14. The Unexpected Kiss

` A WIDOW WOMAN Part 14

The 1950s had dawned. In the big world way from Empire Road a great exhibition was being planned. There was a sense of excitement in the air, the whisper that something big was on the way, but in London and not in Brumpton. It was unlikely to touch Jane or the children much.

It was a Saturday, the children weren’t at school and Jane stood by the large front room window of their home and smiled as she watched Betty with two other girls who had found their way from any one of the neighbouring streets as they skipped using a long rope, one end of which was tied to their gatepost whilst the other end was being turned by one of the trio of girls. Then they other two would skip over the flying rope, and squeal. It was a favourite game and Jane liked it because when they were skipping on the street she knew where they were.

Skipping, though, was for the girls and Roger was either excluded by them, or he excluded himself. She was never quite sure which. But he had other games to play with the decent boy at number two. That was Jane’s assessment of him and she was quite happy for Roger to go off with him.

“Enjoying yourself?” came a familiar voice, the Reverend Jonah Pyke. She hadn’t seen him walking down their short path. Something, probably Jane and her twirling of the skipping rope, had distracted her even though he must have been in plain sight. But she was pleased to hear his voice none-the-less. He had become a less frequent visitor since the ill-fated day when he had told her about his deeper desires and she had tried to tempt him to forget any morals or principles he thought he had and behave as nature intended him to behave for once.

Shed half-smiled as she remembered. He had almost been tempted to remove his trousers but conditioning and his spiritual training had taken over and he beat a hasty retreat as she tried to tempt him off the straight and narrow. It had been humiliating so far as she was concerned and convinced her that in all truth she was too old for him, and he knew it and was rejecting her accordingly. She was, after all, almost twenty years his senior.

“I was watching the kids,” she said as he walked uninvited into the room. He hadn’t ever done that before, walked straight into the house without so much as knocking first. Then, “I’ve been missing you,” she added quietly, hoping it would give him the right signal.

“And I’ve missed you,” he told her, “I’m sorry.”

“What about?”

“The other day. I’m a mess, that’s all, emotionally. Blame my dad!”

“You’ve told me about him, but I don’t think it’s right to blame him. But I do blame you.”

He smiled faintly at her. “Fair enough,” he said, and then he did the impossible, or what she thought was the impossible bearing in mind the way he always was with her, the distance he seemed to require.

He walked straight up to her until he was so close he was in her personal space, put one arm round her and, in front of the window where any passer-by would see, he kissed her. Full on the mouth, with his own eyes shut.

Jane froze, but Betty saw, leaping over the whirling rope outside, and she broke away from the game and rushed into the house.

“Mum!” she shrieked, “how dared you!”

Jane pulled slightly away from Jonah and frowned at her daughter.

“What’s the matter, darling?” she asked.

“They can all see! My friends. They know what you’re doing, and with a vicar at that!”

“What am I doing that they shouldn’t see, darling?” asked Jane.

“Snogging! You’re snogging a man!”

“Oh dear, Betty, is that so terrible?” she asked, “the man who lives over the road was in a war that injured him so badly no woman will kiss him and all Jonah’s doing is showing kindness and friendship. Which is worse? Ruining your own life on the battlefield in a foreign land or being friendly for moment or two?”

Betty frowned. Then, “it’s not fair!” she snapped, “it’s all wrong!”

Jonah adjusted his clerical collar and then tried to smile at the girl.

“The Lord gave us lips for kissing,” he said, sounding just too trite even to himself. “There’s nothing so wrong with giving a dear lady like your mum a friendly kiss, is there?”

Betty frowned. She couldn’t argue with a priest, could she? He was too important for a girl like her to even think of criticising, and she was eleven. He stood up in his pulpit and told the people who went to church how to live their lives and even though mum didn’t take them to church very often he didn’t think he ever said anything about kissing. Not when he was preaching, any way.

But preachers do kiss. She’d seen him do it, and what was a million times worse than that she’d seen her own mother responding.

Confused, she turned and ran out of the room and up the stairs to her bedroom. Outside, the two other girls hung around for a while and then, slowly, made their way back to their own roads, leaving the long rope on the pavement.

Jonah made as if to follow the girl, but Jane stopped him.

“If what you did with me is wrong then you can say what you like to her,” she said, a little sharply, “but one thing I’m very sure of and that is the kids have got to get used to their mother being a woman and maybe occasionally wanting to live the life of a healthy normal woman, and that may involve relationships.”

He smiled at her.

“Do we have a relationship, then?” he asked, “is that what this is all about?”

“Of course we have!” she snapped, “everybody has some sort of relationship with everyone else, even if it’s nothing to do with friendship or kissing! Some people actually love each other!”

The word love had crept in, and it scared Jonah.

“I love God, and that’s as far as it goes,” he said, awkwardly, “I’m your local vicar, for goodness’ sake!”

“I see,” murmured Jane, and she did see. More than he thought she would. When it came to love this man had an irrational (to her) need for spiritual love above everything else, and that, sadly, wasn’t ever likely to be enough for her.

“We can be friends,” she said, “but at the end of the day I need more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I do need love,” she said, and she made her way into the kitchen where she sat in a chair and shed the holiest of tears while the Reverend Jonah Pyke quietly made his way out of the front door and tried to, invisibly, walk back to the vicarage. But nobody’s invisible, not on the roads of a housing estate in Brumpton.

© Peter Rogerson 26.06.21

...