want you to be happy, Philippa, believe me we do, and we’re pleased for your new interests, after all, you’ve got a lot of life left in you. And despite what you think, we’ve always been supportive of you, and will continue to be as long as your interests aren’t to the detriment of the family.’
‘And they’re not. All I’ve done is increase the dimensions of my life. I don’t love you any less, nor am I any less concerned about you, I’m simply trying to incorporate more in my life. And any honest person would have to admit that mine was a life desperately in need of expansion.’
‘I really don’t think that’s fair, yours was a perfectly good life, a marvellous life. Plenty of people would have been happy to trade places.’ She popped a pickled onion in her mouth without thinking, then quickly followed with some camembert as if the latter could erase the former’s vulgarity. ‘Besides, people are talking.’
Philippa laughed. ‘That’s never bothered me. People talked for years about George and Lorraine Pascoe and I never minded.’
Evelyn was annoyed, certain topics were best left unsaid, and a long-time mistress of your husband’s was one. Although it suddenly occurred to her why Philippa may have wanted to escape her old life. Perhaps she was embarrassed to face her old friends, that, despite her bravado, she really did mind about Lorraine Pascoe. Evelyn certainly would, Evelyn would have found the role of grieving widow impossible if there had been a long-time mistress on the scene. Thank heavens good steady Gray had not taken after his father. And again she found herself feeling sorry for Philippa. She took a sip of wine, leaned forward, an expression of sympathy grafted across her features.
‘Is there something wrong, something you’d like to talk about? Some difficulty perhaps?’
Philippa shook her head.
‘You can confide in me,’ Evelyn persisted. ‘I’m not as easily shocked as you might think. Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?’
There was nothing, Philippa said, and then added with a laugh, except perhaps too many options. She wanted to travel, South America was a possibility, and she was interested in the University of the Third Age, but was yet to decide on her subjects, perhaps she’d even try some part-time work. ‘I really don’t know what I’ll end up doing, but for the moment, it’s quite exhilarating to know that almost anything’s possible.’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
Philippa looked genuinely surprised.
‘Have you thought about seeing someone?’
‘Someone?’
‘A professional, someone who can help you. I know Gina Ballantyne found a very good therapist for her daughter when she was going through a rough patch.’
Philippa smiled. ‘Are you suggesting I’m going through an adolescent phase? Is that how it appears to you?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that. But something has to explain your behaviour.’
‘And so it does. I want a change, it’s as simple as that.’
Evelyn saw she was getting nowhere, and with just under half an hour before she would need to leave, decided to change the topic and clear the air. For there would be a return visit, possibly several, and she did not want to antagonize her mother-in-law at this early stage. So she chatted on about nothing in particular, who had announced their engagement, whose divorce was through, who was pregnant and whose tubes had been tied, and at half past two rose to leave.
At the door Philippa turned to her. ‘You’ll remember what I said Evelyn, I’m here whenever the family needs me. Just ring and I’ll make time. I’ve even bought an answering machine, one of those sophisticated models with a remote retrieval system, so no matter where I am, I can keep in touch.’
They touched cheeks and Evelyn hurried to the car before she exploded. An answering machine! What would Philippa think of next?
The trip across the city was maddeningly slow and by the time she pulled up outside Brother Trevor’s, frustration over Philippa’s intransigence had been inflamed by ineffective road laws, inefficient road repair teams, inflated petrol prices and incompetent drivers. Three hours ago her mission had been clear, her goals readily achievable, now she was returning without a single point won. It was all very well for Philippa to insist on her availability, her willingness to help, but none of the family was the least bit interested in Philippa’s help as long as she persisted in her present nonsense. Mother could only do her job, they all said, if she were back where she belonged.
Which was the way of the Finemores. Conciliation and compromise had never been their approach. Why deprive both parties of what each really wanted? Either you converted the opposition to your way of thinking, or you didn’t bother about convincing them, you just made sure you won. So, as far as the Finemore children were concerned, Philippa had to return home, and that was that. As for the problems between Gray and Selwyn, both men would, for the time being, go about their business, Gray at Selwyn’s heels and Selwyn his gaze fixed firmly ahead, both of them refusing to recognize any view other than their own. And the tension would increase, affecting not only the dynamics at work, but family relations as well. Which had already begun; at the past two or three family dinners, despite the usual talk of parties and children and takeovers and bankruptcies, there had been a competitive edge to the silences, the jokes had been shot with malice, and the compliments very heavy-handed indeed.
All this Evelyn had known, all of it had fuelled her visit to Philippa, all of it made Philippa’s refusal to see reason so unfair. Evelyn’s only relief in the whole fiasco was in not having told Gray of her visit; she had planned to surprise him with results: the triumphant announcement that his mother was returning home.
Well, there would be none of that now, or at least not yet. She got out of the car, Brother Trevor’s gate was, as usual, open, she passed through and walked up the path. Brother Trevor was already at his front door, and at the sight of him her spirits rose; the visit with Philippa might have been a failure, but her appointments with Brother Trevor never were.
Evelyn’s first dalliance with religion had occurred soon after her marriage when she offered her services to the ladies’ auxiliary at the local Anglican church. It had seemed such a Finemore thing to do, but it was also rather unsatisfying. When the church was deconsecrated and sold to an advertising agency, Evelyn took the opportunity to discontinue her association with God. Until three years ago, and then it was Jesus, not God, who caught in her heart, Jesus on the lips of Brother Trevor. Of course Gray and the others had no idea. In Finemore circles, religion was something akin to those white kid gloves packed in tissue at the back of a drawer, ignored until an auspicious occasion required their appearance. As for rousing singing and ecstatic revelations these were, from the Finemore point of view, in very poor taste. But Evelyn didn’t care. Reverend Trevor Potter, ‘Call me Brother,’ had indeed called her and moved her and implanted within the brooding coolness of her body a shudder, a flame, a passion of sorts, that she understood to be belief.
‘You have to believe,’ Brother Trevor said, ‘and our Lord will come to you. I will show him the way.’ And Brother Trevor had shown the way, every Thursday at three o’clock for nearly two years, while Gray thought Evelyn was attending cake decoration classes.
Brother Trevor walked down the path to meet her, and they entered the house together. The air was steeped in the smells of baking; Marion Potter, a flour-streaked apron around her girth, popped her head through the kitchen doorway to say hello, offered a not-entirely-coherent apology for her appearance,
