The Benefits of Passion (33 page)

‘What?' gasped Annie.

‘Yeah. Outrageous, isn't it?' He smiled for the first time since the accident. ‘I hate that man so much. He sat all night by your bed last week, by the way.'

‘Oh! I dreamt there was an angel in my room.'

‘Give me a break,' he said in disgust.

A doctor came in. ‘Right,' he said cheerfully. ‘Let's have a look at that arm.'

‘You'd better go, Annie,' said Will. His face was white. ‘I want the rest of that book. Oh, and tell my mother she can come any time.'

Annie hurried away.

Over the next few weeks Annie divided her time between typing up her novel and sitting by Will's bedside. She met his family as they came up to visit him. One by one they slotted into place like bits of the jigsaw. Will himself grew clearer and clearer in her mind. No wonder, she kept thinking. That explains it. She also saw a danger of being eaten alive by the Penn-Eddis family. They would annexe her. She would become an honorary Penn-Eddis, despite her lowly background.

She found the courage at last to write to her parents. The phone rang the following morning
before cheap rate
.

‘Anne, it's your mother. Why didn't you tell us, you silly girl? Your father's worried sick about you. I hope you're resting properly. You've got the baby to think about now, you know. You can't just fly about the place like you used to. And then there's William. He's got enough to cope with without having to worry about you and the baby. Make sure you're resting properly or you'll miscarry.'

‘I –' tried Annie in vain.

‘Your father wants to know if you've got anyone looking after you. He's all for sending me, but I told him, no, they've got their own lives to lead, I can't just go barging in without being invited.'

There followed a long uncharacteristic pause in her mother's monologue. Annie could hear her breathing.

‘That's very kind of Dad,' said Annie cautiously. ‘But I'm fine at the moment. The vicar's wife pops in.' Annie smiled at the picture of Mara that these words must conjure up. ‘But if it all gets too much . . .'

‘Oh, well. Don't stand if you can sit. Don't sit if you can lie down,' pronounced Mrs Brown.

‘I won't.'

‘Hmmph. Still making progress, is he?'

‘Um, yes.'

‘Silly,' said Mrs Brown. ‘Should've waited for the Fire Brigade.'

‘But the children wouldn't be –'

‘Still. All's well that ends well, that's what I always say. And another thing – olive oil rubbed into the tummy. Stops you getting stretch marks.' With these gnomic words she was gone.

Will improved steadily, but his frustration turned him despotic. He finished her novel and ordered her to send it to an agent and write another. He demanded books, fruit, newspapers, whisky, oriental tomato leaves or, worse, oral sex. When she refused, he sulked. He summoned and dismissed her at whim, then phoned at three in the morning to apologize.

Annie confided in Mara one hot afternoon while the two of them were painting the attic walls dark red.

‘Tell him to go fry his face,' suggested Mara.

‘Go fry your face,' said Annie next time he phoned with a list of outrageous demands. She unplugged the phone and slept through the night for the first time since she could remember. The next day the florist's van brought a dozen bouquets all bearing the word
Sorry
. The house was full of their scent for a week. His reformed behaviour lasted almost as long.

Eventually Annie's new study was complete. Johnny had been round earlier to shift furniture under Mara's eagle eye. Now it was evening and Annie stood gloating over the colours. There was a framed sketch of Will on the wall, which Mara had done slyly the evening they had been round for dinner. Annie sat down at the desk and began to make a list of things to do.

Write thank you letters.

Buy baby things.

Megs had offered all manner of things, from fifteenth-hand vests to breast pumps. Annie felt overwhelmed by the need to grind some peasant faces by buying everything new.

Revise MS.

Get hair cut again.

It all looked a little trivial.

Make a new appointment to see bishop.

She had missed the last one, of course, but he had been very understanding when he rang. Will was his godson, after all. She kept wanting to giggle while he spoke, unable to banish the memory of him spilling out drunken confidences to her, although she knew he never had.

She doodled on the paper. As usual the sight of this kind of list filled her with longing and wild resolve.
Be a better person
, she wanted to add.
Work out my salvation in fear and trembling
.

She got up and crossed to the window. The sun was going down over Bishopside, laying dull gold on the rooftops. The police helicopter was busy in the distance over another bit of town. What am I going to do with this life I've been given? Annie asked herself. What do you want of me, Lord? The light was dying from the sky. She remembered another sunset: the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Weary feet, weary, weary feet. We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. But how had it all ended? Another failed messiah on a Roman cross. Then footsteps behind them, catching them up, a light-hearted tread. The risen Christ. Annie felt for those two disciples, their hearts burning with grief and rage as this stranger lectured them.

Foolish! Slow of heart! Wasn't it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into glory?

Who did he think he was?

They burned, but was it with a flicker of hope, wild, impossible hope, that leapt into a blaze of certainty as those hands broke the bread? Annie laughed out loud to think of them stumbling back to Jerusalem, panting as they crashed at last up the stairs into the upper room. Before they could draw breath their punchline was stolen: He is risen.

This is it, Annie realized. This is what makes sense of the Crucifixion. Without it what was left? Just one more deluded man dying a grisly death. She saw the sealed tomb that dark Friday night. It was over. Even the women had gone home weeping. Then slowly, slowly, that first Easter morning before the sun was up, the coming glory began seeping out round the edges of the stone door, until at last it burst forth. The guards gibbered that it was an earthquake, it was an angel.

This is my faith, thought Annie. Not just death, but resurrection and the hope of glory.

It was a Saturday in late September when Will came home. He was still in pain, but he could walk and sit for short periods.

‘Annie, I've been a bastard. Thanks for putting up with me,' he said in bed that night. ‘I'll make it up to you.'

‘Idiot. You don't have to,' she said.

‘Make love to me. You get to be on top.'

‘Tricky. My bulge is too big.'

‘Shit! After all these weeks.' They laughed till they cried.

The next day she got ready for church and he surprised her by announcing he was coming too.

‘You don't have to,' she said.

‘I want to.'

‘You won't like it. It's terribly informal.'

But he was adamant.

They slipped into the back pew, but not before Johnny caught sight of them. He came up grinning broadly.

‘About time, too,' he said to Will.

‘Oh, fuck off.'

There was a long, scandalized
Eeee
from the pewful of women in front.

‘Sorry,' said Will.

‘Oh, it's Doctor William,' said one. And they were all off at once, telling him how brave he was and how they'd cried over the reports in the paper. He bore it well.

The service started. Annie winced inwardly.

‘It's like bloody breakfast TV,' muttered Will.

‘I warned you.'

‘Yeah, yeah.' He braced himself to endure. She could see he was in pain from sitting for so long. In the end he was forced to get up and walk around at the back.

Eventually the service was over and Johnny was giving the notices. Will came and sat beside her again.

‘OK. Listen up, everyone,' said Johnny. ‘I publish the banns of marriage between Orlando William Johnson Penn-Eddis, of this parish . . .'

Annie turned to Will in shock. Some terrible mistake!

‘And Anne Brown, also of this parish . . .'

‘Yes or no?' asked Will. He was slipping a ring on to her finger.

‘. . . any reason in law,' Johnny's voice was saying.

‘But –' A moonstone, like Isabella's. ‘You're mad. Yes.'

He bent his head and kissed her.

‘This is for the first time of asking. Give them a round of applause.'

Annie was still laughing as they made their way out into the sunshine.

‘You're completely mad, Will,' she repeated.

He smiled at her. ‘I love you.'

She took his scarred hands in hers and gazed into his face as though checking he was still his irascible demanding self.

‘Surprise!' called a voice. It was Ted. And Ingram and Muriel. And Isobel. And there was Mara talking to Gabriel. Annie gasped.

‘Look,' said Will. ‘Here comes our best man.'

She turned and saw Edward, tanned and grinning, bounding towards them in the September sunshine.