‘Oh, it died down eventually. And then you were such a beautiful child, and so good.’
‘Jesus.’ Every single person in that church probably knew one of my deepest secrets, and in a few months’ time, they’d know another one. All I had to do was reveal that I wrote dirty books for a living, and my humiliation would be complete. That would drive Quentin and Colin into second place for gossip, for sure.
‘Everyone knew we wanted another child anyway. We’d had June so easily that we thought another one would come along soon, but it didn’t. And everyone loved your father so much, they rallied round.’ Sheila linked her arm with mine. ‘Do you remember that Christmas Eve when it snowed and Stanley carried you on his shoulders to and from church? And you insisted he walk back in his own footprints so the snow wouldn’t get more disturbed?’
I remembered. It had snowed while we’d been in church and his footprints were rounded and partly filled in with snow. I’d felt tall and invulnerable, Empress of the Winter.
‘I really miss him,’ I said. The damp settled deeper into my bones. ‘I wish he were my real father.’
‘So did he.’
She linked her arm in mine. ‘What did you think about Richard?’
‘Richard who?’
‘The new vicar,’ she said, elbowing me. ‘Remember you said hello to him after the service?’
I cast my mind back. ‘He seems nice. Good sermon,’ I guessed.
‘Don’t you think he looks just like Michael Parkinson?’
‘Sheila, he’s bald.’
‘Yes, but Michael Parkinson without the hair.’
I tried to picture Michael Parkinson in white robes with the light of the altar candles gleaming off his scalp, and couldn’t. ‘Hmm.’
When we got in we had our usual post-church cup of cocoa and then Sheila made me go and shake the presents under the tree, as I’d done ever since I was a little girl. As I’d got older, the presents were easier to guess. This year I was getting a CD, probably something like Il Divo, who Sheila thought were the next step down from gods, something squishy which was bound to be a hand-knitted jumper, and something lumpy and hard which was most likely a hand-thrown fruit bowl. I pretended to be stumped, then kissed a delighted Sheila on the cheek and went upstairs.
My mobile was on my bedside table. I picked it up and considered ringing Hugh to wish him a merry Christmas and tell him that I’d unknowingly spent my entire childhood as the object of the town’s gossip, but I remembered that Hugh usually turned his phone off at Christmas so that the parent he wasn’t spending Christmas with wouldn’t ring him at a time calculated to upset the parent he was spending Christmas with. He was with his father this year, and he’d call his mother from the callbox on the corner after lunch tomorrow, and then he’d call me.
My room was pretty much the same as it had been when I’d left for the University of Reading at the age of eighteen, though Sheila had taken down the moody music posters. Sometimes when I visited I felt as if nothing had ever changed and I was still that teenager wondering who the hell she was.
I put my hand on my bump, wishing that the baby would move and I would feel less lonely. He or she stayed put. Or maybe the baby was doing acrobatics and I couldn’t feel anything yet because he or she was too small.
How had June felt about the whole town talking about her? I knew she wouldn’t have felt the humiliation and shame that crawled through me. Was she defiant? Pleased with herself?
I got up off my bed to walk down the hall. June’s room was at the end, and it had long been converted into Sheila’s sewing and craft room; she slept on the pull-out couch when she visited. I opened the closet, packed with June’s things that Sheila had never had the opportunity or the bravery to throw away: tiny discarded cardigans, a fake fur coat, shoe boxes stuffed with old post and photographs.
There were plenty of pictures of June with boys, and later men. I settled on the floor, the shoe boxes spread before me, and scrutinised each of the photos. There was one of June kissing a gelled-haired boy in a photo booth, which looked as if it could be from the right year, but I couldn’t see his face. The boys in her whole-school photograph from 1980 were blurred pale and brown circles, some smiling, some looking away from the camera. I looked at every one of them in turn, touching their faces with my finger, and wasn’t hit by any bolts of recognition.
A pellet of much-folded lined paper lay at the bottom of one box, shaped like those notes everyone had folded at school for maximum discretion.
Peter
, it said on the outside, in scratchy handwriting that was only slightly more rounded than the way June wrote now.
I unfolded it:
Its OK my mum and dad say their going to keep it, do you want to meet at station tomorrow and hide in loo of London train? Jxxx
I turned the misspelt note over in my hands. Was I the ‘it’? Was Peter my father? Why did June still have the note?
I stared at the note for a long time, till my bottom was sore from sitting on the floor, and then I went to my childhood bed.
I didn’t suspect anything was wrong till Sheila insisted on going to church on Christmas morning.
‘It’ll be fun,’ she trilled as I blearily pulled on my coat. My sleep had been dogged by faceless boys ducking into trains, and village halls full of whispers. To top it off, I’d woken at four o’clock from the dream about going to school to sit an exam and discovering I was naked. Since then I’d been lying in bed, watching the clock tick the minutes by, till Sheila had bustled in with a cup of tea and a crumpet and told me we were going to the morning service.
Outside, Upper Pepperton was soggy with rain. It dripped off the wreaths on doors and off the Christmas tree on the common.
We never went to church on Christmas Day. We were a Christmas Eve sort of family. Christmas Day was for lounging in pyjamas and maybe making a fire and gradually opening presents, not for huddling on a hard bench at the mercy of every cold draught in England.
‘Isn’t this fun?’ Sheila whispered to me again when we entered the church and slid into our pew, and for a moment I wished I was wherever June was, even if it meant I had to live in screaming chaos.
‘It really is,’ I said, and hunkered down to read the order of service.
We were halfway through ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ when I spotted it. Sheila’s eyes were not on the hymn sheet. Instead she was gazing straight ahead and upwards with a strange light in her eyes.
Sheila was a churchgoer and, by most people’s standards, a good Christian, but she’d never been the shiny-eyed, behold-the-altar-in-adoration type, even when it was a holiday and there were a lot of flowers around. I followed her line of vision and saw nothing but the vicar, singing along, putting enough spirit into it that the large poinsettia arrangement beside him was wobbling slightly.
And then the carol finished and the vicar sat down to let Nancy Morley do a reading. She appeared quite stoic despite her son Quentin coming out of the closet. But Sheila didn’t look at Nancy, though the rest of the congregation were raptly observing her for any signs of distress. No, Sheila’s gaze stayed right where it was, and her eyes kept on shining, and I understood what was going on.
Sheila fancied the vicar.
I watched her all through the service and she went on fancying him. At the end she hustled me over to where he stood and introduced me. Or rather, reintroduced me; she’d introduced me last night but I hadn’t been paying any attention then.
I was paying attention now.
He was tall, but not as tall as Stanley had been, and he had a slightly timid smile. And of course he was bald except for a fringe of brownish hair around the sides. He looked at Sheila warmly but who knew if that meant anything. After all, he was a vicar and it was in the job description to be nice to parishioners, wasn’t it?
‘I’m sorry we didn’t have a chance to speak last night,’ he said to me.
Since I’d been the one who’d sloped outside as soon as possible, I could only nod. Why did he want to speak with me? Was it out of a normal vicarly interest in the offspring of his flock or was it because he was trying to worm his way into Sheila’s affections?
‘I’ve heard you work in a pub in Reading,’ he continued. ‘That must be enjoyable. You must meet such interesting people.’
I considered telling him about picking up a strange man in the pub and getting pregnant by him.
I considered telling him about my real job, writing salacious stories that featured every available kind of adultery.
Instead I nodded again.
‘I have a friend who has a parish near Reading, perhaps you know him, Timothy White in Wargrave?’
I didn’t have the stamina to be rude enough not to respond to a third conversation attempt, so I said, ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t.’
There was a pause. I glanced over at Sheila. She was glowing steadily. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it last night.
‘I’m looking forward to spending Boxing Day with you,’ Richard the vicar said, and this time I caught a definite glance exchanged between him and the woman who had brought me up. A complicit glance. A glance that said ‘You and I have made plans’.
Then Sheila glanced at me, and this one was a worried glance, and I knew why. We never had guests on Boxing Day. It had always been a day for family only, eating turkey sandwiches made to Stanley’s exacting recipe, watching films on television and maybe finishing off that bottle of port.
I knew why she’d invited him. She wanted the two of us to get to know each other, for us to get on like a house on fire, so that I would blithely accept it when he and Sheila embarked upon whatever kind of red-hot affair people their age managed to have.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I won’t be around for Boxing Day. I have to get back to Reading for work.’
Which was true. I had a book to rewrite, after all. Time was a-wasting, and I’d rather spend it with a blank page than watching Richard and Sheila make googly eyes at each other.
‘Oh, I am sorry,’ said Richard, and I said my goodbyes and left them to it, hanging out in my usual spot outside to wait for Sheila.
I was kicking at the moss at the base of the lych gate when she came out, looking flushed.
‘I didn’t know you had to go back to Reading tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Didn’t I tell you? It’s annoying because there aren’t many trains, but it can’t be helped.’ I started walking towards home.
‘Richard is a wonderful man,’ Sheila said, hurrying to catch up.
‘I’m sure he is. A man of God and everything.’
‘He’s really made a difference in this parish. He’s full of exciting ideas.’
I hunched my shoulders against the drizzle. Didn’t she realise she was supposed to be boring and always stay the same?
‘And he’s so interesting. I’ve never met a man so intelligent.’
And last night we’d walked along this same road talking about Stanley.
‘It’s his intelligence you’re interested in, is it?’ I asked.
I felt rather than saw Sheila bristling. ‘Eleanor, I am fifty-eight years old and my life is far from over. I understand how you feel, but your father has been dead for nearly ten years, and—’
‘It’s okay,’ I snapped. ‘He wasn’t my father.’
I lengthened my steps to leave Sheila behind.
How powerful it felt to hurl a hurtful line. How freeing just to walk away. What an adventure, not to care, not to imagine the consequences of your actions.
But I couldn’t be like June, even if I tried. I slowed, waited for Sheila to catch up, and hugged her.
‘Let’s have a merry Christmas,’ I said.
22
I wasn’t going to go to Hugh’s annual New Year’s Eve fancy dress party, but he bullied me about it from Boxing Day onwards till I gave in.
I dressed as a nun, of course, flowing robes being desirable objects at this point. I planned to spend most of the evening in Hugh’s kitchen scoffing the cakes and trying to avoid talking about being pregnant or watching people get drunk. Hugh, however, forced me to dance in his front room to music that became inexorably more awful as the night went on. At midnight we spilled out into the street, as usual, to watch fireworks pop up all over the sky.