The Benefits of Passion

by Catherine Fox

  ‘Is that you, Annie?’ came Edward’s voice from beside her.

  Horror! ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you giggling about?’

  ‘I can’t go with you sitting there!’ Annie wailed. She pulled the chain and fled. Later, when she met him in the street, he laughed and called her a funny girl. He was clearly puzzled by the whole incident. But, then, he had been to boarding school.

  Isabella wouldn’t be at all fazed by bodily functions, decided Annie. It was one of the reasons she liked her. Isabella had all the directness Annie lacked. Barney wouldn’t be disconcerted, either. Annie wondered briefly if she had borrowed a bit of Edward here. Her characters were a magpie’s hoard of stolen bits and bobs. An eyebrow here, an accent there. But what never ceased to amaze her was the way these cobbled-together creatures would stand up and live lives of their own with very little reference to her.

  Barney was a good example. She had first seen him, as Isabella had, walking through the catalogue room of Cambridge University Library. Big, blond and beautiful, minding his own business. Not being Isabella, however, she didn’t pursue him, but went on looking things up in the catalogue instead. She had seen him only once more, crossing John’s playing fields in cricket whites one June lunchtime. She didn’t even know his name, but now there was Barney, kitted out with a whole existence – home town, upbringing, family, education, vocation. He was more real than the blond stranger striding past her one June twelve years earlier.

  *

  Isabella set off for Latimer Hall at lunchtime the following day, intending to track down Barney and compel him to come to a May ball with her. It was a bright and breezy day, which fitted her mood perfectly. She had spent the morning revising, and her mind buzzed with fragments of Shakespeare’s sonnets as she cycled along. Isabella was neither a very diligent nor a very brilliant scholar, but she had tremendous self-belief which kept her skating with great speed and flair over the thinnest of academic ice.

  ‘“Unthrifty loveliness!”’ she recited as she hurtled over Clare bridge, ‘“Why dost thou spend upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?”’ She felt at one with the Bard in her pursuit of golden obstinacy, although more confident in achieving her goal than he appeared to have been.

  She reached Latimer and chained up her bike. In the big arched entrance she stopped someone and asked where Barney’s room was. G-staircase. Isabella set off across a wide grassy quad with Victorian red-brick buildings standing graciously round it. Some students were playing croquet on the lawn and there were a lot of mothers and toddlers roaming around.

  Her heels clipped demurely down the long path. She was wearing a pretty dress with a blue pansy print. Exactly the thing for visiting a clergyman-to-be in, except that on windy days – whoops! – the skirt would fly up round her ears like Marilyn Monroe’s on the subway grille. Under this she was wearing a slight hint of knicker and the kind of stockings which were supposed not to need a suspender belt but which usually did. ‘Hold-ups’ they were not. That, however, in Isabella’s book, was the whole point of them.

  She reached G-staircase. There was a list of names and room numbers at the foot of the stairs. Barnaby Hardstaff. She felt a flutter and began to climb. It was quiet. She glanced at the closed oak doors as she passed, wondering what effete clerical types were cringing behind them. When she found Barney’s room she paused and listened. He was there! Brushing his teeth by the sound of it. She knocked and went straight in. He was at the sink, back to her, stark naked. Isabella let out a shriek. He turned, toothbrush in mouth.

  ‘Barney! You’re huge!’ Her voice echoed round the stairwell. She was outside before she knew it, staring at the firmly closed door. Bugger. She tried the doorknob and heard the sound of the catch being dropped.

  ‘Let me in, Barney. Please. I want to talk to you.’ She knocked. No answer. There was a quality to the silence which convinced her that other people were listening behind all those closed doors. She dismissed the idea of wailing, I think I’m pregnant! ‘Barney, I want to ask you something.’

  The door opened. He’d got his cricket trousers on. She ducked under his arm and darted into the room before he could stop her.

  ‘The answer’s no,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know what the question is.’ She perched on the edge of his desk and admired his torso and chest hair.

  Surprise me, said his expression.

  ‘I’ve been reading the Bible,’ she improvised, as he pulled on his shirt. ‘I’d no idea it was so complicated. I keep getting all confused. Will you explain it to me?’

  His lips twitched as he struggled to remain serious. ‘Why not ask your college chaplain? That’s what he’s there for.’ He reached for his pullover.

  ‘Please, Barney. I’m sure you’re really good at it.’

  ‘I’m sure Tim is, too.’

  ‘But he’s gay.’

  His head emerged through the pullover neck, smiling. ‘I thought we were talking about Bible study, Isabella.’

  ‘Of course we are. So you will, then?’

  ‘No.’ There was silence as Isabella rethought her tactics. He was putting on his socks. She looked round the room. Books, sports stuff, beer cans. A bachelor’s room. It smelt of Imperial Leather soap. The window looked out over Newnham. Some girls were sunbathing on a flat roof. Good God. One of them was –

  ‘There’s a nude woman out there!’ she said.

  Barney glanced. ‘So there is.’ He picked up his boots calmly.

  ‘What kind of man are you?’ He was smiling again. ‘Oh! You knew. I bet you’ve spent the last hour leching!’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He had a foot up on the desk chair in front of her and was tying his laces. ‘She’s only been out there ten minutes.’

  Hah! ‘So you admit you’re interested in women?’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I’d denied it.’ I’m just not interested in you, his tone implied. He was lacing the other boot now. We’ll see about that. She hitched up her skirt and began adjusting her stockings. His bent head was just inches from her thighs.

  ‘The buggers work their way down when I walk,’ she explained innocently when he looked up at her.

  A second later she was studying the outside of the locked door again.

  ‘Let me in, Barney.’ She rattled the knob. ‘I promise I’ll be good.’ There was no answer. She decided to play to her unseen audience. ‘Oh, come on, Barney. You can’t possibly waste an erection like that. It’s sacrilege! I’m sure God wouldn’t want you to.’

  The door opened abruptly. She leapt back in case she had pushed him too far. He came out with his cricket bat, looking completely unconcerned, and headed down the stairs. She scampered to keep up with him, heels clacking on the wooden steps.

  ‘Barney, will you come to a May ball with me?’

  ‘No.’ They were at the bottom.

  ‘Why not?’ No reply. He began striding across the quad. ‘Please.’

  ‘I said no.’ When Barney says no, he means it.

  ‘Why not? Have you got someone else? Is that it?’ Still no answer. She tugged at his arm. He stopped.

  ‘What?’ He was exasperated at last.

  ‘I love you, Barney.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it, Isabella.’ Her mouth dropped open.

  ‘Funny? What do you mean funny? I want to go to bed with you, for God’s sake! What better way of showing it is there?’ A small child was gazing up at her in wonderment from the lawn. Piss off, she thought. Barney simply shook his head and began walking again. Her cheeks burned.

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Buy a bloody vibrator?’ she muttered at his retreating back.

  But he heard her and turned round. ‘Why not buy a six-pack while you’re at it? I’ll give you a donation.’

  With that he walked off, leaving her spluttering in the middle of the path. He really did mean no. Here was a healthy red-blooded male who was genuinely not interested in a quick no-strings-attached legover. She tried to shrug
it off. Perhaps she wasn’t his type. But what if he thought she was a slut? And suddenly she could think of no good reason why he shouldn’t think that. It’s only a game, for God’s sake. Why was he taking it all so seriously? She stood, amazed at how much it hurt. I’m getting out of here, she thought. But, unfortunately, the only way out seemed to be along the path after Barney. She was going to have to walk past him and the other cricketers gathering in the archway. The small child was still staring at her. She stuck out her tongue at him, summoned her dignity and walked off.

  She was a few yards from the group of chatting men when her skirt, which had been docile all day, chose to leap up like a playful hound. She squeaked and clutched at it. There was a tactful silence and she scurried past the men and their averted smirks. Bloody vicars. It wouldn’t be half so embarrassing if they bayed and whistled like normal men.

  She heard them setting off and walking past her while she was bending to unlock her bike. She clamped her skirt firmly between her thighs and wrestled with the lock until she remembered something else about that dress. She straightened up hurriedly, but not before she had given the Latimer Hall First XI a generous glimpse of cleavage. If she had been able to meet Barney’s eye as he passed her, she would have seen that he had a distinctly unsaintly expression on his face.

  They had just –

  There was a knock at Annie’s door. She shut her notebook and hid it swiftly under her Bible.

  ‘“Reject battered fishcakes”,’ said Ted coming up behind her.

  She laughed. ‘“We offer a full range of sundries.”’

  ‘I’m just off to chapel. Do you want to walk down with me?’

  She sensed an undercurrent of concern. Damn damn damn it all. What if her friends had got together and said, ‘We’re a bit worried about Annie,’ and chosen Ted as the best person to tackle her?

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’ She rubbed her forehead.

  ‘Headache?’ asked Ted.

  ‘No. I’m fine.’ There was a pause.

  ‘Good.’

  She hated fobbing him off like this. ‘I expect it’s just my hormones running amok.’

  Ted gave her shoulder a friendly pat. ‘Poor old Annie.’

  She got to her feet. He was probably used to fielding this kind of thing – teenage daughters, menopausal wife. She pictured him in rubber waders venturing out into a dangerous tide of oestrogen. They set off along the corridor.

  ‘It’s my age,’ she apologized. ‘Big Ben. Ticking away. I expect it’ll fade.’

  ‘Into a small folding travel clock, maybe,’ he suggested, taking up her image as she’d expected him to.

  ‘Good. I can stifle it under my pillow.’

  ‘Or throw it against the wall.’ They went down the stairs.

  Edward came crashing down three at a time and caught them up. ‘Morning!’ He might have been addressing a parade ground.

  ‘I sometimes forget to wind my clock up, these days,’ said Ted.

  Don’t, pleaded Annie’s look. She could feel herself starting to giggle.

  ‘Why don’t you get one with batteries, then?’ asked Edward.

  Annie yelped.

  ‘It’s got a snooze button,’ went on Ted. ‘In case I want to nod off again.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Edward demanded.

  ‘I’ve given up asking,’ replied Ted.

  They went out on to the street and crossed over to the college chapel. It was a cold grey morning. The cathedral bells chimed. Ding dong ding dong! Ted glanced at Annie and made her laugh again, but she was aware how easily her laughter could slide over the edge into tears. If she were to plunge off down the street sobbing they would understand. The time of the month. Her age. Poor old Annie. They stood aside and let her enter chapel first. It was just politeness, of course, but it felt as though they were police officers escorting her into the dock.

  CHAPTER 4

  They were just –

  They were just what? wondered Annie as she stared at the page. She couldn’t remember how that sentence had been going to finish before Ted had interrupted her the previous day. There was no time at present to reconstruct the scene in her mind. She was supposed to be at a doctrine lecture.

  Dr Mowbray was already passing round handouts when Annie entered Coverdale lecture room. She slid into an empty seat beside Edward. He gave her his wide flashing smile, and her sex-drive came bounding up like a friendly dog with its tail wagging. In your basket, Libby! ordered Annie. Libby was short for Libby-doo, which was how one of Annie’s former pupils had thought libido was pronounced. Libby sat panting quietly as Dr Mowbray cleared his throat and put on his glasses.

  ‘Right. Models of atonement today.’ He flapped a piece of orange paper. ‘Does everyone have one of these salmon-coloured handouts?’ There were some smothered grins. Dr Mowbray was very alert to subtle colour gradations. Ted and Annie had wasted many moments devising fanciful names for white paper (polar-bear-coloured, shaving-foam-tinted). Annie looked at the sheet. Quotations from the Early Fathers and great Reformers. It was complemented shortly by a mature Cheddar-coloured sheet with extracts from more recent theologians. Dr Mowbray began.

  At first Annie concentrated, on the grounds that if he could be bothered to say it she should be bothered to listen. Dr Mowbray was a kind man with a thorough but rather monotonous lecturing style. He had been a tutor in Coverdale since about the mid-sixteenth century. Before long, however, her thoughts were deflected along a path of their own.

  The Crucifixion was supposed to be the pivot of human history. It was the point at which the eternal intersected with the temporal. Somehow Christ was reconciling the world to God by his death on the Cross. Somehow. But how? Annie’s eyes scanned the yellow and orange sheets. So many answers to this one question. They all seemed to glance off the surface of the problem. Annie no longer had any answers of her own. As a child she had always pictured the Crucifixion taking place in the back garden at home under the shadow of the horse-chestnut tree. The scribes and Pharisees walked up and down the dusty lane beside it, wagging their heads. They were dressed in long stripy robes from the Sunday School dressing-up box and they had tea-towels on their heads. The wind stirred in the sticky buds while Christ hung motionless on his Cross.

  There is a green hill far away

  Without a city wall,

  Where the dear Lord was crucified,

  Who died to save us all.

  It was a strangely dispassionate Passion. Where was the violence, the man nailed up on a plank of wood and left to die in the Middle-Eastern sun?

  Edward’s biro was racing busily. Annie knew he was just going through the motions, though. He’d already got the Cross sorted out. He made no secret of the fact that his aim was to get through Coverdale with his faith unscathed. Annie suspected he viewed theological college as a sort of boot camp – lots of pretty tedious square-bashing and assault courses, but you knuckled down and got on with it for the sake of what lay beyond. He attended lectures and went on placements stoically, knowing it would soon be over. He’d be ordained, and then he could get on with the real business of proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples. Edward had no room for words like contextualization and dialogue in his vocabulary. ‘Load of bull,’ he could be heard booming above the throng in a voice that was clearly going to render some church PA system obsolete when he arrived there as curate.

  Annie sighed. Edward was a dear friend, but his theology suffocated her. It marshalled and harried everything into order and began sentences with the words the Bible says, as though this automatically silenced any counter-arguments. It dealt with Facts and Proofs. There was little room for the ‘what ifs’ and ‘yes buts’ of this world, and Annie was a terrible yes-butter. There were no buts. The Cross was God’s solution to Man’s sin, as amply demonstrated by the Bridge Illustration.

  Oh, that old Bridge Illustration. Annie doodled an arch on the salmon sheet. She had first encountered it at the age of five in a children’s addres
s. The visiting preacher (Mr Winter from Watford) got out his flannelgraph. He stuck a felt square saying GOD on the left-hand side of the board and a felt square saying MAN on the right. Between the two was a gap. They were separated by SIN. Man tried in vain to straddle the gulf of green baize with such jerry-built bridges as Good Works and Church Attendance, but in the end (lo and behold) it was a sturdy cross which fitted the hole perfectly. Ergo, you could only be saved by Christ’s atoning death. Annie was tempted to point out to Edward that a Qur’an of the right size would also fit. Or a doughnut, even, if you tamped it down properly. But Edward would think that it was just another of her mad, semi-sacrilegious notions.

  It wasn’t as if Edward had no sense of humour, thought Annie. He was quite capable of laughing at himself, once he’d worked out what the joke was. Annie smiled as she remembered a skit he had done in the Coverdale Christmas revue. Bishop inspects the troops. He had marched on to the stage in a purple shirt with a short crozier tucked under his arm and barked at a line of cassocked recruits: ‘All right. Straighten up, you lot. You’re in the Church now, you know.’ He had paused in front of Annie, who was hopeless at acting and had spent the entire sketch weeping with laughter, and bellowed, ‘What’s that you’ve got under your uniform, soldier?’

  ‘Bosoms, sir.’

  ‘Bosoms? Never heard of them! Not regulation!’