Isabella: A sort of romance

by R. A. Bentley

  "How could you?" says Bluebell, speaking for all of them. "How could you do such a cruel thing?"

  Even Thurston bears an expression which clearly says, 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

  "Och, I dinna ken why ye're fashin yersels," says McNab irritably. "It's jist a foukin dummy for Guid's sake. It's a stupit, foukin dummy an' ah'm fed up wi it."

  "Isn't that just like a man?" says Pat, with a surprising intensity of feeling. "She doesn't suit him any more, so he just throws her away."

  "She'd better go back in the airing cupboard," says Veronica, "once she's reasonably dry."

  "I'll redo her face," says Bella. "She can't go around without a face." She feels an odd little pang as she says this.

  "You'll have to soak her in fresh water first, or you'll never get her dry," says Rat. "She'll end up going mouldy. Well, mouldier."

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Bang!

  Bella stirs and wakes. Was that a gunshot? It certainly sounded like one, and not so far off either. Yes, there is another. Through the deck-light she can see that it's barely dawn, the cramped little cabin still in shadow. Who on earth is out shooting at this hour? And so close to the bungalow too. It's not exactly forbidden, but by tacit agreement no-one shoots this near now, not since the tragedy. Uncle will be wild if Aunty hears them. She's still not properly right, even after all this time. She seems okay, but then you catch her staring, just staring at nothing, with tears in her eyes. Hearing shots would probably bring it all back. Bella longs to tell her that Mummy isn't really dead, that she knows everything that's going on, but the time never seems right somehow.

  She turns over and tries to go back to sleep. She isn't going to the Stones today, she can't be bothered. It's impossible to meditate just now anyway. Too many exciting things are happening in her life for her to achieve the necessary stillness of mind. Try as she might, her unruly thoughts keep intruding. Thoughts of Thurston mostly, of course, and of the blue-water voyage he wants to make. That's if he can get her uncle to agree to it. He has asked her to go with him and of course she said yes. Who will look after the Stones? She doesn't care, frankly. Her mother was always going away for her 'little holidays' so why shouldn't she do the same?

  Again, bang!

  Someone after rabbits by the sound of it. For years the myxomatosis kept the numbers down, the few, runtish, misshapen survivors not worth bothering with, even if you could fancy eating them. Lately, however, they have begun to recover somewhat. There is, she knows, a substantial warren over towards the Winterborne, with droppings everywhere and little scrapes where they hide. Miranda's kennel man would be glad of them, she supposes, and they make easy targets. Sometimes, especially at dawn or dusk, you can come upon several of them at once, quietly chomping. Jason has been known to go after them but more in the manner of a poacher; netting the holes and sending Patch, his terrier, down. He doesn't have a gun.

  Perhaps it's John Rook. He's the only person she can think of who would be so inconsiderate. Since the raid on Woodpeckers, he has been even more recalcitrant and foul tempered than usual. With most of the mink either dead or busy laying waste to the local wildlife, not to mention all the negative publicity, George Dunnock insisted he withdraw his offer. Since it was mostly George's money he was offering, he had little choice. There is, it seems, scant prospect of his finding anywhere else at an affordable price and he has been obliged to un-resign from his job. Thanks to her quick thinking the priestly succession is safe.

  Bella shudders at the thought. She wishes now that he'd gone. It has become a Sword of Damocles hanging over her. She gazes fondly at Thurston in the other bunk. Undisturbed by the shooting, he is slumbering peacefully. How is it they can sleep through anything? You'd think they would have evolved to leap up at the least disturbance. Dream on then, man of mine.

  "Do you know what day it is today?" says Hester.

  Bella, who has almost drifted off again, is annoyed. She doesn't see why people can't observe the social niceties, just because they share a body. "Why, good morning, Mummy dear," she says, with exaggerated politeness. "This is unusually early for you. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

  "Never mind all that," snaps Hester. "I repeat. Do you know what day it is?"

  Something about her mother's voice immediately causes a knot of fear to grow in her tummy. This is it then – she knew all along, really – but she's not about to make it easy for her. "Er, Thursday, I believe," she says. "Why?"

  "Yes, it's Thursday," agrees Hester, with a note of weariness. "It's also day fourteen."

  "Is it? I had no idea."

  "Well I can count, even if you can't. It's day fourteen and he's out there, all alone and awash with testosterone. There'll never be a better time. What are you waiting for?"

  "Rook?" asks Bella, innocently. "What makes you think it's him?"

  "I told you; it's time. He's ready for you. He's out there, waiting. Those shots were his signal."

  Bella is suddenly filled with a fierce resolve. Yes, it's time all right: time to be firm, time to make a break for freedom, time to cut the apron strings once and for all, before it's too late. She takes a deep breath, screws up her courage and shakes her head. "I'm not doing it."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I'm not doing it. I don't want to, and what's more I don't see why I should. I've been thinking about it and I've decided to give it up. I'm giving up being Priestess. I'm abdicating, resigning, jacking it in as of now. There! You can find someone else."

  "Don't be so stupid," snaps Hester. "You can't give it up. You were born to it, it's what you are. It's what we are. You could as easily give up your own body."

  "Why not?" says Bella nastily. "You did."

  There is an ominous silence.

  "I've had enough of this," says her mother, finally. "I really have had enough. You're acting like a spoiled child and it can't go on. I thought we had an arrangement: I keep out of the way and you do your job. But you're not doing it, are you? You haven't even begun to stop this clay pit nonsense; I'm still stuck in the churchyard, apparently forever, and worst of all you've made no attempt whatsoever to get us a replacement. You could be run over by a bus tomorrow, or fall off a rock, and then where would we be? It simply won't do. Either you get on with it or there's going to be trouble. I mean it!"

  Bella rounds on her angrily. It's a bit difficult to round on someone whose brain cells are intimately associated with your own but she does her best. "That's not fair! That's really, really unfair and you know it. I've been working my backside off to stop the confounded pit, and I can't get you out of the churchyard until Julius goes away again. And it's not a replacement, it's a baby, a person. Is that how you thought of me, just a bloody spare part?"

  "Don't be so sentimental," snaps her mother. "And don't swear. The two hundred and twenty-fourth Priestess, is what we're talking about. Our next incarnation. Your duty, Bella!"

  "But I can't!" cries Bella. It's incest! He's my half-brother isn't he? If my father was Young John then John's my half-brother. That's incest! You're asking me to commit incest. It's illegal! It's also disgusting!"

  "That," says Hester quietly, "Is my point."

  "Your point?"

  "We're not like other people, Bella. Being Priestess isn't something we can just walk away from; it's our privilege, our duty and our fate. It's been our fate for five thousand years. However much we might want to, we can never escape it."

  "I can," says Bella, amazed at her own temerity. "I can, and I'm going to. I can't have a baby by someone else or Thurston will hate me. It's too much to ask. I'm not doing it, and you can't make me."

  When her mother speaks again, her voice has become low and harsh, as if possessed by some unpleasant daemon. "Don't push me too far, Bella, or you'll be sorry. I'm going to give you one more chance to do this on your own, or else . . ." The threat hangs in the air, unspoken.

  "Or what?" demands Bella. She finds herself beginning to shake. "What are you going to do? Yo
u're just a soul, you can't do anything, except nag, and it isn't going to do you any good; I've had it!"

  Her mother doesn't reply. Instead, Bella suddenly finds herself propelled out of bed in a most peculiar and frightening manner. It's as if she is wearing a sort of robotic body in which she is a mere passenger. Already she is none-too-carefully ducking through the Alice Hole, banging her head.

  "Stop it! Just stop that!"

  "Get on with it then! I warned you!"

  "No! I won't!" Bella grabs desperately at the sides of the little door, but her arms are immediately pulled away and she is thrust brutally forward, hurting herself quite badly on the hard edge of the cabin table.

  "Are you going to do as you're told now?"

  "All right, all right. Just don't do that."

  "Now you know how it feels to be me," says Hester grimly. "Don't waste time dressing, there's no point."

  Bella reluctantly allows herself to be propelled through the main cabin, passing McNab, snoring in his coffin-like berth, and silently slides open the hatch. She doesn't want to wake the others. Who knows what her mother might make her say or do?

  "But I don't know where he is. He could be anywhere on the heath."

  "Rubbish. He'll have given up by now and be going home. If you head straight for the village, you'll be bound to meet him."

  Outside, the sun has yet to burn the morning mist off the glass-smooth waters of the harbour, though the sky above is a promising blue.

  "It's cold! I want some clothes."

  "That doesn't usually bother you. Get in the dinghy."

  Slipping under the dripping rail, Bella climbs down into the Queen's tender and rows sulkily ashore. There is hardly likely to be anyone about at this hour but she lands well away from the Point, just in case.

  "Right, start running."

  Bella runs, clutching at her breasts to stop them bouncing. Bounding over the heather, she eventually sees him just ahead. He is ambling slowly along the heathland track, his gun over his arm. And what is that swinging at his waist? Rabbits! Just as she thought. "You see!" she says crossly. "He wasn't signalling to me at all, he was just out rabbiting."

  "Don't be stupid," says Hester. "He has to take something home with him or Avril will become suspicious."

  Bella hadn't thought of that. The thing suddenly seems so inevitable, so carefully planned, that she decides she might as well stop fighting and get it over with. Perhaps then she will be left in peace. But where? It's far too open here; someone might see them. The best place to intercept him would probably be in the Clump, an isolated block of mature pines, planted for use in the clay pits, but never harvested. His route conveniently passes through it and at least there they can do the awful deed in relative privacy. Making for the wood by a more direct route she flits between the close-spaced rows of trees and lies down to wait for him amongst tall fronds of bracken, right at the edge of the track.

  After the brightness of the heath it seems very dark and still. She has never liked this wood. A jay screeches somewhere and the beginning of a sea-breeze soughs through the pine tops, but these just serve to accentuate the rather oppressive silence. She begins to feel desperately anxious, having no idea what to do or say. What on earth is the protocol on such occasions?

  'Good morning, John. I understand we have to make a baby together. What a bore, eh? Still, has to be done. Would now be a good time, at all? . . . Oh, jolly good.'

  And then what? Will he drop his trousers, or just unzip his fly? Surely he won't expect to kiss her? That would be too ghastly. She wishes she felt even slightly randy but she doesn't, she just feels sick. Where is he, anyway? He should be here by now. The suspense is awful.

  "Oh look, I don't know. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. I mean, I will do it, I promise, but not just at the moment. He might not be in the mood for it after all that shooting. Actually I think I might be starting a headache. Maybe I should just go home."

  "For goodness sake Bella, don't talk such utter tripe! If you had a headache, don't you think I'd know it? It's just excuses. Of course he'll be in the mood, they're always in the mood, and if he's not, it's up to you to put him in the mood. You're a priestess, dammit! Try behaving like one for once. Look, here he comes now. Just get on with it. You're thirty-two. I want you pregnant."

  "Yes, Mummy."

  "And do try to look a bit agreeable. He won't want a sulky girl."

  "Yes, all right. Stop going on."

  "And Bella."

  "Yes, Mummy."

  "Don't go jumping straight up afterwards."

  "No, Mummy!"

  "And there's no need to shout."

  He is quite close now. She can see his flat cap bobbing closer and closer above the bracken. Her heart is pounding so hard she is sure he must be able to hear it. For a moment she thinks he might be going to march straight by, but at last he turns and stands gazing silently down at her. Glazed of eye, the rabbits look down too, their sad little auras slowly fading. His two terrier dogs snuffle curiously round her.

  Remembering her mother's instructions, Bella gives him a nice smile and opens her legs invitingly. She thinks maybe it's a rather nervous smile, but she can't help that. He looks so grim and threatening, just standing there. Why doesn't he say something?

  "A hunter finds a naked lady in the woods," she blurts. "'Are you game?' asks the hunter. 'Yes,' says the lady. So he shoots her! Don't you think that's terribly funny? Let's get this over with, shall we?" Oh God, why on earth did she have to say all that? She must sound absolutely barmy.

  Rook takes a step forward. He is standing almost astride her now. Is that an erection she can see, beneath the brown corduroy? It's hard to tell in the shadow of his Barbour. But if it is, he doesn't get it out. Instead he does something entirely unexpected. Pointing down with his gun, he begins very slowly to trace her outline, to draw her, as it were, with the tip of the barrel: round the curve of her jaw, pushing her head to one side as he does so, down her neck, round her shoulder, down the outside of her arm, up the other side into her armpit, round her right breast where it lies pancaked over her ribs, down round her waist and hip and leg. Is this supposed to turn him on? Or her? He doesn't look very turned on but rather grimly curious, as if she were, perhaps, an interesting dead animal he has stumbled upon.

  Bella finds she is beginning to tremble. The gun barrel is now moving relentlessly up the inside of her thigh. It feels cold. Reflexively she snaps her knees together, but he doesn't let this stop him, continuing with a sort of sawing action. Thoroughly alarmed now, she wants to run away and put an end to this nonsense. She can even visualise herself doing it, scrabbling backwards through the bracken, then turning and plunging into the trees, but when she tries, she finds she cannot move. She is paralysed with fear.

  The gun is in among her pubic hair now. Bella goggles at it, disbelievingly. What on earth is he going to do? Is he going to take her silly joke seriously? Is he going to shoot her there? Now he crouches down, fixing her with gimlet eyes. "I won't say this again," he snarls, "leave . . . me . . . alone." At each word he gives a vicious little jab with the gun. Bella gasps. It hurts!

  Then all at once his expression changes. A look of pure horror passes across his hard, proletarian features, as if something unspeakable has occurred to him. Straightening up, he strides swiftly away without so much as a backward glance, followed by the dogs.

  For a long while Bella remains lying there, too traumatised to move. One of the rabbits has fallen to the ground. She is afraid he might come back for it, but he doesn't. She can't understand how it could have gone so wrong. "It's your fault," she tells her mother angrily. "I told you he wasn't in the mood."

  That night, and the next, she upsets Thurston by refusing him. She hates men.

  *

  "Do you know anything about weddings at all?" asks Bella casually.

  Julius looks up from the kestrel he is stuffing and smiles. "Yes, a little. We have one here quite often, you know. You may have noticed the
confetti in the churchyard."

  "I don't mean that sort of wedding, I mean weddings in general. The church is out, obviously, and Bradport registry office is such a dump. It's on a sort of traffic island in the middle of town and there's not even a garden for pictures. What I'd really like is a wedding at the Stones."

  "Not allowed, I'm afraid. It's either a church or the traffic island."

  "But it's so unfair! I want it to reflect my beliefs. It's very important to me."

  "You mean Wicca, I take it?"

  "Er, yes."

  Julius nods and blinks thoughtfully. "Well, you could do both of course; have a ceremony of sorts at the Stones and pop into the registry office afterwards. Or vice versa."

  Bella brightens. "Yes, I could, couldn't I? That would be all right I suppose, but I'd still need someone to officiate. Whom do you get to marry a Priestess, I wonder?"

  "Can't another witch do it? What about this coven of yours?"

  "I . . . dissolved it. We had a few disagreements; doctrinal, you know. I work alone now."

  "Really? What a pity. I was still hoping to see a fertility rite."

  What an unbelievably credulous fellow you are, thinks Bella, though not un-fondly. There is a longish silence, Julius continuing to poke, rather distractedly, at the kestrel.

  "Well, I suppose I could do it."

  "You!"

  "Yes, I don't see why not. We all worship the same God, as I've said before. God is in your spells and your rituals, whether you like it or not. They're His spells and His rituals really, and His Stones, come to that. I don't suppose He'd object if I were to spread His message through the medium of Wicca, though the Bishop might." He gazes at her gloomily. "At least that way I get to marry you, one way or another."

  Bella affects surprise. "You didn't really want to marry me did you? I'm not sure I'd have made a very good vicar's wife."

  "You'd have been ideal," sighs Julius. "Beautiful, intelligent, spiritually aware. I suppose I should have asked you while I had the chance. I wanted to, lots of times, but I was afraid you'd say no."