A Blessing In Disguise (12 page)

‘I'm getting on well,' I tell him. ‘And yes, people are very kind.' I have no intention of mentioning Miss Frazer. Somehow, charming though he is, I don't think he'd be interested. He'd be one of those who would find it trivial.

‘I'm looking forward to my daughter returning this evening,' I say. ‘Do you have children?'

‘No,' he says. ‘And I'm not married.' There is a slight pause before he says, ‘I almost was once. We were engaged, but it clearly wasn't going to work, so it was called off.'

Poor man, I think. Engaged to be married, everything arranged. Left at the altar. The love of his life and he's never met anyone else though it must have happened a few years ago since I reckon he's about my age. I smile sympathetically. ‘Hard luck!' I say. Not my place to press for details.

He nods. ‘Yes, I suppose it was hard on her. She was a very nice woman but I realized just in time that she wasn't for me. Poor Susan, she took it badly at the time, but she got over it. In fact she married someone else within the year.'

What he means is, he jilted her. She was the one who was left in the lurch. And he makes it sound so reasonable, as if he was doing her a favour.

‘In fact,' he confirms my thinking, ‘I did her a favour. She wouldn't have been happy with me.'

Perhaps he does himself an injustice, I think, giving him the benefit of the doubt because he does seem a very nice man. Charming, in fact. ‘Perhaps you're not the marrying kind,' I suggest, which sounds banal, and in any case this conversation is getting a bit personal for two people who hardly know each other.

‘Oh, I don't know about that,' he says. ‘I won't say I've totally given up on the idea!'

We each have another cup of coffee and chat a little longer. He's easy to talk to. Then I say, ‘I'd better be going.' ‘If you must,' he says, and I say, ‘I really must. It was lovely. Thank you very much.'

‘It was a pleasure,' he says. ‘I'm often in the village on Saturday mornings. I shall look out for you. And you must come and see my paintings.' He doesn't say when. And I, I decide, must make a date to have the Friday night people to a meal at the Vicarage, when I can get around to it. Or should I ask people from church first? And I wonder who from the church I might invite.

I refuse Mark's renewed offer to carry my shopping back to the Vicarage, and we part company outside the bakery.

I haven't been home more than five minutes when the phone rings. It's Mary Parker's daughter, whose name is Josie French.

‘Mum died at five o'clock this morning,' she says. ‘Very peacefully. Dad and I are both grateful for what you did. I know it was a comfort to her.'

‘I'm glad she died peacefully,' I say. ‘We'll pray for her in church tomorrow morning. If you want me to do her funeral service, please tell the undertaker. I'd be pleased to help. But let me know because I'd like to come to see you beforehand. Give me a ring.'

‘I'm sure we'll want that,' she replies. ‘I must just check with my Dad. He's very upset at the moment, can't bring himself round to dealing with things.'

I'm always sorry for men who are left. They seem to cope with it less well than women.

After that my thoughts turn to Becky. I had thought of giving her her favourite meal this evening, to welcome her back. Haute cuisine it is
not
. What she likes best is beefburgers and chips, and not good, wholesome beefburgers made by my own fair hands from the best quality, low fat, mince. Oh no! She likes quarter pounders, picked out of the freezer section of the food shop. ‘Succulent beef, a touch of onion, a hint of seasoning. Tasty and nourishing. Cook from frozen.' A hint of seasoning or not, she will smother the whole plateful in tomato ketchup. This will be followed by ice cream, three flavours. This is what Becky likes, bless her heart, but it is not what she'll be getting today because it is anathema to my father. It will give him indigestion and keep him awake all night. We are having haddock. I will get no Brownie points from Becky for that.

I also think, as I put a few flowers from the garden in her room (which she will probably not even acknowledge) that perhaps I'll redecorate the room, which is neutral and dull, letting Becky choose the colours, perhaps running to new curtains and a brighter duvet cover. Will that cheer her up? Who knows?

Having put away my shopping, I take time out to glance at the local newspaper, the
Brampton Echo
, and it's while I'm skimming through its pages that I come across the headline ‘DOG HELPS CHILDREN OF DIVORCED PARENTS'. I start to read it, expecting some fascinating tale of heroism, of a member of the canine breed jumping into the rushing river and bringing the child back to land, or rescuing them from a burning building, but no – it's a report of a piece of recent research which says that
ownership
of a dog has been proved to be of great help to a child, especially an only child, who is traumatized by the divorce of its parents, a child who is, it says, in a way bereaved. Indeed, it goes on to say, the same thing might equally apply to a child who has lost a parent by death, though in this case the research has not extended so far.

I sit there thinking. This could well be true. It has never occurred to me before, perhaps because my mind doesn't run on dogs – or cats for that matter. It's not that I dislike them, they just haven't entered my thinking; we never had either when I was a child and I don't remember that I ever wanted one. My chief unfulfilled longing was for roller skates. The article says that dogs are better for the purpose than cats because they rely more on their owner, thus giving her more responsibility for them, whereas cats are independent and don't need their owner as much.

I shan't mention this to Becky right away. I have to judge how both she and I might respond to a dog in the house. I'm not kidding myself that, even though it would be Becky's dog, I wouldn't share the responsibility. Not a hope of that! But when it comes to keeping a dog, do I know the first thing about it? I do not! I shall have to find out much more before I breathe a word to Becky.

The library! They'll have books on dogs. How to choose them, feed them, train them. And didn't Sonia say the library was open on Saturdays? So I jump to my feet and rush out of the house. The library is not more than five minutes' walk away.

‘I'm looking for books on dogs,' I tell the librarian, a thin girl with spectacles and a nice smile.

‘Dogs? Any special breed?'

‘No. Just dogs in general. Buying, training, feeding. All that sort of thing.' I'm a long way from thinking of special breeds.

‘There's a whole shelf of books on dogs,' she says, and comes out from behind her counter to take me to it. ‘You can take out two books. Are you a member? I don't think . . .'

‘Not yet, but I could be. I live in the village. I'm the new Vicar.'

‘Oh!' she says. ‘I read in the parish magazine that you were coming. I'm afraid . . .' (Here it comes.) ‘. . . I'm afraid I don't go to church, but I do always read the parish magazine.' She gives me another of her nice smiles and leaves me to it.

There is a wide choice: training, behaviour, choice of breed, feeding, illnesses of, psychology of. I narrow it down to three but I can't decide which two, and, a stroke of luck, the librarian joins me.

‘Can you find what you want?' she enquires.

‘It's just that I can't decide which two out of these three,' I say.

‘Oh,' she says with hardly a pause, ‘I suppose as you're the Vicar I can let you take three – as long as you don't keep them after the date, at least not without renewing them.'

How nice! Special privileges for the clergy! We didn't have that in Clipton.

Back at the Vicarage I make myself a cheese sandwich and settle down with the three books:
The Right Dog for You, Choosing Your Dog
and
A Dog in Your Home.
I shall read
A Dog in Your Home
first. No point in us choosing a dog until I've decided whether it's feasible to own one at all. And then, even as I start to read the first page, I remind myself that Becky starts school on Monday morning. A whole new life to face there, so I'm not sure that this is a good time to think about dogs. So I shall hide the books away and say nothing until we see how school goes before I breathe a word. And in the meantime I might come across a dog owner I can talk to in the parish. There must be dozens of them – and I expect they'll all recommend their own breed, but no matter.

Halfway through chapter two of
A Dog in Your Home
the telephone rings. In the week I've been here I've had surprisingly few calls, for a parish priest that is. I suppose people are waiting until they've met me, seen what I'm like.

‘St Mary's,' I say. ‘Can I help you?'

‘I hope so,' a woman says. ‘We'd like to have our baby done.' Well, that had to come too! I bite back what I'd like to reply and ask, ‘Do you live in the parish?'

‘Yes,' she says. ‘But I'm afraid we don't come to church. Well, not often.'

I'm no longer surprised by the fact that couples who haven't seen the inside of a church since the day they were married in one want to have their babies baptized, though I'm not always sure why they do. Does it go along with inoculations against various childhood infections? Measles, whooping cough and so on? Is it a precaution, superstition, against bad luck? Or is it an opportunity to dress up, adults as well as the infant, and have a bit of a party afterwards? Well, nothing wrong with that. It
is
a cause for a celebration, and if I'm invited to the party I always try to put in an appearance.

‘Why don't you both come along to the Vicarage and see me?' I say. ‘Have you chosen the godparents?' I hope they haven't because I'm going to tell them the ongoing duties and responsibilities of godparents, if only in order to deflect them from selecting the godparents who will give the best birthday presents to the child.

‘Actually we have,' she says. ‘My brother and his wife and my husband's sister and her husband.'

‘Then I'd also like them to come along to the Vicarage with you,' I tell her. ‘Could they do that? It's quite important.'

She thinks they could, most of them if not all. Her brother works shifts. I take a few details and we fix a meeting for next Wednesday evening. Perhaps I shall keep all Wednesday evenings free to see couples wanting to be married and/or have their children baptized, sometimes both things at the same time. It's not all that unusual for the man and woman being married to have their child as a bridesmaid. Better late than never!

‘Right, Mrs Mortimer,' I say. ‘I look forward to meeting you and your husband – and the other members of your family – on Wednesday. Ring me if there's anything else you want to know in the meantime.'

Mr Winterton will have to get his skates on if he wants his grandchild's baptism to be my first at St Mary's. I hope I'm going to have a load of baptisms.

I return to my book. It all seems daunting, so much to do for a dog, and will I have time for it? Let's face it, I don't know how reliable Becky will be and in any case she's too young to take all the responsibility.

I'm so looking forward to seeing her again. Four hours to go before they're due. I do hope she's going to be happy here, in Thurston. And at this point I long, once again, so intensely, for Philip. Apart from the fact that
I
need him and want him, so does Becky. What Becky needs is a father, not a bloody dog! The thought strikes me so hard, so incapable of a solution, that I lose my cool and throw the book across the room. (A library book, and if it's damaged I shall have to explain why, and pay for it.) And then I feel guilty again, this time as if I've abused a so far non-existent dog!

I rescue the book, luckily no worse for its flight across the room and hard landing. I feel like apologizing to the beautiful Labrador on the front cover for my unkind thoughts. What I decide now is that I'll ditch the books for this afternoon and go out into the garden. Anyone who gardens will tell you that it brings healing, and at this moment I need healing. That soppy poem which says one is nearer to God's heart in a garden is just possibly true.

On the other hand, I ask myself an hour later when I'm down on my knees, digging them out with a trowel, what was God thinking of when he made all these weeds which, if I do nothing about them, will take over my entire garden? Answer: possibly giving me the great sense of satisfaction which is mine when I survey the border which runs down one side of the garden weed-free and clean, the soil newly turned, and the large black plastic bag full of the stuff I've pulled out. But why have to go through trouble to reach satisfaction? I know there are answers to this deeply philosophical question somewhere, and if I could work out one or two they'd be the subject for at least a couple of sermons, but right now it's four o'clock and I shall have to go indoors, scrub the soil out from under my fingernails and get ready for Becky and my parents.

They arrive on the dot of five.

‘Lovely to see you, Venus love,' my mother says. My father nods and smiles. Becky says nothing, nor does she smile.

She doesn't immediately retire to her room but she tends to cling to her grandmother. However, she seems to enjoy the meal even though it's not beefburgers, and if she doesn't say much my mother makes up for her since she talks twenty to the dozen all the time.

‘We've had a lovely time, haven't we, Becky? We've done some shopping, and we've been to the cinema, and we've played no end of games of cards. Everything's gone very well!'

And then at eight o'clock Becky takes herself off to bed and not long afterwards my mother says, ‘I think I'll follow suit!'

‘You look tired,' I say. ‘You've been wearing yourself out, trying to please Becky. It's lovely of you.'