She liked being in an environment where people enjoyed what they were doing, valued it, even if they tried to pretend they didn’t. She liked having col
leagues at all – she’d seen how Michael’s solitary, self-directed work had isolated him at times, turned him in on himself – and she enjoyed just sitting in the staffroom with them, drinking coffee, talking, listening to gossip. Of which there seemed only to be more the older they got; some of her colleagues were divorced already, one more than once, and over the years there’d been regular talk of goings on behind marital backs. She’d even, once, found herself in a situation where it had been made clear that something like that had been an option for her. But the idea had seemed absurd, a caricature of any discontent she might have been feeling, and she’d declined. She wondered if that had ever been gossiped about around the coffee table there, with the curled-corner posters of fat new novels stuck to the walls and the ring-binders stacked in the corner behind the door. It seemed unlikely.
When she got home that afternoon, Michael showed her a note he’d found on the desk in his study. WOULD APPRECIATE FEWER QUESTIONS, it said; MY CONDITION DOES NOT RESPOND WELL TO STRESS.
‘You have to ask her to leave,’ Catherine said. Michael made a non-committal sound, an mm or an umm, and Catherine waited for something more.
‘It’s quite a statement though, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘What did you say to the woman?’
‘Michael, please. I’m just not comfortable with her being in the house,’ Catherine said.
‘Do you think she’s on some kind of fast?’ Michael asked. Catherine took the note from his hand and looked at it again.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Do you think she’s fasting?’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know, Michael,’ she said, ‘I really don’t know.’ She was suddenly very tired.
‘Because as far as I can see she’s only eating yoghurt,’ he said. ‘Have you noticed her eating anything else? She hasn’t asked to use the kitchen. She’s never joined us for dinner, she keeps insisting on not being hungry. Haven’t you noticed?’ He seemed fascinated by the idea.
‘Michael,’ Catherine said. He looked up. ‘She can’t stay.’
The woman came back late. They heard her letting herself in while they were clearing away the dinner things, and by the time Catherine had got out to the hallway she was halfway up the stairs.
‘Hello again,’ Catherine said. The woman turned round, the holdall in one hand and a carrier bag filled with pots of yoghurt in the other.
‘Hey,’ she said. Her hair was hanging limply around her face, and her skin was even paler than it had been before. She looked exhausted, ill.
‘No luck at the hospital?’ Catherine asked. The woman stared at her.
‘Does it look like it?’ she said, turning away. She was almost at the top of the stairs before Catherine could take a breath and respond.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, raising her voice a little. ‘Sorry?’ The woman stopped, but didn’t turn round. ‘Sorry,’ Catherine said again, trying to soften her voice with a laugh; ‘but I was just wondering. I mean, we don’t actually know each other’s names, do we?’ Waiting for the woman to turn round, feeling her fists almost clenching when she didn’t. ‘My name’s Catherine,’ she called up.
‘Hello, Catherine,’ the woman said, flatly, and continued on up the stairs to her room.
Catherine stood in the hallway, waiting for something, unwilling to go straight back to the kitchen and have Michael ask about her day and what they might watch on the television as if nothing untoward was going on. As if the woman wasn’t staying longer than he’d said she would. As if the woman had been open and straightforward with them and given them no cause for concern.
She prayed about it later that evening, sitting in the front room with a lit candle and a Bible on the coffee table, a confused prayer in which she asked that they all be kept safe, that her fears about the woman prove unfounded, that the woman find what she was looking for at the hospital, that Michael or herself might find some way of resolving the situation, that she could be less suspicious and more trusting of the world and the people who came her way, that God might grant her more love and faith and empathy in situations like this, that Michael might listen to her a little more, take her fears more seriously, that God might watch over them all in this situation.
She opened her eyes, and saw the woman standing in the doorway, still wearing the long beige raincoat and holding another spoon. Smiling.
‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude. I just thought I heard something.’
‘Well,’ Catherine said. ‘Only me.’ She felt as if she’d been caught out, exposed somehow. The woman smiled, and that self-assurance, self-contentment, self-whatever-it-was, was there again.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Only you.’ She noticed Catherine looking at the spoon. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I hope you don’t mind. I helped myself to a spoon, for the yoghurt.’ Pronouncing yoghurt with a long oh, which in Catherine’s irritable state felt like yet another trespass.
‘Oh no,’ Catherine replied, lifting her hands in an attempt at nonchalance, letting them clap down on her thighs; ‘that’s fine. It’s only a spoon.’ A weak smile, met with a shrug. The woman glanced down at the Bible, the candle.
‘Were you praying?’ she asked. Catherine nodded, and the woman looked puzzled, tilting her head as if she was about to ask something. ‘Well,’ she said, finally, ‘I won’t keep you. It sounds like your husband’s gone to bed already.’
‘Goodnight,’ Catherine said. The woman left, closing the door behind her, and Catherine watched as the candle flame flapped and fluttered and eventually stilled.
She shouldn’t be angry though. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have been angry at the time, and she should have learnt not to be still angry about these things now. He was dedicated to his job. He cared about the church, about the redevelopment, about the new community services he wanted to offer, about enthusing the congregation with a sense of mission. These were all good things to care about, to spend every waking moment worrying about. But she was tired of it now. She was tired of being towed along while he did these things.
At least people didn’t come calling to the house, generally. That was one thing. It happened to other vicars – it had happened in previous parishes – but it hadn’t happened here. The vicarage was too far from the church, too anonymous-looking, and so they hadn’t had people banging on the door at all hours asking for money as they had elsewhere. People went to the church, and Michael dealt with them there. Which was good. It gave them some separation, mostly. It meant Michael could relax a little once he was home, and it meant Catherine had to worry a little less about always being The Vicar’s Wife. There were still the phone calls of course, and the members of the congregation who knew where they lived and would insist on calling round with messages, paperwork, problems, and would talk to her when Michael was out as if she was his secretary. She’d minded it more in the early days, before she’d felt established in her career. She’d resented the idea that her role in the world might amount to no more than being The Vicar’s Wife. I married you, she’d snapped at him once; I didn’t marry your job. I didn’t marry the Church.