DEIRDRE WANDERED ABOUT the house, smoking a cigarette and being careful not to inhale. She had smoked only in stressful circumstances since Bert died, and was now suffering terrible morning-after pangs of conscience. The euphoria of yesterday had dispersed, and she had taken a hard look at herself. A trollop, her mother would have said. That’s what you are, a trollop. A woman without pride or moral sense. Led astray in middle age by a former lover, who had never been a reliable character, even in his youth.
But had they done anybody any harm? Deirdre stopped her perambulating and stubbed out her cigarette. She frowned, and walked over to the grand piano, shining pristinely in the drawing room. It was never played. Tuned regularly, but never played. She had fallen for the sales talk: “The ultimate fashion statement for your home,” the advertisement had promised. At one time she’d hoped her girls would learn to play, but they had preferred the guitar. Much easier, they had said.
Now it was a suitable surface for expensively framed photographs of the family. She picked up the one of Bert and herself outside the Palace. He’d been so proud of her MBE. He had really deserved to have an award himself. His work with misguided youth in the town was well-known, but only she knew how much it had cost him. All those evenings spent in draughty community halls, when he would much rather have been at home watching the telly with her.
“Bert,” she said seriously. “I don’t suppose you could possibly let me know somehow whether I’m going astray, could you? Please?” Her eyes filled with tears, and she stared hopefully at the photograph. What! She rubbed her eyes fiercely. Oh, my God, there it was again. Bert winked. He definitely winked!
She rushed to the window with the photograph and looked again. No, it must have been a mistake. He looked proudly out of the photograph, as before. She sighed. Wishful thinking, she supposed. She replaced Bert, and opened the garden door. The sky was overcast, and a damp mist filled the garden. Almost autumnal, Deirdre thought. That’s what we are, she thought miserably. In the autumn of our lives.
“Deirdre!” A sharp voice interrupted her thoughts. “Have you been smoking?”
It was Ivy of course. Who else would Bert send along to accuse her of being sorry for herself? Deirdre laughed aloud, and did a couple of skips back into the house.
“You could do with a doormat outside there,” Ivy said. “Just look at those wet footprints all over your carpet! Still, if you will have white carpets, what do you expect?”
“Nice to see you, too, Ivy,” Deirdre said, quite restored. “Tea or coffee? I heard on the radio this morning that coffee is really bad for you. Shall we have tea?”
Ivy said she was too old to worry about whether things were bad for her or not, but she preferred tea in any case, hot and strong with two sugars, please.
“Now,” she continued, when they were perched on uncomfortable stools in the kitchen, “I reckon you have something to tell me. No, don’t interrupt. I think you said nothing to Theo Roussel about Beatrice Beatty’s past. I think you spent a happy and fruitless two hours exchanging tweetie words and getting up to no good. Am I right?”
Deirdre thought of lying through her teeth, and then realised that Ivy already knew the truth and it would be easier to own up. “Right,” she said apologetically. “Well, not all right. I wouldn’t say it was completely fruitless.”
“I have no wish to hear anything about that,” Ivy said stiffly. “I’ve come along this morning to see how you can face Gus tomorrow morning. And,” she added, “to see if you’d come to church with me. It’s Holy Communion this morning.”
“And confess my sins?” Deirdre said. Then she realised her sharp old cousin was really trying to help her out of a fix, and said that if Ivy would tell her when to stand up and sit down, she would come. “But first, can we make a plan for tomorrow?” She looked at the clock. “We’ve got an hour or so before church.”
THEY WERE AN odd trio, Ivy, Deirdre and young Katya, walking through the lych gate and up the narrow path to the church. Ivy ignored the sidesman who tried to direct her to a pew towards the back. She marched straight up to the front, where she ushered the two others in, and then knelt herself to say a few words of greeting to her personal God.
Just as the service was about to start, and the vicar halfway from the vestry to his seat in the chancel, the door opened and a flustered-looking Beattie came in. Behind her, dignified and aloof, came the Honourable Theodore Roussel. He looked to neither right nor left, but walked with measured step to the front pew on the opposite side of the aisle from the three women. Beattie retired to a seat at the rear of the church, and the service began.
“Does he always come?” whispered Deirdre to Ivy.
“Sshh!”
“No, but does he?” Deirdre persisted.
Ivy shook her head. “Never,” she whispered back.
Deirdre looked surreptitiously across the aisle, and saw that Theo must have attended regularly at some time. He knew exactly when to sit down and stand up. And, she heard with a kind of proprietary pleasure, he had a fine tenor voice and seemed to know all the hymn tunes.
When it came to the invitation to take Communion, Theo stood up and waited politely while Ivy eased herself from her seat and stood at the head of the queue. Deirdre had no alternative but to follow her, and realised with dismay that Theo had stepped out to take his place behind her. “Oh!” she gasped, with an intake of breath. Was that his hand?
The vicar prepared to dispense the bread and wine, and they knelt humbly with hands resting on the altar rail to await their turn. Without looking at Deirdre, Theo rested his hand very briefly on hers, and then removed it to form a supplicant shape with both hands to receive the sliver of something that tasted like polystyrene.
They returned to their seats with heads bowed, and Ivy knelt once more. Deirdre followed her example, and prayed fervently to God to help her in this undoubted crisis in her life. She wished she had a cigarette.
As the joyful going-home hymn was sung, Deirdre risked a glance towards Theo, and saw that he was looking at her. He did not smile, but to her astonishment, he quite clearly winked. Twice she had been winked at this morning! She decided it was a sign, a definite sign from the Almighty that she was doing nothing wrong, harming nobody, and was, in fact, being a good Christian in spreading love and joy to all people. Well, maybe not to all people, but certainly to the Honourable Theo Roussel.
Beattie, still crouched in prayer in her pew at the back of the church, waited until she was sure Theo and the three women had left and would be on their way out of the churchyard. Her head was still thumping from the shock she had been given when Theo had announced his intention of going to church. He had appeared in her kitchen, washed, brushed and looking extremely determined, saying that they should be off now. There was just time to walk. He would go on ahead, and she could catch him up.
By running awkwardly down the drive, she had caught him up, and walked silently by his side until they reached the church. Then she had fallen back respectfully as they entered. As he had marched forward and she lagged behind, she had seen with a sinking heart the Bloxham woman, large as life in the front pew, her ridiculously dyed hair shining out like a vulgar wig on a woman for sale.
Now she walked slowly out of the church, shook the vicar’s hand and hardly acknowledged his friendly greeting. She could no longer pretend that she was imagining things. Somehow those two had met in her absence. Not only met, she thought grimly, but restarted whatever had been postponed all those years ago. As she approached Hangman’s Row on her way back to the Hall, she could see Theo talking to David Budd over his garden fence. She would slip by quickly, and hurry back to the security of her kitchen to prepare lunch.
She must find a way to stop all the goings-on that had so cruelly invaded her hard-won refuge. But not straightaway, she decided. It might blow over if she bided her time. If not, she would need to think some more.