9

Sally was grateful when Father Ewan’s message service clicked in. ‘Father, this is Sally Fuller. I’m sure Timothy will have phoned you with the inevitable, sad news. I’d like to confirm I’ll be arriving at Waldringhythe before lunchtime tomorrow.’

Now it was time and, like an Olympic weightlifter, she grew both mentally and physically. With the resolve of a Samurai, she armed herself with a roll of black bin liners, went up to the bedroom and gathered up every piece of Roger’s clothing. Minutes later she dropped a dozen full bags out of the window, to land with muffled thumps on the stone terrace below.

The room now echoed with a tangible emptiness, but in her heart she felt another sort – the emotional emptiness of the lonely, only child of parents whose marriage had been no less a sham than her own. In those days she’d used attention-seeking histrionics to express her frustration, but that had been a complete waste of time. Her mother’s poker-faced retort was always the same: ‘Sally! Stop making an exhibition of yourself. What will people think?’

She entered the garden wearing a padded jacket and the fleecy balaclava she wore to walk Finnegan on cold mornings. It had stopped raining, and although the ground was sodden, the sky was now clear and pinpricked by starlight. She formed a high pile of Roger’s effects in the middle of the lawn and found a can of paraffin in the garage. Sprinkle, sprinkle. A thrown match and a woomph that nearly threw her off her feet. But she was elated by the danger.

Having endured years of centrally heated desiccation, the clothes were tinder dry and she was forced to stand back by a sudden wall of licking, yellow tongues. The destruction was exciting. The cotton items quickly disappeared, the woollens slowly singed, the man-made fibres melted into a bubbling, gloopy mess.

The life of the fire was far too brief. She took a hoe, hooked and pushed a few remainders into the centre and watched as the last throes flickered. Little remained. The metal teeth from the fly-zip of some jeans; the cuff of a leather jacket; a congealed trainer. She walked away without further contemplation, feeling suddenly exhausted.

After showering, she got into bed, thinking about the old routines of bedtime. She and Roger, straining to hear the current Book at Bedtime above Finnegan’s noisy breathing. A short discussion on the progress of the book, and Roger prompted to pass on any gossipy anecdotes from the undercurrent of London publishing he’d picked up that day. Turning to each other for a traditional goodnight kiss, both knowing they would make love again the minute she gave the word. But her pride just couldn’t allow surrender.

Now, faced with final separation, she began to wonder if being ‘in love’ with him had really been another sort of love: the fierce love indulged on one’s children, or the emotional love for a pampered pet. How about the binding love reserved for parents or favourite relations? Had she loved either of her deceased parents? She certainly hadn’t had a shred of affection for her cold, miserable mother, and she found it really difficult to remember her army officer father, blown up by an IRA bomb when she was fifteen. Her mother had anticipated his death with no apparent emotion. ‘Army wives wait for it to happen,’ she’d declared, so every time he went off on a tour of duty, she waited patiently. When it did she was stoically prepared – even though he’d been blown apart in a rural booby trap massacre, and left with only half his body weight remaining. Somehow Sally had never managed to brace herself for the inevitable loss of Roger.

She soon found she was too elated for sleep. A couple of stiff gins might have been the answer, but she’d never used drink to mask misfortune. Neither had she been a pill-popper or a pothead. She sat up, thinking that something to read might calm her, but the only thing on her bedside table was the handbook to Waldringhythe; a glossy pamphlet that showcased the Abbey’s history from its first sketchy medieval map to a glossy shot of a royal visit in 2004. The frontispiece showed a photograph of Father Ewan seated on a small chair, dressed in a traditional double-breasted cassock, holding a prayer book. But it was a strange depiction. His face was cast in shadow, making it impossible to define his features. She was suddenly both excited and fearful at the prospect of meeting the famous, reclusive priest.

Feeling an urge to get close to his ethos, she got out of bed and went to find her much-thumbed copy of his most famous publication, Hand in Hand With Your Inner Self; a slim million-selling volume known throughout the world for its life-changing spiritual philosophy. She brought it back to the bed, and turned to the flyleaf.

Father Ewan McEwan was born in 1960. He was educated at Waldringhythe Abbey School and ordained into the Catholic Priesthood in 1983. Under his leadership and direction, Waldringhythe is now known throughout the world as the definitive centre for grief therapy and bereavement counselling.

This book is dedicated to Everyman who seeks to understand the enigma of life and death, and to the eradication of nuclear weapons.

Below the quote was printed the famous photograph, Crucifix Man, the iconic depiction of Christ on the cross that had caused such hysterical furore when it was first released to the media back in 1982. Memories came back of the scuffed, giant-sized poster stuck on the wall of the nurses’ home common room. The naked upper body covered in ballpoint tattoos, and the borders graffitied with bubbles of vulgar sexual suggestions. For Sally, looking lustfully at men’s bodies had never been the spectator sport it was for some women, but she had to admit to being intrigued by this one. She also conceded, with something of regret, that she’d led a sheltered life. As a nurse the human male form had no mystery left and her shyness was long gone, but as Roger had been her only sexual partner, her experience of it was limited. Before she’d married her mother had warned her, with her usual lemon-sucking expression, not to expect too much. ‘All men are animals,’ she disclosed. ‘It’s a woman’s lot in life to grin and bear it.’ But Sally had found that with the discovery of passion she’d grinned most happily in the arms of her adored young husband. Now the smell of the marriage bonfire wafted through the window and the bed was… What was it? Half empty or half full?

The loud pit-pat of rain started again and she was filled with a comfortable security – as if the wild weather was offering her some protection. Despite many previous reads of Hand in Hand, she snuggled down to begin her revision from page one.