Upstairs smelled of damp. The bathroom had a sloping floor and the bath was scribbled with curling hairs. There were orange knobs of fungus pressing out from behind the toilet and shimmering green patches on the walls. When I turned on the tap, though, the water was hot. There was a ferocious roar from the boiler and the water thundered from the calcified mouths of the taps, filling the room with steam. Hannah told me later that Isaac – a skinny guy with white eyelashes – had worked for the gas board and had illegally connected us to the mains.
I was in a peculiar detached daze, as if I was stoned, but there had been no drugs, nor even anything to drink with the meal. I stared at my face in the toothpaste-splattered mirror above the basin and wondered about fate or miracle or coincidence. If I hadn’t gone down that street at that time, I’d have been back at college by now, in the canteen stuffing myself with crispy pancakes, chips and gypsy tart – my Saturday treat. I’d probably be getting ready to go to the Christmas party in the Student Union. My patchwork maxi-dress was waiting in the wardrobe. Parties made me nervous, but still I might have gone. What if I had? I might have been kissed by someone under the mistletoe that night. I might have met a budding teacher and stayed on to become one myself. And then what?
I stood shivering as steam rose from the bath and clouded the mirror until I disappeared, knowing, as you rarely do, that this was a moment of choice, a hinge point in my life. I could have gone downstairs, slipped out of the door and into a different future. I did consider it. I thought about the dress poised for the evening, the mistletoe, the buffet and the disco. As I stripped and lowered myself into the hairy water, I imagined swigging beer and trying to dance to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. There was a third year called Wayne who fancied me.
The bath was so big I had to press my elbows against the sides in order not to drown and I lay there, braced, imagining a kiss from Wayne, imagining taking him back to my room – but it was no good. Now that I’d seen Bo – Adam – again, there was only him for me. I was a goner.
†
There was no curtain in the heron room, but Adam had put night-lights on the windowsill and the flames reflecting against the glass seemed cosily to exclude the night. I stumbled into the room in the too-long gown I’d found hanging among others, all in shades of lavender and lilac. This was the colour of spirituality, Adam told me, and the ‘girls’ had dyed them. Before we made love we kneeled and prayed.
‘Thank you Lord for delivering my true love, my wife in your eyes, back to my arms. Forgive me for doubting that you would do so in your infinite wisdom. Now she is grown-up and ready to serve you through her service to me. Oh Lord, we make love blessed in the sacred joy of your love. Amen.’
And then we did make beautiful and familiar love on his funky-smelling sleeping bag. He was just the same, and his fingers found me out in just the same old way. ‘Maybe this time my son will be conceived,’ he said, and he splayed his palm over my belly. That was when I should have told him I’d been sterilized – but it was a moment I didn’t want to ruin. If I’d told him that there was no possibility of a child, then what? The choice to deceive him was made, out of cowardice, out of tiredness, and couldn’t be unmade. I began to shiver. He re-pumped the airbed and we squashed together into the sleeping bag. He started talking about tomorrow and I told him I had to go back.
He just laughed.
‘It’s the end of term,’ I explained, ‘and then –’
‘Forget it. This is your calling: me, us, Soul-Life.’
‘But –’
He put his finger on my lips, and replaced it with his mouth. I was too tired to argue. I could feel myself slipping into a drowse. I’d explain to him in the morning. I’d tell him I needed to be in Peebles for Christmas but that I’d be back. I’d tell him I wanted to finish my teacher training, but I could come to him every weekend. But I never did. It must sound pathetic that I said none of these things and in fact didn’t go back, even to collect my books and clothes. It was the Lord’s will, you see. Or at least it was Adam’s, which was much the same thing to me.
When Derek came to fetch me on the following Wednesday, I wasn’t there. I was unaware of the fuss that ensued until I saw myself in a newsagent’s window. It was nearly a week later. I’d gone out into the streets with Adam, Isaac and Hannah to spread the word and sell some Christmas pompom decorations we women had made. It was the first time I’d been outside since I’d arrived. The sky was high and white and tiny grey snowflakes shimmied about in the air. People gave us such looks as we paraded along in our lavender robes and woolly hats, and I had to keep in the proud giggliness I felt to be a part of something like this, and such an important part.
I’d been meaning to ring home, but there was no phone in the house and I hadn’t been out. It was thoughtless and heartless and a failure of imagination not to realize how anxious Aunt Regina, Derek and especially Stella would be. I’d kept telling Adam that I must go out and ring, but because of the intensity with which he – and my own feelings – engulfed me, I lost track of the days. When, passing a newsagent, I saw a picture of me, taken from a school photo, my silly grinning face under the headline NO CLUES ON VANISHED STUDENT I stopped as if I’d hit a bollard. The others sailed on ahead, but missed me eventually and came back. We all stood and looked at my grainy face.
Adam went in to buy the paper. He handed it to me, and with the snow skittering off the print I read about my disappearance. A quiet and somewhat naïve student, who kept herself to herself was how I was described. Aunt Regina was quoted as saying it was uncharacteristic behaviour and they were out of their minds with worry. Anyone with any information as to my whereabouts should contact the police. Naïve? I thought. We all trooped to a phone box. Adam gave me a ten pence piece and they waited outside while I rang. I shut my eyes and imagined the goatskin rug on the hall floor and the dusty black of the telephone on the bottom stair. I prayed that Stella would pick up, but it was Aunt Regina who answered in a tight, high voice.
‘It’s me,’ I said.
There was a silence before she shrieked: ‘It’s her!’
‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have rung.’ I could hear a commotion taking place as they all crammed into the tiny hall.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’ve kind of joined a religion,’ I said.
‘She’s joined a religion,’ she relayed.
‘What denomination?’ I heard Kathy ask.
‘Let me handle this,’ Derek said, and then his voice came loud down the receiver. ‘Has this got anything to do with that beatnik?’
I shut my eyes and flinched. ‘If you mean Bogart, yes.’
‘What did I say?’ he said to the others, and then to me: ‘Where are you?’
‘Tooting Bec.’
‘Address?’
‘It’s Cooper Road,’ I said.
‘Number?’ He was barking the questions like a sergeant major. ‘Pen,’ he ordered. He would be pinching his fingers together and twitching his hand around. Why the devil can’t we keep a pen beside the phone, he was always saying, and in fact I’d tied one to the banister once, but someone had taken it down to use the string.
I put my head out of the box. ‘What number do we live at?’
‘Sixty,’ Hannah said, before Adam could stop her. I shut the door again. There were cartoon faces scratched on the thick plastic glass and the smell of pee was somehow comforting.
‘Can I speak to Stella?’ I asked.
‘We’ll set off immediately,’ he said. ‘Eight hours should do it.’
‘Just a quick word,’ I said, and I don’t know if he would have fetched her but the pips went and there was the buzz of an empty line. I opened the door again. ‘Can I have another ten pence?’ I said, but Adam dragged me out. He was furious. I’d never seen him like that before.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Now the pigs’ll be round.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong.’
He looked at me.
/>
‘She’s right,’ Isaac said.
‘I’m nineteen,’ I reminded him. ‘I’m a free agent.’
Adam’s face relaxed. He stood for a moment, thinking, opening and closing his fists. ‘Phone the pigs,’ he said at last, fishing in his robe for another coin.
By the time I got through to the right department, Derek had already talked to the detective in charge of the investigation. All I got was a telling-off for being so inconsiderate and I took it meekly, saying, sorry, sorry, sorry, looking down at the wet that had soaked into the bottom of my robe. I was lucky not to be charged for wasting police time. I could feel my communal knickers drooping between my legs as I apologized.
Isaac and Hannah went off with the bags of pompoms while Adam and I returned to Tooting to get ready for my family. We tidied up the kitchen, and Bethel made some biscuits. We sat in his room cross-legged on his sleeping bag, face to face. He held my hands. It was so cold I couldn’t stop shivering, but he thought it was nerves.
‘Be strong in the Lord,’ he kept saying. ‘They will try to take you back, but you won’t go with them because you belong here with me. The Lord, in his grace, allowed them to have you back until you were ready, until you were mature. Now you are an adult and you can go wherever you want to go, be with whomsoever you choose to be with. And you have chosen me.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘You have chosen the Lord.’ He smiled and cupped my cheeks in his hands. ‘They will try to persuade you. This is the devil’s work. Remember, Martha, that he is wily and his sleeve is full of tricks.’
‘I’ll be OK,’ I said. My teeth were chattering. He went down to fetch tea and came back with a hot water bottle. He wrapped me in a blanket with the bottle. His beard was soft against my forehead as he kissed me.
‘You’re my wife,’ he said.
‘But I’m not,’ I said. ‘Not really. They won’t see it like that.’
I felt steamy in the wrapping, like a baking pie. Adam picked up his guitar and twanged about a bit before he settled into a long rambling song about miracles and herons. The chorus went:
You seem to be a bird
With feathers and a beak
You seem to be absurd
You seem a little freaky
But though you cannot speak
You bring the word
You bring the word
You bring the word.
It was catchy and from my blanket nest I joined in. He sang with his eyes closed and a spiritual smile flickering at the corners of his lips, then stopped abruptly and put the guitar down. ‘Thank you!’ he said, looking at the ceiling.
‘What?’
‘Stay put.’
I could hear him galloping downstairs. I snuggled into the blanket, the hot water bottle burning the skin of my belly. I couldn’t believe they would be coming all the way to London. Derek thought nothing of driving thousands of miles; it was one of the things Aunt Regina loved about him. No sooner did she say she wanted to go somewhere than he was revving up the engine. He’d be driving now, peering forward like a tortoise from its shell. Aunt Regina would be beside him and, in the back, maybe Kathy (though I hoped not) taking up three-quarters of the seat, probably handing out her sickening goats’-milk toffees, and Stella would be crammed into her tiny quarter, screwed up in a knot of arms and legs.
It was nearly dark and a street lamp slanted through the struts of the balcony and the window frame, making a complicated grid of shadows on the wall and floor. Some of the herons were trapped in shadow cages. A Salvation Army band started up, a few honks and squeals before launching into ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. I wriggled towards the window in the sleeping bag to look out – they were on the corner outside the pub. There was a tree in the pub window. The scene looked like a corny Christmas card; you only needed to sprinkle on a bit of glitter.
Hannah, Bethel and Kezia came into the room, all giggly and fluttery. They pulled me out of the sleeping bag. ‘Oi!’ I said.
‘Who’s getting married?’ Kezia was a plump and rosy American with a hairy face, a bit older than the rest.
‘Married?’
‘So that your family can be there,’ Bethel explained. ‘Adam’s in the downstairs bog, shaving!’
‘No!’ I said. ‘But I love his beard!’
Hannah had begun to brush my hair, which was damply snarled, and I yelped like a child. ‘Stand still,’ she said. ‘We have to try and make you beautiful.’
‘No one asked me,’ I said.
Bethel went out and returned with a clean gown, a bit smaller and at least, I noticed gratefully, warmer-looking than the polyester thing I’d been wearing.
‘No flowers,’ Kezia grumbled.
‘And anyway, we can’t get married just like that,’ I said. ‘There are legal papers and stuff.’
‘Got any make-up?’ Hannah was pulling harder at my hair than she needed to. She began to pin sections of it painfully against my scalp.
‘I came with nothing,’ I said, aware of the biblical ring.
‘Get mine,’ Kezia said, and Bethel fetched a filthy zip-up pouch, leaking patchouli oil. She outlined my eyes in kohl, and filled my lips in deep maroon.
‘It won’t be a real wedding,’ I said, when she let me have my mouth back.
‘Better?’ Kezia asked Hannah, who frowned at me before saying, ‘Best we can do.’
‘We need flowers,’ Kezia said again. Then she laughed. ‘Hang on, people.’ She hurried out.
‘Let’s try a bit more blusher,’ Hannah muttered. ‘I never thought Adam would.’
‘He said,’ Bethel explained to me, ‘that Jesus told him we shouldn’t get into couples. It’s too individual.’
‘That’s a contradiction in terms,’ I said. Hannah was dabbing at my cheeks. I could see in the mirror she was making me look clownish.
‘It’s different for Adam,’ Hannah said, an edge of sarcasm in her voice. ‘Jesus chose a wife for him.’
‘I think that’s enough.’ I ducked away from her red-smeared finger.
†
Kezia came bounding back in with someone’s Christmas wreath. ‘A good cause,’ she said. With a pair of nail scissors she snipped a couple of red plastic roses out of it. ‘I could make a table decoration,’ she said, removing some holly and a few gold-sprayed fir cones. ‘Think they’ll notice?’ She held up the denuded wreath. It actually looked better, from a minimalist point of view. She went to sneak it back.
The doorbell rang and I heard it being answered and Derek saying, ‘Where is she?’ I looked in the mirror and there I was, all dolled up, and that was the right expression given the way my face seemed to have been drawn on.
‘Melanie?’ Aunt Regina called up the stairs. I went to the top and looked down. Her face was tilted up at me, soft in the lamplight, beautifully withered.
‘Come here.’ She held out her arms and I ran down the stairs and into them. She smelled goatish and powdery and she let out a little sob as she hugged me.
Derek stood shaking his head. ‘What’s this get-up?’ he said, looking me up and down.
Stella was standing in the shadow. ‘Stell,’ I said, and hugged her. She felt insubstantial in my arms; thin, yes, but more than that. It was as if some essence within her had ceased to exist, or maybe it had never been there in the first place.
‘Have you really got religion then?’ she said in my ear.
At that moment I didn’t know. It wasn’t about religion; it was about Adam. A beardless stranger came into the hall, and I saw that it was him.
‘Alan,’ Derek said.
‘Adam now,’ I said.
‘I thought he called himself Bogart?’ Aunt Regina said.
Adam radiated patience at their folly. ‘What’s in a name?’ he said, smiling beatifically at them.
‘In which case, I’ll address you as Alan,’ Derek said.
Adam shrugged. ‘No problem,’ he said, but I caught his twitch of irritation.
‘Will someo
ne explain to me what this pantomime is all about?’
‘We’re getting married,’ I said.
‘Married!’ Stella said. ‘What, now?’
Derek choked.
‘Married?’ Aunt Regina said. She and Derek exchanged looks. ‘We’d like a word with Melanie,’ Aunt Regina said. ‘In private, if you don’t mind.’
‘You won’t change my mind,’ I said, and Adam beamed approval at me.
‘Can we get out of this perishing hall?’ Derek said.
We went into the sitting room, softly lit with many candles. The fire was crackling and Kezia had made a decoration out of holly, fir cones and the filched roses. It looked cosy and festive, though there was smoke leaking out of a crack in the chimney breast.
‘I want to talk to Stell.’ I took her hand and led her up to the bedroom. ‘How are you?’ I said.
‘Fine.’
‘How’s school?’ These were not the questions I wanted to ask or that she wanted to answer. She made a throaty non-committal noise.
‘Where’s Kathy?’ I said.
‘She stayed home so there was room in the car – in case.’ Her eyes met mine and she raised her eyebrows quizzically. ‘She’s going to cook the fatted calf,’ she said. ‘Well, kid actually.’
‘Do you want me to come back?’ I said.
‘Up to you.’ We could hear raised voices down below.
‘They were arguing in the car,’ Stella said. ‘Nearly all the way from Peebles. Married, Mel!’ she added, narrowing her eyes at me. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s not real anyway,’ I said. ‘I mean there’s no vicar or council thingy or anything.’
Stella frowned. ‘Why bother then?’
To keep Adam happy was a possible answer, but I didn’t give it.
‘If it was a real wedding, would you?’ Stella asked.
To my own surprise, I nodded.
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