The Heaven I Swallowed by Rachel Hennessy

Author:Rachel Hennessy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: book, FA, FIC000000
ISBN: 9781743051979
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2013-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

8

My lunch was a success by all accounts. The next week at church Mrs Bishop loudly announced how I kept my beautiful home ‘impeccable’. This did not seem enough reward for so many hours of preparation—I had no real memory of enjoying myself at the actual time either—and most of the praise was a dig at married women such as Mrs Mavis who, despite having a husband, could not exactly claim domestic felicity. I found it difficult to revel in this false triumph, Mr Mavis’s sunken cheekbones speaking of nights as long as mine.

Surprisingly, Mr Roper came and stood next to Mary and me after the service. I had not seen him all week, but caught up in preparations for the lunch, I hadn’t really noticed. He thread the brim of his hand through his fingers nervously and I thought again of the moment in the grotto.

‘How are you, Mrs Smith?’ he asked in a formal voice I had not heard for a long time, not since the day he introduced himself to me.

‘Very well, thank you,’ I answered. I felt Mary tense beside me. ‘The gardenia cuttings you gave me are coming along well.’

‘Good to hear,’ he said.

There was silence among all three of us.

‘I want you to know …’ he began.

I could not encourage him to keep going, to provide explanations within shot of every listening ear. There were conversations going on around, yet I knew the skill: the ability to appear to be concentrating intently on those right in front of you while scooping up every word of your neighbour’s.

‘I know everything will turn out for the best,’ I said, without a clear sense of what I was referring to.

‘I know today is a very hard day for you.’ Mr Roper was speaking to my feet and I wondered what had turned him into such a weakling.

‘Today?’ I had no idea what he was referring to.

‘The anniversary? Of your husband’s death?’

I felt the blood drain from my head. God, how could I have forgotten? Mary looked up at me, confused.

‘Yes, yes,’ I managed to say. ‘Of course it is a difficult day.’

The lie of it seemed to spread across the entire churchyard, shaking the baby poplars to their roots.

Mr Roper gave me a little nod, a respectful nod like the ones you receive from people in the street during afternoon walks.

‘I thought Father Benjamin would include him in the Prayers of the Faithful, but I suppose, with his health the way it is …’

‘I didn’t want to bother him,’ I said, too loudly, and knew my face was moving from white to red, the stress now ­creating a pulse in my forehead. Pathetic, showing all the telltale signs of falsehood, forgetting all I had learnt in my years of deception: never make excuses; let silences speak for themselves; always ensure the other feels so awkward they will eagerly move onto another subject.

‘I’m sorry, Auntie Grace,’ Mary said, and squeezed my hand.

‘You look a little peaky, Mrs Smith.’ Mrs Bishop joined us.

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