A Day and a Life

by Penelope Wilcock

  What a choice, eh? What a God. He wonders which fate will be his, and how a man could possibly tell. He thinks of the Gospel stories, of the separation of sheep from goat, so indistinguishable that even they are surprised to discover which breed they’ve been all along.

  He thinks of the criteria. I was naked and you clothed me, sick and in prison and you visited me, hungry and you fed me; and he concludes that his future destiny is looking bleak.

  He wonders how much of it you have to do. If there were ten sick men and you visited five, would you go to heaven for the five you visited or to hell for the five you ignored? Did it matter which way round it was – which you did most recently?

  He looks up at the evening star, feels the cool of the night wind against his face and neck, then he closes his eyes. “Jesus… oh Jesus…” he whispers; “save me from myself. Save me from the weariness and confusion that dogs me always. Save me from cynicism, save me from despair. Set out of reach my tendency for cruelty. Set far from me the coldness that seizes my heart. Help me to keep my feet in the way of faith. Cling to me, Lord Jesus, for I have neither the strength nor the intelligence to cling to thee. Oh Christ, I beg thee, do not let me go. Do not let me fall into darkness. Do not let me be lost entirely. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.”

  He thinks he might cry if he stays here any longer, probing his chronic dread and distrust of life, so he finishes his prowling of the perimeter of his home, ending up by the walled vegetable garden, coming along the path dividing the orderly beds out through the arch into the flagged front yard.

  Now night is deepening, and one by one across the darkening sky, the stars are coming out. He thinks Brother Tom and Brother Cedd will be safe home by now. It must be not far off time for Compline. In these last weeks before Michaelmas, they’ll still be on summer timing. Compline will begin in darkness at eight o’clock, until they change to the winter ordering of things, bringing the day’s last Office forward to a quarter past six.

  He thinks of their life, shaped as regularly as breathing by the rhythm of prayer, the calm chanting of canticles and psalms, work quietly and mindfully undertaken, the study of Scripture and teachings of Holy Church, the mysteries of the sacred Eucharist and the prayers of the rosary. He wonders if they are, sort of, starting heaven in advance.

  And then he begins to wonder again what happens when you die; if maybe after all it is only an ending, cessation. To his surprise, this provokes no fear in him; he doesn’t care. He feels at peace with leaving such matters in the hands of God. One thing he fears now – well, apart from being some day tracked down by the ecclesiastical courts, tortured, and hanged for his sin in attempting suicide when utter despair overwhelmed him. Apart from that; one thing he fears only – that he will lose the way, let go of Christ’s hand, become a hard empty shell with the softness beaten and eaten out of him by the hard-beaked predators of night. “Jesus… ah, Jesus…” he says again, softly; “for thy love’s sake, do not let me go.”

  He hears the click of the latch and his house door opens, candlelight spilling out in a quiet glow against enveloping dark. He moves towards his wife, standing silhouetted in the entryway, wondering where he is.

  Whether or not there is holy purpose in his love, he can’t be sure; but he knows it has brought him alive; given him – as far as anything can give this to his scarred and twisted soul – a sense of belonging, a sense of home.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four

  Oh, no. The prior absolutely knows the meaning of that look in Brother Thaddeus’s eye, as he threads his way towards Francis through the knots of men relaxing in the calefactory, his mug of ale in his hand. It is the kind of look the word “beeline” was made for.

  It is so predictable he could have said it for him: “Fancy a game of chess?”

  Francis wishes with all his heart the man wouldn’t always pick on him. With childlike optimism Thaddeus is convinced he will win one day. He thinks he’s improving. He challenges Francis several times every week. He loses every time and immediately wants to try again. But to his immense disappointment the prior will only give him one go.

  “Look – Thaddeus” – in occasional moments of frustration Francis tries to explain – “it’s not – you can’t just make it up as you go along. You’ve got to be strategic. That’s the whole point of chess.”

  Thaddeus has heard this is so, but isn’t quite sure what that might mean in practice. If he’s honest, it’s the excitement of moving nobility around the battlefield – the oddly unwieldy knights in armour, the daring and rapacious queens – that’s what fires his imagination and makes it so exciting.

  He always wants the red army, because red is his favourite colour. He’d love to make some red pots like some of the ones they make in Scarborough, but so far Abbot John has said “no”. When Thaddeus asked him again last week if he could have some red glaze, he stopped and fixed him firmly in the eye, saying: “Show me one pot you’ve made that’s good enough to sell in the marketplace, and I’ll reconsider. We’re not making red pots for use in the monastery because all ours are to eat off. And before you start badgering me – I did ask Brother Cormac and he says the red glaze is poisonous.”

  Thaddeus had taken those words silently into chapel with him, feeling hurt as well as disappointed. He thought his pots were all right. What was the matter with them?

  Taking the red chess pieces in his hand offers a tiny consolation. For a few brief minutes, a whole realm of scarlet is at his command. And, for some mysterious reason he can never really fathom, he knows it will be brief. He has never won a single game against Francis yet. Maybe tonight.

  Thaddeus moves out a pawn – any pawn, he has nothing in mind. The one in front of his bishop as it happens. Across the board, Francis moves out the pawn in front of his queen. Thaddeus counters with the same thing, and the two pawns stand head to head. Francis moves the pawn in front of his king out one cautious square.

  Because Francis often brings a knight out early, Thaddeus thinks he’ll do that next. So he does – realizing after he’s done it that Francis’s first pawn is now in danger. He’s all poised to take it, then looks to see the implications of Francis now moving out a knight too. Oh. If he has the pawn, Francis’ll take the knight. Bother. For no particular reason, he brings out his second knight, randomly. Francis brings his bishop streaking down the board. It dawns on Thaddeus that if he leaves the knight where it is the bishop can take it, but he can’t move the knight without exposing the king. He chews his lip. Realizing he’s going to have to sacrifice the knight, he moves his queen forward to bag the bishop – then wishes he’d moved his bishop in case he’s put the queen in danger – he has no idea if he might have done; you never know with Francis.

  To his surprise, Francis doesn’t take the knight; he moves forward another pawn. Why? Now Thaddeus doesn’t know what to do. He can’t still get his knight out of the way without leaving the queen wide open. While he thinks how to respond, Francis waits patiently, takes a swig of his ale to pass the time.

  Thaddeus moves a pawn out on the edge of the board, expecting Francis to give up on the knight and take his now surrounded bishop to safety. Francis moves a knight forward; Thaddeus sees this means he now has no option but to shift his queen or lose her. He carries her back to safety, and Francis’s knight slaughters his. So he bags Francis’s knight with his pawn – he has to, or the black knight can take his queen. But this leaves the queen vulnerable to the black bishop. He takes her back a square – only to have the black bishop take his rook. He hadn’t even noticed it was in danger.

  With a sudden clutch of fear he spots the relationship between that knight and his king – oh, but they’re both his so it doesn’t matter. So he slaughters the evil bishop with his queen. A black pawn takes his in the middle of the board. He sends his queen in retaliation, wondering if that will work out well or create some unsuspected exposure. Francis moves his king sideways. Why? Thaddeus begins to feel nervous. It’s usually at this poi
nt that things start to go badly wrong. Tentatively, he moves one pawn one square forward. Francis brings his queen across the board, and now she is staring boldly down the diagonal, looking the red queen right in the eye. She sidesteps. Francis brings his queen right down to threaten the red king. Thaddeus has to move him immediately or lose; this will be the end of his bishop, but he does it. Francis isn’t that silly, though. If he takes that bishop, Thaddeus will have his queen. He moves out a pawn. Thaddeus, worrying about his bishop, barely spares that a glance. If he moves the bishop, she’ll take his rook. He does, even so, because a bishop is more useful than a castle – ooh – he thinks Father John might be able to find a homily in that.

  Francis leaves his rook in peace, taking the queen back up the board. Thaddeus is worried he may be overlooking something. He takes refuge in defence, moving his king back to safety. Francis brings out another knight. Does this matter? He has no idea. He moves his king. The black knight comes closer. He suddenly realizes that with one audacious move right across the board he can take the pawn protecting the black king with his queen. Oh no – wait – if he does that, the black king will simply take his queen. No, that would be silly. He frowns at the board. He moves his queen back into the corner, not sure what else to do.

  He glances across the room at Brother Giles telling Cormac a joke, then looks back. “What did you just do?”

  “I moved my queen – there,” says Francis, patiently.

  Thaddeus backs up his king. Francis brings the black queen down to threaten the king. So he can take her – but no, wait – if he does that, his king will be exposed to the black knight. Francis must have noticed and done it on purpose. He moves his king, Francis moves his queen one square. Whatever’s he planning? He moves his king again. Francis brings the black queen down to the corner. Thaddeus suddenly realizes that moving the king now will leave his queen exposed. He has to do it. But Francis doesn’t want to lose his queen either. Relieved, but not sure what to do next, Thaddeus moves his queen up next to the king. And the black queen takes the pawn standing in between her and the bishop. The other side of that bishop stands the king and then the queen. Panicking, Thaddeus accepts he’ll just have to lose the bishop, and shifts his king.

  “Not there,” says Francis quietly before he puts down the piece. Oh. Thaddeus realizes if he does that the knight can take his king. Francis is gentle in his application of the rules in these futile tussles. So long as Thaddeus hasn’t actually put his piece down, he lets him put it back where it was and move a different one. He moves his king one space. The black queen takes a rook he hadn’t noticed stood undefended. And now she stands looking at his king. He moves the king back. The black knight takes his bishop. All he has left are the king and queen and a handful of pawns. He moves the queen back to give her space to manoeuvre. Francis moves his knight and the king’s life is at stake. The black queen comes across and slaughters a pawn. Thaddeus’s king and queen stand backed into a corner, harassed by Francis’s unpleasant queen, with no one left to defend them but two outlying pawns. Thaddeus hates this part of the game. He just wants it to finish now. He says so.

  “Well, you’ve only got one more move before I slaughter you anyway,” Francis points out. And Brother Thaddeus slowly understands this must be true.

  This is actually one of Brother Thaddeus’s better attempts. Too many evenings involve five mindless blunders countered by five swift responses from Francis and it’s all over, leaving the prior thinking, How could you be so stupid? and politely saying, “Oh! Bad luck!”

  The dusk is well advanced. Bats flitter and swoop over the open expanse of the abbey court. High in the branches of the birch tree near the guesthouse, a blackbird was singing a few moments ago. The aromatic twilight distils the fragrance of grass and roses at the end of this warm day. The last light of the sun is almost off the horizon; but not yet – it’s not dark yet, it’s still today.

  There’s a bench in the abbey court, just next to the wide archway of the entrance to the abbey precincts. It stands against the gatehouse wall, so if he has a quiet moment the porter can sit in the sun to say his rosary without abandoning his post. Right now Brother Martin is inside the porter’s lodge, sorting out some letters that came in earlier for the abbot’s attention, and packing up one or two parcels to be sent out. He should have done this earlier; he got involved in running errands between the checker and the guesthouse, then he has to admit he spent a long time chatting with one of the tenants from the row of cottages in the close. Now there’s nothing for it but squinting in the candlelight, no certain way to get the best results in any task you care to name. Still, he wants to get all the rightful business of this day completed before the bell for Compline starts to ring.

  But though Martin is fully occupied inside the porter’s lodge, the amber glow of the candlelight spilling through the open door onto the dusty cobbles of the gateway, there is someone sitting on the bench just round the corner, as the colours drain from the sky and the shadows lengthen. You can’t see much of him, clothed as he is in his black wool habit; only make out his dark form and the dusk-blurred pale contrast of his face and his folded hands. He’s hardly drawing attention to himself, sitting quite motionless, silent, not even praying his rosary. He is praying, though, as it happens. Not the murmured repetition of carefully thought out compositions written by other people. Father Clement is praying the oldest and simplest, humblest prayer of all; just showing up and waiting. Like the father in Christ’s own story kept watch for the prodigal son. Except there’s no point in Father Clement climbing up onto a lookout post on the abbey walls; it’s almost dark for one thing, and for another his eyesight is failing.

  So he goes through no prophetic pantomime of climbing the watchtower; he keeps his vigil here, where he can’t miss anyone coming home late through the postern door. He’s on the verge of giving up. The day is ending. Just a little while longer, he thinks. He can’t quite disentangle his feelings. This lad who’s wandered off has become for him an incarnation of hope; that the work can continue to the excellent standard they’ve striven to achieve, that the skills he possesses can be passed on to someone capable of using them while there is still time, that the last years of his life won’t be a futile bleeding out of all he worked for, into the dust.

  Where are you, lad? his heart whispers, though he does not speak. Where are you? For God’s sake, Brother Cedd, won’t you come home?

  His whole body sags in sadness as the bell starts to toll for the men to gather. He can’t bring himself to do as he should and get up without delay to make his way to the cloister. Stuck fast to his vigil, he can’t bear to leave hope behind.

  Then, striding across the court through the dusk comes his abbot, who sees him there and stops to say, “Are you all right, Father Clement?”

  “Aye, Father, I am – I am. I was just… waiting.” He gets slowly to his feet, all the sadness and weariness of the world there for the abbot to read in his face. He does his best to raise the ghost of a smile, and lets his feet that know the way through long familiarity take him across the court through the deepening shadows to the door of the church.

  His abbot, meanwhile, steps briskly into the porter’s lodge. “Would you mind,” he asks Brother Martin, “hanging on here until Brother Thomas comes in? I expected him back by now. I’ve no doubt he’ll be home any time soon. After that… well… I wonder if… could you leave the postern door unlocked until after Compline, please, Brother?” In response to the old-fashioned look this draws from Brother Martin, he says, “I doubt we’ll be overrun by a swarm of thugs and robbers even if it’s left unlocked the whole night. It’s… oh, Brother Cedd’s gone walkabouts and… if we could just have the door left unlocked. If it worries you, I’ll spend the night here myself. I shan’t sleep a wink if I’m lying abed wondering about him, thinking of him coming home only to find we’ve locked him out. I… please, Brother.”

  “Father John,” says his porter good-naturedly, “you don’t have to pl
ead with me – you’re my abbot! If it suits you to have all our cottagers and half the community murdered as they sleep, who am I to say no? Nay, go on – I’m only teasing you. I’ll stay here until both your chicks are back under your wing, or until the morning comes; whichever comes soonest. It might surprise you to discover this, but I care about them too. On you go then – they’ll be well sick of ringing that bell.”

  “Thank you,” says John, relieved. “Thank you so much, Brother Martin.”

  “You are more than welcome. Oh – d’you want to take your letters with you? No? It’ll do if I bring them over in the morning? Right you are then.”

  He’s smiling as he turns back into the lodge. In Brother Martin’s opinion, an abbot who cares about his lost sheep is the kind of shepherd you should be aiming for.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  Silence, thinks Abbot John, should be at least relatively simple. Surely a proliferation of words must always complicate things, introduce muddle, and set hares running. Silence must be the ultimate simplicity. Language is fundamental to human relationship and society, and the renunciation of it – albeit partial – ought to make space in the soul. It should foster serenity. It should be like the speechless soaring arches of the abbey church rising into the shadows at Compline, losing themselves in friendly dark.

  But there’s nothing you can do to take the complication out of humanity. You can shut men up, but that won’t necessarily quieten their souls. Not of itself.

  He thinks of the men he has nursed in the infirmary, more than he can count by this time, and their loud, struggling silences. He remembers caring for Father Peregrine after the seizure took his speech – the intense, drawn-out misery and frustration. He thinks back on the day William took refuge with them after the fire, sitting in the infirmary clad in nothing but a towel for his modesty, tense and trembling, lips drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of pain, as John carefully washed the grit and soot and mud from the scrapes and burns. That big burn on his shoulder. Ouch. Silent ouch. He remembers the same man sitting in the choir during the time when everything had started to unravel, motionless, pale, tears flowing unchecked down his face. And, kneeling in Chapter before the community after the ship had gone down, trying to confess what he had done, but the words would not come. He could only prostrate himself. He couldn’t speak. John had to tell them for him. But that mute prostration said everything.