Quartet in Autumn (10 page)

Letty therefore prepared to spend Christmas alone, for she understood that Mrs Pope would be going to stay with her sister who lived in a village in Berkshire. But at the last minute there was a change of plan, various telephone calls were made, and in the end Mrs Pope announced that she was not going away after all. The change of plan was the result of an argument about heating, Mrs Pope's sister apparently being too mean to switch on the storage heaters before January, and the cottage being not only cold but damp and poky as well.

'I shall
not
go, neither now or
ever
,' Mrs Pope declared, standing militant by the telephone in the full dignity of her eighty-odd years.

'Warmth is so important,' Letty said, remembering the office conversations about hypothermia.

'Have you anything special for your Christmas dinner?' Mrs Pope then asked.

It had not occurred to Letty that Mrs Pope might suggest any kind of festive sharing or pooling of resources, for they had not so far eaten together, though they had met in the kitchen preparing their individual breakfasts and suppers. She did not at first like to admit that she had bought a chicken, for it seemed almost brutish to contemplate eating even the smallest bird all by herself, but when she realized what was in Mrs Pope's mind she had to confess.

'I have some ham and a Christmas pudding, one I made last year, so it will be best if we have our meal together,' Mrs Pope said. 'It is ridiculous to think of two women in the same house eating separate Christmas dinners. Not that I really make any difference in what I eat at Christmas — it's most unwise for old people to gorge themselves at any time.'

So Letty had no alternative but to listen to Mrs Pope discoursing on her favourite topic of the excessive amount of food most people ate. It was not conducive to an enjoyable meal and Letty could not help feeling that on this occasion she might have done better if she had stayed in her room in Mr Olatunde's house. A jolly Nigerian Christmas would surely have included her, and not for the first time she began to wonder if she had done the right thing by moving. Still, Christmas Day had been lived through and was now nearly over, that was the main thing.

The radio offered a choice of comedy, with a braying studio audience, which she did not feel in the mood for, or carols, with their sad memories of childhood and the days that can never come back. So she took up her library book and sat reading, wondering what sort of a Christmas the others in the office had spent. Then she remembered that the Kensington sales started the day after Boxing Day and her spirits suddenly lifted.

Pushing the boat out, aren't you?' said Norman, with unusual jollity, as Ken topped up his glass.

'Well, I always think a really good meal like the one we've just eaten deserves all the trimmings,' Ken said.

'I only hope you're not going to suffer for it.' Norman could hardly resist casting this small gloom on the festivities. After all, the last time he'd seen Ken he'd been lying prone in the men's surgical ward, feeling pretty sorry for himself. But now he seemed to have fallen on his feet all right with this girlfriend — Joyce her name was, shortened to Joy — who was not only quite good
-
looking and an excellent cook but had a bit of money of her own and had even passed the test of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, whatever that might mean. So Ken had good reason to push the boat out.

Still, let them get on with it, all lovey-dovey at the kitchen sink doing the washing-up, Norman thought, sitting by the fire, as they had insisted when he made a half-hearted offer of help.

'You put your feet up,' Joy said. 'Have a bit of a rest — after all, you're one of the world's workers.'

Norman supposed they all were, come to that, though he and Ken spent most of their working life sitting down anyway, Ken stuck in the passenger seat of a car on test and he, Norman, at his desk doing damn all. Still, he wasn't averse to a bit of a rest, especially after a good meal, and it was always nice to see a coal fire and not to have to worry about having the right coins for the meter.

'Where exactly does he live?' Joy was saying, her pink rubber
-
gloved hands plunged in the washing-up water.

'Norman? Oh, he's got a bedsitter — Kilburn Park way.'

'On his own all the time, is he? It must be a bit lonely.'

'Lots of people live on their own,' Ken pointed out.

'Still, at Christmas ... it does seem sort of sad.'

'Well, we're having him here today, aren't we? I don't see what more we can do.'

'You've never thought of sharing?'

'
Sharing
?
You have to be joking!'

'Oh, I don't mean now. But when your wife, when Marigold .. ,' Joy brought out the name tentatively for she could never get used to it or believe that Ken's wife had really been christened so, 'when she passed on and you were left on your own...'

Ken waited in grim silence. Let her put into words what she was thinking, that he might have asked Norman — the brother-in
-
law with whom he hadn't a thing in common apart from having been married to his sister — to come and live in his house, was that it? Imagine sharing a house with Norman! The very idea of it was enough to give him the creeps, and thinking about how it might be made him smile, even want to laugh, so that the grim silence was relaxed and he playfully flicked a tea towel at his intended second wife.

Larking about in the kitchen, Norman thought, hearing the sound of laughter, but he wasn't really envious, his attitude being 'sooner him than me'. When Ken had deposited him on his doorstep from his brand new buttercup-yellow motor car, Norman returned to his bed-sitting room — quite well satisfied with his lot. This Christmas had certainly brought a bit of good cheer, but today's jollifications had been enough for him and he quite looked forward to getting back to the office and hearing how the others had got on.

In the train coming back from staying with his daughter and her family, Edwin felt drained and exhausted, but relieved. They'd wanted him to stay longer, of course, but he'd pleaded various pressing engagements, for after Christmas Day, with a somewhat inadequate 'Family Communion' as the main service (no High Mass), and Boxing Day with a surfeit of cold turkey and fractious children, he felt he'd had enough. His son-in-law dropped him at the station while the family went on to a pantomime where they were to be joined by the other grandparents and another lot of children. All a very jolly family party but not exactly his 'scene', as Norman might put it.

Taking out his diary, Edwin considered the days after Christmas. Today, December 27th, was St John the Evangelist and there should be a good High Mass this evening at St John's over the other side of the common — it was their patronal festival, of course, and the priest there was a friend of Father G.'s. Then there was the day after, December 28th, Holy Innocents — he'd try to get over to Hammersmith for that. People didn't seem to realize what a lot there was going on after Christmas, quite apart from the day itself.

Eleven

T
HE
FIRST
DAY
they were back in the office was the second of January. None of them had really needed New Year's Day to recover from the celebrations of the night before because none of them had been to a party, but there had always been grumblings when in the past they had been obliged to work on the day. Now, of course, the extended holiday had seemed a little too long and they were all glad to be back to work.

'Or what passes for work,' as Norman remarked, tilting back in his chair and drumming his fingers on his empty table.

'It's always a bit slack at this time,' Letty said. 'One tries to get things done before Christmas.'

'To clear one's desk,' said Marcia importantly, using a phrase from long ago that had little or no reality in their present situation.

'And when you get back there's nothing on it,' said Norman peevishly. He was bored now that the first interest of hearing about other people's Christmases had evaporated.

Well, this has come in,' said Edwin, holding up a cyclostyled notice. He passed it to Norman who read it out.

'A Memorial Service for a man who retired before we came,' he said. 'What's that got to do with us?'

'I didn't know he'd died,' said Letty. 'Wasn't he once chairman?'

It was in
The Times,
Edwin pointed out. 'One feels that perhaps this department ought to be represented.'

'They couldn't expect that if nobody knew him,' said Marcia.

'I suppose they'd send round a notice in case anybody wanted to go,' said Letty in her usual tolerant manner. 'After all, there might be some who'd worked with him.'

'But it's today,' said Norman indignantly. 'How could we go today, at such short notice? What's going to happen to the work?'

Nobody answered him.

'Twelve noon,' Norman read out scornfully. 'I like that! What do they think we are?'

'I think I shall go,' said Edwin, looking at his watch. 'I see it's at the church used by the university — rather a suitable setting for a Memorial Service for an agnostic.'

'I suppose you know the church, you've been there before?' Letty asked.

'Oh, yes, I know it all right,' said Edwin casually. 'Pretty undenominational, you might say. They have to cater for all sorts there, but I suppose there'll be somebody who knows what to do.'

'Let's hope so! Unless you feel like taking the service yourself,' said Norman sarcastically. He was irritated at Edwin taking what seemed to him like an unfair advantage, though where the advantage lay he could hardly have said.

The church was still decorated for Christmas, with stiff-looking poinsettias and sprigs of holly on the window ledges, but an expensive florist's arrangement of white chrysanthemums had been placed at the side of the altar, as if to emphasize the dual purpose of the church's present function.

Memorial services were not much in Edwin's line, particularly not when they commemorated persons with whom he had little or nothing in common. It wasn't as if they were like funerals, of which he had experienced his fair share — father, mother, wife and various in-law relatives. And it wasn't as if this was a proper Requiem Mass, more like a social gathering, with the smartly dressed women in hats and fur coats and the dark-suited men in good, heavy overcoats. They seemed very far removed from the little huddle of mourners Edwin associated with funerals he had attended. Of course the time of mourning had passed and this service was being held to celebrate the deceased's life and achievements, so there was a difference. Another noticeable difference was the warmth of the church on this January day. Reassuring wafts of hot air circulated round Edwin's feet and he noticed the woman in front of him loosening the collar of her fur coat.

The hymns chosen were 'He who would valiant be', and another with modern words that might seem to have been specially written so as not to offend the most militant agnostic or atheist, set to a tune that nobody seemed to know. There was a reading from Ecclesiastes and a short eulogy, delivered by a younger colleague of the deceased, quietly triumphant in the prime of life. Edwin had seen this person once or twice at the office, so he felt that his presence at the service was justified. After all, he was representing Norman, Letty and Marcia, and that was entirely fitting.

As he filed out with the congregation, Edwin noticed that some of them, instead of going out through the church door, seemed to be slipping into a half open side door into a kind of vestry. Not everyone was doing this, so it looked as if those who did were in some way favoured and Edwin soon saw why this was. Inside the vestry he glimpsed a table on which were ranged glasses of a drink that looked like sherry (it would hardly have been whisky, he felt). It was easy for Edwin to insinuate himself among the slippers-in and nobody questioned him; he looked very much the kind of person who had the right to be there, tall, grey and sombre.

Taking a glass of sherry — there was a choice of medium or dry, sweet evidently not having been considered appropriate to the occasion — Edwin looked around him, storing up impressions to tell them back in the office. His own observations took in the usual paraphernalia of the Anglican church that made this vestry much like any other of his experience — flower vases and candlesticks, an untidy pile of hymn books with the covers torn and no doubt pages missing inside, and a discarded crucifix of elaborate design, probably condemned by the brass ladies as impossible to clean. A crisp-looking terylene surplice was suspended from a hook on a cleaner's wire hanger and there were red cassocks and a few dusty old black ones hanging on a rail. But these details would probably not interest Norman, Letty and Marcia. They would want to know who was at the service and how they were behaving, what they were saying and doing.

'Well, at least we've given him some kind of a send-off,' said an elderly man at Edwin's side, 'and I think he'd like to think of us here drinking sherry.' He put down his empty glass and took another.

'People always say that,' said a woman who had joined them. 'And it's certainly convenient to suppose that anything we do is what
they
would have liked. But Matthew never entered a church in his life, so perhaps the drinking would be all he'd approve of.'

'I expect he was baptized and attended church when he was young,' Edwin observed, but the others moved away from him, making him feel that he had gone too far, not only by this observation but by attending the service at all. Yet he was undeniably a member of the staff, even if only a humble one, and had as much right as anyone to be paying his tribute to a man he had never known personally.

Edwin drained his glass and put it down carefully on the table. He noticed that it had been covered with a white cloth and wondered idly if it was of ecclesiastical significance. He decided not to help himself to another glass although he could easily have done so. It might not be fitting. Also a thing like that 'might get back' — you never knew.