The Benefits of Passion (28 page)

She squared up for a fight. ‘Well, where were you, big boy?'

‘Ssh!' He glanced at the door in agonies. ‘Promise me, Bella.'

If he says sorry, she thought. If he says sorry, I'll behave. She waited. He mistook her silence for docility and went back to his guests, taking her glass with him.

Bottoms up, thought Isabella, swigging from the bottle.

The soup course swam past. Barney hissed threats at her as they cleared away the bowls and took in the vegetables. She gave him the finger.

‘Don't do this to me, Isabella,' he begged.

She opened the oven door and viewed her creation. She was about to repent when she heard Barney murmur an apology for his wife's behaviour.

Right!

She bore the steaming boeuf Wellington triumphantly in and thumped it down on the table. Barney closed his eyes in despair. The Bishop and his wife found themselves staring at a vast pastry fertility symbol.

‘Can I tempt you, Mrs Hibbert?' enquired Isabella.

Barney and the Bishop winced as she plunged in the knife and hacked off a bleeding chunk.

It was a short meal.

The Bishop was sure they would understand if he and his wife had to slip away. An early start the next day . . . Barney followed them out to the car and Isabella knew he was apologizing again. Mrs Hibbert had left her handbag, but Isabella couldn't have cared less. They drove off and she heard Barney coming back to the house.

‘You owe me an apology!' she yelled, getting in first.

‘I?' he spluttered. ‘
I
owe
you
an apology?'

‘You promised you'd –'

‘I'm not discussing it. You're drunk.' He began clearing the table.

‘Talk to me!' she yelled, as he carried the plates to the sink. He made no reply. She grabbed what was left of the beef and hurled it at him. It bounced off his head in a shower of crumbs. He stood stock still with his back to her.

Oh Gawd! ‘Barney . . .'

He turned and flung the jug of apple juice over her.

‘You bastard!' she screamed, pelting him with potatoes.

‘Right.' He picked up the cut-glass dessert bowl and advanced towards her.

She turned to run but slipped over on the wet floor. ‘No!'

‘Yes!' He sat astride her and daubed her with handfuls of lemon syllabub.

‘I hate you, you pig!' She landed a sticky slap on his face while he peeled her clothes away.

‘You asked for this,' he panted.

Before long she was mewing like one of the legendary kittens in his father's hayloft.

‘Mmm,' she said afterwards. ‘That'll teach me a sharp lesson.'

‘You're impossible,' he mumbled into her neck.

The doorbell rang. Barney lurched up.

‘That'll be Mrs Hibbert,' said Isabella dreamily. ‘Coming back for her handbag.'

‘
What?
'

‘I'll go,' she said.

‘You can't! Look at you.' He began mopping frantically at his clothes before hurrying to the door.

Isabella heard the Bishop's voice say, ‘I'm so sorry. My wife – Ah, thank you.'

The door closed again.

‘Dear God!' lamented Barney. ‘What have I done to deserve this?'

‘Did you interrupt a row?' asked the Bishop's wife as he got back into the car.

‘I believe I interrupted
something
,' mused the Bishop. ‘He had syllabub in his eyebrows.'

‘What are you giggling about?' asked Will.

‘Nothing. Go to sleep.'

CHAPTER 26

Annie tried to spend some time each morning with her Bible. She wanted to pray and discern God's will for her, but she had never felt so spiritually lethargic. Restraining her wandering thoughts had always been difficult, but now it was worse than ever. She realized one morning that instead of praying she had been thinking for fifteen minutes about lemon meringue pie – whether she might bake one and eat it. I don't believe this! she wailed in despair. Here I am in the middle of the most difficult spiritual crisis of my life, and all I can think about is lemon meringue pie. Will laughed when she told him.

‘What's the matter with me?' she lamented.

‘You're pregnant,' was his reply.

A couple of days later she received a postcard that jolted her out of her lethargy. It was from Isobel. She was having a lovely time in Normandy. There was mention of churches and cathedrals, but not of cider and Calvados. Isobel would only ever visit Rome in order to disapprove of what the Romans did, thought Annie. Then came the thunderbolt: ‘I've got my curacy lined up, by the way. I'm going to Asleby-on-Tees, where you did your placement last summer.'

Annie stared at the tidy writing. She placed the card carefully on the table. Without warning, a sense of all she had lost washed over her. Isobel had a curacy, and Annie did not. Asleby had felt so right. She had been a round peg in a round hole for once in her life. She remembered walking the streets with Harry the vicar, sensing how he loved and prayed for his parish, how he knew it and the people inside out. He was a born parish priest. Lucky, lucky Isobel, sobbed Annie. To be part of that work, seeing lives change and wounds healed and the kingdom drawing nearer. That was what had fired her, the whiff of advent in the wind.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
But when she'd gone back to Coverdale her life had felt like a glory hole stuffed with useless broken things. Other people's views and creaky old frameworks had squashed her into a corner. She had seized on the nearest passing saviour – Will – only to find herself in a different corner mourning what she had lost.

Johnny was right. Her vocation had just been lying low. She could hear the call coming again, not in words; but there, slipping in between one heartbeat and the next, there – the soul's birthday, the advent wind.

That Sunday she went up for communion. She had a low view of the sacrament, being in some ways still a Nonconformist at heart, but as she queued in the aisle she knew this time would be different. Her pulse began to race. What if she had the kind of charismatic experience she had always half craved, half dreaded? Supposing she were ‘slain in the Spirit' and lay unconscious on the carpet for twenty minutes with everyone tutting and stepping over her? The organ began playing as she reached the communion rails. Johnny made his way along the row. Her hands trembled as she held them out for the bread.
The body of Christ keep you in eternal life.

At the time she thought nothing had happened, after all, but as she stood at the back singing the last hymn, she realized everything had changed. It was the same noisy church – she registered the toddler bashing a bunch of keys on to the pew. She was the same Annie Brown, pregnant failed ordinand living with her difficult lover. But there had been a shift of perspective. These ordinary things seemed caught up in something bigger.

She tried to explain this to Johnny after the service.

He grinned. ‘So you want a job?'

‘I think I do,' she said in surprise.

‘Ha'away. I'll show you something.'

He led her out of the church.

‘Where are you taking me?'

They were hurrying towards a nearby estate with him still grinning as though they were up to no good. Children's voices piped, ‘Hiya, Johnny!' as they passed. He waved and called back. Annie gazed at the tower blocks and blocks of maisonettes. It was the place that had seemed so desolate to her the day Tubby had sent her to pray and wander. Nothing here to feast the eyes on, she had thought.

‘Where are we going?' she asked.

He stopped. They were in the middle of a courtyard. Washing flapped on lines in the little yards.

‘Is the Gospel relevant here?' asked Johnny. ‘Can it work?'

She looked around, doubtingly, knowing what the right answer was supposed to be. ‘Well . . .'

‘Yes, it can,' he said passionately. ‘It can. But I'm damn sure Anglicanism can't. I know these people. I baptize them, I bury them. Once in a while I marry them. But Sunday worship? Nah.'

‘What's the answer?'

‘You've got to start from scratch. Build something new. That's what I want to do.'

‘You're frustrated with –'

‘Too right, I am. I'm a builder, not a bloody maintenance man.'

‘So . . . Church planting, then?'

‘Aye. Are you in?'

‘Um . . .' Something of his excitement reached her. ‘Yes. Yes, I think I am.'

‘Great.' His face lit up. ‘It'll be pretty radical. I'm seeing the Bishop next week to talk it over.' She watched his eyes sweep round as though he could see it already. He's another born parish priest, she thought. What if this is the place I'm called to? Bishopside. It had been offered once before by Tubby and she had run, dodging and weaving, hoping to elude the hand of God. But here she was again, right in the heart of Bishopside.

Building something new, she thought, as she walked home. A church stripped of the clutter of tradition. Radical. Starting from scratch. He's mad. It'll be terrifying. But think what we'd be free from: the Bridge Illustration, the evangelistic supper party, Christian paperbacks – all those wonderful worthy things, which made her want to scream.

She paused. She was on the spot where she had felt the presence of God months before. A benevolent eye looking down intently at Annie Brown to see what she would do, what she would make of the life and gifts and opportunities she had been given. Gabriel's words whispered in her mind like a prophecy: Your disaster will be the thing that sets you free.

Annie was lying on a hospital examination couch. The waiting room had been full of other women in various states of bloom. The afternoon, like a good evangelical sermon, could be summarized under three headings: Weeing, Weighing and Waiting. She was now at the latter stage. Every so often a midwife would pop her head round the curtain and say, ‘Mr Jones won't be long now.'

Annie knew about Mr Jones. She had been to a coffee morning earlier in the day and had met several young mothers and mothers-to-be. She had not known there were so many middle-class professional women lurking in Bishopside. They were going to be a useful mine of baby-related information. Mr Jones was a new consultant. He was young and forward-looking. The other consultants were old-fashioned. The women swapped birth stories. Perhaps one day Annie would be grateful for their companionship, but at the moment they just made her feel desperate. I'll turn into Megs, she thought. I'll breastfeed in public and discuss poo and snot at the dinner table.

A midwife stuck her head round the curtain again. ‘Mr Jones will be with you in a minute.'

Annie began to suspect Mr Jones was a convenient hospital myth invented to soothe and subdue worried women. But then the curtain swished and a large man came in.

It was Barney.

Annie gawped in shock.

‘Hello, I'm Mr Jones,' he said. He was already riffling through her notes and she got a grip on her facial expression and mumbled hello. It was the man she'd glimpsed in the Cambridge University Library catalogue room so many years before. She'd forgotten he was real. As his large hands began to feel her stomach she noticed with amusement that he had thinned out just as Camilla had predicted Barney would.
Mr Mark Jones
, said the badge on his jacket.

‘So,' he said, starting to run through her notes and ask questions. He conveyed the impression that he was pushed for time but not in so much of a hurry that she was being a nuisance.

‘Anything worrying you?' he asked. ‘Any questions?'

‘Not really,' she said. She could hardly ask, Weren't you at Cambridge twelve years ago?

‘I'll see you again at thirty weeks,' he said. He gave one last glance at her notes and paused in surprise. ‘William Penn-Eddis?' He looked at Annie as though she were suddenly far more interesting than just another patient. ‘Good God. I was at Cambridge with him. Isn't he a GP in Bishopside?'

‘Yes.'

‘Send him my regards.' He chuckled. ‘Not that he'll remember me. In fact, I doubt if he has more than the haziest memory of his Cambridge days.' He saw Annie's surprised expression and cleared his throat. ‘That was the seventies, of course.' He handed her file back and left her wondering what he had meant.

Will laughed when she mentioned it to him.

‘What did he mean?'

‘That I spent half my Cambridge career stoned.'

‘You didn't!'

Annie longed to tell him that she had unwittingly put her consultant into her novel, but she still hadn't found a way of mentioning her book. Will read such highbrow fiction that she feared hers would be beneath him.

While he was out at his evening surgery she wrote up the boeuf Wellington episode. At quarter to eight she set off reluctantly for the vicarage. They had been invited for dinner. Will was to come later. Annie supposed that she must construe the invitation as further evidence that Johnny was right and his wife liked her, but she was not looking forward to it.

The vicarage smelled of garlic and fresh basil. Johnny was out. Annie's heart sank at the thought of prising conversation out of Mara until he returned. She was wearing a dark red dress and had her long hair loose. She looked so stunning that Annie decided to put her in her next book and give her peptic ulcers. ‘Can I do anything?' she asked, as they went into the kitchen.

Mara shook her head. She poured Annie some wine.

‘Could I see some more of your pictures?' ventured Annie. She expected Mara would be regretting the offer by now, but the other woman went off at once and came back with a large portfolio.

‘Have a look through,' said Mara. ‘I've got to do the salad.'

Annie knelt on the sitting-room floor and began to leaf through the drawings. There were sketches of Bishopside, lofty flyovers against the sky. Annie began to see that they were the basis of the abstracts on the wall. She looked at the paintings with new interest and thought she glimpsed sense in them – rushing of wind, a mad, dizzy drop, sky between blocks of concrete.

There were more drawings of people. Lightning sketches done in cafés and trains, then some portraits, possibly of Mara's parents. There were some of Will's cousin (Little Shit), still looking incredibly pleased with himself. Annie peered at the tiny writing underneath.
Andrew Jacks.
Annie smiled at the way Mara managed to weave her opinion of the sitter into her pencil strokes.

She turned to the next sheet and gasped. It was Johnny, lying naked. She looked away in confusion, feeling gauche and unsophisticated. Didn't he mind his wife doing this? She fumbled hurriedly to the next picture and started in shock. It's art, she reminded herself, blushing. But how could Mara let another woman see her husband's erection? Yet it was drawn so tenderly. Annie was moved by the devastating honesty, the naked love that showed in every line.

Mara rushed back into the room. ‘I've just remembered –' She caught sight of the picture. ‘Shit.' Her face was crimson.

‘Oh! I'm sorry,' cried Annie. ‘I thought you meant me to –'

‘
Shit.
I'd forgotten they were in there.' Mara was yanking savagely at a strand of her hair. Annie turned swiftly to the next picture. The same.

‘Oh! Um . . .' What if there were dozens? ‘I won't if . . .' They were both blushing furiously.

‘Well, you've seen now,' muttered Mara. ‘Go on.'

Annie hurried on until she reached a picture of the cathedral. ‘What lovely Norman arches,' she remarked. A second later they were overcome with giggles.

‘Don't you dare tell him,' said Mara at last.

‘You could donate one to the tombola at the Autumn Fayre,' suggested Annie. Off they went again.

‘That'll give them something to think about.'

‘I'm afraid it's crossed most of our minds already,' Annie admitted.

‘William's very attractive, too,' said Mara. Then she blushed again and retreated to the kitchen muttering, as though she was unversed in this kind of girlish exchange and despised herself for trying.

Annie continued to work through the portfolio, envying Mara's skill. She got to the end, then went sneakily back to the pictures of Johnny. There was the sound of his key in the door. She shut the portfolio and tried to look negligent. He came in.

‘Hiya, sweetheart.' He pulled out his dog-collar. ‘She's been showing you her pictures, then?'

‘Yes. They're very good,' said Annie brightly, at a loss to know quite where to look.

‘Yeah,' he said affectionately. ‘She's amazing, isn't she?' He stooped to leaf through, then stopped abruptly. Annie gazed out of the window twiddling her wine glass in her fingers. Johnny swept the pictures up in his arms and strode through to the kitchen. He shut the door after him, but Annie could still hear him swearing and expostulating.

Oh, no! This is awful. Awful, she giggled to herself, as she sat on the sofa. The doorbell rang. Johnny and Mara were still arguing. In the end Annie went. It was Will. She whispered what had happened and he laughed out loud.

‘Ssh!'

They went through to the sitting room and waited. Silence had fallen in the kitchen. Eventually Johnny emerged. ‘Dinner is served,' he said. When Annie finally dared to meet his eye she saw he was grinning. Mara was looking a little flushed when she appeared to serve the pasta. But perhaps the kitchen was hot.