Bad Mothers Brilliant Lovers

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘Can’t you ask me now?’

  ‘It’s impossible to talk here,’ he retorted, although struggling to regain his composure and remain, in her estimation, Mr Calm-and-Kind, ‘with all these people milling around.’

  They were, indeed, causing an obstruction, having come to a halt in the middle of the concourse, surrounded by passengers with loaded trolleys or oversized pushchairs, and whole clans of Asians complete with grannies, aunties, parents, kids and babes in arms. Thank God, he thought, his own relatives weren’t here; his mother dispensing unsolicited advice about diarrhoea or jet-lag; his Granny Walker dribbling and demented, and his embarrassing Aunt Ellen with her peroxided hair and brazen mini-skirts. At least he had Rosie to himself – bar a few hundred strangers, that is. The only problem was she didn’t appear to want even another minute of his company.

  As a stewardess teetered past in her smart blue uniform and unsuitably high heels, an outrageous plan flashed into his mind. If he kidnapped that woman and all other airline staff, no plane would be able to fly, Rosie would be grounded and he could whisk her off to some sequestered spot, with no danger of temptation in the form of retail therapy. He was her therapy, her raison d’etre, her only destination, so somehow he must persuade her to fall in with his plan of a romantic tête-à-tête in the auspicious Café Nero, leading to a definite commitment on her part.

  ‘If you don’t want coffee, why not have a camomile tea or something nice and calming? You won’t be late, I promise. I’ll keep a very careful eye on the time.’ Hardly any need when, once again, she was peering at that hateful watch.

  ‘Oh, all right, Stephen, I’ll let you twist my arm.’

  Twisting her arm wasn’t what he had in mind; her sucking his cock might come a little closer but, at this rate, he’d be lucky if he managed to touch so much as her fingernail.

  There was yet another queue at the Café Nero counter and, much to his chagrin, she refused all food, which would have given them much longer for their crucial conversation. Rosie always ate in a slow, unhurried fashion; even a single cake or sandwich taking her ages to consume. To extend their time together, he would have ordered her hundreds of cakes, fifty-dozen sandwiches, twenty trayfuls of Danish pastries. But she settled for nothing but a miniscule bottle of water, which made his own hot chocolate seem blatant in comparison, topped as it was with an avalanche of frothy, foaming whipped cream. As he took his first sip, he imagined coating every inch of her body with that same sensuous cream, then slowly licking it off, from her neck to her nipples, from her belly to her bush, down the insides of both thighs to her captivating—

  ‘Oh, shit! I’ve forgotten to ring Harriet and I promised to call her from the airport. She’s due any minute now to see the doctor – you know, about her broken ankle, so I’d better phone her right away. You don’t mind, do you, Stephen?’

  Yes, I do mind, he all but bellowed. They had actually found a table to themselves – a chance to speak, at last – yet, instead of saying an impassioned yes to his marriage proposal, she was already jabbering to her unspeakable friend. And, to make matters worse, the couple at the adjoining table were kissing with such fervour, their mouths seemed literally glued to each other; the man’s tongue thrust in so deep, it was probably halfway down his girlfriend’s gullet. He loathed the couple, not only for showing up his own pusillanimity, but for being such expert kissers. If he tried the same with Rosie, he’d probably bang his teeth against hers, or ignominiously choke, or bite her lip, by mistake, and draw shaming rivers of blood.

  Should he simply give up, resign himself to lifelong celibacy and bachelorhood, while she rabbited on to Harriet? It seemed unutterably humiliating that she clearly had much more to say to some stupid cretin in Accounts than to her future husband and the father of her children. In his mind, those children were already born – four entrancing replicas of Rosie; his own red-haired genes savagely repressed.

  ‘Harriet sends her regards,’ Rosie said as, finally, she finished the call, adding with a laugh, ‘and she says she’s sorry she lumbered you with the chore of seeing me off!’

  Wasn’t this his chance? He must make it absolutely clear that, far from being a chore, it was the deepest honour and privilege. However, once he had made that declaration in a supremely heartfelt and poetic tone, she simply gave another giggle and said, ‘Oh, Stephen, you are quaint!’

  ‘Quaint’, for Christ’s sake, when there were countless other adjectives he would have given his right arm to hear: sensational, irresistible, hunky, manly, drop-dead-gorgeous.

  ‘Anyway, I really must make a move.’ Watch-checking time again. It was all he could do not to wrench that damn watch off her wrist and graft their arms together, so they could live hereafter as mutually worshipping Siamese twins.

  ‘Dad told me to go through Security as soon as possible, not just to buy duty-free and stuff, but to make sure I have plenty of time to find the right gate for my flight.’

  He wouldn’t know, having never flown in his life – another humiliation, to add to all the rest.

  ‘But I don’t want to rush you, Stephen, so why not stay here and finish your drink in peace? Security’s not far, so I can easily make my own way now.’

  He gulped his drink so fast it burned his mouth, but what was a scalded tongue compared to the horror of being finally defeated? He refused to give up – could still declare his love, even if forced to do so at the very entrance to Security. Rosie, however, seemed so keen to be off, she was already bounding up to a uniformed official who was checking passengers’ boarding-cards.

  ‘Rosie!’ he yelled, not caring who heard. This was a crisis-point in his life: it was now or never, win or lose, the ecstatic bliss of heaven as against the endless torment of hell.

  As she turned to face him, he lowered his voice to a passionate whisper, knowing he had to match his tone to the sheer drama of the moment. ‘Darling,’ he breathed, throwing caution to the winds and breaking with a lifetime of restraint and inhibition, ‘I love you, I adore you, and I know beyond all doubt that you and I belong together. Just say you’ll be mine and, whatever it takes, I’ll find a way to join you.’

  Waving a jaunty hand, she wheeled back again and proceeded along the passage that led to Security – a passage totally out of bounds to him. He stared, open-mouthed, at her retreating back. Obviously, she couldn’t have heard. She would never dream of snubbing him so cruelly, or wave a callous goodbye in the middle of his ardent declaration, however great her haste. It was his own stupid fault, of course – he had spoken far too softly, in his usual timorous mumble, so it was imperative to repeat his spiel, or risk eternal separation.

  But just as he was drawing breath for a passionate reprise, she suddenly turned back once more. The situation was saved! Clearly, all she had required was a moment or two to formulate her response – something equally fervent and committed.

  ‘Ta-ra!’ she carolled, with the usual radiant smile, but he registered, with a stomach churning pang, that, instead of saying Ta-ra for now’ – her usual phrase for any leave-taking – she had said ‘ta-ra’, full-stop. Did that mean Ta-ra for ever: adieu, not au revoir?

  No, impossible. She must simply be feeling thunderstruck to realize the depth of his devotion and just needed time to adjust. Any minute now, she would come running back, to tell him she’d been thrown off-guard, but was profoundly thrilled and flattered by his love.

  She was, indeed, just breaking into an eager little jog, but – could it be? – yes, it was: away from him, not towards. And she was moving so fast he could barely gather his thoughts, as the space between them was swiftly swallowed up. He, though, was blunderingly slow to grasp that, far from re-joining him, she wasn’t even looking back – no, not the merest glance – and was now disappearing round the corner, out of sight, lost to him irretrievably.

  ‘Ta-ra,’ he repeated, in a hollow, anguished whimper, as the full implications of the phrase gradually sank into his mind: it was ta-ra to his whole future, ta-ra t
o his hope, his happiness, ta-ra to the whole point and meaning of existence.

  With devastating despair – indeed a sense of being truncated – he slunk back to the café, as if to gather up Rosie’s traces. Their table was still uncleared, her empty Evian bottle lying on its side. Her hands had touched that bottle, her lips had been clamped around it, so, cradling it with the deepest reverence, he tipped the last few drops of water down his throat, then, leadenly, began retracing his steps towards the underground, pushing the bottle into his trouser pocket. But, as he stroked its awkward bulge, he suddenly realized, with a jolt, that, having consumed the last of her water, some tiny essence of Rosie was now inside his body. And, with that sustaining thought, the bottle itself seemed no longer a redundant plastic shell, but had become a sacred vessel, his glittering battle-honours for having loved – and lost.

  A Cuppa and a Biscuit

  ‘Ah, Cecilia, come in, child.’

  Cecilia pushed the door a little further open and slunk across the expanse of polished wood, not daring to look up. Her heart was beating so violently, it must have jumped out of her body and be clearly visible on the outside of her chest, like the picture of the Sacred Heart that hung in the antechapel. That scary heart was red and gory, and had a crown of thorns around it and a gash in its side that oozed drops of lurid blood. She could feel the spiky thorns pressing into her own heart; hear the drip of her own blood splattering onto the floor. No girl was summoned to Reverend Mother’s presence unless she had committed some serious offence and, although she couldn’t recall any crime, she had learned, in her three years at St Botolph’s, that you could sin without actually knowing.

  ‘Sit down,’ Reverend Mother commanded, and Cecilia perched obediently on the edge of the hard-backed chair. Reverend Mother’s chair had a high carved back and padded arms and seemed more like a throne.

  ‘And look at me when I speak to you, child.’

  With an effort, Cecilia raised her eyes and met the ice-blue gaze. The nun’s face was whitish-grey; her lips greyish-pink and thin. You never saw nuns’ hair or legs or bodies. They were just gliding black robes that crept up on you unawares if you had pulled another girl’s hair, or picked a leaf from the flowerbed or – worse – an actual flower. Although she hadn’t picked anything, or pulled anybody’s hair, she suddenly remembered that she had wished Mother Jude would drop down dead. It was only for a second and only after Mother Jude had rapped her hard on the knuckles with a cruelly stinging metal ruler. Nonetheless, it was still a terrible sin. And, because the nuns could see into your mind, Reverend Mother was probably going to tell her that, if she didn’t go to Confession this minute, she would burn in Hell for ever. A year ago, she’d scorched her arm and the nuns had said that, however bad the pain, it was nothing compared with the flames of Hell, and had explained, in frightening detail, exactly what Eternal Damnation meant. Later, she’d wondered why people couldn’t be eternal, then her mother wouldn’t have died.

  ‘The reason I want to see you, Cecilia, is to discuss the problem of you fainting during Holy Mass. You seem to be doing it more and more often, which causes huge disruption. This week, for example, you’ve fainted almost every day, so you have to make an effort to put a stop to it.’

  Cecilia suppressed a gasp. No one could stop themselves fainting. It just happened automatically. One minute, you were kneeling at the altar-rails, and the next, everything went black and there was a sickening sort of thump and you found yourself flat-out on the floor. And then there was the blank bit, where you couldn’t remember anything until you woke up in the infirmary, and that was the most unsettling part of all.

  Reverend Mother clasped her hands together. The fingers were long and bony – a bit like claws. ‘It means one of the nuns has to miss part of Holy Mass, in order to look after you. And, on top of everything else, Father Mark is finding it extremely embarrassing. Imagine what he must feel like when he’s about to place the Host on your tongue, and then you suddenly keel over and cause an obstruction to the other girls trying to come up for Communion.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Reverend Mother, but I don’t think I can help it. I don’t mean to faint. It just sort of … takes me over.’

  ‘It’s a matter of willpower, Cecilia. I suspect you allow your attention to wander and then, of course, it’s all too easy to drift into a dreamy state where you’re no longer in control. But if you banish all distractions and fix your thoughts on the wonder of the Eucharist – that you’re about to receive our Blessed Lord’s own precious Body and Blood – I’m sure you’ll master what’s become a most pernicious habit.’

  Cecilia wondered what ‘pernicious’ meant. It rhymed with ‘vicious’, so it must be something awful. Actually, she knew that fainting was connected with her mother’s death, since she had never fainted in her life until she’d gone to boarding-school, and that had only happened because her father couldn’t cope on his own with bringing up a daughter. The nuns kept saying her mother was safe with our Blessed Lord in Heaven, which secretly she thought unfair, when our Blessed Lord already had His own mother sitting right beside Him in the sky.

  ‘You need to work on the problem, Cecilia. I can’t have the priest incommoded, morning after morning. He’s doing us a favour, you know, saying daily Mass for us here in the convent, on top of all his parish work.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘It’s no good just saying, “Yes, Reverend Mother”. What I want to hear is that you intend to try your best to change the situation.’

  ‘Yes, I will, Reverend Mother.’

  ‘Right, run along now, child. And I shall be praying for you, of course; asking the Lord to give you the necessary help and strength.’

  ‘Thank you, Reverend Mother.’

  Reverend Mother’s prayers were more powerful than the other nuns’. Even so, she felt frightfully worried as she walked back along the corridor, since she knew it was impossible to stop that floaty, slipping-away sensation that seemed to come from her body, not her mind. According to the Catechism, bodies were sinful by their very nature, because they felt hungry during Lent when you were meant to be fasting and not even thinking of food, or they got fidgety in chapel, where you were supposed to kneel really quiet and still, or they kept making you cry about your mother, instead of being submissive to God’s Will.

  In fact, she could feel tears pricking even now – not just about her mother, but about the mortifying prospect of what might happen if she fainted again tomorrow. Reverend Mother would say she had no willpower and that she hadn’t even tried, and might send her to the Penance Room all day.

  All at once, she spotted a black-robed figure at the far end of the corridor and immediately doubled back the way she’d come, keeping close against the wall. She was sobbing really hard now, so if any nun should see her, there’d be more lectures on self-control. She dashed around the corner, then made a hasty escape by slipping through the small green door that led into the garden. The garden was mostly out of bounds, but you were allowed to walk in the rose garden, as long as you said the rosary there. The rosary was Our Lady’s special prayer, just as roses were her special flower, so the rose garden was dedicated to her – and the garden as a whole was dedicated to St Phocas, who was the Patron Saint of gardeners.

  Cecilia fished her rosary-beads from the pocket of her summer frock and began reciting the Sorrowful Mysteries. Although it was wrong to cry for mothers, it was a sign of true devotion to cry for Christ’s Passion and Death. In fact, some of the saints were so affected by Our Blessed Saviour’s sufferings, they cried for weeks at a stretch, or even months, non-stop. So, if anyone should see her tears while she was actually saying the rosary, they’d just assume she was really holy. And she might even get a miracle, because scores of miracles were connected with Our Lady of the Rosary, who had appeared to three children in Fatima, one exactly her own age. Our Lady had given the children three secrets, the first of which was a terrifying vision of hell and described thousands of sinners plu
nged into a pit of fire, shrieking and groaning in agony. And repulsive black demons, misshapen and deformed like hideous beasts from a nightmare, tortured them, for ever, amidst raging flames and choking clouds of smoke.

  ‘Hello, Tuppence! How are you?’

  She jumped. The gardener had come up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. But she wasn’t meant to talk to him, because men were dangerous. They were also more special than women, since only men could be popes or bishops or priests, and only boys could serve at the altar, not girls. And men did all the important jobs, like being doctors and dentists and judges, whereas hardly any women worked at all. There were only two things God intended women to do: become a nun and be the Bride of Christ, or marry an ordinary man and have loads of children, to create more souls for Him. She didn’t want to do either, because nuns had to shave off all their hair, and giving birth to children was the worst pain imaginable, except for the torments of Hell.

  Actually, she hardly saw any men at school, as the only ones around were Father Mark (who wore a dress and didn’t count) and this nice, old, smiley gardener, Mr Johnstone. And, even in the holidays, her father was mainly at work, or out, and the auntie who looked after her – who wasn’t really an aunt – didn’t have a husband or a son.

  ‘Why are you crying, Tuppence? What’s happened?’

  She gave a quick glance round the garden to make sure they were alone. Surely a few words couldn’t hurt? She always felt better when she talked to Mr Johnstone, partly because he called her Tuppence, which she much preferred to her real name. Cecilia was a Virgin Martyr and the Patron Saint of Music, so it was completely the wrong name for her, since she was useless at music and not brave enough to be a martyr. St Cecilia had been beheaded by a Roman soldier and then staggered around for several days, bleeding and half-dead, because the axe had been too blunt to kill her outright.