The Looking Glass House by Vanessa Tait Page A

realized its own emptiness, at the very time it was being poured into and filled. Filled by Jesus. Plain Mary in here allowed – no, encouraged – to be needful. To have desires and long for release.
    Mary’s hips were pressed forward on to the pew in front. She closed her eyes and began to rock from side to side. The com­motion whirled around her and penetrated her and the edges of her seemed to dissolve. ‘ Mmm mmm mmmaaaah!’ With the buzzing of her lips and the buzzing of her body, she rocked back and forth until the whole church was a ship riding on a wave from side to side, God’s chosen people in the flood, and she felt a gush that started in the damp centre of her that was pressing hard on the pew and rippled outwards and upwards and left her flushed and breathless.
    Mary opened her eyes. Around her people still continued to sway and chant. A child in the aisle, bent over double and con­vulsing. And another child, her mother’s hand on her bent-over back, pulsing up and down.
    ‘The Spirit is strong in the children. Bring them unto me! Ma ma monna yay!’
    The pastor was touching the heads of the people, his face lit by ecstasy. He pressed with his palms the foreheads of the chil­dren. His hair had fallen forward, his cheek was flushed. Mary wondered how long she had been there, for she had lost track of time and the service showed no sign of ending.
    It was dark by the time they disgorged on to the street. After the intensity of the church, Oxford was quiet, muted. There were no gas lamps in this part of town and only the clatter of distant car­riage wheels to break the darkness. In the sky Mary could see clouds of different shades moving, one over another, as if being painted in by a heavenly Creator.
    She shivered and wrapped her arms round herself.
    ‘You enjoyed it, Mary. It is rare to speak in tongues your first time. I know it took me many months.’
    Mary did not know what to say. She wished she were back at the Deanery, in her bed, small as it was. She found she could not make sense of what had just happened; it was still too close to see all of it. She needed to construct a narrative around it and make it fit.
    ‘I hope this will not be your only visit.’ Mr Wilton’s inflection rose up at the end, making the sentence into a question.
    ‘No, no,’ said Mary. ‘I should like to visit again.’
    Mr Wilton’s hand on her arm was warm and immutable. She felt its presence as they walked all the way down the High Street until they reached the gates of Christ Church. She still felt it as she undressed in her room at the Deanery and fell into a long, deep sleep.

Chapter 9
    A tangled mass of roots hung over the bank of the River Cherwell and dipped fat fingers into the water, stir­ring the river into a swirling brown broth. The weeds twisted and turned on their moorings of rock, the water slipped and slapped, gushed and splashed. The children ran ahead of her in the bright summer gloom, but Mary thought only of Jesus on his glowing throne. She could not help but see Him looking very like the pastor, with his dark hair curling on to his collar, his air of melancholy beauty. Then she thought of Mr Wilton’s lips. The words that tumbled out of them had lent his face a different, a foreign, shape. It was hard to align the Mr Wilton who had visited her parents with the Mr Wilton who had sat next to her in church. The new image had different contours to the old, would not fit, no matter how she tried to place one over the other.
    There might be a note by now, waiting for her on the tray back at the Deanery. A note folded in two, on paper as thin as skin, asking to take her to church again. Mary imagined Mr Wilton’s skin between her finger and thumb. It would not spring back into place; it would slowly collapse into repose, like the skin on a rice pudding, though he was not very old, he could not be more than thirty-five.
    The gift of the Holy Spirit had opened up an emptiness inside her,