She was in a hurry, and under siege.
The worst thing about being a clergyman’s wife, Leila thought heatedly, is the way people look at you when you come in here. They count how many bottles you buy, and when you’ve gone they sidle over to the counter and mutter, ‘Poor Mr Edmunds, his wife does let him down.’
She wasn’t just the new curate’s wife. She was the new curate’s black wife. She was a curiosity. White elephant, black curate’s wife. Things were expected of her, preferably lurid. Gossip was currency, in the parish.
She grabbed four bottles of red, more or less at random, and one of gin. The gin was expensive, but David’s father lived for the stuff. She wouldn’t be drinking any of this herself, though. Not tonight. Maybe not for a long time.
Resting her wire basket on the counter, she smiled at Dora Davies, behind the till. ‘’Evening, Dora.’ She tried to sound friendly but brisk, a woman with no time to chat. Leila had been on her feet all day; she’d dispensed about two hundred prescriptions, meticulously checking each one for interactions and errors in the knowledge that a single mistake could prove fatal. She’d managed anxious customers—some tearful, some aggressive—and shopfloor politics. Finally she’d raced off, nipping into the off-licence on the way home for some last-minute shopping.
‘’Evening, Mrs Edmunds.’ Dora wasn’t about to let such a prize slip through her grasp. She began, with agonising care, to wrap each bottle in brown paper. Leila watched helplessly. What the hell was the point of that? She glanced at the clock behind Dora’s head. Already after six o’clock, and they were coming at seven-thirty. Please, please hurry up, Dora.
The shopkeeper reached for the next bottle. ‘Nasty weather we’re having.’ She tutted disapprovingly and smoothed another sheet of paper onto the counter. ‘I’ve never known such a torrent.’
‘Quite a downpour, wasn’t it? Still, it’s the time of year.’ For God’s sake, who cares? Just hurry up.
Dora hunted about for the sticky tape, musing in singsong Brummie. ‘Actually, I got caught in it when I went out earlier. I had to go, though, to visit my mother. She’s in hospital, did you know?’
‘No, no, I didn’t know. I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘I looked like a drowned weasel by the time I got there. Water dripping off me in the ward.’
Five past six! This is a nightmare. I have to get home and cook dinner for six people, one of whom will be delighted when I make a mess of things. Please shut up, you hag.
‘It’s her hip, you know. Mother’s been on the waiting list for . . . ooh, Alan, how long’s Mother been on the waiting list? Alan? A year? No, love, much longer than that. At least two years, because Dad was still alive, and I know he passed away two years ago last month, even though it feels like yesterday. It got postponed five times, her operation did, right at the last minute. That’s the NHS for you. I expect you know about all that, being involved in it yourself. Five times!’
‘No! Five? Disgraceful. Er . . . don’t worry about wrapping up the gin, Dora.’
Dora stopped wrapping altogether. Tucked her chins into her neck. Took off her glasses, very deliberately.
‘Anyway. She tripped over the dog last night. Broke the other one.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Lay on the floor all night, only Frodo to keep her warm.’
‘No!’
‘Milkman found her this morning. Luckily he noticed the curtains.’
Leila was trapped. You could not fail to show an interest in a woman of eighty-five who’d spent a long, painful night shivering on the floor with a broken hip. But it was now almost ten past six, and her pulse was going wild. She imagined herself hitting Dora on the head with a bottle before sprinting out. The security camera footage would be shown on the news, all grainy and blurred, with the headlines ‘Clergy wife in robbery’ and ‘All for a bottle of gin’.
‘Thank goodness for the milkman.’ She reached into her handbag. ‘How much do I owe you?’
Dora shook her forefinger. ‘Wait a minute! You haven’t heard the half of it yet.’
Nightmare. It’s a nightmare.
‘Milkman looks in through the windows, sees Mother lying there, thinks she’s dead, which almost gives him a cardiac, calls the ambulance on his mobile phone. Then he breaks in. Glass everywhere!’
‘What a hero.’
‘Nah. Silly sod. You’d think he’d find the key under the mat, wouldn’t you? Everyone keeps their key under the mat, don’t they? She wouldn’t let him anywhere near her because she was in her nightie, so he made her a cup of tea and sat down with his back to her. And do you know how long the ambulance took to arrive?’
Leila shook her head, hypnotised.
Dora paused for dramatic effect. ‘Two hours.’
‘No!’
Dora nodded, happily outraged. ‘Two. You wouldn’t believe it, would you? He had to sit there with his eyes averted for the whole time. Would’ve been quicker to take her on his milk float, as I told him in no uncertain terms. Well, she’s not too bad now, considering. They’ve put her in a—’
‘I’ll ask David to call in. Which ward?’
‘I wanted to talk to you about her medication, seeing as you’re a pharmacist yourself. Because I’m not happy. I said to that doctor—’
‘Dreadful! Dreadful. Really, Dora, it’s appalling, but I’m sure they’re doing all they can. I’ll tell David, he’ll visit her. Only I must go now because I’ve got people coming and the house is in such a state.’
Even to her own ears Leila sounded hysterical, but Dora appeared unconcerned. She replaced her glasses and began to slide the bottles into carrier bags.
‘Looks like you’re planning on sinking a battleship. Should’ve had the Chilean red. We’ve got it on offer, look. It’s a lovely wine, that. You’d save . . . er . . . two, four . . . just a minute . . . you’d save about five pounds on this lot. D’you want to swap?’
Oh, God.
‘No thanks, Dora. Honestly. Must go!’ Leila giggled slightly wildly, handing over her credit card. ‘Got the rector coming. Mustn’t keep him waiting.’
Dora ran the card through the machine, glanced at the printout, then leaned over the counter, beckoning conspiratorially.
‘Sorry, my love,’ she whispered ear-splittingly, while all the other customers fell silent and pretended not to listen. ‘Transaction declined.’
Six forty-eight. Leila had cleared a mound of ecclesiastical junk mail off the dining-room table—the overflow from David’s study—and halfheartedly waltzed a vacuum cleaner around the floor. She’d answered the telephone four times, slammed a casserole into the oven and sent a text asking David to drop in at the off-licence to settle up with Dora.
Which was when the doorbell rang. Insanely jolly, that doorbell. Ping—pong!
Can’t be them. Just can’t be. Not yet.
The caller obviously liked the bell. Pingpongpingpong. Ping — PONG !
Leila wrenched at the door, peered suspiciously out and then smiled. A solid, olive-skinned child in leggings and a red-spotted tunic was just settling herself on the step. She had dark hair in a lustrous plait, all the way to her waist, and a large gap where one of her front teeth had recently been. And she was sniffling. The neighbours’ daughter, six years old and already lonely. Her parents were Greek. They owned a restaurant and worked longer hours than anyone should have to.
‘Jacinta!’ Leila crouched down beside her. ‘What’s up?’
The girl stuck out her bottom lip. She was clutching a box, about four inches across. It was pink and heart-shaped, and it had a red bow on the top. She held it out, unsmiling.
‘For me?’ Leila took the box.
‘It’s Angel,’ whispered Jacinta.
‘Thank you, sweetheart. It’s an angel, is it? Did you make this at school?’
‘No. It’s Angel.’
‘Okay.’ Expecting an angel-shaped chocolate, or perhaps a winged doll, Leila lifted the lid and peered in. Nestling in black tissue paper, glaring glassily up at her with a shining eye, lay a vivid orange goldfish. Leila nearly dropped the box.
‘Gosh! It’s um . . . Oh, I see. Did your fish die?’
Jacinta nodded. ‘I found her in the tank. Floating on the top. Upside down.’
Leila stared down at the creature, mesmerised by its wide-awake eye. You’d think it was alive. Its body was still bright, but the long, wispy tail curled a little.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’
‘She looked nicer when she was swimming around,’ lamented Jacinta. She reached out and stroked the tiny body. ‘My sister’s looking after me.’
‘Daria?’
‘Mmn. And she’s snoggling with her boyfriend on the sofa and she said if I don’t get my bloody fish out of the house she’s going to flush it down the toilet.’
‘Snoggling, is she? Shame on her!’ Leila glanced surreptitiously at her watch, calculating rapidly. ‘C’mon,’ she ordered, straightening up. ‘Shall we give your glorious Angel a decent send-off?’
Seven o’clock. They’d dug a grave by the hebe bush and lowered the coffin into it. They murmured a sombre goodbye, standing hand-in-hand in the light from the kitchen window, then hummed the theme tune of Neighbours. Not the most funereal of melodies, but it was Angel’s favourite song, apparently.
‘It’s a shame David isn’t here,’ said Leila. ‘He does a lovely funeral.’
With a tragic flourish, Jacinta threw a handful of soil onto the pink box before Leila buried it. Then, lest Jacinta’s greedy gingercat should exhume the dear departed, they covered the little mound with stones.
‘We’ll make it into a rock garden in the spring,’ promised Leila, leading the way back into her brightly lit kitchen. ‘Little alpine flowers, and a cactus or two.’ She reached into the freezer and dug out a Cornetto.
Taking a giant bite, Jacinta looked at the jumble of photographs on the fridge. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked, pointing.
‘My nephews.’ Leila smiled proudly. ‘Simon—he’s eleven, very clever, like you—and Daniel, who’s a little monkey. And the baby’s a girl called Sade.’
‘Where d’they live?’
‘In London. But the boys are coming to stay here after Christmas. They’d love to play with you.’
‘Okay. Can you and me make a cross to go on Angel’s grave?’ asked Jacinta, licking ice cream off her sleeve.
‘Yes.’ Leila steered her visitor towards the door. ‘But not tonight. I’ve got people coming any minute. Tell your sister to stop her snoggling and make your tea.’
As soon as Jacinta had gone, Leila shot upstairs. She took the fastest shower in history (how did half the garden end up under her nails?) and pulled on a flowing black skirt and an emerald wraparound blouse.
The curate’s house, a modern semi provided by the parish, was hopelessly cluttered. The piano, festooned with Leila’s sheet music, was jammed into what should have been the study. There weren’t enough shelves, and books lay in piles around the hall. Leila tripped over a box full of parish magazines as she scurried back and forth, trying to bring some order to the chaos, forcing gold hoops into her ears, all the while prattling distractedly to herself.
Catching sight of her figure in the hall mirror, she stopped. Pulled her stomach in and her shoulders back. Made a mental note to start a low-fat diet immediately. Almost immediately.
‘It doesn’t really matter, though,’ she said aloud.
The woman in the mirror smiled warmly out at her. She had elegant cheekbones and even, white teeth. It didn’t matter that David was late; it didn’t matter that she’d gained at least a dress size in the last year and was now a trifle squeezed in a twelve; it certainly didn’t matter that both the boss and the parents-in-law were due in a nanosecond, and the place looked like a bombsite. Because the miracle was happening, at long last. Someone was growing inside her, and life was about to change. This time she was sure.
Humming under her breath, she began to adjust the turquoise band she wore around her hair, retying the knot at the nape of her neck. When she heard David’s long steps on the path she winked at herself in the mirror, flickering with secret delight. She wouldn’t tell him yet. No. Not yet. There had been too many disappointments over the years of their ghastly rollercoaster ride. She’d do the test first, and then she’d wait a while longer, to make certain.
David burst in, a whirl of movement and vitality, and the house seemed to shrink.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he spluttered, cheerfully and without a hint of contrition. He paused to hang up his coat, fair hair flopping over a broad forehead. Leila felt as though he’d recharged her just by walking through the front door.
‘My beautiful wife!’ Briskly crossing the hall, he draped his tall frame around her, running his mouth along one of the tight plaits that covered her head. ‘Ah, my favourite silky shirt. What happens if I pull on this little bow at the back?’
Leila wriggled away, tapping her watch, trying to look severe. ‘What time d’you call this?’
‘Sorry! Got cornered by Dora.’
‘You too?’
He scratched his long nose. ‘Didn’t make my escape until the queue of customers behind me was halfway down the High Street, rioting. I had to get a writ of habeas corpus.’
It’s all right. Everything’s all right. She put her hands on her hips. ‘That wretched card had a nervous breakdown. Half of Birmingham was watching.’
‘Oh, no!’ Laughing, he kissed her. There was a fan of creases at the outer corners of his eyes, so that he seemed permanently to be smiling. It gave his face an ageless quality. ‘I forgot to pay it off.’
She leaned happily into his warmth, prolonging the moment. Then, reluctantly, she whispered in his ear, ‘You do realise that your guests are due to arrive in just under four minutes?’
‘Blimey!’ He was gone, thundering up the stairs, tearing off his dog collar as he turned the corner. It was a toy house, and a dolls’ staircase. David, long-legged and athletic, could spring up it in three bounds.
‘Your job this evening is to stop your father drinking too much,’ she yelled after him. ‘If he says anything smutty I swear I’ll break that Roman conk he’s so proud of.’
‘Allow me.’ She could hear David’s chuckle, then a thud—shower door—and the splash of running water.
He was still upstairs when the doorbell rang. That will certainly be the in-laws, thought Leila sourly. Don’t even have the decency to be late. I’ll bet they’ve been skulking around the corner in their car, waiting for seven thirty-one. She dragged her most welcoming smile out of its box and glued it into position. She’d had plenty of practice at sticking on smiles, since David took this job. On the way to the front door, she checked her expression in the long mirror. It looked like rigor mortis.
Must look them in the eye. Must look them in the eye.
Throwing open the door, the curate’s wife stood well back. Her face was alight with radiant welcome.
‘Hilda! Christopher! How lovely!’
Eight o’clock. Angus and Elizabeth were late, of course. Bless them.
Leila had run out of excuses not to join the others in the miniature sitting room. There had never been open hostilities in her dealings with David’s mother; never, in fifteen years. Instead, uneasy tension spilled into short bursts of sniper fire on both sides. It was exhausting. Blatant warfare might have been easier.
Lingering in the kitchen, she could hear David regaling them with that awful story about the coffin that floated when it was lowered into the grave. After the shocked laughter, she made out snatches of Hilda’s voice. ‘Monica’s much in demand,’ she heard, and ‘Michael’s been forecasting this recession for years.’
Well, bully for Michael and bloody Monica.
There was an agenda, of course. David, like his younger brother and sister, had also been a source of pride until he gave it all up, well on his way up the management ladder in a tentacular agrochemicals company. Hilda was still grief-stricken at his abandonment of her ambitions.
Now her mother-in-law’s sugary tones took on a strident edge. ‘Leila? Aren’t you going to join us? Can I help, at all?’
Bugger. Cornered, Leila blew out her cheeks and marched into the enemy camp, smile firmly fixed in place. Christopher leaped gallantly to his feet and stood to attention. He was every inch the dapper merchant seaman, weathered across the cheekbones, eyes a watery blue beneath the cloud-white sweep of his hair.
‘You’re working too hard,’ he gushed, straightening his tie. ‘Look at that, you’re wasting away!’
‘I wish,’ said Leila.
She accepted a glass of apple juice and balanced on the edge of the sofa. She could sense Christopher watching her, a half-smile lifting his heavy brows as though they shared a little secret. He’d been handsome in his day, she grudgingly supposed. You could see the ghost of it still: the careful posture, proud features—strong, like David’s—coarsened now by gin and boredom.
He leaned down to her. ‘Got any—what d’you call ’em?—gigs coming up, Leila?’
‘We’ve got a fiftieth birthday in Edgbaston tomorrow. Hospital administrator.’
‘Wish I could be there,’ sighed Christopher. ‘I love to hear you sing.’
Hilda perched vigilantly in an armchair, legs neatly to one side like a little Persian cat. She looked powdered and tidy in a rose silk shirt, and not at all poisonous.
‘You were a saint to allow David to go into the church, Leila,’ she said, her voice dipped in syrup. ‘You’ve had to make so many terrible sacrifices. Living here.’ Her disapproval seemed to encompass the little house, the dingy suburb, the great heaving mass of the West Midlands. ‘It’s worse than the last place. And no prospects.’
David rubbed his nose, risking a surreptitious smile at Leila. ‘Depends what you call prospects, Mum.’ He held out a porcelain bowl. ‘Cashew?’
‘I mean real prospects, for your actual future,’ snapped Hilda, ignoring the peace offering. ‘Not airy-fairy celestial ones.’
Christopher crossed the room to the drinks tray, unscrewed the gin, and helped himself. ‘Stop fussing, Hilda,’ he said amiably, with a small wink in Leila’s direction. ‘They’re bound for Lambeth Palace. David will make a very sporty archbishop.’
‘Only a matter of time!’ Leila was grateful for the vote of confidence. ‘And I’m fine. My job’s better paid here, actually, and there’s far more back-up. There are three of us pharmacists on duty at peak times. I can normally work Saturday and have Wednesday off with David.’
‘Kirkaldie’s,’ mumbled David, eating the cashews himself. ‘Near New Street Station. Pretty hectic. Leila seems to dispense a lot of methadone.’
There was a cynical twist to Hilda’s lips. ‘Well, you won’t starve, then.’
Christopher lowered himself stiffly into the seat next to Leila, suppressing a wince. ‘I’ve taken up golf,’ he confided, in an undertone. ‘What d’you think of that?’
‘Well . . . I’ve never played.’
‘Don’t.’ He leaned closer. ‘Boring people, pointless game.’ He gestured at his wife, who was obviously listening. ‘She makes me go. Gets me out of the house.’
The doorbell. Angus and Elizabeth. Thank God.
‘Hello, hello!’ Elizabeth bustled in first, turning to shake her umbrella out onto the step. ‘Angus is parking the car—awful night—sorry we’re late. Come on, Angus! Leila’s standing in a howling gale!’
Elizabeth’s voice was always a surprise; it didn’t match the rest of her. It was deep, like a drag queen’s, and had the huskiness of a chain-smoker, which Elizabeth wasn’t.
Leila could see the rector’s stocky figure rambling up the path, a newspaper over his head, bearded and grizzled and good-humoured. Angus came from Inverness. Leila liked to picture him striding through the mist with a deer slung over his shoulders, or leaping to the bagpipes in a stone-flagged hall.
‘Good evening, Leila.’ Handing over a bottle of wine he shook himself, spraying droplets. ‘Something smells good. Sorry we’re late. Got caught in the off-licence by Dora.’
‘You don’t say. You’re not late, anyway. We’re just having drinks.’
‘Oh, good!’ Angus rubbed his hands together.
‘You’d better come and meet David’s parents.’ Leila took Elizabeth’s arm as they crossed the little hall. ‘Brace yourself,’ she whispered.