The Benefits of Passion

by Catherine Fox

  She went out to the car where he was balancing a large box.

  ‘J’accuse!’ he said, seeing her hair and her dress. ‘You’ve been spending my money. Turn round.’

  She obeyed. ‘Is it all right? It was Mara’s idea.’

  ‘Mmm. Very nice. Here, take this end.’

  They carried the box into the house and up to the spare room.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Your computer. Shall I show you how it works, or shall I just stick it up my arse?’

  He set it up and demonstrated how to use it. Annie was surprised at how simple it was to operate. It was like a clever typewriter, really. How silly to have been nervous of them all these years.

  ‘Now you can put your novel on disk and I can read it,’ said Will.

  ‘Later,’ said Annie.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘A curate and his wife.’

  ‘Any sex?’

  She blushed. ‘Some.’

  ‘Great. I like a good cassock ripper. Can I just read the opening paragraph? Please,’ he wheedled.

  She handed him the first notebook with a smile. He opened it eagerly, then threw it aside in disgust when he saw it was in code.

  ‘I’ll let you read it when I’m happy with it,’ she promised.

  ‘Which will be never.’

  He’s probably right, she thought. She stared at the screen then typed Chapter One. Suddenly it looked official. Her heart fluttered. Will saw her excitement and laughed. He put his arms round her and began kissing the nape of her neck.

  ‘I’m glad you came back,’ she said.

  ‘Were you worried?’

  ‘No. It’s just that Posthumous is such a silly name for a child. I gave those plants to the church bring-and-buy stall, by the way.’

  ‘What!’ he said in alarm, before he saw her laughing. ‘God, you’re so mean to me.’ He pouted. ‘It’s just an ancient herbal remedy.’

  ‘For what?’

  He smiled. ‘For reality.’ He was about to kiss her again when the phone rang. Annie started guiltily, remembering Johnny. Will went to answer it, and she heard him say, ‘Piss off. I’ve only just got in. Phone the surgery like everyone else.’ There was a longish pause. ‘OK. I’m on my way.’

  He came back into the room. ‘That was Johnny. Mara’s ill, but she won’t let him call the surgery. She’s terrified of hospitals. I said I’d go round.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘Will you be long?’

  He sighed. ‘Depends. Don’t wait up.’

  A strong aggressive woman like Mara afraid of hospitals? And Will and Johnny were indulging that fear. Annie knew she was being uncharitable and offered up a guilty little prayer that Mara would be all right then started to put her novel on to the computer. The first notebook was missing, however. Will must have put it down somewhere. In the end Annie gave up the search and began with the second book.

  At ten thirty she went to bed. Will rang to say he was at the hospital. ‘It looks like an ectopic pregnancy, I’m afraid,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘They’re operating now. I’ll stay here and keep Johnny company.’

  ‘Of course. Will she be all right?’

  ‘She’ll probably lose an ovary.’

  ‘The baby . . . ?’

  ‘No chance.’

  Annie lay in bed feeling her own baby fluttering. Poor Mara and Johnny. Their desperately wanted child gone while my little accident is still thriving, she thought. God is good. Would Johnny still be saying that? Annie prayed that he would.

  The following morning Annie was still too upset to write the next section of her novel and spent the time typing up the earlier chapters instead. The first notebook was still missing. What if she’d lost it altogether?

  Will returned for lunch looking very pleased with himself. He handed her a typed sheet.

  ‘Isabella Deane was downwardly mobile,’ she read. ‘Her older sister Hermione, who was not, deplored this tendency . . .’ Annie stared in disbelief.

  ‘But . . .’ Her missing notebook was in his hand. He’s deciphered it! Her face burned in indignation.

  ‘You said I could read it,’ he pointed out.

  ‘I hate you!’ Annie listened to her childish words in horror, but Will seemed unperturbed.

  ‘Go and type the rest up,’ he said. ‘I love it. I want to know what happens next.’

  She was too angry to be pleased by his praise.

  ‘I hope it has a happy ending,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she replied.

  ‘It has to. You’ve set it up as a comedy. You can’t bugger your readers around like that.’

  ‘I’m the writer. I can do what I like.’

  ‘No, you can’t. You’re not God.’

  Annie was still raging inwardly after he’d gone back to work. How dare he tell her how to write her own book? Eventually she calmed down enough to admit it was his violation of her secret shorthand that was angering her. It had been hers since childhood. It had repelled and thwarted everyone. He’s too clever by half, said her mother’s voice. But perhaps it had been a test she had unconsciously set him? He alone had bothered to decode her. And he loved what he’d found. She fingered the thought sceptically.

  That afternoon Annie was sitting waiting to have her scan. It was a broiling day. Please ensure that you have a full bladder, the appointment card said. And we will amuse ourselves at your expense by running late, it might have added. Annie shifted in her plastic chair.

  ‘Ee, I’m bloody bursting,’ the woman next to her muttered.

  At last she was called. A man in a white coat riffled disdainfully through her notes. ‘Cold,’ he warned her, dropping a dollop of gel on her exposed belly. He rolled the scanning device this way and that over her bulge. Patterns filled the screen. Annie gazed eagerly, but it might have been a satellite weather map of the UK for all she could tell. The man seemed to be taking measurements and she didn’t like to disturb him.

  ‘First day of last menstrual period?’ he asked.

  ‘Um, I’m not sure. Sorry.’

  He sighed. There was a pause for more measurements.

  ‘Well, everything seems to be fine. One foetus. Sixteen weeks, four days. Due date . . .’ he fiddled with a little cardboard disc, ‘the eighth of December.’

  He pointed out various bits of baby in a rather bored way. Stomach, spine, heart . . . Annie nodded, baffled by the jumble, but then suddenly she glimpsed a little hand and almost cried out.

  It’s real, she thought tremulously. My baby.

  The man wiped her belly with a paper towel. ‘Toilet through there.’

  Annie bolted towards it.

  Johnny was with Mara when Annie was shown into the room.

  ‘Oh! I’ll come back.’

  ‘No, stay and talk to her,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve got a couple of other visits to make.’

  Mara flapped a feeble hand and Annie hoped this indicated agreement.

  ‘If you’re sure . . .’

  ‘Aye. I’ll run you home later.’ He stooped to kiss Mara, then left the room.

  ‘Um, I brought you some novels,’ said Annie.

  ‘Thanks,’ whispered Mara. She was too ill to rouse herself, so Annie put the books on the bedside locker.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ began Annie. Mara’s hand flapped again. Annie perched on the edge of the bed.

  ‘At least I know I can conceive,’ whispered Mara.

  Annie nodded, wondering if Mara realized she had lost an ovary.

  ‘I’ve just been having my scan,’ she heard herself say. She stopped short, wishing she could suck in her tactless bulge.

  ‘Could you see much?’ asked Mara.

  ‘Not really. A hand.’

  They fell silent. Annie thought again about the little hand. She felt strange, as though she’d been intruding, prying into a nest where the fledgeling slept.

  ‘Are you scar
ed?’ asked Mara. ‘Of labour.’

  ‘I suppose I haven’t really thought about it,’ admitted Annie.

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Oh, but it can’t be as bad as what you’ve just been through.’ Annie heard her tones coming out with an awkward jolliness.

  ‘My sister had a baby. The brain never grew.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie. ‘Did she have other –’

  ‘She died.’

  Annie hesitated, unable to tell whether Mara meant her sister or the baby. Somehow she couldn’t ask. Mara’s eyes were closed. Annie watched as she drifted asleep, the blue-veined eyelids flickering. It was unbearably hot. Out of the window the lime-tree leaves hung motionless and the air shimmered over the hospital rooftops.

  Johnny returned at last. Mara stirred. ‘Say thank you to Will,’ she whispered.

  ‘Of course,’ said Annie.

  She walked with Johnny to his car, the melting tarmac tugging at her shoes.

  ‘Thanks for coming, pet,’ he said, unlocking the door.

  ‘That’s OK. I’m really sorry, Johnny.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart.’

  They got in. He started the car.

  ‘Um, would you like to eat with us tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d love to, but I’ve got my parents coming over.’ He sighed. ‘To look after me and generally tell me what a useless bastard I am.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Know what my dad said when I rang? “Keep it in your trousers, son. You’ve caused enough bother.”’

  ‘That’s horrible!’ cried Annie.

  ‘Aye, but he’s right. I’m to blame,’ he said. ‘Putting her through that. She was screaming, Annie. It was . . . I lost it. Completely. Thank God Will was there, that’s all.’

  Annie was appalled by the raw grief in his voice. She put a hand on his arm and said again, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just selfish, wanting a bairn.’

  ‘But she wants one, too.’

  ‘Only for my sake.’

  Annie didn’t know how to answer. They pulled up outside the house.

  ‘Aye, well. That’s life,’ said Johnny at last. ‘Tell him thanks, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She was getting out of the car when he said, ‘Oh, I was forgetting. I saw the Bishop. He’s given me the go-ahead with the church planting. And he says it’s OK for you to help, only not in any official capacity. “We’ll have to address the problem of her domestic circumstances at some stage,” he says. Don’t worry,’ said Johnny, seeing Annie’s mortified expression. ‘He’ll support you. He just can’t commission you officially. “It’s all a question of order, John.”’

  ‘I can’t do it, then.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. They don’t get to be bishops without a Ph.D. in being cautious. Think it over.’

  ‘OK.’

  She hurried into the house as he drove off. Her mother’s voice was already crowing in her ears. Oh, you thought you could get away with it, did you? There’s such a thing as common decency, you know, Anne. You should have thought of that before you stuck your neck out. Nobody’s going to want you now. Well, you made your bed, didn’t you? You can’t blame the rest of us if you don’t like lying in it.

  Shut up. Annie tried to cling to the thought that God wasn’t condemning her, that she could still be useful to him. Johnny accepted her. Why, even the Bishop accepted her. He was just being cautious. He would support her. It was just a question of order. But her mother’s voice rambled on, jeering and accusing, refusing to be silenced. Annie was back where she had always been – in the wrong. I will never, never feel acceptable, she thought. Then her mother’s voice changed tack. Oh, I know it’s not your fault, Anne. You’d marry him like a shot, if you could. You’ll just have to accept that you’ve landed yourself with a man who’s too selfish to do the honours. He’d rather ruin your career than give up his precious so-called principles.

  Annie stopped short. I don’t think that, do I? To her horror she saw that part of her did. Any possibility of her working professionally in the Church was effectively being blocked by Will. She felt a wave of panic. She was trapped. If she tried to force his hand she would lose him. It was a choice between two losses. Stop trying to make me choose between you and God! she remembered herself saying to him once. And what had he replied? You can’t have everything, honey child. Oh, was there no way of living honourably in all this?

  That night she had her dream of hell again. She woke to feel Will shaking her.

  ‘I was in hell,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that puts life with me into perspective,’ he remarked.

  She switched on the light and tried to shake off the desolate blackness. He was stroking her forehead. ‘I’d lost God. I called but knew he couldn’t answer.’

  ‘Are you afraid of eternal damnation?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s just the legacy of my upbringing,’ she said.

  ‘So long as it’s not my fault.’

  ‘No, no.’ But her voice wavered. She saw him frowning as she turned the light back out.

  CHAPTER 28

  The next day she couldn’t bring herself to read her Bible. She took refuge, as she had all her life, in her imaginary world. But Barney and Isabella were at a turning point, too. The plot was about to collapse into a deconstruction of the happily-ever-after myth. The prince sweeps the princess into his arms and gallops off with her to his castle, whereupon the marriage disintegrates. It would be open-ended, ambiguous at the last, like life. This was what she had planned all along. No easy happy ending. But now she realized how much she longed for a resolution, for some sense of closure both in her book and in her life. She skirted tentatively round the idea of marriage once more. Well, she would have to survive without a dénouement. She picked up her pen.

  Before Barney and Isabella had fully recovered from the boeuf Wellington fiasco, disaster struck. The vicar announced that he was leaving. This would mean an interregnum of up to a year before a replacement was found, and during that time Barney would have to hold the fort alone. Of course there would be help from other clergy in the Deanery, but the greatest burden would fall on Barney.

  Months went past. It struck Isabella one day that she couldn’t remember when she last saw her husband smile. He was fading before her eyes. Concerned ladies popped round with meat pies and gave Isabella little hints about a man needing his food. He raced from one thing to another trying to keep the parish plates spinning. Isabella was torn between resentment and pity.

  ‘Barney, this is terrible,’ she said one day. He was sitting at the dining-room table, scribbling a funeral sermon. ‘It shouldn’t be like this. Can’t you talk to the Bishop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It would look as though I’m not coping.’

  ‘But you’re not coping!’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You’re not! The job’s eating you alive.’ He sighed and put on his resigned expression. She wanted to shake him. ‘Look at you! You’ve lost weight, you’ve gone off sex, even. How can you say you’re coping?’

  ‘I’d cope a damn sight better without you whingeing,’ he muttered.

  ‘Whingeing?’ she exploded. ‘Listen, dickhead, these are real grievances. I’m beginning to wish I’d never married you. I saw more of you when we were engaged. At least I was a priority then. But now any lame duck in the whole sodding parish is higher up the list than me. All they have to do is phone and you go dashing round to minister to them! I’m your bloody wife! Doesn’t that mean anything to you? What do I have to do to get a share of your attention?’

  ‘Try growing up,’ he suggested, returning to his sermon.

  Isabella stared in speechless rage. This was how he’d looked all that time ago in the university library – working away, stubbornly refusing to look at her. He hadn’t changed. He was never going to change. A kind of cold defiance settled on her.

  ‘Well,’ she sa
id, ‘if you’re not going to make an effort, neither am I.’

  He didn’t even glance up.

  For the next week they were locked in a silent battle. Isabella went out drinking each night with her workmates. She got back late, but he wouldn’t ask where she’d been. She stopped cooking, but he didn’t comment, just patiently made himself cheese sandwiches. His martyr act was beautifully understated. They lay side by side in bed each night until she ached with the effort of keeping her hands off him. She knew he was awake. All she had to do was stretch out a hand . . . How had he managed to occupy the moral high ground again? He was camped out there in his deck chair with a beer, waiting for her to crawl back. No, I’m damned if I will. Besides, she was having too much fun with the girls from work.

  But on Friday they went to a nightclub and it stopped being fun. Isabella drank too much and found herself entangled with some slimy git who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Maybe she’d given him the wrong impression during that slow dance. She extricated herself from a nasty bout of snogging and groping, and refused all offers of a lift home in his sports car. She was badly shaken. It could so easily have been a lot worse. However, a couple more Bacardis tamed it. Just a good anecdote to tell the girls. They left the club in the small hours whooping and screeching as they bundled into a taxi.

  Isabella crept up the stairs. I’m still pissed. A pint of water. That’s what they all said. Helps the old hangover. She found a glass in the bathroom and filled it. She was about to drink when she glanced in the mirror and saw a lovebite on her neck. Shit! The glass fell from her hand and splintered in the washbasin. She turned round and there was Barney at the door. Her hand clutched her throat and she giggled in fear.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing happened. I was just out with the girls.’ Her stupid babbles echoed in the bathroom. ‘I’m sorry, Barney. I’m sorry.’

  He took a step towards her and wrenched her hand from her neck. She heard herself giggling again and tried to stop. He was shaking her. She could hear him shouting, calling her names.