The Anchoress of Shere, page 18
Duval seemed pleased. “You are learning quickly. In a few weeks we can get you to confirmation stage, and then on to taking part in Holy Communion. I will also explain penance and absolution.”
“Michael, speaking as someone who knew so little about religion, I am grateful for”-she was going to say “your time,” but she stopped herself-“for your patience, but may I ask what level I am supposed to reach?” She wanted to say something about the fact that, to her knowledge, there had never been a female Pope, but that would certainly have come into his definition of facetiousness.
“I will explain more later. Perhaps first I will show you some of the history I am writing. Not quite yet. It needs some editing, but it is the story of a woman’s purification, and I hope it will make things clearer.”
Marda didn’t push him.
In these “seminars,” as he called them, he soon dispensed with the handcuffs. Initially he locked the door behind him and watched her carefully, but as the weeks passed, and she made no attempt to escape, he grew more relaxed. There had been no “removal of privileges” for at least ten days. He seems to like me, she thought.
Marda’s cell was tolerably warm. She had light for up to twelve hours a day, and an extra towel. Her little library had extended beyond the Bible and Lives of the Saints-she had enjoyed particularly a history of the Crusades and a book of religious poetry. In the dismal dark world she inhabited, Hopkins’s “Glory be to God for dappled things” took on a very special meaning, of hope for light, literally, in the future. She desperately wanted to get out, of course, and above all to reassure her family, but somehow she didn’t think Duval intended to kill her. She tried to find out what he really wanted from her. Was he simply trying to convert her? Secure one good Catholic conversion before he died or…What if something did happen to him? If he were knocked over by the proverbial bus or had a heart attack? No one would find her. She would starve.
She started trying to keep a little store of food at the end of the bench, but one night she awoke to find a scratching sound next to her ear. Instinctively covering her face with her hand, she felt the brush of damp fur across her arm as something scuttled off her bed.
Marda screamed. She hated rats.
She wondered whether someone, in years to come, would find her, dead, with a rat sitting on her skeleton.
Marda tried to brush aside such terrifyingly negative thoughts; she would think constructively. Yes, she would find its hole, and block it when she had some light, but she would keep her little food store. She would make a small bag and hang it from one of the grilles of the air vent when it was dark, then hide it each morning. She didn’t want him to have the slightest suspicion of her plan.
Plan? I should be thinking of a plan to get out, she said to herself.
She estimated that in a few days-maybe, maybe, please-he would allow her to go upstairs, but first she would ask if she could walk in the corridor. Meanwhile, she did some press-ups on the bench during the long dark hours, to tire herself because she was sleeping so badly. She fretted about her physical deterioration.
She had asked Duval for a mirror to see what she looked like, to see how pale she was.
“Such vanity is entirely unnecessary,” he had said dismissively.
“Will you tell me then how I look, after so long down here?”
He had said she looked just fine. But what else could he say?
X. The Good Book
Duval cut out a small section of a newspaper and stared at it for five minutes. Before carefully folding it and putting it in the drawer of his desk, he wrote on the clipping:
“Surrey Advertiser, 19th November 1967, page 7.”
French Police Draw Blank
French police in Bordeaux have discounted the reports of a recent sighting of Miss Marda Stewart, 23, the missing Guildford employee of Phillips’ Wine Company. Miss Stewart was last seen in Guildford on 7 October 1967. She is believed to have travelled to France the following day. Two recent reports of her in the Bordeaux region have been checked by police and discounted.
A spokesman for the Surrey police, Superintendent Terence Dawkins, said, “We are maintaining our search for Miss Stewart, but we believe she is more likely to be found in France. Hence our close co-operation with the French authorities, who are continuing to follow up leads on the Continent.”
Marda had also been busy writing, trying hard to connect with the world outside her cell:
Dearest Jenny,
This is my third letter to you. Still imprisoned here. I shall try to escape by talking about our everyday life. Such thoughts keep me sane.
I don’t know what the people at work must think. I suppose that Michelle-who always wanted to go on the French trips-has replaced me. I suppose the police have been on to you. What did you say I wonder? Did they take you to my flat in Shere?
What has happened to my flat? Has Dad kept up the rent for me? And all my records? Do you have them, especially the Kinks LP, the one we always used to play. I wish I could hear it now. I told you all about Him in my previous letters, so I’d better bring you up to date on Events.
I’m not so cold any more. He lets me have a heater and usually gives me enough paraffin-Parrafin (spelling?)-OK heating oil-to keep it going. And although I’ve lost a lot of weight I’m not hungry all the time. I told you about the rat. He’s come back once or twice, but he seems as afraid of me as I am of him. But I still have my little store of food, perhaps it can keep me going for a few days if something happens to him-Him, not the rat. I can tell the difference! What if the police find him and he doesn’t talk? What if they lock him up?
I hate him. He is so frightening. Michael, I told you his name, his surname is Duval. He is Father Michael but I call him Michael. I am trying really hard to be his friend so he doesn’t kill me, like he did the others. Oh, Jenny, I so want to live-there’s so much I want to do. Just one hour-even half an hour-to be with you, going shopping or to the theatre in Guildford. Just one drink in the King’s Head.
Sometimes I don’t hate him as much. I have learned a lot. Mainly about religion. In some ways I hate God for letting me be here, being imprisoned by one of His priests. Perhaps he is not a real priest, after all, but he certainly knows a lot about religion. And I have learned about history. Every now and then I think I am in a crazy university, but I could walk out of a university and just go back to work and enjoy my life with you, and my other friends. And my family. I wish you could tell them that I love them so much. I could even hug my brother and tell him I love him too. I have never told him that.
Have you seen Jim at all? I promised to ring him back. Of course I couldn’t. If only I could tell him that I wasn’t ignoring him.
Oh! My poor parents. If only they could know that I’m not dead. Not yet. Not by a long way. I try to keep fit by press-ups and running on the spot. I suppose I must look awful but I don’t know because I haven’t looked in a mirror. I have had to give up smoking, which is one “plus,” I suppose. I’ve asked him for some ciggies, especially my own brand. I’d love a puff before going to bed. I never go to sleep straightaway. I’m either too cold or hungry or sometimes just too frightened. I have dreams-bad dreams- about seeing Denise’s body. Well, skeleton. It’s in the next cell to mine. There are five skeletons, I think, all within a few feet of me. It’s creepy. More than creepy, as you can imagine. Could you really imagine my situation? I am afraid to write how I really feel, to give in to total despair.
I am trying to be brave. I remember some of the mountaineering things we tried and how I failed some of the courses. I think I could do all that now. Sometimes I think I can be brave but then I get floods, yes floods, of fear. I cry until my body aches. I have even thought of trying to kill myself, but I don’t know how. Then I say NO! I will come through this! Talking to you helps, you know.
At other times I feel OK. Like he needs me. If he needs me, he won’t kill me. Am I right? Even when I am so scared I try to look happy, just so that he likes talking to me. I have to act, but he seems to know when I’m acting. He is clever; perhaps cunning is a better word.
There are times when he is almost nice. I almost feel sorry for him. Like if I was free I would help him. I couldn’t really, of course, because he has killed all those girls.
I wish I knew what to do. I have thought of trying to hit him hard and make a run for the door, but he is a big man. Looks athletic, although I would think he is about 45. He’s got strong hands. I don’t think I could get the better of him.
I felt better starting this letter. Now I feel it’s pretty useless. But thanks anyway. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Always your very, very best friend,
All my love,
Marda
PS. I still would like to go to Portugal with you for Christmas. I hope you haven’t given away my ticket!
PPS. Reading this letter for the twentieth time makes life sound so superficial. I want to do the ordinary things, but most of all I want to see the sun, feel rain on my face, hold someone’s hand, run for just a few yards, to live for a few minutes without fear, to tell my Mum how I adore her, to put my arms around my brother, to hear my father’s voice. It is these little things that really really count. Please remember that.
Marda wiped her tears on one of the two towels that Duval had given her. She carefully folded the letter as small as it would go, then standing on the bench, she pushed it into the air vent.
“Useless mail box,” she said aloud. She suddenly remembered a joke from her childhood: “What’s the difference between a post box and an elephant’s bum?”
“I don’t know,” she said in a silly Mickey Mouse voice. “What is the difference?”
“You don’t know? Well, I wouldn’t send you to post a letter!”
She laughed hysterically, and then burst into tears again. Shaking, she pretended to light a cigarette, and thought that in the films tough guys smoked and didn’t cry. She felt that her life now was just like some terrible B-movie, except she couldn’t walk out in the middle of it. She coughed from the imagined smoke and that stopped the tears, but not the pain in her head. She’d had a bad cold for about a week; although he had brought her some aspirins, they didn’t help. She did not beg to be taken upstairs. That wouldn’t have worked, but she told him that nearly two months of no fresh air was driving her mad. “If only I could see the sky!” she said.
She worried about her health, as she had not menstruated since her incarceration. Perhaps my body is going haywire, she told herself.
Then she began irrationally to fear that somehow he had made her pregnant; that maybe she had been drugged again. She developed a brooding fear that she had been impregnated by the Devil, that some dark beast lurked in her womb, even though her weight loss told her that this was impossible. She hadn’t even thought about sex since her capture, so perhaps part of her was closing down for the duration. She wondered whether it would be temporary; she prayed that her ability to bear children was not being taken away by the monster upstairs.
The next morning he knocked on her door before unlocking it.
“How are we this morning?” he asked cheerfully.
“I feel awful, Michael. My headache’s getting worse,” she said, her voice racked with self-pity. “Can I please just walk around in fresher air outside in the corridor? And I don’t want to see any more rooms, I promise. I won’t try to escape. You can see I’m too weak.” She was sitting limply on her bench.
He came in and helped her up, the first time he had touched her since he had captured her. She looked at him in surprise, and he drew back his hand, as if he had suffered an electric shock.
“No, Michael. Don’t be afraid of touching me,” she said reassuringly. “I appreciate your trying to help me up. May I walk a little outside the room?”
He gestured towards the open door. “The cellar door is locked, but I will permit you to walk up and down to give your legs a bit of exercise, and the air is a little fresher out there because the main door has been open for a while.”
She hesitantly stepped through the door into the corridor, and walked gently up and down with childlike pleasure, despite her cold. She didn’t speak for a few minutes, then she said abruptly, “What is the weather like outside? Raining I expect.”
“No, it’s dry, but very windy.”
“Has there been snow at all? Are we into November yet?”
“It’s actually the fifth of December.”
She stopped walking, and her pale face seemed to sag into total lifelessness. “I’ve been here since the seventh of October,” she said in disbelief. “That’s nearly two months. I had no idea it was that long…I must have lost track completely. I should have kept a calendar from the start, but I was sort of lost for those first few weeks, wasn’t I?”
He gave her a look bordering on kindness: “You were a bit.”
“But I am better now?” She spoke as though she were a little child.
“Yes, and we get on better,” he said in an avuncular fashion.
“You’re not, not going to kill me?”
“No, I never had any intention of doing you any harm, as I told you. You are my pupil.”
Marda thought she would quit while she was still ahead. She changed the subject: “What’s that big crucifix for?”
“That came from my first church in East Anglia. They were renovating the place, and I was the only one who wanted it. I’ve had it for twenty-odd years. Sentimental foolishness, really.”
That was one of the first signs of sentiment he had confessed to, she realised.
“But why put it in the cellar?”
“No room upstairs, and I had intended this to be a holy place. But it hasn’t…worked out. It’s become like a graveyard. Well, until you came. So, let’s make sure you get well and we can proceed with your seminars, so you can come upstairs out of this draughty place, at least for our teaching sessions. I must admit I get a bit uncomfortable down here, too.” He seemed to be assessing how much he could show of himself.
He assumed again the role of kind uncle. “But all in good time. All right, you get back to bed-I know it’s still early-but if you feel weak, may I suggest a drop of corn spirit with a little milk, honey and lemon? A good old remedy for a cold.”
She nodded. “Thank you, that would be nice. Even nicer-although not conventional medicine-would be some Gitanes. Just one?” she said with an exaggerated wheedling tone.
Duval said nothing as he led her back to her cell, closing the door without locking it.
Marda sat on the bed and pulled the blankets over her clothing. She became more alert. He’s left the door unlocked and the light on, she thought. For the first time. And he touched me. He’s either going soft or he’s fattening me up…for something awful. She heard him unlock the main door to the cellar and come down the stairs.
After knocking on the door, he came in with a steaming glass of medicine.
“Here, sip this. I’ll turn up your heater. I’ve also brought you something different to read. My opus. It’s called Anchoress of Shere. I call it an ‘interpretative history.’ I’ve researched the basic facts extensively, although some of the documentary evidence is scanty. This is real history, founded on real truth. I think I have taught you enough for you be able to appreciate what I’ve been trying to do.”
He paused; then, with a gloss of modesty in his tone, he said, “Great literature, they say, is the clever orchestration of platitudes. I hope I’ve avoided some of the platitudes even if I’ve been playing on a one-string fiddle. So few good books are written nowadays, because those who can write rarely know anything. I don’t really know how to write, but I do know the most important thing is man’s, or in this case woman’s, relationship with God.”
Duval appeared embarrassed by his explanation. His arms seemed disinclined to obey his own words, as though giving her his book was impossible. Reluctantly he offered her the text, and she politely received it with both hands. Duval would not let go of the manuscript until he had finished speaking. Later, in the utter darkness, when Marda was reflecting on this contrary behaviour, she thought it was like Dracula being forced to open up his coffin in daylight. Duval and the book were almost one.
A few minutes later, he returned to the cell.
“To me, writing has perhaps been a lonely substitute for conversation,” he said confessionally. “Talking to you means a lot to me, so I would like you to read my work and say what you think about it. I won’t be too hurt if you say you don’t like it. It’s not finished yet. I have to add the conclusion, and even the rest needs a lot of editing. The typing isn’t perfect, either… I’m being too defensive, I know, but you are the first person I’ve shown it to. I hope you are well enough to read it…Take your time.”
He looked at her face. He rarely looked straight into her eyes, but this time he did.
She smiled to give him more confidence. “I’ll make time, Michael.”
“Yes, I suppose you have lots of time. I’m sorry to have to detain you.”
She saw this as a psychological breakthrough, even though he locked the door on the way out.
It was ten o’clock in the morning when she started to read. She had seen his watch; normally it was covered by his shirt or jacket. Perhaps that, too, was a concession.
He was obviously pleased with her progress when he came back at two o’clock-he announced the time-carrying a tray with a large cooked meal in a scrubbed wooden bowl. He also gave her a pack of Gitanes, for which she thanked him profusely. Duval made some small talk, but avoided asking her opinion before he left. She ate her meal, smoked two cigarettes and continued with her reading.
Later, he brought her coffee, and this time he couldn’t contain his curiosity: “How far have you got with it? You don’t have to read it in one go, but I’m pleased that it’s held your interest for so long. Well, my child?”
