by Barbara Pym
She chose a morning when she was making pastry in the kitchen. She had just put a gooseberry tart into the oven and was wondering what to do with the bit of pastry left over, forming it into various shapes, flowers or animals and then – significantly – miniature human figures that reminded her of the little Cycladic idols she had seen in the museum in Athens. Tom was in the kitchen with her, standing idly by the table as he so often did. Now was the moment to speak.
‘Tom,’ she began, Til be leaving here soon.’
‘What, another holiday? But you’ve only just come back!’ He adopted his usual teasing manner that she found so irritating.
‘No, not another holiday. Heather has been making the arrangements – things are pretty well settled.’
‘Ah, the Greek island cottage, the pad in the Peloponnese, or is it a flat overlooking the Acropolis?’ He still refused to be serious.
‘No, none of those,’ said Daphne firmly. ‘Heather has bought a house and I’m going to share it with her.’
‘A house? Good heavens, has she come into money or something? A house in Greece would cost rather more than you had in mind, wouldn’t it? Unless it’s one of those ruined mansions on the way down to Tsangarada – but I can’t quite see you and Heather in one of those.’
‘It’s not in Greece,’ said Daphne patiently. ‘It’s on the outskirts of Birmingham, a very nice part, and I’m perfectly serious about it.’
‘Birmingham?' Tom burst out laughing. ‘What is it about Birmingham – a place one has no high hopes of, or something like that? You must be joking.’
‘It’s a very nice house in a very nice road,’ Daphne repeated defiantly.
‘But what about this dog you were going to get? You wouldn’t want to have a dog in Birmingham.’
‘Why ever not? Lots of people in Birmingham have dogs – there’s a common and woods very near where we’ll be living.’
‘But not like the woods here – no foxes’ dung, grey and pointed at both ends.”
‘There probably are foxes there too – they mostly live in suburban districts now – one hears of them scavenging in dustbins – Nature is always changing.’
‘When will you go?’ Tom asked, thinking to indulge her in what still seemed a fantastic dream to him.
‘Next week,’ said Daphne promptly. ‘We thought summer was a good time to move in and get settled. Heather’s retiring from the library, you know. In fact, she’s already left – she was having her retirement tea-party yesterday.’
‘I suppose she wouldn’t like to come and live here?’ Tom asked. ‘There’s plenty of room. She could have a flat in the attics. I’m sure we could rig up cooking arrangements – you can get quite handy little paraffin cookers, I believe, or even a primus – and she could share the bathroom. She’d bring her own furniture, of course. I expect she’s got furniture, as she’s had a flat all this time….’
Daphne did not deign to comment oh Tom’s ridiculous musings but merely repeated that she expected to leave next .week. She had already done most of her packing, sorting out her few bits and pieces.
‘Will you be taking any furniture?’ Tom asked.
‘Of course not – it’s yours, isn’t it? Yours and Laura’s.’
‘Is it? I can’t remember, but if there’s anything you do want, your bed, perhaps….’
‘My bed? Why should I want that?’
‘Well, people do usually like their own bed, especially older people. It’s sometimes difficult to get used to a different bed.’
‘I never heard anything so ridiculous – when you think what I’ve slept on abroad!’ Daphne slapped the lump of pastry together, Cycladic idols and all. She could make some jam tarts which might do for one of Tom’s future meals. How was he going to manage? she wondered dispassionately. He probably wasn’t going to miss her at all, except in small domestic matters, would be relieved when she had gone. All these years wasted, making a home for somebody who hardly even noticed that she was there! Heather always said it had been a mistake, this rushing to make a home for Tom when Laura died. If it hadn’t been for her doing this, Tom might have married again, probably would have done, seeing the way women went after the clergy. Had she protected him from a grisly fate or stood in the way of his happiness? She would never know.
‘Jam tarts,’ said Tom. ‘Are those for tea?’
‘If you like – but would you want two lots of pastry in one day, if we have the gooseberry tart for lunch?’
‘Oh, I don’t see why not. I’ll have forgotten by tea-time. Have you told Mrs Dyer what you’re doing?’
A shadow appeared to cross Daphne’s face. Breaking the news to Mrs Dyer was an unpleasant task she had been putting off, telling herself that obviously Tom must be told first. ‘I shall tell her tomorrow,’ she said. ‘No point in doing it before. I don’t want it all over the village yet.’
‘It will probably be that already,’ said Tom mildly. ‘Of course I shan’t try to stop you.’
‘I should hope not!’ Daphne laughed. ‘You could hardly stop me, could you?’
‘No. I hope you’ll be very happy,’ he added in a formal tone, as if she were getting married. ‘You and Heather. After all, you’ve known each other a long time and had all those holidays together….’ But sooner you than me, he added to himself.
Perhaps he had been selfish, expecting Daphne to stay here all these years when she could have been leading her own life. But he hadn’t expected her to do any such thing – she had suddenly appeared, in that bewildering time after Laura’s death, and now, just as suddenly, she was going away. As yet he could hardly grasp what this change was going to mean to him. At least there’ll be no dog here, was his first irrelevant thought. Then he decided that he would go into the church or even spend some time in the mausoleum, meditating on the end of all things, though there was always the danger of meeting Dr G. there and he was not in the mood for that kind of encounter this morning. So in the end he retired to his study and sat among his historical records. He had sometimes attempted to keep a diary himself, the kind of record of his daily life that could rival famous clerical diarists of the past, a nineteen-seventies Woodforde or” Kilvert. What was he to write about the events of this morning? ‘My sister Daphne made a gooseberry tart and told me that she was going to live on the outskirts of Birmingham’? Could that possibly be of interest to readers of the next century?
18
There was something obscurely humiliating about going into town on the bus, Emma felt, beginning with her not knowing what the fare was and having to fumble for the right coins when she entered. It was not the first time she had travelled in this way, but fares had gone up since then – ‘You can’t get far for twenty-five p. these days,’ as Mrs Dyer remarked, appearing to enjoy Emma’s confusion when she saw her offering the old fare.
Tom and the students of local history really ought to come here with their tape-recorders, Emma felt, for there was sometimes a rich feast of village talk, the kind of thing that might well be of interest to future generations. But of course it would be too embarrassing for Tom to travel on the local bus. It was moderately embarrassing for her, apart from her ignorance of the fare, starting off with Mrs Dyer’s opening remark, ‘Not got your car today, Miss Howick?’
‘No, it’s being serviced.’
For some reason this seemed to amuse Mrs Dyer and the woman sitting next to her. Emma wondered if her words had suggested some activity of deep rural significance, her thoughts dwelling briefly on cows and bulls, but she preferred not to speculate.
Nor was Mrs Dyer’s next question any less embarrassing.
‘How’s that friend of yours getting on in Keeper’s Lodge?’ she asked. ‘He’s lucky to have you taking food to him.’
This was of course a reference to Emma having been seen taking a casserole to Graham one evening. She was not sure who had seen her – even though the casserole was half concealed in a basket she had been conscious of its awkward presence – but of course Mrs
Dyer had got to hear about it. ‘Carrying a casserole through the woods’ – how ridiculous that sounded! Emma could not help smiling, but before she could answer Mrs Dyer’s query the bus had stopped at the far end of the village and a woman she had met at Miss Lee’s coffee, morning got in. Emma seized on her gratefully, reminding her that they had met before and also remembering that her name was Mrs Furse and that she was the woman who didn’t drink but” had no objection to others drinking. And for her raffle prize she had preferred a mirror hideously decorated with barbola work to the bottle of wine given by Adam Prince.
Mrs Furse sat down opposite Emma, Mrs Dyer and her crony starting a conversation of their own. But Emma could hear that they were discussing the same subject that Mrs Furse now began to introduce, in a hushed tone.
‘What will he do, the rector, now that….’
Emma pretended not to grasp immediately what Mrs Furse was talking about, though she knew quite well what it was. Some obscure desire to protect Tom from the village gossip and speculation had come over her in a strange way, so that Mrs Furse was obliged to spell it out, ‘His sister going off like that.’
‘She didn’t exactly go off.’
‘Well no, not go off in that way. But she has gone, hasn’t she? Left the rectory?’
‘Oh yes, she has,’ Emma admitted. A car had been seen taking Daphne off, to the station, some thought, with ‘quite a lot of luggage’.
They had now reached the next bus stop and a few more people got in. At the same time Tom could be seen approaching from the opposite direction in his old Mini traveller.
‘Goodness!’ Mrs Furse seemed suitably awestruck, as when people say ‘Talk of the devil!’ or as if the sight of a person risen from the dead had been granted to them. ‘I didn’t expect to see him driving about.’
‘I suppose he has to carry on as usual,’ Emma said. ‘Visiting people in the village, and after all this isn’t the only church he’s responsible for.’
‘All this history he’s always going on about,’ said Mrs Furse with unexpected bitterness. ‘That’s more likely what he’s doing.’
Searching for traces of the deserted medieval village in a motorcar? Emma asked herself, but kept her thought to herself.
‘What about his food? And would he be able to do his own shopping?’
‘Oh, I don’t think he’s all that helpless,’ said Emma. ‘Men in these days do seem better able to cope.’ All the same she did rather doubt Tom’s ability – surely she wouldn’t find herself carrying a casserole to the rectory?
‘And he’ll have Mrs Dyer,’ said Mrs Furse.
‘Oh yes,’ said Emma, conscious of Mrs Dyer’s presence behind her. She seemed to be talking about Tom too – ‘that savoury rice, you just add water and boil it up’ must surely refer to some dish she had left for him.
‘Perhaps we ought to do something about it, or the parochial church council,’ Mrs Furse went on. ‘The ladies, that is. I’m surprised Miss Lee hasn’t done something.’
‘He could have meals with Mr Prince,’ said Emma, suddenly struck by this brilliant idea. What could be more suitable – even if totally inappropriate – than the two men getting together in this way?
This idea had also occurred to Tom, but more as a joke as he remembered Adam’s spaghetti al dente (how many minutes’ cooking was that?) and his habit of ‘surprising’ himself in his wine cellar.
The day after Daphne left Tom had strolled into the pub, not so much to have a drink – he was not the type of rector who mingled easily with the village people, even in pursuit of local history – as to have a word with Mr Spears, the landlord, who supervised the cutting of the churchyard grass. For some time now the cow-parsley round the graves had been over and given place to what could only be described as hay. Something must obviously be done about it.
‘Good morning,’ Tom said.
‘Morning, rector.’
‘About time the grass was cut again,’ Tom said, in what he hoped was a pleasant, easy tone of voice. He had been practising how he would put it on his way to the pub. He had ordered a half of lager, aware that it was probably regarded as a ‘ladies’ drink’, and sat down in a corner. Then he had brought out his remark about the grass, but there was no answer. He had forgotten that Mr Spears was sometimes a little deaf. He took a sip of lager and tried again. ‘I was wondering about that grass,’ he said more loudly.
‘A wonderful thing, grass,’ said Mr Spears. ‘Reminds me of that hymn.’
The old lines came back to Tom,
Within the churchyard, side by side,
Are many long low graves;
And some have stones set over them,
On some the green grass waves.
Presumably that was the hymn he meant, not one they ever sang now; ‘morbid’, whether classed with hymns ‘For the Young’, as it was in A. and M., or anywhere else. Tom couldn’t remember whether it had been included in the English Hymnal, he thought probably not; it had some questionable lines….
Mr Spears was saying something further about grass, either that he had intended to cut it but had no scythe, or that he hadn’t been able to get round to doing anything about it yet. Tom’s diversion into Mrs Alexander’s hymn had caused him to miss the main point of what was being said, and at that moment there was another diversion. Adam Prince came into the bar.
‘Sorry to hear about your sister,’ he began. ‘I gather she’s deserted you and gone off to Greece.’
‘Not Greece,’ said Tom. He was tired of having to explain about Birmingham, with the inevitable jokes.
‘But you have a competent housekeeper?’ Adam asked, as if he had no idea of the rectory set-up.
‘Only Mrs Dyer for rough, as they call it, though she does occasionally leave me something I can heat up.’
‘You know what you should do,’ Adam said. He was always very free with advice as to what one should do, Tom felt, and generally it was the kind of advice it was impossible to take seriously, but on this occasion it might be worth listening to what he had to say.
‘You should….’ Adam paused to throw some instructions to Mr Spears concerning the pink gin he had ordered. He was teaching him how to concoct this drink, with just the right suspicion of bitters so that it didn’t look like a glass of vin rosé, as when he had first made it. ‘You should enlist the help of the ladies.’
Tom smiled. ‘But how on earth? They all know Daphne’s gone. What more can I do? Put a note in the parish magazine?’ He was joking.
‘Exactly! It must soon be time for your monthly letter. When do you “go to press”, as we so grandly put it?’
‘Early next week. I ought to be getting the stuff together now.’
And then, just as he had instructed Mr Spears in the concocting of a pink gin, so now Adam began to instruct Tom in the concocting of a suitable letter for the magazine to, as he put it, ‘touch the hearts of the ladies’. It wasn’t at all the kind of letter Tom would have written himself: he would never have thrown himself on anyone’s mercy, let alone that of the women of his congregation, or used a phrase like ‘kind hearts and culinary skills’, but in the end he had to allow that there might be something in the idea. Perhaps he ought to mention Daphne’s leaving and the problems – hardly perhaps ‘problems’, ‘changes’ might be a better way of putting it – that her going had created at the rectory. And of course he must be careful not to offend Mrs Dyer, that was something else to be considered.
So the letter that finally appeared in print, and that Emma saw when she opened her copy of the magazine, read as follows:
As most of you will know by now, my sister has left the rectory to share a home with her friend Miss Blenkinsop, whom many of you will have met on her frequent visits here. They will be living on the outskirts of Birmingham, near a delightful wooded common where they will be able to exercise their dog. I know my sister will always take a keen interest in everything that goes on in the parish and she and Miss Blenkinsop will be frequent visitors to the
rectory. But – and here is the big ‘But’ – her departure means that I shall be living alone at the rectory, coping as best I can, always with the willing and able assistance of Mrs Dyer. And I may very well have to try my hand at cooking an evening meal sometimes! It is often said that the best chefs are men, but I cannot claim to belong to that’noble and skilled fraternity, so I am going to throw myself on the mercy of the ladies and put my trust in their kind hearts and culinary skills. I am asking you to take pity on me and invite me to an occasional meal in your homes, to share in whatever you are having yourselves, a simple family meal, eaten in congenial company….
Here the most interesting part of the letter ended and Emma did not bother to read any more. Why must his sister and her friend be sharing a ‘home’ rather than a house or cottage? Presumably Tom thought ‘home’, with all it stood for, would be more acceptable to his readers, just as his request to be invited to their ‘homes’ was also stressed. The reference to ‘a delightful wooded common’ also made her smile. As for the suggestion that he might be invited to share ‘a simple family meal’, one could imagine the dismay if Tom dropped in unexpectedly or the anxious preparations that would precede this simple family meal if it was known that he was coming. Poor Tom, whatever he did he couldn’t win. No doubt he would receive a few invitations, but in the end he would be thrown back on his own resources, the packet of savoury rice, the ever-useful fish fingers or the miniature steak and kidney pie heated up in its little dish. Otherwise there might be the occasional meal with Adam Prince and herself carrying a casserole across the road. But she couldn’t cope with Tom and Graham and didn’t see herself offering any practical help to Tom. It was a mistaken and old-fashioned concept, the helplessness of men, the kind that could only flourish in a village years behind the times. Yet she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Tom, pitying him even, and once you started on those lines there was no knowing what it might lead to.