A Blessing In Disguise (22 page)

‘But don't forget, Mrs Leigh,' I say, ‘if you want me for anything at all, even just for a chat, give me a ring and I'll be round!' I feel sorry for her. The whole thing will hit her much harder than it's doing at this moment.

Passing the church on my way back to the Vicarage I notice the door is open so I pop in to see who's there, and why. Sitting in a pew near to the back is a middle-aged man, deep in a book, which he puts down as soon as he sees me, as if I've caught him in some nefarious act.

‘You must be the new Vicar,' he says – which is an easy assumption since I'm wearing my cassock. ‘I'm Cyril Henfield. You won't know me because I don't come to church but I've been a voluntary verger for a few years now.'

‘Then that's very good of you,' I congratulate him. And I mean it, though I'm intrigued yet again by these kind souls who would never come to a service here yet will give up several hours a month to do what would seem to be a boring job, presumably because of their love for the building. People are so attached to bricks and mortar – or, in this case, Caen stone. One day I shall ask one of them why.

‘Have you had many people in?' I ask him.

‘Not a single one!' he says cheerfully. ‘But it's Monday morning. Not a busy time. That's why I was reading.'

Which he could presumably have done in greater comfort at home, I think.

‘Well I won't stay, Mr Henfield,' I say. ‘I just popped in to see if everything was all right. However, I can see the church is in good hands!'

When I arrive home – and I notice I'm beginning to think of it as home, even though it has hardly been a place of peace and harmony since we arrived – Becky is downstairs, in her dressing-gown, and watching television.

‘Good gracious!' I say. ‘You must be feeling better!'

‘Not really,' she says wanly. ‘It's just that I was bored.'

‘But you have television in your room now,' I say. ‘Why aren't you watching it there, keeping warm in bed?'

She sighs deeply.

‘
Because
,' she says, as one speaking to an idiot, ‘this one has cable and the one in my bedroom doesn't. Everyone knows all the best programmes are on cable. Who wants to watch BBC in the morning?'

For this I have given up my television!

‘
Everyone
has cable in
every
room,' she informs me.

On Tuesday morning it's much the same. The same story from Becky. ‘I still feel sick. I've been awake with stomach ache quite a lot in the night. I
definitely
can't go to school!'

I'm a bit uneasy about this. I looked in on her once or twice in the night and she was sound asleep, her bed covers as smooth as if she'd never stirred. But I'll give her the benefit of the doubt – for the moment.

‘I'm sorry you don't feel better,' I commiserate. ‘I'll ring the school, but I think I'd better take you to see Doctor Leyton when I get back from the Eucharist. If you wrap up well and we go in the car you won't come to any harm.'

‘I don't want to see the doctor,' she grumbles. ‘I'd be much better staying in bed. I expect I'll feel a bit better later.'

I'm sure you will, I think uneasily. Most likely when it's too late to go to school. I'm no longer worried about her physical symptoms, if indeed she has any, but I am concerned about this school business though I don't see how Sonia can solve that. So perhaps I'm the patient; simply wanting to share my problem? Either way, I shall ask Sonia to take a look at Becky. One can take children without making a previous appointment.

The ten o'clock service goes well enough. I am pleased to see that the three usuals from the Tuesday evening service are there, and I'm happy that since I know who they are I can address them by name as they leave. Mesdames Morton and Kennedy both give me a nod; Mr Butler offers me a wintry smile. There is also another lady, who on the way out introduces herself as Nora Whitfield. ‘I would have come before,' she tells me, ‘if it had been in the morning, but I don't go out much in the evenings.' So one gain, one satisfied customer. Miss Frazer isn't there and I don't know whether to be pleased or worried about that. Pleased in a way that she's not upsetting anyone else, but also slightly apprehensive, wondering why she's losing this opportunity of humiliating me.

As I walk down the path on my way back to the Vicarage Mrs Leigh is walking up towards me. ‘Good-morning, Vicar,' she says in a quiet voice. ‘I'm just going up to the grave to look at the flowers. I didn't seem to get a chance yesterday. There were some lovely flowers.'

‘There were indeed,' I agree. ‘And how are you today?'

‘Mustn't grumble,' she replies. I get the feeling that that's a phrase by which she lives her life. ‘Was your daughter all right?' she asks.

‘She's not a hundred per cent,' I tell her. ‘I'm off to pick her up now to take her to the doctor.'

When Becky and I reach the surgery it's to be told that Doctor Leyton isn't available.

‘She's been called out to an emergency,' the receptionist says. ‘She mightn't be all that long, but who knows? Doctor Baines could see you if you don't mind waiting.'

‘We could come tomorrow morning,' Becky chips in.

‘No!' I decide. ‘Now that we're here we'll wait to see Doctor Baines.' I know what's in Becky's mind. Stretch it out until tomorrow and that could be another day off school.

We wait twenty minutes and then it's our turn. Nigel Baines rises to his feet and smiles at us as we walk in. His smile is not just a twitch of the lips, it's one of those which takes up the whole face.

‘Hello Venus!' he says. ‘How are you?'

‘I'm fine!' I say. ‘It's Becky who's a bit under the weather.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that, Becky,' he says. ‘Supposing you tell me about it?'

Becky reels off her symptoms: headache, feeling sick, stomach ache. ‘And I feel all hot,' she adds.

‘Ah! Well, first of all I'll take your temperature,' he says – and does so.

‘You'll be pleased to hear that that's quite normal!' he announces.

She is not at all pleased, but no way can she argue that the doctor must be wrong. He is not her mother.

He feels her pulse, peers down her throat, listens to her chest, nodding each time. ‘No rash,' he says. ‘Now tell me, whereabouts was this stomach ache?'

She looks a mite disconcerted. ‘In my stomach,' she says.

‘Sure!' he says pleasantly. ‘Silly of me! So can you just point to where it was?'

She applies a finger vaguely to the middle of her abdomen. ‘But really it was all over.'

‘I see,' he says. Then he looks at her quite intently for a few seconds, and she looks steadily back at him, eyeball to eyeball.

‘Very interesting,' he says. ‘And I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you have a turn at being the doctor.
You
know how you feel. What do
you
think would make you feel better?' He looks at me. ‘Sometimes,' he says in a serious voice, ‘the patient knows the answer better than the doctor.'

It's her turn to hesitate. Then she says, ‘Well, I think if I didn't have to go to school . . .'

He nods, considering her remedy carefully.

‘I see,' he says. ‘Now let's think. Tomorrow's . . . what?'

‘Wednesday,' Becky answers.

‘Wednesday. And on Friday half-term starts. That's a week off school, isn't it?'

Becky nods agreement.

‘And what are you going to do at half-term?'

‘I'm going to stay with my grandparents,' she says.

‘Great,' Nigel says. ‘I expect you'll enjoy that!'

She frowns. ‘I wish I was going there for good!'

‘Really?' He knows better than to ask why. Then he says, ‘Well, I think it would be a good idea if you were to have the rest of today off school, and then go back tomorrow until Friday. I don't think it would do you any harm, and then you'll have a lovely week with your grandparents to get better. I expect they'll spoil you rotten, but no matter.'

She is a deeply disappointed girl. I could tell she thought everything was going her way, and now he's let her down.

‘Have a good time,' he says. ‘Perhaps I'll see you again when you get back, though I expect you'll be better before then.'

He walks to the door and holds it open for us to leave. Becky goes in front of me. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘Be seeing you soon, Venus!'

Back at the Vicarage Becky goes straight up to her room, but when an hour later I call her down for lunch she comes down and eats, though not quite as well as usual. When she gets up from the table she says, ‘I'm going for a walk, down to the village.'

‘A good idea!' I say. ‘I'll come with you. I need a few things.'

She turns on me like a tiger.

‘I don't want you to go with me!' she shouts. ‘I want to go on my own! Why can't I go on my own? I'm not a baby!'

I raise my hands in the air. ‘OK! OK!' I say. ‘You do that! Have it your own way!'

While Becky is out there's a phone call from Elsie Jones.

‘I met you at coffee a couple of Sundays ago,' she reminds me. ‘I run the Brownie Guides. I'm sorry I wasn't in church last Sunday, I had visitors staying the weekend. Anyway, you said you'd like to drop in and meet the Brownies, so I thought I'd remind you Tuesday is the day. Do you think you might have time to come in this evening? Five o'clock – and it lasts an hour at the most. We'd be very pleased to see you there!'

I do a bit of quick thinking. I meant it when I told Elsie Jones that I'd visit the Brownies but as things stand at the moment I don't want to leave Becky on her own, though I know that in my job family can't always come first. Indeed, it often has to come last. Becky knows this too, it's something she's had to learn and it's been even harder for her since Philip died. Perhaps she might even ask – which she hasn't done so far, at least not out loud – with whom
does
she come first?

I wonder if, just for once, she'd come with me to Brownies? Not that I have any real hope of that.

‘Fine!' I say to Elsie, ‘I'll be there. I look forward to it!'

Becky is back within the hour. I hear her let herself in – she knows she must always take her key with her in case I'm out.

‘Becky!' I call.

She doesn't answer and then, since my study door is open, I see her walking up the stairs to her room.

‘I want a word with you, darling!' I tell her.

She stops halfway up the stairs.

‘Just to tell you I'm going to the Brownie meeting. I wondered if you'd like to come with me? It only lasts an hour.'

‘No thank YOU!' she says decisively.

The Brownies are milling around the hall, lively and bright in their brown jogging pants and yellow sweat shirts, with Brown Owl (alias Elsie Jones, but in her uniform of dark blue pants and sweat shirt looking full of firm but kindly authority). She introduces me to Tawny Owl, her second-in-command, name of Margaret Spratt.

‘Nice to meet you,' Margaret says. ‘I'm sorry I don't come to church, but I always seem to be busy on Sunday mornings!'

And then Brown Owl calls the little girls to order and they stand in a Brownie Ring around the toadstool in the middle of the hall and sing their Brownie song, which I know by heart – don't forget I'm the mother of a (lapsed) Brownie. When the song is over Brown Owl – in this habitat I find I can only think of her as Brown Owl; Elsie Jones belongs to a different world – introduces me.

‘Now this lady – some of you will have seen her before – is our new Vicar, so I think we should give her the Brownie Guide welcome, don't you?'

They nod in unison, then at a signal from Brown Owl they all give me three claps; one above their heads and one to each side, and then we all give the Brownie salute; three middle fingers of the right hand, held at shoulder height.

‘And will one of you tell the Vicar what the Brownie promise is?' Brown Owl asks. ‘Perhaps you, Julia?'

If Julia doesn't know it I could prompt her.

‘Lend a Hand,' she says in a clear voice.

Already my worries and cares have somehow dropped away from me and I have entered their world, a world of goodness and the right goals; of bright, shining innocence. And how long will that last, I'm asking myself cynically? And I'm immediately ashamed of my cynicism. A world which was once also Becky's, and I wish it still was.

The children break up into their Sixes and I wander around, talking to them, asking about what they're doing – which, let me tell you, is just about everything! Painting, clay modelling, writing, making small gifts to take home to their mothers. I end up with the Pixie Six, and I'm sitting beside a pretty girl with shoulder-length blonde hair who tells me her name's Melissa.

‘How long have you been a Brownie?' I ask her.

‘Five-and-a-half months,' Melissa says. ‘I'm seven. Brown Owl says I can start working for my badges soon.'

‘So which ones are you going to work for first?' I ask her. Becky has a large collection of badges which it had been my job to sew on to her sash – swimming, first aid, walking, art, and so on.

‘House Orderly first,' Melissa says. ‘You can do that at home. You have to dust your bedroom and make beds and things. And then dancing, because dancing is what I like best.'

If Becky had stuck to what she did to win the House Orderly badge, if she'd dusted her bedroom, then I wouldn't have found the empty money box, would I? But I don't know whether, in the end, that would have been bad or good.

The hour passes in a flash. We sing the Brownie closing prayer, I thank them for having me, and I go back to my Vicarage. Why does an hour spent with small children leave me feeling that the world is pure gold?