Beneath the Skin(57)
Rupert interrupts quickly. ‘Don’t. Dad, that was years ago, years ago.’ Then after a moment. ‘Look, I don’t know what happened the other day, but you were ill, you are ill. And David wasn’t angry with you, I’m sure of it. He came here to see you, he visited the morning you came in, when you were asleep. Mum told me.’ He trails off, realising too late that he’s mentioned something Helen thought best not to tell Charlie.
The clock ticks. Then Charlie sits up, blows his nose and nods. Rupert breathes again.
‘He was a good man, Rupert. A good man. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.’
‘I think I might go to church today,’ Mike mumbles, crouching at the cereal cupboard, searching for something that doesn’t involve bran, chocolate or charms.
‘I thought you might,’ Olivia replies.
He glances up at her face. Her voice sounds impassive, but he wonders if she minds. Olivia was fiercely atheist at uni, but mellowed as their relationship got more serious, eventually agreeing to the Catholic wedding Mike wanted (for his parents, of course). ‘Just because I love you so much, Michael Turner.’
‘Can I come too?’ Rachel asks from the kitchen table.
‘You don’t have to.’ Olivia’s words come out sharply, but Rachel doesn’t seem to notice. ‘I know,’ she replies lightly, before leaving the room to get dressed.
Mike gives up on the cereal quest and puts a crust of bread in the toaster. Then he sits opposite Olivia. ‘I just feel grateful, that’s all,’ he wants to say, but he doesn’t really understand it himself, so he says nothing.
‘Is the church usually this full, Dad?’ Rachel later whispers, pushed up next to Mike along a dark wooden pew.
Mike nods. St John’s is heaving as usual on a Sunday and there’s that familiar smell. Of candles, he supposes. How has he forgotten? Wishing he’d removed his jacket before sitting down, he shifts in his seat. He’s burning up, his collar feels tight and his throat is clogged. Olivia would chortle if she knew. ‘The symptoms of Catholic guilt,’ she would say and smile.
He leans towards Rachel. ‘Wish you’d gone to the party with Hannah?’
‘With a load of babies. No thanks. Besides, this is quite—’
‘Long and boring?’ He laughs quietly. ‘Remind me to bring you on Good Friday.’
He feels for his mobile. He knows it’s bad form to send a message in church, but he’s ruminated on texting Antonia since the start of the service and doesn’t want to back out of the idea. The words and the prayers have come automatically, like he’s never been away. But he suddenly realises he isn’t the one who’s in need. Which, he likes to think, is what the teaching of Jesus is surely all about.
‘I thought I’d text Antonia. See if she’s up to a visit,’ he whispers to Rachel. ‘Is that OK with you?’
The sandwiches are already prepared and waiting. Their crusts are removed, they’re cut into triangles and covered in cling film by the time Mike and Rachel arrive at White Gables. Antonia ushers them into the kitchen, feeling nervous. It’s the first human contact she’s had for more than twenty-four hours. Over the years she’s spent many days in the large house on her own, but not at night, not without David’s huge presence. Yet bizarrely, last night she didn’t feel alone. She dreamed pleasant dreams and felt David was near. It was in the morning when she awoke so very early and without a purpose. That’s when the desolation and the emptiness really dawned.
They all look at the sandwiches. ‘Sorry,’ she says with a shy smile. ‘It seems rather desperate to have it all ready, doesn’t it?’
‘Not at all,’ Mike replies, looking at Rachel with a grin. ‘The truth is we’re starving. I dragged my poor little girl to church.’
‘Hey. Not so little, Dad.’
‘That’s child cruelty. I should know!’ Antonia declares. ‘St Hilda’s in Northenden. Every Sunday and Holy Day, come rain or shine.’ She looks at them both looking at her, their faces open and inquisitive. ‘My mother is Irish too. Well, African-Irish, actually. Oh, go ahead, sit down and tuck in. Drinks! What can I get you both to drink?’
‘I’m really very sorry about your sad news.’ A nurse stops Helen in the hospital corridor. She’s oriental and exceedingly pretty, but Helen doubts that Charlie will notice, even if he’s well. ‘Was he a close friend, Mrs Proctor?’
She replies in Charlie’s words, ‘The best friend anyone could have.’ Though Helen wonders. It seems to her that Charlie always did the giving with David. Isn’t friendship supposed to be reciprocal? She’d challenged Charlie on the subject a few times over the years, especially when David let them down, which was far too often. ‘I do love you, Helen, very much,’ Charlie would reply, ‘but you are utterly incapable of seeing the grey area.’
Friendship or not, there’ll be a massive hole in their lives with David gone, Helen muses as she readies herself at the ward door to see Charlie. She feels unsettled as she stands there. A hole that will need filling, she thinks. She’s ill-equipped for the job. Charlie knows that, surely? Besides, she already has a job of her own, an occupation which comes very close in importance to her love for him.
She shelves her agitation and pushes open the door, the smell of illness assailing her nostrils. Glancing at Rupert, she expects his face to be blank or bored, moody even, but it’s pink and blotchy and his eyelids are swollen. She’s always thought of Rupert as having been a little changeling baby, planted in error in the Proctor household. That baby grew into a small boy who adored her, an emotion she’s never been able to reciprocate, even though she tries. She watches him for a moment as he leans forward, his eyes on his father’s as he listens intently to something Charlie is saying. The expression, the one with silver linings, has always puzzled her. Most idioms do. But as she looks from father to son, she finds herself thinking it anyway.