Sadler's Birthday (14 page)

This thought saddened him as he retraced his steps up the village street, and to brush it aside he let himself turn his attention to Keynes.

It was nice the way Keynes had encouraged him. None of the masters at school had ever said they'd like to see him get on. He'd stayed near the bottom of the class and no one seemed to notice, let alone tell him he might do well if he tried. And now, after those years of being the ‘stick man' and the ‘shiny man', someone was saying to him ‘be good, Jack Sadler, and I'll give you a leg up, set you above the pigeons, above Cook with her piled hair, to where you and I can pretend to talk as equals.' The only trouble was, he couldn't bring himself to like Keynes. The man had a red face and neck and very red hands for which Jack pitied him. But the thought that any part of them might one day touch him made him shudder. No, if success lay in the caresses of Keynes's hands, Jack was wistfully aware that he could never let it come.

‘Mr Sadler!'

Mrs Moore had come running. Sadler blinked, as if on waking, saw the orchard spread out all around him.

‘What is it, Mrs Moore?'

‘Reverend Chapman on the telephone.'

Sadler chuckled.

‘Trust you to run – for the vicar!'

‘He'd like a word, Sir.'

‘Tell him it'd spoil my walk, will you?'

‘Mr Sadler . . .'

‘I'd never get out again, would I, if I had to go in for the telephone?'

‘Sir . . .'

‘Ask him what he wants and tell him to be so godly as to ring later.'

‘Very good.'

She turned with a sniff. A sniff a bit like Vera's, expressing supreme disgust. What unkindnesses, he wondered, are dealt to aging women, the thin ones particularly it seemed, that make them turn to Jesus. Running downhill from fifty and all they can see is the church spire. Doesn't happen to a man – or at least to none Sadler had ever met – and certainly not to himself. So odd, they were, women. So terribly, pathetically afraid. All of different things, of course, but each one rapt in pursuit of safe havens. And the Church was the most obvious, the most accessible and the only one run exclusively by men. So there so many of them ran, believing perhaps in the infinite divisibility of the rock of Peter, hopeful that in men like the Reverend Chapman a splinter of it lay.

Not Madge, though.

‘Geoffrey will insist,' she told Sadler one afternoon, ‘on my going to church. Just to keep up appearances. And it does seem so very unnecessary, hypocritical even, don't you think, Sadler?'

‘Well, I'll confess I never got on with Jesus myself.'

‘Didn't you? Oh that
is
comforting!'

And they'd had a laugh the two of them, conspirators, ‘sharing a joke'. And a glass of sherry. The Colonel was away on one of his visits to London and at five o'clock in the afternoon Madge had poured Sadler some of her best sherry from the decanter he always polished so nicely, and asked him to sit down.

‘Tell me, Sadler, what do you believe in?'

No one else that he'd ever met would have asked him such a question, or if they had, would never have looked, as she did, for a serious, considered answer.

‘Truth,' Sadler said.

‘Oh that's lovely and vague! We're all in search of different truths, aren't we? Truth about the universe, truth about Right and Wrong, truth about ourselves. “Know thyself” someone said, didn't they? Who was that?'

‘I don't know, Madam.'

‘Well, it was a very important thing to say, I think. Everyone should start by trying to find out the truth about themselves. But what I want to know, although I realize it's very impertinent of me, is what
matters
to you?'

Sadler was conscious that he was leaning very heavily on his stick. The end had dug itself right into the turf. He tugged it out and walked on through the orchard, then down, as he had planned, towards the stream.

The last time he'd been there was the morning the estate agent had come, some weeks ago now. He'd come unasked-for and unannounced, driving a red sports car.

‘All right with you, Sir, if I have a quick look round?'

‘What d'you want to do that for?'

‘Interest mainly, Sir. We like to keep tabs on everything in the neighbourhood. And I'd heard a rumour you were thinking . . .'

‘It's not for sale.'

‘No, no. Fine.'

‘Nothing much to see – just empty rooms.'

‘Fine.'

‘You're fond of cars, are you?'

‘I beg your pardon, Sir?'

‘It's a very smart colour, I suppose, red.'

‘Oh Matilda. Well, she goes, you know . . .'

Sadler had chuckled, pleased with the little blush he'd sent creeping up the young man's neck, enjoying himself more than he had for some time. And then the agent had pulled out a pocket tape recorder and begun talking softly to it: ‘Large entrance hall, parquet flooring, leading east to drawing room, large, 25 feet plus into bay . . .' And Sadler's chuckle had turned into a laugh that had made him cough.

He'd tried to hide until the agent had gone. He'd taken the dog and wandered out to where he stood now. But half an hour later, just as he was beginning to get cold, the young man had come striding towards him.

‘Hallo again, Sir.'

Sadler nodded.

‘Mind if I have a word before I go?'

‘Help yourself.'

‘It's a very fine property. Been in the family long?'

‘Not my family. I used to work here, that's all.'

The young man coughed. ‘But you are the owner?'

‘Yes, it's mine now.'

‘And you're not sure you want to sell?'

‘I know I don't want to sell!'

‘No, I see. Well, that's a shame really. Of course I'd have to do a thorough survey before I could give you an accurate figure, but I'd say you'd get fifty or sixty for it.'

Sadler laughed. ‘There's probably less days left in me than that!'

‘Oh come on, Sir.'

‘I'm not that stupid, either. What good's money in the bank if you've got no home?'

‘You could buy a smaller place.'

‘For dying in?'

He coughed again. ‘No, well fine. Well, I'm sorry to have taken up your time. Perhaps you'll think about it, though. I know a couple of people who might be interested.'

And suddenly Sadler was angry. So cocksure, the agent was. His car and him – both anti-social pieces of machinery and Sadler wanted them gone.

‘Listen to me,' he blurted out, ‘you won't get me out, Sonny! I'm rooted – see!' He drove his stick into the ground. ‘And I'm not budging. So drive your nice car up to London and go and pester the life out of some old thing in Barnes or Islington or wherever it is you people make your profits, but you leave me alone!'

He'd felt ashamed, but only a little, as the young man strode obediently away. Then he sat down. The pain of his anger had made him feel sick.

Sadler shivered. You couldn't stand still for long, in spite of the sun, without feeling cold. Wander on then, going nowhere as usual, unless perhaps to see the show the crocuses were putting on. He looked round for the dog but couldn't see him. Always a difficult moment, that, because the dog had no name he could call. Sadler spat, moistened his lips ready for a whistle, when he saw the dog no more than a few yards from him, watching him.

‘Come on,' he said. And the dog got up, a bit shakily, wagging the tuft and steering himself carefully through the long grass. ‘We'll go and look at the flowers.'

Years ago, the gardeners had planted crocuses the whole length of the drive. Wren used to say they were his two favourite colours – purple and yellow. And people even wandered up from the village to steal a look at their brief flowering. Now there were only a few clumps, a patch here and there often hidden by the new year's growth of weeds.

‘Aren't they a picture?' said a voice in Sadler's ear. It was Mrs Moore with her coat on, ready to scuttle off home. Sadler was disappointed.

‘You didn't stay long today, Mrs Moore.'

‘It's gone ten, Mr Sadler. And I promised my sister . . .'

‘Oh well. I'll see you tomorrow.'

‘Not tomorrow, Sir. Tomorrow's Sunday.'

‘Is it? I lose track these days.'

‘Yes. The Day of Rest, and I can't say I'm not thankful for it.'

Sadler nodded.

‘Oh and I meant to tell you, Sir, the Reverend Chapman would like to call on you about tea-time, if that would be convenient.'

‘I don't suppose I'll be going anywhere.'

And then she was off. Little hasty steps, one two, one two, one two in her neat brown shoes. One two, one two, one two, one two, gone.

Imagine, Sadler thought, loving her. He pitied the man who could shoulder that burden, who'd have his soul pecked at day after day, wake with her creased elbow in his shoulder, spend his love in a body that had resisted and resisted and turned away thankfully to God. Better to be alone, really, than watched by that accusing eye. And yet what if she never came back, if no one came? What if they just left him there with the dust and dirt and his memories?

He felt very tired. ‘We've done enough walking,' he said to the dog, ‘let's go back.' And he was glad when he stepped into the warm kitchen, all its surfaces tidy and scrubbed now, even the teapot washed up and put away. He took off his boots and hung his coat up, but forgot the woolly scarf dangling round his neck. The dog went straight to its place by the Aga and lay down thankfully. Too old it was really to go for walks, its little legs too stiff at the joints.

‘I know,' said Sadler, ‘I know. But don't you dare die.'

He sat down at the kitchen table, in a familiar attitude, resting his arms on it. There was an old wireless, hideous sack of a thing squatting on top of the fridge, but still obediently sending out crackly versions of the BBC's tidings, and Sadler thought he might switch it on. There weren't many of the songs they sang these days that he liked, but now and then one stuck in his head and humming it would cheer him up. But he only remembered them if they amused him and the last one had been more than two years ago:

He'd made Mrs Moore listen to the words of this song one morning, he chuckling, she sour, glowering into her tea.

‘It's a good song, isn't it, Mrs Moore?'

‘I've never cared for pops and that.'

‘Don't you like the words, though?'

‘Well, they're all speaking American, aren't they? You can't understand them half the time.'

‘I quite like that song.'

‘Too jerky for me.'

Mrs Moore had never been more certain about anything than that the singer of the song would never get to heaven, and Sadler had thought, Lord, what an arrogance there seems to be in people who think God loves them. Like members of a club. Certain habits, they said, excluded you. Forgetting, though, that Jesus kept company with publicans and sinners, and nowadays, Sadler had laughingly suggested, it'd be republicans and singers, wouldn't it? But not a ghost of a smile in her cheek, merely reproach in her eyes for his feeble joke and a few words spat out with venom: ‘You ought to go to
church
!'

He had, regularly, long ago. While in the service of Milord, the servants all went to church. Her ladyship expected it, would glance behind her, counting heads as the Reverend Stooks and his choir of four (five occasionally with the addition of Charlie Stooks, the vicar's youngest son, red in the face and smiling like a nervous bride) measured out the fifteen paces to the altar steps. Right at the back, Cook always wanted to clap but restrained herself by adjusting her hatpins instead.

That church, smelling of the dusty seeds that filled the hassocks, was always full on a Sunday morning, often so crammed with people that Jack was squeezed up tight against his mother. In the shelter of her arm, he'd looked up at the incredible blue just behind Christ's head on the window, found it like no other blue he'd ever seen. Where, he wanted to ask her – in what mysterious corner of his being – had the man who made the window discovered it? In Art at school he'd striven unsuccessfully to find that blue, week after week. Something more beautiful than the sky and yet containing the sky: his sky.

Jack had quite a good voice, so Mrs Dean said, and he'd been proud enough of it to sing out when the congregation shuffled to its feet for a hymn. And he secretly longed to come walking down the nave with the choir, envied the ludicrous Charlie Stooks his lace ruff. He didn't remember ever thinking about God. And if God had been there in those crowded pews, in those facets of blue, He had disappeared after that.

‘No insistence is made here,' Keynes told Sadler, ‘on the servants attending worship. Everyone does as they please, provided they're not required for domestic duty at that time on a Sunday. I myself am not a church-going man.'

So church was forgotten. ‘I myself,' it seemed the pigeons had cooed one by one, ‘am not a church-going, am not a church-going, am not a church-going girl.' Sadler wondered if they stayed away to please Keynes.

‘Why don't you go to church, Mary?' he'd asked her one Sunday.

‘Church?' she said, ‘whatever next!'

So that was it, then. Here, you weren't expected to go and stand under a blue window. God was gone. You still said a prayer each night that began ‘God bless Ma', but you never thought about the God part of it any more.