Sunday October 25
When is news gossip?
***
What had happened?
At least one miracle.
Frederick Parsnip had at last secured a position at a
missionary complex in what he hoped was darkest Africa. He could save souls
till the cows came home, assuming there were some there. Frederick Parsnip –
don’t call him Fred - had long since lost interest in saving British souls.
Evangelism for people in far-away places oozed out of his pores; he looked to
heaven for guidance in his new endeavour.
Mr Parsnip was an indifferent parent and atrociously
egoistic family man; his five sons were only of interest if they were scrubbed
clean and spoke coherently; Edith was good enough for kitchen duties but he
made sure she did not get anywhere near his bed.
***
Rumour had it that the twins born to the Parsnips were the
result of Edith seducing the vicar in a most unladylike way. Whatever the truth
of that delicacy, the vicar had looked elsewhere for sexual joy, but had been
thwarted by the untimely and violent death of the lady he most admiredwithout
ever having actually got nearer to her than befits a vicar. After that tragedy,
the vicar turned to the solace of theoretical emasculation and declared that
all sex based activity was original sin, and therefore to be avoided.
***
The Parsnips slept in twin beds as far removed from one
another as was possible in the main bedroom. Edith often removed herself from
the bedroom completely, ostensibly to avoid her husband’s loud snoring. Then
she slept on the day-bed in her utility room, which also housed a TV bought
from a Premium Bond win, and all her sewing equipment. If the vicar even
noticed when Edith did not sleep in the master bedroom, he refrained from
commenting and was glad.
***
Edith’s twin sister Clare, who had now settled in a
bungalow nearby with her Austrian husband and their lively two-year-old twins,
had been known in her youth as a party-girl. Edith had always been the dowdy
one. It could be a clue to the vicar’s personality that despite Edith and
Clare’s difference in temperament, he was unable to tell them apart except by
memorizing Edith’s clothing and calling the other one Clare.
***
Edith, who had been shocked that Clare could attract and
be attracted by so many nice men, was full of moral rectitude and covert envy.
She was jealous of her sister while disapproving of her life-style. The vicar
thought Clare was awful, though he had been known to wonder if she was as cold
a fish as Edith. In fact, a psychologist would say that he was tempted, but was
afraid of being lured into a relationship he could not sustain. Edith was
harmless because she had given up on the vicar, and if her twins were the
result of him being raped by her in a last ditch attempt to add to her quota of
children with a daughter she could knit pink and sew frilly frocks for and ,
they did not mention the fact to one another. As far as he knew, the only
person to know of that embarrassment was the doctor who had treated the bites
and scratches he had suffered during that humiliation.
***
Dr Mithell, the village GP, had tended to the wounds. He
would have been appalled to know that his wife was a rather talkative member of
the Townbswomen’s Guild, though she swore everyone to secrecy if she imparted
any particularly juicy scandal that came her way in her role of doctor’s
assistant. She had been shocked at the reports on the vicar’s medial file.
“Just fancy”, she had told her friends, “Fancy forcing someone to have sex with
you.”
***
Edith’s admirable if dubitable ethics lasted until she
started seeing Robert the butcher through different eyes. That had been after
Cleo’s passionate feelings for her friend and colleague Gary Hurley had led to
their one night stands becoming a serious romantic attachment, and just a few weeks
before the letter arrived summoning the vicar to Africa.
***
True to character, the vicar never showed the letter to
anyone. It was his triumph. Africa needed him and he needed Africa. The new bishop
promised to support Frederick. His family could continue to live at the
vicarage and the vicar’s salary would be paid regularly on condition that he
returned after his Africa contract ran out. Frederick Parsnip promised
faithfully to return, while crossing his fingers behind his back. If Mr Parsnip
had not been departing on a Christian mission, he could have been escaping the
drudgery of a sluggish parish, his failed marriage or himself. He did not know
that his invitation to Africa was as phony as his wifes ethics and financed by
savings from the household budget.
***
Having foolishing entered into her marriage with Robert
(so as not to break her promise) while carrying on her passionate affair with
Chief Inspector Gary Hurley, Cleo, pregnant with the child she pretended was
Robert’s while knowing it was Gary’s, made a genuine effort to stop seeing Gary
until she could no longer deny to herself that she had married the wrong guy.
Their affair became a permanant arrangement about which Robert
probably knew but made no serious effort to break up. For the family butcher, possessing
a woman like Cleo was a feather in his cap even if he was unwillingly but not
unknowingly sharing her.
The truth is that Robert had known all along about Cleo’s
preference for the handsome cop without seriously considering that she would
enter some kind of external romantic arrangmeent. For a time, Cleo claimed
happiness with Robert, though her marriage was spiced up, Cleo would say, with her
extramural trysts with Gary.
***
Cleo Hartley’s loyalty to Robert was almost fanatical. She
was grateful for his friendship when others had looked askance at her. She would
not desert him. PeggySue became a sort of permanency insurance for Robert, who did
not want the child for a reason only he understood at the time. He hoped that
Cleo would settle for comfortable domesticity.
Later, Cleo could not explain why she had been so anxious
to hang on to the marriage to a guy who would have preferred her to have an
abortion having decided that she was too old for parenthood. Was that the
moment when the marriage really ended?
***
It was providence that one day Robert and Edith started to
exchange shy smiles.
***
Later, Edith was to declare that Frederick’s intention to
fly to Africa the following Monday, having had a call from the Almighty to do
good works there, had been the impulse she needed to get nearer to the family
butcher, but she would never have dared to do what she did had not Frederick’s
sister Beatrice told her to get on with it.
***
Beatrice had come to the vicarage for the weekend, mainly
to say goodbye to Frederick, the little brother she no longer thought was worth
his salt as a vicar or a husband. She intended to support Edith in her hour of
need. What she suspected but had not yet verified was that Edith was more glad
than sad that the vicar was leaving, and was instrumental in his going.
***
Chatting to Edith about her forthcoming loss convinced
Beatrice once and for all that her sister-in-law would be better off without Frederick
and she said so. The light in Edith’s eyes convinced Beatrice that Edith was
losing her heart to someone else, so she suggested to Edith that it would be a
good time to go after what she wanted.
***
Apart from a Sunday
service, in which Frederick announced to the sparse congregation that he was
leaving them, but with the bishop’s blessing, to help Christianity in Africa,
the vicar spent the day deciding what to pack of the clean, ironed and folded
clothes laid out on his bed. He had preached a relatively short sermon based on
his favourite hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. Mr Morgan, the organist, had
accompanied all the vicar’s favourite hymns with verve and panache. His Welsh
emotions had made him cry, mainly because the beauty of his own organ-playing
moved him to tears; Robert Jones, who was not only everyone’ family butcher,
but also the best amateur singer in the region who made up at least half the
volume of the chrch choir, had given the vicar a good send-off by singing a few
Spirituals for him with the backing of the choir, a motley group of senior and
junior citizens, some tuneful, some tone-deaf but willing. At one point, the
vicar was not even sure that he could go to Africa and leave such a voice as
Robert’s behind.
***
Edith, who avoided her
husband’s pulpit performances whenever whe could, stayed home even on this
memorable morning cooking a farewell beef roast with an extra Yorkshire pudding
for the vicar, after which he decided he needed forty winks before finishing
his packing.
That was the opportunity
Beatrice had been waiting for.
Edith found herself
admitting to Beatrice that she was making the Africa safari financially possible.
Beatrice was shocked,
but declared that it was for the best. An offer had come from a new parishioner
to take Robert to the airport and a mysterious second plane ticket fluttered
down out of the envelope containing her contribution, much to Edith’s puzzlement.
Frederick would use the mysterious one and Edith could get the money back on
the first ticket, which she had of course bought unknown to the vicar..
Did someone else want the
vicar out of the way? Frederick Parsnip took it all in his stride, declaring
that it was wonderful to have such kind supporters. Edith could buy new shoes
for the boys, the vicar generously advised. There might even be enoughEdith to get
a new winter coat. The last one was several years old and had previously
belonged to someone who donated it to the Red Cross charity shop.
***
“Why don’t you go to
that man you admire?” Beatrice suggested to Edith.
“I can’t do that. He
hasn’t invited me.”
“He won’t invite you
unless you make it clear to him that you want him to,” said Beatrice, who had
no experience to look back on. She was married to a psychiatrist named Oscar who
fulfilled almost all of her wishes and had provided her with a sold, if
childless marriage.
***
Edith thought about taking
the initiative. Beatrice had not asked who the man was and Edith did not
volunteer the information. After all, respectable vicar’s wives did not
proposition men.
***
“Well, if you
think…” Edith started.
“I do, Edith.
Think of your future.”
“I didn’t know I had
one. In fact, sometimes I think I’m already dead.”
“Rubbish. Run along now.
I’ll see to the boys and keep the vicar happy by plying him with coffee. He
probably won’t even notice you aren’t here.”
“That’s the whole
problem, Beatrice,” said Edith. “I’ve been invisible to Frederick for so long
that I think I’ll step in front of a mirror one day and I won’t have a
reflection.”
“Well, you are not
invisible. You are a nice woman and you deserve something better than my
brother.”
***
Edith hurried to Robert’s
flat and rang the doorbell before she had time to think better of it. The front
door was closed because it was Sunday and the side entrance to the shop was not
needed for deliveries. Robert’s flat was on the first floor above the shop. A
flight of stairs led to it. Robert was waiting at the top. He wasn’t expecting
anyone and had just finished his accounts. He was ready for a little snooze and
not pleased to have a visitor.
“Why Edith, what
brings you here?”
“Can I come in,
Robert?”
“Of course. Has
something happened?”
“Beatrice sent
me.”
“Beatrice is
Frederick’s sister, isn’t she? Why would she send you here?”
“She could see
that I am unhappy.”
“Oh yes, of course,”
said Robert. “The vicar’s leaving tomorrow, isn’t he?”
“Don’t misunderstand
me,” said Edith, taking a seat on Robert’s sofa in Robert’s little
sitting-room. “I’m glad he’s going.”
Robert was surprised. He
had a soft spot for Edith, but had only seen her as the vicar’s wife and
therefore a no-go area, even if he had wanted to go elsewhere.
“Do you want to
know why?” Edith asked.
“Are you going to
tell me?”
Edith hesitated for a
moment before doing something she had not planned that was totally out of
character if we are thinking about the family drudge the vicar saw in her.
Looking at Robert now she imagined she was her sister Clare, who was good with
men. She looked just like her, after all. What would Clare do?
Edith moved nearer to
Robert, who was sitting in an armchair next to the sofa, turned to him, put her
arms on his shoulders and kissed him full on the mouth.
***
Robert was
understandably astonished. Quite apart from being bowled over by Edith’s
gesture, he was not used to a woman taking the initiative. Cleo had not even
made an effort to bring out Robert’s fervent side, so it had remained dormant.
They looked at one another in amazement before mutually repeating the kiss with
a lot more energy and mutual passion, during which Robert found himself putting
his arms round Edith and drawing her closer until they were all but interlocked.
***
At the end of the intimacy,
Edith drew back and apologized.
“I don’t know what came
over me,” she said.
“Whatever it was, it was
very enjoyable, Edith.”
“So you aren’t
appalled.”
“No. Why should I be?”
“We are both married,”
said Edith.
“To partners who don’t
want us, Edith. There’s no crime in looking for someone who does.”
“Do you want me?” said
Edith.
“If you’ll have me,
Edith. Do you want me?”
“Oh yes, Robert. I want
you,” she replied, opening the buttons of Robert’s shirt.
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Robert was astonished,
but that did not stop him from gathering Edith, who was as light as a feather
for a butcher used to carting carcases around, in his arms and carrying her into
his bedroom, where he flopped her down onto the counterpane, and started to
pull her clothes off.
“What are we doing,
Robert?” cried Edith in mock despair.
“We’re going to have
sex, Edith, but only if you want to.”
“I do want to, Robert,” Edith said as she helped him to get
his clothes off with admirable speed and enthusiasm.
***
What happened for the
rest of the day and throughout the night until Robert’s alarm clock rang out at
them at four thirty next morning was
world-shattering for them both. Quite suddenly, Robert had found himself
behaving like the lover he had never really been but always wanted to be, but
never found a woman to bring it all out. Edith, also as naked as the day she
was born, was indulging in love-making such as she had never known in its reciprocal
form. She did not recognize herself. Had she slipped into her sister’s
personality?
***
“You look worried, but
we are only doing what comes naturally, Edith,” Robert assured her, and they
made love again.
Suffice it to say that
Robert the family butcher and Edith the vicar’s wife consummated their secret
love for one another in no uncertain manner. Two souls had been saved , not by
a missionary, but by the simple mechanism of mutual attraction.
***
“I’d better go home,”
said Edith, startled by the insidious alarmclock bell. Robert had broken off
their pursuit and was sitting on the side of the bed feeling he had conquered
the world and not just this little angel of a woman. Edith knelt behind him on
the bed and let her fingers wander down his back and around his haunches until
he said “Please stop.”
“Not yet,” Edith said,
and drew him back onto her with surprisinf force.
Eventually Robert found
enough determination to get out of bed.
“I’ve got to go to the wholesaler’s, Edith.”
“I’d better go home then,”
said Edith, disappointed.
“Yes, you’d better. I’m
sure someone will have missed you.”
“I don’t care if he
has,” said Edith, meaning Frederick Parsnip.
“I’m glad you came,”
said Robert, who was prone to understatement in times of emotional stress. “I
would never have had the courage to invite you.”
“It’s done now, Robert.
I’m happy and I think you are. Beatrice will be delighted.”
Robert was startled.
“What has she got to do
with it?”
“She sent me here.
Aren’t you glad about that, Robert?”
“Of course I’m glad. If
I didn’t have to go to the blasted wholesaler’s I would persuade you to stay.”
“We could do this again
tonight, Robert.”
“But not at the
vicarage, Edith,” said Robert, pulling on his clothes at breakneck speed.
“I could get Beatrice to
stay and look after the boys. Then I could come here.”
“That’s a good
suggestion, Edith, but we should get going before anyone sees you leaving.”
Edith dressed and they drank a hasty glass of orange juice
before leaving Robert’s flat together.
***
It was still dark. Robert
drove off to the wholesalers while Edith ran home, let herself into the
vicarage through the kitchen door and put the kettle on. Within two minutes
Beatrice was in the kitchen, eager to hear how Edith’s outing had gone.
“You were right, Beatrice,”
said Edith, not even wondering why Beatrice was up so early.”I don’t think
Robert would have got round to approaching me for a long time.”
“Do you mean Robert
Jones the butcher?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s married.”
“So am I, Beatrice, but
Robert has separated from his wife and is living in his old flat above the shop.”
“Did anyone see you going
there or coming out? You know how people talk.”
“Frederick will be gone
within a couple of hours and after that I don’t care.”
***
Friederick came into
the kitchen at that moment. His timing had always been inopportune-
“You were away all night,
weren’t you, Edith?” said the vicar as he reached for a mug and poured himself
a cup of tea bfore drifting off into his study..
“We lost track of the time,”
Edith called after him before she could think twice.
***
“Just imagine the
headlines,” said Beatrice. “While the vicar was packing for darkest Africa his
wife was asleep in the arms of her lover. That will make interesting reading.”
“We weren’t asleep, Beatrice.”
“That was only a manner of speaking.”
“You sent me there,
Beatrice.”
“I didn’t expect you to
seduce him, Edith.”
“I didn’t have to and ….
But once we got going we really didn’t sleep much.”
“I don’t suppose you
did. Robert is quite an attractive man. I expect he’s good at sex.”
Edith blushed. Beatrice
was very forthcoming. The vicar’s wife was not used to such straight talk.
“I hope no one tells on
me. What would the new bishop say?”
“Cross that bridge when
you come to it, Edith,” said Beatrice, who knew whar the former bishop had done
to Edith. We’ll get Frederick off to the airport before we think about what’s
going to happen next.”
“You’re right,” said
Edith.
“You are happy for a
change, and that’s what counts,” said Beatrice as Frederick wandered back into
the kitchen.
***
“Where were you all
night, Edith. I thought we could…”
“Well, you thought
wrong, Frederick. You’ve had enough time thinking of me only as the home drudge
and I don’t want your advances.”
“So Robert was the answer
to a maiden’s prayer, was he?” said the vicar.
Edith paled. How did
Frederick know? Beatrice shook her head. She had not told him.
“You deided on a sexless
marriage, Frederick,” said Edith.
“I know you think I am not
very perceptive, but I saw that coming,” said the vicar.
“I didn’t,” said Edith.
“But it did, didn’t it?
Bad form of Robert not to wait until I was safely out of the way.”
”To be correct about
that, it was my idea. I seduced Robert, not he me,” said Edith forcefully.
It was Beatrice’s turn to
go pale. Frederick would probably blame her because Edith would not have had
the nerve to go to a man and force herself on him, she decided. Although she
was guilty of sending Edith to Robert, Beatrice did not want be accused of
interfering.
“Taking after your
profligate sister, Edith?” the vicar sneered.
“I hope so,” retorted
Edith.
“Perhaps I should thank
Robert,” said the vicar. “I’m sure he’ll look after you and make a better
father for the boys than I ever was.”
“You said it, Frederick.
Now go and get ready before Mr Grisham arrives.”
***
Mr Grisham was a new
parishioner who attended St Peter’s regularly. His offer to take the vicar to
Heathrow had been accepted gratefully.
An hour or so later, the
boys had lined up with clean hands and ears and presented their father with a
large box of HB pencils to sharpen when he had problems to solve. They had
clubbed together to buy the best.
“I prefer B2 these
days,” the vicar said, instead of thanking them. “They sharpen better, but I’ll
take these in reserve.”
***
Frederick showed no
emotion, unless indifference counts. Beatrice received a perfunctory kiss on
each cheek. The vicar shook his sons by the hand, advising them to wash
regularly and not to cheat at school. He shook Edith by the hand, blessed her
union with his successor and hoped she would refrain from having any more
children.
***
Then he was gone.
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