‘You bet it was. Even the children scared me. I had to preach to them on Easter Sunday. “Well, boys and girls. This is a difficult question: can any of you remember any of the words Jesus spoke while he was on the cross?” All these hands shoot up. “Yes? Little boy on the left.” “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach-thani.” ’
Mara laughed. ‘You’re kidding! What did you say?’
‘ “Yes, yes. Apart from that.” I don’t suppose I knew who Jesus was at that age.’
‘Surely you were sent to Sunday school?’
‘I was expelled. Something to do with setting fire to hymn books.’
She smiled. Maddy and May would disqualify him for lying again.
‘How’s my friend Rupert, then?’ he asked after a moment.
She blushed, hearing from his tone that they had discussed her. She tried to answer casually. ‘He was OK when I last saw him.’
‘So you’re a couple these days?’ She could not look at him.
‘No.’
‘No? That’s not what Rupert thinks.’ Oh, God.
‘Well, he should. We agreed,’ she said belligerently.
‘Maybe he needs reminding, sweetie.’
‘I’ve tried to explain!’ she burst out.
He laughed. ‘You’ll just have to be patient with him, I’m afraid, Mara.’ They were nearing the college main entrance. ‘What women don’t realize is that men can be incredibly stupid. Take the word “no”, for instance. I keep having it explained to me, but somehow I can’t hold the concept in my mind for more than about thirty seconds.’ What if it were reinforced by a knee in the groin? At that moment Nigel appeared, about to step out into the street for a cigarette. Another man who had never got to grips with the ‘No’ concept.
‘Hello, darling. You’re back. Got a kiss for me?’ He thrust his face up close and laughed as she recoiled. His eyes slid from her to Johnny, then back again. ‘Been for a little walk, eh? Well, I hope he’s been behaving himself.’
‘More’s the pity,’ Mara heard herself say. Shit. She’d always dreaded being sucked into the smutty vortex of Nigel’s thought. There was an interesting little pause, then both men laughed. Mara watched out of the corner of her eye as Nigel semaphored a swift message of encouragement to Johnny in those all-male coded gestures which any woman can read at forty paces. Johnny was grinning broadly. There were footsteps coming along the corridor. It was Andrew. Her scowl changed into a smile. Nigel swung round.
‘Oh, God,’ he said in disgust.
Andrew came across and stood between Mara and Johnny, and put an arm round each of them. ‘Hello, beautiful people.’ He kissed Mara’s cheek. ‘And hello, Nigel.’ Mara felt the jagged hostility running between them.
Nigel rounded on her: ‘I don’t know why you waste your time on him. He’s as bent as a nine-bob note.’ She was too stunned by the loathing in his voice to respond. By the time she had collected her wits, he was renewing his last term’s attack on her diet. ‘You make sure you’re in for your meals like a good girl. I’ll be watching you.’ He ran his gaze over her. ‘Mind you – you’ve already got a bit more flesh on you. That’s what I like to see.’ His eyes flicked back to Andrew and he evidently caught some expression there which incensed him. ‘Listen, duckie, how would you know what men like?’
‘Actually,’ said Andrew, ‘I know exactly what men like, duckie. Let me educate you.’
Nigel gave a whole-body shudder and retreated hastily out on to the street, saying, ‘You disgust me. You really disgust me.’ Mara saw the cigarette lighter flare as the door swung shut.
‘That’s what you call de-camping,’ said Johnny.
Andrew gave him a withering look, and the three of them began to climb the stairs. Mara reached out and took a handful of her mail which Andrew had collected from the common room. She leafed through them absently, bank statement, overdue library book, a couple of things forwarded from her Cambridge college. Her mind was still turning over the scene that had just taken place.
‘Do you suppose Nigel’s worried about his own orientation?’ she asked as she opened her door. They followed her in. She began to be amazed at her audacity, and regretted speaking her thoughts out loud.
‘What’s this?’ Andrew was looking at her in mocking wonder. ‘Do I detect the first faint glimmerings of street wisdom?’
‘You think I’m right?’ She glanced at Johnny and read confirmation there. ‘But he’s always so disgustingly heterosexual.’
They both laughed rather too long and hard at this, and she scowled down into her pile of letters. One bore her mother’s handwriting, and she opened it. A welcome-back-to-college card. She went and propped it on the mantelpiece under the ornate mirror.
‘Disgusting heterosexuality is often a front for ambivalence,’ she heard Andrew say.
Johnny laughed again, and she turned and saw him lay a friendly arm across Andrew’s shoulders. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But not always, I’d like to think.’
‘Duckie,’ said Andrew.
They were grinning at one another. Mara went back to her pile of letters, feeling slightly excluded. A postcard. Snowy mountains. Oh, no. She looked at the other side and blushed. From Rupert. She turned her back on the two of them to read it. ‘Having a wonderful time, walking, skiing, looking for wild strawberries and thinking of you. Much love, Rupert.’ She clutched it to herself. Had Andrew read it? Probably.
She glanced in the mirror to see if he was smirking at her, and froze. He and Johnny were kissing. She watched with the detachment which comes from profound shock. Almost at once she saw Johnny pull away – in confusion, she thought – and shake his head. ‘Don’t,’ she watched his lips say. The two stood still for a moment. Andrew’s hand on Johnny’s shoulder clenched into a fist. It looked like despair. They stood, Andrew with his back to her, neither moving. Mara was still frozen, trying to take in what she was seeing, when Johnny raised his eyes and looked directly at her in the mirror. The spell snapped. She looked away and fumbled with her letters again. After a moment Johnny asked, ‘Where are these books, then?’
‘Over there.’ She gestured blindly towards the bookcase. He crossed to it and took down half a dozen volumes. She did not dare look at Andrew. He must have seen her confusion, and would know how to interpret it. Johnny thanked her and left quietly. His footsteps disappeared down the stairs.
‘Have I disgusted you as well, Princess?’ She made herself face him, and realized from his expression that she was going to pay dearly for what she had seen.
‘No.’ Her voice sounded high and defiant in her own ears. ‘I’m not disgusted. I’m . . . I suppose I’m shocked.’
‘You’re shocked. Why are you shocked, Princess?’
‘Because . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen men kissing before.’
‘Jesus. What did you expect?’ She said nothing. ‘Just grow up, Mara. I know you’d like homosexuality to be a chaste and cerebral thing. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But stop and think for a moment. What do you suppose men like me actually do? No, come on – I’m interested.’ He waited, but she still made no reply. ‘You know, of all your unappealing characteristics it’s your wilful naivety that pisses me off most.’
Tears gathered in her eyes. There was nothing she could do but stand and take it. She knew now he had been lying – love was not a fancy word for what he felt. The mirror had shown her not only his passion, but the pain of rejection. Now, at last, she had the means to wound him as he had wounded her, but she found she loved him too much to do it. He watched her tears dispassionately.
‘Poor Princess. Trying so hard to be broad-minded.’ He turned his back on her and left the room. She felt numb. The scene rose up again and again in her shrinking imagination until she no longer trusted her interpretation of it. Did this mean Johnny was -? He couldn’t be. She thought of how he had pulled away and shaken his head; but had that really meant, ‘Sorry – not a chance’? Might it not have meant, ‘Not now’? Even ‘Don’t’ could mean ‘Do
n’t tempt me’. Maybe that was why he had defended Andrew against Hugh and the Coverdale Group that time in the bar. She crossed miserably to her desk and sat down to work, trying to forget what she had seen. It was a long time before she managed to lose herself in her writing. It was the piece Dr Roe had asked for at the end of last term, and it was almost complete. The hours passed slowly. She could hear Andrew moving around next door, and hated being at odds with him. He’s my best friend, she thought, and yet I daren’t go and knock on his door.
At about nine-thirty she heard him leave his room. She held her breath, waiting for him to pass along the corridor. Instead, there was a knock. He came in with his whisky bottle and two glasses.
‘Why do you let me do that to you?’ he asked, sitting on the edge of her desk and looking down at her. She shrugged, unable to tell him. ‘Jesus, Mara. You’re such a victim. It brings out the worst in me.’ He poured them both some whisky. This was as close to an apology as she could imagine hearing from him.
‘Are you lovers, then?’ she asked.
‘Of course.’
There was a long, long silence. He’s lying, she thought.
‘No you’re not.’
‘Fuck it.’ He grinned and raised his glass. ‘To the disgustingly heterosexual Johnny Whitaker.’
She grinned back and with a long sigh said, ‘I’ll drink to that.’ It’s not that I mind for myself if Johnny’s gay, she told herself. I’m just glad I’ve been spared the agony of reordering my world yet again. ‘Why did you bother trying?’
‘Who dares, wins.’
‘Who dares, gets his face smacked, I’d have thought.’
‘No. He’s a big softie. And a bit too cocksure of himself to feel threatened. And now . . .’ – he smiled – ‘it’s your turn to be cross-examined.’
‘No. I’m not telling you.’ She wrapped her arms round her head.
‘Aha. So Rupert proposed.’
‘I’m not telling you.’
He laughed and unwound her arms.
‘At the palace? Did he seduce you? Yes he did. Don’t lie. How big is he? Go on – approximately. This big? Did you come?’ And so it went on.
By the end of the evening he had extracted from her a good deal of what had taken place. Mara found that talking to him clarified her thoughts, although she squirmed and squirmed at his perceptive mockery. After he had gone back to his room, her resolve was no longer wavering. She would extricate herself firmly and kindly before Rupert took to loitering outside jewellers’ windows with smouldering credit cards in his pocket.
Term began. The exam season loomed like the Day of Judgement. A sort of eschatological fervour took hold of the undergraduate mind, and the libraries began to hum like generators. Mara observed two kinds of response to the approaching crisis. Some undergraduates drew up revision timetables and worked diligently to plan. Others refrained for fear that the process would reveal that there was not enough time to revise everything properly. The latter group was to be seen in the bar, at street corners, over coffee, lingering, deferring and procrastinating in a variety of ingenious ways, talking all the time about the amount of work they still had to do. Mara, who had always been a slogger, watched the antics of Maddy and May in disbelief. If they were worried about exams, why didn’t they work? If they weren’t, why didn’t they shut up? She thanked God that exams were now for ever behind her.
The days went by. Mara noticed one sunny morning as she walked along the riverbank that she was feeling . . . happy. Don’t say it, warned a voice inside her. She felt like someone who had once upon a time stepped out on to a wonderful green lawn only to find it was the duck pond and had never quite trusted grass since. Only believe, said another voice. It will take your weight. She was beginning to inch her way out across the broad grassy plain.
Late that evening the ground gave way under her again. Mara rounded a corner in Jesus College and there was Joanna. They both leapt back in shock at the sight of each other, then Joanna turned and disappeared through a doorway out on to the street. Oh, God. Oh, God. Mara leant against a wall trembling. I knew she’d come back. Calm down, said Andrew in her mind. Breathe slowly. She concentrated. In. Out. After a while the truth dawned. Andrew had succeeded. Joanna was not going to pester her any more. Only believe, whispered the voice again. Mara hurried up the stairs to find Andrew.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just saw Joanna.’ Her voice was shaking.
‘So?’ He poured her some whisky. ‘What did she do?’
‘She ran off.’
‘I told you.’ He looked so smug that she forgot her fear. ‘Admit it: I’m omniscient as well as omnipotent.’
‘Well, you’ll just have to wait till a vacancy comes up in the godhead, won’t you?’
‘Don’t try to be clever, Mara.’ She wondered whether one of the reasons why he served such good whisky was so that his guests would have to think really hard before throwing it in his face.
‘You haven’t managed to stop her hanging around college, though.’
‘I didn’t try. She comes to the college prayer meeting. And to Coverdale to worship at the feet of Johnny Whitaker. Who am I to discourage such piety? Anyway, you’ve got to face her. You shouldn’t let her have this kind of hold over you.’
‘I know. I can’t help it. It’s all bound up in –’
‘In . . . ?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘OK.’ She stared in surprise, and he smiled. ‘I’ll give you a few weeks’ grace. Let’s get drunk instead.’
‘What?’
‘Come on – the chance to get pissed without the threat of sex.’
He poured them both more whisky and she drank cautiously, wondering what he was playing at this time. As the evening wore on, it seemed that he had nothing more sinister in mind than singing her torch songs and playing endlessly with her hair. At last he fell into a deep, drunken sleep. She lay listening to the night wind rustling in the trees and the cathedral clock counting out the quarters as they passed. Is this the only man who will ever fall asleep in my arms?
The revision period toiled on. Maddy had chosen this time to embark on an intense love affair. Mara was introduced to the object of her passion, a tall Irishman called Kieran with a wicked smile; and she had to admit that as displacement activities went, this one probably had hoovering behind the wardrobe beaten hollow. Poor May was entirely left out by this obsessive relationship, but instead of using the unexpected free time to study, she took to calling in on Mara and preventing her from working too. On one particular evening she knocked on Mara’s door and found Andrew already there with his whisky glass. She gave a great display of hesitating.
‘Just come in, will you?’ said Mara impatiently.
‘Is it safe?’ whispered May. ‘Or is he in his Gestapo mode?’
Andrew raised his eyes from his book and looked at May in distaste. After a moment he turned to Mara. ‘I blame you for this, you bitch. Everyone was scared of me till you arrived.’
May giggled, and sat on Mara’s desk. Andrew returned to his book disdainfully, and Mara wondered how long it would be before he was driven from the room in disgust.
‘We all dread his practical criticism classes,’ said May, picking up a paper clip and unbending it. ‘He made someone cry once.’
‘She hadn’t heard of Derrida,’ said Andrew, without looking up from his book, as though it was nothing to do with him – tears and humiliation were the inevitable result of this kind of ignorance.
‘I can’t take Derrida seriously,’ said May. ‘It sounds like the chorus of a folk song. Derry derry da de dum dum da,’ she sang.
Andrew was struggling not to smile. ‘Be grateful to me. You’ve heard of him. At least you won’t get through your degree unscathed by any knowledge of critical theory.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said May, beginning to clean her nails with the unbent paper clip. ‘It’s my ambition. I just let your classes wash over me.’
Mara listened to the conversation in growing disbelief.
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘Does it hurt your feelings?’
‘No. If you’re happy with a Lower Second and a nice girls’ grammar school close reading of the text, it’s fine by me.’
‘Well, not everyone’s daddy can afford to send them to a poncy public school,’ said May. ‘Only I expect you were a scholarship boy, because you’re so terribly, terribly clever.’
Mara was convinced that Andrew would now pick up his whisky and stalk out; but although he did not deign to answer May’s observation, he remained where he was and read on. Mara wondered whether after years of intimidating everyone with his cold intellectual bullying, he found he rather liked being treated with disrespect.
‘I came to ask you for a word, Mara,’ said May.
‘A private word, you mean?’ asked Mara,’ glancing at Andrew.
‘Oh, no. A word which you couldn’t put in an essay on Marlowe.’
‘A what? Why?’ Mara stared at her, baffled.
‘It’s a running bet I’ve got with my tutorial partner,’ explained May. ‘To liven up the tutorial. We take it in turns to pick an impossible word for the other one to work into an essay without the tutor noticing.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, “candy floss” in an essay on Restoration Comedy. “Telephone box” in Fielding. That sort of thing. We’ve been doing it since November.’ Mara glanced at Andrew again, and saw he had abandoned all pretence of being uninterested.
‘Good God – and your tutor hasn’t noticed?’ he asked.
‘It’s Dr Walden. I don’t think he’s noticed we’re in the twentieth century,’ said May.
‘True,’ conceded Andrew. ‘But don’t ever try it on me, curlylocks.’
‘Or you’ll put me on detention.’ He gave her a look, and she fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘Well, what do you think? So far I’ve come up with “wart hog” or “sweat gland”.’
There was a thoughtful silence.
‘ “Speculum”,’ said Mara.
‘ “Smegma”,’ said Andrew. There was a pause. May eyed him. ‘Look it up later,’ he said kindly.
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