by Patrick Gale
‘Oh. I see. So he’s simply attached to the parish as a kind of theologian-in-residence.’
‘In a way. I think he should be a priest because he’s a good speaker, but he never really talks about himself.’
‘Just about you.’
‘Well, me if I bring the subject up, otherwise just the Bible and the ways of the Church.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘He came up to me, after I’d been to my first service there. I was trying to read the notices on the board outside, but they’re mostly in Greek, and he came up to ask if he could help.’
‘I see.’ They continued for a while without speaking, and turned back into Princes Square.
‘What were you working at this morning?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Just some typing. Dear mad Avril’s given me some top secret manuscript to type out for her, and I’ve got a friend’s thesis to do. It’s deadly dull, but I find I can do it and think of something else at the same time.’
‘Will you want to get back to that this afternoon?’
‘Why do you ask?’ She turned and was startled by a sweet expectancy on his face. He laughed. ‘Why?’ she asked again.
‘I wondered whether you’d like to come flying. I’m booked in for an outing this afternoon. It’s an old Chipmunk of my father’s. He keeps it there free of charge in return for allowing the instructors to use it. His eyesight’s not good enough any more, you see. I can go up whenever I like, so long as I book in advance. Would you like to?’
‘Oh, that’d be marvellous! Are you sure I won’t be in the way? There must be so many friends clamouring to be taken. What about Penny or someone?’
‘No. Honestly. I’d much rather take you.’ Embarrassed by the intensity of her smile he looked ahead again. ‘Cheer you up,’ he mumbled.
As they hurried back to Inverness Terrace to change, Domina wanted to whistle.
19
c/o Dr D.B. Turner
Top Floor
37a Gloucester Road
London SW7
Sunday evening
Darling Pluto,
Thank you for your enchanting letters. I’ve been writing to you in my head for days, and keep thinking I’ve put pen to paper when in fact you’re still aching to hear from me. It’s late and I’m sitting in the mystery garret with a carton of pineapple juice. It’s unbelievably humid. Someone in a room near me is playing Louis Armstrong (Saint James Infirmary??) and I miss you badly. Hi there.
Oh Rand, I’m having such fun. I’m dying to tell you all. It’s a houseful of faggots, morticians, tarts and Trappist monks – well, practically. I don’t know about finding myself, but I’m certainly collecting tomes of material …
I did laugh. Of course Bingham wrote by the very next post, and of course I’m totally untouched by her insinuations. That woman gives good neighbours a bad name. As if I’d leave you alone for a day if I had the slightest fears about you sleeping around your department! God knows, laying nubile undergrads because your time is running out is hardly in your inimitable style. (Who is this McNichol brat anyway?) The Lush probably just fancies one of her new ASMS and is working out her guilty aggression. Good boy to tell me though; her letter would have been a nasty shock read cold.
Oh Christ, now they’re playing Billie Holiday – one of the really depressing ones. I think I must go to bed before I develop a ‘negative attitude’. This scribble is artless but comes with keen and tender love from
Minnie Mouse, xxxx
PS Remember one Seb Saunders? Have I found out an interesting development about him …
The Paragon
Clifton
Bristol 8
Avon
Saturday morning
Domina,
You’re going to be mad at reading this, so get into a large open space before going any further.
Oh shit. I don’t know how to get this down. Look. I’ll be short, because apologies would be irritating and futile, and I believe we understand one another enough for them to be unnecessary over something like this.
I’ve slept with Cary McNichol. Classic hopeless male thing to say, I know, but I really didn’t want to or mean to. I swear nothing had happened when I wrote to you yesterday morning. I really did just want to stop Ginny throwing the shit at the fan like that. I’d been sleeping in the study on the camp bed, and she’d been sleeping upstairs, in the spare room. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I got a bit stoned last night and started feeling blue and apologetic, as is my merry wont, and suddenly I just had to sleep in our bed and hug your teddy or something. So I went up and clambered in and, Oh God, she was there and one thing led inexorably to another.
It’s now the morning after the night before that I hadn’t meant to happen. I woke up feeling like something out of the nastier corners of the Old Testament. Cary has vanished without trace and I can’t say I blame her. I feel guilty and if she was around I’d want to give her another black eye. Dammit, I can’t even remember if it was any good. I don’t even fancy her.
I’m writing to you straight away – I guess out of the purely selfish motive of allaying a sore conscience. I think I’ve a pretty good idea of how you’ll react, and I deserve whatever you intend to throw at me. The next move is most certainly your own. All I’ll do is say, ‘This happened, but I love you and don’t want to lose you. Never.’
Shamefaced.
Randolph, xxx
20
It was Monday afternoon.
‘Please, could you tell me where I can find theology reference books?’
‘Upstairs,’ Domina was told by the girl inside the bleeping check-out machine. ‘You go through that arch, then up the stairs to the second floor. When you come in there’s a reception desk straight ahead of you. Turn right and it’s the first bay of shelves on your left, by the philosophy books.’
‘Thank you.’
Domina pushed through the turnstile and followed the directions. A large watercolour hung over the first landing. It was called ‘All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed’ and showed the Virgin in garish majesty, surrounded by various saints and important figures, historical and Kensington. Beneath the heavy frame there dangled a key to the work, with each figure in silhouette linked by a number to a name on a long list. She pushed through the swing doors, turned right and found the first bay on the left. It was empty of readers. She slung her shoulder bag onto the desk. Randy’s letter slid out and on to the floor. She picked it up and stuffed it inside.
She had posted her bland little missive on Sunday night before going to bed, and had picked his up in the hall on her way out this morning. It said ‘urgent’ on the envelope, so Des must have driven over and dropped it off. There was a message on the back.
‘Just can’t keep our good thing at bay, can we? Urgent my arse. Give me a ring sometime. Hope all’s productive. Des.’ Letters that passed each other in the mail were matched for irritation value only by telephones unintentionally off the hook and broken egg yolk in meringue mixture. She had read his news three times as she walked down Kensington Church Street to the library, and her heart had not missed a beat. This could have been a symptom of delayed rage, but she doubted it.
On Sunday night she had written the first scene of Act Two, introducing the youngish Fay to the much younger Barnaby. The unaccustomed conversion of life into comedy didn’t feel like cheating. She had always supposed it would.
As they had driven through London in his battered Morris iooo he had asked her to call him Quin. The weather at Biggin Hill had been astonishing. The air was still, the sky cloudless, and she had felt the heat radiating off the tarmac onto her bare legs as they crossed the airfield. She had never flown in a light aircraft before, had travelled in nothing smaller than great, fat Boeings to the Mediterranean and America. Large aeroplanes only scared her as they hurtled along the runway. As Quin talked shop to the technician who was doing something to the engine, she wondered whether she was going to be afraid.
/> ‘Quin, I’ve never been up in one of these before. Will it be rough?’
‘It’s wonderful!’
‘But is it rough?’
‘Depends on the weather. There’s absolutely no wind down here. There could be some nasty currents higher up. We’ll have to see. Domina, you look terrified.’
‘No. I’m not really. Just excited.’
‘Look, you sit in that seat back there. It’s always a bit nerve-racking sitting right at the front as we take off. Then, once we’re up, you can come forward and sit by me when you’re ready.’
‘You are sweet.’
‘All right? Belt fastened?’
‘Chocks away.’
She sat, strapped in, and played with her fingers as he made the final preparations and they began to coast over what seemed an excessively bumpy runway. The noise was deafening at first, and everything around her seemed to be shaking itself loose. She broke out in a sweat. Then, quite suddenly the shaking stopped, the noise dropped, and she felt her stomach swing away below her. She laughed.
‘Are we up? I daren’t look.’
‘Yes. Isn’t it great?’
‘I still daren’t look.’
‘Don’t be silly. We’re quite safe. Even if the engine fell off, we’re so light we’d fairly glide down. Go on. Have a look.’
Domina raised her eyes and found the plane ablaze with light and the fields spread out far below her. The aerodrome resembled a toy garage.
‘Oooh! God!’
‘Are you going to be sick?’
‘No. I’m just getting used to it. Quin, you are clever. How old were you when you first came up?’
‘Eighteen – that was the first time on my own – well, with Pa sitting in the seat beside me.’
‘Is he very proud of you?’
‘Come and sit up here so you can see properly. I’ll keep her straight so you don’t fall flat.’
She unfastened her belt and lurched forward to the front passenger seat where she hurriedly strapped herself in again.
‘How long can we stay up for?’
‘Not too long because Brian wants her for a lesson. We were a bit slow driving here.’
For a while they had flown in near silence. Quintus concentrated on the controls while Domina found herself keeping up a running commentary on what she could see. It was after about a quarter of an hour that he frightened her. At the time, the wild idea suggested itself that he had befriended her, wooed her almost, simply to be able to take her up to a great height then scare the wits out of her. In retrospect she saw that it was nothing so shallow. He was evidently a very still water.
It began when he had taken them suddenly higher, in a great swoop that drew Domina’s breath away. She laughed nervously, then turned away from the window to see his face transfigured. His eyes were quite off the dials and controls, staring out into the thin blue beyond them, and a smile darted through his lips as he spoke.
‘It’s funny, but when I’m up this high it feels like … well … the closest you can get to God without dying.’ His joy held her dumb. ‘It’s like the Icarus painting,’ he continued, ‘we’re so fragile up here. I could just cut the engines and let us glide slowly into that wood.’
Domina remembered a snatch of Middle English and threw it at him,
‘“A feather on the breath of God”? Do you think it’s true people fall asleep before they hit the ground?’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I think if you wanted to die that way, you’d certainly fall quietly. There would come a point where you reached maximum velocity and it would be quite peaceful.’
‘I think I should panic. Imagine if you changed your mind when it was too late.’
‘It’s never too late. Not in a plane. You can pull them out of a dive surprisingly late, just as long as you keep calm. Do you want to glide?’
‘What?’
‘Look. I’ll show you. It’s wonderful. It’s like in The Protevangelium of James.’
‘The what?’ The boy was mad or drunk.
‘The Protevangelium of James, where time stands still for the birth of Christ.’
He leant over and deftly flicked a switch. There was a stuttering and then silence. The engine had stopped.
‘Oh my God …’ Domina started, then realized that there was no sickening drop.
They were gliding onwards in silence.
‘See?’ Quin turned and his smile was almost gleeful.
‘“A feather on the breath of God”,’ Domina muttered. Then she caught an image of a balsa wood glider, the kind she had made from half-crown kits as a child, sailing in a gentle arc upwards, then coming to a sudden halt in its rise before taking a nose dive. Any minute now the trees were going to come roaring up towards them. ‘For Christ’s sake, Quintus, don’t be a little fool. Start the fucking engine or you’ll kill us both!’
Even as her anger flared up and he swiftly obeyed, she sensed her expletive jar crudely with the scene he had begun to create. The engine coughed back into life and at once she felt as though he had made a pass and she had given him a cruel rebuffal.
‘Oh Quin, I’m so sorry. I didn’t …’
‘No. Honestly. It was all my …’
‘No. I just suddenly felt so scared. I thought we were going to die.’
‘I should have warned you. It was unfair to take you by surprise like that. We must go down now.’
‘Must we?’
‘Time for Brian to take her over.’
On the journey home their stilted conversation had petered out swiftly. He had the radio tuned in to Radio Three. The aggressive classicism alienated her and she had fallen to staring at the side of the road. Back in the house he had saved the situation with the gesture of making tea, and she had been able to make cheerful conversation through two cups before sloping off to Act Two.
‘Sorry. I wonder if you could help me?’
‘We do our best. What seems to be the problem?’
The man behind the desk was insufferable, as Quin had warned her.
‘Well, I’m trying to find a copy of The Protevangelium of James. I’ve looked all through the theology section but, well, to be quite frank, I’m not sure I know what I’m looking for.’
His patronage enraged her. ‘Is it a work of theology,’ he asked, ‘or a piece of theological fiction?’
‘I think it’s some kind of sacred text.’
‘Let’s see.’ He began to slide a microfiche through a viewing machine. ‘Prob … Prog … Prom. It really does help if you can find out who publishes the thing, you know.’
‘Hello, Domina. What’s the problem?’ It was Avril, string bag in hand.
‘Hello. You haven’t heard of The Protevangelium of James, have you?’
‘Of course. It’ll be over here in Theology. It’s a non-canonical gospel.’ She inclined her head at a confidential angle. ‘My little man seems to know the thing backwards. Fairly obscure, but it seems to have a strong oral-traditional background.’
Domina turned back to the desk where the man was looking piqued.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said.
‘There we are, my dear. The Non-Canonical Gospel Texts. Nineteen fifty-three, but I don’t imagine much has changed since then.’
‘Thanks, Avril.’
‘How goes the typing?’
‘Oh. Well. I’m starting on yours this afternoon.’
‘Probably take you an age to decipher my arachnid scrawl. Take your time, though, take your time. Glad I could be of some help.’ So whispering, she headed for the sociology table.
Domina sat and began to read. Mary’s childhood in the temple was described, and the singling out of Joseph to be the saintly guardian. She read fast, skipping over much of the text, then was pulled up short by chapter eighteen:
18.2. Now I, Joseph, was walking, and yet I did not walk, and I looked up to the air and saw the air in amazement. And I looked up at the vault of heaven, and I saw it standing still and the birds of the heaven m
otionless. And I looked at the earth, and saw a dish placed there and workmen lying round it, with their hands in the dish. But those who chewed did not chew, and those who lifted up anything lifted up nothing, and those who put something to their mouth put nothing to their mouth, but all had their faces turned upwards.
21
The night had been sticky and troubled and now someone was trying to batter down her door. She was unable to write on her return from the library and had seized on the opportunity of going to bed as a diversion and escape. She could not sleep, however. The air was tight with mustering storm, the bedding seemed dotted with biscuit crumbs, and a family nearby were broadcasting a film of the action-packed variety. She lay listening to the succession of explosions and screaming women for a while, wondering whether it was one she had seen, then was driven out of bed by the intimate wail of a mosquito. Cursing, she had pulled on a frock and some sandals and decided on a walk around the block. Tilly was sitting out on the porch, so she had stayed to talk to her instead. Rather, Tilly talked and Domina listened, too tired to contribute much. They watched the laughing boys and stealthier elders passing in and out of the Hermes Club. They held a brief exchange with Thierry and Nick (or was it Alan?), as they came in, then she had tried to sleep once more. She lay awake for perhaps another half an hour, resisting the temptation to call on Quin when she heard him return from a vigil, before falling prey to a night of sickly erotic dreams involving a quantity of sleek machinery and miscellaneous liturgical symbols. She had woken, quite unrefreshed, to a thick, grey sky above which the sun was evidently scorching.
The batterer-down of the door was Mrs Moorhouse with an announcement that Westminster Bureau had telephoned, that she, Mrs Moorhouse, had failed to wake her, that they asked her urgently to ring back when she woke, and that they had telephoned several times the day before when she was out. This news took a deadening effect on what was already a spiritless awakening. Domina swung her feet onto the nylon carpet and felt a gnawing ache in her lumbar vertebrae. Old Faithful. Her period was under five days away. Any attempt at creativity would be futile. Last time she had been in Tuscany, the backache had come on and Aunt Juliana-Costanza had explained that it was the BVM’s way of reminding women of their duty to bear children.