The Rectory

by Ivan B

  “She’s been called away on a job, she’ll be back when she can.”

  Effie wrung her hands and blurted out,

  “Please talk to me Richard, I just need someone to talk to me.”

  Talk to her! What about? What on earth did we have in common? I opened my mouth to say something banal, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore, instead she was looking out the window with tears streaming down her face.

  “I’ve only got Mark, there’s no-one else, there’s only Mark.” She said softly. “He’s my whole world.”

  So instead of trying for clichés I replied quietly,

  “Whatever happens you can stay with us.”

  She turned her moist-laded eyes on me.

  “You don’t blame me?”

  “Blame you for what?”

  “Taking your brother away.”

  This I could cope with.

  “You didn’t take him away, he’d have gone anyway. He always talked about travelling, I guess it’s built into his system. I’m just glad that you could travel together and enjoy life.”

  My words did not have the desired effect, instead she let out a sob and buried her head in her hands as she silently rocked back and forth. In the end I went and sat next to her and, after a moment’s hesitation, I put my arm round her shoulders. I’d always thought that Yolande was bony, Effie made her feel decidedly well endowed, I’ve never put my arm around a woman before and actually felt every single bone from collar-bone to shoulder blade, they all seemed to be but a few millimetres away from my fingertips. She leant against me and I could feel her sobbing, but I had nothing to say, platitudes were useless and in any case what is the polite conversation to someone who is as convinced as you are that their partner is dying?

  Sometime later she attempted to dry her eyes on a handkerchief that was both the size of a couple of postage stamps and wringing wet. I reached over and offered her a box of tissues. She dried her eyes and turned her eyes on me.

  “You’re wrong, he doesn’t like travelling he likes the idea of travelling. All these years we’ve travelled from place to place because I wanted to move on, I’ve always wanted to move on. Mark just gets about settled and then I get the wanderlust.”

  I felt her bony shoulders heave as she silently sobbed under my arm. I said quietly.

  “You probably couldn’t make him move on if he didn’t want to.”

  She shook her head.

  “At first I always told him when I wanted to move on, but later he seemed to know when I was getting restless and…”

  She stopped speaking as she took in a great sobbing breath.

  “If he comes out of this I am never moving on again, I don’t care if the hounds of hell are after me I am not travelling. As God is my witness if he pulls through I will stay and put down roots and…”

  Once again her flow of conversation was interrupted this time by a racking cough. However, I’d got the idea; they deeply loved each other. He so much that he’d move on, perhaps even take the initiative, when she got itchy feet; and she so much that she’d suppress, and willingly suppress, the latent wanderlust inside her. I tried for a comforting remark.

  “When he’s better he’ll probably want to whisk you away somewhere.”

  Instead of comforting her I lit a fuse and she blew up, not literally, but she suddenly started pounding her arms up and down. That was fine for her right arm, but her left was directly over my right leg.

  “I won’t let him”, she said while pounding my leg into submission.

  “I won’t let him, he needs to stay here, I’ve bloody well nearly killed him and…”

  She suddenly went limp and, thankfully, ceased flailing her arms. I muttered.

  “He’s a grown man, you’ve given him lots of love, men would die for that.”

  I could have bitten off my tongue! How could I use such phraseology when we both thought he wouldn’t survive the operation anyway? She sobbed into my shoulder and I just caught the words.

  “We should never have gone to Bangladesh in the monsoon season,” sob, “we should never have gone to Italy,” sob, “I wanted to go to Italy and he wanted to come home,” sob, “I love him, he’s all I’ve got…”

  The rest descended into incoherent sobbing and I wondered what had become of the brassy brash self-confident Effie I had known.

  Salvation arrived five minutes later in the form of Yolande, who wordlessly took in the scene of Effie crying in my arms and walked out to reappear a few seconds later with a tray of tea. This was a private ward so it was genuine tea in a proper teapot destined for bone-china cups. Effie, without warning, suddenly sat upright. Yolande gave her a smile.

  “Ward sister says that Mark is holding his own.”

  She knelt at Effies feet and held her hands.

  “So don’t give up hope.”

  Effie dried her eyes, Yolande poured out the tea and Effie reached out for a teacup, she fooled no-one; Yolande had only two-thirds filled the cup, but even then Effie was in danger of spilling the contents.

  I don’t remember much more about our time in that room as I was selfishly lost in my own thoughts. I vaguely remember that Yolande told Effie all about her and me and that I didn’t even feel vaguely embarrassed when she laughed over our Aldeburgh weekend and how I hadn’t said a thing. I do remember that she skipped the incident at the pub. Then Effie started talking. Talking of their time in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, Israel, India, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Burma and many other places. I do remember that she finished with a firm statement.

  “But now I’m staying put, Mark needs a stable base and I’m staying put.”

  What actually pulled me from my introspection was the entrance of a tired looking gentleman in a sort of pebble-dash blue paper suit. He gave a tired smile to Effie.

  “He’s in intensive care, it all went smoothly and the new kidney’s in place.”

  We all stood up, he shook his head.

  “One only while he’s in intensive care please.”

  Effie scurried out like a woman possessed and was lead off by a smart looking nurse. The surgeon turned to me.

  “Brother?”

  I nodded, he me gave an exhausted look.

  “I have a message for you from Mark, he talked to me just before we put him out. He said it anything happens to him would you keep an eye on Effie as she hasn’t got any family but you.”

  I squirmed.

  “Surly now the operation is over…”

  He sighed and sat down.

  “We had to resuscitate him in the theatre and now it all depends on whether or not this kidney kicks in and his body doesn’t reject it. If it does I fear that your brother wouldn’t have the strength for a second operation.”

  Yolande stirred into life.

  “So how do you rate his chances?”

  He gave an evasive smile.

  “I prefer not to use language like that.”

  “Use any language you like,” I almost snapped, “Do you think he’ll pull through?”

  He sat silent for a moment and then said very quietly.

  “Your brother is a very ill man, he’s been suffering kidney failure for some time and is in a very run-down and vitamin deficient condition. Frankly if this wasn’t a private operation I doubt that I would have taken the risk of taking him to theatre. He now has more of a chance than he had before and it’s now out of my hands. The best thing you can do for him is to say a few prayers as I’m sorry to say it will take the intervention of a higher body than me to see him recover.”

  Yolande frowned.

  “I don’t understand, he’s come out of the operation alive and with a new kidney.”

  He nodded.

  “But he’s body has undergone a terrible surgical shock that would knock a healthy person for six and I regret that he wasn’t a healthy person when I started the operation.”

  I nodded and mumbled, ‘I understand.’ But I didn’t understand, I’d just
got my brother back and I didn’t want to lose him for a second time.

  We arrived back at the Rectory to find Yolande’s father painting one of the walls in the lounge. Yolande had given him her key so that the dog was not left too long. He grinned, “Thought I’d make myself useful. You had a phone call from a Miss Carrington-Greeves and another from a guy called Gerry Jay.”

  I sat down on the edge of a step-ladder, frankly I was too exhausted to make any phone calls, in any case that combination of calls sent a shiver down my spine. Anyway what did money matter? My brother mattered and somehow his imminent death put everything else into perspective. The rectory was only a building and at that very moment I would have willingly traded it for his life.

  Yolande looked into my eyes.

  “Would you like me to call them back?”

  I nodded and she wandered off towards the kitchen. Her father put down the paint roller and sat on the other pair of steps. “Your brother bad?”

  “Worse than bad, the surgeon gives him no chance at all.”

  He sniffed as if savouring the vile smell of paint.

  “Don’t believe everything they say, one of his sort told me to get a priest to give Yolande the last rights. He was wrong, they don’t have divine foresight you know.”

  My mind clicked.

  “I remember her being off school a lot.”

  He nodded and wiped his hands down his boiler suit.

  “Collapsed lung, pleurisy, pneumonia, jaundice, anaemia, appendicitis, she had the lot. But she pulled through and turned into a bonnie lass.”

  I shrugged.

  “She was young and fit, my brother was at death’s door before they even started the operation.”

  His eyes took on a haunted look.

  “She was sickly, she was always sickly. She was well into her teens before she suddenly started to blossom. Her pædiatrician once told me that he didn’t really expect her to make nine, let alone reach her teens and that she had that something special that made the difference between living and dying.”

  Yolande had never told me all this.

  “What made the difference?”

  He gave a knowing smile.

  “St Marks made the difference. She joined the Brownies there and then the kid’s choir and the church was a fabulous support. If she couldn’t get to choir practice they’d send her cassette tapes. If she could get to practice they’d put the heating full on. When I was working there was always someone who’d take her mother to the hospital for a visit and two years in a row when she had birthdays in hospital the full choir turned out to sing to her. And they prayed for her, every week for goodness knows how many years. I tell you I’d never really believed in God until I saw the love that congregation gave my child, that sort of love couldn’t come from anywhere else.” He paused. “Trouble is I felt so inadequate. I’m a practical man and there seemed to be nothing I could do, practically that is, and that made me feel inadequate. I had two children to look after and I think, looking back, that I gave her brother more attention because I didn’t know what I could do for her. Don’t get me wrong, I would have given my life if I thought it would have made her live. If I regret anything I regret that she probably thought I didn’t care. It’s not that I didn’t care, I didn’t know how to show that I cared.”

  As if on cue Yolande returned with three mugs of tea. She put them down and went over and gave her dad a hug.

  “I know you cared,” she said and kissed him on the forehead. She suddenly realised that the paint he had carefully smeared on his boiler suit had now transferred to he grey jumper and she rolled her eyes before looking at me.

  “Do you want the good news, the good news or the interesting news.”

  I was in no mood for playing games, “Just tell me the worst.”

  She picked up her mug of tea sand gave it a stir. “Your Miss Carrington-Greeves says that they have agreed to pay the court costs. Bitten and Jay say that the Preston philatelic society went into liquidation over a year ago and so they have torn up your cheque for £33,333.33p, and Gerry Jay says that he checked all the old wills and one of them has a caveat asking for Mari Mathu to be informed of his death and they have her e-mail address.”

  “Did he give it to you,” I asked listlessly.

  “ContentedWoman@Sandy-Beach.org.vn.”

  I thought of the young lad with the squashed nose.

  “I suppose we’d better e-mail her although it seems a bit heartless to tell he by e-mail.”

  Yolande sniffed her tea, an action I have never understood.

  “They’ve done it already, and they’ve got a reply.”

  I waited. The day had started badly and now I knew it was going to get worse. Yolande sipped her tea again and then grinned.

  “She replied thanking them for the information and stating categorically that neither she nor any of her children are interested in the Grant estate.”

  I must admit I sighed with relief as it had occurred to me that if I lost the estate then I would also lose the means to pay for my brother’s hospital treatment.

  “Is that the interesting news?”

  She grinned again.

  “No. Gerry Jay asked me if we were the Yolande and Richard Holmes singing on the radio and said that he ordered a couple of copies for himself and his family. Apparently the local record store already has an order list of nearly a hundred.”

  I must have looked totally startled for she giggled at my reaction, but a hundred copies after just one play on the radio! Whatever would the order list be like at the end of the week?

  Chapter 23

  Discoveries

  Tuesday evening there was no change in Mark’s condition. I painted the rest of the lounge; as I painted I prayed, this was to become my pattern.

  Wednesday there was still no change. I painted the dining room. Radio 2 played us singing, ‘Singing in the Rain.’ Yolande dragged Effie away from his bedside to feed her a proper meal, she ate a full roast dinner in six minutes.

  Thursday I had a chat with the consultant in charge of intensive care, he was more depressing than the chancellor of the exchequer in the middle of a deep recession. Radio 2 played one of my piano medleys. Yolande sneaked a take-away pizza into Effie. I started on the main bedroom.

  Friday Mark opened his eyes. Radio 2 played us staggering through ‘I don’t know why I love him.’ I finished the main bedroom. Yolande managed to get Effie to eat a full meal at a reasonable pace.

  Saturday I was sitting with Mark while Yolande took Effie to the nearest shop to get another set of clothes. He opened his eyes again and grinned at me. He croaked something, I leant forward. He croaked again and I laughed. The nurse came running over and I pointed to him.

  “He just told me that he must have survived because angels had wings on their backs not on the sides of their heads.”

  She shushed me out. An hour later the consultant told me that his chances had improved by 100%. The pessimist in me said that 100% of no chance is still nothing. I went home and painted bedroom two. I’m told Radio 2 played Yolande singing ‘The old Rugged Cross.’

  Sunday the nurses told Effie that she now had to visit during the set visiting hours. I decided to stop painting and have a rest.

  Monday they told her she could visit at any time. I painted a bathroom and a WC.

  Tuesday he lapsed into unconsciousness again. I painted bedroom five.

  Wednesday there was no change. I painted a bedroom six, a WC and the store cupboard.

  Thursday there was a sudden change, he regained consciousness and announced that he was hungry, by Saturday he was out of intensive care. By the following Thursday they were talking about allowing him home.

  Friday we went berserk. The plan had been to install them on the first floor in bedrooms two and four, but Effie insisted that we put them on the top floor in bedrooms five and six even though they were smaller saying that this would both give her a direct route to the kitchen via the spiral staircase and give us (wh
en we were married) more privacy. Yolande backed her up so I was outmanoeuvred. However, their container was still in some god-forsaken warehouse at Felixstowe so the three of us hired a Luton bodied Ford Transit and raided the shops of Ipswich and district. We blew nearly £16000 and fully furnished a double bedroom and a lounge for them Yolande picked up towels, bed-linen and curtains to the tune of £2500. This all went into the transit. Yolande then blew another £12,000 on furniture for the main lounge and I blew £2500 on a decent washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher (They were to be delivered later.) I didn’t care, we still hadn’t got to £33,333.33p that I’d got back so as far as I was concerned it was free money; in any case I had my brother back and that was priceless. Once Yolande’s father had laid the carpets and put up the curtain rails, and we’d all carried in the furniture Effie burst into tears. It was the first tears I’d seen her cry since our time in the day-room while he was having the operation.

  Sunday we brought him home. He was still weak and Effie didn’t want him climbing stairs so Yolande’s father and I grasped our hands together and made the human chair that they always teach you in first-aid courses, but nobody every uses. He was so light I reckon I could have carried him up by myself. I moved my stuff back into the studio flat and Effie bought her megre pile down to the house. At that point, or somewhere near that point, Calvin transferred loyalties. He stayed at the house and he stayed attached to Effie. I may have paid for his upkeep, but from that moment on he became Effie’s dog; she only had to coo and he would have died for her.

  Monday Effie tackled the warehouse in Felixstowe and they tentatively admitted that they might have a problem. Effie didn’t want to leave Mark, so Yolande and I took her van down to Felixstowe. Now it may be an ergonomically friendly van with many gold stars from prestigious bodies, but driving it is like nothing related to motoring as I know it. The engine may or may not help the wheels go round and so may or may not decide to remain at tickover, or even turn itself off, regardless of the position of the accelerator. The automatic gearbox is just that, automatic; so it just has a three position switch, forward, backward and nowhere. And when on fully electric drive it whispers along with a frightening low whirr that gives no feedback to the driver whatsoever. Needless to say Yolande loves it.