Alchemy (14 page)

‘Ms Cowell. We’re pleased you want to join us.’ The voice has a hint of post-colonial. South African maybe. Then it clicks. Not post-colonial. Old colonial. What I’m getting is the last traces of Northern Ireland Protestant, a much overlain whiff of polemic and intolerance. I reach out for the hand which bristles with stiff gingery hairs.

‘Well, thank you for seeing me so quickly,’ I say. ‘Of course we don’t know yet if what I want to do can fit into your curriculum.’

‘I’m sure something to our mutual advantage can be worked out. I see you have a degree in law from Sussex. Yet your subject for the proposed thesis seems to lie in a very different direction.’

‘It’s a return to my first love.’ Always stick as much to the truth as possible when lying. ‘I began in English studies but then I became disillusioned with the career prospects. It was that time in the eighties when we were all urged to get on, to pursue our own success and that meant making money in a high-powered job.’

‘And did you?’

‘Certainly more than I would have as a new teacher.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I want something different.’ Here’s where the truth and I have to part. ‘I’ve managed to save enough to study for a further degree while I reconsider what to do with my life, what I really want. Maybe in the end I’ll decide to go back to the law after all. I always have that option in our increasingly litigious society. But at least I’ll have given myself the time to reconsider.’

‘And what made you choose Wessex, Ms Cowell?’

I’ve rehearsed for this one. It’s such a standard. ‘I wanted a small campus where I could have time to think. Big campuses can suck you into too much activity. I need the quiet and space to get my head straight. I see your short course, very informal, unstructured as a chance to explore.’

‘You would of course have to have a supervisor, just to make sure you weren’t wasting your time. We expect our further degree students to keep in contact via bi-monthly meetings, seminars with a tutor, in your case presumably the head of English.’

‘Or history,’ I offer.

‘Yes indeed. I’ll see who is willing to take you on. After all it will be more work for one of them.’

And more money for you I think.

‘Perhaps you would like to see round the campus while you’re here. I’ll ask Ms Molders to give you the guided tour. Then perhaps we can speak about your impressions before you go.’

‘Do you have an open day for potential students?’

‘Many institutions do of course. But I prefer to see people on a one-to-one basis. Our intake is quite small and selective.’ We both stand and he presses some kind of intercom I haven’t noticed before.

‘Ms Molders, do you have a few moments to show Ms Cowell around?’

Of course she does. It must be all set up beforehand. This is their usual drill and she’s been painting her nails or cleaning her ears while she waits for the buzz. She holds the door open for me but I wave her on.

‘You lead the way. You know where we’re going.’ We pass through corridors, pausing to peer into classrooms assembled from a child’s plastic bricks until suddenly we’re in the older part, what must have been St Walburgha’s.

‘This is our pride,’ Mary-Ann Molders says, ‘our chapel.’

She opens the door on an array of columns, between painted walls imitating mosaic, nineteenth-century repro Verona but in black, dried blood and gilding without the light and grace of the original frescos of the Emperor Justinian and his entourage. These are nineteenth-century saints with long cloudy beards and hair, barefoot patriarchs bearing the torture trappings of their martyrdoms. Surprisingly there’s no altar and no furnishings apart from stacking chairs and what must be the original pulpit but set where the altar would have been.

‘Do you have services in here?’

‘We call them “Gatherings”. They are mainly for theology
students. They live together in hall, unlike students of other faculties who tend to have lodgings in the town.’

‘But other people, students, can attend the Gatherings.’

‘We have a couple each term that are open to all.’

‘And for a quiet moment of meditation?’

‘Oh the chapel is always open as you see, as long as nothing else is going on.’

‘So interesting that you’ve kept what must be the original decoration.’

‘Well, there’s a preservation order but anyway we wouldn’t want to change it. The students find it a real inspiration.’

I turn away as if anxious to move on, hoping I haven’t awakened any suspicions with my interest.

‘Your theology students seem to follow an almost monastic lifestyle.’

‘They prefer it that way. It makes it easier for them to concentrate on their development. And they have to be protected.’

‘Protected?’

‘From distracting external influences, although we did have one case recently on campus of a tutor encouraging them to experiment with illegal substances. He was suspended of course.’

Amyntas’ recipe for opiates. I resist an impulse to joke about heightened perceptions. Instead I bring out an anodyne, ‘I should think so,’ as we pass through the refectory, hall, and more classrooms, stopping to look into the gym and admire the Olympic-length swimming pool, not yet filled for the beginning of term.

‘And this is the library.’

It’s a miniature version of the round dome of the old reading room at the British Library that I’ve seen in early photographs. Spot Karl Marx in the lower right-hand corner. Here there are the same galleries with fireproof metal stairs, floors and shelves. The original readers’ seats in red leather with individual lamps and solid chairs. Like the chapel it gives this foundation of a few years a feeling of permanence and reliability.

‘Splendid,’ I hear myself saying. ‘I really look forward to working in here.’

‘You have to book. But those doing MAs and doctorates like you get priority. There’s more space behind for the ordinary students.’ She leads me into a modern extension with a wall of desktop PCs and long central tables and chairs. Light floods in from tall plate-glass windows with a view over another quadrangle, bordered at the back by an urban shrubbery of japonica, forsythia and azalea with tall poplars beyond.

‘I suppose this is better for the eyes,’ I say, ‘but it doesn’t have the atmosphere of the old library.’ I feel myself running out of platitudes.

Mary-Ann, I suspect, feels much the same. ‘I think the dean will be ready to see you now.’

‘Well, Ms Cowell, how do you like us?’

‘Very much indeed. Very impressive.’

‘And do you think you could work well here?’

After what I’ve seen I’m sure I could.’

‘Then we would be very pleased to have you among us. I’ve spoken to the heads of English and history and either would be happy to be your supervisor. Perhaps when you start you could see both of them and come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. We shall of course be putting all this in writing to you with details of fees and so on. And we will need your formal acceptance of the terms and conditions.’

‘Of course.’

He stands up. We shake hands. Apple-pie Mary-Ann shows me out, back to reception, presses the white security switch opening the door to the outside world, shakes hands too. And I’m on the other side again. Why do I feel such a sense of relief, and like walking away very fast, even running? There’s a timetable at the college bus stop. The next bus isn’t for half an hour but I can’t wait here at the gates. I feel as if I might be watched by the CCTV cameras pointing through the railings. I start off
down the road to the town, striding out like some twentieth-century hiker with stick, rucksack and boots, heading for the uplands where the air’s clean and fresh.

At the beginning of March of the new year a messenger arrived, sent ahead by the countess, to say that she would be with us within the week. How gladly my heart beat now. I gave myself to pay particular attention to her patients so that all should give a good report of me and of my cure of them. Next I combed through our dispensary to see if anything were lacking that I had missed before, and remedied it. Meanwhile the house was made ready to receive her with clean bed linen, fresh supplies of meats, ale and wine and candles. The steward sent abroad for the tenants to come in with birds, fish and flesh of every sort and the kitchens were full of flying down, bowls of blood and entrails to feast the dogs.

Carters rolled into the courtyard with loads of logs and kindling. Fires were lit in every room to chase away the winter damp. All was as merry as if Christmas had never ceased and we fallen into foul winter. Then after three days, in an afternoon of bitter wind but high clouds and a thin sunlight, the cry went up from the boy posted in a fork of a tree beside the road. ‘She comes, she comes.’ All we her servants crowded out to meet her as the first of the carriages came into view. The horses were snorting great clouds in the cold air and their sides were flecked with foam.

We fell on our knees as the carriage doors opened, the riders dismounted and the chamberlain stepped down from my lady’s coach with the arms of Pembroke and Sidney emblazoned on the door, the colours still bright in spite of their coating of mire and dust of travel. But my lady herself came not out as was her custom to greet us all. The chamberlain called for a litter to be brought. Then I ran with two of the serving men to fetch the
one that we kept always in the dispensary for the feeble sick, laid a clean silk cover upon it and cushions, and returned to the courtyard. Three of her ladies helped her from the coach into it and she was borne away to her bedchamber. ‘Attend me Amyntas,’ she said. ‘I have need of your aid and physic.’

Letting a few minutes pass that her ladies might settle her, I entered and fell on my knees at her bedside. She put out a hand that trembled a little and touched my hair. ‘What can you prescribe my little physician, for weariness and melancholy?’

‘I have some fresh poppy syrup my lady that will bring you rest and sleep.’

‘I do not want to sleep; there is too much to be done. I must write letters to friends at court, to Sir Robert Cecil and Cousin Wotton, even to her majesty herself. Bring me some brandy.’

When she had sipped a little, and the colour had returned somewhat to her cheeks which had been like to a yellowed parchment at first upon her arrival, I begged my lady to tell me what had so disordered her.

‘You see that Mistress Griffiths is not with me. That is because her friends are among those who defy my authority in the city, mine by my husband’s will in trust for our son until he will come of age, and then his. Some turbulent people, among them the town recorder and my own bailiff of the town, have set up their own court in rival to that Council of the Marches which is the only true court of which my husband was president and my father before him. Some others of them of the meaner sort have torn down the walls fast under my castle and my private walks there which they have cast away. And all this which was begun in my lord’s time is carried on now with the greater insolence because I am a weak woman alone.’

I saw that all this speech much agitated her and urged her to a little more brandy, hoping that that, the heat of the fire, and the fatigue of the journey would cause her to fall into a restful slumber. ‘My cares deny all rest Amyntas. Only perhaps
if you should sing me some words of my brother’s, I might find a little quiet.’

Get hence foule grief, the canker of the mind: Farewell complaint, the miser’s only pleasure: Away vain cares, by which few men do find Their sought-for treasure.

Ye helpless sighs, blow out your breath to nought, Tears, drown your selves, for woe (your cause) is wasted. Thought, think to end, too long the fruit of thought My mind hath tasted.

But thou sure hope, tickle my leaping heart, Comfort, step thou in place of wonted sadness. Fore-felt desire, begin to savour parts Of coming gladness.

Let voice of sighs into clear music run, Eyes, let your tears with gazing now be mended, In stead of thought, true pleasure be begun, And never ended.

She had dismissed her ladies, who indeed were also weary from the journey and glad to be gone from their duties. Therefore I sat on alone beside her on a red and gold footstool, bearing the countess’ own symbol of a phoenix, so that when she waked I should be there to serve her.

At length she began to stir about in the bed and suddenly sitting up looked around wildly as if not knowing where she lay. ‘Do not fear madam. You are safe at Ramsbury.’

‘I am in my own chamber again. I dreamt I was still on the road and surrounded by murderers in the forest. My throat is like parchment. Bring me some beer, child.’

So I brought it to her and held the cup for her to drink. ‘I am afraid to sleep lest the nightmare should ride me again. Come here and lie with me to keep the hobgoblins away. Take off your clothes. We will be together like Diana and her nymphs.’

Now my hands trembled so much I could scarcely undo the fastenings of my doublet and shirt. At last I dropped my slops, having slipped off my shoes and stood only in my hose and the binding about my breasts.

‘Make haste with the rest child. Such slim white legs. Come.’ She threw back her bedclothes and patted the place beside her with her ringed hand. ‘You bind your breasts. Are they then growing? Let me see.’

My lady pulled at the linen. ‘So small still.’ Her fingers traced their shape. ‘And the little mouse between your thighs. If only that might be pricked out for my pleasure.’ Her hand moved down to touch my secrets and it was if a sheet of flame enfolded me so that I cried out and trembled under her touch. ‘There child do not cry. That cannot hurt you. You must suffer more when you come to a man. What does the poem say: “no more signs there are / Than fishes leave in streams or birds in air.” Perhaps my body disgusts you, is no longer young.’

‘Madam is still beautiful.’ And indeed so I thought her, for aside from those necessary marks of childbearing her flesh was firm and rosy, her breasts, freed by the wet nurse from giving suck, were as a maid’s still, of whitest yet warm marble, blue veined and coral tipped. Yet I found it hard to look upon her for I had never seen either woman or man full naked before.