Angels and Men

by Catherine Fox

  She took a deep breath. I remember this point. It was always like this – the moment of conception, when you believe this time you’ll really achieve it – walk with the angels on the wings of the wind. But even as the brush touches the canvas, you have failed. The vision is dragged down by the oil in its feathers. She wondered if it had been this – the repeated striving and failure – that had driven her to turn her back on painting.

  Memories of school jostled in her head. She could almost smell the classrooms and feel the stifling boredom. Art lessons had been a liberation. In the sixth form she spent all her free time in the art room. She saw herself again, painting huge canvases while the Third Years pored over cheese-plant leaves or halves of red cabbage. Only the art teacher had any idea what she was trying to do. Everyone else thought it perverse that someone who could draw so well should want to paint abstracts.

  Another memory. She was in the office of Mr Doncaster, the head of the sixth form. ‘And you’ll be applying to Art College, of course.’ It had not even been a question. Mara had gone into the room uncertain, wanting to discuss the decision which was tearing her apart, but instead she heard herself say: ‘I want to read English at Cambridge.’

  A short, barking laugh from Mr Doncaster. Now at last came the teacher’s chance for revenge. He had suffered too many years of mute insubordination from this difficult girl. ‘I doubt you’re really up to Cambridge. Your A-level predictions are nowhere near good enough. Go away and think about it again.’ So she went away and applied directly to a Cambridge college and talked her way into a place. This had redounded to the greater glory of the Bulbourne High School for Girls, and she had never been forgiven for it.

  The sound of a curlew rose up in the distance. She stood a moment longer watching the sunlight and the shadows chasing across the hills. Maybe I made the wrong choice. For the first time she let herself wonder whether the satisfaction of settling a score with a hated school was enough. Something in her said it was not. Well, I can live with the consequences of my wrong decisions. She set off again, climbing a stile and beginning to walk impatiently along a footpath. I still intend to have a successful academic career. I made that choice, and I’m not going back. I’d sooner drop litter. She cursed herself, seeing how her mind kept sneaking back to Johnny.

  Back at the friary, the car park and entrance hall were full of people. She caught snatches of conversation as she made her way through a crowd which she realized must be a group of curates arriving for post-ordination training. I’m glad I’m leaving, she thought, running up the stairs and leaving the laughter and in-jokes behind her. There was something overpowering about large numbers of clergy in a confined space – like fifteen prima donnas in a stuck lift.

  It did not take her long to pack and soon she was sitting on the edge of her narrow bed wondering when her mother would arrive. She felt as though she were waiting to go into an exam hall. Their next meeting would be crucial. It would decide whether they would go on with the polite lies and silences or at last let the truth in. It waited like a dark stranger in a dim hallway. What eyeless sockets lay concealed? What face half eaten away by disease? Better to throw the lights on and know the worst. After all, it might prove to be nothing but an old cassock hanging on a hatstand.

  She got up and crossed to the window, too nervous to remain sitting any longer. The wind was stirring the branches of the chestnut trees which surrounded the house. I suppose I ought to go and say thank you to the monks. She was embarrassed at the thought. Who was in charge? The Abbot? The Father Superior? She’d heard the monks talking about someone called Tom as though he might be the head. My God, what about paying? How much do I owe them? She had no idea, and for a moment she was paralysed by the fear that she could not afford it; but then the mental picture of her mother’s cheque book and fountain pen propelled her out of the door and down the stairs.

  The main hallway was quiet. Mara was hovering there when one of the brothers appeared. Seeing her uncertainty, he stopped.

  ‘You look lost. Can I help you?’

  ‘Um . . . yes. Is Tom the –’

  ‘Tom’s the guardian, yes. Did you want a word with him?’

  She nodded, and the monk set off down the corridor motioning her to follow. As she walked, she was aware of a nagging guilt that she had been so self-absorbed during the weeks she had spent in the friary. She was shown into a room where a grey-haired monk was sitting at a desk. He smiled at her and rose to his feet.

  ‘Tom, Mara would like a chat with you.’ With these words the first monk left. He knows my name, thought Mara as the door closed. Maybe they all know all about me. Tom gestured to a couple of armchairs and they both sat down. A mistake. She had only intended a brief conversation. A clock ticked on the mantelpiece. She cleared her throat.

  ‘I really only came to say thank you for letting me stay here. I’m going back to college today.’ She was trying to make her voice sound pleasant yet not confiding, but her tone was at odds with the old armchair. Its sagging springs and escaping horsehair seemed to say, ‘Relax. Spill the beans.’ She was sitting stiffly to combat this impulse. ‘I think it’s been a valuable time.’ She heard her stilted words and saw Tom incline his head. He looked relaxed, and yet she could tell he was listening with his whole being, aware of every tone and gesture and hidden clue. His silence drove her into the classic error of blurting out more: ‘I feel . . . fortified.’ It sounded so odd that she clamped her mouth shut, resolved to say nothing else.

  In the end he spoke: ‘You’re feeling fortified.’

  It was a pleasant voice, and she would have liked it, had she not spotted that he was using that bloody non-directive counselling technique. It had always driven her mad to hear her own words batted straight back at her. She felt that look coming over her face.

  ‘Yes,’ she said perversely. ‘I’m feeling fortified.’

  If it had sounded peculiar the first time, now it seemed preposterous. They fell into silence again. The clock ticked. He was watching and waiting. The silence went on until she began to feel wild and strange. She had a sudden urge to bowl him a bouncer: I think I’m in love with you. Then she remembered why she was there. She cleared her throat again.

  ‘The other thing is, I was wondering how much I owed you? What your rates are, I mean.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Well, I wasn’t thinking of charging you, exactly.’ She blushed. ‘How about a contribution? I can certainly let you know our rates. Anything you might like to give us towards that amount would be fine.’

  ‘The problem is I don’t actually have my cheque book with me, but if I could . . .’ She fumbled to a stop. Money was almost as embarrassing as sex.

  ‘Send us a cheque, then. No problem.’

  Now was her chance to rise and leave with another polite thank you, but she continued to sit. Silence opened up between them again. She saw Tom’s right hand move to the cross he wore round his neck. The fingers closed around it, and she knew that this was a mute prayer. Her eyes remained on his hand, waiting for it to move. With each tick of the clock the stillness in the room seemed to intensify. Outside a robin sang.

  ‘Mara, what do you want?’

  ‘Nothing!’ The word shot frightened out of her.

  ‘What do you want, Mara?’

  Freedom. To be free of all this guilt and fear and shame. To be absolved.

  The ticking of the clock grew louder and louder in her ears. She watched as slowly his fingers uncurled from the cross. He raised his hand and pronounced the absolution. The familiar words slid over one another like pebbles worn smooth by centuries of tides. She felt her lips whisper ‘Amen’ and her hand moving to cross herself before she could stop it. A great sigh left her, as though her soul had been dislocated for years and had at last been slipped back into joint. For a moment she sat still in wonder, then a sense of outrage seized her. How dare he do that without asking? He had tricked a response out of her, meaningless as a knee-jerk in a doctor’s surgery.
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  She stood up angrily and turned to leave; but she had only taken two steps when she leapt back with a cry. Tom was beside her in an instant. The room seemed dim and she groped for his arm.

  ‘Did you see that?’ She could feel her brain gibbering.

  ‘See what?’ Her mind was still squeaking with terror when to her amazement she heard herself laugh. It seemed to come bubbling up from a forgotten spring. ‘What did you see?’ asked Tom. The laughter died back down again. Tick, tick, said the clock.

  ‘An angel.’

  They stood looking at one another.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  She shook her head, and he continued to watch her. Was he afraid she was mad?

  ‘I’ve seen it before,’ she heard herself gabble, as though this would reassure him. For a moment the memory of it made her quiver. The terrible countenance, eyes burning with wrath and fierce joy. Very cautiously she turned her head round, but there was nothing there, just a shaft of sunlight coming through the narrow window. She turned back to face Tom again.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said.

  His fingers were curled round the cross again, as though he were consulting God to see whether to believe her. Then he smiled and stretched out his hand. He seemed to be welcoming her back. Part of her rebelled, yet in spite of herself she reached out her hand. He grasped it.

  ‘Angels should always be taken seriously, you know.’ He was smiling as he spoke, but she could tell that this was a warning. She thanked him again and left.

  Outside it could have been a new world. Everything was sharp and clear; the chestnut buds dancing against the sky, the crocuses shivering in the lawn. Mara wandered until she reached the crucifix where she tripped that first evening. She would see her mother arriving from there.

  An angel.

  An angel? Had she gone mad? A blackbird busied itself in the undergrowth near by, turning over the dead leaves. She’d never felt more sane. But that was what mad people always thought. Aunt Jessie had seen angels all the time, and was baffled when no one else could.

  ‘Look, child, Mount Sion, the City of the living God!’ she had said, pointing to the bare hill above the farm. ‘You see them? An innumerable company of angels, as the Bible tells us, and the spirits of just men made perfect. Pastor Jenkins walking in sweet communion with the blessed angels. There, look! You see him?’

  ‘No, Auntie Jessie.’

  ‘Ah, they have eyes and see not.’

  Sometimes Mara almost could see them out of the corner of her faithless eye in a dancing patch of sunlight, or a piece of floating thistledown. The farm became a holy place for her. Bethel. None other than the house of God, the gate of heaven.

  As Mara looked at the sunlight on the bare branches, the same feeling she had known as a child came over her again. This world was no more than a thin membrane stretched out over eternity. At any moment it might peel back and the glory come blazing through. On days like this it seemed so near, the fabric pulled so fine that it was lit up from behind, beyond, and every shifting play of light, each moving leaf, might be the shadow of the just passing to and fro behind the veil among the angels.

  ‘What did he want?’ Andrew’s voice spoke in her mind. She remembered his dispassionate interrogation: ‘Wings? How many? What did he want? Did he say anything?’ But it was useless. How could you analyse and quantify something like this? Words would not do. The angel had said nothing, but she knew there had been a message if only she could understand it. She sighed and tilted her head back, watching the leaping twigs and the clouds in flight on the west wind. She was still there, wondering, as her mother’s car made its way down the drive.

  They were driving south. The landscape slipped by, moorlands, dry-stone walls.

  ‘Yes,’ said her mother, continuing out loud what had been an internal conversation, as she often did, ‘pub meals are so much more substantial in the north. And cheaper, of course. You’re sure you had enough? You’re still rather thin, darling.’

  ‘Yes. What day is it?’

  ‘Wednesday,’ replied her mother, deflected from Mara’s diet. ‘Only two weeks till the end of term.’ There was a silence, and Mara knew her mother was working round to a non-threatening way of asking if she would be spending the vacation at home. ‘Look – a heron!’

  ‘Careful!’ said Mara, and her mother tweaked the wheel abruptly. The bird made its way on slow wing beats across a river. Maybe I will go home. ‘I thought I might come home for Easter.’

  ‘Oh, darling, that’s wonderful!’ Mara tried not to cringe away from her mother’s enthusiasm. ‘Why don’t you invite some of your friends to stay as well? You know we’ve got masses of room.’

  ‘I might.’

  Her mother began humming. Maybe she was already planning lunch menus and mentally putting out guest towels and soap. The car wandered slightly towards the middle of the road. Her driving was a metaphor of her life. She approached it blithely, confident that it would all sort itself out if only everyone behaved with the decency she knew they were capable of.

  ‘I met quite a few of your friends yesterday,’ her mother went on. ‘I spent the night in college. It felt rather like being an undergraduate again. Maddy and May popped in. I saw Helen Poppett just the other day at a clergy wives’ do, and she said that you and May were both in Jesus. Oh, and I saw Johnny, too.’ Her mother knew better than to glance at this point. ‘I didn’t manage to track down Rupert, though. I’d like to meet him. I saw him baptized, you know. Winchester Cathedral. Destined for greatness. He was out taking a Youth Group somewhere.’ Mara watched the lambs on the hillside as her mother continued to talk. ‘And I met Andrew, and Lucy and Carol, of course. They are nice, aren’t they? They invited me in for tea.’ Lucy and Carol? Mara racked her brains guiltily. The field mice? Her mother slowed for a wandering sheep. ‘And I must say, I do like Andrew.’ Andrew? Like? What’s he been playing at, making himself agreeable to my mother? She felt a twist of jealousy. ‘Completely insufferable, of course, but I’ve got a soft spot for him.’ Ah, she’s found a phrase to tame him. Just like she’d done for Johnny: ‘a bit of a rough diamond’. Maybe I’ll see him today . . . She jerked her mind back from the thought angrily. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ said her mother, ‘but I’ve brightened your room up for you a bit. It seemed a bit bare and institutional.’ Oh, God. She’s William Morris-ed it.

  ‘Thank you.’

  They drove for a while in silence. Signs for the City began to appear. Twenty miles. I’m going to have to talk to her about my childhood. If I don’t do it now, I never will. Her mother was humming again. Fifteen miles. Twelve. Speak. Say something. She looked down at her hands and tried to unlace the fingers. I can’t talk to her. I can’t do it.

  ‘Anyway,’ said her mother as though they had not just sat for fifteen minutes without a word, ‘I hope you’re feeling better now, darling.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a whisper.

  ‘If there’s ever anything Daddy or I can do, you know you only have to ask.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a gift, a shining arrow pointing out the way. ‘Why was I sent away when I was a baby?’ There. It was out, bald and ugly.

  ‘Oh, but I thought you knew all about that, darling!’ Mara gritted her teeth. Her mother was glancing at her, but Mara stared at the road ahead. There was a pause, then her mother said, ‘I’m afraid I simply reached a point when I couldn’t cope. Post-natal depression is terribly common, darling. Just one of those unfortunate things.’ She pulled out sharply to overtake a tractor. ‘It’s not something we ever really talk about.’

  Well, maybe you should have done. Maybe if you talked about these ‘unfortunate things’ I wouldn’t be so fucked up now.

  There was another pause. Eight miles. The cathedral would be in sight soon. Her mother was no longer glancing anxiously at her. Mara could see her hands gripping the steering-wheel tightly.

  ‘If you think . . .’ her mother began. ‘If it would help you, darling,
I could try to explain.’ Mara glimpsed the terrible guilt through the cracked surface.

  ‘No.’ Why are you saying this, coward? ‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Really. It’s nothing. I was just wondering, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, all right. If you’re sure.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her mother began to brighten.

  This is what we always do: collude, protect one another.

  ‘It wasn’t that we were trying to get rid of you. You know that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If we’d thought you were miserable with Huw and Susan that would’ve been different, of course.’ They weren’t looking at each other. Her mother’s hands were still locked to the wheel. ‘But you always said you loved it at the farm. You asked to go every summer. You were wild to go.’ Mara heard the plea, but could not make herself speak. Her mother turned to her. Suddenly, the road ahead –

  ‘Careful! That lorry!’

  The car swerved and a horn blared.

  ‘Goodness!’ said her mother in relief. ‘Where did he come from?’ They rounded a corner rather fast. ‘Look, there it is.’

  The cathedral rose up in the distance and cast its long shadow over Mara’s heart. Her body ached with dread. The car could have been a tumbril bearing her so steadily towards the City. Drive slowly, drive slowly. Every ghost and every fear she had ever fled would be lining the streets in silence to watch her ride by. ‘Take me home, Mummy!’ she wanted to cry. ‘I don’t want to go through with it!’ But she knew if she ran now she would spend the rest of her life running – a coward, a fugitive from the relentless grace of God. With every second the cathedral grew, gliding on the countryside like a ship at sea as the car swept round the outskirts of the City.

  CHAPTER 17

  They met no one in the college entrance hall or on the stairs. Mara’s mouth felt dry as she climbed, preparing her pleased reaction to the brightened-up room. My keys, she thought suddenly. Where are they? When did I last have them? She paused on the final flight of steps.