by Barbara Pym
The men talked on about the project, and the women feeling themselves to be excluded — as perhaps they were — started a conversation among themselves. But such conversations, unless they spring up spontaneously among friends, are usually poor and wretched things. I don't want to be talking to you, thought Penelope desperately, trying to appear interested in what Robina Fairfax was saying about a place in West London where she had bought a piece of statuary for her garden at a very reasonable price. Ianthe had gone into a kind of day dream and found herself wondering what John did in the evenings. It was a relief to all of them when at half-past ten Robina got up and declared firmly that they had a long journey and must go now. Everard Bone also remembered his sick wife, perhaps for the first time that evening, and offered to give the Fairfaxes a lift somewhere in his car.
Rupert, left alone with Ianthe and Penelope, found himself heaving a sigh of relief, flopping down into a chair, and suggesting a cup of tea.
'See how influenced by church life I've become,' he said.
Now that he was left alone with the two women, both of whom (he imagined) rather admired him, Rupert felt a sense of power, though there being two of them rather limited the scope of what he could do — cramped his style, he might almost have said. In the end, after the tea had been made and drunk, there seemed nothing for it but to escort them home, leaving Ianthe at her front door and walking the short distance to the vicarage with Penelope.
As he had helped her on with her coat, Rupert had noticed her dress had split at the back, which he found provocative and rather endearing. Had not Sophia been standing on the front steps of the vicarage calling Faustina in, he would have taken Penelope in his arms and kissed her. But she was not to know that he had had this desire, and went into the house with head bent, feeling that she had been a failure.
12
'Rome —you're welcome to it as far as I'm concerned,' said Mervyn spitefully, the day before Ianthe was due to leave with the party from St Basil's.
'But Rome in the spring, surely that will be lovely,' John protested.
'It's not like Paris, you know. I believe it can be uncomfortably hot. And I'm sure you won't like the food. All that cannelloni — or all those cannelloni, I should say — very much overrated.'
'Perhaps Ianthe will stick to spaghetti and ravioli,' said John, mentioning the better known varieties of pasta which English people would probably be familiar with in tinned form.
'Grated cheese on everything,'' Mervyn went on, 'though it is Parmesan, I'll grant you that. Mother would find it much too rich, I know.'
'Well, it's a good thing she isn't going, then,' said John.
'They tell me you only get that very strong black espresso coffee — not even cappuccino — and the cups are only half full,' Mervyn persisted, so that Ianthe had to protest that she wasn't going to Rome only to eat and drink.
'Of course he goes on like this because he's jealous,' said John, when he and Ianthe were alone, if only he could get away from his mother he'd love to go to Italy.'
'Yes, poor Mervyn, if only he could,' Ianthe spoke perfunctorily, for she was walking away from the library with John who had not left her as he usually did to go to his bus stop. He seemed to be about to ask her something.
'I was wondering if you'd come and have a drink with me before you go home,' he said at last.
'That would be very nice, but surely it's too early for a drink?'
'No — it's half-past five. But perhaps a cup of tea would be better — cosier — if you know of anywhere round here?' He stopped in the middle of the pavement and took her arm.
'There's the Humming Bird,' said Ianthe, naming the café where she sometimes had lunch. It would be the first time she had ever been with John to a place that was part of her own particular world, unless one counted the Ash Wednesday lunchtime service at her uncle's church. But now that she came to think of it she had never been out to any sort of meal with John. There was to her something romantic about the idea of sitting with him in the place where she had so often sat alone, eating a poached egg or macaroni cheese at a shaky little oak table.
'No, we don't do evening meals,' Mrs Harper was saying to an obvious middle-aged civil servant as they entered. 'But I could knock you up a couple of poached eggs or a buck rarebit — how would that do?'
'Shall we have poached eggs?' John asked, as they sat down.
Ianthe hesitated. The eating of eggs together had not figured in the romantic picture, perhaps no actual food had suggested itself. Then she realized that he must be hungry and she felt a pang of that pity which is akin to love.
'Yes, let's have that,' she agreed.
'And cakes and China tea?'
'Yes, lovely.'
Mrs Harper gave Ianthe a piercing look through her pince-nez as she came to take the order. Ianthe felt that some kind of explanation for her presence at this unusual time and with a young man was expected, but did not feel herself capable of providing it.
'Do you want mille feuilles?' she asked in a tone of peculiar significance.
'Oh yes, please,' said John. When she had gone away he said to Ianthe, 'You won't forget to send me a postcard of that fountain, will you. The one where you throw the money and wish.'
'No, I won't forget.'
'Will you throw a coin in?'
'It depends.' Ianthe hesitated, seeing herself with the parish party. Perhaps it was easier to imagine Sister Dew doing it than Mark and Sophia.
'I wonder what you'll wish for,' John went on, looking at her intently.
Mrs Harper came up to the table with the tea so Ianthe's answer had to be delayed. In any case she did not know what it was to be and took refuge in the business of drawing the cups and the teapot towards her.
'I expect you'll wish I was with you — or at least I hope you will,' said John at last.
Poached eggs were placed before them.
'I thought your friend would probably be able to tackle two,' said Mrs Harper cheerfully to Ianthe.
'This is the first meal we've ever had together,' said John when she had gone.
'Yes, I suppose it is, really.'
'We'll have lots more together, won't we. We'll go to Italy together one day, don't you feel it?'
'I don't know,' said Ianthe, confused. 'Perhaps I'll go with Mervyn and his mother and we'll avoid cannelloni and Parmesan cheese,' she added jokingly.
They ate their poached eggs, then John handed Ianthe the plate of cakes.
'I don't think I can eat any more,' said Ianthe.
'You must be in love or something,' said John. 'That's what loss of appetite usually means.'
'I'm not used to eating a meal at half-past five,' Ianthe protested. 'I suppose that's why I'm not hungry.'
'If you're not going to eat those mille feuilles,' said Mrs Harper, hovering reproachfully by the table, 'that gentleman over there would like them.'
'Of course it's lovely having tea,' said Ianthe, afraid that she had sounded ungracious. 'I have enjoyed it, John. But now I really must be going. I've still got most of my packing to do.'
'I'll come to the station with you and get your ticket.'
'Oh, but I've got the return half, thank you.'
All the same John insisted on coming with her as far as the ticket barrier, and stood holding her hand while she attempted to say good-bye.
Suddenly he drew her towards him and kissed her.
'Good-bye, darling,' he said. 'I wish I was coming too. Take care of yourself.'
Ianthe hurried on to the escalator and began walking down. At the bottom the warm air blowing about her seemed to increase her agitation. A piece of newspaper was swirled against her legs and she collided surprisingly, almost nightmarishly, with a nun.
What was a nun doing, hurrying in the opposite direction in the rush hour, flashed into her mind as the nun spoke.
'Why, Ianthe Broome, of all people!' she exclaimed. 'Don't you remember me?'
She had an eager shining face and looked happy in a rat
her frightening way. She was grasping a large man's umbrella.
Ianthe hesitated for a moment, trying to remember.
'Agnes Dalby, isn't it,' she said. 'School, of course. You were in the Upper Fourth when I left.'
'And you were the Head Girl!'
'I didn't know about . . .' Ianthe looked at the black robes.
'My taking the veil?' said the nun, so that she appeared to be joking. Perhaps she had often had to put up this kind of defence Ianthe thought.
People surged forward, nearly knocking them over as a train came in.
'Mustn't keep you,' said the nun, 'and I'm dashing off to St Albans, then supper at the Restful Tray with Mother Josephine.'
She seemed to vanish as quickly as she had appeared, leaving Ianthe to be pushed forward into the train, where she stood in a daze until she found herself sitting down in a seat offered to her by a small boy.
'You looked as if you could do with a sit-down,' said the boy's mother. 'I was watching that nun talking to you — it seems to have given you quite a turn.'
'I was surprised to see her,' Ianthe admitted.
The woman lowered her voice so that Ianthe could hardly hear it above the noise of the train. 'I don't think they ought to let them out, walking about like that in those black clothes. It gives me the creeps and I know it frightened the kiddies. I mean it's not very nice, is it.'
'Oh, I didn't mind,' said Ianthe. 'She's somebody I know.'
'How dreadful for you, somebody you know being like that.'
Ianthe was glad when the woman and her child got out at the next station, for not only did she find the conversation embarrassing but she also wanted to think about the moments before her unexpected meeting with Agnes Dalby — moments which she had so far had no chance of reliving or considering.
That John should have kissed her like that — in the way she had quite often seen boys kiss girls on their way home — and that she should not have minded, apart from the slight awkwardness of the people surging around them, would have seemed incredible to her a few months ago. One did not behave like that in a public place with a young man, suitable or otherwise, and John was so very much otherwise. It was not surprising that at this moment the image of her mother — the canon's widow in the dark flat near Westminster Cathedral — should rise up before her.
But there was obviously nothing she could do about it now, she decided, and the holiday in Rome would no doubt put him out of her mind. Resolutely, and determined to think no more than she could help about it, she opened her new copy of the Church Times which normally she would have looked forward to reading on her journey home. Yet she reached the station where she got out without having progressed any further than the first page.
Walking past the vicarage, she wondered whether to call in to see Mark and Sophia, but judged that they were probably busy doing their packing. When she got into her house she poured herself a glass of sherry and stood looking into the garden, not wanting any supper.
'You must be in love or something,' she heard John saying, then she remembered the unaccustomed poached egg and was glad to have found a sensible reason for her lack of appetite.
***
'Two men and five women — er — ladies,' said Mark rather despondently, as he and Sophia were doing their packing. 'Still, I suppose I can always creep off somewhere by myself.'
'Aren't most parties made up like that?' said Sophia consolingly. 'And the odd thing is that of all the people who complained to you after that sermon that they'd never been to Rome only Sister Dew has taken advantage of this opportunity to go there.'
'The others prefer to go to Broadstairs and Ilfracombe as usual. Where they'll have the usual bad weather so that they can go on complaining.'
'Yes, of course,' said Sophia, 'and I suppose we didn't really ask them to come with us, did we. As it is, I don't know how Sister Dew is likely to fit in. And I can't help feeling a tiny bit worried about leaving Faustina with both Edwin and Daisy away. Though Daisy's tightened up the rules at the Cattery — did I show you her new brochure?'
Mark took from Sophia the cyclostyled leaflet — hardly a 'brochure' he felt — and read through the rules starting with 'Sex (undoctored . . . and Siamese cats cannot be accepted)', going on to invite owners to bring bedding but 'no bowls, please', and ending with the injunction 'This year we must ask you to leave your cat at the house and not go down to the Cattery. We find that the cats already in the Cattery become unsettled with the noise that is made when settling new cats.'
'I suppose you could go down,' he said soothingly. 'After all you are such an old friend.'
'Yes, but one doesn't want to unsettle the other cats, and Faustina herself might become upset.'
'I'm sure Jim Mangold will look after her splendidly. You've often said yourself how good he is with her, and he has such a reassuring name.'
'Oh, certainly — Jim loves Faustina. I shan't worry really, but she's all I've got.'
For a moment Sophia was afraid that Mark was going to speak sternly to her, for his eyes had their rather distant look and his mouth was in a firm line. But when he spoke again it was only to express some anxiety about the conduct of services while he was away. Father Anstruther, the former vicar who lived rather too near, was to do duty for the time of Mark's absence — not an entirely satisfactory arrangement but the best that could be made.
'Now indeed the dog will return to his vomit, as he so happily put it,' said Sophia.
'I only hope he won't upset anybody,' said Mark anxiously.
13
A party of people sets out on a journey with all its different components like the jumbled up pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, Sophia thought, waiting for something — some event or just the passing of time—to fit them together into a whole. In the bus going to the airport she looked around her to see what sort of people went to Rome in April. She was not surprised to see two or three elderly ladies and nondescript middle-aged couples, but where were all the priests and nuns she had expected, the real glory of a flight to Rome?
The answer to this question was that they had other means of transport. As the bus arrived at the airport a shooting brake drew up and a party of nuns got out of it. Sophia commented on this to Ianthe who was sitting in front of her.
Ianthe was reminded of her meeting with the nun in the Underground the day before and Sophia remarked that nowadays some of them seemed hardly to be cloistered at all.
'But it doesn't seem right for them to drive about like that,' said Sister Dew. it always gives me a bit of a turn to see a nun driving a car.'
Now priests and even a couple of bishops appeared and Sophia felt a sense of relief, as if their presence were some sort of guarantee of a safe flight.
'Don't you feel a slight envy of the Roman Catholics when it comes to making a trip like this?' said Edwin Pettigrew to Mark.
'Ah yes,' Mark sighed. 'The English College, the Irish College — there's a sort of cosiness about it all. It must be like a homecoming to them. An Anglican feels almost an intruder.'
'Darling, you mustn't say such things,' said Sophia indignantly. 'You who so often preach about the catholicity of the Anglican Church, and believe it too.'
'Oh yes, Father,' said Sister Dew unctuously, 'we always say that's one of your little hobby horses.'
'We', the stupid, ignorant, umbrage-taking members of Mark's congregation, thought Sophia, moving closer to her husband as if to protect him from them. Now she took care to change the subject and what could be more natural than to talk to the vet and his sister about Faustina and to speculate on what she might be doing at this moment. But Faustina's remoteness, now of distance also, made it difficult to guess. Mark, too, after the slightly disquieting observations about Roman Catholic priests, seemed to have removed himself from her. Looking for Ianthe and Penelope, Sophia saw that they were deep in conversation, which she welcomed as a good sign.
The two unattached women seemed to have been drawn together perhaps by their very unattachedness
but more certainly by Rupert Stonebird's dinner party and the idea that they might meet him in Rome.
'Perugia,' Sophia heard Penelope murmur. 'Is that far from Rome?'
'It isn't really very far,' said Ianthe. 'I looked it up on the map as a matter of interest.'
'But distance is only relative,' said Sophia. Love will find out the way, she thought, though it was a little difficult to picture Rupert like the lover in the poem, galloping over the earth and swimming the seas to reach the loved one, especially as he had not yet shown much sign of loving either of the two women.
The presence of the two bishops, not to mention the priests and nuns, gave confidence to everybody as the plane rose into the air.
Sister Dew, who had not flown before, let out a cry at seeing fields and houses beneath her.
'Jim Mangold will be feeding them now,' said Daisy Pettigrew comfortingly, 'and I expect Faustina will be getting her share. I can almost hear them crying out for their dinner. Look, dear,' she opened her capacious shopping bag and invited Sophia to peer into its depths.
Sophia saw some tins of a well-known brand of cat food, neatly packed into the bottom of the bag.
'For those poor deprived ones in Rome,' Daisy murmured.
'I hope you remembered to bring a tin-opener,' said Sophia, in confusion, for the idea of taking food to the deprived Roman cats had set up in her head a muddled train of thought, which had something to do with Anglo- and Roman Catholicism, as if the latter had need of nourishment from the former.
When the stewardess came round with cigarettes and miniature bottles of spirits and liqueurs, the St Basil's party bought them eagerly. Cigarettes, so cheap and in such large numbers, were snapped up even by non-smokers, who regarded them as some new kind of currency; and the little bottles, so exquisitely miniature, 'twee', as Sister Dew put it, could have nothing wicked about them even for teetotallers.
'Of course I'm thinking of the bottle stall for the Christmas Bazaar,' said Sister Dew virtuously, tucking the little bottles into her bag.