She shut her eyes a moment, hung on to the door. She was a child of eight or nine again, riding on a ghost train in a rough and raucous fairground they had discovered one bank holiday – the sense of dizzy motion as they’d hurtled round the track, cobwebs brushing their bare arms, spectres looming up in the sticky threshing darkness, then vanishing to sudden howls and whinings. She squinted through her lashes. They were, in fact, driving very slowly, but there was still the sense of speed, the same exciting feeling of being shut up on their own, with things coming at them, threatening, then veering off again; the same uncanny noises and patchy, shifting light. The street lamps were all dead, and though the headlights lit up frequent casualties – trees fallen, leaning, smashed – their dark and massy branches seemed to leach away the light, make the darkness darker. The ghost-train ride had lasted just five minutes, seemed more like an hour. It was the same with this brief drive. A mile or so of easy road had been spun out to infinity, become a test of courage. The tiny car was rocking on its springs, tugged and shaken by sudden savage blasts, blown along like a puny paper carton.
She laughed again, out loud. The man joined in, as if they were sharing some huge private joke – nature’s joke, which only she and he could understand. Their two breaths and the heater’s were fugging up the car, bonding them in some way. It was so long since she’d sat close to someone, shared the same small space, apart from the sick mouse in the kitchen, the sea-gulls on the porch. She glanced outside again. The road was slowly widening, houses looming up one side, as at last they reached the outskirts of the town, a darkened town, still without its street lights. The man jammed on his brakes, as they saw a knot of people huddled in their nightclothes beside the wreckage of a bungalow. Their flickering torches cast grotesque shadows on gaping roof and blown-out wall. She could see right into the bedroom – a rumpled lacy coverlet on the still-warm double bed, a pile of bricks and mortar on the fluffy bedside rug. Her parents had a rug like that, even the same colour. She drew her breath in sharply, sat absolutely motionless. The man scrabbled at his door, about to offer help, only shrugged back in again as a police car sirened past, followed by an ambulance. Even when the sirens stopped, she could still hear them shrilling in her head; see her mother on a stretcher, her pale face even paler, her bossy fussing figure quiet at last.
The man drove jerkily away, letting out a hail of words, as if he needed to express his sense of shock. The words were simply noise to her, answered with her own noise. Why was life so complicated? Couldn’t things have been arranged so that people spoke one simple basic language, or belonged to just one gender, or had fewer complex body-parts, or minds which could tell truth from lies, or mothers who were real? She stared out through the windscreen, wishing they could just turn back, or had lost their eyes, their feelings. Other cars were now converging, their acrid yellow headlights showing up a scene of total chaos. They had nagged her for untidiness at home, but here everything was messed, convulsed, on some gigantic scale: scaffolding collapsed, lamp-posts snapped like matchsticks, the entire roof peeled off a block of flats, as if someone had removed it with a can-opener. Gaps everywhere – gaps in walls, in windows, gaps in lines of trees or rows of terraced houses; stout fencing hacked to firewood, a large imposing caravan toppled like a toy, shop windows open to the street, selling only rubble.
The man was almost panicking, slowing down, half-stopping, then lurching on again, muttering and groaning to himself. He drove towards a woman wrapped in an old eiderdown and sitting in the gutter; was stopped before he reached her, flagged down by the police.
‘You can’t go that way, sir. The road’s completely blocked. I suggest you go back home. We’re trying to clear the streets.’
The man blustered, shouted, failed to understand. She understood too well: go back home. Impossible. She tried to hide her face, had been hiding from policemen for twenty-seven days. It was time she went to ground again, said goodbye and thank you to her driver. He had done what she had wanted, brought her into town, to light and peace and safety – except all three had broken down. She waited till the police car slid away, then tugged his sleeve, pointed through the window, made a stopping sign. She doubted he could see it in the dark, since, instead of stopping, he veered sharply to the right. The chaos was increasing; two ambulances nosing down the road now, sirens blaring out again, garish blue lights flashing. He turned into a side-street to avoid them, crunched across a tide of fallen debris, then pulled up outside a small hotel, which looked relatively unharmed, though three elderly guests in dressing-gowns were shivering in the doorway, one sobbing and hysterical. She opened the car door, tried to dart away, but the man was already round her side, trying to coax her up the steps of the hotel.
She shoved him off, bolted down the narrow road, dived behind a wall, crouched there, out of breath. She could see him sidling up to her in the shabby hotel bedroom, turning back the faded yellow candlewick; hear his guttural noises as he climbed on top of her; flabby folds of stomach dripping on her midriff, blue nylon sheets clammy with his sweat. The scene went blank at that point. She wasn’t sure what happened next, had no direct experience. One boy had lain on top of her, a boy called Ian she’d met on a computer course, who had coaxed her to his bedsit for a drink, though she had found herself not sipping beer or coffee, but lying on his sofa-bed with her skirt up round her waist. Suddenly she’d panicked, changed her mind, fought him off, pretending she felt sick. The same queasiness was rippling through her stomach now, as she tried to quiet her breathing, make herself invisible. Sex was everywhere – in magazines, on bookstalls, in doctors’ waiting-rooms, in novels, films and videos, but that didn’t make it easier – worse, in fact – because she seemed to be the only prude, the only prissy innocent.
Maybe she’d misjudged the man. He might only have meant to help, been offering her a bed alone, or a meal or warmth or shelter. She didn’t want a bed or meal; only craved for light – proper light, morning light, not those flaring storm-lamps, or callous torches flushing out trapped victims. She checked her watch, astonished it was only four A.M. According to her internal clock, several nights had passed; time pulled out and out like strudel pastry, yet now contracted back again. So how kill the hours till morning? There were no all-night cafés open, no bustling bars or night-clubs. That was why she’d settled here when she’d first run away from home, relieved to find a stopping-place so stagnant and anonymous, a small and dying South Coast town which discouraged tourists with its drab shops, shingly beaches, dearth of entertainments, and where nobody would find her, no one even care; three hundred and fifty miles away from angry, frantic parents. She had planned to flee still further, maybe run into the sea and be swallowed up and drowned, or run across the Channel and keep on going until she reached the South of France. But she hadn’t had the money or the strength.
She eased up from the ground, crept on down the road, tense and on her guard still, in case the man was loitering, though no one seemed to follow save the wind. She turned a shadowy corner, almost trod on something – a corpse, a female corpse, stiffly dead, but smiling, its breasts completely bare, its lower limbs swathed in dirty velvet. She stared in horror, then realised it was plastic; a fashion dummy, blasted from a store, its coy smile only painted, taut nipples pointing skywards. She broke into a run, pounded on, despite the wind, despite the ruts and hazards in the road; kept tripping, stumbling, dazed by blinding headlamps, then plunged again in darkness. Everything was jumbled: light and dark, noise and eerie silences; urgent sirens, panting cars, then deserted ghostly alleyways, sudden cold and void. She faltered to a stop, uncertain where she was. Shops and homes had thinned now, but she could just make out the dark bulk of a church looming to her left. She limped towards it, and suddenly a passing car illuminated the letters on a poster in the porch: ‘AND UNDERNEATH ARE THE EVERLASTING ARMS’. The car turned the corner and the poster blanked to nothing, but she had transferred it to her head. She liked the words, could see the arms, like huge and fea
thered wings, spread out beneath the broken world, soothing it, supporting it.
She groped towards the porch, pushed the heavy door. It resisted her, refused her. Why were churches so often locked, when they were meant to offer shelter, described as sanctuaries? She had sometimes tried to visit one, out of simple curiosity, but rarely found it open, even in the daytime. Her parents weren’t religious, hadn’t included Sunday services in their bustling full-packed timetable, which had worked its way through ballet classes, Brownies, piano lessons, tennis coaching, stroke-improvement classes at the local swimming baths, and scores of joyless sessions at the ice rink, which had ended with a gashed and bleeding leg. Her legs were throbbing now, as if remembering the pain; her feet hurting in their thin unpadded trainers. She would have to stop and rest, and at least she’d found a windbreak. She crouched down in the porch, right beneath the poster, with its wildly generous promise, which was probably the most colossal lie of all. Yet she wanted to believe it, yearned for arms beneath her, for words like ‘everlasting’. She stretched out on the bare and dirty wood, turned it into wings, snug supportive wings, a mother’s arms, storm-proofed and secure.
Chapter Two
Jane ran, and kept on running, ran through high brick walls and tangled hedges, ran through foaming waves and wasn’t wet, ran through panes of glass and wasn’t cut. She pounded to the winning-post, woke up, bewildered by the stillness, the fact she couldn’t hear the sea; then suddenly remembered where she was. The wind had dropped, at last, but it was still raw and spooky-dark, the moon fretting the grey tombstones which seemed to have edged up closer to the porch, moved nearer to the church while she’d been sleeping. The damp cold must have woken her, the hard uneven floor. Her feet had lost their feeling, her limbs were stiff and cramped. She pushed her sleeve back, squinted at the illuminated figures of her watch. Still only half past five. It wasn’t just the weather which was chaotic and disturbed, but time as well. Someone must have tampered with it, reset the cosmic clock. She never remembered any night lasting quite so long. She felt grubby and dishevelled, as if she’d been out for days and days, taking part in some endless pointless route-march, scheduled always for the dark.
She eased up to her feet, tried the door again. Still locked. Perhaps locked churches had no power, couldn’t save themselves. This one had been struck – or at least its gravestones had – two pinioned by a fallen tree, the marble angel next to them lopsided with one wing. Despite his disability, he was still smiling, pointing Godwards; pale moonlight pockmarking his skin, rippling his white hair. Jane edged on down the path, past a carnage of torpedoed flowers – a recent corpse’s ‘floral tributes’ mangled to a pulp. She picked up a headless stalk, thorns jabbing at her fingers. Roses always moralised, tried to teach you that scent and gorgeous colour had a price; the more beautiful the blooms, the sharper the thorns. The day she’d left, their garden had been cruel with them, crimson bullies out-shouting all the other flowers. She could still smell them three days later, when the only smells were paraffin and brine. Had the storm struck Shrepton this time, smashed her mother’s hybrid teas in their mulched and weeded beds? She dodged behind a bush, could see a torch flashing along the south wall of the church; someone examining the stonework, peering at the windows. It must be the vicar, worried by the storm, checking any damage to his church. The only vicar she’d ever met was the one who came twice-yearly to their school, a boyish bouncy type, who tried to make religion sound jolly and good fun, as if he were a Redcoat in some Jesus brand of Butlin’s. She shrank away instinctively, back towards the gate, stopped before she reached it. A vicar might be useful, not stern like the police, but someone trained to help, trusted to keep confidences. She was desperate for a job; her money almost gone now, her few old clothes inadequate for winter. She’d been nervous about applying for a post, scared of all the questions and the grillings; feared someone in authority might try to send her home, even though she was officially an adult and had every legal right to work at what she wanted, live exactly where she chose. Her parents were bound to have alerted the police, given them her photograph to circulate, so that if she entered any dole office or job centre, she’d be recognised, tracked down. But a vicar would be different, might know of some more casual job which she could do for cash in hand, so that she wouldn’t be entangled in tax demands, officialdom.
She crept back to the church. The torch had disappeared now; no sign of life at all. She followed the wall round to the far side of the church, a sallow wash of moonlight jaundicing the stone, showing up a small side-door, overhung by ivy. She pushed aside the tangled noose, tried the rusty handle, falling forward suddenly as it yielded to her pressure and she found herself inside. She paused a moment, awed. The church looked larger than it had from the outside, shadowy stone arches soaring up beyond her, glints and gleams of moonlight seeping through the dark stained glass, revealing ghostly figures, highlighting saints’ haloes, angels’ outstretched wings. The darkness was gradated now, deep pools of it in corners, dappling into silver where the moon could gain an entrance, but mostly sombre black. No solid shapes or lines; walls and roof-beams indistinct, a blur of pews, a looming bulk of pulpit. She stood silent where she was, aware of all the smells – the rotting scent of overripe chrysanthemums, the odour of old stone, the subtle smell of candle-wax all but snuffed by the fondant breath of freesias wafting from a ledge above her head. She could hardly hear the wind now. The solid walls had blocked it out, reduced it to a drone. She edged into the centre aisle, between two broad-shouldered pillars, felt the darkness drift and clog around her, as if she were groping through black smoke.
‘Is that you, Anthony?’
The deep male voice boomeranged towards her, reverberated back again. So the vicar was still there, skulking in the shadows. She’d assumed he’d gone back home, and, anyway, it now seemed quite impossible to discuss employment prospects with him at half past five on a bruised and broken morning in an empty, unlit church. She backed away, banged her shin on something, stooped down to rub it, wincing. ‘No, it’s not,’ she stammered. ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you. I’m just going; actually.’
She was answered by his torch, which suddenly stabbed on again, a huge round eye blinding and transfixing her, so that she couldn’t move at all. She tried to shade her eyes. The torch had extinguished everything save its own insistent beam, a fierce searchlight swooping closer, as his footsteps shocked the cold stone floor, stopped a yard or two in front of her. Still she couldn’t see him, only feel his own eyes drilling through her body, until she was reduced to shred and sawdust, vital pieces of herself just shavings on the ground. She collapsed into a pew, bent to rub her leg again, felt the bruise swelling like an egg.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, not waiting for her answer. ‘There’s a total black-out between here and Portsmouth. The entire network’s broken down. I heard it on the news. They’re saying it’s the most savage storm on record since the great hurricane of 1703.’
His voice was strong, well-modulated, what she’d call a blue-chip voice, fattened on good food and wine, good breeding and good schools. His coat looked fattened, too – what she could make out of it – a bulky coat, padded at the shoulders, as if to lend him force and weight. Vicars should be poor, she thought, carpenters and fishermen. She turned to leave, wishing she could beg his torch, or that he would offer it himself. His house was probably just next door, whereas she had miles to trudge.
‘You local?’ he asked tersely, as if he’d read her mind.
‘Er, no.’
‘On a bike or …?’
‘Walking.’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it, not until it’s light, at least. You’d better hang around.’
Men were always dominant – fathers, vicars, teachers, bosses. She’d learnt not to react, to keep silent, seem submissive. He couldn’t hear her anyway. A car had drowned his own voice, headlamps sweeping past the window, imprinting his dark shadow gigantic on the wall, her own shadow swamped in
his. She stole a nervous look at him, as both shadows ebbed to nothing. He was small, in fact, in terms of simple stature, though his voice, his clothes, his presence, seemed to expand to fill the church. Perhaps all vicars were like that. They must need great charisma to thunder from the pulpit, lay down the moral law; must feel self-important with God as their immediate boss and a soaring church as office.
He turned abruptly on his heel, as if bored with her, or restless, started striding back the way he’d come, towards the dark west end. She stood dithering in the aisle, tempted to escape now, yet attracted by his torch, by the fact he was a minister, someone in control, perhaps even with some influence on things like storms, disasters. She followed him uncertainly, stumbling in the gloom as she watched the beam in front of her light up fleeting details in the church – a sudden splash of colour from a green and purple hassock, a spiky candelabra, doubled by its shadow, some exotic speckled leaves bulking out a formal flower arrangement. He stopped beside a marble font, tilting back his head so that he could scan the whole tall window, flashed his torch up and down the glass. ‘Can you see any damage?’
She frowned, screwed up her eyes, couldn’t make out much at all, except a jigsaw of vague shapes, some darker and receding, some lighter, leaping forward, though none with any certain form or colour.
‘We had a lot of problems fixing this west window. The stonework’s not too brilliant, and it’s weakest at this end. I was tossing all damned night, listening to the wind, and imagining that glass just a pile of shattered fragments on the floor.’ He refocused the torch, peered intently upwards. She glanced at him instead. He was as undefined as the figures in the glass – no colour in his eyes or clothes, no outline to his features. Yet she imagined he’d be dark: stern brown hair and eyes, to match his strong brown voice.
Bird Inside Page 2