Dead Ernest

by Frances Garrood

  “Thank you. Can you tell me please, did he, I mean was it, well, fairly peaceful? You see, I wasn’t with him when he died.”

  “He won’t have felt a thing.” The nurse patted him on the shoulder. She smelt of dogs and disinfectant. “Don’t you worry. Mr Evans is very good at this sort of thing.”

  Back in the car, Andrew drove round for a bit, and then parked outside the church. On an impulse, he lifted the cardboard box out of the boot, and unlocking the heavy oak door with a key from his pocket, he carried it into the building.

  The church was cool and dark, the last of the evening sunlight filtering through the stained glass of the west window and leaving pale lozenges of colour on the worn stone of the floor. The church smelled of old wood and must and the fresh green scent of the flowers which had been arranged in brass jugs on either side of the chancel. Andrew set the box down, and kneeling in one of the pews, he tried to pray.

  But for once, he had no idea what to say. Not one to believe in an afterlife for animals, even a much-loved one such as Tobias, perhaps he should simply give thanks for the life which had given him so much comfort. Or perhaps he should ask forgiveness for his outburst of anger, because it could just have been that Janet really had done what she thought best, and that she had had no intention of going behind his back.

  But she did know, he thought. She did. This was the ultimate way of getting to him; an act of aggression disguised as a mission of mercy. This was the way it often was. Janet appeared to do the right thing, but now, he realised, there could be more to it; her own aggrandisement, perhaps, or the putting down of another person. It was with a shock that he realised that not only did he no longer love Janet, but that he didn’t even like her anymore.

  It wasn’t only today that prayer was difficult. Increasingly, Andrew was finding it hard to make contact with the God to whom he had once dedicated his life. It was as though he was speaking on the telephone to someone who had already replaced the receiver.

  Did he still believe? He was no longer sure. Once, it had seemed so obvious; so easy; so right. Now, he was filled with doubts; doubts about himself, about his vocation. There was an emptiness in his spiritual life which reflected that other emptiness, the emptiness and pointlessness of his life with Janet. He was not a man given to self-pity. He had seen too much of suffering to think that life was or ever could be fair. But he no longer felt connected with the path he had chosen to follow; with the sermons and the prayers and the services. He felt as though he were acting a part in a drama and that very soon the curtain would come down and all would be shown to have been a sham.

  Later on, under a perfect evening sky, Andrew buried Tobias in the vicarage garden. He chose a spot under the prunus tree which Tobias used to climb and which had given him easy access to the flat roof over the study where he liked to bask in the afternoon sun. Janet, watching tight-lipped from the house, had made no comment. Maybe she realised that this time she really had overstepped the mark.

  But it could be that we both have, thought Andrew now, as he marked Tobias’s grave with a lichen-covered stone from the rockery. Maybe we have both gone beyond the point of no return and will each of us have to find our own way. It could be that the death of Tobias has marked another even more significant ending: the ending of what little hope is left for our marriage.

  He sighed and looked up at the sky. Tiny pinpricks of stars were already appearing and he could just make out the pale fingernail of a new moon. At least some things never changed.

  Brushing the soil from his hands, Andrew picked up his spade and turned back towards the house.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Annie’s Story

  “So, where’s Ernest these days, our Annie? We don’t seem to have seen him in a while.”

  It was the question Annie had been dreading, for what could she say? She could hardly tell the truth, and yet Ernest’s sudden disappearance had been bound to arouse curiosity.

  “Oh, I expect he’ll be in touch,” she said.

  “It’s not like him,” her father persisted. “Are you sure you’ve not had a falling out? You’ll regret it if you have, you know. You may not have noticed, but there’s a bit of a shortage of young men these days. Will be for some time to come, too. You’re too fussy for your own good, our Annie, and that’s a fact.”

  “He’ll turn up,” Annie said. “I expect he’s busy at work.”

  “Busy at work! These people who work in banks don’t know they’re born. Nice working hours, and holidays as well. You’ve upset him, our Annie, make no mistake. I’ve a feeling we may not be seeing Ernest hereabouts again.”

  If only, Annie thought, as she swept out the yard and started on the cow shed. It was true that she hadn’t heard from Ernest, but it could be that he was just making her wait. Maybe he was even trying to punish her, and would turn up again once he felt he had kept her waiting for long enough. One thing was certain. If Ernest felt this way now, then whatever feelings he may have had for her certainly couldn’t have been described as love.

  Annie dreaded seeing him; she dreaded his anger and his disapproval, for although she knew that Ernest was at least as much to blame for what had happened as she was, she felt deeply ashamed that she had allowed things to get so out of hand. She felt soiled and dirty, and knew that she had now joined the ranks of what her mother referred to as girls who were no better than they ought to be.

  It was all so unfair. Annie had had to sacrifice her education and any chance of a proper career because of the war, she had worked hard and done her bit, and now, because of a man she didn’t care about and a few glasses of cider she had crossed some sort of threshold from which there was no going back. Her mother had always told her that she should save herself for the man she married, and while Annie, in her ignorance, had never been entirely sure what that meant, she had a pretty good idea that she had now become damaged goods. She certainly felt, if not damaged, then at the very least sullied, for who would want her after this?

  The harvest came to an end, the trees began to turn, and eventually a short formal letter arrived from Ernest. He regretted that pressure of work and the recent illness of his widowed mother made such demands on his time that he was no longer able to make the trip out to the farm, but he wished Annie and her family well.

  Annie was tremendously relieved. She’d had nothing to fear from Ernest after all, even if her father grumbled about the wasted petrol, and her mother mourned the passing of what she appeared to have seen as a golden opportunity for her daughter.

  So Annie got on with her life, and before long it was as though Ernest had never been a part of it. She missed their outings and the cachet of having a boyfriend (Mavis, previously unable to conceal her envy, had welcomed Annie’s return to the uncoupled state with unaccustomed warmth), but otherwise things were remarkably normal.

  Poor Annie. It never occurred to her that her unfortunate fling in the stubble might have more far-reaching consequences than she had could have dreamt of.

  While Annie knew a great deal about the animals on the farm, her knowledge about the workings of her own body were sketchy to say the least. She had accepted its growth and development as she accepted everything else around her. Her periods had started when she was thirteen, and like so many of her generation she was at first thoroughly alarmed by what appeared to be a life-threatening condition. Her mother’s embarrassed little talk, delivered in haste together with the “things Annie would need”, helped to clear up some of the mystery, but any other questions she might have had remained unanswered. And so it was hardly surprising that she paid little attention when her periods suddenly stopped.

  The morning sickness was not so easy to ignore.

  “Whatever’s the matter, our Annie?” Her father asked, as she fled from the milking shed for the second morning in succession to throw up on the dung heap.

  “Must be something I ate,” Annie said, puzzled by these sudden bouts of nausea. “I expect it’ll pass.”


  “Morning sickness, eh?” Mavis muttered into the flank of the cow she was milking. “You’re a dark horse, Annie!”

  “We’re not having that sort of talk, Mavis.” Annie’s father, overhearing her, cuffed the back of Mavis’s head. “You get on with your work. And you’ll keep a clean tongue in your head, or I’ll want to know the reason why.”

  But while Mavis’s remark had been made in all innocence (if in rather dubious taste) Annie’s father evidently paid more attention to it than he had appeared to, for a few days later Annie found that an appointment had been made for her to see the doctor, who after the briefest of examinations pronounced her to be nearly three months pregnant.

  Stunned and disbelieving, Annie travelled back to the farmhouse with her father in silence. It couldn’t be true. Annie didn’t know much about sex, but she did know you couldn’t get pregnant the first time. Mavis had told her that. There must be some mistake. There had to be some mistake. This awful thing couldn’t be happening to her. She didn’t deserve it. Unwanted pregnancies happened to bad girls; girls who asked for it. Poor Annie hadn’t asked for anything, and yet here she was, apparently carrying Ernest’s baby. Ernest’s baby. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Well, our Annie?” her father finally said. “What happened at the doctor’s?”

  What could Annie say? She couldn’t tell her father the truth, and yet what choice did she have? And what about her mother? How would it affect her? And Annie herself; what was she to do? Where was she to go? Would she have to leave the farm and go into exile like Doris? Annie burst into tears.

  “You’re expecting, aren’t you?” There was a chill in her father’s voice which Annie had never heard before. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re expecting.”

  “Yes,” Annie whispered.

  “And who’s the father?”

  “Who’s the father?” Annie was stunned. What sort of girl did her father think she was? There was only one person who could possibly be the father of her baby.

  “Ernest, was it?”

  “Yes.” Annie stifled a sob

  “You’re sure of that, are you? Because if it’s Ernest, then he’ll have to do the right thing by you. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “What do you mean? Dad, you can’t make him — you can’t make us —”

  “Oh, can’t I?” Her father swung the car into the farmyard and drew up in front of the house. “If you’re expecting Ernest’s baby, then Ernest must marry you. It’s only right.”

  “He won’t, Dad. Ernest won’t marry me. And I — I don’t want to marry Ernest!”

  “You should have thought of that before, shouldn’t you? It’s not going to be about what you want any more. You said goodbye to what you wanted the day you — the day you did this.”

  “But you can’t make us marry, Dad. You can’t! We’d only make each other unhappy.” Annie clung to his arm, weeping.

  “And who said you had any right to be happy? There’s more to life than being happy, our Annie, as you’re about to find out.” Her father shook her free and got out of the car. “We’ll see what your mother has to say about all this.”

  “But Dad! You can’t tell Mum! Please don’t tell Mum!” Annie’s mother was so emotionally fragile these days that the family did their best to protect her from anything which might upset her. This latest piece of news would most certainly upset her a great deal.

  “I’ve got to tell her,” her father said grimly, as they reached the front door. “There’s some things that can’t be kept from your mother.”

  As soon as she got into the house, Annie ran straight upstairs to her room. As she lay on her bed, she could hear raised voices from the room below and the muffled sound of her mother weeping. At one stage, her mother brought her up some bread and cheese and tea, placing them wordlessly beside the bed, but Annie felt too sick and too anxious to eat anything.

  In the morning, nothing was said by either of her parents, but there was a new distance in their manner towards her, and she was filled with dread, for she had the feeling that some sort of decision had been made about her future.

  “What — what am I going to do, Dad? What’s going to happen to me?” Annie ventured, when teatime came and still no one had said anything.

  “That all depends on Ernest, our Annie. If Ernest will have you, then you’ll marry him. If not, then heaven help you. You give me his address, and I’ll write to him tonight.”

  “But even if I wanted him Ernest wouldn’t marry me. Especially — now.”

  “Oh, I think Ernest might be persuaded.” Her father sighed. “But you’ve caused us a deal of grief, our Annie. A deal of grief.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Too late to be sorry. You’ve made your bed, our Annie. You’re going to have to lie on it.”

  “And Mum? What does she think?” But Annie spoke without much hope. Her mother’s strict Baptist background would prevent her from going against her husband, especially in a matter as grave as this.

  “Your mother? Well, it’s the end of all her dreams, isn’t it? She always wanted the best for you; a church wedding, everything done properly. Even with the war on, we would have given you a decent wedding. We’d have managed somehow. She — we — saved up for it. Now we may have to put that money to another use.”

  “What do you mean?” Annie was fearful.

  “You’ll see.” Her father’s face was grim. “We’ll just have to wait for Ernest now, won’t we? It all depends on Ernest now, our Annie. Everything depends on Ernest.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ophelia

  “How?” Billy raged. “How on earth did you come to lose a job like that? A job which I presume any half-sensible girl could do standing on her head? Exactly how did you manage it, Ophelia?”

  He was pacing up and down the cream carpet of the immaculate living-room while Ophelia, who had had this sort of conversation many times before, sat curled up on the sofa.

  “I didn’t lose it. I left. I gave in my notice.”

  “You gave in your notice!” From her father’s tone of voice, Ophelia might just as well have burnt down the entire nursing home, and all its unfortunate residents with it.

  “But you were so happy, dear,” her mother ventured, entering the room with a tray of coffee.

  “I was and I wasn’t.” Ophelia uncurled her legs and helped Sheila with the coffee cups. “I loved the old people, but I didn’t get on with the matron.”

  “You didn’t get on with the matron!”

  Ophelia wished her father wouldn’t repeat everything she said. It made them sound like some sort of ghastly double act.

  “She was an old trout, and she didn’t give a fig for the old people.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she did, dear,” said Sheila, pouring coffee.

  “No, she didn’t. And we ended up having this row, and I told her to stuff her job.”

  “Ophelia!”

  “Actually, it was great. I’d been longing to say what I felt. It was worth losing my reference for —”

  “Losing your reference!” Now it was Sheila’s turn to be shocked. “Oh, Ophelia! Whatever will you do without a reference?”

  “Nearly twenty years old, with no job and no reference. After all we’ve done for you,” added Billy. This last was an old and familiar refrain, and Ophelia often thought that if she were to predecease her parents, those words would more than likely appear on her tombstone; a reproachful epitaph for a failed daughter.

  “I’ll be okay.” Ophelia helped herself to a chocolate biscuit, ignoring her mother’s raised eyebrows (she was supposed to be trying to lose weight). “I’ll find something.”

  “And meanwhile, what are you proposing to live on?” Billy asked.

  “They’ve given me a month’s pay, so I’ve got time to look around. I can get a job waitressing or maybe doing bar work. Something like that. Just to tide me over. Don’t worry, Dad. You won’t have to keep me.”

  “You
could go and stay with your grandmother,” Billy said, not without a hint of triumph. “No excuses now that you haven’t got a job to go to.”

  “But I ought to be job-hunting.”

  “You can leave the job-hunting for a few days. Your grandmother needs you, Ophelia.”

  Ophelia forbore to point out that her grandmother had never in her life needed her only granddaughter, and was unlikely to start now.

  “How is Gran?” she asked.

  “Coping, I think. I haven’t been able to get down for a couple of weeks. I rang that priest fellow, but he wouldn’t tell me much. He’s obviously been going to see her, and I believe she’s been talking to him, but he wasn’t giving anything away.”

  Ophelia began to warm towards the priest fellow. Anyone who could stand up to her father deserved a degree of respect.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.” After all, anything had to be better than suffering her father’s wrath and the reproachful murmurings of her mother.

  The visit was arranged for the following week. Ophelia was to borrow Sheila’s car (her driving test, as Billy frequently pointed out, being the only examination she had contrived to pass first time) and travel down on the Sunday afternoon, returning on the Thursday. Annie had sounded suspicious and uncooperative on the phone, but when Ophelia told her father this, he assured her that it was probably because her grandmother spent too much time on her own. She had been much exercised over the matter of a duvet for Ophelia’s bed, and so it had been arranged that Ophelia should bring her own. Sheila provided a casserole to save Annie some of the cooking, and Ophelia bought a potted plant.

  The visit got off to an unpromising start. Ophelia was very late, due to a hold-up on the motorway, and when she arrived she found that Annie was already in her dressing-gown and slippers.

  “Hello, Gran.” Ophelia kissed her grandmother’s papery cheek. “So sorry I’m late. The traffic was awful. I’ve brought you this.”