by Angela Huth
‘Quite. And, well, it’s been such a pleasure . . .’
‘Been nice meeting you, too. My mum’ll be over the moon when she hears I’ve been having serious talks with a man of God.’
Paul smiled again, very faintly. What Mrs Lawrence used to call an under-smile. Joe used to give Prue under-smiles sometimes.
On Prue’s last night Ag and Desmond had to go to Exeter for a business dinner. They could neither put it off nor include Prue. She declared herself more than happy to be by herself, listening to ITMA. But once they had left the house, Ag’s eudaimonia – she had learnt how to pronounce it – which Prue had felt ever since she arrived, evaporated. She began to fret. What now? Both Ag and the vicar had suggested a solitary life. But where? She didn’t much fancy the idea too far from any gaiety, and yet she could never live in a city again.
Prue went into the sitting room – not much used: they had spent most of their time in the kitchen. And not warm. But it housed the huge radiogram, in its walnut cabinet, that Desmond had given Ag for Christmas. Prue began to go through the pile of records. There was a lot of jazz, some twenties and thirties singers. The rest was classical, but she had no idea whether to go for Bach, Beethoven or Mozart so she plumped for Glenn Miller. That, she knew, would take her back to those wartime dances in Dorset.
She turned the volume so high she could hear the music in the kitchen, where she ate the bowl of soup Ag had left for her and drank a half-bottle of wine. Beneath the table her feet skittered in time with the thump of the music. When it ended she returned to the sitting room to choose another record, this time Ruth Etting, whom she had never heard but Stella had once told her she played ‘Harvest Moon’ every night on her old wind-up gramophone, and it always made her cry.
Ruth Etting made Prue cry, too. Not sob, but she was aware of self-pitying tears running down her cheeks. She had no idea why she pitied herself, so much better off than millions of others in many ways. Perhaps, she thought, she was confusing self-pity with straight fear of the future. Or perhaps it was just the wine. She wiped her mascaraed cheeks and cut into a piece of cheese. The kitchen sailed round her, a strange geometry of comforting shapes, colours and cooking smells. She was, she knew, slightly drunk.
The bell rang. Man of my dreams, she said to herself, and wavered to the front door.
The vicar stood there, his pale face wide with anticipation. He carried a bottle of wine.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Prue.
He looked taken aback. ‘Just me,’ he said. ‘I knew it was your last night and I wanted to say goodbye.’ He held up the bottle of wine.
‘You’d better come in.’ Prue had failed to sound enthusiastic, but she pulled the door wider. ‘Desmond and Ag had to go out. I’m here alone.’
He followed her to the kitchen. Prue fetched another wine glass. He opened the bottle, poured. It was, Prue woozily thought, like a minuet between two strangers who had no idea what the other would do next. She was faintly intrigued. They sat down.
‘Lovely voice,’ said the vicar at last. ‘Pure melancholy. Ruth Etting, isn’t it?’
Prue was impressed. As far as she knew, no one besides Stella and Ag knew about Ruth Etting. They clicked their glasses together.
‘Well, here’s to . . .’ said the vicar.
‘Here’s to what?’
‘All manner of things. Your future. Your happiness. Your success. Your finding whatever it is you’re searching for.’
‘Thanks,’ said Prue. She was disconcerted by his earnestness.
‘Your visit, if I may say so, has given us all so much pleasure. It’s not often such a bright spark lands among us here in Devon. It’s not often the bright spark finds her way five days running to the vicarage for a utility tea . . .’ They both laughed. ‘I have a fantasy about taking you to London one day. We’d go to Westminster Abbey, then have tea at Gunter’s.’
‘Really? What’s Gunter’s?’
‘Best strawberry ice cream in the world.’
‘What I’d really like, if ever I go to London, is tea at Lyons Corner House.’
‘Not beyond possibility,’ replied the vicar with a small shudder.
‘But then I dare say visits to London will never happen.’
‘Probably not.’
They had been drinking quickly: the vicar’s bottle of wine was running out. As he poured Prue a third glass she noticed a spot of red high on each cheek. She knew from past experience that red spots were usually followed either by declarations or attempts at seduction. Wanting to clear her head a little, to be prepared for any advance, Prue pushed away her glass. The vicar sipped at his.
After a while he said: ‘Prue, I’m going to put my cards on the table.’
For all her attempts to be clear-headed, Prue’s thoughts remained indistinct. She vaguely wondered in which pocket he had brought his pack . . . What he actually put on the table were his hands, placing them slowly and gently as if they were very precious. They were flat and pale, the fingers splayed out. Exotic fish came to Prue’s unsteady mind – they reminded her of exotic fish she had seen in biology books at school.
‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve been talking to our good Lord – no, don’t sneer at me.’
Prue looked up at him. She was unaware she appeared to be sneering. But some kind of explosion was kindling within her.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about you, Prue. This last week, a great many of my thoughts have been associated, tied up, indeed entangled with you . . .’
‘Lawks,’ said Prue. ‘What’ve you been thinking?’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. The question came from the politeness her mother had always insisted upon.
‘Well, many things.’ The fish hands rose for a moment, as if coming up for air. ‘First, how fortunate I am to have met a girl like you. You’re extraordinary, Prue. There’s a kind of . . . magic about you.’ Having found the right word, the fish dived down again. ‘And this I have to confess: your charms have quite thrown me off balance.’
‘Cripes,’ said Prue. ‘You don’t half have a funny way of putting things.’
The vicar attempted a laugh. ‘My theological training, no doubt,’ he said. ‘Or maybe a lifelong reading of Trollope.’
‘Who?’
He did not answer this but wound in the fish and clasped his fingers as if in prayer. Despite her good intentions to keep a clear head, Prue took another gulp of wine. The inward explosion was gathering pace. Paul was gearing up to make some declaration she did not want to hear: she did not want some pale old vicar blathering on about how he’d lost his heart to her, how he could imagine whatever. The last thing she could imagine was him touching her, let alone—
He unfurled his hands, stretched one out to cover Prue’s. She flinched. But the politeness had set rock hard. It kept her from snatching her hand away from his. The vicar’s troubled, hopeful eyes were on her scarlet cheeks.
‘As I was saying, I have been very much in touch with our Maker over this. And it seemed to me He was definitely guiding me in a certain direction.’ His voice had become soft, soppy. For a moment Prue tried to see him as she had most liked him, not at all soppy but making quite good jokes over the rock cake at the vicarage. But that picture was now superseded by the vicar as a man changed by desire – a state, as Prue well knew, that often obliterated the charms of a man whose mind happened temporarily not to be on sex. If he had been fighting carnal thoughts all through the rock cakes, he had disguised his battle very well.
‘And what I think I understood from our Lord was that . . . however unlikely it may seem, there might be hope for you and me, Prue, to make a life together.’
Prue looked at him, astounded. It wasn’t just sex he wanted. It was marriage, life. Permanent life in the ghastly vicarage. Jesus Christ. ‘I’m flattered,’ she said quietly, ‘but I don’t think you’re on the right path, Vicar.’
Her instant dismissal turned him into a fiercer being. ‘What I’m saying, Prue, is that the message I’ve received f
rom God is to ask you to come with me – bodily, spiritually. Be with me, be mine – be committed to me as I want to be to you.’ His voice was now loud, ugly. ‘That is what God said to me.’
Prue felt a raging heat rise up through her body. She banged the table. ‘It’s not God telling you!’ she screamed. ‘It’s your under-used, over-excited cock telling you, Vicar!’
Against her own voice she heard the wail of his chair on the floor as he leapt up, looked down on her with twisted face – the whitest face she had ever seen – spittle drooping from the corners of his mouth.
‘I have never, ever been spoken to – thus’, he half shouted. His hands shook on the back of his chair.
There was complete silence. Prue shrugged, sniffed. The mist in her head flew away. Suddenly everything was wonderfully clear: the whimpering vicar with his daft desire, her own fury, which, having exploded, was now retreating.
‘Well, I suppose I’m sorry,’ she said at last, ‘but surely, as a man of God, you should be able to read people a bit. I mean, what on earth made you think I’d ever be interested in anything but tea with you?’
The vicar was wiping one eye with a large unlaundered handkerchief. ‘You certainly know how to cut to the quick,’ he said. ‘We all live in pathetic hope. I’m sorry if I offended you. I ask your forgiveness. But I was putting to you serious things. It was no flash of nefarious desire, I do assure you.’
‘Oh, no offence. Honest.’ Prue stood up. She wanted him to go, fast. ‘One day – you know what? – the woman of your dreams, or prayers, will turn up at the vicarage and you’ll live happily ever after. Question of patience. What you don’t want is to take on someone who isn’t right . . . like I did.’ Paul’s eyebrows raised slightly. Prue remembered telling him one afternoon that she was a free woman now. Perhaps he had thought she meant divorced. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing, Vicar. Not in a million years would I be the right girl for you. Either God was mistaken, or you misheard Him. I’m a scatty ex-land girl full of romance and rubbish. Probably not right for anyone.’
The vicar put away his handkerchief, ran a finger round his neck where the dog collar, as usual, had made a red rim. ‘I’d better be going,’ he said. ‘And despite this evening, these misunderstandings, it’s been such a pleasure of a week.’ He gave a difficult smile.
Prue followed him to the front door. ‘I dare say I drank too quickly,’ she said.
‘Perhaps we both did. I’m an infrequent drinker.’
‘I’m not normally so beastly.’
‘Of course you aren’t. You weren’t beastly. You were outraged. I got my timing wrong, but the evening was running out. I messed up everything, didn’t I?’
‘I’m sorry I—’
‘No need to apologize. All is forgiven,’ he said. ‘God be with you, dear Prue.’ He opened the door, went out, shutting it behind him. Prue stood watching his brisk departure, curious about her own ability to cause such hurt to so innocent a man. He would, of course, one day become a funny story to recount to some handsome young boyfriend who would never dream of using words like all the vicar’s – dashing and blowing and thus-ing . . . For now, she had to admit to herself, he had behaved rather well in the face of her rudeness: presumably God had urged him to keep his hair on, and he’d managed it.
‘Thus,’ said Prue out loud, making herself laugh. What God needed to tell him now, and she presumed He would in one of their conversations, was to forget her as soon as possible.
Prue left for Manchester the next morning without mentioning most of the events of the past evening. She had a feeling Paul would not be recounting the story, so her own silence might go towards making amends – not that the vicar would ever discover her contrition.
She left Ag and Desmond with great sadness. They had shown her the kind of married life she would like to aspire to, though she doubted she would ever achieve it.
Chapter 9
Prue did not know exactly what time she would leave Devon so she did not tell Barry when she would be home. She arrived at four, noticed that Bertha’s bicycle was not in the garage and remembered it was her day off.
She let herself into the house. There was a strange smell of cleaning stuff scented with some vile artificial flower and – a new addition – an arrangement of imitation pansies very similar to one her mother had had for years at home. All the pleasure that had seeped into Prue on her visit to Ag flew away. Still, she wouldn’t be here for much longer.
She went to the sitting room to light the fire. There was a strong smell of cigars. Barry had plainly been making up for the temporary ban on smoking with which he had struggled while Prue was pregnant.
On the table a tray was laid for tea: two cups and saucers, and a plate covered with a napkin. There was a pile of Shippam’s salmon-paste sandwiches, not quite as usual – as Prue saw when she picked one up and pulled it apart – for there was slice of cucumber on top of the smear of fish-paste. Also surprising was the bunch of parsley on the side of the plate. Altogether grander sandwiches than usual. Prue was curious.
The front-door bell rang. Prue went to answer it. Her mother stood in the porch. Her look of anticipation gave way to one of shock. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, darling. I thought you were down with Ag.’
‘I was. But I’m back. Come on in.’
Mrs Lumley had taken the precaution of dressing carefully for tea with her son-in-law. She wore a fox fur round her shoulders – an old dead fox with glass eyes, its mouth made into a clip to hold its tail. Floppy legs drooped down over her blouse of olive artificial silk. Prue had always hated the fox, but her mother said it had been handed down through generations of her family, it was of sentimental value and not for anything would she get rid of it. She also wore a hat shaped like a saucer balanced on one side of her head, and a new magenta lipstick. Thick blue eye shadow detracted from her green eyes.
She stepped into the hall, cast her eyes round the darkness. ‘The pansies look nice,’ she said. ‘I thought the hall could do with a bit of brightening up so I brought them round last Thursday.’
She trotted ahead of Prue to the sitting room with the air of one to whom the geography of the house had become familiar. Prue followed her, went to light the fire.
‘Barry said he’d be here at four.’ Her mother unclipped the fur stole, slung it over the back of a sofa. Fox limbs now straggled over a cushion. It glared at Prue with an unreal light in its eyes. She had seen enough dead animals to know the clouding of the eyeballs that, in reality, death instantly inflicts. But realism in fox stoles wouldn’t attract many buyers, she thought, and took a seat as far from it as possible.
‘I expect you’re wondering why I’m here, darling. Truth is, not long after you’d gone Barry asked me over to tell me your news -the parting. The end of the marriage, I mean.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t have time to tell you before I went.’
‘No – well . . . Besides, it’s difficult to break that sort of news. I feel very sorry for you both.’ She took a handkerchief from the old leather handbag Prue had known all her life. ‘We got to talking, and I told Barry all about the salon.’
‘What about it?’
‘If the truth be known, its heyday’s over, Prue. People just aren’t coming. It’s never really got back to how it was before the war – you remember? The place jammed every day. Rushed off my feet, I was.’ She paused to blow her nose and to dab at one bright eye. ‘And the other thing is, there’s competition just down the road. Some fancy place with a French name. I’ve seen people going there. To be honest, I’m not sure I can struggle on. I’m thinking of closing.’
‘Mum—’
‘I told Barry all that. He was most sympathetic. And then this morning he telephoned me and asked me round to tea. He said an idea had come to him. That’s why I’m here.’ She stood up, adjusted her hat, which had lurched over the tearless eye. ‘Tell you what, I’ll run into the kitchen, bring us a pot of tea. Barry shouldn’t be long.’
By the
time she returned she seemed to be in better spirits.
‘So you get along with Bertha, then?’ said Prue. ‘I was never welcome in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, Bertha and I get along all right. We understand each other.’
Prue wondered how many visits it had taken for this understanding to take place. It was all faintly puzzling but, also, she didn’t much care, felt no eagerness to know the answer. She watched her mother, with the definite air of the hostess, peel back the napkin from the sandwiches.
‘The other day I told Barry how to brighten up a sandwich,’ she said. ‘He was ever so grateful. He said he would never have thought of cucumber and parsley on the side, what a difference they’d make.’ She smiled, pleased with herself. The hat slipped down again. ‘It’s good to see you, Prue. I hope you’re going to be all right. Barry said he’ll take good care of you. You’ll not want for money. You’re a bright girl, can turn your hand to anything. I’m sure you’ll find—’
‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’
Barry walked into the room. On seeing Prue he paused quickly to adjust his surprise to pleasure. ‘I didn’t know you’d be here, sweetheart.’
‘I didn’t know what time I’d—’
‘I thought you’d be back later.’
‘I was surprised, too, Barry, finding Prue here,’ said her mother.
Barry went to his wife and kissed her on the cheek. Then the three of them sat in a triangle round the low table on which the tea tray glowed with its rose-strewn, gold-rimmed cups and the pile of imaginative sandwiches.
‘Well, it’s good you’re here together,’ said Barry, ‘because now I can put to both of you the plan that’s been going through my mind.’ He turned to Prue. ‘Your mother has told me the salon’s not doing well and she’s thinking of calling it a day. Well, it’s to be expected. Not so many people after the war with money to spare on permanent waves.’ Mrs Lumley nodded. She smiled at Barry, grateful for his understanding. ‘So what I’ve been thinking is this, ladies. I’m in need of a new housekeeper.’