He leaned across, seized two mince pies, tried to eat them both at once, only burnt his tongue. He crammed a third one in, heard his Mother’s voice reproving: ‘Manners, Bryan. Manners, wiped his mouth in deference to her, before reaching for a fourth. He must finish every last pie on the plate, and any others still heating in the oven – two dozen, twenty dozen – never mind the numbers. How dare some odd acquaintance spurn Mary’s perfect pastry – except he wasn’t an acquaintance, but ‘somebody important’. Could she mean a lover, some cruel and mocking sadist who wanted only to upset her, destroy her self-esteem? He’d kill the cad, throw him to the lions with James, burn him in hot oil. His own mouth was scorched and throbbing from the still fiercely hot mince pies, but he continued to devour them, one following the other with hardly time to chew. He’d show his puny rival how lovers should behave – with devotion, dedication, and shrugging off mere pain.
He paused a moment to express his appreciation – how light they were, delicious; how he loved the touch of lemon peel, the pretty scalloped edges. Mary still looked worried, her face creased in concern.
‘Don’t you think you ought to stop, Bryan?’
‘Stop?’
‘Well, you … you must leave room for the birthday cake. Look, why don’t we light the candles now?’
He threw a last pie down his throat. The plate was almost empty, so he could afford to call a halt. His heart was pounding wildly as Mary drew the curtains, switched off the main light. How intimate, romantic, to see the dancing candle-flames reflected in her eyes. He wanted to preserve not just the birthday tea, but this magic sacred moment; never have it end, never have to face the thought of some hated heartless rival who was ‘important’ in her life.
‘Aren’t you going to blow them out?’
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Never.’
‘But they’ll melt the icing, or set the house on fire.’ She was giggling almost nervously. Still he shook his head. Better that the house burnt down and they died together, clasped in one another’s arms, their ashes fused at last, than destroy this perfect moment, this sense of reeling intimacy.
‘But you get a birthday wish, Bryan. And if you blow out every candle with just one puff of breath, your wish comes true.’
Bryan edged his chair up closer, still gazing into her eyes. ‘Are you certain of that, Mary, absolutely sure?’
‘Oh, yes. Last year Jon wished for a guinea pig, and his aunt turned up with two of them that very afternoon – and a lovely cage.’
Bryan stood up, leaned closer to the cake. Forget guinea pigs or cages. His wish was only Mary – her body and her breasts, her breath, her heart, her love. He took a deep breath in, the deepest of his life, eyes bulging with the effort, chest hurting as it swelled, then – PUFF! – he let it out. Seven candles died. One flickered, panicked, dithered, flared back to mocking life.
‘Oh! What a shame,’ smiled Mary. ‘You were very nearly there.’
He kicked his chair back, hurtled from the room and up the stairs, searching for the bathroom. He found it, locked the door, realised too late it was literally the bathroom, and didn’t have a toilet. Tears were streaming down his face now, so he dared not venture out again, just sank down on the cold edge of the bath. He’d lost his wish, his love.
‘Oh, Mary,’ he kept murmuring. ‘I want you, how I want you. I’ve been waiting, hoping, all my life for a woman just like you. I wanted you when I was only two or three. I didn’t know your name then, or know I’d ever meet you, but the longing was still there.’
He mopped his face on a fluffy-soft blue towel, the initial ‘M’ embroidered on one corner. It must have touched her skin, that towel, touched her breasts, her … He draped it round his shoulders like a vestment. He felt so tired and drained; had lain awake for four whole nights fretting over Mary; been tense and jumpy all the week, preparing for this tea; tense especially yesterday when he’d tried – and failed – to tell John-Paul that he’d been invited down to Walton for a party. He’d spent the entire oppressive session in grim silence, searching for the words, until at nearly ten to eight, John-Paul had asked if there was anything he wished to say, since they had just ten minutes left – or was his silence an expression of hostility? He’d said ‘no’ to both, and then ‘Oh, God!’ – four words in fifty minutes.
And he’d been so on edge at last night’s class, he hadn’t heard a word of Skerwin’s lecture. He’d kept hearing Mary’s voice instead, saying ‘I’m fearfully sorry, Bryan, but I shall have to put you off tomorrow. Something else has just cropped up. I know you’ll understand.’
He’d felt sick and dizzy at the words, even though she’d never actually spoken them, and there he was sitting in her bathroom. Perhaps he ought to rest, as she’d suggested in the first place, have a little lie-down. He dared not risk a bed, climbed into the bath, instead, stretched out fully-dressed, neat black polished shoes against the gold swan taps. He closed his eyes, leaned back. All he needed was a moment’s peace, a respite, a chance to calm and quiet himself before returning to the dining-room. He reached out for the plastic duck quacking on the bath-rim, hugged it to his chest. He was eight again, like Jonathan, needed his sweet Mother to wash his neck and ears, reach down and soap his tiny bud-like penis. It didn’t matter now that it was small. He was just her little boy, and little boys had little ones. He could feel her gentle careful hands soaping it and swelling it.
‘What a big big boy you are, Bryan!’
He flushed with pride, felt better now already, couldn’t understand the almost frantic knocking at the door. Mothers never knocked.
‘Bryan, what’s wrong, what’s happened? Can you hear me in there?’
‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I can hear. I can always hear you, Mary, your soft sweet voice murmuring in my head.’
‘Let me in, Bryan, please.’
Of course she could come in. She’d come to soap his tummy, rub a hot rough flannel down his chest. He struggled up and out, unlocked the door. Mary stood there, flustered, her jacket off at last, her blouse straining over superbly swelling breasts.
‘Look, Bryan, I understand. There’s no need to hide the truth. I know you think I might be shocked, but honestly I’m not.’
‘You’re not?’ He let her take his arm as she led him to her bedroom, sat him on a turquoise wicker chair.
‘No. Not at all. I admit I might have been, some months ago, but I’ve changed a lot since then.’
‘Oh, Mary …’ He was actually in the sanctuary of her boudoir, the double bed stretching like a high road, inviting him to drive; her arm around his shoulder, her smell of summer roses reviving bare December. So she knew, she understood.
‘I just want to try to help you, Bryan. I can’t do much myself, I realise that, but …’
‘You can, you can! You can save my life.’
‘No, Bryan, I’m afraid I can’t. We’ve got to face the facts, however tragic.’
‘But it isn’t tragic, Mary, not now you understand.’
‘Bryan, calm yourself. You need to save your strength. I know you must feel great relief at being able to discuss it openly for once, instead of having to live a lie, terrified that everyone will judge you, or shrink away in horror, or …’
‘And you don’t shrink away?’
‘No, I don’t, Bryan, truly. It’s just that I feel so … well – inadequate. I’ve not had much experience of …’
‘But nor have I. We’ll learn. So long as we’re together.’ Mary wasn’t listening, but pacing round the room, picking up small ornaments, fiddling with them, frowning. He loved the fact she was just as shy as he was, every bit as nervous; was enchanted by her modesty, her obvious coy embarrassment. He bobbed up from his chair. This was his big moment, nervousness or no. If he didn’t touch her now, unbutton that blue blouse, slip a hand between the Monts Blancs of her breasts, he might never have the chance again – the two of them together and alone. He lurched towards her just at the same moment as she sprang towards the door,
alerted by the telephone which was shrilling in the hall. They collided in the bottleneck between the wardrobe and the bed, Bryan trying to restrain her, handcuffing her wrists.
‘Don’t answer that!’ he shouted.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s James!’
‘No. James is up in Scarborough.’
‘I know.’ Ringing from the conference hall in a fit of murderous rage, to say he’d had the house bugged and was on his way to wreak revenge, hack his hated rival into pieces. Or – worse! – not James at all, but a frantic phone-call from his local general hospital, Emergency Department: his Mother had collapsed and was on a life-support machine, weeping for her absent son, as the pulses from her stricken heart grew fainter, fainter, fainter, on the screen.
‘I’ll only be a moment, Bryan. You sit here and …’
‘No, don’t! I’ll leave. I’m sorry. I never meant to …’
She’d gone – tripping down the stairs without a trace of fear. He crept out to the landing, sweat sticking shirt to skin; hardly dared to listen as she picked up the receiver in the hall.
‘Hallo, Phyllis. No, I’m fine. And you? Oh, I’m sorry, dear. Have you tried fresh garlic? They say it helps catarrh. Or you can get it in those capsule things – you know, without the smell. Yes, I know I said I’d help to clean the presbytery, but …’
He collapsed back to the bedroom, straightening his wild tie, almost fell towards the photograph of Mary in what looked like her nightdress, but worn with pearls and high-heeled shoes. He kissed her naked cleavage, stroked his trembling finger down the outline of her thigh, traced one shapely ankle. Could he take a high heel home with him, some memento of her, trophy, which he could sleep with every night? He swung round the other way, pulled the wardrobe open, came face to face with a battalion of grey business suits, all stern, all smart, all James’s. He slammed it shut again. A shoe was quite impractical, would bulge his pocket out, be impossible to hide. What about a brassiere? That would slip into his pocket like a hankie. But supposing he got careless, pulled it out to blow his nose, once they resumed their tea downstairs? An earring might be safer, or a lipstick, something really tiny, and not too intimate.
He started opening all the drawers, found a cache of panties, tiny flimsy lacy things which almost stopped his heart with sheer excitement. He stuffed six or seven pairs inside his shirt-front, tugged them out again. ‘Thief!’ his outraged Mother was accusing, her face a mask of horror and disgust. ‘Fornicator, pervert.’ He hurled them back, then tried to fold them neatly, so nobody would guess he’d even touched them; tried the drawer beneath; found James’s baggy underpants, which looked torpid, somehow, dead. He unrolled a pair of off-white woollen long-johns, fastened with small press-studs at the crotch. Torpid – no! Those lustful smirking press-studs were popping wildly open as James’s organ rose, swelled wider, longer, stiffer, climaxed at near-vertical. He throttled the coarse wool between his hands, twisted, wrenched and mangled, gave a final lethal squeeze, dashed back to the landing as he heard a noise below.
‘No, I’m sorry, Phyllis, honestly, but I simply can’t do Monday.
I’m busy every Monday now. Yes, I know I always used to, but …’
He shut the door again. The coast was clear still, mercifully; Mary perching on the table in the hall, displaying her sweet knees, and apparently quite happy to keep talking. He fell onto his own knees, pulled out the bottom drawer, the only one he hadn’t yet investigated. He gazed in horror at the large and lumpy packet squashed in on the top. ‘Kotex super-towels for maximum absorption. Soft, secure and flushable.’ He shuddered, looked away, could never quite believe that women bled. It seemed so messy and unhealthy, not to mention dangerous. He liked to think of Mary as pure and clean all over, even her insides; not oozing blood or babies, but filled with fresh whipped cream like those moist eclairs downstairs.
He removed the offending package, reeled back in shock as he saw what it concealed; rubbed his eyes for fear he was hallucinating. No. All real, too real – that solid flaunting plastic and obscenely rigid rubber – stallion-sized, the lot of it, tireless and unflagging, like James before his throttling. Was Mary a Loose Woman, the type his Mother had warned against in words of execration when he was still too young to know such words at all? Had she lured him into her bedroom as just one more casual conquest, another stud to pleasure her? Or was it James who was the pervert, using all this … this hardware on his appalled defenceless wife? Or perhaps they’d bought the stuff together, these lewd and shameful sex toys, to boost their mutual ecstasy, bond them in some crudely lecherous rite?
He crawled on hands and knees towards the bed, crouched down on the carpet, laid his face against the silky counterpane. He couldn’t bear these new and cruel uncertainties, this increase in his jealousy, which was already like a precipice, looming stark and dangerous in his mind. He held his pounding head, let out a howl of pain.
‘Bryan! What is it? Shall I call a doctor?’
He turned swiftly round, still on his knees, shook his head in misery as he saw Mary’s perfect form stooping down towards him, but with those monstrous plastic dildoes now jammed between her legs – eight or nine or ten of them, all throbbing and vibrating. He hid his eyes, groaned softly.
‘You’re so brave, Bryan, honestly. I can see what pain you’re in, yet you try to struggle on, refuse to just give in, or hide away at home. But you really do need help – professional help, from someone properly trained.’ She took a step towards him, sat down on the bed. ‘Look, there’s this … this … man I know whom I’m sure would understand. He’s really wise and …’
‘Man?’
‘Yes, a doctor, actually. His name’s John-Paul, and though he’s quite expensive, he …’
‘What?’ said Bryan, leaping to his feet. ‘What name did you say?’
‘John-Paul. I know it’s rather unusual and the same name as the Pope’s, but that’s just sheer coincidence. He’s not religious, honestly, won’t try to convert you or tell you you’re in sin or …’
‘Where’s my coat?’ Bryan gasped.
‘What’s the matter? What ever have I said? If I’ve upset you, Bryan, I’m sorry, honestly I am. Please don’t go. Don’t leave. I know how dreadful it must be, with the shame and guilt and everything and all those ghastly symptoms, but if you’d only let me help – or someone help. Look, I’ll write down John-Paul’s name for you on this empty Kleenex box, then you won’t forget it, and if you ever find you need him, then …’
Bryan brushed aside the Kleenex box, dashed headlong down the stairs and out through the front door. ‘I won’t forget it – ever,’ he called hysterically to no one. ‘Or your bottom drawer.’ He slammed the gate behind him, was swallowed up in darkness.
Chapter Twenty Three
It’s one-eighteen exactly. Just fifty-two minutes left – no, fifty-one, if I arrive a minute early, which John-Paul can’t object to, when I haven’t seen him for over a whole month now, missed seventeen separate sessions, which add up to a total of eight hundred and fifty minutes. It’s Monday, perfect Monday, and I’m sitting in the College of Technology, not in my usual cramped and smelly toilet, but in their new and bright canteen. I’ve actually eaten lunch, the first time ever before an appointment with John-Paul. The lunch was celebratory. I even bought some wine, which they sell in miniature bottles like the ones you get on airlines. My bags are piled all around me – supermarket carriers full of groceries and polishes, disinfectants, cleaners. This is my new start. I spent the whole weekend blanked out – sleeping, sleeping, sleeping, as if to compensate for all my midnight pacing the week or two before, or perhaps to make the minutes pass more quickly, let go that aching count.
I woke refreshed and healthy, as if I’d slept through the whole winter into spring; intend to make it spring – to eat, and even cook, again; scour my filthy room, purify it, purge it; remove the stink and scars. I bought all the soaps and scourers on my long walk to the tower, so I can start this after
noon, as soon as I get home from my appointment – also bought a clutch of presents for John-Paul. If he tells me they’re a recompense, he’s right. I bought them to apologise for doubting him; for believing he had dogs and wives and mistresses; labelling him a con-man and a fraud. I chose him really special things, not mere sweets and biscuits, but precious books, silk ties. I had to pay by credit card, since I haven’t any cash. Money is a problem. I really need to give up all my clients, so I’m pure for him, and celibate, as now he is himself. I’m wearing white, as a promise of that purity – new white pristine clothes.
I drain my glass of wine, scoop out the last half-spoonful of matching white iced sorbet, gather up my parcels, dawdle down the stairs. No one stops me, or asks me what I’m doing, what right I have to eat in their canteen. Today I have rights everywhere, nowhere locked or banned. It isn’t even raining, but a perfect winter’s day; the sun weak but convalescent, the December sky the colour of a puffin’s egg. I pass my last half-hour walking slowly, very slowly, down the road beside the tower, the words of Luke, 15, chiming in my head – the story of the Prodigal Son. I know those words almost off by heart; used to read the Gospels in my teens – secretly and shamefully, since my father viewed the Bible as a salacious dangerous book. It always meant so much to me, the emotion of that Father, his obvious love, compassion, the way he could forgive. My own father would have left me grovelling with the pigs, feeding off their husks. (One trendy modern version calls them ‘bean-pods’, but ‘husks’ is so much better, suggests their utter worthlessness, their empty barren dryness.)
‘And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.’ I repeat that quaint archaic ‘fain’, roll it round my tongue like one of John-Paul’s toffees; continue with the story. ‘But when he was yet a great way off, his Father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” ’
Fifty-Minute Hour Page 27