‘What?’ Her tears vanished, scorched clean off her burning cheeks.
He gave her the ravishing smile. ‘Sorry, ignore me. Just thinking out loud. What sort of parish are you looking for, then?’
‘Well, a good incumbent is the first priority.’ She eyed him nervously. ‘Someone I can learn from and respect.’
‘You see your curacy as the second half of your training, then?’
‘Yes. Maybe I can scrape together some management skills.’ She let out a little bleating laugh. Did he honestly think she’d go to bed with him just because she’d accepted lunch? Was this how people carried on in the real world? She pushed the strange leaves around her plate. ‘Is this rocket?’ she asked desperately.
He took her hand and kissed the palm. Her stomach plunged as though she had nearly stepped off a very high building. She pulled away. ‘Look, I’d better go. I’m sorry if I’ve given you the wrong impression, but –’
‘Don’t worry. You haven’t. Oh, come on, Annie. I’m sorry. Stay and let me redeem myself.’ He got up to make the coffee, and she remained where she was, immobilized by the fear of looking churlish. ‘Tell me about this placement.’
She hesitated. ‘We all have to spend some time here,’ she began rapidly. ‘There are various . . . um, ways of . . . Some people spend a term living here. I’m doing the three-week course in July.’ She was conscious of not being strictly honest, but she could hardly tell him why Tubby had sent her to wander around. ‘Why did you choose to work in Bishopside?’
‘I thought I could make a difference.’ He smiled. ‘My family tell me I’ve got a saviour complex.’
‘Do you enjoy being a doctor?’
It was a pathetic little question, but he was behaving himself now and took it seriously. ‘Most of the time. And then you get one of those hellish days. You’ll meet it in the ministry – situations where every course of action you can take, including doing nothing at all, is wrong from someone’s point of view.’
‘Like?’
‘Oh, referring a woman for an abortion, for instance. Personally I’m against it, except in extreme cases, and I mean extreme. But who am I considering? The foetus? My patient? My own integrity? If I don’t refer her another doctor probably will, so what difference does my refusal make? The question is, how do you live honourably in the midst of compromise?’
That is the question, thought Annie, and tried in vain to think of an answer. This new thoughtfulness was far more dangerous and seductive than his earlier manner.
He shrugged. ‘You do what you can professionally, then dish out plenty of off-prescription TLC. Tender loving care,’ he explained, seeing her surprise.
‘Ah,’ said Annie, trying to sound illuminated.
He wasn’t fooled, and to her astonishment a faint flush crept across his cheeks. ‘Jesus. You think I’m incapable of tenderness?’
She could see him retreating. ‘I . . . I don’t really know you.’
‘Well, that can be remedied in a matter of minutes,’ he replied. ‘If you’d care to step upstairs.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’
‘I have some?’
She gulped down the last of her coffee and pretended to look at her watch. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘I’ll run you to the station.’
‘It’s all right.’ He helped her on with her coat. For a fraction of a second he was standing close behind her. Libby panted wetly in her ear. Annie glimpsed a wild new universe in which she got into bed with strange men without preamble. She fumbled her coat around her and hurried to the door. He was setting the alarm and following her out of the house.
‘Just point me in the right direction. I’ll walk.’
‘It’s raining. I’ll drive you.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘Just get in the fucking car, will you?’ She obeyed, wondering if she would ever get used to his casual obscenity. Just a habit these young doctors get into. He gave her a sidelong glance as he started the engine. ‘I’m free every Wednesday afternoon.’
‘That’s nice for you.’
‘Call round, honey child,’ he drawled. ‘Ride my pole. Sit on my face.’
I’d quite like to jump up and down on it, thought Annie, studying her Doc Martens in furious embarrassment. ‘Are you always this crude?’
He chuckled. ‘Usually. Don’t tell Edward. He’ll have my balls.’
They drove to the station in silence. Annie’s fingers gripped her bag rigidly. What if she hadn’t convinced him she was serious?
‘Look,’ she began as he pulled up on the forecourt, ‘I hope this doesn’t seem like some kind of challenge, William. I won’t change my mind.’
‘Will.’
‘I won’t!’
‘No, call me Will.’ He does do it on purpose, she thought. She got out of the car.
‘Thank you for lunch.’
‘My pleasure. Shall I come and visit you in college?’
‘No!’ she cried in alarm. He was grinning as he drove off.
She walked into the station and stared blindly at the departures board. I can’t believe it. What an awful, awful man. Her knees began trembling. She remembered his lips on her palm and clenched her fist. Her stomach plunged again. At least the Bishopside question was resolved. There was no way she could spend a term there now. Perhaps it was guidance. She tried to compose herself and read the train times, but they blurred before her eyes. I’ve just walked away from the best sex I’m ever likely to get. She sniffed back the tears. There wasn’t even the consolation that God was pleased. She wasn’t chaste, merely timid. If I’d been Eve, we’d still all be in Eden. Too terrified of the green-eyed snake and the wrath of God to taste the forbidden fruit.
CHAPTER 9
The train journey home did not give Annie long enough to calm herself down. She knew she wasn’t ready to report back to Tubby, or face her friends and their concerned questions, so she hurried into the cathedral before going back to college. She needed the stillness and order of the place.
The cathedral was not quiet, however. Hordes of primary-school children were rehearsing for a service. Their cheerful cacophony followed her as she made her way up a side aisle and round behind the high altar. She sat down in the gloom gazing up at the rose window. I feel like an ant. Was this why the Normans built such vast cathedrals – to remind us we are finite?
Frail children of dust
And feeble as frail
the children were singing.
In thee do we trust,
Nor find thee to fail.
Annie felt her eyes filling with tears. I know that. I know God has never failed me. Wasn’t the Cross proof enough of his love? He died for me. What more could I ask? ‘There is therefore now no condemnation.’ As a teenager Annie had underlined these words in her Bible. But she had always felt that there was an invisible footnote: Except for me. Except for me. This was the kind of miserable despair she felt herself sliding back into when her faith wavered. As she stared up at the glowing colours in the window Annie feared that her faith was no longer just wavering. It was toppling over. She had been planning a building as huge and durable as a cathedral, but now it looked like a folly, all rainbow glass and tracery against the sky.
Annie bent her head. Tears began splashing on to her clasped hands. Part of her wanted to blame William for his casual demolition of her beliefs, but what kind of faith crumbled in the face of a few hostile questions? She squeezed her hands together. Perhaps God doesn’t want me to be a priest. Maybe I’ve been deluded.
Well, what did I tell you, Anne? crowed her mother.
But I truly believed you were calling me, God. I –
You honestly think you’re cut out for this? interrupted William’s scathing voice.
You know you’re not, said her mother. You may as well admit it.
I admit it, she thought. I confess that the idea of running a large parish fills me with dread. I’ve been tryin
g to tell myself I’ll conquer my fears as I go on, but I’m scared I won’t. I’ll always be incompetent. Yet what was she to make of her sense of calling? That birthday feeling, that glorious Yes! ringing round the soul? The parish placement she’d done in the summer had been perfect. She’d been working alongside someone she trusted and admired. Harry had been a wonderful example, and she’d felt safe with his leadership. He’d be the perfect incumbent to train curates. If only I could be a permanent curate, she thought. She would happily accept limited privileges in exchange for limited responsibility for the rest of her working life. But the priesting of women was closing that option. The Church would want its full money’s worth. And Annie sensed that women who chose to remain deacons would always have a question mark hanging over them. Why weren’t they priests, people would wonder. Did they oppose women’s priesthood, or had they blotted their prayer books in some way? Would anyone believe that she genuinely only wanted to be second in command?
She wiped her eyes and looked back up at the window. What a feeble person I am. God deserved better – stern saints and warriors. She thought about Cuthbert, behind whose shrine she was skulking. What would he think of me? ‘Get that foul unclean creature out of my church!’ probably. There was a stone boundary line way down the nave at the west end of the cathedral which in medieval times women weren’t allowed to cross, in case it enraged the arch-misogynist saint in his coffin. Or perhaps old Cuthbert had been quite fond of women, and his misogyny was a later invention to keep women in their place. Annie pictured the back of the cathedral packed with wimpled women, arms folded, eyes narrowed, waiting. Waiting to storm the sanctuary. She suspected that this was the fear which lurked behind all the elaborate High Church theologizing about the priesthood.
But what was she going to tell Tubby? Perhaps she could say she was considering the possibility that she was called to be a deacon, not a priest. As she turned the idea over in her mind she could almost see William’s sarcastic sneer. Now that she was safe from him she burned with indignation. He was without doubt the most arrogant, unkind, crude man she had ever met. And yet there had been that tantalizing glimpse of another William, a man who was struggling to live honourably in the midst of compromise. Or had that been a ploy? He was clever enough to know that she was unlikely to hop into bed with him on impulse. She would need to be able to convince herself that her lust was not squalid. If he presented himself as a man with integrity then she might be hooked. And yet it had not seemed disingenuous. You think I’m incapable of tenderness? That had sounded real enough.
Annie could hear the children beginning another song. ‘“When a knight won his spurs . . .”’ It took her back to her own schooldays, when she had spent her whole time in subterfuge of one kind or another. She had learnt to be invisible: just the right amount of industry to satisfy the teachers without rousing their interest; never too good or too bad at anything; bland enough to escape both popularity and bullying. Home was no better. She was constantly trying to evade her mother’s intrusive curiosity. The Brown children weren’t allowed secrets. They weren’t allowed to hide away in their bedrooms on their own. What are you doing up there, Anne? Come down and sit with the family. What’s that book? Who was that letter from? Where are you off to? Annie read at night by the light of the street-lamp outside her window. Her secret thoughts were written in code. She sat downstairs with the family while in her mind she rode off bareback across Andalusia, her long black hair streaming in the wind. By the time she was ten years old she had learnt to hide away anything that was precious to her – her letters, her writing, her feelings and hopes – and now the habit was so ingrained she found herself without a soul in the world who knew what she was really like. Sometimes she felt lonely and misunderstood, but at least she was safe. When someone saw through her it felt like an outrage, a violation, even. It unleashed that wave of sick impotent fury she felt each time she discovered her mother had been looking through her things again. This was exactly what William made her feel with his yeah, yeah expression and cold sarcastic insight. He despised her and was bent on exposing her for the fraud she was.
And yet he wanted to go to bed with her! Her mind doubled back to this thought again. At least there was no need to confess this episode to Pauline. However much sensitivity and integrity he displayed in future she wasn’t in any real danger. Ride his pole, indeed. She had always tried to believe GPs outgrew their medical student humour. Perhaps they never did? ‘Try to relax for me, please. This won’t take a moment. Just a little prick . . .’
What would it be like to be seduced by Will, though? Would his hands work her over with the same ruthless precision he had displayed with the chopping knife? Tossing her with callous speed like a green salad? ‘Get that woman out of here!’ quavered Cuthbert. Annie stifled a giggle as Libby’s baying echoed round the cavernous vaults.
It was a miracle that she hadn’t spontaneously combusted by now, considering it was eleven years since she’d had sex. Ow-ow-ooww-oo! howled Libby. Eleven years. Eleven. It had been with her fiancé Graham. They should have waited till they were married, of course. They had intended to but one thing had led proverbially to another on a handful of occasions, and there they were. Each time she had been filled with disgust and guilt, but somehow she’d gone on and on, craving more and always more disgusted. Graham was weak and had simply followed her lead. A pliable man, malleable and ductile like something in a third-form chemistry experiment. He was as passive as her father, and to her horror his passivity began to drive her to cruelty. Graham was turning her into her mother. Sometimes she had visions of herself as she would have been had she married him: trapped with several children in an unwholesome marriage, riddled with spite and dressed in floral prints. It put her present worries into perspective.
She roused herself and started back to college. The cathedral clock chimed three as she hurried along the street. Coverdale seemed empty. Wednesday afternoon was traditionally given over to sport. Edward would be cycling up and down the towpath roaring at the college eight. Ingram would be flouncing around in his fencing class, his pale hair tied back with a velvet ribbon. Apparently he was good at it, but to Annie it was just another Ingram-type pose. ‘The pox of such antic, lisping, affecting fantasticoes!’ For Annie there was only one sport: the art of coarse novel writing. And very coarse it was going to be, too. She sat at her desk with a smile and reached for her notebook.
Isabella stood in front of her mirror scrutinizing herself in the black dress. A strange feeling crept over her. After a moment she recognized it: it was a qualm. A qualm, for God’s sake! She was nervous about wearing a dress like this to a theological college. She was even more nervous about Barney’s reaction. After all, she had promised to behave, and trying to behave in this outfit would be like attempting to stick to the speed limit in a Ferrari. From the front it looked acceptable, but the side view was hair-raising. Split thigh-high and held together by straining latticework. It would be obvious even to a rookie that she wasn’t wearing underwear. She was about to riffle through her wardrobe for something more suitable when she heard Barney’s footsteps coming along the corridor. There was a knock at the door. Oh, Gawd. She opened it. There he was in his dress suit. He kissed her cheek.
‘Is this dress all right?’ she asked, arms clamped to sides.
‘Looks fine to me. Turn round.’ She obliged him with the full horror of the side view. He closed his eyes and leant his forehead despairingly against the door frame.
‘You did say . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
He shook his head briskly, like a dog coming up out of water. ‘I did. Never mind. We can tell everyone you thought it was a tarts and vicars party.’
‘You cheeky sod!’ she pouted.
‘I think we’d better run through those ground rules one more time.’
‘Hands on, clothes off?’
‘Mmm. Something like that.’ He put his arms round her.
‘I just want you to know, Barney, that this lip
stick is totally smudge-proof.’
‘Thank you, Isabella.’
‘You see, I can’t help noticing that you’ve never kissed me.’
‘Haven’t I?’ He looked faintly surprised, as though he was almost sure he had.
‘I’m talking about real kissing, not a brotherly peck.’
‘Ah,’ he said uncertainly. My God – he doesn’t know what I’m talking about! Then she saw his lips twitch. She pushed him out of the door and they set off for the ball.
It took Isabella approximately ten seconds to reassure herself that hers was the most outrageous dress in the place. She observed a fine series of double-takes as she passed through the crowds. People called greetings to Barney as he found her a drink and led her to the marquee on the lawn. After a while, however, she began to imagine that they were casting him looks of sympathy, or pity, even. Normally this would have provoked her to act up, get drunk and bellydance in the flower beds, but she was held back by her promise to behave. She grew more miserable with each song the band played. Her jaws ached with the effort of keeping a bright smile on her face.
‘What’s wrong, Isabella?’
‘It’s this dress. Everyone’s staring. They all hate me!’
‘No, no!’ he protested, drawing her into his arms. ‘Only the women do. The men all hate me.’
‘It’s not funny, Barney. I’ll end up misbehaving again, and you’ll get mad.’
He drew her a little closer. ‘I will?’
And that was licence enough. She drank too much and danced sinuously, explicitly, downright disgracefully, waiting all the time for Barney’s disapproving frown. It never came. He seemed to be enjoying himself. Was it possible that these strange celibate creatures knew how to have a good time? All around her they seemed to be doing just that. She could see frumpy women and fat men blossoming when in another setting they would be disparaged and wilt. What a wonderful generous atmosphere, she thought drunkenly, as they queued up to collect their food. So warm. So accepting. And so deliciously easy to shine in.
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