Sucking Sherbert Lemons

by Michael Carson

  Joachim had to pull himself out of heaven and into hell. This was prompted by a question from St Joachim: “Whatever happened to that big lad, Bruno?” The question forced Joachim out of heaven straight away. Yes, what had happened to Bruno?

  He approached the great black door that led to hell. He took hold of the latch. It was searingly hot to the touch. Joachim tugged and the door slowly opened. It was like standing too close to the fire in the lounge but, worse than the heat, were the cries emanating from the wrecked, wretched, souls at the bottom of the steps.

  A devil with horns, a snake’s tongue, a dragon’s tail and a fork in his hand asked him what he wanted. Joachim said, “I am saved. You can’t touch me. My soul is without spot. I call your attention to the notice on my back which says SAINT, in case you cannot read. I’ve just come here for a look around.” The devil raised his arms high and shook. He cowered back from Joachim’s washday-white soul and retreated into the sulphurous murk. Joachim, his courage repaired after the pleasing confrontation with the creature of Satan, started to walk down the hot steps into Hell. A blast of cool greensward air surrounded him. He passed lost souls by the hundred, all going through the most dreadful tortures being administered by a willing staff of devilish torturers. He spotted Diana Dors. “Novvy said you would end up here for exciting men’s passions!” Joachim told her. She screamed at him but Joachim was moved to compassion and breathed cool air on her. “God bless you!” exclaimed Diana Dors. He passed Alma Cogan too. She said nothing but Joachim gave her some of his cool air as well. “I wish I hadn’t sung all those immoral songs!” she told him. “I bet you do!’ replied Joachim. And he moved on.

  “You don’t happen to have someone here called Bruno Tencer, do you?” Joachim asked a devil.

  “Bruno Tencer! We certainly do! Come and behold!”

  The devil led Joachim along miles of subterranean passages. They passed Nikita Khrushchev drinking molten steel from a ladle. He was saying that he did what he did for the People but his torturer just said, “Yes. Yes. Drink!” At last they came to a place that was almost too hot for Joachim’s air conditioning to deal with. And there was Bruno. A devil kept applying a red-hot branding iron to Bruno’s private parts and Bruno screamed.

  “I’m sorry!” said Joachim to Bruno.

  “You’re sorry!” answered Bruno. “It all your fault!”

  “Now that’s not strictly true, Bruno. You did have free will! You didn’t have to continue along the path to perdition. You don’t get sent here by accident, you know!”

  “Yes, but it was you got me started! I was never the same after the Rude Club. I became a slave to my passions and couldn’t stop. I didn’t have your advantages!”

  That seemed reasonable enough. “That’s true,” opined Joachim. “Still, it was not easy for me to conquer my passions, you know. If I, a weak vessel if ever there was one, can do it, then you could have done it too.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” replied Bruno, rubbing himself where the devil had been branding him. “But look, you couldn’t put in a word for me with God, could you?”

  “I’m afraid not. You know that hell is final. If you were in purgatory I could, perhaps, do something for you. I could earn a Plenary Indulgence for you and you’d be OK. But now you’re in hell and hell is for all eternity. For ever and ever and ever and ever.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Joachim recalled how he had explained eternity to the Shona tribe. “Well, let me put it this way: imagine a desert place. It is as flat as a pancake. To this desert place, once every one hundred billion years, a bird brings a tiny grain of sand. In the time it takes for that bird to bring enough grains of sand to build a billion billion Mount Everests ... that is one second of eternity. Do you get my drift?”

  Bruno’s chin began to quiver. “But that’s a dreadfully long time!”

  He started to cry. Bruno’s devil said to Joachim, “Well I think it is a bit much myself.”

  “How dare you!” exclaimed Joachim.

  “I dare because I have nothing to lose. If you ask me, it seems unreasonable to condemn a fellow to hell forever. I mean, God is Infinite Justice, I’ll grant you that. What I want to know is: where does His Infinite Justice end and His Infinite Love begin? Bruno here isn’t a bad sort of chap and yet here he is condemned to torture for ever and ever and ever. Just doesn’t seem fair. I mean he wasn’t a Hitler or anything. He just liked to play about with blokes from time to time. He was married and had kids, did you know that? Was a wonderful father by all accounts. Yet here he is. Doesn’t seem right.”

  Joachim decided to ignore the devil. He turned his attention back to Bruno. “Look, Bruno, nobody could be more sorry than I that you have ended up in the everlasting bonfire. If there was anything I could do to alleviate your sufferings, believe me, I would do it. But...”

  “I don’t believe you!” shouted Bruno. “Tell that to Eric! He’s having a worse time than me!”

  Joachim was startled. “Eric! He isn’t here too, is he?”

  “Yes, he is!”

  “Why?”

  “Eric,” spat back Bruno, “was worse than I ever was! At least I got married and had children! Eric started wearing ladies’ dresses and using Max Factor. He was the first Methodist to have a sex change. He married a Russian wrestler and died in a toilet!”

  “No!” exclaimed Joachim. “Say it isn’t true!”

  “It’s as true as I’m standing here. His sister, Rosemary, told me. Yes, she’s here too. She got killed while riding her bicycle without lights.”

  “Well that doesn’t surprise me. But Eric! I must see him.”

  “I’m sure he’ll enjoy that!” scoffed Bruno.

  Joachim left Bruno. He had been about to say: “I’ll pray for you,” but didn’t. There seemed little point.

  Down endless festering passages Joachim walked with his accompanying devil. They passed Hitler being dismembered and put together again and dismembered again.

  “Well, what can you expect?” Joachim told him.

  At last, around a corner, quite suddenly, Joachim found himself face to face with Eric.

  He was as small as he had always been and he was whimpering like a baby as his devil hammered nails into his ears, into his skull, into his legs, into his chest.

  “Stop it!” cried Joachim.

  “All right. But just for a while,” said the devil.

  Eric continued to whimper.

  “Is that you, Eric? It’s me, Joachim.”

  “Get them to stop! Please get them to stop!” pleaded Eric.

  “I can’t get them to stop, Eric. You are in hell, Eric. You must realise what that means?”

  “I do! Oh, I do! But please! Enough is enough! Make them stop! It wasn’t my fault! I couldn’t help it! After the Rude Club I was never the same. I tried to be good, I really did. But it was too strong for me to resist. I started listening to Alma Cogan records and watching Robert Mitchum films. I got excited by John Wayne in ‘The Quiet Man’. The bit where his shirt gets all wet in the rain. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind! I wanted to be Maureen O’Hara so much! I got dressed up in the winter curtains in summer and the summer curtains in winter and paraded myself in front of the mirror. I didn’t know it would lead here. I didn’t know. The Minister never told me it was like this. I thought I’d be given a ticking off and that would be that. Please, go back to heaven and tell them I didn’t know!”

  Joachim sighed. “Well you know I would if I could but, as you see, the Catholic Church was right all along and you Methodists were wrong all along. Of course, being as I am a Saint, I do feel compassion for you, Eric. I always knew you were a weak vessel. I never dreamed you would end up here! Believe me, if it was in my power to help, there is nothing I would rather do. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  Eric became angry. “No, I don’t believe you! You Catholics
are all the same! You don’t care what happens to us poor Protestants.”

  Joachim shrugged and said to his devil: “I do not think there is anything further to be gained. I will return to heaven now, thank you.”

  He walked back along the endless passages of hell with Eric’s screams echoing in his head. But what could he do? That was how it was.

  That was enough of the Four Last Things, Joachim told himself.

  His cell consisted of a curtained-off section of a large room. He shared it with three other novices: Henry, Aiden and Egbert. Joachim’s cell had a window set into the foot-thick walls of the monastery. The window was slim and tall, ending in a Gothic arch. He looked through the window and tried to count the stars outside in the moonless sky. He failed in his attempt and remained as wide awake as before.

  From Brother Aiden’s cell he heard the sound of scratching. Poor Brother Aiden was a martyr to eczema, and nightly scratched it in his sleep. At first Joachim had thought that Aiden was giving way to taking pleasure in the irregular motions of the flesh. He had been greatly relieved to learn that such was not the case and that Aiden was simply an eczema sufferer.

  But what about Bruno and Eric? Devoutly Joachim prayed that his meditation had not been prophetic. He decided that his meditation had been a sign. He got up out of bed and knelt down next to it on the hard wooden floor. He raised his arms, cruciform, level with his shoulders and began to pray at the piece of heaven visible through the window of his cell.

  Then, with an ache spreading though his arms, he stayed mute, looking at the stars. He remained thus until he could stand the pain no longer. Stiffly, he got up and went back to bed.

  But still sleep would not come and he did not know what to do. After some time he heard footsteps coming towards the room along the long corridor. They were Novvy’s footsteps. Perhaps he was checking that everyone was asleep. Joachim turned over.

  The footsteps got louder. Novvy came into the room and pulled aside the curtain of Brother Aiden’s cell. Joachim heard, “Wake up! It’s time to go!” Then the footsteps retreated and all he could hear were the sounds of Brother Aiden moving about. These went on for a long time and then he heard Aiden’s footsteps disappearing down the corridor.

  Silence returned and Joachim wondered what it could all mean. He did not get up to find out. At last he fell asleep. He dreamed of Bruno at the back of the Prom and woke up sticky and ashamed.

  Brother Aiden’s cell was stripped bare. His statue of the Little Flower was gone, the bedclothes had been piled up on top of the bed. Brother Aiden had left the Novitiate!

  *

  “Many are called but few are chosen!” whispered Brother

  Henry as he wiped the dishes that Joachim washed.

  “Yes, but I never expected Brother Aiden would go.”

  “Didn’t you?” asked Henry knowingly.

  “No, I didn’t. He’s the last one I would have expected. Look at his devotion to the Little Flower.”

  “Well, if you ask me, he was a little too devoted to the Little Flower. Don’t forget, Brother Joachim! Our God is a jealous God,” replied Henry.

  Joachim was not convinced but decided not to continue the conversation, which was, anyway, strictly against the Rule.

  That morning Novvy, sensing the unease at the unexpected departure of Brother Aiden, did not conduct a class. Instead the novices were treated to a recording of the ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’. The music worked its magic on Joachim. It emptied his brain of distracting thought as nothing else could and transported him back to his heavenly cloud, swooping and passing streams of wonderful ice-cold dandelion and burdock. He knew that this would be the music of heaven. He would sit on his cloud with a Black Box playing ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ at full volume. Who could want for anything more?

  When the music had finished, Novvy sat down at his desk and said, “You will have noticed that Brother Aiden is no longer with us. He has decided that he does not have a vocation to he a Brother. Now many of you may feel that it is sad that he must leave us without our saying ‘Farewell and God speed’ to him. But that is how it must be. That is what is required by the Rules of the Canonical Novitiate. I myself wish it were not so. But there you are. You can best express your feelings for Brother Aiden by praying for him. He may have lost his vocation to be a Brother but this does not mean that he has lost his vocation to be a good Catholic. So, Brothers, pray that Aiden may find happiness and the love of the Lord out in the world. Now get changed for Manual. All for Jesus!”

  “Now and Forever!” answered the nine novices.

  Brother Michael had been watching from his office window for the approach of Joachim. His work on St Finbar’s accounts was a trial to him and he looked for any form of diversion. Joachim would do. Would do nicely.

  He scowled down at the bread bill and wondered how the novices could manage to eat so much. “We’ll be in the poorhouse if this goes on,” he told himself. “Still, that’s not my worry.”

  Brother Luke passed the window and gave Michael a cheery wave but he was gone before Michael could return it. He was left looking at the hand he had been about to wave, now poised in front of his eyes. What had happened to that hand? It was blotchy and gnarled, the blue veins mushy and meandering all over it. He could even see veins on his fingers and count the weak pulse on his wrist.

  With the hand he tried to wave away the thought. So he was old. Wasn’t that what the Brothers prayed for? To grow old in Grace and to die and start on Real Life. Life here below was a cruel exile from all that was wonderful, was it not? He had entered the monastery over fifty years ago believing that. Why then did he feel so let down?

  The young novices moved him in a way he did not understand. In scary ways, in ways that made him want to weep. He was moved by them as he was moved by the sight of Brother Luke’s bullocks being taken off to the slaughterhouse in the wagon. The novices, like them, were trusting and young and ... and ...

  He pushed the last thought away with his old hand. It was a sin to entertain such a thought. Worse, the thought made nonsense of his whole life. He pushed the thought out of his brain again, and straight away it was back and articulated: they, like he had been, were about to start living a lie. There was no God. He knew it as sure as he knew that the livestock would end up as bleeding carcasses in the butcher’s shop.

  So why had he become a Brother? It was expected. He had been a younger son. The farm went to the eldest. Big sister Maureen had gone off like a lamb to the Carmelites and had only ever been seen through a grille mouthing clichés which always began “Please God” or “Thank God”.

  His brother, Liam, had gone off to be a priest. It was not thought that Michael had had the ability for that. The Brothers were the logical alternative.

  He had been proud to go away. His parents had been as pleased as Punch! Three children given to God. It was cast-iron insurance for them. Heaven was theirs for their sacrifice. And much admiration while they lived from the other villagers.

  He looked out of the window and saw Joachim wheeling his barrow towards the Chapel garden. He knew nothing about the lad but knew that, if that lad were going to follow him down the desert track of his life, he would at least do it with his eyes open.

  Brother Michael slammed the accounts ledger shut and left the office in search of converts.

  Joachim was not surprised when Brother Michael appeared above him on the balustrade. He had been expecting him and had worked out what he would say. But Michael spoilt his plans by saying, “Now before you get all hoitytoity, Brother Joachim, let me tell you that I have your best interests at heart.”

  Joachim did not know what to say. Michael jumped into the gap.

  “I was once your age,” he said. He looked to right and left, then continued. “I was once a lad like you with my whole life before me. Look at me now, Brother. Look at me now!”
>
  Joachim looked. In truth, Brother Michael was not a pretty sight, with his wispy white hair blown awry by the wind and his nervous face twitching above a slack neck just like Mrs Brown’s.

  But, Joachim thought, it was uncharitable to go on appearances. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with you, Brother.”

  “There is a lot wrong with me, Brother. A lot wrong. You don’t know the half.”

  “How do you mean?”

  But Michael was growing agitated. “I’m coming down into the garden. I can’t stand here. Someone might see.”

  He disappeared as Joachim was about to shout, “No, don’t! The Rule!”

  In the time it took Brother Michael to climb down to the garden, Joachim had set about weeding and had come to the conclusion that he must just ignore Brother Michael when he arrived.

  “Well, here I am. If anybody comes I’m giving you advice on the garden. Is that clear?”

  Joachim said nothing.

  “Is that clear?” Michael repeated, hissing.

  “Yes,” Joachim replied between clenched teeth.

  “You can go on with your work while I talk to you. You don’t have to say anything either. Just listen. It’s no sin to listen.”

  Joachim felt he could have started an argument about that but he did as he was told and started turning over the soil with his mattock.

  Brother Michael began speaking, and, as he spoke, he mimed giving directions to Joachim about how the garden should look. His arm repeatedly pointed out the flower beds and mimed the correct way to wield a mattock. It even described the growth of dahlias. And all the time, his words belied his actions. “Brother, in the Catholic Church, when they want to make somebody a saint, they choose a man to argue against making that person a saint. He’s called the Devil’s Advocate. Well, that is my role at St Finbar’s. It is my job to question the novices about their vocations. So: I think you should leave St Finbar’s and go back to the world. You have the whole of your young life ahead of you and it would be a crying shame to waste it. There is no God, Brother. There is nobody up there in the sky counting up your good deeds and your bad deeds. There is no hell and there is no heaven. So, you see, young fellow-me-lad, there is absolutely no point in your staying on here. Take it from one who knows, it will wreck you. Better lads than you have been drowned while trying to dive down deep for the Pearl which may or may not lie inside the encrusted shell of Catholicism! Brother Joachim, there is no God. There is no Mary. There is no Little Flower.”