Sadler's Birthday (24 page)

Carefully, Sadler brought his arms down from under his head. They'd only been there a minute or two and they were stiff already. Then, pushing back the bed clothes, he levered himself up on to his elbows, pushed himself back till he was sitting propped against the bedhead. He reached out and turned on the light. The light was blinding. He sat still and blinked until his eyes were used to it. Then he stared at the room. It was such an empty room, almost nothing in it; just the bed, a bedside table and lamp, an armchair and an electric fire. ‘Can't abide clutter,' the Colonel had said, stroking his cupboards. ‘Clutter's for women. I like empty space.' But open any one of the cupboards and what would you find but the clutter of ages, the debris of a whole life. And somewhere, among all those discarded things, there was a lock of hair perhaps, or a photograph of a girl he'd called Angel. Just shows, thought Sadler.

It was easier now, with the light on, to get out of bed. He managed it without any pain at all, but his body stank of urine; he'd have to wash that away at least, even if he did nothing about the bed. So he put on his dressing-gown and limped off to the bathroom. He ran some hot water, took off all his clothes and began to sponge his body.

He never looked at himself any more, only at his chin when he remembered to shave it, but never at his body. The sight of it disgusted him. Not that, as a young man, he'd been particularly proud of it. It had been straight enough and quite strong, but nothing you'd want to show off. No, what he would have liked was to be a child, to be the boy he once was. There was a photograph of himself, just the one (taken by the treacherous Betsy), of him and Annie hand in hand. He still had it. Sometimes he'd sit down and stare at it with a magnifying glass, trying to see in that tiny face some connexion, some unalterable relationship with his own. And there was nothing.

Cleaned with soap, at least his body was less repulsive than stinking of itself. Sadler allowed himself the briefest glance at it before he brought it back to the camouflage of its old clothes. He sat down on the bed to put on his socks and the smell of the sheets made him retch. To think that a moment ago he'd been lying there . . .

‘Smells of piss, this 'ospital, Mr Sadler.'

‘No. It's only ether, Vera. They all smell of it.'

‘This one smells o' piss.'

‘Look, smell these flowers, dear.'

Chrysanthemums. They hardly smelt at all.

‘Oh lovely.'

Sadler was dressed now and about to go downstairs. Then he heard the car. With his bedroom light on, betraying his presence, there was no hiding this time from his caller. When he heard the car door bang, he went to one of the windows, trying to see through the reflected room into the darkness beyond. He craned and squinted, but he could see nothing. The lights of the car were turned off. Then the door bell rang and the dog, bristling to his role as guard, trotted out into the hall and began a defiant yapping.

Sadler shuffled out on to the landing and looked down. He could see the dog and he could see the front door, but neither gave him any clue. But he'd have to open the door. Too late now to turn his light off and play dumb, and there was no one else (not like in the Colonel's day) no one else to send. He's got me, Sadler thought wearily. Could be death itself, and I'd trot obediently to the door, open it with a smile.

‘I'm coming!' Sadler called.

Seeing him come down the stairs, the dog ceased its yapping, looked expectantly from him to the door.

‘Good boy,' said Sadler.

Sadler opened the front door, brought his eyes cautiously round it.

‘Only me.'

‘Who?'

It was so dark outside with the light gone in the porch, that Sadler could only see the white of a face, not a face he knew.

‘Me. Can I come in?'

The Reverend Chapman was a stubby, rather unkempt man. Just right for the small part of Barrabas he'd played in a crucifixion play at school. His hair, once very thick and black, was thinning; his skin, which looked as if it should be tanned, was yellow. His hands seemed, year by year, to get larger and more clumsy, or his Bible smaller. He wasn't what you expected a vicar to be.

‘I called earlier.'

‘Did you? That was you, then?'

The dog, his tiny burst of aggression spent, was all friendly docility now. He came a-licking, and the vicar, always trying for the appropriate gesture, bent down and gave him a pat.

‘Silly to say, not disturbing you? Bet I am. I usually am. People are too polite, thank the Lord, to send me away.'

‘No, you come in Mr Chapman. It's a change for me to have a visitor. Tea?'

‘Yes, thank you. If it's no trouble.'

‘Come in the kitchen. It's warm in there.'

The vicar looked about him.

‘It's a long time since I was up here.'

‘To tell the truth, I don't remember. Don't make much sense out of time these days.'

‘Living alone, Mr Sadler. None of us is very good at living alone.'

‘Well I'm good at it, done it for long enough.'

‘Get about much these days, do you?'

‘Oh I totter. The dog's as bad as I am, both of us old.'

‘I remember you had a dog. What was it you call him?'

‘Nothing. No need.'

The vicar sat there nodding, while Sadler made the tea. When he turned round he saw beads of sweat on the vicar's head.

‘Too warm for you?'

‘Well, it is warm, yes. I'll take my coat off, that'd be better.'

‘Feel the cold myself.'

‘Do you?'

‘In the joints.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘I'm seventy-six any time now – today even.'

‘Same age as the year.'

‘That's it. Born in 1900.'

‘Oh.'

‘Sugar, do you?'

‘Well, I do. Except in Lent.'

‘One spoonful or . . .?'

‘No, no, none, Mr Sadler. It is Lent.'

‘Is it? Forty day and forty nights. Surest way to beat the devil is to grow old. Nothing to tempt you when you're old.'

‘Very probable. But we all have our little indulgences, even in old age, don't we?'

Sadler chuckled. ‘Nothing much left to indulge!'

The vicar nodded. He ran his hand through the strands of hair that crossed his bald patch. Without realizing it, he left a few of them sticking out. Then he took one nervous sip at the tea Sadler had poured for him and cleared his throat.

‘I saw Mrs Moore in town today.'

‘Did you? Well, she still comes and does the chores.'

‘I would have called on you, anyway, I daresay. I like to get round all my parishioners from time to time. But I came mainly at her insistence.'

‘Drink your tea, Mr Chapman.'

‘Oh, I will yes. Well, you see she does feel —'

‘Ssh, boy!' (To the dog who had begun for no reason to whine.)

‘She feels that things aren't right here, Mr Sadler.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘She couldn't explain —'

‘Quiet now, boy!'

‘And normally, I never like to intrude, not where I'm not wanted. But a man's soul lives in a wilderness, that's how I imagine it, a thirsty wilderness, and I like to see the Church as a clear running stream . . .'

Sadler smacked the dog's nose; it turned a cowering little circle and lay down at his feet.

‘As a what?'

‘As a stream, clear running and —'

‘Seen the stream, have you?'

The vicar shook his head.

‘It used to be a nice place to go, but it's full of muck now. The boy used to build these dams.'

The vicar examined Sadler's face, and found that it disgusted him. Repulsive old man, he thought, let God punish him.

‘Yes, we used to have fun down in the stream. If it wasn't so dark and I wasn't . . . I could take you and show you.'

‘Another day, perhaps.'

‘The first row's the difficult one. You must get really big stones for your foundations, or you never get started. But we mastered that little stream; we could have flooded the meadow.'

‘Well, as I —'

‘You've got a car, then, Vicar?'

‘A car? Oh yes. I've had that some time.'

‘Saves your feet, does it?'

‘Yes.'

The vicar ran a hand through his scant hair again.

‘Well . . .'

‘You'd like to be getting along?'

‘Oh no. I stay as long as I'm welcome. I try not to intrude, but I'm not a travelling salesman. I come to everyone, not just the good clients.'

Sadler's head ached. He wanted the vicar to leave.

‘I'm one of your worst, I daresay.'

‘You're very courteous, Mr Sadler. God will de —'

‘Mrs Moore makes up for me, doesn't she?'

‘God will judge. But I'm happy you mentioned Mrs Moore again; I'm afraid I —'

‘She prays for me, you know.'

‘I believe she does.'

‘It's not enough, of course.'

‘I might as well tell you, I told you a bit of a lie just now.'

‘You, Vicar? God wouldn't like —'

‘Yes, it's always in circumstances like this, a very delicate choice between constructing a story and giving pain. I don't like to see pain, Mr Sadler, and I see it every day. Sometimes I feel I can perceive pain where others see none, nothing at all . . .'

Sadler put down his teacup.

‘I'm puzzling you, aren't I? Very wrong of me. I should tell you what I came to tell you and I will.'

‘Quiet, boy!' Sadler kicked out at the dog, whose whining hadn't ceased.

‘It concerns Mrs Moore. I lied when I said I met her in town. She telephoned me this morning and asked me to talk to you then, before she left, but I believe you were out and couldn't come to the telephone. She found it difficult to explain things to me. She said she didn't want to let you down, Mr Sadler, but she'd been trying to tell you for weeks and she didn't know where to turn, but to me. You see, she's a nervous woman, not terribly well, and for a long time now, months, I think, she's been finding it very distressing to work here. She couldn't really tell me why, but she made me realize what a burden this work was for her. She wanted me to tell you that she won't be coming any more.'

‘Too untidy, am I?' Sadler's voice was very flat.

‘No, no, I don't think so. But it's a big house, isn't it, and she's not young any more. And I think she'd like more time to herself and more time for God.'

‘I never used to be untidy.'

‘You must understand she didn't want to let you down. She told me she asked you some time ago to find a replacement.'

‘In the Colonel's day, there was never any dust here. I supervised all the cleaning. And there was a lot of furniture in those days. Most of it sold, now, you see . . .'

‘No, it wasn't that, Mr Sadler. She had no complaints . . . she couldn't pin it down. But I could see pain. I could see pain without seeing her. And I knew she needed my . . . interception.'

The dog skulked off to its mat by the Aga. With a bright black eye, it watched Sadler and a series of little tuneless whimpers escaped from its body. Sadler thought suddenly, I love the little rat. He thought he would have felt comforted if he could have lifted up the dog and held it close to him. And he felt ashamed that he'd never given it a name.

‘Well . . .'

‘You going, Vicar?'

‘I'm the bearer of bad tidings, am I? I'm sorry, I didn't know you relied so much . . .'

Rover, Fido, Rex . . . those were dogs' names, weren't they?

‘There's a good delivery service, I suppose, for your groceries?'

But named, the dog would take on too much importance, become indispensable to him and he couldn't let that happen.

‘Mather's deliver still, do they?'

Sandy, Bonzo, Scamp . . . No. Better to get rid of the dog now, quickly before the name came to him.

‘Mr Sadler . . .?'

No need, in this freezing weather, to have him put down. Just shut him out one night, bury him in the morning.

‘I must be going, Mr Sadler.'

He must do it soon, or the name would come to him.

‘I'll leave you then. Got to make a few more calls tonight. Never any time on Sunday, not now I cover three parishes. Musical pulpits, a vicar's life is these days!'

Sadler just nodded.

‘I'll pop in again, soon.'

Sadler didn't stir. Not even to take the hand proffered to him.

‘No chance of seeing you at matins in the morning?'

Sadler shook his head.

‘Another time perhaps. Well, I'll see myself out.'

And so he was gone. Sadler sat still, waiting till he heard the car start up and drive away, and then he shut his eyes, listening very very carefully to the tiny sounds he could hear – the electric clock ticking, the fridge drumming faintly, wind in the trees outside.

Sure then, that he was quite alone, he got up, called the dog without looking at it, opened the back door and sent it tottering out into the night. He shut and locked the door, turned back into the kitchen and with a fumbling hand began searching for the key to his old room. When he found it, he grabbed it like a prisoner might the key to his cell.

Climbing the stairs left him so out of breath that, reaching the coconut matting, he had to sit down, resting his head in his hands. Nearly there! But he was dizzy. The threads in the matting zigzagged, disappeared. He shut his eyes, afraid now that his body had deposited him there, no more than a few paces from the room. He fancied that, finding him there, Mrs Moore would have sniffed with disgust, bundled his body away rolled in the matting, so as not to have to touch it. ‘Bury this!' she'd have ordered, thinking, that's where it belongs – outside. It never should have been given house room! No. Muddles again. Obscene muddling. And light was coming back, anyway. The threads were still.