You Owe Me Five Farthings

by Jane Anstey

  ~ * ~

  Clive had retired to the sitting room rather resentfully. What could Rose have to talk to the rector about that required privacy? Weren’t he and Rose supposed to be making a fresh start in their marriage, sharing things, being open with each other? Rose wasn’t being open with him, he knew that, and her idea of a fresh start seemed to extend only to actually being in the house and carrying out her normal domestic duties. There was no sign of a reawakening of her interest and affection towards him, and although he had tried to be patient with her, he was getting fed up with it. Last night he had tried to make love to her, spending time getting her relaxed before bed with a glass or two of wine, making loving comments and caressing her gently as they sat on the sofa beside each other. But he might just as well not have bothered for all the response he got. And when he made the direct suggestion that she should return to his bed for the night, and began kissing her as a prelude to that, she had frozen in his arms as though physically repulsed.

  I wish you’d make up your mind, Rose, he thought angrily. It’s not enough just to tell me you’ve decided to stay. You’ve got to do something about it. Here he was, between a rock and a hard place, physically repressed both by his promise to forgo his relationship with Olivia (or anyone else who came along) and by Rose’s refusal to revive their sex life. When he made the bargain with her, he hadn’t reckoned on her becoming frigid.

  He went upstairs to help Robert get ready for bed––the one real benefit of the new situation was his closer relationship with his son––and found him tidying his room inexpertly and inadequately. “Come on, Robert,” he urged. “You’ll never get all those bricks in the box doing it that way.”

  “But that’s the box they belong in, Dad,” Robert objected. “They’re part of the Marble Run.”

  “Well, we’ll have to stack them better, that’s all. Tip them all out again and we’ll see what we can do.”

  When Rose came back, a few minutes later, the room looked twice as untidy as it had when she left.

  “Oh, Clive!” she reproached him. “We need to put things away, not get them all out again.”

  She so rarely criticised him openly, and never in front of Robert, that both of them gazed at her open-mouthed, speechless with amazement.

  “I’ll go and do the washing up or something,” Clive said in an aggrieved tone, and he left them to it, hardly hearing Rose’s matter-of-fact thanks.

  “Mummy!” exclaimed Robert, his voice full of admiration. “You told Dad off.”

  Rose blinked. “Did I? I suppose I did. Oh dear, I didn’t mean to do that. Did you tip out the bricks? I probably shouldn’t have blamed Dad.”

  “No, he did that,” Robert exclaimed. “But it was because I couldn’t get them all in––he said we had to stack them properly in order to make them fit.”

  “Oh dear,” said Rose again, but with unexpected cheerfulness. “It wasn’t his fault really, then, was it? Never mind, he didn’t sound too cross. I expect he’ll forgive us by tomorrow.”

  Robert nodded and started to put the bricks in the box again. His mother was almost as inept as he was at getting them all to fit. But together they managed to put most of the bricks in their own box, and stuffed the remaining ones into a crate of Lego.

  “There’s not much room in the cupboard,” Robert pointed out. “Should we put the Marble Run bricks in the playroom?”

  Rose opened the cupboard door. “I don’t think the playroom cupboard is much better, is it? We probably should have done a clear-out earlier in the week. I expect there’ll be more toys tomorrow, for Christmas, and then where will we put them?”

  “We could do clearing out on Boxing Day,” Robert suggested. “There’s not much to do then, is there?”

  “That’s a good idea, darling. Dad will go and play golf on Boxing Day. He always does. We’ll do our clear-out then.” She gave him a little hug. It was lovely to be having proper conversations with him again. She hadn’t realised quite how silent and withdrawn he’d been until he started to recover.

  But it turned out, when she casually mentioned this plan, that Clive had intended something different this year.

  “God, Rose! Why the hell did you tell him you’d do that? I thought we’d go out somewhere together this year, the three of us.”

  She looked up at him calmly. “Did you, Clive? I thought you’d be playing golf, as usual. But we can go out as a family if you want. There’ll be time to clear out Robert’s toy cupboard later in the week, when you’ve gone back to work. Why are you getting so het up about it?”

  Clive controlled himself with an effort. He had been viewing, with some satisfaction, the sacrifice of his normal Boxing Day golf as his contribution to making the family happy over the Christmas holiday. Rose was becoming too assertive for his liking, and although he supposed it was a sign that she had at last grown out of her long and irritating fear of his displeasure, he was not ready to relinquish all his old dominance. He might prefer to pose as a benign dictator, rather than a selfish autocrat, but he had no wish to be part of a democracy, or grant her equality.

  He finished loading the dishwasher, then went through into the sitting room and poured himself a whisky. He didn’t want to trade remarks with Rose over a sink full of washing-up. There were only a couple of saucepans left to wash. She could get on with it. He paced around the room like a caged tiger for a while, trying to get rid of his frustration.

  He half-expected Rose to come and apologise to him, or confide in him, or do something to put things right between them after this minor fracas, but instead he heard her going upstairs, presumably to say goodnight to Robert. He sat in an armchair and waited for a while, contemplating without favour the over-decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room, with its garish baubles, but she did not reappear. Impasse. It was ridiculous, he thought, not to mention ironic, that he had spent large chunks of their marriage being completely indifferent to what Rose thought and felt, and now suddenly it had become unreasonably important to him. He was in danger of losing his sense of proportion. Let her get on with it. He would go out somewhere and forget about her.

  He got up, and then paused abruptly. He’d forgotten it was Christmas Eve. Where on earth could he go at this time of night? He wasn’t normally a pub-goer, and anyway, everyone at the local pub would be in the festive mood that he himself had lost. He had never before felt the lack of intimate friends and family who would offer support and help in trouble. Indeed, in the past he had prided himself on having no troubles he couldn’t deal with himself. He hadn’t needed that kind of friendship. Now suddenly there was a gaping hole in his life. He longed for someone with whom he could share exactly what he was feeling, who would have sympathy with him. He despised himself for the longing, but he couldn’t help feeling it just the same.

  The resentment he had felt about Rose’s private conversation with Jeremy vanished abruptly. He could see why she might want to talk to Jeremy in confidence and wished he could do so himself. Jeremy must already know something of the situation at Sundials. He wondered suddenly exactly what Rose had said to the rector about their marriage in past weeks and whether Jeremy would find it possible to act as confidant to both of them. But in any case, Jeremy would be busy tonight, preparing for the midnight service. And I don’t want to talk to him anyway, he told himself stoutly.

  He looked at his watch. It was half-past ten. He must have been sitting there mooning about the situation for half the evening. He decided suddenly that he would go to the Midnight Eucharist for once and try to engage with the festivities from a different angle. The secular celebrations seemed to have failed him––he had never felt less festive on a Christmas Eve. Christmas did not excite him overmuch at any time. It was too tawdry and commercialised, and only children could really believe in the magical stories that had become attached to it. Nor did the religious side of the festival attract him, though he occasionally went to church with the family on Christmas Day if there was a service at St Martin�
��s. The sentimental myths that underpinned the religious celebration, not to mention such unbelievable doctrines as the Virgin Birth, had always stuck in his throat, and the colourful, uplifting cheer to which others responded in the old story left him cold. But he enjoyed singing the traditional carols, and Jeremy would be preaching tonight. He respected Jeremy as an intelligent man whose opinions were worth listening to, even if he couldn’t always share them.

  In any case, he thought bitterly, it would be better than staying at home with the TV and then going to bed alone. Rose would stay with Robert, and something told him that she was unlikely to come and sit companionably with him for the rest of the evening and even more unlikely to share his bed.

  He went upstairs and looked in on Robert. The boy was sleeping deeply, one arm flung out, his tartan stocking lying hopefully across the bottom of the bed. The stocking was empty, he noted, which must mean Rose was about somewhere. She wouldn’t go to bed without filling Robert’s stocking. He went into his own room and found the two small stocking-presents which, unusually, he had found time to buy for Robert this year. In the past Olivia had been deputised to find these gifts, but this year he had done it himself. He thought for a moment of looking for Rose so that they could fill Robert’s stocking together for once. But in his annoyance with her, he couldn’t be bothered to make the effort.

  He went back to Robert’s bedroom, picked up the empty stocking from the bottom of the bed, and tucked his two small presents inside it. Then he went downstairs again, donned his coat, and left, shutting the door securely behind him.

  He walked down to the church, his collar turned up against the damp that seemed an unending feature of this winter. Like most people, he preferred cold seasonal weather at Christmas, but the cold snap they’d had in early December had departed and the weather had turned milder, though not for long, if the forecasters could be believed.

  It was only just eleven o’clock, but already the church was filling up for one of the most popular services of the year. It was warmer than usual, too, since the heating had been left on since the morning’s Family Service, and in spite of himself, Clive felt an unaccustomed surge of emotional warmth to match as he settled into a pew near the rear of the nave. Under Jeremy’s leadership, St Martin’s church had begun to take the seasonal festivities very seriously. In addition to the enormous Christmas tree at the back of the nave there were candles in every window and niche and wreaths hanging on the pulpit and the font. The gathering congregation was chatting cheerfully and generating a good-humoured atmosphere well suited to the occasion. Clive looked about him with unexpected pleasure as he waited for Jeremy to start the service.

  Seven

  Liz looked at her watch and saw that it was almost 11:30. She had filled the younger children’s stockings as soon as they were in bed and had hung them in front of the chimney breast, in their usual place. She doubted very much whether the twins really believed any longer that Father Christmas came down the chimney with presents, but it was a family tradition to which even Mike and Lorna remained willing to subscribe. Everyone would open their stocking with enjoyment in the morning around the breakfast table in the kitchen and pretend that Father Christmas was responsible for the gifts. That was part of the fun of Christmas morning.

  “It’s time, Mum,” Mike called to her from the doorway.

  “I know. I just have to get my coat.” She looked up. “What have you got there?”

  “It’s The Book––the one that Whitehill Abbey gave away but didn’t mean to.”

  She cast an eye over it briefly. “I thought Dad had locked it away until you can go and give it back to them.”

  “Y-yes, he did. But I saw where he put the key to his desk, and I just thought—”

  “You’d take a look while we were out,” Liz finished for him.

  He blushed, and then nodded. “Something like that.”

  “Dad wouldn’t mind, would he? Why are you looking so guilty?” Liz was aware that the minutes were ticking by, but felt she should seek some clarity about what was troubling Mike. He wasn’t usually secretive.

  “Why did you feel you had to wait until we weren’t here?” She made her tone deliberately gentle, so he didn’t feel he was in trouble.

  He shrugged. “I should have asked Dad about the key, I guess.”

  “Probably,” she agreed. “But I shouldn’t worry about it.”

  He nodded, but he still wasn’t meeting her eye.

  “Mike, I have to go now––I promised Dad I would be there, and I’ll be creeping in under cover of the first hymn as it is. Just look after the book carefully and tell Dad honestly about borrowing the key. I can’t see why he wouldn’t trust you to know where it is. And after all, you found the book in the first place.”

  She waited a moment for some response, but Mike said nothing. She decided it was better to leave the matter as it was––nothing would be gained by pursuing it further at the moment, and she was already late for the service. Jeremy had seemed to be anxious about the sermon he was preaching and wanted her support, and though she didn’t understand why he needed it, she didn’t want to let him down.

  She reached for her coat, lying ready on the back of an armchair, and started towards the front door, shrugging herself into the heavy garment as she went. The tower clock was showing nearly 11:40––she hoped not too accurately––as she reached the church door and, seeing George Warrendon on his own, she slipped into the pew beside him.

  “Happy Christmas, George,” she whispered.

  His long face turned towards her rather blindly as she sat down. Poor man, she thought. It can’t be a happy Christmas for him at all, really, with his brother dead and his wife in prison.

  Jeremy, standing in the priest’s stall at the front of the church, was glad to see that Liz had arrived, however tardily. They had begun the service promptly at 11.30 with the popular carol “In the Bleak Midwinter,” during which those who had been fortifying themselves at the local pub beforehand wandered in and found seats in the side aisles out of view of the pulpit. The carol was just finishing as Liz came in, and he began the traditional bidding prayer, still arguing with himself about the sermon he planned to preach in a few minutes’ time. The cheerful good humour of the faces in the congregation seemed to reproach him, and he tried to make up his mind how far to adjust the tenor of the service to take account of it. Suddenly it seemed churlish to preach the hard-hitting sermon he had found himself writing earlier in the evening.

  He considered this while he listened with half an ear to the Old Testament lesson, read by one of the churchwardens. It was very tempting to take the easy route and content himself with the kind of simple, heart-warming, conventional sermon he usually gave at this Midnight Eucharist, one which would pat the congregation on the back spiritually and send its members out to enjoy Christmas with a clear conscience. But after all, the sermon was the result of prayer as well as conscious preparation, and who was he to judge whether it might be important to deliver it as it had come to him? Maybe there was someone in the congregation who needed to hear it.

  He pushed the doubts away firmly. It wasn’t up to him to decide. He believed he had been given something to say, and he must say it, even if no one was listening, even if those who did hear it were offended, even if it made him unpopular. Delivering it was his responsibility. The results were God’s.

  Liz let the familiar service flow over her, calming her thoughts after the frenetic preparations that seemed to fill every Christmas Eve, however hard she tried to keep them to a minimum. As long as the children were still young and Jeremy was in parish ministry, this was how it would be.

  She heard him announce the gradual hymn, and watched him, as the congregation happily belted out “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” mount the steps of the stone pulpit. The pulpit decoration was suitably seasonal, she noticed, with holly and red berries and mistletoe interweaved with tiny Christmas roses. Ten years of Jeremy’s leadership, even though he was at heart
a reformer, had not done much to dent the traditionalism of the flower arrangers.

  Bible and sermon notes in hand, Jeremy turned to face the congregation as the final verse came to its triumphant end.

  “Amen to that,” he said, as soon as the carol had finished. “‘Glory to the newborn King,’ forever.” And he read the Christmas Gospel, while the congregation remained standing in traditional respect.

  His timing was always very good, you had to give him that, Liz reflected, and he had the sort of mellifluous voice it was a pleasure to listen to. Her love for him swelled suddenly, like a hand painfully squeezing her heart, as he looked around at the congregation before starting his address. She gave him an encouraging smile when his gaze reached her, and waited curiously to see what kind of sermon he would preach. From what he had told her, it was going to be something a bit different from usual.

  He would begin with a joke, she knew. He always did. Some people would only remember the joke, because they only ever listened to the first sentence or two of a sermon and then drifted off into their own thoughts. Perhaps they would simply doze after the joke and leave him with those listeners who really wanted a Christmas sermon and not just a jolly fudge. That might be a good thing, if what he was brewing for them had a sharper edge than normal.

  “This morning, we heard the children sing the old song ‘Oranges and Lemons,’” he began, after offering his customary pre-sermon prayer. “I asked them to sing it at the Family Service because I was so impressed with their singing at the school carol service. And I want us to focus on the part that relates to the bells of St Martin’s, because it raises an issue that I’ve been thinking about for a while.”