Pictures of Perfection

CHAPTER SIX

Larry Lillingstone sat with his dusty records strewn all before him, but his inward eye was focused on the annals of his own pastorship, and the result was far from blissful.

‘Larry, one of these days I’m going to catch you doing something deeply embarrassing,’ said Kee from the open french window.

‘Kee, I’m sorry. I was miles away.’

‘Metaphysically, I presume?’

‘Physically too, soon. I don’t think it’ll be long before Enscombe and I part company.’

‘Good Lord. I think I’d better sit down.’

She came forward with her easy grace, slipped into a wheelback chair and regarded him expectantly.

‘I’ve asked to see the Bishop next week,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time I moved on.’

‘But you’ve only been here two minutes.’

‘I suppose in Enscombe terms that’s all that six months amounts to,’ he said. ‘But man proposes, God disposes. Kee, I was just going to have a coffee. Let me get you one.’

‘No, really, I’d rather …’ But Lillingstone was already out of the room. She heard his footsteps go down the flagged corridor into the kitchen, then emerge and run lightly up the stairs. Perhaps he really needed to go to the loo and some clerical modesty forbade him from saying so. But there was no distant flushing of water as the footsteps descended like a Goon Show sound effect, diminishing into the kitchen once more, and finally crescendoing back to the study.

‘Coffee,’ he said, handing her a mug. ‘Was there something special you wanted to see me about?’

‘No. Just to return this,’ she said, laying the Deed of Gift on the table. ‘But while I’m here … What you said last night at the meeting, about perhaps something coming up which could save the school, it didn’t have anything to do with the vicarage, did it?’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked almost angrily.

‘Just that with the vicarage being up for sale …’

‘Oh, you don’t imagine you’ll get any money out of the Church Commissioners, do you?’ he mocked. ‘They’ve got the cost accountants in too.’

‘No, it wasn’t that, it was something quite different. But it will keep. As, apparently, will your ray of hope.’

She made to rise and he said abruptly, ‘It’s Caddy.’

‘I’m sorry? You mean Caddy is going to save the school? Or Caddy is your reason for leaving?’

He laughed a little wildly and said, ‘Both, perhaps. Or neither.’

She regarded him with irritation, herself with more. She didn’t want to talk about his feelings for Caddy, had consciously avoided his previous attempt to broach the subject. Left to himself he would probably make his play, get brushed off with that indifference which was more hurtful than dislike, be broken-hearted, then recover. But the idiot wanted an audience! It was Kee’s belief that there is no obstacle to intimacy greater than a shared secret. And she wanted to be intimate with this man. Upstairs, downstairs, indoors, outdoors, in sickness and in health intimate!

She ought to get out now.

He said, ‘Kee, I need to talk about Caddy …’

She fixed him with her wide candid gaze and said, ‘No need, Larry. I’ve seen Caddy drive enough men to irrational behaviour to recognize the symptoms.’

‘Men. Which men?’ he asked indignantly.

Time to bring him down from his romantic heights.

She said, ‘Justin Halavant, for instance.’

‘I’d have thought assaulting young women was far from irrational in his scheme of things,’ said the Vicar contemptuously.

‘Champagne, silk sheets and a light scatter of rose petals are more in his line than a quick bonk on a draughty staircase next to a roomful of people whose good opinion he values,’ said Kee.

Surprise made him consider this unexpected defence, and for the first time since he’d heard the story of Halavant’s repulse, Lillingstone felt a tendril of sympathy trail across his mind.

He brushed it aside and said heavily, ‘I love her.’

‘Oh, love,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘Where does that leave us? For some reason you haven’t declared your passion (nice word that, both exact and euphemistic), perhaps because you have very reasonable doubts whether Caddy would make a satisfactory clerical helpmeet, or perhaps because you’ve got a mad first wife already locked up in the attic.’

She glanced up at the ceiling in mock suspicion, and down at Lillingstone in mock surprise as with perfect timing a floorboard creaked.

‘I love the way old houses join in conversations,’ she said, trying to lighten things.

‘We are talking about your sister,’ he said, unresponsively.

‘So we are.’ Time to take the plunge. ‘Larry, your comfort, if comfort there can be, must be that you’re right if you think Caddy wouldn’t make a satisfactory wife for a vicar. Nor for almost anyone. Nor incidentally a satisfactory live-in or live-out mistress, if your thoughts stray in that direction.’

‘You’re very blunt,’ he said coldly. ‘Frightened of losing a sister, or a meal ticket, I wonder?’

‘Oh dear, it’s bad enough for rudeness, is it?’ said Kee. ‘I only wish there were anything I could do which might be of comfort to you. All I can give is that coldest of advice, that you should exert yourself to forget her. I’m sorry.’

‘Exert myself?’ he cried, spiralling into melodrama in an effort to hide the true depth of his feelings. ‘How easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! But as I’ve told you, I shall probably be exerting myself out of Enscombe in the very near future. I hope that will satisfy you.’

‘No, I didn’t come here in search of any such satisfaction,’ she said, rising. ‘And to tell the truth, I’m not all that keen to hear you rabbiting on about your feelings for my sister. Thanks for the coffee, which incidentally was cold.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Lillingstone. ‘Kee, I’m sorry. I’m a pompous twerp, aren’t I? And that crack about a meal ticket was unforgivable. We all know how much Caddy relies on you to give her space to work. I’m sorry. Forgive me?’

‘Forgiving’s easy. It’s understanding that’s hard,’ she said. ‘You say that man proposes, God disposes. So why don’t you carry out your part of the arrangement? Go and see Caddy and propose to her — marriage, anything you will! That way at least you’ll get your pain over and I won’t find myself having to present my sister as some kind of monster.’

He shook his head and said helplessly, ‘I wish it was so easy.’

‘I can’t see how it can be any easier unless you do it by fax,’ she said.

‘The point is I can’t do it at all,’ he said. ‘The thing is, I’ve taken a vow of celibacy.’

He spoke with a rather defiant pride, deriving from his sense that while a pact with the Deity certainly demanded a modicum of reverential awe, it also had about it an inescapable whiff of absurdity.

Kee looked neither awestruck nor amused, merely puzzled.

‘Good Lord,’ she said. ‘Does this mean you’re a closet Catholic or something?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just an Anglican who may have bitten off more than he can chew.’

‘In that case, can’t you get out of it? The papers seem full of priests who’ve jilted the Pope in favour of a good woman.’

‘It’s probably easier when you’re taking on a whole system,’ said Lillingstone glumly.

‘Ah, I see. In your case it’s your own conscience you’re up against and that carries a lot more weight than a mere trifle like the authority of the Holy Catholic Church!’

‘Now hold on,’ he said, growing angry. ‘This is my faith we’re talking about …’

‘I don’t think so. I think it’s your ego,’ said Kee, angry in her turn. ‘Makes you feel good, does it? More perfect than the rest of us? But you can’t stop feeling randy, so you decide, if you can’t have Caddy, next best thing is a little heart to heart with me. Vicarious sex, how apt! But I’m not into that game, Larry. What you need is another chap in a skirt on the other side of a grille.’

She made for the window. He went after her, saying, ‘Please, Kee, don’t go like this. I don’t know where I am, I need to talk …’

‘Then talk to your Leader up there!’ cried Kee, pointing satirically at the ceiling.

And once again with perfect timing there came a noise. But no creaking board this time. A distinct crash, as something fell and shattered, and a voice letting out an angry ‘Oh bug …’ hastily cut off.

‘There’s someone up there,’ said Kee. ‘All this talk of vows and celibacy, and you’ve got someone stowed away up in your bedroom!’

‘No, really, it’s not … it’s no one …’

‘No one? This I just have to see.’

Before he could stop her, she was past him, out of the room and racing up the stairs.

He followed, protesting, but there was no chance of catching her. By the time he reached the landing she was flinging open the bedroom door. And stopping dead in her tracks.

She didn’t know what she expected, she only knew this was far, far worse.