The ruins of the original manor house lay some hundred yards from the new one, to the south-west. It had been destroyed by fire but its wild, picturesque walls and arches had been cleverly incorporated into the new layout of the place to form a folly on the far edge of the gardens. And the gardens were the real crowning glory of St Finbar’s.
Brother Joachim walked halfway round the cloister, passing the second seven Stations of the Cross. He allowed himself to look at the white stone plaques depicting the Passion of Christ. They had been donated to the monastery by a devout local Catholic and hung around three sides of the cloister. It had been said that the donor had had his own features carved on Simon of Cyrene and that of his mother on St Veronica. Brother Joachim was not sure if that had been a good idea or not. However, it did seem to him to be a small price to pay for a complete set of Stations of the Cross.
It was his ‘charge’ to keep the Brothers’ Feast Day Parlour clean and polished. He also had to sweep the side of the cloister off which the Parlour and the Novices’ Room were located. The cloister took little time. The darkness hid dust and did not reveal cleanliness. The Feast Day Parlour was another matter entirely, however. It was acknowledged by all the novices at St Finbar’s to be the most demanding and frustrating household charge given to the novices.
He opened the heavy door of the Feast Day Parlour and sighed. The smell of polish fumed up at him and he could take no delight, as he had at first done, in the spectacular views over the Italianate gardens to the artificial lake on the far side of the carved balustrade. Nor did the elaborate stucco-work of the room please him. The Greek Keys and cherubs, once objects of awe to him, were now dust-traps which he had to tickle each week with a feather duster borrowed from Brother Cuthbert, the kitchen supervisor. This he would lash to a long piece of garden cane and offer up to the stucco, like a soldier offering comfort on the point of his spear.
He shivered. Though only late October, the weather had turned cold and the wind was blowing frigid air into the stone of St Finbar’s, where it whistled and sighed and settled in for the winter. He wished himself back in the hot and humid kitchen trying to be decent to Brother Henry. Then he changed his mind and wished himself at home in front of the fire with Mum watching ‘Take Your Pick’. But he pushed the last temptation away. “You will not give up! This is your only chance!” he told himself. He set about collecting his cleaning materials together.
The trouble with the Feast Day Parlour was that it never repaid the labour spent on it by smiling a clean smile. Like a spoilt princess, it had been polished and primed and fussed over so much that it took all further ministrations dourly, and pouted. For example, the floors had been so frequently waxed for so many years by so many Brothers, all out for jewels in spiritual crowns, that the polish polished polish. Once finished the floor only deigned to shine if not walked on. Every step left telltale footprints which would only disappear when given another fix of polish.
Brother Joachim had come to dread Feast Days because then the Brothers would tread all over the floor leaving it ravaged with sticky ground-in dust which was nearly impossible to get off.
He set about his work with a will, however. He must not expect satisfaction in this life, he told himself. Those who did would get little in the life to come. He offered up his frustrations for the Holy Souls and the heathens.
When the bell went for the end of the Great Silence, he was putting away the cleaning equipment. Straight away he set off for the Novices’ Room for the first session of the day with Brother Edward, the Novice Master, known to all the Brothers as Novvy.
All the ten novices were seated when Brother Edward entered.
“All for Jesus!” said Brother Edward.
“Now and Forever!” responded the novices.
“Now before we get down to business, I have a couple of matters to draw to the attention of certain of the Brothers.”
Brother Joachim stiffened at once. He could have been back in the Hall at St Bede’s with Brother Hooper about to deal a blow to some erring unfortunate. But then he looked up at Novvy sitting at his table facing the novices, and his apprehension disappeared. In his two months as a novice he had grown to like and respect the tiny bespectacled Brother who had sole charge of the novices during the year of the Canonical Novitiate. He could be hard but he was always fair and the twinkle in his eyes, amplified by a pair of half-moon, National Health glasses, was never absent. Brother Joachim’s initial fear was just a knee-jerk reaction. He would get over it with effort.
“Brother Henry,” continued Novvy.
Brother Henry stood up. He sat in the front of the room in the row next to the window, just in front of Brother Egbert, who was very brainy.
“Brother Henry, would you like to tell your fellow novices what you are wearing?”
Brother Ninian, seated immediately behind Brother Joachim, giggled. All turned to smile at him. Brother Ninian was permitted giggles which in other novices would have received reprimands, because he had been nominated as the novice with the childlike heart, was headed in future life straight towards the kitchens rather than the classroom, and was thereby judged by different criteria.
“Thank you, Brother Ninian. Now I thought I had asked you to try and deal with that levity to which you are prey,” smiled Novvy.
“Yes, I’m sorry, Brother Edward. I keep forgetting.”
Novvy turned his attention to Brother Henry. “What are you wearing, Brother?”
Brother Henry looked down and around himself to see if there was something wrong. Then he looked back at Novvy but said nothing.
Novvy asked him again.
“Er, I’m wearing a cassock, black shoes and socks, a stock, a collar, a belt... “
“And what are you wearing under that?”
Brother Henry reddened. He stammered, “Vest. Underpants.” He ran out of items, and was then inspired. “A crucifix on a cord.”
“And that is all?”
“I think so,” replied Brother Henry, hanging his head and reddening again.
“Well, the little bird must have been wrong then. The little bird told me you were wearing something else. But if you aren’t, you may be seated, Brother.”
Brother Henry sat down slowly, but only for a moment. After a couple of seconds he bounced up again and shouted, “I confess!”
Novvy regarded the flushed novice with a mixture of sorrow and disbelief. “Oh, I see. You are wearing something else. Perhaps you would like to tell us what else you are wearing.”
Brother Henry closed his eyes, raised his head high as if standing before a firing squad waiting for the bang. After a long moment his contorted mouth spat out the words, “A chain, Brother.”
Novvy did not seem distressed at the news. “Where is this chain, Brother Henry?”
“Around my waist,” replied Brother Henry, Brother Joachim thought, at his theatrical best.
“Why?”
“I thought it would help me.”
“How did you think it would help you?”
“To mortify my flesh. If I don’t mortify my flesh it will mortify me.”
“Well I suppose you’ve got a point there, Brother. But isn’t the chain rather tight?”
“Yes, Brother.”
“And doesn’t it hurt?”
“Yes.”
Novvy said in a rather tired voice, “Go and take it off and bring it to me please, Brother.”
Brother Henry left the room abjectly. He returned carrying a heavy piece of chain which he gave to Novvy.
“It’s still warm,” observed Novvy, gesturing Brother Henry to sit down. “Now, Brothers, there you have an example of extremism,” said Novvy, “and extremism is a great enemy to the Spiritual Life. I do realise that all you novices are of an impressionable age and get strange ideas about things. I know exactly where Brother Henry got his hare-brained idea for
the chain. It was Matt Talbot, wasn’t it, Brother?”
Brother Henry nodded. Brother Joachim remembered Matt Talbot. He was a Dublin docker who had died in the odour of sanctity and had performed many penances on himself. He had tied a chain round his waist too. The only difference between Matt Talbot’s chain and Brother Henry’s was that Matt Talbot’s had been revealed only after death and had been found to have buried itself beneath his flesh, so tightly did it contain his passions.
Novvy continued, “All of you novices are starting out on a long spiritual journey. The journey is not full of drama and events of the kind you read about in The Lives of the Saints. You make a grievous error if you think it is. In the world people go to the pictures and have their heads filled with false ideas about life. They see Robert Mitchum driving round in a big car and they want one too. That is the way of the world. Envy abounds out there. But here in the monastery we must face other dangers, different, but no less damaging. The Devil is a subtle creature, perhaps the best wrought of all the Lord’s creations. If he can’t reach your soul in one way he’ll reach it in another. Chains and whips and freezing showers, I believe, are the Devil’s tools. You want to make the grand, dramatic gesture when a simple one will do.”
Novvy then turned his attention back to Brother Henry. “For example, at breakfast today, Brother Henry, I could not help but notice how thickly you were spreading butter on your bread and then you added insult to injury by piling heaps of jam on top. In my view, you would have been better off cutting down on that. Better than any chain. Am I not right, Brother?”
“Yes, Brother,” replied Brother Henry.
“Good. Remember that chains are for locking doors. Make sure you’re on the right side of that door, Brother.”
The novices laughed then.
“Open your Rule Books,” commanded Novvy. The laughter ceased.
Each novice kissed his green copy of the Brothers’ Rule Book and opened it at the appropriate page.
Novvy read, “Particular friendships between the Brothers are to be discouraged because they tend to erode the spirit of Universal Brotherly Love which should prevail in all the communities of the Order.”
Then, as always, each novice read the Rule in turn.
“To be honest with you, Brothers,” Novvy began, “I never like dealing with this item in the Rule.” He looked out over the group. The Novices looked everywhere but back at Novvy, because they knew exactly what he meant.
“Brother Joachim, what’s a PF?”
Brother Joachim flushed crimson with guilt at once. “A Particular Friend, Brother.”
“Have you got a particular friend, Brother?”
The class laughed. It was well known to all that Brother Joachim and Brother Ninian were inseparable.
“I, er, well I... “ replied Brother Joachim tentatively.
Novvy smiled and looked down at the Rule while the rest of the Novices continued to giggle. Then he looked up and asked, “Brother Ninian, do you have a PF?”
“Yes, Brother.”
“May I ask you who it is?”
“Brother Joachim, Brother.”
“I see.” Novvy turned his attention back to Brother Joachim: “Did you hear that, Brother? Would you like to tell us if Brother Ninian’s feelings are reciprocated?”
Brother Joachim at that moment felt that Brother Ninian was very far from being his PF. But he could imagine Ninian’s open face smiling without guile behind him. And that face, and the simple, decent fellow who inhabited it, melted him at once.
“Yes, Brother.”
“Good. Well done! Honesty puts the Devil to flight.”
Novvy looked down at the Rule and read it yet again. Then he asked all the other novices about their particular friendships.
It emerged that Brother Xavier’s PF was Brother Anselm and vice versa; Brother Alban, a gangling lad from Newcastle, liked Brother Ralph best. Brother Ralph, however, insisted that he did not have a PF, to the great discomfiture of Brother Alban. Brother Aiden’s was Brother Bosco, and Brother Bosco, who stuttered, stuttered that Brother Aiden was his. Brother Egbert denied repeatedly that he had a PF and was repeatedly believed.
Only Brother Henry remained. He thought for a long moment, then answered, “My Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!”
“Very creditable, Brother,” said Novvy quietly but with a steely edge in his voice. “That is what you are here for, to make Jesus your special friend. But I don’t believe the Rule is concerned with your particular friendship with Jesus. No special favourites among the novices?”
“No, Brother.”
“You are sure?”
“Well maybe Brother Joachim, Brother.”
“Goodness gracious me!” exclaimed Novvy. “Things are getting complicated!”
Brother Ninian dug Brother Joachim in the back but he did not respond.
“Well perhaps we have an example here of what the Rule is about. Although our Order is a mere four hundred years old, we have inherited the Rule from the Fathers of the Church, from Benedict, Dominic, Francis and Ignatius. There is much tried and tested wisdom in it, Brothers. Now it is natural that you should like some people more than others, but if that liking is too strong, it takes away from the love you owe all your Brothers and may interfere with your quest, which is and must always be, to become one with Christ. I think that is what the Rule is talking about.”
Novvy strode over to the window, where he stood looking out over the garden and the lake. “Well, Brothers, it’s cold out there, but it isn’t raining. I think you should walk around the grounds for a while and meditate on the Rule we’ve looked at today. When I ring the bell come back here. All for Jesus!”
“Now and Forever!” responded the novices. They got up and filed out.
“Oh, gosh!” meditated Brother Joachim. “What did Henry have to go and say that for?”
He was walking up and down in front of the east door of St Finbar’s. He glanced up to look at Henry VIII glaring down from the tower. It did not seem right that the licentious monarch who caused England to lapse from the True Faith should be allowed to occupy such an exalted place in the monastery. Had not God shown what He had thought of Henry VIII by making his dead body leak out of the coffin? Brother O’Toole had said that they had to keep putting new coffins around the body until the dead king was encased in one of lead. But even then, Brother O’Toole had asserted, a terrible stench of putrefaction had pervaded the air – the very opposite of the odour of sanctity. God was telling all the benighted English Protestants what He thought of the Reformation! But they, being the ancestors of the Black and Tans, took not a blind bit of notice!
Indeed, there were moves afoot to have the statue torn down and one of Our Lady of Lourdes put up there instead. Expense was holding back this pious plan, however. Henry was in a difficult position. Hard to get at without cranes, scaffolding and much labour.
On each side of the Gothic arch over the main entrance door, gargoyles had been carved. The left one showed a knight in a Norman helmet, a sword in his hand crossed by part of a right arm over his face and ready to strike out at the other gargoyle. This had been carved into a hapless Thomas Becket, who cowered away from the stroke which was endlessly on the point of being administered.
Brother Joachim, who habitually chose this place for his meditations, often wanted to take an axe to the gargoyles. It did not seem fair to show Thomas Becket shrinking away from the blow of martyrdom. Martyrs did not shrink. They stood up straight like the soldier in ‘Faithful Unto Death’, and rolled their eyes heavenwards.
He pulled his mind back to the matter in hand. “What am I doing with two PFs? Brother Henry only said that to get me into trouble and slander my name before men. No he didn’t. Forgive me, Lord. I am unworthy.” He switched his attention to thoughts of Brother Ninian.
Their friendship had begun the year previousl
y in the boarding-school atmosphere of the Juniorate. There the emphasis had been not so much on spiritual matters as on getting everyone through O level examinations and physically fit through daily doses of rugby and cross-country running.
Both Ninian and Benson had bed-wetting in common and had come together because the housekeeping Brother had made them wash out their sheets after breakfast each morning.
Had it not been for Ninian, Joachim did not think he would have made it through the first year away from home. He had been desperately unhappy at first.
The fat had quickly dropped off him under pressure from the daily sessions of hard physical effort. That was fine. But the struggle to conquer lapses against Holy Purity met with little success and he often found himself in the morning line for Confession waiting to stammer out his sin of the night before to a Franciscan priest who came in to say Mass each morning. The priest had told him more than once that if he could not control his sexual urges then a life of chastity in the monastery was, perhaps, not for him. Maybe the Lord was telling him that a married life was what He wanted from him.
But if those sins did indeed convey any heavenly hints, they did not nudge Benson towards matrimony but rather to deserted places where men in macs devoured his virtue and where hope died. Surely that could not be the fate to which the Lord was calling him? It was too horrible to contemplate.
Of course, he could never bring himself to tell the priest that. Each time he left the confessional he resolved to reform, but each time he fell and was back, shamefaced, in the line before too many mornings had passed.
But Brother Joachim, a year later, was happier than he had been for some time. He had passed five subjects at O level; he had lost his fat and could run for miles without tiring, and, best of all, since starting at St Finbar’s, he had not given way to one single sin against Holy Purity.
Sucking Sherbert Lemons Page 12
