The Benefits of Passion (9 page)

Her eyes wandered to the dresser. A plastic bag full of used stamps hung from a hook. Just like home, except the Tuckermans' parsimony was part of an overarching ideology. Annie's mother was just plain mean. Five years after Annie had broken off her engagement her mother had still been using cut-up wedding invitations for shopping lists. Annie had remarked to Megs once that her mother even washed clingfilm and reused it. ‘We try not to use clingfilm,' Megs had replied repressively. Meanness was even more irritating when it was globally conscious. Annie glared at the bottles and tins waiting to be taken to the recycling point. Hadn't it occurred to them that the boldest ecological gesture they could make would be to get their tubes tied? They had four children and Megs was pregnant with the fifth. Yes, Meggers was preggers. Annie conjured up a mountain of wrapping paper as high as K2 and set Megs to iron and reuse it as penance for their environment-hostile fertility. She heard Dr Tuckerman cantering back and tried to give her thoughts a more generous turn.

‘Gosh! Awfully sorry about that.' He was panting slightly as he put the kettle on the Aga. Annie and Ted had invented a comic strip called
Tubby of Tuckerman Hall
, inspired by his penchant for schoolboy slang of a bygone era. Annie could never see him without wanting to attach a speech bubble to his head:
Jam roly-poly! Oh, I say – wizard prang!
Tubs and Megs. He was a nice man. And Megs was probably nice too, conceded Annie, as Tubby cut two hunks of barm bread. It was just that she inspired an unfortunate mixture of guilt and defiance.

‘So,' he asked again, as he spooned coffee into the mugs, ‘where does the shoe pinch, Annie?' A crab-pink sling-back clacked its pincers in Annie's mind. Stop it! She'd made herself come and talk to the Warden about her troubles at last, and now she couldn't take it seriously.

‘Um, well. That's the problem, really,' began Annie. ‘I'm not sure what the, um, problem
is
, exactly. I just feel –' She broke off with a helpless gesture. ‘It's not as though I doubt everything, suddenly, or . . . the Creed, I mean, or the authority of Scripture, but . . .' She fell silent.

‘You started to tell me how you feel,' prompted Dr Tuckerman.

‘Did I? Oh, um, well. Sort of frustrated.'

‘Frustrated. Hmm. Can you say a bit more about it?'

‘Well, um. Irritable. I keep wanting to swat people with a pulpit Bible.' For example, Ingram.

Dr Tuckerman laughed. ‘Gosh, so do I. Know the feeling well.'

Or wanting to haul Edward into a broom cupboard and pull his trousers off. Bet you don't feel that, Tubs old fruit.

‘I suppose,' said Annie, trying to get a grip, ‘I suppose it amounts to a feeling that I'm in the wrong place trying to do the wrong thing. That sounds terrible.'

‘No.' Tubby raised a hand. ‘Important to say it.' The kettle was about to boil. He got up and began to slide it thoughtfully around on the hob to release any beads of water trapped there. One sputtered and danced away. ‘Is this because there's something you'd rather be doing, do you think?'

‘Not that I'm aware of,' she said, colouring slightly, in case he meant marriage and motherhood. ‘I expect it's just adolescent rebellion striking rather late.' He was still staring solemnly at the kettle. ‘I feel like I've spent my whole life trying to be respectable and please people. If I'm ordained I'll have to go on doing it professionally till I retire.'

‘Not necessarily. Our Lord was highly unrespectable.'

‘I know.'
I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW
. ‘I just feel . . . stifled.' The kettle boiled.

‘Black or white?'

If only things were.

‘White, please.'

He handed her a mug and sat down. She watched his face as he clattered the spoon round in his cup. Brown curly hair gave his Billy Bunterish features a cherubic cast. A sweet man, Annie remembered Isobel saying once. Her tone had been condemning, like a woman who took good care of her teeth and only ever ate apples between meals. What sort of sweet? Annie wondered. A marshmallow? She knew herself to be something slightly vulgar and childish. A sherbet lemon, perhaps – insipid exterior, but a nasty shock of sherbet in the middle. Isobel was a Bendick's Bittermint. What was Ingram? Chewing gum – going on and on and on getting increasingly tasteless? Or one of those jelly worms. What did we use to call them? Wrigglers. And Edward – Dr Tuckerman rapped his spoon sharply on the edge of his mug as though calling a meeting to order. ‘So, what are we going to do, Annie?' His eyes peered tinily at her through his thick glasses. She shrugged. You tell me. He took his glasses off and began to massage the bridge of his nose vigorously. She was surprised to note that his eyes were, in fact, large and rather attractive. She looked away as though she had caught a private glimpse into his marriage.

‘Is there any practical way I can help?' The glasses were back on.

‘Um,' said Annie. ‘I'm supposed to be preaching in a fortnight's time, and . . .' I feel like one of my pupils. Oh, Miss Brown, I haven't exactly managed the essay, quite. I've done the notes, though . . .

‘No problem. We'll postpone it till next term.' His glasses were slipping down his nose a little and giving him a wild air.

‘Thanks.' Annie took a gulp of coffee. ‘I'm sure I could do it, if . . . It's just that whenever I sit down to write it, I feel like screaming.' He frowned and pushed his glasses back into place. There was a silence. Annie heard the cathedral clock chime eleven.

‘This business about feeling respectable. I wonder if a change of scene might help?' Miles of white sand, a hammock slung between palms? ‘Have you done your Bishopside placement yet?'
Oof! Mouldy old swizz, you rotter!
Annie shook her head. ‘That might contextualize your sense of calling and ministry a bit. We can all get so frightfully ivory-towerish in Coverdale, you know. How does the idea strike you?'

Like a stake through the heart. Annie knew it was cowardly, but she dreaded the idea of Urban Experience. Bishopside, in her imagination, was a place where ten-year-olds stole cars and malevolent green-eyed GPs told you to fuck off. Suddenly Coverdale seemed infinitely rewarding and fulfilling.

‘I'm due to go on the three-week placement.'

‘In July. Hmm.' He was massaging the bridge of his nose again. ‘Have you ruled out the possibility of spending a term in one of the college flats in Bishopside?'

YES
.

‘Um . . .' She began to fear that a show of reluctance would make him send her there.

‘Just a thought.' Annie crossed her legs and took another gulp of coffee. ‘It just strikes me that there may be a lack
of
edge
here for you. This place, somehow . . .' His gesture seemed to indicate the kitchen. Annie stared around. The encroaching boxes and bags bulged with a metaphor. Wasn't her life full of the moral equivalent of empty yoghurt pots and old pairs of tights? She was helpless in the face of things she didn't want or need, but knew she oughtn't to throw out.

‘Um . . .'

‘Look, I'll tell you what. Why don't you take a morning to pray and wander around Bishopside and see what you think?'

‘OK.' She wondered meanly whether someone was leaning on him to send more students on Urban Experience.

‘The only other thing . . .' He was steering a stray peanut across the table with his fingertip. ‘Would you find it helpful to talk to a female member of staff? I expect life here can be jolly frustrating for women in ways we chaps can't begin to imagine.' Annie blushed scarlet, fearing he had imagined precisely the right kind of frustration. She took another gulp. ‘Why not have a hobnob with Pauline?' Annie was obliged to sit for several seconds with a mouthful of coffee to avoid choking and spraying him. She swallowed carefully.

‘Good idea.' Pauline Dodds, known popularly as Pauline Corpus, taught New Testament. Annie had always warmed to her, although they had never really hobnobbed in the true sense of the word.

‘Whacko!' said Tubby, with disastrous timing. Annie sat for another long moment with her last mouthful of coffee. ‘More barm bread?'

She swallowed and stood up. ‘Thanks, but no. It's delicious, but I'd better . . .'

‘Megs soaks the dried fruit in cold tea overnight,' said Tubby. ‘That's what gives it the flavour. Let me see you to the door.'

Annie glanced down the street as she was going back into college. She saw Megs heave into view, smock flapping in the headwind, and various children bobbing in her wake. As a challenge to gender-stereotyping, the little boys were dressed in clothes Annie would have hesitated to foist on a girl. ‘Look at that spider's web, children!' came her voice as the door swung shut.

From Bishopside, and motherhood and recycled cold tea,
Good Lord, deliver us
, thought Annie.

CHAPTER 8

Her prayer was not answered. Or rather it was, only the answer was no. Bishopside was immovably fixed on the divine agenda. Annie woke on the morning she was due to go there and reflected that if she were a different kind of person, less dutiful, more devious, she would simply sit in a café in Bishopside for a couple of hours then report back to Tubby and say, ‘Sorry, old stick. No dice.' And if she was really devious she wouldn't go to Bishopside at all. She'd go shopping in Newcastle instead. Tubby would never know.

God would know, however. It struck Annie, while she was getting dressed, that she had turned God into someone rather like her mother. Always checking up and catching out. Always prophesying disaster then saying, ‘Well, I did warn you, Anne.' When Tubby and other right-on liturgists insisted on the importance of God as Mother, Annie wanted to crawl under a pew and die. God as Father was bad enough. Her own father was the opposite of what one looked for in a deity. Omni-impotent and omni-absent, even when actually in the room. The only godlike attribute he displayed was durability. From everlasting to everlasting he sat with his newspaper or accounts while his wife rabbited on.

Annie knew that she would go obediently to Bishopside and pray and wander round. God, she felt sure, would say, ‘Spend a term in Bishopside', because he could see how profoundly unwilling she was. This was her Nonconformist background coming out. She had grown up in the belief that what she really deserved was to burn in hell. Anything else was a bonus. You couldn't seriously expect to be called to something you enjoyed. The benign God of Anglicanism (who declared his almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, etc.) was getting obscured behind the wrathful fumes of judgement seeping back from her childhood. She could still glimpse him staring down benevolently through the smoke, hand raised in vague blessing, like a wall painting in a burning church.

‘So, today's the day, is it?' boomed Edward at breakfast.

Annie went on spreading marmalade. They all knew. She had managed to mumble something to her Coverdale group about Doubts and Working-through-various-issues. They had all been supportive and non-judgemental. She had gritted her teeth and told Edward afterwards.

‘What problems?' he had demanded. ‘What sort of issues? What do you mean, you don't know? How can you not know?' Non-directive counselling was not Edward's strongest suit. He pointed her to several helpful passages in the Bible and lent her a book.
Dear
Edward. She knew he was praying faithfully for her. ‘We pray for Annie Brown, Lord, an ordinand in her second year at Coverdale Hall . . .' How might the prayer go on? Annie Brown, who's sadly going off the rails?

‘Why don't you call in on William?' asked Edward. ‘He'll show you round. Give him a ring.'

‘No fear,' said Annie.

‘What? What do you mean? He's not that bad.'

‘I think most of us found him just a
wee
bit abrasive,' put in Ingram.

‘Nonsense!' said Isobel. ‘He was perfectly civil.'

‘It's just his manner,' agreed Muriel.

‘I'll ring him,' decided Edward.

‘But I need to be on my own,' protested Annie. ‘I'm supposed to be meditating.'

‘Well, you can see him after you've meditated.'

‘Edward, I don't think you're quite
hearing
Annie,' said Ingram. ‘She's saying she doesn't want –'

‘Annie can speak for herself,' snapped Edward.

‘But you're not letting her,' pointed out Isobel. ‘She quite clearly said she wanted to be on her own.'

‘I think we should respect that, Edward,' added Ingram.

‘Yes,' said Muriel. ‘It's her decision.'

Annie looked despairingly across the table at Ted. His eyes twinkled at her. The others continued to argue about what she wanted and what she was trying to say until Edward finally gave his word not to phone William.

Annie walked up the steep path to the station. Tubby was right. She badly needed a close woman friend to confide in. Unfortunately Pauline Dodds wasn't quite in that category yet. Annie had enjoyed their hobnob, a mellow affair over a bottle of wine, but it was too soon for real intimacy. Pauline was in her fifties and had a calm air, as though she had reached some high plateau and could call down reassuringly, ‘Actually, it evens out a little up here.' Annie admired her. She envied the short silvery hair, the Celtic earrings, the muted slate greys and duck-egg blues that Pauline wore. They had talked about the Church and college life, but despite that second glass of wine, Annie hadn't managed to say anything about lurve and wanting a man. It had all seemed a bit crass.

As she stood waiting on the platform the real reason why she had said nothing dawned on her. It was because she wanted to keep the sin option open. The thought made her blush. She would have to tell Pauline. It would act as a safeguard. Not that her life was bristling with opportunities for the kind of sin she fancied.

The train headed north. Annie found a seat and reached in her bag for her notebook and reread the last bit she had written. She felt a sudden impatience with her characters. Isabella was so dim, despite being at Cambridge. This wasn't necessarily a problem. Annie had met any number of thick undergraduates in her time there. People who got starred firsts in medicine but were clearly not the sharpest scalpel in the kidney dish when you met them socially. Perhaps she was making Isabella too much Barney's dupe? And it was a bit Mills and Boonish, all these conflicts and will-they-won't-they? scenes. The hero older and wiser, the heroine wilful and turbulent. But – cackle cackle – he was going to get his comeuppance at the Latimer ball when he tangled with Isabella in her outrageous black dress. What price your celibacy now, my friend? Annie shut her book with a smile. They were approaching Newcastle.

Her heart rose as it always did when the train crossed the Tyne. All those bridges, different levels, styles, ages, crowded into a short stretch of river. She loved the height of the buildings dropping down to the quayside, the wheeling gulls, the energy of the place.

Her heart sank again as the metro train crossed back into Bishopside. She came up from the underground station and stood looking round. She felt lonely and bewildered. Buses roared past. What am I supposed to do? She was reluctant to get out Tubby's
A–Z
in case someone asked her where she was trying to go and she couldn't answer. Children with brutal haircuts were playing in the undergrowth on a steep bank above the bus station. Why weren't they in school? Their shouts floated down to her. A large Victorian church stood on one street corner, the Co-op on another. She guessed it had been built in the Sixties. What had been pulled down to make way for it? An ugly grey concrete multi-storey car park loomed behind the other buildings.

Annie began walking towards some shops and this led her on to what she supposed must be the high street. Dirty Victorian buildings, tatty modern shop fronts. Everywhere was selling things at bargain prices. It felt like a foreign country. The people looked different. Their accent was impenetrable. She felt raw, as though every tiny brush against someone scraped an exposed nerve. More shouting. She flinched, but it was only a bantering exchange. I can't distinguish between joking and aggression. Her heart pattered fearfully as she skirted round some old filing cabinets standing on the pavement. Someone in the doorway called a friendly greeting, but she wasn't sure if it was meant for her. She smiled nervously and hurried on. How has this happened? How have I become so scared of my fellow creatures? She reminded herself that this was the North, the home of legendary friendliness.

By now she was among tower blocks and flyovers. All the shrubs and railings were full of blown litter. Walkways, subways, grey concrete, grey sky. Oh, why am I here? Annie felt like crying. Is this where you're calling me to live, God? There's nothing beautiful here. Nothing to feast the eyes on. It felt like an affront to her soul. Is this what you want, Lord? For a second an answer seemed to come. Not a yes, not a no; but a ray of light reaching down, as though in the midst of his myriad concerns God had paused and looked on her, totally absorbed for one second in Annie Brown and what she might do next. And whatever she chose, that same unwavering interest would follow her.

After a moment Annie walked on. It was disconcerting to be offered this level of responsibility; to have God imply that even if she wilfully made a bad choice, his love would still be extended. The implications of sin became graver. No longer just a fear of being caught and punished. It was a breach of trust.

She shivered and huddled in her coat. At least hell would be warm. She walked faster, hoping to get her circulation going. Before long she was lost. She had been walking without paying any attention to direction, and now she found herself in a less run-down part of town. The old terraced houses she was passing would have been worth quite a bit if they had been miraculously transported to the right part of the South-East. The wind was blowing, flipping idly through the pages of a magazine dropped on the pavement. Ahead of her she saw dark figures, young men clutching at hats and running in the wind with their black coats flapping. Orthodox Jews. The scene, which had been seeming more familiar, grew alien again. Haredim running down rainy European streets in a forgotten era.

She rounded a corner. Mothers with buggies, small children, old people. They were going in and out of a building, obviously a – Help. A doctors' surgery. What if it were William's? She edged closer and her fears were confirmed.
Dr W. Penn-Eddis
leapt out from among the other names on the brass plaque. Libby let out a strangled yelp and dragged Annie off along the street.
Don't act dumb. I bet you brought me here on purpose, you stupid hound!
Supposing he had seen her? But before she could congratulate herself on her narrow escape there was a voice behind her: ‘What are you doing here?'

Him! She whirled round, bag clutched to chest like a shoplifter facing a store detective.

‘Oh!' The eyes! Libby let out a high keening note. He was looking more like a GP today. Jacket and tie, Barbour. ‘Hello.'

‘What are you doing here?'

‘Annie,' she couldn't resist prompting.

‘I
know
your name.' Either he had another cold or his voice was always that sexy. ‘What are you doing here?' he said again.

‘Nothing,' she pleaded. ‘I mean, just wandering around, and . . . I was sent here by the Warden of Coverdale. Um, to see if . . . There are these placements we have to do, you see, and . . .' She floundered into silence.

‘Have you finished?'

‘Burbling, you mean?'

The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘“Wandering around.”' She remembered his ravishing smile and wondered what she would have to do to provoke one.

‘Oh, yes. Um . . . probably, that is.'

‘Lunch?'

‘Lunch?'

‘Do you want to have lunch with me?' This was said slowly and distinctly, as if to a simpleton. ‘I'm on my way home now.'

‘Now? Er, um, yes. Thanks.' Libby yanked at her lead, implying she'd rather raid a dustbin.

He set off along the road hardly seeming to care whether she was trotting after him or not. She tried to fall in with his long strides. Why on earth had he asked her?

‘So how's Edward?'

‘Edward?' she bleated like a foolish echo. ‘Same as ever.' Maybe he'd forgotten that she and Edward weren't . . . Was that why he was being polite? They turned into another street, passing by privet hedges and neat front gardens. Their feet echoed. She tried to think of some suitable topic of conversation. The welfare state? GP fundholding?

‘Why the Cerberus act?' he asked.

‘Sorry?'

‘Edward. Standing guard over you. Telling me not to bully you.' He stopped abruptly.

‘He . . . he probably thinks I need protecting. Or something.'

Oh, yeah, yeah, said his expression.

Why was he just waiting like that? He gestured to a gate and she realized. They were at his house.

Annie waited in the hall while he switched the alarm off. He was wrongfooting her at every turn and she suspected he was doing it on purpose. She handed over her coat and followed him meekly to the kitchen. Some angular classical music was playing, but she couldn't identify it. He took off his jacket and tie, poured her a glass of wine, then began to make a salad bristling with things she passed over nervously at the supermarket because she couldn't pronounce their names. The violins scraped on. She sipped her wine and looked around her. A child's picture was stuck to his fridge door, a stick man with a huge smile. His hands were like two little suns with rays of fingers radiating out from the palms.
Dr William
, said the wobbly letters underneath. Her eyes moved on. She was still wondering what to say.

‘Nice saucepans.'

This earned her a long hard stare. ‘Are you taking the piss?'

‘No, no. I really like them.' French cast iron – God's way of telling you that one day you would own an Aga.

He carried on with his preparations, working swiftly and precisely, like a surgeon on a tight schedule. There was an edgy nervousness to him. No, not nervousness. More a taut energy.
He moved like a cat
, she suggested to herself, busy fictionalizing the scene as it was unfolding. Avocados. Prosciutto.
And
he hadn't been expecting company. I'm having lunch with the kind of man who has avocados and prosciutto lying about his kitchen. He looked up before she could wipe the smirk off her face.

‘What?'

‘Didn't Cerberus guard the gate of Hades?' she asked, for something to say.

‘So?'

‘I was wondering what that made me.'

‘The devil's gateway, honey,' he drawled. ‘Shall we eat?'