Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

“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.”