The Headland: Part 2

The nativity took place on the last day of term in the grey Norman church which towered over the village green. It was the afternoon of the winter solstice and a gentle darkness was already falling as the children made their way to the church under the skeletal trees. Glimmering bursts of silver and gold flashed from beneath heavy winter coats as the costumes of kings and angels sparkled in the deepening dusk. The air resonated with the frivolous chatter of the children and the distant surge of the church organ playing Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Miss Finch and Mr Rowell walked together, carrying cardboard boxes crammed with props.

‘Have you got the Baby Jesus, or have I?’ Miss Finch asked, certain that she had forgotten something critical, and that if she had, Gillian Howard would never let her forget it.

‘I’ve got it. . . him . . . , don’t worry.’ Mr Rowell lowered his voice, conscious that a tiny bearded innkeeper was within earshot. ‘Miss Finch, can I ask what’s this story about the air raid shelters?’ Some of the children were talking about how we’d have to pass them on the way to the church and that the ghosts of the twins might get them.’

‘Oh, not that again. About ten years ago a couple of girls from the Colliery school disappeared one night after Brownies. It wasn’t even this school, or this church hall, but it’s become something of a myth. You know how children delight in anything sinister. If you hear it again, firmly put a stop to it. That kind of talk can horrify little ones. It was an awful thing. I’ll never forget the terror of it. The poor girls were never found.’

Miss Finch pushed open the flaking church gate. The long, steep path curled through the tottering gravestones to the church, which crouched like a sleeping dragon at the top of the hill. The children’s prattling suddenly hushed, leaving behind only the throb of the organ and the ill-tempered cawing of rooks.

‘Now boys and girls. Hold the hand of your partner and let’s march up this path like soldiers. Can you see the lovely glowing lights of the church? Isn’t it pretty? Freddie March, that is a baby lamb, not a football. I am wondering whether I can trust you to be a shepherd this evening.’ 

 

For Alice, the passage of time during the school year was a journey frequently travelled, marked by familiar and comforting milestones and rituals. From the ochre-hued abundance of harvest festival to the heady cut-grass smell of summer sports day, the beauty of those moments gave children some of their most potent memories of childhood. The Nativity was one of the most beloved events in the school year. The evening had been magical, Alice thought as she said goodbye to Mr Gibson, who had helped her take the props and costumes back to school. In the flickering candlelight of the church, in front of arched, stained-glass windows that shone as deeply as jewels, the costumes seemed enchanting. Now their sorcery was depleted, and the piles of tea-towels, old shirts and tinsel-edged shifts had been folded neatly into cardboard boxes and placed at the back of the stock cupboard to slumber away another year. 

‘Lesley was a wonderful Mary, how she seemed to glow! Well done Alice.’ Mr Gibson patted his pockets, searching for the keys to his ancient Volvo. ‘There we are. success!’ The elderly man strode down the steps towards his car. 

‘You’ve forgotten these,’ Alice shouted after him, holding out the master keys to the school which he had left dangling in the front door. 

‘Oh, dear me. What an old dolt I am becoming. Happy Christmas Alice!’ 

Mr Gibson had started to speak of retiring, and this year would probably be his last. It was hard to imagine the place without him. His gentle benevolence and befuddled eccentricity ebbed through the whole school, as calming and reassuring as ripples on a lake. He would be much missed. It was quite a thing, Alice thought as his rusty car rumbled out of the school yard, to have the privilege of touching so many lives. People would remember Mr Gibson in years to come. They would speak of him with love, his wild white hair and threadbare tweeds, his retelling of Aesop’s Fables in morning assemblies, narrated in a soft and melodious voice, his regular appearance at the front of the dinner queue on Mondays for Mrs Burke’s famous treacle pudding and custard. Was is possible to measure a life? If so, what scale could be used to weigh the extraordinary impact of this small and unassuming man? The quietest, most lovely miracles of everyday life were surely to be found in the most humdrum settings, Alice mused, classrooms, doctor’s surgeries, post office queues. If you looked hard enough, you would see these tiny miracles everywhere, the gentle miracles of kindness. 

The yellow moon, full and still, looked as if it was resting on top of the church tower like a roosting bird. Alice, alone now in the schoolyard, felt the moment was suffused with the melancholy of endings. The day, the term and the year were all folding into themselves like fingers closing into a fist. She felt suddenly moved, overcome with the loveliness of it all. Behind her, the little school was settling into its hibernation, the swings were motionless, the classroom windows dark, all was silent and sleeping. 

Walking home, she looked at the decorated trees shining in the windows of the cottages that bordered the village green. The night was clear, cool and starlit and in the distance, far beyond the higgledy-piggledy houses of the colliery, the black sea glittered like marcasite. The little row of shops at the bottom of the green lay in darkness, closed and locked for the night, but the end of the row, Maxwell’s Fish and Chip shop glowed like a welcoming beacon. The smell of sizzling batter and sour vinegar was tantalising. Alice decided to call there for her supper before going home. The thought of fat, salty chips loaded with scraps of crunchy batter and ladled with thick curry sauce made her mouth water. She sat and ate them hungrily with a little wooden fork on a bench on the green while she contemplated her own Christmas celebrations. She was tired. Her body felt tired, as it always did by the end of term. She would welcome the rest and the peace of the holiday. She had a tottering pile of books to read by her bed. She would light the coal fire every morning and keep it burning throughout the day. She’d take walks through the hushed dene down to the wild grassy headlands of the coast and feel the raw bite of the sea air. She would eat cheese on toast for supper in front of the television by lamplight. There was much to cherish and enjoy. Yet, Alice was aware that all of her pleasures were silent, slight and solitary; Christmas was a time for families, for fuss and extravagance. It was hard for her not to dwell on all the ways her small and quiet life had disappointed, had failed to measure up. It was hard not to feel alone at Christmas. Even sitting quietly on the bench that evening, she was tormented by reminders: the group of friends, roaring with laughter, who stumbled towards the Queen’s Head pub, the family crossing the green, laden with presents wrapped in gold paper, tied with red velvet ribbons. For some, Christmas carried within itself a shameful and secret sadness, like a fading lock of hair hidden away within a golden locket. Alice stood and crumpled the greasy carton and newspaper into a bin. She needed to rid herself of such sorrowful thoughts. She needed to rip them up into tiny pieces and scatter them in the wind. But she knew only too well that eventually that contrary wind would simply gather them all up and deliver back to her each and every tender fragment. 

Alice opened the creaking gate to her cottage and walked up the pebbled path. The rooms were glowing like polished amber. Mrs Gaunt, her neighbour, must have turned on the lamps when she’d checked on Hetty earlier in the day. She’d switched on the Christmas tree lights too. The rickety cottage looked so welcoming to Alice, glowing behind the blackness of the holly hedge, nestled and comfortable like a kindly old lady in a fireside armchair A long, grey whiskery face appeared at the window and a torrent of feverish barking was unleashed. As Alice put her key in the lock, she could hear the scrabbling of Hetty’s paws on the floorboards, quickly followed by the determined scratching of her claws as she tried to dig her way through the front door. Once she had fought her way inside, Alice crouched down and put her arms around Hetty, burrowing her face in the wriggling lurcher’s bristly coat. 

‘I’ve got something lovely for you, old girl,’ she said as she scratched the dog’s feathery ears. ‘You’ve some cod from Maxwell’s, a special Christmas treat.’ Alice walked down the narrow hallway to the tiny kitchen, followed by the jaunty rat-a-tat-tat of Hetty’s claws on the wooden floor. She unwrapped the fish and put it in Hetty’s bowl. While the dog ate, Alice put on the kettle. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea and then we’ll go for a stroll around the green.’ 

Hetty had lived with Alice for over ten years. She’d come from the local cat and dog shelter. She was a long, lanky dog with a grey rough coat, a cross between a greyhound and a deerhound, according to the people at the shelter. To Alice, Hetty was as graceful and noble as the hounds depicted in medieval tapestries, their long legs outstretched as if flying. She could imagine Hetty galloping through misty Autumnal forests, hunting deer with finely dressed lords and ladies from the Tudor court. Not everyone appreciated Hetty’s aristocratic elegance though. To some, she looked like the kind of mangy, skinny dog you might expect to see rooting through the bins behind the fish and chip shop, a dog drawn by Quentin Blake perhaps. Alice thought she was the gentlest of creatures, sensitive, languid and loyal. More than all of those things, she was loved. Dearly loved.

Alice opened the back door and took her mug of tea into the little yard. She sat on the bench under the twisted branches of the apple tree. The moon was rising. It was now sailing high above the church tower in a sky sprinkled with bald, cold stars. From the kitchen, Hetty barked twice and then the telephone rang. How does she do that? How does she always know when it’s about to ring?Alice wondered. The dog trotted out into the garden and laid her head gently on Alice’s knee. ‘Let’s ignore it, eh? They’ll call back.’ 

At one time, Alice would have rushed to the phone, desperately hoping and praying that it would be him. The little cottage with its cast iron fireplaces and faded William Morris wallpaper and tiny bedrooms with sloping ceilings was intended to be a home for three. But the baby never came and Alice knew now it never would. Not for her, at least. The cottage that should have been theirs was now just hers. After years of mourning that fact, she had begun to delight in it. Every book on the shelf, every picture on the wall, every jar in the kitchen was there because it was chosen by her, loved by her. Her dreams of a husband and family in the cottage had vanished with the brutal finality of a rock thrown into water, but they had come to be replaced by the unexpectedly comforting luxury of solitude.

Hetty lifted her head from Alice’s knee and barked twice. The phone rang again. Alice sighed and put her mug down on ground. ‘I’m going to get that. You can finish my tea.’ She went into the hall and carried the phone over to the stairs. She sat down, sighed and lifted the receiver. 

‘Alice, it’s your mother.’

Alice could picture her mother clearly, she would be standing in the echoing hallway of her large Edwardian house. She would be dressed in a silk robe, no doubt. Her fingers would sparkle with heavy silver rings adorned with stones in the rich colours of the earth: topaz, tiger’s eye, amber and lapis. Martha Finch was a renowned and formidable Professor of Women’s Studies and author of many respected books on the subject of feminism and gender. She was brilliant and witty, and so sharply intuitive that as a child, Alice had truly believed her mother could read people’s minds. Alice found comfort in silence and gentle companionship; her mother adored debate and challenge. Conversations with her were wearying; her mother’s comments and observations spat and dazzled like sparks from a bonfire, brilliant yet searing. Alice was proud of her mother, but after an evening in her company she felt diminished by the older woman’s energy and intelligence. Time with Martha was like trying to look directly at the sun, she was too radiant, too blistering. She left Alice feeling as flat and dull as a January morning.

‘Now, for Christmas I’ve invited Imogen and Mary, so there’ll be four of us. I supposed you’ll be bringing that ridiculous dog of yours,’ 

Alice took a deep breath. They’d had the conversation about Christmas many times over the previous months. ‘Mum, I’m not coming for Christmas day. I have already told you this. I’ll come over on Christmas Eve for a visit, but I can’t stay the night. I’ve got plans for Christmas.’

‘Plans? What plans?’ Her mother sounded suspicious. Alice didn’t answer. Her plans involved a long walk, roast chicken smothered in bread sauce and a lovely wintry Agatha Christie book, read in pyjamas in front of the fire. 

‘Is there a man? I mean I don’t mean to sound difficult but you know that . . .’ Alice lowered the telephone, rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She could still hear her mother’s shrill and presumptuous voice trilling down the end of the phone, but she could no longer discern actual sentences. She knew her mother intended to wear her down. Her intention was to drip, drip, drip her words into her daughter, into her brain, into her heart, into her body until she would no longer know her own mind. Alice waited until she heard the barrage of words subside.

‘I told you mum. I’ll come over on the bus on Christmas Eve to visit with Hetty. We’ll be there by lunchtime. I’m not staying for Christmas. Now I really must take the dog out for a walk. I was late back because it was our nativity in the church tonight.’

She heard a cold, silvery hiss at the other end of the phone. ‘A nativity. How thrilling for you. As you wish, Alice. I’ll see you on Monday.’ The line was severed before Alice had a chance to reply. She put down the receiver and replaced the phone on the little table. She picked up Hetty’s lead from the oak hat stand. The old dog began to spin with excitement. ‘Come on, let’s get some air. You know, I think I won that battle, Hetty. I think I actually won.’

After their walk, Alice filled a hot water bottle and placed it under the rose printed eiderdown she’d bought at the Harvest church fete. Hetty curled in the wicker basket in front of the radiator and began to softly snore. Alice looked at her other purchase from the fete, a painted glass Victorian oil lamp. It stood on her bedside table, unlit, as she’d yet to get it rewired. I’ll do that tomorrow,she thought. The lamp’s rounded shade was made of milky glass and was painted with garnet and copper-hued chrysanthemums. The blowsy autumnal flowers would glow when it was lit, hopefully making the little bedroom seem restful and warm. Alice switched off the harsh overhead light and huddled into bed. She closed her eyes. The clock by the bed ticked loud and slow and the bare fingers of the apple tree gently scratched the window pane. Alice was tired. Her body felt heavy, as if it were sinking deeper and deeper into the bed. Thoughts of her day flashed through her mind like scenes glimpsed from a railway carriage: Mr Gibson waving goodbye in the darkening school yard; Lesley Benson as Mary, luminous and serene in her blue headdress; her students and their families merrily spilling out of the church like water bubbling from a tap. And him, somewhere on the other side of the country, with his own family, his own family Christmas. After everything he said and everything he promised. Words. She thought again of the potency of words. Her mother used words ruthlessly, like weapons, to defeat her opponents. He used words as a snake charmer would use a flute, to flatter and beguile. Words were dangerous. His words to her had been as seductive as a poisoned apple. They had infected and enfeebled. Words. Words. Words. Alice felt her thoughts begin to blur and cloud. She had the sensation that her mind was softly smoothing and untangling all the knotty and snagging thoughts of the day. Finally, she slept.