Devils, for a change

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Is he a Catholic then himself?’

  Liz laughed. ‘God, no! An atheist, I think, now. He dips into religions like other people try new beers. He’s been through his Buddhist phase, flirted with the Quakers, once, got hooked on T. S. Eliot for a while – you know – why and how he became an Anglican and the effect of the religion on the poetry. Last time we discussed it, he was full of some fantastic book he’d read, on how Hindu harvest rituals affected Coptic art. No, that can’t be right, can it? Never mind, he’ll have changed his mind anyway, by the time I’ve got it straight.’

  Hilary forced a smile. The man still sounded frightening, would trap her with more questions, confound her with his learning, and whatever Liz might claim, she couldn’t see the slightest similarity between an unruly six-foot atheist ex-architect, who gobbled art and poetry when he wasn’t chasing girls, and a five-foot-nothing nun, whose intellect and love-life had both been amputated. Could she escape the meal tonight, plead a headache, say she wasn’t hungry?

  She was starving, actually; drank her wine too quickly, as if it could fill the hole, relishing its sharpish, almost fruity tang – the first alcohol she’d liked so far. She let her neck and back relax, aware that she’d been holding them too tightly. Liz was right. She needed to let go, allow herself one day off, at least. She glanced around the room, its mixture of untidiness and stylishness, which seemed the hallmark of the Kingsleys. She’d been untidy as a child, but nagged and chivvied out of it, and once a nun, neatness was the rule; a rule applied to everything, be it bed or cell or habit, or each and every convent room. There was something rather appealing about the clutter on the sideboard, the books disordered on the shelves, one of Stephen’s games still set up behind the sofa; yet the furnishings themselves so tasteful and sophisticated: the use of creams and oatmeals with a sudden splash of orange, picked up in the amber of the huge dried flower arrangement which stood in the old fireplace.

  Liz was kicking off her shoes, curling one foot underneath her, a plump black-stockinged foot. ‘I haven’t answered your question yet: what does Robert do? To be truthful, love, I’m not exactly sure these days. He’s done so many things, you see – building, teaching, dabbling in antiques, writing articles for journals, and buying and selling everything from wine to railway stations. He even ran a diving school in Crete, once, and took English tourists on trips to Turkestan. He’s been all around the world, even camped in swamps and jungles, or so he always claims. It’s a bit like the religions – nothing fixed or permanent. Though he’s much more settled now, in fact. He’s been living down in Sussex for the last eighteen months or so, running some weird commune; shares this huge old house with a bunch of artists and musicians, and a few oddballs and dropouts, to make the numbers up.’ She grinned. ‘Rather him than me. Though I suppose even that’s quite brave, shows spirit, don’t you think?’

  Hilary nodded, tried to think up some reply, or perhaps another question. She had learned already it was important to keep talking. Silence in the world was considered rude, not holy. But the drink had made her sleepy, lulled and numbed her mind. She closed her eyes a moment, savouring the two new tastes – pistachios and wine; relishing that novel sense of dizziness which made everything seem just nicely slightly blurred. The new words on the bottle were jumbling in her head; words they’d never taught her in her French lessons at school: Vouvray, Clos du Bourg, Appellation Contrôlée. She started at a new and deeper voice – Ivan’s voice – Ivan’s head poking round the door.

  ‘Can I come in? Or is it strictly girls together?’

  ‘’Course not.’ Liz got up. ‘Want a glass of vino?’

  ‘No, thanks. I really came to ask if you’d like a lesson, Hilary?’

  ‘A … lesson?’

  ‘You know, Alexander.’

  ‘Oh, no. No, really.’

  ‘Why not?’ Liz put the bottle down, finished her own wine. ‘I suggested that myself. You’ll learn more in just one lesson than any amount of yakking in the pub. Anyway, it can be quite relaxing – if Ivan doesn’t make you practise sitting down and standing up a mere two hundred times.’

  Ivan laughed. ‘I promise. Look, give me half an hour, okay? I just want to pop out. See you down in my flat about ten to four or so.’

  ‘No, honestly, I …’

  No one heard her. Liz was collecting up the glasses, chattering herself. ‘Why not go and have a bath? It’ll prepare you for the lesson, make you more relaxed, warm your muscles. The water’s nice and hot. Use my bathroom, not that tiddly one upstairs. I’ll run it for you, shall I?’

  Hilary lay back in the foam. This was the nearest she had ever come to playing Gloria Swanson – lying in a queen-sized bath with Mozart on the radio and her wineglass still in reach. She daren’t drink any more, though; already felt light-headed, yet heavy in her limbs, as if she were sinking down and down. The water was deep blue and smelt of freesias. Baths were few at Brignor, always rationed. The nuns washed every day, but in a small bowl of cold water which they collected in a ewer the night before. In the winter months, when it had stood all night in a damp unheated cell, it felt like melted ice. All toiletries were totally forbidden, save plain carbolic soap which doubled as shampoo. Once, when Sister Gerard was suffering from psoriasis, she’d been allowed a grudging tablespoon of cooking oil, which had been sent up from the kitchen in an empty mustard pot. She appeared in chapel glistening, and with a faint smell of salad-dressing wafting from her choir stall. Hilary smiled as she remembered, reached out for the flower-soap, soaped her breasts. Liz had left her matching talc and scent, shampoo and conditioner, both perfumed and expensive, and something called Body Spray, which came in a black aerosol with a picture of a voluptuous naked woman. She’d use them all in turn. This was Sunday – not the Lord’s Day – but the day of colour supplements, where everyone was worldly, rich and glamorous.

  Liz had said, ‘Enjoy your bath.’ She was trained in obedience, so she’d better do her best. She held the soap heavy in her hands, sniffed its musky scent of summer roses. She was so warm, it felt like summer; a kind and caring season which lapped her in its fragrance, contradicted the steel grey sky outside. Summer flowers were blooming on the walls, so real she could have picked them. She enjoyed those, too; the contrast with the shiny paint at Brignor, which seemed to sweat in winter, crack in summer.

  The Mozart was so beautiful she shivered in the fug. She had played that piece herself, as a girl of seventeen, played it for the final time the night before she entered as a postulant. She might never play again herself, but she had a new exquisite pleasure – listening. One huge advantage of the world – and especially of this house, where she’d been given her own radio – was that she could hear music when she wanted, just flick a switch to have it pouring out; that vital, powerful music, which had once been so important in her life – Bach and Handel, Beethoven and Mozart. She let herself respond to the impetuous eager scherzo, which sounded almost skittish; used one naked foot to conduct the piece a moment, feel its rhythm pulsing through her body. The foot plopped back in the water. Conducting was too strenuous for this indulgent Day of Rest. She stroked her arms instead, admired her new smooth skin, silky from the foam. She was becoming quite a sensualist, now she’d got the hang of it and kept pushing down the guilt. The wine had helped, of course. She took another gulp, held the glass cool against her chest. Both legs were lost in bubbles now. She’d seen a picture in her father’s book of thirties Hollywood – some sultry star or other, lazing in a bubble bath with nothing but her pout above the water.

  She shut her eyes, submerged her body right up to the chin, revelling in the water’s warm embrace. She had progressed light years in a single day, from medieval peasant village to swinging Hollywood.

  ‘Sister Mary Swanson,’ she said suddenly, out loud, heard her giggle skid across the Mozart.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Come in.’

  Hilary stepped into Ivan’s basement living room, surprised to find it almost bare
of furniture, but enlivened with unlikely things like a Victorian rocking horse with a real hair mane and tail, and an ancient cast-iron sewing machine dismantled on the floor. The window was high up, and the already fading light seemed greyish and half-hearted, which increased her nervousness.

  ‘Sit down,’ urged Ivan, pointing to a cushion. He sat himself, cross-legged. She hadn’t crossed her legs since the age of seventeen, let alone squatted on the floor. Liz had lent her an old tracksuit, which at least was less revealing than a skirt, yet it still felt wrong to sit so casually beside him, legs splayed out in front. Although they covered more, the trousers seemed immodest – emphasised her legs, her woman’s hips. And if it were wrong to sit alone with Liz, then how much worse to be shut up on her own with a stranger and a man. Though was it really fair to class Ivan as a stranger, when he was part of Liz’s family – or so she’d claimed this morning – who had lodged there seven years, watched Della change from a gawky ten-year-old to a glamorous seventeen? She glanced down at his feet: bare feet, with dark hairs on the toes. The hairs disturbed her, seemed so male, so animal.

  ‘Right, Hilary, I suggest we plunge straight in. Liz says we’re eating early, so we haven’t got much time.’

  Not much time? Two hours, or even three? She’d thought in terms of half an hour, at most. She glanced behind her at the door, then up at the small window. Basements were like dungeons: you felt trapped.

  ‘Are you comfortable like that? Don’t worry, I don’t intend to bore you with a load of dreary theory, just the barest outlines.’ He clasped one foot in each hand, his knees so supple they touched the floor each side. ‘Remember what I told you in the pub, how we have to change bad habits?’

  She nodded, tried to make her back as straight as his.

  ‘You see, habits are so crucial, they affect not just our posture or our health, but our feelings and emotions, even our relationships. Okay? So we have to change the bad ones, replace habits with more conscious control, try to develop an awareness of what we’re doing with our body, and especially the relationship of the head and neck and back. Once we’ve got it right, we can just leave ourselves alone, let our body be. It knows how to function, if we don’t keep hindering it.’

  He suddenly got up, opened a cupboard door, on the back of which was hanging a full-length skeleton. She jumped in shock, tried to edge away as the grisly yellowed skull moved towards her, grinning. A skull was the emblem of the hermit, emphasising the vanity of earthly things, which would all end as ash and bone. The empty sockets seemed to stare into her own eyes, reminding her of death again, damnation.

  ‘Meet Rose,’ he said. ‘Yes, she’s female and quite friendly. Why don’t you shake hands?’ He held the hand-bones out to her, the jointed fingers dangling. ‘It’s a miracle, that hand. Eight bones in the wrist, five more in the palm, and fourteen hinged ones, which form the thumbs and fingers. She’s got about two hundred and fifty bones in all, counting all the tiny ones and give or take a few. So have you.’

  She glanced down at her own hand. There was no resemblance to the gruesome bony object Ivan was insisting she admire.

  ‘Now, see her head?’ Ivan dropped the fingers, stroked the blank-eyed skull. ‘It’s heavy, very heavy. Most heads weigh a good nine pounds.’ Ivan rummaged in the cupboard, brought out a canvas bag tied round with string. ‘Hold that,’ he said.

  She was startled by its weight, her arm dragged down and hurting.

  ‘That’s nine pounds of sand. I measured it out specially, to try to show my pupils what their spines have to carry every day.’

  She was relieved to put it down, less happy when she felt his hand move from Rose’s skull to hers, stroke along its outline. No one ever touched her, least of all a man.

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘You’re very stiff. The first rule in Alexander is to free the neck, so the head goes forward and up, instead of back and down.’

  The hand was moving on her neck, as if rearranging it, steadying her head, her spine; finding knobs, protuberances, she didn’t know she had. ‘That’s it, drop the nose. Now try to let your shoulders go. You’re tensing up against me. I won’t hurt you, Hilary, I promise. I want you to trust me. Just let me lead you while we walk around the room.’

  Walking seemed impossible. How could she manoeuvre all those different bones, make sure they worked together? She was aware that she was stiffening even more, as Ivan led up her and down, using both his hands now, guiding her, gently repositioning her head and neck and back.

  ‘Drop the nose, drop the nose! No, not the eyes as well. Look up again.’

  ‘I can’t. It doesn’t work. If my nose goes down, my eyes do, too.’

  ‘No, they don’t. Like this, see? That’s better. Now free the neck.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ivan, but I don’t know what you mean by free the neck. I thought it was free. It all feels so confusing, as if I’ve never walked before.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s okay to be confused. Just stay with the confusion. Don’t fight it, Hilary. You’ve dropped your eyes again. Keep them looking up and out. Don’t try so hard. Just be, forget yourself. Try smiling, if you like. It’ll help you to relax. That’s not a proper smile. Make it more convincing. Better! Now smile with your back. Smile with your buttocks. Smile with the soles of your feet.’

  She was laughing now, not smiling. It sounded so absurd – and laughter helped to cover her embarrassment when he used words like buttocks, a word no Brignor nun would have in her vocabulary.

  ‘No, I’m serious. A smile is a great release. Now smile with your whole body – let it go still more. Good! That’s good. We’ll do it one more time, okay?’

  He led her up and down again, up and down, round and round, at the same slow but rhythmic pace which seemed gradually to calm her, mesh in with her breathing. She felt a sudden joy in the simple fact of her bones and body working; in her slow breath going in and out, her face and body smiling, the touch of Ivan’s hands. She passed the rocking horse, a piebald with a scarlet bridle, flaring scarlet nostrils. She was a horse herself, stepping out, going through its paces, guided by its trainer. Nice to be an animal, with no restraining conscience, something wild and free.

  ‘Right, now I want you to lie down – just stretch out on the floor here.’

  Lie down? She couldn’t, wouldn’t. When he’d said a lesson, she’d thought in terms of theory, the principles on paper, rather like her novice year at Brignor, when they’d sat at desks in rows – good obedient children in a classroom, studying the Scriptures and the Fathers, the Rule and Constitutions. But to stretch her body out, let some man stand over it … Impossible. He had turned his back to her, was fashioning a mattress out of cushions and a rug.

  ‘I’d like your head at this end, and both your legs bent up.’

  ‘No, Ivan, really. I …’

  ‘What’s the matter? Does your back hurt?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, but …’

  ‘What’s wrong, then? You’re so tense now, we’re undoing all the good we’ve done. Just sag like a rag doll and allow me to position you just the way I want, okay? You don’t own your body now. It’s mine, like Rose’s is. No, let me move that leg – not you. Just feel its weight sinking into my hand and then into the floor. Don’t look so worried, Hilary. Forget yourself – relax, release.’

  Reluctantly, she lay back on the floor, tried to release not just her limbs, but her inhibitions, terrors. It felt extremely strange and dangerous to be touched – a man’s hands actually moving down her body, coaxing it to lie the way he chose. Yet the hands were very gentle, seemed to treat her body as if it were something rare and precious, not the mass of sinful flesh it had always been before. It was almost a relief not to own that mass of flesh, to let someone else dispose of it, take charge. She hadn’t realised how profoundly tired she was; exhausted from her night awake, sleepy from the wine; had no more energy to argue or resist. She closed her eyes, sank down, suddenly heard music, strange Eastern-sounding music, slow and sinuou
s.

  ‘Now, I want you to try to concentrate on just that line of music, follow where it goes, stay out of your head.’

  It was so different from the Mozart – mysterious, unstructured – yet she tried to enter it, be part of it, feel herself a sitar or a gong, softly beaten, gently played upon. Her eyes jerked open as she heard a match strike. Ivan was lighting candles, two stubby scented candles, set in saucers, as if he were preparing for some ritual. This was his religion, he solemn as a priest. She shut her eyes again. It was easier to relax if she saw him as a priest – not a man at all, just a minister, a celebrant. Priests must be obeyed. Again, she tried to fix her mind on the undulating spiral of the music, do as he had told her, let her fears and worries melt away. She hardly stiffened as she felt his hands return to her again, massaging her shoulders.

  ‘What you’ve got to realise is that you’re made like Rose, with bones, and be aware of all those bones. I’m going to point them out to you, tell you all their names and what they’re for.’

  His voice was like a mantra, very soft and soothing. She felt him trace each vertebra in her neck – seven tiny separate discs – then gently press her collarbone, her shoulder blades. She marvelled as he said each name, as if he were presenting her with new and priceless gifts. She had always felt strangely insubstantial, as if she didn’t have a body, let alone these complex clever bones. Bones endured for centuries, while vegetation rotted, flesh putrefied and fell apart. She had just been made immortal – not her soul – her solid, iron-hard skeleton, a rare and precious fossil, dug up by Ivan after millennia had passed, discovered whole and perfect in some lonely Norfolk ditch.

  ‘Feel your ribs,’ said Ivan. ‘A dozen pairs of them. They’re connected to the spine at the back and the breastbone at the front.’ He took her hand, laid it on her ribcage, made her touch each rib in turn. Her heart was beating far too fast, thudding through her body. Would Ivan notice, wonder what was wrong? She hardly knew herself, except that it was an extraordinary sensation to have a man’s hand on her chest, just below her breasts; aroused a frightening mixture of excitement, panic, guilt. Yet Ivan himself seemed totally relaxed – just the teacher with his pupil, nothing more alarming. She must see herself as pupil, or as child or baby, even. The lesson did stir memories of babyhood; dim recollections of her lying on a rug as a tiny helpless infant, some dark and shadowed figure cosseting her body, talking to it gently. Yes – ‘it’, not her. ‘It’ was safer.