Angels and Men (37 page)

‘I wonder what kind of degree I'll get,' May said.

‘A nice girly Lower Second. You're only moderately bright, and you do bugger all.'

‘Smack his face,' ordered Maddy.

‘What if I worked really hard for the next two years?' persisted May.

He shrugged. ‘What if you had brains? Who knows?'

May flushed, but she carried on with her daisy chain nonchalantly. ‘Well, who cares?' she said. ‘Joanna might be right. The Second Coming could've happened by then.' But her face said, Only moderately bright? I'll show you.

Mara glanced at Andrew and caught his eye. There was a flicker of amusement there. Interesting. So he cared enough about May to try and spur her into studying. Another figure joined the group. Mara looked up and saw Rupert standing there against the sun. She shaded her eyes. He smiled down at her.

‘You look ravishing.'

She blushed and smiled back as he sat down beside her. Her eyes fled to Johnny and instantly away again. He was watching her. Andrew chose this moment to lie down and rest his head once more in Mara's lap.

‘Comfortable?' asked Johnny.

‘Mmm, hmm.' Andrew was deep in his book again. Mara gazed off towards the hawthorn tree, feeling Johnny's eyes still on her. At this point Maddy asserted herself, evidently dissatisfied with the way the male attention was being shared out.

‘I used to have a hat almost exactly like that once, only it blew away and a bus ran over it. I wept for weeks because I loved it to bits.'

‘Oh, well,' said May airily. ‘It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.' She reached over and draped her daisy chain around Andrew's hair. He brushed it away as if it were a fly.

‘Hah,' said Mara, inadvertently drawing the group's attention back to herself.

Andrew lowered his book. ‘Does that grunt mean you take issue with Tennyson here?'

‘Yes,' said Mara. ‘You might just as well say it's better to have got drunk and fallen downstairs and broken your leg than never to have got drunk at all.'

There was a short pause.

‘Well, isn't it?' asked Johnny. Andrew laughed, but Rupert most decidedly did not.

Mara could read hostility in his expression, but before she could analyse it Joanna appeared. Mara stiffened. The girl said hello and sat on the edge of the group. She had the gorilla in tow, and he sat beside her like a man under an evil spell. Mara could have wept for him. She had not realized it had got that bad. All his animal high spirits had vanished. Impossible to believe it was the same man she had washed up with. He was staring at the ground. He must have swallowed Joanna's story whole, believing he could help her, that nobody had ever really listened to her before. He was trapped.

Mara felt Andrew stroking her hand. Her fist clenched into a tight ball. Andrew smoothed the fingers out and kissed her palm. He smiled up at her and shook his head: She's not worth it. Mara smiled back. He was right. She let him lace her fingers together with his, and looked up in time to catch May's eyes swerving away. Oh, hell. She's probably sitting there hating me.

Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later when May said to Rupert, ‘Do you think getting drunk's a sin?' She was venting her anger by stirring up trouble.

‘I suppose it depends on the circumstances,' he replied, barely managing to be diplomatic. Johnny sighed and lay back on the lawn looking up at the sky.

‘Good God. Situation ethics,' said Andrew, adding his mite. ‘What's happened to you, Anderson? You always used to be a man of absolute values. Surely the Word of God is quite clear about sin?'

‘It says that anything which doesn't spring from faith is sin.' This was an unexpected offering from Joanna. She was casting her eyes down modestly, saying to the gorilla, ‘Doesn't it, Dave?' Rather ostentatiously flashing that ‘imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit' that St Peter talks about, thought Mara. Johnny lit a cigarette and lay back with his arm over his face in the sunlight. Mara watched the smoke drift.

‘Oh, what
is
sin?' said Maddy impatiently.

‘Said jesting Pilate,' interjected May.

‘That was truth, dumb-dumb,' said Maddy. ‘Everyone knows definitions of sin are culturally conditioned. It's all relative.'

Aha, thought Mara. She's sleeping with her Irishman and feeling guilty about it. Andrew began to play with one of Mara's curls, twining it in and out of his long fingers. He was looking at Rupert and smiling maliciously.

‘You didn't answer my question.'

‘Because I don't think you're interested.' Rupert was very angry indeed.

‘Oh, but I am.' Andrew was playing languidly with her fingers now, still smiling at Rupert, who met his gaze with level antagonism. ‘Come on – let's hear the fruits of three years' training. What is sin?'

Am I missing something again? wondered Mara.

Then Johnny sat up and said, ‘I'll tell you a story.' Maddy and May clapped their hands and squealed like excited three-year-olds. Johnny began: ‘When I was about eleven and my brother Charlie was about thirteen, we were both given air rifles.' Maddy and May gasped and clutched one another. Johnny went on good-naturedly against the backdrop of their mockery. ‘We were out in the woods on a sunny day –'

‘A bit like this?' said May.

‘A bit like this, and there was a bird singing its heart out on the top of a tree. Charlie said –'

‘What sort of bird?' interrupted Maddy.

‘No idea. Charlie said, “I bet you can't hit it.” So I took my gun . . .' They all watched as he mimed the action. Eleven-year-old concentration, the careful aim, the finger on the trigger. ‘Bang. Then there was silence, and we watched the bird falling down through the branches.' They all sat still on the lawn. Mara heard the silence after the echoing shot, then the sound of the small body dropping through the summer leaves. She felt cold.

‘The poor bird!' said Maddy for all of them. ‘I bet it was a robin. You're horrible, Johnny!'

‘Yes.' He drew on his cigarette and did not smile.

‘But why did you do it?' asked May.

‘Because I could.' There was another silence. The words cast a shadow.

‘Well, well. Arguably the best working definition of sin since the Reformation,' said Andrew. ‘I see the Church hasn't wasted its money entirely.'

He got to his feet and the group began to break up. Maddy and May went reluctantly back to their room for more revision, May with a look of steely determination which was not lost on Andrew, judging by his smile. Joanna left, too, clutching the gorilla's arm and talking earnestly to him. He looked dazed and unhappy as he allowed himself to be led off.

I can't bear it, thought Mara. Has no one else noticed what's happening to him? She looked round and saw Rupert disappearing into Coverdale Hall. She ran and caught up with him in the corridor.

As he turned, she said without preamble, ‘I'm a bit worried about –' Shit, what was his name? She couldn't say ‘the gorilla'. ‘You know, the one with Joanna. He looks terrible.'

‘David? Yes.' Rupert paused. She watched in astonishment. He was almost visibly counting to ten. ‘I've decided you were right about Joanna all along, Mara.' His tone was repressive, implying that
in this one instance
she was right, but her behaviour in general was still totally reprehensible. ‘Several of his friends are worried, too. Apparently he's not doing any work, just spending hours on end talking to Joanna. They went and had a word with the Principal about it this morning, in fact. It's all got totally out of hand. Another girl passed out in one of her exams the other day, and it turns out she's been fasting. They've all been doing it.' He glared at Mara as if were her fault, somehow. There was another pause.

‘Are you . . . You're not mad at me for some reason?' she ventured.

‘No,' he said tightly, looking away from her. She was at a loss, then suddenly he said, ‘I'd be a whole lot happier, though, if you paid me even one-tenth of the attention you pay to Andrew Jacks.'

Her mouth dropped open. ‘You're jealous!' With a moment's warning she would have had the wit not to say this.

‘Well, what the hell do you expect?'

‘But why?'

‘Don't be stupid.'

She blushed in indignation. ‘
You're
the one who's being stupid! He's gay, for God's sake. It's nothing. You must know that!' Her mind was rapidly replaying the scene on the lawn, Andrew's fingers twined with hers, his hand twisting her curls. So that was what the bastard was playing at. It was all aimed at annoying Rupert. Mara felt a complete fool. ‘I'm sorry,' she muttered. ‘It didn't occur to me.'

‘I know. That's what pisses me off the most.'

Her eyes widened. ‘Strong language for you.'

He took a step closer in the empty corridor. ‘Strong feelings for me, too.' He pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her in a most ungentlemanly manner. She clutched at her wonderful hat to stop it from being knocked off.
Dash it! Rupert was going to teach the girl a sharp lesson, all right!
At last he released her.

‘Take
that
,' she said, putting a wondering hand to her mouth.

‘Precisely.'

He adjusted her hat for her and with his slight bow, turned and walked off. She stared after him, and at the foot of the stairs he looked back with a smile. Oh, oh, oh, it would be so easy to give in! Maybe I could tolerate all those church services with that kind of servicing from the vicar. She ran off along the corridor laughing to herself, but as she rounded the corner she saw Johnny loitering in the doorway.

He had a wicked grin on his face. ‘All clear now?' He'd seen! Her cheeks flamed. She pushed past him without a word and went out.

Mara was in the bath three-quarters drunk, but it was under her mother's instructions, so that was all right. She raised her glass. The wine glowed like garnets.
Look not upon the wine when it is red,
she thought.
At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast
. That's what the Word of God has to say about being drunk, my friends. But Mother had sanctioned it. She had sent a birthday cheque with a note saying,
Pamper yourself, darling. Buy some wonderful bubble bath and a really nice bottle of wine
. She probably didn't mean her to enjoy them simultaneously, but what can you do if all your friends are out or revising? Birthdays must and will be celebrated.
You're too much like your father
, her mother had written in her letter.
You think it's a sin to treat yourself
. True, thought Mara. But you don't pamper yourself, either, mother. You only pamper everyone else. The front of the queue, the top of the milk. You spend your whole time plumping up this world's cushions for other people. When did you last open a nice bottle of wine just for yourself? Mara drained her glass. Unlike Andrew. Now there was a model of high-minded dedication to self-indulgence. She pulled the plug and climbed dizzily out of the bath. Pity he had to be at this concert. She began to dry herself. She pulled on Aunt Judith's black satin dressing-gown – Judith had evidently been a woman who could pamper herself – and floated back to her room.

It was dusk. She poured another glass of wine. Well, I'm not going to have to make conversation. She sat at the window and breathed in the warm air. A dozen spring smells. Blossom, warm grass. The bells chimed. She drank. Ah. The leaves fluttered. That's a robin I can hear. The night had garlic on its breath. Ramsons deep down on the riverbank. Mara unpinned her hair and felt the long curls slide free. I'm letting my hair down and there's no one to see. She finished her glass. Leave me alone, she said to her conscience. What's wrong with a bit of hedonism? A pewful of Johns ancestors creaked forwards in the chapel to pray, not kneeling as Anglicans do, but bending over as if in pain, elbows on knees, heads in hands, despairing of the grace of God.

Mara stood up carefully. I'm an old campaigner. I know all about you, she said to her conscience. You're easy enough to trick. She crossed to her bookcase. All she needed was a book in her hand, one she ought to read, but didn't want to. She steadied herself. Never before had books looked so intensely book-like, so much
themselves
, platonic forms of books from which all other books derived their book-likeness. Tennyson. She took the volume down.
In Memoriam
. She grabbed the bottle of wine and slid down on to the rug. Not so far to fall. She leant back against the armchair and poured another glass. Now, then. Let's get this bugger read. She pored over the tiny print. Where's it got to? Aha.

    
I held it truth, with him who sings

    
To one clear harp in divers tones
, [who was that?]

    
That men may rise on stepping-stones

    
Of their dead selves to higher things
.

Her conscience went purring into its basket and curled up. She drank. The light of the table lamp glinted in the wine, red, red, red, rubies on a chalice.
Look not thou upon the wine
. . . , Yes, but then again,
Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake
. You see?
And for thy often infirmities
, says the Good Book. Tennyson slid from her slack hand. She closed her eyes and laughed. Lying in a warm ocean, tide rising higher, higher, lapping at her neck, her chin, up to her ears.
As he that lieth down in the midst of the sea
. Footsteps. Andrew coming back. So what? She'd seen him in a worse state. Knocking at the door.

‘Come in.'