A Particular Place Read online

  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.

  Chapter Three

  On a fine spring afternoon a car travelled westward down a sunken lane, the covering branches of trees still greening. It came out on a rise with a long view of fields and in the distance a grey village huddled round a church, its decorative square tower frivolous as a Christmas cracker hat perched above the slate roofs of the houses. There was pale, unemphatic sunshine and the air smelt sharp as lemon.

  The driver of the car looked out over the fields where not a man could be seen and said, ‘This would be mowing time, wouldn’t it – end of April, beginning of May, some time thereabouts? Lois’s grandmother has pictures of these fields taken during her childhood. Men with scythes wearing waistcoats and straw hats.’

  His companion said, ‘Yes, country folk still haven’t learnt how to dress for their roles.’ Hesketh Kendall delivered this pronouncement in a hoarse voice which made its ultimate point with a rasp. ‘Only the town-bred know what is the appropriate gear.’

  His own clothes were immaculate, dark jacket, pin-striped trousers. A general air of good living and a hint of audacity in the eyes, however, suggested a profession which had allowed him a certain licence to express himself. The broken nose, a memento of rugger playing days, added an impression of vigour. It was a handsome face, the lines cut with a dash about the self-indulgent mouth. There was, however, a slackness in his posture which was uncharacteristic and his performance in court the day before had been lackadaisical. The driver, Jack Drury, was not so handsome but he was much younger and his lean face betrayed no sign of vitality on the wane. He said, ‘It’s about here that I always imagine I can smell the sea.’

  ‘We had the old coastguard cottage, my first wife and I.’

  Jack Drury glanced obliquely at his companion and thought that the man had aged ten years in the last nine months. Three parts grief, seven parts self-pity. Himself being young, he could afford to pass harsh judgements on the afflictions of others.

  ‘Lois told me you had sold the cottage,’ he said briskly.

  ‘Caroline and I were planning to sell it anyway. It seemed wiser, with retirement in mind, to settle in town.’

  ‘And it must be a help, being married to one of the locals.’ ‘Yes, if it hadn’t been for that I doubt if I would have come so far from London. Not after Caroline died . . .’

  Silence again. Jack looked ahead, lips firmly sealed against the expressions of sympathy so assiduously solicited. He stiffened his resistance by recalling a lunch in a Fleet Street pub some years ago when Hesketh had told him, ‘I have no fear of retirement, unlike some poor devils.’ The fear had been all Caroline’s. Lois had said of her sudden death, ‘She just ran out of life. Pumped dry servicing Hesketh’s needs.’ Jack, who had only been married to Lois for a year, had never met Caroline. To him, she had simply been a name which Hesketh had not found it necessary to mention with any great frequency during her lifetime. As far as he was concerned she should be allowed to rest in peace. He said, ‘I seem to recall Lois saying that Norah used to live out on the edge of the moor. As a child. On a farm?’

  ‘I believe so.’ Hesketh looked out of the window, his mouth turned down.

  ‘Will you sell the London house? Lois and I might be interested when the time comes.’

  ‘I shall have to sell it when I retire. The distance is too great.’

  And retirement not far away. Jack,
not yet at the height of his powers, could not imagine that a time would ever come when he would begin to fail. He was disappointed in Hesketh Kendall. The man had been so inspiring, never settling for the safest course, taking great risks, deliberately heading into the eye of the storm for the sheer zest of proving he was in control. Some of Hesketh’s clients had had a very rough ride before he brought them safe to port. And here he was, not even beached in sight or sound of the sea.

  ‘You can drop me here,’ Hesketh said when they reached the outskirts of the town, almost as though he was ashamed of the place and could not face the prospect of travelling through it, mitigating its inadequacies.

  Jack, thinking of Lois waiting at the cottage, did not protest. He said to Hesketh as he got out of the car, ‘Best of luck, then.’

  ‘With what?’

  Damnation! This was what came of taking one’s mind off the subject, which in this case was Hesketh Kendall, renowned for his Machiavellian courtroom cunning, who, according to Lois, had made a disastrously misjudged marriage. And he was actually staring at Jack as if demanding an explanation of an affront. His face had changed completely. The urbane, confident man of the world had suddenly aged and the unblinking eyes betrayed the defensive anger of the poor old codger afraid that he has inadvertently revealed some secret infirmity.

  ‘Why, in settling somewhere so different from London, of course.’ Jack managed to inject a measure of admiration into his voice. ‘I’m not sure I could do it myself.’

  Hesketh nodded. ‘It is damned difficult. But after Caroline, it was going to be difficult anyway.’

  The eyes staring at him reminded Jack of nothing so much as two fried eggs filmed with oil. He turned away from the moist self-pity. ‘I’ll give you a ring on Sunday evening to find out your plans for next week.’

  Hesketh Kendall told friends that he and Norah had managed to buy one of the only decent houses in the town. It was an old stone building which at one time had been a Baptist chapel. The previous owners had modernized it quite sensitively but an air of austerity still hung about it, as though the sobriety of the early worshippers had become a part of the very fabric. Definitely it was not a house which welcomed flamboyance of any kind. Its most pleasant feature was the garden which ran down to the river. Norah was in the garden when Hesketh arrived. She was, he had discovered, more interested in the garden than the house and once out there she lost all sense of time. In fact, for a nurse, she seemed to have surprisingly little sense of time.