When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud Page A

‘They’re so strong in the heat. I’ve never thought of old Bella smelling, but lately there’s a real animal smell around. Have you noticed?’
    Virginia waited. It was bound to be a complaint about something.
    ‘No? It’s mostly in the daytime of course, so you wouldn’t. When the sun streams in. I thought maybe there was a dead mouse somewhere.’
    ‘Don’t be absurd! We’ve lived in this building ten years and we’ve never had a mouse. In south London, after the war, we had mice. But not here. Unless you think they’re crawling out of Regent’s Park or down from the Heath and climbing up our stairwell? Maybe cadging a ride in the basket?’
    This was Virginia’s first real remark about the basket, and her mother chose to ignore it. After a pause she said, ‘The other thing I thought, Virginia, is that maybe the smell is
me
. I don’t know whether suddenly, with all this heat, I haven’t begun to smell
old
. The whiff of death on me, you know? Like old people’s homes or flats where old ladies live alone. Old ladies like me.’
    ‘If that’s what you think, maybe you’d better start bathing more often.’ Virginia said this as lightly as she could. But her mother’s comment seemed a breach of the decorum that kept them both going. Mortality was not an open subject, or certainly Virginia had always assumed it was not. ‘I’ll believe in the dead mouse before I can accept that kind of nonsense. I’ve got to go, Mum, or I’ll be late.’
    ‘Your book’s by the front door,’ Mrs Simpson said. She never called it a Bible, always ‘a book’, or ‘the book’, with no hint of a capital letter. ‘I’ll do the washing-up.’
    The Bible study group to which Virginia belonged met once aweek on Wednesdays in the flat of a secretary named Angelica Trumbull, just up the road from Chalk Farm tube station and only a few minutes’ walk from the Simpsons’ in Primrose Hill. Although it was ostensibly an ecumenical meeting, everyone who attended regularly was affiliated with the Church of England, and, more than that, with St Luke’s church in Belsize Park. The exception was a young Hindu student who had arrived in Britain less than a year before; he lived downstairs from Angelica and occasionally sat in on the meetings just for company. In his mid-twenties—like Angelica—he was subject to some scrutiny by the others in the group, several of whom were convinced he was paying court to his hostess.
    Virginia, who had actually taken a little time to talk to Nikhil, was not of this contingent. She found in him a sensitive and lonely soul and she entertained hopes of awakening him to the miracle of Christian fellowship, although she did concede that to date he was more interested in the general conversation and the cakes and coffee than in any discussion of the gospel.
    Not that they always discussed the Bible itself: sometimes they discussed particular teachings or leaders—John Wimber, say, of whom Angelica was an avid follower, or Billy Graham—or even particular sermons. On evenings when the Reverend couldn’t make it, they talked about his sermons and whether they, as representatives of the congregation, agreed with them. Usually they did, unanimously, but they refrained from holding these conversations when he was present for fear of embarrassing him. Reverend Thompson, a slight, balding man in his late thirties, was unflappable about the Lord and his beliefs, but easily flustered in his person.
    As for the regulars, besides Nikhil and the Reverend there were seven of them, sometimes eight. There was Janet, a Christian counsellor; Janet’s husband Alistair, who could only make it sometimes, being a doctor and often on call; MrsHammond who, though much older than Mrs Simpson, was brave and unflagging in her attendance; Stephen Mills and Philip Taylor, two theology students at the University of London, slender, excitable young men with sharp senses of humour; Frieda Watson, a strong-minded divorcee