Seeking Sanctuary

by Frances Fyfield

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thou shalt not bear false witness

  She knew that she was mortally afraid of him, more afraid than she had ever been. The top of her head was somewhere level with his chest and looking up at him, she fixed her eyes on the golden crucifix round his neck. Edmund’s crucifix with a mended chain. A crucifix rather than a simple cross, because of the tiny figure resting on it. The cross was too small to be ornamental and the chain too fine for the breadth of Francis’s neck, and yet they belonged as if he had always worn them. It transfixed her as he came into the room diffidently and sat in one of her two, facing chairs. She fell into the one opposite. When he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, their eyes were almost level, but she kept hers fixed on that miniature figure visible in the gap at the neck of his shirt.

  ‘Do you remember me?’ he asked, earnestly, somehow taking command, but anxious to appease. She was forced to look at him, one brief look into his eyes, and then back to the golden cross. The symbol of sacrifice.

  ‘Remember me, I mean, from a long time ago?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? But we look like one another. The same hair. Surely you noticed that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s my imagination then. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ.’

  ‘Yuk.’

  He sat back. She looked at his feet, ankles, knees, waist. Good shoes, soft chinos, clothes that made him all the more intimidating, although it was the ease with which he sat that was worse; the way he made no effort to keep her in place, because there was no need. She tried to remember if the door behind was shut, if he had kicked it closed, glanced sideways. The last time she had hated him rather than been afraid of him. Now, he seemed able to read her mind.

  ‘Please don’t think of running away. I don’t want you running away from me. It wouldn’t be right. It’s your own home. And I thought you invited me in.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t? Oh, I’m sorry. Did someone else open the door and wait for me? I’ll go, if you like. It’s a pretty place you have here, you’ve made it nice. I’m always looking for a place. What’s it like to have a place of your own? Is it expensive? Please don’t look at me all frightened like that. I think I like it better when you pull faces.’

  She could feel the blush rise. To her dying day, she would regret that puerile gesture to Barbara, and yet had the absurd desire to repeat it now and the desire loosened her tongue. She held the fabric of her pyjama jacket with both hands and spoke clearly. She was vulnerable to anyone who admired her room: it flattered her. She focused on his neck. An elegant neck, the only vulnerable thing about him.

  ‘Where did you get that crucifix?’

  ‘This?’ he said, surprised, touching it. ‘My mother gave it to me. Why do you ask?’

  His mother gave it to him.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to be friends.’

  The thump, thump, thump of the music downstairs ceased abruptly, making his voice sound louder, so that the words echoed like an announcement.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I want to be friends.’

  ‘Oh, very funny.’

  She did up the button of her pyjamas for something to do, glad that her bedtime clothes were the same as they had always been. Modest and unsexy, little-boy striped pyjamas to which she had always been devoted. She was suddenly cold and her teeth chattered. It was a different crucifix he wore. His mother gave it to him. He had grown into it and it was still too small.

  ‘Friends? Don’t be bloody silly. You beat me up, you lie about me . . . Go and stuff yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t lie,’ he said with soft indignation. ‘I did think you were a burglar and I had to say it was you who broke the window. And when I said it, I thought it was true. I’d seen you before, but I didn’t know who it was in the dark and I’d no idea how small you were. And if I’ve done you wrong, I want to put it right, I really do.’

  Looking up at him, meeting the eyes, she noticed the brilliant blue and, to her amazement, the sheen of unshed tears. Again, she fixed her own eyes on the cross around his neck. The tears were embarrassing: she never knew what to do, except pity them, and the memory of him throwing her to the floor with that mixture of casual strength and the careful reining back of it, which saved her from serious harm, suddenly became confused, the details blurred as if it were all in her imagination. He could have broken her neck, but he had not. The omission seemed kind. She put her hands on her knees, felt the grazes beneath the cloth of her pyjamas to remind herself, refusing to look at the scratches on his face.

  ‘I suppose,’ Francis said, hurrying as if he wanted to get a shameful confession out of the way, ‘that I wanted to impress Sister Barbara. I can’t tell you how much I need this job. It’s my lifeline and she could fire me any time. I wanted to look like a hero. I really need this job. I don’t know if you can understand that. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt safe.’

  She watched him lace his fingers together, head bowed, so that she could see the curly thatch of his blond hair, smelling clean and fresh, like the rest of him, and making her feel faintly dirty.

  ‘It makes me feel wanted, and I’m not used to that. They’re good to me. It went to my head a bit, if you see what I mean. I really wanted to protect them. I want them to admire me. I went overboard.’

  She looked at the cross, glinting round his neck. The presence of it teased at the back of her brain; it puzzled her and yet helped her focus. She looked steadily at the symbol of sacrifice, the aid to contemplation, the tiny figure of the crucified Christ. She looked at it and willed the chain to swell in size and choke him, watched it intently, imagining in miniature the ornate crucifix of Westminster Abbey and that brilliant shushing sound of hundreds of people moving to kneel and then to stand, feeling in the air, the breath of their movement, making her calm.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, reluctantly. ‘I can understand that.’

  He was nodding eagerly, boyish, foolish, apologetic.

  ‘Look, I know you don’t want the story of my life, but it hasn’t been lucky. I was brought up to think I was bad all the way through. Then I met Edmund and knew I wasn’t. And then I meet a whole lot of other people who don’t think so either. It takes some getting used to.’

  ‘Who broke the window?’ she interrupted.

  He hung his head further, so that she could scarcely hear the mumble.

  ‘It was Edmund. He was shooting at a magpie, but I couldn’t tell anyone that, could I? It’s not fair now he’s dead. I don’t think he really knew he’d done it. I only just found the air rifle in his shed, yesterday. I’m spring cleaning for the autumn, you see.’

  She thought again of the cathedral sounds, and heard in her mind the smashing of the glass in the window, finding it easier to listen to him if she kept removing herself. He was pulling at her heartstrings and she wanted it to stop, because in this humble state, she could feel the lure of his beauty and see why the dear Sisters would eat out of his hand, like the garden birds with Edmund. There was something else, too: a slippage of facts, an incomplete equation, an unfinished crossword puzzle, which his sheer presence made her unable to complete. She was listening, yes, but there was something she could not hear. She always wanted forgiveness to be freely given and received; she wanted it now.

  ‘And I came tonight,’ he said, ‘because Therese told me I must. She could see I was worried, and so was she. She sent me to the place where you work with that present for you.’

  Her head spun. There was a flash of uncontrollable jealousy, a spurt of protective fury. The juxtaposition of this man, this boy, alongside her sister was intolerable, and yet at the mention of Therese, all her defences slid and her heart began to beat with slow anxiety, so loud she was sure he could hear it. Therese sent her the dead bird? Or Therese sent her the scripture? That was the worst fear; Therese unbalanced by something fearful, like her mother. Therese was losing her mi
nd. Or she was losing hers. She must see Therese, before it was too late. His voice reached her from a distance.

  ‘She and I talk, you see, we always did from the first day I got there. I suppose because we’re the only young ones, apart from the girl in the kitchen.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Therese wants to see you, but she says the only way that can happen is if Barbara allows it. She asks that you understand the rules of obedience. And look, I know this seems arrogant, but I reckon I can bring Barbara round to that, if anyone can, if I say that you and I are friends, now. Therese sends you her love, by the way. She’s a lovely girl, isn’t she? She knows you miss the chapel. Sweetest person I ever met. I wish she was my sister. She’s teaching me not to tell lies.’

  Anna was speechless.

  ‘So I told her that I’d kissed you on the way home. Which was a bad thing to do, but I couldn’t help it, because you’re so pretty. I’d noticed you before, you know, sooner than you did me, and then at Mass, even if I wouldn’t have known you in the dark.’

  ‘And what did Therese say about that?’

  ‘She said it was insulting and I needed my head straightening out.’ He paused. ‘But she also said it was time you found a nice Catholic boy. And that please, could you and I forgive and forget and be amiable for her sake?’

  It sounded so like Therese, she could only laugh, and as if to copy Francis, felt tears pricking at her eyelids. She rubbed her nose on her pyjama sleeve.

  ‘We’ve got a lot in common, you and I,’ he said. ‘All the Sisters, and what to do for the best for them all. We could do so much, you know. They won’t survive without people like us. They have no mirrors. They cannot see themselves. Anyway, Therese says, will you try?’

  She sat, silently, resenting people like us and yet suddenly buoyed up with hope. Therese thought of her. Therese spoke of her. Therese might go mad without her. Therese needed her.

  He rose, awkward and concerned. ‘I’m sorry. It’s late and I’ve stayed too long. I’d have phoned . . . she gave me the number, but I thought you’d put the phone down. So I took the risk. Thanks for listening.’

  ‘Wait.’ He waited.

  ‘What sort of friends do you want us to be?’

  He had a complicated smile. He could have sold it for a million. A devastating mix of the smile of a saint, the grin of an innocent boy looking for trust, and a hopeful suitor with the lips and teeth of a pop star sportsman.

  ‘Any kind you like. How about doing something tomorrow night? Seven? After work. I could bring you flowers, start over, properly.’

  ‘That kind of friend?’

  His eyes swept down the length of her body, back again to her face. They were knowing eyes.

  ‘Oh yes, that kind. I’ll see Therese in the morning. If two people meet in the wrong way and then get it right, I think that’s romantic, don’t you?’

  She cringed and then tried to smile. He couldn’t help being clumsy, could he? He liked Therese, he wanted to like her, he was only another lost soul who made mistakes. If only he didn’t wear that crucifix.

  ‘Yes. All right, whatever you like. Give her my love.’

  His footsteps echoed away down the stairs. The sound of his whistling lingered behind him. Something about the whistling disturbed her. It had a note of triumph. Anna brushed her teeth, and after half an hour of frantic activity wrote a few words in the notebook and then, in a fury of confusion, cried herself to sleep. He made her feel, above all, ungrateful.

  Christopher Goodwin made Kay McQuaid brush her teeth before he tucked her up in her own bed and told her everything was going to be all right, knowing that a statement as optimistic as that made him as much a liar as she was herself. Because, even as unstrung as she was, Kay could still hide, by which he meant she would answer the questions he uttered, but not the ones he did not know to ask. He ignored the small spare room where he was normally placed on the rare occasions he missed the last train and went and lay down in Theodore’s room because he liked the sight of the moon through the balconied window. It was a restful moon and he needed something to stare at while he willed his eyes to close.

  Composing himself for sleep was difficult enough and harder still in a room devoted to the use of another. It was a strange sensation and made him feel as if he were not alone. He opened the door of a handsome wardrobe to hang his jacket and found it was still full of Theodore’s clothes, old-fashioned tweed jackets, well-worn, neatly pressed shirts and a heavy winter coat. No need for any of these in the other world and he wondered briefly which way Theodore had travelled after death, heaven, hell, or purgatory? One thing was certain and that was that he would not have asked for forgiveness for his sins, not even at the end. There were blankets but no sheets on the bed. Christopher crawled beneath them in his underwear, wishing he could remember the man better, or that he had known him well enough to read the complications of his mind. A man who played with power and loved games, but unlike himself, who only enjoyed them as a spectator.

  It was a good bed. Everything in this house, apart from Kay’s additions, reeked of solid quality. Good, soft, clean-smelling blankets, too. She was an excellent housekeeper, whatever else she was. Judge not that you may not be judged. It was always assumed, he was telling himself, that a celibate cleric like himself could have little understanding of that peculiar love of parent towards child, which could turn a quiet woman into a virago and a father into a murderous protector, the love that made every other commandment and consideration entirely irrelevant. He could hear the common cry from a desperate mother in his parish, shouting at him that he did not understand, but he thought he did, however incompletely. The accusation always felt like an insult to his imagination, which could feel the sensation of a child in his arms and know, like his own St Christopher, that he would carry it until he dropped or drowned rather than let it go. Oh Lord, I would have loved a child, he thought, and on that anguished note, he slept.

  And woke, disorientated by the strangeness of the cool room, with dawn pressing against the windows and prodding him awake through the half-closed curtains. He washed in the bathroom, fretted about the problem of being without a razor or toothbrush, until he saw everything he needed on the shelf above the basin, which he used in a guilty fashion, feeling as if he were, in a strange way, standing in another man’s shadow, benefiting from the failure of that man’s housekeeper to clear away the effects of the deceased. Either she was not equal to the task or disqualified herself from it and his only complaint about the arrangement was the mirror being set too low, so that he had to stoop to see his own chin, all of which distracted him sufficiently to allow him to complete his ablutions without cutting himself. The anger lay curled in his abdomen, like indigestion waiting to strike as soon as he was fully free of the drug of sleep. He would walk for the early train and clear his head by the sea. In the living room, he collected the documents he had brought with him, wondered how many more of them Kay had and where she had put them, decided not to wake her and ask. He had more than he needed. Instead, he left her a note, it was kinder to let her sleep, and let himself out through the back door.

  He could see Theodore Calvert’s point in living so near the sea on a morning like this, when it moved and heaved with a cheerful sluggishness and almost invited the full baptism John the Evangelist gave to the new followers of the Messiah in the River Jordan.This sea looked more like a river, easily crossed. It was water to walk upon, glinting with light and disappearing into a misty horizon. Father Goodwin stood and watched, praying that it would calm his soul and inspire a course of action, because in between sleeping and waking, he knew no better what he should do, or what he could do on his return to his neglected parish, other than commit murder. He was unsure of the preferred order of the homicides, Barbara or Francis first. He could discuss things with the Bishop’s emissary, insist on an interview with Therese, if he could insist, but the rights and duties of a priest were ever vague. He may have been an accidental parental substitute for two orphans, with enough l
ove for the task, an appalling responsibility, but no rights whatsoever. It was perplexing, to say the least, even without consideration of the unpredictability of Satan. In the name of God, what had Theodore Calvert thought he was doing, making a pact with the devil, or had he been drunk when he drafted that will, the last delirium of a man who wanted to die, with no idea of the effect? Christopher Goodwin watched the sea, imagined it parting into two towering walls to let through the tribes of Israel, led by Moses. It was the most convincing image he had ever retained from the Old Testament and the only one to impress him as a boy. The single scene that convinced him of the power of the good God, together with the rendering of the next scene by Cecil B. De Mille, where the waters fell back and killed the army of Egyptians. Why did he wait to do it until they were in the middle? Why not hold them back on the other bank? The God of the Israelites was a murderer, after all, simply selective in genocide. And that was the trouble with religious knowledge. It created a superstructure of images, which got in the way of every view and prevented one from looking simply at what there was.

  As he looked, trying to concentrate on what there was, noticing the dark gathering of clouds and delighting in the sharp light on the water, Christopher noticed another piece of flotsam, at first sight similar to the one he had seen dancing on the waves in almost the same place the night before. On second sight, squinting at it and wishing he possessed such a thing as a pair of sunglasses, he could see it was different, a green barrel, or something of the kind, rounded and heavier looking, bobbing along sweetly and moving fast. He walked along level with it, feeling like a dog playing a game and about to bark at a stick, trying to match the casual speed of his steps with its floating pace and finding he had to move faster to keep up. Despite his foul mood and the underlying indigestible distress that weighed him down, he enjoyed the game until the road turned towards the station away from the sea and he had to leave it. Regret made him pause, then he stopped altogether.