It rained unrelentingly throughout Easter week and Low Sunday lived up to its name in all respects. By the following Thursday morning, however, the rain had stopped. The sky was no longer uniformly grey and to the west dirty cotton wool clouds dispersed in a sheen of silver.
The dove-grey cat, which had arrived a month ago at the vicarage in great distress, sat on the top of the old coal bunker and brushed a neat white paw against its small pink nose. Now glossy and trusting, it performed its ablutions in leisurely manner before turning its attention to the birds, dotted like dead leaves on the branches of the apple tree. Beyond, in the lane leading past the graveyard, the bare branches of the surviving elm were knotted with rooks’ nests.
In the lofty stone-flagged kitchen where the Hoaths breakfasted for warmth, Michael made notes on a pad. Valentine, after watching in silence for some minutes, said, ‘It’s all right for you. Your dog collar gives you a licence to meddle.’
He reached for the toast. ‘If it does, I don’t make full use of it. I would so much sooner people came to me.’
‘They do come to you.’
‘Who are they? Devout old ladies troubled by David Jenkins’s latest indiscretion.’
‘What do you expect? You don’t imagine you can encroach on secular preserves.’ She poured tea for herself. ‘Social Services have the monopoly here. Need and deprivation there may be, but when one attempts to do something about it – however modest – one is reminded that the caring business is a closed shop. For people who claim to be overworked, social workers are very quick to defend their preserves.’
He looked up, alerted by the sharpness of her tone. ‘How selfish of me. I was so occupied with the Easter services that I completely forgot. You went to make enquiries . . .’
‘In answer to my request some tousle-headed female emanated from a cloud of tobacco smoke. She covered, briefly and discouragingly, a range of auxiliary duties for which I was eminently unsuited. Then, taking advantage of her coughing fit, I told her I had thought of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.’
‘But that doesn’t come under Social Services.’
‘They have their moles at work within the organization, though. She was able to assure me that I would have to take a course.’
‘Well, then . . .’
‘And, furthermore, “You will have to be able to deal with all sorts of people,” she informed me, making it quite apparent from her manner that I should be unable to sustain a conversation with anyone from Ambridge, let alone Coronation Street.’
‘I think it was probably a mistake to approach Social Services in the first place. Why not . . .’
‘On the contrary, it saved a lot of time. It convinced me that the only way that I could ever be of service to the community would be if I were to found an Order of my own. I doubt if I have the commitment – or the stamina, come to that.’
Michael spread marmalade thickly on toast while he considered this. Something occurred to him which brightened his face. ‘You didn’t tell me what happened at the dramatic society meeting on Tuesday.’
‘My true milieu. How right you are! They are doing Hedda Gabler. You can guess what part I was offered.’
‘Hedda.’
‘The producer was obviously panic-stricken at the beginning of the audition because one of those prima donnas which every society has as its cross regarded the part as already hers. She actually did it without the book, just to drive her stake deep into his heart. When I read he looked at me as if I was a gift not merely from the vicarage but God Himself. It was quite amusing. I said I would have to think about it, because I was too old for Hedda. She, I may say, will never see fifty again.’
‘You will accept?’
‘I am too old, Michael. I am forty-five.’
He looked at her unhappily, recognizing the need for reassurance but fearing it would be rejected as unacceptable no sooner than offered. He said, ‘My dearest, to me you always seem as young as the day I married you.’
The wretched sincerity of the tone in which this statement was made amused her so much that her gloom was dispelled. ‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘better Hedda than Mary Rose. I shall certainly accept.’
As he left the vicarage Michael Hoath was comforted in the knowledge that for the next month or so Valentine would be absorbed in the production of Hedda Gabler. This would undoubtedly give rise to a series of crises as she found herself in conflict with the producer, out of sympathy with Ibsen, unsure of Hedda’s motivation, dissatisfied with her costume, hampered by the limitations of the set and, towards the end of the rehearsal period, constantly proclaiming that she could not carry the role and should stand down. But all this had happened before and he had some understanding of that kind of instability which is a part of the creative process.
Michael shared with his wife a taste for drama; but while Valentine realized her need within the confines of a theatre, he looked to life for its fulfilment. As a result he tended to see his world as a course with obstacles set up with the express purpose of testing his spiritual prowess. Now, he paused on the vicarage lawn, tossing the car keys about in one hand, wondering what kind of a course this slate-roofed town overhung by the bluff hills would offer. It was difficult to construct an optimistic scenario.
The place to which he had come was a small market town of some ten-thousand inhabitants in which light industry had never really taken root. Once it had had a modest reputation for shoes and gloves, but fashions had changed and only one shoe firm remained in the area. The only continuing feature of its commercial success was the brewery. In the Sixties there had been hopes that the new university would be sited here, but it had gone elsewhere, although some staff used the town as a dormitory, enriching its life with occasional lectures and participating vociferously in protests about developments which would devalue their property. It was a decent enough little place in which to grow old, with good cultural facilities for those of a more contemplative cast of mind; but with little hope for those seeking employment and with nothing to offer the young except a swimming pool which had been designed to Olympic standards and built to meet the requirements of the County Council for its schools’ gala. The only real excitement in recent years had been its successful fight for a by-pass. Feeling must indeed have run high in those days. Michael had met respectable elderly ladies who recalled marching up and down the high street bearing banners warning ‘Jugger off!’ and ‘Truck off!’ But all that was over. The town had won and hoteliers and shopkeepers had discovered to their cost that the one-time invaders were only too willing to avail themselves of the by-pass. All passion seemed now spent. As far as Michael could judge, there were no very interesting sins. Indifference would be the major hurdle here. It was the sort of place to which St Paul, for all his shipwrecks, would have given a wide berth.
As he stood on the vicarage lawn, breathing in the damp, lifeless air, he had a premonition that here a demand would be made of him which he would be unable to answer. He looked at the garden and was not comforted. Well-stocked borders and a smooth green lawn were refreshment to the eye and solace to the soul, but an unkempt garden filled him with a sense of impotence because he did not know how to set about restoring order. Here, rampant climbers and rioting shrubs menaced him on all sides. He had no idea what should be left undisturbed and what rooted out. His one attempt at cutting back roses had drawn from Valentine the comment, ‘Well, they won’t trouble you again!’ since when she had never let him into a garden with a pair of secateurs in his hands. He did not know the kinds of soil which different plants needed nor how often they should be fed and watered. The sheer amount of detailed knowledge required to keep oneself on even terms with growing things bewildered him. His brain became confused every time he looked at a disorderly garden. This garden was very disorderly.
He experienced a moment of panic, an impulse to run into the vicarage and tell Valentine that he could not see this through – an infantile urge, blind and unreasoning as a child’s refusal to go to school. He walked slowly towards the garage, forcing his shaken mind to consider what was happening to him. He had not wanted to come here, that was undeniably true; it had meant giving up much that he enjoyed in Oxford, together with any hope of preferment. But he had thought that out and accepted it. He was unlikely to suffer anything stronger than a passing disappointment at the prospect of remaining a parish priest. Ambition had played little part in his life. His father, a solicitor in a Sussex country town, had never sought to better himself by moving to a more thriving practice. His mother, the daughter of a local chemist in the town where he now found himself, had lovingly described the unsuccessful father as ‘a dear, unreliable man’. Michael’s parents had not been ambitious for themselves or for their only child. Certainly, there would be no lasting bitterness eating into his soul were he to end his days as a parish priest. Indeed, there was much that could be made of the situation – better by far to grow old nose to the grindstone than overseeing the mill-race from some lofty window. But there was something else, some underlying fear which had never openly declared itself. He felt it at the pit of his stomach and knew by the weight of it that it had been growing within him for a long time. He rested two fingers between his eyes, a habit he had when he wished to calm himself. ‘I have to think about this, not run away from it.’ But he had a busy day ahead and must put it to one side until he had read the Office and the day was spent.
He had arranged to visit a site up in the hills where unemployed youngsters were helping to erect a log cabin in a country park. This was the kind of activity which he enjoyed and he was soon at work unloading logs. He returned to the town feeling healthier in body and renewed in spirit. It was a quarter to twelve and he had to take Mass at noon. The church, sited in the high street, had no parking space adjacent but he was fortunate in finding a space in a cul-de-sac where infilling had created four cramped town houses at the back of a builder’s yard.
His churchwarden, Walter Ellery, an elderly man with the face of an ancient walrus, was already in the vestry when Michael arrived. Valentine had said that he was one of those people who seem already to belong to posterity rather than the ephemeral everyday world. Michael asked him, ‘And who have we today?’ It seemed that the congregation consisted, as usual, of Mrs Cummins, Mrs Challoner, Miss Addison and Mrs Flack.
Michael said wryly, ‘Ah well, when two or three are gathered together in His name, all things are possible . . .’ The old man smiled and Michael saw that for him this was the simple truth. He felt rebuked in the presence of such humility.
After the service he returned to the church intending to retrieve a duster which he had noticed lying to one side of the chancel steps. He was half-way down the nave before he realized that Mrs Flack was still there.
He would have said that, of the four women who had attended the service, Miss Addison was the most likely to remain so long in prayer. Mrs Flack, who was no doubt responsible for the duster, was a good church cleaner but she had given little indication that she was endowed with the equipment for prolonged meditation. He checked himself, realizing that this was how he would report the incident to Valentine, hoping to amuse her.
As he came level with Mrs Flack she turned her head and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for a word, Vicar.’
‘Yes, Mrs Flack.’
‘I have been examining my soul, like you told us to the other week.’
Michael, wincing at this crude rephrasing of his attempt at spiritual guidance, bowed his head and waited for whatever revelation was to follow.
Mrs Flack raised her face, the blunt features not much softened by the muted light. ‘I have decided I must speak.’
‘Yes, please . . .’
‘Mr Hughes played the organ last Sunday.’
‘Mr Painter has ’flu,’ Michael pointed out, trying to conceal his impatience at the thought of another complaint about an unfamiliar tune.
‘I didn’t expect that Mr Hughes would be asked to play the organ. Not after what he’s done.’
‘What has he done?’
‘Standing by the war memorial with that petition.’
It had not occurred to Michael that anyone was capable of thinking in this way. He was tempted to tell the woman that as long as he was Vicar Ewan Hughes would be welcome to play the organ whenever he could be persuaded to do so. But as he gazed at the brown coat which gave off a damp, woolly smell and saw the now familiar crease punched in the crown of the ancient velour hat, he realized that after two months in the parish these articles were his surest means of identifying Mrs Flack. What went on beneath that ungainly bundle was a mystery to him. Yet as a priest it was a mystery which it was his duty to investigate since, as she herself had reminded him, it was not Mrs Flack’s outer garments with which he should be concerned, but the state of her soul. He seated himself beside her in the pew.
‘What is troubling you, Mrs Flack?’
‘I lost my man in the war.’
The sharpness of grief was long past and Michael groped in vain in his rag-bag of comforts for an appropriate response. He watched the branches of a tree moving unconcernedly outside the lady chapel window. Mrs Flack went on, ‘Reported missing over Germany. I waited and prayed to God to bring him back to me, but He never did. And Mr Messer that was here then said I ought to be proud because Ted had laid down his life. And I was proud. But now the young ones, they laugh about the war when they see the films on telly.’ She sucked in her breath.
Michael said, ‘Young people will always mock the sacrifices of the older generation, Mrs Flack. The student rebels of today will be the butts for tomorrow’s wits.’
This epigrammatic reflection failed to speak to Mrs Flack’s condition. ‘It is not just the young ones, is it, Vicar? Their teachers encourage them. And then you have people like Mr Hughes who doesn’t care about what happens to his country and he goes on playing the organ in this church.’
‘But I think Mr Hughes would say that it is because he does care about his country that he collected signatures for that petition.’
‘In front of the war memorial, with all those people wearing funny clothes and carrying skulls. It upset me, Vicar. And I’m not the only one who feels it. Mrs Mallory said she was amazed to see it was that communist at the organ; she said she could hardly believe her eyes.’ If Michael’s memory served him aright, Mrs Mallory’s eyes were so dim she could not have identified Joseph Stalin at the organ. He said, ‘It is very wrong of Mrs Mallory to say that Mr Hughes is a communist just because he has certain views on nuclear disarmament.’
Mrs Flack turned her head away. ‘I knew it would be no good speaking to you.’
Michael felt pity for the old woman. He could understand how shocked she had been to discover that the enemy had invaded the one place where she might reasonably have expected to find herself in the company of people who shared her values. But what could he say? He was very much of Mr Hughes’s mind.
Outside, traffic snuffled, waiting while a police car, banshee siren wailing, weaved its way down the high street. Mrs Flack gathered herself for departure. ‘I don’t know what the world is coming to. But I’m glad I won’t live to see it.’
‘Perhaps I could come and talk to you sometime?’ he suggested. ‘It doesn’t matter, Vicar. I know you’re busy, settling in, altering all the services.’
‘Not too many alterations, I hope, Mrs Flack?’
‘Well, we’ve Benediction now, haven’t we? But I expect I’ll get used to it.’ She had nerved herself to speak to him, but had anticipated defeat.
‘It was very sad,’ he said when he recounted the incident to Valentine when they ate their sandwich lunch. ‘No one has ever regarded her opinions as of much importance and I suspect her feelings have been dismissed along with her opinions.’
‘What could you have done? Even I can tell that it would be a blasphemy to reject a man who plays Bach so superlatively just because his politics offend a few people.’
‘Even so, I think we should bear in mind that while we may regard vigils at war memorials as a means of protesting about the waste of life in war, to people like Mrs Flack they may seem to be the desecration of a grave.’
‘You may be right. So, you stop people from using the war memorial for protest – are you then going to object to all the glorification that goes on on Armistice Day? I don’t think the Rector would go along with that. I can imagine him standing there weighed down with medals.’
‘Mmmh.’ He rapped the table with his knuckles, contemplating the war of attrition which might lie ahead of him.
Valentine said, ‘Might it be an answer to tell Mr Hughes? After all, he did complain that the death masks and skulls were more appropriate to a Hallowe’en party than a vigil. He might be able to mollify Mrs Flack.’
‘How sensible.’ He pushed his chair back from the table, ready for the immediate demands of the afternoon. ‘By the way, Mrs Flack rather suggested I had made too many changes.’
‘You have made quite a few.’
He looked surprised. In some ways he was very obstinate. If he saw things which he felt needed to be done he did not regard them as changes. Now he said, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that. She mentioned Benediction. If she doesn’t want to come she needn’t . . .’
‘She thinks you are heading them all towards Rome.’
‘They have had the Angelus for as long as Mrs Flack can remember. If that hasn’t tipped them over to Rome, Benediction won’t.’
‘It’s another step on the road.’
‘What nonsense. Whenever anyone suggests something they don’t want to do Anglicans cry “Rome!” just as Labour diehards shriek “Thatcherism”.’ He got up. ‘I must be off . . .’ He checked himself. ‘I quite forgot. I parked the car in that cul-de-sac at the back of the builder’s yard.’
The cul-de-sac was deserted, but the Vicar’s approach was observed by a youth in one of the town houses. He put his head to one side and mouthed words, affecting a clownish imbecility as he pantomimed a response to clerical do-gooding. As the Vicar walked past the front door, his expression changed first to incomprehension, then to incredulous delight. He turned towards the room, clenched fist pressed, knuckles outwards, to his brow in a pose of exaggerated penitence.
After a few moments the front door of the house opened and a woman emerged. In face and figure she epitomized the plump, good-natured matron who arrives on the scene of an accident knowing exactly what has to be done. It was apparent from her conspiratorial manner, however, that on this occasion she was less sure of her role. She approached Michael Hoath with all the trepidation of a producer about to suggest yet another rerun of a badly performed scene.
‘This isn’t your car?’
‘I’m afraid it is.’ They stood side by side regarding the windscreen on which had been scrawled ‘Balls to you – you illiterate oaf!’
The woman said, ‘Oh God! I should have looked at the number plate.’ Her body was convulsed by a tremor which was rigidly suppressed before it found facial expression. She gnawed her lip, round face crimson. The youth was by now hanging out of the window, hand cupped to ear.
‘Why?’ Michael Hoath asked.
She essayed an explanation accompanied by gestures which showed her to be no mean pantomimist. ‘It’s the man from the Do It Yourself Shop. You know who I mean – him with the rolling gait and roving eye. He parks outside the garage so I can’t get my car out. When I put up a “no parking” notice, he wrote “Balls” on the garage door – in purple.’
‘People like that are annoying.’
She nodded her head emphatically. ‘They are more than annoying. I could cut off his balls and fry them for breakfast.’
‘Oh dear, yes, I do see.’ He was beginning to sound the more harassed of the two. The youth at the window swayed from side to side in an ecstasy of mirth. ‘I don’t think I can drive it home like this, do you?’
She gnawed her lip some more, then said reassuringly, ‘Wait here a moment.’ She went indoors where her voice could be heard saying, ‘And if all you can do is make those horrible faces, just go away. GO AWAY!’ She returned with a bottle of methylated spirits and a roll of kitchen paper. ‘I feel so awful.’
‘No, no, really . . . Here, let me . . .’
They dabbed at the windscreen, apologising to each other. Later, she asked him in for a cup of tea.
‘I don’t usually entertain in the kitchen,’ she assured him.
The sitting-room, through which she led him, gave little evidence of facilities for entertaining. It was a sparsely furnished room in which he noted a television in one corner and a tape recorder on the one armchair. There was no bookcase and a calendar hung askew was the only wall adornment. An ironing board was set up on the rug by the fireplace and clothes, sheets and towels were strewn on every flat surface except the floor which was given over to a collection of flints and fossils.
‘I insist on some sort of order,’ she said. ‘We keep our obsessions for our bedrooms; at least –’ she kicked at a flint – ‘that’s the idea.’ In the kitchen a small shelf had been erected perilously close to the electric stove and glancing at its contents Michael was surprised to see, instead of the cookery books he had anticipated, volumes by Tolstoy, Willa Gather, D.H. Lawrence and Edith Wharton.
She said, ‘My father was a librarian. I don’t know what he’d make of things nowadays. There’s nothing in our library worth reading. It’s got to the stage where you have to buy books.’ Michael supposed she felt a need to justify this extravagance – in his experience the books on the kitchen shelf were the very ones which most libraries did have; it was the better modern fiction which was usually in short supply.
While she was talking and making the tea, a youth appeared in the doorway. He was tall, but bent at the shoulders, and with hands that hung as if they didn’t know where to put themselves. The face had the look of having just come to the surface of a pool, still blurred by water, the features contorted with the effort of holding breath. He looked from his mother to the Vicar. It was difficult to tell whether his attitude was protective of his mother or dependent upon her. Michael thought he was possibly subnormal and his heart sank – this was not an affliction with which he had ever been able to cope very well.
‘He’s going to be an anthropologist,’ the mother said with complete lack of conviction. ‘So we all have to live with Neanderthal man and such of his artefacts as Desmond can lay his hands on.’
‘Palaeolithic, in fact.’ The voice, although hoarse and rather strained, was unexpectedly incisive. Michael was aware of his vision making those adjustments which take place – accommodating eccentricities of appearance and behaviour – once evidence is received that a brain is well in charge. The boy’s face, now focused more sharply, was seen as slablike, with long, flat bones; the eyes were heavy-lidded and the big mouth exposed the fleshy underside of the lips. It was a face both sensitive and sensual, presenting Michael not only with a personality full of contradictions, but a certain rawness which always made his old scars itch. ‘Neanderthal man,’ the youth was saying, ‘is only one species who was around for some one-hundred thousand years. But Mother likes the word.’
‘I liked William Golding’s The Inheritors,’ she said, pouring tea.
‘And she liked William Golding’s The Inheritors.’ A wry grimace accompanied the dry repetition which had no need of this embroidery.
‘Did you like it?’ Michael asked.
Desmond sat down at the table and hoisted one foot across his thigh, picking at the sole of his shoe while he considered this. He was, in every way, centre stage. The room was not large enough to accommodate three people with comfort and Michael was wedged into the space between the sink and the refrigerator. He rested one elbow on the top of the refrigerator and tried to appear at ease. Desmond said, ‘I thought the picture imagery was clever enough. But there’s one moment in that book about New Mexico . . .’
‘Death Comes for the Archbishop,’ his mother said.
‘. . . when this bishop gets caught in a storm in the mountains and his Indian guide takes him into a hidden cave that only the Indians are supposed to know about. And he puts his ear to a cleft in the rock and hears the roar of a great underground river no living man has ever seen. I thought that got closer to the primitive than Golding got in the whole of The Inheritors.’ He spoke with resentment of Golding, as though he had trespassed on forbidden territory.
Michael, having failed on Golding and not having read Death Comes for the Archbishop, said, ‘I remember enjoying those programmes – on Troy, wasn’t it – with Michael Wood?’
‘He was talking about civilizations.’ Desmond picked him up sharply. ‘It’s all right, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. Although all that throwing his arms about distracts the viewer from what he is actually saying, if anything.’ At this point he hitched up one shoulder, seeming to scratch his ear against it. ‘I tell you what I did enjoy, though – Peter Ackroyd referring to one of those TV gurus fumbling through the centuries like a mad bingo caller.’ He clasped his hands under his knees and rocked to and fro in delight. The performance was not only embarrassingly gauche but ill-executed, and he nearly overturned the chair.
Michael got the impression that the sharpness of mind served as a blade to parry any attempt at penetration. He was not so sure that the grimaces and gestures were a conscious device. They added nothing to the effectiveness of the comments and he had an uneasy suspicion that they were involuntary.
‘It must be an absorbing study, anthropology,’ he said tentatively when, having righted himself, Desmond had slouched out of the room.
‘For him, perhaps. But it’s not much joy living with someone who doesn’t seem able to take an interest in anything post stone age.’
When he returned to the vicarage in the early evening Michael re-enacted some of these exchanges for Valentine’s benefit and they laughed together as they had not done for a long time.
‘She was rather a jolly young woman,’ he said. ‘It seems her husband left her to go to Canada and she and the children were to follow. There was some sort of trouble between them and they were hoping to make a new start. Then she discovered he had settled there with someone else. The boy, Desmond, is going to university next year; so he has rather too much time on his hands. There is a girl of thirteen.’ Yet he describes this woman as young, Valentine noted, and was the less amused.
He said, ‘It was obviously very disturbing for the boy – the father’s desertion. Apparently they were very close. She said he was such an open, trusting little boy . . .’
Valentine saw that there were tears in Michael’s eyes. She sighed, ‘Oh Michael, not another case of rejection!’ He turned his head away and Valentine reflected crossly on how people do nourish the little wounds of childhood. Hester had once told her that Michael’s father had been rather remote with his son so that the death of the adored mother had come as a great blow. In Valentine’s opinion, adoring anyone was a mistake; it was unwise to make such a costly investment. But Michael would never understand that. She said, ‘Well, I trust you are not going to involve yourself with this family.’
‘I got on rather well with the woman. She said she would come to church.’
‘As a penance for besmirching the car windscreen?’
‘No, she said she was always meaning to come but never got round to it.’
Valentine looked at her husband speculatively. A foot shorter and I shouldn’t have married him, she thought. And what a fool I should have been – he has weathered so much better than the other possibles. Her eyes followed him as he went over to the telephone pad, bending his head to read the messages she had scribbled on it. ‘Why phone me because the church hall is double booked? Laura Addison is supposed to handle bookings.’ She saw how wirily the fading brown hair still sprang from the crown of his head and was surprised by an itching in her fingers. She clenched her hands. Weathering suited Michael; it was quite possible that he would attract a much younger woman. Despite the son of university age, the creature could still be the right side of forty.
‘We have this women’s discussion group tonight,’ he was saying. ‘I hope you will come. You know how I value your comments.’ ‘My comments are invariably negative, often unkind, and they usually upset you.’ She wondered whether he had invited the creature to join the group.
‘Darling, anything you say is for my own good. I am eager for myself, not sufficiently aware of other people’s feelings. You act as a necessary brake.’
‘No, not a brake, Michael. When I told you that people don’t like too many changes in the services, you didn’t seem to hear, let alone change gear.’
He was no longer listening. He was making a performance of going through his pockets for some mislaid notes. ‘I know I jotted a few things down on the back of something . . .’
She looked out of the window, considering the wistaria which darkened the room and reflecting that it was not unknown for a sensitive man to make a fool of himself over some rustic Marilyn or Marlene.
‘I’ll come and see what goes on,’ she said.
When he left to read the evening Office she went into the garden. It was a bright evening and the few wraithlike flecks of cloud vanished as one looked at them like ghosts disappearing with the sunlight. The garden had been much neglected recently but some unknown incumbent, years ago, had cared for it and a few interesting shrubs had withstood subsequent deprivation. The wistaria against the side of the house needed to be cut back and along the garden walls clematis and winter jasmine fought for possession with honeysuckle. It would take time to restore order, but she had a picture in her mind of what she hoped to achieve and she was prepared to work hard.
She forgot the time and it was late when Michael returned having remained overlong in the church. Valentine was annoyed. They usually had their main meal in the evening and she disliked having to rush her preparations.
In the sitting-room of Hester Pascoe’s house the tabby cat looked reproachfully at the empty grate. Hester said, ‘You’re not the only one to be inconvenienced. I could do without this meeting.’
The truth of it was that she could have done without her nephew. Had Michael Hoath not been the vicar there would have been no question of her giving up the precious hour which was set aside for reading through the morning’s output. She had lived all her life in this town and had fought a long, dour battle to order her days to suit her needs. A single woman, working at home, she must keep a firm hand on the reins of her life. It was particularly annoying that, at a time when she was trying to come to terms with old age, her nephew, Michael, should arrive here. At a distance, she had always been sympathetic about his problems but she had not wanted him to bring them to her doorstep. ‘It’s for you I am doing this,’ she said to the photograph of her sister which stood on the top of the piano.
When she stepped into the street she was aware of the figure she presented, small, compact, resolute, a person who seemed constantly on her way to catch a train and very sure of what she proposed to do when she reached her destination. Who could suspect the turmoil contained within this seemly structure of flesh and bone? What would they think, those friends and neighbours who admired her composure, if they became aware of the unceasing interaction between the imperious demands of the intellect, the insistent needs of the senses for small satisfactions and the longing for joys no longer appropriate which found its chief expression in dreams which troubled the waking hours?
Valentine had told her, ‘You always seem a very held together sort of person.’ It was as well that Valentine had no idea what it was that was being held together this evening. ‘Not disappointment, mind you,’ Hester said aloud as she swept past the war memorial, ‘that is altogether too mild a word. Fury!’ Fury at the interference with her work pattern and the denial of the pleasure which would have come later as she relaxed with a generous gin and gave herself to what distraction television offered. She guarded her time as if it were a small, beleaguered territory over which she was the despotic ruler, ready to punish any invader with the boiling oil of her disfavour.
Briskly she carried her wrath up the high street and down the path into the church hall, where it was fuelled by a woman in a sloppy cardigan who greeted her in honeyed tones, ‘I didn’t expect to see you here among us. How honoured we are!’
Hester, eyeing the flushed face which always had the appearance of having just received a stinging slap, reminded herself that Laura Addison should be cherished as a member of a dying species: womankind would not pass this way again. ‘I’m not in the business of conferring honours,’ she said.
The flush suffused ears and neck, the dry lips quivered. No snub was ever wasted on Laura Addison, yet she continued to invite rebuffs with unremitting earnestness. ‘My dear, you must forgive silly people who aren’t clever with words. We are just happy you could spare us the time.’ A gentle, restraining hand was laid on Hester’s arm. How it comes you still have two hands is beyond comprehension, Hester thought. Laura, who would undoubtedly have accompanied Daniel into the lions’ den, went on, ‘Perhaps you could go and talk to Shirley Treglowan? I don’t think she knows many people here, which is hardly surprising, is it? Since she never comes anywhere near the church. I expect it’s that Desmond of hers. She’s hoping a new vicar may be able to work a miracle, poor soul.’
‘You seem to know more about her soul than I do, so you had better sit beside her.’
Hester was aware that this suggestion would not find favour since it would take Laura Addison away from her self-appointed place as doormat in the House of the Lord. While they were disputing the issue, Norah Kendall seated herself beside Shirley Treglowan.
Although the meeting was not due to start for some seven minutes there were already more women present than Hester had anticipated. She knew that the group had a membership of over thirty, of whom less than ten were regular attenders. Valentine had told her that much emphasis had been placed on the low attendance. ‘They meet in the vicarage, so it suits the hard core not to drum up more support. But I said that if the membership was over thirty we should aim at a regular attendance of over twenty and that was too many bodies for the vicarage sitting-room.’ She had been safeguarding her privacy, but it looked as if she had made a lucky guess. There must be at least fifteen women here. The town did not afford young mothers many pretexts for leaving their husbands to look after the children on at least one evening a week. The advent of a new vicar had no doubt acted as a spur to the wilting spirit of rebellion. ‘There was no need for me to have sacrificed myself,’ Hester thought crossly. But since she had come it was in her nature to make the best of it.
She saw that Valentine was sitting on her own, looking so excessively detached that something must certainly have upset her. As soon as Hester sat down beside her, Valentine demanded, ‘Who is that trousered female who looks like one of Robin Hood’s merrier men?’ She eyed Shirley disdainfully while Hester replied that she was an infant school teacher. ‘I would have thought her talents lay elsewhere.’ Valentine noted bold, brown eyes and a healthy gloss on the cropped chestnut hair. ‘She would be quite attractive to a man, don’t you think? Norah Kendall could learn something from her about making the best of herself, with that fading red hair scragged up on top of her head like a bird’s nest.’
‘Was I relieved to see you here. Nurse!’ Shirley spoke in a whisper which carried to the back of the hall. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t call you Nurse, now?’
‘That’s all right, m’dear. I was thinking of calling on you to find out how my favourite boy is getting on.’
‘It would be nice if you would. Desmond isn’t anyone else’s favourite boy. The things he gets up to! Last night . . .’
‘Why did you come?’ Hester asked Valentine. ‘You don’t have to join in all the activities and I shouldn’t think this is your scene any more than it is mine.’
‘I thought it worth demonstrating that I am the Vicar’s wife and to see who is making the takeover bid in this particular parish. Any other pretensions to status I might have had were soon put down by the little lady with the saintly smile who is taking it upon herself to welcome everyone.’
Hester looked at her in surprise. Even for Valentine this was an unusually sharp rejoinder and she doubted if it had been occasioned by Laura Addison, who was scarcely worth Valentine’s mettle.
Valentine made a pretence of looking around at the women who had gathered here while she listened to Norah Kendall and Shirley Treglowan. It was clear from their conversation that their relationship was a purely professional one. Yet as the two women talked, Valentine could find nothing in Norah’s attitude to which she herself, so exacting in her judgements, could have taken exception. There was not a trace of condescension, no betraying hint – that tidying up of other people’s sentences – of the professional woman used to taking control of others. The pitch and timing of interest, amusement, concern could not be faulted and there was genuine humour in the quiet laughter. Valentine, who had hitherto dismissed her as a subtly attention-seeking parish worker, was forced to the conclusion that Norah Kendall was one of those limited women who, given a suitably structured environment, can function very effectively.
The room was becoming quite crowded. Laura Addison said to the Vicar, ‘Of course, it is just after Easter,’ as though an explanation were required for this untoward show of interest. ‘A lot of people came to Mass on Easter Day whom we never see again for another year. And you did announce the change of venue, if you remember.’
‘So it’s all my fault?’ he said cheerfully.
‘Well, yes, it is.’ She tittered, but he could see that she was troubled.
‘If there’s not enough milk and coffee I could easily go back to the vicarage . . .’
‘Oh no, no! Your wife insisted that I should order another pint of milk and there is plenty of coffee. But I’m afraid I only have one pair of hands.’
‘That is easily remedied. I shall ask for volunteers.’ He turned away and spoke at random to two young women hovering in the doorway. ‘Come in and make yourselves useful.’
Laura Addison looked around for an ally and failed to find one. The newcomers could not be expected to appreciate her peril and among the regular attenders she had no real friend. She had marked out a small terrain for herself which had not been threatened for much the same reason that Switzerland’s neutrality is respected – the domain was barren and contained little to attract the attention of predators. As the Vicar shepherded the two young women into the kitchen, tears dimmed Laura’s eyes.
Hester, who had watched the incident with amusement, decided that this was the moment which justified her presence. As she approached Laura she was dismayed to see how genuine was the woman’s distress.
‘Never, never . . .’ The voice was faint and the slight frame shook as though a chance gust of wind had blown away her very substance. ‘Never . . . in all my years in this church . . . have I been brushed aside like that.’
She, too, is old, Hester thought, and what little confidence she ever possessed has worn threadbare.
‘Come off it, Laura!’ she said. ‘That was just blundering masculine insensitivity. You get in there and make sure the raw recruits know who is in charge of the cookhouse. They’ll probably be very glad to see you. I’ve never managed to come to terms with that cantankerous old urn.’
The noise level in the room had risen considerably as diffident newcomers identified kindred spirits. Shirley Treglowan, with the advantage of ten minutes’ familiarity, was playing hostess to several friends of her own age. The gas fire was now thought to be giving out too much heat and a window at the far end of the hall was opened. The Vicar was rearranging the chairs. ‘I don’t like to see people sitting in rows at a discussion. Can we form a circle?’
‘I think there are too many people here for a circle,’ one of the regular attenders said, looking accusingly at the newcomers. ‘We don’t want to be shouting across the room at one another, do we?’ Eventually a haphazard arrangement was arrived at which allowed no one person to occupy a prominent position. Even so, it was obvious that most of those present looked to the Vicar to take charge of the proceedings. The regular attenders expected to be led, while the newcomers were interested to see how the priest would perform when freed from the constraints of ritual.
‘We usually start with a prayer,’ Laura Addison whispered. On her return from the kitchen she had contrived to ease a chair to the left of the Vicar. Heads were bowed while Michael Hoath, who did not care for extempore prayer, briefly commended their proceedings to God.
The subject for discussion was the role of the Church in modern life, a weighty matter and certainly broad enough to allow the Vicar to indicate his chief concerns and make his first mistakes. He sat back in his chair, however, and waited for others to speak.
A regular attender passionately advocated the need to support overseas missions and another took up the claims of nuclear disarmament. The problems of the inner cities were mentioned briefly and the closure of the Cornish tin mines at greater length. There were critical references to the appointment of bishops in which London fared somewhat better than Durham. At this point, Laura Addison said she was sorry to see that the chalice was now wiped with a cloth and a dark, gruff little woman remarked that God was not a witch doctor, keeping the faithful pure by the exercise of magical spells. Someone else said that if, in fact, silver was a safeguard against the spread of germs, she thought this was elitist – what about churches which couldn’t afford much in the way of silver? The level of interest had declined. It was apparent that there were a few present who were prepared to debate the matter of the wiping of the chalice for the remainder of the evening. The Vicar intervened.
‘All these issues are important, of course, and I don’t think anyone would deny that mistakes have been made in things both large and small; but we should remember that we are the Church – not archbishops or bishops, or priests, for that matter, but the whole Christian community. Perhaps we should talk about ourselves and what we as Christians feel is our role today.’
He had hoped that one of the younger women who had not previously attended these meetings would speak; but after a short silence, Laura Addison said, ‘We should be concerned with bringing God’s word to people’s hearts and minds.’ As they were not quite sure how this was to be accomplished – or, indeed, what exactly was God’s word for today – her hearers were left to contemplate their inadequacy. Michael Hoath, sitting with bowed head, wondered how long a pause he should allow before he spoke again.
He was saved by Norah Kendall. ‘Are we the Church? I know this is something we are told. But, you don’t think . . .?’ She had the look of a person about to say something which the listener certainly does not think. Michael Hoath smiled at her encouragingly and this seemed to distract her from her purpose. ‘Oh dear, perhaps I should start from somewhere else.’ In spite of her hesitation she was by no means inarticulate, nor, it seemed, were her thoughts as wandering as she would have her audience think. ‘Could it be that one of the reasons the Church has lost its influence is that it has left so much unsaid that needed to be said, and so had to be said by people other than Christians? Sorry about all the saids and unsaids!’
Michael Hoath said politely, ‘Yes, that is undoubtedly true. The Holy Spirit will make sure that the Word is said, even if the Church fails to . . . er . . . articulate it. Had you anything specific in mind?’ She responded with a sureness which suggested that she had never lost the main thread of her argument. ‘I’m back with this question of our being the Church. I was thinking about the position of women. We haven’t really been encouraged to think of ourselves as part of the Church – an equal part – have we?’ Laura Addison gave a little sigh, but the younger women present sat up alertly as if summoned by a bugle call. ‘It’s sometimes difficult for us to think about our role, when for centuries Christianity has been interpreted to women by men – even advice as to how women should dress. I know that sounds a bit trivial, but St Paul didn’t think it too trivial to mention, did he? And men can’t really know the intimate things – the things of the heart – so well as women themselves, can they?’ She looked at Michael Hoath, at once shy and respectful, yet not without a hint of provocation.
Valentine hoped her husband recognized that familiar character, the woman who needs a male priest while having an urge to challenge his authority; but she could see that he was concerned only with the question. This was a subject on which his feelings were ambivalent; he was less than enthusiastic at the prospect of sharing his ministry with women, but he knew that intellectually he was on shaky ground. He rubbed his jaw, reflecting gloomily that it would come anyway, whatever he thought or said.
Norah Kendall took advantage of his silence to continue. ‘If the Church had fulfilled its role – as it did in the emancipation of slaves – not that I’m saying women are slaves’ – a little laugh here, but she had, of course, inferred it – ‘but if the Church had thought about the position of women in a positive way, wouldn’t it have more moral authority now?’
This received vehement support from a deep-chested young woman whose emotions had for the last few minutes laid an increasing strain on her skimpy blouse. ‘Some of us think of it as being rather like a working man’s club – a good bolt-hole where the women can’t get at a chap! Or if you want to go up-market a bit, you can let them into the visitors’ dining-room, but not a step beyond.’
‘I think that is rather a superficial analogy.’ Norah Kendall was quick to regain the initiative. ‘But it does seem to me that the Church can’t speak with real moral authority when the wisdom and experience of women is not used, is so often denied . . .’
‘You are not saying that women have had no voice in the last two thousand years?’ Michael asked.
‘I suppose I am.’ She looked not so much troubled by the statement as apologetic at having cornered him.
He paused, on the verge of mentioning St Teresa and Dame Julian, to ask himself how many others? Not enough in two thousand years to weigh against the number of clergymen in this one diocese. When in trouble, ask a practical question. He said, ‘Allowing for the situation as it is at present, is there any more you feel we should be doing to improve the position of women here in this parish?’
There wasn’t, of course. She had had her say, created a bit of friction, and was now in retreat from assuming responsibility for any new initiatives. But the flood gates had been opened. Michael Hoath was astonished at the eagerness of even the most modest among the younger women, those worthy by their demeanour of a part in any Jane Austen adaptation, to contribute their story of male chauvinism – indeed, not merely to contribute, but to compete. As he listened to Nancy Perrins, who sang so sweetly in the choir, giving tongue to domestic discords which surely had no place outside the home, it was as if Fanny Price had made a rude gesture at the pious Edmund. Of course, one did sometimes look for a more robust show of spirit in Fanny, but who would have wished the gentle creature to develop into a virago?
‘As soon as I switch on the Open University, he finds something he needs me for,’ she was saying. ‘If they put out the programmes at two in the morning, he’d be up with toothache.’
Others took up the theme. ‘He doesn’t know the first thing about figures. I’m the one who keeps the accounts. But I don’t get any thanks for it because he can’t bear that I do anything better than him.’
‘His co-ordination is poor and he can’t judge distances. The plain fact is he’s a bad driver.’
‘Oh, he can do things about the house, provided everything else stops. There’s got to be a breathless hush followed by a round of applause whenever he knocks a nail in the wall.’
‘I can do just as I like,’ Nancy Perrins came in with her clear soprano. ‘Join the W.I. and the painting group, even go away for a weekend with a girl friend. Anything, so long as I don’t hold opinions that are different from his.’
‘The weekend is like having another child about the place, competing for attention and sulking when he doesn’t get it.’
‘What he really wants is for them to play with him. He’s sick to death because Jamie hasn’t any ball sense.’
‘One evening, one evening in the week, and there’s a fuss when I came out tonight!’
Michael was dismayed that his first discussion with this group should so soon have deteriorated into a recital of marital disharmony which might well have been the introduction to a campaign to find the most selfish husband of the year. It was a relief when Laura Addison, who had retreated to the kitchen, announced that coffee was ready – and, her tone suggested, not a moment too soon.
He said to Hester, as they stood isolated from the small groups which were continuing the discussion, ‘I hope these young women aren’t representative of the wives of their generation.’
‘They are probably not representative in being wives,’ she replied. ‘I find it a little alarming.’ He looked round uneasily. ‘Their dislike of men . . .’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘You’ll get used to it. Women have had to bear man’s dislike of woman for a very long time. Particularly the dislike of priests.’
‘Oh come, this issue of women priests may have led to some intemperate talk . . .’
A voice behind them said, ‘I hope you don’t mind all this?’ Norah Kendall smiled at Michael ruefully. She seemed now to regard herself as his ally. ‘Sometimes discussions here need a bit of overstatement to get them going.’
He did not appreciate this belated attempt to ingratiate herself. ‘You have certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest.’
‘It’s good for them to talk.’
‘But does their talk have to be so cruel? I am sure that the husbands of these women are very fond of their wives.’
Norah Kendall laughed. ‘Of course they are. But then, they have managed to isolate the virus.’
He turned away. He thought of her as a spiky, insecure woman. The time after coffee had traditionally been used by Michael’s predecessor to draw together the threads of the discourse, emphasizing the points that had emerged which he considered relevant and ignoring anything which had not pleased him. Michael merely asked, ‘Are there any further points which anyone would like to raise?’
Laura Addison sighed and the deep-chested young woman, who had introduced herself to Michael during the coffee break as a divorcee, a title which she had seemed to prefer to giving her name, announced that she had something to say. Her face was heavy and rather masculine and the knowledge that she was about to give offence probably made her manner more aggressive than she intended. ‘This film – The Last Temptation of Christ. Why should there be all this rumpus because it suggests he might have wanted a human family, like any other man? What’s so wrong with him having a sex life, and a wife and children? I can’t see why that has to be represented as a temptation – except that it’s the way the Church sees women – a temptation ever since Eve.’
‘If that is the way you see it, then I think that is a pity.’ Valentine looked sharply at Michael. He sounded as personally accused as if he was in the witness box and she knew that he would not be able to handle this issue calmly. ‘I think what we should be concerned with is the way we see Christ.’
‘It’s not only one film, is it? There was a book some time ago claiming he was Mary Magdalene’s lover. What’s so wrong with that? Human beings do have sex, after all.’
Laura Addison’s face was scarlet. She was twisting and turning her hands in her lap. Hester, who was sitting beside her, put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Poor Laura, she thought; anyone would imagine she herself was about to be denounced for some unmentionable sin – there were probably quite a few sins still unmentionable in Laura’s frightened heart.
‘It’s all a question of how human is human, isn’t it?’ the angel from the choir said. ‘He was supposed to share our humanity, wasn’t he?’ She spoke with the prim assurance of one who has always done well in Sunday School.
‘But not our sins, dear. Not our sins.’ Laura tried to smile, but her lips were shaking.
‘Sin?’ A dozen pairs of eyes turned on Laura.
The angel from the choir piped, ‘ “Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth . . .” ’
Norah Kendall said, ‘God did create us male and female, after all, Laura. It can hardly be counted a sin.’
Michael saw that Laura was the only person prepared to take up this challenge. The other older members of the group had the glazed look of people nodding off in front of a television programme which is unsuitable but which they have not the energy to switch off. The fact that Laura had summoned the courage to speak was a measure of her desperation. She sat crouched in her chair, her eyes bright as those of a hunted animal. He had no choice but to intervene. He said, ‘I don’t think there is any question of sex being sinful.’
‘Then you think this film is all right?’ The divorcee was as aggrieved as a dog which has had a bone snatched from it.
‘On the contrary, I think it is blasphemous.’
There was a startled silence. Direct rebuke from authority was so out of fashion that it took them some moments to accommodate themselves to what had been said.
Valentine clenched her hands. Most of the spokesmen for the Church had tiptoed gently round the central issue, tut-tutting about violence and catching at any straw in the wind; but not her husband: Michael, in all his unwisdom, was about to address himself to one of the more impenetrable mysteries of the Christian centuries. She felt her stomach muscles tighten ominously. He would make a spectacle of himself and they would laugh about it afterwards. She could not bear that he should be the subject of ridicule.
He said, ‘I haven’t seen the film.’ At least he had this in common with most clerical commentators. ‘So I’m not qualified to discuss how the theme has been handled. But it seems to me to be another instance of a particular kind of blasphemy. Which has nothing to do with sex,’ he added, hastening to damp down the banked fires. ‘We are told that we are created in the image of God. I’m never sure what that means, myself. But I do know that Christ was and is the human face of God. He is our model, the person towards whom we move, that within ourselves which checks and holds, which enriches and guides, prevents and inspires us in our daily lives.’ The older women eased into their seats as though subconsciously aware of a change to a more acceptable programme. The younger women listened not in the silence of respect, but incredulity, their faces expressing this variously in terms of outrage, blank incomprehension and an embarrassed desire to giggle. Only Shirley Treglowan, who was eager for betterment, gave the attention she would have awarded a lecture on the lost treasures of the Incas. ‘It seems to me that we have become so obsessed with ourselves, that there is a danger that we fall into a habit of making ourselves the model to which He must conform, that day by day we expect Him to grow more like us. In fact, we create Him in our own image. And that seems to me a form of blasphemy.’
Shirley said, ‘But Bishop . . .’
‘Oh, bishops are no more immune from blasphemy than anyone else – rather the reverse.’
Valentine closed her eyes. He is going to get angry about bishops now, because some of them treat Christ like a product which must somehow be made more marketable. ‘Lust is your problem, sir,’ he had said only yesterday, throwing down the newspaper. ‘Well, we’ll allow Him that, too. Homosexual? That’s a possibility.’ She was grateful to Norah Kendall for gently prompting, ‘But if He is so far beyond us . . .’
‘Is that so dreadful? Mankind would have withered away long ago were there no beyond.’
‘But we were talking of loving.’ Norah protested. ‘At least, that’s how we started . . .’
This woman is as edgy about love as Laura is about sex, Valentine thought grimly, looking at the strained face.
‘If He didn’t love anyone I don’t see how He can be our model.’ The divorcee resolutely gathered her forces.
Michael thought about this. He had a disconcerting habit when he seemed to be gaining the ascendancy of breaking off, giving the impression of losing confidence.
‘Human love is so exclusive,’ he said. Whereas before he had seemed authoritative, even if unrelated to his audience, he had now become one of them, as though he had stepped off some invisible platform. ‘Don’t you feel this? It circumscribes us, hedges us in . . .’ They looked at one another doubtfully. How could they deny this, who only a short while ago had been crying their need for time on their own, away from parents, friends, children and, in particular, their own partner? Michael went on, seeming to be working it out as he went along, ‘Even couples who make very few demands on each other will insist that it is essential to have some time on their own. Excluding others is a necessary part of most human loving. Not all, of course.’ He searched for an example and came up with the obvious one. ‘Do you think when you look in the face of Mother Teresa that she is twisted by self-denial?’ The divorcee muttered crossly, ‘I knew she was going to crop up somewhere along the line. I should hope she’s past it at her age.’
Shirley Treglowan said, ‘She’s never had the time, has she?’ ‘Yes.’ Michael leant forward, his hands outstretched, palms upwards, as if to receive a gift. ‘Let’s see if we can’t go a little further. Can we add something to that?’
Shirley sat back as though afraid he might spring on her at any moment.
He said, ‘Space? Neither the time nor the space. It seems to me that that’s how it was with Jesus Christ. I don’t see Him like St Paul, practising all kinds of self-denial. He was self-giving and became completely filled with the love of God. There was no space left over. He didn’t need a one-to-one human love which excludes others, which must exclude others by its very nature. He was capable of more love than us, not less. He loved all human kind. As for family – he did indeed have a family. We are that family.’ He stretched out his arms and they looked back at him as any family will when deeply suspicious of a display of emotion on the part of one of its members. ‘Occasionally we meet people who have something of this quality, don’t we? And when we try to get too close in the wrong way we are hurt because we feel there is nothing there that is special to us. We say “He – or she – is like that with everyone”, as if that cancelled out any genuine loving feeling. For us to recognize love it has to come with our name on the tag. But He was love. He is love. Not the image or the emotion, the longing or the satisfaction – which doesn’t last – but the very essence.’
Most of his audience had become rather glazed by this time. After a few moments one young woman who had not said anything up to now, remarked with feeling, ‘I’d run from anyone like that. I’d run a mile.’
Someone at the back said, ‘As for Mother Teresa, there’s something a bit kinky about someone who goes round looking for the dying.’
The voices came in on all sides. ‘All those charity workers, rushing off whenever there’s a famine . . .’
‘And the Pope talking about holy poverty. Much he knows about being poor!’
They were angry. Yet, for Michael, the very anger which had been aroused made him aware that the Presence was here. He knew better than to intervene.
Much to Laura Addison’s annoyance, there was no shortage of help in the kitchen when the meeting was over. Her protests that she could manage on her own went unheeded. Even after the gas fire had been extinguished the women remained talking as they helped to stack the chairs. They donned anoraks and wound scarves slowly.
‘Got quite deep, didn’t we?’ Shirley Treglowan said to the divorcee. ‘Will you come again?’
‘Oh, I’ll come again! There’s a lot I didn’t get to say.’
Michael noticed that Valentine was joking with the older church members. Laughter always transformed Valentine’s face, making her seem young and undefended. He realized that she was doing this for him because she thought he had upset the faithful and made no converts among the newcomers. He stood at the door to bid goodnight to the women as they left and was aware how many refused to make eye contact – like people who have been hijacked.
He could feel no pride in what he had done. The thing which touched him most on this issue he had not given them. For him, Christ was that pearl of great price for which the wealthy merchant sold all that he possessed. He felt so passionately hurt by the inadequate response to this figure that he dared not speak of it. Yet it was a sense of this, of something of great and mysterious worth, which sent a few of those present out into the night unsatisfied, with a hunger they knew not for what. This was his gift, to arouse, if only in a few, that hunger – not the gift for which he craved, to give, to satisfy.
Hester was one of the last to leave. He said to her, ‘I’m afraid you didn’t agree with a lot of that.’
The warmth of her response surprised him. ‘It doesn’t matter whether I agree or not. You believe it and you said it. That’s what matters.’
Valentine, seeing them standing together, noted a rare resemblance between them, something positive and fierce.
She and Michael walked down the path to the vicarage together, not speaking. He will sleep soundly after this, she thought, while I shall have a stomach upset. It was a clear night, but raindrops glinted like beady eyes on every blade of grass.