A Rural Affair

5

Carefully wiping my face as I stood on the church step, I gave myself a moment; breathed in and out deeply. Then I pushed open the heavy door. The choir were already assembled in their stalls up by the altar, but then I was ten minutes late, having lingered to talk to Frankie. Most people I knew: friends and neighbours, who turned and smiled as I came in. But as I let the heavy oak door swing shut behind me, I wondered what on earth I was doing here. I hadn’t been in since Phil’s funeral and the familiar smell of cold stone, candle wax and damp, which I usually found rather comforting, seemed to ambush my senses as if a hood had been slipped stealthily over my head. I felt even more breathless than usual. I turned and with a shaky hand reached for the door handle again. I could pretend I’d forgotten something, then not come back. But the handle was stiff, and anyway, Jennie was beside me in a moment, having slipped out of her stall and down the aisle. My arm was in her vice-like grip.

‘Good, good, you’re here,’ she purred. ‘We haven’t started yet because we’re waiting for the organist. Come along, I’ve saved you a place.’

She frogmarched me down the aisle in seconds, which wasn’t hard, because our church is tiny. And rather beautiful, or so I usually thought. This evening, though, the domed ceiling with its rows of blackened beams seemed ominously lofty and towering; the figure in the stained-glass window, St John the Baptist, I think, less kindly and benevolent, more threatening as he turned to glare at me over his rippling shoulder in his rags, eyes flashing. Angie was beckoning hard from the back row. No Peggy, but then she was a firm non-believer.

‘Papist nonsense.’

‘It’s C of E, Peggy.’

‘Still. All those smells and bells.’

‘Not in the Anglican church.’

‘I’ve got my own, thank you very much.’ And she’d puff on her ciggie and tinkle her beads.

‘Hello, Poppy.’

Molly, a widow of about seventy, was sitting in the front row with her carer. She looked a bit dishevelled and smiled toothlessly at me, most of her tea down her front, shaky paws, slippers on. Molly wasn’t quite like other budgerigars.

‘Hello, Molly.’

‘Would you like to sit beside me, dear?’

‘Of course.’ I moved to do so.

‘No – no, because Angie and I have saved you a place, haven’t we?’ Jennie’s grip tightened on my arm and she shot me, then Molly, a look.

But, actually, I had a feeling I didn’t necessarily want to be squeezed between my two best friends tonight. And anyway, Molly would be hurt. I sat firmly where I was. Jennie hesitated – I think for a moment considering heaving me bodily to my feet and bundling me away – then she rolled her eyes, shrugged helplessly at Angie, who rolled her eyes back, and sat huffily beside me, which put her next to Jed Carter, a local farmer from down the valley. Molly wasn’t the only one with an appendage this evening. Jed didn’t go anywhere without his sheepdog, Spod, a randy old boy lying at his feet who was in love with Leila. The joy in Spod’s eyes as he sniffed Jennie’s ankle, got a whiff of his beloved and realized he could shut his eyes and pretend her left leg was Leila, was hard to describe.

‘You see why we don’t sit here?’ hissed Jennie as Spod attached himself to her like a limpet, eyes glazed, humping hard. She shook him off furiously.

‘Sorry.’

‘And Spod’s not the only reason, as you’ll discover to your cost,’ she muttered grimly, as Sue Lomax, flaxen and inclined to furious blushes, took up her position at the lectern, tapping it smartly for our attention. We obediently got to our feet. Sue, or Saintly Sue as she was surreptitiously known, was attractive in a buxom way, but preachy. Ex-head girl, county lacrosse player and choir mistress, Sue was an all-round goody-goody – although Jennie and I privately thought her frustrated and man-hungry. She cleared her throat and looked important.

‘Right. Welcome, everyone. Now since you’re all here I think we’ll crack on with just Ron on the piano because Mr Chambers has just sent me a text saying he’ll be a bit late.’ She gazed down at the phone in her hand with a look I’d seen very recently in someone else’s eyes. Ah yes, Spod’s.

‘The organist,’ Jennie informed me importantly.

So crack on we did, straight into Mozart’s Gloria, with Just Ron, who played mostly at the pub, thumping away valiantly. Everyone belted it out, myself included surprisingly, bounced as I was into behaving, into opening my mouth and remembering it from school. It was quite a shock, and not altogether unpleasant. I even felt a sensation approaching the warmth of blood in my veins. Molly was a bit distracting beside me, though, because she was singing something different.

‘She’s singing “Nights in White Satin”,’ I muttered to Jennie when Sue tapped the lectern to stop us because Ron had lost his place.

‘Always does,’ muttered back Jennie. ‘But she’s been in the choir for thirty years, so what can you do? We just don’t sit next to her,’ she added pointedly.

At that moment the church door flew open.

‘Oh, good – you made it, Luke!’ Saintly Sue swung around delighted, even more flushed than usual and her colour was always high.

A tall, rather attractive sandy-haired man in jeans, a biscuit-coloured linen jacket and gold-rimmed specs bounded down the aisle.

‘New organist,’ Angie leaned forward from behind to murmur in my ear, as we lunged to catch our hymn sheets, which were fluttering up like a flock of doves on the blast of cold air.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, bouncing towards us with a wide smile. ‘Bit of a cock-up at work and I couldn’t get away.’ There was a definite puppyish charm: long legs, floppy hair, eyes that glinted merrily from behind the specs in an open, friendly face.

‘Oh, no, not at all,’ purred Sue, smoothing back her hair and straightening her blue lambswool jumper over her ample bosom. ‘We were slightly early in fact. But then I’m always a bit keen!’

It might not have been entirely what she meant to say – Jennie sniggered – but I find that often happens to me, and as her hand went to her darkening throat, I sympathized.

‘Well, I’ll pop up, shall I?’ Luke said, after a slight pause during which their eyes met, his slightly more amused than hers. He indicated the organ above us, aloft. ‘Press on?’

‘Oh, yes, do,’ said Sue, as if it was a terrific idea, and one that hadn’t occurred to her. ‘Super!’

‘You’re all sounding great, by the way,’ he told us. ‘I could hear you halfway down the street – wonderful stuff!’

He bestowed on us another winning smile, gathering everyone in, and everyone beamed delightedly back. All except one. I might have remembered how to do the Gloria, but I wasn’t up to beaming yet. My mouth did twitch politely, but later, after the event, as I find is often the case these days.

‘Rather gorgeous, isn’t he?’ breathed Jennie lustily in my ear as Luke eased himself into position at the organ. He had a lengthy grace, sensitive fingers poised.

‘Not bad,’ I said non-committally.

‘He’s fresh out of the Guildhall,’ Angie billowed from behind into my other ear, as if he were a gleaming trout from the river. ‘Post-grad, obviously. Just bought a cottage in Wessington. He’s in insurance now. Got his own business.’

I didn’t answer.

‘Incredibly charming,’ she murmured again. ‘I mean, to talk to.’ As opposed to what?

‘All yours, Angie,’ I said, turning and managing the first half-smile of the evening. ‘I’ll hold your handbag.’

‘Me?’ She reared back incredulously, hand on heart. ‘Oh, no, he’s far too young for me. He’s your age, Poppy.’ She fluttered her fingers dismissively at me.

I turned back. Shut my eyes. Why had I come? Why wasn’t I at home in my chair?

Off we went again, only this time not so successfully. As Ron slipped gratefully out of the side door and back to his pint in the Rose and Crown, Luke, up at the organ, got very busy. So busy we didn’t know where we were. All sorts of crashing introductory chords rolled into one another like waves and we’d ejaculate prematurely only to discover Luke was still building up to something big. Only Molly ploughed on doggedly with her shrill, warbling rendition of the number-one seventies hit for Procol Harum. Molly, and obviously Spod, whose look of glazed lust as Jennie tried to concentrate and forgot to kick him off was close to euphoric. As the organ threatened to climax, Spod, it seemed, was closer.

Afterwards, as we walked home, or rather as I was escorted, my friends agreed over my head that we needed more practice.

‘Which is fine, because we’ve got plenty of time. The wedding’s not for a few weeks,’ said Jennie.

‘Wedding?’ I was surprised to hear my voice.

‘Well, that’s the whole point, that’s what we’re practising for.’

‘Oh.’

‘Every Monday,’ Angie told me firmly. ‘And don’t forget, you’re all coming to my house tomorrow.’

‘Are we?’ I felt panicky. ‘Why?’

‘Because we’re starting the book club. We told you that a week or so ago, remember?’

Oh, yes, vaguely. But it had been that terrible day. The one when everything had changed. All the clocks stopped. Black Friday. When, suddenly, I hadn’t been a widow who was finding hidden reserves and coping really rather marvellously, much to the relief of my friends, but in the blink of an eye, in twenty-five minutes to be precise, had become someone different.

‘And I said I’d …?’ I felt my way cautiously.

‘Come,’ Angie told me firmly. ‘Definitely come. And pitch in. Everyone’s bringing a few nibbles.’

‘Well, no, we might do that, actually,’ Jennie said quickly as they exchanged a glance. Nibbles from me might be a bridge too far.

‘When you say everyone …’

‘Just the four of us,’ Angie told me kindly. ‘Us three and Peggy to begin with. The idea is that this week we’ll just meet to discuss and decide who to ask along, what sort of books we’ll read, that type of thing.’

‘Oh.’

‘Manage that?’ asked Jennie gently, as we got to my gate.

I nodded dumbly. Stared at my shoes. Felt my body go rigid as they both embraced me. They bid me goodnight.

I realized, as I went inside, that my two friends were still loitering outside, conferring a moment and talking in hushed whispers behind my hedge. I leaned back on the inside of my front door and counted to ten. Then I peeled myself off and, with an effort, propelled myself towards the sitting room.

Frankie was on her hands and knees at my coffee table, already gathering her schoolbooks from it, stuffing them furtively in her bag. For all her big talk, Frankie harboured subversive tendencies: she was a secret worker who did well at school. I gave her a moment, lingering in the hall, taking off my coat and putting my bag on the table. I was fond of Frankie and knew there were some guilty secrets she wouldn’t want Jennie to know.

‘Thanks, Frankie,’ I said, going in and handing her some money as she stood up, swinging her book bag over her shoulder. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Yeah, fine. We played for a bit then they did their teeth and went straight to sleep. How was your big night out?’

‘Oh, huge.’

‘Good. You look a bit, you know –’ she peered at me – ‘better, actually.’

I nodded, unable to speak. Angie and Jennie concerned about me I could handle. Frankie, with her multitude of teenage problems, would reduce me to tears.

When she’d gone, I went upstairs and looked in on my sleeping babes, pushing each of their bedroom doors ajar. Clemmie was on her side, elaborate furrows of tiny plaits decorating her head and culminating in something complicated at the back. Her fist was clenched tightly around her rabbit’s ears. Archie, in the next room, was flat on his back, arms flung out like a starfish, mouth open, his wispy hair gathered in a top-knot tied in a pink ribbon on his head, like a Flintstone baby. His intense vulnerability almost made me cry out. My hand went to my throat. I stood for a moment, watching him breathe in and out, noticing the way the moon shone through a gap in his curtains, casting a silver sliver on the opposite wall. Then I turned and went back downstairs to the kitchen. Back to my chair.

On the pinboard on the wall opposite was a photo of Clemmie and her best friend, Alice. It had been taken at the beginning of term in their ballet class, a few days before Phil died. In the days immediately following his death I’d looked at the photo a lot. Two little girls, same ballet shoes, same little pink skirts, same advantages – except now my daughter was changed for ever. And she didn’t yet know it. Half of her unconditional love had gone, half of her quota to get her through life. I was terrified at how reduced she was. She wasn’t the same child in the photograph and whenever I looked at it, it made me panicky with fear. But then somehow, gradually, as the days, and then the weeks had crept by, I’d managed to control the panic. I’d force myself to think positively, think of people who’d survived this lack of parenting, myself included. Peggy, whose father had died young. I’d even begun to feel that in some small way I was winning: that we’d be all right, Clemmie, Archie and me. What I hadn’t accounted for was my own sudden reduction. The shrinking of my own soul as I’d opened that door, looked into a past I didn’t know I had, and realized I wasn’t a proper person at all.