No curtains. Light nudging at her eyelids through small and naked windows, throwing patterns on the bare stone walls. Where was she? It must be Brignor. There were never any curtains in the convent. You didn’t need them when you lived so far from any other house, with four high walls to screen you, and when you got up every morning in the dark; winter, summer, winter. Except it wasn’t dark, wasn’t winter, but bright full-bodied morning, with eager sunlight flickering on the counterpane. Hilary tried to sit up – worried, yet still dazed. She’d overslept, missed the bells, missed Office. She could hear the other Sisters chanting in the chapel, somewhere far below. ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.’
That was from the Easter Sunday Mass, the most important joyous Sunday of the entire Church year. She should be down in choir. Why had no one woken her, or come to fetch her when they realised she was missing from her stall? And why were her cell walls that roughcast sallow stone, instead of smooth and whitewashed plaster? Round walls, very thick walls, with bars across the windows. She must be in a prison cell, not her Brignor one. She’d done something very wrong, though she couldn’t remember what, couldn’t remember very much at all. It felt rather peaceful really, not to have a mind, to be just heaviness and warmth, as she slumped back on the pillows, turned her head a fraction so she could see the Easter flowers – not simple Brignor daffodils, but majestic trumpet lilies.
‘The Lord has brought us to a land which flows with milk and honey. Alleluia!’ Male voices now, mingling with the shriller female ones, a loud full-throated organ booming out behind. Could that be the prison choir, singing so professionally? She made herself sit up again, struggled out of bed, hobbled to the window. It was difficult to walk, as if her legs were someone else’s, someone very old, who’d just recovered from an illness. She peered out through the pane, astonished when she realised how high up she was, as if she could reach out and touch the sky. There was only sky and downs – hills in folds, clouds in furrows, a brilliant sun enamelling greens and golds. It was as remote and quiet as Brignor. No roof, no house, no curl of smoke or sign of human habitation. Was she all alone, alone in some high tower? Had they left her here as punishment, and she’d merely dreamt the music? It had stopped now, anyway. But she could hear another noise – heavy male footsteps on a staircase made of iron. This must be her gaoler. She’d find out what she’d done now, why they’d locked her up.
‘Hilary, are you awake? You’re up, for heaven’s sake! How are you? How you feeling?’
‘I’m fine.’ Suddenly she was. This was somebody she knew, not a prison guard, or stranger, but someone kind and solid connected with the Kingsleys. He was smiling, knew her name, though his was still eluding her.
‘Thank God you’ve woken up. I was getting rather worried that I’d overdone the sedatives. You’ve slept for hours and hours, you know, missed lunch and dinner yesterday. You must be ravenous.’
She tried to think of food, recall what hunger felt like. No, she wasn’t hungry, but full and fat and satisfied, as if she’d been stuffed with soft white feathers.
‘Well, how about a cup of tea?’
She nodded. Tea would be quite perfect – real tea with tea leaves in, not just tepid water; tea to slake the dryness in her mouth.
‘Strong or weak? Milk or sugar? Both?’
How strange he didn’t know. She felt she’d known him years, remembered he’d been with her in a dark and endless dream, where she’d been trying to climb to safety on the frail and slippery deck of some black ship. He’d been captain of the ship; saved it, saved them both.
‘Strong, please, with milk and two large sugars.’ It was Easter Day, so she was allowed to be indulgent; the long fast over, the penance and the vigils at an end.
‘Shouldn’t you get back to bed? You still look pretty groggy and the doctor said to rest.’
Doctor? Yes. A large one with cold hands. He’d been in the dream, as well, had found her naked at the bottom of the sea, examined all her bruises, wrapped her in a winding sheet.
‘Hilary, are you sure you feel all right? You look so sort of dazed. You do know who I am?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The captain.’
He laughed. ‘I like that! We need a ship or two here, not to mention a stretch of real live ocean. Look, let me help you back to bed and I’ll go and make the tea.’
He was there again before he’d gone, sitting on the bed now, holding out a cup. ‘I brought some croissants, too, just in case you’ve found your appetite. Happy Easter, by the way. I hope you like your flowers. Those are genuine Easter lilies.’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes, to cheer your sickroom. And I’ve got some grapes downstairs. Hey, why not come downstairs? It’s a right mess, I’m afraid, but much less claustrophobic than up here. I only brought you this far up, because it’s the one and only room that’s really finished, and also furthest away from the smell of paint and plaster. I started at the top and I’m working my way down, turning a lighthouse into home.’
‘A lighthouse?’
He nodded, grinning at her startled face. ‘You probably didn’t realise since there isn’t any sea. It’s more a folly, really. Some nutcase built it in 1810, perfect in all details and with a proper flame-holder on the top, for guiding ships around the rocks. The only problem is there are no rocks, and the nearest ship must be fifteen miles away. Still, I like it, and it’s ripe for a conversion. I mean, if I don’t live here myself, I can always sell it and move on. There must be quite a lot of weirdos in the world, who can’t wait to buy an inland lighthouse looking out across the downs. Tell you what, you rest here and drink your tea, and I’ll go and tidy things a bit, make your bed up on the sofa. Thank God I’ve got a sofa! A lot of things I haven’t got, including a cooker and a fridge. Never mind, we’ll manage. Don’t move till I come back.’
She didn’t want to move. It felt wonderful to be drinking tea in bed, with a shaft of sun pawing at the honey, turning it to amber. She spread amber on her croissant. She’d never had a croissant, relished its rich taste, its unusual melting texture, which combined crisp and flabby both at once. He’d spoilt her, brought her breakfast up, brought her flowers, expensive flowers, worthy of an altar. She turned again to look at them, the exotic ice-white trumpets, with their gaping golden throats, their veined and speckled petals; the velvet-pollened stamens sticking out their tongues. No one had ever bought her flowers, least of all such glamorous ones, so why should Robert Harrington; crass and noisy Robert, whom she’d thought she hadn’t liked?
It was all slowly coming back now – images and memories flashing through her mind: not just Robert pestering her at Wandsworth, his arm across her shoulder on Luke’s floor, his constant teasing compliments at Ivan’s birthday dinner; but Robert in her Sussex room – a completely different Robert, calming her, dressing her, packing up her things; Robert grim-faced in his car, driving fast through Sussex lanes while she sat silently beside him, some other stranger-woman weeping through her eyes; then stopping at the doctor’s, where that woman kept on crying – a terrifying sound, which seemed to claw and rack her body; a needle in her arm, then blackness and the nightmares. She’d woken once and found him there, Captain Robert Harrington, very strong and sure. They’d talked a while, together on the deck, and then she’d plunged down down again, surfaced once or twice, always found him watching at the wheel.
She pulled up her pyjama top, shuddered at the red and angry marks. What in God’s name had she told him, how explained those marks? Strange they didn’t throb or hurt, when they’d been so sore before. Nothing seemed to hurt, except the questions in her mind. Who had put on her pyjamas, brought her up these stairs? What had really happened in the night? Had he touched her, tried to share her pain – and body – as Simon Tovey had? Her suitcase was unpacked; slippers by the bed, sponge bag on the windowsill, dressing gown hanging on a hook. Someone had looked after her, found the things she needed.
She limped out to the staircase, stronger now, with food and drink inside her, started creeping down it, clinging to the rail. The steps were steep and dangerous. She stopped several times to get her breath, or peer out through the tiny stone-framed windows, marvelling at the view. It was a sea out there; the hills themselves rolling in like breakers, capped by white-foam clouds; a strong sea-wind roaring round the tower. There were even sea gulls circling, as if they’d been fooled by the lighthouse and were searching for a shoal. All the smells were wrong, though – not the salty tang of seaweed, but turpentine and paint, new-sawn wood, fresh plaster, now wafting up to meet her, as the stairs curved round towards an open door.
She paused on the last step, exclaiming at the bright and airy room, a perfect circle, with fight pouring in from deep-embrasured windows. The room was bare of furniture, save a trestle table piled with paint and tools, and the sofa Robert had mentioned, which looked completely out of place with its curving wooden arms in the shape of dragons’ heads, its luxurious crimson velvet. It seemed to form a small oasis amidst the clutter all around it – cardboard boxes pressing in, packing-cases spilling half their contents; more tools and paint-pots on the floor. One crate had been upturned and placed beside the sofa to form a makeshift table; two dirty mugs on top of it, half a staling sandwich, and a small transistor radio tuned to Radio 3. So that had been her Brignor Mass, a recording from the BBC. She smiled, walked over to the window. The view looked very different from lower down the tower. She was no longer poised beneath the sky, but enfolded in the hills, every detail sharper now in the dappled patchwork morning. She swung round as Robert entered, carrying a pile of rugs and cushions and whistling to himself.
‘Hilary! You shouldn’t be down here yet. I wanted to make it nice for you.’
‘It is nice. It’s wonderful. I’ve never seen a room like this before.’
‘Well, there’s a long way to go yet – months and months of work. Though I suppose I’m lucky to have got this far so quickly. It all happened so damned fast – stumbling on the place at all, then finding it was actually for sale – and cheap at that, then moving in last month and going at it fourteen hours a day. Hell! I never even meant to move. I was living in this commune and … I’m sorry, I’m boring you. I’ve told you all this before.’
‘Before?’
‘You know – at Ivan’s dinner. Liz says I drove her crazy, raving on about the place, but I suppose I’m just in love with it.’
Hilary tried to think back to Ivan’s birthday dinner. She did remember Robert talking – talking long and loudly about a whole storm and shoal of things, including his precious acquisition. Though she hadn’t even grasped it was a lighthouse, only recalled that strange word ‘folly’, which she’d applied immediately to herself. She was a folly, a naive and stupid laughing stock, who’d fallen for a man who loved only his own sex. She’d been so concerned with Ivan, so embarrassed in his presence, so conscious of her period – blood soaking through the cleaning rag, maybe staining Liz’s chair – she’d had little time or interest left for Robert’s latest passion. She’d hardly even listened, just tried to tune him out. Now, she felt ashamed.
‘It’s fantastic, Robert, honestly – like something in a dream, or film, or …’
‘You wait! This is nothing. I’ve got some really dazzling schemes – not just inside, outside. See those stinging nettles – a good ten ton of them, and those huge great ugly boulders? Well, imagine Kew Gardens crossed with Hampton Court, and that’s what I intend.’ He laughed. ‘Right, your throne is ready, Ma’ am.’ He gestured to the sofa, where he had plumped pillows and spread rugs. ‘And if I just clear away this debris, you might feel more at home.’ He started lunging round the room, stacking boxes, making space.
‘Leave it, Robert, honestly. There’s no need to do all this for me.’
‘There’s every need. I want to make you comfortable.’
She watched him from the sofa as he strode in and out, banishing coffee mugs and paint pots, bringing her more things: a carafe of orange juice, a bunch of purple grapes, a twig of blackthorn blossom in a United Dairies milk bottle. ‘Sorry about the vase. Half my things are still in packing-cases. You like grapes, do you, Hilary? I tried to get you strawberries, but the damn shop didn’t have them. Mind you, I was lucky to get anything so late on Easter Saturday. And delivered to my door. I had to phone the shop and really woo the girl. Girl! She’s nearer fifty-five, but never mind, she came up with the goods – even found those lilies. I’d have preferred to choose the stuff myself, but I didn’t like to leave you, not the way you looked.’
Hilary said nothing, stared down at the grapes, plump expensive grapes with an iridescent bloom; the spray of blackthorn blossom pastel-frail against its gnarled black twig. Why should he do all this for her, look after her two days and nights, stay in all Easter Saturday, so she wouldn’t be alone? She ought to thank him, but she couldn’t find the words, felt utterly confused. This was the Robert she’d always endeavoured to avoid, yet now she’d been alone with him since Friday – alone in some strange dream, where he had been her anchor and her rock. Things still seemed rather dream-like, her brain unplugged, her body like wet sawdust, as she lay back against the cushions, suddenly dead tired again.
‘What time is it?’ she asked him. Her watch had disappeared and she had lost all sense of time, all routine, all boundaries.
‘Ten past twelve.’
‘Twelve? You mean midday?’
He grinned. ‘Well, certainly not midnight.’
‘But I’ve never slept as late as this, never in my life.’ Not even as a teenager had she been allowed to laze in bed, or have lie-ins at weekends.
‘Well, I must confess you had me worried, especially when you sleepwalked. That’s ready why I moved you to the bedroom at the top. It’s the only one with bars across the windows, and tiny windows anyway. I was terrified you might fall out if I left you where you were, or might try to break the glass or something. As it was, I had to bar the stairs.’
She took a sip of fruit juice, so she wouldn’t have to speak. What did he mean by ‘If I left you where you were’? Where had she been, and just what else had happened in the night? It was bad enough that he’d seen her sleepwalking – seen her dishevelled and unconscious, a puppet and a prisoner, completely in his power. ‘I … er … never seem to hurt myself,’ she muttered hesitantly, still not looking up. ‘Well, I never have before. It’s as if I keep away from windows almost from some seventh sense.’
‘You mean you sleepwalk quite a lot?’
‘I used to, a few years ago. But our Abbess said it was really just attention-seeking and I ought to try to …’
‘For God’s sake, Hilary! Was the woman mad or something?’
She flushed at his sharp tone, felt a duty even now to defend her Reverend Mother. ‘Well, you can control a lot of things which people tend to think of as just “happening” – I mean, things like tears or illnesses. The Abbess said they were often self-indulgence.’
‘Hilary, it’s crazy, that sort of iron control. Don’t you see, that’s probably just the reason why you sleepwalk in the first place? If you keep yourself so rigid all damned day, then something has to snap at night. Your mind and body are simply shouting out for freedom and a chance of self-expression. You were beside yourself last night, literally shouting in your sleep – and sobbing, really sobbing, tears pouring down your face. You must remember, don’t you? I had to wake you in the end.’
She put her glass down, locked her hands together, her whole body tense with shame. ‘I … I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry. Please. I’m the one who owes you an apology. I should have said it sooner, but to tell the truth, I felt a bit, well …’ He broke off, veered away from her, started pacing up and down. ‘Christ Almighty, Hilary, I’ve been dead worried all this time, not just about the fact you seemed so ill, but as to what you’d feel when you woke and found me there.’
Ill. He meant mad, unbalanced. Hilary’s cheeks were flaming as she recalled the scene again: the sudden knocking at her door, as she held the belt suspended in the air. Had he known what she was doing? How else could he – or she – explain the marks?
He suddenly plunged back to her, sat down on her feet. ‘Look; I’ve barged into your private life, and that’s embarrassing for both of us, but if I hadn’t found you, Hilary …’ He paused again, reached out for a grape, as if to stop his mouth with it.
She listened to the crunching of the pips. Of course he’d known, though he wouldn’t understand. She hardly understood herself what had made her go so far. She had broken rules again, rigid rules, laid down deliberately so that Sisters wouldn’t harm themselves. It was as wrong to overdo the discipline as to avoid it altogether. You were not allowed to mark the skin, forbidden to draw blood. She ought to tell him that; owed it to her convent, to its name and reputation. She tried out words and phrases in her mind, rejected all of them. Why were words so treacherous, always too simplistic or too literal; never seemed to fit the things you tried to say with them? She plucked a grape herself, held it on her palm. The blackthorn blossom was already falling, pink and white confetti on the crate.
Robert had shifted to the far end of the sofa, chin cupped in his hands. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you – I mean, that I brought you here at all? It must seem a damn cheek, but what else could I do, with Liz and Di and Delia all away? It was Liz, in fact, who suggested that I call on you, before she left for France. She phoned to say you’d be staying just ten miles away, so why didn’t I pop over in the car? I did phone first, I promise. But the guy who answered said they didn’t take messages for ordinary conference members, only for the staff. So I thought I’d take a chance and just drop in. I’m sorry, Hilary, honestly I am.’
She watched another blossom tremble from the twig, fall between the grapes and disappear. He’d apologised – three times. For saving her, for nursing her, for buying grapes and lilies.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, springing up awkwardly to try to find some Kleenex; passing her his handkerchief instead.
‘I’m not.’ She touched her face, surprised to find it wet. She had forgotten how to cry – crying was forbidden. But how often had she cried at night, unknowingly? For months, or even years, perhaps? And that woman in the car, that sobbing, screaming stranger, who’d lost all control, all dignity, could that really have been her?
‘If you’re upset about the doctor, he’s a pal of mine and absolutely trustworthy. I had to find a doctor – you do see that, don’t you, Hilary? I was frightened you’d been raped, for heaven’s sake. Okay, you told me about Simon, so we can forget all that bit now. I just wanted you to know I didn’t …’
She stared at him in shock. Told him about Simon? That was quite impossible. She’d resolved to hush the whole thing up, never say a word to anyone. And they hadn’t talked at all, not that she remembered, or only in a dream. Yet he’d hardly mention Simon’s name, unless she’d let it out herself. How many people was she – an hysteric and a sleepwalker, a gossip and a telltale? And why had it all vanished from her mind, as if those dangerous alter egos had taken over in the night, said things she’d never say herself, shamed her and betrayed her – betrayed Simon, too, most likely.
‘It wasn’t Simon’s fault,’ she faltered, concerned now that she’d slandered him, portrayed him as a bully or a brute. ‘I … let him. I mean, it didn’t seem to matter if there wasn’t any God.’
‘No God?’
Suddenly she was blurting out the whole grotesque Good Friday – Jim Duck and Elaine, Reverend Mother Molly, the so-called ‘healing’ session, when she’d lost her faith, her God.
‘But you are healed, don’t you see – or at least well on the way.’ Robert seized her hand, almost knocking over the milk bottle in his eagerness to speak. ‘You say you’ve lost your faith, but actually you’ve gained something, and something really vital – the freedom to be yourself. Your faith was acting like a straitjacket, keeping you confined in a narrow set of rules. For the first time in your life, you can be free from all those rules, free from guilt and punishment, free to grow. You’re a passionate person, Hilary. I realised that the first moment I laid eyes on you. Oh, I’m not talking about sex. I mean feelings and emotions, the capacity to respond to things, enjoy things. All that’s been forbidden up to now. You’ve been taught to seek perfection through constant self-denial. But perfection isn’t possible, not for human beings. We all goof, or make a hash of things. It’s simply part of life – like pain and mess and mystery are. If you try to avoid them, you’ll always end up miserable and frustrated with yourself. I know – my wife was a perfectionist.’
‘Your wife?’ She’d no idea he had a wife, felt a sudden rush of guilt; glanced behind her, startled, as if expecting Mrs Harrington to walk in through the door, find her in her nightclothes, dishevelled and …
‘Well, ex-wife I should say, though it’s funny how the “ex”-bit hurts, even after all these years. And talking of messes, I made a mess of that – not just the marriage, but the divorce as well. I never see my son now. He lives right up in the wilds of Scotland and calls someone else “Dad”.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Hilary eased her hand from his, embarrassed by its stickiness; nervous at this talk of his relationships, his past. She had seen him as a bachelor, free and unencumbered, roaming round the world, changing jobs and houses, in the way Liz had described. Had his wife and son tagged after him on all those exotic trips, or had he divorced them long before? She felt somehow disconcerted to know he had been married – almost angry with him, as if he’d deliberately misled her.
‘Don’t be sorry. I wasn’t cadging sympathy, just trying to show you that my own life hasn’t exactly been plain sailing all the way. In fact, I messed up my career, as well, stopped working as an architect because I didn’t want to compromise. And actually’ – He laughed – ‘I lost my own religion, so I do know what a wrench it is. I was brought up C of E, but not the merely social sort who specialise in garden fetes. I took it very seriously, spent a whole ten years trying to replace it with some other faith. Any one would do, I felt – Eastern, Western, mongrel, even political or secular – so long as I had certainties and dogma, something to make sense of things, explain them. Then, one night, I was reading Thomas Carlyle – well, I was devouring books at that time, reading anything and everything from Marx and Confucius to Nietzsche, Jung and Zen – but there was just one sentence which stuck in my mind. Carlyle said: “I don’t pretend to understand the universe. It’s a great deal bigger than I am.” Okay, I admit that’s so damn obvious, it’s just a cliché really, but it seemed to shake me up, made me realise I was trying to make the universe much smaller than it was, a nice safe cosy world, where everything was neat and orderly, instead of huge and wild and random. All religions do that, limit truth, instead of widening it; hand out answers, rigid ready-made ones, which only blinker you.’
He paused a moment, fished an ice cube from the jug of orange juice, sucked it like a gobstopper, went on talking with it still stowed in his mouth. ‘I began to see most faiths as merely props and crutches, or maybe cosmic sunglasses which screen out all the glare. But perhaps we need that glare, need to be almost blinded by the sheer maze and swarm of things. Okay, we lose our safety, lose our “Man-From-The-Pru”-God, with his life assurance policies and his comprehensive cover, but once we accept uncertainty, plunge headlong into doubt and risk, we’re somehow far less shackled.’
Hilary glanced up at his eager face. She was still shocked by his losses – loss of wife and child, career and God – yet amazed that he could shrug them off so lightly. ‘But isn’t it rather frightening, not to have the answers? I mean, not to know why we’re here, or even who we are?’
‘Frankly, yes it is, but it’s also quite exhilarating. It depends on how you look at it. I got a bit depressed at first, like you – saw myself as just an ant, one of five billion people on a minor planet in the solar system, which is itself a minor system in an unremarkable galaxy in a whole vast collection of several billion galaxies …’ He removed the piece of ice, let it melt between his fingers, hardly seemed to notice it was dripping on his clothes.
‘Then I started reading scientific journals and they can really cut you down to size. I mean, half the boffins writing in them, ten years or so ago, believed that human life is just an accident and probably an irrelevance, and the whole damn universe is just a huge great random bubble, which popped into existence out of absolutely nothing, and will ultimately pop back into nothing. Yet the latest theories are much more optimistic, put man back in the centre. They seem to be saying that this universe couldn’t be there without us, that human life is the inevitable and almost pre-determined goal of evolution – I think that’s the phrase they use. In other words, we rational thinking beings are an essential part of the process, who keep the whole thing going, so to speak – so that it’s consciousness, in essence, which gives meaning to the universe.’ He paused, to take his jacket off, as if his ideas had made him hot. His face was flushed, eyes burning.
‘Oh, a lot of other experts disagree, and disagree quite violently; prefer the random view. In fact, I’ve heard it said that, far from being inevitable, the odds against man being here are something like one in ten to the six hundredth power – if you can grasp that, which I can’t. It’s all I can do to grasp the basic outlines of the arguments. But whoever’s right or wrong, here we actually are – a talking, thinking, writing, building animal, reflecting on itself. Amazing, isn’t it, all that sophisticated brainpower evolving out of nix, and even more so when Darwin’s crowd keep telling us there’s only a one per cent difference between ourselves and chimpanzees. Well, that one per cent is all the more astonishing when it has to account for the whole of civilisation – for art and literature, even science itself. That’s the line I take now; a sense of mainly wonder, mixed with a dash of residual fear, plus a strong dose of comedy at the absurdity of it all – the fact that no one really knows the answers anyway. Hell! We may not even know the questions, or be asking the wrong ones.’
Hilary was twisting his handkerchief round and through her fingers. For her, the fear far outweighed the wonder. ‘But I hate the absurdity and I especially hate the random bit. I mean, take today. What’s the point of Easter if you don’t believe in Resurrection? It’s just a day, isn’t it, the same as any other?’
‘Of course it’s not! You don’t need Christianity to put triumph into Easter. It’s a pagan feast, anyway, from the Teutonic goddess Eastre. And you’ve only got to look out there to see things resurrecting – trees in leaf, birds nesting, light and warmth returning.’
‘But that’s just nature, Robert. I’m not talking about …’
‘What d’you mean “just nature”? It’s desperately important. Why d’you think we’re all so terrified of nuclear winter? Because there won’t be any spring then; no green, no life, no hope. But for centuries and centuries spring must have seemed a miracle– a sudden end to dark and cold, dead trees springing back to leaf, bare ground seeding crops again. Death and resurrection myths are two a penny, once you study ancient cults, but you don’t need any myths at all to rejoice in spring itself. Spring’s there, a simple fact you can’t refute.’ He pointed to the blossom in the bottle, the sun and birds and green beyond the window. ‘In fact, I’ve always thought the year should begin now – in spring, instead of winter. In most of medieval Europe they did just that, used to start their year in March – March 25th, to be precise – but April’s even better, don’t you think? I mean, look at the two names: March called after the god of war, and with French and Saxon names meaning “rough month”, “windy month”, which bracket it to winter; but April sacred to Aphrodite, goddess of love, and also meaning “opening month”, when everything is opening and unfolding. Hey, what’s the date today? April 5th. Perfect! Let’s make it New Year’s Day today, as well as Easter Sunday.’
She stared at him, intrigued. To begin again, blank out the pain and loneliness of that New Year’s Eve cooped up with Miss Pullen; to celebrate a pagan spring and Easter. She glanced up at the blossom, saw the grapes instead, the curling sandwich crusts. Bread and wine. How could she exist in a world devoid of sacraments, where bread was Mother’s Pride, wine just Liz’s burgundy? She recalled Easter in the convent: all the leaping Alleluias in the Office; the solemn younger Sisters acting out the Resurrection, with an old tin bath as the empty tomb; the paschal candle lit at midnight on the Vigil. ‘This is the night on which heaven was wedded to earth. On this night, Christ broke the bonds of death. The night shall be as light as day.’ She had often sung those words with no sense of that light; the chapelful of candles mocking her own darkness, yet at least she’d had a structure built on hope; a belief– however desperate – in life and light beyond; rituals and symbols to cling on to. She tried to explain their aching loss to Robert.
‘You keep talking about losses, girl, but what about the gains? You’ve got a host of new religions to explore now, a score of different ways of relating to the world – new ways of even praying, if you like. I’m not trying to throw out soul. Far from it. We all try to be too rational and logical, and ignore the other side – the intuitive, the spiritual. It’s just that the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t have a monopoly in souls. Nor does any church. What I’m against is any kind of “ism” which tries to close our minds, tries to categorise or structure, so as to clear away loose ends, instead of leaving them open and mysterious.’
Open. Ivan’s word. Open-minded, open-ended. Hilary picked a grape pip from the fuzzy tartan rug. A mere two weeks ago, she had regarded the two men as completely different, different both in outlook and in temperament. Now she realised they had vital things in common.
Robert was pacing up and down again, as if the energy in his words had poured out to his limbs and he had to work it off. ‘I mean, even in science there are no fixed and certain truths. The world may stay the same, but we keep modifying the way we see it and make sense of it, according to our knowledge or the culture that we live in. And whatever our advances – which is a dodgy word itself – we’re probably never really there. How can we be, for God’s sake, when we’re locked in space and time, yet trying to understand things outside them or beyond them? Sometimes I suspect that the laws of physics are like a never-ending set of Chinese boxes – each new box we open reveals yet another box, with even more complexities, and there’s never any “last” box. It may sound trite, but I’ve come to realise that life’s a mystery to be lived, rather than a problem to be solved.’
She didn’t answer, felt too confused, too dazed. The whole universe was suddenly wide wide open, instead of closed off with a God, buttressed by theology, explained by laws and absolutes.
‘Hell, I’m sorry, Hilary. You look quite washed out, and you’re meant to be resting, not listening to me rant. It’s just that this is something I care so passionately about, I feel I want to share it with you, let you see how strange and rich the world is. But I’ll shut up now, I promise, leave you here in peace.’
‘No, please don’t go,’ she said, jerking up and deranging all the rugs. She was worried he might disappear, the nightmares start again.
‘Okay, I’ll get on with my shelves then. That way, I can keep an eye on you, stop you galloping round the place, or trying to break your neck. I’m building shelves in here, to go all round the room. It’s quite a challenge, really. The curved walls make extra work and waste a lot of wood. Though I was lucky with my wood. I found this superb oak panelling in an old Victorian house they were pulling down to build a block of flats. I bought it for a song, plus a lot of other bits and pieces I salvaged from the wreckage. I need shelves badly, so I can unpack all this clutter.’ He gestured to the crates. ‘I’m a bit of a collector – not the sort who hoards, because I sell a lot of stuff I buy, or get rid of it again, but all the same, it seems to overflow or just pile up.’
‘What do you collect?’
‘Oh, anything and everything – nineteenth-century gardening books, English sporting pictures, wood-carvings from Fiji, medals from the First World War, even dragons.’ He grinned. ‘I used to own a good five hundred dragons – painted ones and carved ones, dragon bookends, dragon plates and vases, heraldic dragons on coats of arms, dragon everything.’
‘What happened to them all?’
‘I’d like to say I slew them, so you’d toast me as St George, but I’m afraid the truth’s more boring. I was very pushed for cash about seven years ago, and lucky enough to meet up with a fellow dracontophile – d’you think that’s the word, or did I just invent it? Anyway, Mr Elmer Waldo Wallace – American, of course – was really into dragons, bought the lot, lock, stock and barrel.’
‘Except for these,’ said Hilary, stroking one of the wooden sofa arms.
‘Well, Wallace wanted those, in fact, but that sofa’s rather special. It was the first thing I ever bought, when I was still wet behind the ears, and it’s something I cling on to now, even when the rest goes. I suppose it’s become a sort of security blanket.’
She touched the rich red velvet – at least five foot of it. ‘Rather a big one.’
‘That’s the trouble. We’ve had a few sad separations, when I’ve been gadding round the world. I especially used to miss it when I was living in the bush, squatting on a chair made out of fuel cans. Mind you, I was still collecting even there – not exactly dragons, but not far off. I had a sort of zoo – rounded up rare animals threatened with extinction. I even owned a scimitar-horned oryx, if you know what that is. Not many people do.’
Hilary smiled and shook her head. There was so much she didn’t know, not just about the oryx, but its owner – this new complex Robert Harrington, who had such exotic tastes, yet still mourned a wife and son, still needed a security blanket; so different from the simpler Robert she’d met – misjudged – at Wandsworth. Even Liz seemed to have told his story wrong, left out the important bits. Her hand strayed back to the dragon, traced its bulbous tongue, its carved and fretted wings. ‘You ought to start a zoo here, or at least buy a dog or something. It must be rather lonely, so far from any neighbours – especially after living in a commune. Don’t you miss the company?’
He shrugged. ‘Yes and no.’
‘Liz said you’d been there quite a while.’
‘Nearly eighteen months. But I wasn’t all that sorry to have an excuse to up and leave. It didn’t really work that well. Too many rampant egos all fighting for supremacy.’ He stripped a few grapes from the bunch, offered her a cluster. ‘What else did dear Liz tell you – all my secrets?’
She flushed. ‘Well, no, she only …’
‘I should have phoned you, talked to you myself. I kept wanting to and meaning to, but I always felt too shy.’
‘Shy?’
‘’Fraid so. I know I don’t exactly look the modest shrinking violet type, but underneath I am shy, and used to be far worse. I learnt to disguise it pretty well through putting on an act – life-and-soul-of-the-party sort of thing – talking too much, hogging the limelight, sitting up on my hind legs and begging for the titbits. It worked so well, I think I’ve even fooled myself now.’
‘Well, you certainly fooled me. I can’t think of anyone less shy.’ She remembered Reverend Mother Molly, dancing like a dervish in the exercise called ‘Loosening’, then still insisting she was shy. The word was too elastic.
Robert returned to the sofa, crouched down at her feet. ‘D’you realise, Hilary, I’ve never really had the chance to talk to you before – I mean real talk, one to one, not just social chitchat? Even the last time we met, on Ivan’s birthday, I seemed to louse things up. I was furious with myself. I wanted to be serious, impress you, or at least make you notice I was there, and all I did was play the fool, impress you in the worst sense. I could see you disapproving, but I couldn’t seem to stop.’
Hilary removed her hand from the dragon’s trap of teeth. How could she tell Robert that she’d hardly been aware of him, that her whole mind had been on Ivan?
‘The trouble was I knew about your background, knew you’d been a nun. It was the first time I’d seen you since Liz told me, and it seemed to make a difference, screw me up still more. I just felt so in awe of you – your courage and …’
‘Courage?’ Hilary stared. ‘What courage? What d’ you mean? I’m the biggest coward going.’
‘Oh, no, you’re not! It’s heroic, what you did, leaving that convent after all those years and years. A coward would have stayed there, not just for the safety, but because it takes a special strength to admit you’ve been wrong, that your original ideals have come unstuck. It happened with me when I gave up architecture – far less dramatically, of course, but it was still an awful wrench. I mean, I lost my whole status and profession, my colleagues, my ideals, or at least the chance to put them into practice. Well, there wasn’t much chance, actually – that’s the reason why I left. I started off wanting to change the world, play God, if you like, rethink our whole society, reorganise our cities and our living-space. But I was forced to drop all that, start cutting corners and licking boots, or keep talking sordid money, instead of space and scale and light. Then, once my partners began wooing those damn Arabs, architecture just went out of the window. Oh, it solved our money problem, but – Christ! – at what a cost. We had to hitch twentieth-century modernism to ancient Islamic tradition.’ He grinned. ‘Imagine Corbusier smothered with mosaics. No – don’t! It’s quite grotesque. Don’t get me wrong, Hilary. I’ve nothing against the Arabs. They’re just not my favourite clients.’
He paused a moment, swallowed two grapes whole. ‘Still, I don’t regret my training. I wouldn’t be tackling this conversion quite so confidently if I hadn’t been through all that slog. I’m sure that’s the secret, actually, to value what you had, see the good in it, then try to take it with you, use it in your new. life. I know when I was trying to run my potty little Noah’s Ark in the outback of Australia, I still needed courage and ideals. Robert, stop!’ He rapped his own wrists, knelt back on his heels. ‘I’m jawing on and on, and I promised half an hour ago that I wouldn’t say another word.’
‘I like you talking.’
‘Do you?’
She wished she hadn’t spoken, when it seemed to stop him dead. He was shy; he was right. She was suddenly aware of it as he caught her eye, looked down; pretended to be fiddling with the comer of a rug. He needed help. She gave it. ‘What about your shelves?’
‘You’re right! My shelves. This stuff will still be sitting in its crates on Christmas Day 2000, if I don’t get a move on. Are you sure you’ll be all right, though, just lying there while I leap around a bit? Actually, I don’t think I’ll disturb you. I’ve finished all the sawing and the sanding down, so the noisy bits are done. I’ve got two last shelves to finish off, then I’m going to polish the whole lot, just a gentle rub with beeswax. No noise, no smell, as they say in the commercials. All the same, if you’d rather escape into another room, or go back upstairs to read, or …’
‘Oh, no, I’m fine. This is really rather new for me, just lying doing nothing.’
‘Yes, and vitally important, woman. You’ve got to practise every day. And also practise enjoying life a bit. In fact, let’s shift the sofa, so you’re closer to the window and can feel the sun and start basking in the spring. And how about some music? There’s a Schubert concert starting any minute. And food – you must have food. I’ve got some duck terrine. It’s only in a tin, but the picture looks quite fancy. I’ll bring it in. Don’t say no. That word’s on the Index from now on. Pope’s orders. Pope Robert. Was there ever a Pope Robert?’
She was laughing now, enjoying, doing what he said. It wasn’t even difficult. Both sun and Schubert were deliciously relaxing; warmth seeping through her skin, horns and strings beginning an antiphony, the melody repeated by a pleading oboe. Music was still a real indulgence. Stephen had walked off with her radio, at least six weeks ago, never brought it back, and the other Kingsley sets were rarely tuned to concerts. She had been starved of music in the convent; this rich and urgent music with its fierce rhythms, startling contrasts; had been rationed to an organ, or unaccompanied chant. She felt her spirits soar with the soaring woodwind, her heart twist over on the downward glide of the cellos. Robert had caned her passionate, able to respond to things. He had also called her ‘woman’. That could have sounded rude, but it hadn’t, and she’d relished it. Woman. She’d been scared of him at Liz’s because he seemed so male; male and threatening, male and coarse. He was still male, very much so, but it intrigued her now, rather than alarmed her.
She watched him planing wood, his total concentration on the plane; his body thrusting back and forwards with it, both hands tensed and braced. He had rolled his shirt-sleeves up, and she could see the startling contrast between his tanned and roughened hands – workman’s hands, with broken nails, stained fingers – and the pale skin of his forearms, which looked delicate, almost womanish, despite the long fair hairs. His brows were fairer still, but heavy, well-defined; his strong and squarish jaw suggesting tenacity – or stubbornness. The word ‘strong’ kept returning. Strong voice, strong hands, strong principles – strong appetites, as well. He had poured himself a pint of beer, and swilled it every now and then, in noisy eager gulps. Or he’d reach out for the long French loaf, which he’d brought in with the terrine, rip a rough hunk off, almost seem to throw it down his throat. She hid a smile as she tried to imagine him in the Brignor refectory, eating with that passion, declaiming through the silence, dropping forks or food, as he tried to make his points. He stopped his planing suddenly, as the music reached a climax, started conducting with his French-bread baton, arms sweeping up and out.
‘I love this bit, don’t you? But they’re taking it so slowly. I’ve got six different recordings of it and none of them’s quite right. Perhaps I should have been a conductor, instead of a mere architect.’ He gestured to his orchestra, beckoned in the strings; suddenly stopped dead in the middle of a phrase. ‘Hey! Is this your sort of music? I didn’t think to ask, don’t even know if you like music at all.’
‘I love it!’ She flushed. She had replied with too much vehemence, surprised herself and him – by almost flinging out the words, half-rising from the sofa, as if scared he’d turn it off. ‘It’s terribly important – I mean, it was, once, still is, but …’ How could she explain – that aching sense of loss again, music sacrificed so young, flogged out of her at seventeen, labelled ‘dangerous’, ‘indulgent’? She sank back on the sofa, tried to blank out all regrets, feast herself on the exuberant violins, which were exploring the main theme, embroidering it, enlivening it.
Robert chewed a bit of baton, watched her anxiously. ‘Are you all right, Hilary? You don’t feel ill again?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ He broke her off a piece of bread, spread it with terrine, put it in her hands with a sudden explosive laugh.
‘What’s funny?’ She was amused already by the way he kept on talking, interrupting the music he claimed to find so riveting.
‘They thought I was your brother.’
‘Who did?’
‘The people at the conference. Well, I mean, I told them so. I thought it would be simplest. I just said you weren’t too well, so I was driving you back home. The problem was I’d already given them my name and they picked me up on it – some awful bossy girl, with a “Jesus Loves Me” badge, who said how come you were Miss Reed – and she really stressed the “Miss” – if I was Mr Harrington? I told her you were “Ms”, married and divorced.’
‘Oh, you didn’t, Robert.’
‘Yes, I did. Serves her right for being such a nosy parker. Hell! I’m yakking again, aren’t I? Sorry, Schubert; sorry, little sister.’ He picked up a piece of sandpaper, gave the wood a final rub; started humming the last phrases of the scherzo, as if it were impossible for him to be completely quiet.
Little sister. She smiled down at her plate. She’d always wanted a big brother, someone she could turn to when her parents quarrelled, someone who’d be proud of her. And brothers were quite safe, safer than priests. She did feel safe with him. He hadn’t tried to touch her, save once, to take her hand, and that, too, had been more brotherly than lustful. She was certain now he had done nothing in the night, except look after her. She still marvelled at his kindness. She must have disturbed his sleep for two consecutive nights, if she’d been sobbing, shouting, threshing in and out of nightmares, yet he hadn’t once complained. In fact, those things, however shameful, had somehow bonded them; made them closer, in a way, than if they‘d shared their bodies, or a bed. How odd to think this almost-stranger, whom she’d met only three times in her life, knew more about her now than anyone in the world, including Liz. He knew about Simon and her loss of faith, about the whipping and the sleepwalking; had seen her cry, heard her rant; and still he hadn’t shrunk from her, just acknowledged all of it, and then gone on to compliment her.
She glanced at him again, admiring his mixture of energy and patience, the eager careful way he worked. She liked to think of him building shelves for books, for treasures gathered round the world, a world he saw as rich and strange. She’d seen so little of that world, knew nothing of its riches. But she could learn, use him as her teacher. Teacher-brother.
The plate felt very heavy in her hands, the inch or two of bread too daunting for her mouth. She was still so tired – often was at Easter, after all the fasts and strain of Passion Week. It had been impossible at Brignor to snatch an extra hour in bed. Easter Sunday was the greatest of all feasts, but still vigorously timetabled, with extra time in choir, extra recreation. Recreation meant sitting on a hard wood chair, sharing safe and cheerful subjects with your Sisters, not creeping up to bed to snatch a nap. By the time they’d reached their tipsy trifle in the evening, she had often felt too tired to lift her spoon. But now she was allowed to sleep, sleep all afternoon, if that was what she wanted, do exactly what she liked.
It still felt almost wicked, yet she lay back, closed her eyes. They had reached the slow movement in the symphony, and even the music seemed to be telling her to rest, to ease up, just let go. The music of the plane was also slower now, and had somehow joined the orchestra, with Robert as conductor. She looked down at her score, saw it was marked ‘rest’, the remaining pages blank. How wonderful, how kind. This particular Easter, all the other nuns could sing, while she slept through till summer.