The Meddlers (27 page)

“Oh!” He looked up at her and smiled again. “That was a most kind thought, most kind! But really, you know, I can’t trespass on your hospitality again! You’ve already been more than generous. That was a most pleasant evening you gave us, and I can’t let you—”

“But I enjoyed the evening too,” Barbara said quickly. “I, er, enjoy cooking, you know? And it isn’t often I get the opportunity to try my small skill on someone else. It would be, er, fun for me too if you’d come. I mean, if it would bore you—seeing me here all
day, of course, you might prefer to spend the evening alone—but I just thought—”

“Oh, not at all, not at all! You’re very good company. It isn’t that, I assure you. I just don’t want to impose on you.”

“If I thought it an imposition, I wouldn’t suggest it, really I wouldn’t. But I’m finding so much interest in … in this project, and it would be such a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about it without the constant interruptions we always get here. What with the others, and the telephone, and the monitors, I just thought it would be rather pleasant to relax and talk over a meal, you know? And you do need to get away from the Unit sometimes, really you do.”

“Well, well, all right. Thank you very much. I’d just like to complete the checks on this series. That’ll take, oh, half an hour or so.”

“Fine! I’ll go home then and get the grill going. You remember how to get there? And you’ll be able to park the car without any trouble. There’s that side road, beside the pub, do you remember? I, er, I’ll expect you in about an hour, then.”

“In an hour. Yes. That’ll be fine. Yes. Most kind of you.” He smiled at her again and turned back to the microscope.

She went to the door and then stopped as she opened it. “How do you like your steak? It’s a porterhouse.”

“What? Oh, as it comes, as it comes. I leave that to you. I’m sure it will be delightful, however you do it.”

Outside she leaned against the door for a moment, breathing a little deeply. She really wasn’t used to this sort of thing, not in the least. But it had worked very well, hadn’t it? And now she had the long evening to look forward to, without Hilary, without any of the maddening interruptions that starred every day in the Unit. Just herself and George. At this moment in time Barbara was sure she was the most contented woman in London.

  And now what do I do? Hilary thought bleakly. I can’t just go back, not at half past nine. Daddy will know I had a miserable time, and that’ll upset him. And it’s not as though Barbara will be there. She must have gone by now. And even if she were, how
could I let her know I was so silly? She’d think me a total washout. She was so pleased I was going …

Her eyes filled with sudden tears and she sniffed heavily and tucked her head down into her coat collar as she hurried along the narrow street, past the ugly little terraced houses, toward the main road winking its lights far ahead. If Barbara knew what a horrible party it had turned out to be, would she still think her a washout? Wouldn’t she understand? She’d find out eventually, anyway. It was certain that awful Andrew Vernon would tell her how childish she’d been.

And it
had
been a horrible party. The crowded room, so dark she had only just been able to see the people crushed together, all talking at the tops of their voices over the thumping noise of the record player, so heavy with cigarette smoke that it made her eyes sting and water. Andrew had pushed his way in and shouted at someone, “Mandy! Mandy, I brought a girl, OK? Hilary, this is Mandy. It’s her party. And this is Gary, Linda, Liz, Beaky, this is Hilary. Here, give her a drink, someone. And hey, Marilyn, I want you …” And he’d gone plunging away from her into the mob, leaving her standing helpless and dumb against the wall.

A girl in a clinging trouser suit, tinkling with beads, her hair trailing over eyes made up with heavy black lines around them, had put a filled tumbler into her hand and said vaguely, “Hi, glad you could come. Meet the crowd. There’s some food somewhere, I think, over the other side. Help yourself.” And then she too had gone away, and Hilary had sipped the drink, which tasted warm and sour and horrible, and felt utterly miserable. People were dancing, gyrating in a sort of writhing glassy-eyed, empty-faced trance that bore no relationship at all to the sort of dancing she had learned on Saturday evenings at school, when the boys from St. Philip’s had come with their polished blue suits and damply eager hands to steer the seniors around under Matron’s watchful eyes.

And the noise had increased, and the smoke had thickened, and then she had seen the people on the couches against the walls of the dark room, writhing and gyrating much like the dancers, but in couples and not by themselves, and hated herself for the way they made her feel. Sickened by the absorption they showed, but angry
because she wasn’t on one of the couches herself, revolted and fascinated, embarrassed and curious, all at the same time. A horrible feeling.

And then Andrew had come back to her and cried above the noise, “Dance? This is a great beat, hmm? Nice crowd, this lot. Don’t you think so? From the University, most of them. But Mandy’s Slade. They’re a wild crowd, the Slade people. Great. Come on, we’ll dance.”

And she had shaken her head suddenly and said, “Oh, no, please, I— Would you mind if I just went? I’ve got a frightful headache, you know, and I can get back on my own, really. No need for you …” And she had shoved the drink she was clutching into his hand and plunged out of the room to grab her coat from the pile heaped on the banisters, and gone running down the stairs, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed the fleeting look of relief on Andrew Vernon’s face when he’d said, “Oh, really? I’m sorry. Well, if you’re sure …”

The air had smelled clean and good, and she had gone hurrying away down the street, wanting to cry like a baby. Sixteen, and still crying at the least thing. It was awful. At least Ian didn’t know. He’d be hateful about it if he knew how she’d run out on the party. Just the sort of party he’d go to, she was sure of that. Oh, if only she could see Barbara. She’d understand. Wouldn’t she?

She reached the main road and stood on the edge of the pavement, blinking a little at the brightness of the sodium lights and the shop fronts, and thought again, What do I do now? I can’t go back now. Not at half past nine.

I’ll walk. Just for a while. Then maybe I’ll have a cup of coffee somewhere, and then it’ll be late enough to go back. That’s what I’ll do.

She hadn’t realized that she was paying any attention to the things she passed as she walked, until the name leapt out at her.

“The Briant Project,” the poster shrieked in heavy blue print against a white background. And then in smaller letters: “Where Does God Stand? Come and Hear the Word of God Crying in the Wilderness of Science. Bear Your Witness for God Tonight. Eight-Thirty. Herringay Aretia. Friday, November Seventeenth. Speakers.

Joel B. Wayne, Pastor, The International Tabernacle of World Evangelization. Mary Esther Collins, Deaconess, The Evangelical Temple, New Jersey, USA. Silver Collection. Let God Speak to YOU Tonight.”

There were more of the same posters, marching away from her in a perfect diminishing perspective, and seeing her own name repeated over and over again comforted her, made her feel real again, worth while, soothed some of the hurt of her failure to fit into the party. She walked briskly with her head held up, alongside the wall on which the posters were hung, until they curved away toward the entrance of a big building on her left.

She stopped for a moment and peered curiously at the brightly lit entrance and then, impulsively, turned toward it and went in. Why not? She had an hour to kill, at least, and it would be interesting perhaps. Something to tell her father and Barbara tomorrow.

She began to fabricate a story. A dull party, really—all those exaggerated art school people. And she had noticed the posters on her way there and decided it would be fun to slip out of the party and go and find out what these absurd religion types had to say. She could see herself telling them, sharing the deliciousness of a joke only she and they—Barbara—could really appreciate.

The place was full, incredibly full. She stood in the big entrance-way, letting her eye be carried upward from tier to tier, all full of people, gray people. That was the most noticeable thing, the lack of color. When she concentrated, she could see splashes of red and blue, in people’s coats, in the hats so many of the women seemed to be wearing, but the overall impression was of drab greenish gray. As though the colors of individual clothes had taken on their surroundings to become nothing.

And then she let her eyes move away, toward the center, and there was a brilliantly lit stage with a row of chairs on it, and more gray people. One of them was standing at a high pulpit-shaped desk in the center, shouting into a microphone, and she strained her ears to hear clearly, but there was just a booming echoing sound that swallowed the words the woman at the tall desk was saying.

“Welcome, sister.”

She turned her head and saw a young man beside her, his face creased with a wide smile, his hand held out, and she blinked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Welcome to you, sister,” he said softly in what she now recognized as an American accent, and then as a shout suddenly went up from the audience, he raised his voice above the noise. “Come and sit down among friends. We are glad indeed to see you and have you visit with us.”

He put his hand on her arm, and bemused, she let him lead her down an aisle toward a seat halfway down the serried tiers. Several people had to stand up to let her pass to the empty place, and she shrank slightly as each of them touched her gently as she went by, at the smiles they gave her, as though they knew her.

And then she was sitting, her elbows held tautly close to her sides, and she let her eyes slide sideways at the people on each side and felt oddly relieved, for they were no longer smiling at her but staring at the stage, their eyes curiously bright and yet blank. There was a middle-aged woman immediately on her left, and her mouth was hanging slightly open, the lips gleaming wetly, and repelled, Hilary looked at the stage too: anywhere rather than at the expression of eager fascination on the face beside her.

It was odd, the difficulty she found in hearing what the woman down there was saying. The boom of the microphone, the slight delay as the words tumbled over one another from amplifiers in different parts of the arena, all combined to create a curiously hypnotic effect; and the place was coldly stuffy, chilly enough for her to need the heaviness of her coat, but oppressive, the air smelling of greasily dirty human hair and carbolic disinfectant and dampness.

She tried to concentrate, to pick sense out of the words booming at her, but she couldn’t, somehow. All she could concentrate on was the need to keep her body as small as possible so that she had no physical contact with her neighbors, and her knees shook slightly as she held them close together.

She began to feel a little lightheaded. I should have eaten something at that party, she thought suddenly. I had no lunch, I was so
nervous about it, and I’m hungry. And cold. I wish I hadn’t come in here. I wish I hadn’t gone out with Andrew Vernon. I wish Barbara were here.

She sat and stared numbly at the woman on the stage and tried again to listen to what she was saying.

“… and those of us who give our witness for God and Christ Jesus—Christ Jesus—Christ Jesus”—the words echoed, making a little song inside Hilary’s head—“shall know the joys of total love—total love—total love …”

Pregnant pauses, Hilary thought, absurdly. That’s why the echo comes. She makes pregnant pauses and they fill up with words, that’s why they’re called pregnant. And she wanted to giggle suddenly, feeling unexpectedly better. She still had the rather remote lightheaded feeling, but it wasn’t quite so disagreeable now.

The woman on the stage threw her arms up sharply and cried in an even louder voice so that the microphone crackled as well as boomed. “Who will bear witness with me tonight? Who will fight the evil that is in men’s hearts? Who will love Christ Jesus with me tonight?—tonight?—tonight?”

And again a shout went up from the audience, rolling heavily around the tight-packed tiers, and Hilary found herself shouting too, not because she wanted to, but because somehow she couldn’t stop it. It came from her like a sneeze, one of those violently satistying sneezes that made her body feel good, relaxed. And the man on the other side of her turned and smiled widely at her, and she smiled back, involuntarily, and then, realizing she had relaxed so that her knee was touching his, she tightened her body again and shrank back inside herself.

But she really was feeling much more comfortable now, not so cold, not so lonely. It was curiously comforting, being part of this huge crowd of people. After the weeks of being encapsulated in the Unit, constantly aware of herself as an individual, of the individuality of the other people there, her father, Barbara, to be one of this anonymous mass was like being wrapped in a thick soft blanket.

She became aware of the silence that had fallen and looked back
at the stage expectantly, realizing without surprise that the sense of expectation was a shared one, that the rest of the audience was feeling it too.

The woman who had been standing at the tall central desk had sat down, and a tall man at the end of the row of chairs behind her stirred and then stood up, and then from somewhere far at the back of the big echoing arena, so far back that it seemed to come from the uppermost tier immediately below the green metal rafters of the arched roof, a ragged chant started, and Hilary turned her head to look upward.

The rows of people were swaying patchily, but even as she looked, the swaying became more even, until the whole vast hillside of blurred faces seemed to be moved by a wave of wind blowing over it, and the chant too became more definite, more musical.

“Joel, Joel, Jo-
el
, Jo-
el
, Jo-
el
.” The sound lifted, became more rhythmic, until Hilary felt the beat of it moving her own body, and she too was swaying. Or was it just the sound that swayed her? The people on each side of her were swaying too, and she was forced to move with them; yet the chanting moved her from within, somehow, echoing inside her head, and then she realized her own lips were moving in time to the keening cry. “Jo-
el
, Jo-
el
, Jo-
el
.”