Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

“This is excellent, Michael,” she said with her mouth full and not caring. “I didn’t know you were such a good cook.”

“So that’s what you think of my cuisine over the last three months?”

They both laughed. He relaxed and, after the second glass of wine, so did Marda-a little.

“Hmm,” she said, after beginning the third glass. She never was much of a drinker, but this wine tasted so delicious. “Hmmm, lovely wine. So I have been here nearly three months; that’s a very long holiday from work.”

“Yes. And I hope you will stay a little longer, Christine.”

Marda went utterly cold and numbness overtook her brain.

“ Marda , sorry. I suppose I have been working too hard on my book.” He did not appear in the least embarrassed by the confusion.

Marda managed to recover and changed tack by asking about the Christmas decorations in Guildford, and whether it was snowing. Did he know what films were showing locally? The day before she was taken by Duval she had read a review of Bonnie and Clyde . When asked whether he had seen the film, he told her that he never went to the cinema. Who was in the pantomime in the theatre? And she asked him to summarise what had happened internationally. He mentioned some political event in Africa, and she joked that it was perhaps warmer there than in Bolivia. Marda sucked in the fresh information as though it were the very tangible essence of freedom, vicarious freedom.

He had bought a small fruit trifle, a dessert she had always enjoyed. Over the cheese and biscuits she asked him about the football league, but he knew nothing. So she asked him what Harold Wilson had been up to. That was a little easier for him.

“I’m a bit of a newspaper fan, like to keep up with the news, sort of a family tradition,” she explained.

“Since you have constantly asked me for newspapers, as a special concession, I have been ordering various periodicals for you, but I have been examining them to see if they are a suitable complement to your instruction,” he said. “ The Times may have some merit, but the music papers you mentioned are soaked in sin.”

“OK, I won’t ask about music, but would you tell me what’s been happening the world?”

Duval told her that Clement Attlee had died, and so had Che Guevara. He tried to respond to the concerns of a different generation when he realised that she was interested in the death of the charismatic guerrilla leader whose picture was pinned on the wall of nearly every college student’s room. Joan Baez, he told her, had been arrested during an anti-Vietnam war protest, and Charles de Gaulle had vetoed British entry into the Common Market. He seemed so knowledgeable that Marda quizzed him on his views on the new Europe.

Eventually she asked, “If you don’t normally read the newspapers and don’t own a TV, where do you get your information?”

“Mainly from the radio. The BBC keeps me in touch with the world.”

“Would you put the radio on?” she pleaded.

“Which station?” he replied without any demur, taking the dust cover off an old Dansette transistor radio.

“Can you find the new Radio 1? You know, the pop music station.” He didn’t, but he played with the dial.

“Oh, oh, it’s the Bee Gees. Please leave that station on. I love them.” The haunting strains of “Massachusetts” filled the kitchen.

The priest could not disguise a slight grimace. “Do you mind if I lower it?”

“No, but please leave it on.”

He lowered the volume slightly, then rummaged around in a kitchen cabinet. “Would you like some port?”

Marda was a bit giggly now.

“Yes, pleeeease.”

She swigged down the port. Her body, partly anaesthetised after so much pain and fear, craved more alcohol. “Excuse me being a little pig, but can I have some more please?” She held out the empty glass.

Marda was not emulating his archetype of the austere Christine, he thought, but his guest had endured a long preliminary penance. There had to be occasional rewards, even of meat and wine, before she could make her own decision to renounce such indulgences. And, after all, it was Christmas, a traditional time for feasting.

So Duval, with no apparent reluctance, poured her a second glass of port. He had not touched his first.

“Have you got me a Christmas present then?” she said jokingly.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows. “As a matter of fact I have,” he said, barely concealing the sense of his own largesse.

She was about to say, “I hope it’s not a bleeding Bible,” but she wasn’t that drunk.

“I have bought you a dress. I hope it’s the right size.”

Marda pretended to look cross. “You’re not supposed to tell me because it spoils the surprise. Please let me see it.”

As he pulled a gift-wrapped package out of a drawer in the pine kitchen dresser, she practically seized it from his hands and ripped it open. At any other time she would have opened it very carefully to save the paper to use again.

“Oh Michael, it’s lovely,” she cooed. “Blue is my favourite colour. But I thought you wanted me to wear a religious habit.”

“I want you to have a choice. That’s my point. I don’t often wear my clerical garb here in the house. Tonight is an occasion where you could wear a dress so you can go downstairs and try it on if you like.”

“May I use your bathroom to change? I don’t want to spoil the lovely meal by going down…down there…not just yet.”

“If you want to, but I shall wait by the door, if you don’t mind,” he said a little warily.

Under escort, she went to the bathroom to change, emerging with her new dress on and the habit over her arm.

Once back in the kitchen, she deposited the stale clothing on a chair. Marda turned to him and asked expectantly, “How do you like it?”

His face indicated obvious pleasure.

Encouraged, she gave a modest impression of a model’s twirl, then stood next to him.

He reached out with his hand to brush her cheek, ever so gently and momentarily, and then turned red with embarrassment.

“Oh, you’ve gone all shy, Michael. I just wanted to show how pleased I am with your present. Come on, do you like it?”

He looked lost for words, but managed to say quietly, “You look ethereal.”

“That’s the first time you’ve paid me that kind of compliment. Why, thank you, kind sir.” Disbelievingly, Marda heard her own words echoing in the room; suddenly a flash from Gone With The Wind intruded upon her mind: she was imitating Scarlett, and Rhett had not been fooled, had he? She knew she was no actress, but she was warm, clean, well-fed and rather tipsy. There might not be a better time. She understood that she was about to take the biggest risk of her short life. He was an apparently celibate priest who was also a deranged killer. Not an ideal choice. She would pretend, she would try to be the world’s greatest actress, to find a chance to escape, or to immobilise him, perhaps even to kill him. She was utterly desperate to seize what might be her only opportunity.

She sat on his lap.

He froze.

“Don’t, Michael,” she said almost crossly. “I won’t hurt you. Don’t be silly.”

Taking hold of his hands, she put them around her waist. Hesitantly he conceded, although he held her limply.

Marda heard herself say, “I know I don’t look very sexy in these boots and socks, but it’s a nice dress and-hey-it makes me feel like a woman again. And I don’t have any make-up on. Treat me like a woman, Michael, not a student. Don’t freeze me out.”

She pecked him lightly on the cheek, almost recoiling as the stubble rippled along her lips, but he did relax a little. She willed herself to recall her lover in France, trying to picture every fine feature of his face, then, as she squirmed a little on Duval’s lap, her dress rode up along her thighs.