‘No.’ This was not precisely a lie, since ‘too hard’ was purely subjective.
‘How many hours would you say you’re doing a day? Approximately.’
Mara considered. ‘About seven or eight.’ This was a lie; but students usually lied in answer to this question. The difference in my case is that I do more, rather than less than I claim, she thought.
‘Well, take it easy,’ said Dr Roe as Mara rose to leave. ‘I hope you have other things to do besides working. Are you going to the ball?’ Mara could have screamed. Though I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there will this question pursue me!
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not.’
As she walked down the stairs, she felt the need to insult someone roundly and gratuitously. It’s because I’ve been trying to be nice to people. And all because of Johnny Whitaker. It angered her to have to admit this. She still wanted to go and seize him by the arm as he had seized her, and say, Listen – there are good reasons why I behave as I do. Being nasty to people isn’t just a hobby of mine. But she had to acknowledge that there was justice in his accusation. Her behaviour must look like arrogant contempt of others. But it’s my armour. This was the kind of thing she heard herself explaining to Johnny – except she never would, of course. I will never be like Joanna, telling him all my problems. Something about him drew out confidences from others. Those dark eyes. There would be an upsurge of interest in going to confession wherever he served as priest. But she was being nasty again. She was out of the Divinity School now, walking back to college. She looked along the street and saw, coming towards her, someone else she must be nice to: Rupert. He greeted her.
‘Hello,’ she replied, and added with some effort, ‘How are you?’ Instantly she regretted it. A look of grave concern came over his face as though he were about to feel her brow. Why did people make it so difficult for someone to change? In a burst of irritation she said, ‘That was just an example of phatic speech.’ He looked blank. ‘Intended to establish social contact, not convey facts.’ He coloured slightly.
‘Somebody told me you read English at Cambridge,’ he said. She inclined her head. ‘And that you got a First.’ She looked away. ‘Why did you let me lecture you on the function of language? You might have stopped me.’
‘How?’ Impossible not to say it.
‘Mara, talking to you is always a chastening experience. Do you see it as your mission to cut me down to size?’
It was her turn to flush. ‘No.’
‘Well, that’s certainly how it feels, sweetie.’
This time she bit back her reply. He had made her feel so much in the wrong that she could not even protest at being called sweetie. All she could do was scowl.
‘Going to the ball?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘No. I’m washing up.’
‘Well, that won’t take all night, will it? The last sitting is at ten-thirty. You’ll be finished not long after eleven.’ She stared. ‘You’re allowed to join in when you’ve finished your work. Didn’t you know?’
The black georgette dress . . .
‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘You’ll enjoy it. I’ve got a group of friends coming. Why don’t you join us?’ The Someone-Somethings.
‘I don’t know,’ she said in a bored voice. ‘I might.’
He clearly took this to mean yes. ‘Good. Wonderful. Johnny’s joining us too, when he’s finished in the dining-room. See you later, then.’ And with a smile from him and a mutter from her, they parted. Johnny would be there . . .
She had walked about fifty yards down the road when she thought, Just a minute! What about you trying to cut me down to size? You’re always criticizing me. She wheeled round, but he was out of sight. If I’m arrogant, so are you, Anderson. It’s just that you’re charming with it. But then her conviction wavered. What if he were right? She looked up at the sky despairingly.
The college was turning into a baroque heaven, with billows of pink muslin shrouding the ceilings, and cherubs clustered in little groups. Someone had obviously had difficulty with the cherubs. They looked thin and awkward, like the infant Christ in medieval triptychs. If I had a pen handy I could offer to fatten them up. But then everyone would know she could draw. She passed along corridors decorated with moon, stars and comets, until she reached her stair. On impulse she looked in at the main dining-hall. Lunchtime had suspended its transformation into Mount Olympus. Olive trees grew from the walls and vine tendrils were making their way across the ceiling. Reclining deities looked down disdainfully over their goblets of nectar at the students eating fish and chips.
Mara was wondering whether to have lunch earlier for a change, when she noticed Joanna. She turned to leave, but as she did so, a thought struck her. She walked across to where the meals lists were pinned, and sure enough, there was Joanna’s name, ‘Guest of Mara Johns’. For one horrible moment Mara wondered whether this was something else she had written, then forgotten about, but the handwriting was not hers. She looked up, and from the other side of the room saw Joanna watching her. Right, she thought in cold fury, and strode off to find Mr Nasty Pasty in his Salmonella Emporium.
As she went down the steps to Nigel’s office she heard shouting. What bloody idiot had done something or other, something about the smoked salmon, and he had better things to do with his time than chasing round after people who were doing bugger all. As Mara entered, Nigel’s first words to her were incorporated seamlessly into the tail end of his diatribe . . .
‘. . . and if you’ve come here with some stupid complaint about the food you can piss off now.’
Aha! Here at last was an opportunity for unmitigated nastiness. The fishwife in Mara’s mind folded her slabby arms, narrowed her eyes and prepared for battle. She sat casually on the edge of Nigel’s desk. The two members of staff that he had been shouting at stood like statues.
‘Have I caught you at a difficult moment, or are you always a complete shit?’ she asked. She had an impression of two white faces with open mouths. The silence lasted several seconds. It was like watching a hand grenade spinning silently on the spot where it had landed. At last Nigel spoke.
‘Yes, I’d heard you were a cheeky bitch.’ He looked at her. There was to be no explosion. The fishwife departed like Satan in the wilderness until an opportune time. ‘Well, what is it?’
She swung her foot idly backwards and forwards. ‘Actually, I was going to ask you a favour.’
A gleam appeared in his eye. ‘You think I’m going to do you a favour?’
She continued to swing her foot. ‘Oh, no. Not now I’ve met you.’ Mara saw the two staff members behind him trying not to smirk.
Nigel seemed to sense this, for he rounded on them suddenly, and said, ‘God almighty, don’t just stand there! Go and try to sort it out. I’ll deal with the salmon later.’ They disappeared.
‘Now, then. What’s this favour?’ He tilted his chair and looked at her with a faint leer. ‘Go on. I might just surprise you.’
‘Someone keeps signing herself in for meals as my guest without my permission.’
‘Well, what do you expect me to do about it? I can’t spend my whole time checking the guest lists for every bloody meal.’ He slammed all four legs of the chair back on the floor.
‘So you’re saying anyone can walk into college and sign themselves in for meals, and there’s nothing you can do about it?’
He tilted the chair back again. ‘Who is she, then?’
‘Joanna Something –’
Mara was going to describe her, when he interrupted. ‘Long, fairish hair, wears a scarf thing on her head? I know who you mean. What’s she done to you? Stolen your man?’
Mara was completely wrong-footed by this: ‘What man?’
‘What man, she asks. Johnny Whitaker. Very popular man, our John.’ He waited for a response, and when none came, added a further goad: ‘I hear you’ve got a thing about him.’
‘God, yes. I’d like to keep him
in my room tied to a chair.’
‘I bet you would.’ He swayed on his chair with a lewd buttock-grabbing look on his face. ‘Into bondage, are you?’
How come I’m having this conversation with this revolting man? Her anger against Joanna seemed remote. It had no connection with Nigel lurching about on his throne in this priapic underworld where all the college gossip seemed to trickle down and mingle with the fatty steam. She stared at her swinging foot.
Nigel brought the front legs of his chair down to rest again. ‘Well, I’ll have a little word with her. If you’re very nice to me.’
‘Thanks,’ she said dully, and rose to leave.
He stood as well. ‘What’s wrong?’ He put an arm around her shoulder and looked into her face. She shrank back; but this sudden switch from smut to compassion overbalanced her.
‘I’m OK.’
He gave her shoulder a little squeeze. ‘If you ask me, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ She tried to draw away. What was he talking about? He pulled her closer, and said, almost nose to nose, ‘Seriously. I know his taste in women. She doesn’t stand a chance.’ He released her, laughing as she struggled to say something.
‘See you tonight. Washing up?’ And it seemed she was dismissed. You should have left it to me, said the fishwife.
When Mara got back to the dining-hall Joanna had left. Different groups of students were sitting talking under the trailing vines. Mara collected her meal and ate her chips with Athena looming over her right shoulder and Aphrodite over her left.
The afternoon slipped away and darkness began to creep over the City, mild, with a hint of coming rain. Up on the windy station above the town students were waiting for trains from the south. They wandered nervously up and down the platforms. Had they been wise to invite that woman, this man, as a partner? Down in the streets below others sat in hairdressers’ and barbers’ as the night pressed in on the warm salon windows. Would the wind undo all the good work? What if this last-minute haircut was a disaster? And back in the college complex negotiations went on over bathroom rights. From steamy doorways came the smells of honeysuckle and passion-fruit. Watery footprints, powdery footprints.
Mara decided after a fierce inner debate that she would not join Rupert and the Someone-Somethings at the ball. Not if Johnny would be there. If people were talking already, this would make them talk all the more. ‘I hear you’ve got a thing about him.’ Good God. Who’d been saying that? Nobody could know. Unless – had he realized? She blushed in mortification at the thought that it might have been Johnny himself, talking to Nigel the way she supposed men did over a pint. She had seen them in the bar together. Well, the black dress would hang undisturbed in the back of the wardrobe. She turned to her books, but her thoughts were interrupted repeatedly. But if you could go – in another life, in another world – who would you go with? The voice nagged away as she worked.
The Scriptures, the millennium and the role of women, she thought, gritting her teeth. She made notes to herself about the Second Coming. What difference did it make to believe the Parousia was imminent? Was this conviction a mental assent to a calculated date? Or was it essentially an experience? And if it was an experience, did it lead to new ways of interpreting the Bible? Or did the method of biblical interpretation determine the nature of the experience? But as she thought about these things, they ceased to be academic questions jotted in her spiky handwriting. She was seventeen and back in the stifling room above the village library.
A summer evening. The windows were all open, but no breeze seemed to be able to find its way in. She was sitting beside Hester. There he was, the leader, whose name she still could not bring herself to form. She heard his voice.
‘I have crucified the flesh with its passion and desires, says St Paul. And this is what we must do, brothers and sisters. We must crucify the flesh. God is calling you to nail your pride to the Cross. To nail your intellect to the Cross. He has many blessings he’s just waiting to pour down upon us – eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man what God has in store for those who love him and are called according to his purposes, says the Word. But he’s not going to give us these blessings unless we humble ourselves before him, brothers and sisters. Unless we let him sit in judgement on us, rather than sitting in judgement on him – questioning his will and his word in our boastful human pride . . .’
And suddenly she had thought, If this is the will of God, I want nothing more to do with it. The atmosphere seemed to crush her and at last, unable to bear another moment, she had walked out, shaking off Hester’s hand and refusing to look into her hurt eyes.
The fields were beginning to turn as she hurried the two miles home. Out here the wind was stirring and she paused to watch it pass in silvery waves across the barley. All she could hear was a lark high overhead and the whispering field. For a moment she was at peace. Later she regretted leaving so quietly. Why had she not shouted – prophesied – ‘If this is your God, I don’t believe in him!’
The hair on her scalp was crawling at the memory. Why was I taken in even for a moment? What is the abiding attraction of revivalism? Mara thought of the countless surges of enthusiasm down the Christian centuries, wave after wave breaking across the Church. And each time it seemed new. This time it’s the real thing, the converts always thought. And that was how it had seemed. The Church of the Revelation offered everything that was lacking in the empty high-church rituals she had grown up with. Spontaneity, lay ministry and, above all, real tangible proof of God’s presence: speaking in tongues, prophecy. And healing. Not just those unprovable God-healed-my-bad-back miracles, but at least one miracle that defied even her hardened scepticism. That girl with a bad leg from her class at school. Beverley. She had always been excused PE and was often away from school for long periods having yet another operation to correct her limp. And then one night she had stood up in the meeting and danced. Healed. Doctors had been baffled. The local paper had done an article on it, with a photograph of Beverley posing awkwardly with a hockey-stick. ‘Now I can join in at games like the other girls,’ says sixteen-year-old Beverley. Where is she now? wondered Mara. Had she ever made sense of that miracle? Would it shield her from loss of faith, or would it still bind her to the sect long after she had begun to doubt?
No wonder I believed, thought Mara. Nothing like that ever happened in my father’s church. She pictured him, a distant robed figure way up at the high altar, his back to the congregation as he elevated the host. Suddenly it struck her that she had joined the sect to punish him for all the times he had turned his back on her. It had made no difference, though. She knew he was opposed to everything the Church of the Revelation practised and preached, and yet he had never remonstrated with her. Was it out of love that he had left her the freedom to choose? She would have felt more loved if he had raged and forbidden her.
But she caught her mind back from these speculations. She was not intending to include modern examples in her thesis. It was to be a historical study. Any insights she gained would be in the realm of the intellect, not the emotions; and this was the proper sphere of understanding. Perhaps later she might be able to apply her discoveries to her experience and impose some order on the chaos of feelings. Her eyes began to stray to her black book, and then to the drawer where her angel picture lay folded. She had not added to it since that first night. Why not? Because it was associated in her memory with Johnny Whitaker’s accusations. Having identified this as the reason, she jerked the drawer open, took out the picture and unfolded it.
Angels and mad aunts. She began by drawing clouds in the spaces between her earlier pictures. On one particularly menacing cloud she drew her mother and grandmother. They were attaching a silver lining to the cloud as though they were hanging Sanderson curtains in a vicarage sitting-room. Above them hovered the words of Julian of Norwich: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Despite so much evidence to the contrary. Despite the fa
ct that this world is a place where the innocent are deceived and the good die unhappily. And she folded away the picture abruptly, wrapping up the image which had slid into her mind – Hester in the rocking chair, her hands cradling her stomach, rocking, rocking for hour after endless hour.
Music started up in the dining-room two floors below. It was so loud that Mara could feel as much as hear it as the bass notes shook the foundations of the building. The ball had begun. Voices came up from the terrace, and Mara went to her window and looked out. The first couples were wandering on the lawn with their cocktails. The white of dress shirts gleamed, changing colour in the flashing lights. Her ears caught another sound: even above the immense noise came the sound of the bells, aloof, as though they came from another world far beyond all this. Seven-thirty. It was time to go down to the kitchens.
The grand staircase seemed to be reliving some of its past. Surely it was made to be glided down in silk or taffeta. Mara felt like a servant trapped upstairs long after she should have been sweating in the kitchens. The corridors were growing crowded, and yet the atmosphere still seemed tense. Perfumes and aftershaves filled the air. People were too clear-eyed and sober. The bared shoulders and elbows looked awkward. But the first drinks would take the edge off things, and then the college would be a magical place full of sparkling lights and beautiful people. Mara slipped through the door and down the steps to the kitchen.
Over by the sinks stood the other student who would be washing up. As she approached, Mara saw him pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and flexing his fingers as though he were a battlefield surgeon about to saw off a leg. Almost at once a parade of dirty crockery descended to them on trolleys to be sorted and fed through the machines, casualties of the warfare of feasting – sherry glasses, side plates, dinner plates, dessert bowls. The air was filled with clanking and swooshing, while from overhead came the sounds of music and footsteps as the unseen couples surged along corridors. Mara could see the tops of the chefs’ tall hats as they passed backwards and forwards shoving large trays into ovens and hauling them out. The waste disposal unit gargled like a fat idol bellowing for more as the scraps tumbled down its metal throat. The work seemed endless – plunging cutlery into steaming sinks, stacking dirty plates on racks, unloading clean dishes. Just as Mara was wondering how much more there could possibly be, a lull came. They were between sittings.
Angels and Men Page 10
