The Greening (4 page)

“Oh, God.”

“I don’t know what to do. What would you do?” Alex asked. He looked desperate.

“Well – Milo wouldn’t give me that story – ” I said.

“I know. He knows you’d have a row with him about it. And you’d get away with it because they wouldn’t want to lose you. But what would you do?”

“It has to be up to you, Alex.”

“If I refuse I’ll be fired,” he said.

“That’s right.”

Alex looked utterly miserable. At that moment Milo called to him, “Alex – get your arse out of here. What are you hanging about for?”

Alex grabbed his jacket and hurried out.

I looked around the newsroom and wondered how many people felt as I did. People were not happy. It was 1991 and conditions had changed radically in my time on the paper. The avuncular spirit of the old-time proprietors, rich men who ran newspapers for the pleasure of it, was long gone. Our employers now were powerful press barons who ran their papers for money and influence, but mainly for money.

So we had changed, too. People were less inclined to go the extra mile for the sake of the story. We were cautious and we watched our backs. How long would a young idealist like Alex survive? How long would I survive? I was a favourite of the Editor, it was true. But even he was under pressure and he was a weak man.

I had not been asked to compromise my principles, but I rarely wrote anything these days that I felt was of real benefit to anyone. The character of the paper was changing. Under the new Editor, its reputation as a principled and fearless investigator was diminishing. Insidiously, its pages were becoming increasingly contaminated by stories that lacked depth and meaning. I still dreamed, though, of writing copy that would change lives.

Anna Leigh had found meaning. I envied her. And I recalled the excitement and expectation I had felt when I read the message on the flyleaf of her journal. Would Anna take me on a journey of my own, as the message seemed to imply, a journey that would reveal the truth?

Patrick rang during the morning and asked me to meet him for lunch at his apartment in Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament. An assignment nearby made it possible for me to accept. As I entered the building, Vic, the concierge, said a respectful, “Good afternoon, Miss Meredith.” I wondered if he believed I was there in my capacity as a journalist or if he knew the real reason. When I had shared my worries with Patrick, he had replied breezily,
“Vic’s paid not to think, and handsomely. That man would die on the rack before he’d say a word against me. I have his loyalty. It’s bought and paid for. Basic maths, darling. Everyone has their price. Simple matter of knowing what it is.”

Patrick ordered in lunch from a local restaurant, accompanied by a carefully selected bottle of wine. For the first time, I felt a tension in our relationship. My lover was a junior minister in the Foreign Office. My newspaper was talking secretly to a Foreign Office mole, one of his civil servants. I would give nothing away, of course; but I felt uncomfortable. Looking back, I must have been pretty naïve not to consider the vulnerability of my position.

We planned to spend his birthday together in Paris. When Patrick had suggested it, it had seemed a madly risky idea. But he knew a quiet hotel on the outskirts of Paris and, as he always said, he led a charmed life. Patrick expected things to go his way because they always had. Eton, the Guards, a lucrative career in the City, a safe Tory seat and a junior ministership had all come his way with the ease that he considered his entitlement. Money and influence had smoothed his path all his life. His goal was a place in the Cabinet and – why not? – the highest prize of all.

But I could not wait for Paris. I was too eager to see his pleasure when I gave him his gift. “Here’s your present,” I said, handing him the carefully wrapped package.

He ripped off the paper, and said, “Perfect. Clever girl.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m free till three. Gives us an hour.” He took my hand, and, as always, when he touched me I desired him.

Patrick knew he was attractive. He was tall, well-built and elegant, Savile Row-suited with always the perfect matching tie. His hair was almost black and tinged with grey, his features fine, his eyes an intense and mesmerising blue.

“I can’t really, Patrick. I have to get back,” I said.

“Busy day, eh?” Was he fishing? No, Patrick would not compromise me. I never discussed my work with him; he knew it was off-limits.

I said, “It’s always busy. You know how it is.”

I felt uneasy. But Patrick was caressing me and every cautious, sensible thought went out of my mind.

“Come on, darling. What do you say? I’m off to Brussels tomorrow and won’t be back for a week. You know I adore you…”

My resistance was crumbling. “I’ll have to ring in with an excuse. I’ll have to be back by three.”

Patrick took me in his arms and, without a word, undressed me and carried me to his bed. When I was in his arms I could not resist him. It was a heady aphrodisiac – sex and power, intermingled with love.

The phone rang. “Jesus! Thanks, old chap. Jo, you’ve got to go.”

“What!”

“That was Vic. My wife’s here. He’s keeping her talking. Hurry, darling, please.”

I scrambled into my clothes. I was shocked and trembling. Patrick said, “Take this for a cab,” handing me a sheaf of notes. I pushed his hand away, refusing to take his money. As he opened the door, he kissed me hurriedly and said, “Take the stairs. Quickly, darling, before the lift arrives.”

I hurried through the lobby to find Vic waiting at the door, ready to hail me a cab. “Good afternoon, Miss Meredith,” he said politely. I did not reply. I half ran into the street and walked for some way before hailing a cab. As I travelled back to the office I felt shaken and humiliated. Suddenly the whole situation with Patrick felt dirty and underhand. How dare he treat me this way. Had he been lying to me? I felt hurt and furious.

An hour later, as I worked at my desk, the phone rang. It was Patrick.

“I’m sorry, darling. That was a ghastly thing to happen to you. No, I haven’t deceived you, how could you think it? Yes, of course she knows, but she expects me to be discreet. At least until we divorce. She doesn’t want to be seen as the cast-off wife. We have to arrange things so it looks like an amicable separation.

“She never uses the flat. Always said she didn’t like it. She hasn’t even bothered to get it decorated. Apparently she’d been shopping
and was tired and decided to take a nap before heading home. Look, this is nothing for you to worry about. I’ll bring you something special back from Brussels. I’ll make it up to you, darling. I promise.”

I arrived home that evening feeling tense, troubled and angry. Patrick’s breezy assumption that the incident could be smoothed over, his failure to understand how devastating it had been for me, how humiliating to be ushered out by the concierge, made me feel very vulnerable. It left me wondering what I had got myself into.

Patrick had pursued me with a determination that I found irresistible. It was thrilling to know that such an exciting and dynamic man had chosen me. When I had first met him, at a City dinner, he had made it obvious that he was attracted to me. I was flattered. And when he made his move, it was direct and daring. An interview over dinner, an invitation back to his apartment and a declaration that he had fallen in love with me.

I was thirty-four, old enough to know what I was doing. I wanted all of it, the passion, the sex, the intellectual stimulus, the feeling of importance because I had been chosen by one of the most exciting and powerful men in the country. The girl from rural North Wales loved every minute of it. But it had been more than a year, and I was beginning to wonder where it was going. When I dropped hints about the future, Patrick would simply say, “You’re happy, aren’t you, darling?” I was not happy. But I did not want to lose my chance with this man. I poured myself a glass of wine. Pushing away the sad and angry thoughts, I took up the journal.

Since my visit to Julian’s cell I have been troubled by the depth of feeling and new understanding that came to me as I stood before the cross. The memory of it haunts me. I feel uncomfortable in my skin and a sense of expectation seems to hover within and about me; it feels as though every nerve and fibre in my body knows that something has changed and that more change is to come. The easy contentment of my ordinary life has been taken from me.

I thought I had left my past behind, but something that never made sense when I was a child has now emerged as a troubling question in my mind. How did Sister Mary Theresa, the one person I truly trusted, reconcile Julian’s message of unconditional love with the fearsome sermons of Father James? Which message was true? Both she and Julian must surely have struggled with the paradox.

Julian’s God is never angry. He wants us to repent of our bad ways and change but does not want us to feel guilty. He does not blame us and has forgiven us for everything we will ever do. Father James seemed to know an entirely different God, an angry old man in the clouds. And though Father said God loved us, he didn’t seem to like us very much.

I am puzzled and troubled by these thoughts. I still find within myself the frightened child who does not feel safe. How I long to step into that line drawing on the cover of
Enfolded in Love,
open and vulnerable as the child being gathered into the embrace of the homely figure who bends lovingly towards him.

I remember how Jesus said that he longed to gather us up, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. How deeply I desire such a gathering up. But I have no right to hope, for I do not deserve it. I want to be better than I am. I want to be of use and value. My life is a selfish life, but it is not the life I would choose.

Illness during my childhood years brought me the gift of solitude. It is a gift I have always cherished. But it has left me feeling apart from the world and with my isolation comes a sense of shame. I am not good enough. I have kind friends, but I do not like to trouble them. I feel I am a burden, and they are not here. I am afraid I am incapable of a real relationship with a man. And so I shelter within my carefully constructed world, as I always have done, a world in which closeness and tenderness can be managed without. I find solace, as I always have, in the keeping of my journal; my conversation with an absent friend, a kind, patient friend who will understand me and not find me wanting.

What was the dark secret that made my parents unfit to enter God’s house? The guilt still haunts me. Did everyone know, as I sat in the Children of Mary Bible class on Sundays, that I was a tainted thing? Did I contaminate the sanctity of the holy circle? Father James’ warnings of hell and damnation and the punishments awaiting sinners return to me in dark hours when I feel so alone.

Sometimes even now I am afraid to go to sleep in case those dreams return – those terrifying dreams of devils with horrible claws and tails, who come crawling up from a dark pit, reaching out for me to pull me down. In dark clouds above the pit hovers the discarnate head of an old man, like some Medea, tendrils of long hair and beard swirling about his face. He points his finger at me, fixing me with a look of anger and contempt. I hold my breath as he shouts in a voice like thunder that I am cast out into the darkness, out of the world and out of heaven, out of the galaxy and out of the universe. I am dispatched to the place of desolation and there I must live, alive for ever, with no hope of escape or of seeing again the people I love.

Sometimes the dreams would trouble me so much that I felt unwilling to return to church, for surely my continued attendance would only perpetuate my crime. But I did return, not only because my parents wished it but also because I loved my teacher, Sister Mary Theresa. If you, my absent friend, imagined reader of my journal and companion of my lonely hours, could only have met her, you would have loved her, too. I used to think:
She is like Our Lady.

I wish I could sit once more before the statue of Our Lady, looking up into her beautiful face with its alabaster skin and gentle blue eyes. She seemed so loving and kind, I could almost feel that she was real. There was such an atmosphere of peace and tenderness around the statue; it seemed to inhabit a space all of its own, where all was calm and everything would come right. I felt Our Lady did accept me and understand my
heartache, which I confided in her but could never have shared with anyone else.

One long, hot summer, when I was eight, I became ill, haunted by the fearful imaginings that gave me no rest. I lay in bed for hours on end, headachy and feverish, wanting to be well again but feeling unable to summon up the will to make myself better.

Despite my parents’ care and solicitude, the barrier between us that precluded real intimacy seemed even more impenetrable in my weakened condition. Because I longed more than ever to be wrapped up in the certain knowledge that we as a family deserved love, the absence of that certainty bit keenly at a time when I was bereft of any sanctuary, even the synthetic sanctuary of my everyday routine.

And then there came a tap on the door. The handle turned and my mother stepped quietly into the room. “You have a visitor,” she said. With a sweep of her skirts, Sister Mary Theresa followed her in and came towards me, her wide smile, as always, seeming about to split her face in two, like an overripe melon. The Sister, I always felt, was so brimful of joy that it must have been fizzing about inside her like lemon pop.

Sister Mary Theresa’s uncompromising, unquestioning gladness was one of the many things I loved about her. She would not, could not be daunted. She knew she was loved: no doubt at all about that, she would have said if anyone had thought to challenge her certitude.

It was as though a great flood of love was pouring into her from above and bubbling and spinning about inside her, reaching every part, like an angel doing its spring-cleaning, and flowing endlessly from her eyes and mouth and hands, in loving looks, kind words and practical deeds to help and comfort others.