Shrine

by Herbert, James

  There was an astonished silence in the car for a few moments. Then he said disbelievingly, ‘You want the supermarket.’

  She turned her head away.

  ‘You want the bloody supermarket?’ His voice had risen several octaves. ‘You’re fucking mad!’

  ‘I don’t want all of it, just part. I want to be a partner.’ Her voice had sunk several octaves.

  Tucker was just as incredulous. ‘And how d’you suppose I’d explain that away to Marcia?’

  ‘You could tell her you need a partner for business.’

  ‘Need a partner? You? You must be fucking joking!’ He tried to laugh, but it came out as a dry, rasping sound in his throat. ‘You’re a good screw, Paula, and not bad with figures and ordering stock. But running a business – actually running a business – and being a partner? I love your snatch, darling, but I don’t worship it. You can take a running fucking jump!’

  She was on him, scratching, clawing, punching, grabbing his hair, spitting on him, screaming at him. Tucker tried to grab her wrists, but her arms flailed at him viciously, hysterically.

  ‘Paula!’

  The car was rocking with her strength.

  ‘Paula!’

  ‘I’ll tell her, you bastard! I’ll tell her everything! You’re not treating me like a piece of dirt! She’s going to know everything, you bastard!’

  ‘Paula!’

  His hands found her throat and the fit was snug, pleasing. He squeezed.

  ‘You bastard, I’m going to—’

  Oh, that was good! That was keeping her quiet! Her neck was soft, mushy. He could feel the beginnings of an erection. Yes, that was good!

  ‘You . . . you . . .’

  It was dark, but he could see the whiteness of her eyes, and he could smell her fear. Try to blackmail him, would she? Thought I was that stupid, did she? Stupid of her, fat slug of a cow! Muscles in her neck were trying to resist the pressure and that felt good too; he wanted it to take time.

  Her hands were on his chest, squeezing the fat there, and even that wasn’t unpleasant. In fact it was rather nice.

  He could see her tongue beginning to protrude from the whiteness of her face, like a beak hatching from an eggshell. Now a funny sound was coming from her, a whining, gurgling noise. That’s better, you bitch, that’s better than all those nasty, blackmailing words. That was a much sweeter sound. He increased the pressure. Funny how small a neck can become when you squeeze hard enough. Probably one hand could go round it at the death . . .

  . . . at the death . . .

  Oh my God, what am I doing?

  ‘Paula!’

  He released her throat and she fell away like a rag doll.

  ‘Paula, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .’

  Her eyes were staring at him and there were still gurgling noises coming from her.

  He leaned towards her. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

  She cried out, but the sound was still strange, as though still squeezed from a flattened aperture. He touched her arm and she flinched violently. What had he been trying to do, what had come over him?

  He tried to touch her again and this time she thrashed out wildly. Tucker jumped back, fingernails raking his cheek before he was out of reach. She was scrabbling around, searching for the door-lock. She found it, pushed the door open, the light exposing rounded buttocks as she tumbled from the car. She lay in the road, the squealing sounds still coming from her and he reached over the automatic column shift, his own eyes now wide with fear.

  ‘Paula!’ he said yet again.

  She was on her knees, tights torn by rough concrete. She staggered to her feet, was running, stumbling, gasping for breath.

  ‘Paula!’ he called after her. ‘Don’t tell anyone . . .’

  She was gone, swallowed by the night, and he sat there for a long time afterwards, door closed, in his own cocoon of darkness, wondering what had come over him, why he had tried to strangle her. It just wasn’t like him.

  Southworth closed the accounts book, a smile of satisfaction twisting his lips. He flexed his narrow shoulders and placed his elbows on the desk, steepled fingers resting against his chin. Then his smile broadened and he relaxed back into the chair.

  Everything was going well, marvellously well. Banfield had changed almost overnight, the merchants flushed with new trade as tourists poured in, the pubs and restaurants packed tight each day and night. And his hotel had been overbooked since the miracles had begun. Morale in the village was high, the excitement sending waves of adrenalin coursing through its inhabitants, bringing them alert again, the sluggish burden of decline thrown off. All this achieved in just under two months, an incredible escalation of events, miraculous in that context alone.

  In the coming months, when the clerics had stopped their predictable dithering and the shrine had become truly established, trade would increase tenfold, for pilgrims would journey from all over the world to see the scene of the Visitation. Southworth was already negotiating with the village’s only travel agent, a small concern whose revenue had been slowly sinking with the country’s economy, to form a new partnership. ‘St Joseph’s Tours’ was to be the title of their joint venture, Southworth himself supplying the capital (his credit was particularly good with the bank these days) to buy a fleet of coaches which would cover the British Isles, the agent’s connections abroad helping to form alliances with other, foreign, travel companies. Such a partnership, apart from the obvious financial gain in the tourist business itself, would prove extremely beneficial to his own hotel trade.

  Soon work would begin on a new hotel, one that was more modern, easier to run and geared for a fast turnover. There were other properties, also, that he secretly owned in Banfield, shops that he had acquired cheaply over the years when their owners had given up trying to make a decent living in the lacklustre village, bought by him under a company name, his solicitor handling all negotiations so that no one else knew who the true purchaser was, not even – especially not even – his fellow members of the parish council. The tenants he leased the properties out to would have something of a shock when their rents were doubled, probably trebled, within the next few months. They could hardly appeal, not with the way business would be booming, and if they refused to pay, well then, there would be plenty of others eager to move in. And their rents would be even higher.

  Southworth rose from the desk and walked to the drinks cabinet. He reached for the sherry bottle, then changed his mind and took out the brandy. The brandy glass chimed pleasantly as the bottle touched its lip. He sipped slowly, pleased with himself, pleased he had been the first to see the opportunity and seize upon it.

  Father Hagan had been a problem, the bishop much more susceptible to Southworth’s persuasion; but then Bishop Caines had his own private ambitions. Of course, Southworth regretted the priest’s untimely death, but it had meant the removal of what could have proved to be a minor stumbling block. Yet would he really have? Bishop Caines, a shrewd politician as well as a respected man of the cloth, would surely have stepped in and gently eased the doubting priest from the situation. In fact, in his many private discussions with Southworth, the bishop had hinted that Father Hagan might soon need a long rest, the fuss much too draining for a man of such ill-health. Monsignor Delgard, a priest who had much experience of what might be termed as ‘phenomena’, would have acted as both investigator and overseer. Southworth knew the bishop had no other choice but to send in a man with such unique qualifications and he wondered how skilfully he had balanced his briefing to Delgard. Scepticism well to the fore, no doubt, but with enough receptiveness for a message from God to keep Delgard’s mind open. And now nobody, nobody could deny the miracles.

  On Sunday, before thousands and thousands (eight to ten thousand, it had been estimated, had travelled to St Joseph’s, most of whom had not been able to get into the field for the service) more miracles had been performed. None could yet be confirmed, of course, for they could have just been temporary improvements, th
e sufferers deluded by their own hysteria: the boy whose condition was known as postence-phalitic dementia (brain damage caused by a virus infection) could just be experiencing a brief spell of normality; the young girl whose asthma was an almost constant companion and whose attacks could send her close to death, might find it returned within a week or two; the man whose multiple sclerosis confined him to a wheelchair might find that nerve tissues had not been impossibly regenerated and he would soon need his wheelchair again. There were others, many others, some trivial, some literally deadly serious, the victims claiming they ‘felt better’ or that they felt ‘uplifted’. There was one case, though, that was indisputable.

  A certain man had come alone to the field next to St Joseph’s, a man who, through shame, had kept his face hidden from the crowd. His lower jaw, lips and nose had been infested with open sores and scabs, much of the flesh eaten away. Lupus was the medical term for the condition; tuberculosis of the face. Standing below Alice, whose small body had risen into the air (there were those among the vast congregation who swore they had not seen her rise, but these were far away, some near the back, and their view would have been impaired), the man’s face had suddenly begun to blister, the scabs falling away and the sores closing upon themselves. His face had healed in full view of all those present, for he had turned to the crowd so that they could witness the miracle. By the end of the service (completed with such incredible emotion, the child taking her place back among the congregation, her face white, skin taut) the deep pits in the man’s flesh were being covered by rapidly-growing skin. The most cynical of men could not repudiate what had physically happened in front of thousands.

  Even Monsignor Delgard could not reject such an astounding thing.

  Southworth returned to his desk, taking the brandy with him. He sat, his mind alive with the new prospects that the Miracle Girl had opened up for him. That was his miracle: the revitalization of his own expectations. The Southworth name would not sink with Banfield into the mire of obscurity but, like the village, would again become a name to be noted, would enhance its centuries-old heritage. The village would grow, and he, his name, his wealth, would grow with it.

  He raised the glass to lips and wondered why an awful instinctive fear had begun to nag at these happy thoughts.

  The priest rose wearily from his kneeling position by the bed, his compline, the last prayer of the day, completed. His knee-joints cracked with the effort and he stretched his stiff back, feeling old, spent. He turned and sat on the edge of the bed, too tired for the moment to go through the before-bed toiletries. A hand that trembled slightly brushed against his forehead as if it could wipe away the weariness. There had not been many times in his life that he had felt this depleted; usually it had followed particularly wearing exorcisms – rare occasions but not as rare as some people might think – and times when he had witnessed the world at its most dreadful – Biafra, Bangladesh, Ethiopia. At the age of twenty-one he had helped in the aftermath of Nagasaki, and perhaps that was worst of all; the nuclear weapon exemplified man at his most potent and most loathsome. It was at those times that his spiritual being had sagged, then plummeted to despairing depths awash with hopelessness; but the human spirit had a buoyancy of its own. On each occasion, though, the upward journey took longer, the years and events making the burden more cumbersome. But why the spiritual fatigue now?

  Father Hagan had not needed to speak of it before he died; it was evident in his appearance, the weariness of his soul reflected in his lustreless eyes. Why was this depression hovering over the church, over the house? Why, when the sick were being miraculously cured, when a dramatic religious interest, perhaps even revival, was spreading throughout the country and, it was reported, throughout the world, was he so afraid? The Episcopal Council had convened that very day to question Alice further and the child had remained calmly resolute in her conviction that she had conversed with Mary. Why the miracles? they had asked. And why did the Mother of God choose to appear to her, a mere child? What had Alice done to receive such grace? And what was the purpose of the Visitations? Alice had just one answer to all the questions: the Lady would reveal the purpose in time; now was too soon to know.

  It was an unsatisfactory reply.

  The bishops had been divided, some believing the child really had received a divine vision, others claiming there was no evidence at all that the visions had been divine. It was still too early for the cures to be claimed miraculous and, as for the levitation, it was an illusion that could be seen in theatres all over the world. When it was argued that Alice could not possibly have used trickery in front of so many people and in such an open setting, it was counter-argued that Indian fakirs also performed such feats in similar circumstances with the use of mass hypnosis. To strengthen their claim, those churchmen who were ‘anti’, stressed that not everyone present had seen Alice levitate, and furthermore, not one television or still camera had recorded the phenomenon. It seemed their mechanisms had been mysteriously interfered with; only blank film had emerged. That in itself, those ‘pro’ claimed, was evidence of paranormal influences at work. Quite, the others scoffed, but that did not deem it holy. The debate had gone on late into the evening with no conclusions drawn. The bishops would reconvene tomorrow, in London, and the inquiry would continue until some kind of official proclamation could be given to an impatient world, although it would be a carefully-worded avoidance of any specific acknowledgement by the Church.

  Delgard was puzzled by the failure of the cameras and the lectern microphones, wondering if it was linked in some way with his own sapping of energy that Sunday. He had fallen to his knees with the weakness that had come over him and those in near proximity had done the same, although they might now claim they were merely paying homage. Could there be some strange parasitical force at work which drained energy from the body and power from man-made machinery? It didn’t seem possible; but then, neither had levitation nor miracle cures. Yet levitation and miracle cures were not unknown. The Catholic Church had its own levitators such as St Thomas Aquinas, St Teresa of Avila, St John of the Cross, and St Joseph of Cupertino, as well as many blessed with the miracle of stigmatism, the appearance of bleeding wounds on the hands, feet and side, resembling the wounds of Christ on the Cross. Some even bled from the head as if a crown of thorns had been placed there. And miracle cures had become almost religious lore. As well as that, perhaps the most stunning miracle of all had been at Fatima, in Portugal, when nearly seventy thousand onlookers had witnessed the sun spiral in the sky and descend towards the earth. Mass hallucination? Was that the explanation for Fatima and for what had happened in England on that Sunday? It was a logical man’s reasoning, a scientist’s smug answer. But even so, what had caused the hallucination? Alice was just a child.

  Delgard walked to the window and gazed out into the night sky. He could see the bright floodlight in the field beyond, accentuating the twisted form of the oak tree. Its visibility disturbed him; he would rather it were hidden by the darkness. Vandals – perhaps just worshippers who cherished what the tree represented, in the same way that the Church cherished the wood of the Cross – had begun to strip the bark, wanting the aged wood for souvenirs or their own personal sacred relic, and now the tree had to be guarded, the light itself acting as a deterrent. The tree dominated the field as it had never before.

  He drew the curtains together, the sight somehow distasteful to him; but when he was undressed and in bed, his eyes unable to close against the shadows around him, the light still glowed through the material, reminding him the tree was still there, a sinister sentinel. Waiting.

  Alice’s head twisted from side to side, slamming into the pillow with a force that would have stunned had it connected with anything solid. Her lips moved constantly and her pale body was damp with perspiration, even though the room was winter cold. The words she whispered, anguished, tormented, were said in a voice which scarcely resembled that of an eleven-year-old child.

  The bedclothes lay
loose and rumpled around her ankles, and her thin legs were stretched and trembling.

  ‘. . . aye good Thomas, fill me with thy seed . . .’

  Her pelvis jerked spasmodically, her cotton nightdress thrown high upon her chest.

  ‘. . . so dear in heart, of such good strength . . .’

  Her small chest sank and heaved with her dream.

  ‘. . . disperse thyself into me . . .’

  She moaned, a long, howling moan, but there was an ecstasy in the sigh that followed. For a moment, her body became still and her eyelids fluttered but did not open. She moaned again and this time the sound was languid.

  ‘. . . more filling than e’er it was . . .’

  The moaning became deep breaths of pleasure, sighs that exalted the joy to her senses. Something small and black moved against her white stomach.

  Outside, in the hallway leading to the nuns’ cells, a dark-clad figure stood listening, breath held, tensed fingers on the door handle.

  ‘. . . allay their tongues, my priest . . .’

  Alice’s eyes snapped open, but her body had not woken from the dream.

  ‘. . . cursed Mary . . . cursed MARY . . .’

  The nun’s eyes widened in shock, her grip tightening on the door handle.

  ‘. . . CURSED MARY . . .’

  Alice’s body stretched upwards, her heels and shoulders digging into the bed. The black creature on her stomach was almost dislodged and the girl cried out in pain as sharp needles pierced her tender flesh. But she did not wake.

  She fell back to the bed and lay still, no longer making any sound.

  The nun, Mother Marie-Claire, Reverend Mother of the convent, one hand unconsciously clutching the crucifix that lay against her chest, pushed the door open slowly, quietly, as if afraid for herself. The beam of light from the hallway broadened as the door opened wider, the nun’s shadow an elongated spectre on the room’s floor. Coldness flew out at her and it was unnatural, almost painful.