Angels and Men (34 page)

‘Hello. Good tutorial?' He caught sight of her face. ‘What's wrong?'

‘This,' she snarled, thrusting the crumpled article at him. ‘Have you seen this?'

He glanced at it. ‘Yes. It was in one of the Sunday papers, wasn't it?'

‘That's him.' She jabbed with her finger. ‘The leader of the sect my sister was in.'

‘Yes. I know.' This knocked the rage out of her completely.

‘How do you know?'

‘Well, you said so last term. After the Valentine party.'

She couldn't remember. She looked down at the paper again. ‘I'd forgotten his name. What he looked like. Everything. Dr Roe gave me this. She thought I'd find it interesting.'

‘And do you?'

‘No. I find it disgusting. I hate it. I only read it because you said you'd make me tell you about it.'

‘Well, tell me about it, then.' His voice was surprisingly gentle.

There was a long silence.

‘I was in it, too.'

‘Yes. I guessed.'

‘I left. I couldn't stand it.'

‘Why not?'

‘All that stuff about male headship. Women submitting. Crucifying the intellect. I couldn't stomach it.' She stopped.

‘Go on,' he prompted.

‘I . . . He . . . he laid hands on me once.'

She watched his mind leap ahead. ‘Where did he lay them?'

Praying hands. Preying hands. She pointed without a word. It was the first time she had ever seen him look shocked.

‘You're joking! But that's all?'

She nodded, but even as she did so another memory flashed into her mind. She stared at Andrew in disbelief.

‘What?' he asked in alarm.

‘I've just remembered something else.' He waited. She felt as if she was dreaming. ‘I was kneeling. Facing him. He was standing up. He had his hands on my head. He . . . sort of hugged me to him.' She could feel the buckle of his belt digging into her forehead and his hands massaging her scalp.

‘He made you go down on him?'

‘No. Just . . . you know, rubbed himself against me.'

‘Jesus! This is sick, Mara. How old were you?'

‘Seventeen.'

‘Didn't you tell anyone?'

She shook her head. ‘Oh why didn't I? I should have done. Oh, God. If only I had, she'd be alive today!' She burst into tears.

‘You can't know that.' He put his arm round her shoulders as she wept horrible hacking sobs. Oh, Hester.

‘I don't care about me. But if he made Hester – she had a baby and I know it must have been his. I could have stopped it. It doesn't matter about me. I deserved it. But she was good –'

Andrew shook her. ‘Stop it, Mara. Don't say things like that! Why did you deserve it?'

‘I just did,' she sobbed. ‘I feel so dirty.'

‘You're not. He was using you. Nobody deserves that.' He cradled her in his arms, trying to calm her.

‘I'm sorry. It's my fault.'

‘No it wasn't. He was abusing his position. You trusted him. Of course you did – he was a minister. It wasn't your fault, Mara.'

‘Maybe he thought I wanted him to do it.'

‘What if you did? He was still to blame. It's still an abuse of power.' She felt his hand turning her face to look at him, but she couldn't meet his eye. He stroked the tears away.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Ssh. Don't keep saying that.'

‘And there was this girl. Leah. I hated her. If it hadn't been for her, then maybe I could have persuaded Hester to leave. She controlled her. I was a child of disobedience and they wouldn't let Hester talk to me. And they wouldn't let her have an abortion. Andrew, that baby had no brain, and they kept on and on that it would be healed. A testimony to God's healing, it was supposed to be.' She flung his arms off her. ‘Don't try to placate me! She was my only friend and they took her away from me! That's the kind of god I'm supposed to believe in? I'd rather burn in hell.'

‘Well, what if there's another kind?' he asked. ‘ “Merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love”? Come on, you're an English graduate. What about getting back to the primary material? Forget the rest.'

‘I can't,' she wept. ‘I've lost everything.'

‘That's traditionally held to be a good starting point.'

She stopped crying in mid sob. ‘You're telling me to read the Bible? But you're not supposed to believe any of this.'

‘Just a bit of role play. It's all part of the therapy.' No it's not, she thought. ‘Come on, tell me about your tutorial instead. Was Dr Roe pleased with your piece?' She nodded and gave another hiccuping sob. He made some coffee for her, chatting casually, making the world normal again. ‘She's an old friend of my brother's, you know. They were undergraduates together.'

Ah, she thought, Alex. ‘He rang in the tutorial, I think.' Her voice sounded thick and strange. ‘Made her order him some library books.'

‘Typical. He's coming up later this term to examine some poor sod's PhD.' He shook his head pityingly. ‘Alex has never quite mastered the distinction between a viva and a vivisection.'

‘Then he said “Great-thanks-bye” and hung up. As if it was one word.' Andrew laughed. The kettle boiled and he handed her a mug. She drank, listening to him as he gunned down various members of the college and university with idle sarcastic insights. Her mind kept going back to what he had said about God. So much for your brave atheism, she thought.

‘Whitaker's in disgrace by the way,' he said, moving on to tittle-tattle now.

‘I know.'

He looked annoyed. ‘How do you know?'

‘I saw him on my way to my tutorial. He told me.'

‘You're blushing. What did he do? Lay hands on you?'

Well, he obviously thinks I've recovered if he's making jokes about it already.

He glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘I'd better go. My last First Year practical criticism class. Jesus, they're Neanderthal. I should get intellectual danger money.' His eyes were searching her face as he spoke, as though checking to see if she could be left safely.

‘I'm fine now.'

‘Good.' He smiled and went out.

When his footsteps had died away, Mara made herself look again at the crumpled photograph. He was right. It was an abuse of power. Roger smiled on. What went on in a mind like that? Had he no consciousness of sin when he fondled a teenage girl who had come to him for counselling? What twisted holy logic had justified his actions? That he was healing her with his caresses? That ‘to the pure all things are pure'? It would have been better if it had been a yielding to passing lust. At least that left room for repentance. But wilful self-deception of that order was obscene, monstrous. She shuddered. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. They wouldn't have believed me. She's imagining it, they would have said. Over-reacting. Asking for it, going to his house like that, alone. I couldn't have told anyone. But now the implications of her silence spread and spread, like blood seeping through the folds of a bandage. Oh, God. What if Hester had suffered months and years of degradation and abuse all in the name of Jesus? ‘It's God's power at work. Don't fight it.' Submission. Kneeling. Service. She felt a wave of nausea. This terrible egomaniacal guilt. She saw it squatting like a toad on her mind, glutted on grief, trailing its ooze of self-pity over every thought.
I alone could have prevented this. I, I, I
.

But Hester had seemed happy when she last saw her. Deluded, but at peace. Rocking in the rocking chair, her eyes shining with that closed-in contentment Mara had seen in other pregnant women. ‘We mustn't upset Hester,' her mother had whispered. ‘She has enough to think about without us asking questions.' Hester's decision to leave the community and return home was seen by their parents as a hopeful sign. The sect must be losing its influence. Hester was coming to her senses. But then Leah arrived too, smiling, ensuring that Hester's faith didn't waver. Mother had made her welcome – ‘Anything that makes you happy, darling' – but their father had not been fooled. After two days he had asked Leah to leave, looking as grim as Uncle Huw could have done.

‘But darling – she's one of Hester's friends! It seems so inhospitable.'

‘I will not have that girl in my house!'

But the damage had been done.

Mara realized now that Hester had probably been sent home to avoid a scandal, especially if there were under-age girls in the same state. I should have said something, she thought. Oh, maybe I could have persuaded her if I'd told her what Roger did to me. But deep down she knew her words would have been powerless. It would have been like arguing with the moon. Fanatics were untouchable. And Mara was glad she had not made the attempt. She couldn't bear the guilt of having robbed her of her faith. At least she died in ignorance and trust, even if it was all lies.

Suddenly she could stand it no longer. She tore up the page and threw it away. Five minutes later she was out heading for the woods, running, running, trying to forget.

The days passed. A green haze crept over the City. Sycamore, lime, chestnut, beech. Down at their roots the giant hogweed began to shoot up in the carpet of ramsons. The riverbanks reeked of garlic. Tension mounted in the colleges and libraries, spilling over into student pranks and water fights, and once in a while turning into a sickening blur, high-speed despair, handfuls of aspirins washed down with vodka.

Mara was in the library chasing up an elusive volume, untouched by the angst around her. She fiddled around with the card catalogue, then crossed to the main desk to fill in an inter-library loan slip. A young man was standing a couple of yards away, drumming his fingers impatiently on the counter while the librarians were busy with other things. His manner reminded her of Andrew. She watched as his fingers moved rapidly, nailing that tricky cadenza. He looked at his watch in exasperation. It's Andrew's brother, she thought suddenly. Up to examine someone's PhD. It has to be. Same height and build, same colouring. His dark hair was cropped aggressively short, and Mara thought she could see why. If he left it, it would grow into sissy curls. She felt herself starting to grin. Suddenly a pair of cold grey eyes were on her, about as chummy as a border searchlight. She coloured and bent her head and filled in the form. God, I'm glad he's not viva-ing me. She left the library and headed back for college.

It was too beautiful to work. She made her way to a bench by the river and decided she could afford to take some time off. She had submitted her grant form and there was no pressure on her to work any harder than usual. Happiness was creeping up on her again. She took out her sketch-book and began drawing the old bridge. Its arch was reflected into a perfect circle, and behind it the cathedral tower rose up above the green wooded bank. Her pencil moved swiftly. The sketch-book was hidden in an open file which could be twitched shut whenever anyone walked past. She had done a lot of shifty sketching like this over the last few weeks, sneaking out her pencil in libraries or in the corners of crowded rooms, stealing an expression or posture when no one was noticing. She flipped back through the pages. At the front were the pictures of Andrew she had done during the vacation, then Maddy and May lounging around their room pretending to study. She had even caught a fleeting likeness of Maddy kissing her Irishman. Then there was Rupert talking in the quad, glimpsed through a library window. And Johnny, reading at a library desk like a chained bear. I captured that perfectly, she thought with satisfaction. The next picture was even better. Johnny, a moment or so later, gazing into space, mind wandering. Mara bit her lips. Even from the other side of the library it had been patently obvious where his thoughts had wandered to.

The rest were mostly of strangers. She passed over them quickly. Then scenes from the City. Narrow cobbled streets, bridges, the cathedral looming over rooftops, the castle. She returned to the sketch of the old bridge. It's like a secret love affair, she thought. I fill every spare moment sketching. I think about it the whole time. Everything I see I view in terms of pencil on paper. This book is my love letters. I can't bear to be parted from it.

Someone was coming along the path behind her. Mara shut her file on the sketch-book. The footsteps passed by. Mara glanced round to see if she was safe. Joanna. Mara clutched the file to her chest. The girl had not seen her. Mara held her breath till she was out of sight. Which way was she heading? In another moment Mara saw her reappear on the bridge. Off to Coverdale Hall. The hair on Mara's arms was standing up. I don't feel scared of her any more, she thought. I only hate her. Was that an improvement? But was it fair to blame Joanna for something another girl had done to Hester? No. Mara smiled. But life isn't fair.

She was still gripping her file, watching the empty bridge. I bet she's going to look for Johnny. Sometimes she felt that the girl had no real existence. She was nothing but a horrible outward manifestation of Mara's darker self. How else could she have predicted what she was going to do all the time? Although she hadn't foreseen that Joanna would obey Andrew rather than the Lord. Aha – the Lord had changed his mind, of course. Joanna was no longer being commanded to convert the reprobate Mara Johns. The flexibility of fanaticism was astounding.

If only she would stop hanging around college, though. The mini-revival in Jesus College was beginning to attract the attention of the staff. A combination of Joanna's ‘special ministry' and the approach of exams seemed to have whipped up a virulent kind of charismatic fervour among the undergraduates who still attended the prayer meetings. What amazed Mara was the reluctance of the more sensible people in college to challenge what was happening. Several Coverdale students had begun attending to try and steady things down, but as far as Mara could tell, they were unable to decide how they should act. Even Rupert – that yardstick of all things sensible – was holding fire. Perhaps he did not want to end up in the pharisees' camp by dismissing the Holy Spirit as the work of Beelzebub. After all, who was to say that the gifts of the Spirit were confined to the pages of the New Testament? What if there was something in it after all? But why couldn't they see Joanna for what she was? It worried her that both she and May seemed to have more insight at this point than grown men training for the ministry. An insight born of the worst kind of sexual competition, but so what? It was better than being blinded by a holy-holy appeal to male vanity. And so Joanna was holding sway as prophetess, and calling the student body to repentance and baptism in the Spirit.