The Magnificent Mrs Mayhew

by Milly Johnson

  ‘I’ll have to get him a kitten every day,’ said Elliott. ‘Out like a light. Mind you, he hardly slept at all last night, he was so excited.’

  ‘He’s very sweet,’ said Sophie.

  ‘He is, if I say so myself,’ agreed Elliott. ‘I have tiramisu for dessert. I apologise in advance as I can be quite heavy-handed with the rum.’

  ‘I couldn’t squeeze another . . . oh, all right, maybe a little,’ said Sophie, deciding that she had better go for a very long beach run tomorrow morning.

  ‘You don’t have children, do you?’ asked Elliott, beginning to serve out the tiramisu from a large glass trifle bowl. ‘Was that from choice?’

  ‘I can’t carry babies,’ said Sophie. ‘Everything inside me is the wrong shape.’

  Elliott froze in position, spoon buried in the dessert.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. I shouldn’t have asked. That was really clumsy of me.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I had a couple of very early miscarriages and then I became pregnant again and everything was going great. But I went into early labour and Henry was born at just over twenty-three weeks. They said it was a miracle that I’d carried him for so long really, considering the equipment I had. He didn’t make it, but he tried his best. And John didn’t want to adopt. He said he could never accept a child that had been fathered by someone else.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s rough, Pom.’

  ‘On the day my son died, there was a freak heatwave. I wanted it to rain so hard it knocked down buildings. How dare the sun come out today, I thought. How dare it. How dare people smile and say how gorgeous it is and have barbecues and parties in their gardens.’

  ‘Oh, Pom.’ He could hear the pain in her voice. There was a well of it still left inside her, full of stagnant waters.

  ‘It’s a taboo subject for me, I won’t let it be used even if it would – quote – “make me appear more human”.’

  ‘Surely that wasn’t said to you?’ said Elliott, incredulous.

  ‘Oh yes. And more than once. But I’ve always stood firm.’ On that, at least.

  Elliott shook his head. ‘I think a lot of people have done you a great injustice, Pom.’

  ‘I stopped believing in God when that happened to me, so you see, you have a heathen in your midst,’ she said, after a pause that indicated she knew she was about to reveal something he might find contentious.

  ‘Did you stop believing or were you just angry at Him, Pom?’

  ‘You have no idea how angry.’

  ‘I can imagine. Did you tell me that expecting me to evangelise?’

  ‘I wanted to be straight with you, Elliott. I felt I owed it to you to say. Especially because it’s the church that is giving me sanctuary and so I feel hypocritical enough as it is.’

  ‘Thank you, I appreciate your honesty, though it won’t stop Him loving you and trying to guide and protect you. And I will not be throwing you out on the street.’

  ‘If I’d said what I just have to the resident priest at St Saviour’s in Cherlgrove, I’d have been strung up until I begged for his forgiveness.’ Sophie shuddered at the thought.

  ‘It’s not up to us to forgive anyone,’ said Elliott. ‘That’s His job,’ and he pointed upwards.

  ‘I won’t lie and say that I was particularly religious before, but to be told that “God doesn’t give us anything more than we can cope with” made me angrier than I think I’ve ever been.’

  Elliott winced at the insensitivity of those words, however kindly they’d been meant, as he put a bowl down in front of Sophie.

  ‘I didn’t want to believe in a God that could take my baby away from me. I wanted to scream that at the idiot priest but I couldn’t. Inside I was raging, but I was too far gone in my grief to have the energy to tell him what I wanted him to do with his religion and his very considerate God. Is that what you would have said to me, Elliott?’

  Elliott nudged a jug of cream over to her.

  ‘No. I would have told you that I was so sorry about what you were going through and that I couldn’t hope to understand it. I would have told you that it wasn’t God to blame but just life, circumstance, that it is not part of His design to make anyone suffer like you were, that what had happened was not because of some unchangeable blueprint. And I would have told you that God is there for you, even though you think He isn’t. I would have told you that grief does not last for ever but your love for your child will. Then I would have stuck around and tried to help you to live alongside it so it wasn’t blocking your way forward. I would have tried to help you work through the anger.’

  ‘I’m not angry now,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I think you must be, Pom.’ His voice was soft but firm. ‘Anger is a huge part of the grieving process: you feel it and it gives you energy to survive, then you let it go. But the longer the anger stays with you, the more destructive it is, it can settle inside your emotional make-up like concrete. Anger can become a cloud that blocks out the sunshine.’

  ‘Angry people scream and shout. I don’t do that.’

  ‘Not always,’ replied Elliott. ‘Sometimes they hold it up as a shield so nothing gets in or out. Shadows have filled you and anything that tries to alter the status quo is immediately rejected from fear because you cling to a consistency you can cope with. It’s a defence mechanism that is in place to stop hurt getting any worse, but at the same time it stops it getting better too, it fixes you in the moment.’

  That was exactly what it was like. She couldn’t do anything about it, but she could recognise it for what it was.

  ‘I’ve seen it quite a few times. Grief is different for everyone. There is no textbook on how to deal with it. There is no marker in the sand that says you have grieved enough now and should snap out of it. Oh, the most useless expression in the English language,’ Elliott went on. ‘Snap out of it.’

  Her mother’s words: ‘You’re becoming maudlin, trapped in the past like a fly in aspic, Sophie. Time to rally. Three months is more than enough to get over the worst of anything.’

  Sophie gave a small swallow, a nod. ‘I couldn’t cry. I tried.’

  ‘Did someone hold you, Pom? Did someone make you feel safe enough to let all your pain out?’

  Her eyes flashed to his. He could see inside her, she was sure of it, see the deep canyon of emptiness within her. She didn’t answer him. If she had, she would have said no, no one did, but she thought he would know that anyway.

  ‘I wish I’d heard your words then instead of the priest’s at St Saviour’s. I think it might have made a difference.’

  ‘It would. Now eat your pudding.’

  She smiled and obeyed.

  ‘I make a really good dessert, don’t I?’ said Elliott. ‘Maybe I should have been a chef rather than a vicar. Maybe that’s my true calling.’

  ‘I think you’re in exactly the right job.’ Sophie licked the spoon. It was better than anything that even Margaret could come up with. Maybe because Margaret’s cooking was a result of duty rather than pleasure. Or maybe you’re just being indulgently fanciful, Sophie, she told herself.

  ‘Does Luke talk about his mother ever?’ she asked. ‘Tell me to mind my own business.’

  ‘I shall do nothing of the sort. I presume that Tracey has told you a little of our history. She finds you easy to talk to, which is quite a compliment if you knew my sister. Alas, the subject of Joy is one that we butt heads on, so we tend to avoid it unless we have to speak about her.’

  ‘She didn’t tell me much.’

  ‘Joy and I first met when I was in Whitby hospital visiting a parishioner. She was in the next bed. She’d been beaten up by an ex-boyfriend. The image of her stayed with me for a long time, this little, fragile, broken thing but I didn’t see her again until a year later. I was trying to get out of Slattercove but there was a protest march about the new road. I spotted her immediately, holding up a banner. Things had started to turn ugly and I managed to drag her out of the way before she was trampled
underfoot or arrested. We went for a coffee. Things progressed very quickly, too quickly. She was like no one I’d ever met before, a force of nature: I was enraptured by her. We were married six months later, under the impression that we knew each other better than we did . . . big mistake. She felt trapped, she said, and left me the day before our first anniversary. I was understandably devastated, even though our differences were glaring by this stage. Joy always had to have a cause, a fight; she was high, she was low, everything was extreme. We’d fallen into victim and rescuer roles: she lurched from one drama to the other, manically; it was exhausting. Then she came back because she had found out she was pregnant. I was reeling with shock but I was happy to try again and things seemed to settle. Is this boring?’

  ‘Not at all, go on,’ encouraged Sophie.

  ‘Luke was born but Joy had difficulty bonding with him. I thought she was post-natally depressed but then she took off again, weeks later, without any notice at all or any contact afterwards. I was worried sick, I didn’t know her state of mind. I tried to trace her, looked everywhere, did eventually find her in Wigan, and I wrote – no response at first. I drove there but the person at the house said she’d moved and left no forwarding address. Then out of the blue she wrote back, saying she’d consider meeting up if I left her to think about it for a month or so, which I did. Then she filed for divorce. Obviously we never did meet up.’

  ‘Wow.’ Joy sounded anything but a joy. ‘And . . . how did you feel about that?’

  ‘Honestly? Shocked, bewildered . . . relieved. But at the same time, I wanted to build a bridge between us – for Luke. I had hoped she would decide to be part of his life. I have difficulty getting my head around the fact that a parent wouldn’t want to be involved in bringing up their own child. Especially a mother, who carried him for nine months and then gave birth to him.’

  ‘And if she scrapped the divorce and came home, would you try again?’

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I’ve tried to imagine giving myself advice as if I were giving it to someone else and I have no idea what to say. Would I like a stable family unit for my son? More than anything, yes. Do I think it is possible to have that with Joy? I have no idea; but she’s his mother so would I give it another shot, for him? Do I still love her? I don’t know that either, because I don’t even know if it ever was love: it was like being caught up in an exhilarating storm where I could barely catch my breath. I suppose I must have loved her, but I can’t remember being anything but unhappy, desperate, consumed, at the begging end in our whole relationship. It was all such hard work.’

  Sophie had the feeling that he hadn’t poured any of this out to Tracey, that it had been sitting inside him for a long time, festering.

  ‘I suppose you’re going to let God guide you,’ she said, hoping she didn’t sound too sarcastic.

  ‘Yep, exactly. And He will. Coffee?’ he asked. ‘Parsnip wine loosens the tongue too much, I think.’

  ‘I’d love one, thank you.’

  ‘I have some decaf pods. You can’t tell them from the caf ones.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Elliott put a pod into his coffee machine and it sprang to very loud life. ‘And what about you, Pom? Do you think you can fit back into your marriage?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sophie, although she did. She’d have to. Like a car that had pulled off the motorway for an emergency pit stop, she’d have to join a slip road, ease back into the traffic of her familiar life. What else was could she do? ‘I can’t hide for ever, can I?’

  ‘Some do,’ said Elliott. ‘I used to sort of admire people who upped and left a life they didn’t find suited them, the guts it must take to start from nothing. Until I realised the devastation they often leave behind. The families who have no idea where they are or if they’re safe, alive even. The mental torment they go through.’

  ‘I did send John a message to say that I was fine and needed some space,’ Sophie assured him hurriedly.

  Elliott came back at her, equally quickly, ‘I wasn’t implying . . .’

  ‘I know, but I wanted you to hear that from me.’ It was important he didn’t think she was a Joy, that she hadn’t left a pile of mess in her wake. It sounded like currying for sympathy to say that she doubted her family would be worrying about her welfare more than they would be annoyed at her desertion of her post, so she didn’t. ‘Although I’m not sure that space is helping; if anything it’s making me think too much.’

  ‘That’s what space has a tendency to do.’

  Sophie’s eyes fell on his hands, large and square as he handed her a cup. The sort of hands that caught you when you fell, tender and strong. He was still wearing his wedding ring, she noticed.

  ‘I met John at university,’ said Sophie. ‘He was unfaithful to me there. He totally smashed my heart into little pieces. Four years later we got back together. He swore to me that he’d never hurt me like that again, so I committed the past to history.’

  ‘The only way forward if you are going to start over,’ agreed Elliott.

  ‘The week . . . well, two days . . .’ began Sophie, feeling as if she were standing at the top of a cliff, about to dive into waters that might be full of rocks, ‘. . . before I went into labour with my baby, a woman turned up at our London flat. Someone who worked for John. She walked in, she had a key. She told me that she’d had an affair with him and wanted me to know what a total bastard . . . sorry—’

  Elliott cut in. ‘No need to apologise, Sophie. We have to be men of the world to know how to deal with the world’s problems.’

  Sophie nodded, continued: ‘. . . what a total bastard he was. Then she left. I had good enough reason to believe that she was lying. But I went into early labour and I didn’t want to connect the two because if I did, I’d blame John for his son’s . . .’

  A single rogue tear dropped onto the table. She didn’t even feel it leave her eye.

  ‘Oh, Pom.’ She watched Elliott’s large hand stretch across, close over hers, felt its heat travel up her arm. Felt things zapping and fizzing in her head. One single squeeze, that’s all it took for Elliott Bellringer to take root in her heart, like a splash of warm rain and a wink of sunlight quickening a barren lonely landscape. Her head dizzied; what the hell was going on with her that she should be so affected by someone touching her so briefly and so innocently to comfort, to convey support with a mere press of fingers against flesh. It felt beyond intimate.

  He felt it too, she could tell. His hand sprang away from hers as if it had delivered an electric shock and she read puzzlement in his expression.

  She picked up her drink in an attempt to appear unaffected, consign whatever weirdness had just happened immediately to history, recover the situation.

  ‘Nice coffee,’ she said.

  ‘Funny how sometimes it tastes better than others, as if the occasion impacts upon it.’ He was doing the same; stamping normal back onto them.

  She drank fast. ‘I should be going,’ she said.

  ‘There’s nothing to rush for, take your time.’

  ‘Thank you for the lovely supper. And for introducing me to Plum. I hope you all have a peaceful night.’ She stood and Elliott followed suit.

  ‘Let me see you home at least.’

  ‘No, I’m good. I’ll go out of the back door and hop over the fence. I’ll avoid the curtain-twitchers that way.’

  Elliott smiled, nodded. The ship had been steadied. ‘Thank you for coming, Pom. Luke was desperate to show you the kitten. Even more so than he was Tracey, though never tell her that.’ He smiled again and elicited the same from her. ‘You know where I am if you need me. To talk or if there is anything I can do.’

  ‘Likewise,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if I can help you but if I can . . .’

  ‘You have. By listening to me. Two-way traffic. I’ve told you things I haven’t told anyone else. I’m a great listener, not so good at baring my own soul. At least I didn’t think I was.’

  ‘I’
ll pretend your kitchen is a confessional booth and everything you’ve said stays within it.’

  ‘Reciprocated, of course.’ His eyes were so blue, so kind, telling of the gentle soul behind them.

  ‘Goodnight, Elliott.’

  ‘Goodnight, Pom.’

  She slipped out of the back door, down the garden, over the fence into the now neat garden of the almshouse. The bedsit was warm when she walked in, cosy, inviting, safe.

  I can’t hide for ever, can I?

  Some do.

  Oh, if only. If only she could wake up every morning, go for a run on the beach, work on the almshouse garden then spend the evening chatting to her new friends over pasta and parsnip wine. But Shirley Valentine was a play and though people saw hope in it and a dream made true, they went home when the curtain fell, because that’s what people did in real life.

  Chapter 30

  The next day was gloriously sunny. Perfect weather for tidying up the borders at the front of the almshouse after a wonderful run along the beach. Why had she never had this level of satisfaction pottering around the grand garden of Park Court? Maybe because she never plunged her hands into the soil, felt the brambles protest as she wrestled them into submission. She’d titivated what the landscaper had established, not really gardened, not made it her own.

  She broke for a late lunch: toast with grilled cheese, tomato and spring onion. She’d found an allotment special on the doorstep waiting for her when she’d come back from the beach: tomatoes, spring onions, sprigs of mint, a box of six eggs fresh from the hen’s bottom, a lettuce wrapped in newspaper. You didn’t get that on Cherlgrove Avenue.