Another silence slowly unfolded. Below, on Palace Green, Mara could hear people talking as they walked. It was so long since she had confided in anyone that she hardly recognized the feeling – an ache, or an impulse to stretch out a hand. She sat still. Her gaze wavered from Dr Roe’s eyes and she found herself looking out of the window instead. A bright day. A seagull went gliding past.
‘I think . . .’ She cleared her throat. Something was pinching at it. ‘I think it will help me make sense of . . . certain things. Of what’s happened, I mean . . .’ ‘Certain things.’ How stupid it sounded. Better to have said nothing at all. But a hand was gripping at her throat, and she could say no more.
‘Good,’ said Dr Roe at last.
I must beware of her silence, thought Mara. I of all people should know the power of the taciturn to make others blurt things out. She felt herself harden.
‘It may be painful,’ Dr Roe continued.
‘I’ll survive,’ Mara said tightly. There was a strange expression on the other woman’s face.
‘Survive? That doesn’t sound very positive.’
Believe me, it is. When you consider the alternative. Suddenly Mara thought, She really cares about me. Quick, say something.
‘What do you want me to read?’ Her lips felt stiff.
‘Now then,’ began her tutor. Mara studied her face as her eyes began searching along the shelves. It was a good face. Warm. You could draw it. ‘Wesley’s Journal?’ The volumes were handed over. ‘What about Quakerism? Do you know anything about the Quakers? Plenty about women there.’ Another couple of books. ‘And the Welsh Revival? Or is that too modern?’ A further book. ‘Are you Welsh? Johns is a Welsh name.’ It was a question Mara never knew how to answer.
‘My father’s Welsh.’
‘And your mother?’
‘English.’
‘You sound Welsh sometimes. Just a slight accent.’
Mara blushed. God, it was like having a stammer. You tried to train yourself out of it, but whenever you were tired or nervous or angry, there it was again. Mocked in Wales for sounding English, mocked in England for sounding Welsh.
‘Well, carry on with the reading list I gave you.’ Mara rose to leave. ‘At this stage I think the best thing you can do is read as widely as possible. Don’t worry too much yet about finding answers.’
‘OK,’ said Mara. The two of them stood looking out of the window. A large tree shed a handful of leaves, and people walked across the Green to the old library. Over to the left was the cathedral, with its great door and sanctuary knocker. Dr Roe’s hand reached out and touched a bulb suspended in a hyacinth glass.
‘I grow one every year,’ she said. Mara looked at it. ‘They never cease to amaze me,’ went on her tutor. ‘Each year they look so unpromising.’ Was this a covert message? But her face showed nothing other than the memory of past hyacinths, the pale roots worming down into the water, then the tip of green beginning to point through the papery layers, reaching up – would it be pink or white? I’ll buy one for myself, thought Mara.
‘They always make me think of Sunday school,’ said Dr Roe. ‘The minister would show us one, and say how we could never guess from looking at it what it would be. An illustration of the resurrection, I imagine, though I can’t really remember.’
Mara could see the pastor standing there with the bulb in his hand. She was there with all the other children in the chapel near her uncle’s farm. A fringe of white hair curled around the man’s bald head. She could even repeat what he was saying: ‘And so, boys and girls, whenever you see an old dried-up bulb like this one here, I want you to remember the Lord Jesus . . .’ She stopped, seeing the look of astonishment on Dr Roe’s face. There was a giggle inside her trying to sneak out.
The other woman laughed. ‘Surely you didn’t suffer from a chapel upbringing as well!’
‘Not really. I stayed with my uncle’s family sometimes. In the summer holidays. I went to Sunday school there.’ Her throat was closing up again. She felt her hand behind her back playing with the end of her plait, twisting it round and round so that it snaked between her fingers.
‘In Wales?’
Mara nodded.
‘You took me right back to my childhood,’ said Dr Roe. ‘If only you knew how many things were supposed to remind me of the Lord Jesus. Pepper pots, weather vanes, soap bubbles . . .’
‘Shoes with reinforced metal toes,’ said Mara. It was out before she could stop it.
‘Exactly. And I cannot remember in one single case,’ said Dr Roe, ‘why they were supposed to remind me of Jesus.’
The two of them looked at one another helplessly, then Mara heard herself giggle. She put her hands to her mouth. Dr Roe joined in. Eventually they lapsed into silence again.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘No thanks.’ Mara’s refusal was instinctive. She groped around for an explanation. ‘I’ve already arranged to have coffee with friends.’
‘With friends.’ She really had friends?
‘In Jesus?’ asked Dr Roe.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I’m glad you’ve found some kindred spirits. Have you met any of the students from Coverdale Hall yet?’
‘Not really.’ She began to collect her books together. Dr Roe helped her.
‘Well, I hope you do. I tutor some of them. I enjoy it. Much though I enjoy teaching undergraduates, too, of course.’ This was said with a smile. Was she being ironic about undergraduates? Or was there some specific pleasure involved in teaching these Coverdale students? A sly thought flashed across Mara’s mind.
‘I’ve met John Whitaker,’ she said. She was intending to test Dr Roe’s reaction, but to her consternation a strange feeling stirred in her as she said his name. Dr Roe was watching her instead. I’m blushing, she thought in amazement.
‘Ah, Johnny,’ said Dr Roe with another smile. ‘And have you met Rupert, too?’
‘No.’ It sounded like a lie. She cast about desperately for something to say. ‘I’ve met James Mowbray. The tutor.’ Worse and worse. Now it sounded as though she was trying to cover something up. The silence leered at her.
‘Good – I was meaning to suggest you contact James. He’ll be an interesting person for you to talk to. You’re familiar with his work on mysticism?’ Mara’s hands were shuffling about in her books. Stop it! They froze.
‘We must arrange another time to meet,’ said Dr Roe. She suggested a date. They both consulted their diaries. The weeks ahead were blank in Mara’s.
‘Fine,’ Mara said, writing blindly.
‘Great. Thank you for coming.’
Mara made for the door.
‘Happy reading. Give my love to the boys.’
Mara’s hand scrabbled at the knob.
‘Just pull.’ The door jerked open.
‘Goodbye!’ called Dr Roe.
‘Bye,’ muttered Mara, and closed the door. She stood for a moment in the corridor trying to order her thoughts. All this fumbling and blushing is a conditioned reflex, like Pavlov’s slavering hounds. And to what? she sneered at herself. To broad shoulders and smouldering brown eyes? She reached the top of the stairwell, but, looking down, stopped. Shit. There in the doorway below, with his back to her, stood John Whitaker. He was talking to someone. Was he about to leave? Go, go! But then, impatient with herself, she began to run down. Her face bore its most contemptuous expression. She was almost past him when he turned abruptly, knocking into her, making her drop her pile of books. She bent swiftly to gather the volumes, her face burning.
‘Whitaker!’ said a scandalized voice. ‘You might help!’ and another pair of hands joined her in picking up the books. She glanced up. This must be Rupert. Blond and handsome as a Boy’s Own hero.
‘I apologize for my friend. He has no manners.’ With a furious glance Mara seized the books, stood up and strode off. From behind her she heard a laugh.
‘Don’t worry, Anderson. Neither has she.’
Outside the a
ir was cold on her cheeks. His laugh and voice still sounded in her mind. A northern accent. Pavlov’s dogs quivered and leapt as she tried to silence them. This, no doubt, was what people called ‘falling in love’. It was as random as being hit by a bus, or falling down a manhole on a dark night, but the mind began at once to find special meanings: Anyone could have fallen down that hole, but it was I, I who was walking along the street at that moment. Except in this case she had already heard the falling cries of Maddy and May. ‘One of those smouldering animal types . . . We lust, my dear, we lust . . .’ She stood still in the street and cast her mind into the future. She felt like someone with a long journey to make and began to walk again. There was no room in her world for men.
‘Mara!’ called a voice. She looked all around. ‘Mara!’ it came again, and looking up she saw Maddy and May waving from a window. ‘Come on up,’ they called.
Oh, God, I don’t know if I can stand it. But she had chosen this, letting them into her room the previous day. She sighed and made her way to a door. They’re so draining, she thought, climbing the stairs. It was like being mobbed by a thousand butterflies, or listening to a treeful of parrots outsquawking one another. She followed the sounds of laughter until she reached the room.
‘We weren’t sure you were coming,’ said May. It was a typical student room: colourful posters, empty wine bottles, clutter. The smell of drying laundry filled the air from the clothes draped over the radiators. May began to make the coffee.
‘We are here,’ said Maddy, ‘to strike a blow for feminism. Have a Jaffa cake. The thing I like about Jaffa cakes is that you can eat all the chocolate off, then the spongey bit, and leave the orange jelly draped over your finger.’
Mara declined the offer.
‘We’re conducting an experiment,’ explained May. ‘We’re trying to find out what happens when women shout and whistle at men, rather than vice versa. Behavioural science. There should be quite a stream of them going past when the twelve o’clock lectures end.’
‘Show the bastards what it feels like,’ said Maddy. ‘And possibly strike up an acquaintance with the better-looking ones.’
May handed Mara a mug of coffee. She took it and felt herself drifting away out through the open window and along the street, then up and over the rooftops. Her eye met the impassive stare of a pigeon as it swept past.
‘What should we shout, I wonder?’ asked May.
‘A short roar of approval should be enough to start with,’ Maddy said, experimenting.
‘We’re hoping you can whistle, Mara,’ said May.
Mara shrugged dismissively, wheeling round until the river lay below.
‘Shame,’ said Maddy. ‘We could do with a real building-site-type wolf-whistle. What do builders shout?’
They thought for a moment.
‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,’ suggested Mara, pausing in her flight for a moment. She had been pursued by this call for years.
‘A little tame, I fear,’ said Maddy. ‘Don’t worry – I’ll think of something when the time comes.’
‘But that’s precisely what does worry me,’ said May.
The three of them sat drinking coffee. I am nothing but a point in the blue, no City, no people, only the air singing on all sides. In another world Maddy and May talked of this and that – concerts, essay crises, men, the approaching college ball – pausing when they heard footsteps and conversation in the street below.
A voice floated up, calling back Mara’s attention: ‘The upsurge in British chess over the last few years has been a-stonishing.’ The words hung like a speech bubble in the room. May and Maddy laughed in delight, and the sound brought Mara spiralling back down into the room again.
‘What a useful phrase,’ said Maddy. ‘We must remember it for those awkward moments when conversation fails us.’ She went across to the window and looked out. May joined her.
‘Thick and fast they came at last,’ said May, and from where she was sitting on the bed Mara could hear the sound of more people approaching. Maddy and May leant out of the window, then began calling out coarse compliments to the men passing below. Mara reflected that the people who said vicarage children were always the worst were probably right. Sometimes equivalent replies were hurled back, but generally there was only surprised laughter. This, thought Mara, trying not to smile, is incredibly childish. At last curiosity drew her to the window. ‘Thank you, ladies!’ called someone. It was as she had imagined. The victims did not wear that look of wincing anticipation or studied nonchalance seen on the faces of women who have to walk past workmen.
‘I can’t believe it. They’re lapping it up!’ said Maddy. It’s because we pose no threat, thought Mara.
‘Look! Here comes Rupert,’ exclaimed May. Maddy craned her neck further out while Mara drew back.
‘And Johnny Whitaker,’ said Maddy. ‘We discovered his name, by the way. Could you ever truly admire a man called Johnny?’ The footsteps drew nearer. ‘Contraceptives spring unfortunately to mind at the mention of the name.’
‘Or fortunately,’ whispered May. ‘If you see what I mean.’
‘Ah, yes. Take me, take me, Johnny! – talking of which, would you mind putting this on? A timely reminder in the heat of the moment.’
‘Ssh!’ said May.
By now the men were passing beneath them. An impulse seized Mara. Infected by the puerile atmosphere, she put her fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle. Maddy and May leapt, then squealed with laughter. Both men stepped out into the street and looked up. Mara stood out of sight in the shadows.
‘Was that for him, or for me?’ That was Johnny speaking. Mara’s heart raced.
‘Stop playing to the gallery, Whitaker.’ Rupert. Just a hint of polite Edinburgh in his accent. She had not noticed it earlier.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Maddy. ‘Well, fish them out, boys, and let’s have a look.’
‘Maddy!’ May was shocked.
There was a laugh from below, then, ‘Whitaker!’ Maddy and May shrieked, and the footsteps disappeared off down the street.
‘I thought for a minute he was going to!’ giggled Maddy. ‘He was undoing his belt.’
‘Maddy, you’re awful!’ said May in delight.
In the distance they just caught Rupert’s voice saying, ‘You’re a disgrace, Whitaker.’
There was a long silence.
‘The upsurge of British chess,’ said Maddy at last, ‘has been a-stonishing.’
‘Over the last few years,’ agreed May, and the two of them went into whoops. Mara felt herself starting to join in, sitting on the desk swinging her legs.
‘Just a minute,’ said May, ‘you told us you couldn’t whistle!’ Mara said nothing, just sat where she was on the desk smiling.
‘Show me!’ pleaded Maddy. ‘I’ve always wanted to be able to wolf-whistle.’
Mara was still refusing to explain some minutes later when there was a knock at the door. Maddy went across to open it, then retreated with a scream.
‘Get the knickers off the radiator! It’s Johnny Whitaker.’
He came half in, and leant against the edge of the door, hand resting on the top. He looked from one to the other. Mara stopped her legs from swinging. The smile left her face. Then he shook his head and laughed.
‘What are you like?’ he asked. What was the accent, Mara wondered, waiting for him to speak again. North-east?
Maddy and May looked at one another, baffled. ‘What are we like?’ repeated Maddy. ‘Are you asking for a list of synonyms, or was that merely idiomatic?’
‘Give me a dictionary, and I’ll tell you.’
Mara looked at him sharply. This drew his attention and she turned casually away again. You’re only acting the ignoramus, she thought.
‘I could never marry a man who didn’t know what an idiom was,’ said Maddy. ‘Could you, May?’
‘I might have an affair with one,’ said May after a moment’s consideration.
‘S
orry, girls – can’t help you. I’m celibate.’
Mara stared. You’re joking. He had legover practically tattooed across his chest.
‘Oh, no!’ said Maddy and May together.
‘Oh, yes.’
There was a pause. He’s serious, thought Mara in amazement, flicking her eyes away as she sensed he was about to look at her.
‘Celibate? Why? Not permanently, surely?’ asked May.
‘Not now you’ve met us,’ said Maddy.
But he would only smile.
‘Isn’t that rather like losing your driving licence and then being given a new Porsche?’ persisted Maddy.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘or a new JCB.’ For an instant Maddy was open-mouthed in disbelief at being outdone by a man who didn’t know what a synonym was. But the moment passed.
‘Whitaker!’ she rapped out in fine Andersonian manner.
Johnny laughed and asked her name.
‘I’m Maddy, this is May, and this is Mara.’
‘Maddy and May. Mara I’ve already met.’
The other two rounded on Mara accusingly.
So what? said her expression.
‘We met before term started,’ said Johnny. ‘Then I ran into her in the Divinity School this morning.’
Mara looked at her watch, and this – as she had hoped – prompted May to say, ‘Lunch.’
Maddy turned to Johnny. ‘So glad you could call,’ she said graciously.
‘It’s a pleasure to know you,’ he replied in kind.
‘It’s a pleasure to be known,’ she said. ‘Even if not in the biblical sense.’
‘Though that, too, no doubt . . .’ May let the sentence trail like a discarded silk stocking.
‘We may never know,’ he said affably.
Mara found herself wondering why he allowed himself to be the target for this kind of witticism. Was he enjoying it? She picked up her books, and they all began to leave the room. ‘Come and see us again,’ the others were saying. ‘And bring Rupert.’ I’m not free any more, she thought, I am bound up in Maddy and May, and they will bring me in contact with others whether I like it or not.
Mara was out running a mile or so from the City, following the path as it wound through the woods. She was trying to regain her sense of perspective, her broad horizon. People were crowding too close and she could not focus on them with the cool detachment she usually enjoyed. Voices still clamoured in her mind, memories jostling as she ran, like a pocketful of pebbles. Rupert’s face as she grabbed her books from him, and then Johnny saying, ‘Sorry, girls – I’m celibate.’ Well, that solved that problem. Not that it had ever been a problem. She thrust the thought of him to one side.
Angels and Men Page 4