Clear Light of Day (10 page)

Jabez went back into his kitchen, checked the firebox in the Rayburn, and threw in a couple of small logs from the basket. He picked up the tin of tobacco from the table and rolled himself a cigarette. He stood leaning against the stove rail, smoking reflectively, very still.

After a short while Ember came into the kitchen. She washed up the mugs they had used and emptied the teapot.

“'Tisn't like you to invite somebody in,” she remarked, drying the crockery and hanging the mugs on their hooks beneath the shelf beside the table.

“I like her, Jabez,” she said.

Their eyes met, and he held her gaze, but he said nothing, had no need to.

“You want to roll 'em thicker,” said Ember. “That thing's gone out.”

Though she and Marcus worshipped at Brockhyrst Priory, on the afternoon of Holy Saturday, Hilda Griffiths took a large armful of daffodils and a generous mound of greenery from the garden to help decorate Wiles Green Chapel for Easter Day.

She returned from this mission to find Marcus relaxing in the sitting room with a cup of tea and the
Saturday Telegraph
.

“Do you know, my dear,” she said conspiratorially, “I've just seen Pam Coleman in the village as I was coming away from the chapel.”

“Really?” Marcus tried unsuccessfully to sound impressed.

“And, do you know, she says she's seen Esme going into Jabez Ferrall's place three times this week! Parks her car right outside on the road!”

“Well, I should think she's wise to do that,” Marcus murmured vaguely. “I expect Jabez's yard has been cluttered up with bits of lawnmower belonging to people like me with the first sign of fair weather.”

Hilda perched herself on the chair opposite him, and leaned toward the screening Telegraph, not to be put off.

“I said to Pam, ‘I expect she's looking for a bike, dear—I know she was interested to find one; Marcus recommended her to try Mr. Ferrall.' But, really! Three times in one week! I think it's a bit indiscreet! In a person of her standing—don't you think she should know better? After all, an odd-job man! And right under our noses in the village! What's more, Mr. Ferrall must be twice Esme's age!”

“Twice her age?” Marcus lowered his paper, disregarding the crumpling of its pages, his eyes vaguely aglow. “Twice her age? Then, my dear, the time must be auspicious for them, if your surmise is correct, and they have embarked on a now deepening friendship. Because only in one year of your respective lifetimes can you be twice someone else's age.”

“Marcus, whatever are you talking about?” Hilda's tone grew petulant, and she flung up one hand in a gesture of frustration. “He's twice her age and he always will be!”

Marcus's gaze rested its lambent gleam upon her.

“Not at all, my dear, you are surely not considering. Supposing Esme to be thirty-five and Jabez to be seventy—though I am not as convinced as you are that the gap is so very great; I should have put Esme more nearly at forty myself. But, taking these ages as correct—for surely Jabez Ferrall is not eighty years old, then he would indeed be twice Esme's age. Yet, in the year Esme was born, when no doubt Jabez would then have been already thirty-five, he was clearly at that time far more than twice her age; as he would have been when she was eight—or sixteen. But, as she grew older, she would have gained on him, until she has this year, if you are right, achieved the triumph of becoming half his age. Therefore, by the time she is seventy (given that is his present age, though as far as I am aware he has not in reality celebrated his seventieth birthday yet), she will be two-thirds his age, for he will by then be only a hundred and five. And, should he live to be 140 (though by the sound of his cough now I think he may not), why by then she, at 105, will be three-quarters his age; time thus perhaps moving more slowly for Jabez Ferrall than it does for Esme—as indeed the thoughtful observer might in any case deduce from the relative tempo of their lifestyles—though no doubt it seems to crack on fast enough to him. Who knows but, if he could only live long enough, she continuing thus to gain on him, one day she might so far advance as to be twice as old as he is!”

Hilda eyed him with uncertainty and suspicion.

“But …” she paused to compute in her mind, “that couldn't happen, my dear,” she said firmly, adding, after a pause, a note of uncertainty creeping in, “could it?”

But Marcus had returned to his paper, declining to take further part in the conversation. “No …” he murmured absently, his voice barely audible, not the faintest hint of encouragement in his tone.

Four

A
s the days lengthened and warmed, and full summer burgeoned in the great green canopy of leaves, Esme delighted in the sparkle of sunlight on the ocean when she was in Southarbour and the country lanes adorned with wild flowers as she drove out to Brockhyrst Priory and Wiles Green.

With some reluctance, because she would rather have bought something from him, Esme accepted Jabez's reiterated advice to choose a modern, lightweight bicycle. He found her one in the “For Sale” columns in the free newspaper and came with her to have a look at it before she purchased it.

At first, as spring blossomed into summer, she restricted herself to modest cycling forays at quiet times of the day—round the corner to the grocer's or along to Portland Street for worship and evening meetings. Then, more adventurous, in the warmth of the long summer days, she cycled out to Brockhyrst Priory for her pastoral visiting; and by the middle of August, the seven miles to Wiles Green seemed entirely manageable given a day with a not-too-crowded schedule. She felt stronger and fitter, moved easier. Every now and then she had hopes of losing weight, but cycling increased her appetite. Somehow it seemed less important; she liked herself better than she had.

Her hair went blonde in the sun, and her skin brown, and life seemed good.

She knew that much of her contentment came from her friendship with Jabez and Ember, whom she visited several times in the week. She would call in whenever she passed through Wiles Green; and on her day off, or if she felt lonely or at a loose end. Without ceremony, they made her welcome. Sitting on the floor of Jabez's workshop, watching his capable hands patient on a task, mending and making, coaxing the best out of worn machinery most people would have thrown away, Esme felt utterly at home. On colder days she would light the fire at the back of the workshop, and the cat would climb onto her lap as she sat on the edge of the ashes. Most days, through the summer, Jabez worked out in the yard, and then she would sit in the sunshine, resting her back against the wall of the cottage. They talked about so many things, and sometimes silence lay companionable between them.

Early on in this friendship, Esme had been puzzled by the relationship between Jabez and Ember.

“Are you and Ember—is Ember your partner?” she asked him on the day in late spring that Jabez checked over the bicycle she had bought as she sat on the edge of his workbench, a mug of tea in her hands.

He looked up, startled. “Ember's eighty-six!” he said. “Not that age needs to be a bar,” he added, returning to his task; “'tis who you are not how old you are that counts. But … God save us …” He straightened up, gazing sightlessly out through the yard door, a look of absolute horror on his face as the thought sunk in: “Imagine being married to Ember!”

“Somebody was, once,” said Esme.

He glanced at her and laughed. “Yes,” he replied, “but not for long.”

He looked at the bike from all angles, having examined, cleaned, and oiled parts of it to his satisfaction, then pronounced it fit for use.

“You got a good buy,” he approved and picked up the almost-cold mug of tea waiting for him beside Esme on the bench.

“Ember's lived in the village forever,” he said, “but she gate-crashed my life after Maeve died. I was in a state, then. In pieces, to be honest. Ember turned up at the cottage one evening, asking if I would fill her Thermos flask with some tea. She had a very small clapboard cottage, dilapidated; falling down it was, but she didn't care. She cooked outside on a fire in the back garden when it was fine and on her fire indoors when it rained. I think she did most of what she had to do outside, but she had water laid on there—one tap if my memory serves me right. She came to my cottage because a variety of things had happened all at once. She wasn't very well, which is unusual for her; she'd had an intruder, an unpleasant young man who threatened her with all manner of things when she saw him off, which she did in no uncertain terms. And the washer had gone on her tap. A Thermos of tea sounded a bit insufficient, and I offered her a bed for the night, because it was dusk and she seemed rather vulnerable—” he grinned, “—I didn't know her very well, then! She came in and had a meal, and I thought it was me doing her a good turn, but I was so grateful for someone to talk to. Everything still hurt in a very raw way then, and it all came pouring out, and she listened. She had no advice and no platitudes, which was a relief. I sorted her tap washer for her in the morning, and she went back to her cottage for a while. My place was in a bit of a mess; I'd let it slip, lost interest in life and myself, really; and after that night Ember came and cooked for me and did some basic housework—very basic, is Ember's housework. She wouldn't have any payment, but she ate with me, and after awhile it seemed sense for her to move in. After all, she's getting on a bit. So she sold up her cottage—or in real terms I suppose you'd say she sold the land her cottage stood on, because no one could have lived in that ruin but Ember. That was about four years ago. We get on all right, but no—” he smiled, “—she certainly isn't my partner. There you are, then; that looks good to ride. What hidden faults it has will no doubt show up later.” He drained the mug and put it back on the bench. “Happy cycling. You'll get good use out of that.”

As Esme gained in confidence and experience in her ministry, establishing her own style as a pastor, her own role in the community, she found that when it drained her, when she was confused or bewildered or discouraged or tired, an evening curled up on the sofa by the fire in Jabez's cottage would restore her and bring her back to peace.

There were times when she needed Jabez and Ember very much. As Gladys Taylor's illness progressed through that summer, Esme spent as much time as she could with her; visiting her in hospital, sitting by her nursing-home bed. She knew it was routine work for a minister, so it took her by surprise to discover how far her soul slipped out of its customary housing to walk with Gladys on the unearthly paths of spirit as Gladys began the long journey out of this world.

Afterward, on the day of the funeral, when the service was over and Gladys's body committed to cremation, Esme shared in the tea and sandwiches that followed at Wiles Green, and then took refuge with Ember in the cottage—Jabez was out fixing someone's hen coop that had been disastrously compromised by a fox. Ember made tea and said little, didn't resort to her usual sardonic banter, listened while Esme told her the story of Gladys's commonplace dying, tears slipping down her face.

“You done well, my love,” was the only comment she made.

Esme realized that something had eased in her being; that the ordinary troubles of her congregation no longer chafed on her; her housebound elderly members' anxious preoccupations and fixations with present illness and past relationships no longer irritated her; she had time for them and affection. She wondered if this was because of Jabez and Ember, who asked nothing, but always had time for her.

Apart from the sickness and sorrow to which she was often witness, and the ongoing difficulties presented by the responsibility for aging and decaying buildings carried less and less effectively by aging and dwindling congregations, one of the greatest challenges Esme met in an average week was that of trying to keep the peace between some of the stronger personalities of her chapel communities. Sometimes the personal effort of tact and diplomacy required by this almost exhausted her. At Portland Street, she had made a huge mistake. Her property steward had stepped down from office after nine years of smoothly fielding the emergencies and routine dilemmas of managing the premises. To replace him, she had been delighted to secure the willing services of a quiet and reticent man who had been a manager for a large electrical supplier before his retirement seven years ago. With horror, having appointed her new steward, she watched as, in the intoxication of new power, he blossomed into something akin to a military dictator, so that in turn the leaders of the playgroup, the Mothers and Toddlers group, the Brownies, the Boys Brigade, the karate club, and the women's meeting called on the phone or in person in states of indignation and distress. The long saga of what Esme afterward thought of as The Blutack War took most of her energies for several weeks.

It was easier when she herself bore the brunt of the oddities of her church members. A sense of humor was usually sufficient, even with Miss Trigg.

The chapel at Wiles Green had no central aisle but two aisles on either side of the main block of pews and flanked by the smaller side blocks. At the conclusion of worship, Esme, having blessed her congregation, would make her way from the pulpit down one aisle, through the door at the back into the Sunday school room, where she would be met, greeted, and thanked by the steward on duty emerging from the door at the foot of the corresponding aisle on the other side of the chapel.

This was often a moment of friendly and kindly fellowship—a brief time to comment on the weather and catch up on the steward's home news before the rest of the congregation finished their personal concluding prayers, greeted each other, and made their way out of the church.

This brief moment of fellowship metamorphosed into an ordeal on the occasions when Miss Trigg's turn came on the stewards' duty roster. Zealous, grim-faced, and overlooking nothing, she would greet Esme with a list of the theological shortcomings of her preaching, as often as not demanding an explanation.

The first time Esme ventured all the way out to Wiles Green on her bicycle for evening worship (Miss Trigg approved this mode of transport, being both arduous and frugal and thus reminding her of her youth) on a dry Sunday after a wet week in early August, her duty steward for the service was Miss Trigg. In the vestry before worship, Esme was as charming as she knew how to be, enquiring solicitously after the condition of Miss Trigg's hiatal hernia, the well-being of her nieces, and the progress of her vegetable garden. Miss Trigg, whose arthritis eased in the summer, in easygoing mood, felt disposed to be pleasant.

After worship, with a kindly smile, she had prepared her compliment.

“When you came to us,” she said, advancing to shake Esme's hand as they emerged through their respective doors, “they said you preached good sermons; they said you preached
wonderful
sermons!” She contemplated Esme from under the brim of her felt hat. “Well, I haven't heard any yet. But I thought tonight's was a little better.”

“Thank you,” said Esme, weakly. Straight after leading an act of worship, a preacher has very little in the way of defenses.

When she had shaken the hands of her congregation, enquired after their various ongoing life situations, and seen them on their way, she found herself alone again with Miss Trigg, who, with an armful of hymnbooks received from the departing worshippers, stood admiring her bicycle. They chatted for a while about the old days before the war, when Miss Trigg as a young woman had been able to reach terrifying speeds freewheeling down Stoddards Hill, and Miss Trigg enquired genially where Esme had acquired her bike. As they wandered across to the bookshelves and Esme picked up her papers to stow in the basket Jabez had fixed on her handlebars, she explained about the advertisement in the newspaper and added that Mr. Ferrall in the village had been kind enough to look the bike over before she bought it.

“Mr. Ferrall? Oh, so you've met
him
, have you?” Miss Trigg replaced the hymnbooks in the shelves with a certain veiled violence. Esme waited for whatever might follow. She had a feeling Miss Trigg had not finished.

“Backslider, Mr. Ferrall is,” continued Miss Trigg with the particular air of vicious relish she kept for matters of disapproval. Esme waited, intrigued. Her imagination was trying unsuccessfully to fit Jabez into the context of this chapel congregation.

“Known him all my life.” Miss Trigg slapped the last hymnbook into line with its fellows. “He was in my Sunday school class when he was a lad.”

Esme's eyebrows rose. Jabez in Miss Trigg's Sunday school? However old must she be?

“A quiet lad,” remembered Miss Trigg, “and quick at his lessons. Quick to learn and to remember. Always had his verse ready, from the week before. 'Course, he had a good start—his mother was chapel. She used to bring him, not just send him, every week: Faithful, was Alice Ferrall. And a true believer. Washed in the blood of the Lamb. From sixteen. But Silas Ferrall, he was a freethinker!” Miss Trigg flashed a glance of absolute knowledge at Esme—“The sins of the fathers!” she explained.

“Alice Ferrall died when Jabez was fourteen.” Miss Trigg narrowed her eyes and leaned in a little toward Esme. “And since that day he's set foot in a church but twice. Once to marry a woman and once to bury her. And that was church, not chapel. Backslider. There's no redemption for such as 'e. One who's known the ways of the Lord. Which he did. One who's put his hand to the plough and looked back. He's not fit now for the kingdom of God. That's the Word of the Lord. Have you your key or am I locking up?”

As she cycled home from this encounter, Esme turned it over in her mind, conscious of a divergence of possible responses open to her. She could choose to confront Miss Trigg head-on, taking issue with her strange theology and flagrant bigotry. She had a suspicion that sooner or later this might be necessary, because Miss Trigg's disapproval of her resulted in a steady low-key campaign of undermining that would bring them in time face-to-face—unless her pastoral input in sickness or personal tragedy in some presently unforeseen event should win her that allegiance of gratitude that can bridge any depth of doctrinal mismatch.