A Particular Place Read online

  He looked out of the window. The rain had stopped but the lawn had become a lake. ‘I don’t think even Aunt Hester would walk in this weather.’

  The opportunity to challenge him had passed, as had many others. Valentine told herself that it was no use issuing challenges while he was out of her reach. This sense of leading a charmed existence would not last and she would be wise to wait until, one way or another, the spell was broken. The last thing she wished to do was to risk letting loose a lot of violent emotion in the house; were this to happen she feared that when all the barriers were down what would be laid bare would be her own emptiness.

  Michael’s attachment to Norah Kendall had concentrated Valentine’s mind on herself. Her unwillingness to blame him for what had happened interested her, and as she reviewed her attitude she had come to realize that the disdain and fastidious contempt which had for so long distanced her from other people was in reality nothing more than self-dislike. In any confrontation with Michael she must be the loser unless she could find a person within herself with whom she could be reconciled.

  She thought about this as she washed up the breakfast dishes and fed the cat. The image of womanhood which she most constantly derided was that of the good and loving woman, sustaining and supporting her husband, nourishing her children and sending them out in due season to make their own way in the world. She had mocked this image most of her adult life – ever since, in fact, the time when she discovered she would not be put to the test of motherhood. Perhaps she would not have made a good mother, but not being given the opportunity to surprise oneself was rather like not being allowed to sit an examination. One did not like to think of oneself as being such a waste of an examiner’s time. And it was no use behaving as though this was of little importance to her. The image of womanhood remained strong and undiminished by ridicule. There was a distinct possibility that she believed in it, and that being so, having been rejected as a mother, she could not afford to be ruled out as a candidate for good wife. Or, if good was setting one’s sights too high, then proper – a proper wife. If she did not make measurable progress towards that goal during this crisis in her life she would always despise herself. ‘Proper,’ she said, testing the word and finding it less daunting than good.

  It was at the very moment when she repeated the word proper that she became aware of the smell. The torrential rain had ceased and most of the yard outside the kitchen had been dried by the wind. The few dark patches which remained looked something more than damp; had it been autumn she would have thought decaying vegetation had been blown into the yard. A closer inspection seemed advisable if not desirable. Valentine walked slowly into the yard, one hand over nose and mouth. The drain had overflowed but it was only too apparent that it was not the proper contents of the drain which confronted her.

  Her first impulse was to retire to her bed with a bottle of eau-de- Cologne until Michael returned. Or she could phone Hester and leave a message for him. She had a vivid picture of how Hester would react; the situation might well form the basis of a short story. Valentine straightened her back and raised her head; then, aware that her posture owed more to Joan of Arc approaching the stake than a housewife dealing with an unpleasantness in the back yard, she consulted the yellow pages. In a few moments she was assured that help would be on its way very soon. In spite of the damage caused by the storm, it seemed that an overflow from the main sewer rated priority treatment.

  She went into the kitchen and made sure that all the food had been put away. Within half an hour a taciturn man arrived and lifted the manhole cover in the yard. Valentine, watching from a distance, was aware that it would be years before she would be able to contemplate the contents of a stewpot with equanimity. He put down the rod and immediately, with a subterranean gluck-gluck, the whole evil boiling disappeared. Valentine paid him what seemed a very large sum of money for so little effort.

  She had hoped he might be persuaded to clean up the mess but he merely said, ‘Little bit of Dettol will soon get rid of that.’

  Whatever else Dettol might do, it would not sweep the yard clean. Michael would not be home until after tea. Valentine meditated on whether a proper wife would reserve this task for her husband. Then it occurred to her that whatever the proper might do, Mrs Pettifer would certainly be out in the yard with broom and Dettol.

  She went up to her bedroom, found a stocking and pulled it over her head, carefully cutting slits for the eyes. Then she went into the yard armed with a bucket of water and a bottle of Dettol. As she swept, the yard broom held at a fastidious distance, she reflected on the never-failing ability of life to make a bawdy joke of lofty pretension.

  After seven applications of water and Dettol, she was satisfied that there was no danger of typhoid. She was left with the problem of the yard broom. It was inconceivable that it could retain a place in her household; equally inconceivable that it could be taken anywhere in the car, which would undoubtedly be Michael’s solution if she left its disposal to him. She removed the stocking mask, ran a comb through her hair and left the vicarage carrying the broom. Proud and haughty, offering no explanation to anyone whom she met, Valentine made her way to the Council’s tip, holding the broom at a disdainful distance like a deranged Britannia descended from her throne.

  Only when she had cast the broom into one of the skips did she relax, standing in the deserted yard, weeping at her weakness.

  ‘It’s so nice not to have to hurry,’ Veronica called down the stairs to Hester, who was waiting to put toast in the rack.

  In Hester’s opinion much misery – breakdown of marriage, disaffection of children, loss of friendship, to say nothing of many minor irritations and discomforts – could be avoided if people would only refrain from breaking their fast together. Some might rise from their beds light of spirit and kind of heart, but these were the few. The majority, of whom Hester was one, come leadenfoot to the table, the night still like grit in the deep crevices and crannies of their personality.

  She had offered Veronica breakfast in bed, or the opportunity to ‘have a lie in as it is raining and get your own breakfast when you feel like it’. What had not been on offer was breakfast together combined with no need to hurry.

  ‘I grow more intolerant with the years, Tabitha,’ she said to the cat who was agitating to be fed. ‘And you are no better.’

  By lunchtime all this had changed. As they had their pre-lunch drink and Veronica brought her friend up to date on matters in which Hester was not very interested, such as the old aunt’s health, Hester reflected on the propensity of modern writers to approach old age as if they were reporters, medical dictionary tucked under one arm to make sure they had all the symptoms at their fingertips. But in reality, she thought, old people don’t look at each other making mental notes of brown splodges on wrinkled arms, arthritic finger joints, hiccups in articulacy and quirks of memory. Amazingly, when they say ‘You haven’t changed!’ they really mean it. They actually look at each other, as I am looking at dear Veronica now, and see the person they have always seen. Perhaps it is different with men – there are two ages for men, one with and one without hair. But Veronica sitting there resolutely disposing of strong gin is recognizably the Veronica who mapped our walk along the Pennine Way with such fine disregard for contours that we twice failed to reach our overnight stop; the Veronica of the perpetually broken heart who believed that one should never say no to love, the Veronica of the good beginnings who has furnished me with much factual material on matters as diverse as psychical research, pig breeding, hotel management and Russian Orthodoxy at which she has at last arrived via Coptic art and transcendental meditation.

  ‘You have had quite a journey through life,’ Hester said enviously.

  ‘But I have ended up where I started from.’

  ‘You didn’t start within a thousand miles of Orthodoxy.’

  Veronica, who always maintained that her present affiliation was the constant of her whole life, smiled mysteriously and said, �
��Ah, the Spirit, you see. Only the Orthodox understand the Spirit.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Hester could be mettlesome too. ‘The Orthodox Church hasn’t changed much in a thousand years. Some might say that is hardly allowing the Holy Spirit to work within it.’

  They argued about this all through lunch, so that Hester was in a good mood when Norah Kendall arrived, saying she had not seen Veronica for so long she felt she must call and hoped it was not inconvenient. Even when Michael arrived saying much the same thing, Hester remained tolerantly amused. Veronica, of course, was delighted and only too willing to see herself as the focus of interest. The attentions of those younger than oneself become increasingly precious over the years, Hester thought indulgently. One must not begrudge Veronica her little triumph, delusory though it might be.

  She sat back and let Michael and Veronica debate the attitude of their respective churches to the Holy Spirit while Norah tickled Tabitha behind the ears.

  Veronica’s grasp of theology was tenuous and she soon tired of listening to Michael expounding the one vital difference between the two Creeds. ‘This must be very boring for you,’ she said kindly to Norah. She screwed up her eyes, gazing back an infinitely long way to her own period of unenlightenment. ‘I can understand how bewildered you must feel.’

  Norah, usually well able to note condescension and put it down smartly, smiled as if indeed no thought of any consequence had ever troubled her mind.

  ‘Do you remember when we were young, Hester,’ Veronica hastened on before Michael could set himself to giving Norah an exposition on the Creeds, ‘how we used to gather round the piano and sing? Every Christmas guests arrived with music,’ she explained to Norah. ‘People made their own pleasures when we were young, you see. We would sing pieces like “We’m come up from Somerset”. I don’t suppose you have ever heard of that.’

  ‘Indeed, I have.’ And Norah surprised Veronica by singing ‘We’m come up from Zummerset where the Zoider apples grow . . .’

  ‘Yes, well,’ Veronica said. ‘There was “The Gentle Maiden”, too.’

  Norah said to Hester, ‘Do play for us.’

  Hester, who had enjoyed those far off days, was not unwilling. Sunlight wavered on the window sill as if uncertain of a welcome after its long absence and sent an exploratory ray across the hearth, demure and unassertive. What more seemly activity to match this meek, nostalgic mood than the making of music? Hester played ‘The Gentle Maiden’ and Michael sang in his deep, grave voice, while on the hearth Tabitha switched her tail, stroking the rug gently as a feather duster. They all sang ‘Cockles and Mussels’ and ‘Early one Morning’. Norah’s voice was high and sweet and Veronica regarded her without favour. She was much taken by Michael and suggested a number of songs well-suited to his strong baritone, such as ‘Drake is going West’ and ‘The Fishermen of England’. Tabitha kneaded the rug and purred, dribbling a bit because she was very old.

  The sun, filtering through the leaves of the trees, sent little green flames darting across the keyboard. The feeling of shared pleasure grew stronger and a convivial warmth spread through the group around the piano. Michael and Norah smiled into each other’s eyes as they sang. There was a subtle change in the vibration of their voices. The flames danced up and down the scale and in and out of the notes and behind the eyes of Michael and Norah a banked fire silently established its hold. Hester, feeling the itch of old scars, thought, enough is enough, and struck up the ‘Song of the Western Men’.

  ’A good sword and a trusty hand

  A merry heart and true,

  King James’s men shall understand

  What Cornish lads can do . . .’

  Michael sang as if the words had been written yesterday for men with hearts afire. Veronica, carried away, joined croakingly in the chorus while Norah, flushed with febrile excitement, head held high, looked to Hester’s jaundiced eye ridiculously like one of those damaged pagan figures whose disfigured heads still bear blazing torches.

  ’And have they fixed the where and when

  And shall Trelawny die

  Here’s twenty thousand Cornishmen

  Will know the reason why.’

  As he sang the last chorus Michael let loose the full power of his voice; magnificent, triumphant, it seemed to Hester to ring out a message telling the whole of the West Country what was afoot in this small terraced house. She slammed down the lid of the piano.

  ‘I want no part in this,’ she said, looking at them with angry eyes. ‘It was wrong of you to come here. Very wrong.’

  She got up and went into the kitchen. In a few minutes Veronica came and joined her. ‘Now what was all that about? They have gone without waiting for tea.’ Her tone implied that if her party had to be broken up in this way, then the least Hester could do was to make a good story out of it. Hester, shaken beyond discretion, complied.

  When she had finished, Veronica said, ‘You very nearly wrecked your cousin Harry’s marriage before you decided not to go through with the affair.’

  ‘I can’t even claim that much credit. He it was who broke away and made a dash for home and that dull little woman.’

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘I can’t think why I have told you now.’

  Hester inspected the geraniums on the window sill, prodding the earth although she could see at a glance that it was parched.

  ‘Since you have told me, perhaps you can say why if you thought it was right for you . . .’

  ‘I didn’t think it was right.’ Hester ran water into the sink. ‘There is no right and wrong at such times, as you well know, Veronica. It is a kind of madness.’

  ‘Then let them have their madness.’ Veronica spread out her arms in the manner of a conductor asking a choir to raise the roof with jubilation.

  ‘It doesn’t last,’ Hester said flatly, beginning to submerge the pots in the sink. ‘We aren’t mad all our lives. And Michael believes in the absolutes – however far short he may fall and however often he falls, he believes. That will not have changed when the madness passes. Desire is totally selfish,’ she said sternly to the gaudy geraniums. ‘I remember how it was to love, but the man himself has become nothing more than a stimulant to sensation. That is all Norah is to Michael. His marriage to Valentine is much more important than this affair, an intrinsic part of all that he is.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can possibly say that.’ Veronica’s eyes travelled round the room as if seeking a clear image of lost loves.

  ‘It has just come to me in one of those revelatory flashes which give one so little comfort.’ Hester watched the water bubbling round the pots. ‘It may well have been true for Harry and the anaemic Gwynneth.’

  ‘And Norah?’

  ‘I have received no such revelation as to Norah’s condition.’

  ‘She is probably one of those women who will be able to roll up the memory of her one true love in cotton wool and store it away snugly inside her,’ Veronica said contemptuously. She looked at Hester and saw that her face was bleak.

  ‘If you feel so badly about it, you shouldn’t have been so melodramatic, slamming down the piano lid and practically telling them never to darken your doors again. What would you have done if I had behaved like that when you and Harry made use of my house?’

  The smell of the geraniums was hot and as strong and unsubtle as the traces Tabitha sprayed about the garden. Hester said, ‘Envy. I envy them, Veronica; even at my age I envy them their madness and all the pain it will bring them.’

  Mrs Flack was cleaning the brass when the Vicar came into the church. The door to the graveyard was open and the church seemed full of the smell of rain-wet earth and the singing of birds. Mrs Flack had the sensation of being young again, a state of which she had little recall. Her life had been sliced in two when her husband died and the severed part in which she lived her widowhood had drifted away like an ice-floe. But now she saw a little girl dressed as a fairy sitting on the steps to the chancel while older
children enacted a scene from a play. Suddenly the little fairy burst into tears and cried out, ‘Mummy, Mummy, I’ve wet myself,’ and a young woman ran from the body of the church and, gathering the fairy into her arms, carried her out into the graveyard where raindrops hung from branch and leaf, glistening like the tiny beads sewn round the neck of her fairy frock. Mrs Flack blinked her eyes in a beam of sunlight. She saw that the Vicar was standing transfixed at the door leading into the grayeyard and was surprised because he hadn’t been at St Hilary’s long enough for light and sound and smell to play tricks with his memory. Suddenly, he reached out and closed the door; then he locked it and, walking across to the main door, locked that, too. Laura Addison would have objected to the church being shut an hour early, but it was not the way of Mrs Flack to object. She went on cleaning the brass and minding her own business. When the Vicar came out of the vestry he did not acknowledge her, but strode, stern as an Old Testament prophet, towards the sanctuary where he seemed to lose his sense of purpose and stood, shoulders hunched, looking down at the worn floorboards. As she was not a person who expected to be noticed, and certainly not to be thanked for her efforts, Mrs Flack was content to remain invisible.

  When she had finished polishing she went into the vestry and put away the cloths and Brasso. It should have been obvious that, having locked both the outer church doors, the Vicar was intending to leave by the vestry door. Mrs Flack’s mind, however, was on other things. She bolted the door into the church and, smiling rather foolishly, went out of the vestry door into the sunlight.

  Michael Hoath’s mind was also on other things, and he had hung the key to the graveyard door on the appropriate hook in the vestry and absently put the key to the main door on the table. So it was that when he had read the Office he found himself locked in the church.

  At first he refused to believe what had happened and walked from door to door, tugging and knocking. The graveyard door had glass panels covered by wire mesh and alone offered a view of the outside world. He stood by it while the sounds of early evening came to him, children shouting on their way home from the playing field, the fluting of a blackbird, the continuous hum of outgoing traffic inching across the bridge over the river. He saw moisture hung on the roses atop the garden wall, the refracted light glittering yellow, indigo, violet. He watched a large thrush pecking for worms in the ground beneath the tree where he had knelt with Norah. For him, as for Mrs Flack, this glistening garden had the quality of fairyland; a world new-made, full of magical delights awaiting those brave enough to turn their backs on the wearying world of here and now. He was desperate to step out into this secret place where Hester’s anger could not follow him. Never before had a rain-cleansed garden seemed so lovely in its innocent refreshment. He wanted to be part of this joyous celebration of earth and tree and flower, to tunnel into this green enchantment until his mind was drugged by sensual delight, his body exhausted. He put his fist to the door and leant his head against it, crying out, ‘I will not be trapped here.’