Is There Anything You Want? (23 page)

Longing to escape her attention he was nevertheless obliged to wait for the lift with her and one other person, a nurse. Everyone else had gone in other directions and it was too late
to follow them. He stood in one corner of the lift when it came, and Mrs Hibbert in the other with the nurse in between. The moment the nurse got out, Mrs Hibbert asked if he had yet visited the hospital chapel. He said no, but that he was about to, when he'd attended to another matter (the last thing he wanted was for her to offer to take him there). ‘Strange places, hospital chapels,' she said, just before the ground floor was reached, ‘but then the older I get, the stranger I find churches themselves. My late husband found churches inspiring, but I can't say I have ever done so. I can do without them, my own faith is independent of them.'

Cecil, watching Mrs Hibbert stalk off, thought he had enough clues now. The woman was one of those people, he deduced, who blamed the Church for some tragedy. They invariably resented that a relative or friend had found refuge in a church and appeared controlled by what they heard there. Either that, or they blamed a vicar for not being able to help their loved one in their hour of need. He'd been involved in a case like that himself. Once, a bereaved woman had hit him, shouting that her son had come to him for help and that he had been turned away, and that this had precipitated his suicide. It was all untrue, he had never turned anyone away, and he had spent hours with that particular young man (though it was true he had not been able to give him the answers he wanted to his impossible questions). But Mrs Hibbert did not seem like that grief-stricken mother. She seemed too sensible. On the other hand, as he reminded himself, the sensible can become foolish under intense strain, and he didn't know enough about Mrs Hibbert to be familiar with what had happened in her past.

The chapel in St Mary's, when he did find his way there, was shabby. Complaints about the state of it were correct. The room itself was small, a mere slot of a room with a low ceiling, making it claustrophobic. Some of the polystyrene tiles were coming away from the ceiling, hanging limply and yet threateningly from the corners. The walls were panelled in fake wood which had been varnished a dull yellow. Only the cross on the little altar table denoted that the room was a chapel – otherwise, it could, with its sad rows of chairs, have been just another waiting-room.
There was a faint antiseptic smell which he suspected came from a concealed air purifier, of the sort used in lavatories. There was no natural light, no windows. He pressed a switch near the door and a harsh fluorescent light dazzled him. Quickly, he put it out. He didn't need such overpowering illumination. Leaving the door slightly ajar so that the light from the corridor gave him some sense of direction, he moved towards the altar and knelt before it. This chapel had, he was sure, witnessed much suffering and agony of mind, and it shamed the trivial nature of his own feelings about Mrs Hibbert. His irritation with her, and his aversion towards her, showed him how far he had yet to come in his constant battle with his own nature. Head bowed, he prayed for tolerance towards others and for the gift of being able to help those who wanted help.

*

Edwina, passing St Mary's at the beginning of the long drive home, saw the vicar driving out of the car park. He had to wait at the lights, where the road she was on passed the main entrance, and she could see him clearly, his clerical collar standing out. He'd brought her luck, or rather her visit to his church had. That very day there had been a postcard from Emma – she'd gone home, upset at her own foolish behaviour, and there it had been, lying on the mat inside the door. It was a cheap, violently coloured card – the sea a garish turquoise, the sand impossibly white – and all it said was ‘Cheers! Love, Emma and Luke.' It did exactly what it said, cheered her up. Scrutinising every inch of the card, she saw that it was from somewhere in Greece, though she couldn't make out exactly where. The postmark was blurred and the name of the place written in what she recognised as Greek without being able to understand it.

More cards followed, of the same beach. In fact, they were the same cards with the same message, only the date of the postmark different. Harry was not at all amused. It was, he said, a sign of laziness and of complete indifference to parental anxiety, but Edwina was determined to see it as a joke. She propped the cards up on the kitchen window-sill, and while she washed pans
she smiled to see them – they were silly but amusing, surely. They meant Emma was safe and happy, and at least caring enough to establish some minimum contact. But the sight of these cards became less reassuring when, after another two weeks, nothing else had arrived. A month went by and then, just as Edwina was becoming truly worried and had taken the cards down, because suddenly they didn't comfort her, a letter arrived. With it was a photograph of Emma and Luke, obviously taken in some kind of booth, maybe at an airport. It was only a tiny black and white snap, but Emma was smiling (Luke was sticking his tongue out) and looked happy and healthy. The letter was hardly a letter. It was, as Harry pointed out, a paper serviette which had not taken the Biro very well. All it said was that Emma was having a brilliant time, the weather was heavenly, the swimming perfect, and that soon she and Luke would be travelling on but were not quite sure where.

The next card was posted in Tripoli. It said ‘Africa! Yeah! On our way south!' Edwina rushed for the atlas. South? South from Tripoli would mean Niger or Chad. The thought horrified her – she was sure Emma would not have had all the necessary inoculations against nasty diseases like cholera and yellow fever and typhoid. Surely, Luke would not think of taking her through those countries. For once, Harry was consoling. South, he said, would just mean
in general
south. They would probably work their way along the north African coast and go south through places like Egypt. Even so, Edwina could not sleep for images of Emma dying of thirst in the desert. Then another card arrived, from Gibraltar. ‘Whoops! Change of plan!' it said. That was all. Gibraltar made Edwina happy. It was so near, so healthy. She could tolerate Emma being in Gibraltar easily, even with Luke (who, she tried to remind herself, she might have misjudged).

She wondered, driving home, if she should perhaps ring Mrs Hibbert. It would be kind to let her know that Emma seemed safe, considering how concerned the woman had been when she disappeared. But then Edwina recalled that Mrs Hibbert had been not so much worried as furious that she had been let down. She suspected that Mrs Hibbert might be outraged rather than
relieved to be told that Emma was having fun in Gibraltar. Better to do nothing. When Emma returned, she could go and apologise to Mrs Hibbert herself. An apology was what she most wanted.

EVERY MORNING, AS
he descended the stairs, Martin Yates drank a glass of cold water which he'd just taken from the bathroom. Down he went, slowly, not holding on to the banister, sipping the water. He could feel it doing him good. The furred feeling in his mouth cleared, and as the icy liquid trickled down his throat he felt his entire body brace itself for the day ahead. Ida shuddered at the idea of cold water first thing. What she needed was hot, sweet, strong tea, and plenty of it. He made it for her, every morning, always had done. A large pot of tea (loose-leaf, Ida didn't like tea-bags) and with it on the tray a small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar lumps. The tray was a souvenir of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, now much battered, and Her Majesty's image greatly faded, especially her crown. Martin added a plate with two digestive biscuits on it and then he carried it up to their bedroom. He called it ‘their' bedroom, but he hadn't himself slept in it for a full night for three years. It was Ida's bedroom now.

Ida slept with the door wedged open with an old slipper so that he could hear her if she cried out. She might not want him in bed with her, but she needed him if she had a bad dream, as she often did. The room was dark, even though the morning was bright. The curtains were thick and lined, and pulled tightly together, though they didn't quite meet, and Martin's first job, once he had deposited the tray on the bedside table, was to part them slightly, though only enough to let a little light in. Then he
switched the radio on. Ida groaned. He didn't know which station she had it set on but it always had music coming out of it, music of a sort. She liked to waken to it, she said it made waking easier, something he had never been able to understand. It made his head ache, the jingly-jangly nature of whatever it was. She liked to listen to it if she woke up in the middle of the night, too, she said it took her mind off things. It had maddened him, but he had had to put up with it, bowing to her greater need. Ida, he knew, was as afraid of silence as he was fond of it. All day she had either the radio or the television on, sometimes both, each in a different room, or else she listened to her CDs, mostly the sound-tracks of film musicals. He didn't much care for these either but Ida sang along to them and he loved her to sing, it made her happy. He just wished she would sing on her own, without any background accompaniment.

He opened the curtains a little wider. ‘Beautiful morning,' he said, ‘beautiful.' He stood for a moment, looking down on the box hedges lining the garden path, draped in cobwebs, swirling delicate webs of white mist laced through the dark green leaves, and at the lawn which paled into silver after the heavy dew. ‘Beautiful,' he repeated. ‘It'll be a good day. I'll get Mrs Hibbert's hedges cut.' Ida groaned again. He turned to look at her. She had hauled herself up out of the bedclothes and was groping for the teapot, her eyes still shut. A dangerous procedure, but he knew better than to rush over and pour her tea for her. Somehow, she managed to do this without mishap, and took a great gulp. She sighed, and took another, her eyes opening slightly. ‘Better?' he asked. She nodded. ‘Good,' he said, ‘take it easy, no hurry,' and he left the room. She would stay in bed another hour at least. Even as a young woman she had found getting up a daily ordeal. When he'd been working at Cowan's and had had to clock on at 7.30 a.m., it had been hellish getting off on time with Ida comatose and both children bawling for milk or food and needing to be dressed. He'd often left the house without any breakfast, only a bit of dry bread in his hand, worrying all the way to work about Jimmy and Steve and whether they would do themselves some damage before Ida had roused herself. Nothing awful had ever happened, but he'd begun this ritual of
taking her tea to wake her up, to try to make sure that it never did, and he'd continued it ever since. She depended on it and he knew it.

Standing in the kitchen, cooking his bacon, Martin gazed out of the window, still mesmerised by the dazzling light of the September morning. He could see shafts of sun already cutting through the mist and turning the dew on the grass into thousands of glittering points. Best time of the day, early morning. He was always telling Ida this, urging her to admire it with him, but she never had done. It was still cold, the sun might dazzle but as yet it had no warmth in it, but he loved the sharpness of the air and longed to be out running in it, breathing in great gulps of air, schooling his lungs to accept it and expand. Once, he'd gone off for five-mile runs at the weekend but he'd had to give them up when he turned fifty, and his right knee, where he'd had a cartilage removed, began to trouble him. He got his exercise gardening, and that had to be enough. Sometimes, even that could prove a struggle – it was heavy work he was called upon (by people like Mrs Hibbert) to do, the cutting of tall hedges, the trimming of trees and suchlike. His strength was his best asset and he had to keep it up.

But he still was strong. At sixty-four, he was still physically powerful, in spite of his knee problem. He never mentioned that to Ida, and if she had noticed his occasional limp she never commented on it, nor would he have wanted her to. It comforted him, when he worried about his knee, to be aware of how muscular he still was, not an ounce of fat on his stocky body, his belly still firm and flat, his chest broad and well developed. Ida had gone to seed. She'd had a gorgeous body when she was young. It had attracted him mightily, just the sight of it before he came to know it intimately. There wasn't a part of it not perfect, in his opinion – she was a stunner, with her lovely full breasts and her long shapely legs. He'd been a lucky man. Not that he'd married Ida for her looks, he hadn't been that carried away, but the prospect of enjoying them had certainly come into his reckoning. She wasn't beautiful so far as her face went – it was rather a bland face, the eyes a little too close together and the nose a little too large – but he'd looked beyond that and seen
where her real loveliness lay. She'd felt the same about him, he knew that. He wasn't a good-looking young man but he had a splendid body and, stripped off to the waist, working as a labourer (which was how Ida first caught sight of him) he'd known how impressive his muscles looked to girls. The difference was, he'd always taken care of his body and Ida had not. She'd eaten all the wrong things – cream cakes, crisps, two sugars in her many cups of tea, the list was endless – and never taken any exercise whatsoever. She blamed her excess girth, when finally she noticed it, on having had children (but only two), on operations (various) and on The Change. She couldn't, she said, help being fat.

Mornings like this one, he felt especially sorry for Ida. He was going to be in the open air, working up a healthy sweat, and she was going to be lolling in the house, stuffing herself with rubbish, which would make her feel even more terrible than she already did. She was fond of saying that she got all the exercise she needed from doing the housework and helping to clean the church, but Martin had seen how she tackled both and doubted if she was vigorous enough to burn up a couple of calories never mind scores. He urged her at least to walk more, but she said her legs hurt if she went more than a hundred yards. She had varicose veins, the lovely legs ruined by them, and had resisted the necessary operation to have them stripped out – she said she'd had enough of operations. There was nothing Martin could say to that. The last one had been cruel. They had taken away a good quarter of her left breast and though she was told that this surgery had almost certainly saved her life she had never forgiven them. She hated the scar; Martin hated it too. He'd only seen it once. Once was enough. He was at fault, he knew he was, but the sight of it, soon after Ida came home, had made him feel sick. It wasn't the scar itself, raw and red and jagged though it was, but the idea of what had been taken out behind it, the thought of the flesh, bleeding and blubbery, scraped out, thrown away – he couldn't bear it. And Ida had seen this in his face, though he had said nothing, and he had seen in hers that dreadful mixture of distress and contempt before she pushed him away.