Hartsend (19 page)

Lesley was on time and apologized for being late. She had come from work. She was doing two and a half days. One of the other women wanted a job share and she hoped this might become permanent.

The waitress, still in her teens, with a shiny multi-coloured brace on her upper teeth, suggested carrot cake with their coffee. The carrot cake was always popular. Lesley agreed to share one. When the girl brought it to them she said, ‘‘Will there be anything else, Father?''

‘‘And I thought I was universally known,'' he said, when she was out of earshot. ‘‘Isn't it strange how even in a place this size we live in separate worlds with different information in our heads?'' He touched the small beads of clear acrylic on the sunflower leaves and petals to confirm that they were artificial. ‘‘Years ago when my wife was still teaching, she told me she'd had to explain to some of her pupils that Sir Winston Churchill was not a member of the royal family. And these were teenagers, not little ones.'' He put half of the cake onto the spare plate and pushed it over to her.

‘‘They don't read anymore,'' she said.

‘‘That's true. Although I think it's more than that. I think it's getting harder for all of us to concentrate. We don't retain anything. Everything whizzes past, without making a dent. If my sermon lasts more than twenty minutes, I'm in deep trouble.''

In his first month the Session Clerk had taken him aside for a quiet word. Could he perhaps shorten the sermon? ‘‘You see, Minister, quite a lot of the older folks are incontinent,'' he'd whispered. He had responded, cunningly he thought, by missing out a hymn and changing the offering from the middle of the service to the end as folks were leaving.

‘‘Speaking of trouble,'' he went on, ‘‘the last time we met we were talking about your friend.'' He was still not sure if the friend existed, or if the trouble was Lesley's own. ‘‘I spoke to one of the policemen in the congregation. The first thing she must do is have the telephone company interrupt her calls. This is the number she should ring,'' he detached a leaf of paper from his Filofax. ‘‘Then she has to see a solicitor.''

He explained as simply as he could about Non-Harassment Orders, and interdicts. And how there was a criminal route and a civil route, but getting a solicitor was by far the best thing when there hadn't been actual violence. He had been wrong about the police, he told her.

‘‘She needs to go to them. They might go and visit the husband, and that might be enough to stop him. The word ‘harassment' seems to take in almost anything that makes someone frightened.''

‘‘Even if he hasn't broken the law?''

‘‘So it seems. You said he abused her in the past. What has he been doing all these years he's been away?''

‘‘I don't know.'' She folded the page in half and put it in her handbag.

‘‘Lesley, the one other thing I wanted to say was, I'm not sure you ought to get too involved in this.''

‘‘Why not?''

The short answer? She was female, single and vulnerable. He hated short answers. Too often they led you into conversations where you felt you were moving from one stepping stone to another, except that the stones were floating in the air. He was learning, or trying to learn, not to guess where the heart of a problem lay when the person involved wasn't ready to confide. In his previous life he'd pounced on problems shaking them by the neck till they gave up, but people were very different from pipelines. It was far from easy. ‘‘Be still and know that I am God.'' was his least favourite Bible verse.

‘‘I know that you want to help this friend of yours,'' he began, ‘‘but by listening to her you've probably helped already, more than you realise.''

She didn't look convinced. He took a little step backwards. Keep it light, he told himself. Once upon a time the clerical collar had meant something, had signalled the wearer's trustworthiness. Not any more. He'd been told that lawyers were the only professionals trusted, ministers and doctors were out. But that had been at least ten years ago. Who was trusted now?

‘‘I've heard it said that being bereaved is like walking on a leg that's been broken. You might feel it's mended, but too much pressure too soon, and you're back to square one. Sometimes we need to be kind to ourselves,'' he added. ‘‘Fair enough?''

She nodded.

When they parted outside the tearoom, he was left with the feeling that he might have helped the mystery friend, but not her. She'd listened, but she hadn't thanked him. Which was fine. He didn't need thanks. Were the friend's problems a useful distraction? Whatever she was feeling about her own situation, he wasn't going to get a glimpse of it here. She hinted at so much before the funeral: old hurts, resentments, opportunities not taken. He had hoped to talk about the need to forgive and be forgiven. About love, and the impossibility of getting it from the dead. He was worried that this sad, loveless woman would now waste the rest of her life trying to gain her mother's approval.

Monday afternoons were not peak times in the Sports Centre. Dr Gordon glanced at the two middle aged women and the elderly man reading a newspaper. None of them was a patient. Radio One was playing in the background, but not too loudly, the smell of toasted sandwiches hung in the air, but not too strongly, and the immense TV, perpetually tuned to Sky Sports, was easy to ignore if you sat a distance away with your back to it.

He and the Reverend Smith had met here by chance some weeks earlier, and now it had become a habit. They arrived separately, allowing themselves enough time before the schools closed and the kids arrived. After a while Smith would come down from the gym and salute him through the glass wall that separated the pool from the café area. They had the timing down to a fine art. Smith waited the requisite number of minutes then ordered two double espressos, which arrived on the table just as he came through from the pool changing room.

‘‘So how was the water today?''

‘‘Chilly. Had to keep moving.''

For the first fifteen minutes, before some senior citizens arrived, Gordon had been able to pretend it was his personal pool. An infinity pool was at the top of his fantasy ‘‘must have'' list. There was something wonderful about standing in a completely motionless sheet of water then crouching down to begin, something almost sacred, with the hands coming together as if to pray, then pushing out, caressing the water with the first breaststroke.

‘‘I suppose I should try the pool, but I'm not much of a swimmer,'' Smith said. ‘‘No, I'm trying to give up sugar,'' he added, pushing the bowl of sachets back across the table.

‘‘You're far less likely to damage yourself with the water supporting you.''

‘‘I know. But swimming makes me feel sleepy, whereas the running and cycling wake me up a bit. And I like to see how many calories I'm burning. I get so many cups of tea and home-made cakes when I do my visits, and it's kind of encouraging to see if I'm using up any.''

‘‘What happened to resisting temptation?‘‘

‘‘Sorry. I can't hear you.''

‘‘You don't have much to worry about yet,'' he said. ‘‘You look pretty good for your age.''

‘‘Have you any idea how much those three little words hurt?''

‘‘How many pills do you take a day? ''

‘‘None.''

‘‘Exactly. I have patients your age who can't see their toes when they stand up or climb a flight of stairs without getting breathless. Stop complaining.''

‘‘I gained more than a stone the first year I was married. Jean put me on a diet. I'll be in trouble if I'm any fatter than I was when she left.''

Men did gain weight after marriage. Many a research paper had confirmed it. He himself had gone up a trouser size, only to find the pounds dropping off when things went sour. At present he was living on microwave meals and toast, distrusting the gas cooker in the flat. He envied Smith his Jean. He was looking forward to meeting the woman, if only to see whether she was worth all this devotion.

‘‘When does she get back?'' he asked.

‘‘Another three weeks. The fact that she says how hot it is in every e-mail doesn't help. They're on the beach, and I'm in the graveyard in the rain. Enough of me and my moans. How's your week been?''

‘‘Awash with winter vomiting, as we say in the trade. The thing is, nobody believes you when you say stop eating, drink lots of fluids and wait for it to go away. All they want is antibiotics. The best one was Thursday. A chap who waited till he recovered, and then came to see me.''

‘‘Why?''

‘‘I haven't a clue. I wouldn't mind but I always have a queue of people waiting, some of whom are, in fact, rather ill.''

‘‘We must be a bit late today,'' Smith looked at his watch as the first of the adults with children arrived. ‘‘Here come your favourite little people.''

He wished Smith wouldn't keep saying things like this. He forced a smile.

‘‘How many times do I have to defend myself? I don't dislike children. I just don't like sharing a swimming pool with them. They're dangerous. See, that one's actually been labelled.''

The child trying to wriggle out of his father's grasp was wearing a white woollen hat with a black skull and crossbones on it.

Smith said, ‘‘It's interesting how it's the Dad's job to take them swimming these days. I suppose they're on shifts, or unemployed. Maybe it's a good thing. At least there's a male role model.''

If they stayed long enough, Gordon thought. The world was insane. An awful lot of kids had a series of men in their lives, none of whom would be considered suitable if they applied to adopt. Children were fragile. The lines of an old poem came into his head, ‘She was beautifully delicately made, so small, so unafraid …''

‘‘… I'm a bit jealous. The minister used to be the most important man in the village. We're only called in when it's too late …''

It was a wartime poem about a child being killed, Gordon remembered. The poet had compared the child to the bomb that killed her. It was a horrible poem. How could anyone who hurt a child stay sane? He could never hurt a child.

‘‘I'm sorry. I'm moaning again,'' Smith was saying. ‘‘Monday's my worst day. I'm a different person once I get Monday out of the way. But I do envy you. Sometimes you save lives. That boy in the primary school who collapsed. … Miss Calvert was telling me you ran from the surgery to the school.''

A peanut allergy, a severe first reaction. One of the new intake had accepted a home made biscuit from a small friend. He'd been standing by the Surgery reception desk, bag in hand, when the call came. A few days later, the parents left him a bottle of wine. ‘‘It's our own,'' they told the receptionist. Dutifully she passed the gift and information on. He'd been impressed, imagining they had a patch in some Mediterranean country. He'd seen such schemes advertised as a gift for those who had everything. On stripping off the paper, he found it to be a Rhône.

It was a nice tale, but before he had the chance to tell it, the Reverend redirected the conversation. ‘‘Kerr was constantly at our doctor's when he was small. His first hospital visit took place when he was less than a year old, after he swallowed one of those large nappy pins.''

‘‘Open or shut?''

‘‘Shut, thank God.'' His hat, balanced on top of his anorak on the back of the chair, fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it. ‘‘Nobody warns you. You look at this little thing in your arms, and you wonder who's in charge, who's going to protect it. Then you realize it's you, and a wave of pure terror sweeps over you. You think I'm exaggerating?''

‘‘No, I'm sure you're right.''

Sometimes it was the child who felt the terror. He would never have any of his own. He'd hated his time in the neonatal unit. There was only so much one could do. Or rather, so little. He wanted to say these things, but hesitated. The trouble with Smith was, he was too bloody direct. Too ready to make things personal. You had to stay alert. You never knew where a conversation would lead or what you would find yourself saying. Now he was playing with the hat, a greyish knitted object like a tea cosy.

‘‘We can't keep them behind railings the whole time. I was reading an article somewhere the other day,'' he frowned, plucking some fluff from the wool. ‘‘Some scientist, I think he was Danish, he was suggesting that with serious child abusers, there could be faulty wiring in the brain, that their urges didn't just come from trauma in their own childhood. Is that possible?''

What an easy solution that would be. And next we cure the common cold …

‘‘Then we wouldn't hold them morally responsible.''

‘‘I know. But everything in me says we should.'' Smith glanced at his watch again. He lifted his jacket and put on the tea cosy, adjusting it to cover his ears.

‘‘Thanks again for the coffee. My turn next time.''

All of Ruby's knives were sharp. Several times a week she sharpened them on a grey carborundum stone which had belonged to her grandmother and then to her mother. There was no need therefore to chop the leeks, potatoes and carrots with such vigour, but she banged on nevertheless, hardly seeing them. While they sweated, she poured two pints of boiling water into the measuring jug and dissolved two organic herbal stock cubes – this to be added to the soup pot when the sweating was complete. The process was orderly, the ingredients were fresh and free from MSG. One thing only prevented her from feeling satisfied with life's rich feast.

Walter had lied.

When he came to bed she had pretended to be asleep, and for much of the night she had pondered. At breakfast she gave him a fresh chance to confess, feeling that she had perhaps been unfair. She was not ordinarily one who rushed to judgement, not like some.