Felburgh

by Ivan B

  The Major paused, and then launched into his obviously pre-prepared spiel.

  “It’s been suggested that we replace it with one of those new digital keyboards as it would provide a larger repertoire of sounds than we have currently available.”

  The Major paused for breath and Peter butted in.

  “What does Dan think of this?”

  “Actually it’s his suggestion; apparently young David is thinking of buying a small keyboard and he took Dan with him to a exhibition of keyboards in Ipswich. Dan found this top of the range keyboard and fell in love with it.”

  The Major paused

  “Mind you it doesn’t come cheap.”

  “How much,” said Peter. “And since when has money been a problem at St Nathaniel’s?”

  The Major made his harrumph noise.

  “Somewhere in the region of £25,000.”

  He must have seen the look on Peter’s face for he rapidly continued.

  “That includes the entire speaker system, a five year guarantee and a week’s tuition for two organists at the companies training centre.”

  “Where’s that,” said Peter, “Sydney?”

  “No, Paris – but the tuition is in English.”

  Peter laughed.

  “Bring it to the Church Council; I am not opposed to the idea, but I would be if it is only ever going to be used as a piano or pipe-organ.”

  The Major relaxed. Peter asked quietly.

  “How’s Freddy?” and the Major stiffened up again.

  The Major looked at Peter.

  “He is being as despicable as ever. Do you know I sometimes rue the day we had him; he’s been nothing but trouble. We brought him up exactly that same as our other children, but it’s as if he was rotten the day he was born.”

  The Major paused, and then glanced at Petr and looked away.

  “I sometimes wonder if it’s a sort of divine retribution on me.”

  “Why would God want to do that?” Peter asked gently.

  The Major squirmed again.

  “For the upset I caused Bessie. You must have noticed that our second daughter is not like the others?”

  Peter tried to picture them, but he had met them so infrequently that nothing came to mind. He shook his head.

  “Number two is not Bessie’s, the brown eyes are a dead give-away. I had a fling when I was stationed in Italy. I have no idea what possessed me, I had a beautiful wife and child and believe me I love Bessie dearly, but somehow I found myself having an affair with this Italian socialite. Not that I’m making any excuses, the fault was all mine. The whole thing was foolish in the extreme, the girl even had a steady boyfriend the whole time we had our affair, in any case it only lasted seven days before I came to my senses. I’d already confessed to Bessie when the girl told me that she was pregnant. It was plain from the start that she didn’t want the baby, but she was a catholic and abortion was out of the question. The long and the short of it is that Bessie suggested that as the Father I gain custody of the child. When Mirabelle was two Bessie finally managed to get adoption papers signed in the Italian courts, so she was legally her parent. Bessie’s been marvelous, I don’t deserve her, she bought up Mirabelle exactly the same as the other two girls. Then we had Freddy and I thought my joy was complete; a boy at last and all that, but he’s a rotten egg. The list is endless: bullying when he was seven, shoplifting when he was nine, expelled from Junior school when he was eleven, can you imagine that, being expelled from a junior school? When he was sixteen I caught him trying to get a thirteen-year-old to have sex with him for a pair of tickets to a pop concert; he is just contemptible. And it is not as if we haven’t tried, but nothing seems to work. Even the family psychiatrist unit said that he seemed to be irredeemable. They said that he would have to want to change or see a good reason for altering his behaviour, but that apparently he actually liked being bad.”

  Peter considered this.

  “I don’t believe that God plays about with us as some sort of pawns on a cosmic chess board. He just enfolds us in his arms when the going gets tough.”

  The Major nodded.

  “Freddy might be rotten, but I’ve found great comfort in God whatever the little shit has thrown at us.”

  “Has his wife gone back to him?”

  “No, and I’m actually glad that she’s seen sense.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She and the children have moved in with us. We’ve got the space and somehow I feel responsible for them.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow.

  “It might not be good if you’re having them out of a sense of guilt.”

  The Major looked shocked.

  “Not guilt, love. I don’t feel guilty even if it is my son that’s let them down, but I do love them.”

  “What does Bessie think of all this?”

  The Major smiled.

  “She’s like a pig in muck, loving every minute of it and coping marvelously as usual.” He sighed, “And to think I nearly didn’t marry her.”

  Peter asked, “What changed your mind?”

  The Major gazed out over the sea and replied flatly.

  “A Cambodian bullet and a dose of common sense.”

  The Major looked at Peter and could see that he was making no sense.

  “I was brought up in Felburgh, not here at the Creek but out in the rural hinterland.” He explained. “My father had been in the Army and my mother came from an army family. It was all different round here then, we still had the railway and the fish factory was the main place of employment if you did not farm.”

  “Railway?” said Peter, “I didn’t know that Felburgh once had a railway.”

  “It was a spur line off of the route from London to Lowestoft; it went directly to the fish factory.”

  He paused and Peter was sorry that he had interrupted, then the Major picked up the threads.

  “Somehow I knew that I would go in the Army, my parents never forced me into it, my father even made me visit the RAF recruiting office, but it was the army for me. But we are talking about the late 1950s and the government was reducing the armed services, not increasing them and I had to wait. So I got a job in the office at the fish-factory; my father said it would help me to learn about men and organizing men. Bessie worked there on the factory floor as a fish-gutter. She’d left school at fifteen and worked there for two years when I arrived. Much to my father’s disapproval we courted on and off for a couple of years and then I got a place at Sandhurst. The day the letter arrived my father took me into his study and told me that if I was going to Sandhurst then I’d better forget about Bessie. He called her uneducated, uncouth, of working class parentage and of low intelligence and said she would be a mill-stone around my neck and hinder my career if I married her. When I told Bessie of my place at Sandhurst she said more or less the same thing. She told me that she had enjoyed going out with me and that she thought she probably loved me, but officers don’t have fish-gutters for wives.”

  He paused and made his harrumph noise.

  “I joined up and four years later I was seconded to the French Foreign Legion for a tour of duty. I had been home on and off and had seen Bessie once or twice for a drink, but there was a barrier between us, I suppose it was a barrier of social expectation. When out in Cambodia I was shot. I tell you it is a salutary experience being shot; you don’t expect it, you’re quite happy to shoot at others, but don’t expect to be hit yourself. The first bullet went clean through me and missed my heart by a few millimeters; the second hit me in the shoulder and a third in the rump. The French had a field hospital close by and they patched me up and I was airlifted to full army hospital. I was there for about a week and then airlifted to an American aircraft carrier and later to the hospital at Gibraltar. Finally I arrived home still unwell. My shoulder healed nicely and all I’ve got on my bottom is a nasty scar, but my right lung kept collapsing and just would not seem to heal, by the time I arrived home I could not walk more than a h
undred years or so without having to stop. Bessie was still working in the fish-factory doing the same job and as far as I know going out with no-one. We got back together and …you know the rest of the story.”

  The Major got up to go, but then sat down again.

  “We’ve never advertised the fact that Mirabelle is not Bessie’s daughter. I would be grateful if… ”

  Peter held up his hand.

  “Not a word, priestly confidentiality and all that. But does Mirabelle know?”

  “Of course, she’s even met her biological mother twice. Anna and Greta also know, but somehow we’ve never got round to telling Freddy and it’s now become an agreed secret in the family. Freddy would only try and use the information to his own ends and none of us want that.”

  Peter walked home. As he walked he had a long discussion with God. Peter arrived home early evening; as he passed the churchyard he could see Jennifer patiently working her way through the undergrowth in the walled tomb and he gave her a casual wave. Once home Peter had a quick cup of coffee and fed Aquinas; then he drove to Mark’s.

  When he arrived Mark was obviously not at home as his old motor bike was not propped up against the cottage wall. He stopped outside the house wondering what to do when Lucy opened the door and gave him a wave; Peter turned off the engine and opened the door. Lucy walked up the him

  “If you’re after Mark, he will be home soon; he rang to say that he’d be back from the yard in about half an hour, why don’t you come in and wait?”

  Peter did so, and was soon ensconced in their little living room while Lucy made a cup of tea.

  “Mark wouldn’t have wanted to miss you” said Lucy as she entered the room with two cups of tea and a huge slice of lemon sponge. “And I wouldn’t want him to miss you either, he’s been much more settled since you came, I’m glad you’ve hit it off.”

  “I popped over to ask him to be my best man, do you think he would?”

  Lucy gave a huge smile, “I’m sure he will, he’ll be thrilled; but get him to agree first before he realises that he’ll have to give a speech!”

  “And how are you?” asked Peter as he tried to wade through the cake.

  “Grateful to God for every new day” she replied spontaneously.

  Peter kept quiet sure that there was more to come, but in any case his mouth was full of the cake, which had that special consistency that causes it to stick on the inside of the mouth. Eventually Lucy relaxed into her chair.

  “I suppose Marks told you about his trawler sinking and about us, but I bet he’s only told half the story. He was born a fisherman, I was born into a family of solicitors. Dad was a solicitor and mum was a solicitor. They met when Dad joined the practice mum worked for and after seeing each other for six years decided it would be sensible to get married. I’m not saying that they didn’t love one another in their own way, but there seemed to be no great passion. As I grew up I decided I didn’t want a marriage like that. I was the middle child of three girls, my older sister had the looks and whatever she wore she looked like a film star. My younger sister had the brains; she got five a-levels without even trying and a double first at Oxford, in law of course. Somehow I felt I missed out on both looks and brains, but I knew I wanted to nurse even though my parents said it was a demeaning occupation; perhaps because my parents said it was unsuitable, who knows?

  “Anyway I started training at Ipswich, and in my final year met Mark. By then I had been chatted up by just about every doctor and red blooded male in the hospital. Mark was different; he was quiet, polite and clearly ill at ease in the presence of women. I fell in love with him, not the slow falling in love of the movies, but passionately in love very quickly. My parents were apoplectic with rage, they kept saying that they hadn’t paid for my private education just for me to marry an out of work fisherman, but I knew Mark was the man for me. I would have married him one month after we started going out, but it took him two years to ask me, and we were engaged for a year while he got the money together so we could live in our own home. We had two idyllic years with us both working at the hospital, and then he lost his job. They had cutbacks imposed due to lack of funds and said that some staff just had to go, both doctors and nurses were in short supply so it was the ancillary staff that took the brunt of the cuts. Mark decided to go back to sea.

  “It meant a tremendous upheaval. Mark was away for a couple of weeks, and then home for a few days. We coped. I dare say we could have settled into that routine, except that the Felburgh Castle, Mark’s sister ship, sank with all hands. Mark was shattered at the loss of his companions, but somehow seemed to reconcile this with the dangers of fishing. When he went back to sea I saw the carnage in the families left behind. One of the wives attempted suicide; two were prescribed anti-depressants. There were also six children now fatherless and as far as I could see little support, no real compensation and a bleak future. I started to notice every article in the papers about trawlers; men lost overboard, boats lost, serious injuries and the general toll on the men’s health and well being. I couldn’t bear the thought of loosing Mark and I guess I made his life hell. I remember once holding on to his ankles and screaming ‘don’t go, don’t go, you wouldn’t go if you loved me!’ But he always went, he said he didn’t know any other way of supporting us. In the end I left him. I convinced myself that he loved the sea more than me and I left him.”

  She paused and drank a little tea.

  “I moved back to the nurses home in Ipswich and buried myself in my work. I went on any training course they would let me go on, worked extra shifts and moonlighted as a pool nurse at a private nursing home. I was as miserable as sin, as bitchy as hell and gained a reputation for being prickly and volatile. I lived like that for seven years and then one dark and stormy night I went on shift and they said a crew member from a racing yacht was being helicoptered in and they wanted a senior nurse on standby. Just before he arrived the helicopter crew radioed in to say he was in a bad way and we might need a crash team on the helipad. I couldn’t believe it when they wheeled Mark in through the door. We ran out of writing space when trying to list his injuries, it was obvious the registrar on duty didn’t think he would live. I broke etiquette; I tried to remain professional, but I broke etiquette. I bleeped the senior accident consultant and the surgical registrar before we’d even finished the preliminary examination. I don’t know to this day how he survived. I do know that at the end of my shift I ran to the chapel and pleaded to God for his life. I prayed like I had never prayed before, and somehow when I had finished I knew, I just knew God had heard me.”

  “As you know he did survive, and despite all my intentions I fell back in love with him, probably in all truth I never fell out of love with him. It took a year for him to recover fully, or rather get fit despite of his new limitations. He still has steel pins in his legs and severe irritation in his right eye socket. Then, just as I was beginning to think we could make a fresh start, he said he was going back to sea and had found a berth. If he had beaten me for a week I couldn’t have been more hurt. I went back to my nurses flat and thought that I would rather die than go through all that again. Next day he appeared on my doorstep carrying a bunch of tulips, before I could say anything he said ‘I’ve been a fool, you know I’ve been a fool and now God’s told me I’ve been a fool. I’m not going to sea, I’ve got a land job and I want to live the rest of my life with you’. The rest as they say is history.”

  Lucy sat back in her armchair and smiled. Then she leant forward.

  “But there are probably two things Mark hasn’t told you, he can’t bring himself to talk about either. Five years ago I found a lump in my breast and it was diagnosed as cancer. My mum had died from breast cancer, and my elder sister had had a bad scare so somehow I was not surprised. I had a double mastectomy and chemotherapy for six months; then radiotherapy and a second round of chemotherapy. Mark nursed my through it all. Whenever I needed him he was there. I also know that every time I was in the hospital
and he couldn’t be with me he was in the chapel praying for me. I could not have asked for a better husband.”

  Lucy fell silent and Peter did not disturb her silence for some time. Finally she spoke.

  “I’ve been clear now for three years, but I still thank God for every new day.”

  “And the second thing?” Peter said quietly.

  Lucy shrugged her shoulders.

  “We’re not married. When I left him all those years ago I was so mad I filed for divorce and he did not contest it. I know he says that we renewed our marriage vows, what he means is we burnt our divorce papers, it’s not quite the same thing is it!”

  “Would you like to get re-married” Peter queried.

  “You bet, but Mark is embarrassed. He knows that everyone at St Cedd’s thinks were married and he would want to admit that we’ve just been living together all these years while he has been verger.”

  “Suppose I could arrange a quiet no publicity marriage, would you go for it?”

  “Oh yes” Lucy replied quickly, “and if you could do it on September 27th it would be even better, that’s our wedding anniversary, or should I say our non-wedding anniversary.”

  They both laughed. Just then they heard a motor bike pull up and Lucy gave Peter a worried look. “Don’t worry”, said Peter “I shan’t mention our conversation to Mark.”

  “Thanks”

  Mark came in looking tired. He flopped into the one remaining armchair.

  “Have you finished the job?” asked Lucy.

  Mark nodded, and said to Peter, “one of the tugs developed a engine fault. Trouble is you have to work on them until they are back at sea. I started on the blooming thing yesterday lunch-time.”

  Peter was incredulous, “and you’ve worked nearly thirty hours non-stop?”

  Mark gave a sheepish grin, “not quite, we had to wait for some spare to be delivered so I grabbed a few hours sleep in the office.”