Clear Light of Day (22 page)

What on earth was she about to say?
Esme wondered, but for once Ember forbore, continuing serenely with her task. Jabez left the sink, wiping his hands on the drying-up cloth, and said more calmly, with only a trace of desperation, and without looking at her, “I'll make a cup of tea, shall I?”

“That would be very nice,” said Ember, with an elaborate civility designed to betray other matters below the surface.

“What?” asked Esme. “What is it?” She wondered if Jabez had told Ember of their meeting the night before.

“Have you fetched the milk in, Ember?” asked Jabez, ignoring Esme's question.

“Still on the front step, I imagine,” Ember replied, turning her gaze on him in bland innocence. “You better go and fetch it.”

“Ember, please,” he entreated again, and hesitated a moment before going through the house to open the front door.

Ember moved like lightning, quicker than any woman of eighty-six should be able to move, to push the kitchen door closed with her foot.

Lower than Esme had imagined it was possible for a person to speak and still make herself audible, Ember said as she passed Esme in returning to the table, “He been telling me how much he loves you. I never would have guessed he had that much passion about him. You better watch out.”

And she was back folding clothes in silence when Jabez pushed through the door with a pint of milk in his hand, looking from one to the other of them in helpless suspicion.

These words dispelled all Esme's anxiety; she had not turned him away irretrievably then. She felt a wave of joy that it was as she had hoped, and not admitted that she hoped. An irrepressible desire to giggle began to bubble up inside her.

“You seem a bit low on firewood,” she said, her words slightly unsteady as she tried to still the quaver of laughter that wanted to escape. “Shall I get some more in from outside?”

“That'd be kind,” said Jabez doggedly, setting the milk down on the table. Where he stood obscured the way past the stove, and Esme had to come by him for the wood basket.

“Excuse me, then,” she said sweetly, gently putting her hands on his waist as she brushed by. It was the first time she had ever touched him, except the moment long ago that her fingers had touched his on the bicycle handlebars and the brief inevitable meeting of their hands as he gave her the flowers last night. He turned and looked at her, searching, as she came back past him with the basket. She said nothing, but Ember's words had started something effervescing in her soul like sparkles of sunlight, and she couldn't help the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

As she was two steps into the yard, she heard him say in quiet but vehement reproach, appalled, “Ember, how
could
you?”

When Esme returned to the kitchen, Jabez would not look at her. He made her a mug of tea, and set it before her without speaking as she sat down at his table. Ember had taken the pile of clean linen to put away, and Esme searched for a way into his self-conscious silence.

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said gently, after awhile. “You shouldn't have picked the last of your roses for me.”

He shrugged, embarrassed. “You're welcome. I—well, you're welcome.” She sat, watching him. “Jabez, for goodness sake, look at me!” So he did, but only for a moment. “Leave it,” he said, shaking his head. “Leave it, let it sort itself out. Let's just see how we go.”

She sighed. “Okay. But—are we all right? Are you all right? I mean—is it all right between us?”

He stretched across the table and with his fingertips lightly stroked her hand.

“It's all right,” he said, “but leave it for now. Esme, I got work to do. I'm expected in Brockhyrst Priory at half-past nine.”

She drank her tea, and as she left the cottage, he came outside with her to collect the necessary tools for his morning's work from the shed.

He smiled at her, so hopelessly shy he made her feel shy too.

This is crazy,
she told herself.
We're like teenagers! And whenever am I going to tell him about my job?

The days that followed plunged Esme into an unremitting round of pre-Christmas social gatherings and liturgies. She drove out to Wiles Green and called at the cottage after the Portland Street carol service on the second Sunday of Advent, but apart from that there seemed no time; even the Sunday evenings after worship had turned into special occasions celebrated with obligatory mince pies. Esme hated mince pies, but it would have been impolitic to confess it.

The busyness of the season drove from her mind all concerns about the impending move, apart from the occasional pang of wistfulness as she reflected that if things developed smoothly, this would be her last Christmas with her congregations here.

Neither could she give much time to worrying about her friendship with Jabez. With characteristic self-possession he had contained his mortification at having his confidences of love betrayed, and when she called after church in mid-Advent, he made her welcome, cooking her supper and hearing with quiet amusement her exasperation at all the excesses smothering the simple beauty of Christmas. Esme asked him if, in time to decorate Portland Street chapel for the junior school end-of-term carol service on Tuesday, she might have some of the ivy and the bright-berried holly that grew in his hedge at the top of the orchard. Jabez readily agreed, offering to cut her some and bring it over on Monday afternoon.

“If I don't find you home, I'll leave it somewhere in the yard,” he said. “Unless—” he hesitated. “Would you rather I take it straight to the chapel?”

Esme's heart went out to him. She sensed that Jabez would rather do almost anything than involve himself with a party of church members arranging flowers. “My place will do fine,” she said. “It's really kind of you to bring it over for me.”

Ember had chuckled at the relief on his face.

About ten days before Christmas, Esme became conscious of how tired she felt. She looked at her packed diary, which had long overrun any hope of a day off before Boxing Day, turning the pages desperately in search of something she could cancel without causing offense. She found nothing.

Christmas day fell on a Saturday that year, and the preceding weekend held a Christmas Fayre at Portland Street on the Saturday morning (Esme had been written down to open it with a prayer and then help run the white elephant stall); a church concert at Brockhyrst Priory on the Saturday evening (Esme had been asked to say a blessing at the end); and on the Sunday the junior church nativity presentation at Portland Street in the morning, followed by two carol services one after another in the evening at Wiles Green and Brockhyrst Priory.

As she stood in the doorway of Brockhyrst Priory Methodist Chapel in the bitter cold, shaking the hands of visitors leaving the Saturday-evening concert, Esme's head ached and her throat felt sore.

“Nice for you to have an evening off!” beamed the husband of one of the choir members, and Esme looked at him in amazed disbelief, unable for a moment to frame a reply.

“Yes,” she said lamely then, seeing some response was required. She had no need to summon a smile. Her Christmas smile had become a permanent fixture. Her face ached when she let the smiling mask drop as she got into her car to go home.

On the Monday morning, when the ladies from Portland Street came for the annual “Parsonage Pies” event, erecting folding tables laden with bric-a-brac for sale in her front room, Esme was beginning to feel shivery and distant. Grateful that welcoming them into her kitchen with all the chapel crockery, coffee, and boxes of biscuits seemed to be all that was required of her, she subsided onto one of the chairs that she had ranged round the walls of her dining room, the table being pushed against the wall below the hatch to serve coffee.

Normally she felt encouraged and cheered by the jollity and good fellowship of these gatherings. The evident goodwill and friendliness of her church members was heartening to see, but through that morning, as people came and went in faithful support of the event, her head swam and her eyeballs hurt her. She felt faint and dizzy and slightly nauseous, but most of all, despite the air desiccated by the central heating, she felt so cold.

The ladies washed up, counted the takings from the bric-a-brac stall, asked Esme if she would mind if they left all the unsold bits and pieces with her at the parsonage, and made their cheerful departure at about one o'clock.

I must go to bed,
Esme thought as she said thank you and smiled and waved in farewell to the last one.
I've got to go to bed. I can't be ill now, there's the junior school end-of-term concert tomorrow and all the Christmas services coming up. I can't be ill. I expect I'll be better if I just have a lie-down.

Shivering uncontrollably, her teeth chattering, she began to climb the stairs. She wanted her hot-water bottle, but it seemed such a long way to go to fetch it. She thought she ought to lock the back door, which meant returning to the kitchen anyway, so she persevered in her journey to collect the hot-water bottle. She felt as though she would never reach her bedroom, and when she reached the top of the stairs, she crawled along the landing on her hands and knees. When she got to her bed, she collapsed onto it and lay there for a while, summoning the strength to make her way back down. Eventually, with an effort, she sat up on the bed, pulled off her clothes, and dropped them on the floor. Even the touch of her nightdress seemed to hurt her skin as she put it on, but she felt pathetically grateful for the snuggly softness of her dressing gown over it, a warm pink chosen to be comforting. She sat for a while, and then made herself begin the trip back to the kitchen; but halfway down the flight of stairs she crumpled and sank down, shaking, hunched into a heap of feverish misery.
Oh, God, I feel so ill,
she muttered.
Oh, help
!

She sat there for a few minutes, shivering violently. She felt as though she were spinning in the cold loneliness of black space, weak and drained and empty.
Oh, God, I need somebody. I feel so ill
. She gave up all hope of moving, and just sat in a state of collapse.

She vaguely heard a knock at the back door without taking in what it was. The knock was repeated, and the door opened. She heard Jabez's voice calling, “Esme?” and it felt like the most welcome sound in the world.

“Hello!” she called back, embarrassed at the feeble croak of her voice.
For heaven's sake!
she thought
. Half an hour ago I was on my feet saying good-bye to people, I can't be that bad.
She lifted her head and leaned it against the banisters, listening to the sound of him kicking his boots off just inside the kitchen door before he came through from the kitchen into the hall toward the sound of her voice.

He looked up and saw her. “Esme!”—and the next moment she was enfolded in his arms.

“I don't feel very well,” she murmured, turning toward him, shivering, clinging to him pathetically for warmth and restoration.

“Come on, sweetheart, you shouldn't be here. Let me put you to bed.”

Esme clutched at his sweater, longing for the friendly, woolly feeling of it, and nuzzled her face against him, smelling him; tobacco and machine oil and the warm, human smell of him.

He held her for a moment, and she felt him kiss her hair, felt herself enfolded in absolute tenderness.

“You're not well, my love, look at the state of you,” he said. “Let me put you to bed. What are you doing sitting here?”

“I was going to fill my hot-water bottle,” Esme said, reaching to pull it out from where it had wedged between her and the banisters. He took it from her and laid it down on the stairs.

“I'll do that,” he said, “and get you a hot drink if you'd like one. Come on now.”

He came upstairs with her, and she showed him which was her bedroom. He straightened the bedclothes and turned back the quilt, and Esme curled up on the bed, her dressing gown wrapped tightly around her, shivering convulsively, her teeth chattering.

He tucked the quilt round her, and she stayed there curled in a tight ball while he went down to the kitchen and boiled the kettle. He was back quickly with the hot-water bottle and a steaming cup of medicated lemon drink for colds and flu that he had found at the back of the cupboard where Esme kept her tea and coffee.