A Blessing In Disguise (19 page)

Back in the Vicarage I'm in the middle of putting the kettle on to make a cup of instant coffee when the doorbell rings. When I answer it, there is Mark Dover standing on the doorstep.

‘Good-morning!' he says. ‘And don't look so surprised to see me. I told you I'd return your scarf.'

‘Thank you,' I say. ‘That's very kind of you, but you needn't have hurried.'

‘Aren't you going to ask me in?' he says. ‘Or do you have someone with you? Am I interrupting?'

‘I'm sorry!' I say. ‘No, I don't. Please come in. I was about to make a cup of coffee. Would you like one?'

‘Yes please!' he says.

‘Is instant OK?' I ask him, ‘or would you like to wait while I make the real stuff?'

‘I can happily drink either,' Mark says, ‘but I'm not in a hurry so I'm more than happy to wait.' So I put the stuff in the machine and switch it on and we sit at the kitchen table, watching it trickle through, and I try to think of something interesting to say but he gets in before me.

‘You're wearing your cassock,' he says. ‘It suits you. I don't think that I've seen one on a woman before.'

‘It's exactly the same as a man's,' I say, a bit tartly. ‘That's because I do exactly the same job. I'm wearing it because I've been out on my job.'

‘Whoops!' he says, making me feel churlish. ‘Of course you do. I hadn't really given it a thought. But I must say, I've never seen a man in a cassock look as good as you do!'

He's smiling at me, and his smile reaches his eyes as well as his wide mouth. He really is a most disarming man, I can't be cross with him. And I have to admit I like compliments from men. Philip was very good at compliments; not flattery, but real compliments. Mark's, of course, might well be flattery. I don't know him well enough, do I?

‘Perfect for the portrait!' he says.

I pour the coffee. We drink it, chatting about something and nothing, and then Mark says, ‘I'm serious about the portrait. I've never painted a Vicar before.'

‘I thought the idea was that you painted the person, not the occupation?' I say, frosty again. ‘And would you want to paint me if I wasn't a priest?'

I have this feeling – oh, I daresay I'm over-sensitive – that he sees me as a sort of curiosity, a specimen he hasn't met with before, which is more than likely. There is only one other such specimen in the diocese, at the far end. It's a place known for not encouraging women priests. ‘Inhospitable' would be a mild description.

‘Actually, I would!' He's emphatic. ‘I would indeed! And we can ditch the idea of the cassock and the dog collar if you don't like it. Or on the other hand you could think of it as making a statement if you wanted to. It
is
becoming, you know. A great combination of severity and femininity. It also has a certain sense of power.'

‘As a matter of fact,' I say, ‘I don't remember agreeing to have my portrait painted and now we're talking about what I'll wear!'

‘But you will, won't you?' he says.

I don't answer, and then he says, ‘Are you very busy? Am I keeping you from something important, a service or something?'

‘This and that. Not a service.'

He looks at his watch, a Rolex.

‘Well, it's around lunchtime. Would you like to come down to the pub and eat? The Ewe Lamb does a passable pub lunch.'

‘But I'm not . . .' I begin, but he interrupts me.

‘You do eat. You admitted that much the other day.'

‘Of course! But . . .'

He has this habit, which could become irritating, of not letting me finish sentences. ‘So would it sully your reputation, a lady Vicar in a cassock to be seen in the Ewe Lamb lunching with a man?'

‘Don't be silly!' I say. ‘And please don't refer to me as a lady Vicar! Would you call Sonia Leyton a lady doctor? Or yourself a male painter, for that matter?'

‘Sorry!' he says, raising both hands in front of him as if fending me off. ‘Only teasing! Shall we go?'

So we do. I have fishcakes and Mark has shepherd's pie, both enormous helpings. We talk about this and that; television, films. Mark has seen all the latest and I haven't seen any of them, though Philip and I used to go to the cinema a lot, when he was well. Then we walk back to the Vicarage and Mark collects his car, which he'd parked outside. I don't ask him in.

I have to admit that when I let myself into the house I stand in front of the hall mirror and study my face with some intensity, pulling my hair this way and that, scraping it back from my forehead – does that make me look more serious – or is it better falling over my face? Wondering how I'd look in a portrait, should I decide to sit for it. There's conceit for you! There's the deadly sin of pride!

And then I walk through to my sitting room, pick up the phone and call my mother to talk to her about Becky.

‘I'm concerned, love – of course I am,' she says, ‘but I don't have a ready answer. I wish I did. It's good she's not quite as hostile to you, but I don't know what to say about the rest. Are you sure you shouldn't be going down to the school? The headmistress is a friend of yours, isn't she? I'm sure she'd be sympathetic.'

‘It's partly because Evelyn's a friend of mine that I hate to bother her. I don't want to seem to be asking for special treatment. So I won't go down that road, at least not for a few more days,' I say.

‘I wish I could come over,' my mother says, ‘but I can't. Your Auntie Elsie isn't at all well and your Dad and me have promised to go to her first thing tomorrow. As you know, she's on her own, poor soul. Dad's quite worried about her.' Auntie Elsie is my father's sister, six years older than he is.

‘It's all right, I don't expect you to come here again so soon,' I tell her. ‘I just wanted to talk to you. I expect it'll sort itself out. It's perhaps only that it's taking Becky a long time to settle down. And give my love to Auntie Elsie!'

Becky is late home from school. This is most unusual. She's usually here well before four and now it's twenty past. Where can she be? I've been outside and looked down the road, but there's no sign of her. I don't want to phone the school just yet. There's probably some perfectly logical explanation and I don't want to embarrass her. And I don't really want to leave the house to look for her in case she hasn't taken her key – not unknown – and comes back to a locked door.

In Clipton she would sometimes go home with a friend, but she'd always phone me as soon as she got there – it was a rule. She'd tell me where she was and we'd arrange how she'd get home. But that can't be the reason now. Would that it were. So far my Becky doesn't have a friend who'd be likely to ask her back to tea. I wish she had.

Could she have been kept in? If so I'd have thought somebody would have phoned to tell me.

I decide I'll give it until half-past four and if she hasn't appeared by then I will definitely ring the school.

And now, it's twenty-eight minutes past and I'm looking out of the window, I see her walking up the road and I rush to the door to let her in.

‘Oh, Becky!' I cry. ‘Where have you been? I've been worried sick! Are you all right?'

‘Of course I'm all right,' she says, pushing me away and making for the stairs.

I feel a sudden rush of fury. In the past half-hour I've gone through in my mind all the dreadful things I've seen on television, read in the papers. Everything, from a road accident to kidnapping, and worse, and here she is, as cool as a cucumber, no explanation, and trying to evade me.

‘Don't you dare go up to your room!' I yell. ‘I want an explanation! I was nearly out of my mind. Anything could have happened to you!'

‘Well it hasn't,' she says sulkily. ‘I just went down the village. Aren't I allowed to go down the village?'

‘Of course you are! You know very well you are! But not when you're due home from school, not without telling me. Can you imagine how I felt?' And then I can't help it, and I burst into tears and she stands there, looking at me.

‘Sorry,' she says.

‘What did you go down to the village for?' I ask.

‘To look at the shops,' Becky said. ‘Of course I couldn't buy anything, could I? I've no pocket money left. Why can't I have more pocket money?'

This is a complete surprise to me. She's never grumbled about her pocket money before because she knows I give her what I can, and it's a reasonable sum. Not a lot, but reasonable, and she also knows she can earn more if she wants to by doing jobs around the house or in the garden. That's always an option, but Becky doesn't like domestic jobs so it's an option she seldom takes up.

‘You can have more,' I remind her. ‘And you know exactly how.'

And then to my great surprise she says, ‘All right then, I'll do some jobs.'

I can hardly believe what I'm hearing.

‘But don't ask me to do anything really horrible!' she says.

‘As a matter of interest,' I say, ‘what do you want more pocket money for?'

‘That's my business!' she says, quite savagely. ‘I don't have to tell you what I spend my money on. It's mine! Is nothing private in this house?'

And then she does run up the stairs to her room, and I let her go.

This weekend is not the best of my life, not by a long way. It starts badly on Friday morning, and quite by accident. When Becky leaves for school I clear the table and stack the dishes in the dishwasher and then I go upstairs to make the beds. At the weekends Becky makes her own bed but on schooldays I do it for her, and give a general tidy up, things like putting her dirty washing in the laundry bin, if she's forgotten to do it. But I don't move or rearrange other things no matter how bizarre they look, and certainly not personal possessions. This morning, however, there are some used tissues on the dressing-table which I clear away, and then I start to dust, which means I pick up her money box in the process. I don't give it a thought as I pick it up, my mind is elsewhere, and then it strikes me that it is very light, it weighs almost nothing.

Now Becky's money box is usually heavy, full of coins. She is not one of the world's big spenders, she's more of a saver, which was why on Thursday evening I hadn't been able to think why she was after more pocket money. I shake the box – it's nothing elaborate, just a painted wooden box with a hinged lid, no lock. I don't open it, I wouldn't do that, but I don't need to. There isn't the faintest rattle of money. It is definitely empty. I'm puzzled because I can't think of anything she's been buying – anything big, I mean, like a birthday present. It is strange. However, I finish what I have to do and leave the bedroom, deciding, as I go to see to my own room, that I must try to get to the bottom of this, even if it means asking Becky a direct question or two.

She comes home from school, still looking pale and worried, not talking, but I wait until we're having tea before I say anything. We're having an early meal because I have the PCC meeting at the Vicarage that evening.

‘So what are we going to do about this pocket money business?' I ask. ‘I'd like to give you more but it's difficult. Two pounds fifty a week is the most I can manage.'

‘Everybody I know gets more than that,' Becky says.

‘How do you know?' I ask.

‘Well they did in Clipton. No-one got less than three pounds and some of them a lot more. I expect this lot get more still!'

‘Maybe their parents earn more,' I suggest, refraining from saying that most of them have two parents, both working. She doesn't need to be reminded of that. ‘You know the clergy aren't highly paid. But you've always managed your pocket money very well; in fact I've been proud of you.'

She doesn't answer. How, I wonder, am I to get around to the question really in my mind: why is the box empty?

‘For now, I might be able to let you have a little in advance,' I say. Then I put the direct question. ‘How much money do you have left?'

She looks straight at me, and I at her, and I know she is reading me like a book. Then she jumps to her feet and screams at me.

‘You've been looking in my money box! You have, haven't you? I can tell! That's terrible! It's foul! How dare you look at my private things? I suppose you've gone through my drawers as well?'

‘I've done no such thing. And I have not opened your money box. I picked it up because I was dusting the dressing-table. I didn't need to open it, I could tell it was empty.' I speak as calmly as I can.

‘You've got no right! You've got no business! What's it got to do with you?'

‘Only that you've run out of money and you want me to help you out. I simply wondered why you'd run out. It's not at all like you.'

She hesitates for a moment, then says: ‘I spent it when I was in Clipton with Grandma and Granddad. It's mine to do what I like with. That's when I spent it. And that's the truth and I hope you're satisfied!'

I'm not satisfied because I know it isn't the truth. No way would my mother let Becky spend her own pocket money. She takes the utmost pleasure in paying for everything. I've remonstrated with her more than once and she always has the same reply. ‘Don't deny me, Venus! After all, she's my only grandchild!' and then I'm the one who feels guilty.

And then I am saved from thinking what to say next because Becky rushes out of the room and thunders up the stairs. My daughter could take a Master's degree in rushing out of rooms.

In contrast to that, the Friday evening PCC meeting seemed like a holiday, though Becky wasn't happy about it.

‘I shall go to bed,' she says. ‘I'm not staying around to talk to people.
Church
people,' she adds scathingly. ‘And if they ask me stupid questions like, “And how do you like Thurston?” I shall tell them!'