This Holey Life

by Sophie Duffy

  ‘Honour me?’

  ‘I don’t think we do half enough honouring these days.’

  ‘You’d really give it all up?’

  ‘Well, obviously not all of it. Just the vicar bit.’

  ‘But what about Desmond? He’s retiring.’

  ‘I admit it may not be the best timing, both of us going together, but like I said, there’s someone else in control here. It’ll work for the good.’

  PC Wilson coughs. ‘I think I might just head off now.’

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ I say, pushing her back down. ‘Steve, I don’t want you to give it up. I think you should be vicar. I mean, who else could do it as well as you? Who else knows St Hilda’s like you? Who else knows the community?’

  Steve is silent.

  ‘Don’t you think that’ll mean more work?’ PC Wilson chips in.

  We look at her. Steve says, ‘more responsibility, not necessarily more work.’

  ‘And what about a vicar’s wife? What does that mean for Vicky, here?’

  Steve looks at me. ‘It’s what you make of it,’ he says. ‘You can go back to teaching if that’s what you want.’

  Teaching? Do I really want to leave my kids to go and teach other people’s kids? Or do I want to be a fully-fledged vicar’s wife?

  ‘Shouldn’t you be getting off home now? We’ve kept you far too long. Or would you like to stay for lunch?’ I check my watch,‘Well, a very late lunch. It’s roast beef.’

  PC Wilson gets up reluctantly from our kitchen table. ‘I’m tempted but I’m needed at home,’ she looks around the room.

  ‘You’re a nice family set-up here,’ she says. ‘I wish they were all like this.’

  I show her to the front door. She puts on her hat and says to me: ‘We don’t all need a title to make us happy. I’ve been in the force and never bothered about going for sergeant or promotion or anything. I like what I do. I’m good at it, I think,’ she coughs again. ‘But sometimes we need a status of our own. Something of our own. Do you know what I’m saying?’

  I know exactly what she’s saying.

  We are gathered in the back room, the dining room once more, as Jeremy is returning to Dulwich tonight – along with Martin, the jammy dodger. Steve lets Martin carve the beef, a gesture full of grace and humility that ignites a surge of love for my husband. I want to honour him. I want to do the best for this family. My family.

  I look around at them all, cramped round the table in the poky room: baby Imo in her high chair, a cocktail sausage squeezed in her chubby hand. Rachel, next to Jeremy, listening intently to his adventures, on the train to Dawlish, dodging the guard the whole way, finding Jessica’s mum in her painted cottage, screeching with joy to see her daughter, Jessica hugging her, how it was worth the aggro and maybe he’s right. Dorota and Roland side by side, quiet, watching the people around them, but mainly watching each other, offering vegetables, passing gravy, spooning horseradish, a choreographed dance learnt long ago in their youth. Dad and Pat yabbering away, about the food, the campervan, plans for the garden, for next week, and though it hurts like hell, thinking of my missing mum, this pain is mixed in with – yes, it has to be said – relief.

  And then Claudia, on the other side of her precious son, sneaking looks at him, checking he’s still here, he is real, alive and kicking the table leg.

  In rushes another wave of pain, but on the crest of this, a revelation: This is fine. This is life. It is okay to cry out. My family will help me. And God will hear me. He is not hidden away inside a fluffy cloud. He is there, to be found. And this might be in unexpected places. Steve found Him in Dartford after all. And I never thought I would find Him in Penge. But maybe Amanda’s right. Maybe he’s been here all along, only I never realised.

  Then I look at Martin, piling my divine Yorkshire puddings onto his plate, my plate, as if he hasn’t seen food since 1987. And I have another revelation: I actually quite like him. In small doses. When he’s not living with me.

  But this feeling soon wears off. There is another ring at the door. Olivia dashes off to answer it and escorts the uninvited guest along the poky hall and into the back room, announcing in a loud, clear voice for all to hear: ‘It’s the lady from the shoe shop.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The story according to Melanie: My mother owned a shoe shop. My grandparents bought it for her ‘to start us off ’. They had stacks of money and they said after what she’d been through, they’d do their best to help. They said she could have this sum of money and do what she wanted with it.

  She chose a shoe shop. Not the one I help out at. This was in Greenwich. Her first one. And we lived in the flat above it. We could’ve stayed with my grandparents, their house was big enough, but Mum was desperate for independence, to be in control of how I was brought up. And even though it was hard, really tough sometimes, bringing me up on her own, so young, she preferred it that way.

  My grandmother helped out a lot. She was in retail so she showed Mum some tricks of the trade. But mostly she took care of me while Mum was in the shop. Then, when I was four, about to start school, Mum met someone, Mike, and all her plans for independence went out the window.

  They got married. Mike was great. He treated us both really well. Not that we were a burden to him financially; he was a self-made millionaire, carpets. And even though Mum hadn’t been looking for a cushy life, that’s what she got. But she carried on working and with Mike’s encouragement she opened a shop in Crystal Palace and then another in Dulwich. And that’s where we moved. The Village. Into that huge place. We were a proper family.

  Mike brought me up. He was my dad. He would’ve been at my graduation and walked me down the aisle at some possible point in the future, but it wasn’t to be. He died when I was twenty. A heart attack. I was at university, caught up in finals, so I couldn’t really help Mum at the time. I don’t know how I sat through those exams. But I didn’t get the predicted first, just an upper second. Mum went abroad for a bit. She ended up staying a few years. Finally came back six months ago. And now we’re together again. I’m making up for it, back at home, in the shop, doing my PhD to make her proud.

  We have adjourned to the front room and Melanie tells us her life story, poised on my not so new leather sofa, where Martin passed out not so very long ago. Now he sits on the armchair, raspy-breathed, Claudia perched beside him, proprietorially. Steve and I are squished together on the other armchair. Melanie has a captive audience as the remaining adults have made a discreet exit, joining Bob and Tamarine in a trip to the park, taking all the kids, including Imo in her pushchair.

  ‘Only that’s not the whole story. Is it Martin?’ Melanie looks at Martin. We all look at Martin. He is pale, still blotchy after his traumas, and rubs a beard that is no longer there, the way an amputee can feel a limb long after it has gone. He doesn’t say a word, shut up for once, so Melanie carries on.

  I found Martin on the internet. It was easy. Mum had already tried to help me when I’d said I wanted to meet him. She went onto Friends Reunited but he wasn’t there. But all I had to do was Google his name and I found him. A few clicks and there was his department. Another and there was a photo of him. Pretty much as Mum had explained. Pretty much as I’d imagined. So I sent him an email with a research proposal. He asked me to come in and have a chat about it. And that’s what I did.

  He had no idea that first time we met. He assumed I was just another student hawking my ideas around. Only he seemed interested. I’d done my homework. I knew exactly what his specialism was. I knew he’d be able to supervise me. And the thing that was most worrying me, never happened. I was afraid I’d catch that look in his eye that I get off older men. My blonde hair and my other major assets do something to their already programmed brains. But I didn’t do it to him. It was weird. It was a relief. He said my proposal was excellent and he’d get back to me as soon as. And then he did give me a look but not the sort I was concerned about. An unsure look, like he’d seen me somewhere
before and couldn’t quite place me. He asked if we’d met previously. I said no, we hadn’t met previously. He said you must have a doppelganger. I said perhaps we’d met in a different space-time continuum. We agreed that it must have been around the Village. He said he and his wife had moved there about eight years before and even though I’d been away a long time our paths may have crossed.

  I wanted to tell him then but I didn’t.

  The following week I met him for coffee to talk details. He wanted to grab some lunch so we went to Starbucks. It wasn’t slimy. It was just nice. And then I told him. I told him he was my dad.

  Claudia is on her feet, so fast she almost goes over on her heels. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she says. ‘I know you’re young but how could Martin possibly be your father? Martin, why are you letting this woman say these things? Can’t you see she’s deranged? What is it with all these crazy women? Tell her to go.’

  ‘Sit down, Claudia.’ Martin is firm, his big hand on her tiny arm. ‘I should’ve spoken to you before.’

  Claudia stays on her feet, wobbling, swiping his hand away. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, listen to Melanie.’

  Claudia is fuming but she does as she’s told, shaking, and she, along with the rest of us, listen to Melanie.

  ‘I’m twenty-eight,’ Melanie says. ‘I look younger, I know. But you should see my mum. She’s only forty-five. Sixteen years older than me.’

  Martin has taken Claudia’s hand in his. She is shaking but trying to calm down, trying to find out what the hell is going on – which is what we all want to know. Why has another crazy lady gate-crashed a family gathering? And the repercussions of this? If this is true, there was no affair. Martin has not been unfaithful to his wife. But he has been dishonest. If he had told Claudia about this, that he has a daughter, then she would never have got involved with Graham Greene. The idiot. The liar. The bumface.

  ‘Did you know you’d fathered a child at... sixteen? Can this be proved?’ Claudia asks her husband, her eyes fixed on Melanie.

  Jeremy Kyle comes to mind. DNA tests and paternity suits. But seeing Melanie and Martin together, it is clear there is no need for any of that. The truth was there all along but we missed it. We made assumptions. We didn’t delve deep. We didn’t ask.

  ‘I had no idea, no.’ Martin shakes his head. ‘Well, maybe I wondered. From time to time. Because she went away so suddenly, never answered my letters. It was like she’d disappeared overnight from the face of the earth. And then, once, years ago, I saw her. In the supermarket. I knew it was her straightaway. She was with you, Melanie. You must have been about eight or nine. And I hid behind the toilet rolls. Like a coward. My heart going like the clappers because I wondered. I really wondered. And I stayed there for ages, clutching a bottle of wine, panicking. I didn’t know what would happen if she saw me. I didn’t want to hear the truth. I was ashamed. Not of you, Melanie. Of myself.’

  ‘So how did all this happen? I mean, when? Who?’ I realise I’m making a fool of myself but I have to know. I think I already do know.

  ‘Mum used to go out with Martin. For a few months. Then she got pregnant and was sent away to France to have the baby. Me. When I was a few months old we came back to London and I’ve told you the rest.’

  Claudia is looking at me now as if I might be the one to tell her the truth. A truth that she had no idea about until Melanie turned up on our doorstep. She thought she was a trollop. But she is my niece. Her husband’s daughter. A sister for Jeremy. A cousin for my girls. And I know who the other mother is. Of course I do.

  ‘And where’s your mum now?’

  Melanie gets up and moves to the window, lifts the nets. ‘Waiting in the car out there.’

  Claudia and I join Melanie at the window.

  ‘I know her,’ Claudia says after a deep and heavy pause. ‘I’ve seen her in your shoe shop. I didn’t know she owned it. I’ve bought countless pairs from her over the years. She has divine taste.’

  Standing outside, dressed from head to toe in expensive clothes, leaning against a fancy sports car, is a woman I haven’t seen in years. She was a girl the last time we spoke. A girl in a lingerie department in a new pair of shoes.

  It is Heidi.

  ... And Finally: Sunday May 11th Pentecost Whit Sunday

  In two weeks we are going to have a Eurovision party. Eurovision might not be what it once was, when you had to sing in your mother tongue and didn’t vote for your allies, but that’s life. Life is all about change.

  We’re inviting all the usual suspects, including our neighbours and even some parishioners. And we’ve invited Melanie and Heidi. They have met up with Claudia and Martin and it is all very civilised. Very Dulwich Village. And we’ve even invited Karolina who, along with Dorota, can support Poland. Let’s hope for a better party than New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t stand another evening of Gerry’s dovetail joints.

  But today is a family party. A celebration. Today is Imogen’s christening. We are meeting afterwards, for lunch, in our house, here, though Amanda has offered the vicarage. She says it will be ours soon enough, which it will be, once Steve takes over as vicar in the summer. I’ve coveted that vicarage for so long and now it is almost mine I am already hankering after the poky terrace. I’m not sure I can bear to leave it. To leave him. But I have to think of the girls. The space. The room they will have to grow and thrive and flourish.

  Not to mention the cleaning that lies ahead. It’ll take weeks to cut through the layers of ground-in grime and grease. (I’ll use that Sanctuary voucher when it’s all done and dusted.) And as for the jobs that need doing – Steve will never get round to them so I’ve booked to go on a home-maintenance course. Because maintaining a home is what is important to me. I don’t need a job title. I don’t need status. I know what I do is vital. And I know who I am. I am Vicky. And my life might be holey, not holy, but that’s okay. It’s not a race. It’s a journey. And I will make the journey in bare feet, if I have to.

  We will gather in St Hilda’s today, together, to witness that this is a special moment for the family. A time for a photo. For a camcorder. For memory. And now, as we are about to leave, Steve and I and our girls, the Saab pulls up outside the poky house, squeezing between the campervan and Bob’s woebegone Rover. Martin gets out and I join him on the street. My street.

  He hands over a box. Not a biscuit tin or a shoebox but a small, expensively wrapped oblong box. It is a gift. For Imo.

  ‘For my niece,’ he says. ‘Open it.’

  So I open it. Inside is a silver christening spoon. I look at my brother.

  ‘We can’t all be born with a silver spoon in our mouth so here’s one I bought earlier. Well, Claudia did, that’s her department. And a very expensive department it was too. In Selfridge’s.’

  I look at the car. Claudia waves at me from within, like the queen.

  ‘We don’t know what we’re going to be born into,’ he goes on, a dangerous note of wistfulness lurking in his voice. ‘And sometimes we think we know but it’s not like that at all.’

  Profound words from Professor Martin Bumface. And this time, he’s right. Uncle Jack. Melanie. Thomas. Mum. Life is uncertain. Fragile. Precious.

  ‘And I don’t know about God. Or genes. I’ve still got a lot of questions. A long road ahead. But there’s one thing I know, Vick.’

  He pauses dramatically for this is a dramatic moment.

  Sophie Duffy

  ‘You’re my sister. Through and through.’

  I wonder if he’s going to kiss me but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets back into his car with his own family, Jeremy in the back on his Nintendo wotsit, Claudia redoing her lipstick.

  I am turning back to the house when I hear my name called.

  ‘Vicky-Love?’

  ‘What now, Martin?’

  ‘Before you get to church you might want to take your skirt out of your knickers. It’s not a good look.’

  St Hilda’s. Pentecost. The congregatio
n dressed in bright colours. Reds and oranges. Tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit hovering as He did over the water at the beginning of time. Imo, dressed in white lace is held up by her father who looks slimmer, more like the old Steve. She is staring with her big greedy eyes at Desmond, resplendent in red chasuble, as he dribbles water over her fuzzy nest of hair. She tries to catch the trickles in her podgy hand, her happy shouts echoing, making the packed house laugh out loud. And then, because it is Pentecost, Desmond anoints her head with oil, a sign of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and I try to see the symbolism, not the oil stain on her delicate robe. Imo heckles some more, gurgling infectiously. Not like Rachel who screamed her little head off. Or Olivia who looked mortified, her bottom lip quivering. Or Thomas, who slept the whole way through, an angel. For this public act is something Steve and I have done for all our children. Long before Steve had his Dartford moment, we both wanted to celebrate the birth of each child, and give thanks. To someone. To anyone who’d listen.

  Desmond says: ‘May God, who has received you by baptism into His Church, pour upon you the riches of His grace, that within the company of Christ’s pilgrim people you may daily be renewed by His anointing Spirit, and come to the inheritance of the saints in glory.’ He hands me a lighted candle, spilling wax over his red stole. The flame flickers briefly but I keep quite still and it stays alight, burning bright and I know now that this is what I have to focus on: the light shining in the darkness.

  The grandparents take a back seat, watching on – Dorota, Roland, Dad. And Pat. They share a packet of Polos and click away with cameras and I look up briefly, at St Hilda, wondering what she reckons to all this.

  For this is my life. Here and now.

  And here I am, standing tall, as tall as I can in my bare feet, the cool floor firmly under me. Here I am, next to Steve and Imo, the girls between us, Rachel dressed like a Sugababe, Olivia as Tinkerbell. Next to our family are the godparents – Claudia, Melanie, and Martin. Claudia and Martin stand arm in arm, her Elizabeth Taylor to his Richard Burton. Melanie looks even more glamorous, her long blonde hair glossy and coiled into a sculpture on the side of her head, a satin dress with a slit up the side that is bordering on indecent.