She sat next to him. ‘Guess I got a bit scissor-happy.’
‘You’re impossible.’ She could smell the wild thyme. The lark was still filling the sky with its song. They sat rapt in the paradise of one another’s gaze.
‘You love me,’ said Barney for her as she opened her lips.
‘Sod you.’
He lay back, chuckling, hands behind his head. The sun was gleaming on his golden hair. She slid down beside him, propping herself up on one elbow. For a while she contented herself with watching him as he lay with his eyes closed, but before long his self-containment began to provoke her. She tickled his face with a feathery grass. He waved it away like a fly several times before he saw what she was doing.
‘Don’t spoil it, Isabella.’ He shut his eyes again and she stuck her tongue out. Sanctimonious git. But maybe he was right. Just enjoy what you’ve got, she told herself. Don’t jeopardize it by being greedy.
She listened to the lark and watched his beautiful mouth. It’s enough. I’m happy. These sentiments sustained her for some four or five minutes. Bugger this for a game of tin soldiers, she thought suddenly. She placed a hand on his chest. He made no move. She slid it down and felt his stomach muscles tense.
‘Isabella, you lay one finger on my tackle and we’re going straight back to Cambridge.’ Her hand paused. He meant it. Then a happy alternative occurred to her. She slid her leg across him. For one glorious moment she felt the imprint of an erection burnt into her inner thigh, then he tumbled her roughly away and stood up.
‘Right. Back to Cambridge.’ He set off down the hill.
‘Wait! Barney, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Promise.’ But he strode on. She scrambled up and slithered after him. ‘Please, Barney. Don’t be mean. I’ll behave.’ Her feet shot out from under her and she sat down hard on a thistle. Her screech brought him back.
He stood shaking his head at her. ‘Isabella, what am I supposed to do with you?’
‘Fuck me!’ she yelled, losing the last shred of control. ‘Fuck me! Fuck me, you stupid bastard!’ Her voice carried away across three counties. He turned and started walking again. She wrenched off a shoe and hurled it at him. Some instinct warned him, and he glanced round and caught it just before it struck him on the head. She hopped her way between the thistles, cursing him. Eventually he relented enough to hand back her shoe. The moment she was within range she slapped his face.
‘What are you? Impotent or something?’ She aimed another slap at him, but he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. She struggled and sobbed and pummelled him all the way back to the car. ‘I hate you, I hate you!’ He tipped her unceremoniously over the side and got into the driver’s seat. The engine started and he headed back to Cambridge without a word.
For the first few miles Isabella, conscious that she had nothing left to lose, called him every name she could think of. After five miles she had run out of ideas. He drove on in quiet resignation as her curses gave way to violent tears. She covered her face and wailed with complete abandon for the next ten miles, like a two-year-old who has started crying, forgotten why, and doesn’t know how to stop. Cambridge began to appear on the signposts. She fell silent from exhaustion, shaken by the occasional stormy sob. Gradually she admitted how appallingly she had behaved. It was way, way beyond apology. Her head began to throb. She felt sick. After another five miles she had forgotten everything in the all-consuming knowledge that she was about to throw up. I’m going to die. Sweat stood out on her face. She yawned and yawned.
‘Barney, I’m going to be sick!’
He pulled over at once. She got out and threw up horribly into the grass verge, dimly aware he was rubbing her back and saying kind things. ‘Oh, God!’ She puked again. They were beside a rape field. The dirty honey smell of the flowers filled her nostrils. Lorries were rumbling past. Eventually she straightened up, trembling.
‘All done?’ She nodded. Her head throbbed viciously. ‘It’s probably the sun.’ She got back in. He was pulling the car roof up. ‘Are you all right to go on? I’ll get you a drink at the next garage.’ His hand rested briefly on her arm and they set off again. Isabella had no energy for anything but staying alive.
At last she was in her room. He had gone. She collapsed on the bed and fell asleep, too wretched to care if she never saw him again.
By the next morning she cared very much indeed. She remembered in dismay that he’d been going to take her to see his church. He’d started to grow fond of her, and now she’d wrecked it all beyond repair. She cringed at every fresh memory. He’d think she always threw embarrassing tantrums when she was thwarted. No sane man would want such a silly spoilt bitch. How could she explain that he was the only one who had ever made her act like that? It would sound as though she was trying to blame him. And how could she, when she remembered how patiently he had put up with her dreadful behaviour? Oh, Barney! It was all my fault. I must write to him. Even if he never speaks to me again, I owe him an apology.
She sat down at her desk in her dressing gown and scribbled Dear Barney, I can’t begin to say how sorry I am, then screwed up the page. Ten minutes later the bin was full of crumpled pages and she was in tears. She looked round in despair. The room was like her life – a total, unmitigated, disastrous mess. She stood up and vowed to mend her ways. I’ll go and have a shower and then I’ll tidy everything up.
She came back along the corridor, fresh and clean and ready for a new beginning, and there he was.
‘Barney!’ She stopped in scarlet mortification. He smiled his wonderful smile, and she flung herself at him and sobbed into his shirt. ‘Oh, Barney! I’m so sorry!’
‘That’s all right.’
‘How can you say that? I –’
‘Um . . . Could we go in?’ He was trying to extricate himself without dislodging her towel. She pushed open the door.
‘Oh, God. It’s a real pigsty. I’m sorry.’
‘I’ve got sisters.’ He picked his way through the discarded knickers and Tampax boxes to the chair and sat down.
‘Coffee?’ She caught sight of a suspender belt dangling from the desk lamp inches from his head. How the hell had that got there? She filled the kettle quickly.
‘Feeling better this morning?’ he asked.
‘Barney, don’t be nice to me. I don’t deserve it.’
‘I’ve told you it’s OK.’
‘You can’t just forgive me.’
‘I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t.’ She was about to ask who with, when she spotted God loitering on the edge of the conversation. She blushed and muttered something about getting dressed.
‘Of course,’ he said politely. He turned the chair round, picked up a book, and sat with his back to her apparently absorbed in Jane Austen. Isabella hesitated. She’d expected him to retreat hastily from the room. Well, suit yourself. She dropped the towel and waited. He turned a page. She shrugged and hunted around for clean underwear and an uncrumpled dress. Each time she glanced up he was deep in Emma. It wasn’t until she was fully dressed and approaching the mirror over the desk that she noticed he could have been watching her reflection the whole time. He met her accusing stare with a bewildered look.
‘What?’ She was wrong. He was too chaste to ogle. But then the glimmer in his eyes set her wondering again.
After a discreet sniff at the milk carton she made them black coffee. They drank in silence. Isabella was still feeling too raw to vamp him, but her small talk had got a little rusty after all this time.
‘So,’ she began, ‘you’ve got sisters, then?’
‘Three.’
‘Older or younger?’
‘Older.’
‘You’re the only boy?’ He nodded. No wonder he was proof against wheedling and hysterics.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘Just an older sister.’
‘And is she very, very well behaved?’
‘Horribly.’ They grinned at one another.
‘Are you doing
anything tomorrow night?’
Her heart leapt, and she mentally stood up three different people. ‘No. Why?’
‘I wondered if you’d like to come to the Latimer ball?’
‘Would I!’ She hugged herself in glee.
‘Don’t get too excited, Isabella. It’s a very small, tame affair.’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me after yesterday, Barney.’
‘Nor can I, frankly.’
‘I promise I’ll behave. I’ll wear a demure smock with a Peter Pan collar, or something.’
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘Unless you’d rather I wore something tight and black and sexy?’
‘Mm. Much rather.’
‘Barnaby! I’m surprised at you! What will everyone think?’
‘They’ll think, Hardstaff, you jammy bugger.’ He got to his feet, smiling at her shocked expression. ‘I’ll pick you up at quarter to eight, provided . . .’ He paused, having just caught sight of the suspender belt. She saw him eye it thoughtfully as though he knew he’d seen one before but couldn’t remember off-hand what it was. ‘. . . provided you promise not to seduce me.’
‘We-ell . . . So long as I don’t have to stop you if you try to seduce me.’
‘I think I can handle that.’
‘Yeah. I’d noticed.’ She sighed. ‘So what are the rules, then?’
‘Clothes on and hands off.’ With that he was gone.
‘So, Annie,’ said Dr Tuckerman, ‘where does the shoe pinch?’ Before she could answer, his phone rang. He apologized and cantered away to answer it, leaving her sitting in his kitchen. They should have been in his office in college. Would Annie mind awfully coming to the house instead? Oh, good show! We can have some of Megs’s barm bread. Megs was out and they were expecting a man to come and service the Aga. Or woman, added Dr Tuckerman. Or woman. He was always so conscientious about inclusive language that Annie thought of him as Dr Tuckerperson. She was waiting for the day when he forgot himself in the Creed: ‘By the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and was made man – or woman, of course, or woman.’
Annie stared round the kitchen at the examples of small Tuckerpeople artwork. Bits of egg carton stuck on to cornflake packets. Gummy collages of pasta and string. She reflected that she did mind being there, actually. Perhaps it was because the house reminded her of her own parsimonious upbringing. A cupboard door was open and Annie could see that it was full of cardboard boxes labelled Wool, Dress fabrics, Tights, Cards and so on. Carrier bags of yoghurt cartons and silver foil hung from doorknobs. The cards were presumably old Christmas and birthday cards ready to be cut and stuck on to recycled sugar paper. But what would the tights be for? Stuffing soft toys? Annie could remember getting a blister from hacking up tights with blunt scissors when she had been in the Girls’ Brigade. She’d been making a knitted sausage dog draught-excluder, only she’d never finished it. Like that pegbag.
Her eyes wandered to the dresser. A plastic bag full of used stamps hung from a hook. Just like home, except the Tuckermans’ parsimony was part of an overarching ideology. Annie’s mother was just plain mean. Five years after Annie had broken off her engagement her mother had still been using cut-up wedding invitations for shopping lists. Annie had remarked to Megs once that her mother even washed clingfilm and reused it. ‘We try not to use clingfilm,’ Megs had replied repressively. Meanness was even more irritating when it was globally conscious. Annie glared at the bottles and tins waiting to be taken to the recycling point. Hadn’t it occurred to them that the boldest ecological gesture they could make would be to get their tubes tied? They had four children and Megs was pregnant with the fifth. Yes, Meggers was preggers. Annie conjured up a mountain of wrapping paper as high as K2 and set Megs to iron and reuse it as penance for their environment-hostile fertility. She heard Dr Tuckerman cantering back and tried to give her thoughts a more generous turn.
‘Gosh! Awfully sorry about that.’ He was panting slightly as he put the kettle on the Aga. Annie and Ted had invented a comic strip called Tubby of Tuckerman Hall, inspired by his penchant for schoolboy slang of a bygone era. Annie could never see him without wanting to attach a speech bubble to his head: Jam roly-poly! Oh, I say – wizard prang! Tubs and Megs. He was a nice man. And Megs was probably nice too, conceded Annie, as Tubby cut two hunks of barm bread. It was just that she inspired an unfortunate mixture of guilt and defiance.
‘So,’ he asked again, as he spooned coffee into the mugs, ‘where does the shoe pinch, Annie?’ A crab-pink sling-back clacked its pincers in Annie’s mind. Stop it! She’d made herself come and talk to the Warden about her troubles at last, and now she couldn’t take it seriously.
‘Um, well. That’s the problem, really,’ began Annie. ‘I’m not sure what the, um, problem is, exactly. I just feel –’ She broke off with a helpless gesture. ‘It’s not as though I doubt everything, suddenly, or . . . the Creed, I mean, or the authority of Scripture, but . . .’ She fell silent.
‘You started to tell me how you feel,’ prompted Dr Tuckerman.
‘Did I? Oh, um, well. Sort of frustrated.’
‘Frustrated. Hmm. Can you say a bit more about it?’
‘Well, um. Irritable. I keep wanting to swat people with a pulpit Bible.’ For example, Ingram.
Dr Tuckerman laughed. ‘Gosh, so do I. Know the feeling well.’
Or wanting to haul Edward into a broom cupboard and pull his trousers off. Bet you don’t feel that, Tubs old fruit.
‘I suppose,’ said Annie, trying to get a grip, ‘I suppose it amounts to a feeling that I’m in the wrong place trying to do the wrong thing. That sounds terrible.’
‘No.’ Tubby raised a hand. ‘Important to say it.’ The kettle was about to boil. He got up and began to slide it thoughtfully around on the hob to release any beads of water trapped there. One sputtered and danced away. ‘Is this because there’s something you’d rather be doing, do you think?’
‘Not that I’m aware of,’ she said, colouring slightly, in case he meant marriage and motherhood. ‘I expect it’s just adolescent rebellion striking rather late.’ He was still staring solemnly at the kettle. ‘I feel like I’ve spent my whole life trying to be respectable and please people. If I’m ordained I’ll have to go on doing it professionally till I retire.’
‘Not necessarily. Our Lord was highly unrespectable.’
‘I know.’ I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW. ‘I just feel . . . stifled.’ The kettle boiled.
‘Black or white?’
If only things were.
‘White, please.’
He handed her a mug and sat down. She watched his face as he clattered the spoon round in his cup. Brown curly hair gave his Billy Bunterish features a cherubic cast. A sweet man, Annie remembered Isobel saying once. Her tone had been condemning, like a woman who took good care of her teeth and only ever ate apples between meals. What sort of sweet? Annie wondered. A marshmallow? She knew herself to be something slightly vulgar and childish. A sherbet lemon, perhaps – insipid exterior, but a nasty shock of sherbet in the middle. Isobel was a Bendick’s Bittermint. What was Ingram? Chewing gum – going on and on and on getting increasingly tasteless? Or one of those jelly worms. What did we use to call them? Wrigglers. And Edward – Dr Tuckerman rapped his spoon sharply on the edge of his mug as though calling a meeting to order. ‘So, what are we going to do, Annie?’ His eyes peered tinily at her through his thick glasses. She shrugged. You tell me. He took his glasses off and began to massage the bridge of his nose vigorously. She was surprised to note that his eyes were, in fact, large and rather attractive. She looked away as though she had caught a private glimpse into his marriage.
‘Is there any practical way I can help?’ The glasses were back on.
‘Um,’ said Annie. ‘I’m supposed to be preaching in a fortnight’s time, and . . .’ I feel like one of my pupils. Oh, Miss Brown, I haven’t exactly managed the essay, quite. I’ve done the notes, though . . .
‘No problem. We’ll postpone it till next term.’ His glasses were slipping down his nose a little and giving him a wild air.
‘Thanks.’ Annie took a gulp of coffee. ‘I’m sure I could do it, if . . . It’s just that whenever I sit down to write it, I feel like screaming.’ He frowned and pushed his glasses back into place. There was a silence. Annie heard the cathedral clock chime eleven.
‘This business about feeling respectable. I wonder if a change of scene might help?’ Miles of white sand, a hammock slung between palms? ‘Have you done your Bishopside placement yet?’ Oof! Mouldy old swizz, you rotter! Annie shook her head. ‘That might contextualize your sense of calling and ministry a bit. We can all get so frightfully ivory-towerish in Coverdale, you know. How does the idea strike you?’
Like a stake through the heart. Annie knew it was cowardly, but she dreaded the idea of Urban Experience. Bishopside, in her imagination, was a place where ten-year-olds stole cars and malevolent green-eyed GPs told you to fuck off. Suddenly Coverdale seemed infinitely rewarding and fulfilling.
‘I’m due to go on the three-week placement.’
‘In July. Hmm.’ He was massaging the bridge of his nose again. ‘Have you ruled out the possibility of spending a term in one of the college flats in Bishopside?’
YES.
‘Um . . .’ She began to fear that a show of reluctance would make him send her there.
‘Just a thought.’ Annie crossed her legs and took another gulp of coffee. ‘It just strikes me that there may be a lack of edge here for you. This place, somehow . . .’ His gesture seemed to indicate the kitchen. Annie stared around. The encroaching boxes and bags bulged with a metaphor. Wasn’t her life full of the moral equivalent of empty yoghurt pots and old pairs of tights? She was helpless in the face of things she didn’t want or need, but knew she oughtn’t to throw out.
‘Um . . .’
‘Look, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you take a morning to pray and wander around Bishopside and see what you think?’
‘OK.’ She wondered meanly whether someone was leaning on him to send more students on Urban Experience.
The Benefits of Passion Page 9