Read Online Imaginative Experience by Mary Wesley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mary Wesley
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you ring her up, ask her all these questions yourself?’
Pushing himself away from the bar Maurice said, ‘I may just do that.’ (One could stir things up on the phone perhaps?) And as he opened the door to the road he asked, ‘Which fellow was she passionate about?’ But the woman had turned her back and switched the muzak up loud.
NINE
J ULIA PIPER HAD WALKED with no aim other than to get away which, since what she hoped to escape was herself, was an exercise in futility. It had been a fine night but now it started to rain. After hours on unforgiving pavements her feet ached and the rain trickled off her hair down her neck. There had been nowhere to rest or shelter; the seats on the Embankment were occupied by sleepers and the doorways of shops crowded with people huddling in cardboard boxes. Walking steadily, avoiding contact, she kept mostly to side-streets. Early in the night she had been narrowly missed by a speeding car. The driver had swerved, hooted, shouted, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’ before driving on.
Crossing Trafalgar Square she sat briefly on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields, but moved on at the approach of a policeman to wander across Shaftesbury Avenue into Soho. Now very tired and walking at a snail’s pace, she knocked against a man carrying a heavy backpack hurrying along unshaven and angry. He too exclaimed, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’ and she found herself longing for green fields and ruminating cattle, their sweet breath scenting the air as, sitting humped and contented, they chewed the cud. Then ahead she saw steps, an open door, and people going into a church; she followed them in out of the rain.
Moving up the church, she sat on a rush-bottomed chair in a darkish side chapel. The other people kept to the body of the church; she was alone. She stretched her legs and eased her feet. An old man shuffled up, took a candle from a box, stuck it in a holder, fumbled for a match and lit the candle; he mumbled, crossed himself and wandered away. Watching the flame, Julia closed her eyes.
When she woke there was a Mass going on; where she had had the chapel to herself, there were people, six or eight women, several men in City suits, and hurrying in late a middle-aged couple with a little girl. The man sat in front of Julia and gestured to his wife to sit across the aisle with the child. The couple did not look like the child’s parents, more like an uncle and aunt; the man kept glancing fussily at his wife while the child, a girl of about ten, fiddled with her plaited hair, looked bored and sniffed. As the sniffs grew louder, the man passed a handkerchief across to the child. Mutinously she wiped her nose and handed the handkerchief back. Julia averted her eyes. Since she could not leave without causing a disturbance, she tried to pay attention to what the priest was doing. She had never been to a Mass and thought she had better copy the man in front, rise and kneel, sit and stand when he did.
She felt terrible after her sleep and could only catch an occasional word, for the priest muttered and his intonation was foreign. Somebody ran a thin-sounding bell and people knelt; the priest held something up and the bell tinkled again. Clearly it was a sacred moment; there was a hush. But the man in front of her was watching the child. He leaned across the aisle and, whispering indignantly to his wife, said, ‘She is picking her nose.’
Covering her face with her hands, Julia snorted with laughter and stuck her fingers in her ears until the Mass was over and people were leaving. Watching the couple go out with the child she saw the man speaking angrily to the woman, and wondered whether what he had said was, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’
The old man’s candle was guttering. She got up, took a fresh one from the box, lit it from the dying taper, breathed in its homely smell then sat down again. Some time later she remembered that she had once, years ago, before she married Giles and the advent of Christy,
Pushing himself away from the bar Maurice said, ‘I may just do that.’ (One could stir things up on the phone perhaps?) And as he opened the door to the road he asked, ‘Which fellow was she passionate about?’ But the woman had turned her back and switched the muzak up loud.
NINE
J ULIA PIPER HAD WALKED with no aim other than to get away which, since what she hoped to escape was herself, was an exercise in futility. It had been a fine night but now it started to rain. After hours on unforgiving pavements her feet ached and the rain trickled off her hair down her neck. There had been nowhere to rest or shelter; the seats on the Embankment were occupied by sleepers and the doorways of shops crowded with people huddling in cardboard boxes. Walking steadily, avoiding contact, she kept mostly to side-streets. Early in the night she had been narrowly missed by a speeding car. The driver had swerved, hooted, shouted, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’ before driving on.
Crossing Trafalgar Square she sat briefly on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields, but moved on at the approach of a policeman to wander across Shaftesbury Avenue into Soho. Now very tired and walking at a snail’s pace, she knocked against a man carrying a heavy backpack hurrying along unshaven and angry. He too exclaimed, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’ and she found herself longing for green fields and ruminating cattle, their sweet breath scenting the air as, sitting humped and contented, they chewed the cud. Then ahead she saw steps, an open door, and people going into a church; she followed them in out of the rain.
Moving up the church, she sat on a rush-bottomed chair in a darkish side chapel. The other people kept to the body of the church; she was alone. She stretched her legs and eased her feet. An old man shuffled up, took a candle from a box, stuck it in a holder, fumbled for a match and lit the candle; he mumbled, crossed himself and wandered away. Watching the flame, Julia closed her eyes.
When she woke there was a Mass going on; where she had had the chapel to herself, there were people, six or eight women, several men in City suits, and hurrying in late a middle-aged couple with a little girl. The man sat in front of Julia and gestured to his wife to sit across the aisle with the child. The couple did not look like the child’s parents, more like an uncle and aunt; the man kept glancing fussily at his wife while the child, a girl of about ten, fiddled with her plaited hair, looked bored and sniffed. As the sniffs grew louder, the man passed a handkerchief across to the child. Mutinously she wiped her nose and handed the handkerchief back. Julia averted her eyes. Since she could not leave without causing a disturbance, she tried to pay attention to what the priest was doing. She had never been to a Mass and thought she had better copy the man in front, rise and kneel, sit and stand when he did.
She felt terrible after her sleep and could only catch an occasional word, for the priest muttered and his intonation was foreign. Somebody ran a thin-sounding bell and people knelt; the priest held something up and the bell tinkled again. Clearly it was a sacred moment; there was a hush. But the man in front of her was watching the child. He leaned across the aisle and, whispering indignantly to his wife, said, ‘She is picking her nose.’
Covering her face with her hands, Julia snorted with laughter and stuck her fingers in her ears until the Mass was over and people were leaving. Watching the couple go out with the child she saw the man speaking angrily to the woman, and wondered whether what he had said was, ‘Stupid bitch! Cow!’
The old man’s candle was guttering. She got up, took a fresh one from the box, lit it from the dying taper, breathed in its homely smell then sat down again. Some time later she remembered that she had once, years ago, before she married Giles and the advent of Christy,
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