Saint Christopher and the Gravedigger

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Amen to that.’

  John’s eyes widened, and in spite of himself, he found his interest in his visitor increasing. ‘You would damn McNally an’ all?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes I would, John, for he’s a blasphemous, unbelieving individual. But there are other times when I quite like him.’

  John lay back on his pillows and stared at the great white-robed figure. Then after a moment he commented flatly, ‘If there’s anybody on this earth you take after, then it’s McNally.’

  The Saint again put his head back and let out a roar, which brought John upright, his eyes moving swiftly. Such a bellow could be heard the length of the street yet he had just warned John to be quiet. It was all part of the queerness of this whole business.

  ‘Aw, that’s funny.’ The Saint exhaled a great deal of breath. ‘You hate McNally from the skin inwards, you can’t stand him at any price, yet you say I’m like him… Aw, John, that isn’t true, you know it isn’t, for you and I are getting on like a house on fire.’

  John was about to protest vehemently at this when St Christopher raised his hand and cautioned, ‘Now don’t say it, John, for you’ll be wrong. Lie back and rest, and give us time.’

  John lay back and he found that his mind was working rapidly. There were questions jumping about inside his head that wanted to be asked, and as he realised they were all to do with his own preservation, he fired the leading one at his strange companion. ‘How long do you intend to stay?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, well now.’ The Saint linked his fingers together and wagged his joined hands backwards and forwards. ‘That’s up to you, John. I must stay until I’ve convinced you that my cause is a good one; that my intention is to help people, not hurt them. You see, John, I was a very conceited man in my time. I still am as far as my job is concerned. Did you know I was really the first taxi? I was and I’m rather proud of it. Of course, they had their chariots before my time but they were horse-drawn. But I was the first self-propelled passenger transport… And the first amphibian. There was I, for years and years fording a river on my own two legs, my passengers on my back, and uncomfortable and heavy as it was at times, I must confess I liked it. And ever since, all down the centuries, I’ve made it my business to guide people. Of course, some folk ask to be guided, then go their own way—you know the type, John, you get them in every generation, and it’s these very types that cause the trouble, the accidents and the killings—and you, John, you now have laid their blame on me. So to answer your question, I must tell you I’m staying until you’re convinced that I have nothing to do with the slaughter on the roads in this age.’

  As John listened, a thought—again connected with his own preservation—separated itself from the jumble in his mind and presented itself for consideration. But wouldn’t it be wiser to keep his mouth shut and not ask any more questions, for if he was heard talking to him people wouldn’t believe but that he was talking to himself, and that would be the beginning of the end. He’d be put away. The palms of his hands were wet with sweat when he heard himself asking in a low voice, ‘What happened to the last two folk you visited?’

  ‘Ah, well now, John, that’s a very interesting question.’ The saint pulled a long face and his eyes twinkled knowingly before he went on. ‘One was a nun who had private doubts of my authenticity. When I started visiting her, things began to happen. First of all, they shut her up in a cell for her unchaste thoughts.’ The Saint pointed his forefinger into his chest. ‘Me, I was her unchaste thoughts. Mind you, John, in my very young days I won’t say I didn’t lead a bit of a life. Oh, I won’t deny I was a real bad one. But that was before I found our Lord. But to blame the poor young girl for unchaste thoughts because I visited her, oh, that was too much. I had a great deal of hard work to do before I got things straightened out, but eventually she was released and she became an abbess and was looked up to and revered throughout the country. It ended well that one.’

  He stopped here and John was forced to ask, ‘And the other one?’

  ‘Oh well.’ The Saint lowered his eyes. ‘He wasn’t so fortunate, John. You see, he was a man who drank of the mead and at least once a week he cursed all the saints, and me in particular, and so I started visiting him but I could never get him to stay put. He wasn’t an amenable man like you, John. As soon as I appeared, he would take to his heels and flee, and so at last’—the Saint shook his head sadly—‘they locked him up, chained him up to be correct. Poor soul. I visited him at regular intervals to try and comfort him but it was no use. I also did everything in my power to get him released, but I’m sorry to say I failed there, too. He lived in the East Angles kingdom near Ipswich and they were very ignorant in that quarter at that time.’

  John closed his eyes and swallowed, and it was some long time before he asked, ‘And… this time… the other one… who’s he to be?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t made up my mind yet, John. You’re enough for me to get on with at present. There’s plenty of time to bother about him, or her, as it might well be. The important thing at the moment is us, John. We’ve got to get ourselves straightened out first, eh?’

  John sat up abruptly and leaning forward, apparently without fear but urged on solely by it, he pointed his finger at the Saint and said, ‘You know what’s going to happen if they find me talking to you, don’t you? They won’t believe it…’

  The ‘it’ had come to a petrified stop on John’s tongue, his finger was still extended, he was still addressing the Saint, but there, looking at him from either side of the white-clad figure was Florrie and the doctor. John’s finger wavered then dropped, his jaw dropped also, and weakly he lay back in the bed and closed his eyes as he heard Florrie’s agonised mutter, ‘You see, doctor.’

  Apparently the doctor did see. He took hold of John’s wrist and felt his pulse. At the same time, he pulled down his eyelid and was unable to suppress a start of surprise when he saw the eye quite consciously staring up at him.

  ‘You’ll have your own way, won’t you?’ The doctor’s voice wasn’t unkind, but when John, pulling himself up with some effort, said flatly, ‘I’m all right, doctor’, the doctor’s tone changed and he rapped out, ‘You’re not all right and the quicker you realise it, the better for all concerned. You’ve got your wife and family scared out of their wits. You know what you were doing when we came into the room?’

  John drew in his chin then he drew in his breath and pressing his lips together for a moment he nodded his head twice. And this caused the doctor’s eyebrows to rise and he said caustically, ‘Oh, you do, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I was talking… but I wasn’t talking to meself.’ John looked towards the now empty chair that had been pushed back from the bed.

  ‘Then who were you talking to?’

  John gnawed at his lip for a minute before saying, ‘It’s a long story and if I was to tell you it you wouldn’t believe me. But you can believe me on this point; there’s nowt wrong with me, I’m not bad or anything.’

  ‘Do you know what happens to people who see things and won’t have anything done about it?’

  In spite of himself John shuddered, and for a moment he felt a tightness around his ankles and his wrists, and even round his throat. For a further moment he even imagined he heard the clinking of chains, but he answered the doctor boldly saying, ‘Aye, aye, I know all right. But you needn’t think you’re going to have me tied up—no fear you’re not.’

  ‘John, John, dear, listen to the doctor and do what he tells you. You’re not yourself, you know you’re not yourself.’ Florrie was stroking his brow.

  John did not look at his wife; Florrie was the last person to understand about St Christopher. Anyway, when a doctor, with all his supposed knowledge, didn’t understand, how could he expect her to—he didn’t like the doctor, neither hilt nor hair of him. Young upstart.

  ‘You are to stay where you are for a week at least. If you don’t, I’ll have you put in hospital. Now, do you understand that?’

 
John said nothing.

  ‘I’ll send him some pills along.’ He had turned to Florrie. ‘And you’ll see that he takes them regularly.’

  ‘Yes, doctor, yes. I’ll see to that.’ Florrie’s voice was trembling; her whole body was trembling. She cast one pitying glance at John’s scowling face before following the doctor out into the landing and down the stairs.

  ‘Your husband is as stubborn as a mule, Mrs Gascoigne.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know he is, doctor.’

  ‘He’s in a bad way, y’know. He really should be in hospital. But if he stays quiet for a week things might settle. He’s got to stay in bed and remain quiet. I don’t envy you your task, Mrs Gascoigne, but it’ll be your job to see that he does this.’

  All Florrie could say was, ‘Yes, doctor.’ At the same time, she was thinking, ‘He’ll never stay in bed.’ What was she going to do?

  ‘Try not to worry, and if he attempts to get out or won’t take his tablets, give me a ring; I’ll come and settle him.’

  This was meant to be reassuring but the tone in which it was delivered conjured up for Florrie a picture of an ambulance and John, fighting like a demon, being forced into it.

  As Florrie closed the door on the doctor she also closed her eyes and murmured, ‘Oh, dear God.’

  It was four o’clock when Aunt Lucy arrived. She did not come straight in but knocked at the door and when Florrie saw her standing there, the mere sight of her brought a semblance of calm and comfort to her troubled mind.

  ‘Hello, lass,’ said Aunt Lucy.

  ‘Come away in, Aunt Lucy,’ Florrie exclaimed. ‘Oh, I’m glad to see you.’

  Aunt Lucy came in; straight into the kitchen she walked and looked at her sister. Gran was sitting ready for her. Her jaw was out and her eyes were narrowed as she looked at the woman who was the antithesis of herself—for her sister was large. Sloppy fat, Gran termed it. But Lucy wasn’t fat. Lucy’s frame, like her heart, was of an outsize pattern. Her face, to match her body, should have been fat and round but instead it was long and, again to use Gran’s adjective, horse-like. This was true but its expression was that of a very kindly horse, and now Lucy addressed her sister in a pleasant tone with a hint of guardedness about it. ‘Hullo there, Mamie,’ she said.

  Gran’s answer was merely a jerk of the chin.

  ‘We don’t alter, do we?’ Lucy sighed as she addressed Florrie, and Florrie, quick to change the subject said, ‘Take off your things, Aunt Lucy, and have a cup of tea.’

  As Lucy unpinned her hat, Gran spoke. ‘And what’re you after, our Lucy?’ she said. ‘What you wantin’ to see John for, eh? More mischief you’re up to?’

  Slowly Lucy turned to her sister. Her face was no longer smiling and her voice was accusing as she said, ‘God forgive you, Mamie. The shoe’s on the other foot and well you know it.’

  ‘Here, give me your hat,’ said Florrie hurriedly. Then turning quickly to Gran she added, ‘I’ve got enough on me plate, Gran, so give over.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ said Lucy, lowering herself down onto a chair as far away from her sister as she could get.

  ‘It’s John, Aunt Lucy.’

  ‘John? What’s wrong with him? Is he bad?’ Lucy asked anxiously.

  Florrie moved the cups about on the tray then poured in the milk before she said, ‘I wish I knew, but he’s not himself.’

  ‘I’ll say he’s not. Let’s face it, in plain words, he’s gone off his rocker.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t, Gran.’ Florrie rounded on the old woman.

  ‘Gone off his rocker?’ Lucy looked from one to the other. ‘You mean…’

  ‘He’s seein’ things, if you want to know.’

  ‘John… John seein’ things?’ Aunt Lucy gave a laughing ‘Huh’.

  ‘Oh, you can laugh, our Lucy. You’ve always thought you knew him better than me, haven’t you? Oh yes you have.’

  ‘Gran.’

  Gran turned to Florrie, her tone slightly modified. ‘All right, I’m not startin’ anything, I’m just makin’ a statement—she has always thought she knew him inside out. She had a reason for everything he did.’ Gran turned and confronted her sister again. ‘Now hadn’t you?’

  ‘I thought I understood John, and I still do.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get up aloft and see if you understand him now, sitting up there talking to himsel’. But he says he’s not talkin’ to himsel’. Who do you think he’s talking to, eh? You’ll never guess, as clever as you think you are. He says he’s talkin’ to St Christopher.’

  Lucy, her mouth open, looked for confirmation of this statement towards Florrie, but Florrie was pouring out the tea and her silence spoke plainly enough.

  ‘Since when has this come about?’ Lucy asked in an awe-laden whisper.

  ‘Saturday,’ said Florrie. ‘He got a hit on the head with a cricket ball.’

  ‘He was goin’ funny afore that… Don’t forget Friday night and him talking twenty to the dozen in this very kitchen. That ball just acted like a poultice; it drew out what was already bursting to break, just waitin’ to come out… Like corruption.’

  ‘But he was as right as rain when I saw him last…’ Aunt Lucy pulled herself up too late.

  ‘Go on, when you saw him last what? So you’ve been seeing him on the sly, have you? Like old times.’

  ‘Drink your tea, Gran.’

  Gran’s chin was wagging like a pendulum and Florrie, grabbing at anything to ease the situation, said, ‘Would you take him up this cup of tea, Aunt Lucy?’

  ‘Yes, lass, and I’ll have a word with him.’

  ‘Do,’ said Gran. ‘That’ll make a pair of you for you’ve never been right since the day you were born.’

  ‘Gran!’

  ‘Take no notice, Florrie,’ said Lucy, making her exit with slow dignity. ‘I don’t…’

  When the tap came on the door and Aunt Lucy’s voice called softly, ‘Can I come in there?’ John sat bolt upright in bed and cried, ‘Aye, aye, come on in, Aunt Lucy.’ And before she had closed the door behind her, he was leaning forward with his hand outstretched, and his voice filled with welcome as he repeated, ‘Come away in, Aunt Lucy… by, am I glad to see you.’

  ‘Now, what’s wrong, lad?’ Aunt Lucy, putting the tea on the side table, pulled a chair to the bedside, sat down and took his hand in hers. Peering with her short-sighted eyes towards his brow, she remarked in an awed tone, ‘My, lad, what a lump. It’s as big as a turnip. It must be sore.’

  ‘It isn’t, Aunt Lucy, not a bit. And I feel all right; never better.’

  ‘Never better?’ Aunt Lucy brought her brows down questioningly, then asked, ‘What’s all this about, then? What’s wrong with you? Whatever it is you’ve got Florrie in a state down there, lad.’ Lucy omitted mentioning her sister’s comments.

  John shook his head despairingly. ‘You won’t believe me, nobody does, but there’s one thing I can assure you of afore I start telling you anything—I’m not up the pole, Aunt Lucy.’

  Lucy, looking at this man whom she loved, and had always loved, more than anybody else in the world, said, ‘No, John, why of course you’re not up the pole. If you were up the pole, I’d be the first one to spot it.’

  John let out a long drawn breath and lay back on the pillow. Then, tapping her hand, he said, ‘I feel better already. Just the sight of you does me good.’

  ‘I got a bit of a shock when I went to the cemetery and they told me you had taken bad and gone home. I’ve never known you to be bad. And then when I got in I had me work cut out not to let on I had been up there and knew you were bad.’

  ‘I’m not bad, Aunt Lucy. I wasn’t bad, I just got a gliff and passed out.’

  Aunt Lucy shook her head. ‘I can’t see you passing out, John, unless there was a good cause for it. Can you tell me about it?’

  ‘If I can’t tell you, Aunt Lucy, I can tell nobody.’

  John sat up in bed again and his next action brought to Aunt Lucy her first doubts for she
watched him cast his eyes furtively around the room as if expecting to see someone else there. Before starting to speak, he drew his hand down one cheek across his mouth and up the other side of his face. Then he said quietly, ‘Well, it began like this, Aunt Lucy. There was a smash-up at the crossroads six months or so ago…’

  Aunt Lucy listened without interrupting, her attention riveted on her nephew, and everything he said seemed feasible—feasible until he came to the part where the white-robed figure he took to be McNally was running about among his taties. And by the time he had reached the incident that had taken place this morning, with the reappearance of the figure at the graveside, Aunt Lucy was saying to herself, ‘Dear God, dear God…’ Then when John went on to recount in very low tones what had taken place in this very room just a short while ago, Aunt Lucy found that her vest was sticking to her back and the palms of her hands were clagged together.

  When John finished, Aunt Lucy was not looking at him and he reached out to her and, gripping her wrist, he pleaded, ‘You believe me, Aunt Lucy?’

  She brought her eyes quickly up to him and said, ‘Aye, lad. Why, yes, I believe you.’ Aunt Lucy saw that it was absolutely necessary that John should believe that she believed him—he had to trust in someone. She patted his hand comfortingly and said, ‘You’re not the first one that’s had apparitions. If you were a churchgoing man they would say you were seeing visions and have the bishop up to you.’ She forced herself to give a little laugh and punched him in the chest as she said, ‘If it was happening to McNally they’d have him into the priesthood with the beer still on his ’tash, an’ if it was Katie who was seeing things they’d push her straight into a nunnery.’ Aunt Lucy repeated the punch and her head went back on a laugh at the thought of Katie McNally in a nunnery.

  John’s stomach began to shake. Oh, Aunt Lucy was a comfort and no mistake. Then returning her punch, but gently, he let his laugh join hers and when it got well under way, he leant back against the bedhead and held his side with one hand while he pressed the other over his mouth. By, it was many a long day since he had laughed. He was feeling so gay and happy you’d think he had won the sweep. Suddenly, as if he had been prodded in the buttocks, he sat bolt upright in the bed and his laughter became so throttled in his throat that he choked… It was when he felt like this that he got his visitor; this unusual light, airy feeling he was discovering was the prelude to his seeing… him. Cautiously now, his eyes slid around the room, but there was no one to be seen except Aunt Lucy, and she, he was quick to notice, had stopped laughing also.