The thought of Dr Roe prompted another memory: ‘A good face. You could draw it.’ On a fresh page her pencil made a couple of sketching motions without touching the paper. She hadn’t attempted a portrait for years. Caricatures were easy. She could do half a dozen now without hesitating – the polecat holding up The Times, Maddy and May bawling obscenities out of the window. Or Rupert, in an illustration from a boys’ adventure story. The caption: Rupert helped the strange young woman pick up her books. Or Johnny piping through the streets followed by rat-women. If it could be done out of a sense of mischief, like Maddy’s impersonations, then she might let her pencil scribble freely. But my talent springs from cruelty, she thought. She flung the book aside and realized she was impatient for some activity. Maybe she should have gone out with Maddy and May. Well, she decided, picking up her purse and leaving the room, I’ll go and have a drink and see if they roll up.
She made her way down the cellar steps to the bar. It was still almost empty. The room would fill up as the evening wore on, but at that moment there was only a small group of Coverdale students sitting around a table in the corner. Mara could hear them deep in discussion about the authority of Scripture as she ordered her drink. She paid the barman and went to sit down where she could see the whole room and both entrances. Her habitual expression of disdain settled on her features. The conversation on the other side of the room went on.
‘The problem with him is that he doesn’t expound the text,’ said a voice bossily. Mara glanced across, thinking for a moment that it was Rupert speaking. It was another of his kind. Coverdale seemed to be full of them, all wearing waxed jackets and springing to their brogued feet when a woman entered the room. Good families, good schools and – above all – good, sound evangelical principles. They had the Gospel sewn up: God’s Creation, Man’s Sin, God’s Remedy, Man’s Response. Women were gallantly sheltered under the generic umbrella. Mara smiled guiltily, remembering her condemnation of Maddy and her dull deaconesses. I’m no better than she is. Theological colleges obviously attracted recognizable types. And Johnny Whitaker was Coverdale’s token rebel. She had been amused the previous day to hear someone saying, ‘I’ve locked my keys in my boot. Has anyone seen Whitaker?’
She turned her thoughts away from him with an effort, and began listening to the Coverdale students. They were now talking about parishes. Final-year students, obviously. The infamous Curacy File had appeared in the college library and she had seen several different people leafing through it and making notes in their attempt to find a suitable (or at least bearable) parish to serve their title in.
‘I’m off to Leeds this weekend,’ someone was saying. ‘It sounds a bit charismatic, but I’ll have to look at it.’
‘Hasn’t Simon already been there?’
‘Yes, but he turned it down,’ said the bossy one. ‘His wife didn’t like the kitchen.’ Good God, thought Mara. Get your priorities sorted out. Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but Simon’s wife doesn’t like the kitchen.
‘Oh, that’s not fair, Hugh!’ protested one of the others.
‘I’m looking at a parish in Sunderland,’ said another gloomily. ‘But I’m not sure I want to be that far north. All my family’s in Hertfordshire and London.’ The rest murmured sympathetically. ‘Can one live without culture for three years? That’s the question.’
‘That’s the cost of ministry, brother,’ replied Hugh.
‘Says the man who’s going to Kensington.’
They were treating it light-heartedly, but Mara wondered whether a real fear of the north lay behind their laughter. She had seen a map of the country on one of the Coverdale noticeboards, with little pins showing where last year’s leavers were serving. Most of them were south of Birmingham.
‘Rupert’s sorted out, I hear.’ Mara grinned into her drink. An apt summing-up. Rupert was more sorted out than anyone she had ever met. His mission was to sort out everyone else, too.
‘The old boy network,’ said the Sunderland man cynically.
‘Nonsense!’ chorused the rest of the group, and dissolved into laughter. Clearly a recognized Anderson catch-phrase. The talk broke up into several separate conversations and Mara stopped trying to follow it. She began to conjure up her inner moorland world.
Her attention was called back by the sound of feet coming down the steps. Johnny Whitaker entered the bar. Mara felt herself blushing.
‘Ha’away, John!’ called the other Coverdale students. He raised a hand. Mara had noticed that he was always greeted by this cry. Being mimicked still reduced her to psychotic rage, but he never seemed to care. He was the target of a great deal of undergraduate wit, which he always bore good-naturedly.
She noted with satisfaction that he had obviously resisted the gauntlet Maddy and May had thrown down to his celibacy. He was standing at the bar with his back to her, chatting to the barman. Suddenly she found herself thinking, I’d draw you in a hard hat halfway up some scaffolding. Why? she wondered, frowning. The image had been so crisp, she felt that she must have heard something to make her think that. Maddy saying he looked like a workman? Maybe – ah! she pounced on the thought. She had seen a builders’ sign. Something Whitaker & Sons. That was it. Her face cleared. Then to her dismay she saw that a mirror ran the full length of the wall behind the bar. He had been watching her all the time. She looked away, feeling her colour rising again. He had caught her without her sarcastic mask on, half in and half out of her invisible cloak. She studied the table where her glass stood. He was paying for his drink and walking across the room. He would go past her and join the other Coverdale students and talk God with them. She sat watching the scratches in the varnish and saw – oh no – his drink join hers on the table. He sat beside her. She looked up, snapping her sneer into place.
‘You all right?’ Did she look ill, or something?
‘Yes.’ Her tone was aggressive.
He smiled at her. ‘Just another little idiom,’ he said. ‘It’s my way of saying “How are you?”’ It could have been Rupert’s voice. He was a better mimic than Maddy, even.
She looked down into her drink and muttered, ‘I’m OK.’
‘Where are your friends tonight?’ Hah. The cowards hadn’t even asked him.
‘Out.’ There was silence. He drank from his pint.
‘Out?’ The conversation at the other table went on. His easy manner was beginning to make her feel clumsy rather than aloof. Better to appear friendly and at ease. But how? She had never been able to make idle small talk.
‘They’re out in the town somewhere.’
‘Out in the town somewhere?’
She glanced at him. Was he mocking her? Well, sod you, she thought, and picked up her drink. I’m sure you’d rather they were here, but I’ve spent too much of my life saying where my beautiful twin is. I’m not going to tell you where my wonderful friends are.
He seemed unabashed. ‘How’s the work going, sweetie?’
She rounded on him, eyes narrowed.
He struck his forehead. ‘Sorry. That’s meant to be patronizing, isn’t it? I’m in trouble the whole time in Coverdale for doing that. How’s the work going, Mara?’
‘Fine,’ she said, wondering if he could really be as ingenuous as he seemed.
‘What are you studying, exactly?’
‘Women and religious fanaticism.’ This fell by chance into a general silence, and took on a pompous ring. The attention of the whole bar seemed focused on her words.
‘Go on,’ he prompted. She glanced at him cautiously and looked away again. There was nothing in his tone or his expression to indicate that this was not genuine interest. Her hand found the end of her plait.
‘Well, I’m looking at the part played by women in fanatical religious sects.’ I’ve just said the same thing in different words, she thought in despair. She forced her mind into the words she needed, picking up tiny beads with gloves on the wrong hands. ‘I’m looking at the difference between being devout and being a
fanatic. It’s a fine line. And at what draws women to that kind of religion.’ She looked into his face, expecting to catch his eyes roaming around for someone more interesting to talk to. They were fixed on hers. She felt a shock, as though she had peered through a dark window only to see someone staring out at her. Her hand began to twist her hair.
‘Why women?’
‘Because there are so many of them in that kind of sect.’
‘But there are more women than men in ordinary churches,’ he said. ‘Are women just more religious than men?’
She shrugged and waited for him to answer his own question. Most men did, telling her what she meant, what she was trying to say. But he was looking at her steadily. What’s the matter with you? she asked herself. There is such a thing as simple friendliness, even if you never practise it yourself.
‘It’s a question of power,’ she said eventually. ‘In a sect like that you can be a prophet, a leader. The mother of God even. The dispossessed are bound to be attracted. Women, the poor, social outcasts – suddenly they can be significant.’ And hesitantly she began to explain what she was studying, checking his face at every sentence for signs of mockery and boredom. She saw none, and gradually she began to unbend, until his promptings were hardly needed to keep her speaking. At length she had nothing more to add.
‘Another drink, flower? Sorry – Mara.’
She nodded, and he crossed to the bar. She watched him as he stood waiting to be served, and he caught her eye in the mirror and winked. This time she smiled back, not asking herself why terms of endearment were so much more acceptable in his beautiful north-eastern accent than in received pronunciation.
He returned to the table and sat down. They both drank and then sat for a moment in silence. Mara was beginning to wonder what they might talk about next – perhaps she could ask him what he had done before starting at Coverdale Hall? – when Rupert arrived. He bought himself a drink and joined them, looking at Johnny inquiringly for an introduction.
‘This is Mara.’ There was something in his smile as he spoke which brought her suspicion bounding back. ‘And this is my good friend Rupert Anderson.’
Rupert stretched out his hand to shake hers, but she merely made a slight gesture with the glass she was holding. He withdrew his hand. The caption read: She was the rudest young woman Rupert had ever met. There was a taut silence, while Rupert’s good manners adjusted themselves.
‘Is Mara a Welsh name?’ he asked.
She glanced at him contemptuously.
‘ “Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me,” ’ said Johnny. Mara jumped, surprised he knew the words. ‘It’s in the Bible, man.’ Rupert gave him a long hard look.
‘Is he making that up?’ he asked Mara. She said nothing.
‘Mara’s doing some research on women and religious fanaticism,’ said Johnny. She caught a look going between them which she had not been intended to see. The bastards are both laughing at me.
‘Not women,’ protested Rupert. ‘Why is everyone studying women at the moment? What about men? You’re not a feminist, are you?’ This was asked with mock alarm, mitigated, Mara was supposed to think, by his smile.
‘Yes.’
‘You are?’
She stared at him offensively, knowing he was trying to charm her into being as pleasant as a young woman talking to two good-looking men ought to be. ‘But why? I have never been able to understand it. What makes an intelligent, and, if I may say so, attractive young woman like yourself become a feminist?’
‘Pricks like you, mostly,’ she replied.
For a moment it seemed as though he had not heard her properly. He turned to Johnny in disbelief, then back to her again. Rupert had never been so insulted in his life.
‘But – look, I’m sorry, you’re going to have to explain that remark.’ He was no longer smiling.
She shrugged.
‘No, no. Come along, I’m afraid that’s not good enough. If you’re going to dish out insults like that, I think I’m entitled to an explanation.’ Perhaps he had been a teacher? She drank some of her drink. ‘Well?’
‘How much feminist literature have you actually read?’ she asked.
‘I think I have a fair grasp of feminist principles,’ he said after a slight pause.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Stop laughing, Whitaker,’ and he began with great confidence to outline what he thought they were. No, not a teacher: a barrister. She watched him dispassionately as his arguments got flimsier. He stopped before he was really floundering and held up his hands in surrender. ‘All right. Tell me about feminism,’ he said with his charming smile once more in place.
‘Read about it.’ She stood up, thanked Johnny for the drink, and walked off. Being an unpleasant young woman, however, she did not leave the bar completely, but waited at the top of the stairs to hear what they would say.
Rupert’s voice carried up to her with wonderful clarity: ‘Good God. What a dreadful girl! That was like being savaged by a clam.’
They both began to laugh.
‘Serves you right,’ came Johnny’s voice.
‘What did I do? I have never in my life – I suppose she was eating out of your hand before I arrived?’
‘Of course. You think I’m a rookie, or something?’
Mara’s face burned. Then she jumped as someone opened the door to come down the steps.
‘Whitaker, you’re supposed to be an ordinand,’ she heard Rupert say as she stepped out into the corridor. ‘You can’t seduce every lame duck you come across just because it’s a challenge.’
‘Seduce? Me?’ More laughter, then the door swung shut on the students going down to the bar.
For a moment she was unable to move, then she walked to a door which led out on to the terrace behind the college. She stepped out into the night and stood motionless. The stars looked down, remote and unfeeling, from above the rooftops.
CHAPTER 5
Several days later Mara was searching along the shelves in the basement of the library on Palace Green. The librarian had given her a key and allowed her to wander freely among the outsize and old books. The room was completely silent, apart from the buzzing of a strip light. She was all alone. You could go mad down here. Maybe she would pull a volume off a shelf and see a manic eye gleaming through on the other side.
Her eyes wandered along the book spines, and she craned her neck this way and that. If she ruled the world, then a law would be passed which compelled publishers to print all book titles one way: either up or down the spine. She reached an old folio volume, and intrigued, pulled it from the shelf. The Memorable Works of a Son of Thunder and Consolation. It appeared to be the collected writings of an early Quaker. She opened it at random, and read:
This is the day of thy visitation, O Nation, wherein the Lord speaks to thee by the mouth of his servants in word and writing . . . The Lord will overturn, overturn the nation, and will create new heavens and new earth . . . and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of him will be many . . . the fire is kindled and the sword is drawn . . .
She closed the volume, and hugged it. Here was raw fanaticism, the fiery vision of the end of the age. The fire is kindled and the sword is drawn. The writer was long dead, buried perhaps in some steep Quaker burial ground under the bowing grass. She looked at the crumbling calfskin binding and the browned pages. What would the writer have felt if he could have known that some three hundred years later she would be there studying his tracts as part of a research project? She tried to cast her mind forward three centuries and imagine students examining the delicate leaves of ancient twentieth-century works. But we will probably have blown ourselves out of existence by then, she thought. It struck her suddenly that this idea was not too distant from the early Quaker vision. Perhaps each generation believed in a catastrophic end. She saw a section of her thesis unfolding: This phenomenon may account in part for the recurring appeal of the Book of Revelation in the live
s of religious sects . . .
She went down the lane beside the Divinity School and turned along the road back to college. A pigeon hobbled along a low wall. Mara stopped to watch its progress. The pigeon stopped too and seemed to mistrust her, for it took off and disappeared on to a roof. An unpleasant memory stirred as she began walking again. Lame duck. Her eyes narrowed. To be regarded as strange, or nasty even, was one thing. But to be dismissed as a lame duck . . . She had gone back to this conversation repeatedly. It was not Rupert’s words that really tormented her though, for who gave a fish’s tit what Rupert Anderson thought or said? But Johnny Whitaker. That smug bastard. He’d been listening to her with such seeming attention while all the time thinking, A sad little person, but I’ll soon have her eating out of my hand. Hah!
Her mind was buzzing so angrily as she walked that she was not aware that someone was falling into step beside her until she heard a voice saying, ‘Psst!’
She turned. It was Rupert, and he received the full blast of her ill humour. He seemed not to notice, and held open his overcoat as though he were offering her stolen watches or dirty postcards. In the inside pocket she saw a well-known feminist text. For an instant her scowl wavered, but she clamped it firmly back in place and turned away.
‘Would you like to come for a walk?’ She looked at him in surprise, and he made a walking motion with his fingers in the air, as if to clarify the suggestion. ‘Down to the river?’
She was so taken aback that she nodded. They continued down the road in silence. After about twenty yards Mara began to wonder whether he wanted to say something, or whether they would promenade solemnly to the bridge and back without uttering a word. She pictured him giving her a slight formal bow and retreating into Coverdale Hall. The caption: Rupert remained unerringly polite, despite the girl’s rudeness. But at this point he spoke.
‘Tell me, why are you so silent?’ She flicked him a glance, but said nothing. ‘Some people say you’re shy, but I doubt that.’ She still made no reply. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that you do it deliberately. It’s a pose.’ They walked on. ‘You want people to look at you and ask, “Who is that beautiful, silent woman? Why is she so angry? Why is she so mysterious?” ’
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