The Christmas Angel (15 page)

‘I like it,’ she says lightly. ‘It’s going to be really special.’

He gives a laughing little sigh of relief, as if her approval is really important to him. ‘You really think so?’

‘It’s got everything,’ she says, sliding onto the wooden bench. ‘Character, charm, but with all the really nice modern bits. Glorious setting. Cosy in the winter.’

‘Like to write the brochure for me?’ he teases.

‘At a price,’ she says. ‘Goodness. This is quite a feast! I approve. As a family we have a great picnic tradition.’

‘I think I’d gathered that.’ He pours some coffee. ‘Anyway, you deserve it, having trekked right out here. So you don’t think I was a fool to buy it?’

Dossie shakes her head. ‘Not at all. I’m glad that you’re moving the kitchen into the living-room, though. It must be a bit poky out the back there.’

‘The old kitchen is going to be a wet-room …’

He begins to tell her his plans, his fingers sketching diagrams on the rough planking of the table, but she is only half listening to him; drugged by the warm sunshine, the music of the water, his voice. She drinks her coffee and eats some chocolate tiffin, and pulls herself together sufficiently to ask one or two intelligent questions. He pours more coffee and she turns to watch a bluetit on the nut-feeder, which someone has hung from the branch of an alder that leans above the stream.

‘I had a crazy idea,’ he is saying. ‘It’s such a fantastic morning I wondered whether we might have a walk. There’s a path right through the woods beside the stream just over the bridge there. I think you’d love it. And then, perhaps, we could go to the pub in the village for lunch – if you don’t have to dash off, that is.’

She looks at him, and then glances quickly away again.

‘Yes, I think I could,’ she murmurs. ‘Yes, why not?’ And then she looks at him properly and they smile at each other.

Later, Rupert phones Kitty. It’s not that he’s feeling guilty about Dossie, no, it’s simply that he wants to connect, check that Kitty’s OK. She answers after a few rings and her voice is unusually animated though a bit fuzzy. She’s with Sally in her car, she tells him, whizzing back from Cribbs Causeway having had lunch and a retail therapy session at John Lewis. He can hear Sally saying something in the background and then Kitty reminds him that they’re all going to the Ashton Court Club this weekend and that Sally says to tell him that she’s looking forward to doing a tango with him, and then there’s lots of girly laughing. He goes along with it all, making an outrageous remark about one of Sally’s particularly daring outfits and there are more shrieks, and then he says that they’re breaking up and shouts goodbye.

He puts his mobile in his pocket, breathes deeply. So that’s good, then. It’ll be a great weekend, he’ll make certain of that, falling in with plans for shopping, a rubber of bridge, dinner at the Club: but still the prospect of this kind of future appals him. He cannot see himself as a retired husband: pushing the trolley around Sainsbury’s whilst Kitty darts up and down the aisles, visiting the garden centre, ‘doing’ Badminton or making cosy foursomes with Sally and dull old Bill. He shrinks in horror from it. He’d like to have Kitty back with him, working together and having fun in their own way. Of course he could see that she had to go back to look after Mummy when Kitty’s father died so suddenly – he’d absolutely encouraged it – but he hadn’t anticipated that Kitty would have been so quickly reabsorbed into the social scene she’d once so cheerfully abandoned.

He goes into the cottage, thinking now about Dossie, and begins to whistle under his breath as he clears up the remains of their picnic.

Stripey Bunny has been very rude and silly, and he is sitting on the naughty step. The naughty step is the first at the bottom of the stairs and Jakey himself had been sitting on that step just a bit earlier. Now he sits at the kitchen table, running a little car to and fro, and wonders how Stripey Bunny is feeling. It isn’t really fair to blame Stripey Bunny for not eating his tea properly because he hasn’t got a very good mouth for eating things, but it made Jakey feel better to tell him off and plonk him down on the step. Earlier, Daddy did that very same thing to him because he was rude to Sister Ruth. It is unfair because everyone – the Sisters, Janna, Daddy, even Dossie – is behaving oddly and Jakey can’t understand why. It is as if they aren’t really noticing him or hearing him any more, and deep down it frightens him. They look worried and they frown, all except Dossie who is very happy and does funny things that make him laugh, but still worry him a bit too, in a different way.

And when Daddy met him off the bus he still had that same not-seeing look and said, ‘Come on, Jakes, get a move on,’ not smiling or asking him about school or anything and then Sister Ruth came through the gate, back from a walk, and said: ‘Good afternoon, young man. So what have you learned today at school?’ and he said, ‘Nothing,’ and turned his back, and Daddy grabbed him by the arm and made him apologize for being rude and then hurried him into the Lodge and plonked him on the step.

It wasn’t long before Daddy came back and said that he could have his tea now and he said he didn’t want any, and
then
he saw that it was his favourite Smarties cake and he thought he might like some after all but didn’t want to give in because he still didn’t think it was fair. But Daddy crouched down and gave him a kiss and said, ‘All over now, Jakey. Come on. Let’s have some of this nice cake,’ as if he was sorry really, and so he climbed up on his chair and watched while Daddy cut the cake.

And then, just when he thought things were going to be all right again and Daddy was talking to him properly, his mobile rang and Daddy picked it up and went out of the room. So he finished his cake all on his own, feeling cross and disappointed, and that’s when Stripey Bunny had been silly and he’d taken him out and put him on the naughty step.

Jakey drives the toy car to and fro, feeling muddled and upset. Then the door opens and Daddy comes in carrying Stripey Bunny and saying, ‘Hey. Look who I found on the naughty step. He says he’s sorry and may he come back now?’ and he dances Stripey Bunny up and down on the table so that Jakey laughs and grabs him, and Daddy says, ‘That’s better. Listen. Why don’t we walk down to the beach and look for stones for Janna?’ This is a big treat in the week, because of being tired and having to get to bed on time because of school next day, and suddenly he’s really happy again and he jumps up and down and shouts, and Daddy smiles at him so that he feels that some heavy thing has rolled away from his heart and everything is all right.

Janna puts her mobile down on the caravan step beside her and leans back against the doorway. Poor Clem; he sounded so remorseful.

‘I feel such a pig,’ he said gloomily. ‘Mind you, he
was
rude
to Sister Ruth, but I think he’s picking up my anxiety. Poor little chap.’

‘Well, you made your point,’ she answered. ‘Now give him a real treat. Take him down to the beach and ask him to find me some more stones to put on the windowsill. He loves that. Oh, never mind bedtime and all that stuff just for once, Clem. It’s such amazing weather and it’ll be pouring next week. Be happy with him. I’ll come down and see you later after supper.’

They are all feeling the strain. Even Sister Emily looks preoccupied. Janna pulls her skirt up around her knees and closes her eyes. Sister Nichola’s remark about silence made her think about it and she’s begun to realize that there are different kinds of silence. Sometimes she slips into the chapel and sits just inside the door. They offered her a place of her own, just behind Sister Emily, but she felt that this was too much; that she didn’t quite merit her own place. Anyway, she likes the freedom of perching near the door: last in, first out. There is a silence in the empty chapel; not a scary, empty silence but the silence of a deep-down peacefulness that slows her breathing and calms her. If any of the Sisters are at Silent Prayer then the quality of the silence is a different one, though the other is held within it. This more human silence contains a sense of expectation; of waiting.

Now, sitting on the step in the sunshine, with the pretty banties pecking around her feet, she is aware of the rural silence: a silence that contains the drone of a bee, birdsong and, more distantly, the sea’s unceasing whisper. Clem asked her to go with them to the beach – and she longed to go – but it would soon be time for Vespers and then supper. When she is with Clem and Jakey it is like having a family, but without any of the responsibilities. When Jakey sits on her lap
and
leans against her, and she rests her cheek against his small head, she feels a great longing: a deep, deep desire for a child of her own. Yet the prospect frightens her. She sees the relentless commitment that Clem makes to Jakey and she wonders if she’ll ever have the courage to give herself totally to a relationship or to a child. Oh, but she loves Jakey. He has, by sheer force of character, finally carried away her
Little Miss Sunshine
book. He loves the story of the grumpy king who can’t smile and lives in Miseryland and Little Miss Sunshine who teaches him how to laugh.

Sitting there, eyes closed, she remembers her mother saying to her: ‘You’re my Little Miss Sunshine. You can always make me laugh however bad things are.’

‘I
need
the book,’ Jakey would say, leaning against her knee, looking at her winningly. ‘Then Daddy could read it to me at bedtime. I really do need it, Janna.’

‘But isn’t it nice to have it here as a treat, my lover?’ she’d counter. ‘Makes it sort of special.’

‘But I could bring it when I come to see you,’ he’d answer. ‘Then I could have both.’

‘But would it be so much of a treat?’

‘It would be even
more
a treat. Twice-times a treat.’

Eventually she’d given way and he carried off the book triumphantly, though he still brings it back sometimes so that she can read it to him. Yet in the giving there has been real pleasure, as if she’s passed on something precious, which now links her with Jakey in some way. Or perhaps it is more than that: in giving it away she’s gained something more important in its place. Maybe that is what Sister Emily meant when she said: ‘When you no longer need them then you will be free.’

‘You shouldn’t have given in to him,’ Clem said. ‘I warned
you
about his arguing ability. You should have been firm. I can get it back for you.’

She shook her head. ‘I want him to have it. He loves it. Don’t worry, Clem.’

After all, she still has the Peter Rabbit mug and the shawl as reminders of her childhood and her mother: symbols to show that she has been loved. Perhaps, here at Chi-Meur, these symbols are less important – but how would it be if she had to leave? And where would she go? Janna opens her eyes and folds her arms around her knees, filled suddenly with a sense of panic and loss.

‘Mother Magda’s trying to find another group who could come here to Chi-Meur to make it more viable,’ Clem told her. ‘It’s a rather last-ditch effort. In the last year two Sisters have died and the novice who was here decided she would be more useful if she were to take Holy Orders. Losing three people in twelve months is a big deal in a small community. After all, Mr Brewster has merely hastened an inevitable process. Something has to be done. There might be another community somewhere, in the same position, that could join us here.’

Janna stands up and her long scarlet cotton skirt swishes around her slender ankles. She gathers the thick, wiry, lion-mane of her hair into a great bunch on top of her head, stretching her back and breathing in the heady scent of the bluebells. Suddenly a new sound is introduced into the silence: the sweet high note of the bell ringing for Vespers.

‘They’re thinking about it,’ says Mr Caine. ‘Not a good time to ring. I’ve told you before it’s best I call you. People about.’ He smiles at a few locals as he edges out of the pub and crosses the road to the sea wall. ‘Look, it’s no good swearing
at
me and Phil. We’re doing our best and they’re thinking about it … The dit is that they might get other nuns to join them. That’s the latest thing … No, it’s common gossip in the village. I don’t need to creep around, spying. I told you, they love these old dears. Nobody wants a hotel, I can tell you that … One of the old ducks was born round here and she’s still got rellies in the village … OK. Just warning you. Anyway, nothing to report … No, I’m stuck here now, aren’t I? Ear to the ground. Poor old Phil has been doing his stuff but he can’t put the frighteners on ’em. You just don’t get it, do you? They’re not like the poor little people you usually bully. These old girls have different values … Yeah, yeah, whatever, but you’re not here, are you? I’ll keep you up to speed.’

He snaps his mobile shut and slips it into his pocket. He nods to a couple of young men who lean on the sea wall, pints in their hands. They stare back at him.

‘I love you too, baby,’ he mutters, and goes back into the bar.

The thrush wakens her. The clear distinctive thrice-repeated phrases evoke other springs and half-forgotten emotions connected with youth and restlessness. She knows that it will be impossible to sleep again now and she turns carefully, so as not to waken Pa, and tries to see the little bedside clock: a quarter-past five. It is quite light and she slides quietly out of bed, pushing her feet into slippers, gathering up her dressing gown.

The dogs raise their heads, watching and waiting. Is this simply a bathroom break or something more? Mo opens the bedroom door and gestures them to follow her. They come at once, tails wagging, across the landing, down the stairs
and
into the kitchen. Mo closes the door, lest either of them is tempted to sneak back upstairs to look for Pa or Dossie, and pulls on her long dressing gown and ties its belt firmly. Then she lets them out through the boot-room and into the garden where the thrush is still singing.

She changes her slippers for gumboots and follows them, wandering over the dew-drenched grass, pausing to break off a spray of the sweet-scented yellow azalea as she waits for the sun to rise. A blackbird hops ahead of her, pausing to eavesdrop on a worm. The garden is full of rosy light; the clear pale sky streaked with crimson and scarlet. The thrush, perched high in an ash tree at the field’s edge, continues to sing; she can just see his pale speckled breast between the light green leaves.