Braver

By Deborah Jenkins

Hazel has never felt normal. Struggling with OCD and anxiety, she isolates herself from others and sticks to rigid routines in order to cope with everyday life. But when she forms an unlikely friendship with Virginia, a church minister, Hazel begins to venture outside her comfort zone.

Having rebuilt her own life after a traumatic loss, Virginia has become the backbone of her community, caring for those in need and mentoring disadvantaged young people. Yet a shock accusation threatens to unravel everything she has worked for.

Told with warmth, compassion and gentle humour, Braver is an uplifting story about the strength that can be drawn from friendship and community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fairlight Books
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781914148149

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Braver_-_Deborah_Jenkins.jpg

Braver

Deborah Jenkins

Fairlight Books

First published by Fairlight Books 2022

Fairlight Books

Summertown Pavilion, 18–24 Middle Way, Oxford, OX2 7LG

Copyright © Deborah Jenkins 2022

The right of Deborah Jenkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by Deborah Jenkins in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is copyright material and must not be copied, stored, distributed, transmitted, reproduced or otherwise made available in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ISBN 978-1-914148-14-9

www.fairlightbooks.com

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Designed by Emma Rogers

To Steve, whose kindness makes people braver

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

—Mark Twain

Church House

Belvedere Place

London SE1 8XX

Tuesday 27 March 2018

Dear Reverend Jowett,

It is with considerable regret that I write to advise you that an accusation has been made against you. Due to the serious nature of the complaint, and pending a full investigation, I must inform you that you will be suspended with immediate effect. If there is evidence of any criminal activity, we will of course be obliged to notify the police.

During the suspension period, you may remain at the manse in Broom Hill, but you must not exercise any of your ministerial responsibilities, pastoral or otherwise, and must have no unsupervised contact with persons under eighteen years of age or those considered vulnerable.

We understand how upsetting this situation must be and would like to offer you a short course of counselling support. While this is not mandatory, we would strongly advise you to take full advantage of this opportunity. Our records show that most people feel they benefitted from the course and found it to be a positive experience at a difficult time.

This letter will be delivered to you by your area minister, the Reverend Mark Stratton, and he will be happy to answer any queries you may have. However, although he can in broad terms outline the situation to you, he is not at liberty to divulge the exact details of the complaint until a full investigation has been launched. This is to protect possible victims while the details of the case are being investigated. We hope you understand.

We would like to assure you of our prayers at this distressing time, and remain available should you have any questions.

Every blessing,

Peter Jenkins

National Ministry Team Leader

Chapter 1

Monday 26 March 2018

Hazel

There’s a curious symmetry to the rhythm of suburban mornings: birds, the smell of bins, Bruno and his dog Trevor from number 10 shuffling along the pavement (surely their names should be the other way round?). And always, in the background, the irregular pulse of trains carrying hopefuls to the city to sit under fluorescent lights, making money to buy dreams. Hazel thinks all this while she waits at the railway crossing for the red-and-white arms to rise and point out the sky, as if to remind her there is more. The back of the waiting train is so close, she could reach out and touch it. It is early and the 6.21 from Oldbridge is swallowing only a few businessmen. Mainly women in sensible shoes (cleaners?) and men in overalls. Hazel breathes in the March morning with its smell of tarmac and cherry blossom. She wishes she could stand here forever with her thoughts instead of facing the day.

The doors of the waiting train hum and close as the line of carriages jerks to life. Once it has passed, the crossing arms wobble to life and begin to rise. The people either side of Hazel – young mum with baby, man in yellow tabard – duck under the rising barriers and make their way across the railway line. The woman’s ponytail has an efficient swing to chime with her stride. Hazel hesitates, looks both ways, makes sure the train is moving away from her, then counts the steps she takes to reach the other side. It should be ten. She is obliged to make an extra-large one to avoid it being eleven.

With careful steps, she walks along the side of Waitrose and waits on the kerb for a good time to cross. This can be tricky as it’s better if there are distant cars or no cars on both sides to give a sense of balance (it can be busier at six-thirty in the morning than you’d think). Today there is nothing in sight and Hazel crosses, taking care to step over the white line in the middle so that her feet land with equidistant thuds on the other side.

She turns the corner into Newbarn Road and sees the young mum ahead of her. If your body acts with confidence, your feelings will follow. That’s what Moira, the counsellor, had said. Hazel stands up straight and tries to imitate the woman’s buoyant stride. The pavement narrows as she navigates the postbox. She brushes against it, smearing her jacket with dirt and dew. Horrified, she stops to examine her arm. The pale sleeve is grubby, daubed with damp and the remains of a cobweb. Number 10. Above all, breathe! (She reads the list of Coping Strategies every morning and can see the exclamation mark in her head.)

She is almost at the corner of Broom Hill. She breathes and looks up. And this is when she sees the woman, standing on the corner. She is so striking – tall and broad, somehow imposing, filling the space on the pavement as if she owns it – that Hazel forgets about her sleeve and stares. What on earth is this woman doing just standing there at six-thirty in the morning? Hazel creeps along the pavement and looks both ways three times, preparing to cross, even though she knows a side road like this will be free of traffic at this time of day. The woman sees her.

‘Good morning!’ she calls. Her voice, although quiet, is deep and projects across the road to where Hazel is standing. It holds the hint of a chuckle. ‘You’re up early!’

Hazel is taken aback. She is always up around this time, walking the streets of Oldbridge. When she had told Moira about her upbringing in the country and the long walk at the start of each day, the counsellor had advised her to walk for her mental health.

Who is this woman? She has never seen her before.

Hazel glances up and down the road one more time. She can’t quite see around a parked car. She thinks for a moment.

‘I always go for early morning walks,’ she tells the lady, ‘but I’ve never seen you before.’

The woman laughs. She has a wide, square mouth and layers of thick hair. Hazel cannot see her eyes from where she is standing but she can see her face, upturned and sharing a joke with the sky. She stops laughing and looks across at Hazel. She looks both ways, glances back at her.

‘Are you going to cross, then?’

Hazel hesitates. She does not want this woman to think there is anything wrong with her. There is nothing wrong with you, Hazel, the counsellor had said, that a few strategies won’t fix. And that’s where I can help…

She steps out.

Unfortunately, she forgets to do a last-minute check and, as she steps off the kerb, a bike careers down the alleyway and swerves out in front of her on silent wheels. Hazel is felled. She feels the rough rubber ploughing into her left side and her first thought is for her sleeve, already dirtied by the postbox. As she falls, she tries to tip vaguely in the other direction so at least the dirt will be symmetrical.

There is a screech of brakes. A wild-eyed paperboy with spots and greasy hair leaps from his bike and lands on the road in front of her, with the bike on top of him. Copies of the Daily Mail and the Times fan across the road. The woman strides over.

‘Bloody hell!’ shouts the paperboy. ‘What is she on? Just steps out into the road without even looking!’

‘Quiet!’ the woman commands. He gawps. She puts a hand on Hazel’s arm. ‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘I’m afraid I distracted you. I’m sorry.’ She hesitates. ‘I’m Virginia, by the way.’

The boy is picking himself up and dusting down his trousers. ‘I’m Harry, by the way.’ He mimics her voice as he rights his bike and leans it against a wall.

‘I’m Hazel,’ she says. But her voice is muffled due to her being a mound on the ground. There is a thick taste in her mouth. She looks down and, with horror, sees its source: blood. Despairing, she looks up into kind eyes, the sort that are too young for the pleated skin around them.

‘I’ve ruined it now,’ she groans, meaning the jacket.

From the outside, Virginia’s house reminds Hazel of the one she was brought up in: large, square, Victorian, with ivy-clad bricks and bay windows. It is behind a hedge, so she has walked past many times without seeing it. Virginia supports her under one arm and the paperboy (reluctantly) under the other. Not that Hazel is unable to walk, but the pad of tissues covering her face, courtesy of Virginia’s pocket, is making it difficult to see. Also, her head is throbbing and she feels sick. Virginia thrusts a key in the lock and takes them through a large hallway. Looking up, Hazel sees stained-glass windows through which blades of coloured sunshine fall. They enter the kitchen, a vault of a room dominated by a wooden table.

‘There!’ Virginia nods to Harry, the paperboy. They lower her onto a sagging sofa by the window and the paperboy sighs.

‘I’ll be late for school now,’ he mutters, straightening up.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Virginia. ‘It’s not even seven o’clock! What time does school start?’

‘Well…’ Harry looks put out at these two women derailing his morning plans. Hazel sees him peer at her uncertainly. She’s aware of her thick hair, probably plastered in blood, and the mole on her upper lip along with its whisper of hair.

‘Alright, breakfast then,’ says Harry. ‘And I got homework to finish.’

‘Well, that’s your own fault,’ says Virginia, filling a kettle and banging it on the hob. ‘You should have done it last night. I’m about to put bacon on. Would you like some?’ With a series of seamless movements, she reaches into an overhead cupboard and extracts a first aid kit while opening the fridge door with the other hand for the bacon. Putting down the first aid kit, she tears cling film from the bacon and slaps it into a frying pan. There is a click followed by the smell of gas. She turns to Hazel, who is half-sitting, half-lying on the sofa. Harry hovers.

‘Now, let’s get you cleaned up!’

Hazel examines her new environment with nervous eyes. It’s all a bit… disorganised. There’s a stack of unwashed crockery near the sink and an untidy pile of newspapers on the floor. In the middle of the table is a blue-and-white-striped jug filled with daffodils, but some have withered and the wooden surface around the vase is scattered with pollen. Hazel wonders if it will stain. Above the Aga is a pulley loaded with clothes that already look dry. Also, they are draped over it at extraordinary angles. Hazel frowns. Virginia might think it’s because her cotton wool dabbing hurts, but the haphazard angles of those clothes hurt more.

‘Nearly finished,’ says Virginia. ‘It’s actually a surface wound. The blood is from your mouth. You must have bitten yourself.’

‘Where does she live?’

Harry sits in a basket chair opposite, watching. He seems to have made his peace with the homework situation and is inhaling the pleasant smell of the bacon situation.

‘What about her ear? There’s blood on her ear,’ he adds, pointing.

‘The end of the road, the green door,’ Virginia tells him. She moves Hazel’s head to one side, so she can clean the blood.

Hazel is surprised. How does this woman know where she lives? But she doesn’t like to speak with the woman’s face so close to her own. Instead, she looks down. Virginia’s knee is right next to hers, and her breath, smelling of toothpaste, is on her face. Hazel shifts uncomfortably. Virginia leans back.

‘There,’ she says. ‘Now, you’re to sit there until you feel better and if you still feel sick and dizzy in half an hour, I’m taking you to the walk-in.’

‘Oh no!’ Hazel jerks herself upright. ‘I can’t stay off work. They won’t like that.’

Virginia, tidying away the first aid things, ignores her.

‘Now for bacon! Here, you, lay the table.’ She opens a drawer in the white-painted dresser and jabs a finger at the boy. Harry rolls his eyes, but after a brief hesitation obeys. He drags his feet on the floor as he walks to and from the dresser drawer, putting out cutlery, but Hazel sees hunger in his eyes.

‘What do you do, for work?’ asks Virginia. She’s putting plates on the side near the Aga and laying out bread for toast. All her movements are controlled, efficient, minimising the number of times she needs to walk anywhere in this enormous room. She is used to doing this for people, thinks Hazel.

‘I’m a teaching assistant,’ she replies, ‘at the primary school. But they’ve introduced all these targets and if I don’t go in…’ She stops, not really knowing what would happen if she didn’t go in. All she does know is that she has had a lot of absences already this year, due to her anxiety and OCD, and although they were sympathetic at first, their patience is beginning to thin.

‘If you don’t go, they’ll cope,’ finishes Virginia. ‘They’ll hardly want you to go in with a head injury and faint all over the children, will they?’ And that is that.

After a few moments, the dizziness begins to subside, and Harry helps her up. They sit, the young woman, the boy and the older woman, at the huge table drinking coffee and eating bacon while the world wakes up and drifts through the open window: a milk float whines, an aeroplane drones. There is an outside smell of earth and sky and city things.

Hazel feels as though she’s in a dream. She can’t remember the last time she went inside another person’s house, unless you count the counsellor’s, which is a poky semi in Milton containing an enormous TV and a number of rather dubious fish. Hazel watches them swimming up and down behind glass at Moira’s shoulder, their unblinking eyes filled with suspicion. They make her freeze when Moira asks things like, ‘So when did you first feel the need to make everything symmetrical?’ or ‘What makes you think your mother hated you?’

Hazel glances at Virginia. She is cutting up her bacon with cool precision, squaring her knife and fork, discarding rind, as if performing a well-practised dissection. She smiles at Hazel, an open, friendly smile without guile or agenda.

‘Nice bacon,’ says Hazel and she realises, with a frisson of surprise, that she has said this spontaneously, without any planning at all. Usually, she needs to plan to avoid saying inappropriate things.

‘Yeah,’ mumbles Harry. He wipes his plate with a piece of toast and swallows it at speed. Hazel tries not to look at the greasy smear across his chin or the glistening lips.

‘I gotta go!’ His chair screams across the floor. He stands up. Hazel winces.

‘Just tell your mother I gave you bacon and she’ll be fine,’ Virginia tells him.

Hazel is surprised. ‘Oh, do you and Harry’s mum know each other, then?’ (She didn’t have to think about that one either.)

‘Yes, Harry comes to church, and occasionally his mum does, too,’ says Virginia, collecting the cups. ‘Don’t you, Harry?’ Her smile is almost playful.

‘Well,’ he picks up his paper bag, ‘only when they need me on sound. When Brian’s away.’

‘Church?’ Hazel doesn’t understand. She can understand this rather prophetic-looking woman being part of a church (the Church of Latter-day Saints, perhaps? She looks rather saint-like). But this teenager? Who uses swear words and has spots, and dribbles grease on his chin after bacon? Surely not.

Virginia is brisk. ‘Yes, the church on the corner. By the way, what were you doing out so early in the morning, Hazel?’

Hazel puts her knife and fork together at six-thirty. She looks up. They are both watching her. Their knives and forks are at three-fifteen. Hazel gives what she hopes is a surreptitious glance down and moves hers to three-fifteen too. The kitchen is quiet, but it is a kind silence, not like the ones at work when everyone is staring at her or exchanging meaningful looks they think she cannot see. Or even the one at Moira’s, which is cool, appraising, as if her words are being measured against some kind of psychological average, compared with which she is almost certainly failing.

‘I don’t sleep well so I get up early and walk.’ She speaks carefully. ‘I… I’ve been advised to walk for… for health reasons.’

‘Sounds good to me,’ is the bright reply. Virginia clears the plates, scattering the knives and forks onto the table as she talks. Hazel winces.

‘Off you go, then, Harry,’ says Virginia. ‘Your mum will be wondering where you are.’

To Hazel’s surprise, Harry moves towards Virginia. They embrace, Virginia’s face tender across his shoulder.

‘Gotta finish my round first.’ His voice is muffled. He pulls away, swings his bag across his shoulder and then freezes. ‘What about my homework?’

‘What is it? Can I help at all?’ Virginia pauses in front of the window. It is a blue and white day, light trembling in trees. For a moment, she is framed in a halo of leaves. With her thick hair and long arms crooked to carry the plates, she looks like an angel.

‘Algebra,’ says Harry.

‘Oh well, I can’t help with that, I’m afraid. I failed maths at school.’ Virginia moves to pile the plates by the sink and the halo slips.

‘I’m good at algebra,’ Hazel hears herself saying. ‘I could help you.’

They both turn and look at her, surprised. Hazel is surprised too. There is a beat. ‘That is very kind of you, Hazel,’ says Virginia. ‘Isn’t it, Harry?’

Harry looks doubtful, but nods. ‘Alright. I’ll say I’ve left it at home, and we’ll do it tonight, yeah? After school. Here?’ Hazel looks at Virginia, who is humming and smiling out of the window at something far away, but she must be listening because she replies in an instant.

‘Here is fine. But I think Hazel needs to rest today. How about tomorrow?’

‘But it’s due today!’

‘Oh no, today is fine,’ says Hazel. ‘I’m sure I’ll be OK. It will give me something to look forward to.’ The words are out before she’s had a chance to screen them. She flushes. What a loser they’ll think she is.

‘Well, I guess we can see how you are then,’ says Virginia. Then to Harry, ‘I’ll write you a letter, say you helped with an accident, didn’t get it done.’ She grabs paper and envelopes from the nearby dresser drawer and scrawls something quickly on the paper.

Hazel looks from one to the other. How strange. Why is this woman writing this boy a homework note?

‘I’ll see you later, then. About four. Will that be OK, Hazel?’ Virginia folds the letter briskly and crams it into a white envelope.

‘Oh, yes, I’m sure that will be fine,’ says Hazel. She brushes the hair from her eyes – she really must get it cut – and watches as Harry awkwardly takes the envelope and makes for the door.

‘Oh, er, Virginia,’ – he pauses by the door, wiping his mouth with his arm – ‘have you done anything about my Duke of Edinburgh reference?’

Virginia turns, her face impassive.

‘There’s a bit of an issue with that, Harry,’ she says. ‘We need to talk.’

Harry frowns and Hazel can see the toddler in the teen, bottom lip a sulky wedge.

‘But…’ His voice is resentful.

‘Not now, Harry.’ Virginia’s voice is crisp but calm, as she nods towards Hazel with a warning look. Harry turns on his heel.

There is the sound of his trainers squeaking in the hall and then the heavy click of the door.

Hazel stands up. She feels fine, just a little light-headed. ‘I think I’ll go now. Thank you.’

‘My pleasure. But don’t go into work unless you feel OK,’ says Virginia. ‘You live at number thirty, don’t you? I remember seeing you the other day.’

‘Then why haven’t I seen you?’

Virginia laughs. ‘I get up at different times each day,’ she tells her. ‘It’s nice to get out and have a walk. I’m here on my own all day otherwise, rattling around in this big house!’

Alone? How can a woman like this be alone? Hazel stares. ‘Don’t you have a husband?’ The words are out before she realises (there she goes again).

‘Not any more.’ Virginia leans into the table, holding the back of a chair.

Hazel can see rings on her wedding finger, a flash of gold, rubies.

‘He died, not long ago.’

‘My dad died.’ Hazel wants her to know she understands. She knows – about death.

Virginia places a hand on Hazel’s hand. This is not a familiar sensation, but unlike other people’s hands – clammy, intrusive – Virginia’s hand is a comfort, a togetherness.

‘But we, Hazel, are very much alive,’ she says softly, ‘and I’ll see you later, at four, for algebra.’

She has a smile so wide that Hazel wants to smile too. She doesn’t find this easy because of her teeth, which stick out unattractively, so she has trained herself to lip-smile. But sometimes, when practising in the mirror, she thinks she looks a bit like a duck. Or a constipated horse. So sometimes what starts off as a lip-smile changes halfway through to a mouth-smile and the effect, she worries, is a kind of strangled leer. She wishes, for the thousandth time, that she could be natural with people, blissfully secure, responding the way others seem to, without forethought. But this, she realises, is for normal people, not for her. You’re not normal, Hazel, and you never will be! Her mother’s words, like a curse, are never far from her mind.

She allows Virginia to put her jacket in the washing machine. ‘I’m brilliant with stains,’ she says. Hazel doesn’t doubt it. She imagines Virginia is one of those people who is brilliant at everything. Her watch says it is nearly 7.30am. She still has an hour to decide about school. Virginia opens the door and the whole bird-singing, commuter-whistling morning bursts in. It catches Hazel unawares because she is out of routine. Usually this part happens when she is at home, eating breakfast. She sways a bit, feeling dizzy at the thought of going home to get ready for work ‘out of sync’.

‘Are you sure you’ll be OK? Would you like to stay here a bit longer?’ Virginia is concerned.

‘No, it’s fine. It’s only at the end of the road. I’ll… I’ll be OK at home. I like my home,’ she adds, just to be clear. What she doesn’t say is that sometimes she wants to put her head down on her tiny table and cry fat tears of loneliness and despair.

‘That’s good. I’ll see you later, then,’ says Virginia. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye. Oh, by the way, what were you doing out on the corner of the road so early?’

‘Oh.’ Virginia is airy. ‘I was praying.’

Hazel’s mouth falls open. ‘Praying! What, to God?’

‘Yes, to God!’ laughs Virginia. ‘Who else would I pray to? I pray for the people in the road, on behalf of the church.’

Hazel stands on the step while the town’s heartbeat quickens. Bruno from number 10 limps back with his paper from the corner, dragging his leg and his dog. The doctors