The Enemy of the Good

by Michael Arditti

  He issued a special invitation to Rafik, who performed a Berber dance around the studio, displaying a rare pride in his Arab roots. Three days later, he was plunged into gloom by the news that his Reconsideration had been refused. ‘Take good look at window. It is all you must see of Rafik.’ Clement immediately rang James Shortt who, conceding that they had explored every legal avenue, maintained off the record that Rafik’s best hope was to go to ground, since the Home Office investigators would be far too hard-pressed to pursue him. His opinion was endorsed by Mike, for whom such rebellion brought a welcome reminder of his youth. Clement, however, urged Rafik to sign on every week at the Immigration Office.

  ‘There’s no way anyone’s going to throw you out of the country once you’re fixed… enshrined in one of our best-loved cathedrals. They wouldn’t only be rejecting Christian principles but Christ!’

  Rafik took his advice, although less from conviction than from lethargy. He rejected all encouragement and claimed to be resigned to his fate. Clement continued to employ him at the studio but no longer as a model. He was bleary-eyed, unshaven, scruffy and devoid of all vitality, not Rafik but a Rafik lookalike. Clement gave him the title of studio assistant, largely in order to pay him without wounding his pride, but found that he had as little pride in the studio as in the backroom of a club. He just sat silently, rocking his stool to and fro. Sometimes the smell was the only sign that he was there.

  Hoping to inspire him, Clement invited him to Roxborough to see the window installed, but he preferred to wait for the service. So, with Mike spending the week at Anita’s cottage in Dorset, he made the journey alone. After a courtesy call on the Dean, he gingerly followed the glazier up the scaffolding, more afraid to lose face than footing. Having confirmed that the saddle bars were aligned, he returned to the Trinity Chapel, where he sat scarcely daring to draw breath while the workmen positioned the glass.

  Somehow he managed to laugh when the inevitable joker yelled down: ‘Scuse us guv, if we drop this one, can you get us another from Pilkington’s?’ It was clear why Carla, whose relationship with the glass was so intimate, couldn’t bear to attend. A blast of Bach on the organ brought a brief distraction from the hammers and drills, but even its intricate cadences failed to calm his nerves. Finally the hubbub ceased and, as the men scrambled down the scaffolding, he greeted them with mugs of champagne.

  ‘I reckon I could get a taste for this,’ the glazier said, wiping his mouth.

  ‘You deserve it after all your hard work,’ Clement replied.

  ‘Don’t you believe it!’ the joker said, demanding a refill. ‘Piece of piss!’

  ‘You haven’t half put some noses out of joint,’ his mate said. ‘Bloke from the Mirror offered Harry here a thousand quid for a picture of the window once it was in.’

  ‘But you told him what to do with it?’ Clement asked tentatively.

  ‘Dead right I did!’

  ‘Yeah, sure! But only when you couldn’t get enough of it in the shot.’

  Disturbed by the fresh spectre of tabloid interest, Clement consulted the Dean, who seemed more concerned to laud the loyalty of his staff than to acknowledge the prospect of trouble. When pressed, he admitted to having heard rumours that Deedes was planning to picket the dedication service but assured Clement that there would be a large police presence.

  ‘Large?’ he asked. ‘How many demonstrators do you expect?’

  ‘No more than a sprinkling,’ the Dean replied breezily.

  Clement recalled their conversation the following week, when he surveyed the hundred-strong mob waving placards under the gaze of three policemen who would have looked overtaxed at a county show. Some of the slogans, such as the complete set of Ten Commandments, were so arbitrary that they looked recycled. Others, such as the attacks on sodomy, blasphemy and pride, were aimed squarely at him. The Major stood to the fore, clasping a sign declaring that idolaters would burn in hell. Clement longed to reason with him but, conscious of the swarm of photographers, preferred to present a picture of dignified forbearance, as he strolled arm-in-arm with his parents, one step ahead of Carla, Karen and her boyfriend Frank. The group lacked only Susannah, who was meeting them inside the cathedral, and Mike, who was en route from London, having waited till the last minute in the hope that Rafik would turn up. Clement was at a loss to explain his absence. They had confirmed arrangements only the day before. He was to join them straight from the Immigration Office. It was as though, by alienating the one person who truly cared for him, he would be able to justify his despair.

  They entered the cathedral by the Galilee Porch, beneath a frieze of faceless apostles. Clement instinctively glanced up at the window which was covered by a blue curtain in readiness for its unveiling. As they made their way down the nave, he had an uneasy sense of people averting their eyes as from the chief mourners at a funeral. They reached the front pew to find Susannah already seated, her burgundy suit and art deco jewellery in sharp contrast to the muted tones in the rows behind. She was clutching a wad of papers which she threw down to give him a strangely perfunctory kiss. He sat beside her, skimming through the Order of Service, when he became aware of the Dean, in full canonicals, looming over him.

  ‘We have a crisis on our hands.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘The Bishop’s wife’s just rang to say he has food poisoning. He daren’t move more than a couple of yards from the lavatory.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘She said he’d hung on till the last minute.’

  ‘But then he heard all the ruckus in the close! The man’s wasted in the Church of England. He should convert to Orthodoxy and count Pontius Pilate as a saint!’

  Clement marvelled at the Dean who, slick as ever, turned to his father and begged him to step into the breach, promising that, since he himself was giving the address, it would amount to no more than reading a short prayer and pulling a string.

  ‘I’d be honoured,’ he replied and, assuring Clement that there was no need to worry, followed the Dean to the vestry to robe.

  ‘I do hope he’ll be all right,’ his mother said, ‘he’s been looking so tired lately. He doesn’t need any extra strain.’

  ‘You saw his face,’ Susannah said. ‘He couldn’t wait to get going. It’ll give him a new lease of life.’

  Clement was about to echo her words when he was deflected by the sight of Mike squeezing in at the end of the pew. ‘No Rafik?’ he asked, still hoping that he might be trailing behind.

  ‘No Rafik,’ Mike replied sombrely.

  Further discussion was prevented by the procession of choir and clergy. Watching his father make his way into the sanctuary, so comfortable in his borrowed cope, Clement knew that there was no one whom he would prefer to perform the dedication. He cleared his head and tried to concentrate on the service, which began with The Lord is My Shepherd, a hymn neutral enough to satisfy the most agnostic civic dignitary. As the swell of the organ died down, the sound of chanting from the close set up an unwelcome antiphon to the opening collect. The thunderous strains of Zadok the Priest brought a temporary lull but, when the Dean mounted the pulpit, the dissident voices once again made themselves heard. He switched on the microphone with the air of a beleaguered chairman at a stormy shareholders’ meeting and began to speak.

  ‘This is a moving and historic occasion. If Christianity is to enjoy its fullest expression in the world, it must harness the talents of artists. What’s more, it mustn’t confine them to the iconography of the past but, rather, encourage them to find new imagery and new forms. Many of the greatest works of Western art were commissioned by the Church. Yet, today, so much religious art has been reduced to the pretty-prettiness of an Advent calendar, conventionally conceived and executed, designed not to offend the most thin-skinned member of the congregation, as though we weren’t witnesses to a profound faith but children in Sunday school.

  ‘Great art is often shocking. It jolts the viewer into a heightened awareness. Christian bel
ief should do the same. After all, what could be more shocking than to learn that God became man and was crucified for our sins? There’s a vast chasm, however, between art that shocks for its own sake – one might say, out of devilry – and art that shocks because it challenges us to new and at times uncomfortable ways of thinking. I’m convinced that the window we have the privilege of seeing dedicated today belongs to the latter category. It’s a genuinely spiritual work by an artist who has reflected on eternal truths and their place in the contemporary world. It forces us to think about ourselves, our relationship to one another and to God. What’s more, it presents us with an original and startling image of Christ.

  ‘A good deal of nonsense has already been written about what I’ve no doubt in years to come will be known as the Roxborough Christ. There can’t be a single person sitting here who is unaware what it is about this image that has caused consternation in some quarters.’ As if on cue, the voices in the close grew more clamorous and the Dean’s more steely. ‘But it’s an image that speaks to each and every one of us with a power that is, yes, shocking, but also uplifting. Let those who find fault with it look into their own hearts and see where the fault lies. For it’s an image that speaks not of flesh and corruption but of love and innocence. It is an image that does honour to God and, hence, to this great cathedral. I am certain that future generations will claim it as their own. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  The Dean announced that, during the singing of the hymn, Lead, kindly Light, he would invite Bishop Edwin Granville, the artist’s father, to accompany him to the Trinity Chapel to unveil the window. Clement stood as the Dean led his father out of sight, behind the high altar with its huge Crucifixion triptych. The sun streaming through the lancet windows filled him with hope that, as the curtain fell away, its rays would illuminate the faces of Christ and Adam in a sign of divine approval.

  Resuming his seat at the end of the hymn, he heard the Dean’s disembodied voice rumble through the loudspeakers. ‘Right Reverend Father in Christ, we ask you to dedicate this window which has been designed and given for the honour and glory of God and in thanksgiving for this cathedral church of St Thomas and the blessings here received.’

  ‘I am ready to perform the dedication.’ Clement winced as the loudspeaker caught his father’s every wheeze, accentuating his frailty. ‘In the faith of Jesus Christ and in the honour of His Holy Incarnation, we dedicate this window to the glory of God, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  He drew back the curtain on a sunbeam so dazzling that, to Clement’s delight, the window appeared to melt. Gazing at the bleached design, he felt as if Hell had been harrowed not just by Christ but by the light of God itself. The sign was more emphatic than he had dared to hope and was confirmed by a collective gasp. He leant back, relishing the play of colour on ancient marble, when, out of nowhere, a spider-like shadow crossed the glass and a brick or stone shot through and decapitated Adam.

  Clement stared in disbelief as his work – and Rafik’s portait – lay shattered on the cathedral floor. Steadying himself on the pew, he tried to interpret the welter of sounds: the muffled cheers; the screams; the amplified voice calling for a doctor. By the time he’d identified the voice as the Dean’s, he was on his feet and following his mother, Susannah and Mike into the chapel. It wasn’t the stone or the hole or even the voice that impelled him but another image forming in his mind, which to his horror took shape on the granite flags, his father lying in a pile of shards, his bald head streaked with blood.

  His mother made to kneel, but Mike held her back with a warning about broken glass. Susannah kicked away the stone, which rolled towards the rail where it rested as innocuous as a doorstop. The Dean’s appeal was answered by not one but four doctors and even a dentist who offered himself in reserve. The Steward rushed up with the news that an ambulance was on its way. Clement stood aside as two of the doctors examined his father. Having agreed that it posed no threat, they lifted him on to a chair, where he opened his eyes abruptly and announced with a blurry smile: ‘I’m just grazed. It’s nothing. No fuss.’

  Giddy with relief, Clement began to shake. Mike moved up and hugged him. ‘Everything can be put right, I promise. Look, half the window’s intact.’ Clement followed his gaze, but all he could see were the cracks.

  He took stock of the activity around him. His mother, as defiant of the broken glass as she was of the doctors, knelt beside his father, whose hopes of avoiding a fuss were dashed when more and more of the congregation left their seats and streamed into the chapel. A photographer sneaked up and snapped pictures of him, a splinter sticking out of his scalp like a sundial, until he was checked by a burly choirman who threatened to kick his arse. The Lord Lieutenant strode up officiously but soon found himself as redundant as everyone else. Two policemen, who had come to assess the damage, postured as ineffectively as they had done in the close.

  His father tried to rub his head, despite the doctors’ injunctions. They were confident that the wound was superficial but stressed that the glass should be extracted in hospital. Meanwhile Carla bent down and began to gather the fragments, breaking off when a policeman yelled at her that it was evidence. He, in turn, looked shocked when she burst into tears. ‘It’s all right. She made it,’ Susannah explained, moving to raise her up. Clement watched everything but felt nothing, except for the arctic wave coursing through his veins. It was only when he glanced at what was keeping him on his feet that he found it was Mike.

  He shared in the general relief when the ambulance crew arrived, recoiling when he realised that the crowd was less concerned with his father’s welfare than with watching the drama unfold. To his father’s mortification, the men ignored his request to walk and loaded him on to a stretcher. Clement and his family followed it into the cloisters, where it was decided that his mother should ride to the hospital in the ambulance while the others drove in Mike’s and Susannah’s cars. Emerging into the close, he was grateful to find that the bulk of the demonstrators had dispersed. Only a smattering remained, defiantly brandishing placards, one of which bore the slogan Vengeance is mine saith the Lord. He was shocked to discover that, for the first time since his schooldays, he longed for it to be true.

  As he headed towards the car, he was waylaid by the Dean. ‘I shan’t keep you,’ he said, ‘I know you’re in a rush. But you must promise me you won’t take any of this to heart. They’re just yobs. Vandals. Not even Deedes and his mob could stoop so low. The police’ll catch them. And we’ll repair the glass. We’ll have the Roxborough Christ back up, even if we have to put it behind bars.’

  ‘Rather defeats the purpose of a window,’ Clement said, shaking his hand and stepping into the car.

  At the hospital he and Susannah sat with his mother in Casualty, while the others waited in the canteen. After an hour, a doctor with a smile that looked to have been ironed on came up to inform them that he had removed three pieces of glass from the patient’s scalp, stitched it up, and was sending him down to X-ray.

  ‘To see if there’s anything left embedded?’ Clement asked.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the doctor said, stretching his smile. ‘But he’s not a young man. Best to check nothing’s broken.’

  The doctor left. Clement put his arms around his mother, who had started to weep.

  ‘You heard, Ma. The X-ray’s just a precaution. He’ll outlive us all.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. I keep thinking of Mark. I don’t know why.’

  Clement looked at Susannah who stared at the floor. ‘Of course.’

  He was filled with remorse. Everything that had happened was the result of his intransigence: his insistence on his absolute right to self-expression; his refusal to admit that his belief in freedom might be just as doctrinaire as his enemies’ belief in constraint. His spirits rallied slightly when his father returned from his X-rays, unaided if unsteady, showing no more sign of his ordeal than the two l
arge lint bandages on his head. He told his parents that he and Mike would drive them back to Beckley.

  ‘What about Karen?’ his father asked.

  ‘She and Frank can take the train,’ his mother replied, brooking no argument.

  Clement went up to the canteen to find Mike, who was sitting alone with Carla. He relayed the good news about his father and was surprised by their muted response. Rather than heading straight to Casualty, Mike pulled back a chair and told him to sit down. ‘You may as well hear it now as later.’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘I picked up our messages to see if there was anything from Rafik.’

  ‘And there was?’ For the first time since the attack, he felt a ray of hope.

  ‘No, but there was one from the lawyer.’

  ‘Shortt?’

  ‘That’s right. When Rafik signed on this morning, he was detained. Without a word of warning they told him they were deporting him to Algeria tonight.’

  ‘But that’s illegal!’

  ‘No, he is. Shortt said it’s their new tactic. Snap expulsions. Lower figures and less fuss.’

  ‘It’s barbaric!’

  ‘They packed him straight off to Heathrow, with no chance to fetch his clothes or anything. They only allowed him one phone call and since he knew we were here, he phoned Shortt, who said that he’d left a special message for you.’

  ‘What? “Fuck you”?’

  ‘No. “Thank you.”’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘What for? Knowing better than everyone else and telling him to stick within the law? Getting him sent back home to die?’

  ‘Things change,’ Carla said. ‘He may be lucky.’

  ‘You think so? Well he deserves some luck after meeting me. One of the placards back there read God is not mocked. Maybe not. But He certainly has a wicked sense of irony.’

  2

  SUSANNAH