The Art of Standing Still Read online

  Instantly, she slapped that thought in the face. Whatever happened, Richard was the last person she needed. She lay on her bed again, this time, cocooned in the quilt.

  She listened for the car to return, but all she heard was the screech of a barn owl and the water lapping gently, lapping, lapping . . .

  Scene Six

  JEMMA EVENTUALLY FOUND A PARKING SPACE HALFWAY UP THE HIGH STREET. Slowly she unclenched her hands from the steering wheel and exhaled. First, an accident on the bypass delayed her for nearly an hour; then the traffic had been almost at a standstill at Monksford General Hospital.

  It had been nothing but traffic jams since the ‘highway improvements’ last August. The new road, which led through the revamped industrial estate – now Monksford Business and Retail Park – was supposed to have been the panacea to all the town’s problems. But rather, it had caused even more ills. It cut an ugly wound through the Kentish farmland and took passing trade away from the town centre.

  As she rummaged through files, crisp packets, and empty drink cans, looking in her car for her script and her bag, a blue van drove past, narrowly missing her half-open door.

  ‘Watch it!’ she yelled. The driver shouted back something that Jemma couldn’t hear. She slammed the car door and locked it. She glanced at her watch. Already five minutes late.

  She ran along the pavement, dodging pedestrians and telegraph poles. The pale blue van was parked just a few feet from the entrance to the church hall. Jemma, irked the driver had found a space so close, a space that should have been hers, repressed the urge to kick the tyres. A dark-haired man climbed out of the driver’s seat. He smiled at her. She scowled back.

  ‘I’m sorry about nearly taking your door off,’ he said, still smiling.

  ‘Yeah, okay,’ muttered Jemma.

  ‘You going for a part?’ He nodded in the direction of the hall.

  ‘Yes, my boss is making me.’ She answered. ‘You?’

  ‘My vicar’s making me.’

  She couldn’t help smiling back. Was anyone taking part in this play voluntarily?

  ‘What’s your audition piece?’ she asked as he held the door open for her.

  ‘I just thought I’d read a bit from the Bible. After all, that’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘So, you’re not an actor?’

  ‘Hardly,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve never been on the stage before. I work at Abacus.’

  ‘The do-it-yourself shop?’

  He nodded. ‘You?’

  ‘I studied drama at college but now I’m a journalist.’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Keep it quiet. I thought I’d go incognito, you know. Tell the story behind the story.’

  ‘I’d better watch what I say.’

  ‘The chances of anything of interest happening are pretty remote. This is Monksford, after all.’

  ‘You don’t sound very keen on the idea.’

  ‘I’ve been killing myself all week learning my piece. I wish I hadn’t bothered. It’s my editor’s idea to write a weekly column.’

  The man held out his hand. ‘I hope you get it. If that’s what you want.’

  She smiled. ‘Good luck to you too. Break a leg, as they say.’

  Jemma walked into the hall and felt as if she had blundered into the middle of Oxford Street a week before Christmas. It was packed with people, milling around, talking, laughing. She spotted a harassed looking woman sitting at a desk. Resisting the urge to barge to the front, she joined the queue. In front of her were a jester, a Morris dancer, a nun, and several surly looking teenage boys. The woman at the desk took their names and assigned them to different parts of the room. She appeared to be handing the teenage boys five-pound notes. This is good, we get paid too!

  Finally it was Jemma’s turn. The woman looked up and smiled at her.

  ‘Jemma Durham. I’m auditioning for the part of Mary Magdalene.’

  ‘Hello, are you the reporter?’

  Jemma nodded. So much for undercover journalism.

  ‘I’m Ruth Wells, the vicar. That . . .’ she gestured towards a small, plump man in a pink pullover and wearing small round glasses ‘is Ronnie Mardle, and over there is Harlan Westacre. She’ll be auditioning you.’ She nodded towards a thin woman with dangling earrings. ‘If you’d like to wait over there, we’ll try to get organised as soon as we can.’

  ‘Lot of people here.’ Jemma did a mental count for the article.

  ‘Yes, I’m delighted at the turnout – oh, will you excuse me?’ She stood up and beckoned to the man Jemma had met on the way in. ‘Josh! Over here.’ He smiled and waved. He really did have a very nice smile.

  Jemma crossed the hall and joined the other potential Mary Magdalenes near the piano. The familiar burning of ambition ignited inside. She studied the competition. There were four other women. Two looked well over sixty, so Jemma dismissed them. A dark-haired woman sat demurely with her ankles crossed on a blue plastic chair. Another woman, vaguely familiar, a blonde with a short skirt and high heels, was on her mobile phone, speaking loudly with animated gestures. She wore an ankle bracelet, large hooped earrings, and far too much makeup. Jemma wondered if she was attempting to portray the shadier side of Mary Magdalene’s reputation.

  ‘Alistair, you’re late!’ the woman screeched into her phone. ‘You’ve made me look really stupid, standing in this hall, waiting for you. I’ve got better things to do.’

  Amanda Fry! Of course. Jemma hadn’t recognised her sober. The woman glanced around at the stares and lowered her voice.

  Jemma pulled her hairbrush from her bag and groomed her hair, brushing out the kinks, and letting it hang smooth and straight, like a dark curtain to frame her face. The scrawny, bird-like woman the vicar had pointed out earlier approached the motley quintet. She carried a notebook and pen.

  ‘Evening, ladies. I’m Harlan Westacre, and I’ll be putting you through your paces tonight. Right, who’s first?’ She glanced at Jemma, but one of the older women put up her hand.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ She jumped to her feet and grabbed a CD player. ‘Where do you want me?’

  Harlan gestured towards a corner of the hall. The woman turned on the CD and proceeded to sing ‘Tomorrow’ from the musical Annie in a wavering soprano. Jemma covered her mouth with her hand to hide a smirk.

  Harlan was kinder to the woman than she deserved and pointed out Ronnie Mardle for her, suggesting she talk to him about a possible future in amateur operatics.

  The second woman muttered her way through Lady Macbeth’s ‘out damned spot’ speech while Harlan made notes. At the end Harlan thanked the woman and said she would be letting her know. Jemma knew she meant she wouldn’t be letting her know.

  Harlan smiled at Jemma, who stood up, took a breath to still herself, as she had been taught, and proceeded with her monologue. As she spoke Viola’s words, a hush descended around her. She tried not to notice heads were turning. She was good and she knew it. At the end there was a smattering of applause, and Jemma was tempted to bow.

  ‘Brava!’ cried Harlan, scribbling notes on her pad. The mousy-looking woman stood up and whispered something to Harlan.

  ‘Are you sure, dear?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ the woman said and scuttled for the door.

  ‘Well, Jemma Durham. It looks as if you’ve got the part.’

  ‘What about her?’ Jemma glanced towards Amanda Fry, who was still on the phone.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Harlan waved her hand in front of Amanda’s face.

  Amanda put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to audition for the part?’

  ‘I’m waiting till my husband gets here.’

  ‘Why, is he auditioning for the role of Mary Magdalene too?’ Harlan smiled.

  ‘Can I have all the Jesuses over here, please?’ Ronnie Mardle’s precise enunciations drowned out Amanda’s snide reply. Half a dozen men climbed on the stage, and the audition started.

&nb
sp; Harlan drew Jemma to one side. ‘I’m sorry, I’d give you the part like a shot, but I’ve got to make it look fair. Alistair Fry is a vital link in this project – financially, if you get my drift. Without him and his filthy lucre, we’d be up the creek.’

  It wouldn’t look fair if the part went to Amanda Fry just because she’s the Councillor’s wife either. But it wouldn’t surprise Jemma if it happened.

  Jemma sat down to wait. She pulled out her notebook and began scrawling shorthand across the page.

  ‘Joshua? Joshua Wood next please,’ Ronnie called out.

  Josh climbed the steps on to the stage with a Bible in his hand. He was visibly shaking, and his face looked pale despite his tan. He swept his dark hair out of his eyes and swallowed hard. His discomfort made Jemma want to turn away.

  ‘Off you go, Joshua,’ Ronnie said.

  Josh Wood opened the Bible and cleared his throat. ‘ “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.’ ” ’

  The richness of his voice combined with the poignancy of the words had an electrifying effect on the people in the hall. The ‘Pharisees’ in the corner became silent, the ‘Romans’ by the broom cupboard watched intently, and Harlan Westacre stood with her hands clasped, captivated by Josh.

  ‘ “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’ ” ’ He stopped reading and looked up. ‘Shall I go on?’

  ‘No, I’ve found my Jesus!’ Ronnie clapped his hands and jogged onto the stage to pat Joshua Wood on the back. ‘The rest of you can go. I need look no further.’

  The other men gathered round Ronnie, grumbling their complaints.

  ‘You can all be disciples!’ Ronnie announced with an extravagant gesture. The men didn’t seem mollified, but Jemma had to agree, the part couldn’t possibly have gone to anyone else.

  Josh closed the Bible and, wiping his hand across his face, climbed down from the stage.

  Jemma went over to him. ‘Congratulations. You were very good. I thought you said you’d never been on the stage before.’

  ‘I haven’t. I was so terrified I thought I was going to throw up. Couldn’t you tell?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Jemma fibbed.

  ‘Besides, it was a bit different from acting, you know, just saying words. That meant something.’

  ‘The Bible?’

  ‘Yes, it’s . . . real.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jemma had never thought of it as any more than an old collection of stories.

  ‘Even as Jesus spoke those words . . . he knew what would happen. He knew he would die. In the garden, the bit I read, he asked his best friends to wait with him while he made the hardest decision of his life. He wanted some support from his mates, but when he went back and checked on them they’d fallen sleep.’

  ‘That’s awful!’

  ‘It really happened. He had to choose whether to go through with it – the cross and certain death – or to quit. And he made that decision alone.’

  ‘What did he choose?’

  Joshua smiled. ‘He chose the cross.’

  ‘I knew that!’ Jemma reddened a little. Of course she knew that Jesus Christ died on the cross. People complained about how badly Religious Education was taught in schools, but even she knew about the cross! She just never heard it explained so clearly. He had made it sound as if it happened yesterday. As if it was something he had read in the newspaper.

  ‘Attention please.’ Ronnie Mardle clapped his hands. ‘Could I have all the Judases over there, please, and if you’ve already been cast in a part, please make sure you’ve given your name to our lovely vicar, the Reverend Wells . . .’ Ruth gave a little wave from her desk by the door.

  ‘. . . and if anyone’s interested in coming tomorrow night, we’re doing the Old Testament. Bring along your stone tablets. We’re in need of a Moses.’

  ‘Looks like I can go,’ said Josh. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Still waiting to hear. One more audition.’ She glanced at Amanda Fry, who was still on the phone.

  ‘I hope you get the part,’ said Josh. This time it was his turn to blush a little. ‘I’d like to see you again.’

  Before she could answer, he turned and walked out of the hall, almost bumping into Alistair Fry. Alistair greeted Ruth, then came over to Amanda, who finally finished her call. He kissed her lightly, once on each cheek, then held up a hand and apologised to Ronnie.

  ‘Glad you could make it.’ A hint of sarcasm crept into Ronnie’s voice. ‘You’re too late for Jesus, I’m afraid, but we’re still a Judas short, if you want to try out for that.’

  Harlan turned to Amanda. ‘Are you ready now?’

  ‘Changed my mind,’ she said and tottered over to join her husband.

  Harlan came up to her and put a bony arm around Jemma’s shoulders.

  ‘Well done, Mary Magdalene. Make sure Ruth’s got your address and phone number, and we’ll give you a date for the first rehearsal. You can pick up your script too. Welcome aboard.’

  Jemma grinned. Then she reminded herself that she didn’t want the part. Not only did it mean a night or two out every week, unpaid, but the indignity of a weekly column.

  Then again, there was Josh Wood. Maybe there were compensations after all.

  JEMMA DROVE HOME WITH HER HEAD SPINNING. THE FIRST REHEARSAL WAS A week on Thursday. She had got a part in a play she wasn’t interested in, had to write a column she didn’t wish to write, all to please a boss she found irritating. To cap it all she felt her heart tugging her towards another relationship. This was definitely the last thing she wanted to happen.

  She pulled up in the car park alongside the river and leant her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. She let out a deep groan. First Richard and now this. How could it happen?

  She felt like this only once before, when she was eleven. She was on holiday with her father, her uncle, and her cousin Brad. Brad at fifteen was like a two-year-old Labrador – the body of an adult with the mind of a puppy.

  They had stayed in apartments on Corfu, and Brad became obsessed with water sports: speedboats, jet skis, paragliding, and scuba diving.

  One afternoon, when the adults were taking their siesta, he had procured the keys to his uncle’s speedboat. ‘Come on Jemma. Let’s see what you’re made of. I’ve hitched up the towrope. You get the water skis. I’ll just go and start the engine.’

  Jemma had frozen, rooted to the spot.

  ‘Not chicken, are you?’

  No one called her chicken, especially not that spotty brat.

  She climbed on the skis for only the second time in her life, and they took off around Agios Georgios Bay at breakneck speed.

  Terrified, she clung to the tow handle. Afraid to hang on and but even more afraid to let go. As she bounced round the bay, panic overcame her pride.

  ‘Stop, Brad! Please stop.’

  He chose to ignore her. She was trapped. Held by the rope that was both peril and lifeline. The pain in her shoulders and arms was excruciating, but she clung to the handle.

  Then her father shouted from the shore. She gritted her teeth. And prayed. Finally Brad slowed down, drove the speedboat close to the beach, and she felt safe enough to let go. Kicking off her skis, she swam to safety, where her white-faced father and uncle were waiting. As she rose from the water, shaking more from terror than the cold, she vowed never to take on anything she couldn’t control.

  Now that she was an adult, she insisted on driving herself everywhere, she cut her own hair, and she refused to visit a doctor unless she was at death’s door.

  No one ever told her to ‘get a grip’. Her grip on her life, her emoti
ons and her destiny was Herculean. Until now. She tried to pinpoint the start of her current predicament. She leant back in the driver’s seat and opened her eyes. And screamed. Two eyes stared back at her through the windscreen.

  She closed her eyes again for a moment, willing the apparition to go away. She took a deep breath and then, once more, squinted at the windscreen. This time the face took shape.

  ‘Richard!’ She lowered the window. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Nice to see you too.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t come to ask you to have me back. I’ve just come for my stuff. I left it as long as I could.’

  ‘I know.’ Jemma studied his unshaven face and bloodshot eyes. He could certainly do with some of his clothes and toiletries. ‘I packed them all up for you.’ Jemma wound up the window and got out of the car. She opened the boot and nodded at the black bags.

  ‘Take them,’ she said.

  ‘Thing is,’ he hesitated, ‘I haven’t got the car.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In the repair shop. I had a bit of a disagreement with a Ford Mondeo.’

  ‘Let me guess. You were in such a hurry to get away from me you weren’t looking where you were going?’

  ‘Jems, don’t. Please.’

  ‘Don’t call me that!’ Jemma slammed the boot shut and started walking towards the Hog.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night. In fact, I’m sorry that I’ve had to come back at all. I didn’t want you to see me like this.’

  ‘Like what?’ Jemma turned and looked at him in the moonlight. His clothes were crumpled and his hair was unkempt.

  ‘I . . . I haven’t been well.’

  ‘Bring out the violins!’

  ‘I went to the doctor and everything. He said it was stress. He gave me some tablets.’

  ‘So? What do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘I just want a bit of understanding. A bit of sympathy.’

  ‘Like you gave me when you dumped me. You didn’t even let me down gently. You didn’t try to talk to me. You didn’t give me the opportunity to try to sort this out. You just left me a letter – no, not even a letter. A note. A note written on a scrappy piece of envelope. It looked like something you’d found in the bin! Do you know what that says to me, Richard? That our relationship was garbage. It wasn’t worth the effort while we were in it, and to end it you used something I wouldn’t even use to write a shopping list. You were always very keen on the symbolic. Well that just about says it all.’