Devices and Desires by P. D. James

thought you said when I came here that you weren’t religious.”
    It always surprised him that, apparently taking no account of him, she could yet recall comments he had made months earlier. He said: “I don’t believe Christ was God. I don’t believe there is a God. But I believe in what He taught.”
    “If He wasn’t a God, I don’t see that it matters much what He taught. Anyway, all I can remember is something about turning the other cheek, which I don’t believe in. I mean, that’s daft. If someone slaps your left cheek, then you slap his right, only harder. Anyway, I do know they hung Him up on the cross, so it didn’t do Him a lot of good. That’s what turning the other cheek does for you.”
    He said: “I’ve got a Bible here somewhere. You could read about Him if you wanted to. Make a start with St. Mark’s Gospel.”
    “No thanks. I had enough of that in the home.”
    “What home?”
    “Just a home, before the baby was born.”
    “How long were you there?”
    “Two weeks. Two weeks too bloody many. Then I ran away and found a squat.”
    “Where was that, the squat?”
    “Islington, Camden, King’s Cross, Stoke Newington. Does it matter? I’m here now, OK?”
    “It’s OK by me, Amy.”
    Lost in his thoughts, he hardly realized that he had given up folding the pamphlets.
    Amy said: “Look, if you’re not going to help with these envelopes you might as well go and put a new washer on that tap. It’s been dripping for weeks and Timmy’s always falling about in the mud.”
    “All right,” he said, “I’ll do it now.”
    He took down his tool kit from the high cupboard where it was kept well out of Timmy’s reach. He was glad to be out of the caravan. It had become increasingly claustrophobic in the last few weeks. Outside, he bent to talk to Timmy, caged in his playpen. He and Amy had collected large stones from the beach, looking for those with holes in them—and he had strung them onto strong cord and tied them along one side of the playpen. Timmy would spend hours happily banging them together or against the bars or, as now, slobbering against one of the stones in an attempt to get it into his mouth. Sometimes he would communicate with individual flints, a continuous admonitory prattle broken by sudden triumphant squeals. Kneeling down, Neil clutched the bars, rubbed his nose against Timmy’s and was rewarded by his huge, heart-tugging smile. He looked very like his mother, with the same roundhead on a fragile neck, the same beautifully shaped mouth. Only his eyes, widely spaced, were differently shaped, large blue spheres with, above them, straight bushy eyebrows which reminded Neil of pale and delicate caterpillars. The tenderness he felt for the child was equal to, if different from, the tenderness he felt for his mother. He could not now imagine life on the headland without either of them.
    But the tap defeated him. Despite his tuggings with the wrench he couldn’t get the screw to shift. Even this minor domestic task was apparently beyond his powers. He could hear Amy’s derisive voice. You want to change the world and you can’t change a washer. After a couple of minutes he gave up the attempt, left the tool box by the cottage wall and walked to the edge of the cliff, then slithered down to the beach. Crunching over the ridges of stones, he went down to the edge of the sea and almost violently wrenched off his shoes. It was thus, when the weight of anxiety about his failed ambitions, his uncertain future became too heavy, that he would find his peace, standing motionless to watch the veined curve of the poised wave, the tumult of crashing foam breaking over his feet, the wide intersecting arches washing over the smooth sand as the wave retreated to leave its tenuous lip of foam. But today even this wonder, continually repeated, failed to comfort his spirit. He gazed out to the horizon with unseeing eyes and thought about his present life, the hopelessness of the future,