Pure as the Lily

by Catherine Cookson

  Now her tongue licking first one side of her mouth, and then the other, she said, “Gentlemen, it seems that today: virginibus puerisque canto, for we have with us a specimen, one Patricia Ridley, with of course the prefix of miss, who has for sale a maidenhead, and if we consider the students of this University as our universal set E, then she is the only element, I repeat, the only element of the subset virgins, V, of the female set F.”

  “Stop it! You’re bloody awful, Maggie. That’s what you are, bloody awful.”

  “Ah! she’s come alive. Do you know something?” With arms stretched wide, Maggie went towards the tall girl.

  “It’s the first time I’ve heard you swear. Come into the fold, down to our level, join the band, you’re one of us.”

  Pat slapped at the hands that were going round her shoulders, saying, “Thanks for the invitation but I don’t want to join the band. What are you, anyway, but a lot of mediocre—brained animals. It’s, it’s true what Tim Hanley said yesterday half of your so-called band shouldn’t be in the University because you’re making it into a cross between a whore shop and an abortion clinic.”

  “Aw God Almighty!” Maggie’s voice had a petulant note to it now.

  You’re talking like Mother Mary Magdalen. And you know something? I think it’s all hooey, you’re putting on an act, because you can’t tell me you went rock climbing’ she stressed the rock climbing ‘with a fellow like Cliff Spencer from Friday night until Monday morning and remained in . tact. Anyway, Cliff’s version is different. He told Reg. “

  “He’s a liar. I tell you he’s a liar. Whatever he told Reg, nothing happened. We stayed at the hostel, you know we did.”

  “Oh my God! don’t be so infantile.” Maggie put her hand to her head.

  “Honestly, you make me laugh, Pat; it’s like talking to a six-year-old not a seven-year-old because they know it all. You should have got your mother to let you look in when they were giving them lectures on the telly.... Oh for God’s sake! Pat, you’re not going to weep, are you?”

  “No, I’m not going to weep.” Pat marched down the room and flung herself on to the edge of her bed, and from there she cried back at her room-mate, “But I’m going to tell you this, I’m getting out.”

  There followed a tense silence during which Maggie’s jaw slowly dropped, and then she said, “Look here. Pat, don’t be a goat, I was only ribbing you.”

  “You’ve ribbed once too often, Maggie. You think I’m a fool, don’t you? Oh, yes you do, “ the git from Jarrow” you once called me.”

  “Oh!” Maggie shrugged her shoulders up around her ears.

  “That was years ago, when you first came. We were all new and stupid then.”

  “It isn’t years ago, it’s just over eighteen months.” She sighed now and stared at the wall opposite, then said slowly.

  “But at times it does seem like years.... Well, anyway I’m going to pack it in.” Her chin gave a defiant jerk and she stared at Maggie, and Maggie, her voice high, cried, “What do you mean, pack it in? Are you talking about the room, or the course?”

  “Both.”

  “Oh no!” Maggie was sitting beside her now. You can’t, Pat. All right, get a new place for yourself, but don’t fluff the course. You’re the only bright spark of the maths lot; they say you’ll get a first. And to tell you the truth, that’s what niggles me. “ Her voice dropped and she said gently, “ I’m jealous, jealous of what you’ve got in your noddle. “ She tapped twice on Pat’s temple.

  “It’s no use, Maggie.” Pat’s voice was quiet too now.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for some time. The course isn’t what I thought; I mean it isn’t what I want to do.”

  “Well, what do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know, I’m all at sea. I only know one thing, I don’t want to carry on.”

  “Just because I’ve ribbed you?”

  “No, no, Maggie.” She turned and looked at the redheaded girl, whom sometimes she liked and sometimes she loathed, and she said, “It’s been fun on the whole, I mean living with you. You’ve taught me a lot besides’—she lowered her head and raised her eyebrows ‘the three easy ways to lose one’s virginity....”

  16 241

  “There’s only one, dear.”

  She was forced to laugh. Then Maggie said seriously, “Are you sure it isn’t what I’ve done... or said?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “But to give up maths! Why they’re crying out for them, you could get anywhere. Look at that advert we saw yesterday for an actuary. And they’re feeding slogans into computers now solely for mathematicians:

  “Come, come, I want you only.” “Oh Maggie, stop it, I don’t want to laugh.”

  “Have you another subject in mind?”

  No. “

  What will your people say? Have you thought of that? “

  “Yes, they’ll likely go round the bend, particularly my mother. I can hear her saying, “ After all we’ve done! “ You know, the usual thing.”

  They nodded to each other.

  “It isn’t because you’re getting such a small grant?”

  “Good Lord! No. The money doesn’t come into it’ “ Well, anyway I would think it over well before you tell them; let them have this weekend clear. And you might see things differently by Monday, too. “

  “I wasn’t going home this weekend.”

  “But you said....”

  “It’s all right, Maggie, it’s all right. Reg can come and take up residence as long as’—she now thumped her own bed with her fist ‘and I repeat, as long as he doesn’t sleep in here after you’ve had your weekly bust-up. It’ll be no use straightening it up because I’ll know, mind.”

  “Cross my heart and swear on the pill, he’ll not put a toenail near your virgin sheets....”

  “Oh’—Pat screwed up her face ‘don’t keep on about that. It’s so stupid, sex, sex, you get sick.”

  “Well’—Maggie rose from the bed ‘everybody to their taste, as the woman said....”

  “Yes, yes I know ... who-kissed-the-cow.” They both repeated the last

  line together, then laughed; and Maggie went on Tt all depends on now you look at It. Me, I enjoy it, I mean not being one, you know what I mean? “

  “I know what you mean, Maggie. But if you’ll take a word of warning from one so inexperienced as me I’d say you’d better look out. If Ma Smith comes back early one night and Ends Reg here she’ll report you.”

  “Not her. When Ma Smith comes home before twelve o’clock on a Friday or Saturday night I’ll know she’s hooked somebody and is going to be married to Mr. Fourth, God help him.”

  “Aren’t you afraid she’d look in?”

  “No, she’s very considerate.” Maggie laughed.

  “She tiptoes past the door. Anyway, we put a chair under the handle and by the time she moves that Reg’ll be either under the bed or over the wall.” She put her head back now and laughed heartily.

  “We did a rehearsal one night:

  into his clothes, out of the window, and over the back wall, three minutes dead flat. “

  “Well, all I can say is you’re lucky it gives off into a cul-de sac

  “Yes, aren’t I? By the way. If you’re not going home, where are you going, Jarrow?”

  Tes, to Gran Tollett’s. “

  “Oh’—Maggie nodded ‘that’s something I meant to tell you. I saw her yesterday, in Northumberland Street,” You did! Did you speak to her? “

  “No; she was with a tall bloke,”

  “Fair, Swedish looking?”

  That’s him. “

  “That’s my cousin Ben.”

  “Oh, so that’s Ben. He’s a looker. And your grannie, it’s hard to believe she’s your grannie. She knows how to dress, I’ll say.”

  “What was she wearing?”

  “Oh, a sort of mole-coloured coat trimmed with fox, very fetching, and a fur hat. She’s been a looker, she still is. Is the blond married?” />
  Ben? No; except to Gran. He’s always trotting around after her. I think she gets a bit fed up at times. “

  “By the way, why aren’t you going home?”

  “Oh, they’re going to Scarborough, to my father’s people.”

  Does your grannie know you’re coming? “

  “No.” Pat laughed now, lightly.

  “I don’t have to tell her, I can go anytime.”

  “Nice to have a grannie like that Are you seeing Philip before you go?”

  “Yes, I promised to call round at his place.”

  Maggie turned her face over her shoulder, there was a grin on it now, and said, “Ah-ha! mind yourself.” Then put ting her hand quickly over her mouth, she muttered, “Sorry, sorry... subject taboo.”

  Twenty minutes later they were both ready, Maggie to receive her current boyfriend, and Pat dressed for outdoors in a dark midi-coat that made her appear inches taller than her five foot seven, and as she stood drawing on a pair of gauntlet gloves Maggie looked at her and said slowly, “Think it well over, I mean about packing it in. It’s a serious step, you might regret it. You could go further and fare worse, it’s a decent University. Oh, we grumble and growl, but that’s the prerogative of youth so they say. I could have gone to any one of three, as I’ve told you, and my headmistress even suggested Oxford or Cambridge, but because our Brian had liked it here so much, and the place and the people....”

  ‘maggie, what you trying to sell? it’s my place, my home, you don’t have to sell either the North or the University to me! “

  “Oh my God! I’m always putting my foot in it. All right, all right.

  Now don’t for God’s sake come the stout Geordie putting the foreigner in his place. I’m sorry. All I meant to say was you’ve been given the privilege of taking advantage of something good right on your doorstep, so don’t kick it off without thinking hard. “

  They stared at each other and smiled, thin smiles. Then as Pat went towards the door, Maggie, her manner in its mercurial way, cried, “Give my love to the S-^” , 01 him if he’s got any saucy books I haven’t read. He lA6,’s type who’d line the mattress with them. “ vo Pat went out and banged the door, but she wA , ,. her head and smiling to herself when she stepper , , street. Yet as she walked through the biting cold to^ , , bus stop she wondered whether Maggie really did if thing to do with her present attitude of mind abo^, *, .

  the University. Then she rejected it. No, it wasn’t, . not more than any of the others. Perhaps it was hA’”—, _ , “ r—, ^. elf who was at fault. Perhaps the trouble was she had e. of , OT-1—1 ^ i l t> . into the wrong set. one had met them through Maggie, anA’ , , met Maggie through the digs. Perhaps her place , . , the brows. But then she didn’t consider herself u’At’ . < enough to mix with the brows and the fuds, the ri, y evangelists who were trying to swing the pendulum fr<^’ saints, didn’t appeal to her either.

  Why, she asked herself, was there this great unre^g , , y But didn’t all universities breed unrest? They were i—. bators of unrest. The name they gave to it was iA” . creating the complete personality.

  Perhaps she ha
  grannie. Everything had been close-knit; you always knew where to find people, her grannie’s door was always open—perhaps it was because she kept the shop.

  Getting her place in the University had changed not only her life but that of her own particular family, for from that time her mother couldn’t get away from Jarrow quickly enough, and her goal was Gosforth, in Newcastle. It appeared that her mother had never liked Jarrow, even though for years she had lived yon side of the station stairs in York Avenue, and her in-laws had lived near Laburnum Grove.

  And you couldn’t get much higher than that in Jarrow. She knew her mother well enough to suspect that she wanted to forget she had been brought up over a shop and in the poorest quarter of the town and was just using the fact that her daughter was going to University as a loophole.

  “We’ll be on the University doorstep, so to speak,” she had said, ‘so you’ll be able to pop home at the weekends. “

  Pop home! and every other weekend, sometimes every weekend, they were away to Scarborough where her grandmother and grandfather Ridley lived now.

  Her mother, she considered, thought more of her dad’s folks than she did of her own. Then, of course, they had much more money. Now she was being bitchy. And as for more money, there was a question about that. They showed off more, but she bet that if her grannie laid her pennies side by side with theirs she knew whose would stretch the further.

  Her mother got very peeved with her grannie. She had no need to continue to live above that shop, she said, particularly as she had closed it three years ago. It was a pity, she said, that Cornice Street hadn’t come under the demolition order right away; but its time wasn’t far off.

  They all wondered what her grannie would do. Three times in the last ten years she had been on the point of marrying again, and although her mother had put the blame for her grannie’s failure to go through with the matches down to Ben, she knew that she was glad that her grannie hadn’t

  married, for if she had taken a husband it would likely have made a difference in her will.

  Oh! she was being bitchy tonight.

  When she got off the bus she pulled her hood further round her face, the cold was piercing. She wished she hadn’t promised to call at Philip’s place. She always felt slightly embarrassed there. She supposed it was because she rarely saw him alone; there were nearly always the other two students in his room, talking shop, or shredding some University rule to pieces. She didn’t mind John Summers, but she just couldn’t stand Angus Mills.

  She entered the hallway and knocked on the first door to the right of her, and when Philip Smyth’s voice called, “Come!” she opened the door, and there, astraddle a chair which was his favourite pose, was Angus Mills. He had been talking. That was evident. He turned his head and looked at her but gave her no greeting. Nor did Philip get up off the couch where he was sitting, but hailed her with, “Hie there! Lord, you look frozen. Come on to the fire.”

  “It’s bitter out, getting worse.” She took off her hood and coat as she spoke, but before she had thrown them over a chair Angus Mills began talking again. It was just as if he’d never left off, or as if she had never come into the room.

  “Regarding the exodus of the priests, it is not only the question of them marrying, which is really a red herring when you come down to basic facts, because those who don’t have it on the side, practise some form of eroticism. But on this much more fundamental issue of the confession.... Yet, this too is definitely linked to the question of them legally taking a wife. Now, whereas a certain percentage of the male Catholic laity might be for condoning this, the females will be dead against it.” He paused here and stared at Pat as she took a seat beside Philip on the couch, while her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. His pauses always held a large silent question mark, why? And as if he were answering it, he said, “No Catholic woman would ever want a priest to marry, because

  the priest, let me tell you, is the other man in her life, he . he is her secret lover. He is the one she can spew out her thoughts to, dark, fearful thoughts; lustful, desirous thoughts; and she i
s not confessing them to God. or, as she kids herself, to the priest, she is talking to the other man . her other man, knowing he will understand, soothe and console her. And it’s all legal with the blessing of God on it. You can’t get divorced for chatting to the priest. What’s more he saves her a visit to the psychiatrist. But give him a wife, ah! and what then? He has taken another woman. “

  ‘shut up! “ Pat scrambled off the couch, spluttering now. You’re nothing. You’re nothing but a dirty-minded swine. You’re....”

  Tat! Pat! “ Philip was pulling at her.

  TLeave me alone! “ She tore herself away from his grasp and, bending towards the still seated figure of Angus Mills, she cried, “ What do you know about the Catholic religion? You read bits here and there, pick up snatches from television discussions and whirl them round in your biased dirty little mind. “

  “Here! here!” Philip had hold of her arms now and was shaking her, but when she gave a sudden twist to her body he found that he was no longer holding her arms but staggering from her, and he looked at her for a moment in amazement. She was so slim and fragile looking, like a long piece of alabaster, yet her temper had given her a strength that had almost knocked him on his back.

  Angus Mills had risen from his chair. He was stretching his short thick neck up out of his collar as he stared at her, and then he smiled, what could only be described as a pitying smile, which he accompanied with the single syllable “Huh!” The sound was derisive, and with it he turned and walked out, and he didn’t bang the door as might be expected but closed it quietly, which seemed to put her further in the wrong.

  She walked to the fire now. She was feeling ridiculous,