Mrs Caliban and other stories Read online

  *

  The front of Anselm’s robe was studded and stuck with the trinkets and tokens he’d been given by other monks. Some of the gifts looked like votary offerings. He never asked where they came from. For years the cells and cloisters of the monastery had been bare of ornament; now from nowhere shiny buttons and pins appeared, so that they could be presented to Anselm.

  ‘The creature is positively bedizened,’ Brother Adrian snarled. ‘Decorated like a Christmas tree.’ He got drunk for two days and couldn’t be roused.

  ‘You see’, Frederick told Francis, ‘the effect it’s having.’

  ‘Just on Adrian. He was nearly this bad over the legal rights on the new vineyard eight years ago. Remember? That’s the way he is. He wouldn’t be tolerated for a minute in the outside world.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself – he’d be one of the ones running it. And in his clearer moments, he’s actually extremely capable.’

  ‘But not likeable. Even talent has its limits.’

  Francis heaved an enormous sigh. He threw up his hands to heaven and for a few second scrabbled at the air before sighing again and returning to normal. ‘I got three postcards today,’ he said. ‘Brother Aloysius has become a Buddhist. He says he doesn’t hold anything against us.’

  ‘That’s nice of him.’

  ‘Ungrateful old swine. I hope they have as much trouble with him as we did.’

  They turned to the right by the chapel and saw Anselm in the distance.

  ‘What do you think?’ Francis said.

  ‘Oh, it’s a mess. Just the kind of slipshod entanglement a boy like Anselm would be apt to get himself into.’

  ‘Not a miracle?’

  ‘Are there such things?’

  ‘You know very well there are. But maybe you have to wait for somebody else to tell you that’s what they are.’

  ‘Your nasty moments are always so refreshing, Francis. One doesn’t expect them.’

  ‘I put it badly. What I meant was that it’s like seeing a new movie or a new play. Some people say it’s all right, one or two that it’s wonderful, and a lot say it’s worthless. Or the other way around. In time, everyone knows what to think. When something is completely new, it’s got to be fitted into its place. It has to be assimilated. And every age has its miracles.’

  *

  Anselm looked through the papers. He came across a story about a Chinese boy who could read through his ears instead of his eyes; they’d blindfold him, hold a book up to his right ear, and let him read it. (The left ear appeared to be illiterate.)

  He turned to a page near the back. A column next to the gardening news reported the uncanny ability of a five-year-old girl to turn tennis balls inside-out by the power of thought. And in the same issue there was a short item that told of a man who had died from just drinking water. He’d drunk thirty-five pints. According to friends of his, he’d said that he was ‘trying to clean out his system’.

  He started to order books from the public library. He got them through Brother Duncan, whose attitude towards him was becoming irritatingly proprietorial. The books were all about babies and the habits that could be discerned in them as soon as they were born. The romping movements, Anselm read, were for exercise; the grabbing and clinging instinct apparently went way back to the time when the human young would have to be able to get a grip on the mother’s fur.

  ‘Fur?’ Elmo said. ‘Have you been holding out on us? We thought you only had the usual accessories.’

  ‘Shh,’ Anselm told him. He continued to read from the book. The brothers were fascinated. Everyone wanted to help bring up the baby.

  Eventually they talked about what sort of a child it would be, why it had been ‘sent’, and how they should educate it. Or perhaps it would be enough just to love it.

  Other monks, at the far side of the cloister, also talked. Two of them on the way to Matins hurried across the courtyard together. One said, ‘She came among us in a disguised form. That’s why we didn’t recognize her.’ The other said, ‘No, it’s just the reverse. He’s in a disguised form now.’ It was like a quarrel about whether a dog was white with black spots or black with white spots. And, in any case, they weren’t supposed to be discussing it.

  *

  Deep in thought, Anselm strolled along the pillared porches. In the distance he could see William standing still and looking intently, forlornly, at him.

  Anselm moved closer. William began to edge nearer. He was in love with Anselm. He had picked a blossoming branch as an emblem of his love and wanted to offer it, but didn’t quite dare.

  Anselm rocked gracefully towards him, the swell of his skirt bearing him forward as if by sail or by balloon. He reached the spot where William stood transfixed by the sight of him. Anselm gave him a soft glance; the long lashes over his dark eyes were longer than ever. ‘Hello, William,’ he said.

  ‘I wanted to give you this,’ William told him. He held out the branch.

  Anselm recognized the flowers as part of his favourite tree. He blinked languidly.

  ‘For the baby,’ William whispered.

  Anselm took the branch. ‘Thank you, William,’ he said. ‘How sweet of you.’

  William dropped to his knees. He caught the edge of Anselm’s robe in his hands and buried his face in it.

  Anselm bent down slowly, touched William’s head as if in blessing, and passed on.

  William remained on his knees and began to pray.

  *

  ‘You’ve seen how Brother William is taking it?’ Adrian demanded.

  ‘A simple heart,’ Frederick said.

  ‘Rife for corruption.’

  ‘Ripe.’

  ‘This place could become a hotbed of debauchery overnight.’

  ‘Really, Adrian, I think that’s overstating the case.’

  ‘All I want to know is what you’re going to do about it.’

  ‘You leave that to me.’

  ‘No, Frederick. We’ve all waited long enough. If I don’t see some action, I’m reporting it.’

  ‘Be careful, Adrian. If you go too far, you’ll be confined to quarters. I don’t want any heroics out of you.’

  ‘Me?’ Brother Adrian cried. His tone was one of wounded innocence, his face nearly purple. Frederick knew that this mood of his was even harder to deal with than his rages.

  *

  Anselm waited for Francis outside the chapel until an older monk, Brother Theodore, had left. Then he came forward.

  ‘Francis, may I ask you a question?’

  ‘Certainly.’ He hadn’t heard Anselm’s approach and was startled by the way he looked – so obviously pregnant, so like a young woman of the ancient world as it was pictured by the great Renaissance painters; and so pretty.

  ‘This isn’t a confession,’ Anselm said.

  ‘That’s all right. Sit down.’

  They sat in the pews, Anselm sliding in sideways and near a corner, to rest his back. ‘What I want to know,’ he said, ‘is if you think that after the birth I should continue to lead a single life.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought that far, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Because there’s somebody who loves me. And I feel that we’d be very well matched and everything. And a child needs a father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Francis said. ‘But supposing – I mean, perhaps it would end up having two of them. It might be possible that after the birth, you’d go back to the way you were.’

  ‘It might. Anything could happen. In that case, I’d have to find a mother for my child instead, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You could raise it alone. After the first few weeks, it’s the father that’s important: a figure of authority. A loving authority.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Authority is what you are or where you stand, not whether you’re male or female. It’s politically determined.’

  ‘Authorities are male.’

  ‘Only because things are organized like that.’

  ‘But if you’re trying
to come to a decision, that makes a difference, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I guess. And I’ve become so fond of this person.’

  ‘Brother William?’

  ‘Sweet William. Before the Annunciation, I used to think he was a bit of an oaf. Now he seems so nice – true-hearted and full of life.’

  ‘If you reverted to your former state, you might return to your first opinion of him. It might go with the alteration. So maybe you’d better wait.’

  Anselm ran a hand through his hair, rumpling the sleekly regimented locks. ‘I’d thought all the problems were solved,’ he said, ‘everything taken care of.’

  ‘It’s causing a lot of complications around you, you know.’

  ‘Oh, that. That’s just people’s attitudes.’

  ‘I worry about it.’

  ‘Good. You can worry about it for me. I’m not going to.’

  ‘Anselm, I do worry. Not everyone is kind. And it isn’t everyone who can take the detached view.’

  ‘Well, do you have an answer?’

  ‘You haven’t been to Mass in a very great while.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s for your sake, not mine or ours.’

  ‘Don’t let it bother you, Francis. I’m in God’s hands.’

  ‘We’re all in God’s hands. I just thought – well, I don’t know. Your prayers are important, too. It isn’t enough just to exist and not take part.’

  ‘But every minute I live is given to God. He sent his angel. He –’

  ‘The Mass, Anselm.’

  ‘For me, that’s secondhand now.’

  ‘That’s a very arrogant and wrong-headed thing to say.’

  ‘Why? It’s true.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Brother Francis said.

  *

  ‘I don’t want any X-rays.’

  Brother Duncan said, ‘It isn’t an X-ray. It’s a scan for finding out if the baby’s going to be a girl or a boy.’

  ‘Scan – what does that mean?’

  ‘It’s –’

  ‘You can hear the heartbeat. Isn’t that all right? And you can feel it kicking now. We’ll find out what sex it is when it’s born.’

  ‘It would be nice to know now.’

  ‘Nice for who?’

  ‘Aren’t you curious?’

  ‘Doctor, I want you to promise me something. This child has got to be born alive and well, whether it’s normal or not.’

  ‘Who says it isn’t going to be normal?’

  ‘I want you to promise. The decision is not yours. Do you understand?’

  ‘I’ve taken the Hippocratic oath, Anselm.’

  ‘And we all know how much that’s worth.’

  ‘Who’s been filling your mind with these fears?’

  ‘They come naturally. It’s an anxious time. Look at all my badges and buttons. I’m superstitious about everything now. I’ve got to be able to trust you. I know you don’t believe what happened, but I’ve got to have your help.’

  ‘I definitely believe you changed sex. There’s no doubt about that.’

  ‘I’m asking you as a doctor, and also as a Christian. The temptation is going to be great. They’re leaning on you, aren’t they?’

  ‘There’s a certain amount of pressure, of course. That’s my problem. I can handle it.’

  ‘Since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve begun to understand a lot of things about doctors and women – telling them what to do, regulating them, applying a system. I used to think there were so many more male doctors than female ones just because it’s such a highly paid job, but now I’m not sure. Now I’m coming to believe it’s all to do with power – that men look at all other creatures as things on which to practise their power, that they think freedom means being able to carry out that practice; and they don’t like it if anyone is really free just to be the way they are.’

  ‘Anselm, you’re going to find that you’re increasingly prey to all kinds of fears, but – believe me, they have no foundation. I’m a doctor; I know.’

  ‘You may be a doctor, Duncan, but compared to me, you’re an ignoramus.’

  ‘Thanks a bunch.’

  ‘My knowledge comes directly from God.’

  ‘So you’ve said.’

  ‘Where do you think this child came from?’

  ‘I’m not asking that question. I’m interested in facts as they are.’

  ‘But they’re so changeable. Facts can change in an instant. That’s what happened to me. It’s like peacetime and wartime, like happiness and sorrow. You never know when the change is going to come.’

  ‘But not like male and female.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Do you think you’re the only person this so-called visitation ever happened to? Except the first instance, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve wondered about that, too. All I can say is that if there were others, they kept quiet about it. Or it was hushed up. Or no one believed it. That would be the most likely explanation. Not many people here believe me, either.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re the only one?’

  ‘I do. But that may only be because everything that happens to people seems to be special to them. It seems unique.’

  ‘I’ve never heard or read of anything like it. The occasional hysterical woman, yes – nothing like this.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. Right from the start it was medically exciting. You still think it’s the prize-winning case-history. But they’re giving you orders above me, aren’t they?’

  ‘Nobody wants anything but your own good, Anselm.’

  ‘And if they didn’t, what could I do about it? It’s giving me the creeps. Look at the way I am. How could I defend myself? They’re all running themselves in circles about scandal and reputation and theology. This matters more. If you’re any kind of a doctor, there must have been a time when you thought so too.’

  ‘I wanted to become a doctor,’ Duncan said, ‘because I wanted to know about the human soul, life and death, where people went to when they died, why they were the way they were. I studied in the laboratories, in mortuaries. I had parts of people on the table in front of me like pieces of a Sunday chicken. We had all kinds of things – insides – to look at. When I was a student, I had a collection of innards in jars. A whole shelf full. I even had a foetus in a bottle. I studied it. I also used to wonder about it a lot – whether it was a miscarriage, or whether the mother wanted to get rid of it; a lot of them do, you know. A lot of them wouldn’t give you two cents for the Hippocratic oath. It seemed to me at that time, even more important than the question of where we went was the question of where we came from. The embryo I owned was a person. They were all, all the pieces in jars … Then I got to thinking about how the whole of that side of life was entrusted to women. And that was where my understanding broke down. They’re so patently unworthy. Strange as your case is, Anselm, the one thing about it that makes sense to me is that, if it’s true, it should have been a man who was chosen this time. If that’s what happened.’

  ‘That’s what happened. But that isn’t the part I think is important. I’m the same. I’m the same person now that I was then. I’ve got a different body, that’s all. Do you think we’re what our bodies are?’

  ‘We live inside them. We inhabit them. We’re influenced by them, very. The state of a person’s health can change his personality.’

  ‘It can’t change him into something he had no capacity for from the beginning. Or can it?’

  ‘You think you were a woman all along?’

  ‘I think I was chosen, and because the female body is the one made for carrying and feeding children, I was given that. Do you think I’m going to change back afterwards?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As soon as I stop breast-feeding, do you think I’ll go back to being a man?’

  ‘Oh my God, Anselm.’

  ‘It’s like a joke, isn’t it?’

  ‘It simply never occurred to me.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought that far myself
. I was just happy. But now I’m beginning to get a little anxious. I don’t want anything to go wrong.’

  ‘Nothing will go wrong. Relax. You’re very healthy.’

  Anselm stood up. It took him several movements now. He felt as ungainly as a camel getting to its feet.

  He went for a walk in the courtyard and then down past the potato gardens. He stopped a few times to think. He leaned against one of the stone walls in the garden and partly closed his eyes. He remembered the way it had been at the beginning: Gabriel alighting on the green square of grass. Once again, like warmth from a flame or a breath from the air, the remembered touch ran tickling over his skin.

  He knew that the central event was all right and assured. His worries were all about the peripheral effects. Whether man or woman, he was living in the world as it was at a particular time. And in most parts of the country, despite the revolution in morals, changed attitudes towards sexual freedom, the high incidence of divorce and the promulgation of certain doctrines by the women’s movements – still, in general, illegitimacy was disapproved of. Because he was single, things were going to be made difficult for him. And if he remained single, they’d be made difficult for the child too. There were hundreds of ways in which a child could be hurt, shocked, shamed or cruelly teased by other children at school. Schools were full of quarrels and fights and name-calling.

  On his way back to his cell he went near the chapel, where the brothers were singing Compline. The baby began to move boisterously. Whenever there was music, it kicked hard. Anselm thought may be it picked up the vibrations and was trying to dance.

  He passed by, going to the right and down the hallway that led to his corridor. A burst of laughter came from behind one of the closed doors; shouted opinions followed. There seemed to be at least three, perhaps four voices. Anselm heard himself named and turned back.

  ‘What I think –’ one of the voices said.

  Another one interrupted: ‘She’s asking for it.’

  ‘Miracle, my arse.’ The voice could have been the first man again, or a different one. Through the closed door it was hard to tell. One of them said something in a low murmur that Anselm didn’t catch. The others cackled like witches. He could guess, from the remark that had gone before, what kind of comment it had been. After that, there was a loud crash and a despairing cry: ‘Jesus fucking Christ, you’ve done it again.’