The Cure of Souls

wrong.

It was only a few steps down from the porch, but the body of the church had a subterranean feel – a cool, grey cavern. Hazel Shelbone was alone there, waiting in a front pew, a few yards from the pulpit and the entrance to the chancel where her daughter had – in the phraseology of Dennis Beckett’s grandson – tossed her cookies.

She half rose. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Watkins, if I was abrupt. It’s been very difficult.’

‘Yes.’

‘I… would like you to understand about me from the outset. I am a Christian. And a mother.’ She said this almost defiantly, her wide face shining in the white light from the leaded windows.

Merrily nodded. ‘Me, too.’

‘You’ve got children?’

‘Just the one. A girl. Sixteen.’

Mrs Shelbone’s brown eyes widened. ‘A child bride, were you?’

‘Sort of. My husband was killed in a car accident. Long time ago.’

The body of the church seemed fairly colourless. There was no stained glass in the nave, but behind the altar was a crucifixion window with blood-red predominant.

‘And you remarried?’

‘No, I…’

‘Found the Church instead.’ A deep nod of understanding from Mrs Shelbone. ‘It’s important to know where your destiny lies, isn’t it? I knew from a very early age that I was destined to be a mother, that this was to be my task in life. My occupation. Do you see?’

Merrily smiled. Hazel Shelbone’s expression rebuked her.

‘But we couldn’t have children, Mrs Watkins! Couldn’t have them. Imagine that. It was enough to shatter my faith. How terribly cruel of God, I thought.’

‘So—’

‘But after a while I began to understand. He intended for me to be a reservoir, do you see? A reservoir of maternal love for little children who were starved of it. When I came to that understanding it was a moment of great joy.’

‘So you—’

‘Foster parents we were, for a number of years. And then we took on Amy as an infant, and God, in his wisdom, decided that she was to stay and become our daughter. We had a big, decrepit old house, up in Leominster in those days, with lots of bedrooms, so we sold that and we moved out here. This was when Amy was five and we knew she was going to be staying.’

‘I didn’t realize she was adopted.’ Merrily was wondering what basic difference this might make. As a foster parent, Hazel Shelbone would probably already have had considerable experience of kids from dysfunctional families, kids with emotional problems. She wouldn’t easily be fooled by them. ‘What does your husband do?’

‘David’s a listed-buildings officer with the Hereford Council. He looks after the old places, makes sure nobody knocks them down or tampers with them. They offered him early retirement last year, but he said he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.’ Her eyes grew anxious. ‘I wish he’d taken it, now. He’s not been in the best of health recently, and now…’

She looked ahead, through the opening in the oak screen, towards the altar, and then suddenly turned, leaning urgently sideways in the pew, towards Merrily.

‘We never pushed the Church on her. We never forced religion on any of our children. We just made sure they knew that God was waiting for them, if and when they were ready. There’s a great difference between indoctrination and bringing up children in a home which is full of God’s love.’

Merrily nodded again. ‘That’s sensible.’

‘And Amy responded better than anyone could have wished. A daughter to be proud of – respected her parents, her teachers and her God.’ Hazel Shelbone paused, looking Merrily straight in the eyes. ‘You understand I’m only talking like this to you now because you’re a woman of God. I don’t make a practice of scattering the Lord’s name willy-nilly on barren ground. The Social Services people one has to deal with in fostering and adoption, many of those people are very left-wing and atheistic, and they’ll automatically take against you if they think you’re some sort of religious fanatic. Well, we’re far from fanatics, Mrs Watkins. We just maintain a Christian household. Which you always think will… will…’

She bit her lip.

‘Will be a protection to them?’ Merrily said softly.

Hazel Shelbone leaned back and breathed in deeply as if accepting an infusion of strength from God for what she was about to say. ‘Sometimes, when I come home and she’s been alone in the house… it seems so cold. There’s a sense of cold. The sort of cold you can feel in your bones.’

Merrily said nothing. Once something started gnawing at your mind, it could produce its own phenomena.

‘Last Sunday, when she was… sick, and we took her from here, I don’t think she even realized where she was. Her eyes were absolutely vacant, as though her mind had gone off somewhere else. Vacant and cold. Like a doll’s eyes. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was only when we got her home that she began to cry, and even then it was like tears of… defiance. I’d never seen that before, not in Amy. We’ve had other children, for short periods, who were resentful and troublesome, but not Amy. Amy became our own.’

Merrily asked carefully, ‘Have you consulted a doctor?’

Hazel Shelbone blinked. ‘You mean a psychiatrist?’

‘Well, not—’

‘We are a Christian household, Mrs Watkins. We seek Christian solutions.’

‘Well, yes, I understand that, but—’

‘You may say we’ve become complacent in our middle years, having a daughter who was always conscientious with her school work, who’d been going happily to church from the age of seven… and was, by the way, confirmed into the Church in March this year by Bishop Dunmore. A girl who even’ – she looked at Merrily, whose silk scarf had come loose, revealing the dog collar – ‘who even talked of one day becoming a minister.’

Merrily thought of Jane who once, in a heated moment, had said she’d rather clean public lavatories.

‘She always kept her Bible on her bedside table – until it went missing and I found it wedged under the wardrobe in the spare room. The Holy Bible wedged there, face down, like some old telephone directory! This was the child who always wanted to be assured, before the light went out, that Jesus was watching over her. Now she doesn’t want go to church any more, she looks down at her feet every time she has to even pass the church…’

‘Since when?’

‘Five weeks? Six weeks? The first time she wouldn’t go, she claimed she was feeling ill, with a bad stomach. Well, she’s always been truthful, never tried to get a day off school, so of course I sent her back to bed at once. The second time… Oh, it was some essay she had to write for school – she’s always been very assiduous about her school work, as I say. Very well, her dad said, you must decide what’s most important, and she promised she would go to evensong that night instead, on her own. And, sure enough, she got changed and off she went. But I know she didn’t turn up. I know that.’

Her voice had become loud enough to cause an echo, and Merrily glanced quickly around to make sure they were still alone.

‘Another time, she made the excuse of having a particularly severe period pain. But when she gave me the same excuse again last Sunday, I counted up the days and I can tell you there’s nothing wrong with my arithmetic. “Oh no,” I said, “up you get, my girl. Now!” And I made her come with us to the early Eucharist.’

‘Did she make a fuss?’

‘She was sulky. Distant. That glazed look.’

‘Has she got a boyfriend?’

‘What does that—? No. She hasn’t got a boyfriend. But she’s only fourteen.’