Devils, for a change Read online

  ‘Goat in Boots!’ St Antony plunged back to his desert cave as he saw the lewd and leering grimace of the goat, swinging on its sign. She stepped down off the bus, was immediately engulfed in noise and bustle; traffic roaring past, a man with a pneumatic drill blasting concrete and her ears. She turned the other way towards Albert Road and Wright’s, following her sketch-map. London was a maze to her, far too vast, inhuman.

  She jumped at every sound: a car backfiring, a sudden squeal of brakes. Her nerve ends felt exposed, as if she had been prised out of her shell. No one else seemed bothered by the noise. They slouched along, faces closed, impassive, struggling with their children, dogs or shopping. Few people seemed alone – all anchored to a pram, a lead, a toddler’s hand, a husband’s arm. She longed for her own anchor: the weighty silver cross she’d always worn around her neck, the heavy rosary dangling at her side; both left behind at Brignor. For twenty years, she’d dressed not just in the habit, but in the prayers she’d said as she put each garment on – a prayer for guimpe and cincture, a prayer for habit and veil. ‘Clothe my soul, O Lord, with the nuptial robe of chastity … Place on my head, O God, the helmet of salvation …’

  Once robed, she’d felt protected. God Himself had dressed her, buckled on her breastplate and her shield. But now she stood in silence, as she dragged on her grey dress each day, pulled up the blue school knickers she had found among the jumble. She had dared, at last, to remove her convent underclothes – the tight and swaddling bodice, the scratchy knee-length drawers. But she couldn’t bring herself to change them for the flimsy scraps of nothing which seemed the secular equivalent – pants which weighed an ounce or less, wisps of cobweb lace. All lay clothes seemed strangely insubstantial, especially here, where you needed heavy armour to protect you from the dangers: angry drivers honking at each other, swarthy men in crash helmets tearing down a building. She stopped a moment to watch the burly foreman, who was bellowing out instructions as he balanced on a half-dismantled wall; the greedy yellow maw of a machine eating into solid brick and stone. She herself felt bulldozed, her whole foundations wrenched up and smashed to powder, but with no prospect of rebuilding, no future plan at all.

  She dodged a piece of flying brick, walked on to the chemist, stood behind a woman in a sari, who was buying cough sweets for her five small black-eyed children. They all had colds, their noses sore and running, their anoraks too thin to keep them warm. Again, she felt ashamed. She had always worn warm clothes, made from thick expensive fabric, despite her vow of poverty; had always eaten wholesome home-grown food. That Indian woman’s shopping bag was full of paper food – everything in packets – custards, curries, soups. She was still astonished by all the coloured people, especially here in Wandsworth. No coloured nun had ever joined their Order; no Indian or African been seen within their walls. Had they been hiding from reality in all-white, all-English Brignor? She’d sometimes read an article (one salvaged in the censorship) about immigrants or race riots, but it had seemed to have no relevance to peaceful cloistered Norfolk.

  At last, she got Miss Pullen’s belt, felt much the same distaste for it as she felt for her black boots: though she wished there were a spiritual equivalent – a truss or corset for the soul, which would support her faith, keep it firm, strengthen it against doubt and desolation.

  She checked her map again, wasted five whole minutes trying to cross a road, then found herself face to face with an ugly foursquare building, which seemed to be constructed not of the grey concrete rearing all around it, but of the huge multicoloured posters plastered on its windows, the breathless urgent promises emblazoned underneath. ‘Chicken prices slashed!’ ‘Super freezer savers!’ ‘Biggest value ever on …’

  So that was a supermarket. She had never seen one in her life. Her mother had shopped at the local village store, a tiny cosy place where you were greeted by your name, looked after individually. Its owner, Mrs Baxter, even helped you choose. ‘That Cheddar’s good and strong, dear. It’s just come in this morning. Or how about a piece of ham?’ No buxom Mrs Baxter here; just anonymous people gliding through a dozen sets of automatic doors – doors opening, shutting, opening, as they swallowed up the shoppers, spat them out again. She followed, stepped inside, blinking in the neon glare at the huge blown-up, close-up pictures of every type of food. She was dwarfed by a colossal wedge of cheese – not Mrs Baxter’s Cheddar, but some foreign brand with holes like yawning craters; a grape or two beside it, black and big as bombs; a bush-sized parsley sprig. Beyond it, was a cake with icing whipped in peaks, as dazzling-white and towering as the Alps, and then a slice of German sausage, its individual fat-globules glistening like great puddles.

  Her eyes tracked lower to the real food on the shelves – a spate and swarm and flood of food, stretching on all sides; its blurring colours and looming shapes settling only slowly into tins and jars and cartons, meats and milks and fruits. More food than she had ever seen gathered in one place: at least a thousand jars of jam, several thousand cereals; whole sacks of polished carrots, oranges in mounds – pulsing, jostling, dazzling foods, which seemed to assault her eyes and brain.

  She crept along the furthest aisle, keeping to one side, trying not to tangle with the bold aggressive women bearing down towards her, with their children, loaded trolleys. She stopped at the biscuits, gasped at the array – cream biscuits, chocolate biscuits, wafers wrapped in gold and silver foil, every flavoured fining from peppermint to cheese. Crazy names she remembered only vaguely from her childhood; some she’d never heard of: Toffeepops and Wagon Wheels, Jammie Dodgers, Yo Yos. How ever did you choose? She felt dizzy just looking at the wrappings; the shouting slogans, sickly coloured pictures – all different, all the same. It was still worse with the breads. Brignor bread was home-baked, plain and brown. But here were fifteen shelves of loaves – pitta bread and currant bread, Farmhouse Brown, Supa-White, low-calorie, high-protein; bread for diabetics, slimmers; unleavened bread and gluten-free, malt loaves, Extra-Bran. She reached her hand out, let it drop again. Did she even need bread? They were playing music – maddening bouncy music, which seemed trapped inside her head, spinning round and round it, so she couldn’t think at all. Why music in a food shop? Was this some special day, some Tesco’s gala, when you shopped to jolly tunes, like their feastdays in the convent, which they celebrated with joyous extra hymns?

  A woman rattled past her, reached out for two loaves. She looked only twenty-five or so, yet she moved with such brash confidence, manoeuvring her trolley round corners, other shoppers; snatching what she wanted without the slightest hesitation. Hilary followed, mesmerised. Who told her what to buy, how much to spend? And however did she concentrate, with that baby in her trolley, poking at the shopping, those other two small children tagging on behind, knocking all the packets off the shelves? The girl stopped at the pet foods, grabbed two tins of Whiskas. So she had a cat, as well. The convent cats ate scraps, had never tried these gourmet tins of Super-Fish With Salmon, or Chicken Breast Supreme. You could spend a whole week’s wages on a cat – cat vitamins, cat chew-bars, even cats’ Christmas stockings, now marked down to half-price.

  She watched the woman tie her small son’s shoelace, distract the baby with a rusk. She had more than just two hands – hands for pushing, reaching, choosing, feeding, soothing. She knew her way around as if this were her own home, swinging right and right again to the aisle marked ‘Baby Care’ – a whole aisle just for babies. How could that tiny infant in the toddler-seat need all those racks of complicated things; all those oils and creams and cleansers, all those tins and jars of food, those juices, syrups, dishes, rattles, toys?

  She slowed her pace as the woman strode away, vanished round a corner. How spoiled she’d been these twenty years: food appearing as if by magic on the table, no decisions as to what she’d eat or buy; clean clothes neatly folded on her bed each week, no family or pets to feed. Her world had been so small. They had kept it simple by cutting down their needs. She had seen that as a penanc
e, but now she realised it was more a blessing and protection, a haven of a world made safe by rules, by lack of choice. She glanced up at the mirrors, glimpsed herself tiny and distorted; a feeble useless figure, cowering in a corner, while other women ran a dozen lives. She could see them all around her – women who could cope, women who had children. Babies everywhere: in prams parked in the street, in shopping trolleys, baby-slings; wriggling on the nappy packets, smiling from these tins of baby food.

  She hadn’t found a trolley yet. Did you simply take one, or pay a fee to hire it? Those trolleys seemed so public – your shopping on display, everybody knowing what you ate or could afford. Yet the store itself was totally anonymous: no one chatting, or even exchanging brief ‘hallos’; the long queues at the checkout full of silent, separate people, every face turned inwards, on itself.

  She forced herself to move. She was wasting time – God’s time and Miss Pullen’s. She was here to buy Father Anstey’s Roquefort, Miss O’Connor’s Mountain Blend; yet she hadn’t even seen a cheese – save that gigantic painted one – or caught a glimpse of coffee beans. She’d never get another job. Nobody would want such a stupid country bumpkin, who was dazed by all this choice, scared of these exotic things she hadn’t known existed: Pour-a-Quiche filling in a carton (ham or mushroom flavoured), spaghetti tongs, blue ice-cubes, gadgets for making radish flowers, or tins for heart-shaped pizzas.

  ‘Excuse me, please, could you tell me where the cheese is?’ She tried to stop the tall man in an overall who was striding down the aisle – the first assistant that she’d seen, but obviously too busy to be questioned. ‘Over there,’ he called across his shoulder, pointing to the left, where a thousand different products jostled for attention, though no sign of any cheese. She walked in that direction, past rows and rows of cold white chests, marked ‘Freezer Foods’, ‘Convenience Foods’ – complicated dishes from a dozen different countries, ready on the table in the time it took their Sister Cook just to assemble her ingredients. The Brignor nuns were still living in the fifties – or perhaps the 1550s – still preparing simple fare from whatever was in season, spending patient hours peeling, chopping, simmering. She felt a sudden longing to smell those homely smells – onions, nutmeg, home-baked bread. She missed all the convent smells: incense and wax polish, hot candles, altar wine. Nothing smelt at all here. A million different foods, but all deodorised.

  She passed the fresh fish counter: scaly fins, staring eyes, a long black claw, still writhing and alive. Her hunger had abated – vanished altogether when she saw the joints of meat: raw and bleeding slabs of cow, feathered necks on turkeys, innards, gizzards, black and slimy ox liver. She turned her back, found herself facing shelves of cleaning products. Those she did need – stain-remover, dishcloths, a whitener for Miss Pullen’s ancient vests.

  Miss Pullen. In just a few days’ time, it would be Miss O’Connor wringing out those vests, Miss O’Connor making porridge; she herself homeless, unemployed. She had failed in her first job – been too proud, too critical, secretly resented scrubbing smelly underclothes. ‘Each Sister should go deep into the knowledge of her nothingness, and considering herself least of all, should receive with joy the most humble or degrading charges, as well as the contempt and humiliations permitted by Divine Providence.’ She knew the Constitutions off by heart, yet had flouted them continually; had never worked with joy, only with a steely sense of duty. She had forgotten how to feel joy, forgotten what it was. Three letters on her finger, with a dead and bleeding God the other side. Yet Hilary meant ‘cheerful’, her new name in the world; the same root as hilarious. It still sounded wrong if anybody used it, wrong without the ‘Sister’ – yet ‘Sister’ was a lie.

  She slumped against the shelf. She was tired of names, confused by all the brand names, all these different products. How could anybody want so many, or use them in one lifetime – Heavy Duty Cleanser, Stain and Soil Remover, Deodorising Cleanser, Oil and Grease Dissolver, Car Upholstery Foam? She was stained herself, indelibly, but nobody could make her clean – carpets, toilets, car seats, yes, but no whitener for the soul. Blackness surged and loomed again, as she reached out for the Glo-White. Every month at Brignor, they held a day of preparation for their death, a day of total silence, extra prayer and penance. Many of the prayers they said had been written by their Foundress, who urged them to imagine that they were already dead and damned. Only that, she’d counselled, could make them see the gravity of sin. ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Depart from me, ye faithless spouse, I am no longer thy Bridegroom or thy Father; depart for all eternity.’

  She clung on to the shelf, could hear the flames behind her, hear that hideous ‘Depart’, all the voices shouting it – Father Anstey’s, Miss O’Connor’s, God’s own voice repeating it. Even Aunt Eva, shocked and disappointed, was telling her to go, tearing up her letter, refusing to reply. They didn’t want her near them. She couldn’t run a home, couldn’t find a trolley.

  But where to go? She was useless in this fast and frightening world; had been dragged out of a silent womb into the harsh slap and glare of an operating theatre. Yes, she could feel the fierce lights panting on her skin, see surgeons in white coats, slicing into raw flesh just behind her. Trembling, she turned back again, tried to choose a cleaner; reached instead for a packet of black dustbin bags. She was rubbish, rubbish, those Constitutions said, a rotting hulk of flesh. The bags were huge and shiny. She couldn’t seem to hold them. They were slipping from her hand; so black, so black, so heavy – blackness, darkness, pressing down, stifling hot; lion’s mouth closing in a shining trap of teeth. ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into …’

  ‘Hey! Watch out. Are you okay?’

  Someone steady. Someone with kind hands. Picking up the dustbin bags, reaching out to steady her. She edged away. A sin to touch a hand.

  ‘Here, lean against the shelf. That’s it. You’re boiling hot, you know. I’ll find an assistant, see if you can lie down. They’ve probably got a first-aid room or something.’

  ‘N … N …’ That was ‘no’, Miss Pullen’s no. She couldn’t get the word out, couldn’t speak at all.

  ‘Can you hear me? Look, I’d better get a doctor. Sit down where you are.’

  ‘N … N …’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  Hilary meant cheerful, and she was sad, like Ruth.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t hear. That music’s so damned loud.’

  ‘H … Hilary,’ she whispered. Perhaps she was a Hilary, someone proud and stubborn, who’d defied authority, been demoted, excommunicated.

  ‘I’m Liz. Liz Kingsley. Christ! You gave me quite a scare! I thought you’d copped it for a moment. Your face went sort of greenish. It looks a little better now – thank God. All the same, I don’t think you ought to charge around. I’ve got my car outside. I’ll run you home, if it’s any help.’

  Home. Home was Norfolk. A quiet place, green and brown, with huge, silent, empty skies. Why was it so difficult to speak? She ought to thank this person, this kind unselfish person, who took Christ’s name in vain, but had still cared enough to stop, to offer her a lift. Her mouth felt dry and hollow, empty of all words. Had she lost her voice, as she feared she’d lost her body once – her legs, her breasts, her gender? Or was she growing like Miss Pullen, the nurse catching symptoms from the patient?

  ‘Where d’you live?’

  That was a question, had to have an answer. She dragged three words out, wished they had more power. ‘R … Rosemont Road, Earlsfield.’ Father Anstey’s housekeeper was sitting with Miss Pullen – a tall and frightening spinster called Miss Baines. She’d be there till late this evening, as they’d given her the day off. She didn’t want it off, but Miss Baines had insisted that she enjoy a change of scene, sign up for an evening class, buy herself a meal. If she returned too soon, they’d think she was ungrateful, or had disobeyed her orders. And if she turned up with a stranger, Miss Baines would tell the pries
t – tell him ‘Sister’ had been ill again, hadn’t bought his cheese. She let Liz take her arm, lead her to the exit. It felt strange and almost frightening to walk so close to someone, to be joined and part of them.

  The car was brilliant orange, like a toy, looked far too small and vulnerable beside the real and dangerous cars which kept revving, roaring past it. Liz chattered as she drove, asked questions, frightening questions.

  ‘What d’you do, Hilary? For your job, I mean?’

  ‘Sounds pretty grim to me. How long have you been there?’

  ‘Oh, I see – a new job. So what did you do before?’

  She jammed the brakes on suddenly, drew up in a street of tall Victorian houses, built in warm red brick, with stone steps leading up to them, small and neat front gardens. ‘This is where I live. You don’t mind if I stop off for a moment, do you? I’ve got a crowd for supper, and I ought to get the oven on before I run you home. Come on in and I’ll make a cup of tea.’

  Hilary tried to keep her eyes fixed on the vivid blush-pink tablecloth. Tea had stretched to supper and she was still in Liz’s house. She’d kept saying she must leave, but she didn’t, couldn’t leave. She was trapped in warmth and colour. She’d forgotten one could feel so warm – warm all over, even hands and feet. The kitchen seemed to pant heat: heat from oven, boiler, radiator; heat from all the people; heat even from the tablecloth, echoed by the deep rose of the walls. She had never seen kitchen walls that colour, or pictures in a kitchen, proper ones in frames. It was hard to keep her eyes down, when so many objects were shouting for attention – shiny coloured pencils in a ceramic mustard pot, a shelf of wooden ducks, a vase of paper poppies beside the tea and coffee jars. The Brignor kitchen was plain and functional, contained only the essentials. Its walls were bare, its floors were stone, the sink an old white china one which had been there fifty years. There were two sinks in this kitchen, both shining stainless steel, both piled with coloured crockery, every plate and soup bowl with its dazzling golden sunburst.