He made no mention of the accident on the short drive. St Anne’s was the white church with the simple spire on the common. It had been built in the nineteen twenties as the First Baptist Church. But when a fund-raising movement in the eighties had enabled its congregation to build a larger facility, the Episcopalians had moved in. Their own church had burned down. Knowing the service must already have started, Gwen, having little hope of finding a space in the narrow lane reserved for church parking behind the common, left the car outside the grim red-brick Victorian that was the Cully Mansion. Always considerate, she made sure not an inch protruded onto its driveway. Additionally, she had sensed – from her conversation with Nellie – that the uncle and aunt, who had taken young Oliver to live with them, might be a testy couple.
She and Sonny entered the church to find, as she had anticipated, the service well in progress. A voice to the right of the altar announced: ‘The first reading from the Book of Isaiah.’ Her intention was to lurk at the back until the moment came when they could, as inconspicuously as possible, find room in a pew. Foiled! As she was endeavoring to shut the door without an alerting bang behind her, a balding, middle-aged man approached them. Beckoning them forward, he marshaled them up the right side aisle, until they reached a midway half-empty pew. Having bowed them in, Gwen first, then Sonny, he retreated. Just as they sat the organ swelled forth and they had to stand back up, rather like Jack-in-the boxes. This didn’t appear to bother Sonny; his face was rapt. He might be pleased with what he heard, or waiting intently for a false note, it didn’t matter. He was where he needed to be at this moment.
Smiling, she glanced left at the profiles of the only two other people in the pew. An African-American woman with closely cropped gray hair, and a sturdy, sandy-haired boy of perhaps ten. Both joined in the psalm now being sung. The thought crossed Gwen’s mind: Joyful voices raised unto the Lord. Both had perfect pitch. Sonny now looked their way and nodded. When all sat for the next reading, the fingers of both his hands played out some piece he was hearing internally, on his trousered knees. Then came the Gospel read from the pulpit by a tall, thin, scholarly-looking man in a cassock and white surplice, whom Gwen assumed to be the priest; but on making his descent, he retired to a side chair. Whereupon, a woman garbed much the same rose from the seat beside him and crossed in front of the altar, with its green and gold embroidered cloth, to stand on the chancel steps. Then this must be – Gwen glanced down at the service pamphlet she had found on the pew – the Reverend Marjorie Ansteys. How times had changed since this church was built. The stark simplicity of its white walls, clear glass windows, and strictly serviceable pews gave such an impression of seventeenth-century Puritanism that the elaborate altar cloth and gleaming brass candlesticks already seemed incongruous. Had this been four hundred years ago the woman would have been stoned before being dragged to the stake. But how worthily had we advanced? Gwen wondered. We still had our prejudices, based on fear and ignorance. Racial and religious hatreds, condemnation of the undeserving poor, avoidance of the mentally ill, as if all were potentially violent. Mercifully, there were multitudes of truly decent people. She wondered how the African-American woman felt amongst the sea of Caucasian faces. The boy held her hand as he leaned against her.
The Reverend Ansteys, rosy-faced and red-haired, looked as though laughter would bubble forth from her mouth as readily as a sermon. She had embarked in a musical voice on an anecdote about a man on a train.
‘We’ll call him Mr Smith. He found himself sitting opposite a former college acquaintance; we’ll call him Mr Jones. They began to talk, reminiscing about old times, and all the while Mr Smith was noticing the shabby clothes, the hair in need of a barber, the down-at-the-heel shoes, the demoralized expression and voice of a man who had been a brilliant student twenty years before with a successful career on the horizon. Mr Jones explained that he had lost his job when the bank he had worked for had failed, and had now been unemployed and out of work for over two years. He was on his way to an interview, but his hopes were dampened by knowing he didn’t look his best. Mr Smith had left home with very little cash in his wallet and on impulse,’ Reverend Ansteys paused, ‘he removed his gold cufflinks and handed them to Mr Jones, telling him to pawn or sell them.’
At that moment Gwen’s thoughts turned inward. She was back in the bedroom she had shared with Charles in the house in Boston. She could see him vividly behind her closed lids. He was standing with his back to her, looking into the mirror as he removed his cufflinks. She had just come out of the bathroom after putting on her white lawn nightdress. It was about eleven on the night following the announcement of Rowena’s engagement to John Garwood. The day she had thought would never end, and was now willing tomorrow to come so it too would be over. Her sister and fiancé were to leave with her parents after lunch. If only they’d change their minds and decide go as soon as they finished breakfast.
‘It won’t work.’ Charles dropped the cufflinks on the dressing table, continuing to stare into the mirror, his voice so harsh it startled her.
‘What won’t?’
‘This ludicrous engagement of Rowena’s.’
‘Why ever not?’ Feeling the room shift, Gwen had sat down on the bed. Had he guessed? Was Charles about to accuse her of making a fool of herself in John’s presence? Was he suggesting that, for all he cared, she was at liberty to spin out her juvenile fantasies to her heart’s content?
‘Because, my dear Gwen, the man’s not her type. Too much the strong, silent type.’
‘He was conversational. He talked to my father a lot.’ But that wasn’t true, she immediately thought. He had listened attentively, drawn the older man out of the shell within which he had, so unaccustomedly, retreated.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Gwen!’ Charles finally turned from the mirror, removed his tie and flung it onto a chair. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about. The fellow’s never going to pour out his passion in blank verse, annihilate himself on her behalf. And nothing less from a man would ever satisfy your sister. She’s a carnivore. A beautiful beast of prey.’
‘That’s a dreadful thing to say.’ Gwen had been shocked out of her self-absorption.
‘But accurate. Rowena was never cut out to be a wife. She’s a born mistress. Mark my words, my sweet, she’ll be bored with this fool in a month and toss away his carcass.’
‘Charles,’ she was stunned, ‘why are you reacting this way? Why so heated? I always thought you were fond of her. I used to think, before you and I discovered our feelings for each other, that it was Rowena you loved or had at least captured your interest.’
He laughed, and the sound was even harsher than his voice. ‘I had too much sense to be reeled in and she knew it. I wonder if the betrothed, as we’ll call him for the moment, will creep into her room when we turn off the lights in here. But why waste time thinking about their antics when you are looking so delectable in that prim Victorian shift thing.’
Charles had subsequently made love to her with a fervor amounting to ferocity, and she had striven to respond, until his hands and mouth hurt her too much. She doubted he noticed. He had never used her in this ruthless, impersonal way before, but she was too numbed to seek out the reason, beyond his having been irritable all day, his anger exploding when Sonny broke the lamp. She lay wakeful long after Charles fell asleep, feeling spent, empty and praying that she would not see much of Rowena and John in the coming weeks. The next day bruises were visible on her breasts and the insides of her thighs. Thankfully, her parents and the engaged couple did decide to leave immediately after breakfast.
As it turned out, she did not see any of the four until a month later when John arrived alone, late on a Saturday evening, to break the news that her father had died. Sonny was asleep, Charles in California for the weekend, and Mrs Broom at her own home. There had been only one shoulder to weep on.
Gwen drew her thoughts back to the present; she had missed the outcome of the two men meeting on the train. Revere
nd Ansteys was ending her homily and people were reaching into pockets and purses, suggesting it was nearing time for the collection. Gwen felt Sonny clasp her hand. The African-American woman’s warm brown eyes took in the faces of mother and son, their linked hands. Something passed between her and Gwen, something constant and enduring that brings the gift of peace in small moments freed to rejoice. The organ poured forth once more, the congregation rose for the next hymn and Sonny joined forth full force. The sandy-haired boy looked at him, raised a thumb, and smiled from an endearingly round face, damp with tears.
Six
After church that morning, Twyla took Oliver to Matey’s, a gray-shingled diner on the corner of Herring Bone Lane, behind the common. There was a pirate with an eye patch on the sign above the door, which was cool. Oliver and Brian liked playing pirates and saying – Aaargh! There’s treasure aboard that one, me hearties! Brian’s pirate name was Captain B. Curdle and Oliver’s was Walker Plank. Grandpa had come up with the names when they were six and made them each a wooden cutlass. They’d both practiced leering in the mirror until, in Brian’s opinion, they’d both got it down real good. Those happy times all seemed part of a far, distant past. Now looming was not a vessel loaded with booty, but a return to the Cully Mansion.
When he had stepped inside the shadowy hall with Gerard and Elizabeth and heard the heavy door close behind them, he’d been overcome with the dread that he’d become their prisoner and that all the promises of allowing him contact with Twyla were lies. It seemed he’d been wrong about that because no protests had been raised over his leaving with her this morning. And last night had to have been a dream . . . a nightmare – when he thought he opened his eyes in the middle of the night to see Gerard standing at the side of the bed, hands outstretched toward him. How could it have been real? Gerard had said nothing, done nothing when Oliver gasped his name, only stared at him with blind eyes before turning and gliding out into the hall. Oliver hoped his thoughts didn’t show on his face. The lady minister’s sermon had inspired him to try and be a better person, which meant in this case casting aside suspicion. Grandpa said that human nature, being what it was, this noble intent didn’t last more than five minutes, so best to make the most of them. A lot of good could be done in five minutes.
Oliver had wanted to go and see Grandpa right after church, but Twyla had explained that the staff at Pleasant Meadows would be doing the rounds with lunch about now, so they might as well have something to eat themselves before heading out there. The walls of Matey’s were thick with brightly colored pictures of grinning, or snarly-looking pirates, but – as Twyla murmured to Oliver in a jokey voice – the owners hadn’t gone ridiculously overboard. There was a carnation in a vase on the table, not a candle that looked like a skull. She was right. The waitress who came up to their table by the window wasn’t wearing a kerchief on her head or an eye patch. Brian would probably have been disappointed that she didn’t have a fake parrot on her shoulder. Oliver thought she looked a nice, friendly sort of person. She had round rosy cheeks and shiny brown hair. He was also ninety-nine percent sure she was going to have a baby. But Grandpa had warned him that this was something risky to comment on. When he was around Oliver’s age he’d asked a woman if she was hoping for a boy or a girl and been told, ‘There is no impending happy event, thank you very much!’ Grandpa said the memory still haunted him and he could never afterwards offer congratulations to a woman being wheeled into Delivery without fearing he was about to step on a landmine.
‘Any minute now, is my guess,’ Twyla said with a smile after the waitress left to fetch their drinks.
‘It should freak me out, the way you do that.’ He leaned forward, eyes wide with awe. ‘Read my mind, I mean.’
‘Just plain old-fashioned love sight, lamb baby. Don’t you go thinking I’ve got spirit guides helping me out, the way they do Brian’s Aunt Nellie. Not that I’m taking her down, you understand. She’s a grand old lady.’ Twyla looked as though she was going to add something to this, but the waitress had returned and was setting down their drinks. Coffee for Twyla and chocolate milk for Oliver. When they both ordered orange juice and French toast with bacon Oliver suddenly discovered he was so hungry he could eat a cavalry of horses. Grandpa used to say that. Last night’s supper at Cully Mansion had been one lonely little pork chop, with only a teaspoon of peas for company. And breakfast had been a very small bowl of cereal.
‘I’m sorry that Elizabeth’s not feeling well.’ Twyla stirred milk and sugar into her coffee. ‘Headaches can bring you down real low.’
‘She did look bad.’ Despite his negative feelings toward his aunt, Oliver had felt sorry for her. Even the hardest heart would have noticed she looked gray and kept walking in circles as if she didn’t know where she was, or what she was doing. ‘She said she kept seeing these weird lights behind her eyes.’
‘Sounds like migraine. They’re spitefully cruel, Oliver.’
Oliver downed his chocolate milk as if it were a noggin of rum on a pirate ship. ‘Gerard was real mean to Elizabeth when he came into breakfast. He said getting out the box of corn flakes had obviously been too much for her.’
‘There’s those that don’t have patience, especially when they’re full up with their own problems.’ Twyla hadn’t pressed him for information on how things were going at the Cully Mansion beyond asking if it was difficult to find his way around with it being such a big place. She’d always said that if there were things he wanted, or needed, to tell her he’d do so in his own good time.
‘What problems does Gerard have, except for being stuck with me?’ Oliver scowled. The five minutes grace period after church was definitely up. He’d already stopped striving to be a better person. As Brian’s mother, Mandy Armitage, had said when she shut the car door on her foot and came out with a whole paragraph of bad words: ‘We’re not all cut out to be Mother Theresa.’
‘He didn’t look to be a man at peace with himself yesterday; there’s surely something all tangled up inside him, was my thought. Grown-up worries. Happy people don’t lash out for no reason.’
‘I wasn’t nice to him, was I? About his fly being unzipped, I mean. And I went off some in the car on the way there.’
‘He and his wife were both surely bound to expect some resistance. They must have given some thought to a rocky start.’ Twyla sipped her coffee.
‘Maybe it’s just his nature,’ Oliver conceded. ‘Being crabby, I mean. Brian’s Aunt Nellie says some people are just born plain miserable. She says she’s known plenty who’d have to take lessons to learn how to smile. Actually, I hope they are sick of me already.’
‘I know it’s hard, lamb baby, don’t think I don’t ache inside for you. But, if it’s in any way possible, will you try and make this work?’
Oliver was tempted to say he didn’t want to, that he wished that on his return to the Cully Mansion he would find his suitcases out on the front step; he stopped himself in time. Twyla hadn’t added that it was Grandpa’s peace of mind that mattered; she wouldn’t, even if she thought Oliver was forgetting for the moment. He had to cut out the whining for her sake too. Looking into her loving eyes, it came to him with a sickening jolt that the situation had placed an invisible wall between them. Just as he could no longer pour out his entire heart to her, she couldn’t question him about how things were going at the Cully Mansion without feeling she was acting against Gerard and Elizabeth and in doing so make matters even worse for Grandpa. Oliver had never felt this alone in his entire life. The temptation to be cowardly and selfish was almost overwhelming. Being noble didn’t feel anything like as great as he’d imagined it would when watching the hero of A Tale of Two Cities standing bravely under the guillotine. If he was to get out of this dark tunnel he had to cling to hope – that Gerard and Elizabeth would come to their senses and admit it would be better all round for him to go and live with Twyla. Somehow he would have to find a way to persuade them, but not by rudeness or temper tantrums that would put him sq
uarely in the wrong and upset Grandpa and Twyla. It would have to be something crafty that would make Gerard and Elizabeth look unreasonable. What this could be he had no idea, but something would come to him. ‘Anyway,’ he said, as if introducing a brighter note, ‘if it hadn’t been for Elizabeth’s headache they might not have let me phone to ask if you could pick me up for church.’
‘That opportunity made me happy.’ Twyla patted his hand. ‘Let’s get hoping the poor woman took something to ease the pain and went for a lay down in a dark room.’
‘The whole house is dark,’ Oliver managed to speak casually. ‘It’s like the one in that old movie we watched with Grandpa. Remember? There was an old lady sitting in a room wearing a horrible old wedding dress and veil and when the young man started shouting at her and tore down the drapes there were these huge cobwebs everywhere and mice running all over the cake.’
‘Great Expectations, the book by Charles Dickens.’
Oliver nodded, his mind returning to the guillotine. ‘He’s the one who wrote A Tale of Two Cities, isn’t he? I can never decide which one I like best. They both had awesome endings. But I can’t see anything inspiring in sitting in a rotting old wedding dress for years and years, can you? It’s not like marching up to the guillotine and giving your life for a friend, is it?’
‘Love sometimes asks more of us than we think we can bear. Poor Miss Haversham! That was her name, wasn’t it? I guess Nellie Armitage is right: some people are born with misery bubbling up inside them. It doesn’t stand thinking of, lamb baby. So let’s concentrate on that French toast I see coming.’
This mundane prospect did not immediately grab Oliver’s full attention. ‘I think I do like A Tale of Two Cities best. I wonder if I’d be brave enough to stand thinking noble thoughts while waiting to have my head sliced off for Brian?’ He ceased musing on this when his plate was put in front of him. The bacon was all crispy, just the way he liked it, and the French toast thick, puffy and golden. He waited for Twyla to use the syrup then poured on a rich amber puddle and watched it seep slowly over the brown crusted sides. ‘I was coming down the hall last night, Gerard and Elizabeth were in the living room, and I heard him tell her that he thought it weird the way I used such big words for a boy of nine. He said it gave him the creeps. That sounds unreasonable, doesn’t it?’ Not to speak about them at all would have worried Twyla more than an occasional whine.
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