterious ways.’
‘Yes,’ said Helen.
‘His wonders to perform,’ added the vicar.
They stood looking at each other, the wind blowing their rather similiar auburn and grey hair. Helen hoped God might now perform the wonder of releasing her from this unwanted encounter: but He did not oblige.
‘As a matter of fact, Miss Judson, I had it in mind to make you a little suggestion. There’s to be a most interesting talk at the vicarage on Tuesday the fifth: one of our missionaries back from India. I was wondering if you would care to come along? I think I can guarantee quite a little gathering.’ The vicar was all smiles again. He looked at Helen with such suffering expectancy of an acceptance that she judged it easier to agree than to go through the dreary mechanics of being persuaded.
Since her old schoolfriend Jenny had died of cancer five years ago she had not been out for an evening: such invitations that came her way she had refused with such constancy that they were now rare. And anyhow, the fuss of arranging a companion for her mother was too much to contemplate. The idea of a talk at the vicarage was the last thing to tempt her to break her pattern: but the fact was the canal episode had shifted normality in a most disagreeable fashion, leaving her ungrounded, shaken, curiously lost. It was for this reason, perhaps, her normal, strong resolve to decline all invitations was weakened. Unwillingly, she accepted.
‘Good, good, good,’ trilled the vicar, bouncing a little on the path. ‘I shall take the liberty of dropping by with some reading matter about the whole subject before then: and in the meantime I shall look forward with immense pleasure, quite immense pleasure, to your joining us.’
Helen nodded briefly, looking at her watch with undisguised impatience. The idea of anyone anticipating pleasure in her company was a responsibility she did not care for, but she knew she stood a poor chance of quelling his enthusiasm.
‘I must be off,’ she said, grateful for the first time in her life to Spot’s impatient barking. ‘The dog needs his run.’
The Reverend Arnold arrived with his first lot of reading matter that evening, much to the delight of Mrs Judson who, although not a woman of religious inclination herself, regarded any vicar as a high-class visitor. Small glasses of clouded sherry were produced, and the pattern of a normal evening shattered.
Perhaps the vicar judged his welcome at the Judsons to be a warm one, for he ventured to repeat the visit, armed with more missionary reading matter, some days later. He then took the liberty of dropping round most evenings, with some impeccable excuse, and the bottle of sherry, untouched for years, was soon finished.
On the occasions of his visitations Helen sat quietly listening to the conversation between her mother and the Reverend Arnold, resenting every moment of the old, lost tranquillity. The intrusion of this visitor continued to play havoc with the room as she knew it: the horrible magic of change unnerved her very soul.
It had quite the opposite effect upon Mrs Judson to whom, in her mind’s eye, the vicar was already a son-in-law. She refrained from putting this idea to Helen in too crude a fashion, but could not contain a small hint of the ambitions in her heart.
‘If Arnold’s courting, Helen, and I don’t say he is, then we ought to get in some more Assorted Creams.’
She was curiously enthusiastic at the thought of Helen’s night out at the vicarage, even volunteering to spend the evening on her own, provided Helen was in by eleven. This was a promise Helen was able to make with great ease. She left her mother, settled in rugs for an evening of television, with a lack of enthusiasm that seemed to slow her limbs, making the walk to the vicarage a long one.
The Reverend Arnold was an eager host, and had obviously taken great trouble with preparations for the evening. Twelve assorted chairs were placed in rows in his large, cold sitting-room – into which a collection of feeble electric fires had been scattered: there was sherry, tea and assorted cream biscuits on a table (‘inspired by my visits to the Judsons,’ he whispered to Helen) and the screen for the slides was set up at the end of the room. After a long wait scarcely filled with small, awkward talk, it seemed that only five others besides Helen had decided to give up their evening to the missionary’s talk. The spare chairs were left, however, to give the illusion of a larger audience, and in the darkened room, punching away at the slides, the gallant missionary disguised any disappointment he may have felt at the lack of audience, booming his message across as if addressing a packed Albert Hall.
The lecture over, the pale lamps lit again, the vicar’s guests now at least had something positive to talk about over their biscuits and tea. But the discussion petered out quickly as a chill wind rattled through the windows, making the thin curtains shudder, and the small patches of warmth from the fires evaporated in the cold air. They made their excuses, the guests, and left. Even the missionary had to be on his way. Helen’s inclination was to leave with the others, but something in the vicar’s face, behind his bouncing smile, touched her conscience. So when he suggested she might like a nightcap in his study before the journey home, she agreed.
The study, it was true, was warm: a small brown room, bookshelves to the ceiling, a disorganised desk, two armchairs whose life seemed almost spent.
‘Only real warm spot in the house,’ said the vicar. ‘I more or less live in this room.’ He poured two minute glasses of thick dark sherry, gave one to Helen, and took the chair opposite her. ‘Trouble is, this is a vast house, falling to pieces, and much too big for one man. They’re considering pulling it down and building a nice modern box instead, but I don’t know when that will be. So meantime I rattle around.’ He smiled, uncomplainingly. ‘Would that I had a relation to accommodate in one wing – it could be very nice with a lick of paint and a few gas fires. But sadly my dear mother departed from this world in 1947, so there’s no one …’
‘No,’ said Helen.
They listened to the wind.
Helen sipped the horrible sweet sherry. She did not want to be sitting here in the vicar’s study wearing her polite face. Were she at home she would be in the silent privacy of her own room by now, shawl about her shoulders, Persuasion in her hand, the clamps of dull routine an inestimable pleasure. Until the time came that her mother died, and dreaded freedom was thrust upon her, she wanted no change.
The Reverend Arnold had dragged a duster from the skirts of his armchair and was polishing the toe of an already shining shoe with some fervour. His head cast down, Helen was unable to observe his expression as he spoke.
‘My dear Miss Judson – may I take the liberty of saying this? I hope I have not alarmed you by my attentions since your great act of heroism. But perhaps it will come as no great surprise to you when I admit it was not merely to deliver papers pertaining to our missionary’s work that I called upon you quite so frequently …’
Rub, rub, rub at the shoe. ‘I have grown to feel we are kindred spirits, you and me. Lonely souls, despite the love of our Father.’ He ceased polishing at last, returned the duster to its hiding place, and with great effort met Helen’s eye. ‘You understand? This huge house, ridiculous for one: the Granny wing – dear Mrs Judson, I could not but help thinking …’He blushed, fervent, but without bounce. ‘I mean, there is work to be done, children to be raised, partners to be chosen. I cannot help thinking that God in his mercy has guided me …’
Helen stood up, face impassive. The vicar leapt up too, wringing his small hands.
‘Forgive me, dear Helen, if I’ve intruded into areas – ’
‘I must go,’ said Helen. ‘I promised Mother I’d be home by eleven.’
The vicar followed her through cold dark passages to the front door.
‘Perhaps, at least, you would not reject my suggestion as totally out of hand.’ Helen pulled on her gloves. The vicar winced at her small, impatient frown. ‘Perhaps you would think it over? I don’t want to rush anything: you must forgive me if I’ve been too hasty – I’m not a man practised at courting.’ He managed the faintest smile. ‘But unless you give me firm orders not to, I shall take the opportunity of visiting you further, see how things go from there …’
Helen looked at him. He shivered in the doorway, Adam’s apple bouncing up and down on the dog’s collar in silent fear.
‘Mr Ludgate,’ she said, voice so tight she feared he might hear the cracks, ‘thank you for a very pleasant evening. If you’d like to drop round, sometimes, I’m sure my mother and I would be very pleased to see you. But please, I ask you this: don’t speak to me again of such things as you have mentioned tonight. You may find it hard to understand, but it’s not in my nature to want change. My mother and I are happy as we are.’
‘I shall be there,’ said the vicar, hope rising like mercury through his body and causing him a familiar bounce of joyous expectation, ‘and we shall see what the Good Lord has in store for us.’
They shook hands. Helen, scarf pulled tight round her neck, set off on the walk home, down by the canal where a full moon floated on the still, black water, where the huge trees crackled in the wind. Above the roofs of the town the dark sky was pink as a sore, its edges puffed with cloud. Ruined evenings, blasted life, bitter cold: Helen walked fast, not thinking.
