Ruth sees the look on Malcolm’s face. ‘You think I’m joking, but I’m not. You have to be a musician, oh, and counsellor, when the organist has his weekly crisis of confidence. That’s before juggling all the personalities on the PCC, and the churchwardens and your curates. One curate who used to be in the City and thinks he knows it all, while the other one knows a lot but she’s too shy to say anything. So there is the cajoling, the listening, the encouraging, the pacifying. And that’s without thinking of all the people you are trying to help in the parish, who are the reason you’re there in the first place. And that’s not just your congregation – your parish includeseveryone. So you spend your time loitering in the village shop and listening in the pub, casually walking by the school at home time, because that is when you get to hear about who is in trouble and having an utterly wretched time. Then when these poor peopledoopen up to you, you try your utmost to get them the right help.’
Ruth pulls her coat tightly around herself, hugging it to her. ‘I never minded that,’ she says, ‘even if it could be a battle … more letters, emails, phone calls … more bureaucracy. I always felt that was what I was there for. But the rest? The rest!’ Jo sees Ruth is trembling. ‘And you know what the worst was?’ She doesn’t wait for an answer, the words are pouring out of her now. ‘All those personal comments that you are just supposed to take, because you’re a bloody vicar!’ She looks at Jo. ‘You’ve put on weight; your earrings are too showy; that new haircut is awful; you shouldn’t spend so much time in the pub talking to people. And so it goes on. So what made me run away? You want one reason? Jo, you can take your pick.’
Her agitation is now shaking Ruth’s whole body. Jo remembers a spaniel they once had on the farm that was terrified of storms. Like Ruth, its whole body shook with suppressed emotion.
Jo holds both of Ruth’s arms as if to steadyher. Malcolm takes a step closer. ‘I’m so sorry, Ruth,’ Jo says. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I should never have asked.’
Ruth takes a deep, shuddering breath.
Jo says, again, ‘Ruth, I am really sorry, I feel terrible, I shouldn’t have asked you that.’
Ruth shakes her head, breathing more slowly now. ‘No, I think I needed to get that off my chest.’ She sniffs and gives Jo a watery grin. ‘Don’t worry. If it had been me, I would have asked that weeks ago.’
It is only as Jo is curled up in bed later that night that a doubt solidifies within her brain, and she wonders what therealreason was that the Reverend Ruth Hamilton ran away. For she is now certain, Ruth did not tell them.
42
Meeting point
The following days pass slowly for Jo, and increasingly she dwells on the life of Hutch, the ultimate performer. She feels that her life is divided into her public face and her private face. In the shop, in front of her customers, she is chatty and friendly. At times, this does not feel like a performance; there are moments when she forgets about Ruth and Malcolm, and her worries about her future.
At other times she is swamped with a great lethargy. She would like to call in next door to try and put things right with Eric, but she can’t find a face brave enough; she thinks of going swimming but she would be there without Ruth and her, ‘Holy shiiiit!’ She tells herself there might be others she could talk to. She reminds herself of the naked friendliness of the changing room. But why would she bother to try and make friends? She is leaving soon. She has given herself until the New Year, and Christmas is just over a week away.
One afternoon, she closes the shop early and walks to Highgate Cemetery. She wanders deep into the graveyard, exploring parts she has not seen before, not wanting to re-tread the paths she has walked with Malcolm and Ruth. In the tangle of growth she finds new names and new stories, which for a while distract her, until she remembers Malcolm’s research and then she is back to missing Ruth and to missing him. She even misses the ghosts. She has heard nothing from either Malcolm or Ruth, which means she is held in a perpetual suspension of waiting. A new kind of limbo.
Sitting on a wall at the side of the cemetery, Jo contemplates what she is going to do with her life. She digs her fingertips into the moss that fills the cracks between the stones, but finds no answers there. She stares at the different-shaped stones, the large, the small and the average-sized stones. She wonders why she has spent so much time dwelling on what it is to be average. Is anyone ever really ‘average’? Perhaps it is feeling not quite one thing or the other, feeling out of place? (A place for everything and everything in its place.)
And then she is back to thinking of ‘home’ and where that might be. She remembers talking to Eric in the shop, telling him about the very people who lie buried around her here. That felt like home. She did not feel average or dull during those times.
Well, it’s nearly Christmas, and New Year is fast approaching, her deadline. What then? She is swept by a feeling of overwhelming loss. She has lost something with Eric; she is conscious of that. She thinks of Lucy and her family, who she wants to return to, and the small shop in London that she has come to love and doesn’t want to leave.
And Ruth? Where was she now? With her brother, Don? She cannot help feeling that she has let Ruth down. She believes now that she did not confide in them about all that troubled her, the real reason she left. She wonders if she could have pressed harder, if she could have helped.
Jo looks around her and it dawns on her – there is someone else who is left behind. She is not completely alone. Jo jumps down from the wall and starts walking.
Malcolm answers the door before her hand has left the knocker.
‘Oh, Joanne, it’s you!’ He looks over her shoulder.
‘Were you expecting someone?’ Jo asks, looking back down the path. For a second, she wonders if it might be Ruth.
‘No. Well, yes. But not for ten minutes. I thought it might be early. Do come in.’
Confused, Jo steps inside. The room is very different from her last visit. None of the lights or candles are lit; the fire hearth has been swept clean and the Christmas cards have been cleared away. By the side of the Christmas tree is a small wheelie suitcase.
‘I thought you might be the taxi,’ Malcolm explains, seeing Jo looking at the case.
‘You’re going away?’ Jo says, stating the obvious. But feeling,you too.It seems a sad irony that she will be the only one left here in London – along with the ghosts.
‘Yes, but we have ten minutes.’ He ushers her to a seat but does not offer to take her coat.
Malcolm is wearing grey trousers and a grey overcoat. Jo’s heart sinks. For a moment she falters. She was debating if she should ask Malcolm to come home with her for Christmas, and now it dawns on her that she knows nothing of his other friends and possible family. She hardly knows the man.
Then he smiles at her and he is still Malcolm: the man who buys notebooks; the customer who strides up the alleyway to her shop; the host who mixes fantastic Christmas cocktails; the gentle man who has carried a secret loss within his heart; the man who does battle with a vicar.
The words spill out. ‘I know it hasn’t been long, but I miss her, Malcolm. Have you heard from her?’
Malcolm looks troubled. ‘Only a short text. I don’t think the meeting with her brother, Donald, went well.’
