by Iona Grey
‘Thank you.’
She jumped as Charles’s voice broke the sudden silence when the tap was turned off. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her. Something about his expression made her heart lurch slightly.
‘It’s all right . . . At least, I hope it was. There wasn’t much food.’
‘My fault.’ He came forward, pushing the lock of hair back from his forehead in a gesture she had come to recognize as nervousness. ‘I should have given you more notice.’
He unhooked the tea towel and stood, holding it awkwardly as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. ‘I need to talk to you. There’s something else I should have given you more notice about.’
Stella’s heart had begun to beat very hard; a warning drum, although against what danger she couldn’t imagine. The word ‘divorce’ flashed into her head, but she instantly dismissed it. Charles would never countenance breaking asunder what God had put together.
‘Sit down.’
She sat obediently, thinking of the fire burning in the other room – all that precious fuel – and the wireless, and the news. He remained standing, pacing across the small kitchen, twisting the tea towel between his hands.
‘Charles, you’re worrying me. What’s the matter? Is it something about the meeting – you’ve been moved to a different parish—’
As the idea occurred it took root, so that she was already beginning to think through the implications, looking for possible reasons why he might be breaking it to her like it was bad news. Nancy, obviously; if it was somewhere far away – Scotland perhaps, or the wilds of Cornwall – it would be hard not being able to see her, but other than that . . .
‘Not quite.’ He sighed and sat down opposite, clasping his hands together and dropping his forehead down onto them for a moment. Then he looked at her, with a directness that was both resigned and slightly challenging.
‘The thing is . . . I’ve joined up. I know that as a clergyman I didn’t have to, but I felt I couldn’t not, you see.’ He smiled sadly, imploring her with his eyes. ‘You’re looking at the Reverend Charles Thorne, Chaplain to the Forces, 4th Class. I’m to report for duty at Chester in ten days’ time.’
He was waiting for her to say something, but her mind was blank with shock, echoing with silence as if in the aftermath of an explosion. Which, in a way, it was, she thought numbly.
A direct hit at the heart of her marriage.
‘It has not been easy. I have searched my soul and spent many long nights questioning God about this path that He has set me on. I would not be being honest with you if I said that I was not afraid, was not unwilling, was not desperate for God to tell me that there was another way in which I could serve Him – here, in King’s Oak, with those I care for . . .’
Sitting in her usual pew Stella was suddenly reminded of Chamberlain’s speech on the wireless at the start of the war. She wondered if Charles was about to say, ‘No such undertaking has been received,’ and had to press her hand to her mouth to stifle the hideous threat of laughter. Since that night in the kitchen it was as if her emotional switchboard was being manned by an incompetent operator, who kept plugging in the wrong responses.
‘But God’s purpose is clear,’ Charles concluded solemnly from the pulpit. ‘I have heard His call, and I have answered it.’
His arms were braced against the pulpit’s wooden rim, and as he finished speaking he dropped his head down, allowing the full impact of his words to sink into the stunned congregation. For once, no one shuffled impatiently or knitted or dozed. Glancing surreptitiously around, Stella could see that the news had taken them as much by surprise as it had her. Only Reverend Stokes, sitting beside her as Charles’s successor, appeared unruffled. Possibly he was so deaf he hadn’t heard a word.
It was a powerful sermon, well delivered. For a moment, looking at the shaft of autumn sunlight falling on Charles’s bent head she was relieved to feel a glimmer of the pride and aching concern she knew were more appropriate feelings for a wife whose husband was going to war than the bewilderment, hurt and anger she’d been guiltily lugging around all week like a suitcase full of dirty laundry.
‘Let us pray.’
There was a rustling and creaking as, like sleepwalkers stirring, everyone shuffled forward onto their knees. Stella folded her hands together but kept her eyes open, staring at the spots on her dress.
‘Almighty and most merciful Father, who sees all things and knows the secrets of our hearts, we pray to you for those who must fight, even when to do so goes against that which they believe in and takes them far away from those they hold dear. We pray also for them – the people left behind – whose courage, faith, steadfastness and devotion are equally tested, and ask that you watch over them. Keep them safe in body, strong in spirit, sure in the knowledge of your love.’
It’s not God’s love I want to be sure in the knowledge of, Stella thought bitterly as the white spots danced in front of her stinging eyes. It’s my husband’s.
That night he came to bed earlier than usual. Stella was still reading – a novel about a nurse and an airman that she’d got from St Crispin’s informal lending library, which was a shifting population of tattered paperbacks on a shelf in the flower arranging cupboard – when she heard him come upstairs and go into the bathroom. She was instantly catapulted out of a drowsy dream-world halfway between waking and sleeping, where the airman (George) had just pulled the nurse (Marcia) against his hard chest and kissed her ‘with unrestrained desire’.
She heard the WC flush, water running into the sink, then the bathroom door opened. This time his footsteps didn’t pass her bedroom door. He came in, glancing at her uncertainly as he went round to his side of the bed.
‘I’m awake.’ She shut the book and put it, cover side down, on the bedside table. Charles had never said anything but she sensed his disapproval of her reading choices. Beside his pillow was a Bible, and a slim volume of poetry by Oscar Wilde, which Peter Underwood had given to them as a wedding present. It seemed an odd gift to Stella but she could tell that it meant a lot to Charles.
‘I thought it was time I had an early night.’
In the light of the green-frilled bedside lamp his face was unreadable, but she detected a faintly questioning note in his voice. Beneath the heavy layers of sheets and blankets her body leapt to life, the blood quickening and fizzing in her veins, heat spreading across her skin so that her flannelette nightie felt like a straitjacket. Was this it? She wished she’d had a chance to prepare; to dab on some of the scent Nancy had given her for her birthday last year. But maybe she was reading too much into his words – after her error of judgement on their wedding night she didn’t trust herself to read the signs. Maybe he was simply tired.
The bed rocked as he climbed in beside her. Stella lay perfectly still, not daring to look at him in case he read the longing in her eyes and despised her for it. She waited for him to pick up Oscar Wilde but he lay back on the pillows for a moment, then, almost reluctantly, turned and propped himself up on his elbow so that he was looking down into her face.
‘You’ve been very good about all this, darling. I know it hasn’t been easy, but I’m grateful. I wanted you to know that.’
‘I just want you to be happy. I want to be a good wife to you, Charles.’
‘You have been. You are.’
‘But . . . why . . . ?’
He sighed again, and she sensed something in him withdrawing from her. ‘I told you.’
It was true. That night in the kitchen he’d explained, with infinite patience, almost as if he was talking to a small child, that he could no longer align his conscience with a non-active role in the war; that he felt less of a man, as if he was hiding behind his Bible and his dog collar. That phrase, ‘less of a man’, had touched some resounding chord of pity and love deep inside her and made her long to reach out to him, to prove that in her eyes he was every bit a man.
Tentatively she touched his cheek then, growing bolder, raised h
erself up to brush her lips against his. She felt him stiffen and was about to pull away when he seemed to gather himself, resolve some inner conflict, and begin to kiss her back with sudden fervour.
His lips were hard on hers, and his tongue forced itself between her teeth. Her mind registered shock, revulsion even; there had been no mention of George doing such a thing to Marcia. And yet her body seemed to understand and to respond entirely instinctively. The feelings that had been squashed down swelled and surged. As he pressed her against the pillows her hips rose up to meet his, her fingers sliding through the short hair at the back of his neck, her mouth opening. The flannelette nightie twisted around her legs and she kicked and wriggled upwards, then – frustrated – broke away to pull it over her head.
Naked, she reached for him again, wanting to strip him of his striped pyjamas and feel his skin against hers, but he turned his head, deliberately averting his eyes from her body. He reached over to the lamp on the bedside table and fumbled for the switch. Stella saw the set expression on his face before darkness engulfed them.
Thanks to the blackout, it was total. She was left with only her hands and lips to explore this new territory. This time it was Charles who lay back while she unbuttoned his pyjama top and ran her fingers hesitantly along the pronounced ridges of his ribs, the sharp angle of his hip. Her courage failed when she encountered the top of his pyjama trousers and she lay down beside him again, seeking the reassurance of his mouth against hers.
It was like kissing a marble saint. For a heartbeat he was perfectly still and then he levered himself up and kissed her with the same sudden ferocity of a few moments ago, like he was trying to lose himself. His knee nudged her legs apart while his hands gripped her shoulders, pinning her against the bed. In a tiny part of herself Stella was alarmed, but the greater part of her thrilled at this new Charles, hungry and decisive; at being wanted, devoured by him. After months of drought, the hard crush of his mouth on hers, the push of his knee on her thigh was like water to a parched plant. Instinctively she groped for the cord of his pyjamas and tugged at the knot so she could slide them down his legs. They resisted, as if they were caught on something. Her heart lurched with fear and a sort of primitive thrill when she realized that something was . . . him.
Tentatively her fingers closed around the surprising length of it. Above her in the dark he gave a low, guttural moan that was somewhere between pleasure and despair. Flaming spears impaled her. Of their own volition her fingers tightened and she felt him thrust into her grip, his breathing rapid and ragged.
‘Charles, please . . . I want you to . . .’
She lacked the vocabulary to tell him, but her body was an open invitation. A pulse was beating like a second heart between her legs and she arched her hips and guided him towards it.
As his flesh touched hers she heard his sharp inward breath and he jerked away as if she’d burned him. In that split second something changed irrevocably, as if a thread had been cut. He shrank from her – quite literally and alarmingly – the heat and hardness beneath her fingers melting into something soft and damp that made her vividly picture a deflated balloon. In contrast, the rest of his body went rigid. Abruptly he rolled away from her with a muffled moan of anguish.
‘Charles! Charles, darling . . . What is it?’
She wanted to switch the light on but didn’t dare. In the darkness she felt for him, discovering with her hands that he was lying on his stomach with his face buried in the pillow. She slid her arms awkwardly around him and held him, murmuring and crooning senselessly as her mind reeled. Eventually she felt the tension ebb from his frame.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I can’t seem to . . .’
His voice cracked. She rushed to reassure him, to spare him the indignity of having to explain further, to spare them both the embarrassment of dwelling on their failure. He was curled up, foetus-like, and she tucked herself around his back, her cheek against his shoulder, her arms looped around his waist, holding him tight as if she could somehow keep him safe from the demons that plagued him.
Later, when she was just slipping beneath the warm waters of sleep, she felt him gently detach himself from her hold. The mattress dipped and cold air fanned her naked skin as the covers were lifted. He crossed the room on soft feet. A moment later the door at the end of the passageway closed quietly.
Alone in her marriage bed Stella wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to banish the spectre of her own inadequacy, and the shameful fizz of thwarted longing deep inside her.
5
2011
Will was woken, as always, by the alarm on his upstairs neighbour’s mobile phone. At 6 a.m. exactly, its electronic musak jingle, set at maximum volume, jerked him violently out of sleep. Unfortunately it didn’t have the same effect on Keely upstairs who, in addition to a laugh that could shatter crystal, was blessed with an ability to sleep like the dead and always took at least fifteen minutes to turn it off. Consequently Will’s day started, as usual, in a rush of adrenaline and impotent fury.
It wasn’t likely to improve much either, he thought, staring up at the brown stain on the ceiling. (The stain looked like spilled coffee, and he often found himself unwillingly imagining scenarios where coffee could be spilled on a ceiling.) At least it was Friday. Not that he had anything to look forward to at the weekend, but the good thing about Friday was that it wasn’t Thursday any more, and it would be almost a whole week before Thursday rolled round again.
As the electro-jingle notched up a level in volume and urgency he thought back to a time when Thursday had been just another day of the week. He could actually remember enjoying Thursdays at one point: in his second year at Oxford, when he’d taken Dr Rose’s course on Nineteenth Century Ireland his weekly supervision had been on a Thursday. She was the only lecturer who never made any reference to the fact that he was the son of Fergus Holt, never made a comparison or a joke, never asked to be remembered to him because they’d once shared a lift at some European conference or other. She listened to Will’s thoughts, challenged them, often exposed the flaws in their logic. Those had been good Thursdays.
In those days if anyone had mentioned the words ‘Bona Vacantia’ he probably would have thought it was some new tapas bar in town. At his interview for the job at Ansell Blake, Mike Ansell had said (in the swaggering, know-it-all way that was his hallmark), ‘So, Bona Vacantia, Will. That’s what we’re all about here,’ and Will had felt the spark of optimism that had been all but snuffed out by the dingy office, the fluorescent strip-lighting and Mike Ansell’s overpowering aftershave, flicker bravely back to life. He’d thought he meant good holidays.
In fact the Bona Vacantia list was the government’s register of unclaimed estates, published weekly. On Thursdays. It recorded the names of people who had died without leaving a will and whose money and assets would go to the Treasury if no living relatives came forward to claim them. Ansell Blake were one of a growing number of firms who circled like sharks, waiting to snatch the largest and juiciest estates, trace heirs and pocket a fat commission by uniting them with cash to which they didn’t know they were entitled from relatives they’d never met.
The work, the scramble for heirs and commission, was keenly competitive, hence the feeding frenzy on Thursdays. That alone Will could have coped with; he actually enjoyed the process of sifting through the records, piecing together information and conjecture to put together a family tree and a picture of someone’s life, but the cruel, combative streak it brought out in Ansell the Arse was harder to bear. It reminded Will uncomfortably of his father.
Upstairs the alarm was suddenly silenced. With a sigh Will levered himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing a hand through his hair. At least this morning he didn’t have to face The Arse straight away. This morning he had the solid twenty-four-carat, bona fide excuse of going to see Mr Greaves on Greenfields Lane to keep him out of the office and away from Ansell’s blistering sarcasm for an hour or so.
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Tonight, he thought. Tonight I’ll go online and have a look to see what else is out there. Who knows, maybe I’ll be dazzled by the world of opportunities available to a twenty-five-year-old History drop-out, whose CV boasts a year’s work in probate research and, before that, six months in a psychiatric unit.
And with that cheering thought he went into the kitchen to make coffee.
*
Albert Greaves was a desiccated scrap of a man, his body dwarfed by the armchair in which he sat, his head dwarfed by his large spectacles and a pair of ears like jug handles. ‘I don’t sleep, you know,’ he told Will, in aggrieved tones. ‘Hardly a wink. Back in the war I was on Atlantic convoys and we went for days without closing our eyes. Dropping with exhaustion we was; we’d have given our last farthing for five minutes’ kip. Now I got nothing to do but sleep and I can’t seem to drop off. Don’t seem right, does it?’
As he spoke his right hand tapped emphatically on the chair’s threadbare arm, while his left lay inert at his side. A stroke, he’d explained when the carer first showed Will in. ‘Like being struck by bleeding lightning.’
‘Of course, the quack’s given me pills for it,’ he went on now, his glasses reflecting the square of light from the front window. ‘“You take these, Mr Greaves”, ’e says, “you’ll get a good night then”, but I ain’t daft. I might be old, but I’m not stupid. Once they start shovelling their pills into you, that’s it. Done for, you are, sure as eggs. That’s what happened to Nancy when she went into that home.’ He gave a knowing laugh. ‘Well, they call it a home but it ain’t nothing like. Oneway doors in them places. She only went in because she broke her hip. They was going to look after her until it was better, but look what happened. Never came out, did she?’
During this speech he’d been infused with energy, but when it was over he sank further into the depths of the armchair and into his own thoughts. Will waited a moment, and took a sip of his tea. It was cooling and had white flecks of milk on the surface. Setting it down he prompted gently: ‘Were you close to Miss Price, Mr Greaves?’