A Pure Clear Light (9 page)

‘The concept of knowing, in the sense you’ve just used it, is pretty much beyond my comprehension,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t claim to know you in the way you suggest. Our relationship is quite rigidly defined. It would otherwise be out of the question. We’re lovers, that’s all. There’s nothing more to it.’

‘You wouldn’t care, if anything happened to me?’

‘I’d regret it bitterly and even at length. You’re the fuck of a lifetime. As you very well know. As you even intended you should be—I mean, that
is
the game, isn’t it? Not chess, not tennis, not roses round the door and 2.4 children, but pure unadulterated sex.

Of course I don’t want anything to happen to you.’

‘Until you’ve done with me.’

‘Or you with me.’

They were silent. ‘Now that you’ve raised the matter,’ said Simon, ‘I suppose I’m bound to ask you, whether you really are quite sure that this is all you want. If not, all that there ever can be.’

‘It’s a question of what is really possible,’ she said, ‘within the limits of maintaining one’s autonomy.’

‘This autonomy,’ said Simon.

‘I saw what the lack of it did to my mother,’ she said.

‘You may find yourself having to think again,’ said Simon.

‘Sooner or later. Don’t you really want ever to marry? Well, if not actually marry, at any rate commit yourself to a full-time all-out relationship? To say nothing of having children.’

‘Not so far,’ said Gillian Selkirk. ‘Right now I’ve got other fish to fry.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Simon. He had caught a glimpse of the flaw in her perfect, impregnable notion of autonomy and of the personal frailty which it had been designed to protect: but he did not want to ponder these things now. If ever. ‘The trouble is,’ he said, ‘I just haven’t got the time, the way things are, to fuck you
really
stupid.

If I had, you wouldn’t be asking all these questions.’ He put out the cigarette and turned towards her. He reached out a hand and began to caress her. ‘Why me?’ he said. ‘Considering the disadvantages.’

‘I just fancied you,’ she said. ‘A lot.’ So there they were.

He was managing to see her now only two or three times a week, and then not for very long, but as he drove back to Hammersmith he thought, well at any rate there isn’t much chance as things are of our getting bored with each other. They hadn’t even arrived at the stage of getting used to each other.

Not that he’d ever become bored—exactly—with Flora. But that was utterly different. All those years. All those children. And all the rest of it. Mother of God. As Flora would say.

32

‘I’m just going for a walk.’

‘Why?’

‘I just want to.’

‘Let me come with you then.’

‘No, you stay with the children. That’s the whole point. See, you don’t even have to get up. You can stay here with the papers; all you have to do is listen out and make sure they don’t kill or injure each other.’

‘Can’t Janey do that?’

‘No, Janey’s one of the children.’

‘Oh God, all right then. Off you go. Why are you wearing that lot?’ It was her tweed suit, with the nice fitted jacket.

‘I just want to. See you soon. Bye-bye!’

Why was she going for a walk, in a suit, on a Sunday morning?

Oh—ye gods! Simon leaped out of bed and ran to the window. ‘Flora!’ he called. She was at the bottom of the path already; she turned and waved and then kept on going. ‘Come back soon!’ he cried, but it was a pretty hopeless effort. It was too late to do anything. Much too late to stop her. But he knew—oh, he knew what was afoot: he’d sussed it, just a moment too late: Flora was going to church. He should have seen it coming.

He got back into bed with the papers, but it wasn’t the same any more, so he got up and showered and dressed. He’d glanced at the time just after his
éclaircissement
: 10.45: right, so now, he was thinking, she should fetch up again around 12.30: ish. And then he had a rather brilliant idea. He looked at his watch, and laid his plans.

At midday, ‘Come on, you kids!’ he called. ‘We’re going for a walk!’

Nell’s face appeared around the bannister at the half-landing. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘And where’s Mum?’

‘You’ll find out,’ said Simon, ‘if you come for a walk with me.’

‘I don’t want to go for walk,’ she said.

It took some doing. Even rounding them all up took some doing: cajoling them—ordering them—enticing them—bribing them—that, basically, was what it came to—took some doing. Ye-gods, kids! They were beyond belief.

Simon had learned one or two useful things, if not
the
useful thing, during his summertime walks around Hammersmith:
viz
, that there was a Roman Catholic church some considerable distance away, and two Anglican ditto nearer to hand, one Low, one High.

(You could tell by reading the noticeboards, if not otherwise.) And Simon’s money was on the last of these. He’d heard about these lapsed Romans: they often—even generally—used the Anglican church as a sort of halfway house on the way back. Sometimes they stopped right there. And why not? Good enough for Dr Johnson, wasn’t it? Simon led the children forth, and bent their steps towards the High Anglican church. So what the hell, if Flora wasn’t there he could give them a brief lecture on the Gothic revival and then march them home again. They trailed along in his wake, protesting the while.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Why can’t we take the car?’

‘What if Mum comes back before we do?’

‘What if she doesn’t have her key?’

‘What if I don’t take you to Alton Towers at half-term?’ said Simon. That shut them up.

You could hear the organ thundering, and the congregation singing, as they approached the church. Stirring stuff, these C of E hymns. What would Flora be making of that lot? It would probably tip the balance. Oh, God.

This at any rate must be the last piece of the business within.

Simon and the children were standing around under a yew tree, and the children were asking him what they were going to do now.

‘Wait,’ said Simon, ‘just a minute.’ The organ delivered one last rodomontade and a silence fell which lasted for several minutes.

Then suddenly the organ began again, more exuberantly still. Ah: the procession. Not long now.

And, sure enough, here came the priest, divested of his major finery, in an alb. ‘Look,’ said Thomas. ‘That man is wearing a dress!’

The priest stood at the doorway, greeting his exiting congregation. How sweet it all was, honestly. Simon really had to agree. Yes, it was harmless after all—the barmy old C of E—and it was
sweet.
Part of the heritage, wasn’t it? Should get a grant from the DoE, or the English Tourist Board, or someone. Or hand it all over to the National Trust to look after. Whatever. Good God, there was Flora.

33

Simon, the only one of them all who was not entirely astonished at the encounter, stood aside from their squeals and exclamations, grinning happily. Flora, the younger children’s curiosity satisfied (Janey’s could not be articulated, at least for the time being), at last met his eye. ‘Funny we should run into you like this,’ he said.

‘Yes. Of all the gin-joints, in all the towns, in all the world—’ ‘I thought we might all go out to lunch. Ages since we’ve done that.’

‘Where can we go?’

‘There’s that new place down by the river. All you can eat, and a jazz band.’

‘Oh! are you sure? That would be
smashing.

’

‘Come on then. Come on, kids, we’re on the move again.’

‘Oh dear, look at them. Do you think they’re fit to be seen in a place like that? Nell, your
hair.
’ Flora began trying to tidy Nell’s hair. ‘And Thomas, do pull your socks up.’

‘They’ll do, don’t fuss, they’ll do. This isn’t France.’

‘No,’ said Flora, looking around. ‘You can tell at a glance.’

She felt so happy, so unutterably happy, sitting at a big table in the restaurant with Simon and the children, drinking Chablis, eating chicken pilaff, and salad, and toffee pudding, and everyone else having just what they fancied, having helped themselves from the buffet (Thomas had sausages, and sausages: ‘You said I could have what I liked! I don’t
like
salad and vegetables!’). She felt, sitting there with the family all around her—all out together for the first time for several months, wasn’t it?—so unutterably happy that she couldn’t imagine whence came that dark shadow that fell on her sometimes, filling her with an awful, aching dread; she could hardly remember how it felt, that awful dread. It was just something silly. It was just, she supposed, that she loved them so very much. Love was something which grew with time. The more you did it the deeper it became. It was natural, she supposed, to fear for the people one loved, and for whom one was responsible. That was all. Here she was, as lucky as a woman could be—oh, how lucky. She mustn’t be afraid. ‘Perfect love casteth out fear.’ Oh, how beautiful, how very beautiful. Now to see if it were true. Now to see if she couldn’t make it true. Perfect love. Not another kind. She caught Janey’s eye.

‘How’s my Janey?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘Have you had enough to eat?’

‘Yes thank you.’

‘Simon, you couldn’t get me some coffee, could you?’

‘Dad, can we go and see the boats?’

‘I’ll take them. I’ll just get your mother some coffee first. You both wait there. Does Janey want coffee?’

So she was left alone with Janey.

‘Are you all right, darling?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’

‘Mummy?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you go to church today?’

‘I just wanted to see what it was like.’

‘But why today?’

‘I dunno. One just has these impulses, you know.’

Janey accepted this. ‘What was it like?’ she said.

‘Rather nice, actually.’

‘In what way, nice?’

‘Well—nice. I can’t tell you. It’s one of those things you have to find out for yourself.’

‘Are you going to go again?’

‘I might. I’ll see.’

‘I can’t see why you’d want to go to church. You don’t believe in God.’

‘No, that’s true. But then, I don’t not believe, either.’

Janey was confused.

‘You could come too if you wanted,’ said Flora. ‘And see what you think of it all.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Janey. ‘I mean, I don’t believe in God.’

‘Well, you’re only thirteen,’ said Flora. ‘You haven’t had that long to think it over.’

Janey sat there. ‘I quite liked that organ,’ she said.

‘Oh yes,’ Flora agreed. ‘The organ’s pretty hot stuff. Even better inside.’

‘I might come, one day,’ said Janey. ‘Or I might not.’

‘That’s the ticket,’ said Flora. ‘Can’t say fairer than that.’ Janey pulled a face at her and they both laughed. ‘Do you want to go out and see the boats?’ Flora asked.

‘No,’ said Janey; ‘not unless you do.’

‘We’ll stay here, then,’ said Flora, ‘and be nice and cosy. What if you get us some more coffee?’ So Janey did. I’ve got to find some way of spending more time with her alone, Flora thought. She’s at that age. I could lose her confidence. It would kill me.

34

Simon was staring out of the window, wine glass in hand. ‘I might give David a call,’ he said. ‘See how he’s getting on.’ Flora, sitting at the kitchen table, said nothing. The children were all in the sitting room watching
Our Hospitality
on video. ‘But then,’ Simon went on, ‘one doesn’t want to look
too
enthusiastic, at this stage.’

‘You’re enthusiastic then, are you?’ said Flora.

‘Ish,’ said Simon. Then he turned around and gestured vaguely with the hand which was holding the wine glass. ‘Talking of enthusiasm,’ he said.

‘I wondered when you might get around to that,’ said Flora.

‘Yes, well. I mean—what?’

‘I shouldn’t worry, if I were you.’

‘You’re quite sure about that?’

‘It was only an Anglican church, after all. I recall I had your permission for that.’

‘Humph. Permission. Look—’

‘I wonder what you think this is all about, that it should vex you at all.’

‘If I knew what it was
about
, it wouldn’t
vex
me.’

‘Come along and find out, and then you won’t
be
vexed.’

Simon ignored this enticement. ‘And that isn’t the half of it,’ he said. ‘What
actually
vexes me is the thought that this may be only step one of the journey back to Rome.’

‘Rome,’ said Flora, ruminatively.

‘Yes,
Rome.

’ ‘You make it sound a pretty dire destination,’ said Flora.

‘So it is,’ said Simon unhesitatingly.

Flora laughed. ‘You Protestants have such ideas of the place,’ she said.

‘The facts speak for themselves,’ said Simon. ‘Glossing over them is the most pernicious form of sentimentality, to say no worse.’

‘That could be so,’ agreed Flora mildly.

‘Anyway, by the way, I am not a
Protestant
,’ said Simon. ‘I am not an anything, as you know, other than a rational creature.’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Flora.

‘Don’t humour me. I’m serious.’

‘All right,’ said Flora. ‘Well, as to your being rational, I can only say that I am not entirely confident that you have considered all the data, and a conclusion derived—however rationally—from an insufficiency of data is not in the end a rational conclusion.’

‘What if I don’t admit some of your so-called data to be anything other than fanciful suppositions, or even illusions?’

‘Then surely you would have to discountenance the Church of England as deeply as you do that of Rome.’

‘No,’ said Simon. The doctrine of the Church of England is minimal, and was always—
and rightly—
intended to be; that of Rome is notoriously and wilfully extravagant. The degree of delusion in the first case is harmless and in the second dangerous.’

‘Anglicans seem to believe all sorts of different things,’ murmured Flora.

‘That which they all believe,’ said Simon, ‘could be written on half a sheet of A4.’

‘Well, I’ll see what I think,’ said Flora, ‘after I’ve given them a fair trial.’