The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life Read online

  ‘Not very grand,’ he says, ‘but ample for my needs.’

  He points her to the armchair, but she doesn’t sit.

  ‘About your mother, is it?’ he prompts.

  ‘In a way. She’s so grateful to you, Rector. You really have made an immense difference.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, isn’t it? We could sit in the kitchen if you like. There are two chairs there.’

  So they sit facing each other across a small table covered in white oilcloth. The kitchen, like the sitting room, has been tailored round the little bird-like vicar.

  ‘You’ve been here a long time.’

  ‘Thirty-seven years, would you believe? I know every inch. When we have power cuts, when there’s a high wind and the lights go out, I get around much as I do with the lights on.’

  He shuts his eyes and reaches for the shelf on the wall by the table.

  ‘Tall mug. Short mug. Egg cup. Mug with pens in.’

  He touches them as he names them. Opens his eyes and smiles.

  ‘So you see, I shall be quite able to look after myself when I’m senile. But happily that day has not yet arrived. Now what can I do for you, my dear?’

  She explains. He bows his head and wrinkles his brow and tugs at one ear.

  ‘Not really my sort of thing,’ he says.

  ‘I’d just as soon not make anything of it,’ Liz agrees. ‘But there was a local reporter there, apparently, so there’s going to be something in the papers whether we like it or not. So I thought, better I do it myself.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’

  He traces patterns on the oilcloth with the tip of one finger. A spiral maze from which he would like to escape.

  ‘It’s what they call a human interest story. Old lady’s beloved pet dies. A church burial gives her comfort.’

  ‘Well, that was the point, of course.’

  ‘So many people will identify with the story. People grieve as much when their pets die as if they were members of their family.’

  ‘Which they are, of course.’

  ‘I can tell my mother’s side of it. With a few quotes from you.’

  He closes his eyes in thought, tipping his head a little to one side.

  ‘Would there be a theological aspect to this?’

  ‘Theological? God, no. This is for the Sunday papers.’

  She hears the irony in her words and smiles. The rector also gives a wry smile.

  ‘Theology on a Sunday. How silly of me to suggest it.’

  ‘So will you help me?’

  ‘It seems I must. But you will keep it as short as you can, won’t you?’

  Liz takes out her notebook and leaning forward on the table, her eyes fixed on the rector’s face, her head gently nodding understanding and agreement, she causes him to open up his heart. This is what she does. This is her skill. Create a bond of trust, listen and repeat, make him feel nobody has ever understood him so well before. And the sad part is that this is true. A good journalist will discover more of her subject than his most intimate family or friends have ever known.

  Miles Salmon, himself a professional listener, has no defences against such soft-spoken interrogation. He yields up his secrets without a struggle. The dog funeral becomes the prelude to far deeper revelations.

  ‘It’s such a peculiar function, you see. In a sense the parish priest has no role any more. We’re like the farmers, I sometimes think. There was a time when the farmers were the heart of the community, because everyone worked on the land. Now as you know farm workers are a very small minority. But the fields are still there, and the barns, and the livestock. It’s the same with the church. The building remains, and carols at Christmas, and weddings and funerals. But very few people are churchgoers. Twenty or thirty on a Sunday, if we’re lucky. The farmers are converting their outbuildings for holiday lets, or selling up altogether. But what are we priests to do?’

  ‘My mother turned to you when she needed help.’

  ‘No, no. She didn’t. Victor Peak told me what had happened. I called on her unasked.’

  ‘So that’s what you priests are to do.’

  ‘It’s one answer, yes. When one can. One doesn’t like to intrude.’

  ‘Like with non-believers, you mean.’

  ‘Oh, there are no non-believers. There are non-Christians, of course. But everyone believes in something. Take your mother. I’m not aware that she is in any strict sense a Christian. But we were able to find common ground.’

  Liz is struck by this. It begins to dawn on her that there is more to this modest vicar than she supposes.

  ‘My mother’s a very angry person, below the surface. Not that far below, either. But you got through to her. How did you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t really do anything. There was a time when I supposed my job was to pass on the teachings of the Church. I don’t do that any more. Most people already know what it is they need to find peace. My place is to listen, and to affirm what they believe. It seems to help. People feel so isolated, you know.’

  ‘And it doesn’t really matter what they believe?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Do you think it matters? What we believe is little more than an accident, really. The accident of where we were born, and when. But times change, and circumstances, and so beliefs change too. No point in telling anyone they’re wrong to believe what they believe. It’s like telling them they’re wrong to have had the life they’ve had.’

  ‘And what about you? What do you believe?’

  ‘I believe I know very little. Very little indeed. Probably much like you.’

  He’s looking at her with such a sweet amused expression on his face that Liz feels he understands her better than she understands him.

  ‘But I’m not a parish priest.’

  ‘What you’re doing now, my dear, coming into my house, listening to what I have to say, granting me the dignity and the respect of taking me seriously – and the time, most of all the time – this is what I do for my parishioners. It may not seem much, but they say each person who takes on a job gradually adjusts the job to suit their abilities.’

  ‘Would you call yourself a therapist?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing so expert. Nothing so purposeful. Therapists try to cure people. I don’t cure anyone.’ He chuckles to himself. ‘I’m not sure that most people want to be cured. They’d rather tell you about their diseases. No, that sounds too medical.’ He looks across the table at her, pressing the fingertips of both hands together, seeking the truest expression of what he’s thinking. ‘People want to tell their stories, but they’re afraid they’re too trivial to deserve the attention of others. They are trivial, perhaps, compared to the great dramas we read about in the newspapers. But if you could enter the minds and hearts of each person you meet in the course of a day I think you would be surprised by the intensity of their feelings. I may think I’m the only one whose voyage is through wild seas, but we’re all sailors in the storm.’

  Suddenly he blushes, catching the sound of his own eloquence; ashamed she might think him pompous.

  ‘But you know all this. You haven’t come here for sermons from me.’

  ‘No, I’m really interested.’ Liz is scribbling notes. ‘You’ve thought about these things a lot.’

  ‘Ah, well. I live alone, you see.’

  ‘Do you mind me asking how old you are?’

  ‘I shall be sixty-nine on my next birthday.’

  A knock on the door.

  ‘That could be the photographer,’ says Liz.

  ‘What photographer?’

  The photographer is wearing biker leathers. He’s called Steve.

  ‘Vicar by dog’s grave, it says here. S.A.F.P.’

  ‘I really don’t want a picture,’ says Miles.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Liz. ‘I forgot to tell you. There has to be a picture or they won’t run the piece.’

  ‘Then by all means don’t run the piece.’

  ‘Then someone else picks up the stor
y and they send their photographer.’

  ‘But if I don’t want to be photographed…’ He looks

  from Liz to Steve and sighs. ‘They’d do it anyway, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘And you’d look as if you had something to hide.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I would. What an odd business it is.’

  They go with Steve to the churchyard and the rector shows the photographer the grave.

  ‘That’s just a pile of earth. That won’t look like anything.’

  Steve roams the churchyard.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he says. ‘You stand here with the angel behind you. That’ll look like something.’

  ‘Like what, do you think?’ says the rector.

  ‘Angel. Heaven. Get the picture?’

  ‘Angel. Heaven.’

  He shakes his head. Liz feels guilty.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘It makes very little difference, my dear. If it must be, it must be.’

  He endures Steve’s demands with patience, looking at the camera when asked; only demurring when Steve proposes that he gazes at the stone angel.

  ‘I think it might look as if I was worshipping the angel, don’t you? And that would be misleading.’

  As Steve is packing up his gear he finds he has dropped a lens cap somewhere among the graves.

  ‘Fucking typical,’ he says. ‘Sorry vicar. Saturday’s not my favourite day.’

  ‘Oh,’ says the rector. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘If something’s going to go bad on me, Saturday’s when it happens. Broke my wrist on a Saturday. Girlfriend left me on a Saturday.’

  ‘I suppose at least that means you get six good days a week.’

  ‘Six good days? Right.’ A big grin spreads slowly across Steve’s face. ‘That’s good, vicar. That’s very good.’

  It’s Miles Salmon who finds the lens cap in the deep grass at the foot of a headstone. Steve completes his packing and carries his gear to his motorbike, calling out by way of a farewell, ‘Six good days! That’s good!’

  ‘Another satisfied customer,’ says Liz.

  Miles is on his knees by the headstone where he found the lens cap, pushing back the long grass.

  ‘I never noticed this before,’ he says.

  The headstone is very simple, grey stone blotched with orange lichen. The inscription reads:

  Sacred to the memory of Edward Willis,

  died January 21 1947,

  beloved husband of Gwendolen.

  At rest in the Lord.

  Lower down, carved in sloping letters as if to indicate direct speech, are the words:

  Ted. Always in my heart. Doll.

  43

  Diana and Roddy arrive, and within minutes Diana has cornered Laura, her unblinking eyes holding her captive.

  ‘So tell me about Nick.’

  Laura’s Sussex life has no bearing on Diana’s metropolitan concerns, and when her bored gaze passes regally over Laura’s house and husband and children it’s only to confirm that there’s nothing here to merit her attention. Her habitual expression when spoken to is one of mild surprise, as if to say, ‘How curious to think that this person imagines I want to hear this.’ Often, having been spoken to, Diana says nothing at all in reply, and her sleepy eyes swivel to find a new focus. The speaker is left with the sensation that perhaps no conversation has taken place after all. And in truth this is the case. Somewhere inside Diana’s mind a door has closed, and she has heard nothing.

  There is, however, a key to this door. Diana is genuinely interested in all forms of bad news. Her senses are finely tuned to the small scurries and squeaks of panic in her friends’ lives, which like the bird of prey she slightly resembles she picks up even when passing at a distance. Like a sparrowhawk she drops down on her victims with deadly precision; and having extorted the bad news, having killed and eaten, as it were, she is content to sit still, one leg elegantly crossed over the other, smiling in a generalized fashion, absorbed by the pleasures of digestion.

  ‘So tell me about Nick.’

  ‘He’s living in California,’ Laura says, keeping a studiously neutral tone to her voice. ‘Apparently he’s some sort of art dealer now.’

  ‘Yes, but why?’

  Roddy appears with a cool-bag of champagne.

  ‘Should I put this in the fridge?’

  As always Roddy looks lost. He stands gazing round the kitchen with a helpless air.

  ‘Go away, Roddy. We’re talking.’

  ‘Oh. All right.’

  He wanders back out to the car. Laura busies herself with lunch, not wanting to have Diana’s conversation.

  ‘I’ve just got some soup and bread and cheese,’ she says. ‘We’re having such a grand meal this evening.’

  ‘Is he married?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Does he still look the same?’

  ‘Pretty much. Older, of course.’

  ‘So what does he want?’

  ‘Oh, I think he’s just curious. See what’s happened to me.’

  Diana gazes at her in hungry silence, not believing her, willing her to reveal the true story. Henry appears at just the right moment.

  ‘Hello, Diana. Good drive down?’

  Diana tilts her head one way and then the other to be kissed, but doesn’t trouble herself to speak. Laura knows Henry’s in a strange tense mood, but there’s been so much to do she’s had no chance to acknowledge it, and in Diana’s presence both of them are careful to offer no hostages.

  ‘We’ll go in Roddy’s car, darling. Why don’t you load the chairs?’

  Henry nods and goes out to the garage. Jack appears.

  ‘Mum, you know the old lady in the village?’

  ‘Which old lady in the village? Say hello to Diana.’

  ‘Hello Diana.’

  ‘Hello Jack. You look smaller. Have you shrunk?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just that Max has shot up recently.’ Max, Diana’s son, much the same age as Jack but always ahead. ‘Not that I see much of him these days, he’s always off somewhere with his friends. I expect you’re the same.’

  Jack, who is never off anywhere with any friends, makes no response to this. He turns to his mother.

  ‘The old lady on the little electric buggy thing.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I know the one you mean.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, darling.’

  Diana takes advantage of the interlude in their conversation to scan the kitchen.

  ‘That’s the new Magimix, isn’t it? They’re madly expensive.’

  ‘My old one gave up. After fifteen years.’

  ‘You always were clever with money.’

  As usual within five minutes of entering the house Diana makes Laura want to scream.

  Outside the kitchen window she sees Roddy and Henry standing scuffing gravel, eyes on the ground, talking. So odd the way men talk, never meeting each other’s eyes. Henry rather likes Roddy, he says he’s a deep thinker in his way, only you have to wait a long time to find it out. Like running the hot tap in the back kitchen, Henry says. It runs cold for minutes, but in the end it runs hot.

  What we had was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

  He never leaves her thoughts. He’s been present from the moment she saw him standing on the doorstep, shrugging his shoulders.

  Carrie’s dangling about, picking at the cheese.

  ‘Carrie, do something useful. Lay the table.’

  ‘I did it last time. It’s Jack’s turn.’

  ‘Then go and tell Jack to do it.’

  ‘He won’t. He never does.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’

  She starts laying the table herself. Diana is helping herself to a glass of wine.

  ‘Do you do any cooking yet, Carrie?’ And without pausing for an answer, ‘Isla cooked us all dinner the other day. She called it a Moroccan tajine. I’d have called it a casserole. But it was qu
ite, quite delicious.’

  Isla is thirteen and has a boyfriend and causes Diana endless anxiety because she’s too intelligent for her school. All these details communicated to Laura entirely without shame, as if Diana is unaware that they are transparent moves in the lifelong competition between the sisters.

  Laura had hoped to shame Carrie into laying the table, but Diana has scared her away.

  ‘There’s only one reason why old boyfriends come back,’ says Diana now they’re alone again. ‘For more.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Diana. It’s been twenty years.’

  ‘So what does he want, then?’

  Roddy and Henry come shambling in from the drive. They seem to be talking about stoicism.

  ‘It’s interesting, though,’ Henry is saying. ‘There’s a lot of stoicism in Christianity.’

  ‘Zeno committed suicide,’ says Roddy.

  ‘You could call that detachment.’

  ‘Overdoing it, surely.’

  ‘Roddy,’ says Diana, pouring him but not Henry a glass of Henry’s wine, ‘why don’t you and Henry go and have great thoughts in the other room?’

  ‘Lunch is pretty much ready,’ says Laura. ‘Call the children, will you, darling?’

  After lunch Laura showers and washes her hair and promises herself she’ll tell Henry as soon as they have a moment together. But tell Henry what? Nick and I talked over old times. Nick turns out to have been as messed up by it all as I was. Nick told me he still loves me.

  Can I say that to Henry? Why upset him when it means nothing at all?

  If it means nothing at all, why not tell him?

  Once more Laura experiences a fierce surge of possessiveness. This is my secret. This is my past. This is me before Henry.

  I will not burn what remains of the greatest happiness I have ever known.

  The tremor in his voice as they walked by the lake. He’s both nervous in her presence and outrageously sure of her. Their love transcends all other love. He asserts this ludicrous proposition, presumes her agreement – isn’t her heartbreak endorsement enough? – and now he’s returned for Act Three, the resolution. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. And yet he’s terrified. Somehow, Laura senses it, this is Nick’s last throw of the dice. He needs her. And this unexpected fragility touches her more than she dare admit.