Obstacles to Young Love

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you, darling.’ Saying ‘darling’ makes her feel about eighty, but she doesn’t know what else to call him. ‘It’s…it’s lovely, Timothy.’

She puts the curlew down on an occasional table. She feels so much better now that she’s no longer holding it. She moves back and surveys it.

‘Really lovely,’ she says. ‘Oh, Timothy. You did all that for me.’

She goes over to him and hugs him.

He beams.

‘Was it dreadfully horrid, doing it? You know, putting your fingers up it and…whatever it is you do. Was it awful?’

‘You don’t put your fingers up it. There is no up to put your fingers up. You build a form, with papier mâché, and wire to hold the legs and beak and stuff. It’s like sculpture. You don’t stuff a bird, because you put the skin on at the end, over what you’ve built. It’s an art. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m going to do with my life. It’s my job. Of course it wasn’t horrid.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ she says again, weakly. ‘Well, thank you.’ And she kisses him on the cheek.

‘Well…follow that,’ says Julian, strolling over to the pile of presents.

‘A most original present and a most personal gift,’ says Antoine firmly to Naomi. ‘And Timothy, as a fellow artist I would love to come and see your father’s workshop.’ He looks at the curlew critically. ‘Not at all a bad first effort, Timothy.’

‘Thank you,’ says Timothy. ‘My dad says if you’ve done it really well its eye will follow you wherever you move.’

Naomi tries to hide her horror at this prospect.

Naomi and Timothy are only a few feet away from each other in the great, dark, solemn church. Only Darren Pont, Lindsay East and Sally Lever are between them. All the others in the class, except for Sally Lever, are younger than Naomi and Timothy, who have both rather enjoyed setting an example, and pretending to be mature.

With its fine hammer roof and fifteenth-century font cover, the church is one of only two buildings in Coningsfield to merit a complimentary mention in Pevsner, and the other has now gone to make room for a monstrously ugly multistorey car park whose entrances and exits snake so sharply that few motorists venture into it. The Poles have rebuilt their major cities in all their historical glory, but this is England.

Naomi is not thinking about Poles or the hammer roof. She is thinking of the hammering of her heart. Why does it hammer so? Could it be because she has realised that she and Timothy are poles apart?

She has a pit in her stomach and several moths are flying round there, trying to escape. She is uncomfortably aware of Timothy. She loves him, of course. She is supposed to be going to marry him. But…there is that distance between them.

It’s the curlew. How could he give her such a dreadful thing? How could there be such a chasm between their sensibilities? She keeps it in a cupboard, so that she never has to look at its reproachful eye following her round the room saying, ‘Why did you humiliate me in this way?’ but she is still aware that it is there, in her home, polluting it. She tells Timothy that she keeps it in her bedroom beside her photograph of him. This means that, when he calls round, she has to bring it out in her gloved hands and put it there, in case he pops upstairs and peeps, to see how his proud creation sits, how fine it looks, how happy Naomi must be to wake up from her beauty sleep and see it there, reminding her of him.

It isn’t just the curlew. It’s God. Timothy looks so fervent, so exalted. She cannot feel either fervent or exalted. Why is she here? Because her parents are Christians, her father is an elder, her mother teaches at Sunday School, she sings hymns in school assembly, she prays in school assembly, she writes ‘C of E’ on forms, she tells the careers officer she is C of E. To write ‘agnostic’, to keep her lips clamped during hymns, to keep her head defiantly unbowed during prayers, to upset her parents, what a burden that would be. No, when it comes to religion, the playing field is not level. Oh, there is so much more than just Darren Pont, Lindsay East and Sally Lever between them. Will today bring them closer together? Once they have eaten the body of Christ and drunk the blood of Christ, will they be able to reignite their love?

She recalls the last time he had visited L’Ancresse, a week or so ago. She had felt obliged to take him up to her room, to show him the curlew that she had taken out of the cupboard that morning.

‘There it is,’ she had said, hating herself. ‘In pride of place.’

‘Who’s that?’

His eye had fallen on a sepia photograph, beautifully framed, sitting in the centre of her dressing table. It showed a very handsome young man, with perfect features and a trim moustache. She had found that she didn’t want to tell him, which had surprised her. He was her secret, her harmless secret.

‘Just…a family friend,’ she had said evasively.

She thinks about her evasion now. Her desire to evade seems significant to her. She tries to concentrate on the Bishop’s words, spoken with such uninspired solemnity.

‘To the end that Confirmation may be ministered to the more edifying of such as shall receive it…’

What a strange way to put it. Nice to be thought of among the more edifying, but still…odd.

More words, but she isn’t listening. A dreadful truth has assailed her. It isn’t just God and the curlew. It’s Steven Venables. He’s asked her out. She finds him attractive. He’s so self-contained, so confident, so sure of himself. If she went out with him, he would tell her where he was taking her. Timothy asks her where she wants to go. And then says, ‘Are you sure?’ and they fuss about it till she doesn’t know where she wants to go any more.

‘…which order is very convenient to be observed; to the end, that children, being now come to the years of discretion…’

Discretion, is that what I’ve come to, it doesn’t seem like it to me, thinks Naomi. I’m light years away from discretion.

‘…and having learned what their godfathers and godmothers promised for them in Baptism…’

Auntie Flo is my godmother, but who the hell is my godfather? Oops, language, Naomi. I should be scared, using the word ‘hell’ in my thoughts in church, in the presence of the Bishop. But I’m not. Hell, hell, hell. Not frightening, because there is no hell except the one we humans make.

She’s drifted away from the Bishop’s words again. He really is a very dull bishop. Concentrate, Naomi.

‘…may themselves, with their own mouth and consent, openly before the Church, ratify and confirm the same; and also promise, that by the grace of God, they will evermore endeavour themselves faithfully to observe such things, as they, by their own confession, have assented unto.’

She looks across at Timothy. He looks swollen with good intentions, of consenting, of ratifying, of confirming, of evermore endeavouring, of faithfulness and of assenting unto.

Now the candidates for confirmation move forward towards the altar. They become more than a congregation now. They become active participants in the ceremony.

‘Our help is in the Name of the Lord,’ says the Bishop.

‘Who hath made heaven and earth,’ cry Timothy, Darren, Lindsay, Sally and all the others except Naomi.

‘Blessed be the Name of the Lord,’ exclaims the Bishop.

‘Henceforth, world without end,’ whispers Naomi, trying to join in, knowing that her feelings towards Timothy and God are inextricably and perhaps senselessly joined together on this oh, so solemn day. In a few moments she will be confirmed. It’s too late now to do anything about it.

‘Lord, hear our prayer,’ thunders the Bishop.

‘And let our cry come unto thee.’ Naomi can hear Timothy’s voice above all the others. She senses that he feels nearer to God than the others, and therefore further away from her.

‘Almighty and everliving God, who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by Water and the Holy Ghost…’ the Bishop finds extra reserves of solemnity, ‘and hast given unto them forgiveness of all their sins…’

No longer to have to be ashamed of those three nights in Earls Court, especially the second one, and all those lies to Mum and Dad, but what’s the point of forgiveness if you can’t forgive yourself?

‘…Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter; and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace…’

Steven Venables has a sister called Grace.

‘…the spirit of wisdom and understanding…’

The dentist thinks I may be going to have a bit of trouble from a wisdom tooth.

‘…the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge and true godliness…’

The abstract words plop meaninglessly into Naomi’s abstracted brain.

‘…and fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy holy fear, now and for ever. Amen.’