Angels and Men (7 page)

The rest of the letter was chit-chat about the parish, and a request for Mara to phone home occasionally. ‘Daddy is out so much at the moment now he's rural dean. There's an interregnum at St Peter's, meetings every Monday and Wednesday, and now on Friday evenings as well.' This was another papered crack. If Mara phoned on those evenings, there would be no risk of having to talk to him. The letter ended with the hope that she would spend Christmas at home, and possibly go out with them to celebrate their twenty-second wedding anniversary. Mara grinned at this uncharacteristic error. Her mother had lost count, for this would have made her four months pregnant when she walked down the aisle. And her a bishop's daughter! An image of the wedding came before her eyes: on one side the rows of unsmiling Welsh peasant faces, and on the other the large hats and charming politeness of her mother's family. The occasion would have been dreadful enough without episcopal shot-guns.

‘And if you have a special friend you would like to invite too, then that would be lovely.' Mara tutted despairingly. Hope springs eternal in a mother's breast. After childhood parties mother would always ask: ‘What did you have to eat?' Now it was: ‘Did you meet anyone
nice
?' Mara supposed she would know her mother had finally abandoned hope when the wheel turned full circle and she asked about food again. They would talk companionably about salmon patties and asparagus tips long after men were forgotten. ‘And Daddy sends you his love,' concluded the letter. Daddy did no such thing, of course, any more than she sent him hers, but her mother went on mediating these non-existent messages between the two of them in the immaculate paper house. She put the letter aside and turned to her books.

The days passed and she continued to read early Quaker tracts until their thunderous prose began to ring in her ears as she tried to sleep at nights. It was a far cry from the carefully structured arguments of modern scholarship. They preferred the blunderbuss approach. Any available material was stuffed randomly into the tract and then discharged in the general direction of the enemy. Like a theological version of the marital row. And another thing! Your doctrine of the atonement sucks! So much for the gentle, pacific Quakers.

George Fox strode through her mind barefoot, crying,
Woe to the bloody city of Lichfield!
James Nayler rode into Bristol in the rain, mounted on an ass as his followers cried thrice holy. Blasphemer! Flogged through the streets, branded, tongue bored through. His persecutors had turned him into a clearer symbol of Christ than his followers could ever have done. His fate troubled her. She felt he had been manipulated by a group of fanatics who were all driven by the wild forces let loose in times of eschatological fervour. A group of men as well as women, she noticed, although the books seemed to speak only of ‘hysterical women'. She read and reread the texts, trying to understand what had happened. And then another figure began to haunt her – Martha Simmonds, long dead and forgotten, except for the part she played in Nayler's fall. Mara saw her at first as a victim of the patriarchal times, a strong, charismatic woman whom the Quakers felt they had to suppress. But gradually another image superseded this. Mara began to picture her with long hair like that girl in the marketplace, always ready to wash her master's feet. Not a victim: a calculating, manipulative woman. A woman who must have all eyes on her, who must have all the glory, under the guise of giving the glory to God. Mara recognized the type even across the centuries.

At last she reached the point where she could not force herself to read another word of Quakerly rant. She left her room to go and read the papers before lunch, but when she reached the common room it was already noisy and crowded. So she set off for Coverdale common room instead. A small voice inside her chanted, We know what you're doing! as she hurried through the college. It's just that it's always more peaceful there, she said. No farting undergraduates.

The room was empty. She leafed through the papers and found the
Guardian
. Then her eye fell on a book which said
Coverdale Quotes
on the cover. This should be interesting, she thought with a smile. It was full of several years' worth of witty and unfortunate sayings. Most of them were clearly amusing only when you knew the people who said them. She turned to the most recent pages and hunted for names she knew. Hugh:
I'm sorry, but I make no apology for this
. Rupert:
I
know we all have to learn from one another, but I'm right
. Mara laughed out loud. Suddenly her own name leapt off the page:
If the good Lord hadn't intended us to fornicate, why did he create girls like Mara Johns
? Johnny. Her face burned. What was that supposed to mean? It seemed to be in response to another student telling him that if the good Lord had intended us to smoke, he would have given us chimneys on the top of our heads. Did he mean she was an easy lay? But before she could decide, she heard his laugh in the corridor. She put the book down and hid behind her paper, seething. A child's voice carried across to her:

‘Read a story.'

‘Don't pester him, Michael,' came another voice. The mother.

‘I want a story,' insisted the child.

‘OK. Ha'away in.' Feet pattered to the door, then hesitated.

‘There's a lady in there.'

‘Ssh. That's not a lady,' whispered Johnny. ‘That's a woman.'

Bastard. Mara stood up abruptly and threw the paper back on the table.

He gave her a cheerful grin. ‘Are you off, pet? – Sorry! Mara.'

She walked out, leaving him with the child still demanding a story.

Later that afternoon Mara made her way to Maddy's and May's room. As she climbed the stairs she heard a laugh. Johnny was there. She paused, wondering whether to come back later. No. Sod him. I want to see my friends. She took another step and heard an unfamiliar female voice. It was speaking insistently as she approached the door. She entered the room. It was the girl from the marketplace. Too late to retreat. Maddy called her in as though her appearance was a welcome diversion.

‘Come in, come in. Let me introduce you to everyone. This is Johnny Whitaker,' she said. ‘Only you know him already; although not, as we established earlier, in the biblical sense. Or do you? He hasn't mentioned it. Perhaps he is too much the gentleman?' Doubt showed on every feature. ‘We'll have to rely on you for details, in that case.'

While this banter went on Mara was aware of the strange girl. Was it her own morbid curiosity that made her want to look at her, or did the girl have some drawing power? Their eyes met. Mutual assessment. Instant loathing.

‘And this is Joanna.'

The girl said hello, but Mara crossed the room without replying, and sat on May's desk.

‘And that was Mara,' said Maddy. ‘Don't take it personally. She's visiting us from a different planet, where politeness is seen as a sign of weakness.' Mara's lips twitched at this description of herself, and then she caught sight of Johnny grinning too from where he was sitting on the other desk across the room. At once all amusement left her face and she stared at him coldly.

‘Well . . .' began Maddy, but for once she was talked down.

‘The thing with theology,' said Joanna, ‘is that it's taught without faith.' Mara felt a surge of contempt rising up inside her. ‘The lecturers don't believe that the Bible is the Word of God.' This conversation must have been going on before I arrived, Mara thought. The girl's glance went darting and flickering from one to another. Her every gesture seemed designed to draw attention to herself. She continued earnestly: ‘When one of them says something which contradicts the Bible, I simply put down my pen, stop writing, and fold my arms.'

Suddenly it became clear. The display was aimed solely at Johnny. Mara searched each face for reactions. Maddy seemed sullen. May, on the other hand, was hugely amused. It was she who broke the silence.

‘Why are you doing theology, then?' Her face was perfectly serious, but Mara suspected she was attempting to draw the girl into further absurdities. The girl's face took on the look of a hidden and inward smile, as if she were secretly with child by the Holy Ghost. Before she could answer, however, Johnny broke in.

‘Well, you'll not get a degree if you take that attitude.' If anyone else had said this, the girl would no doubt have replied (raising her eyes heavenwards), ‘So be it, if that is God's will,' but Mara was not surprised to see her accepting Johnny's words submissively. She sat looking up at him, as if posing for a pre-Raphaelite picture of Mary of Bethany at the feet of Christ. Mara felt a sudden rush of understanding for Martha. No wonder she had stormed in and asked Jesus to tell her sister to help her with the serving. The surprise was rather that she had not hit Mary round the head with the kneading trough. On Johnny's other side May rested her chin on her hand and looked up at him, too. The two women were now mirror images of each other, but Johnny was too intent on what he was saying to notice what May was doing.

‘It's one thing to disagree with the scholars,' Johnny was saying, ‘but it's another to dismiss their ideas out of hand.'

‘I just find it all so
confusing
,' said the girl. And she actually batted her eyelashes. Mara saw May mentally clapping her hands with delight. Johnny appeared to soften. God – he's not going to be taken in by this, thought Mara in disgust.

‘Well, that's a different matter,' he said with a smile. ‘It will seem confusing at first. Maybe the real question you want to be asking yourself is whether the Bible can still be the Word of God without being literally true in every detail. I think it can.'

This was the longest and most serious speech Mara had heard him make. The four of them sat in silence listening to his words, as though they were another pre-Raphaelite tableau of first-century Palestine. The scene was undermined by May's look of rapt adoration, which Mara was convinced Johnny had now seen but was ignoring.

‘But it's so difficult,' she protested. Save me, Johnny! ‘If you can't rely on every detail in the Bible, then it might all be untrue.'

Johnny shook his head, turning so that he was facing Joanna more fully, and unable to see May, who was shaking her head in sympathy. ‘It might feel like that,' he said, ‘but I'd say my faith is stronger now, rather than weaker, after a degree in theology.' May nodded.

‘You've studied theology?' asked the girl.

‘Oh, yes,' said Maddy, wresting the scene back to herself. ‘They occasionally allow people with regional accents to read for degrees here. In his case it's because he's training to be a priest.'

‘God's Man for Our Time,' said May.

‘He's celibate, of course,' said Maddy. ‘But you will have realized that. Unless you thought he always sat that way.' Johnny had a look of amused resignation on his face, and much though Maddy's behaviour irritated Mara, she preferred it to Joanna's brand of sanctified vamping. Maddy was opening her mouth for another speech, but Joanna was not to be upstaged without a struggle.

‘So you're going into the ministry?' He nodded, and her face seemed to glow. ‘That's amazing. That's really amazing. While I was reading my Bible this morning, Father told me I was going to meet someone today who had a special calling.'

Father!
Mara squirmed.

‘Do you have a Special Calling, Johnny?' asked May gravely.

‘No. I just like the dressing-up,' he replied.

Mara watched the girl's face to see how she would react to this flippancy, but the secret glowing look was still in place. Father had obviously told her that Johnny was that special man. Yes, thought Mara. This is exactly how I picture Martha Simmonds weaving her poisonous web round James Nayler. Her scalp prickled. There had been a girl just like her in the sect. Leah. A coy, manipulative trouble-maker. Always worming her way to the centre of every group, latching on to the most powerful and interesting people. Hester had never been able to see this. Nothing Mara said convinced her that Leah was evil. It sickened Mara to see her sister turned into a tireless campaigner for Leah's rights.

‘It's just that . . . well, I've got a calling, too,' Joanna was saying. We're supposed to gasp and ask for more, thought Mara.

‘Well,' said Maddy, clearly determined that nobody should oblige, ‘you'd better pull your finger out and start working on your degree, then.'

‘Said the pot to the kettle,' put in May.

‘It's the Greek, really,' said Joanna, ignoring them. ‘I don't always understand it.' This was aimed at Johnny and he was forced to look serious again.

‘Look, I'll tell you what, pet,' he said, ‘if you really are having difficulties with Greek –'

No
! thought Mara in alarm. Don't do it! Johnny looked her way and stopped in mid-sentence. He stared at her in surprise. The girl turned to see what he was looking at, and instantly Mara's face became expressionless.

‘If it's the Greek that's worrying you, why not ask the tutor to go over it with you?' said Johnny. ‘They sometimes put on extra classes in the department. You'll probably find you aren't the only one struggling.'

Joanna shot Mara a swift malevolent look that was covered instantly by a smile. ‘Maybe you're right,' she said with downcast eyes to Johnny.

‘Of course he is,' murmured May, but this, apparently, was going too far. Johnny rounded on her.

‘You watch it, young lady.' There was a tense silence, and although he had not raised his voice, Mara remembered one of her earliest impressions of him from their meeting in Dr Mowbray's study: that he had a quick temper. This was a mere spark, but enough to alarm Maddy. Mara saw her anxious look. It seemed odd that Maddy should be so nervous of anger, when so much of her behaviour seemed deliberately to provoke it.