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out to Calcutta, to work with Mother Teresa. Which was where she was now. Maurice had taken it surprisingly well.
    ‘Merde, alors,’
was Kitty’s immediate and uncensored reaction to this and she was so ashamed that she felt herself blushing hotly, as if she had been discovered in some major indiscretion. Since that time she had tried to be as pure and as noble as Maurice himself, for she now understood his unwillingness to commit himself after so great a disappointment. The news about Lucy had made her feel better (knowing that she was behind bars, as it were) and a great deal worse, for how could she compete? She began to search herself for any seeds offaith that could be cultivated, for she now saw that the key to Maurice was his belief in the divine will. Or the divine purpose, if that were the same thing. Something divinely sanctioned, anyway. In her own soul she found nothing, only the weariness, boredom, and fear that had afflicted her in those churches in Normandy, where the candles guttered and the obtrusive footsteps of the faithful sounded confidently behind her. She could not in all faith go to church but sometimes she picked up her mother’s Bible, for she believed that it contained the answers, if only she could ask a disinterested question. Which she could not. But one day she found a passage that seemed to have a message for her, purely for her.
‘Il m’a envoyé … pour proclamer à ceux de Sion qui pleurent, que la magnificence leur sera donnée au lieu de la cendre, l’huile de joie au lieu du deuil, un manteau de louange au lieu d’un esprit affligé.’
She was so strangely moved by this announcement that she sought it in the Authorized Version, as if doubting its authenticity in the language of her own family. And there it was, more splendid, more resonant, more authoritative, as if God’s native tongue were English: ‘… beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.’ She read no more, for everything else seemed irrelevant.
    Beauty for ashes. She sat in her kitchen in Old Church Street, her plate washed up and put away, the crumbs for the birds strewn on the windowsill. She allowed her fears and griefs to come to the surface, in the timid hope that it was now safe to do so. Some day, unless a miracle took place, she would spend all her time in this kitchen and it would become her permanent and only home, instead of the temporary staging post she had always thought it might be. But this was too dangerous to contemplate, and she turned her head aside, to the window. It was a quiet evening. It was always a quietevening, for there were few passers-by at this time of day. The only sound was that of an insistent radio, from the flat of her neighbour Caroline, the divorcee. Across the street she could just see the publican’s wife, one hand fluffing out her blonde hair, taking the air on her doorstep before opening time. Kitty tried to imagine what Maurice was doing, and failed. She tried to remember the assurance of the words in Marie-Thérèse’s Bible. She did in fact remember that there was a staff meeting on the horizon, that she had a lecture to prepare – on the Romantic Tradition – and that in a week’s time she had to give a seminar, about which she had mixed feelings. Her subject was
Adolphe
, a short novel about failure. She did not care for it much, and worried about her ability to convey its quality.
    As she moved, with the heaviness of a much older woman, from the table at which she had been sitting, the telephone rang. It was Maurice. ‘Are you in London?’ she asked in some surprise, for she had imagined him taking off for home. ‘Yes,’ he said mildly, ‘I quite often spend the weekends here. I rang up about Monday. I can’t make it, I’m afraid. My mother’s coming to town.’ Kitty laughed, though she felt panic. ‘It’s Monday week, you idiot. Didn’t you write it down?’ ‘Oh, fine,’ he said, ‘fine.