Freeing Grace (16 page)

‘I was going to turn it on.’ She sounded defensive. ‘Just looking at the sky.’

‘Sorry. Sleep well?’

A blindingly cheerful smile. ‘Fine! Fine. How about you?’

He went over to her and found her hand. It felt dead. The clawing in his stomach became more insistent, a gripping of strong, pitiless fingers.

‘Leila. What were you doing in here?’

‘Looking for some music. Maggie wants to borrow it.’

‘But what were you thinking about?’

She shook her head in brisk denial, her mouth contorted. He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Ouch! Don’t know your own strength, Popeye.’ She pushed him gently away. There was a determined set to her jaw. ‘Get along with you. It’s after seven o’clock. You’ve got a meeting at the primary school at eight, according to the calendar. And I’m going to iron a shirt.’ She headed back to the kitchen, and he trailed after her.

‘Big day today,’ he said, with unconvincing jollity. ‘Showdown. Marjorie Patterson’s coming round to discuss the treasurer’s report. She’s convinced that there’s been some skulduggery.’

‘Goodness.’ Leila unfolded the ironing board. ‘That woman’s a slavering bloodhound.’

‘Reminds me of my Aunt Phyllis.’

Leila laid her shirt on the board: Kirkaldie’s uniform, in a harsh blue. ‘How
do
you take it seriously? For years, you handled mult imillion-pound contracts. Nowadays your hair’s supposed to stand on end if there’s a tenner missing from the vestry fund . . . D’you realise it’s now ten past?’

David glanced at the clock, trudged upstairs, and turned on the shower.

Ironic, really, he thought bitterly, as he stepped into the steamy water. Physician, heal thyself. He was supposed to be the rescuer, the unshakeable listener, open all hours and never too busy for people’s problems. He soaked up others’ desperation like blotting paper. But he had nowhere to put his own.

He closed his eyes, letting warm streams run over his face. It was time to move on. It was time to face the inevitable. Today.

The confirmation class huddled around a dusty electric heater. At lunchtime, David had dragged the clumsy, sickly-green thing out of a cupboard and switched it on in an attempt to bring the chilled air temperature in the vestry up to a civilised level. Could have been donated to a wartime museum, that heater. It smelled of burning hair and had begun to make an unhealthy buzzing sound.

The three teenagers came straight from school, lumpy bags slung across their backs, uniforms rebelliously untucked. They made Ovaltine and clutched the chipped mugs to their chests as David read them the story of Samuel in the temple.

‘Blimey.’ Vanessa, the organist’s daughter, sported black eyeliner, laddered tights and lots of thigh below a well-worn school tunic. Her Brummie accent deepened considerably when she came to these classes, and her vocabulary seemed to shrink. David suspected it was all in honour of Kevin, the arsonist-choirboy-goalie, who slumped ungracefully in his chair, as far away from the predatory girl as possible. At fifteen, Kevin had begun to grow so alarmingly fast that he seemed unable to catch up with himself.

David rested the Bible on his lap. ‘Er, blimey, Vanessa?’

She crossed her eyes. ‘Well, poor little sod. What was his mum
on
?

She prays like mad for a baby, fuss fuss fuss, then when she finally gets one, what does she do? Dumps him at the temple. What a cow.’

‘Well, I know what you mean,’ mused David, scratching his nose thoughtfully. ‘But Hannah had promised to give him to God, hadn’t she?’

‘Huh. That wasn’t
his
fault.’

David persisted. ‘And remember that he became a great prophet and kingmaker.’

Vanessa shrugged contemptuously. ‘Lucky he didn’t become a great smackhead, abandoned by his mum like that.’

‘It does seem hard, I agree. You could call it an early form of adoption.’

The girl pulled her scarf across her mouth, raising sceptical eyebrows. ‘You could call it a lot of things, but they wouldn’t be very polite.’

‘This all happened about three thousand years ago, Vanessa. Values were very different then.’

‘Well, I can’t see the point in having a kid if you’re just going to hand it over to some old priest. No offence, Mr E.’

Smiling, David was about to read the next passage when Kevin cleared his throat.

‘My mum shoved off when I was a kid.’ He shifted his feet. ‘Hadn’t promised me to the temple, though. She just couldn’t stand my dad.’

Vanessa stared, horrified. Her fringe fell across her eyes. ‘Oh. My.
God
!’

‘It’s all right, keep your hair on.’ Kevin folded his arms. ‘Wish I’d never mentioned it now.’

‘So where’s your mum gone?’ This was skinny, straw-coloured Kimberley, whose sister worked in the church office.

Kevin favoured her with a half-hearted grin. ‘Dudley. Silly slag might have got a bit further than Dudley, if she was making a break for it.’

Both girls giggled, clearly relieved at the lightening in mood. David glanced down at the scribbled notes that lay in his Bible. He was wondering how to bring the discussion back to the theme he’d planned for the class: Listening to God
.

Vanessa, it seemed, was in no mood for theological discussion. Scraping the sugar out of the bottom of her mug with a biro, she murmured casually, ‘You planning on having kids, Mr Edmunds?’

Startled, he glanced up from his notes. ‘Um . . . yes. We’d like to.’

Vanessa stuck the sugary biro into her mouth, and her Mary Quant eyes wavered towards Kimberley, as if for encouragement, and back to David.

‘We heard you might be going to adopt a baby.’

He blinked. ‘Yes. Well, it’s no secret. We would very much like to adopt a child.’

Vanessa sat back in her chair. ‘Have you prayed for one?’

David hesitated for a moment and then closed his Bible. ‘That’s a good question, Vanessa. You see, I don’t think prayer is supposed to be treated as a sort of telephone ordering service.’

‘Like dialling up a pizza?’

‘Exactly. For me, anyway, prayer isn’t about that. The Lord knows better than us what it is we need, so we don’t need to go nagging him about it. We gather comfort and strength just by standing quietly in his presence. Sometimes, if we persist, we might catch a glimpse of that brilliance and power. But more often he speaks to us very quietly. So we must be sure to listen very, very carefully. As did Samuel, in the temple.’

His pupil ignored this blatant attempt to bring the lesson back on track. ‘So can’t we ask for stuff?’

‘Er . . . yes, of course, sometimes. We can bring our troubles to him. And we should certainly pray for others.
Ask, and you shall receive
. But the answer doesn’t always come in the way we expect.’

Vanessa nodded uncertainly.

‘What about fostering?’ Kimberley had lowered her mug to the floor and was leaning forward, regarding him with new interest. ‘My aunty fosters kids. She’s got three at the moment. You get paid and everything.’

‘Fostering . . . well, we’re far more selfish than your aunt, Kimberley. We want a child we can keep. I think it would be terribly hard to give them back, don’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ The girl looked wise, nail-bitten hands stretched above the heater’s crazed enamel. ‘Sometimes it is. Aunty Trish says one little boy just about broke her heart.’

‘Your Aunty Trish must be quite a woman.’

He decided to send them home early. After a day at school, he could hardly ask for a full hour’s concentration. He watched the three as they banged out through the west doors. Vanessa had taken Kimberley’s arm and was holding her other hand out to Kevin, teasing and laughing, desperate to catch his attention. David smiled and shook his head, and then turned into the tiny Lady chapel on the south side of the nave.

This corner of the church felt deathly cold after the relative cheer of the vestry. Stray shafts of light penetrated the dusty recesses of the little chapel, creeping through the stained-glass window, and David’s breath billowed in clouds. A jar of gold chrysanthemums stood on the altar, tingeing the air with the last whisper of autumn.

He perched on the edge of the front pew. As each minute passed, the stillness gathered around him like a mist. It was rush hour outside, but the chaos could not infiltrate his silence. He ceased to be aware of the smell of damp stone, the peeling whitewash on the walls, or the plaques recording the names of long-dead families. He had entered the quiet room of his mind, and shut the door.

He was still there when Angus arrived. The rector gave no sign whatsoever of having noticed the tall figure of his curate sitting alone in the Lady chapel. He did not pause on his way up the nave. Instead, he headed into the vestry where he could be heard pottering about. David was on his feet and stretching the kinks out of his spine when Angus emerged again, turning off lights.

‘I like the Lady chapel too,’ remarked the rector, strolling up. ‘Comfier kneelers.’

‘Sorry.’ David blew on his bloodless fingers, suddenly aware that they were numb. ‘I forgot the time. Did you think I was a burglar?’

Angus held up a large bunch of keys. ‘Not at all. I know you’ve had the confirmation class. I just nipped over to lock up, that’s all.’

David forced his hands into his trouser pockets. He was in no hurry to move on. ‘I was seeking a little guidance, maybe a little courage—for Leila and me. I think we’ve come to a crossroads, and I’m afraid it’s a dangerous one.’

Angus stood very still, as though he had all the time in the world. ‘How’s that?’

‘I’m quite worried about Leila . . . she’s not herself.’

‘Elizabeth’s a little concerned too, actually,’ admitted Angus.

David’s gaze sharpened. ‘Is she? Has Leila spoken to her?’

‘Not in any detail. Elizabeth bumped into her last night in the churchyard. She feels she is at a low ebb. Still grieving, maybe, for the lost baby.’

David half turned, gazing up at the high, vaulted ceiling. ‘We can’t go on hoping for a family. It’s all we ever do.’

Angus nodded and waited, watching his curate shrewdly.

David ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m afraid the problem is becoming destructive. It will come between us unless we make some tough decisions.’

‘Such as?’

A long pause. ‘I think it’s time we gave up. I really do. I hope we can find other ways to use our time and our love, but we can’t carry on as we are. We’re living in limbo, and it’s a waste of our lives. Frankly though, I’m afraid to broach the subject with Leila . . . I honestly don’t know how she’s going to react.’

‘Not an easy task,’ smiled Angus, and the two men began to stroll down the nave. ‘Strikes me as a very determined woman, your wife. Beautiful, clever—and determined.’

‘That’s one word for it. I can think of less flattering ones.’

The rector led the way across the porch, clinking his keys, and they stepped out into a damp world of mist, eddying in the half-light.

‘What have you got on this evening?’

‘Nothing I can’t miss,’ grunted David, tugging at the heavy doors until they thudded together.

‘Then miss it, whatever it is.’ Angus locked up and dropped the keys into his pocket. He seemed to be deep in thought. ‘Take heart, David. Remember Julian of Norwich?
All shall be well, and all shall be well, and
all manner of things shall be well
.’

David managed an anxious smile. ‘I’m not sure that applies to Leila and me. We’re rather lower down the saintliness league table.’

Angus touched his curate’s shoulder. ‘You’d better get on home. Before you mislay your courage.’

Chapter Thirteen

I woke early the next morning. Habit of a lifetime. My mother was always up before dawn. I’d hear the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel outside my bedroom window as she went to water her veggie patch, and I’d roll out of bed and join her in the pale light, just as the first birds were stirring. That was our time, Mum’s and mine, before the monster got up.

There was a bellbird that used to fly in from the bush to visit our garden, a little olive-green fellow with red eyes. He’d sit up in the rata and call, and his voice sounded like panpipes echoing in the hills. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sound so magical as our bellbird. I wanted him to build his nest in the garden, but he came only for the nectar, when the rata was in bloom. He’d bewitch us for a time and then he’d be off, back to the bush, with a rustle of wings. Mum said he didn’t belong to us and he never could.

I pulled on last night’s shorts and wandered out into the half-dark, peering across the gently moving sea. The darkness was thinning, like black paint in a pot of water. And it looked as though someone had lit an enormous fire just on the other side of the horizon.

I intended to hop down the little cliff and charge straight into the water. That would see off my hangover. I could already taste the salt in my mouth. But I didn’t have the beach to myself. Someone was already there, standing in the shallows, facing east. Around her, little waves tumbled calmly onto the sand like a litter of kittens playing. She hadn’t seen me. I sat down quietly, my legs hanging over the cliff, and we watched and waited together.

The distant fire pulsed and billowed as though fanned by a giant’s breath. Then suddenly it broke free, and the sea glittered, and a path of dazzling light shot like an arrow across the surface of the water, straight at me.

Hundreds of times I’ve watched the sun come up, in all sorts of places. It’s always like witnessing a great event, an epic moment in history. You can almost hear the roll of drums. But this time was extraordinary. This time, I felt as though the sun
was
God. (Incidentally, if my brother Jesse knew I’d said that, he’d immediately have me committed to an asylum so he could get the farm all to himself.)

Within a few minutes the sky was denim blue, and about a thousand birds were making a hell of a racket. The heat was already getting into its stride, and the horizon had begun to waver. Deborah stood silhouetted against the flashing water, a light wind rippling her shirt. Tangled between her shoulder blades, her hair was set alight in the low rays. The legs of her shorts were soaked. I noticed she hadn’t changed her clothes; I’m willing to bet she’d never been to bed.