Dead Ernest

by Frances Garrood

  Andrew greeted them at the door as they left, kissing Annie’s cheek and shaking Ophelia by the hand. Ophelia wished it could have been the other way round, but contented herself with taking in as much of Andrew as she possibly could in so short a time. Make the most of this, she told herself, gazing at his lightly-tanned skin, his eyes (they looked almost blue today) with those attractive crinkles at the corners, that flop of hair over his forehead, the tiny bloodstain on his chin where he must have cut himself shaving (no electric shaver? Perhaps he couldn’t afford one. Ophelia wondered whether she could get away with giving him one as a sort of thank you present — thank you for what, exactly? — but decided regretfully that it might look a bit obvious).

  “You’re still here then, Ophelia.” Andrew smiled.

  “Yes. I told you. I’m staying on with Gran.”

  “That’s nice. For both of you.”

  “Yes.”

  Once again, for a few precious moments everything and everyone else ceased to matter except the two of them. She was vaguely aware of a child crying, of the thump-thump-thump of pop music sounding from the open window of a passing car; an aeroplane droned overhead, painting a vapour trail across the sky; but they were all part of a different world. The only world which mattered was the one in which Andrew and Ophelia were standing together outside the church. If only this moment could last for ever, she thought. If only ...

  “Ophelia. Ophelia! We must be getting back.” Annie’s voice pulled her back to earth. “I need the lavatory,” she added, in a loud stage-whisper.

  “There are toilets in the church hall,” said a woman, overhearing her. “Look, I’ll show you, I’m going over there anyway.”

  “Well ...” Annie looked uncertain.

  “I’ll wait here for you,” Ophelia said.

  “You won’t move?”

  “I won’t move.” In fact nothing on earth would have induced Ophelia to move, for Andrew was still standing in the porch, chatting to the last stragglers as they left the church. Perhaps he would speak to her again. She wouldn’t make the first move, of course, but if he were to approach her she could hardly ignore him.

  She hovered in the churchyard, reading the inscriptions on some of the gravestones, which rose like ancient crooked teeth from the freshly-mown grass. Two little sisters aged one and three had “fallen asleep in the Lord” in 1864, followed shortly afterwards by their mother, “Mary Erskine, beloved wife of James”.

  Ophelia wondered what catastrophe could have befallen this unfortunate family, and how the bereaved James had coped with such a tragedy.

  “I always wonder about the poor Erskines, too.” Andrew had joined her. “That sort of thing was quite common in those days, of course. People led very difficult lives. I often think we don’t realise how lucky we are.”

  “Do you feel lucky?” Ophelia asked.

  “Well, I wasn’t talking about myself. Just generally.”

  “Antibiotics and washing machines and the NHS,” Ophelia said.

  “That sort of thing,” Andrew agreed.

  They stood together studying the gravestone of Mary Erskine. It was covered with lichen, and some of the words were difficult to read. Ophelia stared at the stone, her skin prickling with the awareness of Andrew standing beside her, hardly daring to move, not wanting to break the spell.

  “Ophelia?”

  “Yes?” Still she didn’t turn round. There was birdlime on the “M” of “Mary”, and someone had scratched their initials underneath.

  “I need to see you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean — you’d like to see me?”

  Slowly, Ophelia turned to face him. “Yes,” she said simply. “Of course.”

  “I could take you up the top of the church tower tomorrow morning. There’s an amazing view from up there. It’s usually locked as the stairs are very worn, so most people don’t get to see it.”

  “That would be — great.”

  “About ten-thirty, then?”

  “Ten-thirty’s fine.”

  She had thought of this moment, dreamed of this moment, longed for this moment. And yet, now that it had come, she felt not euphoria, not even excitement, but a deep sense of peace, and of acceptance of something which had always been inevitable. Because she and Andrew had to see each other, be with each other, talk to each other. It was almost as though she had no choice in the matter.

  “What were you two plotting?” Annie asked as they drove home. “What were you talking about?”

  “Oh, this and that,” Ophelia said. “Nothing special.”

  “You’re sure about that, are you?”

  “Quite sure,” Ophelia said, surprised at how easily the lie had slipped off her tongue.

  But then she was going to have to start getting used to telling lies. She suspected that lies were an inseparable part of the path upon which she was about to embark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Andrew

  They stood at the top of the tower like two shy strangers.

  Even when Ophelia had nearly slipped on the worn stone of the stairs, Andrew had hesitated to put out a hand to help her in case it should be misconstrued. And yet, how could anything he said or did be taken amiss, when she seemed to understand so well how he felt?

  “I ought to say something about the view,” Ophelia said now, still breathless from her climb. “But everything I think of sounds so unoriginal.”

  “Well, you could say it’s fantastic,” Andrew said. “After all, isn’t that the buzz word for everything nowadays?”

  “This is so much more than fantastic, though.” Ophelia leaned on the parapet and gazed out across the town towards the countryside and the distant hills. “Do you come up here often?”

  Andrew laughed. “Now that really is a cliché. No. Not really. We come up here for a short service on Ascension day, and occasionally I take someone up if they want to go and I happen to be about. But no. I suppose it’s a bit like being in London and not going to the Tower or Buckingham Palace. You don’t go, because you can do it any time. You take it for granted.”

  “I don’t think I could ever take this for granted,” Ophelia said. “It’s amazing. It’s almost as good as a ride in a hot air balloon.”

  “Have you ever been in a balloon?”

  “No. I’ve always wanted to, but my parents think it’s dangerous. It’s funny, that. I’m not a very satisfactory daughter to them, but they’ll do anything to protect me.”

  “In what way unsatisfactory?”

  “I think they wanted the sort of daughter they could tell people about. The sort that people write about in Christmas round-robins. Straight A’s and first-class degrees followed by a star-studded career in rocket science or brain surgery. But I’m afraid I’m not that sort of person, even if I had what it takes.”

  “Are they round-robin people?”

  “They were for a bit, but the whole point was to tell the world about their clever daughter, and they gave up when they discovered they didn’t have one.” Ophelia laughed. “They could hardly put ‘Ophelia came bottom in maths again and still hasn’t managed to lose any weight.’”

  “Whatever do you want to lose weight for?” asked Andrew in genuine astonishment, for to him Ophelia was just perfect. Rounded in all the right places, curvy, feminine; just the way a woman ought to be.

  “Oh, I don’t particularly. But when it was obvious that degrees and prizes weren’t on the agenda, they toyed with the idea of my being a model. That idea didn’t last long, needless to say, but the losing weight thing lingered on. I’m afraid I still eat buns and chocolate, and I haven’t shed a pound.”

  “I’m so glad,” Andrew said. “Those stick-thin concave women all look the same to me.” He hesitated. “I think you’re beautiful.” He watched as a deep flush crept up Ophelia’s neck, and instantly regretted his words. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was too soon.”

  “I don’t think it’s ever too soon to say nic
e things to people,” Ophelia said, after a moment. “It’s just that no one’s ever called me beautiful before. I suppose I’m not used to it.” She turned to him and smiled, and there were tears in her eyes. “But thank you.”

  They stood looking at each other, and Andrew felt suddenly panicky. What should he do now? It had been fine while they were both admiring the view, but now he no longer knew what to say. Of course, there were a hundred things he would like to say, but none of them seemed quite appropriate. That he loved Ophelia he had no doubt, but this was the first time they had been truly on their own together, and surely he couldn’t wade straight in and tell her that? Normally, there would be a gradual progression, from meeting to attraction to liking and then finally to loving, but this was almost the other way round. He seemed to have jumped straight into the emotional deep end, without even knowing how to swim.

  “I’m not sure what to say,” he said at last.

  Ophelia touched his arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything at all. I understand.”

  Hesitantly, Andrew reached out a finger and very gently traced the line along Ophelia’s jaw and down the side of her neck. He could see a tiny pulse beating in her temple and her skin felt soft and very slightly damp from her climb up the steps. She was still smiling, and he wondered at how relaxed she seemed. His hand came to rest on her shoulder.

  “What are we going to do?” Ophelia asked, and she didn’t have to explain what she meant, for Andrew knew only too well.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We have — problems.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we perhaps be happy, just for a while? Maybe leave the bridges to be crossed for later?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I kiss you?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  Andrew cupped Ophelia’s face in his hands and kissed her very gently on the lips. It wasn’t a passionate kiss in the conventional sense, and yet in it lay all the love and the longing and the tenderness which he felt he’d been saving up for years. A quotation came to him — “To know the pain of too much tenderness” (Kahlil Gibran, wasn’t it?) — and Andrew felt that he understood exactly what it meant. For although the kiss was so tender, so intimate and so absolutely right, with it came the enormous pain of loving too much a person who could almost certainly never truly be his.

  Afterwards, they stood holding each other, Ophelia’s cheek warm against his chest, his face half-buried in her hair, and Andrew knew that whatever happened, he would remember this moment for the rest of his life.

  Within minutes, dark rain clouds overshadowed the sun, and the first fat drops of rain began to splash the old stonework and dampen their hair and clothes.

  “You’ll get wet,” Andrew said, drawing away and stroking Ophelia’s hair back from her face. “I think perhaps it’s time you were going. Where does Annie think you are?”

  “I said I was having a little drive round, to get used to Grandad’s car. But I think she knows. She keeps giving me looks.”

  Andrew laughed. “Oh, I know Annie’s looks. I think I may be getting one or two of those myself. I’m seeing her this afternoon.”

  “Will you tell her?”

  “No. Will you?”

  “Not yet. But I hate lying to her. She’s been so kind to me. No one has ever been so kind.”

  When they finally parted, it was without making any further arrangements, and yet with the full knowledge that such arrangements would certainly be made. It was as though the present was all that mattered; the future would look after itself.

  After Ophelia had driven off, Andrew considered the strange, elusive emotion we call happiness. It can arrive out of the blue and unaccompanied by reason or rationality, entirely regardless of the price it may exact or the problems which may accompany it. Happiness such as he felt today was beyond any sort of examination or explanation. He was just happy, blissfully, totally happy. How could he be so happy — how was it possible? — when he and Ophelia could never have a future together, and the gift of her love (for he was sure that she loved him) must some day be handed back?

  I shall not analyse how I feel any further, he decided. Just for the moment, I shall enjoy this amazing sensation to the full.

  “Good morning! Isn’t it a lovely morning?” he greeted two women who were dusting the pews.

  “I thought it was raining,” one said to the other, puzzled. Her companion agreed. It had certainly been raining when they arrived.

  But Andrew didn’t hear them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Annie’s Story

  Annie’s long slow punishment began.

  Nothing much was said in the days following that traumatic night, although Ernest made no secret of the fact that she had seriously displeased him. Annie, dreading a repetition, did what she could to appease him, queuing for hours to buy the best cuts of meat (she herself sometimes ate bread and margarine so that Ernest had a decent-sized helping) and polishing their few bits of furniture until they shone. But when, a week later, Ernest instigated another “early night”, his treatment of her was little short of brutal. This time, there was no gazing, no words of appreciation, no preamble of any sort. Annie suffered a painful and humiliating ordeal in what appeared to be a frenzied combination of anger and sexual desire on Ernest’s part, in the course of which she bit her lip until it bled to prevent herself from crying out.

  “There,” he said, when he had finished. “Perhaps that’ll teach you a lesson, Annie. You’re never shaming me again like you did last time, do you hear?”

  “Yes,” Annie whispered, fighting back the tears. “I’ll try to do what you want.”

  “That’s better.” Ernest seemed calmer now. “You do what I want — what a wife ought to do — and we should get along all right.”

  But while Annie endeavoured to be as cooperative as she could, Ernest’s now twice-weekly lovemaking — if that’s what it could be called — continued to be an uncomfortable, loveless process, and while Annie felt that she could get used to the physical discomfort, far harder to cope with was the deep sense of humiliation which accompanied it.

  Often she thought of her parents, and wondered whether her mother had had to undergo similar ordeals in the marital bed. Was this sort of thing normal? Did other people’s husbands behave like this? She suspected not, but it would have been of some comfort to know that she was not alone.

  Outside the bedroom, things returned to something approaching normality. Although always critical and sometimes ill-tempered, Ernest was on the whole civil, occasionally even conversational, and Annie tried to count her blessings. At least he didn’t hit her, he provided for them all, and he was a good father to Billy. Things could be worse. She soldiered on, and tried to avoid dwelling on her situation too much. After all, there was a war on. She wasn’t the only person having a hard time.

  Meanwhile, her relationship with Billy was gradually improving. While she still didn’t have the strong maternal feelings she had expected and hoped for, she began to take a pride in her son and feel for him a degree of affection. Billy was by now a bonny baby — plump and smiling and, on the whole, very little trouble — and he often attracted compliments from strangers they met in the street. Annie, starved as she was of any form of approval, would glow with pleasure. She was a good mother; she must be a good mother. Billy was the living proof of it. She enjoyed making his little frocks and dressing him up, brushing his mop of fair curls and taking him out in his pram. If she had achieved nothing else, she had produced a baby who attracted attention and praise. She must be getting something right.

  When Billy was nine months old, Ernest’s mother came for a visit. Annie had never understood why she had hitherto shown no interest in meeting her new grandson (or, come to that, his mother) but she tried to be enthusiastic for Ernest’s sake.

  Ernest, on the other hand, reacted very strangely to the planned visit.

  “I’ve found a nice clean room for her to stay in. I hope
she’ll like it,” he said anxiously. “I hope she’ll be comfortable.”

  “Why shouldn’t she be comfortable?” Annie asked. “You’re certainly paying enough for it.” (This last was a sore point. Money was short, and Annie saw no reason why her mother-in-law shouldn’t pay for her own room).

  “And the flat,” Ernest continued. “You’ll give it a proper clean, won’t you? I want everything to look nice when she comes.”

  Annie was amazed. It was almost as though Ernest were pleading with her. Usually, he didn’t hesitate to issue orders as though she were little more than a servant.

  “Of course the flat will be clean,” she said now. “Isn’t it always?”

  “Yes, not bad,” Ernest conceded, “but you don’t know my mother.”

  In the circumstances, Annie was beginning to feel that making this particular acquaintance was a pleasure she would happily forego, for anyone who could intimidate Ernest must indeed be a force to be reckoned with. But the train ticket had been booked and the arrangements made. She awaited the visit with trepidation.

  Annie’s forebodings proved to have been more than justified. Ernest’s mother was a tall, stooping woman with darting critical eyes and a thin pursed mouth which looked as though it were more used to sucking lemons than smiling.

  “So this is Annie,” she said, as Ernest led her into the flat.

  “Hello,” Annie said, not sure whether she was expected to shake her mother-in-law’s hand or kiss her. Fortunately, it appeared that she was required to do neither.

  “And William.” Their visitor turned to Billy, who was beaming obligingly on Annie’s lap.

  “We call him Billy,” Ernest ventured.