‘Oh, for God’s sake! Forgive me, O Lord. I’m leaving. I resign.’
‘You won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Evie won’t have it. You won’t leave here without her. And she’ll never leave.’
Adam contemplated this. Julia was right. Except he would make Evie leave. He would make her come with him.
‘Tell me why you came here,’ said Julia in a low, persuasive voice.
‘Nobody else would take the post,’ moaned Adam. ‘And I couldn’t find another. I have a reputation – for being a bit too hardline. I’m an embarrassment to the church, this stupid soft-centred namby-pamby church of ours. Where are all the muscular Christians now? That’s all I want to be.’
‘I think you’re a very muscular Christian,’ said Julia soothingly, putting a hand on his upper arm and squeezing it. ‘You have the soul of a missionary. In fact, one of your predecessors had been a missionary. A Victorian chap, came to us from Congo. A rather unsuccessful mission, I gather. He bore some interesting scars.’
‘What are you talking about – my predecessors? You keep coming out with these bizarre statements, speaking as if you were 400 years old yourself.’
‘I need to mind my tongue, don’t I? Thank you for telling me about how you came to be here. Now, how about the girlfriends?’
She smiled roguishly and ruffled his hair.
He shut his eyes and whispered, ‘Nothing to tell.’
‘What? You’ve never had a girlfriend? Is that what you’re telling me?’
‘The risk … Too much.’
‘Risk? What risk?’
‘Risk of temptation. Temptation of the flesh.’
‘Adam, you aren’t a monk!’
‘I wanted to save myself. I wanted to be pure.’
‘You’re a virgin?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t kiss like one.’
‘Thanks, I think.’
‘You weren’t born for the celibate existence, my love. You need more than that.’
‘My flesh is so weak …’
‘Don’t think of it as weakness. It’s another way of being. It’s not wrong, it’s not right. It’s how God made you.’
‘God would not make me a – fornicator. It’s His way of testing me, the hardest test He could give me. I don’t care for drink or gambling or money or anything like that. But Evie Witts … Oh, Evie Witts …’
‘Never mind her. She’ll never be any good to you.’
Julia’s fingers had strayed to his loosened dog collar, at which she pulled gently.
‘I’ve always wanted to take this off you,’ she whispered.
‘No, you can’t,’ he whispered back, but there was no firmness in it, no purpose. She pulled it free of his shirt, exposing the lower part of his neck, which she bent and kissed.