A Blessing In Disguise (16 page)

‘Wow!' I cry. Which sounds inadequate. ‘Is that what most people say?' I ask him.

‘More or less,' he admits, laughing.

I don't think I've heard him laugh before. It's a pleasant sound. Not a guffaw, more of a chuckle, as if he's really enjoying the experience.

‘Though as a matter of fact,' he adds, ‘not all that many people come in here. It's my workplace, and I work alone. Sometimes I bring them if there might be a commission involved, if they want to see samples of my work – especially if they live in the neighbourhood, which makes it convenient for them. But on the whole I prefer people to see my work hanging, in exhibitions and so on. They get a better idea of what I do.'

‘You have exhibitions?' Why am I surprised – though I'm less surprised now that I've seen some of the paintings around. Perhaps because he doesn't come over as important. Perhaps because I've seen him eating cream cakes in the village baker's?

‘Sure!' he says.

‘Where? I mean . . .'

‘Several places. I have one of my own work about once a year, in London. Then I have paintings hung in other exhibitions, mostly in London because I'm more or less tied up with a London gallery; some in other places – Bath, Brighton, the West Country, Edinburgh.'

So why have I never heard of him? Because I don't read the right things, that's why! A painter wouldn't be mentioned in a political article, or a headline in the
Church Times
, or in one of the fashion magazines I buy from time to time. But why didn't Sonia say anything? Perhaps because he's a patient, or a long-time friend. I suppose you don't define friends by what they do, more by what they are to you.

‘Perhaps you might like to come to an exhibition some time?' Mark says. ‘I have one in London in December.'

‘Thank you! I'd love to!' I tell him.

We look around and talk a bit more about the paintings, though he doesn't have much to say about them individually except occasionally, ‘I painted that in France' or some such. I suppose that's reasonable. You wouldn't expect a singer to talk about her singing or an author to talk about his books. It's there in the work. It's not to be explained. And I discover as we do chat that what he really enjoys most is painting portraits.

‘Though I don't have many to show you,' he says. ‘They're mostly with the people I painted.'

‘Commissioned, I suppose?'

‘Very often, though in fact I much prefer to choose my own subject rather than be asked to paint some important man or his wife. Actually . . .' He pauses, and I realize he's looking at me quite intently. ‘. . . Actually, I'd like to paint you.'

‘Me?' I'm truly surprised.

‘Yes,' he says. ‘You have an interesting face.'

When people say you have an interesting face they mean you're not beautiful, or even pretty. Or you could be quite plain.

‘Thank you,' I reply. ‘But I'm afraid I couldn't commission you, not even to do a very small portrait.' And I reckon by what I see here that he works large.

‘I wasn't suggesting that,' he says. ‘No way! I'm just saying I'd like to paint you. Come to think of it I could paint you in your uniform. That would be different. I've never painted a Vicar!'

I'm not totally amused by this.

‘Really? And when you say my uniform do you mean my full glory on Easter Day – white-and-gold chasuble and stole – or my everyday black cassock?' I ask.

‘Oh, the latter!' he answers quickly. ‘A black cassock would be perfect. You would stand out against it, the emphasis would be on you. I don't much like painting fancy uniforms. They can take over from the subject. Anyway, think about it!'

I am, though I'm not going to say so, highly flattered. No-one has ever before wanted to paint my portrait.

Presently I look at my watch and it's a quarter to three.

‘I must go!' I say. ‘I want to be home well before Becky arrives. Thank you very much, it's been so interesting. And thank you for my lunch.'

He sees me to my car. ‘I meant what I said,' he says. ‘And also about the exhibition. I'll let you have the details of that.'

Back at home I turn up the heating and then I start to make a lasagne, which is another one of Becky's favourite meals. I would like to walk down to school and meet her but I won't because she mightn't like it. I don't want to make a fuss of her in front of the other children, but when the bell rings just after half-past three I rush to open the door.

She stands there, her face pale and troubled.

‘Hello darling!' I say, my arms held wide. ‘How did it go? Come and tell me all about it!'

She pushes past me.

‘It was horrid! I knew it would be! Why do we have to live here? Why can't we go back to Clipton?' She's not yet crying but her voice is full of tears and pain.

I follow Becky into the sitting room where she throws her schoolbag on to the floor and herself into an armchair. I think she's chosen the chair deliberately. If she sat on the sofa, which is nearest, I would certainly sit beside her. I long to put my arms around her, which is not what she would want.

‘So what went wrong, darling?' I ask. ‘Please tell me!'

‘Everything!' she says. ‘They're horrid! The girls are horrid, the boys are horrid, the teacher is horrid!'

‘Mr Beagle, horrid? I can't believe that. He seemed such a nice man, and you liked him when you met him, didn't you?' I say.

She glares at me as if I'm too stupid to understand – what in fact she hasn't told me.

‘It wasn't Mr Beagle. He's got flu. It was Mrs Hayes, and she's a cow!'

‘So please tell me, love, what happened?' I ask.

‘I don't want to tell you! You wouldn't understand!'

Those three words are ones which no parent ever wants to hear. ‘You wouldn't understand.' Aren't we the wise ones? Aren't we the ones who know all the answers, know how to guide the young things? But at the moment I feel totally inadequate, perhaps because I'm pretty sure this young thing is not going to confide in me.

‘Well, I just might. You could try me,' I offer.

‘It's no use trying
you
,' she says bitterly. ‘It's all your fault!'

That doesn't surprise me. I am definitely the fly in the ointment. ‘So what have I done now?' I ask with as much patience as I can muster. ‘Tell me!'

‘You know what you've done! If you weren't a Vicar we wouldn't be here and if we were here and you weren't a Vicar it wouldn't be as bad except that we'd never have come here in the first place and in any case you're not a proper one but it would be just as bad if you were!'

The words rush out of her, after which she sits further back in the chair, her eyes filled with a mixture of pain and anger. I know someone has said something stupid, and immediately, I'm as angry as she is. I could march straight down to the school and bang a few heads together. But I'm not going to. It might make me feel better but it would do Becky no favour at all.

‘Not a proper what?' I ask as calmly as I can.

But she has had her say and she's not going to favour me with another word. Her lips are as tightly closed as if they'd been zipped together.

‘Not a proper what?' I repeat. ‘Do you mean I'm not a proper Vicar? Is that what someone has said? If it is, they're quite wrong. I am a proper priest, God has made me so and I will always be so. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. I was made a priest when you were still a very small girl. I don't suppose you can remember when I wasn't one.'

I'm used to this accusation, as is everyone else of my ilk, though it's well over ten years since some of the women were ordained priests. We are used to reading it in the newspapers – it can give renewed life to a letters page any time anyone decides to stir the embers. I have heard it on the radio, the television, on the street. I have heard it from men and from women, and not infrequently, from my fellow priests of the opposite sex. I know that often it's a conviction sincerely held, though conviction and prejudice can be close bedfellows. But I have not heard it from a child before, so now it is being handed on to another generation.

‘So we can't change that,' I say. ‘But a priest is not all I am. I'm a woman. When Daddy was alive I was a wife, and I wish I still was. Don't think I don't miss Daddy! And I'm your mother and you're my daughter and the dearest person in the world to me. I can't bear to see you unhappy. I'd do anything I could for your happiness, you know I would, but I can't ever stop being a priest any more than you can stop being you.'

There is a silence between us, which Becky breaks.

‘Why did you have to be a priest
here
?' It's as much an accusation as a question.

‘Because,' I tell her, ‘it seemed to me to be what God wanted me to do. I have to listen to God. Priests do.'

‘I
hate
God!' she says.

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' I tell her. ‘But it's your choice. He doesn't hate you. Are you hungry?'

I did well to make lasagne. Becky eats two hearty helpings, followed by a Marks & Spencer's sticky toffee pudding. A stodgy meal, not the healthiest in the world, but stodge, I've found, and not only for little girls but for grown women, has healing properties for aching hearts which can't be found in a bunch of watercress. It also loosens Becky's tongue.

‘Mrs Hayes is stupid,' she says, finishing the last crumb of pudding.

‘Really?' I ask. ‘Why?'

‘She said,' and here she puts on a voice which I presume is Mrs Hayes's, ‘. . . “Now Becky, your mother is a Vicar, so I'm sure you can tell us the names of all the people St Paul sent letters to?”'

‘And what did you say?'

‘I said, “No I can't, Mrs Hayes. Can you?”'

‘Oh, my goodness!' I say. ‘That was
rather
rude!'

‘I know!' Becky says in a satisfied voice.

When bedtime comes I read to her. She's quite capable of reading herself but sometimes I choose to do this as a special treat and I reckon this evening is one for such a treat. I read Harry Potter, which I enjoy as much as she does so it's no chore, and I read for quite a long time but eventually, struggle against it as she does, sleep overcomes Becky. I close the book and sit there for a minute just looking at her. I would do anything for my daughter, yet these days I seem to be the cause of all her troubles, even though for an hour or two she seems to have shifted the blame on to God. Well, I suppose he can bear it! He must be used to it.

On the other hand, I think as I switch off the light and tiptoe out of the bedroom and back down the stairs,
would
I do anything for her? So far I seem to have gone my own way and she has had to run beside or behind me. I've always thought I was taking her along the right road, and I know that when she's older she'll branch off in her own direction and I shall let her do that. I most certainly will.

I wish, for the thousandth time, that Philip was here. He would know the answers. He was much wiser than I am.

Next morning Becky goes off to school, albeit unwillingly. I am standing in the window, watching her go down the road, when the phone rings. It's Cliff Preston, who is the local funeral director. I met him last Saturday, after Mary Parker's family had been in touch with him. Mary is to be cremated on Thursday. This will be my first funeral in the parish and I'm glad I was able to be with her for that short time before she died.

‘Good-morning, Vicar!' he says brightly. (I am to discover that in spite of his profession he is the most cheerful of men.) ‘Another funeral for you! It never rains but what it pours! A Mr Leigh, fourteen Branksome Close, died in the night. God rest his soul.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' I say.

‘He's been ill a long time. It was a release.'

‘I don't think I know him. Should I?'

‘Not unless anyone told you. They're in the parish but they haven't been to church for years, his wife said. However, she wants a service in St Mary's and for him to be buried in the churchyard.'

‘No problem!' I tell him. ‘There isn't anything which might be, is there?'

‘Nothing at all,' Cliff says. ‘They haven't got a grave so it'll be a new one.'

‘OK. I'll sort that out with you,' I say.

They don't sound like the kind of people who've been marking out a special place in their minds for years: top of the hill, six yards from the east wall, which I usually suspect is where the couple in question did a significant bit of their courting. I don't delve into that. I have a duty to look after the churchyard, keep it orderly, not graves dotted here and there haphazardly, like almonds in a trifle, and that's what I'll do. I've already discovered that Thurston people – and not only those who go to church – are proud of their churchyard, and so they should be. It's well laid out, with trees, lawns, seats – and everything beautifully maintained (at great cost to St Mary's), peaceful and – I use the word thoughtfully – pleasant.

‘So, date and time,' Cliff says. ‘What suits you?'

This is music to my ears! Here is a man who doesn't make all the arrangements to suit himself and then tells me where I must fit in.

‘As it happens,' I say, ‘ – and I suppose it's because I'm so new – I don't have a lot in my diary. Does the family have a preference?'

‘Well,' he says, ‘the widow would like it next Monday. I must say, she seems a bit lost. She has relatives from the North who are coming to stay with her over the weekend but they'd like to get back as soon as possible after that because they have jobs to go to. But I suppose Monday is your day off?'

‘That doesn't matter,' I assure him. ‘Monday will be fine. So if you'll give me the phone number I'll give Mrs Leigh a call and make the rest of the arrangements.'