The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life

by William Nicholson

  He returns down the lake path erasing the tears from his cheeks, appalled by his own lack of originality. Got to do better than that, buddy. Not the old shoot-the-rich scene, so 1960s, so Lindsay Anderson. We’re all the rich now. Not for us the catharsis of machine-gun fire. Postpone the revolution, there is no golden tomorrow. Only today with its dove-grey sky and a chill in the air.

  So here I am in the belly of the joke and the joke is we have it all and we’re still not happy. Unhappiness is sin. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

  This can’t go on.

  Henry makes his way back across the peopled lawns, and the world he sees no longer makes any sense. The screen on which his life is reflected has broken into bright hurting fragments. A man and a woman are walking towards him. They flicker and dance. Why do they wave their arms? The woman is beautiful, the man is sad. It was ever thus.

  Laura? He sees her without recognition, she’s wearing garments that are unfamiliar to him, so he responds as he did on the very first day they met. She is unknown and she is beautiful.

  ‘Here you are, Henry.’

  The man by her side is Billy Holland.

  ‘Hello, Billy.’

  Billy nods. He seems distracted.

  ‘Try to be a bit more sociable,’ says Laura. ‘Don’t spoil it for everyone else.’

  She doesn’t ask why he went away alone. Because she knows? Because she doesn’t want to know? She puts her arm through his and they walk back together, the three of them.

  ‘My father,’ Billy tells him, ‘turns out to have had some sort of a girlfriend. Laura has traced her. She’s still living in the village.’

  ‘Aged ninety,’ says Laura.

  ‘I’m thinking of going to see her. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do or not.’ He seems to be asking Henry’s permission. ‘There was so much I never knew about my father.’

  The first bell goes. All over the lawns ladies in dresses that make it hard for them to walk fast are hurrying to the loos.

  Henry says, ‘We never do know about other people. Only about ourselves. And not much even then.’

  In the dark of the opera house Henry feels as if he is absent from his own body. A wave of well-fed applause greets the return of the conductor, applause for the orchestra, for the singers, for the kindness of the gods: a collective sense of entitlement that Henry can no longer share. The third act proceeds. Infidelities are promised, betrayals are planned, traps are set, secrets revealed. Then out of this flurry of pretty nonsense there rises up once more a moment of pure musical truth. Alone on stage the Contessa sings an aria of fragile haunting beauty. Dove sono i bei momenti. ‘Where are they now, the happy moments?’

  Henry hears that perfect sound, and the memory of all that he has loved and lost strikes him dumb.

  Perché ma, se in pianti e in pene

  Per me tutto si cangiò

  La memoria di quel bene

  Dal mio sen non trapasso?

  Why if my love had to change to tears and suffering does the memory of that bliss still live in my heart?

  46

  In bed at last, Laura switches off the bedside light and sinks back on the pillow. The long day has worn her out, for all that she has done nothing. Diana always drains her energy, and Henry was no help at all.

  She reaches out her hand beneath the duvet and finds his waiting hand.

  ‘You were in a funny mood. Did you like it?’

  ‘I liked some of it.’

  She wants to tell him how irritating it was, having him sulk all through the evening. He knows she finds Diana hard work. All it takes is a little effort. Instead he mooned about like a bored child. But she doesn’t tell him. She doesn’t tell him because she’s afraid it’s her own fault.

  It’s not as if she’s done anything wrong. There’s nothing to hide. But the fact remains that she has not talked to Henry about Nick.

  This is mine. This is me before Henry.

  Her own vehemence surprises her. She resents Henry for being someone who might have a claim to be told. She feels guilty, of course, but not conflicted. Whatever is happening with Nick is still happening, there’s more to come, and until it has run its course she does not want to be called to account. Her own life has become a performance on which the curtain has not yet fallen.

  Is this wrong? Is this infidelity? Is it a betrayal of Henry to want to be again the person who existed before she knew him? To be her own complete and autonomous self?

  But maybe it’s not quite so abstract, this game she’s playing. Maybe it’s mere hunger for admiration, the desire to be desired. She learned more from Nick in their walk round the lake at Edenfield Place than in their ten months together; but she has not yet learned it all. What did it cost him, that proud and solitary spirit, to say to her, ‘I’ve thought about you every day from that day to this’? But Laura knows there has to be more. What was broken will not be mended until he gives back what he took from her. The loss has always made itself known to her in physical form, the smell of coffee, the sound of running water; but the true damage is to her idea of herself. She became undesirable on the day he left.

  Have you come back to tell me you were wrong, Nick? Telling alone isn’t enough. You must make me feel it.

  Desire me again.

  This is what she’s waiting for. This is what she can’t share with Henry. More than mere exclusion: for the purposes of this adventure Henry does not exist. She has not met him yet.

  His hand comes fumbling against her side. Not expecting it, she gives a start, and then at once feels guilty. She finds his hand with hers, squeezes it in mute apology. His finger traces small caresses on her palm.

  No, she thinks. It’s been a long day. I’m tired. I want to sleep. But instead of withdrawing her hand she rolls onto her side facing him. He strokes her flank, over the rise of her hip.

  This is her private trade. Because of all she’s withholding from him she will give her body. There are so many forms of sex: lust sex, comfort sex, consolation sex, pity sex. This is guilt sex.

  His hand reaches under her nightdress, and as it moves up her thighs it carries the material with it. She eases her hips up a little to allow it to ride free. His hand circles her breast.

  No speech. This is the time of touching. The order of events long rehearsed, long familiar.

  She feels for the knotted cord of his pyjamas and tugs it loose. Her hand slips down over the soft secret hair to find his soft secret cock. Long ago and just as wordlessly, this shameless outreach was agreed between them, found to be to his liking, and she in her turn appreciates the slow uncoiling arousal. His hand is on her breasts, on her belly, feeling between her thighs. She squeezes his cock gently, strokes and squeezes, and with her lips she nuzzles at his cheek. A dutiful wife.

  Except that it isn’t happening.

  Always before his cock has grown at her touch, lengthened, lolled heavy in her hand, pushed and plumpened with every squeeze until at last it lies big and hard against his belly and her hand can no longer contain it. Tonight, nothing.

  ‘Too tired?’ she murmurs.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  He sounds far away, as if his own arousal is not his own business. She feels annoyed, then guilty at her annoyance, then annoyed at her guilt.

  Is it my fault? Is it because of Nick?

  He takes his hand away. Hers remains a moment longer, softly stroking. Then she too withdraws. She wants to say to him, Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Don’t make me carry the burden of your unhappiness. But she says nothing.

  They lie there side by side, their business unfinished. Someone must speak. Someone must create a bridge over which they can cross from this clumsy silence to mutual forgiveness, and so to sleep. Laura hesitates, not trusting herself to speak without resentment. She does not want her tone to carry the coded message: not my problem.

  Of course it’s my problem. It’s just that there’s nothing I can do about it.

  H
enry lies there, neither moving nor speaking. In the stillness Laura becomes aware of a sound in the passage outside the bedroom door. There’s someone there. She can hear the soft breaths. She recognizes the breathing.

  ‘Jack?’

  A shuffle from the passage. The door opens, letting in the light from the distant bathroom. Jack comes in, shivering. She takes him in her arms.

  ‘What is it, darling?’

  ‘Can’t sleep.’

  But it’s more than that, he’s shaking, he’s been crying.

  ‘Did you have a bad dream?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  She hugs him close, rocks him, strokes his thin body until the shaking stops.

  ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  ‘Frightened.’ His voice muffled, his face pressed to her shoulder.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, my baby. Nothing’s going to hurt you. All safe now.’

  She wants to say more, wants to say she’ll die before anyone hurts him, she’ll hold him close for ever, she’ll never let him go out into the frightening world. But her duty is to comfort, not to possess.

  ‘Come along. I’ll tuck you up in bed.’

  They go together to his bedroom and she kneels by his bed for a long time, wanting him to be warm again and calm again before she leaves him on his own.

  ‘I was thinking about dying,’ he whispers to her. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about it.’

  ‘No need to think about that, darling. Not until you’re old as old.’

  ‘It’s so frightening.’ He grips her hand.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s wonderful. Maybe it’s like when we took the train from Paris to Milan, and we went to sleep in cold and rainy France and woke up in sunny Italy.’

  ‘Sunny Italy.’

  She can hear from his voice that he thinks she’s being silly.

  ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Carrie fell out of her bunk.’

  ‘That’s right. She did.’

  She kisses him and feels him let go of her hand.

  ‘Think you can sleep now?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry I woke you.’

  ‘You can always wake me, darling. You know that.’

  Back to her own bed. Henry’s warmth.

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Yes. Bad dream.’

  Jack’s night fears have provided all the cover they need. The moment has passed. They are released to seek the discretion of sleep.

  So it is sometimes in a marriage. Not every conversation completed. Not every misunderstanding resolved. This is the gift and the curse of a lifelong relationship. It can always wait until tomorrow.

  47

  Just after eight on Sunday morning, two slices in the toaster, butter out of the fridge, coffee made: and the phone rings.

  ‘Miles? Have you seen the newspapers?’

  It’s Peter Ansell, the Diocesan Secretary.

  ‘What newspaper?’

  ‘The Mail on Sunday. You’d better take a look. It’s not good, I’m afraid. Someone’s been stirring up the faithful.’

  ‘Oh, Lord.’

  ‘They’ve probably made it all up. God knows where they got it from. Can you get hold of a copy as soon as possible?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course.’

  ‘Call me back. Tell me what’s going on. The Bishop’s being pestered for a statement.’

  Miles takes a sip of his coffee and puts on his outdoor shoes. Outside the village street is quiet. A cool bright spring morning. Family communion at ten, plenty of time. He pads down the pavement to the shop. Of course it’s the dog funeral, he should never have spoken to that nice girl. Still, a nation of dog lovers. Surely a forgivable lapse.

  Harold Jones is outside the shop filling the display rack with Sunday papers. Tim Critchell in running gear, jogging on the spot, breath puffing out in little clouds, picking up his Sunday Times.

  ‘Work out for the heart and lungs,’ he says, grinning, ‘plus free weight training on the way home.’

  He raises the thick wodge of newspaper above his head and pumps it up and down. Then off he bounds up the street to his house.

  ‘If I had his money,’ says Harold Jones, ‘I’d stay in bed and let me deliver.’

  ‘Do you have a Mail on Sunday, Harold?’

  ‘Changing your paper, vicar?’

  ‘Just for today.’

  The rector looks at the front page as he returns to his house. A big picture of Tony Blair. ‘It was quite a struggle’, reads the caption beneath the photograph. A new baby, Leo, born yesterday. Cherie is tired but happy. Tony Blair says, ‘He’s a gorgeous little boy. The thing you forget is how tiny they are.’

  Back in his kitchen, toast and coffee both cold, he lays the newspaper out on the table and turns its pages. The first four are all about baby Leo. Then a page advertising new cars: ‘Show off to other X-reg drivers.’ Camilla Parker-Bowles not welcome at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. A page advertising free internet calls. Woman killed by pigeon disease. Row over spymaster’s memoirs. Bishop in call to abolish parish priests.

  He reads this last item. The Bishop of Durham wants to halt the decline in churchgoing. He proposes teams of clergy working in ‘locality ministries’. Churches with smaller congregations would be abandoned. ‘Clergy have become isolated in a failure situation,’ the Bishop says.

  Then on page 22, on the left-hand side of the left-hand page, above an advertisement for Debenhams (‘Spend £100 and get £150 back’) he sees a photograph of himself. Just his head and shoulders, beside the head and shoulders of a stone angel. In the photograph he looks dazed, possibly mentally retarded. A news item runs alongside the picture.

  STUFF AND NONSENSE! VILLAGE PROTEST OVER ‘BELIEVE WHAT YOU LIKE’ VICAR

  A village vicar who admits he has no beliefs of his own is facing an angry backlash from his parishioners. Rev Miles Salmon, Rector of St Mary’s Edenfield in Sussex, says, ‘There’s no point in telling anyone they’re wrong to believe what they believe. Our beliefs are little more than an accident.’

  Churchwarden Joan Huxtable responds: ‘Stuff and nonsense! He’s supposed to be a Christian, isn’t he?’

  Rev Salmon has also raised eyebrows in the sleepy Sussex village by conducting a church burial for a dog. ‘My job is to give comfort,’ he says.

  Chairman of the parish council Oliver Hardy was surprised to learn of his parish priest’s views. ‘He’s a good man, but if that’s what he thinks then he’s not a priest.’

  Richard Hayles, author of The Disappearing Church, a study of the modern Church of England, says, ‘I’m not surprised at all. There are dozens of priests out there who’ve lost their faith. What’s unusual about this case is that he’s prepared to go public.’

  A spokesman for the Bishop of Chichester confirmed yesterday: ‘All parish priests must be believing Christians.’

  See Anne Masters on p 33

  Miles switches on the kettle and makes himself a mug of instant coffee, moving slowly about his small kitchen. Every part of this process is familiar to him, the making as comforting as the drinking. Somewhere just out of sight there is a wide and featureless plain waiting for him. He will turn towards it in due course.

  The phone rings. Joan Huxtable.

  ‘I had no idea they were going to put it in the paper like that,’ she says. ‘This man rang me out of the blue and I just said the first thing that came into my head. It’s all too silly for words.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about it,’ says Miles.

  ‘I hope I haven’t got you into any trouble, Miles. That’s the last thing I’d want.’

  Naturally she’s more concerned with her own feelings of guilt than with his difficulties. As is his custom, the rector gives the required comfort.

  ‘You only said what anyone would say in the same situation. What’s more, I’ve no doubt you’re perfectly right.’

  He drinks his coffee and turns more pages of the newspaper. On page 33 the columnist Anne Masters write
s:

  At last a country vicar has had the courage to say what we’ve all long suspected: the Church of England today believes nothing at all. Terrified of offending other faiths, pathetically eager to attract young people, today’s church leaders have bent the rules so far that you can believe what you like and still call yourself an Anglican. What’s so sad is that now anyone can join, no one’s interested. It’s the Evangelical churches, where you actually have to believe in the Bible or face damnation, that are packed to the rafters. I wonder why.

  He sits at the kitchen table cradling his hot mug in both hands and gazes out of the window at the bronze-red leaves of the climbing rose, and the soft green of the water meadows beyond. A view he has watched as he drinks his coffee every morning for thirty-seven years.

  He phones Peter Ansell back.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I’ve read it now.’

  ‘Where on earth did they get it from, Miles?’

  ‘From me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did you say all that?’

  ‘I think perhaps I did. They’d found out about the dog funeral. It was supposed to be about that.’

  ‘The dog funeral! Oh, Miles. You are a chump.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘Can we say you’ve been misquoted? Your words taken out of context, that sort of thing?’

  Miles ponders this for a long moment.

  ‘The context, when I was speaking, was certainly very different.’ At this same table. Liz Dickinson’s attentive gaze, her understanding nods. ‘It was a wide-ranging conversation.’