This Holey Life

by Sophie Duffy

It is then that I notice a serious-looking Desmond pull up in his dirty car. He catches my eye and smiles weakly. A smile that holds all sorts of unspoken words and feelings. I step back from the window and go and find Steve. It takes me a while, even in our poky terrace, but I stumble across him in the downstairs loo, lying awkwardly on the floor. I try to say his name but it’s lodged deep down and won’t come out. Has he had a heart attack?

  The doorbell. Desmond. I am about to drag in the vicar to help administer CPR when Steve, alerted by the bell, sits up, spanner in hand. ‘Alright, Vick? I was just fixing that drip. Thought you’d be pleased.’

  I am of course pleased. I am in fact ecstatic that Steve hasn’t conked out. So I am smiling inanely when I answer the door and usher Desmond in.

  ‘What’s all the fun about?’ he asks, like he’s Oliver Cromwell.

  Steve emerges from the loo, drying his hands on a towel, caught out by his boss who today is unusually smart in his dog collar and black suit, armed with a briefcase. Smart and sombre and efficient, like a JW or the man from the Pru.

  ‘Can we have a chat,’ Desmond says, not asking, not smiling, going on through to the kitchen, scouting for children with flapping ears. He stands upright by the back door and motions for us both to sit down, which we do.

  ‘It’s Karolina,’ he says, straight to the point. ‘The church wardens and I have had a meeting with her and she has given us her version of events. She’s going to go away and write it all down, in a formal statement.’ He leaves a gap in case we want to say something but we are both silent, waiting for more information. ‘We need to begin the process that investigates whether you, Steve, have engaged in conduct that is unbecoming or inappropriate to the office and work of the clergy. If Karolina wishes to pursue this accusation she must write a formal complaint, which will be made to the Bishop. She’ll have to produce written evidence in support of the complaint, and verify the complaint by a statement of truth. The Bishop will then refer this to the diocesan registrar for advice on whether the allegations are of sufficient substance to justify proceedings under the Measure.’

  He takes a breath, scans our faces. ‘I won’t go on. I’ve printed all this off for you. Read it through and we’ll talk later when you’ve had a chance to consider.’ He lays a bundle of officious-looking paper on the table.

  Steve doesn’t move.

  ‘It’s difficult, Steve. I know you are a man of integrity but maybe you’ve let yourself get in a vulnerable position. It’s easily done. Spending time counselling her. Some people can get attached and imagine all sorts of things.’

  ‘I haven’t spent any time counselling her,’ Steve shakes his head. ‘Only the odd conversation after church, or at Alpha, when there have been others around. And confirmation classes... ’

  ‘So you’ve seen a bit of her then?’

  ‘Nothing beyond the call of duty.’

  ‘No phone calls.’

  ‘I don’t even have her number.’

  Desmond takes out a grey hanky form his trouser pocket and coughs into it. After a moment, he says: ‘She showed us her mobile. Your mobile number came up several times in her incoming calls box.’

  I daren’t look at Steve. I don’t want to see his face. I don’t want to see his reaction to this revelation. I don’t want to know if he phoned her. Why he phoned her. Why he said he never phoned her.

  ‘As for tonight’s Alpha, I’m afraid I have no option but to take over,’ Desmond goes on. ‘Have a night off and talk things through.’ He gives the slightest of smiles and nods his head, saying he’ll see himself out.

  Steve and I sit together, apart, listening to the door shut, the car pull away. The papers stay on the table, waiting to be read.

  This is really happening. It won’t be resolved today, overnight. It is going to drag on, judging by the papers on the table which no doubt outline all stages of the process. It’ll all be done by the book, as it must be. But I hate it. It’s not fair. Steve doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t. They’ll be a reason for the phone calls. And what about me? Has the witch once thought about me?

  I remember her languishing on the sofa, the table strewn with rubbish, the packet of pills. I remember her looking at Imo in the surgery telling me she was a lovely baby, making me feel better. The conniving cow.

  ‘Did you phone her?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Right, well, okay then. We’ll work this out. But we’ve got to be smart. She’s cleverer than we think. And far more dangerous.’

  Thoughts for the Day: You will not beat me, Karolina. I am Vicky the Conqueror. Vicky the Victorious.

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Thursday 20th March Maundy Thursday

  Martin, surprise, surprise, is staying with us once again. Dorota and Roland are going back later today, what with it being bingo night. So no bed issues.

  Martin has toothache, man-toothache, growling at anyone who comes within range. Dorota rummages in the larder and finds a half bottle of brandy left over from Christmas. She puts a generous snifter in his cup of tea and urges him to avoid the dentist. Martin is happy to go along with this treatment but I am not. I won’t be shouted at in my own house for cleaning windows, however much pain he is in, physical or otherwise. I won’t be told to stop the bloody squeaking because it cuts through him, the poor diddums.

  So I phone around and get him an emergency appointment at a local surgery seeing as he doesn’t have a dentist of his own in Dulwich. (Too expensive. Too tight.) I scribble the appointment time on a post-it note and stick it on the brandy bottle dwindling in front of him on the kitchen table. My kitchen table.

  ‘Four pm. Can you wait that long or will you be rolling around drunk on the floor by then?’

  ‘What a good idea,’ he says, winking at Dorota and taking three consecutive puffs of his inhaler.

  My mother-in-law giggles in a sickening manner and I harbour unchristian thoughts, which include smashing the brandy bottle over her hennaed head. Breathe deep, Vicky-Love.

  And where is Steve? He has left me with his parents and our children to spend some reflective time in the church. Which is good. Which is right. So why do I begrudge him a simple thing like that?

  The last few days and Olivia is still holding her Lenten fast. She has resorted to making sculptures out of bubble gum. Chewed bubble gum that Jeremy has stuck under the zed-bed. She was in the back room earlier, organising his stuff for his return tonight – Claudia has a date – and decided to clean under his bed. That is when she found the discarded bubble gum. She thought it was some kind of pink Blu-tack and has made a small collection of farm animals. I try to hide the horror in my voice, suggesting she use the playdough in the kitchen instead. At the table. On a tray. With an apron. She skips ahead of me, her animals forgotten so I can wrap them up in paper and dispose of them surreptitiously in the bin.

  Martin and Dorota have disappeared to the front room to watch a DVD with Rachel and Jeremy. This is Martin’s first encounter with High School Musical and, when I peek around the door, he is deeply engrossed, a discarded packet of painkillers on the table and a hot water bottle held to the side of his face. I have an hour before I have to get him to the dentist. Possibly half an hour before Imo wakes from her nap. I catch Roland coming out of the understairs loo and urge him to hold the fort.

  ‘Going anywhere nice?’ he asks in the manner of one knowing the answer: that I rarely go anywhere nice.

  ‘To the church.’

  ‘Right,’ he says, enigmatically. Roland is a man of few words but much subtext.

  The door of St Hilda’s is open. I stand in the porch and wipe my shoes, like all those people before me from the end of the war until now. And preceding them, when the old church stood here, many shoes would have been wiped before entering this sacred place. (If only Desmond remembered to do likewise, it would make my job a lot easier.) I am following in the footsteps of thousands of believers who have worshipped here, inspired by St Hilda herself who’d probably never been to London he
rself being a northern lass. And if she had, it’s doubtful she would’ve ventured as far as Penge. The weight of history is upon me as I enter the nave and spot my husband seated near the front, gazing up at St Hilda herself, the stained glass seagulls dipping their wings in honour of the lapis lazuli clad figure, her golden halo shining with Penge’s new-spring sun.

  ‘Steve?’

  He jumps a little, so lost in thought, not hearing my approach. But he knows my voice and, when he turns to look at me, he is smiling his Steve smile. His everything’s-going-to-be-alright smile. It is at once comforting and infuriating. ‘She must have been an awesome woman,’ he says.

  ‘St Hilda?’

  He nods, patting the pew beside him.

  I force myself to ignore the cumulus of dust powder-puffing from the cushion. Amanda’s responsibility. I ease myself into the pew, next to my husband and we both look up at her. St Hilda.

  ‘Bede says she was a woman of great energy.’ Steve says this little gem after a few moments of companionable contemplation.

  I try to stifle an all-encompassing yawn; this is the first time I’ve sat down all day and tiredness settles on top of me, sinking me down into the pew. ‘I wish she’d give some of it to me.’

  Steve ignores my attempt at humour, not that it was said without an element of truth. I’d happily take on some heavenly vibes from old Hilda. Instead he carries on with his theological ruminations. ‘Bede said: All who knew her called her mother because of her outstanding devotion and grace.’ He sounds wistful, dreamy. ‘He also said she was a good teacher. And very wise.’

  I’m not altogether sure where he’s coming from right now. Shouldn’t he be thinking of Karolina? Of me? Even of Jesus? Why is he fixated on a nun from the Dark Ages?

  He gazes up, searching for God up there, while I am searching for cobwebs. ‘Have you ever noticed her feet?’ he asks.

  ‘Her feet?’ I look at the dainty blue slippered feet of St Hilda and think of my own feet, clad in my favourite Clark’s. I think of all those other feet again, the ones who have trod in here before me. All of these worshippers gazing up at this window, a window somehow salvaged from the ruins left by the Luftwaffe, brought back to life in the new church, so St Hilda could once again offer words of wisdom to those with open ears.

  ‘Look at the snakes, Vick,’ Steve says, pointing them out, a tangle of serpents writhing around her feet. I’ve never really considered them before, the snakes, preferring the seagulls above her, memories of Worthing. ‘She turned a plague of snakes to stone.’

  ‘A plague of snakes? In Whitby?’

  ‘So legend has it. They say that’s why ammonite fossils have been found on the beach there. Hence the ammonite genus Hildoceras.’

  What is going on inside my husband’s head, going off on one right when he should be firmly on the ground? ‘Have you been Googling again?’

  ‘Wikipedia.’

  I can’t help letting out a sigh. I sense Steve stiffen beside me, bristling at what he can only take as criticism. ‘It’s all very interesting, Steve,’ I start, pushing myself on. ‘But I was kind of hoping your time-out for reflection might’ve been more productive.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I was kind of hoping you might have worked out a way of solving our little spiky haired problem.’

  ‘Karolina.’

  ‘Yes, Karolina.’

  He sighs this time. A mighty sigh that comes from deep within. ‘I suppose I was hoping,’ he looks up, ‘the old girl might pass on some of her legendary wisdom to me.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be relying on God for that?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you?’

  ‘This isn’t about me.’

  ‘But it isn’t about me either.’

  ‘What about the phone calls?’

  ‘There were no phone calls.’

  Silence. Deadlock. I forge on. ‘And what about Desmond? Have you spoken with him today? Or have you been waiting for St Hilda to step down from that window and chin Karolina.’

  ‘I’m not sure chinning will get us very far.’

  ‘It helped me with Martin.’

  He shakes his head, at me, at the world.

  But I’ve said that word. That name. Martin. It hovers in the hushed air of the church and I have to do something about it. A quick glance at my watch tells me I need to leave my husband here, with the old girl. It’s quarter to four. Time to get back to the real world.

  ‘Just how much have you put back?’

  ‘Unlike you, Vicky-Love, I can hold my drink. You only have to sniff a wine gum to get trollied. And anyway, your mother-in-law has fuelled me with a tanker load of coffee. I’m fine. It’s all good.’ He takes a puff of his inhaler and lights up.

  I pull away from the street, leaving my family, my shelter behind me, stuck in the Espace with Martin and his smoke and his man-toothache that is the worst toothache since the beginning of time. Since Adam and Eve trod happy-go-lucky through the Garden of Eden, not a care in the world. Before cares even came into the world. Before Adam gave in to his stomach and ate that stupid apple. That stinking rotten apple disguised as a luscious Granny Smith.

  The waiting room. Eerily quiet, which straightaway makes Martin fret over his health, cupping the side of his face and groaning like a Premier league footballer. ‘Never trust a quiet dentist,’ he says, barely audible as he won’t open his mouth. A ventriloquist’s dummy. A dummy anyway.

  ‘You’ve spent too much time with Dorota.’ I find a chair and swipe a dog-eared magazine off the heap on a table.

  ‘Don’t diss your mother-in-law,’ he whispers. ‘She saved my life today.’

  Today’s not over, that’s what I want to say but I restrain myself, breathing deeply and reminding myself that Martin has had a mega week. I should be supportive. Kind. The good sister.

  I’m halfway through the latest Chat, catching up on my celebrity ‘news’ so that I can be one step ahead of Olivia, when Martin is told to go in by the receptionist, who he has been blatantly eyeing up ever since we arrived. (Nothing stops him.) He shuffles off and I get back to Chat.

  Ten minutes later and I am fully up-to-date on Tom Cruise and his young wife. Just as I am moving on to a minor Royal, there is a scream. High-pitched and panicky. Followed by a muffled crash of scattering metal. The receptionist snatches her blonde little head away from the computer monitor and looks at me as if it’s my fault. A passing hygienist stops in her squelchy Croc-tracks and looks at the receptionist as if it is her fault. The magazine slips from my lap and falls, splayed, Tom Cruise face-down, to the floor. We all look at it. And I know exactly who is to blame. Who else? I feel my face heat up as quick as a halogen cooker. A menopausal flush that reaches up my nose and into my ears. What’s Martin done now? Has he made a pass at the dentist? Please tell me no.

  The three of us, united in worried curiosity, listen out, alert. A moment of silence. Just a moment. Then the door flings open and we can see into the surgery: Martin prone on the chair, his arm fallen to one side, hanging limp, metal instruments strewn across the floor.

  He’s fainted.

  The wuss.

  But where’s the dentist? I can’t see the dentist. There’s the dentist. That’s the dentist, coming out of the room, panic stuck to her face. Shouting. Wild-eyed and spiky-haired.

  Karolina?

  Yes, Karolina is the dentist, who else, I might’ve known, and she’s shouting for help.

  ‘Somebody call 999!’

  Meanwhile another dentist emerges from the staff room, brushing off the crumbs of a sugar-free snack with each rushed step, and they disappear, the two of them, Karolina lagging somewhat behind, back into the room. The door slams shut. Bang. Boom.

  More silence. Louder than any noise. I can hear the cogs clicking in the receptionist’s tiny head. She’s been joined by the hygienist, priest-like in her white uniform; they are whispering to each other, glancing from me to the closed door behind which carries on a drama involving my brother
.

  Two brief thoughts.

  Why, out of all the dentists in South London, did Karolina have to be the one to deal with Martin?

  Has the Polish psycho killed my brother?

  These thoughts jostle for supremacy in my head but I am beyond sorting them out. I am beyond thinking. I am reacting, up off my feet and barging into the room, ignoring requests to stay outside, ignoring the receptionist and the hygienist’s dual attempt to pull me back, an overpowering urge to help Martin.

  And there he is, Martin. Out cold. Blood trailing down his nose, like he’s been hit. Again. The second dentist is stabbing something in his leg. Through his trousers. His thigh. My brain cannot work out what is going on. I look to the dental nurse who is on the phone to the ambulance. Then I spot Karolina, standing with her back to the wall, staring blankly ahead, quite still. What the hell has happened? I speak to the room, to anyone who’ll listen:

  ‘Will. Someone. Please. Tell. Me. What. She’s. Done. To. My. Brother?’

  ‘Apparently it was the latex gloves that did it,’ I tell Claudia much later as she finally answers her phone and drags herself away from William Shakespeare to visit her husband in hospital.

  Her husband, my brother, is sitting up in bed, calmly watching the News, with a red nose, a drip in his arm, and wires on his chest hooked up to one of those heartbeat monitor things. Nurses swarm around him, taking his blood pressure, scribbling notes, and generally fussing.

  Jeremy is perched on the bed eating his father’s untouched supper, something involving mashed potato and beige meat. He picks out the diced carrots and lines them up on the side of the plastic plate like the victims of a vegetable firing squad.

  Claudia and I sit opposite each other and talk over Martin’s long legs.

  ‘It was an anaphylactic shock,’ I tell my sister-in-law who has still managed to leave home with coordinated accessories. ‘When Karolina hit him in the face, that must have triggered it.’

  ‘Why the hell did the dentist hit him in the face?’

  ‘That’s the bit I’m not sure of. Martin, would you care to elaborate?’