Even though Sasha was an atheist, the family went to church most Sundays, a habit they established when they moved to London. Sasha said it was important for the boys to have a proper religious education, so they could disavow God from a position of confidence when they were old enough to reason things out for themselves. Besides, you met a lot of important people at church on a Sunday.
So Iris rolled out of bed and trudged to the bathroom to make herself a little more human. On the way back to the bedroom, she picked up Sasha’s discarded clothes and hung them in his wardrobe. Sasha himself hadn’t moved. He sprawled on his stomach, hair in disorder, perfectly naked—thank God for the blankets. There was just enough light that she could see his face, so relaxed it was almost angelic, relieved of all its sins. Iris remembered what Philip had said last night—the hearings—and wondered why Sasha hadn’t said anything to her about them. Because he wasn’t worried about anything this woman might reveal in her testimony, or because he was?
She tucked the blanket around him and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, where the boys were making the usual joyful racket—take that, Mrs. Bannister in the downstairs flat—as Mrs. Betts flitted around the room getting breakfast. Jack spotted Iris first.
“Mama! Mrs. Betts said I could have hot cocoa with breakfast! Because it’s Sunday!”
“That sounds like an awful good idea.”
“Good morning, Mrs. D,” Mrs. Betts said cheerfully. “Coffee’s in the pot.”
Iris sat in the chair next to Jack and reached for the coffeepot. “You’re an angel.”
“I’ve gone ahead and laid out their suits for church. Master Kip’s going to need a new jacket soon, he’s grown that fast. I do believe he’ll be tall, like his father.”
Mrs. Betts had come to them through some reference at the embassy. She was about fifty, extremely slender, with blue eyes and graying blond hair she kept tidy in an old-fashioned bun. She’d previously worked for a large, wealthy, traditional English household, and Iris couldn’t break her of certain habits, like calling a seven-year-old boy Master Kip. Still, she appreciated the efficiency with which Mrs. Betts approached her job. Some of the other wives complained about the help—this was a common pastime, apparently—and how you couldn’t get a housemaid to cook or mind the children, or a cook to clean the parlor or wash the laundry; ask for a housekeeper and you’d get a woman who expected to run the other servants, not to do any real work herself. But Mrs. Betts did. Iris considered the family lucky to have her. Mrs. Betts could get away with murder and keep her job, but she only asked for a half day off every week, Sunday morning to Sunday afternoon, so she could visit her mother in Clapham.
She was untying her apron right now.
“Breakfast is all laid out in the dining room as usual, Mrs. D. Anything else before I’m off?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Betts.”
“You’re certain of that? You’re looking a bit pale, if I may.”
Iris looked up. Mrs. Betts had folded her apron over her arm, and she gazed down on Iris with an expression of motherly concern.
“I’m all right, thank you. The party went a little late, that’s all.”
“So it did. I believe I heard Mr. D arriving home at seven minutes past five.”
Iris turned back to Jack and urged a mouthful of egg. “I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Betts, but I’m really quite well. It’s part of Mr. Digby’s job to attend these functions.”
Mrs. Betts made a noise of disapproval. “Well, I’ll be off now. Oh—good morning, Mr. Digby.”
Sasha’s voice rang from the doorway. “Good morning, Mrs. Betts. Off for your half day, I guess. Coffee?”
“There’s Mrs. D pouring your cup this instant. Pale though she is.” With this parting shot, Mrs. Betts swept out the door and clattered down the hall.
Sasha kissed the top of Iris’s head. “I suppose it’s my fault you’re pale?”
“She’s just a mother hen, that’s all.”
“So she should be. Somebody needs to look after you when I’m not around. Boys? You’re looking after your mother when Daddy’s at work, aren’t you?”
Kip looked up from his magazine. “Yes, Daddy.”
“I helped Mama make the bed yesterday!” Jack cried.
“That’s the ticket. Good boy.” Sasha plopped into the chair and reached for his coffee cup. A cigarette trailed from his left hand. He wore a creased dressing gown and his hair was rumpled like a pile of old straw; he smelled of bed, of perspiration, of booze, of worry. It was a smell Iris had come to associate with him ever since the war ended, as if the absence of a real enemy had evaporated his vital spirit. On the other hand, here he was—up and out of bed, drinking coffee with his family when any ordinary man would sleep the entire morning off. So there must be something left of him still, right? The man she loved.
Iris handed him the cream. “Church today?”
Sasha looked at his wristwatch and swore.
They attended services at St. Barnabas, just around the corner on Addison Road. As Sasha pointed out, the Anglican church was just about the same in character and temperament as the Episcopal church in America, in which both of them had been raised, so their immortal souls shouldn’t be materially damaged by the experience. Iris had asked him what exactly he meant by immortal soul, since he didn’t believe in God, and he told her to be a good wife and not ask so many questions. At the time, she thought he was only being ironic.
Iris wasn’t sure whether she believed in God or not, but she experienced the Sunday services at St. Barnabas in a different way than she used to experience church at home. For one thing, when Iris was a child, they hardly ever went to church, rallying themselves for Christmas and Easter and weddings and funerals but not for the ordinary, quotidian rites. Churchgoing was a social obligation, undertaken against your personal inclinations, not a spiritual wellspring. When Iris had attended church, she hadn’t paid much attention, and when she did pay attention, the words floated past her ears like a pleasant music.
Now Iris had Kip and Jack, and raising children seemed to have unplugged some emotional drain inside her. When the priest offered her the wine and said The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, she sometimes had to hold back sobs. Ridiculous! Then he laid his hand on Kip’s blond curls and said, Christ’s blessing be upon you, and the tide of desperate gratitude nearly choked her.
Why? She wasn’t religious. She didn’t give much thought to Christianity once she stepped outside the church and went about her daily life. If she did, she would typically question the foundational tenets of faith, not confirm them. Sometimes she thought it was the idea of salvation that moved her. She didn’t feel saved, exactly, but the older she got, the more she felt the terrible weight of all the hundred faults and mistakes—sins, let’s call them—she was liable to commit in a given week, and it nearly broke her with gratitude just to imagine, for an instant, that somebody knew them all and forgave her for them.
On this particular Sunday, however, Iris suffered from too much champagne and too little sleep the night before. Drag herself to church? Not on your life. Her sins could wait until next week, when they’d be properly ripened.
But Sasha insisted.
“Are you nuts?” she said. “You must’ve drunk half the gin in London last night, you and your pals. You look like death.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean you’re hungover, that’s all. You need aspirin and coffee, not God. Anyway, it’s almost nine thirty, and you haven’t even shaved yet.”
He threw down his napkin and rose from the table. “I’ll shave now. Have the boys ready in twenty minutes.”
“Oh, but Sasha—”
“We’re going, all right? That’s all there is to it.”
She watched him storm out of the kitchen and turned to Jack, who sat awestruck in his chair, nibbling a toast soldier while his brother studiously flipped the page of his magazine and dragged his cocoa cup to his mouth.
“And for this I married an atheist,” she said.