‘I suppose,’ the wife asked jokingly, ‘that it would be too much to expect that one of your lovely holiday cottages might be available but we thought you might know of something.’
He explained the location of the cottage at the edge of the moor, and they were rather excited at the prospect, so the meeting was arranged, and now it is pouring with rain and he’s been held up and is going to be late if he doesn’t step on it a bit. He hears the mobile beep in the glove compartment but decides to ignore it for the moment. He’ll check when he gets to the cottage. After all, if Kitty has a serious problem she’ll ring rather than text.
And there is another source of anxiety. Ever since he had to chuck Pa’s party, he’s been trying to make it up to Dossie and she’s going to be upset when she knows that he’s decided to let the cottage after all and they’ll have nowhere at hand to be together. At the same time he knows that if he stays at the cottage then he’ll have to commit in some way to Dossie. This is a perfect let-out for him. He’ll spin some story about another property not too far away that’s too good to miss … something like that. The trouble is he’s been confused about his feelings for both women, wanting to have his cake and eat it.
And, as for Kitty, well, since Mummy died they’ve drawn closer again. Poor old Kitty is really devastated and he hasn’t the heart to be anything but loving towards her. During the weekend things were better and set them back into a happier relationship again. Not that they got quite so far as discussing the future but much of the tension was gone. Even so, sooner or later, some decisions are going to have to be made. Whistling under his breath he drives down the hill, making a plan. He’ll go to Bristol at the weekend and see if he can’t persuade Kitty into some new ideas for the future.
He glances at his watch again: he’ll just about make it. He swings the car into the low, long, lean-to and scrambles out. As he lets himself into the cottage he glances around, checking that the room is tidy. He hears a car engine approaching, slowing to a halt, and he hurries out to meet his prospective tenants.
‘So what’s happened to this Rupert fellow, then?’ asks Pa.
Mo, perched on a chair with Wolfie on her lap, vigorously drying him with a towel, shakes her head.
‘I have no idea,’ she says impatiently. ‘I’ve told you a dozen times that I simply don’t understand what’s happening. When I mentioned him to Dossie she nearly bit my head off.’
John the Baptist stands, his own towel draped over his back, waiting for Pa, who is kicking off his boots. His wet paws make little puddles on the slate floor and he gives a half-hearted shake, which is hampered by the towel. That youthful passion he had for water is rapidly diminishing and his ears droop disconsolately as he waits for his turn for a rubbing. Then he will be allowed into the kitchen, as close to the Aga as he can get, with a consolatory biscuit for staying out of the puddles.
Mo puts Wolfie on the floor, hangs the towel to dry and pulls off her hat.
‘Come on, Jonno,’ she says. ‘Let’s get you dry.’
‘Leave him,’ says Pa. ‘I’ll do him. God, I hate rain.’ He rubs Jonno’s undercarriage briskly. ‘There was simply no redeeming feature about that walk. The weather was utterly vile. And if it weren’t for you,’ he adds to John the Baptist, ‘I wouldn’t have had to be out there in it this morning.’
‘And you wouldn’t be as fit as you are now,’ retorts Mo sharply, opening the door into the kitchen.
Pa breathes in heavily and self-pityingly, and Jonno flattens his ears in sympathy though his attention is focused on the kitchen now, and the sound of the biscuit container being opened. Pa gives him a pat, hangs up the towel and Jonno hurries eagerly into the warm room where Mo has put his biscuit on his rug by the Aga. Wolfie sits in his basket, crunching appreciatively, with one covetous eye on Jonno’s biscuit.
‘The trouble is,’ Pa says, following him in and closing the door, ‘we shall never know unless we ask. About Dossie, I mean.’
‘I did ask,’ says Mo. ‘I said, “Oh, what a pity Rupert couldn’t make it. Why don’t you invite him over for lunch? Or tea. Or whatever.” And Dossie suddenly went all prickly and muttered something or other, and that was that.’
‘Well, I just don’t like all this secrecy and silence,’ he grumbles. ‘It makes for a tricky atmosphere just when we’re getting the business up and running again.’
‘You know what I think about it.’ Mo starts to root about in the fridge. ‘I’ve said all along that my instincts tell me that he’s a married man. When Dossie said he was coming to the party I thought that perhaps things were sorted out and he was free. Now I’m doubtful again. Shall we have some soup? Or cheese on toast?’
Pa watches her glumly. He is out of sorts: grumpy and anxious and irritated. He feels that they should all be happy now that the B and B-ing is starting up again and bookings are coming in for next season. And instead there is all this anxiety about Dossie and this tiresome fellow. Poor old Dossie. He wants her to be happy – of course he does – but he knows that this is all wrong and he simply longs to tell her so; to have it out with her. Mo is looking at him, frowning, waiting for his decision about lunch.
‘Let’s go to the pub,’ he says. ‘Why not? It’ll take our minds off things and the dogs will be quite happy for an hour or two. Come on, Mo.’
She smiles in spite of her own irritation and anxiety. ‘Why not? Wait while I get my bag. Have you got the car keys?’
They go out together, shutting the kitchen door. John the Baptist lies down, head still raised, ears cocked. He listens to the sound of Mo coming back downstairs and the car engine starting up while Wolfie nips out of his basket and does a quick hoover round for crumbs, and then settles down close beside him. The front door closes, a car door slams, and the sound of the engine fades away down the lane. At last he puts his head down on his paws and sleeps.
Janna’s rooms do not yet reflect the full impact of her personality but there are promising signs: pots of pink and purple cyclamen are ranged in brightly patterned saucers on the breakfast bar and a large piece of soft, plum-coloured velvet is thrown casually over the comfortable old chair beside the little wood-burner. The silver vase that Clem and Jakey gave her stands on a drop-leaf table folded back against the wall. She’s put a spray of berries in the vase and its reflection gleams in the sheen of the smooth rosewood.
‘That’s a very pretty table,’ Dossie says appreciatively. ‘Was that here already?’
Janna shakes her head mischievously. ‘I nicked it from over in the house,’ she admits. ‘Mother Magda said to take what I needed and I wanted a table we could all sit round. You know, like when we have our picnics. There was just a little round table and the breakfast bar, so I went and had a forage. I couldn’t have anything too big in here and this is just perfect ’cos I can drop the leaves down when I’m on my own. It is pretty, isn’t it? Clem helped me bring it over. We took the round table back to replace it. Chairs are a problem, though. There are these two,’ she indicates the two cane-seated chairs at either end of the table, ‘and there’s another up in my bedroom I can bring down, but if there were lots of us I’d be a bit stuffed.’
‘We’ll find some folding ones,’ Dossie says, ‘and keep them somewhere handy. Don’t worry, we’ll manage somehow. So how are you feeling now? About moving and being here.’
‘Yeah, OK.’ Janna stares round her new quarters. Once the decision has been taken and the move got under way she’s begun to enjoy herself; she is surprised that she’s already feeling at home. ‘There wasn’t much to move, and Clem’s been great. And Jakey approves of it too. He wasn’t sure he was going to like it as much as the caravan but he thinks ’tis fun, perching up at the breakfast bar, and he loves the spiral staircase.’
‘And you don’t feel too hemmed in after all?’
‘Not as much as I thought. I think ’tis because these two rooms are in this little wing on the end and I can look right out. Especially from upstairs. The view’s amazing. Go up and
have a look.’
While Dossie makes her way up the winding wrought-iron staircase Janna slips behind the breakfast bar and switches on the kettle. It is good to have Dossie here; each visitor makes it feel more like home. Sister Emily has already popped in for a coffee break and so has Father Pascal. Clem and Jakey have come for tea so that Jakey can show Stripey Bunny the funny staircase and let him sit on one of the tall stools with his stripey arms propped up on the little counter.
‘It’s like being in a café,’ he said delightedly, ‘and you’re our waitless, Janna. We’d like two cups of tea, please, and some cakes.’
She pretended to be a waitress and served him and Stripey Bunny, and then gave them a bill on the back of an old receipt. Clem paid and she put the money in a little pottery bowl to give to the Air Ambulance.
Dossie reappears, coming down carefully. ‘What a view!’ she exclaims. ‘You can see right across the cliffs. It’s utter heaven, Janna.’ She hitches herself up onto one of the stools. ‘But wasn’t it awful about that man falling down the blowhole in the mist and you having to say that you’d seen him up on the cliff path only just before?’
Janna pushes the mugs across the counter and comes round to sit beside her. ‘It was awful. The coroner was really nice, though. Accidental death. Lost his way in the fog. He’s been around for months, on and off, researching a book, he said, though Penny never believed it. She said he was all tied up with making the convent into a hotel. Anyway, he must’ve just completely lost his bearings.’ She shudders. ‘Imagine how terrible it must’ve been. Stepping into space and crashing down and down, smashing against the rocks. Tide was coming in too. He didn’t have a chance.’
They sit for a moment in silence, thinking about it.
‘Anyway,’ Janna says, ‘how about you? How’s it working out with you and Rupert?’
Dossie shrugs, nods. ‘OK, actually. He’s had to rent out the cottage which is a bit of a bore, but he’s thinking of buying one not that far away, so it should be OK. But he’s still playing a bit difficult to get. When I talk about his meeting Pa and Mo he hedges a bit. I just wish I had the nerve to ask straight out where he thinks we’re going but I can’t quite summon up the courage. He’s still running it all, if you see what I mean. I don’t feel I can take anything for granted. I still don’t feel I can just drop in on him.’
‘Bit odd, isn’t it?’ agrees Janna. ‘I wonder why he won’t commit? I mean, it’s no great deal, is it? Meeting your parents. You’re not kids any more. Your dad’s not going to ask him his intentions. Perhaps you should take him by surprise at the cottage. I mean, what’s he got to hide? I wonder why he’s so twitchy.’
As Dossie drives home she wonders why, too. It is beginning to affect too many people: Pa and Mo are feeling the strain, she can see that. At the same time it is impossible simply to be truthful with them. She can’t find the right words to describe the relationship and, if she were to try, she can imagine all too clearly their expressions: puzzled, sympathetic, anxious. And then there is Clem. Clem is happier than he’s been since before Madeleine died: loving his training, confident about his future, and Jakey’s, at Chi-Meur. She has no wish to embroil him in explanations about Rupert unless she can be certain that he is going to be a real part of her own future.
As she passes through Crugmeer she feels the familiar sensation of despair at having to face the fact that this might be just another failed attempt at love. She seems fated to pick men who, for one reason or another, just don’t stand up to making good partners. Except for Mike: Mike was the exception. And Mike died.
Swiftly, as if avoiding the familiar descent into introspection, Dossie presses the CD button: Joni Mitchell singing ‘Both Sides, Now’. Dossie smiles bitterly to herself. This CD has seen her right through the relationship, and now the words of the title track seem depressingly apt. It is true, thinks Dossie, that she really doesn’t know love at all: it is love’s illusions that she recalls each and every time. The CD finishes, there is a pause, and the first track begins: ‘You’re My Thrill’. With a tiny stab of pain to her heart the song reminds her of how she reacted when they first met; how she felt each time she saw him.
She won’t give up yet; not yet. As she drives through the narrow lanes towards The Court she begins to make a plan.
Father Pascal passes down the steep cobbled lane between granite, herringbone garden walls and cottages, armour-plated against the weather with grey slates. Hydrangeas – wine-red mopheads and delicate creamy lace-caps – still flower in small sheltered gardens, along with the hardy fuchsias, scarlet and pink. Overhead, the wild warm wind whirls the fine wrought-iron weathercocks dizzily perched on stone chimneys, and flees down narrow alleyways with ginger and golden leaves scurrying before it. Out at sea, framed briefly between two tall gateposts, a white sail slices across the choppy water, sharp and fast as a shark’s fin.
As he walks he ponders on the homily he might give next Sunday: the Feast of Christ the King and one of the most important days in the convent’s calendar. Fragments of the readings and the intercessions are in his mind, along with the memories of the past few weeks, all jostling together. Under his breath he murmurs the antiphon for the psalm: ‘“He will be called the Peacemaker; and his throne will stand for ever.”’
This year the celebration will be especially important, given all the changes and the exciting prospects ahead. How different it was last November. Back then he wondered whether the fragile little community would still be together in twelve months’ time. So many miracles have come to pass that his heart is full of joy, though there is much yet to be accomplished: Clem’s training and ordination, as well as the establishment of the retreat house. How crucial this next year will be for them all, and for the willing team of people who have gathered to support them.
Lord Jesus Christ gather your flock from every corner of the earth …
It is a blessing that Sister Nichola’s nocturnal visit to the Lodge has precipitated the move to the Coach House. What might have been a painful, reluctant, drawn-out transition has become an immediate necessity, and the Sisters have welcomed it as a solution to the problem. Once in, they’ve begun to enjoy the extra space and comfort of their rooms, and Janna and Clem between them have made the move as painless as possible.
Father Pascal silently gives thanks that this November he will be celebrating the Eucharist for Christ the King in Chi-Meur’s chapel with the community on the brink of a whole new life, when they might so easily have been scattered, the Sisters taken in by other houses, Clem and Jakey and Janna set adrift again, whilst Chi-Meur itself waited to be converted into a hotel.
Let us take a possession of the kingdom prepared for us since the beginning of the world.
Father Pascal turns into the narrow passage that climbs up towards the church and the cliffs, still thinking of his friends – and of his homily. To Sister Emily, the move and the opening of the retreat house represents an exciting adventure and she has readily embarked upon it; Mother Magda sees it as a challenge to be overcome and is bracing herself accordingly; as for Sister Ruth, who has spoken so strongly against it, she is simply too relieved to have such a ready-made solution to her worries about Sister Nichola to be anything other than cooperative about the whole project. Sister Nichola, herself, is confused but cheerful, and as for Janna … He is so proud of Janna: she has risen to the occasion, hiding her own fears and doubts so as to support the older women during the move. Using her strength and her humour she has made the event seem like one of her picnics, full of fun and laughter, and now she too is installed with the others and already beginning to settle in. And there is a new confidence about her, which is enabling her to approach the Sisters on equal terms at last.
By speaking the truth in the spirit of love, we must grow up in every way to Christ …
He lets himself into his little cottage and goes up to his study to put down on paper some of these thoughts and prayers that have begun to come together in his head.
SISTER EMILY IS WRITING a letter. Sitting at her small table, her papers and letters in neat piles, she is finding it difficult to concentrate her mind. She is not yet accustomed to the view and she is secretly shocked by her lack of discipline and by the frequency with which she gets up from the table simply to stare out across the grounds to the cliffs and the sea. Hitherto, their ground-floor rooms looked into the kitchen garden and there was little temptation to stand dreaming. Now, the huge expanse of sea and sky draws her back again and again to gaze out on the constantly shifting light. Light: the word occurs so often in the scriptures, and even now she is writing to a woman whose son is struggling against the darkness of drugs and addiction and fear.
Instinctively, Sister Emily puts down her pen and goes again to the window for inspiration. The sun is already setting, balanced at the sea’s rim, splashing the choppy surface with gold and crimson fire. As it sinks, the fleecy clouds glow briefly, rose pink and creamy yellow, and then fade as the shadows grow more dense. Evening settles gently on the land, drawing its wings of darkness inexorably across the brightness in the west. The light is being extinguished; but, even as she watches, a tiny pinpoint of light flickers over the cold grey glimmer of water, and then another, and another. The stars are shining in the darkness.
Texts flicker like the starlight in her mind.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it … Let your light so shine before men … I am the light of the world … We are the children of light …
She goes back to her table, switches on the small lamp and continues to write.
… Yes, I agree. The hand-to-hand battle between good and evil, between darkness and light, is constant. It doesn’t let up for a moment, but isn’t it encouraging that he is talking to you about it and trying to let you help him? Joyful news that you can come to us next week for a few days! You will be able to rest and allow Chi-Meur to support and refresh you …
The Christmas Angel Page 25