Bobbing and Weaving

Connie and Lara had been friends since they were that high, as folk tended to say, indicating a point that could be anywhere from their knees to their elbows. Oh, as they grew up, they didn’t live in each others’ pockets, or go into a decline in each others’ absence, but they still had that feeling in each others’ company that only comes from the knowledge that a true, caring friend is there. Not one who never judges, not one who never disagrees, but one who judges and disagrees and loves you anyway.

     Connie told herself she was delighted when Lara announced that she was getting engaged to Pierce Lowry. She’d done a great job of bringing up her daughter, Maxine, now seven years old, and of persuading Maxine that her Daddy had loved her but it just hadn’t worked out between him and her Mummy, when she must have been tempted to say that he was the sort of slimeball that insulted slime. 

     Pierce was nothing like that. He was a gentle, kind, courteous man. And he was quite religious. Well, come to that, he was very religious. Lara had first met him when she was in one of her “on her uppers” stages and he’d been one of the people running the Furniture Warehouse attached to his church, and had seen to it that she was provided with a lovely almost new sofa and a fridge freezer that actually worked. 

     He gave Lara a leaflet about the church, but she insisted that he never tried to convert her and that they helped folk irrespective of their belief or disbelief. Connie was inclined to believe her. But, apparently of her own free will, Lara did start going to the Church of the Good Neighbour. 

     It was what Connie thought of (though she may well have heard someone else use the expression first) as an in between church. They met in a largeish building that had once been a guest house, and where the homeless were still offered at least temporary accommodation in two of the upstairs bedrooms. There were no stained glass windows, and no fancy altar hangings, and the pastors and preachers didn’t go in for dog collars and fancy robes. They said they took the Word of the Bible literally and seriously, but by what appeared to be common consent, there were certain more problematic passages it was not deemed necessary or helpful to discuss. They rarely went so far as to use the word saved, but were not against implying it.

     Like any other church, or any other organisation, come to that, they had their contradictions. Within limits, drinking alcohol was not forbidden, but it was not offered at any of their gatherings. They were fine about having members who had lived in sin – although they preferred the term irregular relationship, but without trying to force anyone to go against their will, made it plain that once people were members, then ought to be wedded in the sight of God.

     Connie was one of those people who tended to say that she believed in God her own way or had her own beliefs, but knew that Pierce was thinking, and at one point might tell her (and Lara, too, who was now quite enthusiastic in the Church of the Good Neighbour) that it ought to be in His way.

     She had to admit that he was an absolutely doting stepdad to Maxine, who plainly adored him. He was fine about her calling him Pierce – in fact, finer than Lara, who said that he was the only real father she’d ever had – and yet had been plainly delighted when she reached the stage of Daddy Pierce. 

     Perhaps I am just peeved because I get to babysit Maxine less often now, even though we’re living in the same town, thought Connie.

     But once she did get to spend a whole weekend with Maxine. Pierce was at a church conference, and Lara had gone to visit her mother, who had been taken ill. Connie knew and liked Lara’s mother, and of course she was sorry she was ill, but the thought of those couple of days with Maxine was enough to make her heart sing. She was at just the right age. She was old enough and young enough. Old enough to ask questions, young enough to be told stories. Old enough to have a say in what she wanted to eat and young enough to still think that Connie’s efforts at making gingerbread were delicious, though Connie suspected even then she may well have preferred the shop version!

     Only one thing was disappointing. It was autumn, but that weekend, autumn showed its misty, sodden face, not its crisp and bright one. Still, autumn was autumn. Maxine still asked to be “told about when you were little”, though Connie wondered how long that would last.

     “When your Mummy and I were about your age, maybe a bit older, we lived in this town,” she said, “But it was on the edge of it, and the new houses and the bypass hadn’t been built yet.” Maxine’s fleeting expression showed she wasn’t 100% sure what a bypass was, but both of them decided it wasn’t important enough to interrupt the story. “I lived next door but one to a lady called Mrs Bradman. I sometimes used to think that Mrs Bradman’s house was really where the town ended and the countryside began. She had such a big garden, especially at the back of her house, that it truly was like being in the country, and in the autumn, about this time of year, the little orchard she had there – only your Mummy and I thought it was huge! – had trees that were heavy with apples. The same trees that had been laden with beautiful pink blossom in the spring were now weighted down with fruit.  Apple trees are such generous trees, Maxine. Sometimes, after school, or at the weekends, we would go apple scrumping.”

     This time she did interrupt. “What does that mean, Auntie Connie?” Connie explained, and went on to tell her about how some of the apples were lovely and they ate them at once, but some of them were used for apple-bobbing at their Halloween party.

     Two days later, she had a phone call from Lara. In reply to Connie’s question, she assured her that her Mum was doing much better, but then she said, “Connie, I – I don’t want to make an issue about this, but we’ve always been honest with each other, and I’m not happy with what you’ve been telling Maxine.”

     For a couple of seconds, Connie was genuinely puzzled, but then it dawned on her. Oh, Lord. I should have seen this coming. 

     “I mean, you can dress it up all you like, but it’s still stealing…..”

     “Oh, Lara, for God’s sake, Mrs Bradman knew all about it. You know she did! It was almost like a private joke.”

     “Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. And that’s not the point. I don’t want Lara to think that stealing is okay, because it’s not. And another thing –“ (that phrase, thought Connie, rarely bodes well, and she was proven right). “This Halloween business – you must know how I feel about it.”

     “For – er, for pity’s sake – I’m not advocating Satanic rituals! Just a bit of harmless fun. You said yourself last year what a shame it was they had to more or less cancel Trick or Treat because of the virus!”

     “Well, I had my doubts even then. And – no, I don’t want this to spoil our friendship, and I’m certainly not saying you can’t see Maxine, but – well, think on.”

     Most people have phrases that trigger them. And for Connie, one of them was think on. She’d had both an aunt and a teacher who used it with a particular sort of expression, and though they were by no means bad people, the phrase grated on her nerves.

     “You don’t have to do everything Pierce tells you, you know,” Connie said, and meant it to be in a more in sorrow than anger voice. Anyway, she didn’t give Lara much chance to make a reply.

     Connie realised she was trembling as she put the phone down. Not the kind of violent trembling you saw in the soaps, sometimes, and she supposed that had anyone entered the room, she wouldn’t have realised it unless they looked very closely. But it was as if her body and mind were twitching and slightly pulsing, as the world shifted out of focus.

     Come on, she told herself, trying get things into perspective. You’ve had a row with a friend. It’s not nice. But it happens. It will blow over and everything will be fine.

     The trouble was, she couldn’t be sure that it would blow over and that it would be fine. Yes, of course she and Lara had fallen out before, but it hadn’t been like that.

     Lara had crossed two lines, thought Connie. She had suggested that she hadn’t acted in her child’s best interests. And she had taken someone else’s word and opinion over her own.

     Now that just sounds petulant, she chided herself, in that futile, serpentine internal monologue. Of course she listens to Pierce and respects his opinion. But she’s never shown any sign of being under his thumb – has she?

     There was a third line she had crossed. And this, so far as Connie was concerned, was the worst line of all. She had tainted her childhood memories. Connie had never been the kind of person who deluded herself that every moment of her childhood had been idyllic. But there were certain memories, certain tableaux, that were set in slightly glowing semi-precious stone, almost, if not quite, sepia-tinted.

    Apple-scrumping in Mrs Bradman’s orchard was one of them. But had it really been like that? 

     It wasn’t a false or fake memory, Connie knew that perfectly well. It had most definitely happened. But had it really been quite as she had told Maxine, and quite as she had convinced herself it was? Was Mrs Bradman really the rosy-cheeked, smiling old lady with the indulgent smile who still had enough of the little girl in her to realise that they were only having fun, and who didn’t begrudge it them? Or had she actually been a bit crabby and fractious, and not everyone’s ideal granny at all? Or even worse, had she been rather frightened by children invading her orchard, and felt herself a prisoner in her own home as she looked on fearfully from her window? And what about the apples? Were any of them really as sweet and crunchy as the apples of memory, or were they all tart and rough and worm-ridden, and barely suitable even for apple-ducking?

     Come to that, had even the apple-bobbing (which probably didn’t happen nearly as often as she had thought) really been that wonderful? The memory snake suddenly flicked its tongue, and she saw her brother’s friend, she couldn’t even remember his name now, but that brawny lad who was always first pick for the soccer team, ducking her head quickly under the water. It had never been more than unpleasant. He could be a bit loutish, but he was no sadist and no real harm was done. In her memories, somehow, her brother had come to her rescue and told his friend to leave his little sister alone. But the truth was, he hadn’t. He’d thought it was quite funny. They were quite close now, but there was no point to pretending that he had been her childhood defender, because he hadn’t. 

     She knew it was one of those situations where someone had to make the first move, but she didn’t want to be the one to do it. She told herself not to let pride permanently wreck a friendship, but knew that something other than pride was going on. Her work colleagues at the insurance office may have thought that she was a bit touchy and miles away, but there was nothing drastic, and they put it down to toothache or hormones or something reassuringly explicable and transient.

     There are many advantages to small towns, but one of the disadvantages – at least that’s how Connie saw it at the time – was that there’s always the risk of bumping into people you don’t want to bump into. And when she was in the supermarket, she bumped into Pierce. Not quite literally, but not far off. She supposed there were people she’d have been less pleased to encounter, but so far as she knew there were no serial killers or tabloid journalists in her immediate circle. It was as if a tacit agreement was in the air. We are both adults. We are most certainly not going to make a scene in the supermarket, and we will even prove it by going to the same checkout. 

     She told herself that she wasn’t remotely bothered about Pierce seeing the bottle of wine in her trolley. After all, the Church of the Good Neighbour always said they weren’t against drinking within reason, didn’t they? Not that it was any of the Church of the Good Neighbour’s business, nor his, come to that!

     She hadn’t meant to scrutinise the contents of his trolley, but they were hardly a state secret, were they? And one of them was, of all things, a bag of apples. I will not say anything. I will rise above it. Anyway, he is NOT doing it to provoke me!

     Say what you wished about Pierce, he wasn’t slow on the uptake, and knew what she had seen. “Connie, could we have a little talk after?” he asked.

     Reluctantly, she nodded. It was as if the autumn had redeemed itself, and it was a pleasantly warm day, the benches on the market square dry and reasonably clean. “I’m sorry you had a row with Lara,” he said.

     “So am I,” she replied, monosyllabically. She truly hadn’t meant to sound quite that terse, but had no intention of apologising, either.

     “Please hear me out, Connie. I’ve never been one of those people who thinks, even in a Christian marriage, that husband and wife should always absolutely agree with each other. That’s just not natural! What she said about the apples – well, I don’t entirely disagree. Of course stealing is wrong no matter how much we dress it up. But to say this is a pretty minor infringement of the commandment would be an understatement. And when it comes to Halloween –“ he paused, as if collecting his thoughts, having obviously not thought he’d have to discuss it so soon. “Well – I’m not totally okay about the way children seem to be obsessed with the occult – witches, vampires, all that. When she’s a little older, we won’t stop Maxine reading Harry Potter but – fully intend she reads the Narnia books, too.” In all frankness, Connie couldn’t wholly disagree with him on that. Though she didn’t share his religious qualms, she had thought herself that she wasn’t at all sure it was a good thing for children and “tweenies” to seem to read nothing but books with the supernatural as their main focus. “We’ve had a bit of a heart to heart. There’s often room for compromise. We’re having what we’re calling a celebration of autumn at the church. But – well –“ he broke off with a slightly conspiratorial smile, “If an odd little witch or Jack O’Lantern slips in, I don’t think they’re going to be banned. Oh – and there will be apple bobbing! It goes without saying you’re invited.”

     She accepted the invitation, and Lara and Maxine greeted her with a great big hug. And Maxine was dressed as a very sweet little witch!