He was a tall, slim upright man with a mass of white hair, a strand of which fell over his eyes, and now and again he would push it out of the way. His face was tanned and there was a youthful light in his eyes, despite the deep furrows that ran from either side of his long, straight nose. The continual movement of his arms as he swung them from behind his back to his sides and the regular flicking of his fingers as he ran them round and round across the palms of his hands signified some agitation, I thought, but he looked like an abbot. Something at least was how I had imagined it to be. I thought, Here is someone I might be able to talk to.
‘You’ve found your quarters all right?’
‘Yes, thank you. One of the brothers – small man – said something about a rabbit?’
‘Oh! The rabbit! Yes, that’s Brother Joseph,’ he said with a hint of irritation. And then, changing the subject, ‘They’re nice apartments, aren’t they? We had them built some years ago. But, as I explained to your doctor on the telephone, we’ve rather stopped having visitors, as we’re getting ready to move. All very sad, but there are so few of us now. We can’t afford the upkeep any more. Well, there it is. I won’t bore you with all our troubles.’ And he gave a weary smile. ‘Now look,’ he went on, ‘We all have a quiet time now, reading and so on, but if you’d like to come back here at three, I’ll take you round the gardens. Or have you explored them already?’
‘No. Not yet. But I’d like to. What I’ve seen so far all looks very nice. Must be a lot of work.’
‘Well, then I expect you would like to see them. They used to be our pride and joy. But that’s another thing we can’t keep as we would like. Never mind. Never mind.’ But he did mind and I could see his attention was already moving away from me and on to more pressing matters.
‘However,’ – he obviously thought he should make some effort with me, and he pointed towards the door on the right of the hall – ‘let me show you our library. We do have a very good stock of books. Our visitors often give us books too. You do read, I suppose?’ And he looked at me with what I think was a quick wink.
‘Of course.’ I tried a laugh.
‘Well, come along with me, then.’ And he led the way through the door on the opposite side of the entrance hall and almost immediately through another on the right.
It was a huge room with long windows that looked out onto the garden; the rest of the walls were lined with books from floor to ceiling. There were several small tables around which were two or three chairs and at two of the tables now sat three of the brothers, two at one table and one at the other. One momentarily glanced up with a blank gaze, but the others continued reading.
‘We don’t talk in here,’ Father Godfrey whispered. ‘You can read in here if you wish, but I expect you’d prefer to go back to your quarters. Have a look around; you may find something to interest you. We do have some very fine books.’ He waved his arm towards the shelves. ‘I’ll meet you back here at three. Now, I must go and do some office work.’ And then, whispering closely, ‘It’s one of the more distasteful aspects of this job.’ He nodded goodbye and left, shutting the door very quietly. Don’t know why, but I had the distinct feeling that he was going to have a nap.
Chapter 7
I immediately turned away from the reading brothers and made a good pretence of examining the books. The last time I had been looking at books in my local library, I experienced that frightening mental block – you know, couldn’t remember what I was looking for and none of the titles seemed to make sense. God, I was scared witless. It was a bit the same in the monastery library. I couldn’t take anything in and not having my glasses with me didn’t help. My eyes are always bad when I’m tired or a bit stressed. Perhaps that was it. Still, I had to pick a book, as I was sure that I was being studied from behind.
Many of the books were seriously old and yet, incongruously, now and again I would see a bright modern novel. There was P.D. James’s The Black Tower, a thriller that Peter had borrowed from me to read one summer holiday. Extraordinary for a book like that to be in a monastic library. Pete had said it was good. There must have been more to it than I had realised. I respected his opinion on books. Perhaps, if I took the book off the shelf and then turned around quickly, he would be there. I often had absurd dreams like that.
One recurring fantasy was that one day I would open the front door and find them standing there or they would come upon me suddenly, silently as I was gardening. I had to be gardening, had to be absorbed – expecting nothing. They would come when I was least expecting it. It’s mad, I know, but I couldn’t help it. I looked for then in shops, in the streets, even some days when I walked out of the hospital where I worked, wondering if they might be there to greet me. And of course, last thing at night I imagined what it would be like to come across them without warning. I knew that at the moment of reunion my heart could not sustain the joy, and as I thought of it my chest would literally ache. What Mary must have felt in the garden of Gethsemane. Unimaginable joy. She was lucky. I loathe Easter now.
Most of the books were on religious and spiritual themes: The True Way, The Art of Meditation. I had cared about those sorts of things once. But now I challenged God just as I had challenged Mother after she had unjustly locked me in my room. I was waiting for something, with my ‘legs swinging defiantly’ and the ‘cards of revenge’ lay all around me.
It was the rage. I deliberately dropped a book on the floor. The crash reverberated round the silence. I didn’t turn to see the effect but I hoped they, poor deluded souls, had jumped out of their skins. After I had replaced the book on the shelf I turned and whispered a loud, ‘Sorry.’ The monks lifted their eyes and I grinned at them, as if to say, ‘Aren’t I careless?’ I wasn’t angry with them, really; I knew I couldn’t be angry with anyone, not even God. That’s the problem. There’s no one to blame. That’s the fucking trouble.
I felt tired. I wanted to go back to my ‘apartment’ when I saw a book I had at home and knew well, because Matthew, my fatal attraction, had given it to me for my twenty-first birthday. The Letters of Luke, the Physician, written by Canon Rogers, my school chaplain. What would Canon Rogers say to me now, I wondered? Would he think I had failed ‘to keep the flag flying’? It was his pet expression and it made the other girls laugh. When I said my final farewell to him he said, ‘You will keep the flag flying, won’t you?’ And I had promised I would try. That was because we were alone in his study. Had the other girls been there I would have mumbled something innocuous. They already thought of me as ‘terribly religious’ and as ‘his pet’, and I hated that. I didn’t want to be different; I wanted to be one of the girls.
The trouble was that Canon Rogers was a very odd-looking man. He had been, rumour had it, dreadfully tortured by the Japanese during the war and this had left him with a severe nervous tic; his head continually rolled from side to side, as if he had cerebral palsy. His whole appearance reminded one of a rag doll: spineless, floppy, uncontrollable, and the girls mimicked him cruelly. I had treated him badly: run away from him if he was coming my way, avoided him, laughed with the others about him behind his back; all this to disguise the bond and understanding that lay between us, which kind of frightened me. He had understood my tempestuous nature, warned me that life, for me, would be full of ups and downs. He had known, seen it coming in some extraordinary way. But he was dead now and I was sorry about that because I knew that despite my juvenile cruelty, he had loved me. I couldn’t handle being loved. I didn’t recognise it at all. Matthew understood about this bond and that was why he gave me the book.
I heard a door shut and turned to find the monk who had been sitting alone had gone. The other two still seemed to be engrossed in their reading, although I felt they had been watching me while my back was turned. I took the book off the shelf and left the library. Perhaps I would read it again, but for the moment all I wanted was to lie down and sleep. The last hour had exhausted me.
Chapter 8
Father Godfrey p
ut his signature to the letter and leaned back in his chair. He pushed the strand of hair out of his eyes, took off his glasses, rubbed his hands over his forehead and yawned. He was always tired after lunch. Lunch had been a disappointment today; he really would have to speak to Brother Joseph about his work in the kitchen. But it was difficult to know how to deal with the man, for he was quite incapable of doing anything properly except looking after that darned rabbit. Yet he must have something to do; it was bad for him to do nothing; it was bad for anyone. Everyone should feel worthy at doing something.
Annoyingly, Brother Joseph was disarmingly content with himself, had no conception of his – dare Godfrey think it? – simple-mindedness. He had always been a problem, of course; all right if there was a definite set of rules to follow, but change the routine – well, then there was a to-do. Brother Joseph plodded through the routine he was used to, unaware of the others around him, peeling potatoes even if they were not required, warming plates even if it was salad. And the other brothers didn’t help, mind you; they ganged up, whispering to each other, watching his mistakes and then laughing amongst themselves. Oh yes, he’d seen. But Joseph appeared oblivious to it all and that somehow made it all the more irritating.
Something had to be done: he would have to find him some other task. And one where hygiene didn’t matter either! My goodness, what a state his clothes were in. He couldn’t have someone in the community looking like that, especially now they were joining the brethren at Wiltdown. And, come to that, something had to be done about that rabbit. Why oh why had he allowed him to keep it? But he knew why. At the time, he had thought it fortuitous, with Joseph so distraught at Brother John’s death. The rabbit filled the gap. Brought in by a cat, wasn’t it? Anything to help him. He didn’t enjoy the suffering of his fellow men and too often he felt helpless in the face of it. Joseph had been quite broken by his friend’s death; they’d been together since they were boys; it had been pitiful to see. What did he call him? Billie? Yes, he called him Billie, but here it had been Brother John. Only the rabbit brought him comfort, it seemed.
At least, Godfrey thought, he will never suffer as Brother John did: he became so filled with a sense of his own futility, with a sense of a completely wasted life, that he had gone quite mad. Although they had let him breed spaniels, turned the chicken run into special kennels for the dogs, it only helped for a time. No, he had died the worst death of all; died in utter hopelessness, believing that God was a terrible hoax, some ghastly trick played on man by man. One could only hope that he had found peace at last.
He sighed, pushed back his chair and went to sit in the armchair by the window, hitching up his black robes to make himself more comfortable and revealing grey socks, with garters strapped to his white legs. He picked up a book from the table beside him and began to read, but as usual his eyes closed, the book fell into his lap and he dozed.
Once more he was walking through the garden in India. The air was close and still, brown air. Everything was brown and dust rose from his feet. Someone was singing. He kept muttering a text over and over again, but the words made no sense and he saw one of the servants grinning at him from behind the shrubbery. But when he looked again, the servant had gone. And then he saw the woman waiting at the end of the path; her chestnut hair shone rich in the sunlight, but her complexion was pale and, as he approached, he noticed how tired she looked. She stared at him with hollow eyes, but he walked past and when he turned around she had gone too. And he was sad, for she had seemed lonely and vulnerable standing there.
He woke suddenly and looked at his watch; it was ten to three. He knew he’d been dreaming about India again. He never used to. Never had dreamed about that part of this life before. Perhaps it was because he was old now. Perhaps one’s mind pulled together all of one’s life through dreams. On the other hand, perhaps it was because of the move. He was dreading it; he was to be as uprooted as, in a sense, he had uprooted himself from his family and India. Yes, that must be the reason he kept dreaming in this way.
It was nearly time to take the woman round the gardens. He didn’t really know what else he could do. There was something about the woman in his dream that edged his mind and made him uncomfortable. Yet what could he do? And then he remembered the leaflet they always left in the apartments. Had she got one, he wondered. He moved back to his desk and, pulling open the long, central drawer, found a rather creased and battered pamphlet, which he tried to iron out on the sides of his robes. It would have to do. At least it told her the times of the services and meals as well as a few necessary dos and don’ts. Now it was time to go. Well, at least he would have done something.
Chapter 9
I couldn’t sleep, so I smoked two cigarettes instead, lying back on the bed and shutting my eyes every now and again. I thought about Matthew and the book and the time he had told me he was considering entering a monastery. It had made me angry.
‘Escaping again?’
‘Not entirely.’ He always refused to take my bait. He had understood me more than I understood him.
‘Give me the reasons, then, though I’ll never be convinced. I think it’s a load of rubbish myself. The most awful cop-out.’
But he explained that for him prayer worked rather like telepathy. The thought waves of prayer went out and were picked up subconsciously by those minds that could act as receivers, in the way radio waves did.
‘Concentrated prayer is only concentrated thoughts,’ he said, ‘and the results are never measurable. Who could tell where a thought comes from? All I know is that it is the only way things ever get done. Thank God for the transmitters!’
‘And what about celibacy then?’ I said. ‘What’s all that about?’
He laughed. He had such a generous, throaty laugh, full of kindness. ‘Helps keep your mind on your work!’
‘I should have thought it was quite the reverse,’ I snapped. I wasn’t very kind. ‘Doesn’t one always want what one can’t have? As far as I know, people who don’t have sex think about it all the time.’ He laughed again, refusing to be drawn. This was a delicate subject for us.
Matthew was the chaplain at Duncan’s school and I first met him when Mother and I went to the annual school play. This particular year it was As You Like It and Duncan was playing Rosalind. We did laugh!
I had just left school, was eighteen and I can remember the bottle-green velvet coat I bought especially for the occasion. I will be honest and say that I realised the stir I caused amongst the boys and enjoyed it enormously. ‘Have you seen Duncan’s sister? Who is the girl in green?’ Ever after that, apparently, I was referred to as ‘the girl in green’.
It was there that I first met Matthew, at the reception after the play. Mother already knew him from other school occasions and made a beeline for him as the one really attractive man in the room. Mother liked men and flirted outrageously, a characteristic that made me squirm. Actually, Matthew at thirty-eight was nearer Mother’s age than mine. In the event, it was odd that Mother, who quite obviously was attracted to him herself, should so blatantly have encouraged our relationship. It didn’t strike me as odd at the time, only much later.Was it so that she could have just a little bit of him? Or did she know it would end in disaster for me? Can’t ask her now, since she died of cancer soon after Dan was born. And no, I didn’t cry, Mother. Remember you told me not to.
My first impression of Matthew was mixed. I have to admit that he was handsome: tall, blondish wavy hair, with startling blue eyes. The boys nicknamed him Bing or Old Blue Eyes after Bing Crosby because, besides his eyes, he had a good singing voice. But he annoyed me at that first meeting, liking himself a bit too much, playing on his charm and good looks as he tried to persuade Mother to allow Duncan to go with the sailing group he was organising. He must have known we couldn’t afford it. There was something loose-lipped and pleading about his manner which irritated me, and perhaps our relationship would never have developed had Mother not taken an enormous bite out of a sticky bun, d
islodged her lower dentures and been obliged to make a hasty retreat. Consequently, we were left alone together. Alone, that is, in the midst of a seething crowd of sons and parents and other teachers. But I was quite unaware of anyone else that evening as I stood looking up into his face with the penetrating blue eyes. I snapped at him nevertheless.
‘Why are you pressing Mother so? You know we don’t have much money now.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’ He had completely disarmed me. And then, looking down at me with that urgent expression I came to know so well, ‘If I may say so, I hadn’t realised that Duncan had such a beautiful sister. It will make all the boys jealous to see that I have you all to myself.’
I tried in vain to maintain my irritation, but the remark, it seemed to me then, was made sincerely and his speaking voice so deep and smooth. I fell for him.
It was several years, however, before I was to see him again. By then I was at St Mark’s Hospital as one of several PAs to a selection of consultants. Shortly after my twenty-third birthday – and unusually – mother phoned me at work. Matthew had suddenly appeared and was coming to fetch me and so I was not to take the bus home. It was so utterly unexpected I couldn’t think straight: a combination of excitement and nerves.
I walked out of the main entrance and there he was, sitting in his car waiting and watching.
He was on his way to Surrey to visit his mother, he explained, and had phoned to ask for a bed for the night. In the event, he stayed the weekend, came to my room at night when all was quiet, and that was the beginning of a passionate and painful love affair; a hopeless infatuation, a romantic ideal in my head, for I hardly knew him, so how could I love him? Yet, amazingly, it was Matthew who first spoke of love.
It was the Saturday of his May half term, He had come down from Staffordshire and we met at the National Gallery and then he took me out for lunch. At first, I felt awkward and shy. We had not seen each other for over six weeks and the letters that had been posted backwards and forwards contained the word games of barely hidden passion. Now, faced with his questioning eyes, I was terrified.
Ask Me to Dance Page 3