Modern Interiors. Andrea Goldsmith
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, and, with a wave of a wire-mesh tray, disappeared. Evelyn followed Brother Trevor into the study, waited until he shut the door, and then sat in her usual chair. Sat and sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
So good to be here, she says, and Brother Trevor, always so sensitive to her mood, suggests they start immediately.
He pulls up a chair, sits in front of her, takes her hands, and begins the thanksgiving prayer. She closes her eyes, sinks into the soothing incantation, focuses on the touch of his skin, how it seems to travel from her hands up her arms, down through her chest to lodge just beneath her breasts where it pumps adrenalin into her blood. It is a quiet and private pleasure that hurts no one.
With the prayer finished and his thumbs stroking, so tenderly stroking, the backs of her hands, he asks about her week. Terrible, she says, and rotates her hands just a fraction so as to feel the tips of his fingers on the soft flesh of her palms. A stronger spurt of adrenalin shoots through her body and pools low in her abdomen. Terrible, she says again. It’s the family, nothing’s changed. Gray hasn’t been home for dinner all week, and Selwyn’s being deliberately obstructionist. Brother Trevor rubs a sympathetic finger across her palm, her thighs involuntarily tense; seeing the movement, he lays a soothing hand on one of her legs, and his touch shoots up the limb to meet the adrenalin sizzling down.
Not that Brother Trevor would suspect she is anything other than composed; she sits straight and still, her face arranged for prayer. She closes her eyes while Brother Trevor recites a prayer for the family, his hand still on her thigh, her body flooding with his energy. And then she tells him of her visit to Philippa. He takes his hand from her thigh and rearranges his cassock. How she loves his cassock for their private sessions, such an arresting ecclesiastical touch that she suspects he does especially for her. He shuffles in his seat, pulls his chair closer so their knees almost touch, and replaces his hand on her thigh.
Their knees touch. Is that his skin she feels through the material of the gown? Might he be without trousers? And the first spasm occurs, a sparkling prod that she has come to identify as part of her Thursday feeling. She tells him about Philippa, how angry she is at her mother-in-law. Brother Trevor is agreeing with everything she says, he is nodding his head, and now his whole body, nodding back and forward, forward and back, and the thrill of his knees nudging her own.
‘I went there with the best of intentions. George’s death was a terrible blow for her, I know that.’
The deep prodding is now a throbbing; she knows this is the difficult stage, the hardest to control. She clenches her torso, moves her attention from her body to the chair, and the throbbing immediately subsides.
‘So I don’t want to be unfairly critical,’ she continues, ‘but it’s been well over six months, and still Philippa’s avoiding her responsibilities. She seems so wrapped up in herself, can’t see that Gray and Selwyn are in trouble. And if they’re in trouble then the whole family’s in trouble.’
Brother Trevor grunts and continues his rocking.
‘Gray loves the business, always has, his commitment to it is 100%. But,’ she smiles at Brother Trevor, ‘I couldn’t say this to anyone but you, Gray seems to lack a certain something.’
A little groan escapes from Brother Trevor. He clears his throat. ‘Perhaps Gray’s just finding his feet, after all, it’s still early days.’
At which point Brother Trevor finds his feet and suggests they move to the prie-dieu. Not a moment too soon, Evelyn is thinking as she crosses the room. They kneel in unison facing each other, their arms resting along the ledge, hands firmly clasped.
‘You may be right about Gray,’ Evelyn says, leaning against the partition. ‘Although I think the main problem is that he cares too much. So different to Selwyn.’
‘Selwyn has never disguised his ambition.’
Brother Trevor also leans against the partition, Evelyn feels his weight through the wood, feels it drain her strength, feels the insistent pounding at the centre of her body. She swallows; it is still too soon. And swallows again.
‘It’s