The Art of Standing Still Read online

  Harlan fired the first shot. ‘So what did you think of the choir?’

  ‘Well . . . ,’ began Ruth.

  The waiter approached the table. Harlan ordered Ruth’s coffee.

  ‘The music was quite something, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly was!’

  ‘I wrote it myself, you know. Well . . . arranged it. The themes are taken from ancient monastic chants.’

  Could have fooled me. The waiter came with her coffee. She took a sip. It was hot and strong and nearly stripped the skin off the roof of her mouth.

  ‘They’ve worked so hard to learn it. It’s not easy stuff you know.’ Harlan forced a smile.

  Ruth suddenly had the urge to shoot herself in the foot, just to render herself hors de combat.

  ‘You didn’t like it did you?’ Harlan’s chin jutted forward, ready for a fight.

  ‘I wouldn’t say I didn’t like it exactly. It’s just that I felt, given the costumes and the language and the setting . . .’

  ‘Go on.’ A challenge! She placed her mug carefully on the table and leant back, her arms folded.

  ‘That it might be a little, well, modern.’

  Without a word, Harlan collected her bag, drained her coffee mug, and marched out of Donatello’s, leaving Ruth with the bill.

  ‘That went well,’ Ruth muttered to herself. She pulled her mobile phone out of her bag and pressed a button. Alistair’s slightly gruff voice answered.

  ‘Have you had lunch yet?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘No, not yet, why?’

  ‘Do you know Donatello’s in the High Street?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. If you can get here in the next ten minutes, I’ll treat you to a ciabatta.’

  Ruth ordered another coffee and waited for Alistair. He came through the door quarter of an hour later, red faced, and slightly breathless. Ruth felt rather flattered that he had hurried to meet her.

  ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ she said as Alistair settled himself in the armchair and picked up the menu. ‘Harlan.’

  Alistair raised his eyes heavenward. He listened patiently as Ruth struggled to put into words the hideous tunelessness of Harlan’s composition. ‘I wondered if you’d be able to go and see her this weekend. I’d do it myself, but I think I’d be the last person she’d be prepared to listen to.’

  ‘I’m sorry; I can’t this weekend. I’m seeing the children.’

  ‘Children!’

  This came as a surprise. Ruth hadn’t realised he and Amanda had any children. Somehow he didn’t seem the paternal type.

  ‘Yes, from my second marriage. Rory’s twelve and Stefan’s eight. I do try to get over to see them as often as I can. Of course, the other three are off my hands now. Christa’s living in Denver, Marcus is married, and Lulu’s just finishing at university. Thank goodness for that, an end to tuition fees, at least until the other two start.’

  Ruth sat there open-mouthed.

  ‘Yes, Amanda’s my third wife.’ He gave a sigh. ‘I sure know how to pick them!’

  Ruth was lost for words. Fortunately, the waiter came over, and Alistair ordered lunch for them both.

  Alistair was in full flow. ‘I’m sorry you had problems with Harlan. Mind you it makes me feel a bit better about Ronnie.’

  Ruth winced.

  ‘Not good news there either, I’m afraid,’ Alistair said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well, Ronnie too has gone for a modern slant on the music. Except . . .’

  Ruth leaned forward. ‘Except what? He’s been allocated the Creation of the World, The Fall of Man, Noah’s Ark, and Moses and Pharaoh. Where could he go wrong with that?’

  ‘He decided to link it with songs from Broadway shows.’

  ‘He did what?’ she screeched.

  Couples at neighbouring tables looked round, alarmed. People did not usually raise their voices in Donatello’s. Even the waiter looked shocked as he brought their sandwiches.

  ‘He did what?’ Ruth repeated in a whisper.

  ‘He’s got them singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Dawning” when God says “I bid in my blessing you angels give light,” “You’ll Never Work Alone” for the creation of Adam and Eve and . . . “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My World” just prior to the flood. I didn’t wait around to see what he’d done to Moses.’

  ‘You’re not serious! I thought he was joking when he suggested “Mack the Knife” as an introduction to the story of Abraham and Isaac.’

  Alistair’s face told her he was indeed serious. She drooped her head into her hands. ‘What are we going to do?’ she groaned. ‘The whole thing’s going to be a complete farce!’

  When he didn’t answer, she looked up. He shrugged and glanced at his watch. ‘Sorry, Ruth, I have to get back to work. He scooped up his sandwich and threw a twenty-pound note on the table.

  ‘Hey, lunch was supposed to be my treat!’ she protested.

  ‘I think you’ve got enough on your plate,’ Alistair said and left.

  Ruth finished her ciabatta and tiramisu; then as twenty Korean businessmen entered and started reorganising all the furniture, she decided it was time to pay a visit to the library. Perhaps their music section would hold something she could use to arm herself for the next round of the battle. Besides, she could do with the walk – all that coffee had made her twitchy. That and Alistair’s three marriages.

  Her car-park ticket was running out, which was an excellent excuse for abandoning the library until tomorrow and heading out of town to check on her favourite scaffolder. Rajinder’s (Est. 1981) was situated on a small industrial unit on a farm just outside Monksford. ‘Raj’ Rajinder had been carrying out building work and repairs to St Seb’s for as long as Ruth could remember. When the mortar on the Norman tower had started crumbling and a brick nearly ended Mrs Warboye’s career as churchwarden, Raj had been round the same day to shore up the structure and start repairs.

  All this happened shortly after her mother died, and Ruth was grateful for Raj’s efficiency and compassion. He not only made tea for himself and his employees, but he often brought her one too as she worked, usually close to tears, in the small vestry. Without that little act of kindness, that shoring up, she too might have crumbled and collapsed completely.

  She smiled at the memory as she parked in the yard and skipped over the puddles to reach the little office. A blast of warm air greeted her. A tall man in a blue turban stepped out of a back room and shook Ruth warmly by the hand.

  ‘Raj, lovely to see you.’ At least she knew she wouldn’t get any unpleasant surprises from him.

  ‘Ruth, as always, it’s a pleasure. I hope the church tower isn’t falling down again, and I sincerely hope it isn’t a case of “bats in the belfry”.’

  ‘Closer than you think!’ Ruth laughed. ‘No, I’ve just come to talk about next June – the mystery plays. Well, the budget has been finalised, and I thought maybe we should discuss the arrangements. Obviously, you’ll need to measure the sites yourself, but I went there the other day and took a few notes. I thought I might give you a rough idea of what I’d like done for the money, then you can laugh and tell me what I’m really going to get for the money.’

  Raj smiled. ‘Go ahead.’

  Ruth told him, and he did indeed snort a laugh.

  ‘I tell you what. There’d be no problem at all, me constructing a stage down at the abbey. You won’t need seating in the lower field if it’s as steep as you say, but I’ll put a platform there. You’ll ask people to bring blankets and picnic baskets? So perhaps I could build a seating stand near the barn.’

  ‘That sounds marvellous.’

  ‘And I won’t charge you for labour, just for the hire cost. And I’ll let you have that at a discount.’

  ‘That’s very kind Raj, but I don’t want to put you out of business.’

  ‘Ruth, you’re a good customer. And with you, I know I’ll always get paid on time. I can’t rely on everyone. Also, you are a woma
n who knows God. That is very important to me.’

  ‘When are we going to see you and Surinder in church?’

  ‘When we see you at temple, I think.’

  ‘I have been to your temple. You had an open day. I had a lovely meal and chatted to Mrs Kaur for ages. She knew my mother.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘So it’s your turn.’

  Raj’s smile faded.

  ‘What’s wrong, Raj? I hope I haven’t upset you. You don’t have to come to church.’

  ‘It’s not that. I’m worried about Surinder.’

  ‘What’s the matter? She’s not ill, is she?’

  ‘No, but she might as well be, the amount of time we spend at the hospital.’

  ‘So, what’s wrong?’

  ‘We’ve . . . we’ve been trying for a baby, for nearly six years. Nothing happens. We’re having tests. It looks as if we may have to undergo fertility treatment.’

  ‘Raj, I’m sorry. Look, if there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘Could you pray – to God?’

  ‘Of course! Would you like me to come round and see you both?’

  ‘Yes, we’d like that. You’ve been good to me, Ruth, and I hope I’ve assisted you. I thought . . . well, I thought that by helping you put on this Jesus play, that God might be merciful to us and grant us a child. Do you think he will?’

  ‘I don’t know, Raj, but I do know that he rewards faith.’

  ‘Yes, I believe that. You shall have your scaffolding – as much as I can give you, and I will have your prayers.’

  ‘Deal! Thank you, Raj.’ Ruth shook his hand again. She wanted to hug him, but she was aware of eyes watching. Of course she would pray; she would pray for a child for this lovely couple. She would also pray that they would come to know the source of their hope, the living God, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

  Scene Twelve

  IT WAS WITH TREPIDATION THAT JEMMA PREPARED TO ATTEND THE REHEARSAL. It was not so much the rehearsal itself – Noah’s ark – but it was the prospect of meeting Josh afterwards for the first time since she had tried to seduce him. She knew she had blundered in, and she knew to expect debris. Broken trust, fractured feelings, and the sense she could make things worse rather than better.

  ‘You know nothing about me!’ The accusation that caused her least pain at the time but stung the most afterwards. He was right. She knew his name, his address, his occupation, and his religion – application-form knowledge that gave her no insight into Josh, the man.

  And she resolved to change this. Tonight.

  The rehearsal was more entertaining than she had imagined. Noah’s wife, a pantomime dame of a woman, complete with a rolling pin, was wonderfully stubborn, refusing to enter the ark and terrorising her scrawny husband.

  ‘Sons, help me hold her down, she doesn’t realise what danger she is in!’ cried Noah, ducking blows from the rolling pin.

  ‘Please, mother, stay with us,’ begged her son. He clung to her apron strings as she spun round, brandishing her weapon.

  ‘No! I must go home, I have pots and pans, ladles and spoons to pack. And I mustn’t forget those little metal things for squeezing lemon wedges.’

  Jemma suspected Ronnie had been taking liberties with Ruth’s text – but it made everyone laugh.

  ‘Dearest, why must you make more trouble for us?’ Noah said.

  ‘Noah, you never let me know where you were, out early and back late, and you left me at home twiddling my thumbs.’

  ‘Ay, well, I was doing God’s work.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and what makes you think you’re going to get away with it? I swear I’ll give you the hiding of your life.’

  ‘Darling, I beg you, be still. You cannot argue with God’s will.’

  Eventually, Noah prevailed, but Jemma wouldn’t like to have spent forty days and nights on a boat with her. She roared with laughter when God sang, ‘I’m Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My World’ after pronouncing judgement. Then she noticed Ruth was sitting with her head in her hands.

  ‘A modern touch to an ancient story that will allow contemporary audiences to relate to the virtues of a bygone age.’ She scribbled in shorthand. She was enjoying herself so much that she almost forgot about meeting Josh.

  She had spent most of the morning trying to read the Bible to impress him but only managed to skim the first hundred or so pages.

  It had started well, ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . .’

  She loved the suddenness, the power of it. The idea that God spoke and it all happened. At school, she had of course learnt about the ‘Big Bang’ and the stupendous forces that had formed the universe, but she never thought there was a supreme being, a creative mind, behind them.

  She recognised the story of Adam and Eve, Noah’s ark, and Moses, then it all seemed to get confusing, with rules and covenants. She decided, then, the only way to begin to understand what she was reading was to take a small section at a time. So she had tried it again.

  The Lord said to Moses: ‘When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the Lord’s holy things, he is to bring to the Lord as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel. It is a guilt offering. He must make restitution for what he has failed to do in regard to the holy things, add a fifth of the value to that and give it all to the priest, who will make atonement for him with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.’

  It didn’t help. She looked up the reference on websites and still felt none the wiser. It seemed to mean that if you do something wrong and don’t realise it is wrong, you have to kill a sheep and everything will be all right. ‘Totally weird,’ Jemma muttered.

  The overwhelming conclusion she reached was that the Bible was virtually incomprehensible – full of old stories and rules. The one thing she learnt from the websites was that Christians couldn’t agree on anything. She felt sure if you put two Christians in a dark room, they would spend the first hour arguing over whether to switch the light on or not.

  Still, she had managed to find out that today was All Saints’ Day. Jemma had no idea what Christians do to celebrate the day, but perhaps Josh would be impressed.

  When Ronnie finally uttered the words, ‘It’s a wrap’, and everyone had cringed, Jemma took a minute or two to brush her hair (sleek and glossy), adjust her dress (short), and check her makeup (fresh and subtle) before driving to the Fruiterer’s Arms. Josh was already waiting at a table in the corner and stood up to greet her with a peck on the cheek.

  ‘What would you like?’

  She requested cola, and he ordered a pint of orange juice topped up with lemonade.

  They sat at the table near the fire.

  ‘You look very nice this evening.’

  Good, he noticed. She lifted her glass. ‘Happy All Saints’ Day.’

  Josh looked puzzled at the toast but lifted his glass, and they clinked.

  ‘All Saint’s Day? Since when . . . ?’

  ‘Just because I make a point of knowing my important church festivals . . . ,’ Jemma said. The gesture was not lost on Josh.

  ‘What’s brought this on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, today, there’s hardly any leg on display, no cleavage to speak of, and I discover you’re au fait with holy days. Is this the Jemma I know? Next you’ll tell me you’re not going to try to get me into bed.’

  Jemma felt her anger rising. If this is the reward she was going to get for making the effort, then he could stuff it. She picked up her glass of cola and tossed the liquid into his face. Then, mustering her dignity, she marched out of the pub, much to the astonishment of the regulars, leaving Josh, soaked and sticky, sitting with his mouth open and a lap full of ice cubes. At least the locals got a bit of entertainment tonight, she thought as she stomped to her car. Unlike Lot’s wife (a story she liked though she did think God was a little hard on the poor wom
an) she didn’t look back, but drove straight to the Ebony Hog.

  The first thing she did was to pour a glass of cola. Why should she miss out on her beverage just because Josh needed to be taught a lesson?

  She swigged her fizzy drink as quickly as possible without getting hiccups, still fuming at Josh. A car slid to a halt on the gravel the other side of the towpath. She allowed herself the luxury of peeping out of the window. It was dark. The only illumination came from the one light, paid for and erected by the river’s residents for security purposes. And so the vandals and car thieves could see what they were doing. She strained her eyes to see. It was a dark blue estate car, not Josh’s light blue van.

  She switched on the computer. Typing up her notes and starting this week’s column would be a good distraction. If Josh did turn up, she wasn’t sure what she would say to him. Although there was a little digital clock in the bottom left-hand corner of her computer screen, she took off her watch and laid it on the desk next to her laptop, a practice her grandfather had suggested.

  ‘Them editors will have you working all the hours God sends, give them ’alf a chance. Make sure you know exactly how much time you’re putting in after hours, then if anyone says you’ve taken too long on a job, or you want to nip out to the bank, or leave a bit early one day, you can say to them, “I’ve already worked four hours twenty six minutes outside me scheduled time this week. Surely you can’t begrudge me ten minutes?” Of course you haven’t got a leg to stand on legally, but you’d be surprised how many back down if you give them a to-the-second reckoning on all the extra work you’ve done.’

  She hadn’t plucked up the courage to try this with Mohan, but she had with her first editor, a buxom woman called Margaret with an over fondness for frilly blouses and too much mascara. She managed to concentrate for seven and a half minutes before she heard another vehicle pull up. She peeped out again. This time it was a pale blue van – Josh. She sat down pretending not to notice and carried on typing. There was a tentative knock on the door. She ignored it.