Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

Lou’s chatter on the way back to the hotel had a touch of hysteria. ‘Raymond, dear,’ she said in her most chirpy West End voice, ‘I simply had to give the poor dear all my next week’s housekeeping money. We shall have to starve, darling, when we get home. That’s simply what we shall have to do.’

‘OK,’ said Raymond.

‘I ask you,’ Lou shrieked, ‘what else could I do, what could I do?’

‘Nothing at all,’ said Raymond, ‘but what you’ve done.’

‘My own sister, my dear,’ said Lou; ‘and did you see the way she had her hair bleached? — All streaky, and she used to have a lovely head of hair.’

‘I wonder if she tries to raise herself?’ said Raymond. ‘With all those children she could surely get better accommodation if only she —’

‘That sort,’ said Henry, leaning forward from the back of the car, never moves. It’s the slum mentality, man. Take some folks I’ve seen back home —’

‘There’s no comparison,’ Lou snapped suddenly, ‘this is quite a different case.

Raymond glanced at her in surprise; Henry sat back, offended. Lou was thinking wildly, what a cheek him talking like a snob. At least Elizabeth’s white.

Their prayers for the return of faith to Henry Pierce were so far answered in that he took a tubercular turn which was followed by a religious one. He was sent off to a sanatorium in Wales with a promise from Lou and Raymond to visit him before Christmas. Meantime, they applied themselves to Our Lady for the restoration of Henry’s health.

Oxford St John, whose love affair with the red-haired girl had come to grief, now frequented their flat, but he could never quite replace Henry in their affections. Oxford was older and less refined than Henry. He would stand in front of the glass in their kitchen and tell himself, ‘Man, you just a big black bugger.’ He kept referring to himself as black, which of course he was, Lou thought, but it was not the thing to say. He stood in the doorway with his arms and smile thrown wide: ‘I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.’ And once, when Raymond was out, Oxford brought the conversation round to that question of being black all over, which made Lou very uncomfortable and she kept looking at the clock and dropped stitches in her knitting.

Three times a week when she went to the black Our Lady with her rosary to ask for the health of Henry Pierce, she asked also that Oxford St John would get another job in another town, for she did not like to make objections, telling her feelings to Raymond; there were no objections to make that you could put your finger on. She could not very well complain that Oxford was common; Raymond despised snobbery, and so did she, it was a very delicate question. She was amazed when, within three weeks, Oxford announced that he was thinking of looking for a job in Manchester.

Lou said to Raymond, ‘Do you know, there’s something in what they say about the bog-oak statue in the church.’

‘There may be,’ said Raymond. ‘People say so.

Lou could not tell him how she had petitioned the removal of Oxford St John. But when she got a letter from Henry Pierce to say he was improving, she told Raymond, ‘You see, we asked for Henry to get back the Faith, and so he did. Now we ask for his recovery and he’s improving.’

‘He’s having good treatment at the sanatorium,’ Raymond said. But he added, ‘Of course we’ll have to keep up the prayers.’ He himself; though not a rosary man, knelt before the Black Madonna every Saturday evening after Benediction to pray for Henry Pierce.

Whenever they saw Oxford he was talking of leaving Whitney Clay. Raymond said, ‘He’s making a big mistake going to Manchester. A big place can be very lonely. I hope he’ll change his mind.’

‘He won’t,’ said Lou, so impressed was she now by the powers of the Black Madonna. She was good and tired of Oxford St John with his feet up on her cushions, and calling himself a nigger.

‘We’ll miss him,’ said Raymond, ‘he’s such a cheery big soul.’

‘We will,’ said Lou. She was reading the parish magazine, which she seldom did, although she was one of the voluntary workers who sent them out, addressing hundreds of wrappers every month. She had vaguely noticed, in previous numbers, various references to the Black Madonna, how she had granted this or that favour. Lou had heard that people sometimes came from neighbouring parishes to pray at the Church of the Sacred Heart because of the statue. Some said they came from all over England, but whether this was to admire the art-work or to pray, Lou was not sure. She gave her attention to the article in the parish magazine:

While not wishing to make excessive claims … many prayers answered and requests granted to the Faithful in an exceptional way … two remarkable cures effected, but medical evidence is, of course, still in reserve, a certain lapse of time being necessary to ascertain permanency of cure. The first of these cases was a child of twelve suffering from leukaemia … The second … While not desiring to create a cultus where none is due, we must remember it is always our duty to honour Our Blessed Lady, the dispenser of all graces, to whom we owe …

Another aspect of the information received by the Father Rector concerning our ‘Black Madonna’ is one pertaining to childless couples of which three cases have come to his notice. In each case the couple claim to have offered constant devotion to the ‘Black Madonna’, and in two of the cases specific requests were made for the favour of a child. In all cases the prayers were answered. The proud parents … It should be the loving duty of every parishioner to make a special thanksgiving … The Father Rector will be grateful for any further information …

‘Look, Raymond,’ said Lou. ‘Read this.’

They decided to put in for a baby to the Black Madonna.

The following Saturday, when they drove to the church for Benediction Lou jangled her rosary. Raymond pulled up outside the church. ‘Look here, Lou,’ he said, ‘do you want a baby in any case?’ — for he partly thought she was only putting the Black Madonna to the test — ‘Do you want a child, after all these years?’

This was a new thought to Lou. She considered her neat flat and tidy routine, the entertaining with her good coffee cups, the weekly papers and the library books, the tastes which they would not have been able to cultivate had they had a family of children. She thought of her nice young looks which everyone envied, and her freedom of movement.

‘Perhaps we should try,’ she said. ‘God won’t give us a child if we aren’t meant to have one.’

‘We have to make some decisions for ourselves,’ he said. ‘And to tell you the truth if you don’t want a child, I don’t.’

‘There’s no harm in praying for one,’ she said.

‘You have to be careful what you pray for,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t tempt Providence.’

She thought of her relatives, and Raymond’s, all married with children. She thought of her sister Elizabeth with her eight, and remembered that one who cheeked up to the teachers, so pretty and sulky and shabby, and she remembered the fat baby Francis sucking his dummy and clutching Elizabeth’s bony neck.

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a baby,’ said Lou.

Oxford St John departed at the end of the month. He promised to write, but they were not surprised when weeks passed and they had no word. ‘I don’t suppose we shall ever hear from him again,’ said Lou. Raymond thought he detected satisfaction in her voice, and would have thought she was getting snobbish as women do as they get older, losing sight of their ideals, had she not gone on to speak of Henry Pierce. Henry had written to say he was nearly cured, but had been advised to return to the West Indies.