Seeking Sanctuary

by Frances Fyfield

  The priest was resplendent in a chasuble of peculiar beauty, which did not suit an old boy who would look better in jeans, as he led the congregation in the undramatic translation of the Creed, which he probably thought was infinitely better in Latin. She concentrated on the back of the head of the Golden Boy and worked out what it was about him that struck such a chord.

  He could have been the model for a painting of St Sebastian, the soldier martyr, pinned against a tree and shot to death with arrows, only Sebastian had dark hair. He could have been a saint or an angel, that was it, Michael the Archangel, with an expression of suffering. It meant that he simply looked as if he belonged, he could almost have stepped down from the walls of a church in Florence, straight out of a fresco. Even in a shabby suit too large for him, he could equally have been one of the figures from the Stations of the Cross, which mimicked the same style of haughty faces and plentiful hair. Anna looked at the ground. She had made a concession to the occasion, as well as to the rest of the day. Proper shoes, little red pumps, and a long skirt, which almost reached her ankles. Father Goodwin turned to face them all. Cynically, she considered that full attendance at this particular Sunday Mass might be explained by the extreme brevity of his sermons.

  Which would consist of kind words for Edmund, plus a homily on the nature of impermanence for a man buried two days before and not, it had to be said, extravagantly mourned. Anna felt she was the only one to notice, not because she had really known him, but because she had seen him and it came on top of another death. For the community as a whole, it seemed to be a bit of a relief, but then if death was merely a rite of passage to heaven, they could take it as a mere blip in infinity. She tried to imagine Edmund’s lumbering form suddenly transformed into a lithe body fluttering about with wings, like the birds in the garden, and stifled a smile. It was funny and it helped to suppress the notion that Edmund’s dying was a blessing to the dear Sisters, because now they could have Francis, instead. She hoped in his early morning Mass at the parish church, Father Goodwin had remembered to mention that the convent car was for sale.

  In the early stage of the Mass, there was the rite of penance. I confess to Almighty God, to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, my own fault, my most grievous fault . . . She could no more say that aloud either, than she could fly over the moon. Sin was an inexplicable concept in her interpretation of the catechism, because it seemed to have so little to do with the causing of harm, and surely a sin demanding penance and forgiveness should at least have done that.When she, as a newly emancipated twenty-year-old, had hunted down a couple of men a week until she had systematically rid herself of her virginity, simply to find out what it was like and prove that she could, there didn’t seem to be any harm to anyone. It had been a curiously impersonal exercise and she could not see how it qualified as sin. All she had done was read a couple of books about it, then went out and did it, because that’s what everyone did and it was easy if you weren’t fussy and got drunk first. Lord, she addressed the window, You’re a repressive old git. Let me know what sin is before I do worse to find out. That was the difference between her and Therese. Same upbringing, same shackles of love and faith, but in her case it was like an inoculation that did not take, leaving this incomplete, contemptuous disbelief. Perhaps it was simply the difference between good and bad.

  Her gaze drifted back to the Golden Boy, examining his profile during the moment in the service when they all turned round and shook each other’s hands in one of those poxy little rituals she particularly disliked. A saintly face, rather mournfully handsome and sensual, making her shiver as she remembered the couplings of her experimental months without shame, but a sense of wasted time. None of them had looked like him. He was entirely at home in here, but still exotic.

  Ite missa est . . . The Mass is ended. The insoluble mystery of the Son of God becoming man, dying horribly, rising nobly and making his flesh available with each consecration of the host. Bloody barbaric. How could Therese believe it? She lingered at the end, hoping for a word, but the chapel was slow to empty and the Lord was never available in a crowd. Sister Barbara was standing by the exit, defying anyone to ignore the wooden collection box fixed to the wall. There were no children today.

  She met Father Goodwin by the front door, flanked by Agnes, who looked radiantly happy and ready for the lunch that would follow and was better than average on Sundays in case there were guests. Anna hated the way they kept the best for everyone else and the worst for themselves. Christopher Goodwin, freed from vestments, looked like a tired horse at the starting gate, wanting to run but fatigued at the thought of the effort. It had taken her a long time to realise that she frightened him and now she realised he wanted to get away from all this smiling goodness as much as she did. She crooked her arm through his, and led him out. In accord, they scuttled down the street, liberated, almost at ease.

  ‘I got paid, yesterday,’ she said. ‘So I’m buying, OK?’

  ‘Oh no, you mustn’t . . . I thought . . . McDonald’s,’ he said, delighting in the contact, pressing her arm against his side, embarrassed about his budget for this, or any occasion.

  ‘Is that as far as your pocket money stretches?’ she asked. ‘I thought we might go for curry and beer.’

  The mention of pocket money riled him for a second, but that passed before they turned the corner. It was one of his embarrassments, to live on an allowance that never quite stretched and made him more than slightly dependent on the charity of others, not for dull necessities, but certainly for luxuries. He would never, ever be able to reciprocate the hospitality he received, and that irked him, particularly in the company of a young woman who needed a father figure in his estimation, preferably one who could say that the price of a meal was not a problem, unless it was inside his own, self-catering kitchen, where he produced for himself an endless succession of things on toast. Tasty things on toast, to be fair, and infinitely better than the ruthless convent meals to which he was so automatically invited. Toast and butter never failed. He could compromise on things on top in order to buy a beer to go with an important match on the telly. Two cans for a Cup Final, although that was always tempting fate. Someone was bound to interrupt. The thought of curry and beer made him weak with pleasure he did not want to reveal. This was a serious occasion, although she was so skittish, she seemed to have no comprehension.

  ‘Lead on!’ he commanded, feeling a berk. He was desperately hungry: Sundays always did that.

  ‘I forget how young you are,’ he said, relinquishing her arm because she was going faster. ‘You won’t have had the regime I was born to. If you went to Mass on Sunday, you had to fast from midnight on Saturday, which was all well and fine if you took your Communion early in the day, not otherwise. A good rule, I think. I’ve always kept it. I could eat a horse.’

  ‘So could I,’ she said fervently. ‘We’ll ask for it.’

  Thanks be to God, he told himself. So far so good. Let her take charge.

  ‘So how much do you earn at the taxi place, that you’re taking an old man out for his food when it should be the other way round?’

  ‘Enough,’ she said.

  The Standard Tandoori was everything it should have been, dark, dismal and almost deserted, with tables in booths that reminded him of an old confessional. She lit up a cigarette, offering one, too, which he thought it prudent to refuse and then changed his mind, to hell with it. Who was trying to make an impression on whom? He had known this child, spoken to her on and off, for over a dozen years, yet he did not know her at all. It was difficult to know how to get on with her, especially when he knew so much about her from other sources, Sister Jude and Kay, to be precise, their information overlaid with his memory of what Anna had been like as a young teenager, which was pretty, pugnacious and sweet.

  ‘I’ll order for us, shall I?’ she asked.

  He was touched to see that there was enough of that child left in her to enjoy her current superiorit
y. He did not know where to start with this menu and it gave her an advantage. She was on familiar territory; he was not.

  ‘Of course,’ he said humbly. ‘Unless you’re meaning to poison me.’

  She laughed at that, and reeled off a list of orders to a hovering waiter, who wrote nothing down and went away.

  ‘So how are you keeping?’

  ‘I’m fine. I thought this curry was a good idea though. Indian food might get me in the mood. I’m off to visit a temple this afternoon.’

  ‘A temple?’

  ‘As in a Hindu temple,’ she said, watching the waiter pouring the beer into his glass.

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, recognising this as some sort of challenge. ‘Would that be the one in Neasden, or the one in Watford? They vary a great deal, you know. Each has a different character. I find the Hindu tolerance of diversity quite amazing. I wish we had it.’

  He did not know if she expected him to question her about why the hell she might be venturing into the buildings of some pagan faith and pour scorn on the idea, but she simply nodded, satisfied with the response. The food arrived with indecent speed and they began to eat, with quiet and intense enjoyment. Looking at her eat was a pleasure. She was like a delicate little cat, making sure not to miss a morsel.

  ‘Lord, I don’t know where you put it,’ he said, confidence restored along with his blood sugar. ‘And now will you tell me how you really are? Just humour an old friend, will you? I want nothing, but I need to know. And if you’re telling me that you’re about to embrace another faith and run off with a Hindu, let me be the first to congratulate you. I’ve scarcely had the chance to tell you how sorry I am about Sister Jude.’

  She sat back, relaxed, no aggression at all. How hard it was to cross the age gap, and convince someone almost three decades younger than yourself that you actually had something in common, such as normal human emotions. Then he remembered Anna was different, had always been at home with her elders, entirely undeterred from argument by the age factor, and had, as Sister Jude had told him, an extraordinary range of sympathy for someone of her age. Don’t condescend to her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, slowly. ‘I’m sorry for the conversations we might have had, and all the things she might have told me. Selfish. We had excellent conversations, but a lot of the time I raged at her about Therese. Blamed her for influencing Therese into the Order. She told me she had tried to stop her and I told her she was a liar. I should have known better. Therese is as stubborn as a mule and does what she wants, always has, and Jude couldn’t lie. She was bloody economical with the truth, though. She held out on me, she always did. We could joke with each other, but she still held out on me. So now I have to think about what she said. Examine the innuendoes.’ She laughed. ‘I think most of this happens in my sleep. The thinking, I mean. I can’t do it consciously, it has to happen when I’m not aware. Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?’

  ‘Like children, growing in their sleep.’

  ‘Not that much in my case.’ She leaned forward, eyes on the last piece of thick naan bread, tearing a piece off the corner.

  He hesitated. ‘You know, I’m a bit puzzled about basic information when it comes to you and Therese,’ he said. ‘Slightly at sea on some of the details. I was parish priest when you lived in the big house on Somertown Road, when you got ill the first time. Lord, it’s less than a mile from here, but it seems so far. Your mother was devout, very helpful in the parish, but I was not, er, encouraged, to visit.’

  ‘That would be my father. The sod.’

  He did not correct her. ‘I don’t think I was paying sufficient attention. It’s easy to assume, you see, that a family as well off as yours can take care of its own needs, spiritual and otherwise. Then I was away for almost two years. I had . . . a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘Did you? I never knew.’

  ‘Well, we Catholics don’t talk about embarrassing things like that. Especially mental affliction, it’s a terrible sign of weakness.’

  ‘Why did you have the breakdown?’

  Don’t condescend to her. ‘Ah well, that’s difficult to explain, but I think it was because of a slow-burning realisation that I shouldn’t be a priest, that I should be something else, and I got better when I realised that I had no choice, because it was what I was fit for and even if I was a square peg in a round hole, there was no better way for me to serve God. But we aren’t talking about myself.’

  ‘I’d rather you did.’

  ‘Another time I should like to as well. Very much, but not now. When did you and Therese become ill? You were only a nipper.’

  ‘I’m still a nipper,’ she said, bitterly. ‘But I was too old to count as one.’

  Apparently unbidden, two large glasses of sweet lassi arrived. He eyed his with suspicion, drank cautiously and was surprised to find how much he liked it, despite a general aversion to things that tasted as if they were good for him. He was staggered with relief that she was in the mood for talking. Something nice must have happened to her.

  ‘It started with me. I got some bad viral infection, might have been pneumonia. Thought it was the wrath of God for experimenting with drink and getting sick as a dog at the age of fourteen, or whenever it was. I just didn’t get better, for months. It was like having flu all the time. Then Therese succumbed and I suppose, basically, we took to our beds. ME was the diagnosis, after lots of proddings and tests. We both stopped school, of course. Mum waited on us hand and foot, like a slave, bought us books so we could understand our own symptoms, chivied us along and it just went on like that. We were ferried off to hospital several times, but Mum got us out. She was wonderful.’

  She swallowed, not liking this recall, wanting to hurry it up. Someone cleared the plates. Christopher could feel the spicy food, eaten too fast, percolating in his stomach.

  ‘Friends from school used to come for the first year, but that stopped. We must have been incredibly boring, even on the good days when Therese could manage cooking lessons and I could read, which was all I could do, all I did do, most of the time. We were terrified of germs. Mum had the theory that if we lived in a germ-free zone, our own natural resources would make us better, only they didn’t. Only prayers could do it. One year went into two, three . . . four. That’s it, really.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He was a bastard. Didn’t believe in this ME mumbo-jumbo. Ranted and raved and kept on trying to put us in a car and take us to the seaside, which he thought was the cure for all ills, even when I could scarcely get down the stairs. Shelled out a fortune for doctors without ideas, had rows. In between work, of course. He was a workaholic to save himself being an alcoholic. Bastard. Then, about two years into it, he went, just like that.’

  ‘Well, he had to work to earn the money,’ Christopher said, choosing his words carefully. ‘Did he just go, or could it have been, do you think, that your mother locked him out?’

  She looked at him with cold fury. Such amazing eyes, she had. He almost winced.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he went on. ‘Simply an idea, something she might have done if she thought he was interfering with your treatment. Preventing your development by his attitude. That was the time when I was off the planet myself, so to speak.’

  ‘Climbing walls,’ she said, smiling. ‘I know that one.You might have been like us, wishing the illness was because of some big, dramatic car smash with plenty of wounds and broken bones to show. A noble sort of illness. Something to boast about, instead of mere paralysis.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, delighted by her understanding. ’ Yes, yes. I wished I’d been mugged.’

  She signalled for coffee by sticking one finger up in the air in a gesture that looked rude, but had the desired effect, without offence. Meals in restaurants involved a different language.

  ‘And I don’t see how he could be locked out when it was his house. He just went with Kay, the cleaning lady. We stayed where we were, only more peacefully, just drifting in and out of one long doze. Then s
omeone came and took Mum away. We were dumped in a nursing home and we got stronger. My mother, well . . . my mother died. I think my father and the effort of looking after us must have driven her mad. It can’t have been suicide, she was a Catholic, she would never have done that. Pneumonia, like us. Then we went into that hostel, you know, the one near the station, which was . . . terrible. We were middle-class freaks. I spent my whole time stopping us getting beaten up. Then the flat I have now. Some arrangement through Sister Jude, she would never explain that, either. My father wanted to see us then. It was too late and we said no. He might as well have killed her. We came back into the real world, clinging to each other. Then we were told he had drowned. Therese joined the Order. My mother had always wanted that. Are you thoroughly up to date?’

  Five years, he calculated, of abnormal life. Of missed education, of bonding with peers, of everything crucial to development. He felt unspeakably angry. She continued, airily, as if it were not painful.

  ‘At least my father paid for things, even if he never came near, and he pays my rent. If he’s going to leave us any money, I don’t want mine. That’s quite enough of that.’