Bird Inside

by Wendy Perriam

  It must be built of prayer, this church – solid prayer plastering the walls, or concreting the floor; left behind like fossils after all those God-based centuries. She still hadn’t got the facts quite straight, except there’d been at least half a dozen earlier churches on the same sacred hilltop site, a Roman temple before that, and perhaps a Druid settlement and a pre-Christian virgin-mother cult. She paused to touch a column, as if she were touching Faith itself, the Faith of ghostly worshippers who were now only bones or dust, yet seemed present in a way, shuffling there beside her, whispering and pointing; their prayers spiralling up like incense to the stone ribs of the roof.

  She glanced back the way she’d come, trying to absorb the whole plan of the cathedral. If she wanted to make sense of it, study it in detail, she had better stay six months, not the few brief days she’d planned. Apart from all the carvings and the sculpture, there were a hundred and seventy-six separate stained-glass windows – twenty-seven thousand square feet of coloured glass. Perhaps she’d camp out in the nave, spread a rug and pillow in some dark nook or corner, and live there like a spider, hiding in the night-time, coming out by day. She liked the thought of hiding, took pleasure in the fact that no one in the world save Trish even knew where she had gone. After Hadley’s phone-call, she had suddenly decided to go to Chartres immediately, not wait until the end of March and travel as his bed-mate, but go alone, as pilgrim.

  She had reached the crossing now, stopped instinctively, overawed by the sense of height and mystery, which seemed even greater here, a breathless leap from human-scale to heaven. This was the exact centre of the church – she knew that from the books – the point of harmony, with man’s world to the west, and God’s realm to the east, and the two reconciled and balanced, so that the building was a slice of stone eternity. She liked that strange word ‘slice’; imagined the cathedral as an elaborate sculpted loaf, stuffed with numbers, symbols, meanings, bursting like fat currants from its dough. The numbers hadn’t meant much when she’d tried to work them out – all that stress on cold geometry, on theology, philosophy, astrological forces – pretentious words and theories swamping and perplexing her, making her a dunce who’d failed her GCSE when it came to Chartres Cathedral.

  Now she knew she’d passed. It was a matter not of brain, but of instinct and gut-feeling. Whichever way she looked, she was aware of new complexities and depths – an infinity of shapes and details: arches and pilasters, capitals and columns, vaulting, carving, tracery – layer on layer on layer, waiting patiently and silently for her to soak them up, absorb them through her pores.

  She was still astonished by the emptiness, by the fact no other person had come barging through the door, destroyed her precious peace. She’d been imagining the cathedral as it was when it was new – wide-eyed pilgrims swarming in like bargain-hunters on the first day of the sales, jostling for more elbow-room; carpenters and craftsmen touting for a job of work; merchants selling takeaways from a pie-stall in the nave (until they were kicked out to the cloister and told to learn respect); shrivelled crocks and cripples lying in the crypt like sacks, and praying for a cure. They’d have all recognised the glass – its colours stabbing-sharp from the recent twentieth-century cleaning, which had restored it to its thirteenth-century brilliance. Only the clerestory windows were still uncleaned as yet; their muted reds and blues looking murky and encrusted, as if they were trying to block the light out, rather than let it filter through.

  As she gazed, the stone walls seemed to fall away, and leave the glass suspended in black space, detached from its surroundings, shimmering and floating in a void. She longed to pray, to know the words and rituals which made important things official, or could take her fret of feelings and hurl them up to God, like a rocket or a fax-machine. She knew this day was special, another sort of birthday, to replace the grim October one. She had somehow come of age, here in Chartres – alone – with no guests, no fussing parents, no witness save the figures in the windows; and part of growing up was accepting the whole balls-up of her party, the mess and tangle of other people’s lives – even her own parents’ lives.

  She walked slowly round each transept, marking out the cross-shape with her feet, first north, then south; moving from bright pools of light to sombre smudgy shadow; aware of the huge crypt beneath her, the oldest and most secret part of Chartres, supporting the whole building on its broad submerged stone shoulders.

  She drifted to the ambulatory, and on to the east end, which seemed a separate sacred region, closed off by double rows of massive columns, and lit chiefly by the radiance of the glass. She peered up at the window showing Charlemagne, remembered him from school – a big shot who could probably read, but had a lot of trouble writing; used to get up in the night to practise secretly. She had done the same herself – not with writing, but with cutting glass; had tried to impress Christopher by putting in a night-shift, stealing down to the light-box at two or three A.M., hoping to improve her skills by the time he arrived at nine. But Charlemagne was celebrated here because of the famous relic presented by his grandson – the tunic Mary wore when giving birth to Christ – a relic so miraculous it had made Chartres the star attraction for the next eleven hundred years, a sort of medieval Disneyland. According to the guidebook, the relic was depicted in the glass, but she’d have to use binoculars to make out that small detail from the mass of crowded scenes.

  She took them out reluctantly, still feeling it was wrong to bring modern aids to medieval glass. She looped them round her neck, fiddled with the knob, then tilted back her head, almost losing her balance as faces leapt towards her, opening out like flowers; colours fizzed and stung. She was zooming in on heads – a skittish scarlet halo, a helmet in pea-green, a bay horse with a neat curled fringe which would have done credit to the best-trained girl at Snippers. She moved the glasses higher, found herself in the middle of a battle-scene; tried to tell the goodies from the baddies, identify the characters, distinguish shields and lances, helmets, spurs and crowns. The most impressive shield was one right at the bottom – heart-shaped and blood-red – which seemed to pulse as she examined it, and contrasted with its owner’s slim white leg.

  She rested her eyes a moment – the binoculars were heavy, and it hurt to keep her head tipped back. She was also stiff with cold; the dank chill of old stone numbing her whole body, even through her coat and two thick sweaters. Perhaps she’d take a break, go and get a coffee, to warm her from inside; buy a croissant or a sandwich so she wouldn’t need to stop again for lunch, then return with her binoculars and feast herself on windows.

  She tracked back to the transept and out through the south door, astonished at the fierceness of the light. The weather had been cloudy when she had first set off this morning, the day still dull and leaden, with a heavy curdled sky, yet emerging from the twilit church was like exchanging a dark tranquil womb for the glare of the delivery-room. The noise was startling, too. She had been lapped in timeless peace, the only sound the faint breath of a candle, or the slither of a rosary slipping through a gnarled old hand. Now two angry drivers were indulging in a hooting-match; a man outside a restaurant bellowing instructions to a van; a stroppy toddler wailing from its pushchair.

  She crossed the square, lost herself in the maze of streets around it, searching for a café which looked quiet and inexpensive. She stopped at a boulangerie, drooling at the smell of new-baked bread. The town was packed not with arty tourists, but with bustling local matrons stocking up their larders. A customer squeezed past her, loaded down with five baguettes, already nibbling at the end of one, as if she couldn’t wait for breakfast. Another woman was arguing with the fishmonger, poking the oysters with the tip of her umbrella. Jane stood marvelling at the range of unfamiliar fish, grotesque and spiny creatures with beards and claws and pincers, some still alive and waving the odd feeler. ‘Torteaux vivants,’ she spelled out, watching the faint shift and sigh in a pile of dozy crab-shells. Their flame of life seemed turned to low, a last desperate
weary flicker before they expired in someone’s stewpan.

  It was too cold to linger long, a ruthless wind ripping the last tattered leaves from a row of puny maples. She could sense snow in the air, snow held back like unshed tears, creating a strange tension, as if the nervous and unhappy sky was struggling to control itself. She ventured into a homely-looking café, muttered her ‘Bonjour’, found a secluded table at the back. Two men were playing draughts, a woman with a baby feeding it a brioche dunked in coffee. Jane ordered a hot chocolate and a croissant, relieved the waitress understood her French. The only time she’d been abroad before was on a school trip to Bayeux, when they’d been packed into a dormitory with Mademoiselle Roux as chaperone, and no real chance to wander on their own. It was much more of a challenge to travel independently, almost a luxury not to have to talk to people, or feign a cheerful mood to hide the misery inside. The last few days had been something of a strain. She had decided not to tell Trish what Isobel had said to her about the artist’s views on marriage; still felt some sense of loyalty to Christopher, didn’t want him damned as promiscuous, deceitful. She knew what Trish would say – forget him, write him off – and neither had seemed possible. Yet here in Chartres, the whole tangled sordid story had faded in importance, no longer hurt so bitterly. Perhaps this truly was a place of healing, where miracles still happened, relics still had power.

  She scooped froth off her chocolate, ate it with a spoon. She actually felt cheerful, for the first time since Sunday morning. Okay, she’d probably never know the truth about Christopher’s affairs – whether he’d lied to her (again) about Anne’s bad cold at Christmas; whether he genuinely loved her, or simply wanted a quick screw. But then she’d probably never know the truth about God, or Faith, or even Chartres itself – whether the Druids had been here before the Romans, whether the famous relic was just a trumped-up fake to extort money from the gullible; or if all the mysterious forces people claimed to experience in every part of the building, from the sanctuary to the crypt, were mere wishful thinking, or the result of too much vin du pays. Yet somehow she could live with the uncertainties, accept them as another sort of truth; was more concerned with simple things: the warm fug of the café, the taste of good French bread.

  She removed her hood and scarf, cooed at the plump baby regurgitating brioche down its front. She’d relax here for a while, soaking up the heat, spinning out her brunch, revelling in the fact that she had no one to consider save herself; no Mademoiselle Roux to chivvy her, no Hadley to keep sweet, no tetchy artist with half his mind on work. She dipped into her jam – strawberry jam, which brought her father rushing to the café. She could see his hand beside her own, reaching out to pile some on his bread – a solid squarish hand, with dark hairs on the back, which always looked untidy. She’d been surprised as a young kid that Amy hadn’t hoovered up those hairs, or scoured them off with Brillo pads, as she did with all the other things which upset her sense of order. Jane bit into her croissant, smiling at the thought. At least her tidy parents had stayed faithful to each other, kept their own lives neat, hadn’t carved up her whole childhood by flaunting their adulteries, or suing for divorce. She suddenly felt lighter, as if she’d shed some crippling burden; could see herself pulsating on the fish-stall, labelled ‘Jane vivante’ – not just waving one frail and feeble claw, but bursting clean out of her shell.

  When she left the café, the first weak sun was breaking through, dappling the wan sky with pearl; the twin towers of the cathedral glinting in its light. Whichever way you walked, those towers seemed always visible, rearing up beyond the shops and houses like a reassuring presence; a compass and a magnet summoning you back. She let them lead her on through the narrow crowded streets, only stopping at a flower-stall to admire the early tulips, sniff the scent of fat pink clotted hyacinths. She’d return here later on, buy flowers for her room – not six dozen hothouse roses, but a small bunch of spring narcissi.

  She jogged the last few yards to the south porch of the cathedral, horrified to think that when she’d first entered through the west doors, she’d been so chilled and mopish she’d ignored the amazing carvings, lumbered blindly past them with her head down. These doors were just as famous, and still more packed with sculpted figures – apostles, martyrs, popes, confessors, flanking a Last Judgement in the centre. She did her best to identify the cast, picked out James the Greater by his scallop-shells, James the Lesser by his club. She had learnt a lot from Christopher – how to recognise a bishop by his mitre, a martyr by his palm and crown, Gabriel by his lily, Saint Peter by his keys. He had brought so much alive for her. All the symbols, stories, parables, which medieval people understood instinctively, she was beginning to grasp herself, through working on the glass or studying other windows. Four months ago, angels hadn’t figured in her life. Now she saw them everywhere, and just above her head the entire celestial court had assembled for the Judgement: Seraphim and Cherubim, Thrones and Dominations, Virtues, Powers and Princedoms, Archangels and Angels. She wondered if her father would know a Virtue from a Throne, or her mother fret about the problem of dusting Seraphim, who had half a dozen wings apiece, to symbolise the swiftness of their thought.

  The Cherubim were holding flames – another symbol, representing light, this time, though the stone looked dull and grey. All the same, she wished they’d turn their flames towards her, provide some instant heat. She’d better go inside again, and find the Passion window, compare the artist’s Resurrection Angel with the smaller one at Chartres. She had seen it on a postcard in the studio, but the scale had been so tiny, it had been just a jumbled blur. She entered through the wooden doors, prepared now for the gloom, but not for the striking difference in the glass. The sun outside had lightened it in tone, made the blues more dominant, so that they slapped down even racy reds, while the diamond-patterned borders seemed to glitter and ignite, like illuminated Persian carpets woven with gold thread. She strode down to the west end, determined to blank out all distractions on the way; start at the beginning with the earliest of the windows – the Passion window and the two famous ones beside it.

  She was annoyed to find a group of people already standing with their necks craned up and their camera lenses pointing. She’d laid claim to Chartres Cathedral as her own individual property, had no wish to share it with cocky brash-voiced Yanks, so loaded down with hardware they looked as if they’d ransacked the largest branch of Dixons. They were gawping at the central window, so she edged more to the left, used her binoculars to locate the green crucifix which the guidebook had described – the Tree of Life defying Death, in resurrection-green.

  ‘Gee!’ exclaimed the fat blonde on her right. ‘How d’you figure they ever got ladders up high enough to paint that stuff? Some of those darn windows are like as big as the state of Florida.’

  ‘They don’t paint it, honeybun. They buy these ready-coloured pieces and stick ’em all together. Like in a jigsaw puzzle.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ a younger girl objected, a Twiggy with no breasts. ‘That’s mosaic, not stained glass. I guess what they do is melt it till it’s hot, and pour it into moulds. In fact, that’s probably how they dye it in the first place – tip it into separate containers and add a different colour to each one, like when you frost a birthday cake – you know, strawberry-pink in one lot, chocolate in another.’

  ‘Well, if you want my honest opinion, they’ve used too many colours. It’s a mishmash, isn’t it? You can’t make out what’s goin’ on at all.’

  ‘They should’ve left more plain glass,’ a swarthy man chipped in. ‘It’s so dark in here, you can’t hardly see. I guess I’m gonna have to use my tripod, and probably the flash, too.’

  Jane wheeled round in fury. ‘Listen,’ she protested, no longer able to contain herself. ‘The men who made these windows were bloody geniuses. Of course they painted the glass, but first they had to cut it – every single tiny piece is cut by hand, you realise, not just ready-made. And none of your fancy modern glass-cutte
rs. All they had was a sort of red-hot poker-thing, which cracked the glass apart. Imagine cutting really fiddly shapes with a clumsy piece of iron! And they couldn’t waste a fragment. Coloured glass was worth a bomb. Medieval people treasured it, like we treasure precious jewels. And there wasn’t any paper then, so they didn’t have our cutlines or …’ She broke off in confusion, hadn’t meant to speak at all, let alone come over like a battleaxe. And anyway, how could she expect a bunch of casual tourists to know what cutlines were? It had taken her long enough to grasp the fundamentals, and she’d been actually working on the glass. But wasn’t that the point? She had started blind and ignorant, and Christopher had made her see. She must play his role herself, but do it with less virulence, turn down her fishwife voice.

  ‘Look,’ she said, in Trish’s tones: warm milk and clover honey. ‘It’s not exactly easy to make a stained-glass window, and it was even harder then. I mean, when they came to paint the glass, they had it lying flat on whitewashed benches, never saw it up against the light, like artists do today. They just had to imagine the effect they were creating, and also judge how it would impress a congregation from a distance, like we’re looking at it now. That takes bags of confidence, and a sense of almost daring. Of course, they handed down traditions, which must have helped a lot. There was this twelfth-century monk, you see – a German called Theophilus, who wrote a whole long treatise on the …’ Her words faltered to a stop. She was going far too fast, muddling theory up with craft, probably boring the plaid pants off them. She moved her eyes despondently from the window to their faces, astonished to see six pairs of eyes fixed on her with the sort of doggy rapture Byron beamed at Isobel when she went to fetch his lead. Then all six voices started chiming out at once, plying her with questions – where, what, why, how, when?

  ‘Are you the tour-guide here, Ma’am?’ the wobbly blonde enquired, gazing at the glass with new respect.