Angels and Men (3 page)

Mara began to fill the kettle and make the tea, moving between them as they talked and snooped, as alien as a foreign maid.

‘She has nice cups, though,' said the china doll.

‘Yes, I'll admit she has nice cups.'

Mara glanced at the pretty blue and white china. Her mother had bought them for her. For a moment there was silence, and the three of them stood as though listening to the kettle.

‘You may be wondering who we are,' said the red-head suddenly.

Mara raised an eyebrow. In fact, she had been wondering nothing of the sort, since their beings were fixed in her mind by the labels she had attached to them.

‘May was at school with you,' said the red-head, indicating the other girl.

‘Only I was several years younger,' said the china doll, ‘so you won't remember me. And anyway, we moved house years ago when Papa was made vicar of St Botolph of the Holy Nails.' Mara said nothing, and the girl went on: ‘You were brilliant at drawing. We used to have RE lessons in your form room after lunch on Fridays, and there were always rude pictures of the staff on the blackboard.'

With these words the girl leapt into life in Mara's mind. She was no longer a doll, but another young woman with a memory, a past that included both of them. So the family had moved. Good. I must have forgotten that.

‘May Poppett,' she said, and saw the girl's face light up.

‘You remembered!' How easy it was to please. ‘Do you still draw?'

Mara shook her head.

‘I'm Maddy,' said the red-head. ‘Madeleine. Only don't call me that, or I'm afraid I shall have to kill you.'

A pause followed. ‘I'm Mara Johns,' she said at last, as though hauling the phrase up from her memory. She made the tea.

‘Yes, yes. We know that,' said Maddy. ‘Mara Johns, the one who dared to call Andrew Jacks a rude word in the JCR. You're famous.'

So that was his name. She wondered if he was listening through the wall at that very moment.

‘I thought I'd
die
,' Maddy went on. ‘Laugh? I haven't laughed so much since Grandma's left tit got caught in the mangle. Where's the tea, then? I'm gasping.' She seized the pot and began to pour. ‘Milk?' Mara felt dazed but, collecting herself, went outside and along the corridor to the fridge. She stood for a moment with the bottle in her hand. Why did I let them in? I could just walk away now and leave them. But she knew she would not.

Maddy and May had opened the cakes and biscuits, and there was a Sunday school-party smell in the air. Mara poured milk into the tea and they began to eat and drink. In the silence Mara began to call back her empty moorland. I'm flying. The heather stretches beneath me.

‘Do you know what the three of us have in common?' asked Maddy through a mouthful of cream slice. ‘How rude,' she commented, smacking her lips. ‘Yum, yum. Well?' She rounded on Mara. ‘What do we have in common?' she repeated.

Nothing in this world, thought Mara. But they were both waiting for her answer.

‘X chromosomes?'

‘She doesn't know,' said Maddy. ‘We're going to have to tell her.'

‘Our fathers are all clergymen,' said May.

The wind shivered in the empty heather bells.

‘This place is literally riddled with the sons of the clergy,' remarked Maddy, reaching for another cake.

‘
Brightest and best of the sons of the clergy
,' sang May. ‘There's a bishop's son training for the ministry at Coverdale Hall. Rupert Anderson, he's called. Keep nepotism in the family, as my father's uncle used to say. He was a canon. Until the court case, of course.'

‘O Rupert the Fair, Rupert the Brave,' said Maddy. ‘Have you met him yet? His father is May's father's bishop, and he's quite, quite wonderful.' Their conversation went on, drifting up to her as she flew by, as though they were picnicking on the edge of her dream with the radio turned up too loud. ‘It's a shame Rupert's such a sissy name. It makes me think of Wupert the Bear. He looks more like a William to me. You know – dependable rugger bugger type.'

‘Oh, definitely,' agreed May. ‘He's probably got an Oxford Blue for looking like a dependable rugger bugger type called William.'

‘ “Rupert”? Never! There was obviously a cock-up with his birth certificate,' said Maddy.

‘
And
,' said May, ‘he has a wonderful friend with dark eyes, whose name we haven't discovered yet. One of those smouldering animal types.'

Mara's attention came back with a jolt. John Whitaker. It had to be.

‘Yes. He probably has to keep a fire extinguisher strapped to his leg in case of spontaneous combustion,' agreed Maddy.

‘Is that a fire extinguisher in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?' said May. They were both giggling.

‘I wonder how old they are?'

Too old for you, thought Mara.

‘Rupert's twenty-eight. I just happen to know that,' said May. ‘I did some careful angling when his father last came to do a confirmation. “So how old's your son then, Bishop?” I asked subtly. I expect his friend's the same age.'

‘Younger. Twenty-six, I'd say. He looks a bit like a workman, though,' said Maddy with a frown. ‘He has an ear-ring. Could you marry a man with an ear-ring?'

‘Shakespeare had an ear-ring,' said May.

‘Shakespeare was a pederast,' said Mara. A slight pause followed this contribution.

‘Which Rupert's friend isn't, we devoutly pray and hope,' said May. ‘We admire him from afar.'

‘Admire, my arse,' said Maddy. ‘We lust, my dear, we lust. Our room overlooks the street, so we can hang out of the window and watch the men come and go.'

‘Talking of Michelangelo,' added May.

‘Ignore her. She's an English student.'

Mara looked at Maddy. She's as tall as I am, only she has coped with it differently, growing an extravagant personality to match.

‘And I am a music student,' continued Maddy, and let forth a tremendous arpeggio.

There was an angry thump from the other side of the wall.

‘What was that?' asked Maddy and May together.

‘The polecat,' said Mara. They looked around in alarm, as though they believed she might well keep one in a box under her desk. ‘Next door,' she said, pointing at the wall. ‘Whatsisname. The wanker.' They stared at her in astonishment, then laughed long and hard. Mara covered her smile with her hands.

‘Shut up!' snarled Maddy, breaking into an impersonation of him. ‘Some of us are trying to work, for Christ's sake! Oh, howl, howl. The polecat. I think that's wonderful.'

Their laughter died away as the cathedral bell began tolling for evensong.

‘Is that the time?' asked Maddy. ‘We'll be late for choir practice. Come along, Poppett.'

‘All right, Darling.' Maddy caught Mara's questioning look.

‘It's my surname: Darling. You cannot conceive how I have suffered. Isn't it bizarre that we should have ended up sharing a room? Rumour has it that the Principal arranges everyone into an amusing order. There's a whole corridor of men called James and John. But can you
really
imagine the Principal doing anything amusing?' She folded her hands piously. ‘Welcome to Jesus College. I trust –'

‘Oh, come on,' said May, breaking into Maddy's impersonation. They bundled out of the door.

‘Come for coffee before lunch tomorrow,' said Maddy, sticking her head back into the room. ‘It's very important. Bye.'

They rushed off along the corridor. Mara listened to their footsteps thundering down the stairs. Poppett and Darling. She sat at her desk neither reaching for her books, nor tidying away the remains of the tea. The bell called on and on, and outside the sky faded and streetlights flicked awake. From a hidden tree a robin sang. The tolling stopped and the clock chimed five, but she continued to sit, until darkness filled the room, wondering what she had done. Down on the riverbank the robin continued to sing. My friends, Maddy and May. She experimented with the sound. Maddy and May, friends of mine. It won't last.

After dinner Mara roused herself, picked up a file and made her way to the college library. It was empty. Everyone else had better things to do with their evening. The university would be alive with music and talk. All those freshers' events. She found the book she was looking for and tried to settle down to work. Her thoughts wandered to Maddy and May. Where would they be now? What mischief would they be making? For a moment she wondered whether she was missing out by refusing to attend student parties, but then she pictured the humiliation of trying and failing to fit in. It would be like Primary School all over again. Hanging around on the edges waiting to be picked. Grammar School had been marginally better. At least the other girls had only ignored her, not baited her.

It was ten o'clock by the time she was climbing the stairs back to her room. As she crossed the first landing, a door burst open and a group of young men staggered through, arms round one another's shoulders, bellowing a song. Drunk, thought Mara. She shrank back to let them pass.

‘Get stuck into
that
,' said one. Suddenly they were on to her. Her file was knocked from her grasp as they bundled her up against the wall. A hand grubbed around at her crotch. Beery breath in her face, a slobbering mouth. Then just as suddenly they released her, and stood jeering as she scrabbled on the floor for her notes and stumbled off.

She reached her room sick with shame and fear. Oh Jesus – what if they follow me? Keys, keys! A noise made her whirl round. The polecat emerged from the bathroom still doing up his flies. His cold eyes travelled over her.

‘What, sweeting, all amort?'

‘Fuck off.' But her voice shook. He came and leant on the door frame. She caught a whiff of whisky. Not him too! He was watching as she fumbled at the lock.

‘Having difficulty putting it in?' Her face burned. ‘Calm down, little one. Deep breath. Just let it slip in – there.' Somehow she got the door open. ‘Relaxation,' he drawled. ‘Always works for me.' She shut out his loathsome face and stood in the room trembling and trying not to cry.

Why me? What is it about me? She hugged herself to stop the shaking. I'm not even attractive. I must smell like a victim. Men come sniffing round like dogs and piss on me. She longed for a bath to wash their foulness off her, but what if the polecat was still out there with his disgusting, sneering innuendoes and undone flies? She sat at her desk and tried to read. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She told herself she was safe, but it was a long time before she dared try to sleep.

CHAPTER 3

‘And how are you settling in, Mara?' The last chime of eleven died away as Mara sat down.

‘All right,' she said. Then, catching herself, added, ‘Thank you.'

‘Tell me what you've managed to read.' It was all so low-key. ‘What you've
managed
to read', as if having read anything at all would be admirable in the circumstances. What circumstances? She's looking at me as though my entire family have just been tragically killed. Mara listed the books she had read, outlining her thoughts on what she had discovered.

‘Well, that sounds like a good beginning.'

There was a pause, and Mara began to feel that her tutor was allowing the silence, reading her in it, and reflecting on what she read. A strange sensation. Mara was used to observing other people's growing discomfort in the face of her own silence. Dr Jane Roe. She can only be about ten years older than I am. Church historian.

‘I wonder why you want to study this subject?' Mara made no reply. ‘I read your father's article, by the way. What do you make of it?'

‘It's very good,' said Mara lamely. This was the problem. She agreed with his conclusions, and was now haunted by the fear that whatever she wrote people would simply say, ‘Well, of course, she would think that. She's Morgan Johns' daughter.'

She was relieved when her tutor went on: ‘Will you be examining the role of women in modern sects at all?'

‘No.' Ah, just a little too quick, that answer. Dr Roe looked at her questioningly, but after a moment simply nodded. She had read that one, too.

Another silence slowly unfolded. Below, on Palace Green, Mara could hear people talking as they walked. It was so long since she had confided in anyone that she hardly recognized the feeling – an ache, or an impulse to stretch out a hand. She sat still. Her gaze wavered from Dr Roe's eyes and she found herself looking out of the window instead. A bright day. A seagull went gliding past.

‘I think . . .' She cleared her throat. Something was pinching at it. ‘I think it will help me make sense of . . . certain things. Of what's happened, I mean . . .' ‘Certain things.' How stupid it sounded. Better to have said nothing at all. But a hand was gripping at her throat, and she could say no more.

‘Good,' said Dr Roe at last.

I must beware of her silence, thought Mara. I of all people should know the power of the taciturn to make others blurt things out. She felt herself harden.

‘It may be painful,' Dr Roe continued.

‘I'll survive,' Mara said tightly. There was a strange expression on the other woman's face.

‘Survive? That doesn't sound very positive.'

Believe me, it is. When you consider the alternative. Suddenly Mara thought, She really cares about me. Quick, say something.

‘What do you want me to read?' Her lips felt stiff.

‘Now then,' began her tutor. Mara studied her face as her eyes began searching along the shelves. It was a good face. Warm. You could draw it. ‘Wesley's
Journal
?' The volumes were handed over. ‘What about Quakerism? Do you know anything about the Quakers? Plenty about women there.' Another couple of books. ‘And the Welsh Revival? Or is that too modern?' A further book. ‘Are you Welsh? Johns is a Welsh name.' It was a question Mara never knew how to answer.

‘My father's Welsh.'

‘And your mother?'

‘English.'

‘You sound Welsh sometimes. Just a slight accent.'

Mara blushed. God, it was like having a stammer. You tried to train yourself out of it, but whenever you were tired or nervous or angry, there it was again. Mocked in Wales for sounding English, mocked in England for sounding Welsh.

‘Well, carry on with the reading list I gave you.' Mara rose to leave. ‘At this stage I think the best thing you can do is read as widely as possible. Don't worry too much yet about finding answers.'

‘OK,' said Mara. The two of them stood looking out of the window. A large tree shed a handful of leaves, and people walked across the Green to the old library. Over to the left was the cathedral, with its great door and sanctuary knocker. Dr Roe's hand reached out and touched a bulb suspended in a hyacinth glass.

‘I grow one every year,' she said. Mara looked at it. ‘They never cease to amaze me,' went on her tutor. ‘Each year they look so unpromising.' Was this a covert message? But her face showed nothing other than the memory of past hyacinths, the pale roots worming down into the water, then the tip of green beginning to point through the papery layers, reaching up – would it be pink or white? I'll buy one for myself, thought Mara.

‘They always make me think of Sunday school,' said Dr Roe. ‘The minister would show us one, and say how we could never guess from looking at it what it would be. An illustration of the resurrection, I imagine, though I can't really remember.'

Mara could see the pastor standing there with the bulb in his hand. She was there with all the other children in the chapel near her uncle's farm. A fringe of white hair curled around the man's bald head. She could even repeat what he was saying: ‘And so, boys and girls, whenever you see an old dried-up bulb like this one here, I want you to remember the Lord Jesus . . .' She stopped, seeing the look of astonishment on Dr Roe's face. There was a giggle inside her trying to sneak out.

The other woman laughed. ‘Surely you didn't suffer from a chapel upbringing as well!'

‘Not really. I stayed with my uncle's family sometimes. In the summer holidays. I went to Sunday school there.' Her throat was closing up again. She felt her hand behind her back playing with the end of her plait, twisting it round and round so that it snaked between her fingers.

‘In Wales?'

Mara nodded.

‘You took me right back to my childhood,' said Dr Roe. ‘If only you knew how many things were supposed to remind me of the Lord Jesus. Pepper pots, weather vanes, soap bubbles . . .'

‘Shoes with reinforced metal toes,' said Mara. It was out before she could stop it.

‘Exactly. And I cannot remember in one single case,' said Dr Roe, ‘
why
they were supposed to remind me of Jesus.'

The two of them looked at one another helplessly, then Mara heard herself giggle. She put her hands to her mouth. Dr Roe joined in. Eventually they lapsed into silence again.

‘Would you like some coffee?'

‘No thanks.' Mara's refusal was instinctive. She groped around for an explanation. ‘I've already arranged to have coffee with friends.'

‘With friends.' She really had friends?

‘In Jesus?' asked Dr Roe.

‘Yes.'

‘Good. I'm glad you've found some kindred spirits. Have you met any of the students from Coverdale Hall yet?'

‘Not really.' She began to collect her books together. Dr Roe helped her.

‘Well, I hope you do. I tutor some of them. I enjoy it. Much though I enjoy teaching undergraduates, too, of course.' This was said with a smile. Was she being ironic about undergraduates? Or was there some specific pleasure involved in teaching these Coverdale students? A sly thought flashed across Mara's mind.

‘I've met John Whitaker,' she said. She was intending to test Dr Roe's reaction, but to her consternation a strange feeling stirred in her as she said his name. Dr Roe was watching her instead. I'm blushing, she thought in amazement.

‘Ah, Johnny,' said Dr Roe with another smile. ‘And have you met Rupert, too?'

‘No.' It sounded like a lie. She cast about desperately for something to say. ‘I've met James Mowbray. The tutor.' Worse and worse. Now it sounded as though she was trying to cover something up. The silence leered at her.

‘Good – I was meaning to suggest you contact James. He'll be an interesting person for you to talk to. You're familiar with his work on mysticism?' Mara's hands were shuffling about in her books. Stop it! They froze.

‘We must arrange another time to meet,' said Dr Roe. She suggested a date. They both consulted their diaries. The weeks ahead were blank in Mara's.

‘Fine,' Mara said, writing blindly.

‘Great. Thank you for coming.'

Mara made for the door.

‘Happy reading. Give my love to the boys.'

Mara's hand scrabbled at the knob.

‘Just pull.' The door jerked open.

‘Goodbye!' called Dr Roe.

‘Bye,' muttered Mara, and closed the door. She stood for a moment in the corridor trying to order her thoughts. All this fumbling and blushing is a conditioned reflex, like Pavlov's slavering hounds. And to what? she sneered at herself. To broad shoulders and smouldering brown eyes? She reached the top of the stairwell, but, looking down, stopped. Shit. There in the doorway below, with his back to her, stood John Whitaker. He was talking to someone. Was he about to leave? Go, go! But then, impatient with herself, she began to run down. Her face bore its most contemptuous expression. She was almost past him when he turned abruptly, knocking into her, making her drop her pile of books. She bent swiftly to gather the volumes, her face burning.

‘Whitaker!' said a scandalized voice. ‘You might help!' and another pair of hands joined her in picking up the books. She glanced up. This must be Rupert. Blond and handsome as a
Boy's Own
hero.

‘I apologize for my friend. He has no manners.' With a furious glance Mara seized the books, stood up and strode off. From behind her she heard a laugh.

‘Don't worry, Anderson. Neither has she.'

Outside the air was cold on her cheeks. His laugh and voice still sounded in her mind. A northern accent. Pavlov's dogs quivered and leapt as she tried to silence them. This, no doubt, was what people called ‘falling in love'. It was as random as being hit by a bus, or falling down a manhole on a dark night, but the mind began at once to find special meanings: Anyone could have fallen down that hole, but it was
I
,
I
who was walking along the street at that moment. Except in this case she had already heard the falling cries of Maddy and May. ‘One of those smouldering animal types . . . We lust, my dear, we lust . . .' She stood still in the street and cast her mind into the future. She felt like someone with a long journey to make and began to walk again. There was no room in her world for men.

‘Mara!' called a voice. She looked all around. ‘Mara!' it came again, and looking up she saw Maddy and May waving from a window. ‘Come on up,' they called.

Oh, God, I don't know if I can stand it. But she had chosen this, letting them into her room the previous day. She sighed and made her way to a door. They're so draining, she thought, climbing the stairs. It was like being mobbed by a thousand butterflies, or listening to a treeful of parrots outsquawking one another. She followed the sounds of laughter until she reached the room.

‘We weren't sure you were coming,' said May. It was a typical student room: colourful posters, empty wine bottles, clutter. The smell of drying laundry filled the air from the clothes draped over the radiators. May began to make the coffee.

‘We are here,' said Maddy, ‘to strike a blow for feminism. Have a Jaffa cake. The thing I like about Jaffa cakes is that you can eat all the chocolate off, then the spongey bit, and leave the orange jelly draped over your finger.'

Mara declined the offer.

‘We're conducting an experiment,' explained May. ‘We're trying to find out what happens when women shout and whistle at men, rather than vice versa. Behavioural science. There should be quite a stream of them going past when the twelve o'clock lectures end.'

‘Show the bastards what it feels like,' said Maddy. ‘And possibly strike up an acquaintance with the better-looking ones.'

May handed Mara a mug of coffee. She took it and felt herself drifting away out through the open window and along the street, then up and over the rooftops. Her eye met the impassive stare of a pigeon as it swept past.

‘What should we shout, I wonder?' asked May.

‘A short roar of approval should be enough to start with,' Maddy said, experimenting.

‘We're hoping you can whistle, Mara,' said May.

Mara shrugged dismissively, wheeling round until the river lay below.

‘Shame,' said Maddy. ‘We could do with a real building-site-type wolf-whistle. What do builders shout?'

They thought for a moment.

‘Cheer up, love, it might never happen,' suggested Mara, pausing in her flight for a moment. She had been pursued by this call for years.

‘A
little
tame, I fear,' said Maddy. ‘Don't worry – I'll think of something when the time comes.'

‘But that's precisely what does worry me,' said May.

The three of them sat drinking coffee. I am nothing but a point in the blue, no City, no people, only the air singing on all sides. In another world Maddy and May talked of this and that – concerts, essay crises, men, the approaching college ball – pausing when they heard footsteps and conversation in the street below.

A voice floated up, calling back Mara's attention: ‘The upsurge in British chess over the last few years has been a-
ston
ishing.' The words hung like a speech bubble in the room. May and Maddy laughed in delight, and the sound brought Mara spiralling back down into the room again.

‘What a useful phrase,' said Maddy. ‘We must remember it for those awkward moments when conversation fails us.' She went across to the window and looked out. May joined her.

‘Thick and fast they came at last,' said May, and from where she was sitting on the bed Mara could hear the sound of more people approaching. Maddy and May leant out of the window, then began calling out coarse compliments to the men passing below. Mara reflected that the people who said vicarage children were always the worst were probably right. Sometimes equivalent replies were hurled back, but generally there was only surprised laughter. This, thought Mara, trying not to smile, is incredibly childish. At last curiosity drew her to the window. ‘Thank you, ladies!' called someone. It was as she had imagined. The victims did not wear that look of wincing anticipation or studied nonchalance seen on the faces of women who have to walk past workmen.