The Noonday Devil

by Alan Judd

  Dr Barry folded his arms. ‘How interesting. This is clearly a more pragmatic student generation than Jan Palach’s. Or perhaps just British.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean I approve or disapprove in principle,’ continued Orpwood. ‘Just that I don’t see the point of it – unless there is a point.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Hansford firmly.

  ‘Robert’s a pragmatist, I imagine?’ asked Dr Barry.

  Robert shrugged and smiled. ‘Well, I could see that someone might do it for the hell of it.’

  ‘But people don’t do that,’ said Anne quickly. ‘And I don’t think you believe they do. It’s completely negative. No one lives like that.’

  ‘Perhaps they never get round to doing anything about it.’

  Dr Barry laughed. ‘Too apathetic to be negative? Pleasing thought.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Tim agrees, I bet.’

  Tim tried to turn it away with a facetious remark about the oil crisis and the waste of petrol. They laughed awkwardly except for Anne, who continued to stare at Robert. Her brown eyes looked hard and brimful.

  ‘But what do you really think?’ she asked.

  Robert smiled again, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He did not want to be drawn in. He had no strong views, was aware only of an absence of feeling. ‘Well, if you want to do it, why not? Assuming whoever it was was responsible only for himself.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t really think that. We’re all responsible for each other.’ She continued to stare, then added slowly, ‘I don’t believe that’s what you really think.’

  ‘At least Jan Palach died for something, which is more than the rest of us will do. We’ll just die. A bit later, that’s all.’

  ‘And the fact that we’re still talking about him shows he achieved something,’ said Dr Barry.

  Anne still stared. Her eyes had softened and were almost pleading but she said no more. Robert stared evenly back. For a moment he was pleased at having provoked, perhaps even hurt, but when he thought of the Bursar’s secretary again he shook his head very slightly, as if to indicate he hadn’t been serious. Anne smiled and looked down.

  Tim was the first to go, dishonestly pleading work. While saying goodbye he seemed suddenly to become conscious of leaving with unseemly haste and so became uncharacteristically formal and protracted in his thanks. Hansford and Orpwood stayed for a short while, then left together, pausing with cumbersome politeness at the gate. Despite his rehearsal, Robert accepted Anne’s invitation to help with the washing-up. Dr Barry went upstairs to make some telephone calls.

  ‘Wash or dry?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t mind.’

  ‘You should mind more.’ She threw him his tea towel. ‘This negativity won’t do. You should get married.’

  ‘Me?’

  She laughed at his expression. ‘Marriage is so relaxing. That’s what’s nice about it. Unforced intimacy. It stops you from sinking in on yourself. You grow into it. It expands you.’ She laughed again and put her hand on her stomach. ‘That wasn’t deliberate, I promise.’

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

  ‘David and me, we’re very close, you know. It’s very sustaining. People talk about regrets but I really haven’t any. We’re very, very fond of each other.’ Her eyes shone now with sincerity and she talked urgently, as if advertising something. ‘It must show, doesn’t it?’

  He took a dripping plate from her. ‘You look very well on it.’

  Dr Barry came noisily downstairs, complaining about people who were never there when you wanted them. Robert said he had to go.

  ‘On with rehearsing?’ asked Dr Barry cheerfully. ‘I always imagine you as nocturnal. I suppose you do your work at night?’

  Robert hesitated. ‘I am pretty nocturnal, yes.’

  On the doorstep Anne slipped her arm around Dr Barry’s waist. He put his round her shoulders.

  ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Robert to get married,’ she said.

  ‘You should, you should,’ said Dr Barry. ‘Do you good. It’s a good institution. Does everyone good.’

  Robert nodded and smiled as he backed away down the garden path. ‘Thanks for dinner.’

  The next day was Founder’s Day, which the college celebrated with a free feast in the evening. It was said that at one time swans were eaten but during recent years it had become traditional to have an unseasonal Christmas dinner, with summer pudding substituted for Christmas pudding. Before the meal there was a service in chapel at which the President preached the Founder’s sermon. This could be about anything the President chose and differed from other sermons preached by himself or the Chaplain only in that it was published in the college gazette. Those reading theology were expected, though not compelled, to attend.

  For over a year now Robert had avoided his fellow theologians. He had nothing against them. Pale, polite, earnest young men, they almost all were destined for the Church, and mostly High Church at that – evangelism did not flourish alongside the academic study of biblical texts. Robert avoided them because he felt fraudulent in their company, and decided to attend the service because he felt guilty about avoiding them. He had been at rehearsal most of the day and there was more later that night so the evening was written off anyway.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Tim.

  ‘What for?’

  Tim was momentarily awkward. ‘Well – to see what it’s like.’

  Robert usually forgot Tim’s intermittent interest in religion. Most of the time Tim was unconcernedly agnostic but occasionally a potential for religious enthusiasm showed itself. He would make half-appreciative, half-mocking remarks, quoting Nietzsche and Pascal and sometimes the Bible – not, Robert discovered one day, from his reading but from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

  They arrived, late and gowned, to find the President already launched upon his sermon. They tried to slip in quietly to a pew about half way down but Tim banged his foot on the back of the one in front, causing the President to falter and a few of the small congregation to turn around. Robert looked down as if in prayer, hiding his smile and thinking of Chetwynd, the God-hater, working his malign influence from below.

  The President continued with one hand on the lectern, the other hidden in the fold of his surplice.

  ‘. . . which brings me back full circle to Traherne; “We love we know not what and therefore everything allures us.” Traherne saw love as a reaching out from oneself. For the Christian this is ultimately a reaching-out for God. We reach but what do we find? The experience of God is rarely direct – remember, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.”

  ‘For most of us the experience of God is filtered through the world. Our reaching out is a blind response to His presence. We strive towards Him, we yearn for Him, often without knowing it. In loving what is of limited value we learn to love what is of value without limit. As we progress our love has less to do with particulars, more with love itself, which is God. This journey has no end but itself. It has to be made, not to take us anywhere but that we may discover the end within.

  ‘But this happens only when we fully love, not when we egotistically grab things, hug them to ourselves, make of everything a passion. That is why our love for each other so often fails. In such cases it is not the other person we love but an image of our own making. When a person fails the image, or breaks out of it, everything fails. And this because we loved not them at all but ourselves. Them, we hardly knew.

  ‘It is only in loving that we discover what there is to love. Really to love is very hard. It begins with an acceptance of your own vulnerability and ends with renunciation of yourself. It has to be fought for every minute of every day. It means rediscovering your essential self, that self from which, without God, you have become estranged. Hardened by habit and selfishness, rediscovering our deeper selves brings both joy and pain. It may be a sudden birth or slow but it is never easy. So it is with God. He dwells i
n a secret room within us and our real journeys are inwards. But we make them by reaching out, by being generous and vulnerable. The goal of love is itself – God – and we cannot reach Him without renunciation. We must in life be prepared to lose everything that we value, all that makes it worthwhile, every person, everything. For assuredly we shall, prepared or not.

  ‘Remember Christ on the cross. Did He not then make plain once and for all the nature of God – ultimate self-giving? And was He not, even He, at the end deprived – “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” God left Him. Think of that.

  ‘The meaning of this is that we must give all to gain all. There is no middle way. Failure to love is the real death, it is to lose all without hope. Most of us sense this but normally we love only in part, as we live only in part. To paraphrase Traherne, “We know not how to love and therefore everything eludes us.” ’

  The President stepped heavily down from the pulpit. A hymn was sung, the Chaplain said a short prayer for world peace and the service ended.

  Outside the President and Chaplain talked together in a corner of the quad. They parted abruptly, each with his cassock billowing.

  There was still time before dinner. Tim proposed they walk in the Fellows Garden. ‘That was something,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The sermon.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  They walked slowly, heads bowed, hands behind backs, feet crunching the gravel. ‘Now I feel like a don,’ said Tim.

  Robert was lost in his own thoughts. Tim trod with slow care as if he were brimful and trying not to spill something. ‘So, we have only to love,’ he added.

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Is it true, do you think?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘But you don’t care?’

  Robert gazed at the roses without noticing them. ‘I used to.’

  A window opened and the Chaplain leaned out. He had removed his surplice and his white shirt was open at the neck, strikingly setting off his fine quick features and blonde hair.

  ‘Come and have a drink before dinner,’ he said.

  The Chaplain’s room was lined from floor to ceiling with books. Two of the chairs, a trunk and a small table were Far Eastern exotica.

  ‘Tim liked the sermon,’ said Robert bluntly.

  The Chaplain poured sherry into glasses of a kind given away with petrol. ‘It’s the first time you’ve been to chapel, isn’t it? This is dry, is that all right? Yes, it was quintessentially presidential. It’s always either love or redemption. He takes turn and turn about. Your health.’

  They sat and there was a pause until Tim spoke with unusual energy. ‘I was struck by the way he tied it in with “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I’d never thought of it like that.’

  ‘Dear old Psalm 22; “Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” I say that every time I mark Schools papers.’

  ‘Psalm 22?’

  The Chaplain’s eyes shone as if with drink, excessive good humour or malice. ‘Jesus quotes the psalms throughout the crucifixion. I’m surprised Robert hasn’t told you – unless he’s forgotten all of his NT study? Each of the four accounts of the crucifixion shows Jesus quoting from the Old. Correct, Robert?’

  Robert nodded.

  ‘In fact, Psalm 22 was the model for the crucifixion – “They have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stand and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them and for my rainment they cast lots.” It was most likely propaganda by the evangelists trying to prove Jesus’s continuity with the Old Testament. That was the main concern of the early Christians. They were fighting for the inheritance of orthodox Judaism. They wanted to remain Jews. But they lost and were called Christians instead. Hence two religions with the same text.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  The Chaplain’s eyes were softer but still smiling. ‘Hope I haven’t dampened your ardour.’

  ‘No, no. It’s very interesting.’

  ‘Of course, it’s possible that Jesus did say some of what’s attributed to him. He probably knew his Old Testament pretty well so he could have quoted from it if he was feeling talkative, though the fact that he makes different remarks in each of the four gospels is a bit awkward; and where they are similar it’s usually because they’ve taken it from Mark or used a common source unknown to us.’

  ‘So what really happened?’

  ‘No one knows. All we can say is that something happened. Something very out of the ordinary to have provoked such fuss. Many other things happened. There were other messiahs, other prophets – but none had an effect like this. That’s really all we can say. Though there was Paul, of course. There wouldn’t have been a Church without him.’ The college bell rang for dinner. ‘Anyway, you must tell the President you liked his sermon. He was bemoaning falling attendance last week but if you praise him for today I might be able to persuade him to stand in for me next Sunday.’

  ‘I’ll mention it.’

  The Chaplain finished his own sherry. ‘Schools will be on you both very soon, won’t they? When do they start?’ The question was addressed to Tim.

  ‘The seventeenth. No, there’s one paper on the afternoon of the sixteenth. The seventeenth is the first full day.’

  ‘Are you confident?’

  ‘About as confident as I deserve.’

  Robert’s sherry was untouched. The Chaplain turned in his chair. ‘Robert, you look as if you’re musing on failure. You’ve no need, I promise you.’

  Robert picked up his sherry and smiled. ‘Failure to love.’

  ‘Of course.’ The Chaplain smiled back. ‘A very deadly sin. A real spiritual killer. The President will be pleased.’

  He remarked then on the college position in the Norrington Tables, which listed colleges in order of priority according to Schools results. Norrington had been a Trinity man, and Trinity, a small, easy-going and uncompetitive college, was usually near the bottom. The Chaplain was amused by this.

  The feast was a boisterous affair further enlivened by a friend of Hansford’s who walked the length of the tables in order to pick up the pepper pot from someone he didn’t like. He trod in summer puddings and was cheered on by the rowing club.

  Afterwards Tim was to have taken some freesias to Anne to thank her for the supper but he seemed overwhelmed by lassitude, unable to make up his mind to do anything. He said he didn’t want to see or speak to anyone and suggested Robert took them. Robert was keen to do so but argued quite forcibly that he should not until satisfied that Tim would not relent.

  When he called he was let in by Yale Gail who said that Dr Barry was out and that Anne was in her room, reading. He found the bedroom door ajar and the light on. There was no answer to his soft knock so he cautiously stepped in.

  She was in bed, lying on her side and staring at the wall through half-closed eyes, a book open on the floor. Roused by his movement she began slowly to raise herself without looking round. ‘It’s all right, I’m coming, I’m coming.’ She moved with effort but when she saw who it was she lay down again. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ There was a pause. ‘I thought it was David.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought you were awake.’

  She lay as she had been, her eyes fully open but puffy. Her face looked heavier and older.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Pregnant.’

  He remained by the door. ‘Anything I can do? You don’t look very well.’

  ‘Not unless you want to have it for me.’

  ‘I won’t stop. I’ve got these for you, that’s all. They’re from Tim too. I’ll leave them downstairs.’

  She lifted her head. ‘You shouldn’t have. Thank you – come another day.’

  ‘I’ll come tomorrow, maybe.’

  ‘Yes, tomorrow.’

  He turned to leave but stopped as she began to sob. Her face was in the pillow and her body shook. For a few seconds he could not decide whether sh
e would prefer him to go or stay, then he went to the bed and laid his hand on her shoulder. Gradually and laboriously she sat up and began drying her eyes on a tissue tucked in the sleeve of her nightgown. ‘I hate being like this,’ she whispered. ‘Hate it, hate it.’

  ‘You’re sure there’s nothing I can get you?’ His voice sounded thicker than usual.

  She blew her nose. ‘Sorry. Thought you were David. Stupid of me.’

  The front door opened and closed. Robert started. ‘That’s probably him now,’ he said.

  ‘He’s been at a Philosophical Society meeting.’ She dabbed at her eyes again and pushed back her hair. ‘They’re always in the evening. I don’t know why they have to be so late.’

  ‘I’ll go and see if it’s him.’

  ‘Don’t go. I mean, come back when you’ve been.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘Thank you.’

  Robert went noisily downstairs, as if to emphasize that he had nothing to hide. Dr Barry was in the hall. He looked surprised but smiled quickly. He took the freesias and headed for the kitchen.

  ‘Better put them in something,’ he said. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Tired.’

  ‘It’s a tiring time. Uncomfortable, too. Nothing to do but wait.’ He dithered by the draining-board, then filled one of the blue and white striped mugs with water and dumped the freesias in. They were too tall and began falling out. He pushed them back twice. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Have you got a vase?’ asked Robert.

  ‘Dozens, probably. Don’t ask me where, though.’

  They looked around the kitchen. Robert stared without seeing. Dr Barry pointed to a glass jug on the dresser ‘What about that?’

  Robert fetched it. It was a heavy piece with a thick base. As he crossed the kitchen he had a sudden wilful vision of smashing Dr Barry’s head with it. His head was too large for his body, anyway, and looked fragile and vulnerable. Robert imagined it flattened like the cat’s head under Tim’s stone. Dr Barry reached for the jug but Robert held onto it. Dr Barry’s eyes were suddenly wary and nervous.

  ‘How was your meeting?’ Robert asked.