by Jane Anstey
Intriguing, thought Liz. Where on earth is he going with this?
“You recall the next line,” Jeremy went on. “‘You owe me five farthings, said the Bells of St Martin’s.’ After all the Christmas shopping we’ve done these last few weeks, I reckon most of us owe a good bit more than five farthings––mainly to the credit card companies!”
That was the joke she had been waiting for. Not original, nor particularly good, come to that, but the congregation laughed good-humouredly and were still smiling as Jeremy went on: “But it made me start thinking about debt, and what it means to pay our debt to God. Because although Jesus was God’s free gift to us, if we accept that gift, then there’s a real sense in which we owe God everything in return, as a thank-offering.”
Liz shook her head at this. She would have to remonstrate with Jeremy, if they ever had a minute alone. All this talk about debt and free gifts was too clever for a Midnight congregation. She hoped he wasn’t going to bring in the Old Testament and the different kinds of sacrificial offerings the Jewish Law laid down. No one was going to want to hear about that, especially on Christmas Eve.
Jeremy, unware of his wife’s reservations, was nevertheless conscious that some of the faces before him were beginning to glaze over as their owners’ minds drifted away from the sense of his words and began to think private thoughts, about preparations still to be made, or their own exhaustion, or the problems of conflict in families forced into artificial jollification together over the extended holiday. But others were still focused on him, which encouraged him to go on.
“So when will we pay him, and give him our thank-offering?” he asked. “When we grow rich, as the song says? Did you know that the average person in our congregation puts about £1 in the collection each week?”
Careful, Remy, thought Liz anxiously. That sounds as though you’re after their money. Or criticising them for the amount they give––subject of another sermon, if you must, not this one.
“I don’t mean material wealth, though,” he went on, to her relief. “The wealth God really wants is our hearts and minds. That means talking to Him and listening to Him. Being friends with Him––every day. And especially we need to remember that just as he has forgiven us and set aside our debt to Him, so we need to forgive others their debts and the wrongs they’ve done us.”
That’s better, she thought. Simpler and more direct. Though the idea of debt and forgiveness might need unpacking a bit. Perhaps he should carry that through into another sermon.
The silence had become more profound, though at the edges of it there was a restlessness, as a few feet shifted uncomfortably. He was losing their attention.
“‘And when will that be?’” he ploughed on, quoting again from the nursery rhyme.
Get to the point, for Heaven’s sake, Liz implored him silently. We’ve had enough of Oranges and Lemons.
Jeremy looked around the church. The glazed look was returning to some of the faces in front of him, while on others he could see resentment. He was losing the thread of what he wanted to say, and so were they.
“God doesn’t want our lip-service to morality, our support for national institutions, even our physical presence here in church––or anything else we use to try to fob him off,” he went on, his intention now to implore, to persuade, rather than to shock. “Like all who truly love (and God is the very essence of love), He wants to be in the centre of our life, not relegated to the sidelines. For love is only completed by the beloved’s response.”
He looked down at his notes. Those were the last words he had written, a kind of poetical-philosophical ending which now sounded rather academic, and probably not very appropriate for his audience. But it was all he had.
He tucked his sermon notes into his Bible and descended the pulpit steps, pricking his finger on some holly that had intruded a leaf on to the handrail. With some difficulty he resisted the impulse to suck the finger like a child, and instead turned his attention to the intercessions.
~ * ~
Clive’s mind had wandered a fair bit during Jeremy’s sermon, though in common with most of the congregation, he had picked up something of the sense of it and had resisted its implications as far as he could. He found himself wondering what made Jeremy so sure about what he believed. He himself had in the past thought of church-going at Christmas as a nice traditional activity, fitting in with his enjoyment of living in a semi-rural community and giving him a sense of having done the right thing. But he had always preferred the Christmas morning service of Matins, to which he could go with Rose and Robert, rather than the Midnight Eucharist. He wasn’t sure why he had come tonight, except that it was better than staying at home, but he certainly hadn’t expected to find Jeremy’s sermon so challenging, nor to feel an unwelcome suspicion that something more was being asked of him than the shallow selfish life he’d lived so far.
Remy must be turning evangelical, he thought disapprovingly, pushing the sermon’s challenge away as he pulled his coat on after the final hymn.
At the door, he shook Jeremy’s hand formally, without comment, and set off briskly down Church Lane. But he found himself recalling the sermon’s final words: “Love is only completed by the beloved’s response.” For him, it had a different and more immediate application––one he knew Jeremy would not have approved of at all. He thought with growing frustration of Rose’s unresponsiveness to his attempts to make love to her earlier in the week. How can I love her if she resists me? he thought, with a mounting sense of grievance. It’s all very well talking about a fresh start, but I can’t do it on my own.
The more he thought about that, as he turned in at the gateway of Sundials and trod up the path to his front door, the more annoyed he felt. Dolly the springer spaniel was waiting for him in the hall, waving her feathery tail in welcome, but otherwise the house was silent. He let the dog into the garden and then settled her in the kitchen for the night, locked the front door, and went upstairs.
The main bedroom was empty, as he’d expected. He checked on Robert and found the boy sleeping peacefully beside the little night light that he still seemed frightened to turn off. His stocking lay, now bulging fatly, at the bottom of his bed.
The door of the spare bedroom was slightly ajar. After a moment’s hesitation, he pushed open the door. Rose lay asleep on her side, her dark hair in a tangle on the pillow. Her left arm was outside the quilt, and the hand lay relaxed, the wedding ring clearly visible on her finger. Suddenly he couldn’t stand the thought of sleeping alone, tonight of all nights. Rose was his wife and he wanted her. He stripped off his clothes and got into the bed beside her.
She smelt fresh and warm and enticing. He put his arms round her, then laid his hands on her breasts and began to kiss her, hoping for a response, yet not sure what he would do if she repulsed him. She stirred in his arms and turned towards him, and to his amazement he felt her begin to respond to him––and respond as she had never done before, not even in the early days of their marriage. This was a vital, passionate Rose he had not imagined existed. All these years, he thought wryly, I ran after other women because I was bored with my wife. But I never knew she could be like this. Then rational thought left him and other headier sensations took over.
~ * ~
Rose had gone up to bed quite early, not even realising that Clive had left the house. She filled Robert’s stocking and hung it up for him, then wearily completed her own night-time preparations. She left her bedroom door ajar as she always did, in case Robert cried in the night. He had done that quite often in the last few weeks, and she liked to be sure she would hear him. But she fell asleep quickly and deeply and found herself dreaming about Simon. They were ringing the bells in the tower at St Martin’s, and trying to do it while they held hands, which was an impossible and horribly dangerous endeavour. Simon was shouting at her to let go of his hand, and then suddenly she found he had dropped his rope and was holding her in his arms instead. Loose ropes were flying about her head, people w
ere shouting at both of them to control the bells, and all the time she felt so peaceful, held tightly in his arms, as though nothing and no one could separate them. Then he started kissing her, and all the other ringers melted away; and they were alone in his bed in the cottage where he had so nearly made love to her. But this time there was no telephone to interrupt them, no crisis to rob them of consummation.
The dream was so vivid that her body began to respond to his imagined caresses, and it was only gradually that, waking, she realised that the dream had turned into reality. But the man who was holding her was not Simon, but Clive.
For a moment, her instinct was to struggle, to repulse her husband and make him leave her alone. Then it came to her that she could not do that forever. Clive wouldn’t tolerate a marriage in name only, and she knew at that moment she couldn’t live in such a relationship either. How much Clive’s presence beside her had created the dream and how much it was a coincidence that he had come and taken over Simon’s dream role, she did not know. But she knew that physically she desired the lovemaking for itself, even as she realised that it wasn’t Simon whose body was wrapped around her own. For a moment, she hesitated and felt Clive waiting, willing her to respond but not compelling her.
Oh, Simon. If only it were you.
The longing was too much, and she found herself letting Clive make love to her, while pretending it was Simon who lay beside her. Later, she was bitterly ashamed of herself, incredulous at her own behaviour, but at the time, she couldn’t control herself. It seemed as though pretence was the only way she could have Simon’s love without being unfaithful to her husband and betraying her son––a strange, twisted, unsatisfactory way, adulterous in thought if not in deed, but at that moment of weakness and desire, it seemed better than nothing. In her mind, she spoke to Simon, telling him she loved him, giving herself to him even as she gave her body to her husband. And then she fell asleep again, and the dream recaptured her.
She woke again in the early Christmas dawn, desolately, to an empty bed and an empty soul.
Eight
Robert woke up early, as he usually did on Christmas morning, and cautiously surveyed the foot of his bed. There was always the possibility that Father Christmas hadn’t filled his stocking, though it had never yet happened. He knew the other boys in his class didn’t believe in Father Christmas any more, and the fact saddened him rather than denting his own conscious and determined faith. They were missing so much that he still had––the fun of finding out, when he first woke up, what little goodies were in the stocking, and then opening them all over again with his parents at breakfast time, and pretending (so thoroughly that he could forget it was pretence) that all the items they had painstakingly bought and packed for him had been miraculously thought up and delivered by Father Christmas.
When his mother had taken him to the garden centre the previous weekend, he had almost allowed that faith to falter, and although he hated to disappoint his mother, he had refused to visit Santa’s Grotto because he feared it was only a man in a red suit and white beard there, not Father Christmas himself. He had had too many illusions shattered in the weeks before Christmas to risk any more. True, when he had been alone and terrified in the churchyard that dreadful evening in November, Chris’s parents had found him and taken him home, and he knew that in reality he had not been in any danger. But afterwards, it had been easier to shut himself away from the whole scary business of living––the not-knowing what might jump out at you next, the bracing courage that was required to wake up and live––and lie silent and curled up, knowing his mother was there and would protect him from whatever and whoever came.
But when scary Mrs Warrendon had tried to suffocate him with a pillow at home in the sitting-room at Sundials, he’d realised that even his mother couldn’t protect him from everything. Luckily Mr Hellyer had saved his life on that occasion, so his faith in Providence had in the end not been too much shaken. He had rather wanted to say thank you to Mr Hellyer when he came home from hospital, but Mummy had been adamant that Dad wouldn’t want him to do that and said he shouldn’t even suggest it––though he found that difficult to understand. It was always his father who insisted on thank-you letters or phone calls at birthdays and Christmas-time—and surely saving your life was a much bigger thing to say thank you for than a Christmas or birthday present?
And now Christmas––his favourite time of year––had actually arrived and he was determined to leave behind all the scary events of the past few weeks and enjoy every minute of it, Father Christmas and all. He would be more careful in future about doing stuff without his parents’ sanction, but he thought he had just been unlucky to go out that particular night. Most of the time, it would have been quite safe. And he didn’t suppose anyone else would want to suffocate him, now that Mrs Warrendon had been put in prison to wait for what the judge might say about what she had done, so there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of any more. He couldn’t help being a bit jittery sometimes, but Mummy understood how he felt, as she always did, and said he wouldn’t always feel like that, it just had to wear off, like a bruise starting off black and blue and then gradually going purple and yellow and then fading away altogether. One way and another, he felt quite happy and hopeful that Christmas morning, especially when he found at the very bottom of his stocking a new engine for his railway. Cool. Bet Dad thought of that…and then he told Father Christmas which one I wanted. Clever Dad.
Afterwards, he remembered that Christmas as a very special one, the last before everything changed. His father stayed around on Boxing Day as well as Christmas Day, instead of going to play golf, and he and Robert played with the electric railway, trying out the new engine that had been in his stocking, and the new set of coaches and track that were under the Christmas tree labelled “Love from Dad.” Mummy was a bit quiet, and he noticed that sometimes his parents didn’t seem to be quite comfortable with each other, but that wasn’t anything new––it quite often happened and he never worried too much about it. In his mind, their relationship was grown-ups’ business, and he didn’t need to get involved.
His mother gave him a special hug before he went to bed and asked him if he’d enjoyed Christmas––which he had––and that seemed to help. It was easy to cheer Mummy up if he was happy and enjoyed the things they did together. She liked that and then she could forget whatever was making her unhappy. But he didn’t like her being unhappy, just the same. He decided he would try to do something special for her when Dad had gone back to work, before school began again. Nothing more had been said about his going away to boarding school, and although he had quite liked the idea when it was first mooted, he was glad it seemed to have been abandoned. He’d much rather stay where he and his mother could keep an eye on each other.
Clive went back to work on the day after Boxing Day, and Robert and his mother spent a happy day sorting through his toy cupboards, banishing some of the contents to the attic, and some to a box in the hall to share out among the charity shops in Winchester.
“It would be nice if I had a little brother or sister to play with these toys,” Robert said to her wistfully.
Rose looked at him. “It would,” she agreed. “But I don’t think it’s very likely that you will have one, Robert, so perhaps it’s best to give the toys to the charity shops, so other children can buy them, don’t you think?”
“Are the ones in the attic for a little brother or sister if one comes along?” he asked.
“No,” said Rose––and the instant response held all kinds of resonances that she didn’t want Robert to hear. “I don’t need any more children,” she went on gently. “I have Sarah, and I have you. You’d have to share me, you know, if we had another baby,” she added, with a gleam of humour. “I’m not sure how you’d like that. Babies take a lot of time.”
Robert thought about that one for a moment. “I could help,” he said. “I rather like babies, though I don’t know many.” There was a slightly wistful tone to this
last remark as well.
“Are you feeling a bit lonely, Robert?” Rose asked him. It was unlike him to want company, and she had never heard him voice a desire for a younger sibling.
He turned to her quickly, anxious that she shouldn’t be hurt. “Of course not, Mummy––I’ve got you, haven’t I? But…sometimes it’s fun to play with other children, and Sarah’s grown up so she doesn’t want to play anymore.”
“Let’s see whether Bethan and Chris can come over to play. Would you like that?” If the twins came to Sundials instead of her taking Robert to the rectory, she thought, that would avoid the necessity for any confidences on her part to Jeremy and Liz.
“Oh yes! And I like going to play at the rectory, too. They have that wonderful big playroom, and the railway layout in the attic is cool. If we go there, we could ask Mike to run the railway for us. The twins aren’t allowed to do it on their own.”
She smiled at his enthusiasm. He idolised Mike, who was always very good with the younger children.
“Okay, I’ll ring up later and see whether they’ve got any time free. Maybe we can do both,” she added, feeling braver. “They can come here one day, and you can go to the rectory another. Liz and Remy are busy people, so we’ll have to fit round what they’re doing.”
Robert nodded, happy with the prospect of a day (or even two) with his friends.
~ * ~
As Jeremy in the end hadn’t needed to keep Wednesday free for Rose to come to talk to him, it seemed an appropriate day to honour his promise to Mike and take him to Whitehill Abbey. The two of them set off mid-morning, Mike clutching The Book, carefully wrapped in cellophane in its carrier bag, to drive the few miles north to the monastery.
They drove through Kingsclere, past the gallops where the racehorses exercised, and took the turn up the long Abbey drive, through grounds that had once supported monastic seclusion with fishponds, rich pastures and fields of vegetables, but were now wooded and grassy.