Strange that I never looked into Dewi’s room, she thought suddenly. You’d have thought he’d be my touchstone. My saint. I’d have washed his feet with my tears and dried them with my hair, if he’d let me. She turned back to her book, but not before the fishwife had thrust her face up close and said, He was a worthless little shit. She put her hands over her ears. Worthless, he was. Mara read on resolutely until the fishwife retired muttering into her smoke-filled beery bar. Page after page. The clock struck eleven. She’d forgotten to eat anything. There would be nowhere open at this hour, and she had no food in her room. Well, tomorrow would do. Tired and hungry she went to bed and at length grew warm enough to fall asleep.
She woke hearing the bells strike two. The moon must be full, she thought. It was shining into her room through the open curtains, casting shadows across the floor. As she watched, the light seemed to intensify. Perhaps she was imagining it? She waited, and yes, sure enough, it was growing brighter all the time. She sat up. Not the moon, then. It was some kind of light down on the riverbank shining up at her room. Was the college to be floodlit like the cathedral from now on? This seemed so unlikely that she got up out of bed and went over to the window. The whole sky was white. Strange and beautiful. It must be some kind of atmospheric phenomenon. She tried to think what it might be. Something caused by the extreme cold? Phosphorescence? St Elmo’s fire? Then, as she watched, the light began to gather itself. Slowly before her horrified eyes it drew itself in, forming itself, burning, burning. Her hands clawed the curtains shut and she stumbled back to bed, blocking her eyes, her ears with the covers. But she knew it was still there, fluttering at the glass.
She woke and turned on the light. Six o’clock. Dear Christ. She gripped her hair hard in her hands. That was the worst dream she’d ever had. She pressed her knuckles against her skull. Horrible. She’d been convinced she was awake. She had even heard the bells. Then she shook herself and got out of bed. The room was colder than ever. She could see her breath as she hurried to wash and pull on another of Grandma’s hoarded dresses. It was made of wool, but even so it was scarcely warm enough. She put on a pullover too and realized she was hungry. It was still too early to go out and buy food, so she turned to her desk. As she did so, she stopped. There was something different about the room. Then she saw. The curtains are shut. I never shut them. Her hands gripped her hair again, and she felt her mind plunging out of control. I always leave them open. Well, I must have been walking in my sleep. She strode across to the curtains and yanked them open. A face stared in at her. She leapt back with a scream, then stood trembling and cursing herself. It was her own reflection in the window against the dark morning sky. Get a grip on yourself, woman. She’d work till nine and then go out and buy something to eat. She sat at her desk and read. The sky lightened outside. It was not until the bells were striking eleven that her hunger reminded her to go out.
She emerged through the heavy college door. Her movements were clumsy from the cold and the layers of clothes she was wearing. She pulled her hat down closer on to her head and wrapped her cloak around her. A taxi pulled up as she was edging cautiously down the steps, and the polecat climbed out. They exchanged disdainful glances, and Mara set off towards the town centre. The beginnings of a smile gleamed in her mind. At least she wouldn’t be the only one in college now. There had been something cordial in those New Year sneers.
She walked on, picking her way carefully along the bits of pavement which had been salted or shovelled.
It was a dream, a dream born of hunger and cold. Of course it was. But she knew nothing would persuade her to leave the curtains open tonight. A dream, said her rational mind, and yet another part of her knew better. A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible. If hair could stand on end, then hers surely would have done. She remembered Johnny and the ‘bloody great angel’ blocking the path and calling him an arrogant little sod. Maybe that was what had prompted the dream. ‘That was no dream,’ whispered a voice. She sighed impatiently. My problem, she thought to herself, is that I hold two contradictory opinions simultaneously: a liberal demythologizing of the Bible coupled with a childlike belief in miracles. She bought bread and fruit and made her precarious way back to college. Her feet paused at the bottom step as though they were unwilling to carry her up to her room again. They were behaving like Balaam’s ass, who saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the path with his sword drawn. Balaam cursed and beat the ass with a stick. Sensible man. She ran up the stairs, knowing she’d feel better when she’d eaten.
The afternoon slid past. The polecat was moving around his room, and the sound reassured her. She was no longer hungry, having eaten for the first time in a day and a half, and an atmosphere of normality was returning. The room remained persistently cold, however. She wrapped her cloak around her as she worked, but by nine it was becoming unbearable. She felt the radiator. It was cold. There must be air in it. Maybe the polecat had a radiator key? But she wasn’t going to go and ask him.
She worked on until the clock struck ten, and then her resolve left her abruptly. She rose, left the room and knocked on the polecat’s door. Andrew Jacks, said the name plate. He called her in. She entered, but before she could utter her request, a tide of warm air embraced her.
‘You’ve got a heater!’ she said, as though accusing him of cheating at Finals. So? said his expression. The cold brought on a momentary oblivion and she went across and knelt in front of the heater to warm her hands. The polecat was watching her with contempt. Her dignity was compromised, but she stared haughtily none the less.
‘My radiator’s cold.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘An apt metaphor.’
Her stare disintegrated into surprise. Was that a glint of humour? There was a reassessing pause.
Then he spoke again: ‘Whisky?’ She almost smiled.
‘Yes.’
He got up from his chair, and while he was finding two glasses, she looked around. It was unnerving. The room was a mirror image of her own. Their two beds would be side by side, but for the wall. And he was clearly a man who liked his creature comforts. Framed pictures, not posters, all in fearsome good taste. A Paisley silk dressing-gown on the back of the door. He saw her looking and seemed to read her thoughts, for he showed her the whisky bottle with a sardonic flourish. Very expensive malt whisky, and a large bottle. He handed her a glass and poured.
‘My father’s a GP. He gets given things.’ His tone was casual, but this was unmistakably a symbolic gesture: fifty warheads, say. There was a pause while Mara assessed whether it was worth entering a process of bilateral disarmament.
‘So does mine. He’s a clergyman.’ Fifty warheads it is.
The polecat raised his glass. ‘To our fathers. Damn them.’
They drank, waiting for the next round of negotiations.
The polecat stretched out a foot in an elegant brogue. ‘I’m wearing a dead man’s shoes.’
‘I’m wearing a dead woman’s dress.’ She watched him and saw he was about to sabotage the talks.
‘How appropriate. You look like a dead woman.’ The fingers went back to the red buttons. She gave him her blank offensive stare.
‘You’ve lost weight. You look like something by Munch.’ That’s probably true, she thought. The Scream.
The warheads swivelled this way and that, lining up on their targets.
‘And you look like an Aubrey Beardsley.’ She saw that one strike home.
‘Petruchio back yet?’ Boom! Massive escalation. She felt herself blushing. Little shit. ‘He’s got you well tamed, hasn’t he? Good God – you practically behave like a real woman with our Johnny. You even smile.’
Yes, ha ha, she sneered.
‘You never smile at me.’
‘I don’t find you amusing.’
The polecat lifted his glass and looked at the light shining through the whisky. He turned his cool gaze back on her. ‘You don’t find me six foot
three and hung like a Minotaur, you mean.’
She ran her eyes over him insultingly. ‘True.’ But she had to admit to herself at last that she found him attractive. And amusing. Minotaur. Was that what he called him? The warmth of the fire had reached her at last and she took off her cloak. She took another mouthful of whisky and was looking around her again when she began to shiver. A sick dread rose in her. Balaam’s bloody ass again. The drink slopped in her glass and the polecat reached and took it from her. She clamped her arms round herself to stop the trembling. He watched her for what seemed like hours until the panic drained away again.
‘I saw an angel last night.’ The ass had spoken. Fool! She had thrown down every last defence, and could only wait helpless.
‘Ordinary, or arch?’ he asked, as though they were discussing the sighting of a woodpecker.
‘I don’t know.’
He handed back her glass. ‘Wings?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he speak?’
‘I shut the curtain on it.’
He pursed his lips. ‘Foolish.’
Suddenly she was annoyed and everything became normal again. ‘It was a dream,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
There was a silence. I’m going to have to go, she thought. She finished her drink and began to gather up her cloak.
‘You can take the heater,’ said the polecat unexpectedly. She stared. Had she disarmed him totally with her kamikaze talk of angels? ‘On certain conditions.’ Yes. That was more like it. The spoils of war. She folded her arms.
‘What conditions?’ You think I’d sell myself for an electric heater?
‘That you sit next to me in the dining-room.’ She gawped. ‘For a fortnight.’ What! Why? ‘Three meals a day.’
‘All right,’ she said.
There had to be some catch, but what on earth was it? She got to her feet. He rose too, unplugged the heater and followed her out. The air in her room felt icy. I’d probably sell myself for a pair of woolly bedsocks, she thought. He put the heater down. Was she going to have to say thank you? They stood eye to narrowed eye.
‘What made you think I wanted your body?’ he asked.
She stared contemptuously. ‘The fact that you’ve got a prick.’
‘Jesus,’ he said with an offensive shudder. ‘I can think of places I’d rather put it, darling.’
She flushed. He had beaten her comprehensively. She was losing her touch. He turned and started to leave.
‘Thanks,’ she said to his back.
He turned and regarded her as though she had offered to warm his slippers. ‘Don’t fawn.’ The door swung shut.
Early January went past slowly, cold and grey, like a line of defeated soldiers. Mara’s room became warm again. There had been some problem with the college heating system, a typed notice on the board said. The domestic bursar apologized to any students who had been inconvenienced. Mara returned the heater to the polecat, but the deal stood. She went down to the dining-hall three times a day with him. They seldom spoke, just sat beside one another in silence like an old married couple knit together by a million tiny hatreds and unable to break apart. Occasionally she sensed that he was watching her sidelong under his lashes. What did he want? Term arrived before the fortnight was over. People would talk. Was that what he wanted? Well, they would have something else to talk about in four days’ time when she abruptly stopped sitting next to him. She wondered, as they went down for the first dinner of term, what stories would circulate. The noise seemed immense. Maddy and May called her over, but she shook her head and sat beside the polecat. She saw Maddy saying something to May, and knew they would tackle her later.
As she ate, Mara overheard various accounts of Christmas drunkenness and dissipation. The conversations went predictably to and fro. She looked down at the unappetizing stew in front of her, then put down her knife and fork and moved the plate away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the polecat pause fractionally, then continue eating. Suddenly she knew. He wanted to make sure she was eating properly. ‘You look like something by Munch.’ She sat wide-eyed with disbelief. Why would he care? Then another thought occurred to her: why had he never once mocked her about her fear of spiders? Or referred again to her wild talk of angels? A new category appeared in her mind: polecat, acts of kindness performed by. The whisky. The heater. Her mind prickled in outrage.
The plates were collected and dishes of crumble and custard were passed along the tables. Mara sat scowling, unable to decide whether she would have eaten any if it had not occurred to her that the polecat was watching over her diet. He placed a dish in front of her. She prodded it with her spoon. Rhubarb. I hate rhubarb. She pushed it away.
‘Stop pouting,’ said the polecat. She turned an icy stare on him.
‘Pouting?’ She had a mental image of herself grinding the dish in his face. At last – a raison d’être for rhubarb after all these years. Mara spent the rest of the meal watching the skin forming on the custard.
The meal was over. The polecat rose to leave and Mara went silently with him. What would he do if I ate nothing? she wondered. And how does he know I don’t go back to my room and throw it all up again? They were approaching the foot of the stairs when Mara pictured herself making retching noises for him to hear through the wall. At that moment he glanced at her and caught her grinning. He turned away in disdain, but she saw his lips wavering into a smile as they began to climb the steps.
‘Stop smirking,’ she said; and they paused, looked at one another, and, at last, smiled together. Record the moment in tablets of stone, thought Mara. They continued to their rooms in silence. The smile had transformed him. She saw how very engaging he might be if he chose.
She settled down at her desk again and had just opened a book when she heard the sound of feet coming up the stairs. Two sets. Galumphing, and scampering. Maddy and May. The door burst open, and Maddy goose-stepped across to Mara, swung the Angle-poise lamp round and shone it into her eyes.
‘Speak, fool!’ she hissed. ‘Did you think you could get away with it?’
Mara made no reply.
‘You deny it, ja?’
Mara sat in silence.
‘Then you admit it!’
Maddy’s face was quivering with mock rage. She was going to be one of the rare prima donnas with acting skills that equalled her voice. When Mara still said nothing, Maddy thrust her face up close and bawled out a stream of German. ‘You understand that?’
‘Yes,’ said Mara with a smile. A list of prepositions taking the dative. She could remember learning it herself. ‘How was your Christmas?’
‘I’m asking the questions!’ roared Maddy. ‘But actually, it was wonderful,’ she said, reverting to her normal tone. ‘You should have come to Rupert’s party, by the way. It was truly Bacchanalian. Or am I getting my mythologies muddled? What would a party with a biblical theme be?’
‘Gomorrean?’ suggested May.
‘Hell,’ said Mara.
‘Oh, just because you weren’t there, you old cow. Anyway, it was wonderful. Divine. Rupert went as a World War One flying ace.’ Maddy was waiting for Mara to guess.
‘Pilate?’
‘The polecat went as the Camp of the Children of Israel,’ said May.
The polecat went? Mara hadn’t realized he knew Rupert that well. ‘What about you?’ said Mara aloud, seeing that Maddy was bursting to tell her. ‘The Scarlet Whore of Babylon?’ She half-expected to be hit for this.
‘Actually, I did,’ said Maddy, watching Mara suspiciously.
May, who by now had wandered across to the mirror and was trying on Mara’s collection of hats, said dreamily, ‘I went as Delilah.’ She hummed a little tune to herself and turned this way and that, looking at her reflection.
I bet I know what she’s so smug about, thought Mara.
&n
bsp; ‘And quite coincidentally,’ said Maddy, not entirely managing a careless note, ‘Johnny Whitaker went as Samson.’
‘I had no idea he would,’ said May airily. It would have been an easy guess, though. He would hardly have gone as the boy Samuel.
‘Did you make him sleep upon your knees?’ asked Mara. They looked at her open-mouthed. ‘As the Good Book says,’ she added, smiling at their shocked faces. They glanced at one another uncertainly. Tut, tut. Vicars’ daughters, and they don’t know their Bibles. Then she realized that her scripture knowledge had been learned at a Welsh chapel Sunday school. Or during those forty-five-minute sermons, when she had been driven by sheer boredom to read great chunks of the Old Testament. Nobody could really tell her off, because it was the Word of God, after all. And very racy some of it was, too.
Suddenly Mara realized that something interesting had been said and she had missed it. Maddy and May were talking about mistletoe.
‘I couldn’t believe my luck,’ said Maddy. ‘I was bracing myself for a brotherly peck on the cheek, but my God. I thought I’d wee myself. What is the church thinking of, letting him loose in a parish?’
Angels and Men Page 16