by S Block
‘I’m afraid a more conservative element has become influential. They strongly believe married women should give way to those who need the income.’
Teresa looked at Sarah and Joyce and sighed.
‘I didn’t marry Nick so he could support me. But it’s more than just money. While I am appreciative of my salary, I teach because that is my vocation, and I am very, very good at it.’
Joyce and Sarah looked miserable, offering no resistance to Teresa’s argument.
‘Teachers are driven by their sense of vocation,’ Teresa continued. ‘At least, every good one I’ve met is. They love children. They love the skill and talent involved in teaching children well. Every teacher knows this.’
‘Of course,’ said Sarah. ‘You’ll find no quarrel here.’
‘So excluding married women from the profession is nonsensical since it removes a great many experienced teachers from the classroom.’
Joyce and Sarah could only sit in dejected silence. A year ago, Joyce would have argued against Teresa. At her interview for the job at the village school she had indeed argued against Teresa’s appointment because she favoured the other candidate, almost exclusively because he was male. But Joyce had changed a great deal in a year. Though she remained socially conservative, her recent experience of separating from her own husband meant that she regarded the edict now being imposed on Teresa as fundamentally unfair.
‘I would be a hypocrite if I was to say that I haven’t always believed a woman’s place is in the home, Teresa,’ said Joyce. ‘But I don’t believe that should be imposed by law. As you say, it deprives the professions of qualified, experienced personnel, and drives many women into enforced domesticity.’
‘Clearly, “happy women” is not a government priority,’ said Sarah.
‘What a tremendous shock that is.’
Teresa was unable to mask the bitterness in her voice.
‘I’m sorry, ladies—’
She broke off. Since marrying Nick, Teresa had been aware this day might come, but had convinced herself that Great Paxford’s isolated location and small size would inoculate it against a severe application of the marriage bar.
If I knew I would definitely lose my career as a consequence of marrying Nick, would I have gone through with it? Marriage protects me on the one hand yet now exposes me on the other.
‘It’s a heavy price to pay for marrying the man you love, Teresa,’ said Sarah, ‘but you mustn’t let this come between you and Nick.’
Sarah felt at pains to safeguard her old friend.
‘This isn’t Nick’s fault.’
‘Of course not,’ said Teresa. ‘But . . .’ she started, then stopped herself.
Joyce leaned closer.
‘But what, dear?’
But if I could be who I am without fear or discrimination none of this would be happening. None of it.
‘I appreciate you coming here like this, and telling me in person. It can’t have been easy.’
Teresa had hoped that marrying Nick put her in a foxhole that offered protection from the rumour and gossip that were customarily aimed at unmarried women of a certain age. And indeed, marriage seemed to have had that desired effect. But the sudden loss of her job and independent livelihood now caused the foxhole to suddenly give way under her feet. Teresa couldn’t help but feel that marriage was no longer protecting her; it was beginning to swallow her whole.
‘You are to see out the term,’ said Joyce, as kindly as she could manage.
‘For the sake of the children,’ said Sarah. ‘It will give you time to prepare them for the transition.’
Teresa’s mind momentarily returned to the unmade Christmas cards for her class on the kitchen table, waiting to be made and written in. She had intended to conclude her cards by telling each child how much she was looking forward to exploring the new year with them at school. She had no idea what to write now. How would she explain her sudden, enforced absence in a way that wouldn’t dishearten the girls who had quietly declared to her that they wanted to be teachers, just like she was?
Teresa looked at Sarah and Joyce and thought of everything she had done to fit in to their world.
I’ve always had one rule with my children. Whatever they ask, tell the truth. And what is the truth now? Be whatever you want, girls. But pray to God you don’t end up like me.
Chapter 51
Teresa’s wasn’t the only household to receive callers that night. Erica and Laura were clearing away after supper, while Kate and Dr Myra Rosen made Will comfortable in his makeshift room in the front parlour. Will’s desire to be in the bosom of his family had come at a price for them all during the two weeks since his return home. As Will became exhausted he became more prone to fitting. Kate had seen similar tendencies during her nurse’s training in Manchester, but for Laura it was new and terrifying.
As strong as Laura was in almost every other area of her life, the sight of her beloved father temporarily reduced to a convulsing body unable to control itself scared her tremendously. She had tried to remain in the room when it happened, but couldn’t. She had tried to explain her response to her mother, but was aware it sounded unconvincing.
She needn’t have worried. Erica understood how difficult it must be for a daughter to see her once-strong and impregnable father so diminished and afflicted by illness. As mature as Laura had become over the past year, there was still a part of her that was Will’s little girl, and that part was terrified to her core of losing him. Each seizure re-emphasised that inevitability. Erica had told Laura not to be too down on herself for her reaction to Will’s condition.
‘We would all like to be as strong as we think we should be. But this is likely to affect each of us in different ways. No one is judging you, darling. We each have to find our own way of coping.’
While Laura knew that no one was judging her, she couldn’t help judging herself, and found herself wanting.
During supper that evening Will had suddenly slumped in his chair, his head lolling to one side, as his muscles began to spasm. Kate and Myra rose immediately from their chairs and laid Will carefully on the dining-room floor, placing a rolled-up napkin between his teeth to prevent him from biting his own tongue. Erica fetched a pillow for his head. Laura had stood to one side for a minute or two, unable to help, and then quietly left the room until Kate came to tell her that the firestorm in Will’s brain had subsided. When Will finally became still, all four women carefully lifted him back into his wheelchair and took him to his room to recover – a process that would include a deep sleep that might last for hours.
‘I won’t ever get used to seeing it,’ Laura confessed quietly to her mother later that evening in the kitchen.
‘None of us are getting used to it, darling,’ Erica replied. ‘We just have to accept it’s part of who your father is now, for—’ She stopped herself, hoping Laura hadn’t noticed that she had started a sentence she didn’t wish to finish.
‘For as long as he’s here,’ Laura said.
Erica nodded and took Laura by the hands. She looked into her daughter’s eyes, and knew that she understood Will wouldn’t survive a great deal longer.
‘I know it’s hard on all of us, but each time he recovers, I can’t help but marvel at your father’s immense bravery in returning to spend a few more precious moments with us all.’
‘How do you know that’s what he’s thinking when he comes back to us?’ asked Laura.
‘Because he always smiles when he sees us again. Every single time.’
Like any loving wife, Erica loathed watching her husband suffer. But for Will, the suffering seemed endurable as long as theirs were the first faces he’d see on regaining consciousness.
‘He likes Myra, doesn’t he?’ said Laura, drying the dishes from supper.
Erica, realising Laura needed to change the subject, nodded. ‘He appreciates her willingness to listen to his advice about how to handle his patients. He thinks she’s beginning to understand t
hat we’re not just asking her to take over the practice, but everything Will represented to the village.’
As they began to stack the cleaned plates there was a knock on the front door, sharp and businesslike. Erica looked at Laura, almost hoping it’d be someone come to take her daughter out to give her a moment of normality in all this madness. Perhaps Laura’s friend Tom, a young private Laura had recently befriended. Catching herself wool-gathering, she turned to Laura and asked, ‘Are you seeing Tom tonight?’
‘He’s hardly getting any time away from the station at the moment. Besides, Tom doesn’t knock. He beeps. Shall I see who it is?’
Erica shook her head.
‘If it’s not for you it will be for me.’
Erica wiped her hands dry and walked out of the kitchen. On the way to the front door she paused and looked into the front room to watch as Kate and Myra tucked Will into bed. He had the oxygen mask strapped onto his face, and was drawing hard to get the gas into his damaged lungs.
How much longer can you do this, my darling? I wish I could release you . . .
Erica didn’t know who to expect when she opened the front door, but the very last person she would have nominated was Gwen Talbot, a woman with whom she frequently found herself at odds, most recently over the refugee debate. The woman seemed to embody every atavistic and reactionary impulse that lurked in Great Paxford’s darker corners. Erica had no idea why the woman was calling, and had little inclination to spend much time finding out. But here she was in the chilly night air, in coat and hat, holding a pie dish covered with a cloth. Erica was so surprised she was unable to conceal it.
‘Mrs Talbot?’ she said, in four brisk, questioning syllables that simultaneously confirmed the woman’s name and suggested the question, ‘What in God’s name are you doing on my doorstep at this hour?’
‘Good evening, Mrs Campbell. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
By her tone, Erica surmised this was not a social call. Though in her experience, Mrs Talbot used the same sharp tone for everything she said, so it might well have been. Erica glanced over Mrs Talbot’s shoulder, half expecting to see at least a few of the women who seemed to accompany her wherever she went, like a shoal of pilot fish in permanent attendance on their protective shark. Mrs Talbot caught the glance, and its inference.
‘I came alone, Mrs Campbell,’ she said, with a brief smile. ‘I wanted to bring this for Dr Campbell.’ She held out the pie dish. ‘It’s an apple pie.’
Erica was momentarily lost for words.
‘When my Alan was ill, Dr Campbell came every day, all weathers. Never made us feel he was in a hurry to leave. Always made Alan feel like he was the doctor’s only patient. Alan never forgot it. He was there at the end, as well. Stayed. Not just for Alan. For me and the children too.’
‘Yes,’ said Erica. ‘I remember.’
‘Oftentimes, he’d sit with us over a piece of apple pie and just talk. You know, the way he has of just talking and making everything seem . . . bearable. Never said no to a piece.’
Erica knew exactly what she meant.
‘There’s a rumour going round Dr Campbell’s in a bad way. So I brought him a pie.’
Mrs Talbot proffered the pie again, compelling Erica to take it.
‘Thank you,’ she said, reaching out and taking the dish.
‘If you don’t mind me asking, Mrs Campbell, how is he?’
Erica looked at Mrs Talbot, a woman she loathed. But not at this moment. It was as if another, softer, more kind-spirited Gwen Talbot had usurped the original. Her eyes looked into Erica’s, and for the first time Erica noticed deep lines from a difficult life scored into her face around them.
‘He’s dying,’ Erica said, the second word almost failing to make it out of her mouth.
Mrs Talbot nodded slowly.
‘Some who’ve been to see him with the new doctor thought as much. Was it the crash?’
‘He was already quite ill before the crash,’ Erica said. ‘But the crash made things considerably worse. His lungs, you see . . .’
Mrs Talbot absorbed the information solemnly, guided by her own experience of grief.
‘If there’s anything I can do . . .’
Mrs Talbot left the offer suspended in the space between them.
‘Thank you, Mrs Talbot. That’s very kind of you.’
‘Not if you knew how highly we regard your husband in my house. I’ve always believed he gave us an extra few weeks with Alan. Just by popping in every day. Checking. Adjusting. Taking care of him. Time we wouldn’t have had.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be most grateful for your gift.’
‘You can have some as well of course.’ Mrs Talbot smiled. ‘And your girls. I don’t expect Dr Campbell to be able to eat it all before it goes stale.’
Erica smiled.
‘Thank you. We shall.’
The two women looked at one another. At the WI they generally found themselves on opposite sides of most debates and discussions. But none of that was of any relevance as they stood facing one another – a woman who had lost her husband facing one who was about to lose hers.
‘Well then. Goodnight, Mrs Campbell.’
‘Goodnight, Mrs Talbot.’
Mrs Talbot nodded once, turned, walked back down the garden path and disappeared into darkness.
Erica stood on the doorstep looking out into the black night, listening to Mrs Talbot’s footsteps diminish and disappear. An owl hooted a mile away, trying to locate its young on the ground. Erica had never had a good word to say about Gwen Talbot, and all the bad ones suddenly seemed petty and misjudged.
Who would imagine Gwen Talbot had the capacity to make such a graceful gesture? And was the first to do so.
‘Who was it?’
Erica turned to see Laura standing at her side.
‘Gwen Talbot.’
Laura instinctively wrinkled her nose up at the sound of the name.
‘What did she want? To put you right about something, no doubt.’
Erica smiled patiently.
‘She brought an apple pie for Dad.’
‘Made with crab apples, no doubt.’
Erica couldn’t blame Laura for being so determinedly negative about Mrs Talbot. The woman had been unutterably cruel to her when the scandal of her affair with Wing Commander Bowers was made public. Erica was hardly proud of Laura for becoming embroiled with a married man, who should have known better, but she felt the cruel gossip women such as Mrs Talbot had aimed at a naive young girl was despicable. Until three minutes ago Erica would have readily dismissed the woman in words similar to those used by Laura. Now here she stood, having to amend her opinion of someone she had only hitherto loathed.
We form an opinion about someone based on what we see. But what they reveal of themselves is merely a fragment. The rest is out of view, below the surface.
‘Dad wants to see you,’ said Laura. ‘Before he goes to sleep. You can show him Mrs Talbot’s almost certainly bitter-tasting pie. Give him something to smile about.’
Erica turned to tell Laura that she believed Will would accept the gift in the spirit with which it was given, and that she might do well to follow his example and remain open to seeing different sides of people, but Laura had already gone back inside to sit with her father. She was seldom long from his side.
I’m going to have to watch her like a hawk when he’s gone. She’s going to be devastated in a way she’s never experienced. We all are. But it’s going to hit Laura terribly.
Chapter 52
Frances had hoped Noah’s grandmother might accompany his grandfather to Great Paxford. But when he made the trip a week later, she was still too ill to travel. Frances had hoped the woman might act as an ameliorating influence on a once-reasonable man who had become brittle and inflexible where Noah was concerned – as if he felt the need to constantly defend his deceased daughter’s interests against people determined to undermine her – or so it seemed to Frances on the morning of M
orris Lakin’s arrival. Her sister, Sarah, was less convinced.
‘You can’t deny he has a significant and valid interest in what happens to Noah,’ Sarah had said, watching Frances pace the sitting room.
‘Of course not,’ replied Frances. ‘But it is crystal clear that Noah’s best interests are served by staying in Great Paxford, and not being sent away to a school he has no desire to attend.’
‘Crystal clear to you, Frances.’
‘To everyone, surely.’
‘To everyone who thinks like you.’
Sarah understood the subtleties of her sister’s mind. Frances didn’t assume that everyone thought as she did about any given subject. But when she became convinced of the right solution to a problem she did become frustrated that everyone else didn’t recognise the solution as plainly as she did.
Frances had arranged for Claire and Spencer to take Noah out for the day so that she and Sarah could show Morris Lakin the best points about village life, unencumbered by Noah, who would spend time with his grandfather later in the afternoon. The ‘grand tour’, as Frances described it, would culminate in a visit to the village school. Frances had requested that Sarah, in her capacity as one of the school governors, ask Teresa to show Lakin round the school, and explain how the staff were every inch as ambitious for their children to achieve academic excellence as staff at any school of any stripe, anywhere.
‘Might Teresa also be persuaded to say that should Noah choose to run away from the village school for some unspecified reason, he would have significantly less distance to travel before arriving home?’
Sarah gave her sister a reproachful stare.
‘Perhaps not.’
As the taxi from Crewe station came to a stop outside the Barden house, Noah’s grandfather was pleased to see Sarah waiting with Frances to greet him. When the pair had first visited his home in Liverpool to discuss the repercussions of Peter’s relationship with Helen, it had been Sarah to whom he had most warmed. She had a natural empathy that seemed to cut across the rights and wrongs of accepted morality, even when extended to Noah, who many people would have written off as ‘illegitimate’ and consequently beyond the pale. While he had understood why Frances’s conversational tone had been one of scarcely veiled hostility, he had been gratified to see that her sister had come in the spirit of understanding and mediation. It hadn’t surprised him to learn later that Sarah was the wife of a vicar. As he stepped out of the taxi onto the wide gravel drive of the Barden house, he hoped for more of the same approach from her.