Is There Anything You Want? (32 page)

Ida waited until Dot had gone, and then waited some more while a young mother pushed a twin buggy round the crowded shop, the twins clutching at clothes and pulling half of them down, which had Lucy chasing round putting them back, and then finally, when there was peace again, she said as casually as possible to Lucy, ‘How did you know about the new vicar, then? You don't go to St James's.' Lucy said that her sister, who lived in Manchester, had written saying that their vicar who had had a nervous breakdown had been moved to a quiet parish near where Lucy lived. ‘A nervous breakdown?' said Ida, taking care not to sound too interested. ‘That's what she said,' Lucy agreed, ‘a nervous breakdown. Not something you expect clergymen to have, is it? Not with them believing in God, if you know what I mean.' ‘What was it about, the breakdown?' Ida asked. Lucy said she hadn't been told, but her sister had said – and at that moment there was a sudden rush. Three middle-aged women came in together, all carrying large leather shopping bags, and began sorting methodically through all the racks of clothes. Ida could tell at once that they were experts at spotting bargains and were probably going to resell what they found and make a nice profit. They fingered the materials, turning any garment they were interested in inside out, looking for labels and washing instructions, and examining them closely for wear and tear. She and Lucy were silent, both watching the women intently, knowing they were quite capable of stealing even if this was a charity shop. But they would be forced to buy what they'd selected, and they would haggle over the prices. She hoped Lucy would be as firm as she intended to be: absolutely no reductions.

By the time these women had made their purchases (and Lucy was as gratifyingly unyielding as herself) there was a lot to be done. All the colour-co-ordinating Lucy had nobly laboured over was wrecked and she had to start again, with Ida assisting. It was impossible to pick up once more the conversation about the vicar's nervous breakdown and yet she so badly wanted to, feeling she had not yet drained Lucy of every scrap of information imparted to her by her sister. She'd felt such a
frisson
of excitement run through her at the mention of mental instability
associated with the Rev. Maddox – she felt desperate to know what had prompted his nervous breakdown and what form it had taken. No wonder he was of no use to her if his own head was in a mess. But instead of this making her forgiving towards the vicar, it only made her angrier. If he knew what it was like to feel you were going mad, why hadn't he been sympathetic towards her tears and panic? He was a fellow sufferer, and as far as she knew he hadn't any excuse, and yet he'd looked at her, and she did have a reason to be distraught, as though she were the lowest of the low.

Later, when there was another lull, and she and Lucy were having a cup of tea at the counter (though they were supposed to have any refreshment separately in the back room) Ida asked Lucy if she saw much of the sister who lived in Manchester. Lucy said yes, she did, quite a lot. They took turns to visit each other for the weekend about once a month, though she was fonder of going to Manchester, where she loved the shops, than her sister was of visiting her. ‘She's coming this weekend, though,' said Lucy. ‘I wish I'd had a sister,' sighed Ida, deciding to be oblique in her next approach. Lucy agreed it was nice having a sister, and said that she was fortunate to have two, though she wasn't as close to the other one. Ida was hardly listening. ‘What will you do with your sister this weekend, then?' she asked. Lucy said that was always a bit of a problem, Janet couldn't sit still, she liked to be out and about, and as Ida knew there wasn't a lot to do here. ‘Will you go to church on Sunday?' Ida asked. Lucy said, ‘Probably.' ‘Well,' said Ida, very, very lightly, and turning away to remove their cups and saucers as she did so, ‘why don't you come to St James's and your Janet can see how her old vicar is getting on?'

Lucy seemed quite delighted with this idea. She became more and more enthusiastic, carefully checking the time of morning service with Ida, who was smiling at the success of her plan when Martin picked her up. She wasn't sure exactly what she hoped to achieve by confronting the Rev. Maddox with a former parishioner who knew about his nervous breakdown, and maybe the cause of it (some scandal?), but she was sure she would achieve something. It would mean, of course, having to break
her recently made vow never to go into St James's while that man was still there, but then she reminded herself she'd decided only the church hall was out of bounds. Or had she? She couldn't remember, but it didn't matter. Her smile broadened as she got in the car. Martin thought it must mean she had had a good day, and he in turn smiled back. She was bursting to tell someone about the Rev. Maddox's nervous breakdown and Martin was the only person available, so she told him, without any preamble, as soon as they were on the road home. Martin's smile faded. ‘Poor chap,' he said. This annoyed her. Nervous breakdowns were not
cancer.
His instant compassion was, in her opinion, overdone. He kept saying it over and over again, poor, poor chap, when what she wanted was for him to speculate as to the causes of this breakdown, to show some real curiosity. He had none. She thought about describing to him how she had been treated at the vicarage the day before, to make him understand why she felt no sympathy for the vicar, but that would only lead to questions she didn't want to answer. Instead, she would ignore Martin and his ‘poor chaps'. But just as she was deciding this, he said something else.

‘What did you say?' she asked him.

Patiently, Martin repeated it. ‘I was saying,' he began, as though she had a hearing problem and not that she hadn't been attending, ‘that Mrs Hibbert said she couldn't imagine why the bishop had sent the Rev. Maddox to St James's.'

‘Why shouldn't he have?' asked Ida, instantly sensing an insult. ‘What's wrong with St James's?'

‘Mrs Hibbert says he'll have no intellectual stimulus there.'

‘Intellectual stimulus?' shouted Ida. ‘What on earth does that mean? He's a vicar.'

‘I think she meant nobody like himself to talk to,' Martin said, nervously. ‘He'll be a fish out of water.'

‘Well, that's his fault,' snapped Ida.

They drove on for a while, and then Martin said, ‘Mrs Hibbert's met him.'

‘Oh, has she indeed,' said Ida, longing to know how, since Mrs Hibbert never went near the church, but not wanting to show that she did.

‘At St Mary's,' Martin obligingly added, ‘a committee meeting of the Friends. He's going to be associated with them.'

‘Big of him,' said Ida, and ‘Associated!' she sneered, but not too sarcastically, because she wanted Martin to carry on. Usually, after three ‘Mrs Hibbert saids' she told him to shut up.

‘Seems Mrs Hibbert crossed swords with him, but she was impressed, she thinks he is a good man, for all his faults.'

‘Good?' Ida felt she was choking. ‘
Good
?'

‘That's what she said. And she knows how to judge character.'

Ida laughed, loudly. ‘How do you work that out?' she said.

‘She took me on,' Martin said, ‘without references.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake!' Ida exploded. ‘She took you on because she'd seen you working in Mr Lonsdale's garden opposite her and that was reference enough. And she'd have got rid of you quick enough if you hadn't lived up to her expectations, or if you hadn't turned up when she wanted you to. She's ruthless, that woman, all her family were. They got rid of my Nan soon enough.'

Martin was quiet. He knew that to be quiet was the best way to encourage Ida to continue. But they arrived home and she went into the house without speaking again, her former cheerful mood apparently gone. Something he'd said had upset her, banishing that smile she'd had when he drew up in the car. He should have known better than to mention Mrs Hibbert at all. The rest of the day, he observed Ida carefully. There was something different about her, some atmosphere surrounding her that he couldn't quite grasp. It wasn't that she didn't speak – that was common enough – or that she seemed abstracted, but that she seemed to be concentrating on something. She stared hard out of the window, and he looked himself, following her gaze, but there was nothing to see so remarkable that it held the attention. He did risk asking, ‘Penny for them?' but she shook her head. ‘Nothing,' she said.

Ida found it hard waiting for Sunday to come. She imagined the scene when the vicar saw his ex-parishioner, Lucy's sister Janet, over and over again. He would be bound to notice her. He'd be shocked, wouldn't he? Knowing she knew about his nervous breakdown and almost certainly its rumoured
cause? But maybe not. She reminded herself that Manchester was a big place and that congregations in churches there were possibly much larger. Janet might have been only one of many, indistinguishable from others. Besides, the Rev. Maddox was the sort of man who never really looked at anyone properly. He wouldn't have looked at faces closely enough to remember them. Instead of looking people in the eye, he employed the evasive tactic of looking just above their head, or over their shoulder, as though seeing someone else far more interesting. God, maybe.

When Sunday at last arrived, Ida dressed with exquisite care. She always tried to look her best for church, but this Sunday she wanted to be really smart. She had a bath when she got up and dressed in clean clothes from the skin outwards. The effort exhausted her, but when she saw herself in the long mirror on the wardrobe door, she felt gratified. She had on her navy costume, and navy always made her look slimmer. The waist of the skirt was hellishly tight, even though she'd left the top two buttons undone and fastened it with a large safety pin (nobody would see, the jacket came over it) but she was more than prepared to put up with the discomfort. Nobody these days wore hats or gloves to an ordinary morning service, but she was wearing both, a navy straw hat, nicely trimmed with a darker navy ribbon, and white gloves to match her white blouse. Only her shoes let her down but there was no alternative. She couldn't get into the navy court shoes that had once gone with this outfit because her feet were so swollen, so she had to wear her flat, black Ecco shoes. Still, she looked good enough to be going to a wedding (which was precisely how the navy costume had come to be bought).

Martin was digging in the garden as she left. He stopped digging to tell her how nice she looked. He liked her to look ‘nice' and she knew why – he interpreted it to mean she was feeling better. If she'd bothered to dress up, then she couldn't be in a panic. He didn't realise the reason could be the precise opposite. She often used the need to get dressed smartly for church to force her into controlling herself, and the struggle was always tremendous. The battle to select clothes and put
them on in the right order would make her head pound, and she would break out into such a sweat she wanted to tear them all off again, and throw herself on the bed and stay there. It was often touch and go whether she would or she wouldn't. But this Sunday she'd felt wonderfully calm. Although it tired her, getting ready had in other ways been almost a pleasure. Her short walk to the church was as a consequence quite stately. She passed someone she knew and she could see them noting how well turned out she was. It struck her, as she entered the church itself, that if asked she would have to say that she felt
well
.

She sat where she always sat, in the sixth pew from the front, on the right-hand side. Only Mrs Gibbon and Mrs Hardy sat in front of her. Across the aisle, she could see Dot, on her knees, praying. Behind her, she heard the Teasdales – mother, father, daughter – file in, the father coughing, as usual. The Proudfoots would rush in at the last minute and sit right at the back. Nine of them, so scattered about that the church looked even emptier than it was. The Rev. Barnes, whose congregation was always twice, sometimes three times, this number, used to urge everyone to come together, and for a while everyone did, filling the front pews on both sides, but then, over the following weeks, they would drift apart again and he would once more have to remonstrate with them. But Ida had the feeling that the Rev. Maddox actually preferred his congregation to be as spread-out as possible. It made them less threatening, easier to ignore. The church might be small, but when he was in the pulpit there was no sense of intimacy as he preached. His manner and delivery were more suited to a cathedral – he pitched his voice to carry a great and unnecessary distance. Maybe his Manchester church had been huge and he had not yet adapted to St James's dimensions, but that was the kindest explanation and one Ida did not believe.

She wondered where Lucy and her sister Janet had chosen to sit, but was determined not to turn round to see. Patiently, she sat through the service, singing the hymns lustily as she always did (and aware that no one else did). The sermon was about harvests but, though it began with the harvesting of corn,
it moved on to souls and she was lost. Her mind wandered hopelessly as she stared at the Rev. Maddox, trying to see him in a mental institution in a strait-jacket though, of course, she knew perfectly well he would probably have been at home taking sedatives. She dressed him in the linen slacks she'd found in the carrier bag unpacked at the Save the Children shop and put him in one of the lilac shirts. They suited him, but the hat, the panama hat, didn't, so she took it off. He'd combed his hair very carefully this morning, as carefully as she'd combed hers. It was dark and thick and the parting on the left side very neat. He'd looked in a mirror to get that parting, which suggested he was vain. He wasn't as young as they'd all thought he'd be. It was just that he had the sort of skin which aged well, but now she was scrutinising him she could see lines where she hadn't noticed them before. He was 50, at least, she was sure. He was very clean-shaven, his chin and upper lip without the faintest hint of any growth, and he had dainty lips, prettily shaped . . .