‘Hello, do we have a visitor?’ Her eyes lit up with recognition. ‘It’s Johnny, isn’t it?’
Johnny smiled as they shook hands. My God, he’s flirting with my mother. And she’s flirting back. We won’t go until we’ve got some, so bring some out here! Mara turned back to the tree in amazement and began to fiddle with the decorations, listening as her mother began some expert delving. You’ve been visiting Rupert? How are the Andersons? And you’re on your way home now? Where’s home? You’re spending Christmas with your family? Mara listened as her mother extracted more information from him in two minutes than she had gained in a term. And what were you doing before you went to Coverdale? The family firm? Building contractors? That’ll be useful if the church roof falls in. Mara gazed at her reflection in a blue bauble. I’m trapped in a tiny glass world as a punishment.
‘I hope you can stay for the inevitable mince pie,’ her mother was saying as she went to put the kettle on. He already seemed more her mother’s friend than her own. Mara, this is Johnny. He used to work for the family building firm before he started at Coverdale. And suddenly Mara remembered the buttresses. No wonder he knew about the outward pressure of the vaults. Allinson, Whitaker & Sons. I wonder? She turned to look at him. Before she could find anything to say, her mother reappeared.
‘Can I ask you a huge favour?’ Of course she could. ‘We’re in need of a strong man to wield an axe – Morgan’s hurt his back and we’re out of wood. Could you?’ Of course he could. She’s annexing him to her kingdom.
In a burst of anger Mara said, ‘It’s all right – I’ll do it later.’
‘You won’t,’ said her father. Out came the family knives.
But Johnny was picking up the log basket and asking, ‘Where’s the wood, then?’
‘Mara will show you,’ answered her mother. Tra-la! a man to chop the wood. A fine young man. Mara marched out, her face like a clenched fist.
‘There’s the wood, and there’s the axe,’ she snapped into the freezing night.
Johnny picked up a log. ‘What are you so mad about?’
‘I can chop wood, you know.’
‘So what?’ He was eyeing the spot where the blade would strike. He raised the axe. ‘Maybe he doesn’t want his daughter chopping wood for him.’ The blow fell, splitting the log cleanly.
Mara watched the two pieces fall into the snow. She could have cried. He doesn’t want me at all. I’d be hacking away with a blunt axe with the tears rolling down my cheeks, and he’d just turn away and close the study door. Johnny threw the pieces into the basket. The axe fell again. You’re so bloody good at it, she thought bitterly.
‘I wouldn’t,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t what?’
‘Want you chopping wood for me.’ He balanced a log. ‘Know why?’ Down came the blade.
‘Because you’re a patronizing northern male bastard.’ She listened in wonder to her voice.
Johnny lowered the axe slowly and took a step towards her. ‘What did you say?’
She stared unflinching, and saw the fishwife raise her pint and salute her. Why have I never done that to him before?
Suddenly he laughed. ‘I thought I’d been getting off lightly all these weeks.’ He began chopping again.
Mara watched as the chips flew and the basket filled up. What a masterful display you’re missing, Mother.
He glanced up and saw her watching. ‘Like a turn?’
‘No, thank you.’ He knew she had been impressed.
‘The dismembered body of a man in his twenties was found on Christmas Eve in a vicarage garden,’ she imagined the news saying. ‘He was the victim of a frenzied attack. A young woman is helping police with their inquiries.’
He finished work, and they stood looking at each other, till at last he shook his head as though he had warned her a thousand times, and she simply wouldn’t be told. How quiet the village was. I used to imagine Bethlehem was like this, she thought. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. I could stand here till the Second Coming looking at him. Think of something to say. Quickly.
‘Is it your family firm that’s working on the cathedral?’
He grinned. ‘That’s the Allinsons. They’re the masons. The class. We’re just common brickies. Partners since the Thirties when my grandfather got up Hilda Allinson’s skirt.’
‘Was she your grandmother?’
‘No. She was the wife of old George Allinson, esquire, of Allinson Grange. A respectable married lady. Until young William Whitaker came along with his eye to the main chance. Not quite so respectable after that, or so I’ve been told. Did wonders for the family business.’
‘What did old George say?’
‘Nothing. Hilda had him wrapped round her little finger.’
A costume drama unreeled in Mara’s head: thirties drawing-room, rough hands climbing silk stockings, gasps and grunts among the antimacassars. A flash young brickie with Johnny’s face. She felt herself starting to blush and groped around for something to say.
‘Why wouldn’t you want me chopping wood?’
‘Why?’ he smiled as he picked up the log basket. They began to walk back towards the house. ‘Because you’re a stroppy stuck-up Welsh bitch.’ And you’ll never know what I was going to say, said the expression on his face as they walked into the kitchen.
They sat drinking tea with the fire crackling happily. Mara’s mother handed round the mince pies. Does anyone actually like the things? Mara wondered. So much pastry, so little fruit. A parable of life. The angel of the Lord stands by to make sure we don’t just lift the lid, eat the fruit and discard the case. Or raid the mincemeat jar with a spoon. We must all wade through our predestined quota of pastry.
‘How do you find Coverdale Hall?’
Mara froze. Her father was taking over the job of delving. She looked across at her mother as Johnny made some noncommittal reply.
‘Did you fit in well?’
‘No,’ said Johnny cheerfully.
‘I imagine yours is the only regional accent in the place.’
‘There’s one Scot, and a Londoner.’
‘And are you mocked?’
‘Am I?’
They both laughed and Mara realized that they were comparing experiences. She heard Dr Mowbray’s voice again: ‘Morgan-baiting was something of a college sport.’
‘It’s the informal side of the training,’ Johnny said. ‘Knocking the working-class edges off me.’
‘You’ll let that happen?’
‘Not while I’ve breath in my body. Mind you, I’ve had to learn a new language. They couldn’t understand me when I arrived at Coverdale.’
‘And now they can’t understand you back home,’ said Mara’s father.
Johnny laughed. ‘ “By, listen to our John. He’s gone posh.” ’
‘But it’s a middle-class profession. You can’t escape that.’
‘I know. It’s a disaster,’ replied Johnny. ‘I mean, you walk into church and someone puts a one-thousand-page service book into your hand. The person up the front has an educated southern accent. What kind of message does that give off? I’ll tell you what kind: “Unless you’re a middle-class professional, forget it. It’s not your church.” ’
‘Ah, but it’s bound to happen, isn’t it?’ said her father. ‘Christianity is a religion of the book. Its ministers have to be literate. And education goes hand in hand with power in our society.’
Mara sat tense, waiting to hear if Johnny could answer this. She desperately wanted him to acquit himself well in front of her father.
‘Oh, man! What’s this? Some kind of theology of despair? You know, that’s what really pisses me off most. Sorry.’ Her mother made a broad-minded gesture. ‘Hearing a priest say there’s nothing we can do about it, I mean,’ Johnny added.
‘That’s not what I said,’ replied Mara’s father. Mara gripped her teacup. ‘I’m talking about a tendency inherent in Christianity to ally itself to wealth and status. I’m
all in favour of subverting that.’
She felt herself breathe again. He wasn’t angry.
‘Good. So am I.’ Johnny laughed. ‘Making church less like court would be a start. You know – the hushed atmosphere, the weird language, the funny clothes. And worst of all, not having a clue what’s going on, but knowing you’re in big trouble. Just like being up in front of the magistrate.’
At this her father laughed too. Mara saw her mother frown. The poor boy. We must cherish him. He’s got a chequered past.
‘Well,’ said her father. ‘Don’t let them grind you down.’ He sounded wistful. Mara wondered if he was looking round the William Morris sitting-room and asking himself how he had been so smoothed and tamed.
There was a tea-drinking pause. Mara’s mother’s eyes had been following the conversation like a tennis umpire.
‘It must be interesting to be part of an undergraduate college. Theological colleges can be rather intense and inward-looking.’
‘It gives a different perspective, I suppose.’
‘It has its disadvantages too, I should think. Undergraduate pranks, and so on.’
‘Yes – and the likes of your daughter giving us a hard time.’
Mara looked up, startled, and Johnny patted her knee kindly.
‘My rooms at Cambridge looked out over one of the women’s colleges,’ said her father unexpectedly. Mara saw her mother smile. ‘Where a lot of dedicated sunbathing seemed to take place.’
Mara sat stunned between two unthinkable thoughts: the idea of her father lusting out of his college windows at the sunbathing undergraduates; and the idea that it was this kind of ‘hard time’ that Johnny meant she was causing.
‘And how do you find the academic side of things?’
‘A struggle. I sweat blood over the Greek. Unlike Mara here, who taught herself.’ She cringed at the memory of Joanna and the whole embarrassing episode.
‘Darling,’ exclaimed her mother. ‘You didn’t tell us! When?’
‘Over the summer,’ muttered Mara into her tea cup. ‘It was nothing.’
‘There you are,’ said Johnny. ‘It was nothing.’
‘She’s always been a bit like that,’ her father said.
It was as if he were apologizing for her. Tears were starting in her eyes. Johnny stretched.
‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘ “For you have promises to keep,” ’ said Mara’s mother. ‘ “And miles to go before you sleep.” ’ Johnny stood up, and Mara rose swiftly too, for fear her mother would embarrass her with further wild quotations. She stood miserably amongst the goodbyes, Christmas greetings and exhortations to drive carefully because of the ice. There was one last delay as Johnny was compelled to sign the visitors’ book, and then at last they were outside in the cold. Their feet crunched on the frozen snow.
‘He thinks the world of you, you know,’ said Johnny as he unlocked the car.
‘He might say it, then,’ she burst out, too unhappy to pretend she did not understand. ‘She’s always been a bit like that.’
Johnny laughed. ‘He’s proud of you.’
‘He’s not.’
‘Ha’away. You’re perverse. You misinterpret everything. Just imagine,’ he went on in the tone adults use when telling children about Santa Claus, ‘that there were people in the world who actually liked you.’
‘And do you like me?’ Say it, then. Say it. He leant down and kissed her cheek again.
‘Me? No.’ He climbed into his car with a grin and started the engine. She saw his arm raised through the open window as he turned at the gate and drove off. Trahe me post te. The exhaust swirled around her then melted away. She turned and looked at the house. It was like a Christmas card, with the snow on the roof, the windows lit up and the candle burning steadily in the porch. Her father sat in his study. She watched him as he read and made notes. ‘He was always so passionate about everything.’ She saw him as he might have been at theological college, sitting at his desk, lonely and mocked; too young to be tied to a wife and two crying babies; raging at his loss of freedom and at his tormentors and their calm superior world. Was that how it had been? In the porch the candle flame guttered in some unseen draught. Mara began to walk back towards the house. The flame steadied itself and burnt on in the uncomprehending dark.
CHAPTER 10
When Mara woke, she could not tell at first where she was. I’m at home and it’s Christmas, she realized. She thought about her parents: her mother sunbathing, and her father looking down out of his window and seeing her, like King David seeing Bathsheba as he walked on his roof late one afternoon. We must have been conceived in August, Hester and I, over the long vacation. Had she gone to the farm with him? Or had he visited the palace? And what had they thought at the palace when the dreadful news broke? What wedding plans were set swiftly, smoothly into motion? Small reception. Large bouquet. Our son-in-law Morgan. ‘Something of a rough diamond, but we’re terribly fond of him.’ Twenty-two years ago. What a Christmas that must have been.
Mara heard her mother’s footsteps coming along the corridor, and sat up in bed. The door opened, and her mother came in with a cup of tea.
‘Happy Christmas, darling. I’m just off to fetch Grandma. Everything’s ready for lunch, so stay in bed as long as you like.’
Mara listened to the footsteps going down the stairs and a moment later heard the car starting up. She sat drinking the tea. Just a minute, she thought suddenly, I haven’t opened my stocking. I must be getting old. She drew it crackling towards her and began to pull things out. A sugar mouse, tangerine, shiny new penny, a paperback novel, a small present. She felt it through the paper to see if she could guess what it was. Flat, rectangular, heavy. The photo frame. She tore off the wrapping. I knew it. Her mother had gone out yesterday to buy it for her. It was beautiful: silver, probably Victorian. She’s even polished it up. Mara sighed. To please her mother she must now put the photo of her and Johnny in it, and this would change the picture from a spur-of-the-moment joke into a significant event. From now on it would seem to say ‘Engagement Photograph’, and she would have to leave it behind when she went back to college. She lay down again, thinking how sad it was that a beautiful present given with care and love should spoil the receiver’s pleasure. She would no longer be able to come upon the photo accidentally in her desk drawer among her bank statements and letters. Her mother had deprived her of this picture as surely as her father had the other.
‘I’d better warn you – she’s worse.’ Mara’s mother was putting on her gloves before leaving for church. The organ was just audible in the hallway where they were standing. ‘She seems to be inhabiting a noun-free world. I’m afraid you’ll be in for a guessing game. She usually knows what she’s trying to say, but the words simply won’t come. Or the wrong ones pop out.’ She looked at Mara anxiously. ‘Will you be all right?’
She looks like Hester when she says that, Mara thought. ‘I’ll be fine.’ Like Hester trying to protect me from the other children. They were always nicer to me when she was there.
Her mother hovered uncertainly.
‘It’s only an hour,’ said Mara in exasperation. And she’s still my grandmother. She watched her mother leave, then went through to the sitting-room where Grandma was dozing in an armchair. She had a blanket round her shoulders and her handbag was by her feet with its handle standing up stiffly as if it would at any moment be grasped and carried off on some errand or visit. The face was frail and hollowed out. But at that moment she woke, and Mara sat swiftly beside her as she was struggling to get up.
‘Happy Christmas, Grandma.’
‘Happy Christmas, my dear.’ Mara kissed the hollow cheek. ‘You look charming in that – that – oh, you know, that –’ She was pointing to Mara’s clothes.
‘This dress?’
‘Exactly. That press. Dress. You look lovely, my dear. I seem to remember your –’ Mara watched her hunting for the word. ‘Oh, dear.’ Grandma laughed.
She thinks it’s funny, thought Mara suddenly, a wonderful joke at her expense that she of all people should be unable to speak.
‘Your –’ she began again. ‘She had a – like that.’
Ah. ‘Aunt Judith?’
‘Exactly. Judith. My niece.’ Daughter, thought Mara, but let it pass. ‘She had a bed dress like that.’
Mara smiled at her. ‘It’s the same one. Mother found it in your attic.’
‘Well! Fancy that!’ Then Grandma had a sudden idea. Mara saw it appear, and wondered how long it would be before they could clothe it in words between them. ‘I’ve just had a – When I’m gone I should like you to have my – my – the, you know, the –’ She tutted in frustration. ‘Silly old –’
‘Give me a clue,’ suggested Mara, and Grandma clapped her hands together in delight.
‘This is like –’
‘Charades.’
‘Exactly. Now, I should like you to have my –’ She made a motion to her neck.
‘Throat cut?’
‘No, no. You’re as bad as your – no.’ She gestured again.
‘Pearls?’ This was clearly closer. ‘Jewellery of some sort?’ Grandma was nodding and pointing to the dress. ‘Something that goes with this? This colour?’
‘Yes!’
‘Garnets?’
Bingo.
‘Barnets. I’d like you to have them, my dear.’
Mara thanked her and kissed her again. When would I ever wear garnets?
‘Now,’ said Grandma in a different tone. Hah, thought Mara. I can guess what this is. ‘Your mother tells me you’ve got a –’ You’re on your own here, Grandma. They eyed one another. She knows I know. Oh, the power of words. ‘She says you’ve got a –’
‘A what?’ A sunny disposition? A lead-crystal whisky decanter with six matching tumblers? A Kalashnikov? She watched Grandma trying to think of a way of miming her meaning without reference to the male member. She gestured.
‘Muscles?’
‘No. You’re being difficult.’ Another gesture.
‘A moustache? A beard.’
‘No. You know perfectly well what I – MAN!’ cried Grandma triumphantly. ‘Now I want to hear all about him.’ Not a chance, Grandma. ‘Your mother says he –’ She pointed to the wood basket. Chop, chop.
Angels and Men Page 14
