Matricide at St. Martha's (16 page)

Amiss raised an interrogative eyebrow.

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘A white doctor. However, my brother, when he got through accountancy school, married a black, so we’re not racially prejudiced.’

She chased a piece of meat round her plate with her chopsticks. ‘Every day of my life I was bored and dreamt of getting away from Minnesota. What could I become but a lesbian-feminist activist? And you?’

‘Mr and Mrs Middle England. Mum has a part-time job as an office clerk. They play bowls.’

‘Is that English for bowling?’

‘Sort of, except you do it in the open air.’

‘Oh, I know it, I know it. I’ve seen pictures. You mean when they all dress up in white with funny hats and roll balls down a village green?’

‘That’s it.’

‘God, I didn’t think real people did that. I thought it was only actors. It’s really great.’

‘It’s a bit lacking as a spectator sport when you’re a kid.’

‘You were bored too, huh?’

‘I was bored too. They worried a lot about my getting a proper education so as to go into a really secure profession, so they were as thrilled as I was when I got into Oxford. The idea was for me to become a lawyer or an accountant after university. They weren’t too disappointed about the civil service – job security, good pension and all that. So with that pressure from home what could I do but end up as a drifter taking odd jobs here and there while my beloved scrambles up the career ladder.’ He cursed himself silently for having mentioned Rachel, even so obliquely.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Your beloved is a bloke?’

‘Er…’

‘I knew damn well you weren’t gay. Why did you pretend to be?’

‘To get the job at St Martha’s.’

‘Not very scrupulous.’

‘But expedient.’

She laughed. ‘I’ll buy the next bottle.’

By the time they finished Mary Lou’s bottle, they had discovered they liked the same writers.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘One reason I always had my heart set on England was that I thought I’d get away from all this American radical feminist crap about books. I bought it in Boston in the first year or two, then I realized I’d read more good literature in my bedroom in Minnesota than in a whole year as a freshman at university.

‘Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that there aren’t some great women writers but I’d already read most of them. I knew about Edith Wharton and Jane Austen and George Eliot and I thought Maya Angelou was a good writer, but not because she was a woman and black.’ She knocked back the remains of her glass and held it out to be refilled. ‘What’s more, I became convinced that positive discrimination had done far more harm than good to American blacks. It’s made it possible for racists to argue that no black ever gets anywhere on his or her own merits.

‘Actually, a black woman is in a very good position to see this gender and ethnic garbage for what it is, because on the one hand you’ve got the women attacking macho values, yet black men are the biggest sexual chauvinists around. How do you simultaneously preach that women are superior to men and black culture superior to white and that any criticism of blacks is racism when you’ve got black rappers saying women are useful for nothing but fucking and breeding? And how is non-white culture automatically better if it’s got female circumcision? And where’s the logic in saying no literature is better than any other because judgementalism is out but still insisting on banning the DWEMs? I reckon black and female studies is for the self-indulgent wanting an easy ride. Can’t wait for civil war on the campuses between the two.’

‘So you’re not a supporter of Bridget Holdness’s proposed centre then?’

‘What do you think?’

‘What does she think?’

Mary Lou paused. ‘I’ve drunk too much. I’m being indiscreet. But then you know what Americans are like.’

‘Well, I’m unlikely to confide any of your secrets to your sisters. Go on.’

‘Well, it’s tricky, because I have to admit I’m here under even falser pretences than you.’ She put her elbows on the table, leaned her head on her hands and settled in comfortably. ‘I saw the ad for the St Martha’s Research Fellowship in a radical women’s studies magazine so I reckoned this particular Cambridge college was going in for a bit of radical chic. I knew that if I was up against competition from Yale or Harvard I wouldn’t stand much of a chance academically, so I took a risk and went for broke. I’d be too embarrassed to show you my letter of application quoting the seminal influences on me of Mary Daly; she’s always very useful cover. When you saw me in the library today I was secretly reading John Donne.’

‘But aren’t you tied to studying lesbian-ethnic stuff?’

I’m just not going to. They can’t make me.’

Amiss drained his coffee and drank some more wine. ‘Let’s go back a bit. I can see why your application appealed to Sandra and Bridget but how did it get past the Senior Tutor?’

‘Sandra explained that to me yesterday. There was a subcommittee of three, them and poor old Dr Twigg, who was desperate to get a Research Fellowship for her protégée.’

‘You mean the permanently preoccupied bird the Bursar calls Anglo-Saxon Annie?’

‘Yes. She’d got a terrific first apparently and was the best scholar poor old Twigg had had in years, but they said they’d vote her down if I didn’t get the other one. She succumbed, so here I am – Miss Affirmative Action 1994. I should feel a bit ashamed but I don’t, not one bit. I feel I’ve pulled a fast one that they well deserve.’ She took another healthy swig. ‘Mind you, they don’t know any of this yet.’

‘When are you going to come out?’

‘You mean come out as sane although black and a lesbian? Gradually, gradually. I’m going to tread very carefully until I know what’s going on here. It’s far too early to spurn my mentors. Mind you, I’ve already got a little problem with young Sandra.’

‘What’s that?’

‘She wants to seal our sisterhood in bed.’

‘Not your type?’

‘No, I don’t like wimps. Bridget would be much more my type if she weren’t so nasty. Besides, presumably it was her who knocked off poor old Dame Maud.’

‘I’d like it to be,’ said Amiss. ‘But if it was her, she’s probably too clever to catch.’

‘Certainly I’d say that even if Sandra does crave my body, she’s sold her soul to Bridget. She’d give her an alibi anytime.’ She finished her wine and looked at Amiss.

‘Would you like a
digestif
?’ he asked.

‘Not till I’ve walked some of this off. Have you anything in your room?’

‘Whisky.’

‘Good. Let’s go.’

They held hands on the way back. The moon was full, the stars were out, the night was warm and the Backs were more beautiful than they had any right to be.

‘Now this is what I thought it would be all about,’ said Mary Lou dreamily. ‘I was a mite disappointed when I discovered I would be living in a mouldering neo-Gothic heap instead of in something off a picture postcard.’

‘It might cheer you up to know that even the picture postcard colleges aren’t very comfortable. I had to go down two flights of stairs to the loo when I was at Oxford and I was always freezing in my room in winter.’

‘Stop being so prosaic. I’m an American. I want to believe in fairyland.’

‘And toasting crumpets at the fire.’

‘And funny old dons in gowns and mortar boards.’

‘And aristocratic students.’

‘And punting.’

‘And Grantchester.’ She stopped. ‘Will you take me there to see the vicarage Rupert Brooke wrote about, “Where stands the clock at ten to three?” ’

‘Would it take away the magic if I told you that Jeffrey Archer lives there now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry. Still, he is a lord.’

‘Vicarages should have vicars.’ They reached the gates of St Martha’s and Mary Lou pulled away.

‘I don’t think I’d better be seen with the enemy,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow on in a couple of minutes. I know where your room is.’

He had just poured out the whisky when she arrived. She walked over to him. ‘Kiss me.’

When they disentangled, Amiss said, ‘But…?’

‘I never said I was exclusively a lesbian, did I? You’re very stuffy and hidebound, you British.’

As he put his arms around her again the still small voice of his conscience whispered ‘Rachel’; it was answered by the robust voice of the Old Adam pointing out that he had never claimed to be a saint. It was at that moment that he heard tripping footsteps; there was a tap on the door and Miss Stamp called. ‘Oh, Mr Amiss, Mr Amiss, I just saw you come in. Sergeant Pooley is here and wants to see you.’

Mary Lou flattened herself against the wall behind the door, which Amiss opened a few inches.

‘Did you say he was here?’

‘Yes, he said it was urgent, something official. He’s in the parlour.’

‘I’ll be down in a moment.’ Amiss shut the door. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘but I think we’ll take it as an omen that I should go on staying faithful to Rachel.’

‘My goodness. English gentlemen still exist.’

‘Only just.’

She laughed. ‘A miss is as good as a mile. See you tomorrow and thanks for dinner.’ She kissed him on the cheek and left.

19

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‘I didn’t get you out of bed, did I?’

‘No. Five minutes later and you would have. What’s up?’

‘Nothing much, but I just had the most ghastly evening and I wanted some human company. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, by any chance?’

‘Sergeant Pooley arriving late and demanding alcohol. You must have been suffering. Sure, in my room. Come on.’

They reached Amiss’s bedroom without incident. ‘You must be psychic, Robert, to have poured out my drink before I even arrived. Or were you waiting for somebody else.’

‘I might tell you some other time, Ellis. For now I’ll only say that I’m both glad and sorry that you turned up at that precise moment. I should also mention I’ve had rather a lot to drink already, so don’t tell me anything too complicated. Tales of life
chez
Romford should be just about right.’

‘My heart bleeds for you.’ Amiss poured some more whisky into Pooley’s glass. ‘So what was the home video like?’

‘Have you ever seen one?’

‘Thank God, no. Presumably it’s like an animated version of somebody’s wedding snaps except you don’t get to miss a single moment.’

‘We had everything from the time the bride left the house through to the end of the speeches at the reception. You’d have particularly loved the reception; it was held in a temperance hall.’

‘Naturally. What were the highlights.?’

Pooley did not hesitate. ‘Undoubtedly the Romford oration from the pulpit, which was based around the biblical injunction that the wife should obey her husband.’

‘Wouldn’t have gone down big with Bridget then.’

‘Well, let’s say that John Knox would have been happy with it. It lasted twenty minutes, went on a lot about sacred duties, home-making, nest-building, nurturing, emotionally supporting, understanding that God had placed man and woman in their respective spheres and no man should mess around with that and then touched quite a lot on wicked secular ideas that were turning our womenfolk into fit candidates for Sodom and Gomorrah along with all the emasculated perverts that are today’s menfolk.’

‘Did he get the word “abomination” in?’

‘Half a dozen times, I’d say.’

‘Maybe you could persuade him to lend you a copy of his video. We could circulate it round St Martha’s in plain brown wrappers.’

‘Then there were the wedding speeches.’

‘How were they?’

‘Long.’

‘Gist?’

‘The bridegroom was thrilled to be marrying a woman schooled in the ways of the Lord and Romford talked a lot about his wife and the virtues of a happy home and was generally light-hearted. He even made jokes.’

‘Romford?’

‘Yes, but they were Romford-like jokes.’

‘Ah! Anything else I should know?’

‘There was the cake. It was as elaborate and highly-decorated as you would expect from the kitchen of Mrs Romford, but I suspect the wording on it was provided by Dad, to wit, “Whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.” ’

‘Well, you can’t say Romford doesn’t make his position clear. Was that it?’

‘Give me some more whisky.’

‘It must have been bad. I’ve never known you drink so enthusiastically.’

Pooley spoke tonelessly. ‘I wanted to go at that stage but Mrs Romford was determined to give me more food so we had tea and cake and talked about the wedding. Then I said I should be going and Romford said nonsense, it was only nine o’clock and it would be very dull for a young man to be on his own so I must stay for another while and see the video of his son’s wedding.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not joking.’

Amiss shook his head compassionately. ‘More of the same?’

‘Cast slightly different, content roughly the same, though the speech by the bride’s father was enlivened by golfing metaphors.’

‘E. g.?’

‘ “Marriage is like a game of golf. You need God’s help to get out of the bunkers.” ’

‘Oh dear. When did it stop?’

‘I got away at half past ten. They want me to come again and look at their holiday snaps.’

‘You’d better find some friends in Cambridge fast.’

‘I’ve invented six already. Now, that’s enough of my torments. How was your evening? You obviously didn’t spend it in a temperance hall.’

‘No,’ said Amiss thoughtfully. ‘It would be fair to say that alcohol featured this evening.
Inter alia
it brought about an entente cordiale between me and Mary Lou.’

‘I thought she was one of the Dykes?’

‘Well she is and she isn’t. It’s all a bit complicated now. It was the Bursar that called them the Dykes, but she turned out to be one though now it seems she isn’t. Mary Lou you might say is a Dyke on the outside and a Virgin on the inside.’

‘Robert, you’re not making yourself very clear.’

‘I’m not feeling very clear. Just take my word for it, Mary Lou is a closet scholar and one of these days that cow Bridget Holdness is going to get a nasty shock. So with a bit of luck the Gender and Ethnic Studies Centre is scuppered despite the Mistress’s death. We’ll know more tomorrow.’