by Monica Belle
He came behind, with Lilitu trotting after, now as seemingly indifferent to his presence as Michael was to my nakedness. The rood screen was extravagant even by the standards of the Victorian craze for the high Gothic, the seven faces yet more so. Isaac Foyle was said to have taken a cup of laudanum each day before beginning work, and I could believe it. The rood itself was unusually macabre in detail, and supported above eight arches rising to over twice my height, the central two joined. Each was fantastically carved, the pillars six slender caryatids, supposed saints but looking more like demons, with their hair rising in asymmetric coils from which six of the faces peered. The seventh, wrath, peered out from among flames, directly beneath the rood itself, a Hell to the Heaven above.
I admired them as Michael began to sketch, immediately impressed by his understanding of what had been going on in Isaac Foyle’s head. His wrath projected fury, hatred, fear and pain, surely enough to terrify any sinner, but among the others there were hints of less orthodox attitudes, or so it seemed to me. Pride and avarice flanked wrath: the one a long, haughty face, the great hooked nose lifted high in disdain, pompous but also comic; the other shining with greed and normal enough save that it was known to be a caricature of his own father. Sloth showed a somnolent, drooping expression, the least human of the seven, but had one eye cocked slightly open, as if the slumber were merely a pretence. Envy radiated spite and yearning, but was shown with a necklace of sovereigns and skin marked with the ravages of disease. Gluttony was huge, twice the size of the others, a great moon face with bulging cheeks and pig’s eyes, food running out over the lower lip. Lust was finest of all, a beautiful female face, the mouth slightly open to reveal tiny, pointed fangs, twin horns protruding from among luxurious curls. I had always wanted to be her, at least to have her fearsome sexual aggression, something I imagined Foyle, and his audience, had feared the most.
Michael had never seen them before, and was fascinated, sketching the whole screen then each face individually. I watched, delighted, yet soon biting down a growing sense of pique as he maintained his indifference to my half-naked state. Yet to dress would have broken the moment, and I stayed that way, as if it were quite unimportant. Only when he finished the last page of his sketch book did he stop and turn to me, in doing so revealing his watch. It was ten minutes to four, far later than I had realised. At four o’clock I had to be at the community centre, urgently. He smiled, and reached out, to very gently run one finger up the curve of my breast to the nipple. I felt myself flush hot, and my mouth came open in reaction as instinctive as the sudden hardening of my nipples.
His smile grew a little broader, arrogant and certain as his fingers fanned out across my breast, each one flicking over the nipple. I stood still, letting him touch me, although I wanted to throw him to the floor, unleash his penis and feed him into me; to hold him down as I rode him, to make him beg for release, to punish him for treating me so casually and for being so damn cool. I didn’t, but gently detached his hand from my breast, speaking as I did so.
‘Sorry. I have to go. I mean, I’m late already, for something really important. Sorry.’
It sounded pathetic, the reaction of a scared and insecure virgin, but my excuse was genuine, for all I badly wanted sex with him. My protests didn’t stop him either, and his voice was wonderfully gentle as he took me in his arms, his fingers going to the nape of my neck and the curve of my bottom. I pulled back, embarrassed and thoroughly cross with myself as I tried to explain.
‘I’m sorry, not now, Michael. I mean . . . I’d . . . can we take a rain-check on this? I really do have to go.’
‘Now? Really?’
There was just a touch of temper in his voice, no more than that, but it was there. I shrugged and kissed him, then made a dash for the vestry door, praying he wouldn’t follow. If he did I would have given in and had him then and there. As it was he simply slipped a card behind the carved ear of St Peter. His voice followed me as I closed the door.
‘Call round if you want to.’
I was really cursing as I struggled on a new top and substituted my boots for my rollerblades, angry, bitter and very cross with myself. It was not the mood I needed to be in. We had a new MP, Stephen Byrne, some up-and-coming junior minister determined to ‘do his bit for the community’. Being a politician, and therefore both soulless and a busybody, he was not content to allow All Angels to continue its elegant decay. Instead he was proposing a scheme to bid for Lottery money to have it converted into a community hall, in which people would play bingo and watch big-screen football. It was unthinkable.
Unfortunately it was all too likely to become reality. He was just the sort of person to get it done, pushy, smarmy and above all self-righteous. I hadn’t met him, yet, but I’d read enough, and seen his fatuous physog staring out from enough local papers. He was a clone, undoubtedly manufactured in a factory somewhere in the Midlands, handsome but as cold as a fish: grey-haired, grey-suited and grey-minded.
I wasn’t at all sure what I could do, when I was sure to be a lone voice against the creeping blandness. Even the local anarchic types weren’t likely to support me, not when I’d threatened to set Lilitu on so many of them. My only real hope was that there would be objections to the desecration of the interior because it was Grade Two listed, but the council were firmly on his side. It looked hopeless, and I even considered making a detour through the market to see if I could pick up a few rotten tomatoes. It would not have helped my cause.
My intention had been to spend a couple of hours on the roof to achieve real calm, then dress sensibly, or rather, dress as he would expect a sensible young woman to. At the hall I’d have done my best intellectual young student impression and put a clear and well thought-out case for the preservation of the rood screen, the pew ends, the panelling behind the altar and other fine details of Victorian Gothic carving. Thanks to Michael Merrick and my own capricious nature, I was now going to have to make my case as mad Goth girl on rollerblades, not an image a stuffy politician was likely to be impressed by.
The community centre was as bland as All Angels was glorious, a concrete box built where a string of bombs had taken out three terraced houses in a row, dull and unimaginative as Stephen Byrne’s ideas, a temple to conformity and dumbing down. It was also only two streets away, but even with my blades on I managed to be late, pushing through the heavy double doors with my head full of determination, to find it very nearly empty.
Well, not that empty, but it was a big hall and the dozen or so people there looked pretty lost among the ranks of bright-red plastic chairs. Most were nondescript suits, local councillors or something, and they were milling around any old how. A group of three were together at the far end of the room. One had the look of a site manager or something, in a blue boiler suit with a big bunch of keys in one hand. The second was a smart young woman, looking somewhat offended. The third was Stephen Byrne.
I was either very late or very early, because I’d got the time wrong, because Michael Merrick’s watch had been wrong, because the meeting had been changed, whatever. It didn’t matter. I was going to speak my mind anyway, even if a firm decision had been taken. Ignoring the caretaker and the woman who was presumably a secretary, I rolled straight up to Stephen Byrne. He fixed me with a bland smile, just as one blade slipped sideways on the polished floor, to put me in a whirl of arms and legs and hair, clutching madly at the air. Then I sat down hard on my bottom, right in front of him, legs splayed, skirt up, the crotch of my black silk knickers on show.
My face was burning as he helped me up, but I let him, feeling a complete idiot and very sorry for myself. I could see he was trying not to laugh as he stood back, and it was impossible not to smile in response. He mastered himself very quickly though, and as he did, so did I. When he spoke, it was with exactly the neutral, carefully controlled tone I had expected.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. Thanks.’
I’d tried to sound cold and formal, but it had j
ust come out as pitiable. It was not a good start, and worse for the unexpected effect the brief touch of surprisingly hard muscle beneath his suit had had on my already keyed-up nerves. I struggled to get a grip on myself anyway, remembering that was exactly what he was, a suit, and everything that went with it. As I met his eyes I realised that the effect of rollerblading all the way from the church in about a minute flat was beginning to tell on my mascara, but I spoke anyway.
‘Have I missed the meeting about All Angels Church in Coburg Road, or has it been postponed?’
‘Neither. This is it.’
‘It is?’
‘There is a core of people here, but yes, I had anticipated more interest.’
So had I. I looked around the half-empty hall. He went on.
‘You know who I am, I suspect?’
‘Yes. Stephen Byrne MP. I wanted to talk to you about the project for All Angels.’
‘I would be delighted, of course. May I ask your name?’
‘Angela McKie.’
‘Well, Angela, as you no doubt know, I am a strong supporter of regeneration in the local community, with a specific focus on those most in need. In the case of All Angels, we intend to provide an important multicultural, multi-able facility, something I’m sure you appreciate as a young woman living in the borough, and which . . .’
‘No. I don’t.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I don’t. I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do with All Angels. It’s all bollocks and you know it is. All you want are votes, really, and to get them you’re prepared to sacrifice a unique interior, which is listed, and to replace it with . . . with this!’
I swung an arm out to take in the plain, square hall, with its flat surfaces and right-angles, ranks of identical plastic chairs and stark fluorescent light. My intentions of remaining unemotional had given way in seconds, far too weak for the feelings inside me. For a moment he looked genuinely surprised, then he went on, his tone no different than before.
‘I see. As a young person I would have hoped for your support in this matter, but yes, I can see that there are valid objections from the perspective of architecture and heritage. Still, these are really matters we should be discussing as a group . . .’
He stopped. I’d leant forward to massage my ankle, which hurt from my fall, and it took me a moment to realise that when I’d snatched a top from my pile of clean washing I had made a bad choice. He could see right down the front. I straightened up quickly, blushing again and feeling a bigger idiot than at first. He had gone ever so slightly pink, but managed to carry on.
‘Here, let me help you to a seat.’
I let him take my arm and steer me to a seat in the front row of the chairs set out in front of the stage. The efficient looking secretarial type had finished talking to the caretaker and was arranging notes on a lectern, which the other people there took as a cue, seating themselves in twos and threes in the first few rows of seats. Stephen Byrne took the stand and gave a brief but unctuous self-introduction before beginning on his speech.
It was complete bollocks-speak, full of phrases like ‘maximisation of utility resource’, ‘holistic urban progress’ and ‘zero tolerance of the brown-field wastage cycle’. For a while they just let him speak, presumably either because they agreed with him or because they couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but finally a man in a buff-coloured suit and a lilac tie managed to get a word in.
‘Do you feel that the site is appropriate with respect to local transport infrastructure, particularly in consideration of differently abled access buses?’
They spoke the same language. Stephen Byrne considered a moment, consulted the efficient-looking woman, then answered.
‘The intention is to take due consideration of the needs of all sectors of the community while prioritising those designated in the council’s priority target consultation paper. Indeed, the scheme is designed around those specific prioritisation issues. However, as this is an area of high urban density we are obliged to optimise . . .’
I’d had enough. I interrupted, struggling to exert whatever authority I could muster after more or less flashing him.
‘No, you’re not obliged to optimise, or prioritise, or anything! In ten years time it won’t make any difference at all, much less a hundred. We’ll all be dead, but All Angels would still be there. Can’t you just leave it, for once!’
He began to speak again, some new piece of drivel, more meaningless even than before. I struggled to make sense of it, but before I could get a sensible answer together somebody else began and the discussion went off on a tangent. Twice more I attempted to put my objections across, and twice more he gave me a piece of spiel before neatly avoiding the real issue. The third time I tried somebody else spoke over me, and inevitably it was his question that got answered. I could see how they thought of me, as some pushy kid full of ideals that didn’t work in the real world, their real world. I gave up at that, but determined to speak to Stephen Byrne alone after the meeting. Then at least I would have a chance to say my piece, even if it obviously wasn’t going to do me any good at all.
For another half-hour they droned on, not one single other person questioning the scheme from any but a practical viewpoint. When they finally did finish, the secretary tried to hustle him away, but I had already rolled up to the lectern and short of cutting me dead he had to acknowledge me. I got a bland smile from him, and the secretary was about to make an excuse when the caretaker tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and I had my moment.
‘Look, can’t you see that what you’re doing is . . . is just pointless. You can have your community hall anywhere, but All Angels is unique. Foyle’s rood screen alone is worth more than a thousand faceless community centres, and the pew ends, and . . .’
‘Nevertheless, we must consider these things in the light of modern community needs, particularly with respect to vulnerable minorities such as the differently abled. As I was saying earlier, the All Angels project allows us the possibility of installing state of the art accessibility . . .’
‘Oh please! What, do you think you’re going to make me feel guilty? If you want your “state of the art accessibility”, build new, and you can do just as you like!’
‘Unfortunately the prioritisation for brown-field sites does not allow for special projects. The ministry directive . . .’
‘So you’re going to tear the heart out of All Angels because of some here-today-gone-tomorrow government directive? Hang on, does “state of the art accessibility” mean you’re going to tear the floor up? You are, aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes, but surely the floor is of no particular importance?’
‘Of no importance? Don’t you realise you’ll be committing desecration? The first priest of All Angels, Father James O’Donnell . . . he had his heart buried somewhere beneath that floor!’
‘Er . . . how unusual.’
‘Yes, very unusual, unique even, like the rest of it, and you want to turn it into some soulless box. Isn’t there anything I can say that will make you see common sense, just for once?’
He began to reply, another torrent of bollocks-speak, then caught himself. For a moment his eyes flicked to my chest, and lower, then back to my face. When he spoke again his tone was very different, more human.
‘Well, I can see you feel very strongly on this issue, Angela.’
‘I do.’
‘In the circumstances then I’d be happy to talk it over in detail, at the very least explain the good points of the project. You can make your own points, and who knows, you might just convince me. Perhaps I could buy you dinner?’
He was making a move on me, and it took a moment for the sheer cheek of it to sink in. It was outrageous, but I had to go. More likely than not he was just going to string me along in the hope of getting into my pants, but two can play at that game.
‘I’d love to, thank you.’
I gave him a little coy glance, sure that he would have an
image of me as vulnerable, naïve and more than a little ditsy building up in his head. That was just how I wanted it, for the time being. Later on he would learn otherwise. I took the card he was offering me and gave him a shy smile as he helped me up from the chair.
‘Write your number on the back.’
‘I don’t have a phone. I’ll call.’
Rather than wait for the obvious question as to why I was the only person in the known universe, or East London anyway, not to have a mobile phone, I skated off, spinning as I reached the door. It was just fast enough to make my skirt lift and give him the briefest flash of stocking tops and sheer black knickers, and he was staring openly as I gave him a little wave, and left.
He thought he had me, or was going to, but I already had him, well and good. That was if I wanted him, but it was my choice, no question. It was impossible to keep the smile from my face as I skated back to All Angels, my mind full of the possibilities raised by the last few hours. It had been quite an afternoon. I’d shown two men my breasts, one intentionally, one not. Both were good looking even if one was a suit, and both wanted to see me again.
I could play it any way I wanted, have one, have both, have neither. Stephen I wasn’t sure about. I liked the game, which had an edge of danger, but he was just about old enough to be my dad. Michael I wanted, if only to break his cool and have him begging me for release. If he was still at All Angels I was going to do it too, because I was right in the mood.
He wasn’t; there was only Lilitu dozing in the shade of the sycamores, which made me more determined than ever. I’d run off, sure, but it was outrageous that he hadn’t bothered to wait. The idea of him lurking among the tombs, crazed with lust, really appealed, but I knew he wasn’t or Lilitu would have known. It was a nice idea anyway, and it stuck in my head as I went inside to take my blades off.
I could have come to him, cool and in control, just as he had been in the church. He would have lost his patience, deciding to masturbate over what might have been, in among the yews and sycamores behind the church, his cock thick and hard in his hand. I wouldn’t have spoken, but watched from close by, as silent as the wraith he had seen in me when I posed. He’d have been aching with frustrated lust, his eyes closed, picturing me in his mind, naked for him. I would have come forward, to take him in my hand, quite silent, never speaking as I eased him down to the dank earth, my mind heavy with the touch of the souls around me, mounted him, slid him into me . . .
