Reckless Read online

  ‘And to speak to you.’

  ‘That was to make sense of the feeling too.’

  ‘What was this feeling?’

  ‘How perfect the world was, and how fragile. How there was goodness at the heart of it. How easily the goodness could die. That was what I felt, more than anything. This fragile world, that was so still and so beautiful, and was going to die.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ve felt that.’

  She looked up quickly, eagerly.

  ‘Have you? Have you? It’s grand, isn’t it? And it’s a terrible fear comes over you. That’s why I knew I had to tell everyone. To warn them. But what I said … I don’t know where it came from.’

  ‘You used the words you’d been given,’ said Rupert. ‘What else could you do?’

  ‘I knew it was wrong. After the third evening I knew I was making it up. I could feel it. All those people, all watching me, all writing down everything I said. That goes to a girl’s head, you know? I was the star. And after that, when I thought it would all go away, it got bigger and bigger. People came to see me, and I had to tell it all again. And they acted like I was holy, like I was a living saint. And Mam was so proud. And the priest was so good to me. So I couldn’t tell them. I kept waiting for someone to pull my arm and say, “That’s enough of all this foolishness, Mary Brennan.” But they never did.’

  ‘So you ran away.’

  ‘Oh, after the longest time. I stayed as long as I could. They all expected me to live the rest of my life in a convent. Dear Lord, I expected it myself. It’s terrible what a Catholic childhood does to you. A convent! Shut away with half a dozen miserable old women! If you want to know how Jesus suffered on the cross go into a convent, and you’ll know for sure that God has abandoned you.’

  ‘Is that what you felt? That God had abandoned you?’

  ‘Of course. Hadn’t I taken his name in vain? It was my punishment, living with the nuns. My punishment for all my terrible wickedness.’

  ‘And you never told a soul?’

  ‘What was I to tell them? That I was a wicked liar? There were all these other people who came to Buckle Bay and had visions and miracle cures and all sorts of wonders. That was me, started it all. If I was a liar, were they all liars?’

  ‘You’re not a liar, Mary.’

  ‘But you see, Rupert, no one, in all my life, has ever said to me what you’ve said today. I thought my visions were either from God, or they were my own lies. But here you are, a man who doesn’t believe in God, telling me I don’t need God for my visions to be true.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Mary.’

  ‘Then God bless you!’ she said with fervour. ‘And even if you don’t have a God, I’ve got a God, and my God blesses you.’

  ‘And you know something else about your God?’ said Rupert. ‘God knows everything. God knows you better than you know yourself. So all along, God has known your secret. How you made it up, and never told anyone. You can’t keep secrets from God.’

  ‘You talk so like a priest, Rupert Blundell.’

  ‘I was raised in the church. I can talk the talk.’

  She jumped up out of the pew, suddenly filled with energy.

  ‘Oh, dear Lord! I want to run about.’

  ‘Run about, then. Run up and down the aisle.’

  She raised her arms and did three rapid pirouettes, her eyes finding him on each turn. She looked radiant.

  ‘I want to fly,’ she said.

  ‘Now that would impress me.’

  ‘Darling Rupert. Can I hug you?’

  He stood up and they shared a long hug in the aisle. Her joyous relief infected him too.

  ‘You know why I’m so happy?’ she said. ‘I’ve escaped at last.’

  ‘Almost,’ he said.

  ‘Why almost?’

  ‘You have to go back to Kilnacarry first. You have to show them who you are. Then you’ll be free.’

  He felt quite sure of this, without entirely knowing why. Until she had returned, and let her mother and her brother and the priest and all the people of her childhood see and accept her as she was now, a part of her would be for ever held prisoner in Kilnacarry.

  ‘I can’t go back,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a twelve-year-old girl there, Mary, waiting for you to come back and tell her she’s done no wrong.’

  ‘She told such stories.’

  ‘There’s more than one way for a story to be true.’

  ‘I would die of shame if they ever knew.’

  ‘Your God knows. Aren’t you ashamed before him?’

  ‘Oh, you Jesuit. What’s it to you if I go back or not?’

  ‘You’re living your life in hiding, Mary. I want you to come out of your hiding place into the light, where I can see you.’

  ‘Oh, do you? And what do you propose to do with me then?’

  He looked at her, and then took off his glasses to clean them with his handkerchief. While he was occupied in this way, no longer seeing her, he spoke in a neutral reflective voice.

  ‘I like the sound of this stillness. I thought I might ask you if you could try and show it to me.’

  She hadn’t expected that. She stared at his funny bumpy face, at his eyes no longer shielded by his spectacles, at his balding brow, and she couldn’t speak, she was so moved.

  ‘I’ll go back to Kilnacarry if you’ll go with me, Rupert Blundell.’

  36

  ‘It’s so lovely to have you home again, darling. Why does it have to be raining?’

  Pamela brushed the rain off her coat and hugged her mother. Everything at home was the way it had always been. She felt as if she had been away for a hundred years.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I promised William I’d watch him in his match this afternoon.’

  ‘Surely they don’t play in weather like this?’

  ‘It’s rugger, darling. Nothing stops them.’

  Pamela went up to her room carrying the small suitcase she’d brought from London. It was the bedroom of a child. This sensation, that she was no longer the person who had once inhabited this pretty room, swept over her so powerfully that she wanted to cry. It felt to her as if she had lost something that she cared about very much, in the short time since she had last slept in this narrow white bed.

  ‘Well, darling,’ she said aloud, mocking herself, ‘you’ve lost your innocence, haven’t you?’

  She stood at her bedroom window, looking out at the distant hump of Mount Caburn, grey under the grey sky. The impulse to cry was still very strong, but she dug her fingernails into her palms and stopped herself. She went to the little washbasin in the corner and splashed her face with cold water, and brushed her hair hard with her old hairbrush, staring at herself in the mirror that was framed in pink seashells.

  I’ll show them.

  Who they were, and what they were to be shown, was not clear to her. Only that she was hurt and angry. In the days that had passed since her weekend at Herriard, her feelings of shame had been overtaken by a growing anger. She was angry with André, and Bobby, and the world they came from, the world of Stephen and Christine. But this home world, to which she now fled, was no comfort to her. She felt that she belonged nowhere, and had no future.

  I don’t deserve this.

  Here lay the core of her anger. She was owed a fine life, and she had been cheated. She was entitled to love, and no one loved her. Her mother loved her, of course, but that meant nothing. Everyone was loved by their mothers. Home love was as much a burden as a support, with its unasked questions and lingering looks. Her mother said things like ‘So have you been having fun?’ because she could see she was unhappy. What could you say to a question like that?

  Pamela had retreated to Sussex not to be home but to be away from the scene of her humiliation. Now she was here she didn’t know what to do. Her sister Elizabeth was at boarding school. Larry, her stepfather, was on a buying trip in France. Her mother was preoccupied with Edward, her younger half-br
other, back from school for the weekend. And Edward, nine years old, knew nothing but the world of school, and his triumphs there.

  ‘I’m the top arm-wrestler in my year! Put up your arm, I’ll wrestle you!’

  ‘I don’t know how to arm-wrestle, Eddie.’

  ‘It’s easy. Put your elbow on the table. There. Now hold my hand.’

  He forced her arm down in one quick pounce.

  ‘Ow! You took me by surprise.’

  ‘Do it again, then.’

  They squared off again, sitting at the kitchen table, while their mother laid out lunch. Pamela pretended to resist as long as she could, and then let him win.

  ‘You’re rubbish,’ said Edward, beaming.

  ‘All right, Tarzan.’

  ‘I’m the best horse fighter too.’

  ‘My God,’ said Pamela to her mother. ‘He’s turned into a monster.’

  ‘That’s boys for you,’ said Kitty.

  After lunch they drove over to Underhill and stood under umbrellas on the side of a playing field, watching small boys hurl themselves about in the mud. The parents on the sidelines were passionately engaged in the action on the pitch, calling out to the youthful players in angry voices.

  ‘Get stuck in, Tom! Go, Peter, go, you can do it! Look where you’re passing, Patrick! Come on, Underhill! Heave!’

  The rain fell steadily, forming runnels of water trickling down the embankment at the edge of the playing field to the woods below. Somewhere in the haze the Downs loomed, lost in the sodden sky. Pamela clutched her umbrella and allowed her attention to wander. She had no interest in the match, even though it was against Underhill’s great rival, Ashdown, and was, according to Edward, the most important match of the year.

  ‘William’s so proud to be in the team,’ her mother said. ‘I just have to be here.’

  ‘I don’t understand any of it,’ said Pamela. ‘I can’t even see William.’

  ‘He’s in the second row. Look, there he is.’

  A cluster of small, muddy eleven-year-old boys was forming a scrum, locking shoulders. William was somewhere in the middle.

  ‘He’s bound to hurt himself,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Don’t! I dread it.’

  Off they went again, scattering, chasing the odd-shaped ball that bounced in unpredictable ways.

  ‘I think I’ll go and take a look in the art room,’ Pamela said.

  ‘All right, darling. Team tea in the dining hall after the match.’

  The art room, a hut on the far side of the school car park, was where Maurice Jenks worked on his own paintings at weekends. Pamela told herself that all she wanted was to get out of the rain.

  She opened the door without knocking, and came upon him slumped in his canvas chair, apparently asleep.

  ‘Whoever it is,’ he said, not opening his eyes, ‘go away.’

  ‘It’s me. Pamela.’

  His eyes jerked open. ‘The lovely Pamela?’

  ‘Hello, Mr Jenks. How are you?’

  ‘Nigh unto death. You’ve come just in time. My word, you’re a sight for sore eyes.’

  Pamela felt better at once. With a tiny twinge of shame she realised this was what she had come for.

  ‘Still no further on with your great work.’

  Maurice Jenks had been at work for as long as she’d known him on a large canvas he called his ‘Last Judgement’. It was to be a contemporary take on the great heaven and hell scenes of Bosch and Michelangelo. He had never got beyond the sketchingin of a writhing mass of bodies.

  ‘How’s London?’ he said, choosing not to speak of his own unachieved existence. ‘Are you at art school?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘The new courses haven’t started.’

  ‘So much for art,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’ve chosen life.’

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’ She lit up as she asked. ‘One of my brothers is in a rugger match. It’s foul out there.’

  ‘But in here we have warmth’ – he gestured to the flickering blue flame of an oil heater – ‘sustenance’ – he raised a half-drunk mug of instant coffee – ‘and beauty.’ He inclined his craggy head towards her. ‘Let the tempest rage.’

  She drew on her cigarette, soothed by the nicotine.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me bothering you.’

  ‘It seems not.’

  ‘I’ll go as soon as the match is over.’

  ‘I’m honoured to have you share my refuge. You can tell me tales of the city. Did you find your great love?’

  ‘What great love?’

  ‘I seem to remember you were going to have a great love affair.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all just stupid.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  Distant cries came through the falling rain from the playing fields.

  ‘There are grown men out there,’ she said, ‘shouting at small boys to kick each other harder, as if it really matters.’

  ‘Prep school dads,’ said the art master. ‘A special breed.’

  ‘What I keep thinking,’ said Pamela, ‘is there must’ve been a time when they were young, and in love. And they went down on one knee or whatever, and asked the girl to marry them. And there was a wedding, and a honeymoon, and a baby, just like everyone dreams. Now there they are, bald and tubby, bellowing in the rain.’

  Maurice Jenks squinted at her.

  ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be disillusioned?’

  ‘I don’t feel young.’

  ‘Allow me to assure you, you look young.’

  ‘I expect it’s my fault,’ said Pamela. ‘I expect I’m just doing everything all wrong. But how are you supposed to know?’

  ‘You don’t know. You flounder about. You make mistakes. You learn.’

  ‘Then what? Does it all come right in the end?’

  ‘You’re asking me?’ he said. ‘What do you expect me to say? I’m a prep school art master. That’s one step down in social standing from the man who puts the jam in doughnuts.’

  She smiled at him, and was gratified to see how he closed his eyes under the impact of her smile, and how his hand trembled.

  ‘I think you’re magnificent,’ she said.

  ‘You must want something from me.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Just to get out of the rain.’

  She joined the after-match tea in better spirits. The junior team had won their match, and William, it turned out, was the hero of the day. Pink with pride, he accepted the praise that jostled him on all sides.

  ‘Great try, Will! Quick thinking there, old chap!’

  Pamela gave him a hug and told him she was proud of him. She remembered her half-brothers when they’d been little, chortling and toddling about her as she lay on the rug, catching at them with outreached arms. And here was William grown to be eleven years old, and a rugger star, and almost as tall as her.

  ‘You never saw William’s try,’ her mother whispered to her, laughing.

  ‘I wouldn’t have seen it even if I’d seen it,’ said Pamela.

  ‘Me neither. The first I knew everyone was cheering and shouting his name. But he’s so happy. Just look at him.’

  ‘He’d better make the most of it,’ said Pamela. ‘This is as good as it gets.’

  The school tea was a curious combination of sausages, mashed potato, sponge cake with butter icing, and ginger biscuits. Pamela ate it all. She caught several of the fathers sneaking looks at her. Edward came over at one point and whispered, giggling, ‘David Davenport thinks you’re sexy.’

  ‘Which one’s David Davenport?’

  Edward pointed out a bold-looking thirteen-year-old with a thick shock of blond hair. He saw them looking at him and turned away abruptly, going red.

  ‘Tell him to come back in five years.’

  Edward loved that. He bounded off to relay the message. The double boost of nursery food and admiration restored Pamela’s good temper.

  *

  That evening, alone with her mother, they curled up together on the
sofa the way they used to do before she went away to school, and told each other secrets.

  ‘So have you acquired any admirers in London?’ Kitty said.

  ‘There was someone I thought I might like,’ she said, ‘but he turned out to be no good.’

  ‘Oh, darling. I’m so sorry. Was he a beast?’

  ‘Just no good, really.’

  ‘You have to be so careful with men. There aren’t many good ones about.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ said Pamela. ‘He seemed good. I mean, he was well-mannered, and generous, and clever. And actually quite grand and rich.’

  She wanted her mother to know that she had attracted the attention, for a while at least, of someone of some distinction.

  ‘Hugo said you’d been making some rather grand friends.’

  ‘Funny old Hugo.’

  ‘Don’t laugh at him, darling. He’s one of the good ones. I’ve no idea how he puts up with Harriet.’

  Pamela put on a Harriet voice.

  ‘We’re having a quiet day.’

  They both laughed.

  ‘But I’m not laughing at Hugo, Mummy. He’s a dear.’

  ‘Do you remember how when you were little you were going to marry him?’

  ‘Of course I do. What a fool he must have thought me.’

  ‘No, of course he didn’t. He’s not like that. He’s just completely decent and reliable and kind.’ Then Kitty added after a pause, ‘He was so patient with Ed.’

  It wasn’t often they talked about Pamela’s father.

  ‘Do you think,’ said Pamela, ‘if Daddy hadn’t died, that I’d have grown up a different person?’

  ‘How can we ever know? At least you had Larry.’

  ‘I love Larry so much. But Daddy was Daddy.’

  It was all so long ago, and truth to tell she had only confused memories of him. She remembered dancing with him, in the big room at Edenfield Place.

  ‘You’re like him in so many ways,’ her mother said, tracing her cheekbones with one finger. ‘I see him every time I look at you.’

  Pamela had his photograph by her bed. He was impossibly handsome, and a war hero as well. He’d won the VC. How many men like that are there in the world?