The Four Last Things Read Online Free Page A

allegiance.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘So where do people fit in? I know you’re not married, but do you have a boyfriend? And what about children? Or would God be more important?’
    ‘Are you always like this?’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘So pushy.’
    ‘I’m not usually like this at all.’
    She bent over her plate, knowing her thick hair would curtain her face. In those days she had worn it long, and gloried in it.
    ‘You’re not celibate, are you?’ he asked.
    ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’
    ‘Yes, it is.’
    ‘As it happens, no. But it’s still nothing to do with you.’
    Three months later they were married.
    It was ridiculous, Sally told herself, to read significance into the malicious ramblings of an unhappy woman. To see them as a portent would be pure superstition. Yet in the weeks that followed Sally’s first service at St George’s, the old woman was often in her mind. The memory of what she had said was like a spreading stain. No amount of rubbing would remove it.
    May God damn you and yours.
    When Sally had been offered the curacy at Kensal Vale, it had seemed almost too good to be true, an answer to prayer. Although she was not personally acquainted with Derek Cutter, the vicar of St George’s, his reputation was impressive: he was said to be a gifted and dedicated parish priest who had breathed new life into a demoralized congregation and done much good in the parish as a whole.
    The timing had seemed right, too. Sally’s father had died the previous winter, bringing both sorrow and an unexpected sense of liberation. Lucy was ready to start school. Sally could at last take a full-time job with a clear conscience. And Kensal Vale was geographically convenient: she could walk from Hercules Road to St George’s Vicarage in forty minutes and drive it in much less, traffic permitting. The only drawback had been Michael’s lack of enthusiasm.
    ‘What about Lucy?’ he had asked in an elaborately casual voice when she mentioned the offer to him. ‘She won’t be at school all the time.’
    ‘We’ll find a child minder. It could actually do her good. She needs more stimulation than she gets at home.’
    ‘Maybe you’re right.’
    ‘Darling, we’ve discussed all this.’ Not once, Sally thought, but many times. ‘I was never going to be the sort of mother that stays at home all day to iron the sheets.’
    ‘Of course not. And I’m sure Lucy’ll be fine. But are you sure Kensal Vale’s a good idea?’
    ‘It’s just the sort of parish I want.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It’s a challenge, I suppose. More rewarding in the end. Besides, I want to show I can do it, that a woman can do it.’ She glared at him. ‘And I need the stimulation, too. I’ve been freewheeling for far too long.’
    ‘But have you thought it through? I wouldn’t have said that Kensal Vale’s particularly safe these days.’ He hesitated. ‘Especially for a woman.’
    ‘I’ll cope,’ Sally snapped. ‘I’m not a fool.’ She watched his mouth tightening and went on in a gentler voice, ‘In any case, jobs like this don’t grow on trees. If I turn this down, I may not be offered another for years. And I need to have experience before I can be priested.’
    He shrugged, failing to concede the point, and turned the discussion to the practical details of the move. He was unwilling to endorse it but at least he had not opposed it.
    As summer slipped into autumn, Sally began to wonder if Michael might have been right. She was sleeping badly and her dreams were going through a patch of being uncomfortably vivid. The work wasn’t easy, and to make matters worse she seemed to have lost her resilience. In the first week, she was rejected by a dying parishioner because she was a woman, a smartly dressed middle-aged man spat on her in the street, and her handbag was stolen by a gang of small boys armed with knives. Similar episodes had happened before, but previously she had been able to digest them with relative ease and