Two Keys

Charismata

Chapter 118: Two Keys

Amanda Lonsdale arrived at Val Mather's terrace on Monday morning in supermarket shoes and a fleece that still smelt faintly of freezer doors.

She had slept two hours after the Saturday night shift and not at all after that. This put her in the spiritual condition Derby called weekday honest.

Val opened the door before she knocked because cleaners heard steps differently from the rest of the redeemed.

"Come in."

Amanda did. Carefully.

Connor was at the dining table in his school shirt eating toast with the expression of a boy who disliked everyone equally this morning and therefore counted as improved.

Jean sat opposite with her handbag already on her knee as if prepared to conduct both rescue and retreat before noon.

Peter Hallam had been denied entry to the kitchen on principle and was currently visible through the back door in the tiny yard, where he was stacking flowerpots in a posture of penitential irrelevance.

Amanda took all this in and laughed once. Otherwise she might have started saying sorry, and Jean would have killed her.

"Morning."

Connor looked up.

"Hi."

That nearly finished her. The plainness of it. No church tone. No frightened brightness. Just her son sounding like himself in another woman's kitchen.

Val pushed a mug across the table.

"Tea."

"Thank you."

Jean said,

"No guest language."

Amanda nodded at once.

"Right."

She sat. Hands round the mug. Let the heat get into the ache.

"How was he."

Val answered first. In borrowed nights, the woman with the second key often had to speak before the woman with the first one could bear the answer.

"Better after midnight. Slept in chunks. Didn't like the ducks. Approved of the radio not working."

Connor, around toast:

"The neighbour's cat is an idiot."

"True."

Amanda looked from one face to the next. At Jean. At Val. At the back door where Peter pretended horticulture.

"I don't want this to become a thing."

Val snorted softly.

"If it becomes a thing, I've failed."

Jean took over.

"Listen to me. This was one night. You needed sleep. He needed walls that weren't still echoing church voices. None of that makes you incapable or me saintly or Val a ministry."

Connor said,

"Good speech, Nan."

"Thank you."

Amanda stared into the tea until the surface stopped moving.

"The flat's worse after people come in. That's the part I hadn't said."

No one rushed to comfort her. Pity, applied too fast, was simply a prettier way of interrupting.

"Go on," Jean said.

"Peter was trying to help. Sheila's fine. But once people start visiting, the place changes. It gets... churchy. Like every object in it starts waiting for me to cope properly so they can report back."

Val nodded.

"Then they don't come in."

"I can't stop the vicar from caring."

From the yard, Peter said,

"Actually, Amanda, I can help with that."

She turned.

He stood in the back doorway with compost on one cuff and humility finally worn in the right place.

"Good," Jean said. "Come in and be useful with your own limitations."

He did. Sat at the far end of the table. Did not bless the moment. Excellent.

"I've shut the office to myself this week," he said. "No more after-school refuge there. Mrs. Adeyinka is coming this afternoon only to sit, not to ask. Ben is banned from sounding pastoral in your kitchen. And if you need another night out of the flat, Val and I have agreed nobody calls it anything except another night out of the flat."

Amanda looked at Val.

"You agreed that."

"Yes."

"Why."

Val tore another piece of toast in half.

"Because borrowed is the whole point."

Jean opened her handbag and took out two keys.

One was Amanda's flat key on the chipped ceramic daffodil. The other was Val's spare on a plain blue fob.

She set them side by side between the mugs.

"These are the only theology you need this morning."

Connor looked at them.

"What does that mean."

Jean answered without drama.

"It means home stays home. Val's stays Val's. If one lies, we use the other. We don't start pretending you've been relocated by the Church of England."

Amanda laughed again, tired and grateful and not at all stable.

"Mother."

"No, I'm right."

Peter, softly:

"You are."

Val pushed the blue key toward Amanda.

"If tonight goes bad again and you know before it gets noble, ring first and use this. Don't wait till everyone's turned spiritual."

Amanda stared at the key.

"I can't."

"You can."

"It feels like trespassing."

Val shrugged.

"Better that than performance."

Connor finished the toast. Looked at the two keys. Then at his mother.

"Could Sheila come first tonight."

Amanda looked at him. Really looked.

"Yes."

"And Peter not till after."

Peter nodded before she did.

"Agreed."

"And no one say how are we doing like a group project."

Jean laughed outright at that.

"Christ preserve us, yes."

By the time Connor went upstairs to get his school bag, the shape of the week had altered.

No miracle. No cure. No visionary settlement.

Two keys and four adults finally arranged in a better order.

Amanda first. Jean first after that when Amanda broke. Val as borrowed threshold. Peter last and better for it.

When Connor came back down, he paused by Val's dresser where the blue key still lay beside the daffodil one.

"Can both stay out."

Amanda frowned.

"Why."

"Because then the house knows we're not trapped."

No one answered immediately. There was too much right in it.

So Jean just slid both keys onto the dresser top under the mirror and said,

"There."

Connor picked up his bag. Kissed his grandmother's cheek in the embarrassed, sideways way of boys who would rather die than be observed loving anybody. Nodded at Val. Ignored Peter with just enough accuracy to count as forgiveness deferred.

Then he went to school.

Amanda stayed a moment longer in the kitchen with the two keys under the mirror and the steam rising off the mugs.

"If this happens again," she said, "I don't want to become a story people tell about how well church can cope."

Val answered first.

"Then we won't cope well. We'll cope local."

Jean stood up.

"Better sentence."

Peter looked at the floor.

"Yes."

Amanda took her own key back. Left Val's where it was.

Borrowed had to remain imaginable.