Part 9 (1/2)

He agreed to all this. A day walking through the streets of the county town, just a bicycle ride away, had shown him enough local talent to bed happily when the opportunity arose. Let old Mother Suspicious there isolate him like a leper, let her tack notices with Keep Out on them on the surrounding trees, sure he wouldn't quarrel with any of it. He told her so in different words.

Her fears were very slightly eased and she began bargaining over his salary. He didn't come cheap.

Neither did the temporary teachers who were useful stop-gaps until the mother convent in France could send over more nuns with the right teaching qualifications, but they were cheaper than employing certificated teachers. There were three of them. Twenty-year-old Robina Blane from Altrincham who wasn't sure if she wanted to teach or not and this was a good way of finding out. Bridget O'Hare, nineteen years of age and as Irish as the Liffey, who didn't mind having a bash, preferably at a tennis ball (she was taken on as sports mistress). And Miss Agatha Sheldon-Smythe who was bordering on retirement and needed a home for herself and her two pet budgerigars. Junior biology was her forte. The two young teachers shared a room near the convent infirmary. Miss Sheldon-Smythe had a bed-sitter on the ground floor near the library. Next to her budgerigars she had a deep regard for the Royal Family. When a member of royalty died, she donned complete mourning for a week. When they married or had a jubilee she wore a waistcoat of red, white and blue and put a flag on the budgies' cage. The girls liked her. She was pleasantly barmy. The nuns tolerated her: at least she knew her worms and could dissect frogs deftly and neatly.

Zanny and Dolly, now fourteen and fifteen, were in the senior school and in the efficient academic care of the nuns. Not that efficient academic care mattered much in Zanny's case. The only exam she had pa.s.sed had been Junior Oxford and that by a fluke. The invigilator had slept peacefully throughout and she had been happily placed next to a cla.s.s-mate with reasonable ability and a kind heart who didn't mind her copying. With Dolly, inefficient teaching would have mattered. She was quite obviously the most outstanding pupil the convent had had for years. She had the kind of quality that demanded quality. They saw her making Cambridge eventually and were quite prepared to see her through to her degree if the Moncriefs wouldn't. As an advertis.e.m.e.nt for academic success she would treble the intake.

The world was moving into a new era. The professional woman was coming into her own. In the pre-war days the girls were groomed for marriage. If they failed to ensnare a man by the age of twenty-five or so they ran genteel little boutiques, or tea-rooms specialising in home-made m.u.f.fins, or they tended elderly relatives, or they became nuns. On the whole, Mother Benedicta thought, there was a great deal to be said for emanc.i.p.ation. If you had the choice of becoming an academician or a nun and you chose the latter then your vocation was truly based. G.o.d, in so many cases, had run a bad second to a reluctant lover or a failed exam. The number of nuns in the future might be depleted, but the quality and level of commitment should be superb.

That was more than could be said for the quality of Robina Blane or Bridget O'Hare. The former was finding out that she didn't want to teach anyway, but would stay for the summer term. Bridget wasn't too sold on teaching either, but she was sold on Murphy and nothing would prise her out while he was around. She I

and Murphy shared roots. They spoke with the same soft southern accent. They were right for each other.

Murphy felt the same. He had once nearly married a girl like her with long dark hair, st.u.r.dy legs, and well rounded hips. When he looked at her he was reminded of b.u.t.termilk and brown eggs and a dash of the hard stuff to stop the sweetness, the wholesomeness, from cloying. She was a good mixture, this Bridget.

They spent evenings together in his little kitchen with the curtains drawn against the summer sunlight and prying eyes. They made love frequently, sometimes on the horsehair sofa (uncomfortable) but usually in the adjoining bedroom on an old-fas.h.i.+oned feather mattress (as comfortable as the fat bosom of Mother Ireland).

No wonder Bridget was too tired to teach the junior school basketball. As for tennis, she dreamed at the net and listened to the birds sing, while the b.a.l.l.s whizzed past.

Zanny, too, had begun to dream. Her body, virgin ground, sent up little sensory tendrils of emotion that hardened her nipples. She didn't know what it was all about, but it happened when she thought of Murphy. When she sat in cla.s.s pretending to listen to Sister Gabrielle talking about equilateral triangles and somebody called Pythagoras she could see him through the window tending the vegetable patch. On hot days he hung his s.h.i.+rt on the branch of an apple tree. His skin was darkly tanned and shone with sweat - like a chestnut with rain on it. The hair on his head was black, but on his chest it was a crisp nutty brown. She licked her lips, tasting Murphy, tingling to Murphy, and looked at Sister Gabrielle with glazed eyes when she called her to attention.

Most of her dreaming she did in the privacy of her bed. These summer nights the evening sun took a long time to die. The white, wooden part.i.tion of her cubicle became a pale gold, a soft ochre, and finally and brilliantly a deep rose before darkness fell. Though she had never spoken to him she carried on conversations with him in her mind. He told her she was beautiful. A colleen. (She knew he was Irish, so he probably used Irish words.) They danced together to the tune of ”One Night of Love” played by a string orchestra and then he gave her a c.o.c.ktail and invited her to dinner. He was rich now. His gardening period was therapy to get over a love affair. His uncle, a rich laird, (or was laird Scottish?) had died and left him his grouse moor. There was a castle on it -- and a gazebo -- and a maze. His bed was a four poster and he led Zanny to it very gently. She wore a pink nightdress with frills and a thing called a negligee over it with a border of swansdown. He told her that her feet were pink like the noses of the white angora rabbits he used to tend for the nuns in the convent a long time ago. He disrobed her and told her that her body was as white as their fur (or perhaps he didn't, that made her sound hairy and she wasn't, not more than normal and in the right places so alabaster was better - or white silk), and then he lifted her gently onto the bed.

At that point Zanny had an o.r.g.a.s.m without knowing what it was. It had never happened to her before and she bit on the sheet and then stuffed a lot of it into her mouth to stop herself crying out. Being a woman was a most extraordinary thing. She turned on her side and imagined Murphy squashed up in bed with her. All that talk about touching being a sin and being punished with a couple of rosaries swam into her mind and then swam out again. If even not touching sent electric tremors through you that made your toes curl, what did touching do? She trembled at the prospect of finding out. This, then, was being in love. Oh, joy! Oh, Murphy!

Towards the middle of the summer term the convent celebrated its centenary. The Bishop came down and said Ma.s.s. He was a large jovial man who liked children and played hide and seek with the young ones. When he left at the end of the day he ordered that the school should have a holiday spent in the way the girls liked best. Would they like a picnic? They would. On a beach? Yes, please. With lots of jammy cakes and sandwiches? Oh yes, Monseigneur.

It's all very well to beam like that, Mother Benedicta thought crossly. You don't have to arrange the jammy cakes and make sure that the school bus is serviced. You can't even persuade the Almighty to give us a nice day. On all the picnics in the past the weather had been devilish.

This year was devils' weather, too, for the lower and middle school (you couldn't transport eighty children on a ma.s.sive picnic all at once), but for the upper school it was better. If there was enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of trousers then you stood a chance of having a fine day. Today, Zanny thought, it will be all right. We won't come back cross, wet and bedraggled. She packed her bathing costume, a one-piece regulation one that did nothing for anybody, in her large white bath-towel, and went down to the bus feeling happy.

Murphy was in the driver's seat.

This was an unexpected bonus. Zanny instantly felt happier. She didn't know how it had been contrived. He was sitting there wearing a brown and white checked s.h.i.+rt with the sleeves rolled up. There were hairs on his arms running up from the wrists like a soft pelt. His fingers on the wheel were square, the nails a little spatulate and rimmed around with the black of honest toil (the grouse moor still to come). She could forgive him his nails. She could forgive him anything. She stopped on the top step of the bus and the hot sun burned her flesh, which was rather odd as it wasn't yet all that sunny.

Dolly kneed her from behind so that she was forced to move on. ”Hope he's got his licence,” Dolly said. Murphy didn't impress her. In early childhood she had met many like him - Midland version. Nowadays she was beginning to like them smooth, if she gave them any thought at all.

There were four nuns in charge of the picnic party -and Bridget. As sports mistress it had been part of her duty to teach the girls swimming, not that she could swim very much, but she had played around with the younger ones in the convent swimming pool, splashed them and shown them how to float. On these picnic days, the venue was Coracle Bay, a small cove about twenty miles away and she was asked to go along and ”keep an eye” as Mother Benedicta put it. Mother Benedicta herself had opted out. She had been on the first two picnics and done her fair share of settling her arthritic limbs on damp sand. A longish drive and a shortish period on the beach had been part of her strategy but shortish was still not short enough and she'd had her fill. She went into the coach to have a few words with Murphy before the children departed.

”You will remember,” she said, ”that your duty is to drive the girls to the picnic area - as you did yesterday and the day before -- leave the coach so that they may return to it quickly if it should rain - and return to it yourself at four o'clock - earlier if it's wet.” She didn't repeat the other instructions; that he should keep well away from the picnic party; that liquid refreshment in the form of tea or coffee could be taken at a small cafe in the village if his own flask of coffee wasn't sufficient; that he was on no account to go into any of the bars of the local hotels. Once, she hoped, had been enough.

Having driven with him twice she had no qualms about his driving ability. The school bus (donated by a retired colonel, the father of a third-former) was usually driven by Sister Sofia who had driven an ambulance during the war and knew what she was about. But Sister Sofia had unfortunately contracted s.h.i.+ngles, and the other nuns who could drive cars drew the line at coaches. Murphy, apprised of the situation by Bridget -and its convenience - had offered his services. When asked how he had known of the dilemma he had spoken fatuously about little birds and retrieved himself hastily by suggesting that the Almighty might have put it into his head. Mother Benedicta had eyed him suspiciously but was too bothered by the general ha.s.sle of the wretched picnic to question him any closer.

Murphy was glad she wasn't coming today. On the other two drives over to the picnic area old Mother Benedicta - old Mother Garrulous - had yapped about scenic beauty and the history of the area. A bit of a bore. Today the nuns were mercifully silent. One old biddy of about sixty was asleep with her mouth open. He re-angled his driving mirror so that he could see Bridget who was sitting three seats back. She caught his eye and winked at him. He grinned and honked his horn -beep - beepity - beep - beep. The girls chuckled and began to sing. No culture trip this -just fun, fun, fun.

He parked the bus as usual near the main beach and carried the heaviest hamper up the road towards the cove that Mother Benedicta had considered reasonably private. The girls and the nuns carrying what they could, trailed behind. Bridget, keeping a very tactful distance, brought up the rear. She was wearing a scarlet sweater and very short blue shorts and to h.e.l.l with the nuns -- this was nearly the mid twentieth century. In two years it would be 1950. ”Roll out the Barrel”, Bridget sang and Murphy in the lead heard her and took it up. The older nuns, ineffectual and embarra.s.sed, tried to shush their charges as they sang l.u.s.tily and pretended to roll about drunk.

It wasn't quite Zanny's scene. Did Murphy have to play a plebeian part with quite such enthusiasm? Perhaps he had. Perhaps it was all part of the act. His voice, a light baritone, thrilled her, but he was spoiling the image a little. She hadn't imagined him jolly. In her dreams he had been imbued with a grave dignity. They had walked together under palm trees on the white sand of a tropical beach. He had worn a tuxedo with a carnation in the b.u.t.ton-hole. Before going to bed, (they always went to bed), he had brought a bottle of champagne into the bedroom. It was half buried in a bucket of ice. When he uncorked it the champagne shot out like the Niagara falls and soaked her nightdress (turquoise blue satin). He removed it, laughing. Then what followed was usually up to Zanny.

”Run, Rabbit, Run,” Murphy bellowed. They had reached the cove now and had to climb over a small wall and go across slippery gra.s.s to get to it. He helped all the nuns over. The older ones gave him their hands disapprovingly. The younger ones pretended to disapprove, but nevertheless followed suit. The girls sprinted over athletically apart from one pretty little creature with hair like honey who insisted on being helped. He could have sworn she made a little scratching movement on the middle of his palm with her index finger. She had certainly blushed. Her cheeks had been almost the colour of Bridget's sweater.