By the time she brought the bottle the sky was dark. She drew the curtains and pulled her chair close to the bed, then poured an inch of port into two glasses. She passed one of them to me. I cleared my throat.
‘To Grace!’ I said. ‘To her first Christmas.’
And to my last, I thought, suddenly calm at the idea. Not long to go now.
Rose raised her glass. ‘To Grace!’
We touched glasses and drank. I held the port in my mouth for a long and lovely moment, enjoying the taste of it. I looked fondly at Rose, who held the baby snuggled against her shoulder.
‘Here we are,’ I said. ‘We’ve got our own nativity, mother and child. Although I don’t know what that makes me.’
Rose giggled. ‘You’re the midwife. I can’t imagine she got any thanks in the Bible but Mary couldn’t have done it without her.’
As I sipped at my port, I felt hazy and happy, as if the alcohol was washing the rotten parts of me, making me clean.
‘I wonder what she’s doing,’ Rose said.
‘Who?’
‘Mum.’ She sighed. ‘She’s probably remembering last Christmas and what a mess it was. She’s probably still angry about it all.’
‘She’s probably missing you,’ I said carefully. ‘And I’m sure she’s wondering about her grandchild. Don’t you think she’d like to meet her?’
Rose stiffened, and lifted her chin in her old determined pose.
‘She’s not going to,’ she said, her voice stubborn. ‘She didn’t want her to be born. She wanted me to get rid of her, remember?’
I remembered. But I also remembered the relief in Rose’s voice when she had mistaken me for her mother on that night in her bedsit. I remembered her tears when she saw the rose in her room. I remembered other things too, uncomfortable, unsettling things. I thought of my own mother and of how the small seed of separation that was planted on the day that I left her had grown, winding around my heart like the convolvulus in the garden, choking it until she was gone forever. I thought about Mrs Rivers and Grace, and of how they had been lost to each other.
I tried to persuade her. ‘I think your mother was trying to protect you.’
She shook her head, unconvinced. ‘Well, it didn’t work.’
‘It wasn’t that she wanted Grace dead,’ I said. ‘She didn’t know her. She wasn’t thinking of your child. She was thinking of you.’
The port had loosened my tongue.
‘You could telephone her. Just to tell her that you’re both all right.’
‘I don’t want to talk to her.’
There was an awkward silence and my happiness slunk away. I was worried that I had pushed it too far.
You’ve messed it up again, I thought. You’ve said too much.
But after a minute, I felt a soft hand on mine. I turned my head to see Rose looking at me with concern.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was the port. I’m not used to it. I haven’t had a drink since I found out I was pregnant.’
She reached under the bed and brought out a package wrapped in red paper. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ she said. ‘Happy Christmas! I hope you like it.’
‘For me?’ I said.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Open it.’
I slid my finger under the strips of sticky tape and drew out a silver frame. In it was the photograph from the Heath; Rose, Grace and me, smiling at the camera with London stretched out behind us. I gasped with pleasure.
‘Thank you,’ I said, hugging it to my chest. ‘It’s wonderful.’
‘Do you really like it?’ Rose said.
‘There’s nothing I would have liked more,’ I said, meaning every word.
Fourteen
By the time the primroses had begun to appear on the riverbanks, a feeling of anticipation had spread through the village. The narrow road that connected us to the rest of the world, empty of traffic for so long, was busy with squat tanks crawling towards the coast. for so long, was busy with squat tanks crawling towards the coast. Girls stood and waved at the soldiers who hung out of them and there were dances on Saturday nights at the army base three miles away. Grace and I were forbidden to go. Reverend Rivers was firm.
‘Anything could happen,’ he said. ‘Young girls like you should not be seen in that sort of place.’
Grace tried to argue but I was secretly relieved. It was easy to imagine her at a dance, tight on drink and dancing with servicemen whilst I stood by and watched. It would be a hundred times worse than seeing her with William and I was grateful for Reverend Rivers’ strictness.
As spring became summer, people began to be hopeful and excited. The wireless told of successes and when D-Day came at last, the church bells rang out for the first time since the war had begun. Everyone agreed that it was nearly over and that it wouldn’t be long before we won it once and for all. Mrs Rivers even played a polka on the piano and Grace and I danced around the room.
It didn’t last. The flying bombs came whilst the celebrations were still going on. They flew by themselves, without any escort, clattering across the sky all day and night. They were meant for London, not us, but we got them anyway when they ran out of fuel. The newspapers gave Kent a new name, Hellfire Corner, and like hell itself, there was no way out. When a herd of cows was found lying dead in a field with their tails blown off, Mrs Rivers said it wasn’t safe for us to leave the rectory.
She gave us chores to pass the time and we were at work on one of them when the telegram arrived. It was a Saturday and Grace and I were polishing the silver. Reverend Rivers had added to the job by bringing the candlesticks, collection plate and chalice from the church. We spent all morning rubbing on polish, working it in with a cloth, then buffing up each piece to make it shine. The things that Reverend Rivers had brought, which seemed so sacred on the altar, were very ordinary in the rectory kitchen. We sat at the table in our aprons using butter knives to loosen the wax that had dripped down the candlesticks and peeling off the rest of it with our fingernails, trying not to scratch the metal. The collection plate was tarnished from all the copper coins that had been dropped into it and the chalice was covered in smears. This was the part that people didn’t see, I thought, as I scraped around the curves of a candlestick; the real bits, like the smelly water at the bottom of the flower vases and the hem of Reverend Rivers’ white cassock, which trailed in the mud and had to be scrubbed and starched before the next service.
It was dull work, and so when the knock came we were glad of the interruption. Grace and I threw down our cloths, scrambled to our feet and raced to the door, skidding on the tiles in the hallway. Grace got there first. On the doorstep was Jack, the post-mistress’s son. He avoided my eyes as he handed me a piece of paper, then turned and ran down the garden path.
Grace and I looked at each other. I turned the telegram over. The ink had bled into the paper but the message was clear enough.
Regret inform Mrs Kathleen Lynch killed, V1 attack 28 June.
It was as if someone had taken hold of my guts and was twisting them. I doubled over and retched. Ma was dead. She was gone forever. Far away I heard a terrible noise, like the screams made by animals when they were caught in William’s traps.
A bitter smell made me shudder and blink.
‘They’re just smelling salts.’ Mrs Rivers’ voice was gentle. ‘You’ve had an awful shock.’ She put something into my hands; a glass. ‘Drink this,’ she said. ‘It’s brandy. It will do you good.’
The smell of the alcohol made me realize something terrible. Ma’s death was a punishment for all the wickedness of the past year, for stealing the communion wine, for swimming naked in the lake, for being jealous of William. Most of all, it was a punishment for loving Grace. I remembered the words in the Book of Common Prayer.
For then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ the Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord’s Body; we kindle God’s wrath against us; we provoke Him to plague us with divers di
seases and sundry kinds of death.
I had made God angry. I had provoked him and Ma had paid for it. I had started it all and now I would suffer the consequences. Kent had seemed like Paradise to me, a world that I would never have been able to imagine if I hadn’t seen it for myself. I had wanted very badly to be part of it. I thought of Ma’s visit, the last time I had seen her alive. I had been ashamed of her and of our shabby London life. She had understood, I knew, from the look in her eyes as she said goodbye and the way she had told me that I’d always be her girl. I imagined her sitting in the corner of the train compartment, watching the fields fold away behind her and knowing that she had lost me to the rectory.
But Kent wasn’t Paradise any more. The newspapers were right after all. Hellfire Corner was what it was and I was stuck in it, facing an angry God. If I had been able to confess, I thought, I might have been forgiven and Ma might still be alive. If Reverend Rivers had been a priest and not a rector, it might all have been stopped. If I had prayed to the Virgin Mary instead of God the Father, she might have saved me. But the Virgin Mary didn’t live in Kent so I had sinned and Ma had suffered for it.
Mrs Rivers took the glass from my hands and held it to my lips. She tipped it up and the brandy trickled down my throat, burning as it went. The taste of it took me back to lying in the grass by the lake with Grace and I began to panic. I had done enough damage. I had to stop what I had started before anyone else was hurt. If I had no choice but to pray to God the Father rather than the Virgin Mary, then that was what I would do.
‘I’m going to pray for Ma,’ I said and ran past Mrs Rivers and Grace, through the kitchen and out of the back door.
As I raced through the vegetable patch, past the raspberry canes and cabbage stumps, I thought of Grace and me, two little girls on that first day, hurrying to find out if there would be a war. I remembered us, older, hiding in the hut and running back to the rectory screaming at the racket of the dogfight above us. I thought of us, older still, creeping to the vestry to find the communion wine. I wanted to ask God to help me put it out of my mind, to pretend it had never happened.
When I got to the porch I stood still for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. They seemed too big to be contained within a building, better suited to the outdoors; to the fields or to the lake. I took hold of the heavy iron ring with both hands and turned it, feeling the weight of the latch as it lifted, then pushed open the door, just wide enough to slip inside.
I had never been in the church by myself. The smallest movement was enough to disturb the musty air. My heart was hammering and I leaned against the font, trying to calm down. I looked around the church. Wild feelings like mine were out of place in it. Everything about it was modest and restrained. Without sunlight shining through them, the stained glass windows were dull. The covers of the hymn-books stacked up on the back pew were faded and the flower arrangements had dropped most of their petals onto the window-ledges. The carpet in the aisle was threadbare and worn. A bird had left white splashes on the lectern, a wooden eagle that held Reverend Rivers’ Sunday sermons in its wings. Above it hung a board with the numbers of the hymns for the week before. Ma had been alive when we had sung them. The thought made my eyes fill with tears. I hurried to the front pew and knelt on the cold flag-stones. I put my hands together and bowed my head.
I didn’t know what to say, whether to ask God why, or to ask him to stop, or simply to confess.
Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.
He already knew it all. I began to recite the Lord’s Prayer in a panic, stumbling over the words.
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy Name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us -
I faltered when I reached the next line, the one about temptation. I had already given into it. I knew I was supposed to want to be spared but that wasn’t what I wanted at all. I wanted Grace. I was frightened of what other punishments might follow if I didn’t give her up but I couldn’t bear to be without her. I began to cry, tears spilling over my fingers as I thought of Ma and the girl that I had been when I left London. I had lost Ma and I had lost myself. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Grace as well.
‘I’ll try,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll try to give her up. Just don’t do anything else. Don’t hurt her.’
I was still kneeling when I felt a hand on my head. For a terrible moment I thought it was the hand of God. I stayed perfectly still, too frightened to move. Then I heard a man’s voice, quiet and low.
‘Nora.’
I twisted around to see Reverend Rivers standing just behind me. Usually he was removed from everyone, kept apart by his black frock and his habit of making himself invisible. It was odd to feel him so close.
‘I was so very sorry to hear about your mother,’ he said gravely.
Mrs Rivers must have told him, I supposed, and he had come to the church to comfort me like he did with people from the village when news came of a dead husband or a brother. But I didn’t want to be comforted. I wanted to be left alone. I pressed my face into my hands, not knowing how to say so without offending him.
He was still for a while, saying nothing, then dropped to his knees next to me. He smelled musty, like the church and tobacco from his pipe. He clasped his hands together and looked towards the altar.
‘Nora,’ he said. ‘We must pray for your mother’s soul. And that this terrible war may soon be over.’ He bowed his head. ‘Let us pray.’
I was used to hearing him say it every Sunday from the pulpit. I felt easier and closed my eyes too.
Reverend Rivers prayed for a long time. He prayed for Ma’s soul and for all the other people killed by the bombs in London. He prayed for the Forces. He prayed for the King. But then he began a new prayer, something altogether different.
‘Almighty God,’ he said. ‘We pray for your servant Nora.’
I was suddenly afraid.
‘Help her through this difficult time. Cleanse the thoughts of her heart, by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit.’
Sweat began to trickle down my back as I wondered how much he knew.
‘Cleanse the thoughts of her heart. Forgive her trespasses. Let her be guided by what is right.’
I wished that I were anywhere else, even under the rubble with Ma, than next to this strange man, this priest who seemed to know everything about me.
‘Let her conscience lead her to the path of righteousness.’
I breathed in sharply. Reverend Rivers lifted his head and looked at me.
‘Nora, what’s wrong?’
I couldn’t look back at him.
‘Is it your mother?’
I shook my head.
‘I do understand how you are feeling.’
I wrapped my arms around myself, wishing he would leave me alone.
‘I know what it means to lose someone very dear to you.’
Suddenly I wasn’t scared of answering back to him. ‘No you don’t,’ I said, and it was my old voice, my London voice, not the new one from Kent, cracked with anger. ‘You’ve got Mrs Rivers and you’ve got Grace. I never had a father and now I haven’t even got Ma. I haven’t got anyone.’
Reverend Rivers looked agitated. ‘Please don’t worry about what will happen to you. I know you have no family left. But—’
He paused.
‘What?’ I demanded.
He was studying my face as closely as if it were a book, something religious, in very small print. ‘Nora, you - you are like a daughter to me.’
I blinked in surprise. ‘What?’
‘A daughter. A very dear daughter.’
I spoke without thinking. ‘But you don’t even like your daughter.’
Reverend Rivers loo
ked shocked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Grace. You never pay her any attention. You wouldn’t care if she weren’t around. You probably wouldn’t even notice.’
He sighed. ‘Yes I would,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I would. Nora, listen to me. I understand.’
I shook my head stubbornly.
‘Grace wasn’t an only child,’ he said.
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘What?’
Reverend Rivers had gone very pale.
‘Grace had a twin sister called Elizabeth,’ he said in a low voice. ‘She died when she was less than a year old.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Grace had a sister, a sister whom she had never once mentioned to me.
‘What happened?’ I whispered.
Reverend Rivers hesitated.
‘You have to tell me,’ I said. ‘If you don’t, I’ll ask Grace.’
‘No!’ he said wearily. ‘I’ll tell you.’
He sighed. ‘Evelyn - Mrs Rivers - had come down with influenza. Usually she would let nothing come between her and the girls. She was devoted to them. But she was very ill that night, with a fever. I told her that I would bathe the children and put them to bed whilst she rested. She didn’t want to leave them, but I managed to persuade her.
‘It was the first time I had bathed them. Evelyn had always taken care of that sort of thing. I was a young curate then, and busy with the parish. When there was a knock at the door, I went to answer it. It was the organist with the numbers of the hymns for the next day’s service. We spoke for a minute, said good night, and I went back to the bathroom.
‘Grace was sitting in the same position that I had left her in, chuckling to herself. Elizabeth should have been sitting opposite but she wasn’t. She was lying face-down in the water at Grace’s feet. I ran to the bath and snatched her up. I tried to bring her back to life, but it was no good, she just lay there on the floor, like . . . like a doll.’
He was stammering now, his eyes fixed on the altar.
‘Evelyn must have sensed that something was wrong. She came running into the bathroom. When she saw Elizabeth she screamed. It was a terrible sound that I shall never forget. She fell to her knees and picked her up. She began to talk to her, muttering into her ear.
Days of Grace Page 14