Waiting

Christmas. The season of goodwill and the town centre was busy. Shoppers were buying up goodwill, acquiring little bits of redemption from the wounds and hurts inflicted during the rest of the year. She huddled into her coat, hurrying along the crowded main street, dodging parcels and pushchairs, making her way to the parish church at the top of the hill.

Churches were always open at Christmas. As though the season of goodwill changed things; made the thieves that the doors were normally locked against trustworthy enough not to spoil the festive feeling. Even in the face of the arson attacks against churches across the town that autumn, vicars were opening their doors.

He was waiting at the foot of the steps in his black leather jacket and his jeans. He had his roll neck sweater on and she could imagine the curl of his hair into his neck. He was wearing his glasses. Something to hide behind. Something he always chose to wear when he knew he would be in close proximity to her. A barrier to stop her reading his eyes properly. He did not know that she had no need to read his eyes. The way he held his body in relation to her was enough to tell her what was going on.

They did not speak when she finally reached the steps, they did not touch; they simply looked at each other and walked up to the main door.

It was as cold inside the building as it was on the street. They stood in the central aisle of the church. It was the calmest, quietest place she had been able to think of for them to meet. She knew that he was holding himself carefully, the secret he was about to deliver like a glass orb liable to shatter with one false move. She knew because she could feel it.

She moved into one of the pews and sat down. He followed her. Neither of them spoke. Too many words had already been said, bringing them to this point in time. She could not think of any more words to give to him. What could she say? She did not want to hear the words she knew he had for her.

Had they been lovers, they might have sat closer together. As it was they took positions where they could not touch except by design. She looked across at him. He was staring straight ahead, lost in thought, anger his absolute expression. She looked across at him and wished she could touch him. Anger always reeled her in.

She couldn't shake off the cold, so she huddled further inside her coat. She looked at her knees, pressed against the back of the pew in front. How did people spend the hours they did in these places, listening to a man in a frock drone on? She kept her hands thrust into her coat pockets, wishing she had brought her gloves. She was always losing gloves. She closed her eyes and rocked slightly.

"It's cold, isn't it?" he said.

"You could say that," she replied.

"I'm not much company am I?"

"It's okay. I don't mind."

Silence fell again. She waited. Soon he would say it, say the thing that would make her decide. He would say it and she would smile bravely, knowing that the truth revealed would force her hand.

"So what are you going to do for the holidays?" She tried to sound bright.

"Oh, you know. You?"

"I'll probably go over to my parents' for a few days, then come back to town."

Please don’t say it, she wished. Please just let it be.

The church door opened behind them. They sat, heads bowed, waiting for whoever had come in to walk past. It was a woman in a blanket fabric coat, huddled and barrelled about with padding and scarves. She watched her walk to the front of the church and seat herself in a pew to pray. She wondered idly what her prayers were about, whether they were answerable prayers. She hoped they were. Someone had to be getting the answers they needed, otherwise life was just one big joke.

She had believed once that God or Jesus would answer her prayers. She had hung in there, hoping and believing, trusting this invisible force that others had faith in. She had allowed herself to believe that there was a point in it all, that there would be answers and reasons somewhere - a happy ending, even.

The woman at the front of the church presumably believed all that. She wanted to go to her and ask her what it was that kept her believing. But perhaps she didn't believe. Perhaps it was habit. Perhaps she was just seeking peace. You never knew with people, what motivated their actions.

Take him, for example, sitting there staring off into space, lost in the world of his thoughts. What motivated him to seek her out? And what motivated her to listen, knowing full well that there would be nothing in it for her at the end, except that forced decision?

She closed her eyes again, feeling the silence of the church around her. Feeling his silence, burdened with the unspoken words she knew were coming, the words she dreaded hearing. She was tired. She was so, so tired. Life was beginning to tire her. The daily grind, the futility, the solitude. At the end of this meeting, when he had finally said what she did not want him to say, she would go home, lift up the telephone and betray him.

The woman finished praying and got up. She kept her eyes fixed ahead, barely acknowledging their presence as she passed them in their pew. He had not moved an inch since they had got there. It was as though he knew that if he moved, the whole thing would explode - everything he was carrying so carefully inside him. He was probably wishing he was drunk. That would make it easier for him - anaesthetise him from what he needed to do, make the words flow more easily.

She spread her gloveless hands out on her knees and stared at her nails. They had grown again, a sure sign that soon she would be biting them. She was almost tempted to start chewing them now, but she didn't. She just stared at her hands and waited for him to say the words.

It didn't actually matter what he finally said, but she settled down to wait anyway, not wishing to hurry it.

She had lost track of time. She wove her fingers together, holding the interlacing loosely, then tighter, then loose again in her lap. She pushed her head back and looked up at the ceiling, at the blue and gold and cream. No angels. She thought there might at least have been angels.

She looked across at him sitting beside her in the pew, still staring into nothing, still yearning for oblivion and release from the guilt his actions had wrought in him. He didn't know that she was waiting for the words he had to speak. He probably didn't know that he had to say them. He would speak them without knowing what they were, those words she did not want to hear. Meanwhile, she would go on sitting there, waiting for those words to come.

His hands were flat against his knees. His knees were pressed even harder into the back of the pew in front. They were almost mirror images of each other. It was one small move to reach over and place one of her hands onto one of his, to touch him. Her hands felt like ice, though, and she did not dare. There was something of the sleep walker about the way he was sitting, and she did not want to cause him harm. His body was warming the air around him. She could feel it across the gap between them. She breathed it in, although it wasn't a smell. She breathed it in and felt like she was breathing him in, anger and all. Still he had not spoken the words, although they hung there in the cold air between them, mocking her with their potential existence.

In a heartbeat she could turn it all around. Give him a reason for saying those words. Get it over and done with. All she needed to do was give him the push to get him started. Then he could say the words she was waiting for and it would all be over. Instead she sat on.

She had set a load of washing going before she set out for town. She wondered now whether it was finished. How long had they been sitting there? She was not sure. Probably it was finished. It was her favourite duvet set. White with red stripes and embroidered horses from IKEA.

He spoke.

"What are you thinking about?"

"The washing. I was wondering if it was done yet."

"Oh."

They continued in silence. These are the conversations I should be having with someone, she thought, not waiting to have a conversation I don't want with a man whose anger I cannot end. I should be having conversations about the washing and what's for dinner and whether we should go to the pub.

But she also wanted to have conversations about sex and death and God and politics and music and love, and she wanted to have them with him because his anger moved her and he was unlike anybody else she had met in this town. And life was too short to be having conversations about the washing and what's for dinner and whether they should go to the pub.

"Do you want to go to the pub later?" she asked him.

"Oh. I'm already meeting friends in town tonight. Sorry."

"That's okay. It was just a thought."

They sat on in silence, like a pair of Staffordshire Dogs on a mantelpiece.

"Look, I'd better be going," she said, staring at her hands against her knees.

"Sorry, yes. I suppose I've got other things I could be doing as well."

"Have a good Christmas, though, eh?"

"Yes, I will. You too."

She stood up. He remained seated.

"Can I just...?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry."

He moved his legs to let her past. She brushed against him, holding the back of the pew in front. She paused in the aisle.

"I'll see you in the New Year, then?"

He looked up at her and smiled.

"Yes. See you in the New Year."

He was not going to say it, she knew that now. He couldn't say it. He needed his anger and his guilt too much to say it now. Perhaps he would never say it. Perhaps they would just drift along until they both woke up one day and realised they no longer needed the other's silence, that there was no redemption to be gained.

She turned at the door to the church before she set foot outside. She looked at the back of him, still in the pew, still staring into nothing.

"You’re forgiven," she mouthed.

Sitting in the pew he did not hear.

© J R Hargreaves 2002