Death in Holy Orders (12 page)

She said, “We’ve got to make a decision about the house. We can sell now and each take half the profit, or we can let. Or, I suppose, we could spend a bit of capital on doing some adaptations and convert it into three studio flats. This won’t be cheap, but Dad left an insurance policy and I don’t mind spending it, as long as I get a higher proportion of the rents. What are you thinking of doing, by the way; I mean, did you expect to stay here?”

He said, “I don’t really want to stay in London. I was thinking, if we sell the house, I’d have enough money to buy a small cottage somewhere. I might try market gardening, something like that.”

“Then you’d be a fool. It’d need more capital than you’re likely to get and there’s no money in it anyway, not on the kind of scale you’re thinking of. Still, if you want to get out, I suppose you’re keen on selling.”

He thought: She knows what she wants to do and it will happen in the end, no matter what I say. But he didn’t really greatly care. He followed her from room to room, in a kind of wonder.

He said, “I don’t mind keeping it on if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not what I want, it’s what’s the most sensible thing for us both. The housing market’s good at present and likely to get better. Of course if we do convert, it will lessen its value as a family residence. On the other hand, it would bring us in a regular income.”

And that inevitably was what had happened. She had, he knew, begun by despising him, but as they worked together her attitude perceptibly changed. She was surprised and gratified to discover how good he was with his hands, how much money was saved because he could paint and paper walls, put up shelves, install cupboards. He had never bothered to improve the house, which had been his home only in name. Now he discovered
unexpected and satisfying skills. They employed a professional plumber, an electrician and a builder for the major work, but much of it was done by Eric. They became involuntary partners. On Saturdays they would shop for second-hand furniture, for bargains in bed-linen and cutlery, showing each other their trophies with the happy triumph of children. He showed her how to use a blowtorch safely, insisted on the proper preparation of the woodwork before painting despite her protests that it wasn’t necessary, amazed her by the careful dedication with which he measured up and fitted the kitchen units. As they worked she gossiped about her own life, the freelance journalism in which she was beginning to make a name, her pleasure in achieving a by-line, the bitchiness and gossip and small scandals of the literary world on the fringe of which she worked. It was a world which he found terrifyingly alien. He was glad he was not required to enter it. He dreamed of a cottage, a kitchen garden and perhaps his secret passion of keeping pigs.

And he could remember—of course he could—the day when they became lovers. He had fixed slatted wooden blinds to one of the south-facing windows and they were emulsion-painting the walls together. She was a messy worker and halfway through announced that she was hot, sticky, splattered with paint, and would take a shower. It would be a chance to test the efficiency of the newly installed bathroom. So he too had stopped painting and had sat cross-legged, resting against the one unpainted wall, watching the light slant in through the half-open blinds to lattice the paint-splattered floor and letting happy contentment bubble up like a spring.

And then she had come in. She had twisted a towel round her waist but was otherwise naked, and she was carrying a large bath-mat over her arm. Laying it down, she had squatted there and, laughing at him, had held out her arms. In a kind of trance he had knelt in front of her and whispered, “But we can’t, we can’t. We’re brother and sister.”

“Only half-brother, half-sister. All to the good. Keep it in the family.”

He had muttered, “The blind, it’s too light.”

She had sprung up and pulled the blind shut. The room was almost dark. She came back to him and held his head against her breasts.

It had been for him the first time and it changed his life. He knew that she didn’t love him and he didn’t yet love her. During that and subsequent astonishing love-making he had shut his eyes and indulged all his private fantasies, romantic, tender, violent, shameful. The imaginings tumbled into his brain and were made flesh. And then, one day, for the first time, when they were making love more comfortably on the bed, he had opened his eyes and looked into hers and had known that this was love.

It was Karen who had found for him the job at St. Anselm’s. She had had an assignment in Ipswich and had picked up a copy of the
East Anglian Daily News
. Returning that night, she had come to the house in which he was now picnicking in the basement while the work continued, and had brought the paper with her.

“This might suit you. It’s a handyman’s job at a theological college just south of Lowestoft. That should be lonely enough for you. They’re offering a cottage and apparently there’s a garden, and I dare say you could persuade them to let you keep hens if you wanted.”

“I don’t want hens, I’d rather have pigs.”

“Well, pigs then, if they’re not too smelly. They’re not paying much, but you should get two hundred and fifty pounds a week from the rents here. You could probably save some of that. What do you think?”

He had thought it almost too good to be true.

She said, “Of course they might want a married couple, but it doesn’t say so. But we’d better get moving on it. I’ll drive you down tomorrow morning if you like. Phone up now and ask for an appointment, they give a number.”

Next day she had driven him to Suffolk, leaving him at the gate of the college saying she would return and wait for him in an hour. He had been interviewed by Father Sebastian Morell and Father Martin Petrie. He had worried in case they had wanted a clerical reference or asked him if he were a regular churchgoer, but religion hadn’t been mentioned.

Karen had said, “You’ll be able to get a reference from the Town Hall, of course, but you’d better prove that you’re a good handyman. It’s not an office drudge they’re looking for. I’ve brought a camera along. I’ll take photographs of those cupboards, shelves and fitments you’ve put up and you can show them the Polaroids. You’ve got to sell yourself, remember.”

But he didn’t need to sell himself. He’d answered their questions simply and had taken out his Polaroids with a rather touching eagerness which had shown them how much he wanted the job. They had taken him to view the cottage. It was larger than he had expected or wanted, but it lay some eighty yards from the back of the college with an unobstructed view across the scrubland and with a small untended garden. He hadn’t mentioned the pigs until he had worked there for over a month, but when he did no one had raised any objection. Father Martin had said a little nervously, “They won’t get out, will they, Eric?” as if he had been proposing to cage Alsatians.

“No, Father. I thought I could build a sty and enclosure for them. I’ll show you the drawings, of course, before I buy the wood.”

“What about the smell?” Father Sebastian inquired. “I’m told pigs don’t smell, but I can usually smell them. Of course I may have a more sensitive nose than most people.”

“No, they won’t smell, Father. Pigs are very clean creatures.”

So he had his cottage, his garden, his pigs, and once every three weeks he had Karen. He couldn’t think of a life more satisfactory.

At St. Anselm’s he had found the peace that all his life he had been looking for. He couldn’t understand why it was so necessary to him, this absence of noise, of controversy, of the pressures of discordant personalities. It wasn’t as if his father had ever been violent towards him. For most of the time he hadn’t even been present, and when he was present his parents’ discordant marriage had been more a matter of grumbling and muttered grievances than of raised voices or open anger. What he saw as his timidity seemed to have been part of his personality since childhood. Even when working in the Town Hall—hardly the most provocative or exhilarating of jobs—he had held apart from the occasional spats of ill-feeling, the minor
feuds which some workers seemed to find necessary—indeed to provoke. Until he knew and loved Karen no company in the world had seemed more desirable than his own.

And now, with this peace, this sanctuary, his garden and his pigs, a job he enjoyed doing and was valued for, and Karen’s regular visits, he had found a life that suited every corner of his mind and fibre of his being. But with the appointment of Archdeacon Crampton as a trustee everything changed. The fear of what Karen might demand of him was only an added worry to the overwhelming anxiety that had come with the arrival of the Archdeacon.

On the occasion of the Archdeacon’s first visit, Father Sebastian had said to him, “Archdeacon Crampton may call in to see you, Eric, sometime on Sunday or Monday. The Bishop has appointed him as a trustee and I expect there will be questions he will find it necessary to ask.”

There had been something in Father Sebastian’s voice as he spoke the last words which had put Eric on guard.

He said, “Questions about my job here, Father?”

“About the terms of your employment, about anything which enters his mind, I have no doubt. He may want to look round the cottage.”

He had wanted to look round the cottage. He had arrived shortly after nine o’clock on Monday morning. Karen, unusually, had stayed for Sunday night and had left in a hurry at half-past seven. She had had an appointment in London at ten o’clock and had already left it dangerously late; the Monday-morning traffic on the A12 was bad, particularly as it approached London. In the rush—and Karen was always in a rush—she had forgotten that her bra and a pair of knickers were still hanging on the clothesline at the side of the cottage. They were the first thing that the Archdeacon saw as he came down the path.

Without introducing himself, he said, “I didn’t realize you had a visitor.”

Eric snatched the offending articles from the line and stuffed them into his pocket, realizing even as he did so that the act, in its mixture of embarrassment and furtiveness, was a mistake.

He said, “My sister has been here for the weekend, Father.”

“I’m not your father. I don’t use that term. You can call me Archdeacon.”

“Yes, Archdeacon.”

He was very tall, certainly over six foot, square-faced with bright darting eyes under thick but well-shaped eyebrows, and a beard.

They walked down the path towards the pigsty in silence. At least, thought Eric, there was nothing he could complain about in the state of the garden.

The pigs greeted them with far louder squealing than was normal. The Archdeacon said, “I hadn’t realized you kept pigs. Do you provide pork for the college?”

“Sometimes, Archdeacon. But they don’t eat much pork. Their meat comes from the butcher in Lowestoft. I just keep pigs. I asked Father Sebastian if I could and he gave permission.”

“How much of your time do they take up?”

“Not much, Fath … Not much, Archdeacon.”

“They seem extremely noisy, but at least they don’t smell.”

There was no answer to that. The Archdeacon turned back to the house and Eric followed him. In the sitting-room he mutely offered one of the four upright rush-bottomed chairs round the square table. The Archdeacon seemed not to notice the invitation. He stood with his back to the fireplace and surveyed the room: the two armchairs—one a rocker, one a Windsor chair with a padded cushion in patchwork—the low bookcase along the whole of one wall, the posters which Karen had brought with her and fixed to the wall with Blu Tack.

The Archdeacon said, “I suppose the stuff you’ve used to put up these posters doesn’t damage the wall?”

“It shouldn’t. It’s specially made. It’s like chewing gum.”

Then the Archdeacon pulled out one of the chairs sharply and sat down, motioning Eric to the other. The questions which followed were not aggressively put, but Eric felt that he was a suspect under interrogation, accused of some as yet unnamed crime.

“How long have you worked here? Four years, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Archdeacon.”

“And your duties are what, precisely?”

His duties had never been precise. Eric said, “I’m a general handyman. I mend anything that gets broken if it isn’t electrical, and I do the outside cleaning. That means I wash down the cloister floor, sweep up the courtyard and clean the windows. Mr. Pilbeam is responsible for the inside cleaning and there’s a woman comes in from Reydon to help.”

“Hardly an onerous job. The garden looks well kept. You’re fond of gardening?”

“Yes, very fond.”

“But it’s hardly large enough to supply vegetables for the college.”

“Not all the vegetables, but I grow too much for my own use, so I take the surplus up to the kitchen for Mrs. Pilbeam and sometimes I give vegetables to people in the other cottages.”

“Do they pay for them?”

“Oh no, Archdeacon. Nobody pays.”

“And what do you get paid for these not very arduous duties?”

“I get the minimum wage based on five hours’ work a day.”

He didn’t say that neither he nor the college had worried too much about hours. Sometimes the work was done in less than five hours, sometimes it took longer.

“And in addition you get this cottage rent-free. You pay, no doubt, for your own heating, lighting and, of course, your own Council Tax.”

“I pay my Council Tax.”

“And what about Sundays?”

“Sunday is my day off.”

“I was thinking of church. You attend the church here?”

He did occasionally attend church, but only for Evensong, when he would sit at the back and listen to the music and Father Sebastian’s and Father Martin’s measured voices, speaking words which were unfamiliar but beautiful to hear. But that couldn’t be what the Archdeacon meant.

He said, “I don’t usually go to church on Sunday.”

“But didn’t Father Sebastian ask you about that when he appointed you?”

“No, Archdeacon. He asked me whether I could do the job.”

“He didn’t ask you whether you were a Christian?”

And here at least he had an answer. He said, “I am Christian, Archdeacon. I was christened when I was a baby. I’ve got a card somewhere.” He looked vaguely around, as if the remembered card, with its record of the christening, its sentimental picture of Christ blessing the little children, might suddenly materialize.