You are even prettier than your sister.
He is making a trap for her. He was inside the garden last night. He does not go home.
Oh, nonsense.
She chewed a fingernail, tried to scold herself for being so dramatic. Nothing happens in that convent, that was the point of it. Who needs you, Anna, and what was poxy little Francis anyway? Some supped-up, odd-job man, their self-appointed, self-important guardian, the wanker: a boy with nowhere else to go for all his looks and an itty bitty morsel of power gone to his silly little golden head. She looked at her watch again. Definitely eating time in there. She could taste the remnants of chocolate and ice cream, like a moustache around her lips. By the whitish stone of St Michael, she could see the black-clad figure of Matilda, invisible to anyone else, vainly waving. She blinked and the figure was gone. Anna scrambled down the steps and shoved the ladder back. Searched her mind for the convent number, dialled it. Agnes would have instructions not to let her in through the door, but they could not stop her dialling. The phone rang and rang and rang, the way it did during meals. She paced the floor. Redialled. Same response.
Drizzly rain soaking the cassock he wore for visiting the sick, as if this uniform gave him credibility, and as if it had been worth it, Father Goodwin hung on the doorbell, muttering beneath his breath, ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger.’ His shoes did not keep out the damp, the sick had been comatose and all that was left was the urgency of duty. He rang again, before consulting the time on the watch he could scarcely see without the spectacles he could never find. Damn, damn, damn and buggery. The convent door opened to Barbara. She was still chewing and it did not add to her attraction. She would have shut the door if he had not barged past, straight down the black and white corridor, into the parlour. Barbara followed in the high temper which had been so much a feature of the day that interrupted food could only make it worse. The room was chillingly cold. She put on a single light and sat a long distance away from him.
‘This will, Sister. Didn’t you see it for what it was? It’s a dangerous document, it surely is . . . It’s a time bomb . . . it’s blackmail. Did you not understand what he was trying to do?’
She sat, as frozen as a statue, looking like a basilisk on an Egyptian temple.
‘He’s wishing his children to the devil, Sister. Can’t you read?’
She got up and turned the key in the central door that led from the parlour to the garden. The bolt at each side of the window, a grille pulled across, a padlock to secure the grille would be the final precaution for the night, as early as she chose. Then she skirted around the back of his chair, as if reluctant to come closer, sat in her own, a dozen feet away. She may as well have addressed him through a megaphone. Noise passed softly here. There was no hint of the presence of a chapel where people sang on Sundays, even less of a crowd of old women eating at the other end of the corridor.
‘You think yourself so very clever, Christopher Goodwin, but why should I pay any attention to a nervous breakdown priest?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You went mad, didn’t you, Father?’
He laughed, uncertainly. Who had been talking to whom? He remembered that Barbara had only been here four years, long enough surely.
‘Unfortunately not. I had a nervous breakdown, yes, which was common knowledge. Before your time here, Sister, and a matter for sympathy rather than concern, especially since you seem to be heading for one yourself.’
‘Well, whatever, but I won’t be breaking down on account of sexual interference with little boys, shall I? Not like you. Not like you at all.’
He gasped as if she had struck him, and then started to smile, because of all the things of which he had been accused, including the things of which he accused himself, this was so far from truth, it was risible. Wee football-playing boys? That really was rich. He thought of Kay McQuaid and the agony of her proximity, of his necessarily understated and nevertheless passionate love of women and the hell it had given him, and laughed and laughed, even while knowing that laughing was the worst thing to do, and only when she did not laugh with him, stopped.
‘Jesus, woman, there’s a lot more reasons for a nervous breakdown than that. Have you no imagination at all? It was faith and failure that bothered me, not little boys.’
‘That’s not what Francis says,’ she intoned, stubbornly. ‘Not what he told me this morning after you’d gone.’
Francis, Francis, Francis. What was this boy? The new Messiah? His temper rose and exploded.
‘And how the hell would Francis know? The vain little beast. Is a priest supposed to have fallen upon him, like all you stupid women? Has he been reading to you from a newspaper? Is he better than the official record? For God’s sake, you treat him as if you fuck him. How the hell could he know anything about me?’
He was advancing towards her, wagging his finger, eyes blazing, a picture of unbalanced craziness. She stood her ground.
‘He knows because he’s afraid of you. He knows because he was a tiny little boy in this parish when his mother used to clean for you. He was a teenager when you were removed and he knows exactly why.’
He had raised an arm, almost ready to hit her. Instead, a shock of realisation hit him like a tidal wave. He put both his hands over his face and groaned, the very picture of shame.Yes, he remembered the boy.
‘Was he one of the victims, Father? Don’t say there were so many of them you can’t count. A nervous breakdown, was it? What rubbish. I know how the Bishop deals with these things. The way bishops do. The way men do. They hide it.’
The clock ticked in the silence.
He was about to say that she had an accurate understanding of the higher clergy, but that even the most recalcitrant bishop from the bogs of somewhere would not send a paedophile back to the parish of his sins within a mere two years of their commission, would at least send him somewhere else. But he knew if he spoke at all he would scream and spit and whatever he said would be futile. The rage had subsided to a furious indigestion, and still it choked him.
‘You will regret this, you dumb bitch.’
‘Don’t threaten me.’
‘Where is this bastard Francis?’
‘Don’t you dare call him that, you pervert.’
‘At home, I presume.’
‘You don’t even know, do you?’
There was a look of uncertainty, and if he stayed for a moment longer, he really would hit her. He left her standing in the middle of the parlour and slammed the door shut behind him, hoping she would have followed and got it full in that plain face. The noise of the slamming door reverberated in a building where doors were never slammed and his own footsteps sounded angry. And then ahead of him in the poor lighting of the black and white corridor, he saw the unmistakable figure of Therese, hurrying away, back towards the refectory. He roared after her, ‘Therese!’ but she broke into a run and disappeared.
He could see her, standing on the other side of the half-open parlour door, a minute ago, waiting to knock and ask if the visitor required coffee or tea, listening to it all, and saw, again and again, the death of trust.
The rain settled around him like a cloak as he stood with his back to the door, breathing heavily. The lintel above sent drips on to his thinning hair, shockingly cold. The mist of the drizzle blurred the street lights, so that they looked as if they were wearing haloes. Bring Barbara, or dear old Agnes out here, and they might well fall down in worship. He crossed to the other side of the road and looked at the building, handsome from the outside with its mellow red brick and mullioned windows, giving that oh-so-deceptive impression of calm solidity, a haven of peace in an urban landscape, isolated by that very impression and the height of the walls, and yet they were besieged, from within and without, poor devils. If he left them now and refused to come back, he would be their last link. He counted on his trembling fingers. They had lost the reasoning voice of Sister Jude, who, from her sickbed, had been a surreptitious influence, a quiet counsell
or to all of them, the keeper of secrets and reason. And then there was Edmund, with his obdurate independence, the man who listened to no one. And then there was Anna, with her far-seeing eyes and uncanny intelligence, a vital link between their world and her own. And now himself, not banned as yet, but his role made untenable by rumour. He would miss the chapel. Compared to the modern box church where he otherwise officiated, it had a magic charm, and it was the only place he knew where God was not silent.
As He was now, even in the holy glow of the street lights. Easy enough to defect, go home, turn on the television, tuck himself up with his spartan comforts and hope no one would call, but the anger had done him good. He wanted to throttle someone and was briefly, ironically aware that all the targets he would like to murder were of his favourite sex. Kay McQuaid, Sister Barbara, his own dead mother and even silly Therese for running away. And if he stood here any longer in his cassock, with his fists clenching and unclenching and the rain on the back of his neck, looking ready to howl at a non-existent moon, someone would arrest him. Christ, it would almost be a relief. Urgency made his throat dry. There was nowhere to go, except to another person in disgrace. If Anna would not let him in, he would sit on the doorstep and wait.
‘Calvert’ on the bell, he knew exactly where, although he had never been inside, only glancing up sometimes, as he passed unnecessarily often. He should have visited and told what he knew of the truth, a long time ago. Should have, should have, should have.
‘Recrimination,’ he said loudly into the entryphone, ‘is the death to all endeavour.’
‘What’s that, Father?’ she said, her voice so disembodied it made him leap with shock. There was jarring background noise.
‘Can I come up?’
‘Of course.’
Even a man could hear the disappointment in that voice. He began the long march up the interminable flights of ill-lit stairs and thought, At least she is safe here.
Music, of a kind, poured from the top flat as he panted up the last flight of stairs. The wailing of sitars and beating of drums almost stopped him. He had forgotten how young she was: with music like that, they had not a cat in hell’s chance of understanding one another, but then again, maybe it was not understanding they needed.
The scale of the place was almost that of a dolls’ house, to his mind, bigger when he looked from the small living room to the kitchenette beyond, but still too small for all the sound. By now he was so hot inside the damp cassock and anorak, he could not imagine breathing in such a place, even while he noticed it was not as he imagined. It was not strewn with clothes and youthful detritus, but merely functional, two chairs, two pictures, the stereo on the bookshelf, and that was all, as if the space was always needed for something else. Anna turned off the music, for which God be praised, but in the sudden silence, he did not know what to say.
‘Have you come to tell me off ?’
‘No. I’ve come to build a wax model of Barbara and that bastard boy Francis, and stick pins in them.’
‘In which case, you’re welcome.’
He sat, presuming he was asked.
‘Did the old bitch throw you out?’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes. I’d like to think I left.’
‘Did you climb over the wall, or something?’
‘No, she thinks I’m a paedophile.’
‘Bless her,’ said Anna, smiling, and then it was all right. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Water,’ he said. ‘Whiskey by the pint would be better, but I’ve somewhere else to go.’
A long journey to the sea. He thought of it as she brought the water, with dread, running the train timetable through his mind. Every hour on the hour. Yes, he would get there before midnight. The dark was deceiving; it was early yet. If any parishioner died tonight, they would have to die alone. She was watching him drink the water with a motherly concern at odds with her tiny size.
‘A man who interferes with children? I can’t see it, myself.’
‘A similar accusation to the one applied to your father, as I recall. His own children. At least I’m supposed to have gone for other people’s.’
She stood completely still. ‘That is utterly and completely untrue,’ she said, slowly. Then she shook herself. ‘Can you manage a few more steps, Father?’
Without waiting for a reply, she pulled the ladder from the wall from behind its curtain, climbed up and pushed the trapdoor at the top. A draught of delicious air descended. He followed her, awkwardly. She pulled him on to the parapet with a grip of surprising strength and before he could begin to wonder how on earth he would get down, he was seeing the stars and realising exactly why she would live in a flat as claustrophobically small as this. He found his footing on the slippery lead, followed her a couple of steps, leant as she leant, with arms folded on the stone wall, safe as houses and quite at home. He had always liked heights. The difference was that even leaning like this, his torso protruded over the parapet a whole foot more than hers. He stood and leant back for balance, a giant next to a midget.
‘So what did you come to say, Father?’
‘I quite forget. Only that God really will forgive you, whatever you do.’
‘I don’t care about that. I care about Therese.’
‘All right, I came because I felt the corrosive effect of disgrace, which I thought you would understand. And because I feel a great sense of danger hanging over you and Therese. Nothing can begin to cure it other than the brutal truth.Your father’s will—’
‘Never mind that. Therese hid it from me, I knew she did and I didn’t care. What was he like, my father? I mean as man to man.You knew him, a little.’
He fished for the cigarettes. None.
‘Knew him a little and liked him a lot. He had great love in him and he adored you both. But love made him naive and he was no match for your mother.’
‘No sane person can be a match for somebody insane,’ she said, slowly. ‘No one can match that kind of will power. Especially not when it wears the armour of angels and the great shield of righteousness.’
Father Goodwin caught his breath and found himself suddenly close to tears. It was the lack of bitterness in her voice that moved him more, the dry absence of reproach, and the release of tension in himself which made him stagger and grasp the parapet firmly with both hands, noticing even then how she had flung out her arm to stop him falling. A child with a protective instinct stronger than anything else, which may have come, in a purer form, from her mother.
‘When did you realise this?’ he whispered.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Not in the beginning, not for the first year when we were ill. I think that might have been real and he was wrong. There was shouting in the background, all the time. Then my father went; then he tried to kidnap us; then I tried to run away, and oh so many things, all blurred. No strength, you see; no strength to do anything at all, or think a single thought. I could read, but I couldn’t think, or rather I couldn’t think and carry anything through to a conclusion, and we were accomplices, you see. We agreed with her, we had to, there was no one else, but somewhere, sometime, I knew what she did. Munchausen something, isn’t it? But she made us believe we were ill and we believed. It became fact. For Therese, it still is fact, but believe me, Father, there was no need for either Sister Jude or your good self to hint to me that those four, dead years were anything other than my mad mother’s fixation that she would rather we died than left her to go to the devil. She was terrified for herself and for us. I used to think that it was me who started it, by being naughty. Giving her the hint of how bad it could get.’
‘Nonsense.’
She stretched her arms in front of her, palms locked outwards, and he could hear the click of her fingers.
‘But it took a long time to know, even longer to admit.I was a better reader than Therese. I could read the books of symptoms better than her, but it was only later that I queried the drugs. Common stuff. Valium she got for herself, Benylin c
an knock you out, and every variety of mildly poisonous food. She was a dietician and she did the reverse. You can make a person very ill with food combinations and herbal remedies. Especially if you never let them get well. Paint fumes, she was always painting, and joss sticks. I can understand why my father went. I should be grateful he set his lawyers on her. But I wish he had written.’
The anger was coming back; quiet, but useful.
‘And how, dear child, would you ever have received his communications? Who opened the door to the postman? Who answered the phone? Was there email?’
‘He could have sent someone.’
‘He was forbidden by law. He was accused of molesting you, and the law moves slowly. He was arrested six times outside your door. A mother has the real power. He sent me, slender reed that I am; he sent Sister Jude . . . the door was barred, and we, of course, were weak.’
‘As frail as all flesh,’ she said. ‘Never mind. I wish I had known, but there it is. And the irony of it all is that Therese has tried to protect me from any hint of him, while I have tried never to sully her abiding memory of our mother. It would be nice if she could keep that. Even if it did give her the infection of faith and her bloody vocation.’
‘Theodore’s last will and testament—’ he began.
‘Not now, Father, it doesn’t matter. I can’t take it and you have somewhere else to go.’
She stood up straight, grasping the parapet as firmly as he had. In this proximity, her shoulders were the height of his chest and yet he knew which of them was the stronger. The urge to weep remained.
‘Tell me what you can see,’ she said.
He did not look down, he looked across. ‘I think I can see the whole of the park. I can see Knightsbridge. I can see an aeroplane, oh Lord, I can see lights. It’s marvellous, I can see—’
Seeking Sanctuary Page 20
