Free Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

will know. I wait for Mary too, watching the people hurrying in, nodding and ducking their heads, keeping any news they might have gathered until after the service. Mac and Mrs Mac pass by, their heads together under an umbrella, Mrs Mac in a loose embroidered dress, Mac puffing on his pipe. I dip down and pretend to be studying the pebbles of the wall, and then Danky’s sister pulls up in her little trap and waits while Danky carries in their mother. As they pass through the screen door the old woman catches her shawl on a knot and she looks up, so severe that I see Danky quiver.
    Mary is usually here to meet us when we arrive, but today there is no sign of her. I wait out in the spitting rain until Mother hisses for me to come in, and we have already squeezed ourselves into a pew when she slides in beside us. ‘What kept you?’ Father frowns, and Mary puts her hands up to her mouth and her eyes are wide with fear. ‘There’s news from France,’ her voice is hoarse, ‘the Suffolk Regiment . . .’ here she looks around at all the Suffolk men and women, talking, shuffling, preparing themselves for the soothing words of God. ‘They fought for eight hours at Le Cateau – even the Germans begged them to surrender, they were outmanned from the start, but they wouldn’t give in, not until nearly all were killed, eight hundred, Mother, out of a thousand, and then they only stopped fighting when they were rushed from behind, and the last few men were taken as prisoners.’
    A woman in the row before us tuts, without turning, and Mother takes Mary’s hands in hers. ‘Where do you hear such terrible things?’ she says as if it is somehow her fault.
    ‘It’s the truth, Mother,’ Mary almost chokes. ‘Sir Bly gets all the news, red-hot, from London. The Suffolks are slaughtered. It won’t be long before the whole county knows it.’
    The vicar steps up to the altar and the congregation rises. We rise too, although there is a cold chill in our row. Pale light floods in through the high-paned window, washing the vicar’s head in white. Who will protect us now? I think, and I imagine the Suffolks lying on the ground like worms, writhing and dying, and I have to cover my mouth for fear I’ll be sick.
    We sing a hymn, Father, we praise thee, now the night is over , and as we begin, I glance at Mac who is sitting in the pew behind. He has tears in his eyes. Has he heard? Did he listen in to Mary’s whispered news, or is he crying for some private Scottish grief of his own?
    Our vicar has much to say about the war. The prayers and patience and the faith we must fortify ourselves with. I feel Father fidgeting beside me, twisting his fingers in his lap. If I dared I’d take his hand and hold it still.
    We stand and sit and stand again. And then we kneel in prayer. I kneel on an embroidered sampler covered in a trail of purple flowers. Rock cress, is that what they are? And I stare at the creeping stitches as I mumble my own prayers. That Father will hold his temper, that Mother’s garden will stay clear of blight, that Runnicles will never again test us on equations, but all the while I’m praying that Mary has it wrong, that the Suffolks are still advancing across Europe keeping us safe from attack.
    The service is longer than usual, with prayers for the men who are abroad, the ones we know, from Westleton and Southwold, Blythburgh and Dunwich, for the regular army, and for the seven hundred and fifty thousand others who volunteered in the first week of the war. By the time the vicar releases us, the sky has darkened and the rain is clattering against the wooden door.
    ‘Been fishing again recently?’ Mac asks me on the path, and I look around, hoping that this time there might be somebody else he’s talking to, but no. It’s me.
    ‘No, sir,’ I tell him. And he reaches into the pocket of his cape and brings out a box.
    ‘I have a wee gift for you,’ his voice is low, and Mrs Mac lifts the umbrella and holds it