Theodora's Diary Read online

  Me: Good morning, Charles. How are you today?

  Charles: Well, to be honest, I’m feeling a bit down.

  Me: So you’re not on top form at the moment. Charles: That’s right. I’ve been given some extra work to do and I’m not sure I’m coping with it very well.

  Me: I see, so you don’t feel you’re up to the increased responsibility.

  Charles: Yes, I’m worried that I’m not doing it right. Perhaps I could ask my supervisor for some more training.

  Me: So you’re feeling totally inadequate. You don’t think you’re performing up to standard in your job and you’re contemplating admitting this to your boss. You hope he will be sympathetic and send you for more expensive training to do something that he clearly feels is well within your capabilities.

  Charles: Well, that’s not quite what I meant. It’s just that I’ve not been sleeping too well for worrying about it, and I just thought having a chat with someone might help.

  Me: I understand what you’re saying. You’re really depressed at the moment and you aren’t quite sure which way to turn. Your sense of worthlessness is keeping you awake at night and haunting your dreams. Your days are filled with cold dread as you fumble your way blindly through this extra work and the responsibility sits like a lead weight on your shoulders. You lie in the dark and cry out in your torment, ‘How can I possibly go on?’ Hopelessness is stalking you like a ravenous wolf and you spend many hours just sitting there, alone, thinking of ways to end the torture.

  At this point, Charles seized a bundle of tissues from a nearby box and started sobbing uncontrollably. Well, to be honest, it was all a bit embarrassing. Someone slipped out to get him a drink of water, while someone else sat and patted his hand sympathetically.

  The course ended early and this time we all went straight home.

  Friday 26 February

  On the way to work with Ariadne this morning, I described Charles’s strange reaction to my attempts to counsel him.

  ‘I’m sure I did exactly what they told me to do. I simply reflected what he said back to him.’

  ‘You don’t think you laid it on a bit?’

  ‘No way!’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, all I can say is, it’s the counselling world’s loss.’

  ‘Maybe I can find someone at church to practise my counselling skills on.’

  ‘Are you sure that would be a good idea?’

  ‘I dunno, maybe I should take a longer course first.’

  ‘Maybe. Theo, promise me one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you ever see a recruitment poster for the Samaritans asking for volunteer counsellors, give it a miss.’

  The baby is obviously making her feel a bit negative about everything.

  Sunday 28 February

  Charity looked very worried at church this morning—not her bouncing, beaming usual self at all. Couldn’t resist finding out what had caused this dampening of spirits and saving it up for use on future occasions.

  ‘Hello, Charity, what’s up? You look as if you’ve lost a talent and found a shekel.’

  ‘Oh, hello Theodora,’ she said, craning to peer behind me. ‘I was really hoping to speak to Miss Chamberlain. Something dreadful has happened to Zilpah at school and I really wanted her advice.’

  ‘Oh, poor thing, she’s not getting bullied, I hope.’ I thought of Zilpah’s protruding teeth, thick glasses and curly red hair and her worst disadvantage of all—her parents. Surely, if there was a natural target for bullies, Zilpah would be it.

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. Zilpah won’t stand for any nonsense. She knows how to put critics in their place. No, it’s her reading book.’ She wrung her hands. ‘Oh, I can hardly bring myself to talk about it!’

  Charity’s cheeks became very pink and I was beginning to wonder if I should send for the smelling salts, when Miss Chamberlain appeared. Charity seized her by the arm and steered her towards a pew. As I now considered myself involved in the proceedings (and besides, my curiosity was mounting by the minute), I felt at liberty to follow them. I sat down on the other side of Charity.

  ‘Miss Chamberlain, a dreadful thing has happened,’ Charity began. ‘Zilpah has been asked to peruse the most unsuitable reading material. I’ve been to see her teacher and the headmaster, and now I’m thinking of writing to the governing body. Oh,’ she sobbed, ‘and the worst thing is, nobody is taking me seriously! They think I’m just making a fuss, but I really feel we should stand against these dark forces. Don’t you agree, Miss Chamberlain?’

  I was intrigued. I really couldn’t see the village school encouraging its pupils to dabble in the black arts. Miss Chamberlain, as usual, remained calm. In her antique china voice, she spoke gently and reassuringly.

  ‘I can see you are very distressed, my dear. Do you feel able to tell me a few details? Then I’ll see if I can suggest anything that might help.’

  Charity sniffed and swallowed hard. ‘One of the main characters in the book—’ she peered round and lowered her voice, ‘—is a witch. And there’s all sorts of magic kingdoms and pagan creatures, and I believe it also promotes the worship of animals!’

  ‘I can see why that might upset you. Can I ask the name of the book?’

  ‘I’ve brought it with me. To tell the truth, I was concerned about even having it in the house. You never know what powers these materials might have.’

  Charity reached into her handbag and pulled out a copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I suppressed a snort of laughter. ‘But that’s a Christian book. Even I know that!’

  Miss Chamberlain glared at me. Charity burst into tears. Then Miss Chamberlain turned and took Charity’s hand. ‘Theodora’s right. It is a very famous children’s book, written by a great man of God who used his gift of story-telling to help explain the mysteries of our faith. This book is an allegory, rather like Jesus’ parables. I know there’s a witch in the story, but he uses her to explain how he sees the battle between good and evil.’

  Charity nodded doubtfully. ‘But the idea of a witch—it seems so … evil. What might it do to a vulnerable child’s mind?’

  I had difficulty envisaging Zilpah as a ‘vulnerable child’.

  ‘You need wicked characters in a book like this as well as good ones. And believe me, just because there’s magic in a book, especially this book, it won’t encourage little Zilpah to dabble in the occult. Children are far too clever for that. I think you’re very wise to question what your child reads, but believe me, if it was that easy to influence a child, just by giving them a book, a teacher’s job would be a great deal simpler! No, children are very good at distinguishing between reality and stories. Some people even advise that it’s a good thing for children to be a little bit frightened by what they read. If people in the story scare them, they can simply close the book. That can give them a sense of control over things that frighten them. Then, when something happens in real life which makes them afraid, they’ve had some practice in dealing with it. But I would say to you what I said to all my parents who were worried about what their children were reading or watching on television: read or watch with them. Then you can decide if you feel they’re being influenced in the wrong way. Go back to Zilpah’s teacher and just ask for a different book if that would make you more comfortable. That’s what I would do. But make sure you read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe yourself. I’m sure you’ll love it when you understand it. Then, maybe when Zilpah is older…’

  Charity nodded and thanked Miss Chamberlain for her advice. I had to admit it was very sensible. Rather a pity, though. I was looking forward to a ritual burning of the Chronicles of Narnia in the car park.

  March

  Monday 1 March

  ST DAVID’S DAY

  It’s March. It’s the first day of March. In 27 days’ time I will be 30 years old. I know life is supposed to begin at 40, so technically I’ve got 10 years before it even starts. All the same, I can’t help feeling that life i
s pulling out from Platform 1 while I’m standing on Platform 4, looking in the wrong direction down the track.

  Wednesday 3 March

  It’s about time I started dropping hints to Kevin about what to buy me for my birthday. If I don’t, I’ll end up with another football video or football book or football T-shirt—and I can’t risk the possibility of him buying me underwear. He doesn’t wrap my presents, either. I don’t think the man even owns a reel of sticky-tape. I do object to being given a birthday gift swathed in a Tesco carrier bag.

  Thursday 4 March

  A brilliant idea to solve the birthday present dilemma! I will buy the present, wrap it and give it to Kevin to give to me. It won’t be a surprise, but at least I’ll stand some chance of getting something I actually want.

  A few years ago, I tried giving him explicit instructions.

  ‘Don’t get me anything to do with football,’ I said. ‘I’m not remotely interested in football.’

  ‘Not football.’ He wrote carefully in a notebook.

  ‘And I want it to be a surprise, something I’m not expecting.’

  ‘Surprise,’ he muttered as he scribbled furiously.

  ‘And something useful. Not one of these gimmicky gadgets that are all the fashion for a few months then spend the rest of eternity in the back of a cupboard.’

  ‘U-S-E-F-U-L-L…’

  ‘One L,’ I corrected.

  I settled back, comfortable that I would not have to suffer another Dirty Tackles—This Time It’s War! video.

  That year he bought me an electric hedge trimmer. True, it fulfilled all my criteria, but I live in a flat. I don’t have a garden.

  Friday 5 March

  Went out to buy a newspaper at lunchtime. Only just made it back past the confectioner’s window. They have a display of Easter eggs, chocolate rabbits and boxes and boxes and boxes of the most delicious, luscious, delectable, mouth-watering…

  Declan caught me looking in.

  ‘Don’t forget to wipe the drool off your chin before you get back to work,’ he called cheerfully as he dodged my attempt to swipe him with the newspaper.

  Looked up ‘addiction’ in the dictionary when I got home. It defined it as ‘the condition in which a person is dependent on the continued taking of some drug, the deprivation of which causes adverse effects including an uncontrolled craving for it’.

  That’s it! I have a medical condition. I’m not just greedy. I’m addicted to chocolate and what I’m suffering from now is withdrawal. I need to attend a self-help group—Chocoholics Anonymous. I wonder if it exists? I can imagine the group meeting. A dozen chairs set in a circle in the village hall, the leaders with earnest, sympathetic faces, the clients looking pale and anxious, taking it in turns to rise and admit to their addiction.

  ‘My name is Theodora, and I am a chocoholic. It’s been 18 days since my last bar of chocolate…’

  Sunday 7 March

  It was Nigel Hubble’s turn to preach again today and when he announced the topic of his sermon, ‘Knowing God’s Will for Your Life’, I considered finding an excuse for a rapid departure. It isn’t that I don’t want to know what God’s will is for my life, quite the reverse. I just had the uncomfortable feeling that Nigel’s version of God’s will and my version of God’s will might not be exactly compatible. I whispered my concerns to Miss Chamberlain, who reassured me that she had known many occasions when God had spoken to people in spite of the sermon.

  I sat back and listened as Nigel gave an example of how, when he was a teenager, he had ‘sought and found the voice of the Lord among the many worldly distractions that can so easily ensnare the saints’. I tried to imagine Nigel being ensnared by worldly distractions. Had he cheated in a game of Monopoly, or bought a tabloid Sunday paper? No. Apparently his great deviation from the straight and narrow involved failing to switch off the television immediately after the nine o’clock news and spending time flipping through the channels. This, he said, had led him into a ‘spree of covetousness, self-indulgence and carnality’. I made a mental note to check the Radio Times to try to work out what on earth he must have been watching. It turned out, rather disappointingly, that he had been watching the commercials. Poor Nigel. It became clearer and clearer that he just hadn’t been able to cope with the modern world of advertising. So many voices advising him to buy so many things. My mind drifted and I imagined him as a character in a Jane Austen novel.

  ‘Oh! Mr Hubble, I do declare that I am quite vexed concerning the variety of choices facing one regarding the magnitude of sweetmeats, fancies and luxuries paraded in front of one on the televisual viewing device nowadays!’

  ‘Suddenly,’ Nigel boomed, jerking me back from my daydream, ‘I heard the voice of the Lord speaking to me through that television. I heard him as clearly as you can hear me now. “WE’RE WITH THE WOOLWICH,” the voice from the television said, and I knew in my heart that it was God’s voice.’

  I glanced at Miss Chamberlain, who shrugged, and then looked behind me at Charity, who was sitting there captivated by Nigel’s story of divine revelation.

  ‘And I knew at once I must go to Woolwich. That very night I packed my case, said goodbye to my parents and caught a train to southeast London.’

  This puzzled me. I wanted to know how he knew it was God speaking. I wanted to put up my hand and ask him, but you just don’t do that in the middle of a sermon. What if the advert had been for the Halifax? Would he have boarded a train for Yorkshire? If it had urged him to ‘Get the Abbey habit’, would he have become a monk? I was beginning to have serious doubts about this calling.

  ‘I arrived at about 11.30 at night and stood at Woolwich Dockyard station and prayed for guidance. I prayed that God would divinely reveal to me a dwelling of a Christian brother who would support and encourage me in my desire to follow God’s calling for me. And after several hours of wandering the streets of Woolwich, I felt miraculously led to a house. I just had the assurance in my heart that it was a household where the Lord was glorified. I put my suitcase in the porch and rang the bell. After a few minutes the door opened and I saw a man whom I knew in my spirit was a brother in the Lord. He and his wife heard my story and let me stay the night in spite of not knowing me, and in the morning he talked to me and prayed for God to guide me away from that house in blessing and peace. They gave me breakfast, allowed me to ring my parents, and the gentleman even offered to drive me to the station. Isn’t God’s provision marvellous in the way that he upholds those who are willing to follow him?’

  Nigel ended by saying that it was shortly after this experience (and no doubt after watching The Vicar of Dibley) that he felt called to put himself forward for ordination and the rest, as they say, is history.

  I felt puzzled about what Nigel had said. I’ve always found Nigel’s interpretation of guidance rather fanciful, but it was surely a miracle to find a house belonging to another Christian among all the houses in Woolwich. I mentioned this to Gregory Pasternak over coffee.

  ‘Wasn’t it amazing how God guided him to that house?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gregory, ‘but what he didn’t tell us was the name on the front of the house.’

  ‘You mean it was some kind of secret code, like the first-century believers used, that let him know the house belonged to a Christian?’

  ‘Not exactly. The house was called “The Vicarage”.’

  Monday 8 March

  Today’s post consisted of a bank statement (so red I had to open it wearing oven gloves) and a postcard from a catalogue company informing me that I had definitely won a cash prize in their ‘Fabulous Prize Draw’. Anything between £1 and £10,000 could be mine if I returned the card within 14 days, requested a catalogue, bought something from the catalogue, paid for the thing I had bought from the catalogue, recommended the catalogue to three friends, who also ordered and paid for items from the catalogue, and completed the sentence, ‘I love to shop with Little Galaxy Stores because…’ No fabulous prize for guessing which end
of the financial spectrum my cash award would be.

  The final item of post was an ivory-coloured envelope of heavy, embossed paper with my name and address written in beautiful copperplate script on the front. I opened it to find an invitation to my brother Agamemnon’s wedding.

  Ag is finally getting married and joining ‘Club Conformity’. I couldn’t believe it at first, but there before my eyes, in gold ink, embossed on a gilt-edged ivory card with a tastefully printed fleur-de-lis in one corner, was the undeniable proof:

  Viennetta and Arthur Cabot-Whittle

  Request the company of Miss Theodora Llewellyn and partner

  at the marriage of their daughter Cordelia to Mr Agamemnon Llewellyn

  At 2 p.m. on Saturday 22 May at

  St Hector’s Church, Marrow-on-the-Wold

  That was the surprise he mentioned at Christmas. Ag has found a woman to take him on! I barely resisted the urge to phone him both to congratulate him for getting engaged and to berate him for not telling me he was even thinking of getting engaged.

  I’ve always assumed Ag just wasn’t the settling-down type. He holds down a job for a few months, serving in burger bars or doing courier work, teaching or even the occasional bit of freelance journalism, then he just takes off to a different country. We always joke that he should have been called Odysseus. The first indication that he’s gone wandering again is usually a scrawled postcard from Kathmandu, Rotowaro or Mwanza.

  Gave in to the temptation to ring Mum to get the full lowdown on Cordelia. He met her when they were both working in the Far East last summer. Apparently she lives in Wimbledon and she’s in television. This is really exciting. I’ve never met anyone in television before. I wonder if she can get me Steve Chalke’s autograph.

  Wednesday 10 March

  Looked again at the invitation. ‘Miss Theodora Llewellyn and partner.’ I don’t know what to make of that. Sounds like someone I’ve gone into business with. I suppose ‘partner’ is the word people use to describe anything from ‘common-law spouse’ to ‘any bloke you can drag along for the night with the promise of free food and booze’. I can’t think of a word to describe adequately the relationship between Kevin and me. ‘Boyfriend’ sounds too adolescent. ‘Sweetheart’ just doesn’t sum up someone who would present you with a gift-wrapped piece of David Beckham’s used chewing gum. ‘Lover’ would be wildly optimistic and ‘friend’ sounds as if I actually like him. Flicked through the dictionary for a suitable term. ‘Appendage’ would probably be the best description—‘that which is attached as if by being hung on; a subsidiary but not an essential’.