“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Thea. I …”
“No, it doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t. You’re still here. You’re still a priest — you told me so. Well, you can make me clean then, can’t you? I feel polluted by Lionel, but you can undo that if you hold me. It’s OK, I won’t take advantage of you. We’ve been over all that before — at your place. You touched me then, didn’t you, and nothing happened. I told you you could trust me, and you could. Well, touch me now. Put your arms around me.”
“I … I can’t, Thea.”
“Christ, you’re selfish! You’ve just been giving me all that spiel about doing some good in the world, going out and really reaching people instead of being shut off by your vows. And yet the very first chance you get to put it into practice, you run a mile.”
“I’m not running, Thea. I’m here. I’m sitting right beside you.” He was speaking slowly now, sort of fumbling for the words. I think he was still befuddled by the brandy. It was best VSOP cognac — wasted on him, really.
“Well, hold me, then. I’m a human being, not a whore.”
He stroked one nervous hand along my shoulder. “Well, just for a moment, then. Just a hug, Thea — nothing more.”
“Yes,” I murmured. “Just a hug,” and pulled him down towards me.
He struggled at first, but I eased myself underneath him and sort of pressed, and suddenly he was lying there on top of me, his whole body slumped against mine, only the silky black skin of the nightie like a chaperone between us. I clung to him. It was the first time I had been warm all evening. He smelt of the hostel; the boys’ cigarette smoke still lingered in his hair and something bitter besides — the smell of poverty, of handicap. His body felt too heavy. He had collapsed on me like a sack. I could feel months and years of exhaustion spilling over me like coal-dust. He wasn’t holding me, but flattening me. This was the first female body he’d ever had beneath him, and he was using it as a mattress or a crash-out pad.
“You’re heavy, Ray,” I whimpered. “You’re hurting me.”
He didn’t answer. He was lying almost like a corpse. I remembered those stories of medieval saints who shared their beds with naked virgins merely to prove their own strength against temptation. I wasn’t naked — perhaps that was the trouble. I wriggled out from underneath him and ripped off the black satin. This time I lay on top of him. He still had all his clothes on, but I had rolled him over and was fumbling with his belt.
“No,” he said, almost irritably. “I’ve told you, Thea, not that.”
“Shssh,” I murmured.
I took his hand and moved it slowly down between my legs, squeezed my thighs around it.
“No,” he said again, less certainly. He didn’t move the hand, didn’t even seem to know what to do with it. He wasn’t looking at me, just sprawled there with his eyes shut. He might have been praying, drunk, dead. Maybe he was even wrestling with some new spiritual crisis in his life. Should he switch to the Dominicans, or become an Anglican? He’d given God eight solid years of his existence. Couldn’t he spare me half an hour?
I flung the hand away from me, kneed him in the stomach. “Get off!”
“What’s wrong?” he mumbled. “What’s the matter?” He sounded like some small bad-tempered rodent disturbed in hibernation.
“Get off, I said.”
He stumbled to his feet, tripped, stood trembling against the wall. Standing straight and unsupported was a skill he’d lost that evening. Hell — other men could drink bottlefuls of brandy and still seduce a woman.
“I don’t care if Lionel hurt me. In fact, I’m glad he did. I’d rather have that any day, than you and Leo just lying there like sacks. Christ! I take every last stitch off and all you can do is agonise about which order you’ll join next. Go back to your lousy friary — you’re safer there.”
I fought with the duvet until I was lying half on top of it, jammed my legs apart, licked a finger and stuck it up me.
“I tried to follow your example — give up sex, turn to higher things. But what’s the point? That’s not sanctity — that’s bloody impotence. You’ve conned me. You never gave up women — you simply ran away from them because you couldn’t handle them. You called it holiness to save your face, that’s all, so people wouldn’t despise you. Look at you! You’re all fucked up, for heaven’s sake. No impulses, no certainties — you told me so yourself. You’re not even a real priest. If you could only bring yourself to screw a girl or wank in bed at night, you might be more damn use.”
I was rubbing myself so hard, it was hurting. But at least the pain was no longer in my head. There was a rhythm now, a movement. Something else was taking over. I didn’t even need to jeer at him any more. My taunts had turned into noises. Simple gasping noises. The whole room was joining in, as I rocked and hammered on the duvet. Three months of false frigidity were over, and I could feel the relief roaring through the room, throbbing between my thighs. I was coming like Leo came, a great wild violent noisy come. I was sobbing like he did, not with anger now, but with joy, glory, exultation.
“Leo,” I panted, “Leo, Leo, Leo Leo Leo …”
All the doubts, fears, scruples, sins, were pouring out of me, leaving me shining and unburdened. I was sheet metal now, gold ingot, not damp cotton wool like Ray was. He had forced me to join the wrong order, but now at last, I had jumped the wall. My body was restored to me. It felt real, right, solid, soaring, free.
I lay on my bed, recovering. My eyes were still tight shut, but I could see fireworks exploding underneath the lids. I touched my body, stretched my arms. I knew I was beautiful. Leo once said that someone ought to sketch me at the moment of my come — lying there, flushed and panting, wet between the legs, nipples hard, cunt swollen and red-hot. He fancied me like that. If Ray rejected me, who cared? That was his problem. I didn’t even need him now. I squinted through my eyelids, ready to face his disapproving mouth, his averted eyes, the saintly spoilsport grimace matching the shabby, fly-blown room.
His eyes weren’t averted, but staring full frontally at my naked body. It wasn’t a friar’s stare, a priest’s stare, but a lecher’s. The nuns had always used the word “lascivious”, and for the first time now I understood what it meant — that flushed furtive urgent sort of hunger, those wild guilty greedy grabbing eyes.
He was fumbling with his zipper. There was something underneath it, something moving and alive. I almost laughed. A friar with an erection!
“You’re a friar,” I mocked. “Remember? You told me so. Still a priest. Still under vows.”
“No,” he muttered. “No, not now.”
So he was throwing away his priesthood, his high-flown principles, his seven years’ training, his vows of chastity, for no more reason than that a slut with false teeth had frigged herself in front of him.
He slunk towards the bed. He had dropped his trousers, but still had a sweater on and a pair of gym-shoes over green nylon socks. His legs were thin, white, veiny. He didn’t know how to put it in. He was fumbling, missing, sliding out again. I didn’t help him.
After three false starts, he got it right. I shuddered as he slithered in. He felt small, slimy, apologetic almost, and yet that look was still all over him. Lascivious. It wasn’t how I wanted it. I had imagined him screwing me purely as a pastoral duty, undoing the stain and shame of Lionel, his prick like a bishop’s crosier, proud and tall and sacred. I’d dreamed of divine passion, not this furtive cringing lust.
He didn’t even seem to be enjoying it. I was his first woman and yet it was an agony, a penance for him. His face was anguished, his eyes screwed up. I might have been just a bolster he was clinging to, a hankie he was sobbing into. He wasn’t even moving. Somehow, I had to make it better — not just for him, for me as well. After all, he was a priest. It was still a triumph that he had entered me at all. If I shut my eyes, I could give him back his dignity, his sanctity. I could even have my crosier, turn him into a bishop if I wished, a cardinal, a pope.
“Wai
t,” I murmured. He was just beginning to shudder. I wanted to soar to Rome, to do it in the Vatican. Pope Leo was inside me now, robed in white and gold, the crusted embroidery on his silken cope scratching against my thighs. The spectacles had gone and been replaced by a papal tiara. A second pontiff slipped into place beside him, a third and fourth, a fifth. A dozen popes, all worshipping at my body, backed by a hundred cardinals, two hundred priests. I heard the organ swell, the choir thunder. It was sacred now, a ritual, a sacrament. I rubbed myself slowly, solemnly, against Pope Leo’s thighs.
Suddenly, the Holy Father collapsed. There was a little shudder, a tiny mewling cry.
“God,” he yelped. “Oh God!” He might have been repeating the responses to some divine service, a gabbled slipshod service that had lasted only two seconds, a Mass without the Communion, with no oratory, no build-up. Back in the Vatican, we were only at the start. The clergy had just come in, the congregation ready, primed, rapt, expecting a solemn ceremony which would last an hour or so at least.
I opened my eyes. The pontiffs slunk away. Only one thin sweaty friar was left — slumped across my stomach, his straggly pubic hair wet with his own semen, his thing already shrunk and sort of wizened. He was lying as if dead, feet tangled in the duvet, face turned away from me. He was panting, out of breath. I’d no idea what he had to pant about. Two seconds isn’t really exercise. Two seconds isn’t really anything. He struggled up. His face looked so pained, so tortured, I felt like Eve. I was Sin for him, Satan, shame, the serpent. Even his voice was sliding away from him, tripping and stumbling in his throat.
“Thea, I’m so … Christ! I don’t know how I … Oh God, I can’t …”
Yes, it was God he was talking to, not me. He was almost on his knees to Him. His spine had turned to foam-rubber — he couldn’t stand up straight. He was falling over himself, trying to drag his trousers on, find his belt, apologise, make acts of contrition, all at the same time. His voice was broken into bits. He was almost crying. We’d only coupled, for heaven’s sake, and only for two seconds. The way he was going on, he might have murdered half a million Jews.
“I’m sorry, Thea. I mean, I just can’t tell you … God! I …”
People only really apologise for the harm they do themselves. Ray had lost his virginity, stained the virtue which for him was wealth and power. I was furious with him. I’d never really intended him to submit. I’d wanted to tempt and tempt him until he had proved to me his sanctity, shamed me with his unwavering vows of chastity. Or if he did give in, he would do it sacredly, deliberately, as a willing sacrifice, renouncing to me his celibacy, the greatest treasure any priest could give. But what in fact had happened? Just a grope, a poke, a two-second, shame-faced fumble. He wasn’t a noble Vestal, just a premature ejaculator. My forty-eighth man, last not only in number, but in order of achievement. Even the park-keeper had kept it up for two minutes. Dribbling Jimmy could have done it better, or the boy with no neck. Rather no neck than no prick.
“Thea, I’m sorry. I simply don’t know how to …”
If he said sorry once more, I think I’d have whipped out a knife and cut if off. He’d hardly have missed it, anyway.
“Get out,” I shouted, “Get out!”
He picked up his coat, dropped it, knocked into the broken chair, swore, apologised, turned away, came back again. He didn’t even know how to leave. He was backing towards the door, stuttering and stumbling, shedding “sorrys” like dandruff.
When he’d gone, I wept for half an hour. I knew I wouldn’t be granted Leo’s miracle — not now. Ray had ruined everything. He’d broken my vow of chastity, scotched my First Communion, slipped from being a priest into a man, and then lapsed further into a eunuch. I stuffed the nightie in my case and struggled into a tee-shirt. I sat on the bidet and slapped myself so hard with soap and flannel, I almost cried out in pain. I crouched there a moment, just staring at the wall. More of the little black insects were scurrying and slithering up and down the cracks. I flung the towel at them and squashed a score. Another hundred or so were still buzzing round the lamp.
I trailed back into bed, lay on my back and scrubbed at my sore red eyes. Just above me, on the wall, was the photo of St Bernadette. She’d been there all the time, but I’d been too involved to notice her. She wasn’t frowning. She didn’t look shocked or cross or even disappointed. In fact, she was smiling at me, a friendly, open, understanding sort of smile. I remembered the prodigal son, the bit in the gospels about all the angels of heaven rejoicing over one reformed sinner. I’d almost forgotten this was the church of sinners, the church of second chances, of forgiveness. Of course I could make my Communion. I’d just had a little relapse, that was all — been thrown by the shock of Lionel, tempted by a priest. Two seconds hardly counted anyway — it was too short to be a sin. After all, I was only a new Catholic, a babe in arms squealing from my baptism, still wet behind the ears. Babies had to learn. I needed my First Communion to make me stronger, help me grow up, turn me into a pro. Meantime, broken vows could always be renewed. Hell, it was almost easier to pledge myself to chastity after the farce of Ray. Who wanted sex in socks? Anyway, I knew I had to save myself for Leo. That’s what God had been trying to tell me all along. All I had to do was wait for my miracle and then return to London and present it to a man who knew what to do with it.
I stood on the bed and unhooked the photo from its nail. I stared at the large brown eyes, the pale oval face with its heavy jaw and generous mouth, the tiny indentation above the upper lip, the bulky peasant clothes.
“Bernadette,” I whispered.
I laid her on the pillow, her face almost touching mine. Although she was poor, she had made her First Communion in a showy white dress and cape, like a richer child. Someone had lent them to her, pulled her out of her poverty to receive her pauper God. She would do the same for me, stuff the rags and tatters of my sin into my suitcase, and dress me as a shining virgin bride.
I shut my eyes and smiled. It was only four-and-a-half hours till Easter Mass.
Chapter Twenty
The light woke me — the light of Easter morning, streaming in and turning the duvet golden. I bounced to the window and gazed out across the shining new-born world. The Pyrenees were shouting and soaring in a semicircle round the town, sun on their flanks, snow on their topknots, the first buds snapping open, a faint green glaze of life fringing the trees. The air was cold, clean, pure; the sky white and newly hoovered. I could almost smell the Resurrection, a scent of cows and almond blossom, fresh-ground coffee, rabbit stew, and the raw, randy tang of cut grass. Only the first week of April and they were already cutting grass! It made everything seem lush, fertile, ripe.
I turned back, stepped on a handkerchief, a grubby chequered one in blue and beige. Ray must have dropped it from his trouser pocket. It looked limp and knackered as he had. But that was last night, and since then, the whole world had resurrected.
Easter had always been important to the world. Even before the Christian Resurrection, the pagans had celebrated the return of light and spring, the death of dark and evil. In fact, Adrian had told me that the Christians simply pinched the pagan ceremonies, but gave them different meaning. Even the rituals were the same — symbolic light and cleansing fire. He’d written a paper on it once, about the god Adonis who died and rose again, and some bitch called Eostre who was the goddess of spring and gave her name to Easter. I’d hardly listened then, but now I could see those new-hatched deities sitting smiling on the mountain peaks, thawing the snow into white spring flowers, making all the centuries join hands, uniting all religions.
Ray would be changed this morning, transfigured, reordained. No more green nylon socks and semen-spotted denim, but sacred white petticoats to symbolise his rebirth as a priest.
I knew I had to match him. I opened my suitcase and took out a pair of dazzling white jeans which I’d washed three times in biological detergent and the frilly white shirt I’d borrowed from a shop. It was the nearest I c
ould get to a dress and veil. This was my marriage to Christ, as well as my Communion day. I’d never had a proper wedding — not one with a showy gown and six tulle bridesmaids and a car with flowing ribbons. Adrian had insisted on Richmond Registry Office in a plain suit. I didn’t even carry flowers. I suppose I could have clutched one of Adrian’s famous potted primulas, but he hadn’t offered me so much as a button-hole. (He was saving up for a second-hand set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) The registrar was bald with a flat South London accent. When he said, “I pronounce you man and wife”, I was thinking of my father and how I might have strutted down the aisle clinging proudly to his arm. My mother would never have stood for it. Even without him there, she was wearing her most put-upon expression and the navy hat she reserved for funerals.
Today would be different. It had been raining at Richmond, whereas now the sun was shining. All the first shy mountain flowers were opening for me, the trees breaking into leaf. The Pyrenees were bridesmaids, the registrar was Ray. I was fusing Christian and pagan in one ceremony, marrying Christ on one level and Leo on another, uniting all my men. Leo, with his miracle, would be my dead and risen Adonis. Ray would set the seal on it by administering the sacrament. And even Adrian, with his plain suit and Encyclopaedia Britannica, could be regarded as a sort of official herald or precursor, like St John the Baptist.
I dressed myself solemnly, as if my clothes were vestments and the robing was a ritual. I left my sheepskin off — that belonged to yesterday, to sin and cold and winter. I brushed my hair a hundred times and wound a wide white ribbon in it. There was no mirror, but I knew already I looked beautiful.
I opened the door and fell over my breakfast tray. I was now so used to being hungry, I’d almost forgotten meals. I stared at the cup of already tepid coffee, the hunk of coarse greyish bread. There wasn’t any butter, just a dab of orange jellyish stuff which looked like gum. I didn’t want it, anyway. God was about to leap into my stomach — it would be sacrilege to mix Him up with cheap bread and jam. On the other hand, meals cost money, and with a dab of liver sausage or a sliver of cheese, breakfast could be transformed into lunch. I picked up the bread and the two crumbling sugar-lumps, wrapped them in a face-towel and hid them in my suitcase.
After Purple Page 27