Hold My Hand (13 page)

Chapter Twenty

They're late. They're already singing
As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.
So much for relaxed country timings. Nothing in London starts less than ten minutes late, to allow for the tube.

They're all going to look at us.

She pauses beneath the lych-gate, almost turns back. Then she thinks: no, this is right. I'm going to be part of this community if it kills me. Hurries, clutching Yasmin's hand, up the graveyard path.

Yasmin looks up at the tower, dark and squat and Saxon, with open mouth. “Why are we going here, again?”

It's church,” says Bridget. “It's what people do at Christmas in the country. They go to church.”

Damn Lambeth Council. No Little Baby Jesus in its schools for fear of offending the minorities. I should have thought about it before now, instead of worrying about how to afford the presents. She won't even know any of the songs. I barely remember any myself.

“So what do you do in Church, then?”

“You pray. Talk to God. And sing. And then everyone listens to the man with the dress on when he gives you a lecture about how no-one remembers the meaning of Christmas.”

“What if I don't know the words?”

“Doesn't matter,” says Bridget. “Just mouth them. And, look –”

She squats down just outside the door, looks her daughter in the eye. “All you have to do is be as quiet as possible, and stand up and sit down when everyone else does. And if you're not sure what to do next, just close your eyes and clutch your hands together like this.”

“Oh right!” says Yasmin. “Like
here's the church, here's the steeple…
I get it!”

“Yuh, that's right. But just stick with the “church” bit till I nudge you.”

“Okay,” says Yasmin. Holds still while Bridget smoothes her hair down and checks her own hemline.

“
All glory be to God on high, And to the Earth be peace
,” sing the congregation. Blast. I'm sure that's the last verse.

“Christmas is weird in the country,” she says.

“I know,” says Bridget. “People have all sorts of different ways of doing things. That's why they call it multicultural.”

“Hmm,” says Yasmin.

They push open the door. The pine and candlewax and damp stone smell fills her nostrils, half-forgotten but familiar from her own childhood. Like riding a bike, she thinks. I'll remember how to do this.

“
Begin and never cease…
”

“In the country,” says Yasmin in a loudly into the post-hymn pause, “don't they do presents, like at
real
Christmas?”

A hundred pairs of eyes fix upon them. Sunday-best wrapped in anoraks. Old ladies down the front in hats. Sulking teenagers. Respectability emanating from every pore. Yasmin looks up at her mother, enquiringly. “Don't they believe in Santa Claus?” she asks.

“She's a one, that kid of yours.”

“Don't,” says Bridget. Feels herself flush again at the memory.

“Never mind,” says Chris Kirkland. “That's what we have them for, isn't it? To remind us how fragile dignity is?”

“Oh, God,” says Bridget. “What a way to introduce ourselves.”

“Don't worry about it. Better to stand out than have no-one know you're there.”

“What are they going to think? Can't even teach my child the basics of Christianity.”

Chris laughs. Snags a couple of glasses of sherry from the cloth-covered trestle table that stands against the wall. Hands her one. “I don't know what sort of place you think you've come into, but I should think it's exactly like the rest of the country. Most of these people don't see the inside of a church from one year's end to the next. I shouldn't think the congregation's bigger than twenty on a normal Sunday. Rest of them are down the pub, or watching the telly. Anyway. Bottoms up.”

“Cheers,” says Bridget. “Happy Christmas.”

“Yes, happy Christmas. What are you doing to celebrate?”

“Oh, it's just us. We'll be doing it quietly, in my kitchen. House is full of renters.”

“Ah yes. Stella Aykroyd and her lot. Don't suppose we'll be seeing
them
down the church in a hurry.”

Bridget laughs.

“So you've not got family coming, or anything?” asks Chris.

Bridget looks over at her daughter, who has found a couple of playmates and is busy rearranging the nativity scene in the corner. It has, she notices, a Celtic cross and a small fleet of fishing boats included, and the countryside surrounding the stable is surprisingly green. Camels on Bodmin Moor. No odder than snow in Bethlehem, really.

“No,” she says vaguely. “No family.”

Then she realises that she's probably causing more curiosity by being vague than being talkative. “No,” she says hastily. “My Mum and Dad died in a car crash when I was seventeen and I didn't have any brothers or sisters.”

Chris assumes the customary expression of neutral sympathy. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

Bridget shakes her head. “It was a long time ago. Half a lifetime.”

“All the same.”

She can tell that this isn't going to be enough. “And I split up with her father quite soon after she was born,” she explains. “We don't really have any contact any more.”

“Ah,” says Chris. “You'll find there's a few like that in this village. You'll be in good company. Mince pie.”

“Yes,” says Bridget.

“Don't really like them without brandy butter myself. Not with short pastry, anyway.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Vicar's wife makes them, though, so you have to show willing.”

“Absolutely.”

They bite, and chew. The pies are heavy, like someone's made them from Potty Putty, and contain little more than a half-teaspoon of filling. Chris splutters a few crumbs as she begins to speak again. “So have you met anybody much yet, then?”

“Not really. Haven't had much chance. Mrs Varco. You. Mrs Walker.”

“All all right with the school?”

“Yes. She's starting in the New Year.”

“Good. She'll be fine there.”

“I hope so. I worry, you know, that she'll be behind everyone. You know. London schools…”

“Well, given that she'll be in with three kids with webbed toes that I know of,” says Chris, “I wouldn't be too concerned. She's as bright as a button, that one.”

“Thank you,”

“Don't mention it.”

A woman in navy-blue sackcloth approaches. She wields a cup of tea with its saucer. “Merry Christmas,” she says.

“Merry Christmas, Geraldine.”

“All well?”

“Delicious. Thank you. Must have taken you ages.”

“Nothing,” she says, smiling modestly, “is too much when it's the Lord's work.”

This must be Mrs Vicar. She turns to Bridget. “I don't think we've met before,” she says. “Staying with the Kirklands?”

“No –” begins Bridget, but Chris cuts across her. “This is Bridget Sweeny,” she says. “She's taken over as caretaker at Rospetroc.”

The woman raises her eyebrows. “Ah! I'd heard he'd found someone.”

“That'll be me.”

“And how are you getting on?”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“Not too lonely?”

“Not in the least. We've a houseful at the moment, anyway.”

“Yes. I imagine. Much better, at Christmastime. Horrible big empty place, otherwise.”

“Oh, it's not too bad,” says Bridget. “I've got good locks on the flat, anyway.”

“Good,” she says vaguely, not really interested. “Good. Now, do you have a family or are you here by yourself?”

“Just my daughter.” She gestures toward Yasmin. “She's starting at the school in January.”

“Good, good,” says the vicar's wife. “Have you met my husband?”

“Not yet. Hello.”

“How do you do?” He is a spare, bespectacled man, a line of white hair hugging the nape of his neck, who looks as though he might take the vow of poverty quite seriously. “And a very happy Christmas to you,” he adds with the reflexive goodwill of a royal on walkabout, and pumps her hand with both of his, actor-style.

“And to you,” she replies automatically. “Lovely service. Thank you.”

“No,” he says, “thank
you
for coming.”

“Ms Sweeny has just taken over at Rospetroc,” says the wife.

Again, the raised eyebrows. “
Really
?”

“Yes,” says Bridget.

“Well, well. I do hope you'll be happy there. We never saw much of your predecessor, I'm afraid.”

“Frances Tyler?”

He looks a bit unsure. “She wasn't here for very long, of course.”

“No. So I gather.”

“Never managed to settle.”

“No.”

“Nice lady,” says Chris. “Ate a lot of toffee.”

“Happy Christmas,” says the vicar. Give her the Meneglos hand-press.

“And to you.”

“And how are the little ones?”

“Not so little,” says Chris. “Hence the hangovers.”

“Ah, yes,” he says. “Have you met Ms...”

“Sweeny,” says Bridget. “Yes, we've met.”

“Good,” he says. “Good.”

She has another look for Yasmin. She's talking to a girl of about her own age, wearing pink dungarees and an orange jumper. The hall is thinning out, now. Everyone with a life is going home to baste the turkey. The only people left seem to be over sixty, or on their own, or to have a blemish or a disability of some sort, or to have tucked their trousers into the tops of their green wellies, which is a sure sign that there's something wrong with them. There's a normal-looking man in his mid-thirties, but he's on the floor wrestling a plastic pony from the grasp of a six-year-old boy. Obviously a bully or an inadequate of some sort. Shame, really: he'd be quite good-looking otherwise. Well-built, large shoulders, narrow hips, a well-shaped skull under a number-two cut, humour lines around the eyes. I bet he's a hit down the pub, she thinks bitterly. A rural lothario if ever I saw one.

“Zat your little girl playing with mine?”

She drags herself away from her reflections. She's being addressed by a woman in her late twenties. Light brown hair streaked with clumsy blonde highlights, multicoloured jacket made of blanketing, jeans, a welcoming smile.

“I don't know. Yours is the one with the dungarees?”

“That's right. Chloe.”

“Right. Yes, then. Mine's Yasmin.”

“Now there's a pair of aspirational names,” says the woman. Sticks a hand out. “Tina.”