The Blasphemer: A Novel (17 page)

She untwisted the top of a bottle of fizzy water, making it hiss angrily. Tom was staring at her. She took a sip from the neck and swirled the bottle round and round absent-mindedly. Bored now.

‘Do you want to see what they do with healing crystals? For fun?’

Nancy shrugged.

‘Lie down then.’

As Tom stood over her, Nancy studied the crystal he was dangling over her chest, intrigued by the way it caught the light. She knew it wouldn’t make any difference physically, but she thought it might make her feel … something, anything, anything other than lost.

*

Enveloped in the dark, wooden panelling of the confessional, his knees cushioned by the prie-dieu in front of him, Wetherby shivered and stared up at the crucifix hanging over the grille. He remained in this position for a full minute, lost in his reflections, in his contemplation of sin.

The priest on the other side of the lattice screen tapped.

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ the penitent began in a brittle but well-modulated tone, one that, for the priest, evoked the BBC Home Service. ‘It is one week since my last confession.’

‘What is it you wish to confess?’ The voice was gentle, disembodied.

‘I have committed both venial and mortal sins.’ Wetherby placed the gloved palms of his hands together. ‘I also missed mass on Sunday.’

‘On purpose?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Go on.’

‘I suspended an employee, a security guard, even though I knew he was only doing his duty.’

‘Why?’

‘Spite, I suppose … I also blocked the promotion of a colleague, even though he deserved the job.’

‘Now why did you do that?’

‘Because I am a small and envious man, Father.’ As he spoke Wetherby lowered his head and closed his eyes. ‘Because I envy his looks, his hair, his wife, his popularity, his social ease, his decency, his certainty …’

‘Jealousy is a terrible thing,’ the priest interrupted. ‘We must resist it. Is there anything else you wish to confess?’

Wetherby thought.

He thought of the vulnerable students he had seduced over the years. He thought about the envy he felt for the celibacy of Locke, a thinker whose mind had been free from sordid distraction. He thought, too, about how much he resented the appetite for sex he shared with Bertrand Russell, the vile atheist who considered it an immoral duty to sleep with the wives of other men. He hated
himself for being more Russell than Locke. He hated himself for being weak. He hated himself. ‘I took advantage of someone who trusts me,’ he said. ‘Someone in my pastoral care.’

‘In what way now?’

Wetherby became overwhelmed, partly with self-pity, partly with a feeling of deep love for his own piety and candour. If anyone deserved to regain the grace of God, he thought, it was he. He longed for it and that longing was enough for him, enough evidence of His existence. ‘Though I was having lustful thoughts about her, I engineered events so that she and I could be alone together.’

‘God understands the weakness of the human spirit.’

‘I then had sex with her.’

There was a silence as the priest weighed this. ‘Is she above the age of consent?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you use contraception?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s something. Is there more you wish to confess?’

A single tear ran down Wetherby’s sharp cheekbone. It felt cold and ticklish. He sniffed loudly. ‘In my guilt, Father, in my wickedness, I.. .’ He wrung his gloved hands as if washing them. ‘I struck this girl.’ He always enjoyed the formal language he used in confession; he felt cleansed by it. ‘I did not mean to. In the heat of the moment I called her a temptress and struck her across the face with the back of my hand.’

‘These are serious sins,’ the priest said. ‘Have you examined your conscience?’

Wetherby’s words were blurred by the sob he was stifling. ‘Yes, Father. I have. I have. I ask your forgiveness. God’s forgiveness.’

‘Yes, well, the intent of this sacrament is to provide healing for the soul. Are you truly contrite?’

‘Truly, Father.’

‘Then I suggest you see a counsellor. You need to talk about these matters properly and at length. Now you must say the Act of Contrition.’

‘
Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a te iuste statutas promeritus sum …
’

There was a pause when, thirty seconds later, Wetherby finished and said, ‘Amen.’ The priest cleared his throat again. ‘It’s been a while since I heard that said in Latin. I’m afraid we must do the absolution in English.’ He coughed. ‘God the father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent …’ When he reached the end he coughed again. ‘Say ten Hail Marys, and may the Lord be with you.’

Outside the cathedral, the city was trembling with energy. The sidestepping pedestrians walking through the slush, the chasing sirens, the dull grind of techno music as a pub door opened and closed, the rolling chatter of overland trains arriving at Victoria station, the whistles of the guards, the clatter as the juggler in the beanie hat dropped one of his clubs: all were a comfort to Wetherby. They offered anonymity and sanctuary. He inhaled the cold air deeply, rewrapped his scarf and stood in the great doorway looking for Hai-iki. She was wearing his Crombie overcoat, hunched up with her back to him, feeding crisps to the pigeons. Wetherby walked over, wiped the step and sat down beside her. When she looked up at him he winced. The swelling around her eye had disappeared, but a dark blue circle had appeared instead. He extended a protective arm around her supple waist and said quietly, ‘I have asked for God’s forgiveness, now I ask for yours.’

‘I forgive you.’

He pressed his cold lips to her forehead. ‘Thank you … You know, Evelyn Waugh once said he would be much nastier if he were not a Catholic. I think I fall into that camp. I am sorry. I truly am. It will never happen again.’ He stood up, led the way across the square and raised his arm in the direction of an approaching cab. If we catch this, he thought, I can have her back home and bent over the chaise longue within half an hour. It had been a long time since he had felt so exalted, so alive, so aroused.

*

After picking Martha up from school, Nancy returned home, listened to four answerphone messages and went up to Daniel’s study to see if he had come back from work early. As she watched him hunched up over his desk – drawing something, she couldn’t make out what – she realized he had not heard her. ‘Is it true?’

He lurched forward guiltily, covering up his drawing.

‘Is it true?’ Nancy repeated.

Daniel turned his chair so that his body was blocking her view of the desk. ‘Did you just say …’ He stopped himself. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘What? What do you think I said?’

‘Shame on you.’

‘I said, “Is it true?” Well, is it?’

‘Is what true?’

‘You’re going to be given an award?’

‘I don’t know. There was a message on the answering machine. Someone from the
Mirror
wanting a comment.’

‘I heard it. That’s why I asked.’

‘Haven’t been told anything.’ Daniel scraped back his chair, turned over the picture he was drawing and, without making eye contact, brushed past Nancy to get through the doorway.

Nancy did not move, the soft cogs of her mind unable to find a purchase. She was staring at the well-bruised cricket bat propped against his desk. Her sight line rose to take in familiar objects: the bust of Mao wearing a cricket cap, the chess clock, the microscope, the sunglasses, the novelty Father Christmas nailed to a cross that one of Daniel’s students had sent him from Japan, the rugby ball signed by the England team. She took a step farther into the room. The desk had some ornaments she hadn’t seen before, a collection of three turtles. There was a hard rubber one with a flattish shell, a small marble one and a suede one with a nodding head. An empty box distracted her. Chinese writing on the side. Dirty chopsticks sticking out. It had been left on a bookshelf in between a Nick Hornby novel and an untidy stack of science magazines. There was also an empty bottle of German beer and, in the ashtray, a stubbedout joint. Nancy wondered how Daniel could work like this. The
untidiness was unbearable. As she walked over to collect the Chinese food carton, she picked up the down-turned picture. It was Martha’s crayon drawing of the crash. Daniel had added a turtle and a man in the sea. The picture had been covering a notebook. After a backward glance at the doorway, Nancy flicked through it. On almost every page there was a sketch of a man with wide-set eyes. In every picture, the man was smiling.

ALTHOUGH THEY HAD TALKED ON THE PHONE SEVERAL TIMES
, Daniel had not had a chance to meet his friend Bruce Golding face to face since the crash. When he did, in the County Arms, a pub equidistant from their two houses, he did not recognize him. He had known Bruce – a rugby-playing hospital consultant – since university, but a four-week beard and a bulky leather jacket had rendered him invisible. It was as if light was flowing around him and carrying on, like water around a rock in a stream. Daniel scanned the pub a second time and when Bruce, standing at the bar a few yards away, gave a small wave, he slammed into focus.

‘What the fuck has happened to your face?’ Daniel said with a snort of laughter as he strode over and gave his friend a handshake that turned into a hug.

‘Like it?’ Bruce asked, scratching under his chin.

‘You look like the Yorkshire Ripper.’

Bruce was a heavily built man with thick wrists and an untidy tangle of hair. To friends and colleagues he was known as the Bear. ‘Well, my new tenant likes it. Did I mention that I have a new … ?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘I tell you he was an actor?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that he’s twenty-two?’

Daniel nodded. ‘How’s that going?’

‘He hasn’t slapped my face yet.’

‘Probably afraid to touch that beard. Doesn’t it scare the patients?’

‘Haven’t had any, you know, complaints. Not that I …’ Bruce stroked his beard again, more defensively this time. ‘Anyway, it’s just an experiment.’

When they were together it was usually assumed that Daniel, not Bruce, was the gay one. It wasn’t that Daniel was effete necessarily, it was more that Bruce looked and sounded like the rugby player he was. The bridge of his nose was flat where it had been broken. His shoulders were broad, his thighs were stalwart. There was nothing gathered or defensive or apologetic about him. When he sat down it was solidly, knees apart. Women adored him.

‘You look more like Captain Birdseye,’ Daniel said, brushing the beard with the back of his fingers. ‘You’ve gone grey.’

‘It’s called salt and pepper,’ Bruce corrected. ‘Anyway. Piss off. What you drinking?’

‘Nah, I’ll get them in. What’s that?’ Daniel nodded at Bruce’s half-empty pint glass.

‘Bitter.’ Bruce tucked his hair behind his ear. ‘Not sure what it’s called. Old Tosser or something.’

The words ‘Old Tosser’ echoed in Daniel’s head. Where had they come from? His friend could do better than that. They were being stilted with one another; trying too hard to feel relaxed in each other’s company. Something had come between them. He caught the barman’s eye, pointed at Bruce’s pint and held up two fingers.

‘So how, urm, how is, you know, everyone?’ Bruce said. ‘Morticia OK?’

‘Nancy is fine.’

‘She still carry a knuckleduster in her handbag?’

Daniel smiled and handed over a note as the barman placed two pints on the bar. He took a sip from his, leaving a moustache of white foam on his top lip. ‘Well, when I say fine, I mean as fine as can be expected. She was badly shaken by it all. She’s seeing some charlatan counsellor. I sometimes catch her crying.’

‘Those aren’t tears, they’re leaks of battery acid from her brain.’

‘How about you, my ursine friend? They haven’t struck you off yet?’

‘Nope. They can’t prove a thing … And how’s my little goddaughter?’

‘Fine … Good.’ Daniel paused. ‘She asked me where babies come from the other day.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘That the stork brings them.’

Bruce frowned. ‘
You
said that?’

‘And then she said. “Yeah, but who fucks the stork?” ’

‘What!’

‘It’s a joke, Bear.’

‘Oh, right.’ Bruce had a sip of beer and noticed his friend’s darkly circled eyes. ‘Anyway, how are you? You look like shit, and I’m not just saying that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Taking any exercise?’

‘Haven’t been able to swim since the crash. Sounds nuts, but I can’t put my head underwater.’

‘You mentioned headaches on the phone.’ Bruce sounded too nonchalant.

Daniel nodded and rubbed a two-inch square of hair that had turned white since the crash, the spot where he had hit the seat in front. ‘They come and go. Quite painful at times, like a migraine. This helps …’ He took another sip.

‘Are you, urm, taking anything?’

A shake of the head. ‘Just fistfuls of Nurofen.’

Daniel pocketed his change, Bruce collected a half-eaten packet of cheese and onion crisps and the two walked across a sawdust-sprinkled wooden floor to a brass-topped table. Though it was still early December, the Christmas decorations looked tired: windows sprayed with fake snow, red and green tinsel dangling from framed pictures of hunting scenes, a menu on a blackboard advising patrons to book their Christmas parties early. It had been up since October.

‘Actually,’ Daniel said, pulling up his chair, ‘I’ve been feeling pretty weird, to be honest.’

‘Weird how?’

‘Thirsty. Can’t stop drinking.’

‘What colour is your pee?’

Daniel found his friend’s bedside vocabulary comforting: Bruce always said pee, never piss, tummy, never belly, and all actions were described as popping – ‘pop up on to the bed’, ‘pop your underpants down and cough’, ‘if you wouldn’t mind popping your bra off. I need to do a UBE.’ (It stood for Unnecessary Breast Examination, a medical student joke.) ‘Purple,’ he said.

‘Good. Purple is normal for a man your age.’