The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘A great old building, they don’t build them like that any more,’ says Glen, too heartily, looking at the church roof, which has begun more and more to resemble the gumminess of an old woman whose teeth are falling out.

  A wind stirs in the branches of the acacia tree alongside them, all aglitter with silver light on the underside of its leaves. There is a promise of rain in the distance.

  Any moment now, Jeremy thinks, he will offer me ‘his boys’ to come and mend the roof. He prepares a stiff response to indicate that the matter is under control, yet at the same time not giving away what he has in mind to remedy things.

  But he is saved the trouble for another voice is calling him with an imperious urgent sound, and he thanks Sophie in his heart for being as she is, a woman who might melt momentarily for Mortlock, but will not tolerate her husband standing around gossiping with fundamentalists.

  He gives a sigh of mock resignation and excuses himself from what Sophie describes as ‘that dreadful Frew man’ and walks across the shaggy lawn towards the vicarage. Inside the church Eunice sings with renewed vigour oh dearly dearly has he loved/and we must love him too … try his works to do.

  Sophie keeps the blinds in the sitting room drawn halfway so that the sun will not fade the Sanderson linen covers of the large armchairs. She sits in the dim light with a tragic air. The brass table that her uncle brought her from India gleams and scarlet dahlias in a cut-glass bowl cast a glow but she projects a delicate presence against them. Jeremy notes how quickly she has arranged herself among the cushions since her stentorian roar across the grass.

  As he had entered the house he heard the blare of the transistor radio which Sophie always keeps beside her wherever she is in the house. But at his footfall it is snapped off.

  He looks down at her and remembers how beautiful she has been. Still is perhaps, only now he notices the outline of food in her slender throat when she swallows, and the telltale yellow tinge of ageing in her teeth. But her hair is dark and curly still, only lightly tipped with grey, and her skin is magnolia-like, perfectly preserved and waxen in its purity, touched lightly with make-up. She is dressed in a correctly pleated linen dress with padded shoulders and drawn threadwork on the bodice. It is dusty pink. She extends a fine hand towards him. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘You know where I was. That dreadful Frew man caught up with me.’

  She nods. He has struck the right note. ‘Ah yes. Indeed. And what did he want?’

  ‘To commiserate.’

  She flashes him a look, a touch of cunning tinged with triumph.

  ‘Four tiles,’ he says. ‘There have been four tiles down already this morning.’

  ‘It will be all right,’ she says.

  ‘What was on the radio?’ he asks, knowing that he must.

  ‘Forrest Fleming. I wanted you to hear him. There’s just been the most marvellous talkback. I could hardly pick it up, but I got it, very faintly. He was talking at the end of his last campaign. He’s raised two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars for St Dorothy’s in Justville.’

  ‘Well,’ he says. Then he says it again. ‘Well.’

  For what else can he say? He is impressed.

  ‘There must be a catch,’ he says. ‘It sounds too good to be true. Such a small town.’ He is thinking of the huddle of houses across the flat plain that divides his parish from the next.

  ‘It is smaller than ours,’ says Sophie with triumph. ‘It will be all right, we will save the church, I know. He’ll save it for us. Oh Jeremy, I know you don’t like the idea of a professional fund-raiser to find the money for the repairs, but it’s the only thing. You do see, don’t you?’

  There is something touchingly girlish about the way she clasps her hands. Her fine dark eyes flash with excitement. How can he help but love her for her enthusiasm? And a bishop’s daughter as well. How envied he had been when she had said that she would marry him. How the cathedral choir had sung.

  ‘There,’ he says, ‘I’ve already agreed, you don’t have to convince me.’

  ‘We should tell Eunice,’ she says. ‘It was her idea. To be fair,’ she adds, as a subtle way of reminding him that although the organist has had an inspiration, only she, Sophie, had the foresight and the drive to carry it through. Or the contacts. ‘Eunice is in the church, isn’t she?’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he says. ‘The wings of song. Practising away in there. Couldn’t you hear her?’

  ‘A tiny sparrow,’ says Sophie, in sudden poetic flight. ‘I heard the notes squeezing — squeezing up.’

  ‘Through the holes in the roof.’

  ‘Oh Jeremy, what is the matter? Why don’t you believe? What’s happened to your faith?’

  When he does not reply she says, ‘If you are going near the church would you tell Eunice that I am about to heat some pumpkin soup?’

  As he recrosses the lawn Jeremy sings under his breath. To the tune of ‘There is a Green Hill’ he whispers What is the matter oh by gosh?/What is the matter — oh?/What is the matter …? When he enters the vestry door he raises his voice, giving a sign to Eunice that she commence playing again. But the other woman in his life has already packed up her papers and the organ lid is down and locked. She has heard him but she pretends that she has not.

  Instead she kneels at the altar rails in a prayerful attitude. Her slight frame is clad in a scrubbed yellow sweatshirt and a brown dirndl-like skirt that flows around her bent form. He sees her roman sandals peeping out from underneath and winces.

  In spite of her signal to keep his distance he approaches Eunice Brown, local organist, dressmaker and cub mistress. He is, after all, her spiritual mentor. Well, isn’t he?

  ‘So what is the matter?’ he asks.

  Eunice gives an exaggerated start, which he decides to ignore. He sits on the altar chair and fixes her with what he hopes is a penetrating gaze.

  ‘Oh why can’t everyone be happy?’ she cries, seeing that he is unmoved by prayer.

  ‘My dear Eunice,’ he says, ‘I am delirious with joy. Why should I not be?’

  ‘You are not,’ she says. ‘Forrest Fleming is coming to save us, and you’re going round with a face like a fiddle.’

  ‘He may be coming to save you, but I may be beyond Mr Fleming’s redemption.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ She bends her head, suddenly ashamed. ‘Oh Father Jeremy,’ she says, ‘forgive me, it is only He who saves us I know. But the church. Mr Fleming is His instrument. Surely we must have faith in something or everything will fall down around our ears.’

  Jeremy is unconscionably moved by the sight of her scrawny neck bowed before him. He has never touched Eunice Brown’s neck but he senses that it may be softer than it appears.

  He looks up towards the roof. He could swear he can see light shining through.

  ‘Did you hear the story about the church out in the bush? It had a light above it. No? Well they put the power lines through, this was way back, you know, and the electricity was a miracle. So. To the glory of God and the power supply, the locals put a neon sign over the church. Proclaimed the house of the Lord for all to see. One night the church burnt down, so what did they save?’

  ‘The sign?’ whispers Eunice.

  ‘Of course, Eunice, the sign. Well there you are. Churches come, they go, but old Claude Neon, he keeps on getting his cut. You can’t be too careful.’

  ‘That sounds like the way they used to sell television sets and refrigerators to people before they got the power put in,’ she reflects, entering into the spirit of the story. ‘Well, something like that.’

  ‘It does, doesn’t it?’ he says in a hearty amiable way.

  She reacts as if stung, tries not to blink the unshed tears which threaten to roll down her hairy earnest face. ‘You made that story up, didn’t you?’

  He is silent for a moment, and still. This is the house of the Lord, which, in spite of everything, he loves. And he is not without affection for Eunice Brown.

  ‘I heard somethin
g like it once,’ he says after while. ‘It is a story not entirely without truth.’

  And because she is Eunice Brown she believes him. Why should she not? It is a kind of truth.

  When they have eaten pumpkin soup and wholemeal bread washed down with squeezed lemon juice (it keeps them healthy, Sophie says), Jeremy retreats to the garden to consider anew the problem of the wasps’ nest. He must also think about Sunday’s sermon, for with the arrival of the fund-raiser there is a real hope abroad that the church will be at least half full.

  But he has barely set foot outside when he hears the telltale slide of more tiles broken loose and skidding down the roof of the church. Around the bell tower a large gaping hole has opened up.

  Above, the sky is full of rushing and accumulating clouds and beyond the edge of the town the paddocks lie blue and jade, shadowed by the onset of the approaching rain.

  Sophie has relented and made tea. ‘You’ve been practising so hard for Sunday’s service,’ she says to Eunice.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be lovely.’

  ‘I’ll do my very best.’

  ‘But of course you will. You’re not nervous, dear? No, of course not. There, will you pour the tea?’

  ‘It’s just that he sounds such a remarkable young man … Sophie, there is no tea in the pot.’

  ‘Oh my dear, how silly of me, there it is in the china pot. You see, I polished all the silver today.’

  ‘Of course. I should have thought.’

  ‘I polished it ever so hard. Look how bright it is.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. You keep things so nicely, Sophie.’

  ‘La, old habits. Look, I can see you, Eunice, reflected in the teapot. What a strange shape you have. Coo-ee. You’ve got a big head. And little arms. Ooh. Now, you’ve got bosoms.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Eunice’s voice is sharp, and suddenly wary.

  ‘Oh dear, you’re cross. My little joke. Why not be light-hearted? I’ve worked hard for his coming too, you know.’

  ‘It’s hot,’ says Eunice, ‘it’s so hot.’ She walks to the window, stands looking out. She sees Jeremy but does not signal to him. She savours the moment of watching him, unaware that he is being observed. ‘But it may rain before night.’

  Behind her the phone shrills. She hears Sophie pick it up, but her end of the conversation passes over her.

  When Sophie has replaced the receiver she calls in a frightened peremptory way to Eunice. ‘It was him, Forrest Fleming. He is calling here this evening. He has asked to stay the night.’

  ‘But he is not due until the weekend.’

  ‘He wants to start planning the campaign straight away, he says he can’t wait to begin now that he has finished in Justville. He’ll be here in a few hours.’

  ‘Oh Sophie. Will you manage all right?’

  ‘Of course. Of course I will. I must breathe deeply. I must think of father.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘But you must help me, Eunice.’

  ‘And so must you,’ she tells Jeremy when she has summoned him. ‘I’ll give you a list to take to the shops.’

  ‘I haven’t got time,’ he says. ‘The hole’s got bigger. I have to get the ladder up.’

  ‘You must,’ she repeats impatiently, as if he is a child. ‘Did you not hear what I said? You don’t have to worry any more. He’s coming tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? Our friend Mr Fleming will fix the hole in the church roof tonight?’

  ‘Well not exactly. But it’s the beginning.’

  ‘If we get a real storm and it gets under the tiles … there won’t be any church left to save. I have to do something.’

  He runs up and down, distractedly plucking a raincoat from its peg on the hall door and banging in the kitchen cupboard where he keeps a hammer and some nails.

  ‘You can’t go up there now.’

  ‘I need some pieces of wood to block up the holes.’

  ‘I’ll go to the shops,’ says Eunice.

  ‘But I need a whole ham,’ says Sophie. ‘Now that things are underway. Who knows, I may need to cut sandwiches. Well, you can’t carry a ham in your bike basket.’

  ‘I’ll get some slices, and the rest can be delivered tomorrow,’ says Eunice.

  The rain has still not come; the cicadas still sing; the air presses close upon them. The feverish sound of wood being sawn assails the air, a harsh scratch and rasp, and something else, what might be taken as an oath if one did not know that this was the house belonging to a man of the cloth.

  Jeremy has cut his finger and it is bound with a flapping length of bandage that he has rushed in and seized from the first-aid kit in the bathroom. He saws backwards and forwards at the wood but he is getting nowhere.

  Sophie moans quietly to herself as she concocts a pastry. She knows that the best puff pastry should be rolled seven hundred and thirty times on a marble slab and takes at least a day to prepare but there is no time for that. Thanks to Julia Child she acknowledges that in an emergency feuilletage rapide will suffice though even that takes time and its toll.

  ‘We should ring Dash McLeavey, he could help.’ Eunice has returned from the shops, and stands transfixed at the windows. An ugly wind is stirring; it suddenly whips the marigolds backwards and forwards, catches Jeremy’s trousers and tugs them against his knees.

  Sophie lifts haggard eyes towards her, and shakes her head.

  In the garden, Jeremy thinks, will I or will I not ask Dash McLeavey to help me. As he swipes through the wood again with his bent and buckling saw, attempting to quadrate some forms that will match the roof tiles, he has a vision of Dash’s thin face, a face so toughened by the weather as to suggest that he is a man without feeling. Yet it is Dash who has comforted him when, kneeling before Jeremy he has said in agony, dear Lord, why me, upon the death of a son, and Jeremy, considering himself a man without concept of the death of children, though he has been called upon often to confront the subject, has said, I do not know, Dash, I do not know.

  There is a splash of rain on his face and the air chills. But then the rain stops.

  ‘He doesn’t think I understand anything,’ Sophie says.

  ‘What does he want you to understand?’

  Sophie turns the pastry again and sighs without answering. There is still naked butter gleaming against the pastry’s fold.

  ‘I’ll go,’ says Eunice abruptly. ‘I’m poor company’

  ‘No don’t,’ cries Sophie, as if suddenly afraid to be left by herself. ‘Look, this campaign was all your idea. I’m not really much use, you know. I polish silver and arrange flowers, prepare food. I’m not a person of ideas,’ she admits.

  She does not say, although it is clear what is on her mind, that without Eunice’s support Jeremy cannot be relied upon to continue with the campaign, or show sufficient enthusiasm to Forrest Fleming to convince him that it is worth his while.

  ‘I pray, Eunice,’ says Sophie. ‘You know I do pray’

  ‘I cannot imagine what he will be like,’ says Eunice, speaking of Forrest Fleming. ‘I feel such a sinner.’

  At this Sophie laughs. ‘You a sinner? Oh no.’

  ‘It’s true. I need to confess.’

  ‘Oh not that again.’ It is a source of private embarrassment to Sophie, particularly when she recalls her upbringing, that Jeremy has so embraced the reformation. Sometimes she secretly genuflects when she goes into the church. It pleases her when some of their parishioners call him Father, as Eunice sometimes does. But Jeremy is determinedly and utterly Low in his approach to ecclesiastical matters. He does not believe in confession. She sometimes wonders why he is Church of England at all when the options are so clearly laid out.

  Still, she says to Eunice, when she has recovered herself, ‘I’m sure you don’t need to confess, dear, but if you’re troubled you can always talk to Jeremy.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Eunice’s face flushes. ‘No, I couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Why, what have you done? Tell
me. No one tells me anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry.

  In the garden there is silence. Eunice strains to see what has happened to Jeremy but he has disappeared from view.

  ‘What are you sorry for? Have you sinned with my Jeremy?’ She gives another chirping little hiccup of a laugh. ‘Oh that’s good.’

  ‘I’m sorry no one tells you anything.’

  Sophie’s pastry is done. She wraps it in a cold cloth and puts it in the fridge.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, when the pastry is away. ‘Yes, so am I. President of the Mother’s Union. Do they tell me when the Smiths’ baby is sick? No, she has no children. President of the Wives’ Group. Do they tell me when Harry runs off with Mary? No fear, I won’t know what it’s like. And the bishop’s daughter and all. A good day when he met me, Eunice. They said it was ambition, you know, but Jeremy’s not ambitious. It’ll be easy, he said, you know the drill, and nobody needs to teach you how to pray. So I listen. I listen and watch all around me. And hear nothing, see nothing. I turn on the radio, the television. Blood, death, pollution, riots, war. I pray God to stop them, but what are they really, Eunice? What do they mean? No one tells me.’

  Eunice speaks in a choked voice. ‘It is a small price to pay for a pure heart.’

  ‘Tell me.’ Sophie comes around the kitchen table wiping her hands on the enveloping blue apron she is wearing, and takes Eunice by the arm, shaking her a little. ‘How did you sin?’