The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral

by Robert Westall

  But I knew it wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t true every time my claw-chisel chewed into the stone of the steeple. Those bloody masons down below seemed to have cut every new block just that little bit too big; less than an eighth of an inch. But that meant the block wouldn’t go in, unless I cut away a bit of the surrounding stonework. And every time I hit the stone, the chisel made its ringing noise; and in the ringing noise, I could hear the crying of children. But it was even more than that. The whole tower and spire seemed to be . . . thrumming . . . every time the wind hit it. I could feel the forces trapped inside the stone, wanting to break out. It was like working on the outside of some great atomic missile on its launching pad, sensing what was inside and what it could do.

  I kept on looking up at Billy; he looked quite normal, having a little smoke, waiting to help me on to the next bit. But he was smoking more than usual . . . more than the usual number of his fag-ends was sailing past my head.

  ‘They’re late,’ said Billy with satisfaction. ‘Them helicopters cost ten million quid, and they’re late.’

  ‘Nice day for it,’ I said, trying to keep calm, and not keep on swallowing, as I looked at the crowd below. The ring of spectators had grown to a hundred, two hundred deep, so that the sharp corners of the cathedral green were bending it out of shape. I could see choirboys in their red and white, caught up in fascination on their way back from sung daily evensong; a thin ring of policemen in pale blue shirts, trying to keep the crowd back; the flashes from cameras, like a slow silent distant blue bombardment. Even the mayor was there, his robes of honour like a splash of blood.

  ‘I wish to God they’d let us use the hoist,’ said Billy. ‘Wi’out all this fuss.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ I said. Using the hoist, we could’ve done the job in half an hour. A straight lift to the parapet (though the parapet hoist was playing up – gone very stiff, probably wi’ rust. I should have greased the pulleys, but I hadn’t got any grease handy.) Then up the spire by the spire hoist, with one of us steadying it from the ladders. The weather-vane was the awkward bit, with its six metal arms sticking out in all directions, up, down, north, south, east and west. It would have been a bugger to work through the top scaffolding, but we could have managed it, as we’d managed to get it down. (I shuddered, remembering its deadly journey down, when Billy had seen the first kid’s body.)

  Whereas working wi’ this flashy helicopter was going to be a right bastard. For there was always wind round the steeple; nasty spiteful little gusts that tried to tug you off, this way and that, coming from any direction without warning, even on the quietest day. A steeple is like a sword raised against the wind; it makes turbulence. All buildings do, even smooth simple modern ones; but the cathedral was a lot worse, with its spider-work of pinnacles and transepts and buttresses, it could twist the wind into any shape.

  And that without what was inside this particular steeple . . .

  ‘Look at them,’ said Billy. ‘Look at all them ghouls . . .’

  The cathedral green was full now; you couldn’t see the grass any more; it was covered with humans, crawling wi’ them, like a chucked-out chicken leg crawls wi’ flies.

  ‘I hope they get what they’ve come for,’ said Billy bitterly, and I found my stomach tightening. Then he cocked an ear and said, ‘Here it comes.’

  There was the slight faint blatting of a helicopter, and we heard a satisfied murmur rise from the crowd, like a sigh, so far below it was.

  The blatting grew louder, echoing around Cathedral Close’s tall buildings, so there seemed half a dozen helicopters not one.

  ‘Check my sling, Joe,’ said Billy nervously. I checked his safety-sling, the other end fastened to the scaffolding, and then he checked mine.

  The helicopter was coming in about a hundred feet above us, the gilded weather-vane dangling beneath it like a great obscene fish-hook, and the RAF bloke looking out of the big hatch in the side, judging the distance, telling the pilot what to do through his throat microphone. I took a look at the pilot; he looked a steady intent chap; I liked the careful way he watched what he was doing.

  Then the chopper was right overhead, and Billy’s mouth was opening and shutting and I couldn’t hear a word he was saying, for the noise of the chopper’s engine and blades. Every blat of it hit your ears like a fist, making you want to cower. I began to wish we’d used ear-plugs, but it was too late now. And the pressure from the rotor blades coming downwards, pushing you flat so you had to struggle to keep your balance. Never again, I told myself; then the weather-vane was on its way down to us, swinging like a pendulum, not far or fast, but I remembered the weight of it.

  Billy and I were just reaching up to steady it, and guide it into the socket on top of the steeple we’d got ready for it . . .

  When it happened.

  The weather-vane swung out away from us, dipped a few feet, swung back far too low, and caught under the scaffolding with a terrible clang. The scaffolding was hooked like a fish. And in a flash, the rising air had pushed the helicopter upwards again.

  The whole scaffold heaved up under us like the deck of a ship when a wave hits it. There was a terrible grating as it tried to break free of the steeple. We were thrown on our faces; without the safety-slings, we’d have gone clean over the edge of the planking.

  But it was worse for the helicopter. I think there should have been a safety cut-out on their lowering-hook. All I could tell people afterwards was that if there was it didn’t seem to work in time. The whole helicopter tilted; there was a screech of metal on metal as one of the rotor blades must’ve hit our scaffolding. Then it was falling away, leaving the weather-vane stuck with us. Still flying, but with the end snapped off one of its rotors. Flying as wild as a dragon-fly, flitting and twisting and turning over the upraised faces of the crowd, caught in the narrow, tall space of the cathedral green.

  All we could do was lie there and watch. All I can say is that, going on the way he fought to save it crashing on the crowd, that pilot must’ve been a hell of a good pilot and a very brave man.

  The crowd never moved; just a sea of faces staring up, paralysed at all that metal and aviation fuel hanging above them.

  It seemed to go on for ever, and then the chopper reached the edge of the crowd, tried to lift above the Bishop’s­ ­Palace and crashed into the roof, sending up a fountain of red roofing tiles.

  Thank God it didn’t catch fire.

  Now the crowd began to move. Swirls and twists of people fighting to escape; crashing into each other like a pan of black peas come to the boil.

  When the green was finally empty, there were still bodies lying all over the turf.

  And at that moment, the scaffolding lurched under us again, with a terrible grating noise.

  ‘Christ,’ said Billy. ‘It’s going.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Hughie Allardyce. ‘Take your time.’ His voice was strangely gentle, almost like a woman’s.­ It helped me to start talking again.

  ‘We tried to edge our way towards the ladders. We had to move one at a time, balance each other. If we’d both moved together, it would have gone straight away. He let me move first. He trusted me. He was my mate. We’d been together five years . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you did your best for him,’ said Hughie.

  ‘The worst of it was that nobody had noticed us. All them sirens – ambulances, police cars – we might as well have been on a different planet.’

  ‘The fire brigade had nothing that would have reached you,’ said Hughie.

  ‘Anyway . . . I didn’t notice at first that I was moving further each time than he was. I was shit-scared, so I don’t know how scared he must have been. I had to talk him into moving at all, every time. I think his nerve was gone. I could bear to move a foot at a time, he’d do about six inches. After that, he was close to blackin’ out. I just tried to keep on talking to him.

  ‘Anyway, I reached the ladder, and crawled aboard inch by inch. I was frightened that once my weight went o
ff the scaffold, the whole shooting match would go down. But it didn’t. The ladders were firm enough then . . .

  ‘By the time he got within reachin’ distance, all the police and ambulances was gone – it was very quiet and the sun came out. As if nothing had happened . . . it was obscene.

  ‘Then I noticed his safety-sling was caught round the scaffold. He’d have to cut it. I’d cut away mine already, so’s I could reach the ladders. I managed to pass him my knife, at the third attempt. And then when he began to cut his sling, his hands were so weak, he dropped the knife. I watched it dwindle away down to the parapet, and bounce off on to the green.

  ‘After that, there was nothing to do but try and get him on to the ladder, so I could untie the knots for him myself. I got him on . . . then I found I couldn’t untie the knots. They’d tightened, and my own hands were too weak and shaking so much. He just kept on saying, “Have you managed it, Joe? Have you managed it?” Still trusting me. And I could do nothing for him, nothing at all. I think he guessed in the end. He said, “It’s no good, Joe, is it?” Then he began to get the shakes . . . and there was only one end to that – for both of us, if I didn’t move myself. So I said, “I’ll go down and get help, Billy. We’ll get the fire brigade up to you in a jiffy.” And he said,

  ‘ “All right, Joe, see you in a bit.” And I climbed down very slowly to the parapet and he was still OK up there. So I shouted, “See you in a bit,” and started down the spiral staircase.

  ‘I hadn’t gone twenty steps down when I heard the whole caboodle break loose up top, and fall. He was there on the green, covered in scaffolding, when I reached the bottom. There wasn’t a mark on him; but he was dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hughie Allardyce. ‘You did all you could.’

  ‘I left him alone to die.’

  ‘Would he feel any better now if you’d died with him?’

  ‘I could’ve had one more go at them knots . . .’

  ‘No you couldn’t. And you know it.’

  ‘If you say so,’ I said, hating him for a minute.

  There was a long silence, and then I made a great effort and said, ‘What happened – to the rest of them?’

  ‘Nobody dead. Bloody miracle, the way that pilot kept a grip on his chopper. He’s going to be OK – two broken legs. The helicopter winchman’s in intensive care, but they’ve got some hopes for him. Three more in intensive care, from the crowd – kids. The rest are crush-injuries – broken ribs and legs. If that chopper had crashed on the crowd and caught fire, we could’ve had a hundred dead . . .’

  There was another long silence. Then I said,

  ‘It wasn’t an accident. That tower would like to kill the whole town, and it damned near did.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, Joe. Don’t talk like that. You’re upset.’ That was the Reverend Morris talking; he’d sat quiet till now; he was very thoughtful, for him.

  ‘What’re people saying in the town?’ I asked.

  ‘An accident, a ghastly accident. There’s a lot of bad feeling towards the RAF. And the cathedral. We’re getting the blame. They want occasions like that abolished. People have rung up their MPs . . .’

  ‘And about the two little lads?’

  ‘They’re saying the second kid was a copy-cat of the first. Once they knew there was no evidence of foul play . . .’ Hughie too looked very thoughtful. ‘People believe what they want to believe. They’d never believe what we think happened.’

  ‘So it’s up to us,’ I said.

  ‘Steady on,’ said Hughie. ‘What do you mean, it’s up to us?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to my people,’ said the Reverend Morris. ‘They think we can do something; but not before next weekend. These things take time . . .’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ I said, ‘how many more kids are goin’ to die?’

  ‘I’ve got one of my lads watching that tower day and night. Two in a panda at night.’

  ‘And suppose there’s a car-crash in Cathedral Close? Or a mugging or some girl screaming? Will your fellers still just sit there, watching the tower door?’

  Hughie shifted uneasily in his chair.

  ‘I’m going to settle that bloody tower’s hash tonight,’ I said. ‘I know where to look. You’ll have to arrest me if you want to stop me, Hughie. It’s killed my mate, an’ it nearly killed my lad, an’ it’s getting hungrier all the time.’

  ‘I’m coming along,’ said Hughie. ‘I don’t want another dead steeplejack on my conscience. And at least I can stop my lads arresting you . . .’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said the Reverend Morris. We all suddenly stood up together, there in my dim little kitchen. It was unreal, the way we all stood up together. And yet, in that moment, we became three mates.

  ‘Do you mind if I say a prayer first?’ asked the Reverend Morris.

  I nearly said I didn’t want any of that stuff. But you don’t spit on a mate, or on what a mate believes in. So I said, ‘OK. But make it quick. We haven’t got all night.’

  Even though we had got all night.

  It was funny, while he was praying. I couldn’t close my eyes; I kept staring at the daft pattern on the kitchen floor tiles. And yet his praying was so like he was talking to somebody in the room . . . I almost believed there was a fourth bloke with us in the room. And if He was there, I wasn’t sorry to have a bit of help. I’d have accepted help from Old Nick himself against that tower. And he spoke to this guy he was talking to so personal, like he was a friend; and he cared about me, and Billy and Kevin and Barbara. I could’ve wept. Only you can’t afford to weep when you’ve got a job to do; weep after, if you like.

  Then the Reverend Morris went and got his Bible from his car, and I went to get a seven-pound sledgehammer from the shed.

  ‘The hammer of the Lord, and of Gideon,’ said the Reverend Morris. He gave a ghost of a smile, to show me it was some kind of shot at a joke. And Hughie said roughly,

  ‘Let’s get started then. We’ll take my car. It’s got a radio, so I can radio for a bloody ambulance . . .’ And that was his kind of joke.

  Funny. I didn’t reckon much to old Hughie, usually. Nor the Reverend Morris. But we were three that night, going to do something, and that was all that mattered.

  There was a police cordon across the entrance to the cathedral green, where the tail of the crashed helicopter still stuck out of the roof of the Bishop’s Palace. Plastic ribbons twisting in the wind, and a panda, and two bored coppers who were nosier than I liked. We’d never have got through, but for Hughie.

  But no one watching the tower door, closer to. I’d been right, they weren’t being careful enough.

  While they were moving the barriers, I looked across to the west front of the cathedral. The street-lamps cast their yellow light upwards on to it, fading slowly as it climbed, so that the twin steeples were in darkness, just tall black points against the sky. It seemed to me then that the two towers were quite different. The harmless north-west tower was clear-cut in the yellow light, just an empty needle of stone. But the other . . . it seemed to my eye darker, as if it half-repelled the light . . . crumblier, almost . . . furry. I rubbed my eyes, because I don’t like that kind of delusion. But it didn’t do any good.

  We drove across and parked.

  ‘I’ve still got a key,’ said Hughie, fumbling in his overcoat pocket. He put the key into the lock, and tried to turn it. ‘Bastard won’t turn. Lock’s jammed.’

  ‘Never did that afore,’ I said. And my heart leapt. It was like when you were squaring up for a fight, in the old days, with a bloke who was bigger and nastier than yourself, and you reckoned you didn’t have much chance. Until you feinted with your left at him, and he jumped back a bit too quick, in a way that told you he was scared too, and that you had a chance of licking him.

  The tower was a bit scared of us. It didn’t rate our company that night. Though whether it was scared of the Reverend Morris and his invisible Friend and his Bible, or me and my hammer . . . anyway, Hughie went on fiddling
with the key, and I had a go, and then the Reverend Morris. And when we saw it was hopeless I said, ‘Stand back,’ and then before anybody could move, I hit the lock with the hammer, with all my strength and all my hate.

  Steel and stone screeched like a living thing; and I hit it twice more, for good measure, and it banged back and there was broken stone lying all over the pavement.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Hughie. ‘Who’s going to explain that to the Super in the morning?’

  He went first; we all had big flashlights. The wall and steps of the spiral stair were wet and clammy, as if something was sweating. And our torches and our arms and legs threw shadows, as if we struggled up through a mass of writhing dark flat worms. The air was close and stale and warm and damp. It seemed to push down on us, so that the stairs seemed never-ending, as if we were in the belly of a stone beast, and had very little hope of ever seeing the light of day again. The Reverend Morris began to sing some sort of little hymn at that point, the same words over and over again. I’d have called it a silly pointlessness at any other time. But it was a good sound to climb steep twisting stairs to, in the middle of the night, so I joined in, and I think Hughie did to. It helped, like a dirty song does on an army route march.

  It was then that I noticed something I’d never noticed before. The spiral stair had little landings on it, every complete twist through three hundred and sixty degrees. And on the landing, under the lancet window that lit the stairs by day, was a stone ledge jutting out of the wall. And I began thinking of that word cella that had been in the Latin writings the Reverend Morris had translated. Those cellas must’ve been left where the masons could reach them easy; why not on the spiral stair?

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, and inspected the next ledge thoroughly.