by Maggie Ford
It wasn’t easy to admit that the real cause of this gradual change of mind was Mr Ansley Burrington whom she had danced with at the Christmas Eve party, and again at the New Year’s Eve ball which Alex had eventually persuaded her to attend. In Ansley Burrington’s arms, she had been glad she’d attended. After that, the women had never again seemed quite so daunting as they’d once been, and strangely enough, had become less and less so, especially when he was present. As he very gently befriended her over these past months, she had begun to see him as an ally amid the still vaguely alien members of the English Club. In him she felt she could confide her woes, receive understanding and sympathy and advice. She had confided in him her urge to go home on a visit. His advice had been to recall others who had similarly gone home for a spell.
‘They nearly always come back dejected and dissatisfied. I do wonder if it does one any good at all. After all, in time we all go home, recalled to England or finally sick of India itself, or because of ill health. This isn’t really a terribly healthy climate for Europeans. It does one down in the end, some of us.’
It was the evening they’d sat on his veranda two weeks ago while his wife had taken Alex into the garden after tea to see the new tank, the term for the formal pool most gardens had. ‘Do come and see it, Mr Willoughby,’ she’d urged. ‘It’s quite beautiful with the peepul trees we’ve had planted reflected in it. Ansley, you stay here with Mrs Willoughby. She is somewhat weary, I fear.’
It had been a pointed remark. Annie and Alex had had a slight difference of opinion before coming, over what she had seen as Alex’s recent inattentiveness towards her, and it had shown on her face.
He had been working so hard lately, and it had been unfair of her, she supposed, but he would come home saying hardly a word to her, his head buried in papers he’d bring home from the office. When it was time for bed he’d be too exhausted to make love. These days they seemed to make love less and less. When they had come out to India he had spoken about children, but to Annie the idea of raising a child here in this climate was a risk, even with an ayah to look after it. Not only that, she had at the time pictured herself, a stranger among these high-minded Anglo-Indians, waddling about with her stomach distended, their eyes on her, discussing her. Mystified and confused by her wish to wait a while, Alex had finally become so bogged down with work that lovemaking had all but taken second place until lately he appeared to have little interest in it, stimulating her own misgivings that she had fostered such delicate thoughts about herself. Yet starting a family still seemed to her to sound a death knell for her ever going back home, as if she would be putting down roots in a land she still disliked, never to return to her own country, her home and family.
It was with alarm then that last week she’d found herself missing a period. How it had happened she was uncertain, but she meant to remedy it. A few days before going to tea with the Burringtons she had secretly taken a series of hot baths and had drunk gin and Epsom salts which she had heard could rid one of a pregnancy if caught early enough. It had all but made her sick, but it must have done the trick. She had a period, but what a period, draining her so that the tea had proved a miserable time. She had been glad to relax on the veranda and not go traipsing around the overstocked garden to see how the new young peepul trees and clouds flecked crimson by the setting sun reflected on the lucid surface of the new tank.
When they had gone out of sight, Ansley had come to sit by her ‘You don’t look very robust, my dear. Are you really not feeling too well?’
‘Just tired, I think,’ she had excused herself.
‘It’s the weather. It’s getting very hot.’ She had felt his arm steal across her shoulders as a form of comfort. ‘Well, soon you’ll be up in the hills and out of it. Fortunate women, leaving us men to perspire down here on our own. You are all very unkind to us.’ She had given a small flirtatious giggle.
‘You miss us, do you?’
‘I shall miss you.’
The way he said it, his voice low, had sent a delightful shiver through her. Why she had leaned towards him she didn’t know, but the next thing he had bent his face to hers and kissed her.
For a moment she wanted to draw away, but the kiss was warm, his slim, firm moustache an intimate framework on her upper lip accentuating a suggestive softness of the lips beneath. She didn’t draw away. It was he who did, abruptly, as his wife and Alex’s voices became audible.
Annie expected him to hurriedly apologise for his audacity, but their eyes met and she felt the message that passed from him to her, and, she knew, from her to him before he lifted his voice to greet the returning pair.
Thinking now of how she’d told Ansley of her loneliness and dislike of Simla, Annie watched the servants moving around packing for the journey.
Mid-morning already felt unbearably hot; a glaring sun blazed from an intensely blue void and would have probed all the rooms with unrelenting heat but for frames of tatty at the windows, the fragrant cuscus grass kept wet to freshen the air. But the doors were open to allow trunks of her belongings to be ushered out to the waiting car that would take her to the station.
She sat on a box, limp in her loose cotton dress, and felt perspiration trickle down her temples for all the wafting of the punkah. At first she had overseen the packing, but growing hot and frustrated, had left it to Alex who had more command of their staff than she, exhausted from trying to get them to understand what she wanted packed, with nothing left behind. It seemed to her that they took it all in their stride. If something was missed it would not be the end of the world. Philosophical, she supposed. But she with her anxious English mind found herself wanting to check, then double check, worrying endlessly about mishaps that probably would never occur anyway.
She watched Alex supervising, but she wasn’t thinking of him. Taking their leave of the Burringtons that evening, Mrs Burrington had gone to make sure the servants had found Annie’s mislaid wrap and Alex had gone to stand on the porch to wait for the tonga they’d ordered. Ansley had seized the opportunity to grip her arm and whisper, ‘You won’t be lonely in Simla, my dear.’
Watching Alex with the packing, Annie gnawed her lip. She’d more or less sanctioned what Ansley had implied, for she hadn’t protested, had she?
George was out of work again. The foreman’s job hadn’t panned out. Three weeks spent walking a tightrope, lurching from one mistake to another, just managing to scrape one step ahead of his own ignorance. A few of the men under him had been kind enough to cover for him, seeing him an easy touch when they felt like shirking; others were only eager for him to go, each of them considering himself far more competent than this idiot who was getting more money than them, until finally he’d been found out. The boss was sorry for him, but he had a business to run. Had to let him go, as he put it.
‘What’re we going to do?’ Pam asked bleakly, but George was full of optimism. He’d got one foreman’s job, he’d get another on the strength of saying he had been a foreman. It wasn’t no lie, was it? They didn’t have to know he’d made a bugger-up of it. But Pam had long ago lost her optimism.
‘They’d want references, George, and you didn’t get a reference. You won’t be lucky enough a second time to step into some dead man’s shoes. You don’t get many men dropping dead minutes before you turn up.’
‘I can get a job anywhere,’ he said, peeved at her lack of faith, and had gone looking. This time, however, there wasn’t the smell of even a bricklayer’s job let alone a foreman’s.
Pam, unpicking an old dress got from a church charity stall to make into a dress for Beth as she sat opposite George, who, after weeks of searching, had been too despondent to go out today looking for work, let her gaze roam around the flat. With nothing at all coming in, even the rent for this squalid little place they called home was beyond her means. Two weeks overdue and next week loomed equally hopelessly.
He was staring with vacant eyes into the grate which in early May thankfully needed no fire, but she
felt no sympathy for him, only anger, though she knew it to be unfair. He did try. But it didn’t put bread into their mouths nor pay the rent. She had come to dread the sound of Mrs Carper coming up the stairs when she had failed to go down to settle up; her landlady’s fine-boned face growing stern and tight-lipped as Pam promised to have the full rent in a few days. Soon it would become impossible to pay except by minuscule installments that would never catch up.
In desperation, without telling George or his parents, she had taken several paltry items of clothing and linen to the pawnbroker’s, something she had up to now managed to avoid; had crept into the shop, the bundle under her arm, hot with shame, praying not to be seen by anyone who might know her. The man, picking over her stuff as though to touch it too firmly would have given him instant leprosy, had offered her two shillings. She’d had to take it; had come out of the place feeling sick. The thought had crossed her mind of going to a money lender, but when she told George, he’d looked as ashamed as she had been going into the hock-shop.
‘They want security on it. What bloody security have we got? And we would only be digging a deeper pit for ourselves.’
In her heart Pam knew he was right. They would just have to learn to survive on what few pence they had from the dole until George got himself another job. Lately Pam often went without in order to feed Beth but she didn’t tell him. And all the time this unfair anger of hers kept mounting against him.
She knew it wasn’t his fault, kept having to tell herself so. There just seemed no let-up at all in this depression for people like him. It wasn’t only here in England with something like three million out of work, but worldwide. America had far more unemployment than here. Europe too. Germany was in a terrible state, and even Australia and Canada had their problems.
One small bit of compensation had come out of it, helping people like her – prices being as low as anyone could remember meant that merchants here could trade on the plight of people even worse off in Britain’s colonial countries.
For the rich and comfortably-off, of course, it was perfect. With prices falling they just grew richer. There still seemed to be money around. In this small corner of the world day trippers from London came to Southend in spite of mass unemployment. As the holiday trade began to gain strength people were coming into Leigh for the cockles and shrimps. George’s dad had started working his boat again. The weather was growing warmer, shrimp were coming back inshore, the catch improving. It was looking good there.
‘I think you ought to ask your dad if you could work with him again?’ Pam said suddenly as she stood at the table pinning together the cut-out pattern of the finally unpicked pink dress. It had been a large lady’s and with all the threadbare and stained pieces cut away, the finished garment would look lovely on Beth. ‘Ask him if he needs help.’
George shrugged. ‘It don’t make money.’
‘Surely it’s better than nothing,’ she shot at him, her scissors held stiffly, irritated by his defeatism. ‘That’s what you’re bringing in at the moment – nothing!’
In the face of his silence, she put aside the dress pieces, and came to stand aggressively over him. ‘I think you’d better go and see your dad.’
‘He won’t have nothing for me. That’s why me and him decided I went and got something else. Wasn’t enough to keep both our families going.’
‘You can at least ask him,’ Pam snapped and going back to the table, all but threw the scissors down on to its already scratched surface. ‘I’m off to bed. You go and ask him in the morning.’
She knew he would. A man defeated by events, seeing his wife and child struggling, of course he would. Or he’d have her anger to contend with.
Deep in the Sunday paper her dad had relinquished, Mum having got him to bed for the afternoon so that he and his constant grumbling were out of the way for a while, Connie only half heard the gentle knock at the door, only half noticed Mum go to answer it. She only became aware of it when Mum came back into the kitchen to whisper for fear of waking her father: ‘It’s someone for you, dear.’
‘Someone for me?’ She didn’t make friends easily, not since Ben’s death. All her old friends had fiancés, talked endlessly about weddings and wedding dresses. They bored her. They brought up memories she’d rather forget. They made her want to go home and cry. It was better without them, silly, simpering, excited girls. Sometimes she felt fifteen years older than any of them, with their innocence of what life could do to them. Coming up to the anniversary of Ben’s death, she wanted to be alone to observe it.
‘It’s some man, love.’
‘Man?’ Mystified, Connie stared up at her.
‘A very nice-looking young man.’ Unless she was mistaken, her mother’s face appeared to be aglow with hopeful anticipation. Touched by faint annoyance with her, Connie got up and went past her to hear the added whisper, ‘He’s wearing a dog-collar.’
The statement pulled Connie up sharply. An agitated feeling began deep inside her. A nice-looking man certainly wasn’t the vicar, an angular-bodied, middle-aged man with large features. With another quick glance at her mother, hoping that what she felt wasn’t showing on her face, she hurried out through the front room to the street door.
As she expected, Ian Lindsay stood there. He wore a formal expression, that of a man who had come about business.
‘I’m doing a few rounds,’ he explained hastily before she could even utter a greeting. ‘Visiting a few people. I’m afraid you’re one of them, Miss Bowmaker.’
How formal. The last time he’d addressed her it had been Constance, months and months ago.
‘It’s that you haven’t been to Sunday service for a couple of months,’ he continued with hardly a pause, ‘And we thought you might not be well. Some parishioners have asked after you. This is merely a visit, while I am on my rounds, to see how you are.’
Connie found her voice. ‘No, I’m all right, thank you.’
He was rolling his black homburg around in his hands, sliding the stiff curled brim through his fingers. It revealed a certain nervousness for all his formal presentation. ‘Not ill or anything?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ she said, annoyed that her heart had begun to race.
‘Oh.’ He seemed lost for a reply. Then his deep brown eyes sought hers. He seemed to pluck new courage from the air; his next words bursting out in a rush. ‘I miss you … I mean, I’ve missed you … personally. Why don’t you come to church any more?’
‘I don’t feel the need.’ It seemed the moment for a lengthier explanation. ‘I think I’ve come to terms at last with the loss of … my fiancé last year. I suppose I found … I found …’
‘Comfort?’ he finished for her. ‘That is good. I am glad. That is what the church is for, what God is for, to give comfort and succour to those who seek it, who are in need.’ It sounded as though he were quoting from a text book, the words stilted.
‘I expect so,’ she said lamely. ‘Thank you for coming, and for your concern.’
She found herself reluctant to close the door, but felt it was what she should be doing. She saw him move forward, the proverbial foot in the door, so to speak, like a stubborn salesman.
‘I say, Miss Bowmaker … Constance … I need to confess – I am not here solely on behalf of St Clement’s or our parishioners. I’ve come on behalf of myself. I hope you’re not offended.’
She smiled at him. ‘Why should I be offended?’
It had been the wrong thing to say. A look of encouragement spread over his face.
‘I’m so glad, Constance. The reason I’m here, first of all, is that I really have missed you. I looked for you every Sunday when you didn’t come, I felt I had somehow driven you away, that I had been too forward, that I had frightened you off. I have been deeply dispirited in not seeing you in church and have wanted to make myself clear to you for so long a time and, but for that one moment of indiscretion, have always held back. That moment has haunted me. I lie awake at night knowing the fool
I was and pondering how I could ever attempt to change it and let you see me in a better light. Now it has become too late. I shall be leaving St Clement’s in two weeks’ time. I am going up country, to the Midlands. I have been given a parish of my own, something I have worked hard towards and longed for, but no longer, for it could be I shall never see you again. I cannot go without attempting a last try at making you see how I feel about you. Constance, this call has absolutely nothing to do with St Clement’s, but with me. I lied you. I hope you’re not offended. I think I have made a mess of things again.
The knock had disturbed her father from his nap. Now came his deep voice demanding to know who it was chattering like some damned monkey at the door. Ian Lindsay heard him.
‘I seem to have chosen a wrong time – yet again.’
‘No!’ The protest seemed to spring out of her. It took some control to moderate her voice. ‘No, you haven’t. I’m sorry I’ve not been very welcoming but you startled me.’
‘Then will you come to church for the next two Sundays, so that I can say my goodbyes to you in the proper manner?’
‘No, don’t want to do that.’ Somehow the thought of going back into that church made her shudder. It had become the embodiment of all those accrued days of unhappiness which she now had no wish to resurrect. Ben was dead. Bad enough remembering him, the good times and the time of grief. His mother had said there was no bringing him back, and she was right. Setting foot in that church would be trying to do just that. Just as Ben’s home without him there held an atmosphere of the dead, so the atmosphere of that church struck her now. ‘I don’t think I could,’ she said.
The look on his face told her that he had misconstrued, even though he said quietly, ‘I understand.’
But, he didn’t understand. She hastened to rectify matters. ‘It’s not anything to do with you. It’s how I feel about the whole place. It’s a year since I lost Ben, and I can’t go on forever mourning him. That place would only bring it all back, and I don’t want that. Not any more.’