Felburgh

by Ivan B

  The AGM closed about 9pm and as is usual practice the first meeting of the Church Council met immediately afterwards. It was not a happy meeting. For once the full council was present with a number of new members making up the seventeen seats. The meeting was really to elect a secretary and arrange dates. This took about ten minutes and Peter was about to declare the meeting closed when the Major made his harrumph noise.

  “Yes Major?” Peter asked.

  The Major looked as if he were about to speak and then decided not to.

  “Nothing,” he said, “just clearing my throat.”

  Peter declared the meeting closed at about 10pm and the council members soon drifted away. The mafia left with a little more purpose and assembled together in a huddle in the car park. Peter would have loved to be able to listen to their conversation. Roger however did not join them; instead he lingered around the fringes of the room until he could talk to Peter by himself.

  In the end, when the hall was clear, Roger came up to Peter.

  “Thanks for talking to Bryan, sorry if I thrust him on you; I didn’t know what to do.”

  “That’s OK,” said Peter. “As you rightly said it’s what vicars do.”

  Roger gave Peter a pathetic smile.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is adultery always wrong?”

  Peter sensed that there was more to this question than met the eye.

  “It is difficult to think of many extenuating circumstances.”

  Roger sat down.

  “I should have known that I wouldn’t get a straight answer, after all you’re a vicar.”

  Peter sat down too and looked at him.

  “But I don’t think I got a straight question either.”

  Roger responded.

  “You’re saying it all depends on the circumstances.”

  “Sort of, but circumstances where adultery is not wrong I suspect would be very hard to come by.”

  Roger digested this and tried a different tack.

  “Bryan needs a mum. He’s the best thing that I have in my life and if I have to break some sort of old-fashioned moral taboo to get him one I might just do it.”

  Peter didn’t respond aware that Roger had more to say. For once he appeared to be stone cold sober and Peter suspected that without the blurring effect of alcohol Roger was emotionally raw and needing to talk. He also obviously had a dilemma. After a minute or so Roger started.

  “I’m not just plain ol’ Roger you know; I could have been The Earl of Havers and the reason I’m not is because of that bloody word adultery.”

  Peter waited; Roger started speaking after a minute or so, looking down at his feet the whole time.

  “My parents, at least I thought they were my parents, were landed gentry and I was brought up in an atmosphere of country houses, maidservants and menservants. I went to boarding school and was told it was a privilege for the older son; my younger brother stayed at home and had a private tutor. From boarding school I went straight to Edinburgh University and read Italian and Italian art. Consequently I was not close to my parents, or perhaps they were not close to me.”

  “At University I met Abigail. She was at Herriot-Watt University studying water engineering; she also had rich parents back home in India. Abigail had an allowance of £100,000 a year - can you imagine that? We fell in love; or rather we were consumed by love. Anyway she didn’t have to work, but had this passion about bringing clean water to the underprivileged in India. She liked to say that clean water was a major health problem and therefore a major wealth problem. There was one fly in the ointment. Abby was a devout Christian and she would not have considered marrying a non-Christian. So I became a Christian; I was baptised and confirmed in the Church of Scotland, not out of conviction but out of love for Abigail.”

  Roger paused to look at Peter, but Peter remained silent.

  “We married in Delhi and after a honeymoon in the Aegean we set to work in the hinterlands of India. Or rather Abi went to work, at first I wasn’t much use; there’s no point in telling the starving about the beauty of the Italian renaissance. After a few months I found a niche teaching English, although I am fluent in Italian I proved hopeless at Hindi, I just couldn’t grasp the subtleties of intonation. So I taught English in English and used the BBC world radio service to help us along. We had six wonderful years. Abi was happy doing what she wanted. I was happy being with Abi; and we were both happy being with each other. Then one sunny Sunday afternoon my world ended. Abi was in our garden doing something or other when she screamed.”

  Roger looked up; “We don’t realise in this country what a problem snakes are, but elsewhere they are a constant menace. More people get crippled by snakes than you can possibly imagine.” Roger looked back at his feet and continued his story.

  “I knew instinctively what it was and grabbed the anti-venom kit by the back door and ran to her. I must have got the serum into her in less than ninety seconds, but I was already too late. The damn thing had bit her on the wrist, had it been the hand or foot or arm or leg she would have been OK, but the damn thing injected its venom straight into the blood vessels of the wrist. It must have reached her heart long before I got there. She died in my arms on a lovely sunny afternoon; it took less than four minutes, but at least we had time to say goodbye. There was an autopsy; you wouldn’t normally get one in that part of India; but her parents were wealthy. The toxicology report said there was enough snake venom in her heart to fell an ox and that she had had no chance, even with the serum, because of the unfortunate position of the snake bite.”

  Roger paused for a few seconds and swallowed hard.

  “I tried staying on in India, but there was no point. So three months after Abi’s death I packed up my chattels and came home to find my parents both frail and my father in hospital with pneumonia. When I visited him he said a strange thing; he said that I should pray that mum died first. I thought that he was being gallant, but there was a more sinister reason behind his request. In any case my father recovered; the doctor’s clearly didn’t expect this and said that he did it by shear bloody will power. I then lived an uneasy life at home. My brother John was managing the estate and I was really a spare part. Golf proved to be my salvation. I guess I turned to golf when I turned away from God. I reasoned that Abi had loved God with all her heart and been rewarded with an early death, so I didn’t want to be involved with a God who did such things. Call me a heretic if you like, but the most precious thing I had ever had was taken away.”

  “I played golf once a day at first and then twice a day. I got my handicap down to six and a new circle of friends. The only problem was that I only felt alive on the golf course or in the golf club; the rest of the time was a total misery. Then two years later I met Myrtle at a hunt ball and I thought that I was back in love. She had a reputation as a man-eater but I ignored that and married her six months after we met. Nine months later my father died - his wish of mum going first being unfulfilled. The reason for his wish soon became apparent: the Earldom passed to my younger brother not me. Actually I wasn’t too bothered, but Myrtle was; she badgered me for weeks to take my brother to court, but I would not. Then six weeks after dad died mum passed away and it all became clear. In her will I did not get a penny, not one brass farthing, but I did get an envelope containing photographs and a letter. There were four photographs: one of Dad, one of Mum, one of a servant girl and one of me as a baby. The letter had been written by my father years before and explained all. Apparently Dad and the servant girl had what he euphemistically called ‘a liaison’ and I was the fruit of that liaison. Mum’s terms for staying with dad were that I should not inherit the Earldom; it would either pass to a younger male sibling or a male cousin. Mum had also insisted that I was sent to boarding school as early as feasible and that where possible I should stay with relations during the holidays. Of the servant girl nothing was said, but I assumed she had been sent away. I found out year
s later that dad had written a second letter that was with his solicitor; it assumed mum had died first and explained my parentage, but also bequeathed me the Earldom and estate. Myrtle was apoplectic, not only was she not going to be a countess she was not going to get the estate and was married to the former Earl’s bastard son. She left me three days later and had her solicitor write to me filing for divorce as soon as possible. If she couldn’t be a countess she wanted half of what I did have. That was not inconsequential, I had inherited some £400,000 from Abi and I was determined that Myrtle would not get a penny of it. I hired a private detective both to find my real mum and to investigate Myrtle; I’m not proud of that but it had to be done.”

  “To cut a long story short, the detective came up trumps, and so he should the way I was paying him. He had four sworn statements from different men saying that they had slept with Myrtle while we were married. He also had a set of photographs taken in my bedroom, my bedroom! I must have been on a short trip to India. Myrtle was in bed with another woman and two men. Some of the pictures were very sordid, but one of the men could be seen clearly, it was her brother. He was aiming to be an MP and a scandal at that time in his career would have been disastrous. The price of Myrtle’s abdication of monetary rights was my silence, and she paid up without a murmur. She’s now married to an MP herself and I pity the poor sod. The detective had also found my biological mother, or rather her grave. As far as he could make out dad found her a position in another house far away in Lancashire, but mum found out where she was and had her dismissed by telling the lady of the house she was a whore. This pattern seems to have been repeated three times. In the end she died of syphilis and in absolute poverty in a poor house in London; mum had driven her to the streets and an early death; that’s what you call revenge.”

  “I found out that there was an opportunity of investing in a new golf course here in Felburgh, so I upped sticks and moved here swearing that I would never have another relationship with a woman as long as I lived. My partner pulled out as soon as the bills began to mount, but I had nowhere else to go and enough money to see me through. So the Felburgh Golf Club was born, and I made sure that it was a male only golf club. It was a private club so I could set the rules. It took me six years to get the club off the ground from scratch to viability and throughout all that time Catherine was my secretary. At first it was two days a week, but within a few months it was full-time. She became indispensable; she also became my third wife. With Abi we had swept each other off our feet; with Myrtle I had lived in a fool’s paradise; but with Catherine we just grew together. When the club was finally up and running she asked for an eight-week holiday to see her relatives in South Africa and New Zealand. When she was gone I realised just how much I had grown to love her. When she returned I popped the question and we married, her one disappointment being that she could not get married in church as I was a divorcee.”

  “My marriage to Abi had been one of passion and excitement; my marriage to Catherine was one of contentment and comfort. We fitted together like ying and yang. Two years into the marriage Bryan arrived and our happiness was complete. Six years later a slow ordeal began. She began to be sick in the mornings and we thought that another child was on the way, but her periods continued. The GP passed her on to a consultant who diagnosed advance stomach cancer. It took Abi four minutes to die; it took Catherine four years. She literally wasted away in front of me; when she finally died, she weighed less than five stone. To have lost one person you really love is a tragedy, to lose two is a catastrophe. There was one redeeming factor: Catherine’s faith in God meant that she died in peace and had the support of the church members during the really hard times.”

  Roger looked at Peter again; “When Abi died I packed God away with her ashes. When Catherine died I could see the love of God in action in the people who loved her. Marjorie was absolutely wonderful; towards the end, she came in every day to bathe and change Catherine. She mopped up her vomit, cleared away her incontinence, and read silly romantic fiction to her day after day. I tried to focus on the club, but in the end I hired a manager so that I could concentrate on Catherine and Bryan. Catherine was insistent on two things; firstly that Bryan should be told the truth, and secondly that he should not miss out on his childhood just because she was dying.”

  “If life had been black after Abi it was blacker after Catherine. If I hadn’t had Bryan to think of I would have drunk myself to death in the first week. Looking after him kept me sane - that and coming to church. There’s strength in being with others who believe in God. Somehow I got through the first couple of years and the pain became a bearable ache. Bryan became a teenager and I went back to work. In my absence the manager had turned a flourishing enterprise into a going concern. He’d made some decisions I didn’t agree with – having women’s days for instance – but he had turned the club round. I only went back to work because he was leaving to set up his own golf club in Saudi Arabia. I realised after two weeks in the job that I would ruin the club, I haven’t got the right flair and enterprise, and my mind wasn’t fully on the club anyway. Catherine’s death had put golf into perspective: it’s only a game and a recreation; it has nothing to do with life. Then out of the blue a group of Korean businessmen offered to buy the club. Their offer was out of this world, but they had two conditions, firstly that I remain as manager for three years unless they asked me to go; and secondly that the interior of the club have a refit at my expense. I sold them the club and have three months to go. I included in the price all the land I didn’t or couldn’t use for the course. They don’t know it, but I also reduced the perimeter on their plans by six yards. I still own a six-yard strip all the way round the course and clubhouse; if they ever do anything untoward with the club I shall exercise my rights and prevent access. I might never have to use it, but somewhere along the line I think they are conning me; the price is too high for a golf club and they are too eager to purchase; so eager that they missed my shrinking perimeter trick.”

  “However, the three month deadline had honed my mind. For the last three years I’ve employed a barmaid called Muriel. She first came when she had left her husband. I’ve met him twice: he is a brute of a man and has a vile temper. I offered her a temporary job so she could make ends meet. In the first year she went back to him twice, both times ended in failure, the second time ended with her in hospital. She is now estranged from him, but not divorced. She is a Catholic and doesn’t believe in divorce. We’ve been going out for just over a year. This is a different sort of love: not the explosive Abi love or the drawing together love of Catherine. It’s more like a slow-burning love where the glow is gradually increasing. But if she persists with her no divorce rule then the only option we have is that of living together.”

  Roger now looked Peter straight in the eyes, “So tell me Solomon, which is the greater sin? Should we live together or should she get a divorce?”

  Peter decided to avoid the point for a moment, “And is she prepared to live together?”

  Roger grimaced, “I asked her to marry me last Saturday; she said no. So I said I would be content to live with her; she said no.”

  Peter asked, “Will you try again?”

  “No, you see I have my answer because she said to me that she might consider either of the two options more closely if I did two things. Firstly I had to stop drinking; not just reduce my drinking but stop altogether. Secondly I had to come and talk with you.”

  Peter thought for a moment.

  “I guess my response to that is twofold; firstly I would like to talk to both of you, and secondly sometimes divorce is not all wrong.”

  Roger looked like a dog that had just been tossed a juicy bone. Peter continued.

  “Sometimes marriages break down and we have to recognise that fact and move on. Just because someone is a Christian it doesn’t prevent them from making a wrong choice or from having the marriage fall apart due to incompatibility. My question would be did Muriel really mean the wed
ding vows when she said them? If she can answer yes to that and to the fact that she has tried to make the marriage work and not walked away at the first hiccup, then personally I would not condemn a divorce.”

  Roger sighed. Peter continued, not wanting to give false hope.

  “But, Muriel may have other ideas and other standards; if she does and if you force her into a situation she doesn’t like, your relationship will have within it the seeds of doom.”

  Roger nodded.

  “Will you talk to us?”

  “Of course, but bear in mind that Muriel might prefer a Catholic Priest.”

  Roger shook his head.

  “No she wouldn’t ask Father because she knows he might be forced into giving her an answer that toes the party line.”

  “Ring me then.”

  Roger got up and looked at the huddle in the car park and then at Peter.

  “Their not all bad you know. Individually each one of them has shown the love of God to me and Catherine. It’s just when we get together somehow God gets left out of the equation.”

  The following morning as Jo entered the vicarage she had a sense of deja vous. Aquinas was lying at the kitchen door looking miserable and the house was in silence. As before Peter was sitting on the kitchen floor, this time with the inhaler by his side. Jo said to him quietly, “take the dog for a walk?”

  Peter gave the thumbs up sign. On her return there was a note on the work-top, it read, ‘thanks, I’ve gone to bed. Go home and enjoy a day off with Danielle. She did just that.