The Benefits of Passion

by Catherine Fox

  Buoyed by this novel sensation she went straight to his room to confront him. Unfortunately he was hosting an undergraduate Bible study and they ended up having a hissing argument in the corridor. Edward stuck to his guns: William had had it coming. Someone had to bloody well sort him out. Annie retorted that it was none of Edward’s business, and they parted resentfully. She went instead to find Ted.

  He sighed when she told him she was moving in with Will. ‘If it doesn’t work out, let me know. Our invitation still stands.’ She nodded miserably in the face of his disapproval. ‘You love him very much, don’t you, Annie?’

  ‘I don’t know. Probably. Ted, I wish you’d give him another chance.’

  ‘I hope I give everyone several chances.’

  ‘Seventy times seven chances,’ Annie reminded him.

  ‘That’s an awful lot of paternity suits,’ mused Ted.

  Tubby was not happy either. He felt he must press her to reconsider. It would make the issue of her continuing her training very vexed indeed. She would have to talk to her bishop about it.

  A letter from her bishop arrived the following day. I should be grateful if you would arrange a time to visit me. + Henry. Annie wept into his expensive crested notepaper and made herself phone his secretary.

  Only two days till the end of term. It would soon be over. But someone somewhere had been indiscreet, had shared Annie’s situation with someone else as a matter for prayer, and suddenly the whole college knew. Groups fell silent at her approach. Eyes glanced furtively at her waistline. Tubby was forced to make a short announcement and insist on compassion and understanding, and to emphasize that none of us is above reproach. Annie burned with shame, but weren’t Gabriel’s words beginning to come true? She had failed spectacularly in her attempts not to give offence. Why try to salvage anything from the wreck? She packed her things and waited for Will to collect her.

  It was a warm windy day when she arrived in Bishopside. She looked out of Will’s spare bedroom window across an alley at the backs of terraced houses. Above a wall the wind tossed the sycamore branches till they danced. She watched the leaves turning their pale backs to the gusts. Homesickness crept over her. It was like the day she had arrived at her penfriend’s house in Germany after a sleepless night on ferry and train with the other pupils. Now she was isolated in what felt like a stranger’s house, as miserable as a frightened fifteen-year-old.

  She was supposed to be asleep. Will was moving around downstairs. At some point she was going to have to emerge and talk to him. The arrangement was beginning to feel far too civilized and grown-up for her. He expected her to make herself at home, but she felt like a difficult house guest there on sufferance.

  Another problem was looming. She couldn’t believe she’d failed to anticipate it. Libby, although banished to the doghouse, was nonetheless making her presence felt. Annie tried to block out her piteous whining. How on earth am I going to sleep at night with him in the next room? she asked herself. Any little thing might set off a new bout of baying in the back yard – the sight of the shiny bath taps, the smell of Johnson’s baby shampoo. Why don’t I just rush downstairs and tell him how I feel? But she knew that the resulting embarrassment would make it impossible for her to carry on living with him. Why was she there, exactly? Was she hoping that he would gradually fall in love with her and want her to stay permanently? To share his bed? At this she was assaulted by such fierce lust that she almost howled out loud with Libby.

  Time passed slowly for Annie in Bishopside. Her day had no structure. She could get up when she wanted and go where she liked. But this freedom was bondage. She had to make herself crawl out of bed. Each day she set herself little goals – join the library, visit the gallery, go for a swim. She knew that if she failed to go out one day she would never cross the threshold again. Agoraphobia stalked her. She fended it off bravely. Another swim, a walk in the park, anything to prove to Will that she was not depressed. Days passed without her having a single conversation with anyone but him. People in the street cast her friendly remarks in their baffling accent, but she had no one to talk to. Sometimes in the park she heard other southern accents and could barely prevent herself rushing over and startling the speakers with wild conversation. They were fellow expats in an alien land. The Jewish family next door always greeted her when they passed. Annie watched in awe as the tiny pregnant mother – younger than Annie, surely – voyaged out, babe in the majestic pram, tot riding in a pram seat and two larger children swinging one on each side of the handle. The children were always neat and well behaved. How did she manage all this and never have a hair out of place? Part of the mystery was solved when it dawned on Annie that ultra-Orthodox women wore wigs, but she was still intimidated by such a demonstration of maternal competence. Part of her was wistful, too. She envied the women their close-knit community and companionship when she saw them chatting in the streets or outside the library.

  Sunday came and went. Will asked her if she was intending to go to church and she shook her head. The ordeal of meeting a new group of people was too daunting, although she knew that this was precisely what she needed. He stared at her thoughtfully, but let it pass. The day felt hollow. How did agnostics fill the hours? Were all those heavy Sunday papers and bustling garden centres just there to fill the gap left in the national life by a redundant Church?

  ‘What would you like to do?’ asked Will that afternoon. ‘Shall we go to the coast?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I’m asking what you’d like,’ he said patiently.

  ‘Well, yes, then. The coast would be nice . . .’

  He drove in silence. She knew he was struggling to control his temper every moment they were together. Their conversations were always polite and restrained. He had not snarled at her once since she’d moved in, but she could hear the bomb ticking. She tried to be no trouble and saw this provoking him further. I can’t help myself! she wanted to cry. What’s happened? We used to have so much fun together. She could imagine his scathing reply, We used to have so much sex together, you mean. There was nothing left but the polite conversation of strangers.

  They walked along the empty beach. It was a grey windy day, but someone was out surfing in the icy waves. They watched as he disappeared then emerged again riding the water.

  ‘What if he got into difficulty?’ said Annie.

  ‘Then I’d go in after him,’ replied Will.

  ‘But he’s got a wetsuit on,’ she pointed out. ‘You’d be worse off than he is. You’d both drown.’

  ‘I’d still have to try.’

  But what about me? You can’t abandon me. She said nothing.

  The surfer swam further out then rode back in perfect control. Annie and Will continued along the sandy shore. This is where he brought me that first Saturday, she thought. Libby let out a pitiful whine.

  Another week loomed ahead. On Monday she decided to work on her novel. Instead she found herself fiddling around. At last I’ve got all the time in the world to write, she thought, but I can’t bring myself to pick up a pen. She still hadn’t got Barney and Isabella to the altar. It was partly because she was feeling sick. Mint imperials would for ever after be the taste of misery for her. She couldn’t believe that pregnancy would ever feel like impending motherhood rather than a prolonged illness. I’m going to have a baby, she kept reminding herself. A thought lurked, too shameful to admit: I hope I miscarry. I don’t want this child. It could have been a parasite growing inside her, sapping her energy and making her ill. I don’t want to be a mother.

  At the word ‘mother’ she gave a guilty start. She sat down at the kitchen table and began composing the long-deferred letter to her parents. Will had indicated that he didn’t feel free to tell his parents until hers knew. What’s the big problem? his expression seemed to say.

  She’d got as far as ‘Dear Mum and Dad, I’m afraid’ when the doorbell rang. She jumped. Not the window cleaners again! They had been once, demanding money with menaces
. Frightening men with scarred faces and tattooed necks. She had a theory they went round the neighbourhood claiming to have cleaned the windows and people paid them five pounds to go away. She opened the door fearfully. It was Ingram with a crew-cut and a bunch of roses.

  ‘Ingram! How lovely to see you,’ she exclaimed, astonished to find she meant it.

  He came in and they engaged in a short bout of head-butting until he managed to plant a kiss on her cheek. ‘Just the briefest of calls. We’re all here doing our Bishopside placement.’

  Ah, and he’d felt the need to contextualize his coiffure. ‘I like your hair.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He ran his hand over it doubtingly.

  They went through to the kitchen and she made coffee while he teased out the motif of power/powerlessness in post-industrial Tyneside. He was the same as ever, but Annie could no longer see why she had disliked him so much. He cared enough to visit her and bring news of her other friends. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  ‘Isobel and Muriel would like to pop in, if that’s at all convenient,’ said Ingram. ‘Ted’s not here, of course. He and Dave will be spending a term here next year, instead.’

  ‘Lovely. And Edward?’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Ingram shifted in his seat. ‘Edward finds the whole scenario a leetle complex, I fear. He hasn’t quite owned his feelings yet.’

  Edward, on the contrary, had owned them fully and frankly, telling Annie that he didn’t wish to see her or Will until they’d got things on a proper footing. She’d been hoping he would relent – but when did Edward ever relent where principles were at stake?

  Ingram finished his coffee and went, leaving behind him an intriguing nugget about realized eschatology in the inner urban arena for Annie to ponder. She returned to her letter instead.

  I can’t take much more of this. She was as lonely and miserable as Will had predicted she would be. Ingram’s visit had forced her to admit how much she missed her friends. She longed to be reconciled to Edward, but it was hopeless. His rejection hurt her deeply. Her parents’ reaction was going to be even worse. In the end she settled on a bald account with an apology for the unhappiness she had caused them. She went out and posted it before she lost her nerve.

  It was Friday night and Will was out on call. The lack of sleep would make him bad-tempered tomorrow, but Annie was relieved he’d been out of the house for most of the evening. She went upstairs but could not sleep. Will came back at midnight and she listened to him going to bed. The police helicopter was hovering overhead. A voice boomed and the searchlight slid over Annie’s window. It sent a worm of light slithering across her bed through the crack in the curtains. She went to the window and looked out. The beam was raking across rooftops as the helicopter circled the streets. Who was it hunting? She got back into bed. After about half an hour it throbbed away into the distance.

  She still couldn’t sleep. Perhaps she could spend the time with Barney and Isabella. Her notebook was downstairs in the kitchen where she had been trying to write earlier. She decided to risk the alarm – she could remember the code number, surely – and collect the book. She tiptoed down to the hallway and pressed the buttons. Her heart thumped as she reached gingerly for the door handle. Don’t be silly, she told herself. It won’t go off.

  It did. The siren howled and Will came running. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I must have –’

  ‘Can’t you remember a simple four-digit fucking number?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’ve been using it for a week, for Christ’s sake. What did you want?’

  ‘A book.’ She scuttled into the kitchen and grabbed it, hoping he wouldn’t guess she’d been leaving the house each day without putting the alarm on. He made a visible effort to control himself.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Annie. Ignore me. I’m knackered, that’s all.’ His hand touched her arm briefly. ‘I’ll change the number to something you can remember. Tomorrow. OK?’

  Her voice trembled. ‘Thanks.’

  He set the alarm again and they went back upstairs. ‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s not working,’ she wept. ‘I don’t think I can go on living like this. I’d better go and stay with Ted.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, after a pause. ‘If that’s what you want.’

  ‘It’s just that . . .’

  ‘Yeah. Look, Annie, there’s nothing we can do now. We’ll sort it out tomorrow, all right? But I’ve got to sleep.’

  ‘Sorry.’ But his door was already closed.

  She curled up under the covers and cried bitterly. Nothing could be worse than this, she told herself. Even losing him altogether couldn’t be as bad as the tension of living as they were. He’d never know what she really felt. Unless she told him before she left. I’ll tell him tomorrow, she decided. But her tears would not subside. She tried to cry silently in case he could hear. I daren’t disturb him again. But something desperate and Isabella-like took hold of her. What had she got to lose? A moment later she was hurrying to his room.

  ‘Now what?’ he snarled, turning the light on. ‘This had better be good, Annie.’

  ‘I – I –’ She got stuck on a hiccuping sob.

  ‘What?’ He stared with wild sleep-starved eyes.

  ‘I love you. I want to stay.’ I had nothing to lose, she told herself.

  There was a pause. A slow smile dawned on his scowling face. ‘Well, get in the fucking bed, then,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get in.’ He flung back the covers. ‘And take off your rags, Cinderella. I’ll bestow on you whatever you ask, up to half my kingdom. Though not my hand in marriage, admittedly.’ He flung his arms wide like a mad Pentecostal preacher. ‘Thank you, Je-sus!’

  She stood bewildered. ‘You mean –’

  ‘I mean I love you. Passionately. Blasphemously, even – with my heart, soul, strength and mind. Not forgetting my body.’ He was pulling her into bed and tugging at her grey T-shirt while she stuttered in shock at what she’d unleashed.

  ‘But you never said.’

  ‘You never asked. I didn’t want to scare you off.’ He was kissing her naked flesh. ‘This last week has been hell, Annie. Having you in the house, but not being able to . . .’ His tongue, his fingers! Mad glissandos of delight. She clung to him, weeping, and felt his tears on her face as he entered her.

  ‘I thought you were tired,’ she said afterwards.

  He chuckled. ‘Not that tired, honey child.’

  They lay for a long time staring into one another’s eyes.

  ‘So you really want to make a go of this?’ he asked. ‘Live as man and wife and bring this baby up together?’

  ‘Y – yes.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure.’

  ‘It’s just the . . . the baby. I can’t quite believe in it, somehow. How big is it, do you think?’

  ‘Depends how far on you are.’ His hand was stroking her belly. ‘Say ten weeks. Hmm. About two inches long. It’ll have all its major organs by now. Eyes, fingers and toes.’

  She thought about it. Two inches long. Maybe more. All its organs. ‘What if I can’t love it?’

  He smiled. ‘You will.’

  Later she lay listening to his breathing as the sky lightened outside. One by one the birds began to sing. A new day dawning in Bishopside. Would it be the start of a new era? I’m living in sin, she thought. She wondered what God made of it all. For a moment he loomed wrathfully above her, his eye raking the streets in search of sinners. Then the image vanished. She reached out and touched Will’s hand. His fingers closed round hers.

  Outside the sky grew steadily paler. The sun rose over the quiet streets, shining like the grace of God on the righteous and the unrighteous.

  CHAPTER 23

  She woke the following morning to find him smiling at her.

  ‘Good morrow, Mistress Comequickly,’ he said and kissed her.

  ‘And good morrow to you, my Lord
Lackprong,’ she replied unwisely. His lengthy retaliation made him late for work.

  Annie stretched out in his bed and smiled. How would she fill the vast empty morning till he returned? You can stop trying to please everyone else now and please yourself, Gabriel had said. If she’d taken him seriously she might have spared herself weeks of misery. How much of her life had she wasted in her misguided attempts not to give offence? She thought about God again and wondered if he was pleased to see her happy, as Gabriel had suggested, even though her situation was dubious. I really am happy, she thought. It was a daring idea, one that seemed to invite immediate divine retribution. But there was no thunderbolt, just a glorious day streaming in through the half-open curtains.

  Annie stretched again and decided it was time to tie the knot for Isabella and Barney.

  At last the day came. Isabella fed herself into her oyster satin. Hermione grumbled and plucked at her tight shot silk bridesmaid’s dress. It was deep red to match Isabella’s roses. The style had been Camilla’s choice.

  ‘Hey, you look stunning, Herm!’ exclaimed Isabella in surprise.

  ‘Hah,’ replied Hermione bitterly, but she allowed herself to be kissed and fussed over for once.

  Camilla twisted this way and that in front of the mirror, a cigarette drooping from her lips. ‘My bloody tits are lopsided,’ she complained. She was still hung over from the previous night and Isabella suspected she was regretting all those maudlin confidences. Interesting to know that Camilla had once made a very serious pass at Barney and had been, humiliatingly, turned down. No wonder they didn’t like one another.