Past Praying For (14 page)

‘
God, you’re fit,’ he said enviously. ‘Come on, hop in, gorgeous, and I’ll warm you up. You’re late, and I’ve got to be in town at a meeting by nine.’

She
pulled a face, and tried to touch a cold hand to his cheek, but he ducked away, pressing a switch to close the window.

When
she opened the door, a breath of fresh damp air came in with her.

‘
Mmm, that’s nice,’ she said, snuggling into the warmth and the soft upholstery.

He
was reaching across already, his mouth greedy against her cool skin, his hands running over the velvety pile of the material to the huge inviting ring at the top of the zip-fastener.

But
she pulled herself free to say, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Whoa, feller, whoa! It’s good to know you’re pleased to see me, but I passed the milkman on his rounds, and if he comes back this way we’ll be the hot topic round every breakfast table in Stretton.’

He
groaned, but reluctantly restored the zip to its original position and started the engine once more.

‘
The usual place?’ he said thickly.

She
nodded. ‘It’s much safer up by the reservoir. No one ever goes up there this early.’

The
first streaks of light were appearing in the sky as he drove her back. They exchanged a long kiss, as his hands strayed intimately once more over the contours under the soft velour.

‘
Call me,’ she said huskily. ‘We’ve got to talk. That was good for me, Piers, that was really great, but I guess I’m getting kind of old for the back seat of cars, even the luxury models. Let’s make some plans, honey. You know I’m crazy for you – wouldn’t it be a lot of fun to have a bit more time together, get to know each other some more?’

He
cleared his throat. ‘Sounds a wonderful idea. I’ll have to phone you later, though. I really can’t talk about it now – if I don’t make the meeting on time, someone will be ringing Liz to ask her why I’m not there.’

It
was, he hoped, too dark still for her to see his expression. That was what everyone said about bloody females; you had a good thing going – and she enjoyed it as much as he did, make no mistake – and then they started trying to change it, put it on a regular footing, make it more official. Then your wife found out, and before you could say, ‘What other woman?’ you were in the throes of a divorce and breaking up your home and having to pay upkeep on two households instead of one.

That
was the last thing he wanted. He loved his home – the furniture, the paintings, the decor, all chosen regardless of expense and paid for with his, well his father’s, money – and he had no intention of changing the wife he had trained so well. She was a brilliant cook, she knew enough not to complain, and if she irritated him – well, he wasn’t dumb enough to think that a different woman would be any better. In any case, he had in his time seen plenty of evidence to support the time-honoured principle that you should never marry your mistress.

Hayley
closed the door with its heavy click – at least he had trained her not to slam it – and he let off the hand brake. He raised his hand in salute, sketched the obligatory kiss, and drove off without looking back.

She
looked over her shoulder once, but without stopping. She ran off across the common, then into the main street once more, replacing her scowl with a smile suitable for the vicar, as she passed Miss Moon on her way back from the early morning service.

She
was still jogging briskly enough, though her breathing was a bit more laboured now. One way and another, it had been quite an extensive work-out this morning.

***

Margaret Moon walked back home from church to her breakfast with a new sense of energy and purpose. If she had been American, like Mrs Cutler, just jogging past, she might have described this as the first day of the rest of her life. She wasn’t American, of course, but just in case she felt tempted she rapidly thought of something else instead.

Her
reading this morning had been peculiarly apposite – one of the suggested passages in Romans. It had contained several examples of what she privately called needle-jabs; the phrases that made you wince because they so mercilessly pointed to the shortcomings with which you were struggling at the time.

‘
Do not be conceited’ – jab – ‘Discern the will of God’ – jab – ‘Let your mind be remade’ – jab. This morning had been a bit like sitting on a series of drawing pins, but there was no doubt about it, it got you going. And if Robert was right and there was trouble ahead, she felt that her metaphorical sleeves were now well and truly rolled up, ready for action.

She
could smell the toast and coffee as she came in. Now that really was a treat; to come back from early service and find the table set and coffee ready to pour into your cup. She always returned ravenous from the Eucharist.

Robert
looked very comfortable, sitting at the kitchen table reading
The
Times
at its full spread while eating wholemeal toast lavishly topped with butter and Oxford marmalade without getting greasy spots all over it. Margaret had never mastered either accomplishment.

He
looked up at her over his spectacles as she came in. ‘Good house?’

She
picked up her mail, sorting through it.

‘
Four, plus me. Not bad.’

He
shook his head. ‘You’ll tell me, of course, that it’s all about a relationship with God and not a performance, but I can’t help thinking you could achieve some sort of compromise less recklessly wasteful of manpower – forgive me, womanpower.’

That
usually stirred things up, but it was still early in the morning. She smiled blandly as she poured herself coffee and put a slice of bread into the toaster.

‘
I won’t argue on an empty stomach. Go back to your paper, Robert.’

Robert
withdrew again behind his broadsheet, and she sorted the mail as she sipped coffee and waited for her toast. There was always less than usual, of course at this time of year; two or three typewritten ones, and a delayed Christmas card from an old friend. This she opened first (she always picked the cherries out of her fruitcake, too), and enjoyed the rare treat of a gossipy letter inside.

When
it came to the typewritten letters, the one she selected first, as the most interesting, was the one which looked least professional. The individual characters were faded and a little uneven, as if typed on a very old-fashioned machine. It was the sort of communication she sometimes got from elderly clergymen, who in their day had been advanced enough to type their sermons but then never got round to trading in the old Remington.

With
this in her mind, she opened it, and took a moment to make sense of the words she saw there. Then she gasped, an involuntary reaction which she covered up with a cough. She didn’t want to talk to Robert about it, not yet; not until she had worked out what to make of it.

She
made a little production of taking out her toast, buttering it, then getting up to look for honey. She found that she was trembling, and it was difficult not to sit down heavily when she got back to her chair.

Robert
was still absorbed. She spread the letter out and read it again.

It
was disconcerting, how much effect venomous anonymity could have. A diseased, nauseating hostility emanated from the letter.

She
cut her toast in half, but could only look at it in distaste.

Without
emerging from behind the barrier of newsprint, Robert said, ‘Far be it from me to intrude upon your privacy, but if you told me what came in your mail that has upset you so much, you might feel more ready to eat your breakfast.’

She
looked helplessly across at the back of the newspaper.

‘
I give up,’ she said.’I don’t know why I even try. If they’d said
you
should be burnt at the stake, I could have understood it.’

‘
Oh dear.’ He restored
The
Times
to order with one neat shake, folded it and set it aside. ‘Anonymous?’

‘
Of course. I really shouldn’t feel so shaken by it. It’s very common, you know; we had sessions on the subject during training, and they kept hammering home the point that protests in this form, or any other, shouldn’t be taken to heart, that they’re protesting against a concept not a person. But it’s still frightening.’

‘
Hatred always is. And that’s one of its commonest manifestations, where it attaches a quite abstract notion to some hapless person, which paradoxically depersonalizes the object of hatred into a symbol of the grievance.’

‘
Like a racist beating up the black man next door?’

‘
Exactly.’

He
studied the nasty little missive.

‘
Bad things happen to people like you,’ it began. ‘Call yourself a priest? You are a joke, a bad joke. You think you’re different from the rest of us, special, and you go worming your way like a maggot into people’s lives. They should burn you at the stake, now, like the witch you are, with your familiar, the devil-cat.

‘
BURN, WITCH, BURN!’

‘
Ouch,’ Robert said placidly. ‘I did think you might be asking for trouble, calling that beast Pyewacket.’

At
the mention of his name, Pyewacket, dozing in his basket, opened one eye, and Margaret laughed, a little shakily, but laughed nonetheless.

‘
Being an old maid, I thought misguidedly that calling him after a witch’s familiar was amusing. Not very clever, I suppose. After all, the suggestion that we should all be burnt at the stake emanated originally from one of my brothers-in-Christ in a fine display of masculine Christianity.’

‘
Meeting prejudice with prejudice is understandable, of course, and immediately gratifying, but seldom constructive. Have you any especially rabid brothers-in-Christ?’

Margaret
considered. ‘Not peculiarly, as far as I know. They just specialize in being intolerably patronizing, apart from the one who is probably gay and keeps trying to line up with me against the others in a very embarrassing way.’

‘
And you don’t see yourself as a fag-hag?’

‘
Robert! Wherever do you get these appalling expressions from?’

Her
outrage distracted her, as it was meant to; absent-mindedly, she began to munch her toast.

‘B
ut it isn’t funny, Robert. It’s scaring and hideous and awful to have that level of hatred directed against you. And how can I be sure it’s impersonal? Perhaps it’s something I’ve done.’

‘
It’s possible, certainly.’

It
wasn’t what she had wanted him to say. She had wanted him to dismiss it out of hand.

She
said hollowly, ‘Well, go on. This is pretty much your field, isn’t it, looking in your crystal ball and telling the police what sort of person has committed a crime?’

‘
I usually have rather more to go on.’

He
leaned across the breakfast table and picked up the envelope to study it.

‘
It’s the local postmark, isn’t it? Have you any particular zealots here?’

‘
Old Sam Briggs, I suppose, but I rather like him. He’s so openly hostile that we’ve begun to get on quite well. I took him some shortbread on Christmas Day, and when I left he said, “Well, I won’t say but what the Almighty maybe should have said females could be vicars. But think on this – He didn’t.” I’d be sorry if it was him.’

‘
Unlikely. It’s an educated style and good quality paper. And...’

He
read it through again. ‘I’m much inclined to think it’s a woman.’

‘
You’re only saying that because it’s more common for women to do it than men.’

‘
Well, not entirely. “Different from the rest of
us
”, it says – you see? I would tend to read that as referring to other women. And again, “They” – not “we”, notice – “should burn you at the stake”; traditionally a male activity requiring masculine force. I can’t say I would go to the stake myself on that opinion, but it’s a thought.’

‘H
mmm.’ Margaret pondered. ‘Well, I suppose I just tear it up and try to forget about it. If it’s prejudice, they’ll get used to the idea in time; the first hundred years are the hardest.’

‘
Oh, I wouldn’t tear it up. People always do that, and if there’s an outbreak the police have nothing to go on.’

‘
An outbreak?’ Her stomach lurched. ‘Then – you don’t think it’s just the woman-priest thing?’

He
frowned. ‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. Let me try to work out why.’