Past Praying For

by Aline Templeton

  A lithe figure in tracksuit and trainers was running up the path towards him, moving with a brisk, easy, athletic stride.

  ‘About time too,’ he grumbled under his breath, then pressed the button which would lower the window.

  She was close enough for him to see her clearly now, long wavy hair switching from side to side, and the palest sheen of effort glistening on her skin. Her tracksuit, dark violet velour, had the big ornamental zip at the neck pulled some little way down, the pale V of flesh creamy against the dark fabric.

  He felt desire stirring. God, she was sexy! Incredible to find something like this lying around – or perhaps, given that he was talking about Hayley, laying around – in Stretton Noble, and even more remarkably, carrying a torch for him.

  ‘Hi!’ she called as she reached the car. ‘Is it warm in there? It’s damn cold out here.’

  She was breathing a little faster than usual, but she certainly wasn’t in the least out of breath.

  ‘God, you’re fit,’ he said enviously. ‘Come on, hop in, gorgeous, and I’ll warm you up. You’re late, and I’ve got to be in town at a meeting by nine.’

  She pulled a face, and tried to touch a cold hand to his cheek, but he ducked away, pressing a switch to close the window.

  When she opened the door, a breath of fresh damp air came in with her.

  ‘Mmm, that’s nice,’ she said, snuggling into the warmth and the soft upholstery.

  He was reaching across already, his mouth greedy against her cool skin, his hands running over the velvety pile of the material to the huge inviting ring at the top of the zip-fastener.

  But she pulled herself free to say, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Whoa, feller, whoa! It’s good to know you’re pleased to see me, but I passed the milkman on his rounds, and if he comes back this way we’ll be the hot topic round every breakfast table in Stretton.’

  He groaned, but reluctantly restored the zip to its original position and started the engine once more.

  ‘The usual place?’ he said thickly.

  She nodded. ‘It’s much safer up by the reservoir. No one ever goes up there this early.’

  The first streaks of light were appearing in the sky as he drove her back. They exchanged a long kiss, as his hands strayed intimately once more over the contours under the soft velour.

  ‘Call me,’ she said huskily. ‘We’ve got to talk. That was good for me, Piers, that was really great, but I guess I’m getting kind of old for the back seat of cars, even the luxury models. Let’s make some plans, honey. You know I’m crazy for you – wouldn’t it be a lot of fun to have a bit more time together, get to know each other some more?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Sounds a wonderful idea. I’ll have to phone you later, though. I really can’t talk about it now – if I don’t make the meeting on time, someone will be ringing Liz to ask her why I’m not there.’

  It was, he hoped, too dark still for her to see his expression. That was what everyone said about bloody females; you had a good thing going – and she enjoyed it as much as he did, make no mistake – and then they started trying to change it, put it on a regular footing, make it more official. Then your wife found out, and before you could say, ‘What other woman?’ you were in the throes of a divorce and breaking up your home and having to pay upkeep on two households instead of one.

  That was the last thing he wanted. He loved his home – the furniture, the paintings, the decor, all chosen regardless of expense and paid for with his, well his father’s, money – and he had no intention of changing the wife he had trained so well. She was a brilliant cook, she knew enough not to complain, and if she irritated him – well, he wasn’t dumb enough to think that a different woman would be any better. In any case, he had in his time seen plenty of evidence to support the time-honoured principle that you should never marry your mistress.

  Hayley closed the door with its heavy click – at least he had trained her not to slam it – and he let off the hand brake. He raised his hand in salute, sketched the obligatory kiss, and drove off without looking back.

  She looked over her shoulder once, but without stopping. She ran off across the common, then into the main street once more, replacing her scowl with a smile suitable for the vicar, as she passed Miss Moon on her way back from the early morning service.

  She was still jogging briskly enough, though her breathing was a bit more laboured now. One way and another, it had been quite an extensive work-out this morning.

  ***

  Margaret Moon walked back home from church to her breakfast with a new sense of energy and purpose. If she had been American, like Mrs Cutler, just jogging past, she might have described this as the first day of the rest of her life. She wasn’t American, of course, but just in case she felt tempted she rapidly thought of something else instead.

  Her reading this morning had been peculiarly apposite – one of the suggested passages in Romans. It had contained several examples of what she privately called needle-jabs; the phrases that made you wince because they so mercilessly pointed to the shortcomings with which you were struggling at the time.

  ‘Do not be conceited’ – jab – ‘Discern the will of God’ – jab – ‘Let your mind be remade’ – jab. This morning had been a bit like sitting on a series of drawing pins, but there was no doubt about it, it got you going. And if Robert was right and there was trouble ahead, she felt that her metaphorical sleeves were now well and truly rolled up, ready for action.

  She could smell the toast and coffee as she came in. Now that really was a treat; to come back from early service and find the table set and coffee ready to pour into your cup. She always returned ravenous from the Eucharist.

  Robert looked very comfortable, sitting at the kitchen table reading The Times at its full spread while eating wholemeal toast lavishly topped with butter and Oxford marmalade without getting greasy spots all over it. Margaret had never mastered either accomplishment.

  He looked up at her over his spectacles as she came in. ‘Good house?’

  She picked up her mail, sorting through it.

  ‘Four, plus me. Not bad.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ll tell me, of course, that it’s all about a relationship with God and not a performance, but I can’t help thinking you could achieve some sort of compromise less recklessly wasteful of manpower – forgive me, womanpower.’

  That usually stirred things up, but it was still early in the morning. She smiled blandly as she poured herself coffee and put a slice of bread into the toaster.

  ‘I won’t argue on an empty stomach. Go back to your paper, Robert.’

  Robert withdrew again behind his broadsheet, and she sorted the mail as she sipped coffee and waited for her toast. There was always less than usual, of course at this time of year; two or three typewritten ones, and a delayed Christmas card from an old friend. This she opened first (she always picked the cherries out of her fruitcake, too), and enjoyed the rare treat of a gossipy letter inside.

  When it came to the typewritten letters, the one she selected first, as the most interesting, was the one which looked least professional. The individual characters were faded and a little uneven, as if typed on a very old-fashioned machine. It was the sort of communication she sometimes got from elderly clergymen, who in their day had been advanced enough to type their sermons but then never got round to trading in the old Remington.

  With this in her mind, she opened it, and took a moment to make sense of the words she saw there. Then she gasped, an involuntary reaction which she covered up with a cough. She didn’t want to talk to Robert about it, not yet; not until she had worked out what to make of it.

  She made a little production of taking out her toast, buttering it, then getting up to look for honey. She found that she was trembling, and it was difficult not to sit down heavily when she got back to her chair.

  Robert was still absorbed. She spread the letter out and read it again.

  It was disconcerting, how much effect venomous
anonymity could have. A diseased, nauseating hostility emanated from the letter.

  She cut her toast in half, but could only look at it in distaste.

  Without emerging from behind the barrier of newsprint, Robert said, ‘Far be it from me to intrude upon your privacy, but if you told me what came in your mail that has upset you so much, you might feel more ready to eat your breakfast.’

  She looked helplessly across at the back of the newspaper.

  ‘I give up,’ she said.’I don’t know why I even try. If they’d said you should be burnt at the stake, I could have understood it.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ He restored The Times to order with one neat shake, folded it and set it aside. ‘Anonymous?’

  ‘Of course. I really shouldn’t feel so shaken by it. It’s very common, you know; we had sessions on the subject during training, and they kept hammering home the point that protests in this form, or any other, shouldn’t be taken to heart, that they’re protesting against a concept not a person. But it’s still frightening.’

  ‘Hatred always is. And that’s one of its commonest manifestations, where it attaches a quite abstract notion to some hapless person, which paradoxically depersonalizes the object of hatred into a symbol of the grievance.’

  ‘Like a racist beating up the black man next door?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He studied the nasty little missive.

  ‘Bad things happen to people like you,’ it began. ‘Call yourself a priest? You are a joke, a bad joke. You think you’re different from the rest of us, special, and you go worming your way like a maggot into people’s lives. They should burn you at the stake, now, like the witch you are, with your familiar, the devil-cat.

  ‘BURN, WITCH, BURN!’

  ‘Ouch,’ Robert said placidly. ‘I did think you might be asking for trouble, calling that beast Pyewacket.’

  At the mention of his name, Pyewacket, dozing in his basket, opened one eye, and Margaret laughed, a little shakily, but laughed nonetheless.

  ‘Being an old maid, I thought misguidedly that calling him after a witch’s familiar was amusing. Not very clever, I suppose. After all, the suggestion that we should all be burnt at the stake emanated originally from one of my brothers-in-Christ in a fine display of masculine Christianity.’

  ‘Meeting prejudice with prejudice is understandable, of course, and immediately gratifying, but seldom constructive. Have you any especially rabid brothers-in-Christ?’

  Margaret considered. ‘Not peculiarly, as far as I know. They just specialize in being intolerably patronizing, apart from the one who is probably gay and keeps trying to line up with me against the others in a very embarrassing way.’

  ‘And you don’t see yourself as a fag-hag?’

  ‘Robert! Wherever do you get these appalling expressions from?’

  Her outrage distracted her, as it was meant to; absent-mindedly, she began to munch her toast.

  ‘But it isn’t funny, Robert. It’s scaring and hideous and awful to have that level of hatred directed against you. And how can I be sure it’s impersonal? Perhaps it’s something I’ve done.’

  ‘It’s possible, certainly.’

  It wasn’t what she had wanted him to say. She had wanted him to dismiss it out of hand.

  She said hollowly, ‘Well, go on. This is pretty much your field, isn’t it, looking in your crystal ball and telling the police what sort of person has committed a crime?’

  ‘I usually have rather more to go on.’

  He leaned across the breakfast table and picked up the envelope to study it.

  ‘It’s the local postmark, isn’t it? Have you any particular zealots here?’

  ‘Old Sam Briggs, I suppose, but I rather like him. He’s so openly hostile that we’ve begun to get on quite well. I took him some shortbread on Christmas Day, and when I left he said, “Well, I won’t say but what the Almighty maybe should have said females could be vicars. But think on this – He didn’t.” I’d be sorry if it was him.’

  ‘Unlikely. It’s an educated style and good quality paper. And...’

  He read it through again. ‘I’m much inclined to think it’s a woman.’

  ‘You’re only saying that because it’s more common for women to do it than men.’

  ‘Well, not entirely. “Different from the rest of us”, it says – you see? I would tend to read that as referring to other women. And again, “They” – not “we”, notice – “should burn you at the stake”; traditionally a male activity requiring masculine force. I can’t say I would go to the stake myself on that opinion, but it’s a thought.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Margaret pondered. ‘Well, I suppose I just tear it up and try to forget about it. If it’s prejudice, they’ll get used to the idea in time; the first hundred years are the hardest.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t tear it up. People always do that, and if there’s an outbreak the police have nothing to go on.’

  ‘An outbreak?’ Her stomach lurched. ‘Then – you don’t think it’s just the woman-priest thing?’

  He frowned. ‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Let me try to work out why.’

  As he paused in thought, she twitched the letter back from him and read it again, with a shudder. Who was this woman – if Robert was right – who hated her so much?

  ‘I know what it is,’ her brother said suddenly. ‘It doesn’t to me express outrage – which was the hallmark of the priesthood debate – as much as spite. The maggot remark would be out of character for the single-issue fanatic. And if this has been sent merely to distress, picking on your particular vulnerability, you won’t be the only victim. I’m only thinking aloud, remember – but you could keep that in mind as you go about your parish business.’

  ‘Parish business!’ Margaret suddenly leaped to her feet guiltily. ‘Look at the time! I’ve got a young couple coming to talk to me about their wedding in three minutes, and I haven’t even drawn back the curtains in the study yet.’

  ***

  She had a busy morning with little time for reflection and she and Robert were having a cup of coffee in the sitting room after lunch when the doorbell rang. Groaning theatrically, Margaret went to answer it.

  When she recognized her visitor, her face lit up with surprise and pleasure.

  ‘Tom!’ she exclaimed.

  The old derelict who stood on the doorstep staggered slightly in surprise as she threw her arms round him, being unused to rapturous acclaim. It was fully six weeks since someone had made him take a bath, his clothes were ragged and stiff with weathering and old sweat, and his boots broken down and filthy; people usually requested him to move on, or move downwind, at the very least, rather than offering to embrace him. But life had taught him pragmatism, and the dirt-seamed stubbly creases of his face curved in a broad grin which displayed half-a-dozen yellowing teeth.

  Margaret was ushering him inside towards the kitchen, backing off a little from the odious savours of his rich personality. In her pleasure at this relic of her past, spontaneity had perhaps prevailed over wisdom.

  ‘Whatever are you doing in this neck of the woods, Tom?’

  Shambling after her, the old man sniffed, passing the back of his half-mittens across his nose, and she noticed that the gnarled fingers which protruded were mauve with cold. But his cheerfulness was unimpaired.

  ‘Well, you see miss, this i’nt far off me regular circuit. There’s a hostel over Broadhurst way, not busy this time of year, and at Christmas most folks are happy enough to put a few leftovers the way of a deserving cause.’ He winked conspiratorially.

  And when I heard you was here, and a proper vicar, like, well, I reckoned you wouldn’t want an old mucker to go past your door. Might make it worth me while.’

  His rheumy eyes had cased the room already, and now he rolled them suggestively at the bottle of cooking brandy on one of the kitchen shelves.

  Margaret ignored the hint.

  ‘You come here and sit down next to the heater,’ she said, valiantly
putting out of her head any consideration of what heat would do to the olfactory assault on her senses. ‘I’ll heat you up some soup, while I sort out something a bit more substantial. Unless you’d like to clean up first? You could have a bath if you like,’ she offered, more in hope than expectation.

  He cackled with laughter. ‘Bath? Not likely, miss. Bad for your health, they are. Open me pores like that, next thing you know, there I’d be down with pneumonia. But I’ll take the soup, miss, God bless you.’

  He had always been a jolly old reprobate, even if he was never sober if he could help it. She wondered sometimes what his history had been before the demons of alcoholism destroyed the fabric of his life, but to ask would be a serious breach of etiquette and he had never been one who dwelt on a happier past. In the summer months he had haunted the graveyard at St John’s, but clearly travelled in the winter, and she was glad to know he had a circuit of hostels which would keep him out of sheds and ditches in the most inclement weather.

  As always, she relished his conversation – he was by way of being a homespun philosopher – and he ate everything she put in front of him with equally hearty enjoyment, and consented to have the disreputable holdall and the plastic bags he carried filled up as well. She did not give him money, knowing all too well where that money would go, but offered him a lift to his hostel destination.

  In her tortured recollections later, she blamed herself for accepting his refusal too readily, wished fruitlessly that she had, somehow or other, insisted. But scenting rich pickings in this fresh field, he had firmly declined, and she had escorted him to the door hoping only that any would-be benefactor would be wise enough not to ply him too liberally with Yuletide cheer.

  A light rain was falling now, and as he stepped out again into the cold, her father’s old umbrella, stuck into the stand in the hall, caught her eye.

  She had meant to throw it out; it had one broken rib, but it was sturdily made in the old-fashioned way, with a solid bone handle.