Case Histories

Caroline sat in the front pew and said, "I could do with a cigarette." He sat down next to her, the brush and dustpan still in his hand, and said, "I didn't know you smoked?" and she said, "I don't. Not really." He was wearing vicarish trousers, black and nondescript and rather cheap, a white T-shirt, and an old gray cardigan that she wanted to stroke as if it were an animal. Even when he was in mufti he looked like a vicar. She couldn't imagine him in jeans or a suit. She didn't think he had any idea about how she felt about him. If she told him she "would spoil his innocence. Of course she didn't know him, not at all really. But what difference did it make? Maybe he wasn't the right person for her (obviously not, in fact) and let's not forget that she was married (But so what? Really?) but surely there wasn't just one person in the whole world who was meant for you? If there was then the odds against your ever bumping up against him would be overwhelming, and knowing Caroline's luck even if she did bump up against him she probably wouldn't realize who he was. And what if the person who was destined for you was a shanty dweller in Mexico City or a political prisoner in Burma or one of the million people she was unlikely ever to have a relationship with? Like a prematurely balding Anglican vicar in a rural parish in North Yorkshire.

She felt suddenly tearful. "My au pair's going to leave me," she said. Oh, how pathetic must that sound to him. On a scale of world peace and third-world poverty, how did an unhappy Spanish au pair rate? But he was kind, as she knew he would be, and he said, "I'm sorry," as if he really were, and then they sat in silence and stared at the altar and listened to the summer rain drumming on the ancient stone slates.

Chapter 13. Amelia

Julia hauled a scuttle full of coal into the sitting room, escorted by a limping Sammy. "I can't believe Victor never put in central heating," she gasped, dropping the scuttle to the floor so that coal dust and tiny pieces of coal, like polished, unworked jet, spilled on the carpet. Amelia frowned at her and said, "I've just cleaned in here," and Julia said, "That's what will be written on your gravestone," and Amelia said, "Oh, really, by you?" and Julia said, "God, I'm gagging for it, aren't you?" and Amelia said, "Apropos of what exactly?"

"Two weeks of enforced celibacy since we've been here," Julia said. "it's doing my head in, it really is. I'm having to wank every night."

"Oh, for God's sake, Julia, you're so crude. It's disgusting." Amelia hated that word, the slaters and brickies used it all the time, the hairdressers too – the girls were just like the boys. "You wanker!" – yelling at each other across the room.

"What would you call it then?" Julia asked, and Amelia said, "I don't know – pleasuring yourself," which made Julia fall about laughing and say, "God, don't tell me you don't do it, Milly. Everyone does it, it's normal. I'm sure you do it and think about Henry – oh, no, you don't think about Henry. I bet you think about Jackson !" Julia seemed particularly delighted with this idea. Amelia wanted to slap her. "You do it, don't you, Milly? You frig yourself and think about Jackson!"

"You are disgusting, Julia. Offensively disgusting." Amelia knew she had turned as red as her tights – donned especially in case Jackson dropped in today because he had seemed rather taken with them at Victor's funeral. She'd woken up that morning and felt a good feeling, as if the blood in her veins were warm honey, and she thought, He's going to visit this morning, and she had put on some of Julia's makeup and left her hair loose because it was more girlish and she'd made a pot of coffee and warmed up the stale croissants that Julia had bought the day before. And she'd picked some flowers from the garden (hard to find among the weeds) and put them in a vase so that Jackson would look at her and see that she was a woman. But he hadn't come, of course. She'd never had any intuition, womanly or otherwise. It had just been wishful thinking.

Julia sang out, "Milly's got a new boyfriend. Poor old Henry. Milly likes Jackson," as if she were eight years old again. Part of Julia would always be eight years old, just as part of Amelia would always be eleven years old – the age she was when the world stopped.

"How old are you, Julia?"

"Not as old as you."

"I'm leaving the room before I hit you."