Star over Bethlehem (3 page)

It was not very long after that that Joseph came in with a tall stranger. The stranger was speaking urgently to Joseph, and as the donkey stared at them he could hardly believe his eyes!

The stranger seemed to dissolve and in his place stood an Angel of the Lord, a golden figure with wings. But after a moment the Angel changed back again into a mere man.

“Dear dear, I'm seeing things,” said the donkey to himself. “It must be all that fodder I ate.”

Joseph spoke to Mary.

“We must take the child and flee. There is no time to be lost.” His eye fell on the donkey. “We will take this donkey here, and leave money for his owner whoever he may be. In that way no time will be lost.”

So they went out on the road from Bethlehem. But as they came to a narrow place, the Angel of the Lord appeared with a flaming sword, and the donkey turned aside and began to climb the hillside. Joseph tried to turn him back on to the road, but Mary said:

“Let him be. Remember the Prophet Balaam.”

And just as they got to the shelter of some olive trees, the soldiers of King Herod came clattering down the road with drawn swords.

“Just like my great grandmother,” said the donkey, very pleased with himself. “I wonder if I have foresight as well.”

He blinked his eyes—and he saw a dim picture—a donkey fallen into a pit and a man helping to pull it out … “Why, it's my Master, grown up to be a man,” said the donkey. Then he saw another picture … the same man, riding on a donkey into a city … “Of course,” said the donkey. “He's going to be crowned King!”

But the Crown seemed to be, not Gold, but Thorns (the donkey loved thorns and thistles—but it seemed the wrong thing for a Crown) and there was a smell he knew and feared—the smell of blood; and there was something on a sponge, bitter like the myrrh he had tasted in the stable …

And the little donkey knew suddenly that he didn't want foresight any more. He just wanted to live for the day, to love his little Master and be loved by him, and to carry Him and his mother safely to Egypt.

 

Gold, frankincense and myrrh
… As Mary stands

Beside the Cross, those are the words that beat

Upon her brain, and make her clench her hands,

On Calvary, in noonday's burning heat.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh
. The Magi kneel

By simple shepherds all agog with joy,

And Angels praising God who doth reveal,

His love for men in Christ, the new born Boy.

Where now the incense? Where the kingly gold?

For Jesus only bitter myrrh and woe.

No kingly figure hangs here—just a son

In pain and dying … How shall Mary know

That with his sigh “'Tis finished,” all is told;

Then
—in
that
moment—Christ's reign has begun?

Mrs. Hargreaves didn't like people.

She tried to, because she was a woman of high principle and a religious woman, and she knew very well that one ought to love one's fellow creatures. But she didn't find it easy—and sometimes she found it downright impossible.

All that she could do was, as you might say, to go through the motions. She sent cheques for a little more than she could afford to reputable charities. She sat on committees for worthy objects, and even attended public meetings for abolishing injustices, which was really more effort than anything else, because, of course, it meant close proximity to human bodies, and she hated to be touched. She was able easily to obey the admonitions posted up in public transport, such as: “Don't travel in the rush hour”; because to go in trains and buses, enveloped tightly in a sweltering crowd of humanity, was definitely her idea of hell on earth.

If children fell down in the street, she always picked them up and bought them sweets or small toys to “make them better.” She sent books and flowers to sick people in Hospital.

Her largest subscriptions were to communities of nuns in Africa, because they and the people to whom they ministered, were so far away that she would never have to come in contact with them, and also because she admired and envied the nuns who actually seemed to
enjoy
the work they did, and because she wished with all her heart that she were like them.

She was willing to be just, kind, fair, and charitable to people, so long as she did not have to see, hear or, touch them.

But she knew very well that that was not enough.

Mrs. Hargreaves was a middle-aged widow with a son and daughter who were both married and lived far away, and she herself lived in a flat in comfortable circumstances in London—and she didn't like people and there didn't seem to be anything she could do about it.

She was standing on this particular morning by her daily woman who was sitting sobbing on a chair in the kitchen and mopping her eyes.

“—never told me nothing, she didn't—not her own Mum! Just goes off to this awful place—and how she heard about it, I don't know—and this wicked woman did things to her, and it went septic—or what ever they call it—and they took her off to Hospital and she's lying there now,
dying
… Won't say who the man was—not even now. Terrible it is, my own daughter—such a pretty little girl she used to be, lovely curls. I used to dress her ever so nice. Everybody said she was a lovely little thing …”

She gave a gulp and blew her nose.

Mrs. Hargreaves stood there wanting to be kind, but not really knowing how, because she couldn't really
feel
the right kind of feeling.

She made a soothing sort of noise, and said that she was very very sorry. And was there anything she could do?

Mrs. Chubb paid no attention to this query.

“I s'pose I ought to have looked after her better … been at home more in the evenings … found out what she was up to and who her friends were—but children don't like you poking your nose into their affairs nowadays—and I wanted to make a bit of extra money, too. Not for myself—I'd been thinking of getting Edie a slap-up gramophone—ever so musical she is—or something nice for the home. I'm not one for spending money on
myself
…”

She broke off for another good blow.

“If there is anything I can do?” repeated Mrs. Hargreaves. She suggested hopefully, “A private room in the Hospital?”

But Mrs. Chubb was not attracted by that idea.

“Very kind of you, Madam, but they look after her very well in the ward. And it's more cheerful for her. She wouldn't like to be cooped away in a room by herself. In the ward, you see, there's always something going on.”

Yes, Mrs. Hargreaves saw it all clearly in her mind's eye. Lots of women sitting up in bed, or lying with closed eyes; old women smelling of sickness and old age—the smell of poverty and disease percolating through the clean impersonal odour of disinfectants. Nurses scurrying along, with trays of instruments and trolleys of meals, or washing apparatus, and finally the screens going up round a bed … ​The whole picture made her shiver—but she perceived quite clearly that to Mrs. Chubb's daughter there would be solace and distraction in “the ward” because Mrs. Chubb's daughter liked people.

Mrs. Hargreaves stood there by the sobbing mother and longed for the gift she hadn't got. What she wanted was to be able to put her arm round the weeping woman's shoulder and say something completely fatuous like “There, there, my dear”—and
mean it
. But going through the motions would be no good at all. Actions without feeling were useless. They were without content …

Quite suddenly Mrs. Chubb gave her nose a final trumpet-like blow and sat up.

“There,” she said brightly. “I feel better.

She straightened a scarf on her shoulders and looked up at Mrs. Hargreaves with a sudden and astonishing cheerfulness.

“Nothing like a good cry, is there?”

Mrs. Hargreaves had never had a good cry. Her griefs had always been inward and dark. She didn't quite know what to say.

“Does you good talking about things,” said Mrs. Chubb. “I'd best get on with the washing up. We're nearly out of tea and butter, by the way. I'll have to run round to the shops.”

Mrs. Hargreaves said quickly that she would do the washing up and would also do the shopping and she urged Mrs. Chubb to go home in a taxi.

Mrs. Chubb said no point in a taxi when the 11 bus got you there just as quick; so Mrs. Hargreaves gave her two pound notes and said perhaps she would like to take her daughter something in Hospital? Mrs. Chubb thanked her and went.

Mrs. Hargreaves went to the sink and knew that once again she had done the wrong thing. Mrs. Chubb would have much preferred to clink about in the sink, retailing fresh bits of information of a
macabre
character from time to time, and then she could have gone to the shops and met plenty of her fellow kind and talked to
them
, and
they
would have had relatives in hospitals, too, and they all could have exchanged stories. In that way the time until Hospital visiting hours would have passed quickly and pleasantly.

“Why do I always do the wrong thing?” thought Mrs. Hargreaves, washing up deftly and competently; and had no need to search for the answer. “
Because I don't care for people
.”

When she had stacked everything away, Mrs. Hargreaves took a shopping bag and went to shop. It was Friday and therefore a busy day. There was a crowd in the butcher's shop. Women pressed against Mrs. Hargreaves, elbowed her aside, pushed baskets and bags between her and the counter. Mrs. Hargreaves always gave way.

“Excuse me,
I
was here before you.” A tall thin olive-skinned woman infiltrated herself. It was quite untrue and they both knew it, but Mrs. Hargreaves stood politely back. Unfortunately, she acquired a defender, one of those large brawny women who are public spirited and insist on seeing justice is done.

“You didn't ought to let her push you around, luv,” she admonished, leaning heavily on Mrs. Hargreaves' shoulder and breathing gusts of strong peppermint in her face. “You was here long before she was. I come in right on her heels and I know. Go on now.” She administered a fierce dig in the ribs. “Push in there and stand up for your rights!”

“It really doesn't matter,” said Mrs. Hargreaves. “I'm not in a hurry.”

Her attitude pleased nobody.

The original thruster, now in negotiation for a pound and a half of frying steak, turned and gave battle in a whining slightly foreign voice.

“If you think you get here before me, why not you say? No good being so high and mighty and saying” (she mimicked the words) “
it doesn't matter
! How do you think that makes
me
feel?
I
don't want to go out of my turn.”

“Oh no,” said Mrs. Hargreaves' champion with heavy irony. “Oh no, of course not! We all know that, don't we?”

She looked round and immediately obtained a chorus of assent. The thruster seemed to be well known.

“We know her and her ways,” said one woman darkly.