The Anchoress of Shere, page 25
“Remember, my sister in Christ,” said the visitor, “you may suffer a state of utter dereliction by God, but you must understand that abandonment comes before attainment of that cloud of knowing.” And she turned towards the open door.
A part of Marda wanted to say, “If you got in here, how the hell do you get out?” But her speech would not match her thoughts. Instead her mouth said, “Will I see you again soon?”
The figure did not answer, but walked soundlessly out of the cell. Marda’s brain told her body to run through the open door, to follow her, to find a way out, to discover if there were some hidden exit, but her body refused to obey the commands of her brain, and the door slammed shut.
Despite the astounding experience, Marda inexplicably fell asleep; when she awoke in complete darkness, she did not know which dimension she was in, whether she was alive or dead, asleep or dreaming. She recalled the visit vividly. Had it been a more than usually realistic dream? Or had it actually happened? Was she now certifiably insane, or the victim of another of Duval’s sinister chemistry experiments? She could hardly ask his advice on the matter.
A few hours later her tormentor arrived. Even if she had wanted to broach the sensitive question of the unscheduled visitor to her maximum-security establishment, it was clear that Duval was still refusing to speak. He did, however, leave more substantial food, and a big bottle of water. He also left the light on for a few hours. This carried on for days.
Finally he came with food and a voice. “I hope you have learned a good lesson,” he said cruelly.
Marda was too afraid to risk saying the wrong thing, and it was not the time to raise questions about her perception of reality, so she waited. She was becoming an expert at waiting.
“You’re not ugly, but you will not be able to use sexual blandishments on me.”
“May I speak, Michael?” she asked meekly.
“Of course.”
“I apologise if I upset you. It was the drink and the sense of freedom. Please forgive me. I had meant to please you, not upset you. Please can we continue the lessons?”
In a harsh voice he said, “I shall bring you food and heat and leave the light on. Use this opportunity to read your Bible and pray for forgiveness from our Lord.”
“I will. I will. May I have my clothes back? At least my habit.”
“It is ironic-is it not? — that you should ask for a habit, not a worldly dress. Perhaps it is more than just the cold. I hope so. I shall come back with some more heating oil. It is very cold in here, I must admit.”
“Thank you,” she said with real sincerity.
Ten minutes later he came back with two large containers of oil. “This should keep you warm for a week,” he said in his best distant manner. “When the room is really warm, I’ll come back with more food and new books.”
“Thank you very much.”
He also emptied her portable toilet.
About two hours later he returned. After days of darkness and loneliness she felt as though she were on a crowded aircraft. Her spirits lifted after he had brought in a tray of food, until she saw him produce the handcuffs from his pocket. She tried to sound sweet and lively, but not too pushy: “Are you taking me upstairs again? Please, I would love to get out of here for a while. And will you give me back something to wear, please?”
“Perhaps later. Please handcuff yourself to the end of your bench,” he said with cold politeness.
“Why, Michael? I can’t go anywhere.”
She did not want to argue because she wanted the food. She took the cuffs and clicked the lever shut across the loop and the other metal circle around her left wrist, while trying to hold the blankets covering her naked body.
Duval leaned forward and pulled the blanket off her.
“Please don’t, Michael,” she said, trembling with fear.
He stared at her naked form. “You were throwing yourself at me last week,” he spluttered with outrage. “Now you pretend to be modest.”
She huddled into a ball, trying to cover her nakedness.
“So the coy young thing now.”
“Please. I offered myself to you before. When I was… drunk. But I offered, please don’t take me against my will.”
“I promise I will not touch you, except to take hold of your leg here.”
As he said this, he produced another set of cuffs from his jacket pocket.
“Please don’t, Michael.” Fear made her raise her voice, which she was trying to keep calm to avoid angering him further.
Chained as she was, she tried to pull her legs up, but he forced them down and cuffed her right ankle to the loop at the bottom of her bench. Now she was spread-eagled, facing outwards on her bench, with just her right hand to cover her naked body.
“What do you want to do?” she cried almost hysterically.
“Nothing. I want to look at you.”
He stared at her for a few minutes while she tried to stop herself crying. She wanted to shout that he was a lunatic, a filthy, perverted bastard, but she was hardly in a position to risk anything that would trigger him into an uncontrollable frenzy.
“I have some information about a member of your family.”
She was astounded. “Really? My family, but how? What?”
“I will tell you if you do something for me.”
“Do what?” she said, unable to mask the suspicion in her voice.
“I have some holy water, mixed with body oil, which I want you to rub over yourself. And I want to watch you do it.”
She looked hard into his eyes, to try to read him, but it was no good. He did not, however, try to escape her gaze as he usually did. Marda said, “I will put oil on myself, if you give me some news of my family. What could you know about them?”
“I have met someone who is apparently your brother.”
Marda squealed in delight. “My brother?”
“Captain Stewart, I believe. Strong-looking chap, in his mid- to late twenties.”
“Yes, yes. That’s him!”
“He gave me this.”
Her tormentor showed the leaflet to the frightened girl.
“Oh, Mark. Mark. What did he say to you? What did you say to him?”
“I will tell you if you’ll oblige by letting me watch you rub this ointment on to yourself. It is harmless. It is based on the gimmicks they sell in Lourdes, more water than oil. I have added a few perfumed plants from the Hurtwood. Smell it.”
Opening the bottle, he put it under her nose. He poured a little into his hand, and rubbed it vigorously over his face.
“Observe, it’s not caustic soda. I am not a sadist. But I need to see you do this. I want to show you that I do not find you unattractive. And you are safer, let us say, restrained by steel rather than by my religious vows or your sexual guiles. Do this for me, and I will tell you as much as I can about your brother and his Sherlock Holmes play-acting.”
Reluctantly Marda took the bottle, while Duval sat and watched her.
With her free hand, she poured a little on to her arms and legs, then rubbed the mixture into her skin, while he lit up his pipe, broke the dead match in two and put it back inside the matchbox.
Marda used his annoying habit as an excuse to stop. “Please don’t stop,” he insisted. “I want you to rub it all over yourself…to rub it into your breasts and thighs.” He sounded like a doctor telling a patient how to take a prescription.
“Please don’t make me do this,” she said, as tears teased the corners of her eyes. “So far you have tried to teach me uplifting things, about the Bible, about life, civilisation, history. This is degrading, just not like you.”
His anger had abated somewhat, and the schoolmaster voice began to take over: “I tried to instruct you in spiritual matters, but I see you are addicted to the ways of the flesh. So be it. I no longer respect you in the way I did before.”
Marda wondered whether he was a repressed homosexual, or perhaps he was just massively repressed, full stop: what normal male would have reacted so aggressively to her naked form? Now he had revealed himself as a voyeur. Whatever was wrong with him, she was terrified of the repercussions of the traumatic dinner.
To Duval, Marda was now far less like Christine. He tended to be ultra-deferential with the few women he met whom he deemed his intellectual or social superiors. With women he regarded as inferiors, his sadism grew more pronounced. He had abandoned the almost masochistic worship of Marda as Christine; now he was beginning to despise his young prisoner as a fallen woman, not worthy of his religious dedication.
Marda pleaded, “Please don’t hurt me or starve me like the others, please don’t.”
“I won’t if you do precisely what I say,” he said. “Please continue rubbing in the oil.”
She did so for a few more minutes, embarrassed, and in silence; a silence interrupted only by the sound of Duval sucking on his pipe. Her goosepimples grew hard with cold and fear.
“That is enough,” he ordered.
He gave her back the blankets.
“I have one more request,” he said, as he pulled out a pair of scissors from his jacket pocket. Marda was now really frightened.
“Don’t be afraid. I would like to cut a small lock from your hair.”
Marda’s memory raced back to the scene of Christine’s mother cutting a lock from the hair of the dead Margaret.
“Please don’t scalp me, just take a small piece if you really have to.”
“Thank you.” He leaned over, cut a small section of her hair and put it into his top pocket.
“Now let me unlock the cuffs.”
Marda was suddenly reminded of her dentist. He is so clinical, she thought. He’s like a medical specialist explaining his methods to a nervous patient.
He undid her right foot first. She thought of striking him with her right hand as he bent over her ankle, but she could do little while her left hand was cuffed. Having unlocked the other handcuff, he moved back quickly to face her.
“Please tell me more about my brother,” she pleaded.
“He was staying in your flat, I understand. He has spent the last two months looking for you.”
“Where am I?”
“You are not much more than a mile from your flat, just outside Shere.”
A look of amazement came over her face.
“He came here to give me this leaflet and to ask if I had seen you. The leaflets are all over Shere. Of course, I had to lie…unfortunately. He left quite satisfied. I understand that after two months of fruitless search he has left the village. He has gone back to his regiment in Germany, or so I’m told.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Village tittle-tattle, and I’ve seen one or two articles in the local rag. Constable McGregor, our local protector, sometimes chats to me when I am out walking Bobby. Quite a little chatterbox is our PC McGregor. And too nosy for his own good, I’m afraid. Rather irritating Scotsman, but he is a useful source of information. And, of course, my brief meeting with that fine young man, your brother, was also interesting. But everybody has given up. They will not find you, Marda, so if I were you I would try to behave myself. I have a short time to decide whether to leave this place and go to South America or stay here, but I cannot just let you go. That would be too dangerous.”
Marda felt bile rise in her throat, but anger made her speak: “You have lied to me all along!”
“Be reasonable,” he said smirking. “I know you must think me a little mad, but I am not mad enough to let you just walk out of here.”
“But you promised you wouldn’t hurt me, or leave me to die of hunger.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, but decisions must be made soon, and you can help me make them by doing exactly what I ask of you. Today is a good start. It is the fifth of January, the beginning of a new year. Let’s both make some firm resolutions to improve our lives. You seem a little more comfortable down here now.” There was no sarcasm in his voice. “I shall take my leave and, if I may, I shall keep what remains of the ‘holy’”-he deployed his habit of physically apostrophising words with his fingers-“oil. I would like to see you use it again, perhaps a little more adventurously next time.”
He locked the door and left the light on, while Marda read and re-read the leaflet he had left.
Duval bathed in cold water and scourged himself with a scrubbing brush as penance for his act of voyeurism. Cleansed, he returned to his writing. His new appreciation of Marda, or rather his depreciation, gave him some fresh ideas. Initially, he had been concerned with Christine’s visions during her re-enclosure. This original text would form a major part of his conclusion, but perhaps Christine might have been more rigorous in her self-mortification, especially when she returned to her cell. He decided to rework some passages of his history.
To help his work, he mixed a potion of fly agaric. Although highly lethal in its natural state, if the mushroom is dried and ground, and carefully measured, it can be added to honey and water to form a mind-expanding drug. Duval was cautious with himself in these experiments, but he had laced the drinks of all his guests and was satisfied that the mushroom was safe, and indeed rather interesting, in small doses. He swallowed the potion and sat in front of his typewriter.
The first thing the visitor saw was the wall painting. St. Christopher was always placed opposite the main door of a church, because it was believed that whosoever looked upon a figure of the saint would be free from sudden death that day, and this would allow time for the sinner to repent. The visitor marvelled at the varied blues of the sea, and the crimson sails of the ships that St. Christopher was towing in his mighty hands. Even the painted eyes of the saint appeared to take on a kaleidoscope of colour and form, while the air around the painting curved and buckled under the weight of the visible atoms.
And the sounds were magnified: the visitor could hear insects hopping in the nave, and the birds sang so loudly outside the church that every syllable echoed in his brain. Every sound was comprehensible, too: the birds were arguing about food, the locations of their nests, and even warning of the stranger who had just walked into the church.
The visitor floated through a bewitching landscape of sound and colour, warmth and peace and light; the whole world was in harmony with his movements. The tall stranger moved towards the cell and passed through the stones and sat on the bench. The woman was not startled by his presence.
She spoke calmly: “Where are you from, dressed in that strange garb?”
“I am from a different place and time,” he replied gently.
“From Heaven?” Christine asked.
“Neither Heaven nor Hell.”
“From purgatory, then?” she asked sweetly.
“From six hundred years in the future, from the twentieth century, a place which might appear like Hell to you, sweet Christine.”
She did not ask how he knew her name, but knelt and kissed Father Duval’s hand.
The priest stopped typing, and read the words on the white page. He smiled and thought, “My vision, my pure vision of Christine, but not for others to read. Sweet indulgence, but not my history.”
He looked at his crucifix, and acknowledged the need for penance. The penance for pride: first to kneel and kiss the ground, then to stare at dead men’s-or in this case, dead women’s-bones to remind the sinner of the transience of mortal life. He made his way into the cellar to visit Denise. Yes, she had been proud, and defiant, too. She had fought back, and rammed a full container of paraffin against his hand. He lost a part of his finger-caught in a car door, he had told the doctor in casualty. That was his penance then. But he had made her suffer for the injury to his hand, and for hiding notes, portions of a diary. Yes, he had thought Denise was coming to believe in him, but she had been lying all along. She had hated him, even boasted of injuring him, she had not wanted to learn, and his patience had reached its final limit. He looked upon her skeleton and wondered where her soul had gone.
He returned to his study, ready to continue with his project, to complete the life of Christine Carpenter. The effects of the potion had almost worn off and he could become a serious writer again.
March 1334
Despite Father Peter’s protestations, Christine embarked upon a rigorous course of self-denial for the sin of abandoning her calling. Besides four extra hours of prayer on her knees every day, she requested herbs to purge her stomach, bloated after months of decadent living, although in truth she was still too thin. And she asked to be leeched-Father Peter prevented this. The anchoress took to scourging herself, and wearing the hair shirt which was reluctantly granted to her, while all the time she prayed for proof positive of a stigmata. When, after months of prayer and self-denial, it did not come, she begged to be branded on the cheek with a hot iron in the shape of the Cross. Father Peter grew angry, and worried, because he feared that her devotion was turning into mania.
William tried to dissuade her from extreme devotions: “The body cannot suffer the demands of thy spirit. Please eat and rest and do not scourge thyself.”
She said, almost petulantly, “My punishments are naught compared with those inflicted on our Saviour.”
“Aye, child, but you must not presume to be too much like Christ.”
“No, father, I wish to be near Christ in every way.”
William could not overcome his daughter’s stubborn resolve, but to his great concern and anger there was one who could reach out to her: Mistress Anna de Kempis. Her fantastic passions were now welcomed by the anchoress of Shere. Anna secretly brought her purgatives and the hedgehog belt which Father Peter had refused.
Writing this section excited Duval. Some of these ideas, he thought, could be adapted for Marda: perhaps, for example, some cuts on her palms, a stigmata as it were. The vision of her blood dripping slowly into his mouth made him shudder. Branding on the cheek, suggested by the garrulous American, was a new concept to Duval, but one worth considering. He would thank the professor next time he saw him. Yes, he was sorry that he had been so curt with the man the last time they had spoken.
