A Passionate Man (35 page)

‘The hell you are,' Diana said. ‘The village is buzzing with rumours and here you all are calmly planning to go to Scotland—'

Imogen began to scramble out of the basket.

‘Mummy'th come—'

Liza got out of the car. She saw Diana and waved, and then stooped back inside for an armful of brochures and a green folder.

‘Look,' Diana said, running down to her. ‘Look. I may not be exactly family, but I am a mate. Right? What is going on?'

‘I was going to tell you,' Liza said. ‘Really. When everything was settled—'

‘What everything?'

‘This house, where we'd go, Archie—'

‘Archie?'

Liza looked at her with great directness.

‘He's resigned.'

Diana stared.

‘Resigned? From the practice? Whatever for?'

‘We need a new start,' Liza said firmly.

Diana leaned forward.

‘Look. Are you OK? You and him?'

Liza began to walk towards the house.

‘Oh yes.'

‘Liza—'

‘Diana,' Liza said. ‘I don't want talk. I don't want speculation. I don't want to be discussed as if we were a problem family.'

‘You don't want to face facts,' Diana said.

Liza stopped walking.

‘Oh, but I have.'

Her face was suddenly suffused with something Diana could not fathom.

‘And now I'm going on. We're going on.'

‘But are you all right?'

Liza nodded.

‘We are going to live in Scotland. We're selling everything.'

‘But Glasgow—'

Liza looked down.

‘Yes.'

Diana whispered, ‘What happened?'

‘Everything.'

‘Oh, Liza. Poor Liza. Poor Archie. What will Archie do?'

‘I don't know. We don't know.'

‘He'll still be a doctor, of course—'

‘I don't know.' She looked straight at Diana. ‘It doesn't matter. It doesn't seem to matter.'

‘Because of money?'

‘Only partly. Something else – something more – about living for living. I've got to learn—' She paused and then she said, ‘It was me who said Scotland.'

‘Good for you.'

‘And I went to see the developer about selling this. I've given my notice in, at Bradley Hall.'

Diana leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

‘Go for it,' Diana said. ‘Just go for it. And this time, get it.'

Archie stood on the pale polished stone floor, a step above William Rufus. He had his back to the altar and before him the great vault of the nave rushed away towards the west window. At his feet, William Rufus lay modestly under his greenish pitch of lead, gleaming from the touch of millions of interested, speculating hands. Archie stood with his own hands behind his back and looked at the spires of wood and the arches of stone and remembered that other day when he had come in to William Rufus, bringing with him the shackles of his longing and his confusion.

They were still with him, but they no longer manacled him. He could still feel with real pain, feel all those past sensations; he could roll before his spiritual and sensual memories the death of his father, Marina's lovemaking, and the dying of Granny Mossop which now seemed to him no less than some kind of gift. He looked down at William Rufus. Nine hundred years dead and still remembered, if more for the manner of his dying than his living, as proof, if proof were needed, that the human heart possesses a muscle as elastic as it is enduring, as unpredictable in its behaviour as it is reliable in its need for reassurance.

‘Pompous ass,' Archie said to himself.

He stepped down between the choir stalls and laid his hand briefly, with affection, on the tomb. Then he went quickly down the centre aisle and through the west door out into the sunlight of the Close. As he went up the steps, a stocky cleric came down them, an affable-looking man reading a letter. He glanced up and caught Archie's eyes. He looked vaguely familiar. Archie stopped walking.

‘Hello!' the clergyman said heartily.

He held out his hand. Archie took it.

‘Good to see you!'

‘And you.'

‘Haven't seen you for so long. How is everything?'

‘Fine now,' Archie said. ‘I think.'

‘Good! Good!' He peered at Archie. ‘And how's that boy of yours?'

‘I think he'll be fine now, too—'

‘Splendid bowler. Always thought that.'

‘Sorry?' Archie said.

‘Your boy. Splendid bowler.'

‘He's only had one term of cricket—'

‘One term?'

‘He's nine,' Archie said. ‘I think you've got the wrong chap—'

‘Have I? Surely not. You're the musician, aren't you, the cellist, boy at the College, College boy—'

‘I'm a doctor,' Archie said. ‘I was a GP out in the Strattons.'

The clergyman slapped his forehead.

‘Good Lord. Are you? Heavens! Frightfully sorry—'

They both began to laugh, backing away from one another.

‘Yes. Never had a boy here, though of course one always hopes—'

‘Of course, my word, yes, how stupid of me, how stupid—'

‘Not at all, doesn't matter, really—'

Archie reached the top of the steps.

‘Quite funny, really—'

‘Absolutely!' the clergyman called. ‘Absolutely! I just mixed you up with everybody else. Absurd!'

He vanished into the cathedral. Archie began to laugh. Mixed up. Mixed up with everybody else! The irony was perfect, perfect in every aspect.

He flung his arms up in appreciation towards the heavens and then, regarded with some apprehension by an elderly woman in a mushroom felt beret with a shopping basket on wheels, began to run, still laughing, over the shabby grass, back towards his car.