Promptly banishing the inconvenient ghost of Whit, John Robert thought how important it was that they had talked about America as if they had between them placed and disposed of that great continent, thereby clearing the decks. Then he thought, if Hattie married Tom they could live right here in the Slipper House.
Pearl was standing in the hall holding his overcoat which was now warm and dry after its proximity to the central heating boiler. Pearl clicked her heels and helped him on with the coat; at any rate standing on tiptoe she held it up while he fought with it, blindly waving his arms behind him and staring at Hattie. Pearl opened the front door, but John Robert suddenly made for the sitting-room again. Hattie, who had followed him, hopped out of the way. He emerged carrying the gin and vermouth bottles. He said, ‘I don’t want you girls to drink. Please don’t keep any liquor in the house. Good-bye then — ’ He blundered out into the rain.
With a sudden energy of exasperation Pearl spoke after him. ‘I hope we will see you again soon, Professor Rozanov.’ Pearl could have a strong penetrating voice when she chose to put it on.
John Robert stopped, amazed, but did not turn round. He said, ‘Yes, yes,’ but went on, not talcing the path to the back gate into Forum Way, but going across the wet grass in the direction of Belmont. Pearl shut the door sharply.
Hattie said, ‘Ouf!’ Then, ‘I liked talking to him. It wasn’t as difficult as usual.’
‘That’s because you were both tipsy!’ said Pearl.
‘He was nice.’ Hattie thought, I held my own, I had a real conversation with him!
Pearl had other thoughts. She had seen, in the sharp cameo of her keyhole, John Robert staring at Hattie, and she had not liked what she saw.
They separated, Hattie returning into the sitting-room where she wanted to be alone for a few moments and think about John Robert. Pearl stood in the hall with her hand still upon the door. Then, without a hat or coat, she ran out into the rain. She ran among the trees of the copse where foxie lived, and laid her head against the smooth trunk of a young beech tree.
John Robert meanwhile had walked past the garage and along the path beside the house and into the front porch of Belmont. The porch was a large structure rather like a little chapel with Victorian stained-glass windows. There was a seat in the porch which he remembered and on this he put down the two bottles which he intended to leave there. As the rain just then came on in a fiercer flurry he sat for a moment beside the bottles. Dressed in a mackintosh and head scarf, Alex came out.
‘Oh - John Robert — ’
‘Mrs McCaffrey - I’m sorry - I brought these bottles — ’
‘How very kind! Won’t you come in and drink them now? And please call me Alex.’ Her blue eyes narrowed as she breathed her shock, standing in the shadow of the big man who had leapt up. She could smell the warm cooked smell, not yet banished in the rain, of John Robert’s overcoat. ‘Come in, come in, please.’ She retreated to the door, pushing it open.
At that moment Ruby appeared from round the corner of the house and stood there, wide herself as a door, and stared at the philosopher.
John Robert, saying ‘I must go, sorry,’ shot out of the porch and down the path to the road. He thought to himself, I’m drunk! and made his way back to Hare Lane as quickly as he could.
Alex said to Ruby, ‘Why did you have to come and stand there like that, like a great toad. Where have you been anyway? You’ve got the evil eye. Take these bottles in.’ She went out into the front garden holding on to her secateurs in her pocket. Two warm tears mingled with the cold rain.
The next day there was a power cut (the electricians’ strike was on again) and the shoplifters joyously made their way to Bowcocks. (It was in the evening but it was Thursday and Bowcocks was open till nine.) Diane, who was inside the shop this time as she had been last time, hurried out for fear someone should accuse her of stealing. After George’s visit her heart was all scratched and scarred and vibrating all over with a mixture of joy and pain and fear.
Valerie Cossom and Nesta Wiggins, who had been writing a Women’s Lib manifesto, shouted down the stairs for lights, for it was already darkish outside, having been another yellow overcast rainy day. Dominic Wiggins, leaving his work, which he could not now continue, came up to the girls bearing a pair of candles. He adored his daughter, but wished she would marry a nice Catholic boy and have six children. He liked Valerie. He lingered, and after a while they all went downstairs and made tea on a primus stove.
Father Bernard was with Miss Dunbury. Miss Dunbury had had a heart attack, and had been told by Dr Burdett, Dr Roach’s junior partner (and brother of the St Paul’s Church organist) who believed in being absolutely truthful, that another such attack might possibly carry her right off. Miss Dunbury was afraid. Father Bernard was doing the best he could. He had prayed over her a solemn prayer. ‘O Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons, we humbly commend the soul of this our sister into thy hands, most humbly beseeching thee that it may be precious in thy sight. Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate Lamb that was slain to take away the sins of the world …’ After this prayer had ended with ardent hopes of life everlasting and a loud ‘Amen’ from Miss Dunbury, the lights went out. At this point Father Bernard made a discovery about his parishioner: Miss Dunbury was almost entirely deaf and relied upon lip-reading, at which she had become extremely adept. Miss Dunbury was ashamed of her deafness and had kept it a secret, but now the revelation was unavoidable. Candles were somewhere, but where? Miss Dunbury produced an electric torch and shone it upon the priest’s face. They could then proceed. Father Bernard had an extraordinary deep touched unnerved unworthy feeling as he moved his illuminated lips to go on lying to the sick woman. Her fears, the solemn words, the glimpse of finality, disturbed him with a sense of his own ending.
‘God is there, isn’t He? He is a person, isn’t He? People sometimes say now He isn’t a person.’
‘Of course God is a person, we are persons, that is the highest mode of being that we know, how can God be less than a person?’
‘But there is eternal life like we pray for? And will I really go on living and see my loved ones?’
‘We cannot understand how this can be, but this is what in our faith we firmly believe.’
‘But will I go on being me? I wouldn’t want to live on as somebody else, would I?’
‘Eternal life would have no meaning for us if the individual does not survive. God would not cheat us with a different kind of survival.’
‘I don’t know. He can do anything.’
‘Not cheat.’
‘And you’re sure I won’t go to hell?’
‘I think you can be confident of that, my dear. I doubt if anybody goes to hell.’
‘Not even Hitler? I’d like to think he was there.’
‘Come now, you must put away such revengeful thoughts!’
‘Will you pray for me?’
‘Of course.’
At number 34 The Crescent, William Eastcote, who had been sitting at his desk and looking at his will, was suddenly plunged into a twilit darkness. He had made a careful rational will, leaving a large part of his property to Anthea, and dividing the rest among various good causes: the Meeting House, famine relief, cancer research, Amnesty, St Olaf’s alms houses, the Asian Centre in Burkestown, the community centre in the wasteland, the Boys’ Club, the Salvation Army Hostel, the National Art Collections Fund (this was for Rose who had cared about pictures). Now as he sat motionless in the increasing dark he felt a strong irrational impulse to leave the lot to Anthea. Why? Was this a last confused desire for some kind of survival? (William did not share Miss Dunbury’s hopes.) There was a lot of money, the fine house in the Crescent, some valuable building land beyond the Tweed Mill. William realized now how much his wealth had fattened him, made him feel solid and real. How thin and wraith-like he was beginning to feel now.